Todd Graves is man who pursued his niches in fried chicken and innovation. In the 1990’s Todd Graves was a young 20-year-old who wanted to create a restaurant that only serves fried chicken. In college he presented it to his professors, and they said it would not work. After college he tried to get loans, but banks would not give him any loans. Todd Graves was a determined and risky young man who was passionate about his idea, he did not want to give up on his idea. Todd was a horse working 20-hour days in the oil and fishing business. He was not giving up but saving for his dreams of owning a restaurant. Todd eventually moves home with money to start his business. In 1996 building started on the North Gates of Louisiana State University. Todd was very involved in the building work on the restaurant, his involvement with the day-to-day construction process helped him see the vision of his business. During the first renovation renovators chipped walls paint away and there was logo design that inspired the future raising canes brand design. Raising Canes has made a name for themselves of great brand techniques which have expressed their differentiation from other restaurant chains. They have made a name for themselves as a brand who serves the community well. Todd took an idea that no one believed in and made a name for himself in his perseverance and hard work. Todd’s niche for fried chicken has made him billions and has been the factor for fried chicken to unite communities.

A year or two ago I learned of PublicSquare.com, founded in 2021 which has both a website and an app to sell products. (NYSE:PSQH)  The company began as a way to connect companies who believed in traditional American values with customers who want to support them.  It is also a great way for customers to locate and support small businesses.   For quite a few years we have tried to support small local business, and companies that sell things that are made here in the United States, so PublicSquare really appealed to me.  Here is a link to the website https://www.publicsquare.com/why-publicsquare .  It was founded by Michael Seifert, who was recently recognized as the youngest CEO in a company on the New York Stock Exchange!

On PublicSquare, you can purchase all kinds of products from companies throughout the country – clothing, furniture, American flags, health items, personal care, gifts, etc.  You name it and you can likely buy it on PublicSquare, all while supporting business that support life, family and freedom.

A quote by Seifert: “Values-driven consumers – those that stand for faith, family and freedom – are not the minority. They are the majority and they are being underserved. If these American consumers and the GDP they represent were their own country, it would be the third largest economy in the world.”

This is an interesting entrepreneurial idea and it does appear that there are many people who want to support companies whose values align with theirs when possible.

On PublicSquare’s X account it states: “We’ve created the largest marketplace & payments ecosystem that protects life, family and freedom.”

As I researched PublicSquare I have also discovered another part of the business that is called PublicSquare Payments. (This is referred to in the above X post.)   There is likely a big need for a payment system such as this.  On the website PublicSquarePayments.com, customers are offered triple redundancy for reliability, security and compliance and seamless onboarding.

It seems like a great company to purchase from, as a customer, or a great place for businesses who believe in traditional values to sell their products!

Ryan Trahan began his journey as a student at Texas A&M. At the time he was a student-athlete running cross country, and he came across the idea to begin a water bottle company. Neptune Bottles immediately found success, netting Trahan $50,000 in profit in just its first year of production. This occurred before NIL deals were made legal, however, and Trahan was punished by the NCAA for promoting his brand through his running. He dropped out of college and began a career as a YouTuber, where he found an enormous amount of success. Trahan’s most successful series as a Youtuber saw him travel across the country using just a penny, trading and selling things to cover the cost of transport all while raising $1.38 million for charity. Trahan then shifted his sights onto his most recent business venture, Joyride Sweets. Joyride Sweets seeks to produce “uncommon candy” – candy without any sort of artificial junk. Their products are plant-based, low-carb, and low-sugar, meaning they taste great but wont ruin a diet. There have been a large amount of these low-sugar “healthy” candy brands that have popped up over the years, but with their added focus on integrity of ingredients and massive social media backing, Joyride proposes a promising future. Joyride is available in many large retail stores, and even managed to sell out entirely the day they were brought to shelves in target.

When modeling a business, the most important factor of generating worth is finding a niche with pain. Lily Born, when she was just 7 years old, noticed a problem that she not only wanted to create value from, but also help people with as well. Her grandfather suffered from Parkinson’s and frequently spilled his drinks because of the neurological toll of the disease. Lily designed a three pronged, “Kangaroo Cup,” that is un-spillable and unbreakable out of her home city of Chicago.  

Starting out with homemade prototypes, she and her father designed the first model of the Kangaroo cup. Said prototype was improved and reworked until the three-legged cup that she sells today was created. With innovative design and a niche pain, Lily Brown was lay the cornerstone of a much larger career in entrepreneurship. Now at the age of 16, she has sold tens of thousands of these cups to people with Parkinson’s and children as well. With a bright future ahead, Lily aims to continue to inspire and innovate.

