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myYearbook

Posted by osmonder19

· Friday, October 9th, 2020

· 3 Comments

A yearbook is a great way for students to reflect and look back on memories from the school year. It’s also a good opportunity for students to sign each other’s yearbooks and wish each other a great summer, otherwise known as H.A.G.S. However, these yearbooks can only connect students so much – after all it’s just a physical book. Seeing this problem, siblings Dave Cook and Catherine Cook decided to invent myYearbook – an online social networking site based on the concept of the yearbook. The siblings were fairly typical 15 and 16 year olds in high school at the time, but within a few years they had launched a successful company that made them millions of dollars.

In 2005, Dave and Catherine talked about the frustration of seeing people in the yearbook but not really being able to meet them. myYearbook solved this problem by allowing students to digitally connect with each other while also sharing memories from the school year. Dave and Catherine also wanted myYearbook to go beyond just high school. Their hope was that students could continue talking and connecting with each other after graduation as well as network with potential employers.

By 2008, myYearbook was the fastest-growing social network in the U.S – it had about 11 million members at the time. In addition to social networking and sharing, the Cooks came up with some unique features to add to the site. Users could play games, contribute to charitable projects, take quizzes, or even use a dating service on the site. Another unique feature of myYearbook is that it allows individuals to connect to those with similar interests, whether it’s the same school, hometown, or favorite activities.

myYearbook continued to innovate with mobile apps, partnerships, and more features. In 2012, myYearbook combined with Quepasa to become “MeetMe.” Although other social networks have somewhat “replaced” myYearbook and MeetMe, Dave and Catherine continue to be a testament of hard work and young entrepreneurial minds.

3 Comments

Categories : Millennial Entrepreneurs, Social Media

Devon Townsend – Innovation in Social Media

Posted by sekerakw20

· Thursday, October 8th, 2020

· No Comments

Have you ever wanted to get a personalized message from your favorite celebrity? Maybe even send a friend a message from their favorite sports star? With Cameo, a new video-message app, both of these are possible. Cameo allows celebrities and influences to send personalized messages to anyone at a price that varies by creator.

In 2017, Cameo started when Vine influencer Devon Townsend, along with two of his friends, sent a video of Cassius Marsh, a Seahawks defensive end, wishing happy birthday to a little girl. He quickly realized the potential of this business model and started to contact fellow social media influencers to get them on board. With the company’s rapid growth came a few challenges. For example, in 2018, Brett Favre was tricked into reading coded hate speech during a $500 Cameo video. Townsend and his team responded quickly and decisively. Their response and adaption saved the company from a PR nightmare and resulted with only one celebrity leaving the platform. Early challenges such as these gave them the confidence to grow even more.

To date, Cameo has received 15.8 million in funding. The social media platform sends out about 1,000 video messages a day from over 10,000 influencers and celebrities, with some creators charging as much as $2,500 per video. Cameo keeps 25% of the profit from the videos, with the remaining 75% going straight into the pocket of the creator. The company employs over 60+ people and plans to expand in the near future.

With the creation of Cameo, Townsend, who is now 30, has exemplified the entrepreneurial spirit. In today’s day and age, the social media field is saturated with industry giants and countless copycats. However, Townsend and his co-founders came up with an original and different idea to create their own share in this highly competitive space. His ingenuity serves as a reminder to young people that there is always room for innovation, even in a seemingly “full” industry. It will be interesting to see what he does to grow Cameo in the future and how he adapts to new problems that arise.

No Comments

Categories : App, Social Media

How Tumblr Came to be – David Karp

Posted by ThompsonNS20

· Thursday, October 8th, 2020

· 1 Comment

Karp’s Upbringing:

Karp was born on July 6, 1986 in New York, NY. At a young age, he found a love for technology and by eighth grade he was already designing websites for local companies.

This made him drop out from school, resorting to home-schooling just so that he could

save time. He did plan on going to one of the league universities later in his life but some great opportunities came his way and changed his plans completely.

At the age of 14, Karp started interning at various software companies. A few years later, he was made the head of ‘UrbanBaby’, a parenting forum that he developed a software for. A few months after that, he took off for Tokyo to get better at his business and computer skills (which he did). Within a few years, he formed an independent consulting firm called Davidville.

