Archive for Women Entrepreneurs – Page 12

Zandra Beauty

Posted by Emma O'Toole 
· Saturday, September 28th, 2019 
· 2 Comments

Zandra Cunningham is an 18 year old young entrepreneur who is obsessed with lip balm. At 9 years old, her dad decided to stop funding her guilty pleasure. Since then, she has developed her liking for lip balm into a $500,000 chemical-free skin care company approximately nine years later. Her 50 plant-based products consist of a nourishing hand and body lotion, exfoliating sugar scrub, and an acclaimed lip and body balm.

It all started with help from her mom with a mail-order kit and researching for perfect skin care recipes using ingredients that had at their home. They made plant-based lip balms and lotions for themselves, and then decided to sell them at their church. After experiencing much success through purchases her church, she went to farmers markets and craft shows, and that led to a big operation that outgrew their kitchen. Her family moved her business into incubator space built specifically for budding entrepreneurs in Buffalo, New York.

Zandra Beauty’s first big break came after selling products at Etsy’s Open Call Contest. She was put in front of  major company buyers from Whole Foods, Macy’s, and HGTV. She ended up winning a contract with a craft and stationary chain, Paper Source, and put out 8,000 units in 110 stores during the holiday season of 2016. Her products caught the eye of Good Morning America, and after appearing on their show segment “Deals and Steals”, her online sales took off and big companies like Costco, Wegmans, Whole Foods, Zulily, Rite Aid, and Walgreens placed their orders. In 2017, Zandra won $15,000 for her business plan from The Pitch, a spinoff from New York State’s 43 North startup business competition.

She was approached by Target to put together a limited time release gift box for Black History Month. Target requested the inventory stock to reach to 707 stores across the country, and it was way more than double what Zandra Beauty has ever produced.

Zandra wants to branch out her cosmetics business into the cosmetics and hair care industry, which will be made with all natural ingredients sourced in the United States. She is the youngest person ever to graduate from the University at Buffalo’s School of Management’s Allstate Minority and Women Emerging Entrepreneurs program at age 13. She is now working toward a business degree.

Zandra faced a problem with her dad not supplying her money to buy lip balm, and for her to be able to wear lip balm, she had to make her own. From this situation, she was able to create a thriving business that specializes in chemical-free products to help people with their skin.

Zandra Beauty’s products can be found today at Target and Costco. 10% of her sales are donated to support girls’ education.

 

 

Check out her products: https://zandrabeauty.com/

 

2 Comments
Categories : Beauty, Creating, Enviornmental, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Redemptive Entrepreneurship, Women Entrepreneurs

GossBoss

Posted by Paige Crawley 
· Monday, September 16th, 2019 
· 1 Comment

“I’m GossBoss.”

That’s how Cristin Goss introduces herself. Those three words completely encompass everything she’s built her brand up to be: power, confidence, and identity. Cristin is a brand photographer and visual storyteller working exclusively with female entrepreneurs.

Cristin co-founded a production company, Loose Canon Creative, in 2011. She worked as a marketing coordinator in a corporate office for almost three years. In 2016, she decided it was time to move on from the corporate world and start her own business. 

Cristin not only produces beautiful images and videos for her clients, but she also provides them with the GossBoss experience. She greets the client at each shoot with a special gift, usually tailored to their brand. During the shoot, they feel like a model with their hair blown back by a fan and pop music playing in the background, along with a team made up of a makeup artist, hair stylist, assistant, and brand coach.

Cristin’s work in the corporate world led her to a passion of female empowerment. While men would be put in “power poses,” women would be posed with less strength. To empower the women she works with, Cristin asks them to strike the power pose.

I have been a photo assistant for Cristin for almost a year now and I’ve really seen how her business has impacted the lives of the women who hire her. It is inspiring to me to see the effort  she puts into giving the client the product and experience they deserve. She puts the highest emphasis on building up women and encouraging them to feel confident in their own skin.

During one of the shoots I worked on, Cristin flipped the camera around to show the client a preview of her portrait. Tears welled in her eyes and she put a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t know I could look like that,” she said. “I really needed to feel this beautiful.”

These kinds of moments will always stick with me. Cristin has taught me that being in business is all about the customer. The true value is in how you make them feel through the experience you create and the attention to detail.

1 Comment
Categories : Creating, Female Empowerment, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Women Entrepreneurs
Tags :

Lauren Bush: FEEDing Millions

Posted by Char-leigh Bates 
· Monday, September 16th, 2019 
· 1 Comment

Lauren Bush, granddaughter of former President George W. Bush, was born in Denver, Colorado but was raised in Houston, Texas. She grew up in the spotlight, earning an internship with the NBC sitcom, Friends, and modeling. After graduating from Princeton University with a B.A. in anthropology and a certificate in photography, she signed with Elite Model Management. Although she loves modeling and fashion, her heart was pulling her in a different direction.