Luke Nichols is a 46 year old entrepreneur with an abundance of wisdom and experience. He has had an entrepreneurial career like no other. From 2003 to 2009, Luke owned a political service and legal defense company. While he was managing his successful startup, he was attending law school at George Mason University. After graduating from law school in 2009, Luke started his own law firm, Nichols & Green. Luke and his partner specialized in traffic law cases in northern Virginia for many years. Luke was known as one of the best lawyers in cases of DUI/DWIs, reckless driving, etc. While working as a lawyer, Luke started his very popular YouTube channel, Outdoor Boys. The Outdoor Boys YouTube channel contained videos of Luke and his sons doing everything outdoors. He made fishing, hunting, camping, woodworking, etc. videos for their channel. Luke, who grew up in rural Alaska, provided a unique combination to his viewers. He is a man of great skill, so his viewers are able to learn a lot from his videos. Luke’s skills combined with the innocence of his young sons created an appealing mixture. After several years of multitasking as a YouTuber and a successful lawyer, in 2020, Luke decided to make a change. He took a massive leap of faith by leaving his job as a lawyer to pursue YouTube full time. Fortunately, his bravery has paid off in many ways. The Outdoor Boys channel now has 11.3 million subscribers. Luke now makes weekly family friendly content documenting his outdoor adventures with his family. Many of his viewers take a liking to Luke’s wealth of knowledge. They realize that a successful lawyer who parents well and has the capabilities to survive in the woods is a good person to be listening to. Luke has a unique entrepreneurial journey that I felt would be great to share.

To view the Outdoor Boys channel, click here.

Adam D’Angelo always loved technology. In 2002 he earned a silver medal at the International Olympiad in informatics. In school at Phillips Exeter Academy, Adam was friends with his fellow classmate Mark Zukerberg. They even built a Synapse Media Player. This and all his other experience pushed and influenced him to create Quora. Adam is a great problem solver as he found a way to highlight and fix a real-world solution to the internet, which is there isn’t always every answer on the web. Quora solves this by being an open forum where people ask all kinds of questions and get there very specific questions answered by others. A big thing is Adams ability to make his business focus more on needs rather than products. Adams passion and social network drove him to create Quora with his talks with Zuckerburg. He also wants to help others and help himself finding small communities around very specific problems or circumstances. His business model is with add revenue. It sold for its ability to rank users biased on how reliable they are and the ability to reach everyone around the world. It’s a worldwide forum with the idea that if you are having a problem someone else is having one. Adam demonstrates very innovative thinking by taking an already existing idea of making online forums, but he made it very niche. His niche was about reliability and solving problems. He used his environment as he was a CTO at Facebook and learned a lot about running a company allowed him to start his own. Adams best innovation was the use of strategic algorithms to create a formatted page for each user. This really let him stick out and it helped him achieve his niche of catering to specific issues people face or question. Adam is inspiring for his ability to focus on an issue that he holds dear to him and not care about the money but be product first. This is something to learn from as now you can focus on making your product perfect and innovative and you can capture your small niche and then worry about expanding and you don’t need to worry about going back to the drawing board as you already have a finished model.

Kamaria Warren was a little girl when she discovered there was a hole in the market. There was no stationary representing black women. At the age of seven Kamaria started with her mother designing products and tools for little girls of color to enjoy. These products ranged from purses to school supplies. All of the products would depict images of cartoonish black children or things relevant to black people. Kamaria’s store, Brown Girls Stationary & Acsessories, is aimed to create and grow product lines for black children. The purpose of these products is to encourage and inspire girls of color to reach for more. To remind them of their importance. This company is run by 3-5 people. At one time a personal loss resulted in the company coming to a standstill. Brown Girls S&A used this loss and pause to refoucus in on what they were orriginally founded for; to inspire and to create love. In the years before their pause they had become focused on bringing in profit. Kamaria says that this loss help her recenter her business on what really mattered.

For Kamaria’s pure intentions and inspiring ideals, she ended up on the Today Show. She has also won the BeyGood Foundation Grant. With her popularity she has given thousands of notebooks to STEM organizations for their summer youth programs. Along with that she donated snacks to nurses and medical workers. This gift started the Kamaria’s new project #Snackworthy, who’s aim is to help feed hard working personnel in the medical field. Kamaria has said she wants to create a platform on which others can order and create their own products, so that all people might feel seen and have products that speak to them as individuals.

Meet Kamaria Warren

10 Successful Young Entrepreneurs

In November of 2010, Hart Main’s sister began selling homemade candles to her classmates. As one would imagine, the scents she sold were generally intended for other girls – lavender, flowers, etc. Main joked with his sister that she should make scents that favored boys who didn’t want their room to smell ‘girly’. His mother thought this idea had merit. Seeing the potential market for manly candles, she encouraged her son to give his idea a shot.

“I do that with all of my kids — I listen to them,” Amy Main says. “Even if it sounds like they’re joking, if their idea sounds like something they can do, by all means, I tell them to go for it.”

After the local media caught wind of Main’s up and coming entrepreneurial ventures, his orders skyrocketed. The quick traction initially led Main to consider broadening his selection of candles, but after reconsideration, he decided it would be best to stick with his eight core offerings: New York Style Pizza, Grandpa’s Pipe, Sawdust, Campfire, New Mitt, Fresh Cut Grass, Coffee and, of course, Bacon.

ManCans is doing quite well – averaging 300 orders per week. In addition to generating revenue, Main has demonstrated his aspirations to help his community.

“Main makes the candles in soup cans, so he purchases soup and donates it to local soup kitchens. He then returns the empty cans and he and his mother make the candles in their kitchen. He orders oils from suppliers around Ohio and combines them with the wax.”

Main has demonstrated true entrepreneurship is: recognizing a need, finding solutions, and making the idea a reality.