Archive for Water

Tim Moxey & “Nuun”

At 26 years old, Tim Moxey came up with the basic idea for his now multi-million dollar business: Nuun hydration. While taking an entrepreneurship class at the Tuck School of Business, he was tasked with developing a product idea and a fictitious business plan. As an avid cyclist and triathlete, he had recently become frustrated with the lack of electrolyte drinks that could adequately replenish the electrolytes lost during extended periods of intense exercise. At the time, most stores only carried Gatorade, which Moxey found too sweet with its huge amounts of added sugar. For the project, he decided to explore a product that could solve a problem he was facing regularly.

As a solution, Moxey developed the concept for Nuun: a self-dissolving, portable, sugar-free tablet packed with electrolytes. At the time, Moxey had no intentions of ever building Nuun into a real business. After graduation from Tuck, Moxey held several corporate positions, but Nuun always resided in the back of his mind. Eventually, in 2004, he decided to officially launch the company.

Nuun has been extremely successful among endurance athletes all over the world; it turns out, many other athletes were in search of a better electrolyte drink, just like Moxey. After many prototypes and trials, Nuun grew into the product it is today: a hydration tablet containing essential electrolytes that you simply drop into a glass of water. The tablet dissolves into the water on its own, leaving you with a delicious, refreshing electrolyte drink. Since Nuun avoids excess amounts of added sugar, it is also a healthier hydration alternative to popular hydration drinks like Gatorade.

Today, Nuun comes in over a dozen different flavors, from Strawberry Lemonade to Orange to Fruit Punch. Nuun also offers a variety of hydration types, including ‘Sport,’ ‘Daily,’ ‘Immunity,’ ‘Energy,’ ‘Vitamins,’ and ‘Rest.’ With its wide array of products, Nuun offers a hydration option for everyone.

Tim Moxey is an excellent example of a young entrepreneur who used a problem in his own life to inspire a business idea that could solve the problem. He is also an ‘accidental entrepreneur’ who never planned on owning a business. Instead, his passion for the problem led him to success. Young entrepreneurs can look to Moxey as an example of someone who harnessed his own passion to solve a problem through a new product.

 

Gus Schoenbucher – Gus’s Eats & Treats

Gus Schoenbucher was 14 when his father gave him the idea to sell ice cream out of a boat. It was aluminum, and Gus’s father did the exact same thing 40 years prior. The reason Gus’s business took off but his father’s never did was because of a complaint about Gus not having a food service license. As Gus puts it:

” ‘You know what? I’ll go ahead and get a license,’ and now it’s an official business, and it’s all registered in my name.”

Since then, Gus expanded to selling hot dogs, red hot dogs (for visitors from Maine), chips, and soda. At some point, the manager of Krispy Kreme contacted Gus, so he sells donuts out of his boat too!

Considering that Gus’s business operates out of a single boat on Merrymeeting lake in New Durham, New Hampshire, business is pretty good. Gus drives the boat around the lake and delivers food to hungry customers, as well as transactions on the water. In no time, he upgraded from a dinghy boat to pontoon.

Gus operates his business on a seasonal basis because of school. Even though his business is a summer side hustle, it’s remarkable what cool things can be done with a good idea. Gus’s business is a fine example of kids rising to a challenge without being afraid of failure. Gus could have quit when someone complained about him not having a food service license. He could have chosen to be too lazy to go out and get a permit. He could have been afraid to get the license because he was just a kid and nobody was going to let a kid register a business. But Gus did not take no for an answer. He persevered when most kids his age would have given up, and how has a successful business. Making a successful business doesn’t drop into your lap; you can’t back down because of criticism or fear.

Lily Born Innovates to Help Grandfather with Parkinson’s Disease

Ever since Lily Born was 8 years old, she saw her grandfather struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Her grandfather had trouble completing daily tasks, most notably drinking water. She set out to design a new cup that wouldn’t tip. She used moldable plastic to make a model and a year later, she made a ceramic version. She called the final version the “Kangaroo Cup”.

This story emphasizes the problem-solving nature of entrepreneurs. She even followed through past the point of helping her grandfather but helped many others who struggle to hold a drinking cup still.

Lily wants other entrepreneurs to know that innovation doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, it can be as simple as a plastic cup.