At the age of 26, Lauren Bush launched FEED Projects, which is a social enterprise. Emerging after Lauren traveled the world with World Food Programme, FEED believes what people choose to buy has the power to change the world. FEED offers everything from accessories to home goods, while working directly with artisans to provide sustainable lives for the partnership and families.

As of October of 2017, FEED Projects has donated over 100 million meals through their sales and fundraisers. Through her work with FEED, Lauren Bush was the first National Lady Godiva Honoree and in 2013, she accepted the Advocacy Award from the World of Children Awards. She was also named Fortune‘s 2009 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, the 2010 Accessories Council Humanitarian Award, 2011 Stevie Award for Best Non-Profit Executive, and named Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs.

Lauren Bush has impacted lives worldwide; she understood not only how to directly help feed hungry children worldwide, but how to create jobs for artisan individuals to provide an income for them and their families. She took two causes that she felt passionate about and figured out how to provide for both of them within one business.

Many young women looking to make a difference in this world can look to Lauren Bush. While incorporating her passion for fashion and feeding the hungry, she has helped to change the lives of many while being an inspiration for young, loving entrepreneurs everywhere.

1 Comment
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Beauty, Blog, Business, Charity, Fashion, Food, Social Entrepreneur, Social Impact, Women Entrepreneurs, Youngest Entrepreneurs
Tags : , , , , , ,

Stitch Fix’s Katrina Lake: Reinventing the Fashion Industry

Posted by Emma O'Toole 
· Saturday, September 14th, 2019 
· 3 Comments

Like most entrepreneurs, Katrina Lake never saw herself as an entrepreneur or starting her own company. Katrina Lake is the founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, and is now one of the wealthiest female entrepreneurs in the country.

After graduating from Stanford University studying economics and pre-med, Katrina worked at a consulting firm, focusing on retail and hospitality, which had yet to reach the digital revolution era. She realized that consumers found buying clothes online difficult because they had to go through millions of options available and pinpoint exactly which item they liked and would work for them. Katrina took this to heart and really thought how she could ease online shopping for consumers. Consumers are mainly concerned about style and fit of their clothes. After consulting and working as a venture capitalist, Katrina wanted to work for a company that would be the future for retail, but she realized that it did not exist anywhere as no one successfully merged fashion with data usage. So in 2009, she attended Harvard Business School to pursue a master’s degree in entrepreneurship.

For a class project at Harvard Business School, she used her findings from her consulting job with the troubles consumers had buying clothes online. Katrina desired to bring a better shopping experience into homes of women who did not have time to shop around or have access to a wide range of fashion options. She felt that shopping was broken, and at the time, e-commerce was not an ideal way to shop. So she asked herself what consumers really wanted out of retail, and came up with a personalized shopping service that uses algorithms and recommendations from stylists to curate boxes of clothing and accessories that matches a customer’s style and fit preferences.

For a small fee, customers would receive semi regular shipments based on their size, tastes, and information pulled from social media accounts like Instagram and Pinterest. What they want to keep, they are charged for, and what they do not like, they could return. This would combine the personal shopping tips she got from her sister and a Netflix style e-commerce model. This is when Stitch Fix was created.

Stitch Fix officially launched in 2011, and has experienced significant growth with 2.7 million customers and more than $1 billion in revenue.  Katrina Lake was named number 55 on Forbes list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women. Today, Stitch Fix employs around 85 data scientists and more than 3,700 stylists. They have expanded their collection lines to not only women’s clothing, but men’s, kids, maternity, petite, plus size, and basics.

Through hard-work and innovation, Katrina Lake revolutionized the fashion industry through Stitch Fix. She was able to find a gap in online shopping and provide consumers with an easier and more convenient way to shop. Katrina introduced the market to personalized styling to the average customer, not just to the rich. Stitch Fix is reinventing the apparel industry and the way customers buy their clothes.

 

Find out how Stitch Fix started

 

 

3 Comments
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, eCommerce, Fashion, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Uncategorized, Women Entrepreneurs

Gladiator Lacrosse and Rachel Zietz

Posted by SpicherJM18 
· Monday, December 17th, 2018 
· 2 Comments

Rachel Zietz was only 13 years old when she created her company, Gladiator Lacrosse. While she had been playing she has found that her equipment was extremely expensive and not that durable. So she set out to do something about it. While attending the Young Entrepreneurs Academy in Boca Raton, Florida she pitched her idea of inexpensive and durable lacrosse gear to investors. She received $2,700 for the development of her idea! After her first year of being in business she achieved over $200,000 dollars in sales. And after two years, she had reached over $1 million in sales. This is an awesome idea in which I can very well relate too. I have been playing lacrosse for many years and one of the main barriers that stop new players from joining is the expensive price of lacrosse equipment. I hope that Gladiator Lacrosse can continue to help with taking down that barrier and inviting many new players into the sport.

