Cherie Tan at the young age of 14 started freelancing as a web designer. She loved creating beautiful virtual things that she and her virtual friends all enjoyed. Cherie went all in and taught herself Photoshop, CSS and JavaScript with the motivation of creating beautiful websites and this brought her her first paying client. At Newcastle University in the UK Cherie earned a second-upper honors degree in electrical engineering. During this time her freelance career had led her to stating the beginnings of her software development and design firm as well as taking on different challenging project from all over the world. In 2016 Cherie founded Mogul Tech International to help her handle all the requests she had started receiving. Modul Tech is a company where the employees are trained in remote work designing websites, products, growth strategies, and beautiful software for many different companies. Having a remote team has its challenges Cherie says but she says it is rewarding as well and she has seen it pay off many times with clients, the team members, and herself. In 2018 Cherie changed her focus and became certified and registered as an Associate Wealth Planner in Singapore, shifting to the financial industry. Now she is hoping to start a code academy for kids inside Singapore. Cherie is also very active in her community mentoring teens in the local public schools in Singapore as well as volunteering at local community shelters. Cherie Tan demonstrates so many entrepreneurial gifts and is doing amazing work.
Archive for Technology – Page 9
Michael Bloomberg is one of the most respected men in the State of New York and in New York City. Bloomberg was born in 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts to Polish immigrants. His father was a bookkeeper and his mother was a secretary. Bloomberg put himself through Johns Hopkins university and from Harvard in 1966 with a Masters in Business Administration. Shortly after school Bloomberg found a job with the red hot investment banking firm Salomon Brothers and quickly rose to partner in 1972. After Salomon’s demise in 1981, Michael Bloomberg received a large partner buyout in excess of $10 million.
Michael Bloomberg decided to use his newfound wealth to start his own business, and in 1981 he formed Innovative Market Systems, which he would later rename to Bloomberg. The company originally sold computer terminals to Wall Street investment banks that would provide market news and stock data. The Bloomberg Terminal was a dual screen standalone, portable, and “open,” or PC-connectible software that provided premier multimedia news, electronic communications, specialized financial computation services, financial pricing, advanced data analytics, and data for all major global securities markets. Early on, Bloomberg did not have many customers, as the Bloomberg Terminal was seen as a futuristic and ambitious concept. Nevertheless Bloomberg was able to secure a sale of its new, (not yet completed terminal), from Merrill Lynch ONLY if Bloomberg could deliver the terminals to Merrill Lynch within 6 months.
Upon delivery of the Bloomberg Terminal, Merrill Lynch was so impressed that they ordered 20 units for their traders, and agreed to purchase a 30% stake in IMS for $30 million. With fresh funding, and the expertise of Merrill Lynch elite traders, Michael Bloomberg was able to develop and improve his terminal system to appeal to the broader market. In 1984, Bloomberg brought his Terminal to the world market, but faced over 20 different competitors who were supplying similar services to top Wall Street firms. However, what set Bloomberg Terminal apart from the competition and allowed for the company to capture the market was its ability to go beyond surface level data. For example, on the Terminal, a trader could access roughly 40 links to in-depth information on any bond, which were displayed around a central chart displaying the bond’s current price. The Terminal also provided in depth and colorful data analytics that was unrivaled by any other analytics firm.
In 1986, Michael Bloomberg officially changed the firm’s name to Bloomberg L.P. Soon after changing the name and receiving much success on Wall Street, the firm experienced explosive growth. Today Bloomberg L.P. has millions of Terminal subscribers including The White House, the Vatican, Bank of England, and virtually every large financial services company in the world. Bloomberg’s news service has over 150 bureaus 73 countries worldwide. The firm boasts revenues of $10+ Billion. Michael Bloomberg’s personal net-worth is estimated around $56+ Billion.
