Entrepreneur Interviews - Under30CEO: Recent Episodes
None
The SEO industry is constantly changing, making it challenging for businesses to keep up with the latest trends. SEO is a challenging field, and success requires a combination of knowledge, creativity, and resilience. To understand the problems and victories of the SEO industry, we talked to Victor Karpenko, an expert in the field and the founder of SeoProfy.
Viktor transformed SeoProfy into a professional agency that approaches SEO from every possible angle. It is a company with almost 200 professionals who specialize in different aspects of SEO, ranging from strategic link building and content creation to meticulous technical optimizations.
In this interview, Victor Karpenko from SeoProfy shares the difficulties SEO experts face, the future of the SEO industry, and the approaches that help SeoProfy stay ahead of the SEO business game.
Q: Victor, thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. Let’s jump right in. The world of SEO is constantly evolving, presenting new challenges for businesses trying to stay on top. What would you say are some of the biggest hurdles companies face in today’s SEO landscape?
Victor Karpenko: Absolutely. SEO is an ever-changing digital marketing industry, so the rules and strategies constantly evolve. The problem of algorithm updates is one of the main difficulties for businesses associated with Google. These updates typically affect rankings, and if a website does not adjust its strategy, it can result in a loss of organic traffic.
Another significant obstacle is the growing competition. Competing for keywords is more challenging today than ever due to the increasing number of companies focusing on search engine visibility. This requires an integrated approach that is not based solely on keyword optimization techniques. When hiring an SEO agency, it’s crucial to ensure they understand this and prioritize strategies that go beyond just keywords to consider user intent and holistic website optimization.
Q: That’s a great point. Can you elaborate on how SeoProfy helps businesses overcome these challenges?
Victor Karpenko: At SeoProfy, we take a comprehensive approach to SEO. First, we thoroughly analyze the client’s website and target audience. This allows us to assess their needs and determine how our strategy can better meet their objectives.
Our team also monitors the algorithm updates and the trends in the industry. This ensures we can adjust the strategy as needed to maintain optimal visibility.
Yet SEO is more than just technical proficiency. We realize the need to produce engaging content that reaches the client’s audience and actually adds value.
Q: You mentioned the importance of high-quality content. Can you share an example of how content marketing can be used to address an unusual or specific product or service?
Victor Karpenko: Absolutely! Let us consider a rather peculiar case — selling a high-performance vacuum cleaner that costs around $12,000. In some ways, developing SEO content for such a specific item might appear to be rather challenging. Still, in our case, with proper creative thinking, it is possible to create a content strategy that will draw potential customers indirectly.
For instance, we could create content targeting individuals interested in starting their car detailing business. This content might include guides on equipment selection, business setup, and marketing strategies. Within this content, we can strategically highlight the benefits of using our client’s product as the best tool on the market for car detailing.
Furthermore, we could create additional content focused on financing options for car detailing equipment specifically tailored to the vacuum cleaner’s price range. This comprehensive approach addresses the user’s overall needs — starting a car detailing business — while subtly positioning our client’s product as the ultimate solution within that niche.
Q: That’s a clever strategy! It seems SeoProfy prioritizes a data-driven approach. Can you elaborate on the role of data in your SEO process?
Victor Karpenko: Data is absolutely crucial for proper SEO. It’s like driving at night with a blindfold on; somehow, you will get there, but it will take you forever. SeoProfy uses several KPIs to improve campaign performance and find problem areas.
This can be any traffic-related data, such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, conversions, or user behavior. Looking at this information will help us improve what we are doing and determine what we are not doing right. This enables one to have a more precise strategy, enhance content, and make data-driven decisions that will definitely benefit the client.
Q: Now that you have years of experience in the SEO business, what lessons have you learned?
Victor Karpenko: An important lesson is the ability to bounce back. SEO is very dynamic, and there are many challenges that you will face, so you should try your best to maintain a growth mindset. Another lesson is the necessity of creating a well-trained staff. I have already said that competent staff will influence your success. Finally, the last tip is never to forego the importance of data. Regular collection and assessment of data is essential in making the best decisions which may be beneficial.
Q: What are some current trends or challenges in the SEO industry that businesses should be aware of?
Victor Karpenko: One major trend is the increasing importance of voice search. As smart speakers and voice-activated assistants become more popular, it’s important to make sure your site is optimized for voice search. This means focusing on natural language queries and providing concise, direct answers. Another challenge is dealing with the constant updates to search engine algorithms. Staying adaptable and continuously testing and refining strategies are key to maintaining and improving search rankings.
Q: How do you approach algorithm updates at SeoProfy?
Victor Karpenko: We approach algorithm updates proactively by constantly monitoring changes and analyzing their impact on our clients’ sites. We also participate in industry forums and discussions to stay informed about the latest trends and insights. When an update occurs, we quickly assess its effects and adjust our strategies accordingly. This might involve tweaking content, updating technical elements, or revising our link-building approach.
Q: Let’s discuss the place and significance of technical SEO in the modern world.
Victor Karpenko: Technical SEO has become one of today’s most critical elements. Google and other search engines are getting better at evaluating many factors, so a website’s technical health is important. This involves improving site speed, ensuring sites are mobile-friendly, fixing crawl errors, and employing structured data. A technically optimized site reduces the frustration users may experience and helps search engines understand your content better.
Q: What about mobile optimization for SEO?
Victor Karpenko: Optimizing the site for mobile use is essential. More users are accessing the internet through smartphones, so Google and other search engines prefer sites that render well on these devices. This includes a design that works well on mobile devices, quick page loading times, and site navigation. Mobile SEO is one of the most important tactics, as a poor mobile experience helps bounce rates and lowers rankings.
Q: You mentioned some common misconceptions those new to SEO might have. Can you elaborate on that and perhaps share some advice for those starting in the field?
Victor Karpenko: A popular myth is that SEO is a fast way to increase traffic. However, it is hard to achieve sustainable SEO success because it takes time, effort, and regular optimization. Some novices have unrealistic expectations that they will achieve results immediately, and when this does not happen, they are often disappointed.
I advise those dipping their toes in the SEO world to be patient, stay persistent, and welcome the learning process. Do not be afraid to deviate from standards and make mistakes. Each time you fail to achieve your goal, you learn something new that you can use in the future. SEO is constantly changing, so it is vital to continue learning.
Another misconception is overdependence on SEO tools. While several tools may assist in automating and collecting data, they do not replace human knowledge. An SEO professional can help understand the data, determine the next course of action based on it, and respond to algorithm updates. The most effective tools are those in the hands of experts who know how to use them.
Q: Finally, what are the major trends and developments that will define SEO in the coming years?
Victor Karpenko: The future of SEO is about user experience and relevance. Google’s algorithm is becoming stricter and focuses more on user engagement, time spent on a site, and its quality in general. The new algorithm prioritizes websites that offer valuable and readable information for the target audience.
Additionally, more consumers are using voice search as a search tool. SEO practices will need to be adjusted to accommodate different voice searches and try to include longer-tail keywords and voice-oriented phrasing.
Moreover, artificial intelligence is also expected to become more important in SEO. AI may enhance content, conduct competitive analysis, and deliver personalized search results. The effective use of AI in businesses will help maintain and even improve a company’s position in the rapidly changing world of SEO.
Q: Victor, thank you for your valuable insights and expertise. This has been a very informative conversation.
Victor Karpenko: Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure discussing the challenges and opportunities in the world of SEO.
The post Challenges in SEO Business: Interview with SeoProfy’s Founder appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jackie Jackson, proprietor of multiple Kilwins chains in Andersonville, has been honored as the Illinois Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Noted for her business savvy, ingenuity, and adaptability, her recognition originates from her innovative strategies that led to the growth of her Kilwins branches.
She thrived through economic challenges while maintaining profitability across her businesses. Jackson’s tenacious spirit led to adapting new sales models, which earned her respect within the business community and acknowledgment from the administration.
Among the many accolades, Jackson’s dedication to her employees and relentless drive to offer excellent customer service did not go unnoticed. She is now a strong influencer in the Illinois small business, motivating other entrepreneurs.
Her journey has been marked by numerous adversities, including break-ins, disputes, and the pandemic, but like top brands such as Ben and Jerry’s and Callaway Golf, she has remained resilient against all odds. Her undaunted spirit and commitment to her dreams have placed her in an esteemed league of inspirational achievers.
In addition to her achievements, Jackson’s five Kilwins outlets in Chicago have significantly impacted the Illinois economy.
Illinois entrepreneur’s journey to successHer operations are not only supporting job creation but also contributing to increased retail sales and tourism.
Under Jackson’s management, the Michigan-based chocolate and ice cream brand has fostered a symbiotic relationship with local suppliers, boosting economic growth. As she continues to rise, her business strategies serve as sterling examples for emerging and existing entrepreneurs in Illinois.
Jackson’s empire expanded from one shop in Orland Park to locations in Andersonville, Geneva, and Evanston, including two downtown areas. With plans to open in new locations like River North, Elmhurst, and Buffalo Grove, her growth strategy keeps inspiring many as she plans to bring her products closer to more consumers.
Also working on a collaboration with Anthony Davis Jr., Derrick Rose, and Tim Hardaway Jr., she is set to launch a Fatburger chain in Chatham. This venture is expected to provide a community space for fans and revitalize the local economy by creating new jobs and boosting local businesses.
Jackson’s story mirrors resilience and determination. She started as a public school teacher and transitioned into property investment and business. Jackie’s hard work and intuition saw her business thrive despite a setback during the Great Recession. Today, she stands as a beacon of business resilience, inspiring many to dare to dream and achieve.
The post Illinois entrepreneur honored as Small Business Person of the Year appeared first on Under30CEO.
Are you interested in ensuring that your business remains flexible? If so, then you’re in luck. There are a few steps that you can take to ensure business flexibility so you can adapt your business model for new challenges and ensure that you are always delivering the best service to your customers and clients. Here are the options we recommend. Software First, you need to make sure that you are investing in the right software that your business needs. The right software will provide more flexibility as you will be able to connect with remote team members. You can use the same software to keep customers and clients engaged while ensuring that you can easily keep track of different jobs, projects, and even deliveries. For instance, you might want to think about investing in a solution such as BuildOps field service management software. A service like this will mean that you can easily monitor jobs and tasks while on the go and ensure that there is less chance of mistakes or delays. Hardware Of course, investing in the right software is just one piece of the puzzle when you are running your company. You also need to make sure that […]
The post The Secrets to Business Flexibility You Need appeared first on Under30CEO.
Job interviews are a scary and long process. Finding jobs in the current market can be difficult, in fact, even just getting noticed can be notoriously hard. Everyone has to find a way to sell themselves in order to get a job. But, the job interview is a daunting process for both parties involved. So, do you know the best answer to a job change interview question? How does one go about answering this?
The answer lies within the question. No, literally! The answers you give to interview questions are the key to either your success or starting back over at square one again. There are all sorts of questions that commonly get asked. These questions are often practiced with friends and family so that you can provide a decent answer.
Some of the questions that many tend to get are “What are your strengths?” or “What is your biggest accomplishment?” These are all serious questions that need serious answers. The business needs to know if you are a fit for the company. But, no question gets more anxious than the dreaded, “Why did you change jobs?”
How do you answer that? Besides flat-out lying, there are no wrong answers when answering the question. However, there is just one answer that is considered best of all. But, before we get to that, we need to go over the interview question itself. So, let’s dig in!
