Calloway Cook, created Illuminate Labs, a supplement company that posts its pills’ test scores on its website to be viewed by all. Cook recognized the need for a company that is honest and open about the quality of its supplements when he entered the market as a customer seeking such a company. When he found that others had the same concerns about the cleanness and safeness of supplements, he founded Illuminate Labs. He believes that money should not be prioritized as highly as health, and he wishes he had recognized that earlier in life. Starting a different business while in college, Cook failed to create success on his first try. He learned from his experience with that first business, using his found knowledge to create and run Illuminate Labs. Cook highly recommends The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, which seems to correlate with his experience starting a business, failing, and trying again to create a more successful one. One tip that Cook advances is to take a whole day off each week; he says that Sunday is good because business partners are less likely to try to get a hold of you. I find joy in the fact that Cook, though he may or may not be a Christian, believes that what Christians call a “sabbath” is good for mental health. It is not surprising that God knows what is best for humans, since he made them; people are likely to pick up on some knowledge of what is healthy on their own, but God has always known how people function, and He has provided commands and advice that promote health in the Bible. Cook may not call his off-day on Sunday a sabbath, but he has discovered its benefits.
Archive for Young Entrepreneur – Page 5
Brandon and Sebastian Martinez run a business called Are You Kidding Socks. Brandon who is now 13, and Sebastian who is now 11 are one of the youngest entrepreneurs out there. The way that they stumbled across this idea was when Mrs. Martinez noticed how Brandon and Sebastion loved wearing crazy socks around. She then asked them if they wanted to design new sock ideas and this is where one year later Are You Kidding Socks started. The Martinez brothers found that people can express themselves through crazy socks. They took an industry that has been around for decades and decided to make it more fun and attracted a whole new market.
While making a profitable business they also decided to give back to the community and work with some major charities. Here are a few charities they collaborate with: Live Like Bella, Make A Wish, Autism Speaks, and Cowboys Who Care. Creating this brand wasn’t easy because Are You Kidding Socks had to compete with major mainstream companies like Nike, Adidas, and other brands. The entrepreneurial trait that they stuck by and that has helped them to find success is creativity. Every pair of socks are different resulting in major uniqueness. This is something that big companies fail to do because they often have to create many products resulting loss of uniqueness. Both young boys show how even the simplest twist to a common product can appeal to many people. You don’t have to come up with a crazy complex product you just have to find something that people are appealed to.
Dustin Williams, a Mississippi boy with love for cars, moved with all he had to Southern California after graduating high school. He moved into a friend’s house; all he had was a Subaru WRX and a camera. He began making money through photography by working at a high-end car dealership and doing weddings. He also had a YouTube channel that began seeing some success. As he grew his photography business, Legends Media, he made his own shirts and wore them in his YouTube videos. His audience enjoyed his sense of style and his brand and encouraged him to begin selling apparel, which he then did. His brand, Legends Media, saw very early success among his fans and quickly grew. Today, he does monthly drops based on his life and YouTube channel as well as a subscription for monthly t-shirts and other benefits. He now has 675k subscribers on YouTube and continues to grow at a rapid pace.
Dustin has been an entrepreneur from the start! He began making money by doing photography for people and then reinvested that money into what he loved, cars. He then used his cars to provide content for YouTube, and the rest is history. He has inspired me and many others to do what they love and to go the extra step. The motto he carries in his life and shares with others is “Do More.” He encourages his audience to always go the extra mile, because it may pay off in the future. His entrepreneurial mind has inspired so many, including me. His ability to make a living doing what he loves is very inspiring and makes me want to do the same!
Morgan Swank may be young, but she is experienced as any veteran producer in the business. Morgan Swank is the CEO of “Moonscar Productions”. You may have not heard of her but you’ve heard of what she has worked on. She has worked on projects like “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”, and “Saturday Night Live”. Morgan is also an Emmy-winning television writer and has worked on Broadway Video productions.
Most people see Entrepreneurs as business people, but Morgan breaks that mold. Coming out of college, she joined the entertainment industry working on small projects as an employee. Morgan began to see obvious pay gaps and racial, sexual and religious bias in Hollywood, and decided to begin her own production company that would highlight these issues. Majority of the employees at Moonscar are Women, and LGBTQ+ people. Her films work to highlight racial, gender and sexual biases and highlight the people within these under-represented groups.
Morgan runs a very risky business. What she is doing is extremely different from what any major production company is willing to do. Her plan is not what the status-quo would accept and that means her success is up in the air. She could pick up eyes and gain a lot of traction, or fail horribly and that is one of the issues of the production industry. What gets the money is trends and flashy productions. Going out of the “norm” can be risky but Morgan is willing to risk her success to highlight under-represented groups.
