Gabrielle Jordan was 9 when she started her own business. Inspired by 4 previous generations of entrepreneurs in her family, Gabrielle started to sell jewelry to her friends at school and through that her business grew to what is now called Jewlez of Jordan which is a high end online jewelry business that goes to boutiques, trunk shows, fashion shows and other events. Gabrielle’s jewelry is unique and is inspired by a timeless beauty that she wants to reflect by her handcrafted one-of-a-kind pieces made with gemstones, crystals and cultured pearls. Gabrielle did not stop with her jewelry business but moved on to inspire other young entrepreneurs by co-founding the ExCEL Youth Mentoring Institute. ExCEL Youth Mentoring Institution is a youth-based online mentoring cite offering resources for entrepreneurship and leadership development. Gabriel also wrote a book, The Making of a Young Entrepreneur: A kids Guide to Developing the Mind-Set for Success. All this has given her the opportunity to become a speaker at many conferences, schools, and community events. Gabriel also has appeared on many news and online publications. Gabriel is also the host of The UV Effect Podcast, this podcast helps listeners discover their unique value, where it gets the name. Through all of this Gabrielle is an inspiration in the entrepreneurial world encouraging and educating new entrepreneurs in their journey of entrepreneurship.
Archive for Women Entrepreneurs – Page 11
BeaYOUtiful is a homemade bath bomb business that was started by 12-year-old Hannah Grace. This business focuses on combining Hannah’s favorite health and beauty stores and using more natural ingredients. Hannah’s dad, Kenneth, always believed that she would become an entrepreneur someday. Her innovative spirit and eye for creativity is something that she showcased as a young child and still exemplifies today. In January 2016, she began making her first bath bombs and posted videos of her new bath bombs on YouTube. Hannah then partnered with a local gift shop and began selling her BeaYOUtiful bath bombs. She doesn’t need to pay to have her products sold in the local gift shop but does need to split the profits of the bath bombs sold between the gift shop and herself. Hannah’s family is very involved in the bath bomb business. Kenneth help build Hannah’s website and when Hannah is at cheer-leading or gymnastic practice, her family helpings with packaging, molding, and labeling.
Hannah recently partnered with 546 Apparel. This unique company aims to spread awareness about invisible illness such a Lupus, Endometriosis, Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome, and Type 1 Diabetes. This partnership allows those that are suffering from invisible illnesses to be encouraged by apparel as well as BeaYOUtiful bath bombs. Hannah also donates 20.00% of every BeaYOUtiful purchase to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund. This organization is impactful to Hannah and her family because she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes as an infant. No one in Hannah’s immediate family has a business background but they are learning together. Hannah’s dad also reminds her to identify her priorities and establish a healthy work life balance as an entrepreneur. He often offers Hannah the option to take a break or leave the business, but she declines the offer due to her passion of creating, manufacturing, and producing bath bombs that directly impact people’s lives.
Erin Zakis is the founder of Sundara, a company that recycles used bars of soap from hotels and redistributes them to people in India, Uganda, and Myanmar. This year she began expanding the company to Haiti and Jordan. It all began when she took a trip to Thailand and was shocked to find that teenagers had never seen soap before- they were so confused by this new thing they even tried to eat it! This was a huge wake-up call to Erin which inspired her a few years down the road to enter a LinkedIn for Good pitch competition where she ended up winning $10,000. With this money, she moved to India and immediately began making her vision a reality. Erin works with large hotel chains on a fee for service model. The hotels pay her company to pick up their trash with the soaps separated out, then it is taken to a recycling facility. Sundara hires widows, domestic violence victims, single mothers, and other women as community hygiene ambassadors to raise awareness in these countries where soap is an abstract concept. In this way, Erin Zakis has united her passion to help others with her entrepreneurial skills. Not only does she bring life-saving hygiene to over 100,000 people each month, but she empowers disadvantaged women by providing employment.
A billion. It’s a number that seems impossible to picture in our minds. It’s one that counts our population, our galaxy, and it could make up seemingly infinite lifetimes. For most people, this idea of the billion exists only in the hypothetical or in the things beyond this world. So, when someone achieves it, it leaves the world wondering how.
In March of 2019, Kylie Jenner was listed by Forbes Magazine as the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at twenty-one-years old. TV jumpstarted her fame Kylie’s name when she appeared on the reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians when she was just ten years old. Since then, she’s used her name to create her brand. She started with endorsements for beauty companies. In 2013, Kylie had 2 nail polishes named after her as a part of a Kardashian Colors nail polish kit from Nicole by API. In the same year, she and her sister Kendall started a clothing line with Pac Sun and a jewelry line with Pascal Mouawad’s Glamhouse.