Why Ask the Question?One may wonder why a company wants to know the reason for leaving your previous job. However, it does make a lot of sense as to why they ask it. For example, if you left because your previous work said that you were late, disorganized, and did not work well with others, this tells the business that you are unreliable. In fact, they may just end the interview right there. Of course, no one expects you to be that terrible at a job, but the example is still right. The business has every right to know why you left the previous business and what were the reasons behind it.
Why Did You Change Jobs?So, why did you change jobs? One could give a list of reasons or flat-out state untrue things to make your last job look bad, but the best answer to give to the question is quite simple.
Just be honest.
As the saying goes, “honesty is the best policy”. From startups to generations-old businesses, all of them need to know the importance of honesty. Many people value it and it can hold a lot of weight. Breaking away from honesty can be dangerous as it will divide you and others from each other should dishonesty rear its ugly head.
How Honest Is Too Honest?Being honest is a good virtue, but being too honest can lead to trouble. While honesty is important in all walks of life, it is not honesty that leads to grief, it is how it is presented.
Often times people can be upfront or downright blunt when regarding certain subjects. This can lead to strife regarding others as one may have hurt feelings when blunt honesty is involved.
When applying this to a job interview and to the “Why did you change jobs” question, you need to be honest, but it is the tone and word choice that are going to matter. For instance, you may have had bad days at work, annoying coworkers, or even just idiotic bosses. While these are troubling things, it is how you present them that is important.
Here is an example. Instead of saying that you left your job because of an idiotic boss, say that you left because the boss was making poor choices that were affecting the workplace. With how you say it, the interviewers will notice that tone and will note that you are not bitter about leaving.
ConclusionHonesty is a powerful tool at your disposal. Using honesty, both the employer and employee, interviewer and interviewee, company and customers, keeps the business world going. Sure there are bad-faith actors out there in the world, but you can rise above that and be better. If you exude honesty then interviewees will give you honesty as well.
That two-way street is what builds relationships. When a company builds honesty with its employees and customers, it creates meaningful relationships and loyalty that can last a lifetime.
So the best answer for a job change interview question isn’t some secret one-size fits all. Instead, it’s just being courteous so that that your potential employer can gain insight into who will be hired. Not to mention, honesty is a good virtue to have. Keep that with you for the rest of your life because you will find it to be a good answer to many questions.
The post The Best Answer for “Why Did You Change Jobs?” Interview Question appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the name of your Business?Investables
Tell us about the companyInvestables simplifies the process of investing in high-quality physical assets by securitizing them and offering them to investors. Our team of industry experts carefully selects these assets, lowering the barrier to entry for investors looking to diversify their portfolios.
What is your company website?Investables.org
What is the size of the company?7
Where is the company headquarted?Wilmington, Delaware, United States
What is one thing your company learned early on?It is important to educate investors because knowledgeable investors are able to make informed decisions about their investments, which can lead to better outcomes. The main goal of an investment company is to bring in money for its customers and to make them happy. This requires a high level of trust between the company and its clients. By educating investors, a company can build that trust and demonstrate its commitment to helping its clients succeed.
What are the values your company upholds?1. Transparency: It is important for an investment company in physical assets to be transparent about its operations, including the sourcing and management of assets, and to provide clear information to investors about the risks and potential returns of their investments.
-
Diversification: A key value for an investment company should be to offer a diverse range of assets to its clients, allowing them to spread their risk across multiple asset categories and industries.
-
Expertise: The company should have a team of industry experts who are able to identify and evaluate potential assets, and provide guidance to investors on the best investment strategies.
-
Customer satisfaction: The ultimate goal of the company should be to make its customers happy by delivering strong returns on their investments. This requires a commitment to excellent customer service and ongoing communication with clients.
-
Responsibility: The company should be responsible in its business practices and take care to minimize any negative impacts on the environment or society. This includes ethical sourcing of assets and adherence to all relevant regulations and laws.
How would you describe the company culture?80% of our staff is in Ukraine, so:
The team has demonstrated a willingness to work under challenging circumstances, including in shelters and with electricity blackouts, and has found creative solutions to maintain a stable internet connection and power laptops and heaters. We have a strong work ethic, with a focus on delivering results despite heavy workloads and difficult conditions. Overall, it seems that investable culture values dedication and resourcefulness, and kindness in the face of challenges.
What is one trend in your industry you think will become mainstream?Technological advances: As technology continues to advance, it is possible that new platforms and tools will emerge that make it easier for investors to purchase and manage physical assets.
Economic conditions, such as interest rates and inflation, can impact the demand for physical assets as investments. So overall we will be seeing full ecosystems with API solutions, transparent market data, and exchanges just like with stocks and crypto.
What is a book that represents your company?Lean Startup
What does success mean for your company?Investables being the go-to resource for alternative investments in physical assets around the world.
What is one thing everyone should know about your company?
We make it easy to invest in the physical assets that perform.
What is the next big goal for your company?Offering API for other fintech companies and IRA custodians, and working with industry-leading companies helping them securitize assets and connect them with investors.
What impact does your company want to have?We want to democratize alternative investments in physical assets and open it up to everyone.
In three sentences, summarize your company’s experiences and learnings.
Great companies listen to their customers when building new products or services. This helped us create a solution that meets the needs and wants of our target audience, and fosters trust and loyalty among customers. While intelligence and expertise are important factors in building a successful company, ultimately it is the demand for the company’s products or services and the satisfaction of its customers that will determine its long-term viability.
The post Spotlight: Investables appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the Name of your Business?Green Psychotherapy, PC
Tell Us About the CompanyAt Green Psychotherapy, PC, we work with people who are searching for inner peace, but who all too often feel overwhelmed by eco-anxiety. It’s easy to get inundated by news reports of the latest climate disaster and to feel helpless and hopeless. After all, what can we do as individuals to cope with a global crisis? The key is to recognize that we need to take responsibility for the actions under our control while mindfully recognizing that we each have limits.
What is the Size of the Company?We have offices in the Northern Califoria cities of San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and Walnut Creek.
Where is the company headquartered?Berkeley, California
What is one thing your company learned early on?As long as we stay true to our mission of giving the best psychotherapy service we can, following our vision that links the healing of people with the healing of our planet, both our clients and our business will thrive.
What are the values your company upholds?
We believe that the foundation of successful psychotherapy is providing a safe space where people can be heard, understood, and accepted.
How would you describe the company culture?We are committed to discovering innovative ways that we can engage with nature—in the midst of our hectic urban lifestyles—to provide a greater sense of serenity and fulfillment.
What is one trend in your industry you think will become mainstream?As the coronavirus forced therapists to work with clients virtually, new opportunities arose for working outside the traditional therapy office. Increasingly, our clients engage in psychotherapy through telehealth sessions, which may well become the mainstream method of seeking therapy in the coming years. Many clients choose to have sessions outdoors when weather permits, letting us use elements of ecotherapy and mindfulness to feel more connected to the natural world.
What is a book that represents your company?At Green Psychotherapy, PC, we are taking the lead in bringing together experts in eco-anxiety from around the world, seeking their guidance to identify practical steps we can take as individuals to foster a sense of personal resilience and to overcome the feeling that we’re isolated in the face of a planetary crisis. We share these insights through books edited by our Founder and Director Dr. Douglas Vakoch, including the recent _Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress: Psychological Perspectives on Resilience and Interconnectedness_ (Oxford University Press, 2023) and _Eco-Anxiety and Planetary Hope_ (Springer, 2022). Links to these books follow:
Book 1
Book 2
What does success mean for your company?Our vision for success is summarized in our company’s motto: “Your Life. Your Future.” Our goal is to help each client identify what they want out of life, and how to get it.
What is one thing everyone should know about your company?It takes courage to start working with a new therapist. The very fact that a potential client is considering starting therapy probably means they’re getting ready to make some significant changes in their life. At Green Psychotherapy, PC, we work with clients as they make the sometimes tough (and rewarding) changes that will give them better lives.
What is the next big goal for your company?As we stay true to our roots in Northern California, we’re also exploring options for expanding more broadly into the Pacific Northwest.
What impact does your company want to have?We’re already having the impact we want: to offer help to each individual who comes to us as they decide how to make their life even more rich and more fulfilling than it has been so far.
In three sentences, summarize your company’s experiences and learnings.1. Learn to see the world through the eyes of your client. 2. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. 3. Once you’ve said what you need to say, be quiet and listen.
The post Spotlight: Green Psychotherapy, PC appeared first on Under30CEO.
Job interviews are never fun. They can feel intimidating and downright scary for some people. You need a job, you have to get interviewed. Makes sense. But, you also need to know about the company, what the job position is like, dress well, and answer all of their questions. Yet, how do you define success in an interview question? While it sounds like a simple answer, it is a loaded question as the answer depends on who is receiving the question. Is it measurable? Does it even matter? Maybe it’s just one of those questions they ask so that they sound important. Regardless of how you feel about the question, you need to make it a good answer.
So, let’s get into the thick of it. How do you define success?
Why Do They Ask the Question?There is an actual answer as to why interviewers ask the dreaded question. They want to see what kind of employee you are going to be. It helps them evaluate and determine the work ethic that you are presenting about yourself. The question itself has a question within it. It’s not, “How do you define success?” it’s, “How hard will you work to complete your goals?” Everyone wants to be successful, so you need to give them an answer that says that you are a hard-working individual that finds success through completing tasks and taking on challenges.
Employers may also ask this question to figure out what things you prioritize. But, your answer is going to come from the heart. Just be honest and tell them what you think success is. If it’s helping the company and your teammates or simply working your way up, it tells a lot about who you are as an employee.
Tips to Help You OutSometimes it’s hard to get the words out of your mouth. You don’t want to give a half-assembled sentence, but you want to convey your thoughts that are in a mature and laid-out manner. Consider some of the following tips to figure out an answer that suits you.
What Are Your Best Achievements?While coming up with an answer to “How do you define success?” is tricky, there are ways to help you come up with a good answer. Consider what your best achievements that you have accomplished are. You should think of at least a handful of times so that you have plenty of options. For instance, is it making leaps into a career you are passionate about? Is it having good grades in school? Or perhaps it was how well you did at your previous job? Regardless, look for the themes that accompany each of the accomplishments that you have thought out. If you find what that theme is, use that for your answer.
Success Is a ProcessA lot of people may consider success through constant short-term victories. For you, you might be thinking about working your way up to owning the company and being the executive. Both short and long-term goals are perfectly fine. You go at the pace that you are comfortable with. There is no race to success, it is what you did along the way that matters.
What Does the Company Think of Success?As you look at the job position, you may also want to start going over job interview questions. That also means learning what the company and its culture is like. How do they define success? Use that research to create a hybrid of what success looks like from the eyes of you and the company. The interviewers will understand that you are in agreement with the company’s values.
ConclusionHow do you define success in an interview question? Success should only matter to you. Your success is not based on your friends or a company. It is how you get through life and what you did to make your achievements come through.
The post “How Do You Define Success?” Interview Question appeared first on Under30CEO.
First impression matter a lot. Especially when it comes to a job interview. It can be as stressful as having the job interview itself. When it comes to getting the job, you want clothes that look nice and fit you well. But what about a casual job interview?
It is said that over half of first impressions are determined by what the interviewee is wearing. Managers have also stated that clothes can be a huge factor between candidates.
While it can be pretty easy to determine what to wear to a job interview, what does one wear to something more casual? Well, this article is to help men and women have a good understanding of what clothes to wear for a casual job interview.
Men’s Casual Business AttireThere are many jobs in the world that don’t require you to wear a suit and tie to the job or to the interview even. Instead, jobs like IT or more relaxed startups will have a more relaxed attire rule.
For men, consider the following clothing to wear:
- Choose either chinos or trousers to wear.
- Wear a button-up shirt with a collar.