Morgan has created something very special and isn’t trying to go AGAINST major production companies. Instead she is creating something totally new, and has found incredible success through that. She is currently working on 3 music videos, 2 short animations and one feature for Sundance Labs. Through her risk, she found major reward and traction in the industry.
Perhaps fear can best drive someone towards success. Well, that was the case with young Mikaila Ulmer, whose fear of bees drove her to create a delicious honey and flaxseed lemonade concoction at the age of four. To conquer her fear of the little pollinators, Ulmer took initiative to understand bees and their environment and after looking through a cookbook from her great grandmother, she found her great grandma’s special recipe for flaxseed lemonade. She decided to add a bee-inspired twist to it: honey. What started as a lemonade stand in her front yard and at a few youth entrepreneurial fairs grew into Me & The Bees Lemonade.
The business started to take off when a local pizza shop asked her if they could sell her product. She agreed and in doing so, was forced to start bottling her lemonade. A few years later in 2015, Ulmer took Me & the Bees Lemonade to the TV screen, appearing on Shark Tank. She walked away with $60,000. Me & the Bees Lemonade has, since its beginnings, been sold in 1,500 stores all over America including Whole Foods Market, Kroger, and The Fresh Market, to name a few.
From the beginning, she’s been donating to save the honeybees since they are such an important part of agriculture. Ulmer donates ten percent of her profits to charities that support the honeybees. Furthermore, she has established The Healthy Hive Foundation, a nonprofit that educates people and supports beekeepers and research. Mikaila Ulmer is a great example of not creating something entirely brand new, but something with a brand new twist: honey-sweetened, flaxseed lemonade. Mikaila Ulmer is a great entrepreneur because she saw that something great (her grandma’s lemonade) could, with a little innovation, be made even better.
Jack Bonneau was eight, he asked his father for a lego deathstar. Jack’s father told him to raise the money himself. It may have seemed crazy for someone to ask an eight year old to raise $400 all by himself, but Jack’s father knew what he was doing, and suggested Jack might start with a lemonade stand. At the Denver farmer’s market, Jack set up his first stand. Within 12 weeks, Jack had raised $900. With his father’s help, Jack set up a website that gave other kids the option to set up their own lemonade stands. But this was just the beginning.
It was sheerly on accident that Jack ended up on the Shark Tank. He was in New York City to see the Tonight Show, and coincidently heard that Shark Tank auditions would take place in Manhattan the next day. Excited about the prospect, Jack showed up bright and early and gave his pitch when it was his turn. He got accepted a few weeks later. His pitch highlighted marketplace building and how other kids would get entrepreneurial experience, and asked for $50,000 for 10% equity. However, the sharks felt that his business needed to grow more, and instead offered $50,000 with 2% interest. Jack accepted.
Jack’s business now offers kids a marketplace where they can sell their products online or through one of his physical locations. As for the lemonade stands, kids and their parents can work shifts to earn money while not having to deal with the hassles and challenges of setting up their own market places.
In addition to his business, Jack had donated to charities and spoke in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. for the annual board of directors meeting event.
Now in his early teens, Jack had taken what he learned about raising and managing funds, and turned it into a thriving business. What makes Jack so inspiring is how he accepted what seemed like a daunting challenge of raising $400. It takes a special mentality to get up and do that instead of just whining about how hard it would be and giving up. Jack story teaches us how facing our giants instead of turning away and refusing to give up is vital to being successful. Hopefully this inspires you to not give in when the challenge before you seems too big to overcome.
Rich Rafferty is a young flight instructor at High Flight Academy in Butler, PA. Although he is an outstanding instructor, he is not limited to that role. Rich is an entrepreneur in the world of Aeronautics. He produces quality social media content on a daily basis, using Tik Tok, Youtube, and Instagram as his main platforms. His content is focused on helping flight students accomplish their goals, learn at a faster rate, and improve their lifestyle. Rich has grown to about 50,000 followers across platforms, and shows no signs of deceleration.
Not only does Rich Rafferty produce social media content, he also has started his own business called Aviator Accelerator. The mission of Aviator Accelerator is to help aviator’s improve through mentoring. The goal is to help each aviator improve themselves inside and outside the airplane. The process allows for students to “get through flight training easier, faster, and with more money in your pocket than you would elsewhere.” Rafferty is also a Mastermind Facilitator, through L3 Leadership, where he leads a group of young leaders and takes their leadership to the next level.
