Archive for Technology – Page 2

Dude Perfect; A Multimillion Dollar Business

Dude perfect is a YouTube channel that many of us have grown up with. From the trick shot videos to the stereotype episodes, Dude Perfect never fails to entertain people of all ages.
This athletic and creative group of friends started out as a few college students doing trick shots in their backyard. One video quickly collected millions of views, and using their platform of fast-growing fame, they didn’t stop at making videos. Now they have launched different product lines and continue to develop their brand and video style.

How Dude Perfect turned a trick-shot YouTube channel into a sports ...
One thing about Dude Perfect that is unique is they have never lost track of their original brand look and identity which is why viewers love them.

They now have Streaming Platform which is advertised as family friendly content perfect for all ages. They’ve been intentional about sports industry involvement and have a share of the premier league football club. This connects them to digital content creation and traditional sports. Dude Perfect goes on tours that sell out extremely fast. These live tours are fun for their fans and are an opportunity for growing their fan base. They recently announced their plans for Dude Perfect World, this ambitious project will have trick shots and games in person.

Dude Perfect's Plan To Build $100 Million HQ Leaves People Baffled
Dude Perfect is so successful because of their reliable authenticity. This is a lesson for entrepreneurs to stay committed to their passion and principles in their vision for their business or idea.
The Dude Perfect group has also exemplified great innovative principles, they constantly look for new opportunities in the developing society and technology. They successfully balance this with staying true to their authenticity. They show us not to be afraid to imagine the seemingly crazy or impossible but to pursue opportunities with courage and strategy.

Ben Pasternak’s Entrepreneural Journey

Ben Pasternak was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1999. Like any young kid Ben was always playing video games, using his phone, and always on technology. But what separated Ben was that he was interested in how these apps were made and how they worked. At just the age of 15, Ben was bored in school when he thought of an idea for an app. The idea of the app was a game which involved a rotating square that players needed to match with the corresponding-colored balls. didn’t take long for it to get recognized. Only in a few weeks the app reached a million downloads. The viral app was called Impossible Rush. Ben soon dropped out of high school to pursue his work in the tech world. Ben started to work more on the social side of the internet with his next to creations being Flogg which was a app for teenagers to buy and sell Items. The Next he co-founded Sup which was an app to help find friends and meet up with them in real life. Lastly, in 2019 he co-founded NUGGS, a company that produces plant-based chicken nuggets. Even in the food industry Ben uses his technology expertise to constantly work on their recipes based on customer feedback. This approach led to rapid growth once again. Today, Ben Pasternak continues to create and push the boundaries. He rebranded NUGGS as Simulate, into a broader range of plant-based foods. He continues to find ways to innovate with his tech driven solutions. One thing I love about Ben’s story is that he never became complacent. He made a viral app and instead of being satisfied. He kept working and made 3 more businesses. Bens’s journey is far from over.

 

References:

The Extraordinary Rise of Ben Pasternak: From Teenager to Tech Mogul | by Rubye Johnson | Medium

How Aussie 16-year-old Ben Pasternak became CEO of his own start-up Flogg Inc (smh.com.au)

Matt Mullenweg: The founder of WordPress

Where it all began

Born and raised in Houston Texas, Matt had a seemingly normal childhood to most. He was introduced to the technological world through his father who was acomputer programmer. Eighteen-year-old Matt loved to blog on a platform called b2/cafelog. This site soon was taken down by the owners and this is where Matt decided to launch his own site with the help of his friend Mike Little. In 2003 he and Mike soon built what we know as WordPress, and it was widely received by the public. Matt was only eighteen at the time of founding WordPress and he was still in high school. Due to his chronic migraines Matt was absent from school and this could have kept him from graduating but he was able to push through. After high school Matt continued his education at The University of Houston and chose to study philosophy and political science. During college Matt still worked on WordPress and grew more and more detached from his schoolwork. This lead Matt to drop out of college in 2004 to focus on WordPress entirely.

At nineteen years old Matt was offered a job at CNET in San Fransico which allowed him to work part time on WordPress. He stayed at CNET for only a year as he wanted to work full time on WordPress. Matt began building his team adding former Yahoo! executive Toni Schneider to join as CEO. Over the years Matt has joined several other ventures such as Automatic, GitLab, Global Multimedia Protocols Group, and helped launch Ping-O-Matic. Ping-O-Matic is a mechanism to help notify search engines about blog updates. These ventures led to Matt having an amazingly successful career with WordPress. WordPress powered about 40% of the internet in 2021 so one can only imagine how much it has grown in just three years. Approximately 400 million people visit WordPress sites each month. Overall, Matt Mullenweg is someone that is forgotten by most but as we can see and use in class WordPress is a very collaborative and easy service to use.