- Make sure the socks are matching.
- For shoes, consider leather shoes.
- If you need documents to take with you, consider a satchel or a briefcase.
- Try to avoid wearing jeans or shirts without collars.
- No open-toe shoes like sandals or flip-flops.
- Keep yourself clean-shaven and trimmed.
- If you have long hair, tie it back.
- In some industries, like the ones in the creative field, add something to your outfit. Make sure it is still workplace appropriate, but it will give you an edge over your competitors. This is because it gives you more of a story, more dynamic even.
Men’s Casual EnvironmentFor places like coffee shops or family restaurants, the application can be difficult. Some have uniforms that are required to wear, while others just want you to look good. One way to impress is to wear something similar to the business’s uniform. However, it is still important to impress them. Therefore, follow these ideas:
- Regardless of the outfit you have, make sure that it looks clean and polished.
- Avoid jeans and go for a pair of dark pants or chinos.
- A buttoned shirt or collared polo.
- Don’t wear the tie unless it is part of their uniform.
- Casual loafers are a good fit with chinos.
- Hair needs to be trimmed and tidied.
- Avoid over-dousing yourself in cologne. You just need a spray or two.
- Make sure that your hands and nails are clean.
Women’s Casual Business AttireFor the ladies, having an interview is an exciting time. But whether you have a new job in the big city or just get a part-time job at a cafe, you need to be wearing the right stuff.
The dress code is what will help you stand out. While you want to impress your interviewers, remember, this is not the Met Gala, no need to go overboard with your clothes or over-accessorize yourself.
Instead, choose from these options for your job interview:
- Block-colored slacks or a knee-length skirt.
- With tights, ensure that there are no rips or holes.
- With whatever bottom you choose, the top should be a button-up shirt that matches.
- Try to avoid low-cut shirts.
- Shift dresses are great, especially with a jacket that fits with it.
- Skirts and dresses should be at the knee or lower.
- Covered shoes, no open toe.
- If you are wearing heels, pick something in the 0.7 in – 2.3 in range. (2-6cm)
- Add personality via your accessories. But, don’t overdo it.
- Avoid large bags if you can. Go with a matching handbag.
- Hair should be styled or tied back.
Women’s Casual EnvironmentAs stated above, some places are very chill and don’t need you to overdress. In fact, some places have you wear a uniform. While you don’t want to be too casual, you still want to be looking your best.
Consider the following:
- Smart slacks, dark jeans, and tailored jeans are your best bet for the job interview.
- Knee-length or mid-skirts can work.
- Closed shoes that are either flats or just small heels.
- Avoid the low-cut shirts and pick a blouse or shirt that fits and goes with your outfit.
- Try a cropped cardigan.
- Have a couple of pieces of accessories that show who you are as a person.
- Don’t overdo it with the perfume, just a couple of sprays.
- Hair should be neat or tied back.
ConclusionThe tips above are a sure way to get you to succeed in your job interview. But, consider this, society is always changing, thus our clothes do as well. In the past and present, many still don’t like tattoos or piercings on who they are interviewing. However, for the younger generation, many have at least one of these, if not both. Being picky with your interviewees is not a bad thing, but basing who they are on their appearance is not going to do you any favors.
Remember: never judge a book by its cover.
The post Casual Job Interview: What to Wear appeared first on Under30CEO.
Wondering how to think like an entrepreneur? Well, we’ll get to that but remember, entrepreneurship is hard. It’s mentally and physically demanding, and it comes with a lot of risks. In fact, 90% of startups fail. But if you’re up for the challenge, success awaits you. To become an entrepreneur, you need to develop the mindset of a risk-taker. You have to be willing to take chances and trust your gut, even when no one else does. That said, let’s see what it means to see the world through the eyes of entrepreneurs and how they think while pursuing their entrepreneurial passions. What Does It Mean to Think Like an Entrepreneur? Being an entrepreneur is not easy. It takes guts and conviction to start up a business, and even more so to keep it going through tough times. Many will tell you that you need to “think outside the box” to develop new ideas, but that is not necessarily all you need. What you need to do is to see opportunities instead of problems. It means seeing possibilities in everything, every problem, every solution, and every area of a market. Allow me to elaborate. For example, don’t reinvent the wheel […]
The post How to Think Like an Entrepreneur appeared first on Under30CEO.
The pandemic impacted the entire world, and we continue coming to terms with all the changes. Most of us are still processing everything that happened over the past few years. Naturally, COVID-19 will remain a topic of conversation for a long time. This includes post-pandemic interview questions too. Many people weren’t ready for these questions initially and therefore struggled to come up with the right answers. If you are one of the job-seekers preparing for your next big interview, you have to keep this in mind. Inevitably, you will be expected to answer some pandemic-related questions. Pandemic Interview Questions to Prepared For We get it! You want to forget the whole ordeal. So does everyone else! But the pandemic wasn’t something we could leave behind. The coronavirus has changed things drastically for everyone. And no one really escaped from it, even those few lucky ones who did not contract the virus. So you can’t expect hiring managers and employers to not talk about it during the interview. Let’s give you a brief idea of what to expect. How is Life Post Quarantine? This is among the most popular post-pandemic interview questions. But keep in mind, the employer really does not […]
The post Post-Pandemic Interview Questions and How to Answer Them appeared first on Under30CEO.
By the good graces of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I was granted the opportunity for a one-on-one meeting with one of my business role models, Jeff Bezos. As a young child, I was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). Duchenne is an inherited, progressive muscle-weakening disease. As a result, I’ve been in a wheelchair since age eleven. Sadly, there is no available cure for Duchenne. That is unless I fulfill my nonprofit’s cause, which is to Complete the Cure for Duchenne, www.DestroyDuchenne.org. Mostly due to my desire to destroy Duchenne, I had gained an interest in business and entrepreneurship by the time I was a young teenager. This meeting was a chance for me to leverage that knowledge with insider information from one of the world’s greatest innovators. By doing so, I considered the odds of completing my life’s cause to be much greater. What I learned from Mr. Bezos might surprise you. Even better, it could serve as inspiration to help you in your life’s cause. Focus on Listening to Learn Within the first two minutes of meeting with Mr. Bezos, I realized how focused he was and how intently he listened. He didn’t simply wait for the other person […]
The post The Biggest Lesson I Learned from My Meeting with Jeff Bezos appeared first on Under30CEO.
Ally started on the conventional route of finishing law school and taking a job at a firm as an associate, starting at 28.
The post Starting at 28 Helped This Lawyer Become an 8 Figure Entrepreneur appeared first on Under30CEO.
Top Collision Speaker’s We’re Looking Forward to Seeing and Hearing This Week! The Collision Tech Conference is one of the leading tech conferences of its kind. In fact, the Toronto-based event is the fastest-growing tech conference in all of North America — now with over 25,000 attendees. Each year, Collision features some of the top faces in technology, allowing attendees to engage with industry leaders. Plan to take-in all that the Collision Tech Conference has to offer. Beginning this next week — here are a few of the top speakers we’re looking forward to seeing. Seth Rogen You may know Seth Rogen as the hilarious guy from Hollywood blockbusters such as Superbad, Pineapple Express, and yes, my fav, Neighbors. But, did you know that he is also the co-founder of a new cannabis brand? Rogen, alongside screenwriter Evan Goldberg, co-founded Houseplant, a Canadian cannabis company that he has been hard at work on for the past five years. The company offers several different strains of marijuana, including indica and sativa (each with unique properties), and they officially launched this past April. Justin Trudeau Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quickly became a fan favorite after he was sworn in during […]
The post Top Collision Speakers We’re Looking Forward to Seeing and Hearing appeared first on Under30CEO.
Under30Experiences founder Matt Wilson interviews Tony Buettner for the Live Different Podcast as they discuss Blue Zones and how to live better… Nine to five is the new cancer,” – Tony Buettner Tony is a National Speaker and the Senior Vice President of Blue Zones. ‘Blue Zones’ are pockets around the world where people reach age 100 at rates 10 times greater than in the United States. The mission of the Blue Zones company is to help people live longer, better lives based on their research at these ‘Blue Zones’ around the world. Hear about National Geographic Explorer Dan Buettner and his brother Tony’s quest to find the places where people live to be over 100 years of age, disease free, and happy. Where are the happiest and healthiest places in the world… where are they and what can we learn? How can you optimize your environment, work place, office, place of worship, and community so you can live long and prosper? Did you know that only 20% of longevity is about your genes while the other 80% of living long comes from environmental factors? Listen in today to improve your quality of life and hear why eating a Mediterranean Diet […]
The post Learn How to Live a Longer, Happier Life & and Optimize Your Environment appeared first on Under30CEO.
Stop Procrastinating – Become a Super Hero – Go on an Epic Quest! In this week’s interview, Steve Kamb (@SteveKamb) from NerdFitness tells us about his transformation from super nerd to super hero. Instead of reading Harry Potter for the 19th time Steve took a deep look at his behavioral psychology and learned how to turn into a badass adrenaline junkie. Steve has lectured at Google, Facebook, and Vanderbilt University and is the author of the new book Level Up Your Life where he speaks about how to: Create your own “Alter Ego” with real-life super powers Build your own Epic Quest List, broken into categories and difficulty levels Hack your productivity habits to start making progress Train your body for any adventure Build in rewards and accountability that will actually motivate you to succeed Travel the world freely (and cheaply) Recruit the right allies to your side and find powerful mentors for guidance Hear about how Steve traveled to Monte Carlo, Machu Picchu, the Great Barrier Reef and the Great Wall of China like Tim Ferriss in the Four Hour Work Week… and then went on to build NerdFitness. Listen in for productivity hacks, life hacks, biohacks, and everything in […]
The post Learn How to Level Up Your Life appeared first on Under30CEO.
Want to start a business? Be an entrepreneur? Achieve the freedom that everyone desires? But are you sure entrepreneurship is for you? Are you pursuing your dreams for the right reasons? In this week’s interview, Jason Bay from Gen Y Success drops his formula for setting goals that are vision oriented AND executable. Jason Bay is the founder of GenY Success and the host of The GenY Success Show. He’s a millennial himself and he’s fascinated by what makes the successful entrepreneurs of our generation tick. He prides himself on being able to help millennials answer three critical questions: Starting a business sounds great and I have several ideas, but how do I even get started? I don’t want to quit my job unless I have a solid business…what should I do? I’ve started my business…now what? How do I get people to come to my website? At the core of GenY’s mission is solving a simple problem that many of us find ourselves in: “Finding a career path I love and having what it takes to make that dream a reality (and make it pay the bills)” Over the last 7 years he’s been dedicated to solving that problem by mentoring adults across the country. Listen in as […]
The post How to Dominate Your Goals and Achieve Freedom appeared first on Under30CEO.
It’s no surprise that super performers like Tim Ferriss, Tony Robbins, and Richard Branson all have a meditation practice. This brings us to Bill Harris, the author of The New Science of Super Awareness. Bill is a Zen Monk and the founder of Centerpointe Research Institute who has developed a technology that helps people feel the effects of meditation roughly 8x faster! The Holosync Meditation Program has had dramatic effects on the lives of people who have used his techniques, and now its your turn! If you want to learn how to meditate with 8x the effectiveness you can get a FREE copy of his book The New Science of Super Awareness and try a free demo of the track that allows you to hack your own neurology to become a more productive, happier, and calmer person. And finally, if you’d like more information about how this can benefit your life, check out our conversation with Bill below!
The post The New Science of Super Awareness appeared first on Under30CEO.