Rich’s passion for leadership and success is truly admirable. He is a motivated individual that will not stop innovating and building upon his strong foundations. He has already accomplished so many entrepreneurial feats in such a short period of time. It is amazing to think about all the success that will come in the future. Rich dedicates most of his success to a mental toughness challenge called 75 Hard. 75 Hard is a challenge that develops immense mental discipline, requiring the completion of a number tasks every single day for 75 days straight. Personally, as someone who has also completed the 75 Hard challenge, I can attest to the fact that it is not an easy task but the rewards are well worth the hard work! The challenges include 2 workouts, 10 pages of a book, a gallon of water, a diet of your choice (no cheat meals), no alcohol, and a progress picture every single day. Not only did Rich complete 75 Hard, but he did the entire Live Hard program, that extends for the rest of the year. While doing all of this he built the beginning of his entrepreneurial empire.
Aviator Accelerator: http://stan.store/AviatorAccelerator
Lasso Gear is an athletic apparel company based in Los Angeles, California that specializes in performance socks. Lasso Gear implements scientific research with personal experience to present socks that mimic the technology of ankle taping and ankle braces to provide faster, more easily accessible heightened performance and increased recover. Lasso Gear was started by a young entrepreneur named Partha Unnava, a friend of mine, who had a serious ankle injury playing basketball in his youth. Partha was frustrated with the limited options of recover for his injury so he used his background in biomedical engineering to a create a visually elegant sock that provided very similar benefits to ankle taping or braces. I have spoken to Partha several times during at my previous job, and he has described his upbringing and key points to being successful as a young entrepreneur. The two points that stood out to me the most was the importance of being unique in a very competitive space and implementing one’s own story or background into their product. Partha described the intensive research and trial and error he partook in to finalize his product especially in an extremely competitive space such as sportswear. Partha stresses the need to stick out in one way or another in order to gain any sort of competitive advantage especially as a small business. Furthermore, implementing one’s own life story, upbringing, background, etc. can be used to bring a unique aspect to a product or service. People tend to gravitate towards a product if the meaning behind it is well produced and presents heightened value.
In a world full of stressors and increasing anxiety, two students from the University of Southern California decided to address the situation in a new way.
Brian Femminella and Travis Chen, the creators of SoundMind, were 20-years old when their idea was born. With extensive research on music therapy and neuroscience, these entrepreneurs created an app to aid in the fight with a multitude of mental disorders. The main goal of the company was to bring awareness to this rising issue, especially with the impacts of COVD-19 on mental health. Thus, the app was born.
The app’s design is unique. Femminella and Chen use the power of binaural beats and soundscapes to help users deal with stress, anxiety, or trauma. The music has been developed specific to the app by different artists on the SoundMind team. The more you listen to the music, the more the app tailors the music choices to you. It keeps track of the music you find most relaxing and the AI sound recommendation remembers your choices. Since the app’s release, it has also shown that users sleep better, focus better, and feel less suicidal. This app has had an amazing impact so far.
The SoundMind website highlights a few other benefits of using their app:
- Health security and compliance
- Analytics and Insights
- Music customization
- Integrations
- 24/7 support
- Rapid Response and Intervention
The integration feature allows you to link your SoundMind account to the Apple Health app so you can keep track of how you feel and your improvement.
The brilliance of this app aligns with a lot of scientific research on our brains and how they react to music. If you constantly feel overwhelmed by your anxiety, this app can help calm your mind and help you refocus. If you are interested in trying out the app, you can go to their website to check it out.
Lily Born is the 16-year-old creator of “Imagiroo”: the invention that helped Born’s grandfather who had Parkinson’s Disease. This young entrepreneur identified a pressing problem throughout the elderly community at a very young age by observing how easy it is for people like her grandfather to spill their drinks.
The love for her grandfather and the problem at hand drove Born to be even more observant. She began to draw inspiration from the objects around her. In doing so, she learned to reinvent the concept of the cup so that it had three legs attached to it. The modification would improve the stability of the cup when it was placed on the table, which was a massive benefit to people who physically shake like Born’s grandfather. She called her invention “The Kangaroo Cup”, and even saw its use when it came to her father, who almost spilled his cup of coffee on his laptop.
Even at a young age, Born has inspired me to identify even the most common problems that everyone faces, and how one can use inspiration from other objects in life to “mash together” and create a working product. (In Born’s case, this would be a mash-up between a mug and a stool). Though the new cup looks a bit crazy, the innovation in itself was incredibly simple, and Born showed how one can produce a prototype with very limited supplies, like how she did with her project in a ceramics studio.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://www.imagiroo.com/about