As a thirteen year old lacrosse player, Rachel Zietz was upset with the low quality lacrosse equipment that she found on the market. Since lacrosse was her favorite sport, she wanted something that would help her perform well, but all the equipment she found was very low quality and way too expensive. As a result, at the young age she was, she decided to start her own business, Gladiator Lacrosse, that would provide the kind of equipment that she wanted to have on the field. As a young, new entrepreneur, she had to figure out how to design and market her products, but it paid of since her business has been a huge success, giving her opportunities to be on “Shark Tank” and specially featured in Forbes’ 30 Under 30. Not only has she had those major accomplishments so young in life, but her company is creating millions of dollars in revenue every year. In 2018 at the World Lacrosse Cup, they used Gladiator goals and Gladiator filmed their first commercial for ESPN. This was huge publicity for Gladiator and Rachel had only just graduated high school at the time. A way she was able to expand her company was actually during the COVID 19 pandemic. Surprisingly, people were interested in learning lacrosse at home and so she created special equipment that offered smaller sizes for people to practice at home. Zietz recently graduated college from Princeton having studied business and participated in the club lacrosse team. In an interview she said that it would have been naive of her to skip college and try to figure everything out on her own because even though she already had a profession going into college, she still had so much to learn about running a business. Like many entrepreneurs, Rachel saw a problem and felt the need to fix it with a product, but what is especially inspiring to me about Rachel is that she basically took this business into her own hands at such a young age. I’m sure she had some help, but for the most part, she had to figure all of the ins and outs of running a business by herself. I also liked that even though her business had exploded and been super successful, she was humble enough and recognized that she didn’t have everything figured out and that she needed schooling to help her. That is a great trait to have in an entrepreneur.