Work from anywhere, becoming a digital nomad, and trying to live the Four Hour Work Week, Jared O’Toole my co-founder of Under30Experiences and Under30CEO joins us in this episode from Costa Rica. There is an iguana fight on my roof, we talk minimalism, travel hacking, mileage programs, credit card awards points, lifestyle design, and freedom businesses. This is a conversation between two friends and business partners that is worth the listen. For everyone asking about my meditation program, her is what I use to be a healthier, more productive, more calm human… Get a FREE copy of the book The New Science of Super Awareness and the meditation track I use every morning at http://bit.ly.superawareness This episode is sponsored by Under30Experiences the travel community for 21-35 year olds! Join us in Costa Rica, Belize, Nicaragua, or Mexico this winter for a tropical escape 🙂 Finally, get a copy of the FREE Under30Experiences Escape Manual. Download on iTunes now! Get the podcast on your phone or listen below! The Live Different Podcast is sponsored by Under30Experiences our travel company for young people!
The post Travel Hacking + What Travel Teaches You w/ Jared O’Toole appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hey guys, today is a throwback! As a bonus episode of the Live Different Podcast I’m re-publishing what I think is the best interview I’ve ever conducted… Tim Sanders absolutely rocks this interview and tells you how to raise your brain’s capacity by 300%, make quick decisions, trust your gut, and build a startup culture that kick’s ass. Tim Sanders is a New York Times best selling author and was formally Mark Cuban’s right hand man. Tim has written numerous books with the most recent being “Today We Are Rich: Harnessing the Power of Total Confidence”. Tim is a leadership expert and speaks around the world on the importance of business relationships. Take a few minutes to download the podcast here… Interview Questions: 1. Tell us about your book for a minute 2. Could you elaborate on your quote “Leader’s need to define reality and give hope”? 3. You mention being tough but fair. Being Mark Cuban’s right hand man was he fair? 4. How do you take the trust in your gut and translate that to actual confidence? 5. If I’m staying up all night reading books when should I be worrying about cash flow? 6. What else are we […]
The post Stop Waiting and Start Making Decisions Now with Tim Sanders appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hey guys, I just got off the phone with Brandon Epstein from Entrepreneur Fitness and we absolutely crushed it recording our latest episode of the Live Different Podcast. Brandon just moved to Medellin, Colombia, on a whim and runs fitness boot camps for high performers. I had the chance to have a candid conversation with him and we cover everything from what being a well-rounded fit person actually means, to some really deep stuff about finding your purpose, neuroplasticity, meditation, collective consciousness, and integral theory. The fun part is that we didn’t know each other really well at the beginning of this but, as you’ll hear, our missions are extremely aligned. The good news is that we’re running a five-day Zen Fitness Retreat to Costa Rica from December 9-13, 2015. Some Key Takeaways “It just checked so many boxes in my life that I wanted to check for so long. Like becoming fluent in Spanish and living in another country and constantly putting myself outside of my comfort zone and really being able to laser focus on some things that are important to me right now.” “One of my missions is to dispel all of the nonsense that you hear […]
The post Podcast No. 2: How to Rewire Your Brain and Body for Maximum Results appeared first on Under30CEO.
“I want to work on things that have the potential to change the world.” We all have the ability to change the world in one way or another. For those in technology, it’s often more feasible than in other fields, but that doesn’t mean it comes easily. Many of the world’s best technologists remain behind the scenes while CEOs and their entrepreneurial counterparts receive the spotlight. There are some, however, who break out from the pack. Casey Pugh is one of them. Casey is the creator of the Emmy-award-winning Star Wars Uncut, Founder of VHX and the former Lead Flash and Senior App Developer for Vimeo. With the ability to code in over fifteen coding languages, Casey may seem like someone who doesn’t need the help of others to be successful, but he knows that very few of us, if anyone, can change the world all by themselves. “I think it’s really important to know what you’re not good at. You can find people around you to help elevate you and fill in the holes of your skillset.” Even with the knowledge of what you’re good at and how others can mesh with your skillset, sharing your vision properly can […]
The post A Technologist’s Quest to Change the World: Casey Pugh Interview appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jermaine Dupri is an entrepreneur, rapper, songwriter, and Grammy-award-winning producer. Among his impressive list of credentials is founder of Global 14 and So So Def Recordings. So So Def Recordings has released more than 25 albums over the past few decades, many of those reaching gold (500,000 sold), platinum (1M sold), and double-platinum (2M sold) status. From discovering, developing, and producing artists and groups including Kriss Kross, Bow Wow, and Jagged Edge, to being an accomplished rapper himself, his influence on the music industry has put Atlanta’s music scene on the map and turned his name into a household brand synonymous with music. Jermaine’s entrepreneurial start came before music, as a landscaper. “When I was around 11 or 12, I used to go around the neighborhood to cut people’s grass and go house to house to cut a deal with them.” He may have gotten his start cutting grass, but his passion was for music. When trying to make the cut in the music industry at the age of a 12, he didn’t have money or experience, but that wouldn’t stop him from pursuing his dream. “People always talk about the money they need to do it. I was […]
The post Making it Happen: Interview with Jermaine Dupri appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part ten of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. “If you have a dream, you have to follow it. There is a number of people who don’t, but if you do (have a dream), you have to go pursue it.” Dreams, like ideas you have for a business, aren’t valuable unless you act on them. They give us grand views and aspirations for the future, but it’s our responsibility to turn them from fiction into reality. Michael Callahan is a dream jumper. He recognizes problems and opportunities and leaps at the chance to take them on himself, instead of waiting for someone else to take action. Michael is co-founder and CEO of ONE, a technology company whose mission is to enable all the world’s communication. It’s not a small vision, but Michael and ONE don’t take that goal lightly. They aim to create new forms of communication while making existing forms better and flow more freely. […]
The post Dream Jumper – Interview with ONE’s Michael Callahan appeared first on Under30CEO.
The viral world we live in allows us to have nearly anything we want at our fingertips. Want to find out who starred in that movie you watched last night? Check IMDB. Who won the game last night? Check ESPN. What shoes is she wearing? This is where COSIGN hopes to be your go-to answer. Inspired by trying to find the product information of a pair of shoes in a commercial, Esosa Ighodaro and Abiodun Johnson started COSIGN. After searching for information online about the shoes, the co-founders realized that hundreds of other people were actively trying to find the information, but that information was not easily accessible. The manufacturers of the shoes would want the product information available, but there was no incentive for the advertiser to share details about the shoes because they were not the featured item in the ad. COSIGN is a social-based business that allows people to easily tag and find product information within a picture, making a post “shoppable” and allowing the tagger to earn commission if a sale is made from the post. After coming up with the initial idea, the pair worked on putting the legal structure of the business in place […]
The post Young Entrepreneur Interview with COSIGN’s Esosa Ighodaro appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part nine of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. The day after graduating college, most of us are still celebrating or recovering from the night before. One day after now 27-year-old Adam Goldstein graduated from MIT, he started Hipmunk with co-founder Steve Huffman. Travel-planning site Hipmunk now employs over 40 people and has raised over $40 million in funding since launching nearly five years ago. Adam describes the company as the “fastest and easiest way to plan travel, helping the traveler save time and money.” By focusing on the agony of a trip, visitors can view comprehensive search results that present the least and most agonizing travel options, showing time saved and time spent in transit depending on the option selected. Pain Debate While leading the MIT debate team his senior year, Adam was crowned the North American Debate Champion. As captain of the team, Adam was responsible for booking travel plans for the entire team. […]
The post Trep Travels – Interview with Hipmunk’s Adam Goldstein appeared first on Under30CEO.
Traveling by air is one of the most amazing, yet frustrating experiences of our lifetime. In an instant, we go from sea level to a mile high in the air, but if our plane is delayed 20 minutes, the whole flight becomes a ‘disaster.’ Maybe not a disaster, but we have high expectations when it comes to our personal travel experience. Getting there is supposed to be half the fun, right? The many rules and regulations and the worries that come along with traveling make every detail of a trip a possible stress point. One area of frustration while traveling is the wonderful box we cram our clothes and other needed accessories into – the suitcase. I’m confident in saying that all of us have had a rough experience at one time or another with a suitcase or the process of bringing a carry-on bag into the plane just to shove it into a small overhead compartment. Even worse is the possibility of having our luggage lost altogether. To help solve this, and many other problems associated with the suitcase aspect of travel, a team of young entrepreneurs created Bluesmart – the world’s first smart-connected suitcase. Their first product is […]
The post Million-Dollar Suitcase: Interview with Brian Chen of Bluesmart appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part eight of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. “My dreams drive me. I’m from a place where people have to make their own opportunities. If they can’t find a way, they make a way. I feel like my dreams have driven me to create Nothing Nice New York and other brands.” Bob Dylan once referred to New York as “a city where you could be frozen to death in the midst of a busy street and nobody would notice.” Nothing Nice New York(NNNY) founder E.K. Hormeku has made the most of his Brooklyn, New York roots as a fashion designer and young entrepreneur. Nothing Nice doesn’t exactly make you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside. Curious about why someone would brand a line of clothing with this name, I asked E.K. about the reason he chose Nothing Nice. The name stems from his experiences in New York and what people perceive as the […]
The post Dream Driven and Looking Good Doing it – Interview with E.K. Hormeku appeared first on Under30CEO.
Problem: Receiving packages from orders placed online is difficult in larger cities, especially in places where there is no active doorman to accept deliveries on behalf of residents. Unless the recipient is present at the time of delivery, which is typically during the hours of 8-5, a slip is left at the door, and the package is returned to the distribution center. Due to barriers with labor limitations, the USPS and UPS are not able to deliver during late hours of the day. Jesse Kaplan moved to New York in the summer of 2013 and immediately experienced this problem. After missing packages, he would spend hours waiting in line at “local” post offices trying to recover the items he had ordered online. “There was a big disconnect from the online shopping experience and the offline shipping experience.” He decided to tackle this problem head on. Solution: Jesse Kaplan, Founder and CEO of Parcel, describes the business as the “off-hours delivery service for online shoppers.” Parcel hand delivers packages to customers’ doors within a one-hour window of time when they are available, whether during regular business hours or in the evening. Pre-Parcel Even at the age of 23, Parcel is not […]
The post This 23 Year-Old Entrepreneur Delivers: Interview with Parcel Founder Jesse Kaplan appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part seven of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. Entrepreneurs have the ability to change the world around them. When faced with hardship and problems, they create the solutions to improve the world for themsevlves and others. Shradha Agarwal is an entrepreneur who is making an impact. In addition to being the President and co-founder of ContextMedia, she is a startup advisor, investor, founding partner of JumpStart Ventures, and was Chicago’s Moxie Award winner as the Tech Woman of the Year in 2013. Q: Do you consider entrepreneurs courageous? A: I think there’s an amount of courage in almost anything you pursue, but there’s probably a lot more perseverance and grit that’s required as an entrepreneur. It takes a lot of courage to launch, but it takes even more courage, persistence, and grit to keep going. Asked for her best piece of advice for fellow young entrepreneurs, Shradha encouraged others to look at the ‘why.’ “The first […]
The post Contextual Impact: Interview with Shradha Agarwal of ContextMedia appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jobs are not what they used to be for both employees and employers. The average worker stays at each position just 4.4 years, which leaves employers looking for new staff members at a rate drastically higher than that of just several decades ago. For the employee, the market has become more competitive and a college degree is no longer a guaranteed ticket to a profitable and happy career with a single company. Due to the competition in the job marketplace, employers need help finding the best candidates for the job. Companies spend on average around $3,500 on each hire, which is the primary reason that talent acquisition has quickly turned into a $124 billion industry. One startup tackling both sides of this problem is internrocket.com, co-founded by young entrepreneur Michael Somers. Michael describes internrocket.com as “a dating website, except for your career.” The site helps people find “quick projects to micro-invest in their future,” and can be described as an internship finder. These micro internships allow people to quickly test drive relationships at low risk. “It’s faster and less risky and ends up in a place where everyone understands the truth of the matter which allows people to make better decisions,” Michael said. Getting […]
The post Internship Finder: Interview with internrocket.com’s Michael Somers appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part six of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. ColorJar is a creative technology agency with expertise in positioning strategy and creating custom websites and mobile apps. They take pride in always delivering to their customers and being a little different from the industry standard. “We’re outsiders. Most people strive to be insiders, and that’s natural, but we strive to be outsiders and we started that way. None of us had ever worked for an agency, so inherently we did things a little bit differently.” David Gardner, who stands at 6’9”, isn’t an average guy and he embraces it. As the Founder and CEO of ColorJar explains, there are three traits that their team believes is at the heart of being an outsider: #1. They listen with the intent to truly understand. When you assume you know less, you tend to listen more. #2. They are unafraid to ask the tough questions. Asking those tough questions […]
The post Outside the Jar: Interview with ColorJar’s David Gardner appeared first on Under30CEO.