What I learned from researching Michael Bloomberg is that you can never be too old to start a business. Bloomberg was 39 when he started IMS, and has never stopped innovating. Bloomberg never stopped developing his terminal system, and I admire him for completely transforming the way people receive and perceive their news and market data. The Bloomberg Terminal at the time revolutionized the way traders received news and market data, and helped traders make better decisions for themselves and their clients. Bloomberg had the passion and drive to change the way Americans, and the world views news and data. Bloomberg news has a large influence today on millions of Americans, and continues to influence market data by providing second by second in depth information on market news combined with data analytics.
Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger are the co-founders of one of the most widely used social media platforms today. Although many people probably don’t know who they are, they are the men behind Instagram. Prior to beginning their work on Instagram, both of these men lived highly respectable lives. Kevin Systrom was a part of the team who created Twitter and spent a few years working with Google. To say that he has experience with technology would be an understatement. Mike on the other hand did more of the engineer work prior to beginning Instagram and his knowledge for engineering would come in very handy in the long run, as he would be in charge of all of the engineering behind the app. The two men met while they were attending school at Stanford University. Kevin says that the idea behind the app was to create a new and improved way of communicating with one another. If you have used Instagram since it was officially launched in 2010, you would know that significant changes have been made since then. In recent years the addition of the Instagram story, Close Friends story and smaller changes such as design have been implemented to make sure that the app stays ahead of the trend.
Last year the two men officially stepped down from their positions as co-owners of the company, after selling the company to Facebook in 2010. The reason behind this was because of supposed disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook. Disagreements on the layout and design of the app was what let the co-founders to step down. Despite their departure, Instagram is still one of the greatest social media apps to exist, and Facebook can not catch up. The younger generations are being drawn to Instagram and have no desire to have a Facebook account. Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger have an incredible success story. The fact that their idea for Instagram is still spreading and growing in popularity even though they are no longer in charge is awesome. They completely changed the idea of communication and created something that at its prime was unlike anything else that had been previously made. Sometimes being a good entrepreneur means taking risks and thinking outside of the box, and these to men are the perfect example of that.
Jared Hecht is a millennial entrepreneur that changed the way the world communicates and made a significant impact in the startup space. In 2009, he graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science. Straight out of Columbia, at the ripe age of 22, the young entrepreneur founded startup messaging platform GroupMe. A little over a year after its official launch, GroupMe was sold to Skype in 2011 for $80 million and Hecht began working for Microsoft, who later acquired Skype. In 2015, Hecht was named to the Forbes “30 under 30” list for his entrepreneurial impact.
Though extremely rewarding, it wasn’t always easy for the young entrepreneur to see the light at the end of the startup tunnel. “Some nights you are on top of the world and think you’re building the best thing ever, and then other nights you think that some horrible competitor is going to knock you off the face of the earth,” says Hecht. However, even with the inherent risk, he confirms that developing ideas and changing the way people communicate is “the best feeling ever.”
Alongside his laundry list of impressive commercial accomplishments, Jared Hecht is vastly changing the social entrepreneurship game. Hecht is the current founder and CEO of Fundera, a start-up investment agency that provides loans and financial planning for entrepreneurial ventures. He has invested and advised successful startups such as Codeacademy, SmartThings, and TransferWise. He also currently sits on the advisory board of the Columbia University Entrepreneurship Organization and is a guest blogger for prestigious business sites like entrepreneur.com and Forbes. Jared Hecht is not only a man with good ideas, but he’s willing to take risks for ventures that he believes in, making him one of this generation’s greatest entrepreneurs.
Shubham Banerjee is a 13 year old who has completely innovated the world for the blind. Before Banerjee brought his idea to market, there had not been an affordable printer for the blind. Braille printers ran for over $2,000, which is in the budget for most of the 1.3 million blind people in the United States.
Banerjee was searching for an idea for his science fair when he came across this fact. This gave him the idea to try to create a low cost braille printer.
