Ben Stern was a freshman in high school when he was taking biology. The topic of recycling came up and Stern began to turn his entrepreneurial wheels. At the age of 16, Stern had brainstormed a single-use shampoo ball. This idea was spurred from the thought that “the furthest room away from the recycling bin was the bathroom”. He saw his mom disposing of a tide pod and wanted to eliminate as much waste as possible. The Nohbo Ball was pitched on Shark Tank in front of billionaire investors in 2016. Stern eventually landed a deal with Mark Cuban, who secured an investment of $100,000 for 25% stake in the company. Thanks to the help of Cuban and his own entrepreneurial drive, Stern now has purchasing agreements in Europe for 76 million units. An idea that started in a high school classroom has turned into over three million in further investments.
Stern claims that his innovation is not without obstacles, however. Starting a company from scratch can seem like an insurmountable task, especially for a teenager with no practical business-world experience. Product development was seen as very challenging to begin. The chemistry for the product had to be redesigned due to the powder-based product breaking up. Stern has since pivoted to a liquid drop-based design that is more effective. Stern partnered with Absolutely Natural, a manufacturing cosmetics company, and has been able to scale production, seeing that the Nohbo Ball produces 180 million drops per year.
This story is not only inspiring to me nut also extremely relevant. Stern took a simple problem based on relevant information that he was learning in the classroom and implemented it in his own entrepreneurial sense. The product was not only innovative, as it adapted towards today’s climate of ecofriendly products and sustainability, but Stern faced many obstacles along the way. Stern did not have a straight path to success, but he had to entirely redesign his product to see that it fully worked and could continue to be scaled.
For more about Stern’s story, click here.
This is so cool! What an incredible idea, and at such a young age! Love how you talk about his resiliency in his convictions about green products.
I like how young this entrepreneur is. It shows how one can be any age when they succeed, as long as they find a place to use their innovation. I also like that he was able to find a cause that would get people on board because of the social aspect (environmental).
This is such a unique story! I like how he applied what he was learning in school to create such an innovative product. It’s interesting to see the ways he had to pivot to create the best possible product for his consumers. I also like how he created a product that is ecofriendly as many markets look for this in products when purchasing.