Stephanie Conway made a career in brand marketing and events once she graduated from University of Los Angeles. Stephanie worked in public relations for awhile until she quit and started her own marketing virtual assistant business. Circumstances happen in everyone’s life that potentially change the trajectory of their life. Same goes for Stephanie. Stephanie moved back to the UK after a death in the family. She realized later that she thrived much more in the United States. She moved back to the states and continued to thrive. Stephanie had created an impressive resume while working on campaigns with the top influencers and celebrities of the world. Stephanie’s business allows her to life the exact lifestyle that she needs in order to continue to thrive and be successful. I find her lifestyle remarkably interesting. I think that her values of something as simple as the sunrise has made her travel the world more than I can fathom. Stephanie is truly inspiring because of her story as well as how enthusiastic she is about her work. Stephanie is a big advocate for people wanting to become entrepreneurs but who may be too afraid to do so, because of the competition within a space. Stephine believes that people can be innovative and succeed in what they are enthusiastic about. I wonder if Stephanie utilizes her travel to meet new people, network, and build relationships with people or if she purely travels for her enjoyment. I feel like her lifestyle puts her in such a unique position to meet all sorts of influencers and celebrities from around the world.
Archive for Women Entrepreneurs – Page 4
Tehzeeb Lalani, a young entrepreneur based in Mumbai, India, seeks to heal peoples’ relationship with food. She owns the company Scale Beyond Scale, a Mumbai-based company that consults clients on nutrition. Scale Beyond Scale is designed to help clients move beyond mindsets of short-term weight loss goals and on to mindsets of wholistic and long-term health. Lalani seeks to teach people to design behaviors that they can keep for a lifetime. Working with clients including those with health concerns such as diabetes and heart disease, Scale Beyond Scale is equipped to help people look at issues other than weight loss. She calls the movement toward wholistic health” more sanity, less vanity!” Lalani believes that two strategies for success in implementing ideas are setting deadlines and having a partner for accountability. “Telling people about the idea and that you will bring it to life in a few weeks/few months is also a great way to ensure you hold yourself accountable,” she says for an interview with ideamensch. She is also fond of her morning routines, which include meditation, breakfast, an hour of work, and a yoga class. She says that because she lacks control over the rest of her day, her morning is important for her to feel centered and grounded; she can then tackle anything that comes her way next. I think Tehzeeb Lalani conducts herself with thoughtfulness in both her personal context, with her morning routine, and professional context, in her field that prioritizes psychology. People would do well to slow their lives, think hard, work hard, and take care of themselves as Lalani does.
Adelle Archer, CEO and co-founder of Eterneva, is on both the Inc and Forbes 30 Under 30 lists. In addition, Mark Cuban invested in her business when she went on Shark Tank in 2019. Eterneva is a business that Archer created after her friend and mentor Tracy Kaufman died from pancreatic cancer. The company produces diamonds out of loved ones’ ashes; Archer conceived of Eterneva because at the time, there were not many options for memorializing passed loved ones. Although cremation is at an all-time high popularity, the ashes get thrown away after about one generation. More lasting, however, would be diamonds made by Eterneva. Diamonds, Archer believed, not only allow people to mourn, but they also allow people to celebrate. I love Archer’s view that people should both mourn and celebrate. The idea is one that Christians should take to heart, as we recognize that death is not part of how the world should (and will) work, and yet hold that it is a gateway to the sweet next life with our loving Savior. Archer knows that the seven to eight month process for making the diamonds is not a drawback but a strength because it gives people time to mourn and process the death. The Eterneva team sends videos, pictures, and updates to mourning clients as they wait for the diamonds, which I believe is an innovative way to care for people. On the celebration side, the Archer counts on the diamonds to encourage people to share stories about the people who died. According to Archer, the diamonds help people to lean into the subject of death instead of turning away from it. Archer believes, and I wholly agree, that our culture hides death too much, and that communication about death is vital to caring for grieving neighbors.