Image result for gladiator lacrosse

2 Comments
Categories : Building, Business, Engineering, Fitness, Great Ideas, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Women Entrepreneurs, Youngest Entrepreneurs

Liza Koshy

Posted by WileyHM18 
· Friday, December 14th, 2018 
· 3 Comments

Liza Koshy’s internet fame has grown rapidly over the past few years. She started small on Vine but her following soon grew. She became loved for her relatable humor and ridiculous puns. She started a YouTube channel and is active on other social media sites, such as Instagram. Her YouTube channel currently has over 16 million subscribers.

Liza was born in Texas in 1996 to a bi-racial couple. Her mother was white and her father Indian. She is able to look at her heritage with a sense of humor and often references it in her jokes. She is able to joke lightly about any topic, and viewers love the various characters that she makes up, such as Jet and Helga.

Since her reputation has grown, Liza has been able to take advantage of acting opportunities, such as a role in the Hulu show Freakish and one in the comedy/horror film Boo! A Madea Halloween.

Liza Koshy’s net worth is currently $4 million, and she is only 22 years old.

I admire and enjoy Liza’s ambition and humor and hope to see her success grow in the future.

3 Comments
Categories : Women Entrepreneurs, YouTube

Content Creating in 2004 – Ashley Qualls

Posted by nakhlacn17 
· Wednesday, December 12th, 2018 
· 7 Comments

Ashley Qualls was not out to become a millionaire when she launched her tutorial site whateverlife.com on the fledgling Internet of 2004. Catering primarily to other young teens her age, the 14-year-old posted free graphics she’d created, building a community around sharing free web layouts and graphics for anyone with an interest in design. Qualls later expanded the site to share free MySpace layouts and HTML tutorials so other teens could build their presence on the popular social media platforms of the times. The site itself developed into a social platform of sorts, with other users sharing their own designs.

The concept of sharing designs over the internet and connecting with other individuals with similar hobbies is very familiar to most millennials today, but it was fresh enough in the early 2000s that Qualls, by unintentionally tapping into a fresh market, gained almost immediate success.

From the beginning, Ashley had perceived the site as a hobby; everything available on her site was free and it had all spun out of her own personal interests. Once she realized she could start making money off what she was marketing, she began hosting ads on the website. Although this was her only source of revenue, Ashley generated so much web traffic due to her content that by age 17 she had become a millionaire.

As social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have taken off, Qualls has maintained the site, increasing its social community appeal, and it is still incredibly successful today. An early lesson in internet content creation, Qualls’ instant success might not occur in the same quick way today as it did back in the early days of the Internet, but the options available to current bloggers and designers are perhaps now more plentiful than ever.

7 Comments
Categories : Communication, Creating, Social Media, Uncategorized, Websites, Women Entrepreneurs
Tags : , , , , ,

Always More

Posted by stewartlg1 
· Saturday, December 1st, 2018 
· 1 Comment

As a Christian, we are running this race we call life with the end goal of crossing the finish line and into the arms of our Father as he whispers, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” The race is tiring and we sometimes get distracted from where the finish line is. We hesitate, we fall, we get up again and we keep going, because we ALWAYS have MORE strength, endurance, and power in Christ.

Audrey Roloff, the founder of her blog AujPoj started writing the phrase “always more” on her arms and shoes in high school. A dedicated long distance runner, she kept every pair of running shoes she has ever owned and would spray paint them red, fill them with prayers and notes, and finally mark the bottom with the phrase “Always More” to signify the end of an era and the start of a new one. Her inspiration behind the phrase comes from Ephesians 3:20, “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine…” As she got older, she started applying the phrase to more in her life beyond just running. “When I get cut off on the road or treated rudely, these words remind me that there is ALWAYS MORE to someones’ story than what I know. When I am filled with joy, these words remind me that Christ will ALWAYS overfill me with MORE joy as I look to Him.”

What started out as a personal mantra for a girl growing up in the Pacific North West has now turned into a national movement.

Roloff started her blog AujPoj as a way to relate running and faith, but expanded it to include DIYs, tutorials, devotionals, personal stories, and more to create a true hodgepodge of creativity and inspiration. She has since expanded her blog into a shop inspired by the phrase, “Always More” where she sells clothes, hats, stickers, and more.

She frequently references her “always more” mantra with applications to her own life experiences to over 905,000 followers on her personal Instagram page. And with almost 75,000 followers on her shop Instagram page, Roloff’s personal motivation has expanded into a full blown business and ministry. Her mission to encourage other women to “ALWAYS believe in the MORE that is within them through Christ,” has reached young women all over the world. She’s also included an Always More Devotional which involves weekly text messages filled with encouragement, prayers, scriptures, and more to inspire and motivate you to always believe there is more to be found in Christ.