He was trying to engineer this device, which took him seven attempts exactly, but he finally got a working prototype. He made a working device using some Legos and some electrical wiring. He got the device to print out six dots of Braille.
After getting this to work, Banerjee was obsessed with his new project. He stayed up for hours on end with his engineer dad right beside him.
Now, as a freshman in high school, Banerjee is the inventor of Braigo, a low cost Braille printer. It looks like any other printer, except it prints our raised bumps instead of flat letters. Benerjee was able to do something that so many companies were trying to do for so long. But sometimes all you need is a young, creative mind seeing the problem and solution in a different way.
At the age of fifteen, Ben Pasternak developed an app called Impossible Run. He began developing the app during his science class in high school. The app’s purpose was to test the user’s reflex reaction times using geometry. Impossible Run was downloaded 1.3 million times, which rocketed the app to the top of the Apple App Store. After the app gained this traction, many Silicon Valley investors reached out to Pasternak about the possibility of developing some of his other app ideas.
One year after releasing Impossible Run, Ben raised $1 million to begin development on a buying/selling app called Flogg. He wanted to aim the app at teens, so he combined the concepts of Tinder and Ebay into one application. One simply swipes to purchase items on the app. This idea came from seeing many of his teenage friends buying and selling items using Facebook groups.
Ben Pasternak now lives in New York City, where he runs his $2 million application company. With the success of Flogg, Ben was able to hire seven employees, all of whom are under the age of 35. What started as a fun activity in school has evolved into an innovative application development company. Ben’s ideas can serve as a great inspiration to a young entrepreneur.
Amber Venz Box has taken the fashion-tech industry by storm while being a mother, wife, and successful business woman all at the age of thirty. The Dallas native has turned photos on social media into a way for style inspirations to make money. Mulling over the idea with her husband, at the time boyfriend, the two created an online website called RewardStyle with an affiliated app called LIKEtoKNOW.it. This company connects retailers with social media users so that people can easily find and purchase an outfit they saw in someone’s post. This new way of selling and shopping has seen one billion dollars worth of success and is growing. Box’s idea began before Instagram dominated social media platforms, which proved to make this company difficult to start.
RewardStyle was born from Amber’s own pain when was struggling for money as a twenty-two year old living in Dallas. Amber had her own consulting business where people would sign up and pay for a fashion consultation. She also ran a personal blog that kept up with her daily attire and style. Amber realized that she was losing money because people were just buying what she was blogging about instead of scheduling a consultation, and at the time money was her focus. It was then when she began crafting her idea to create a platform that would make her money, make retailers money, and make customers’ shopping experience easier.
It wasn’t a simple process, however, because Amber Venz Box ran into trouble trying to get large retailers to notice her and take the time to listen. There were many times when retailers would tell her there is no budget to work with bloggers because they mostly focus on celebritie
s and magazines. Amber also saw problems arising in her marriage because their opinions about running the business were different. With great persistence and patience, Amber was able to close a deal with a smaller retailer who saw an increase in revenue after working with her company. This brought the couple closer together, and they are now a strong business duo. Today, Amber is working with over 4,500 retailers who pay commission to users promoting their merchandise, which leads to sales for the company right from the picture.
Hearing the persistence Amber required to get her company running echoed what we have been talking about in class and with the quest speakers. Start-up companies can’t be successful unless you want it and adapt your strategy for the market you are trying to pitch to. Sometimes failure is regardless, but we should never give up after a few failed attempts. Amber was able to solve her own pain, but she also solved the pain felt by different markets. In other words, Box took her passion for style to create a new piece of technology that has changed the fashion industry.