Birth of Tumblr:

Karp was looking to hire some employees for Davidville so Marco Arment joined the team as an engineer after replying to Karp’s craigslist ad.

Karp had been interested in microblogging for some time and was waiting for one of the established blogging platforms to introduce their own microblogging platform. After a year of waiting, Karp and Arment began working on their own microblogging platform during a two-week gap between contracts in 2006. Tumblr was launched in February 2007 and within two weeks, the service had gained 75,000 users.

In October 2007, Karp shut down his consultancy business because his work with Tumblr was interfering with his client work. Davidville was renamed Tumblr, Inc. and 25 percent of the company was sold to a small group of investors.

On May 20, 2013, it was announced that Yahoo! and Tumblr had reached an agreement for Yahoo! to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion. As of November 1, 2017, Tumblr hosts over 375.4 million blogs. Karp announced in November 2017 that he would be retiring from Tumblr by the end of the year.

And that’s how the young genius, David Karp became one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the world with a net worth of $200 million (as of 2017).

The Entrepreneurial Side of Karp:

David doesn’t like to talk about his age as he isn’t entirely secure about people knowing how young he is. He doesn’t want the story of Tumblr to be “all about his youth.” He wants the story of Tumblr to be about the remarkable genius of a young boy who dared to believe and achieve.

That statement right there, “believe and achieve” is what being an entrepreneur is about. Any one can come up with an idea, but it’s the ones who believe in it and act on it that are real entrepreneurs.

1 Comment

Categories : Blog, Social Media

Different Angles of Photography.

Posted by OBrienJJ20

· Monday, September 14th, 2020

· No Comments

While most people think that entrepreneurship is just another word for inventing ideas, various individuals always seem to push the limits and prove that to be an incorrect statement. Jon Wheatley, for example, found a way to innovate the social standpoint from various views.. Jon is the inventor of DailyBooth. DailyBooth is a photo blogging website designated for each user to take a photo of themselves every day with a caption and share their life with others. DailyBooth was created in February 2009 and what is so unique about this platform is that Jon looked at social media and photography from a different angle. Snapchat, Instagram, VSCO, and various other social media platforms weren’t invented yet, so Jon found another way of sharing photos online and showing others what is happening in your life. Facebook was created in 2004, but at that time, not many people thought of using photography as a way of expressing yourself, but Jon Wheatley really did an impeccable job of creating a platform that could. Not only does Jon Wheatley have the common traits of being creative, strong, and passionate, but Jon ultimately has the trait of problem-solving. He saw the need for people wanting to interact online, but instead of just communicating via email or Facebook, he ultimately found a way for users to express themselves through the use of photography. Not only was profit the driving force for Jon Wheatley, but the sense of bringing people together and ultimately helping users connect with people, even strangers, was ultimately what drove Jon to pursue this idea and ultimately make it a program. Lastly, the most unique thing about Jon Wheatley is that he looked at Facebook and various companies at the time and spotted a problem. The problem was that these companies had great communication based platforms, but there was something missing. That is where Jon came in and put photography into the mix. Through the use of putting photography into a communication platform, Jon really inspired the creators of Instagram and Snapchat to pursue this even further.

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Categories : Social Media

Cleveland Cornhole Co.

Posted by simmonsbw19

· Monday, September 14th, 2020

· 7 Comments

Cleveland Cornhole Company is a small business specializing in custom cornhole boards and rustic style furniture. Started by Chad Gerzeny a few years ago, as a way to make a little cash on the side, morphed into a legitimate business opportunity. These cornhole boards are high quality, and are highly customizable, they take him days to finish because of the intricacy that goes into each individual board. Currently the boards are made by Chad Gerzeny at his own house, but he plans to transition into a retail store within the next few years.

Growing up playing the game of cornhole was the true inspiration for Cleveland Cornhole Co. Initially Chad started with a single set of boards that he made for himself out of his garage. After enjoying the work so much on the first boards it began to feel almost therapeutic to him. As others saw the quality and craftsmanship of the boards, Chad began to receive individual orders from friends and family friends. As he graduated college and time went on he utilized social media to reach a broader market. And now he is at the point to where he cannot keep up with the orders because of his day job.

Cle veland Cornhole Co. also makes rustic household furniture, from coffee tables to farmhouse tables. Chad Gerzeny has made most of the furniture in his current home, and it will be interesting to see how moving into a retail store impacts his business.