It takes courage to go where no one else has ever gone. Entrepreneurs often risk their financial future and well-being on pursuing an idea for the benefit of themselves and others. Being an entrepreneur of any kind takes courage and inner strength, but every industry and business comes with different challenges. If there’s one industry that’s easy to break into, it’s not apparel. The industry is crowded and controlled by large manufacturers and brands that have a strong grip on the market. So how does a startup break into textiles? By doing something that no one else had done before and executing it perfectly. Despite the seemingly impossible hurdles to overcome, some of the wildest success stories, most innovative products, and inspirational entrepreneurs have come out of the fashion and apparel category. Kevin Plank and Sara Blakely are just two of the billion-dollar successes who have changed the industry in very different ways and serve as an inspiration to others. On Under30CEO, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing several amazing young entrepreneurs in this industry. Among those are Nice Laundry, Voy Voy, Zara Terez, and Glamour Kills. Ten years ago, Mizzen+Main co-founder Kevin Lavelle was an intern in Washington DC […]
The post Entrepreneurial Fabric: Interview with Kevin Lavelle of Mizzen+Main appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part five of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. The Hiscox Courageous Founder Interview Series focuses on young entrepreneurs who have taken risks and dedicated their lives to becoming successful entrepreneurs, making a difference in their own lives and the lives of those they serve. Ryan Ballow is not only a courageous entrepreneur who risked his financial wellbeing when starting his business, he is a US Army veteran who selflessly served his country as a 19 Delta Calvary Scout and served in Iraq. A year after leaving the army at the age of 24, Ryan started a service-based business fixing personal computers. Betting his future on the business was a risk Ryan felt he absolutely had to make. Q: What was the biggest risk you took when starting and building iMobileRescue? A: “The biggest risk for me very specifically was losing my apartment and defaulting on my car loan – both of which happened at the […]
The post Powered by Brain and Courage: Interview with Ryan Ballow appeared first on Under30CEO.
Being young can be inexpensive if you choose to live out of your parent’s basement with little aspiration of improving yourself or going anywhere in life. If you desire to pursue an education, start a business, or go after your dreams in general, it’s usually going to take money to get there. The problem with being young and needing money is that no one wants to give it to you. Where do most Millennials turn? Credit cards. “About 50% of the population in America have credit card balances that rollover month to month,” said Paul Gu, young entrepreneur and co-founder of Upstart. Even after building up minimal credit using credit cards, banks are hesitant to issue loans, which would allow for refinancing credit cards at a lower rate. As of mid-2013, there was $850 billion in outstanding credit card debt in the US. School is the largest expense for many young go-getters. For example, the cost of attending Yale is over $60,000 a year including room and board. Yale happens to be the former school of Paul Gu, but he didn’t graduate, and it wasn’t because of the direct cost. Paul Gu wasn’t the first person to drop out of […]
The post Trading College for Credit: Interview with Paul Gu of Upstart appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part four of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. “When you start a business, there are two versions of driving a car off of a cliff. You’ve got the Dukes of Hazard style where there is a bridge on the other side; their at least aimed at something. The other is the Thelma and Louise (style), where there are no sort of goals other than the bottom of the canyon. When I drove my car off of the cliff, I was aimed very carefully.” Whole Whale founder George Weiner had spent seven years working from the bottom to the top of DoSomething.org, the largest organization for teens and social cause in the US, to become the organization’s CTO. He loved the organization and his position. So why did he drive his car off of the entrepreneurial cliff? His goal was to start an impactful digital agency that would increase the impact nonprofits have on the world. […]
The post Entrepreneurial Cliff Diving: Interview with Whole Whale’s George Weiner appeared first on Under30CEO.
Many of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world started showing signs of being an entrepreneur at a very young age. With both parents as entrepreneurs in the garment and textile industry, Zara Terez Tisch had all of the makings of a young entrepreneur. Asked about her first ever venture, Zara, Founder of Zara Terez replied, “My earliest entrepreneurial venture was picking up rocks in my backyard and turning them for about $1 on my corner.” These painted rocks turned a profit, but this wouldn’t be her only profitable business. Because of her parents’ careers, Zara understood the textile industry, but she wanted to take her own path and not just follow in her parents’ footsteps. Instead, Zara focused on marketing. After an internship with Coach, Zara took a job as a marketing associate with Marquis Jet. Although she wanted to pursue a career in marketing, Zara admitted that fashion had “always been in my blood.” It was bound to come out through her creative mind in one way or another. After seeing a sign that read “Create Your Own Handbag,” Zara stumbled upon a way to let her creativity and knack for apparel combine into a business. Zara asked […]
The post Sewn to Entrepreneurship: Interview with Zara Terez Tisch appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part three of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. Q: Do you consider entrepreneurs courageous? A: “I think courageous is an understatement. It’s a huge step to take. You have to have a no-fear attitude.” A ‘no-fear attitude’ certainly applies to entrepreneur Tylar Masters, founder of Tylar & Company. Tylar & Company is a full-service digital marketing and creative agency based out of Detroit, with a second location in Chicago. Tylar has used that no-fear attitude, along with a non-stop work ethic and a positive outlook on life to build a successful company and brand from nothing. “When I was 17, I was living in my car, but I wasn’t going to let that define my future. I knew I had talent as a designer in high school. I managed to snag a part time gig for a newspaper scanning in photos for the real estate section. In a few months, I was up for […]
The post Designing Her Entrepreneurial Path: Interview with Entrepreneur Tylar Masters appeared first on Under30CEO.
Asked if he considered himself an entrepreneur or marketer first, young entrepreneur Ilan Nassimi replied, “I don’t know if you can separate entrepreneurship and marketing.” The founder of marketing agency Taktical comes from a family of entrepreneurs, but he didn’t start out as a marketer. “If it wasn’t this business, it would’ve been something else.” It was something else years back when a friend came to Ilan with an idea to sell a limited custom jewelry line where pieces would only be available for one week. While working on starting the business, they knew that internet marketing would have to be a core aspect if they were to be successful. When Ilan received several quotes for monthly internet marketing services at $10,000, he decided to learn how to market an internet-based business himself. He quickly dove in head first and landed in a world of people who were trying to do the same thing – build businesses and make money by marketing over the internet. He was soon approached by a family friend. “I see that you’re getting pretty good at this Internet marketing thing, you think you could help out with our family business?” They received an amazing price, […]
The post Marketing Taktics – Interview with Ilan Nassimi appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part two of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. How does a former employee at Comcast, Morgan Stanley and Disney end up starting a social media management company? Real-time Outsource founder and CEO Travis Huff launched the business after having a cup of coffee with a friend during his time at Disney. His friend stated that “the broadcast industry is dead for marketing.” Travis realized that these companies would need to adapt with the changing times of marketing. He started Real-time Outsource to provide social media services to clients in an effort to increase brand identity and engagement. When getting started in 2009, marketing through social media was still in its infancy. “It was pretty much like the wild wild west of the advertising and marketing, public relations, and customer service business.” Television advertisements and other traditional forms of marketing were losing their appeal, while new platforms like Twitter and Facebook were allowing companies a unique way to […]
The post Entrepreneurship in Real-time: Interview with Travis Huff appeared first on Under30CEO.
Do you ever tie your marketing to the seasons? Why or why not (and if you do, how do you do so)? The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. 1. Yes: Every New Season Breathes a New Story It is always important to tailor your strategy to what is relevant. Seasonality is extremely important, especially if you are in seasonalindustries like fashion. Customers needs change depending on the time of year, so do their spending habits. If you aren’t focusing on key buying days like Black Friday and/or holidays, you are missing out on a ton of business. – Alexander Mendeluk, theDisruptive & SpiritHoods 2. Yes: Sports Are Seasonal and We Market Accordingly Absolutely! Private coaching, and sports in general, is a seasonal business. Before the start of the athletic season, we tailor our email campaigns and SEM keyword bidding towards the sports that are in season. Now that we’ve been around for awhile and have a couple years worth of data, we can actually pinpoint exactly when our customer base will change sports/seasons. – Arian Radmand, CoachUp 3. Yes: Weave It in Naturally Seasonal marketing should be subtle to show customers that you‘re keeping up with the seasons, not exploiting them. For […]
The post 13 Ways to Make Your Marketing Efforts Seasonal appeared first on Under30CEO.
Under30CEO is excited to work with Hiscox Small Business Insurance again this year on the Courageous Entrepreneurs 2014-2015 interview series. Over the next few months, we’ll share interviews with entrepreneurs from a wide range of industries talking about how they started their business (before the age of 30, of course) and what motivates them to keep growing. Hiscox is dedicated to providing entrepreneurs and small businesses with the tips, advice and risk protection they need to start, build and grow their business. Hiscox’s customized insurance policies are tailored to your specific industry to protect you from risks, and lawsuits, and give you the courage to realize your dreams. We hope you’ll enjoy the series. Why would Hiscox be right for my business? Tailored coverage: Hiscox specializes in general and professional liability coverage tailored to the risks in your field so you don’t pay for coverage you don’t need. Passion for service: Knowledgeable agents provide exceptional service – 96% of people surveyed recommend Hiscox. Fast and simple: Online quotes or speak to a licensed agent – immediate coverage. Coverage for contracts: Hiscox’s liability coverage satisfies most standard contract insurance requirements. Confidence: Hiscox Insurance Company Inc. is ‘A’ rated (Excellent) by A.M. Best. […]
The post Hiscox’s Courageous Entrepreneurs Interview Series appeared first on Under30CEO.
Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur Interview Series This is part one of the ten part series. Follow the Hiscox Courageous Entrepreneur interview series on Under30CEO.com. Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. It takes courage to be the founder of a business. It also often involves a bit of uncertainty and naivety, as when we make the plunge into entrepreneurship, we don’t always know what we’re getting into. It also takes courage to be a teacher. Isha Edwards is both, but she didn’t always have ‘founder’ next to her name. “[Starting a business] wasn’t something I planned to do. My goal was to teach business education, and in doing so, I encouraged students to be entrepreneurs and leaders…One day, one of my accounting students asked me, “If you know so much, why don’t you have a business?” To be a master, you have to be the example. I started a business to go through the process of entrepreneurship.” Accepting the student’s challenge took Isha on a journey over the next four years. The path she took led […]
The post Epic Measures of Entrepreneurship: Isha Edwards Interview appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is your best tip for making the most out of Black Friday sales (on or offline)? The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. 1. Send Multiple Emails Often companies only send one email announcing their Black Friday sales. I always recommend planning out multiple different email campaigns for the day to maximize results. If you do event-based marketing using tools like customer.io, those are even better. – Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster 2. Offer Extended Customer Support People have questions on Black Friday. Make sure you offer extended customer support so you can be there to answer their questions and make the sale. Install the free trial version of LiveChat on your site and chat in real time with customers. Clearly communicate a no-hassle refund policy. Offer other assurances that increase the possibility of a customer purchase. – Brett Farmiloe, Markitors 3. Limit Your Promotional Window Creating a sense of urgency is key to generating successful sales during the Black Friday shopping season. The more time you give shoppers to think, the more time they have to price compare and possibly forget you even existed. Plus, you’ll get them before they have time to blow their shopping budget elsewhere. – Firas […]
The post 10 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Make the Most Out Of Black Friday Sales appeared first on Under30CEO.