 

 

Fraser Doherty- Creator of SuperJam

At fifteen-years-old Fraser Doherty loved to cook jam from one of his grandmother’s old recipes. He began to sell local to neighbors and such. His infant company soon began to grow too large for neighbors, and Fraser set his sights on bigger objectives. He borrowed his father’s suit, and he set his mission to pitching his idea to a well-known supermarket in his local area. They rejected Fraser, but that did not kill his spirit. He took improved upon their critiques, and searched his country for a factory that would take a chance on him. All but one said no. Fraser came back the next year with all of his improvements, and he got the deal to distribute his product across all the supermarket’s stores. His company blew up from there. He quickly increased his production to over 20,000 units of jelly. Everyone can take note of his dedication and persistence to never give up on his entrepreneurial goals. The Story of SuperJam: How Fraser Doherty Built a Multimillion-Dollar Jelly Empire (web.com)

Smashing the Standard

 

The prosthetic limb market has seen very little innovation since almost its inception. Prosthetics provide necessary balance and stability to those without the corresponding limb, but they are brutally stationary. When we think of pirates with their wooden peg-legs, or Olympic athletes sporting their curved “blade runners”, and any other replacement limb, we basically think of dead weight. The prosthetic is immensely helpful, but it can’t move and, compared to the original, fully-functional limb, it is quite sad. But this market is finally changing with the Esper Hand. In an article in Time Magazine, Leslie Dickstein says, “Esper Bionic’s prosthetic hand is the first AI powered, cloud-based, robotic prosthetic that gets smarter over time. I love the next sentence: “Esper Bionics CEO and co-founder Dima Gazda, a medical doctor and engineer, sees the prosthetic market as ripe for disruption—and setting the stage for a bionic future.” Using AI and the vast amount of technological resources available, Esper Bionics have built a hand that moves like a human hand and evolves to better help the user the more he or she uses it. When I went to their site, the first thing Esper says about the company is fascinating. They state that “Human augmentation is set to transform the way we live, enhancing our physical abilities and unlocking longer lifespans. We are building the first bionic ecosystem of connected devices to push the boundaries of human potential.” I think this market is begging for innovation and I believe Esper Bionics is the company to provide it. What do you think?

Blog Post #4 Logitech

Logitech began with two Stanford alumni, Daniel Borel and Pierluigi Zappacosta, along with Giacomo Marini. Together, they shared a vision of creating high-quality, innovative computer accessories. They wanted to take technology a step further, making it more accessible and user-friendly. The company’s name, “Logitech,” is a combination of the words “logic” and “technology,” representing their commitment to bridging the gap between humans and technology. I think this a very creative name that sticks and a smart one to brand. 

Their first product, the P4, was a game-changer in the world of computing. It was a groundbreaking device that simplified the process of programming and debugging microcode. This innovation laid the foundation for Logitech’s future success in producing cutting-edge computer peripherals.

However, it was in the early 1990s that Logitech indeed came into its own. The company introduced the “MouseMan,” which was a revolutionary optical mouse. This technology eliminated the need for mouse pads and offered more precise tracking. Logitech’s relentless pursuit of precision and innovation was evident in its products, which quickly became an integral part of the growing computer industry.

Over the years, Logitech expanded its product line to include various accessories, from keyboards and webcams to gaming controllers and smart home devices. The company’s dedication to quality and innovation earned it a reputation for producing reliable and user-friendly products. They have built a name and, more importantly, a reputation behind that name. 

Today, Logitech continues to push the boundaries of technology. Their commitment to excellence has not waned, and they consistently deliver products that enhance the digital experience for millions of users worldwide. They constantly show excellent entrepreneurship traits and always present what makes their products worthwhile. From office professionals to gamers, Logitech remains a trusted name, and its legacy is a testament to the power of innovation and precision in the world of technology.

Persevering to Sucess: Life360

Some people might be familiar with the location app Life360. To many teenagers, it is the bane of their existence. Parents use the app to track their kid’s exact location. They can thank Chris Hulls for creating the app.

Chris Hulls: Creator of Life360

Originally, Hull started in the United States Air Force. During his service, the government established a website to help locate missing family members in disasters after Hurricane Katrina. The site was ineffective.