7 Comments

Categories : Art, College, Decor, Male Entrepreneurs, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Millennial Entrepreneurs, Social Media, Vintage

Timothy Armoo – Fanbytes

Posted by matthewssm19

· Sunday, September 13th, 2020

· 2 Comments

Fanbytes CEO Timothy Armoo displays that in the world of entrepreneurship, age is truly just a number. He began his professional career at the age of fourteen by creating a tutoring company and later sold another media company at seventeen years old. Armoo’s experience in that company exposed him to various social media platforms and the advertising on them. This helped him to formulate a unique buisness idea: advertising on social media platforms.

Timothy Armoo created Fanbytes at the age of twenty years old with the intention to innovate upon the advertising industry. In an interview with Forbes, Armoo stated “for too long ads have represented an interruption or intrusion on our daily lives rather than a seamless part of them.” Fanbytes aims to target younger audiences by promoting advertising on social media platforms. They also use the popularity of social media influencers to enhance the effectiveness of their ads. When asked why he focuses on social media for his advertisements, Armoo stated “for me and my age group, our smartphones are where we get all our information, so deciding what industry I wanted to be in was a pretty easy decision.”

Socially Challenged: Timothy Armoo of Fanbytes on community engagement | The Drum

Timothy Armoo, CEO of Fanbytes

Fanbytes has been very successful at reaching younger audiences through social media. They currently advertise for large companies such as McDonald’s, Warner Brothers, Tidal, and more. Their primary areas of social media influence extend to Snapchat, Instagram, and most recently Tik Tok. Forbes shows that 60% of people skip native Snapchat advertisements. Fanbytes boasts a 90% completion rate when they are involved with Snapchat ads. Timothy Armoo said in an interview with Forbes that many companies are giving up on advertising in Snapchat while he sees opportunity in that area, simply stating “their mistake.” Fanbytes hopes to take on AR (Augmented Reality) in the future by aiding companies with advertising on the platform. Armoo finished his interview with Forbes by saying “we are a group of 19-22 year olds who are reversing the code of Snapchat and are building a large underbelly business on it.”

Sources:

https://fanbytes.co.uk/about-us/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/montymunford/2018/01/31/fanbytes-cracks-the-code-for-snapchat-ads-and-augmented-reality/#2c7c5c895f63

https://www.forbes.com/sites/edmundingham/2015/10/02/meet-the-millennials-at-fanbytes-redefining-how-brands-market-to-other-millennials/#1acefee172de

2 Comments

Categories : App, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Online Companies, Snapchat, Social Media, Technology

Catherine Cook – myYearbook

Posted by Payton Walker

· Thursday, December 5th, 2019

· 2 Comments

In 2005, Catherine Cook and her brother, Dave, were flipping through their high school yearbook to see if they recognized anyone. While looking through it, Catherine thought of putting the whole yearbook online. This idea sparked a multi-million-dollar company in the years to come – and Catherine was only fourteen!

After coming up with the initial idea, Catherine contacted her oldest brother, Geoff, who was a sophomore at Harvard University. Geoff Cook was already on the road to making hundreds of thousands of dollars off his two websites EssayEdge.com & ResumeEdge.com, when his younger sister first told him of the idea. He immediately invested $250,000 into her idea and they began working with developers in India to bring the website to life.

Within one week of launching the site, Catherine & Geoff had 400 people with accounts – and it was confined to their hometown of New Hope, PA. Catherine would wear creative shirts that said things like, “Are you the prettiest girl in school? How about the dumbest? Find out!” By 2006, the website had over 1 million users. It continued to grow throughout the following years until, in 2010, it entered the top 25 most-visited websites.

In 2011, myYearbook merged with the Quepasa Corporation for over $100 million. One year later, they renamed the company to MeetMe. MeetMe still keeps some of the same features that made myYearbook so popular, but it now offers online chatting and connections with other people.

Katherine’s simple idea turned into a multi-million-dollar venture, something she says she definitely did not ever expect. myYearbook is a great example of the possibilities that can arise from a unique idea.

2 Comments

Categories : Communication, Great Ideas, Social Entrepreneur, Social Media, Websites, Women Entrepreneurs, Youngest Entrepreneurs