At only 16 years old, Ben Stern had an idea to reduce plastic waste. He was only a freshman in Highschool but wanted to change the way people throw out single use plastics. In 2016, Ben pitched his idea called “Nohbo” to Shark Tank and secured a deal with Mark Cuban. Nohbo is a brand that found a way to encapsulate personal care items into a water soluble film! Nohbo works with personal care brands to provide them with single use, plastic free versions of their shampoos, conditioners, soap, lotions and more. These brands can then use their Nohbo products to display in places like hotels where the usual mode of personal care is cased in single used plastic that gets thrown out right after. Ben believes the best way to reduce plastic consumption is to get rid of it completely. His brand gets rid of plastic
consumption by providing a new way to engage with personal care items! I believe Ben Stern is a great example of a successful entrepreneur because he took something he was passionate about and turned it into a successful business that benefits the earth. Ben has created an extremely successful business by entering the personal care market and doing something different than everyone else. Something that I think is cool about Ben’s business is that he didn’t keep his invention just to himself but primarily functions as a b2b company doing businesses with other companies that would benefit from his plastic free pods. Having a business to business model makes Nohbo very sustainable and allows a lot of room for future growth!
This is such an interesting business, especially since it is an entrepreneur so young that is tackling such a weighty and complicated topic! I agree that this is a great example of entrepreneurship where we can see how passion/interests and problem solving can combine into an effective solution.