Jessica Pegula is a tennis player ranked 24 among WTA players. She has played tennis since she was ten and struggled with skincare. She tried so many products and could not find one that fit her. Plus, her skin was struggling because there was too much going on. She needed something that was for athletes, clean, and simple. This led her to create her own skincare line. Pegula had hip surgery and lots of time in her recovery. In her downtime, she formed Ready 24.
Ready 24 has four lines: cleansers, essence water, moisturizer, and recovery skin products. She worked with a company in her hometown and used focus groups to formulate, test, and refine her products. She uses her own products and so do other tennis players! She got Ready 24 into Wegmans, online, social media, and at tennis events.
Pegula said that it really hit her that she was really starting a business when she was making the labels for the products one day. She told
Hologic WTA Tour, “I was thinking to myself, `This is so weird. I can’t believe I’m writing a label for people to use.’ It was so hands-on. Honestly, it was really pretty cool.”
Jessia Pegula’s parents also inspired and helped her. They helped to provide the initial investment and continually offer feedback and ideas. He dad is always full of ideas, and her mom knows how to make it a reality and take risks.
Pegula is driven by her own experiences. Her story is similar to mine because I too had hip surgery and played tennis. It is so hard to find the good in the midst of recovery. Her life was tennis, and she could have been wallowing in her own self-pity, but instead she found a need and addressed it. She used what was in front of her
as an opportunity.
You might not know who Kevin Plank is, but at a place like Grove City College, his business is literally all around you. Kevin Plank is the creator of Under Armour. Picture this: you’re in the mid-’90s, and you’re a college football player frustrated with how sweaty and uncomfortable your workout gear is. While most of us weren’t even born yet, Plank was on a mission to revolutionize sportswear that we all know and love today. That probably makes you feel old.
David Portnoy is an internet and sports sensation. He grew up in Massachusetts and attended the University of Michigan. He had a minor job directly out of college at a small marketing firm in Boston but eventually left his job to start Barstool Sports in 2003. Barstool Sports started off as a sports newspaper that Portnoy himself would hand out in downtown Boston and in subway stations to people passing by. The newspaper had some trouble taking off at the beginning and the only sponsorships they had were with some small sports betting sites which were illegal in America. Believe it or not but Barstool Sports started to gain some traction in and around Boston once Portnoy started adding different things that would appeal to men on the covers of his newspapers. Portnoy eventually graduated from the newspaper and opened up his blog in 2007. Portnoy himself comes off as a ruthless type of person in his blogs and on the internet for his political incorrectness and has gained the name El Presidente amongst the fans of Barstool Sports. As of 2022, Portnoy still owns Barstool Sports and is in charge of the creative thought process for the blogs. In 2020, Penn National Gaming bought a 36% stake in Barstool which gave Portnoy $135 million in cash. Portnoy has retired his persona of the big ruthless “bro” as some would say and now has a series of going around the country reviewing pizza shops trying to find the perfect slice. When it comes to Dave Portnoy himself, he may not be the best person and there are many negative things that surround him, but all entrepreneurs should take his gritty push to become rich and famous and implement that into their work ethic. Not many people would go out and stand on subway stations for hours in consecutive days to try and make a name for themselves and their product.