“I love working for myself. I love the fact that if I want to wear shorts and flip-flops to work today, I’ll do it. If I want to bring my dog to work, I’ll do it. If I want to make cool products and have them on shelves in Japan, I’ll do it. I like the freedom involved with being an entrepreneur, and that’s what motivates me as an entrepreneur.” “I like to think we make really cool stuff all day every day,” says Jason Lucash, co-founder and Business Development Director of OrigAudio. Just three months after their initial product launch in August of 2009, it was clear that others agreed with Jason when the Fold N’ Play recycled speakers made TIME Magazine’s The 50 Best Inventions of 2009 list. “We went from selling 10 speakers a day out of our garage in Chicago to over 1,000 speakers a day.” OrigAudio is part of a booming personal audio market, which includes Beats, Bose, Phillips, SkullCandy, and others. Just the personal headphones segment of the market brings in $2B in annual revenues. When working for JanSport, Jason and co-founder Michael Szymczak traveled constantly. They both had a passion for music, but […]
The post Playing Loud – Jason Lucash of OrigAudio appeared first on Under30CEO.
We’ve all had restless nights: staring up at the ceiling, hoping to fall asleep. As an air vent blew warm air into the face of Ryan Fant keeping him awake, he faced a dilemma. He could turn off the heat and freeze to death, or pile blankets and pillows over his head to avoid the annoyance. For Ryan, opportunity was staring down at him, and he chose neither option. Instead, he turned to fixing the problem on a wider scale with his own venture. Ryan is co-founder of Keen Home with Nayeem Hussain. Keen Home builds hardware devices that enhance the core functions of the home. The company’s first product is the Keen Vent. The vent can reduce the runtime of central heating and cooling up to 30% by redirecting airflow. Ryan started attacking his air vent conundrum by looking at the function and inefficiencies with heating and cooling vents. After doing some research, it was clear that this was a problem worth solving. “An average homeowner spends half of their total energy bill on heating and cooling costs, or roughly $2,000 per year.” Social media research revealed that Ryan was far from the only person complaining about an annoying […]
The post Tech VENTure: Interview with Ryan Fant of Keen Home appeared first on Under30CEO.
What are some simple strategies I can use to turbocharge sales numbers after a slow summer? The following answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. 1. Run Giveaways With Bloggers Run giveaways with bloggers and ask customers to sign up for your email list to enter. This will serve multiple purposes. It gives you exposure, provides valuable backlinks for SEO purposes and increases the size of your email list. – Josh Weiss, Bluegala 2. Identify Off-Calendar Holidays to Offer Sales Find an odd occasion that’ll give you an excuse to offer a sale that targets more price sensitive customers. Visitors to your website will appreciate your quirky nature for celebrating an unusual holiday as well as revel in the savings. Also, when you offer promotions outside of regular holidays, you won’t compete with other retailers since they only discount during national holidays. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep 3. Work Your Ecosystem Reach out to your ecosystem for referrals. Most of our clients are referrals from existing clients, investors and/or other service providers. Early on in my business, when sales were almost non-existent, I focused on getting out and building relationships, one client at a time. – David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services 4. Offer Discounts If profits […]
The post 6 Ways to Boost Sales After a Slow Summer appeared first on Under30CEO.
Nat Disston found his passion for surfing at an early age. At the age of 4, Nat and his cousin made pretend surfboards out of cardboard. Although he unsuccessfully rode carpet waves in his living room, creating cardboard surfboards was an early sign that his passion would soon come out through his work. Years later, Nat took a backpacking trip in Costa Rica. He met a surfboard designer who created custom boards by whittling. When Nat got back from the trip, he bought a blank piece of wood and $100 worth of hand tools. After three unsuccessful attempts, he finally was able to create a fully-functional board. His craft improved, and his passion grew as he created boards over the next few years for his personal collection. This hobby turned into something greater after a family member asked Nat for a custom surfboard. Shortly after, he started receiving additional requests for boards. It took a total of six years from the start of his hobby to the launch of his business – VoyVoy. Surfboards to a surfer are about much more than just riding a wave. Their boards represent their personal style. They are a work of art, and it was […]
The post Passion Wave: Interview with VoyVoy’s Nat Disston appeared first on Under30CEO.
Alexander Mendeluk always saw himself being in the spotlight, but as an actor, not as an entrepreneur. As the child of a Hollywood movie director, Alexander grew up on television and movie sets. “That whole world helped me explore my imagination.” That imagination fueled his passion and interest in storytelling, which led him into acting. After graduating from film school he moved to Los Angeles and became a professional actor (Alexander Mendeluk’s IMDB page). His breakout role was soon to come, but it wouldn’t be on a movie set. “Out of nowhere, literally, came SpiritHoods.” SpiritHoods are faux fur animal inspired hoods, “embracing the inner animal inside that we all have.” The company started with accessories, and is now moving into apparel as well. After a couple of years of working as a professional actor and an entrepreneur at the same time, Alexander was faced with a tough decision. “You’ve got to make a choice. You can be a jack of all trades and a master of none, and that’s not really what I was interested in doing.” So why choose being an entrepreneur over being a Hollywood actor? “As SpiritHoods matured and I matured, I realized that there was […]
The post Entrecelebrity: Interview with SpiritHoods Founder Alexander Mendeluk appeared first on Under30CEO.
Every business requires investments, but not all investments are monetary. When Eli Ostreicher started New York City based boutique travel agency Regal Wings, startup capital was not the most important investment made in the company. “It wasn’t so much about investing financially, but investing effort and everything that I could give to it.” Regal Wings acts as both a travel consolidator and business travel management provider. The company was founded in 2006 and started as a single booking made by Eli in the bedroom of a small apartment in Miami. His first customer was his uncle. Word quickly spread among his uncle’s friends and Regal Wings took-off. Eli admits that he started Regal Wings with basically nothing. “I knew no business tools. I didn’t know what payroll meant.” Eli didn’t know much about how to run a business, but he did know how to work hard and how to provide exceptional service to others. The effort invested in the company and service has not gone unrecognized by customers. Regal Wings has focused on customer service from the start and it remains their strongest competitive advantage. In my interview with the young entrepreneur (audio below), he told the story of a […]
The post Investing in Service: Interview with Regal Wings Founder Eli Ostreicher appeared first on Under30CEO.
My interview with Phil Dumontet was interrupted by a police officer knocking on his window after he pulled over safely to the side of the road. As rare as an interview starting with a police intervention is a company starting with just a CEO and a bicycle. Dashed has grown into the leading restaurant delivery service in the Northeast. Dashed delivers for over 600 top rated restaurants in 6 cities who wouldn’t otherwise offer delivery. The company, founded in 2009 now has over 90 employees and was named to the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies in America in 2013 (#119). Their focus on the speed of delivery while being eco-friendly has set them apart from competitors and made Dashed a favorite among users. Dashed was co-founder Phil Dumontet’s first job and entrepreneurial endeavor. I guess you could say it was love at first bike. The idea for the company stemmed from a conversation he had with his brother and an opportunity in the market after a would-be competitor in the area went out of business. “The opportunity to do something that is relatively simple (food delivery), but do it better and do it faster than anyone else is […]
The post Founded on a Bicycle – Interview with Dashed Founder Phil Dumontet appeared first on Under30CEO.
BusinessDictionary.com defines a serial entrepreneur as “an entrepreneur who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new businesses.” Alex Furmansky is a great example of someone who not only comes up with ideas, but turns those ideas into ventures of all shapes and sizes. Young entrepreneur Alex Furmansky was an early teen when he turned his first idea into a business. Alex started Lucky Leaf Collectors, a service based company that raked yards in his city. He purchased rakes and supplies, recruited a friend to work with him, and set a price to rake lawns. After a lot of hard work, he landed their first client. That first client turned out to have a yard the size of a football field. He may not have planned out his first venture thouroughly, but although this first yard was the last yard the Lucky Leaf Collectors would rake, this would not be Alex’s last venture. Alex has come a long way since his early leaf collecting days, but he’s retained the passion and enthusiasm for venture creation that he displayed at a young age. “Don’t do it for the glory at the end, do it for the fun of the process.” […]
The post From Stuffed Animals to Dating: Interview with Serial Entrepreneur Alex Furmansky appeared first on Under30CEO.
How can founders best utilize university career centers to find potential hires as graduation approaches? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. 1. Introduce Yourself to Freshmen and Sophomores Everyone wants the attention of the seniors, but you will stand out if you ask to be introduced to some of their more promising younger students. You will likely find interns for the summer, but even better, you will develop strong relationships with students over time, influencing their training and coursework so they are prepared to work for you full time when they graduate. – Alexandra Levit, Inspiration at Work 2. Speak at Events If possible, volunteer to speak in a class or to student groups. This gives students an opportunity to learn more about you and get a feel for you as a person. It can help start the exposure process before other companies begin and it gives you a leg up in terms of connecting with potential hires. – Andrew Thomas, […]
The post 7 Ways to Use University Career Centers to Find Your Next Star Employee appeared first on Under30CEO.
What single business-related question should every young founder ask themselves tomorrow and why? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. 1. What Is That One Thing? As a founder, you’re likely doing dozens of things at once. A good way to get yourself to focus is to ask yourself, “What is that one thing we can do to move the needle?” Then be sure to prioritize that “thing” within the company. – Jeff Epstein, Ambassador 2. Have My Employees Signed Invention Assignment Agreements? Investors often primarily invest in the intellectual property of a company. They will insist that anyone who has done work for the company has signed an invention assignment agreement, making it clear that the work product belongs to the company. For most startups, it’s the top legal priority. – Doug Bend, Bend Law Group, PC 3. What’s My Exit Strategy? It may sound odd to ask about how you’ll exit the business you’re thinking about founding, but it’s absolutely critical. It determines how you need to grow your business. If you expect to be out in five years, you’ll need […]
The post 12 Business Questions You Should Ask Yourself Today appeared first on Under30CEO.
Glamour Kills embraces the spirit of the underdog, from their flying pig logo to the humble beginnings of the brand. Nearly a decade after their start, this alternative fashion brand has gone from the basement to the center stage. Mark Capicotto started doing freelance art designs of CD covers, t-shirts, and logos for friends’ bands while in High School. In his parents basement in New York with a grand sum of $300, Mark Capicotto started Glamour Kills. He was working as a pizza delivery boy and had no background in business. He had little to lose and dedicated all of his free-time and energy intro the brand. Mark admits that there wasn’t a conscious decision to turn in into an actual business. The brand wasn’t formed as an LLC until several years after initial work had begun on designs. “The first couple of years was just figuring things out.” The clothing company was founded on Mark’s love and passion for music. The company started by working with bands he had relationships with. Glamour Kills continues to work with bands today by sponsoring bands, concerts, festivals and tours. “It just made sense that if I was going to start a brand […]
The post From Basement to Center Stage – Interview with Glamour Kills Founder Mark Capicotto appeared first on Under30CEO.
