2020 Didn’t Stop These Young Entrepreneurs From Hustling Their Way to Success.
Aluxers, today we’re leaving the Warren Buffets, Jess Bezos’s and Bill Gates behind and shifting our focus on some younger, up and coming entrepreneurs that have had a very successful 2020.
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These young winners learned early to always take the smart route. You can switch to the video version of this article to avoid reading the long article:
With that out of the way, it’s time to shine with this week’s number 1.
1
Marah Lidey
Marah Lidey is the co-founder and co-CEO of Shine, along with Naomi Hirabayashi. Shine was launched in 2016 and is a platform reinventing health and wellness for millennials through technology.
The self-care app has been downloaded millions of times and if you purchase the annual subscription, it only costs $4.50 a month.
The entrepreneur was originally working as the director of mobile product and messaging for DoSomething.org but felt completely burnt out. This app focuses on managing anxiety and stress and living a fulfilling life along with a positive mindset. It’s described as “a daily pep talk in your pocket.”
The App has a 4.8-star rating on Apple and 4.7 stars on Google Play
Starstrucked by the success of Mariah’s app? Check out these 15 Apps That Are Worth More Than $1 Billion
2
Ben Pasternak
This is 21-year-old Ben Pasternak, an entrepreneur from Australia. He’s the man behind Flogg, Monkey and Nuggs.
When he was just 14, he developed a game called Impossible Rush, which received millions of downloads. He then released a follow-up game called Impossible Dial. Wanting to pursue his entreprenial career, he left high school and moved to Manhattan.
From there he went on to develop Flogg, an app allowing young people to buy and sell merch. Monkey is a video-based app for teens to meet like-minded teens. This App made it to number 1 on the US App Store. It’s been downloaded over 20-million times and made over 20-billion calls. Hola bought Monkey in 2017 for an undisclosed sum of money.
In 2018, he started NUGGs, which is a chicken nugget simulation made from pea proteins. These days, you can get these delicious fake chicken nuggets pretty much anywhere.
3
Nina Rauch
Aluxers, you are never too young to make a difference in this world. Take Nina Rauch for example. She created a charity when she was 16 years old called Pink where she introduced Pink Week to raise breast cancer awareness, after her mom’s own diagnosis. She has raised over $500,000 and was named one of Barclay’s Future 100. The charity’s funds were raised mostly by Gen Z’s, and she’s hoping to bridge the gap between older philanthropists and younger philanthropists.
Nina is currently the Social Impact Coordinator at Lemonade. Which is an insuretech company in Tel Aviv.
4
Mikaila Ulmer
Speaking of bridging the gap between older and younger philanthropists, we introduce you to 15-year old Mikaila Ulmer. She was born in Texas and is the CEO of Me & the Bees Lemonade.
Mikaila started selling lemonade on her front lawn using her great grandmother’s recipe from the 1940s. She was only 4-years old at the time.
The recipe used honey from local bee farms and was so delicious the local pizza shop asked her to supply them with stock. That was the beginning of her bottling journey.
Since then, she has donated 10% of all her profits to charities saving the bees.
She received $60,000 on Shark Tank from Daymond John and in 2017, received $800,000 by a consortium of football players. Her lemonade is stocked in over 1,500 stores including Whole Foods, The Fresh Market and Kroger. She’s also introduced other bee inspired products including beeswax infused lip balms.
She recently launched a book called Bee Fearless, Dream Like a Kid and is actively working alongside the Healthy Hive Foundation to continue saving the bees.
5
Brendon Cox
Brendon Cox can remember the exact time he became addicted to being an entrepreneur. It was in 7th grade and his sister was making extra cash by babysitting. He was frustrated that he couldn’t babysit as most families wanted females, so he began searching the internet for ways to make money.
The number one result for his age was to sell candy at school. He says, “The next day I went to the dollar store where they sold a sleeve of three packs of gum for a dollar. In school I sold each individual pack for a dollar and made $56 in profits on my first day. At that point, I was hopelessly addicted to the world of entrepreneurship.”