Jaden Smith – Just Water

Many of us have heard of Jaden Smith. Son to Will and Jada, he is best known for his roles in moves like The Pursuit of Happiness and The Karate Kid but many do not know that at a young age he became an entrepreneur. At the young age of 12 years old Jaden Smith came up with the idea for the company Just Water. As of September 2019,  less than four years of the company being founded, it was valued at $100 million.

The idea for this multi million dollar company came to Jaden when he was just ten years old when he was out surfing and saw floating plastic water bottles bobbing up and down in the water. He later learned about the great garbage patch in the ocean and wanted to make a change. With the help of his parents Will and Jada they helped get their sons company off the ground. The brand is known for a couple of key features with their products. They are sure to source their water responsibly while also keeping the price down for the consumer. The packaging of the water bottles is 100% recyclable materials. The paper carton is made of  responsibly sourced trees and a plastic mouth piece made of a “plastic” that is derived from sugar cane.

The company focusses on cutting down on their footprint on the earth not only do they focus on their products being made with responsible materials but even how the products are made. By creating the cartons on a flat roll they are able to ship as a 13 truck loads of plastic bottles in one truck, cutting down on emissions. Principles such as these is what makes the company so popular during this time where people are more conscience of the impact we have on the earth.

It is amazing to see that at such a young age Jaden was able to come up with the idea and the drive to create a product that would benefit the world and us who inhabit it. In less than four years he was able to hit $100 million dollars, I think it will be exciting to see where he and the company are another 5 years from now.

 

Check out their website! @justwater.com

 

NOHBO, Planet-Friendly Personal-Care

Ever wonder when large clunky plastic containers of bathroom hygiene products will be a thing of the past? Nohbo, or NO-Hair-BOttles, has answered this question with, “right now!” Benjamin Stern thought up the innovative idea of Nohbo in his ninth grade biology class and ran with it. At the young age of fourteen, Benjamin watched a documentary about the plastic-bottling industry and how much plastic truly ends up in your bathroom garbage each year, rather than being recycled. He took it upon himself from that day forward to come up with an eco-friendly solution to the limitless plastic waste. His goal was to blend the innovative concept of detergent pods with every-day bathroom products such as shampoo, body wash, and shaving cream. Young Benjamin’s solution was the prototype he created that was a dissolvable ball of product inside of a biodegradable wrapper. He saw the problem of plastic waste in single-use products being mass produced and eradicated this unnecessary abundance with his waste-less product called Nohbo Drops. This product was just the beginning because it soon launched him all the way to the hit TV Show, “Shark Tank.” It was here where he struck an impressive deal with Mark Cuban for $100,000 with a 25% equity stake in his business. Success was bound to happen.

The years following this were big for Benjamin Stern, he not only had Mark Cuban on his side, but he had money and mentorship to aid his growth. On many accounts this young man has found himself deeply appreciative of the amazing business people and scientists that he is surrounded by. They have helped him avoid countless mistakes. In the past three years, Stern graduated high school, raised over three million dollars in business financing, and his Nohbo Drops have been bustling off of the shelves. Though Ben Stern has seen success on all levels, he has hit some pretty significant roadblocks along the way. The most major of the many was the “structurally instability” that the dry dehydrated product form caused within the biodegradable wrappers. This problem was fixed by filling the wrappers with a gel based product which not only worked better and was easier to ship out, but also cut the production cost to a third of what it had been. 

These eco-friendly drops of personal-care products are making Ben Stern a successful young entrepreneur, and they are making the abundance of single use plastic bottles, (that are overused in hotel chains especially,) a thing of the past. These Nohbo Drops melt in your hands once in contact with water and leave no plastic waste to discard following their use. As this environmentally aware entrepreneur has made clear, they [Nohbo] “are a mission driven research and development company founded on the premise of eradicating unnecessary single use plastic bottles in areas where there truly is no need for them.” 

From inspiration to innovation, Benjamin Stern has found a problem and solved it. Today, he continues to work hard behind the scenes at Nohbo. If only he had known that one spark in his mind during a ninth-grade biology class would lead to the prosperity he lives in today. It took only his pursuance of one single idea to inspire a whole generation of young men and women to find problems in the world and try to solve them just like he did. He has not only thought like an entrepreneur, but he has innovated an old commodity like one too. 


For More Information On Nohbo Visit: https://nohbo.com/

Or Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5TMemcpi3w