Brown Girl Stationery was founded by Kamaria Warren (13) and her mother. The two started this business after going shopping for backpacks, school supplies, and t-shirts, but finding none that represented black or brown girls. The inspiration behind BGS was “to develop a brand that black and brown girls could identify with.” Kamarias hope for her brand is that it inspires anyone that comes in contact with it.
https://brown-girls-stationery.myshopify.com/pages/meet-mari
After looking through some of the success stories on the Young Entrepreneurs Academy website, I came across a 14 year old girl who started the company Unstoppable. Unstoppable was started by Taylor Ryan, a 14 year old lacrosse player. The inspiration for this product came from Taylors personal experience on the lacrosse field. On her website she states ” I was getting tired of being slowed down by painful hits to the chest while playing lacrosse.” Before her product, there was not a protective cup sold for women to wear while playing contact sports.
Taylors product is essential to protecting the physical heath of female athletes. As she states in her website, impact to beast tissue can lead to non-cancerous lumps to form and appear as tumors. These lumps then lead to the formation of firm scar tissue. Taylor provides all of this information as to why her product is needed in women’s sports on her website.
In high school I played lacrosse, a product like this would have been incredible on the field. Playing contact sports with little protection was always a concern, especially when mens lacrosse has much higher standards for saftey. Taylor is completely innovating the realm of women’s sports with her product. She is raising the bar for women’s sports protective gear.
Often Entrepreneurship students are asked to think outside the box. To find pain, find the problem and brainstorm a solution. This is the exact formula the creator of Canva, and Aussie native, Melanie Perkins followed. After struggling to create her high school’s yearbook she knew there had to be a better way. She believed that in the future, publishing would be streamlined, and connected through the internet for collaborative work. Adobe and Microsoft were not accessible to high school students. “People would have to spend an entire semester learning where the buttons were, and that seemed completely ridiculous,” she said in one interview.
She told her boyfriend about her idea, and it took off from there. Transforming her living room into an office she began to research and develop her idea. The pair created Fusion Books to start. Students could collaborate online and submit them to a printer. From there they would be delivered to schools all across Australia.
Next, Melanie and her boyfriend-turned-business-partner set their sights on a new goal, Silicon Valley. During a conference in Perth, she was invited by Bill Tai to San Francisco to give a second pitch. There, Melanie had more time to go into detail about Canva, although it didn’t appear to go over well. “I thought that he didn’t really like what I had to say. He was on his phone, and I thought that meant he wasn’t really engaged in what I had to say about the future of publishing,” she said. In reality, he was busy forwarding her information to his contacts. She had great success after building relationships within Silicon Valley.
In 2012, her idea finally came to fruition. Lars Rasmussen, a co-founder of google maps, took an advisory role to help find a developer. The trio welcomed new team member, Dave Hearnden. After their first funding round, they had 1.5 million in investments- they had completely oversubscribed. The Australian government matched that total in a bit to keep the growing company along the native Aussie shores.
The site went live the following year, and revolutionized content marketing possibilities. As of today, Canva has assisted in the creation of over 2 billion designs. They are accessible in over 190 countries and continue their quest to help individuals publish anything, anywhere.
Have you used Canva before? I love using it for everything between Instagram posts and stories to staying organized with school. You can check them out on their socials or visit their website to get started!
Dasha Derkach started her company, Enchanted Scrunch, in 2021 after struggling to find the perfect scrunchies for her outfits. Pairing her passion for fashion with her sewing skills, Dasha was able to grow her business to include over 300 designs (all of which are handmade)! When the 14-year old entrepreneur initially promoted her products on TikTok, she had no idea that she’d cultivate a loyal customer base and nearly 186K followers.
What is most impressive about Dasha’s story is her incredible work ethic. Not only does she manage her own company, she is still a full time student and dancer. While she doesn’t make every scrunchie herself now that the orders flood in so frequently, Dasha is a fair and equitable boss who makes sure to pay her employees (parents) for their hard work.
Dasha has put the ‘fun’ into ‘functional’ with her high quality products, so make sure to check out her shop!