In 2015, Kylie decided to create a lipstick line pf her own, which she called the “Kylie Jenner Lip Kit.” Jenner said she took inspiration from her love of make-up tutorials and using makeup to make her lips look fuller. She started selling the lip kits for $29 online and they sold out right away. She created an app for the company and then changed the name to “Kylie Cosmetics” in 2016. Since, she’s started selling at Ulta Beauty, a decision that led her to make $54.5 million in six months. Being one of the most-followed people on social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat, social media has been a major medium for promoting her products. It’s the power of social media,” Kylie said on the topic, “I had such a strong reach before I was able to start anything.” In fact, Ulta itself hasn’t done any marketing for the brand, which, the company has said just doesn’t happen. Kylie’s management of her social media pages has really made Kylie Cosmetics.
Part of the success of Kylie’s sales relies on scarcity. The company launches a set amount of products at a time, and each time, they sell out. The company continues to grow as it includes more makeup products, and Forbes magazine estimates that the company is currently worth 900 million dollars. Kylie Jenner is a successful entrepreneur by using her social media to market her brand to makeup users. In conclusion, Kylie truly captures the image of a millennial entrepreneur, using current media to create a brand for herself.
After graduating from Yale, Anne Wojcicki started her career as a health care investment analyst with Passport Capital. After deciding this job was not for her she quit. Initially she thought about appearing at MCAT to do her medicine. However, her love for biotechnology prevailed and she started doing research. This led her to team up with Linda Avey, who was a biologist, and together they created 23andMe. The startup was a hit, and was featured as the “Invention of the Year” by Times Magazine in 2008. Today 23andMe has built one of the world’s most exhaustive databases of personal genetic information. Empowering people to take charge of their healthcare. Anne believed that scientist do not get their deserved fame as other celebrities do. So she decided to take measures into her own hands and thus co-founded the Breakthrough Awards in the USA to felicitate eminent scientist.
Daniela Perdomo realized that without a cellular connection, your phone is basically useless after Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, leaving her without power or internet connection.
Seeing how real this problem was, Daniela began a tech startup called goTenna. Her devices are candy-bar sized transmitters that can send text messages even if there is no cellular connection.
goTenna’s techn
ology has a much broader application than people living in the aftermath of a hurricane. Recently these devices have been used by first responders, the military, and even the Department of Homeland Security.
The company uses what is called “mesh networking” which expands by connecting users on a peer-to-peer basis. These small devices are built to be portable and can be attached to a backpack using a small clip. The price of one of these transmitters is $179, and is becoming more accessible than ever to consumers with a constantly expanding network.
“What does this girl actually do that requires any talent?” Well, apparently a LOT of people think she’s talented, because she has over 33 million followers on Tiktok, 17.7 million followers on Instagram, and 3.5 million followers on Youtube.
Loren Gray entered the social media world in 2015, when she began to create lip syncing videos to popular songs on Musical.ly, an app that later re-branded as Tiktok. Her estimated net worth is $300,000, which is only the beginning for the social media influencer. Recently she signed a record deal and has been releasing songs on her own that are not lip synced (hopefully).
Loren is an example of a new career field that has become a possibility in the rise of the digital age. Now people can make money from creating content online and being paid from ad revenue on their pages. Loren gets paid by Youtube for her videos, which at this time are averaging at $450 a day in revenue. She has also used her social media platform to do sponsored partnerships with companies, such as Nickelodeon. She’s one of the first stars to make a living from Tiktok, and with the growth of the app it looks like she won’t be the last.
Shelby Wildgust is a Philly native who is full of infectious energy. She loves all things from Philly Sports (GO EAGLES!) to rock climbing, but Shelby is most interested in supporting, mentoring, and coaching young female business leaders into becoming the best and most authentic versions of themselves. While working very closely with Shelby this summer, my favorite thing about her was her go-getter attitude that inspired me not to give up on my dreams for my summer job as a Branch Manager for Vector Marketing and Cutco Cutlery.
Shelby has always loved taking ideas and bringing them to life. In high school, she even started her own jewelry business called Treasures for Tuition to raise money for college. When Shelby was 18 years old, she found Cutco/Vector Marketing. She says she “has no idea what [she] was getting [herself] into”. After being quite successful and experiencing a lot of growth, she ran two branch offices, which is a summer only office that a college student runs while he or she is on summer break. Shelby claims that working for Cutco and having two very successful summer offices, equipped her with many skills which includes how to be resourceful, how to handle rejection, how to build relationships, how to communicate effectively, how to ask for what she wants, how to be a professional, how to public speak, and the list goes on. After graduating college in 2016, Shelby went into Corporate America but realized that she wanted to go back to Vector in a different role. She coaches and leads young individuals running a branch office.
