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.
Archive for Young Entrepreneur – Page 6
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
For 16 years, Babur Jahid was raised in Afghanistan, leading him to see some incredibly challenging things during his youth. He observed as the people of his country fell from being in a democratic government to suddenly be in a country ruled by the Taliban. But after Jahid fled his country, he was still able to reflect on his past, giving him a unique perspective on the problems in his homeland. Jahid then had a new mission in life: to become Afghanistan’s Minister of Public Health.
But this 21-year-old realized that the problem of fixing the public health of a war-ridden country was a huge project. So, he decided to start with one piece at a time by creating the Resolution Project, which is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing affordable eyeglasses to Afghans. Because this enterprise is targeted toward the people of Afghanistan, Jahid’s brand stands out because it primarily focuses on the eyesight of people in developing countries, and with less access to facilities that address proper eye care. In addressing this issue, Jahid hopes to improve the country of Afghanistan by attending to the people’s basic needs, education, health, and equality for all in the workforce.
Jahid has inspired me to look at how I can take an item and focus on its accessibility, rather than reinventing an object that already works well. The problem wasn’t the product, it was the process for certain people in certain countries around the globe. Shifting the focus on a personal experience that stemmed from Jahid’s past certainly improved his business and helped it flourish and grow.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: https://resolutionproject.org/fellows/babur-jahid/
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.
Alina Morse, the founder of Zollipops, was only seven years old when she came up with the idea for her now incredibly successful candy company.
Alina and her dad took a trip to the bank to deposit a check and as they were leaving the bank teller offered up a lollypop to Alina, her dad told her not to eat the lollipop because lollipops have too much sugar in them and it was going to rot her teeth out of her mouth. So then and there Alina and her Dad got to thinking, why can’t there be a lollipop that tastes good and won’t rot your teeth out? The idea for Zollypop was born. Alina and her Dad came up with a sugar-free, gluten-free, vegetarian, non GMO lollipop made with only natural flavors and it has become hugely successful. After receiving so much positive feedback on their lollypop Lollypop expanded their product Line to also include other sugar free candies for customers to enjoy as well!
Zollypop has made it their mission to save as many smilies as possible so they have partnered with the Million Smiles Initiative to help fight childhood tooth decay which is America’s single most chronic childhood disease.
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.
Lily Born, founder of the Kangaroo Cup, was only seven-years-old when she had her initial idea for the business she now runs. Young Lily had a grandpa suffering from Parkinson’s disease. This disease attacks one’s central nervous system and causes muscle stiffness, difficulty with balance, and trembling hands, neck, and jaw. Lily noticed her grandpa’s issue with holding cups steady and felt bad for her grandma who always cleaned up after him whenever he spilled something. After noticing this, Lily decided to develop a cup that would stop the spillage.
Over the next three years, Lily perfected her design. Lily and her father even traveled to China to inspect the company and materials her business would eventually use. At age ten, Lily was prepared to officially launch her company “Imagiroo”. Her company made a specialty cup called a “Kangaroo Cup” which featured a design with three legs to add stability. Her cups are made with ceramic and plastic and made in multiple colors.
Lily Born has been able to sell ten of thousands of cups globally through her idea. She has gone on to win a multitude of different awards and has been recognized on many different platforms. This young girl is inspiring because she took a need she experienced first hand and made a solution herself. Her innovation is remarkable and she has the ability to impact the world with her solution. Not only was she able to help her grandpa, but she is now able to help others in similar situations.
Mia Monzidelis wanted a pony. But for kids like her who lived in the city, that dream wouldn’t soon be fulfilled. With a strong passion for horses, she invented the idea for Power Pony after having received a Hoverboard for Christmas. The young inventor noticed that if she set her stuffed pony over the hoverboard and sat down, her feet on the hoverboard foot pads, she could ride the pony around. What started as a child’s simple idea to pass the time, soon became a thriving business with the encouragement of her parents and the guidance of designers and patent attorneys.
In structure, the Power Pony is nearly identical to her original idea, plus some bells and whistles. It is a small plush pony attached to a chargeable Hoverboard-like motor. The child then puts his/her feet on the engine’s foot pads and can ride the plush horse around. The pony is even iOS compatible with its own app and boasts lights and fancy sound effects. The Power Pony became first available in the summer of 2021 and has turned out to be a fantastic solution for children who live in the city. The company has since sold almost five thousand mechanical ponies around the nation and in response to her success, Mia Monzidelis has donated part of her profits to the Family and Children’s Association of Garden City.
As an entrepreneur, Monzidelis is brilliant because she decided to capitalize on what young children do all the time… make do with what they have. By using her childlike creativity and putting two of her favorite possessions together, she invented a great business, thus teaching other entrepreneurs that great ideas don’t have to be something brand new, it can be a combination of things that already exist, things that you love.
Alina Morse is just an ordinary high schooler with an extraordinary passion for clean teeth. The 17-year-old is the CEO of a company called Zolli Candy. Zolli Candy creates lollipops, hard candy, and taffy all vegan, natural, KETO, gluten-free, and sugar-free. As a child, after having been offered a lollipop from a bank teller, she pondered over a major problem. Candy is terrible for your health and especially, your teeth. At the age of seven, she decided to act and spent two years over her home stove, endlessly researching, and questioning dentists and food scientists. The result was a lollipop sweetened by xylitol and erythritol, natural sweeteners that, due to their ability to neutralize the mouth’s pH, actually prevent cavities and tooth decay by lowering plaque and bacteria.
By the age of nine, Morse’s lollipop was finally ready and launched when Whole Foods Market picked it up. The new Zollipops became a bestseller on Amazon and were quickly adopted by Kroger in 2016 while Morse became an inspiring new face to the rest of the entrepreneurship and oral health world.
With her passion for healthy teeth and gums, Morse has waged a war against the tooth decay epidemic, specifically in children. In an act to save kids’ teeth, she began a “100,000 Smiles” campaign and in doing so, has donated thousands of Zollipops to schools and dentists and has donated her profits to oral health education. It is inspiring to see someone so young be so passionate about one area of pain, a passion she has nurtured since the age of seven and successfully weaved into her million-dollar idea. Morse is a surprising entrepreneur due to how she flipped the problem. She not only made candy harmless. She made it healthy.