He then bought an Instagram account with 100,000 followers for $900 and made his money back within a week. He went on to design phone cases, got them manufactured in China and shipped back to sell.
From there he formed Cox Visuals, Teen Assistant – an App that connected teens with odd jobs taking a portion of their earning and still manages to study at the University of Scranton.
6
Cole Bennett
Cole was in high school when he created a blog called Lyrical Lemonade. His mom helped him choose the name and gave him his first video camera. He then started directing music videos for local rappers.
Along with the music video uploads, Cole uploaded live show recaps, interviews, and doccies – which were well received. Lyrical Lemonade expanded and eventually Cole was working with artists like Famous Dex, Smokepurrp and Lil Pump.
What really put Cole on the map was Lucid Dream, which received over 480 million views on YouTube. He’s worked with many mainstream hip hop figures, has his own line of merch as well as a range of lemonade beverages under his name, Lyrical Lemonade.
Might be a good idea to collaborate with Mikaila Ulmer and release a limited-edition lemonade, bringing together two successful business powerhouses.
7
Timothy Armoo
Aluxers, if you’re looking to Timothy Armoo for inspiration, heed his words. He credits his success to maths.
A former maths tutor and now the CEO of Fanbytes, Armoo says that most of his team are computer scientists who rely heavily on algorithms to find their talent.
Timothy first launched a tutoring business when he was 14 years old and then launched a media company that he sold when he was 17. Fanbytes is his 3rd company which he developed alongside Ambrose Cooke, and Mitchell Fasanya.
Fanbytes helps big brands stay relevant for Gen Z and Millennials. They run branded collaborations with brands like Go Pro, Deliveroo, and Adidas together with social media influencers.
As Timothy puts it, social media content is “the next frontier of advertising”, affirming that “for too long ads have represented an interruption or intrusion on our daily lives rather than a seamless part of them.”
Fanbytes has been recognised by Forbes, Adweek, Huff Post and Business Insider.
8
Benjamin Hochheiser
Dubbed a “serial entrepreneur,” Ben Hochheiser started getting the taste for business when he was just 10. He sold necklaces and bracelets to kids at school.
His dad jumped on board and turned the small business into a 6-figure project. Within 12-months, the business had generated over $150,000 worth of sales.
Ben is now the co-founder of Blade Marketing and founder of Entrepreneur Blast. They focus on direct digital advertising, public relations and press release distribution.
The 20-year-old also has partnerships with FMA, Be Your Own Boss Advantage, and Unblinded Mastery.
He leaves some key advice to up and coming entrepreneurs, “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal”.
9
Caroline and Isabel Bercaw
When Caroline and Isabel were 11 and 12, they were using bath bombs to help soothe their aching muscles after training sessions.
The sisters weren’t wild about the products they were using, because the bombs would leave rings around the bath or wouldn’t wash off their skin, so they’d have to shower after their bath. They decided to create something more sustainable and organic.
They spent hours mixing up recipes and after a year of experimenting – Da Bomb Fizzers came to fruition.
To date, the girls have 200 employees and have sold over 10-million bath bombs. They’ve supplied Target, CVS and Costco. They’re turning over $20 million a year and were listed in Forbes 30 under 30!
10
Moziah Bridges
AKA – Mo Bridges, this is the founder and CEO of Mo’s Bows. Mo’s Bows is the largest handcrafted bow tie making company, and its humble beginnings were simply handmade bow ties sold on Etsy.
Moziah started his company when he was 9-years old, because he wanted something to make himself look sharp, but couldn’t find anything to match his personality. So, he and his granny started making bow ties at her kitchen table in South Memphis.
He has since released a book called Mo’s Bows: A Young Person’s Guide to Start-Up Success and he has a range of face masks, bow ties, ties, and pocket squares available on his website.
His dream is to become a fashion mogul, and he’s well on his way to achieving that dream.
Question:
Aluxers, did you ever start a small business when you were a kid? If so, share your experience with us, we love hearing from you.