In 2016, Shelby gave a TED Talk called “The Masks We Hide Behind”, where she opened up about her struggles growing up and wanting to fit in which sparked an interest in the idea that women wear masks. She attended a few events that encouraged women to becoming the best versions of themselves and thought she wanted to create something like this, but she wanted to stand out from any average networking event. So, she took the idea of women hiding behind masks and tied it into the idea of networking. In January of 2019, Shelby made the decision to become more involved in the Philly community of young women and she started Naked Networking.
The idea: “Women only. No Make Up. No Judgement.”
And it is exactly that. Upon arrival, women go through a “makeup removal station” where they remove the “masks” they were wearing all day.
Since it’s debut, Naked Networking has hosted two events. In June, Shelby hosted her first Naked Networking event. Thirty were in attendance (SOLD OUT!), there were two panelists, and she had multiple sponsors. At the second event, she saw familiar faces, which proved that women were getting a lot out of the experience. There were also 70 (SOLD OUT AGAIN!) in attendance, two panelists, and, again, multiple sponsors. Shelby and Naked Networking has been featured in Philly Mag and CBS 3.
The future of Naked Networking is bright. The next event will be held on October 29th, 2019 with 75 women in attendance. Shelby is also planning a large scale event with 200 women as an all day event. She also is expanding to a new city, but she wouldn’t tell me where yet, as it will be announced at her October 29th event.
Shelby is just getting started as she aspired to help more and more women “remove the mask” and feel more confident in themselves and being “exactly who they are meant to be.” Naked Networking has empowered so many young women already and is making strides to create a lasting impact on so many lives in the near future.
Rosie’s Workshop was founded in 2016 by Blair and Jen Koss. At Rosie’s, you can find unique “lighting and home decor made with vintage finds,” as founder Blair puts it. Examples of the vintage pieces include instruments and old cameras.
Rosie’s Workshop is the perfect example of a business dedicated to design and storytelling. Each camera used for the light has a story attached to it. For example, one of the cameras is the same type that was used in one of the Harry Potter movies. When buying the light, one can read the backstory located near the camera. These backstories let the customer c
onnect more directly with the product.
The workshops offered at the store are another example of how Rosie’s excels in the experience they offer to their customers. There are workshop opportunities for customers to make their own lights using their own cameras, which adds to the special connection they have with the products.
The name behind Rosie’s comes from Jen’s grandmothers who worked during World War II. The style of the 20s is very prevalent in the designs, in the metal and fabric chosen for the pieces.
Rosie’s takes the left-brained skills of engineering and combines it effortlessly with right-brained storytelling and design. Rosie’s is located in Ross Park Mall in Pittsburgh, PA. You can find them at www.rosiesworkshop.com to learn more about their workshops and products.
One of the most recognizable faces on the internet these days, Lilly Singh first got her start on YouTube under the name, IISuperwomanII. Her story really begins after she graduated from York University with a degree in Psychology. She has since stated in YouTube videos that after her graduation, she struggled with depression. When she started making videos later in 2010, she found it to be a therapeutic outlet. According to Lilly, she chose the name “Superwoman” because that’s what she called herself when she was younger when she “wanted to deal with life’s obstacles like a hero.”
Her channel soon took off and her tomboy, down-to-earth personality became her staple. As her fanbase grew, so did recognition of her “catchphrase” and signature red lipstick, so in 2016, she launched her own lipstick line called “Bawse.” The next year, she released her first book, How to be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life, for which she went on tour for a few months later on in 2017.
Lilly has always made sure to stay connected to her audience, going on tour in 2015 (for her documentary, A Trip to Unicorn Island) and in 2017 (book tour), filming daily vlogs on her second channel, and regularly having live-streams where fans can ask her questions.
Her success is likely due to her unique style, but also her constantly trying something new besides just YouTube videos. Just this past March, it was announced that Lilly will host her own late-night talk show, A Little Late with Lilly Singh, which premiered this September.
In just nine years, Lilly went from a depressed college grad to touring the world, having her own lipstick brand, writing a book, achieving 14.9 million subscribers, and hosting her own show on NBC. With the help of the internet, Lilly Singh branded and marketed her signature personality to the world.