Our education system has stayed pretty much the same as it was two hundred years ago. This is not a bad thing, considering that there are only a small amount of proven ways to actively engage student’s learning abilities. As technology advances, educators are now trying new techniques to improve the ways that students learn in the classroom. With this increase in technology, students are finding it easier to memorize terms and concepts thanks mostly to one of the fastest growing education sites in the world, Quizlet. Quizlet was founded by Andrew Sutherland in 2007 when he was 22 to be a resource to help student study for test and exams. His initial idea for Quizlet came when he was 15 when he created a platform to help him for a quiz. Since then, it has grown to be one of the top 100 sites used around the world. Not only does the company bring in over $10 million per year, it has seen exponential expanses in its user base year over year with a 2 million user increase every month.
Sutherland’s story is one that many young entrepreneurs seem to face. By creating something that either a small group of people want or that they are passionate about, they realize that they can turn their idea into a large business. After creating Quizlet in high school, Sutherland saw its success and made the difficult decision to drop out of MIT in order to grow the business into what it is today. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to do both well,” he says. “I saw how big Quizlet was getting, how many people were using it and how big an impact it could have for millions of students.” Not only does the platform target students like it did back in 2007 at launch, it has introduced teacher tools that can be accessed through various subscription models. Sutherland’s willingness to bring an idea that he had into reality has created him overwhelming amounts of success and the difficult choices that he has made throughout his life continue to drive him to make Quizlet the best platform it can be.
Sources:
www.studybreaks.com/college/talking-andrew-sutherland-founder-quizlet/
www.mogulpedia.com/person/andrew-sutherland/
Everyone has forgotten a password at some point in their life. Today everything requires that you make an account, and give your personal information to personalize your experience. In this world of overwhelming numbers of passwords, that need to be “strong” in order to be used on certain websites, Brennan Byrne founded Clef. 
Clef is a service used by close to 120,000 websites. It eradicates passwords by using technology where all you have to do is hold your phone screen up to your computer screen. No more passwords or usernames, and your experience is just as customized as before. Formed in Oakland, California with two friends at just 24 Byrne has raised $3.1 million in see funding for Clef. Byrne attended Pomona College where he initially started the company.
Passwords are now becoming a thing of the past with innovations such as this, and things like face ID and fingerprint scanners becoming ordinary on every new device. There had to be another solution to passwords to every website you’ve ever visited just to view the content you want. Although companies using “remember me” features, those aren’t very secure when protecting your valuable information. Passwords will become like written letters, when your kids ask what that thing that on your email is (an envelope of course). With more innovators like Brennan, we will continue to be introduced to things we never knew we needed until now.
If you haven’t heard of E-sports or have little knowledge on the subject let me fill you in quickly. Electronic sports (E-sports) has been taking the nation by storm amassing a huge following and proving that if your good enough at video games it can viably become your job. Originally the e-sports field was only for the most elite gamers who spent all of their time training in games and living off tournament winnings. Recently that has been changing at a rapid rate. The following of E-sports has been growing which in turn is leading to more and more people who want a piece of the action.
Delane Parnell was born in Detroit, Michigan and was pretty much born to be an entrepreneur. At age 13 he started working at the cell phone store of a family friend. At age 16 he and two associates left the business to start there own tech startup company focused on phones. After that he went on to start a car rental company as well. Being your average boy as well as spending a lot of time working with tech, Delane had an interest and joy in playing video games. This was where his claim to fame came in. In 2017 he started his company PlayVS with the goal of bringing E-Sports to high school students.
The problem Delane was solving was that kids around the nation, and globe wanted to be part of the E-sports scene but unless you had your entire life to dedicate to practice you would never be good enough. So he created a way for high school students, who have studies and lives outside of the world of gaming, to become part of the world of E-sports. PlayVS allows high schools to start an E-sports team that students can be a part of that allows them to play, as well as compete against other high schools. Due to E-sports being entirely online there is no travel required for the leagues and there is little cost as well. You simply have to get everyone online and let the competition begin. Delane figured out all the tools that were needed to make competitive high school gaming happen were there, he just had to put the pieces together. More then 13,000 schools have made teams through PlayVS and compete during the school year. He has become a leader in the E-sports field and opened the door for many people and students to participate in the online world of competition.