In 2013, Bonnie Chiu launched her social enterprise Lensational to help underrepresented women share their stories. Since then, Bonnie and her team have taught photography to a thousand women in 23 different countries. The Lensational program provides women with practical vocational skills as well as emotional and financial support and training. These women’s stories invite the audience to see the world through their lens. Bonnie’s success is Lensational launched her career in global development and gender equality.
More recently, Bonnie has been appointed to the board of LHA London, writes as a Forbes Senior Contributor, and serves as a member of the Expert Review Committee of the World Benchmarking Alliance’s Gender Benchmark, a member of Steering Group of Big Society Capital’s Women in Safe Homes Fund and as a Non-Executive Director of City to Sea.
Have you seen these shoes?
These are BANGS Shoes, created by Hanna Davis. After teaching in China, she noticed the green canvas work shoes worn by locals and was inspired to create change. She came up with the idea to use shoes to help workers provide for their families and build self-sufficiency in other countries. Backed by her family, she was able to invest in an initial shipment. She had a website, business cards, and a model. She paid the manufacturing fee and was delivered no product. As she started over and began to save again, she worked as a bartender. One night she struck up a conversation with an elderly couple who took an interest in her. They began to ask her about herself, and Hanna began to grow uneasy at the targeted questions, not wanting to disclose the specifics. She took down their information and later that week, decided to look him up. The man turned out to be a retired VF executive. VF is a corporation that owns outdoor adventure and apparel companies such as Vans, Supreme, The North Face, Jansport Dickies, and more. Two months later, George and Gayle Darrah become signed investors and business partners.
BANGS Shoes comes from the Chinese character “to help” and the brand prioritizes self-sufficiency. They source their materials ethically and employ the working class to help manufacture their products. They then take 20% of their profits and loan them through a non-profit to help other entrepreneurs get started. They have helped over 5,000 entrepreneurs in over 12 different markets in 79 countries.
Today, BANGS can be found all over Instagram, promoting outdoor adventure, encouragement, and positivity. Their unique shoes are a talking point and a casual staple in closets. On their webpage, they feature which rotates to highlight one of their entrepreneurs. Another section, titled “15 Things You Can Do Right Now” encourages movement and connection. Through its mission statement and engagement with customers, the brand effectively uses its platform to help others and create positive change in local economies.
If you would like to check them out you can find their Instagram Here
Or click to view their Website.
Oprah Winfrey is definitely not what you would think of to be a typical entrepreneur. She doesn’t have just one great company or show. Oprah’s first big gig was her being on the local black radio station. The managers of the station were very impressed with her oration and passion on the station, which allowed her to be able to make her way up through the rankings of the radio station and than also allowing her to be able to make it onto bigger radio stations. Her appearance on the radio stations has definitely helped her career explode as a entrepreneur. She has been able to successfully build her own TV show called The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah is also the chairwoman and CEO of Harpo Productions. Harpo productions is a multi media production company that Oprah has created as a subsidiary of her entertainment and media company Harpo Inc.
Personally, I think that Oprah Winfrey has one of the greatest 
rags-to-riches stories. She had a very rough upbringing, her mother was an unmarried teen who was a housemaid which as you can imagine did not pay very well at all. She lived in such extreme poverty that she was bullied in school because she wore potato bags for her clothing because that is all that she had access to. Now Opera has a net worth of over $3 billion, she is the richest african-american of the 21st century, and she is arguably one of the many influential women in the world.
Oprah is also a very big influence with her journey with the Weight Watchers program. Once she was diagnosed with pre-diabetes she really started to take action on her weight loss journey. Through her journey not only was she able to be a great influence to many women throughout the world but she was also able to influence many of the entrepreneurial minded women because she was taking care of herself and she was still able to work on her career and her businesses.
Many people do not view Opera as an entrepreneur but she is a boss of her own life and she has been able to do many things for all of the companies, organizations, and shows/radio stations that she has worked with and for.