Ulife founder Abe Choe had a simple request after receiving a new laptop – he wanted a University of Oregon laptop cover. Seems like a simple enough request, but after a couple frustrating searches for a laptop cover without any success, Abe decided to create his own. Several years and thousands of orders later, Ulife is a collegiate merchandise brand that makes licensed products including laptop sleeves, iPhone cases, memory foam pillows, Cyclone cups and more. The company has been fully embraced by the university and students, and offers students and recent graduates internships. Although Abe is just in the early stages of his entrepreneurial life and career, he embraces following his passion as an entrepreneur and it shows through his work with Ulife. Q: In your career so far as an entrepreneur, what has been your most rewarding experience? A: “Being able to look into any persons eyes and say that I am following my dream.” How Did Abe Start Ulife? After deciding that he wanted to create his own University of Oregon laptop sleeves, there was a lot of work ahead of him. The first step was getting the rights to use the official school logo on his […]
The post The E-Life with Ulife: Interview with Abe Choe appeared first on Under30CEO.
Dropout is such a negative word. Young entrepreneurs all across the country and world are ‘dropping out’ of school, but not because they are failing. Aaron George may have dropped out of law school, but it wasn’t to take a job or because he couldn’t handle it. He left law school to focus on something he was truly passionate about – lawyers. But why work with lawyers if you don’t want to be one? “Find a problem that you’re really passionate about solving. Once you find that, the pieces fall into place and your able to make it happen if you really care about it.” Aaron may not have wanted to become a lawyer himself, but after experiencing the problems that both lawyers and people who needed legal services faced in the current market, he found his calling to offer a solution to both sides of the equation. Aaron is co-founder of LawKick, which he describes as “an online marketplace aiming to revolutionize the legal industry by making it easier and more affordable to get legal help.” LawKick allows users to post what they are looking for from an attorney. Attorneys who are qualified and vetted can then view the […]
The post Law School Dropout – Interview with LawKick’s Aaron George appeared first on Under30CEO.
SalesBus Founders Rickey Berrin (left) and Seth Murphy (right) Entrepreneurs are often fueled by passion. When asked what’s important in vetting an idea to pursue as an entrepreneur, Ricky Berrin responded, “Make sure it’s something you are passionate about because you’re going to be spending a lot of time on it. The second part is making sure what you’re building is something people actually care about and want.” Ricky is a passionate entrepreneur who started his entrepreneurial ride at a young age selling mangos on the street with his sister. In 2012, Ricky and his team SeeMore Technology took home a share of $75,000 in NYU’s Technology Venture Competition. Since the competition, he has also been involved in the Dorm Room Fund, served as the co-president of the NYU Entrepreneurs Network, and worked in business development at The Fancy. Q: What’s your best piece of advice for fellow young entrepreneurs? A: “Make it happen. Go for it!” It’s been a crazy past few years for Ricky, but so is the life of a young entrepreneur. “You may have a lot of obstacles and it’s going to be tough. You have to recognize that going in, but for me it’s been […]
The post This Bus Runs on Passion – Interview with Ricky Berrin of SalesBus appeared first on Under30CEO.
Parking in Chicago can be as difficult as it is expensive. In trying to find an affordable place to park while attending a Bachelor party, I discovered SpotHero. The options available to me before finding SpotHero included paying $50 a day for valet parking at the hotel, spending $6.50 an hour for metered parking, or searching for a parking lot the day of, which averages $32 a day. I found a place to park for three days near my hotel for $25. I was very impressed with the startup that is trying to “relieve the stress of parking,” as SpotHero Founder and CEO Jeremy Smith put it. Trying to avoid valet fees was a strong motivator for me, but Jeremy had a stronger incentive to create a solution to decrease the difficult nature of finding parking in a busy city. What was it that inspired him? $3,500 in parking tickets! “I wasn’t very good at reading signs. I always thought that I’d get away with it…but I got busted every single time. I really started developing this frustration against parking because it was costing me so much money. I decided that I actually needed to make a solution for it […]
The post Finding the Right Spot – Interview with Spot Hero’s Jeremy Smith appeared first on Under30CEO.
We all love online advertising! The wonderful pop-up videos, banner ads, and numerous links to click appearing while getting our daily fix of streaming television shows online makes our daily lives better, right? Odds are that online ads and have little effect on your daily life. Outside of an annoyance and a little bit of waster times, you quickly forget online ads and have gain lasting impression of the brands that were begging for your attention. Jebbit co-founder Tom Coburn realized the ineffectiveness of the current forms of online ads one day while he opened a second browser instead of watching a video ad. The advertiser whose ad was being displayed was just wasting money while also wasting Tom’s time. The idea for Jebbit was born to battle the low impact ads that were wasting the time and money of brands and consumers. There was a time when banner ads were all the rage, but Tom stated that click rates of static banner ads can be as low as 00.05%. Even modern ad types are starting to lose their luster as *bounce rates range from 70-90%. Jebbit saw this as a big opportunity for a new entrant into the market […]
The post Ad Answers – Interview with Jebbit’s Tom Coburn appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is OrderGroove? “We power subscription commerce programs for brands and retailers to help them extend lifetime value of their most valuable customers.” E-commerce subscription platforms are a significant part of online business now, but in 2008, convincing investors that a subscription commerce model would take off was a significant challenge. OrderGroove founder and CEO Greg Alvo turned to bootstrapping instead of dwelling on the lack of investors initially interested in the company and industry. Greg focused on building a great product and pleasing clients. This strategy resulted into turning one of his early clients into the company’s very first investor. The startup world is flooded with ‘success stories’ of companies raising significant rounds of funding, but Greg warns against solely relying on raising money as a sign of success. “Raising money is just a means to an end. Too many entrepreneurs that I meet are enamored with the venture world and what they think raising money actually means. Raising money is just the start of your journey. Focus on building a great business and adding unprecedented value to clients… investors will come.” To date, OrderGroove has been able to raise over $10 million in venture capital funding, which only […]
The post Subscribing to Success – Interview with OrderGroove Founder Greg Alvo appeared first on Under30CEO.
From Kickstarter Success to Fully Scaling a Growing Startup Ricky Choi is a young entrepreneur who not only cares about his style, but makes sure to keep his friends up to date on fashion as well. Nice Laundry co-founder Phil Moldavski was a fashionable guy from head to toe – except when it came to his socks. “Phil would come to work dressed in a nice pair of jeans, good buttoned down shirt, great pair of dark shoes…but every day with this outfit he would wear these same ratty white Adidas gym socks with black dress shoes.” Ricky, being a sock connoisseur himself, helped Phil get over this hurdle by refreshing his look with designer socks. While doing this the two realized that the world needed their help – with their sock drawers. Co-founders Ricky Choi and Phil Moldavski met while working at Living Social and left their jobs to participate in Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco. They spent several months learning how to code. “We wanted to do something e-commerce and the only way to get that done is (to create) a website.” Their experience at Living Social showed them the value of having an in-house development team that could […]
The post Off on the Right Foot – Interview with Startup Nice Laundry Co-Founder Ricky Choi appeared first on Under30CEO.
Knock knock. Who’s there? Blippar. Blippar who? Blippar, a startup that spun out of a joke to amass millions of users and bring static content to life. It wasn’t a knock-knock joke, but a silly challenge between friends that brought the queen on a ten pound note to life, which later would be developed into Blippar. CTO and Co-founder Omar Tayeb describes Blippar as an “Image and object recognition platform that allows users to point their camera device at any image or object and instantly get a rich piece of digital or media content.” Using his technical skills, Omar took the challenge of bringing the queen to life on the ten pound note from Co-founder Ambarish Mitra and developed a prototype. “When we saw it working, we could immediately see that right now this is the best way to bridge the physical world with the digital world.” Before launching Blippar as a full scale business, Omar and Ambarish brought on co-founders Steve Spencer (CCO) and Jessica Butcher (CMO) to work on the brand and marketing side of the business. Omar says that this was a key early move to help the company get off of the ground and capture early […]
The post A Joke Turned Into a Multi-Million Dollar Business: Interview with Omar Tayeb of Blippar appeared first on Under30CEO.
Ever been locked out of your house or apartment? If you’re anything like me or Greg Marsh’s wife, you have…often. After several costly and lengthy lockouts, Greg took the problem of getting locked out and created an effective solution – KeyMe. KeyMe is a mobile app that allows you to digitally store your key information for free. Instead of paying hundreds of dollars and spending several hours locked out, customers of KeyMe can pull up the specific key making instructions based on a front and back picture of your key. You can then choose to order key copies or take those instructions to any locksmith or key shop to get your key cut. During his first startup experience, Greg worked with hardware technology. Through working with the early-stage company, he learned the ins and outs of the business and gained important contacts, which were key to launching the business from the ground up. From conceiving the initial idea to where he is now, Greg describes it as being “Quite a journey.” With the goal of finding a fast and inexpensive way to solve a lockout, there were countless ideas to solve the problem before the end solution was constructed. KeyMe’s […]
The post An Open Door: Young Entrepreneur Interview with KeyMe’s Greg Marsh appeared first on Under30CEO.
Raising startup capital can be tricky. Many startups fail before getting started because of financial limitations. Despite the need of many young companies, banks aren’t exactly jumping at the chance to work with 20-30 year olds with a new business idea. Due to the volatile nature of a startup and high failure rate, there is a substantial level of risk for banks working with early-stage companies. This risk has prevented banks and lenders from seeking out startups to work with. After spending over a decade in investment banking and consulting, Lili Balfour decided to do something about the lack of investment banking options for startups. Lili started spending nights and weekends working with companies for free and learning about how to best serve early-stage customers. Through this process, Lili discovered there was a fit for both banks and startups, and Atelier Advisors was launched in 2007. Atelier Advisors was founded based on the idea that early stage companies should have the same investment banking services as any company. Lili is founder and CEO of Atelier Advisors, author of Master the Finance Game, and creator of Lean Finance for Startups, a course on Udemy. “The topic of finance has really gotten […]
The post The Financial Side of the Startup – Interview with Lili Balfour appeared first on Under30CEO.
Q. What’s one daily habit that’s made you happier at work? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. 1. Go Running I somethings have my best thoughts while running, so now I make it a part of every day. I’ll often put it on my calendar and go running during lunch. It’s a great way to think through thoughts, get away from my desk and feel better immediately! – Kit Hickey, Ministry of Supply 2. Work out in the Morning Working out every morning (or close to every morning) allows me to clear my head, focus on my immediate goals for the day and visualize the long-term strategy for my business and our role in our industry. – Alex Frias, Track Marketing Group 3. Get to the Office Early I get into the office about two hours earlier than my co-founder and staff. Having that time to myself to answer emails, […]
The post 12 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier at Work appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Trevor Owens about starting his business Lean Startup Machine. This is part ten of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. Trevor Owens was like most young entrepreneurs – he failed, and failed often. Failing isn’t an issue in and of itself, as there are important lessons learned from failing. Trevor had been taught to approach a new business through using the standard business school method. “I was used to a business school environment where we would write a pretty long business plan, take about a year, and our ideas wouldn’t change very much.” The Lean Startup Machine, which Trevor is founder and owner of, addresses this problem head-on. “In the lean process, within 24 hours of going to this workshop, your idea is usually proven wrong, and you’re forced to pivot.” Trevor Owens came upon the work of Eric Reis, before his book The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to […]
The post Young Entrepreneur Interview with Trevor Owens of Lean Startup Machine appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Kathryn Minshew about starting her business The Muse. This is part nine of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. While searching job boards to find what she wanted to do with her life, Kathryn Minshew found it, but it wasn’t a job. Kathryn is founder and CEO of The Muse, a career website which she describes as, “The place people come to figure out what they want to do with their life.” Kathryn identified what was missing in the career site niche and set out to make The Muse a reality. Career and job related websites are nothing new. Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com have been around since the late 1990’s, so what sets The Muse apart? “One of the biggest problems I’ve seen with career sites is a lot of sites are really boring. They might be effective, but they’re not any fun to use.” The Muse has created a community that focuses on […]
The post Young Entrepreneur Interview with Kathryn Minshew of The Muse appeared first on Under30CEO.
