Age Is Just a Number: 7 Young Innovative Entrepreneurs That Made a Difference

In today’s world, we’re surrounded by innovators and people who want to change the world. Whether it’s about the IT industry, medicine or just giving back to the community, the one thing you can be sure we’ll never run out of, are ideas and I’m sure you have some too. That being said, ideas sometimes are just not enough. What you need to have in your mind is a path. A clear path to get to where you can turn your idea into a reality successfully.

And that’s exactly what these 7 entrepreneurs have done at a very young age. If you were looking for some motivation to get yourself on track, this is it:

1. Jack Kim

At 16, Jack started Benelab, a non-profit Internet search startup. Jack was born in Korea but moved to the USA when he was just in sixth grade. During his freshman year of high school, Kim got into making websites to generate money online. After some practice, he decided to use these methods of generating money online for charity. That’s when he founded Benelab, with six other high school students.

A non-profit search engine designed to make philanthropy easier by generating donations. Just like Google or Yahoo, advertisers pay money to display their advertisements on their websites. And all the income goes towards something good. Although Kim was unsure where Benelab would lead after high school, and is target of $100,000, you can see now that it’s still up and running!

2. Milan Kordestani

Milan, 19, is the CEO and Founder of Milan Farms. He established Milan Farms in early 2015 aiming to create an organic system to raise poultry and grow 100 % pure saffron. How it started was that Milan just wanted consumers to have a pure and honest option when it came to choosing products that went into their body.

He intends to provide an honest option to the consumer with complete transparency as to how the poultry was raised and how it comes to you. Although it’s still just a startup, Milan Farms has expanded to three separate farms distributing saffron worldwide and eggs all across the west coast.

Milan is currently focused on innovating and researching hydroponic, and aquaponics systems with growing saffron and experimenting on different salinity levels to ensure purity and quality of their crops. Now, that’s not something you see young kids doing every day, is it?

“Either you run the day, or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn

3. Catherine Cook

At the young age of 15, Catherine Cook and her brother Dave, 17 came up with the idea of developing a free interactive online version of a yearbook. They were flipping through their high school yearbook and were not able to get any useful information to find out if they recognized anybody. But it ended up as a terrible tool!

So they decided on making a much better tool to know people by putting it online. With the help of her elder brother Geoff, who is 11 years older than Catherine and was a budding web entrepreneur back then, they created MyYearbook.com in 2005, a social networking site based in Skillman, N.J.

They merged with Quepasa in 2011 which was a $100 million deal, $18 million cash and the rest stock. As yearbooks didn’t matter outside the US, the combined company was renamed to MeetMe to make their social discovery platform reach the world! Perhaps the next Mark Zuckerberg?

4. Rachel Zietz

Rachel Zietz founded Gladiator Lacrosse at 13, an online retail store. She was disappointed with the cost, quality and the lack of selection of existing product offerings. Her company was on track to top $1 million in revenue within less than two years of launching. She made a revenue of $10,000 from her equipment at a local tournament. Her sales reached $200,000 in the initial year.

Running her company doesn’t feel like work for her, she takes pleasure in it. Rachel also made it to Time Magazine’s Most Influential Teens of 2016 and Fortune Magazine’s List of Entrepreneurs Under 18. She has also appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank. So, if you’re having trouble finding clothes you like, why not just build a new brand?

5. Ben Pasternak

Ben, 20, born in Sydney, is the co-founder of the American technology and social media company called Monkey. It was launched in 2016, and acquired by Holla Ltd. in December of 2017. When he was in high school, he created two viral iOS games, Impossible Rush and Impossible Dial. He created Impossible Rush while he was bored in science class at school.

Benjamin Pasternak was described as a young innovator changing the world by Fortune Magazine and was also named one of the Time Magazine’s Most Influential Teens of 2016. As a teenager who cares about the world, he was included in Crain’s New York Business Magazine ’20 Under 20′ list. His app, Monkey, has been used to make over 1,000,000,000 calls and has over 3,000,000 users!

“It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” – Scott Belsky

6. Haile Thomas

When Haile was just 12 years old, she founded the Happy organization. Her father was diagnosed with Diabetes Type 2 so her mom began researching about how her husband can avoid taking medicines, as diabetes drugs have serious side effects. Haile started watching documentaries on nutrition. She also started cooking vegan meals with her mother. This paid off and her father’s health started improving greatly. This made Haile realize the value of healthy eating.

She then launched Happy, a youth health organization. The Happy Organization provides cooking lessons, informational workshops and summer camps for 6-13 year old kids. Haile Thomas is a vegan chef and youth health advocate. She has given TEDx talks and was even a guest of First Lady Michelle Obama at the 2013 State of the Union Address.

7. Ollie Forsyth

Ollie was picked on by bullies in school for being dyslexic. Being bullied can destroy one’s confidence to the point where they want to end it all. On the contrary, Ollie dug deep to explore the energy to beat all the odds and become an entrepreneur. He started his first business, Ollie’s Shop, an online gift shop, at the age of 13. His shop turned over $18,700 in its first year which has doubled turnover every year! Now, come on, is that not a little motivating?

He co-founded another startup, UniBell – a university platform, where students buy and sell products at the university campuses. At the age of 16, he opened his second online shop, Charmou. Ollie currently has three businesses, an online gift shop Ollie’s Shop, fashion retailer Charmou and a sideline in classic cars.

So, what else?

Well, now it’s your turn. No matter the age, through creativity and innovation, anyone can become a success in business. Challenges can be overcome and the results are amazing as we see in each of the above entrepreneurs’ case. These young entrepreneurs have proved that entrepreneurship has nothing to do with age.

Which of these young hustlers do you love the most and why? Comment below!

from
https://addicted2success.com/entrepreneur-profile/age-is-just-a-number-7-young-innovative-entrepreneurs-that-made-a-difference/