After Hulls pulled out of the military, he went to college and was accepted into Harvard Business School. He, however, decided not to go after a health issue. While undergoing treatment, Hulls remembered the ineffective government website and started thinking. He developed the idea for Life360 and bounced the idea off a few friends.

Hulls began by outsourcing the technological development in India. It ended up as a failure. He tried again after winning “Google’s Android Challenge”. From the competition, he won $300,000 which helped him make Life360.

Despite the app being created, Hulls almost failed again. He was dead broke: he lived in his mom’s house and was making $700 a month. The app had very few users. In the beginning, the smartphone had just been created. People did not know how to effectively use apps. He and his team managed to limp by for 2 years. After some improvements and a few years for the world to adapt to smartphones, business began to pick up. Now, Life360 has about 30 million active users according to a 2022 article.

Life360 still faces plenty of challenges. The app has caused lots of controversy. The Washington Post wrote an article on how parents use the app to track their children. Life360 also received backlash after Markup exposed the company for selling information to data brokers. This caused the company to adjust its policies, but Life360 continues to have 50 million users.

While Chris Hulls barely qualifies as a millennial since he was born in 1985, he is certainly an entrepreneur. He conceived an idea years ago and stored it in his memory. When he faced health issues, he used the time to think about his idea.

“What felt like a set back in my life was actually time to incubate an idea that inspired my career.”

He changed his life plan and developed the idea. Although he struggled in the beginning, Hulls persevered for years. Even after his success, Hulls continues to adapt and change Life360 to make it better.

What is Life360? | About Our Company & Our Mission

https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/articles/chris-hulls-of-life360-you-will-never-regret-trying/

Founder lessons (and silver linings) from Life360’s Chris Hulls – Bessemer Venture Partners (bvp.com)

Life360 is getting out of the business of selling precise user location data – The Verge

Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable

Pete founded Mashable in 2005 when he was 19 in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Mashable is a popular online blog. It started as a simple blog with Pete as the sole author, and quickly rose to fame. In 2009, TIME Magazine considered it one of the best business and tech blogs. Now, it is worth around $50 million and it’s still going.

Mashable began as a blog, but now has sections of the site for different topics, with blogs/articles about all sorts of things; tech, science, entertainment, and more. It was truly innovative for its time because Pete made a blog specifically for certain things he was interested in, and he did it really well. It’s not normal news or articles. It’s different.

Pete showed his entrepreneurial spirit when he was developing Mashable– he would work for hours into the morning on his computer in the early stages of developing. His parents didn’t even know what he was up to. Now, his work has millions of visitors a month.

Jason Wersland- Theragun

Dr. Jason Wersland on Therabody's Growth and InnovationDr. Jason Wersland is a Los Angeles- based chiropractor and founder of the brand Therabody (formerly Theragun). Dr. Jason was in a bad motorcycle accident in 2007 and that was where the birth of his idea took place. He needed something to help with his pain and a percussion gun would be able to ease the pain. His idea for the theragun was based on the needs and necessity for a product to help people with their injuries. It took almost 10 years to perfect the design and function of the theragun and upon its release in 2016, the theragun was an instant success. Since then, three different generations of the percussion gun and vast amounts of partnerships have been a part of the brand. In 2020, Wersland collected data and did research and ultimately decided to rebrand to Therabody. With the rebrand, the company sold more kinds of muscle treatments for athletes and regular folk alike. Dr. Jason uses his entrepreneurship skills to figure out what people need and how to answer their needs. And with his own personal experience with injury, and being a chiropractor, helped him create a multi-million dollar company that is able to help all kinds of people with muscle injuries and recovery.

Catherine Cook

The concept that Catherine Cook and her brother came up with is very neat. For a better way to get to know her classmates they developed myYearbook.com. At the age of 15 and 16 the siblings got their older brother, Geoff, to develop the site for them. It was said to have been like “Facebook for high school.” What really drove her innovative thinking was seeing her older brother develop his own business out of his dorm room. By seeing him excel and succeed she knew it was possible for her too. She knew that even the smallest of ideas could make a big difference. The site now has over 32 million members. Since Facebook at the time was becoming bigger and seemed very similar to it, Catherine and Geoff came up with their websites message. myYearbook.com was about making new friends whereas Facebook was about the friends you already had. This helped shape their basis of their website. They started developing different features and apps to define their message. Users now had the ability to find people they would want to get to know based on the apps and features provided. myYearbook later became sold to QuePasa since yearbooks became less popular. Now came the new development of MeetMe in 2011, it was time for it to become global. Now people had the opportunity to meet people all over the world.