Audrey Roloff has created more than just a business. She’s created a movement. There is always more hope, love, and joy when we seek Christ, and she invites anyone and everyone to come alongside her to live out this truth.

Instagram.com/AudreyRoloff

Instagram.com/ShopAlwaysMore

https://www.aujpoj.com/always-more/

https://www.aujpoj.com/shop/

1 Comment
Categories : Apparel/Accessories, Beauty, Blog, Business, Creating, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Social Media, Websites, Women Entrepreneurs, Youngest Entrepreneurs
Tags :

ReThink to End Cyberbullying

Posted by YoungLB18 
· Tuesday, November 20th, 2018 
· 3 Comments

High school is a scary place, a time full of exploration and fun, but also a time of insecurity and anxiety. In today’s technologically led world, cyber bullying has become more and more prominent. 9/10 High Schoolers that are being cyber bullied do not report it, thus leading to higher suicide and depression rates. That is why 17 year old Trisha Prabhu started ReThink,”A patented technology that effectively detects and stops online hate before the damage is done” (ReThink).

Trisha Prabhu, creator of Rethink, an app to stop cyberbullying

Trisha who has been coding since she was 10 has always wanted to make a difference. She wanted to leave her footprint in the world by creating something that can make life better for people. “This app is now used in over 1,000 schools worldwide, the app been downloaded thousands of times on Google Play and the App store, and has been introduced to over 1.3 million students in Michigan as a part of their OK2SAY cyberbullying awareness program” (Chicagoinno). This app uses an algorithm that can trace hurtful speech and will ask the writer if they want to Rethink their post due to the potential harm.

This Chicago-born student has made a difference for so many people. After launching the app in 2014 she has found that 93% of the time users notified will change their post before putting it out into the web. This kind of an impact is huge, especially in a time where social media plays a key role in the formation of children’s lives.

Entrepreneurs can learn from Trisha by taking the talents they have and combining it with the passions they have to better the world around them. Trisha received $100,000 from the Shark Tank investors and is stopping cyber bullying one post at a time.

Trisha Prabhu, creator of Rethink, an app to stop cyberbullying

Beebe, Lisa. “ReThink: How Trisha Prabhu Created an App to Stop Cyberbullying.” Like A Boss Girls, 16 July 2018, likeabossgirls.com/rethink-how-trisha-prabhu-stops-cyberbullying-at-its-source-and-gets-100k-on-shark-tank/.

Hustad, Karis. “14 Illinois Teen Entrepreneurs To Watch.” Americaninno.com, www.americaninno.com/chicago/chicago-and-illinois-teen-entrepreneurs-to-know/.

Inc. “ReThink -.” ReThink – Before the Damage Is Done, www.rethinkwords.com/.

3 Comments
Categories : App, Shark Tank, Social Entrepreneur, Social Media, Technology, Women Entrepreneurs

Sixteen and Successful

Posted by Montgomerypa17 
· Tuesday, November 13th, 2018 
· 3 Comments

Billie Eilish is a 16 year old super star. She began her success, at the age of 15, with her debut recording of “Ocean Eyes” on Soundcloud. The single went viral and got over 132 million streams on Spotify in October 2018. Soon after her debut of “Ocean Eyes,” she created an EP called “Don’t Smile at Me” in August 2017. The EP was a success and highlighted her talents for Apple music to see. Apple music named Billie “Up Next” artist of the month in September 2017. 

Her first collaboration was with the popular artist Khalid. They created the single “Lovely” which debuted on the soundtrack for the television show “13 Reasons Why.” The two artists have similar styles in music as in no one is quite sure what genre the two fit in. Billie’s songs cover multiple genres, but have a distinct undertone that only Billie can create.

She gained popularity through her extremely unique voice and her crazy sense of style. She also has abstract music videos that can’t help but grab a person’s attention. Billie is known for saying what is on her mind and being very open with her mental health. She incorporates things she struggles with in her lyrics such as depression. Her songs have dark lyrics while having upbeat tones and music. People can easily relate to her because she has kept her humility throughout her busy year. 

Her latest single is called “When the Party’s Over” which describes a tough relationship that she dealt with. This single has been reacted to by many YouTubers. A vocal couch YouTuber, Tristan Paredes, reacted to her music video and got nearly 1 million views. The music video itself got almost 34 million views.

Billie Eilish may be only 16, but her popularity and career has taken off over the past year.

 

3 Comments
Categories : Art, Millennial Enrepreneuers, Music, Women Entrepreneurs
« Previous Page
Next Page »