Q.What’s one cash flow tip you’d give a new entrepreneur whose business is not yet profitable? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. 1. Spend Slowly and Steadily There is no reason to take more financial risk than you need to when your business isn’t profitable. Allocate funds toward essential business operations that will take you to profitability first and foremost. By ensuring you’re spending only on essential operations, you can reduce the amount of debt you accumulate and thus the financial risk you take with your business. – Fehzan Ali, Adscend Media LLC 2. Outsource to Save on Hiring Costs You don’t want to run out of cash before you even get your startup off the ground, so you need to calculate and closely monitor your cash burn. If you’re bootstrapping, one effective way to lower your cash burn is to outsource non-core functions such as accounting, finance and HR. […]
The post 12 Cash Flow Tips for New Startups appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Paul Costello about starting his business Agency 180. This is part eight of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. Corporate marketing has progressed significantly since the 1960’s era portrayed by AMC’s Mad Men. There was no Facebook or email marketing even a couple of decades ago. Despite the change in marketing and technology, Agency 180 founder and CEO Paul Costello admits that there are still many Don Drapers in the industry, but you won’t find many at his agency. Agency 180 is a database marketing agency, which Paul refers to as, “The smallest big agency you’ll find.” He described what they offer as, “Big agency thinking without the big agency price tag and big agency inflexibility.” “Other companies serve up what they are selling (email, web media, printing, etc) as the right fit instead of finding it.” Paul calls his clients partners due to the nature of their relationship and working with them to […]
The post The Anti-Mad Men of Marketing: Interview with Paul Costello of Agency 180 appeared first on Under30CEO.
Watch a customized video experience of your small business story—and see yourself on the cover of a major business magazine! Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. Hiscox specializes in small business insurance for small business owners. As part of their effort to build awareness of the brand in the US, they have launched a campaign called The Hiscox Reactor. What is The Hiscox Reactor? The Hiscox Reactor is a fun and social way to create and tell the story of your small business. Any small business owner can get involved by simply connecting your LinkedIn profile. The Reactor will then pull things like your schools, jobs, connections and images to create a customized video experience of your small businesses story. No other information is required besides a complete LinkedIn profile. Hiscox has also partnered with Fast Company so you will actually have an image generated at the end of the experience of your face on the cover of Fast […]
The post The Hiscox Reactor: See How Your Actions Impact Your Small Business appeared first on Under30CEO.
Q. Name one overlooked bookkeeping strategy you would recommend to new entrepreneurs. The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. 1. Be Granular With Your Marketing Spend It’s very tough to figure out where to invest marketing dollars. Ideally, you figure out which marketing channels — Facebook, email, AdWords, live events — are performing well, and invest heavily there. Start segmenting expenses in your books from day one, and you will be able to see trends much more clearly. – Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches 2. File Tax-Related Receipts as They Come In By filing tax-related receipts as they come in throughout the year, you can cut down on the time you or your accountant spend preparing your return. It also decreases the chance of you losing the documentation needed for your deductions. – Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance 3. Plan Your Categories of Expenses Planning the categories of your expenses makes […]
The post 10 Overlooked Bookkeeping Strategies appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Nate Policar about starting his business StatBroadcast Systems. This is part seven of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. We are a spoiled society. There was a time when we had to wait for today’s newspaper to find out what happened yesterday. Now, something that happened several hours ago is already old news and has been blogged about, shared through Facebook updates, and featured in the trending section of Twitter. From an early age, Nate Policar has been delivering information to end consumers as an entrepreneur. In the fourth grade, Nate got in trouble for creating and distributing a tabloid magazine. After conquering the gossip and exploits of elementary school, Nate now delivers sports statistics and data with his business StatBroadcast Systems. Sports news is never ending. Fans want to know the instant a touchdown is scored, how their rival team is doing, and whether or not a player from their fantasy team […]
The post Sports Stats at Your Fingertips: Interview with Nate Policar of StatBroadcast appeared first on Under30CEO.
Q. If you could go back in time and talk to one (no-longer-living) entrepreneurial type, who would it be and why? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. 1. Andrew Carnegie Carnegie built one of the largest pieces of industry in history (steel), all while treating people right. He was so good at dealing with people, employees included, that the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” was born and became one of the most widely sold books, second to the Bible. – Adam Callinan, BottleCamo 2. P.T. Barnum He is the unrivaled king of buzz via creativity, and I’d love to see how he approaches creative problems and unlocks value in very unlikely places. – Brennan White, Watchtower 3. Thomas Edison Edison may seem like an obvious choice because he invented the lightbulb and the phonograph, but I would meet with him to learn about his failed projects. Edison […]
The post What Entrepreneur Would You Go Back in Time to Meet? appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Brent Beshore about starting his business Adventur.es. This is part six of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. At the age of 7, Brent Beshore partnered with a neighborhood friend to manufacture bows and arrows in the U.S. to sell in Guatemala. There might have been some holes in his plan, but Brent’s entrepreneurial roots and intuition have grown stronger over the past couple of decades. Today, Brent’s endeavors are just as ambitious, and even better prepared. Brent is founder and CEO of venture capital firm adventur.es, venture partner at Gen Y Capital, an angel investor, and owner of Beshore Family Vineyards. Brent has entrepreneurship deeply rooted in his genes. His great-great grandfather invented the bedspring and his grandfather helped in turning a $4 million dollar company into a $4 billion dollar company. Adventur.es, founded in 2007, is a problem first venture capital firm that seeks out significant widespread problems to solve through […]
The post Entrepreneurial Adventur.es with Brent Beshore appeared first on Under30CEO.
Q.What’s one underappreciated trait you look for in all new hires? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. 1. Communication We look for candidates who over-communicate: they reconfirm times and locations for interviews a day in advance, they email thank-you notes after screening calls, and they follow up if they don’t hear anything. We know this trait will help ensure that they won’t have a miscommunication at work and that very little will slip past them. – Bhavin Parikh, Magoosh Test Prep 2. Entrepreneurship Because my company is small, each person is treated as an entrepreneur in charge of her own domain. Too many companies shy away from entrepreneurial employees, but I embrace them. Everyone I hire has the curious, can-do attitude of an entrepreneur. – Laura Roeder, LKR Social Media 3. Hustle Having employees who are hustlers is essential. Not just in what they do — whether it’s sales, technical, […]
The post 10 Traits Employers Should Look for in New Hires appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Lee Salisbury about starting his business UnitOneNine. This is part five of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. Lee Salisbury didn’t feel like waiting tables while attending school, so he started a business instead. After leaving Purdue University’s engineering program, Lee attended Ohio State University for design. After finding his niche with design and ignoring people who told him not to do it, UnitOneNine was created. UnitOneNine is a creative agency that specializes in technology and digital design. The company was founded nearly 10 years ago through bootstrapping and has never accepted outside investment. Although digital design is a booming and competitive industry now, family and friends were skeptical when Lee started planning to launch the company. “When I got into this, everybody was telling me, ‘You’re not going to do that, the web is a fad, you went to design school – why don’t you do something in the big brand world?’ […]
The post Fulfilling Digital Taste Buds: Interview with UnitOneNine Founder Lee Salisbury appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Seth Fraz about starting his business Urban Brain & Body. This is part four of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. The word ‘lawsuit’ is scary enough to give any entrepreneur a panic attack. Although young entrepreneur Seth Franz was notified that he was being sued by a recently terminated employee, he didn’t have a panic attack or act irrationally. It was his “most difficult day of being an entrepreneur,” and came within a year of taking ownership of a family owned health and wellness center. Seth handled the situation by calmly researching his options and calling the Department of Health and Human Services. He carefully plotted out his next steps to protect himself, and was able to avoid what could have been a damaging loss for his business. Q: What’s the best way you can protect your business? A: “You have to have structure and a plan. You can have the best […]
The post Entrepreneurial Health and Wellness: Interview with Seth Franz of Urban Brain & Body appeared first on Under30CEO.
How is education valued? Outside of a piece of paper qualifying you as a graduate, what is the value of your ongoing education? Gandhi famously said, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Although we’re constantly learning, the importance placed on education is focused mostly around obtaining an accredited degree. In our recent interview, David Blake said, “You never stop learning, but the day you graduate is the day your learning stops mattering, which is just a shame.” Degreed co-founder and CEO David Blake describes himself as an entrepreneur out of necessity. His passion for education has led him into the world of entrepreneurship, where he now concentrates on Degreed, which he describes as “the place that allows you to capture everything you’re learning.” As LinkedIn is the de facto place to go to view someone’s work history, Degreed is the place to enter and view others’ education – including college courses, books read, conferences attended and more. Even though employers and your parents may not value those college credits that didn’t go towards a degree, Degreed has a system of calculating the value of those courses, which are then displayed […]
The post Is Your Education Valued? Interview with David Blake of Degreed appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with Tanya Costigan about starting her wedding planning business bowties and butterflies. This is part three of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. Significant life events can bring meaning and change to our lives. For Tanya Costigan, a health scare made her realize how important it is to do what you love. Tanya was tired of a boring office job and wanted something fulfilling that would give her creativity an outlet. “I really wanted to do something that I love.” Several months later, Bowties and Butterflies was launched as a full service wedding and event planning business, which services the Massachusetts and Connecticut markets. Although she has been able to break into the market successfully, every young entrepreneur is bound to run into an infinite number of hurdles and difficult situations during their journey. For Tanya, the hardest challenge so far hasn’t been finding customers or dealing with the stress of planning for a […]
The post Running a Successful Wedding Planning Business as a Young Entrepreneur: Interview With Tanya Costigan of Bowties and Butterflies appeared first on Under30CEO.
Only 12 credits short of graduating from UNLV with a degree in economics, Imagoo CEO Mickey Hernandez is in no hurry to graduate. “On my lunch break I run over to school to take a class and head back over to work for the rest of the day.” The 22 year-old has always wanted to create his own ‘baby,’ and has done just that with photo comparison app Imagoo, which recently raised $1.2 million in angel funding. Hernandez describes Imagoo as a mix of Hot or Not, Instagram and Mark Zuckerburg’s Facemash. The app allows users to compare two pictures against one another, giving users the ability to vote and solve arguments based on two pictures. Each comparison is given a time limit from 1 hour to 30 days, after which a winner and a loser is chosen based on the percentage of overall votes they receive. Comparisons on the site can include anything that can be captured in a picture, including clothes, pop culture icons, cats, and anything else that people (or businesses) could argue about or compare. Hernandez and a friend were arguing about the coolness of their respective cars when he searched for an online resolution for […]
The post Solving Arguments through the Power of the Crowd: Interview with Imagoo Founder & CEO Mickey Hernandez appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with young entrepreneur Stacey Ferreira on starting her business mySocialCloud. This is part two of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Interview Series Sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. Hiscox specializes in protecting IT/technology, marketing, consulting, health and beauty, photography and many other professional services businesses, tailoring coverage to the specific risks in your industry. As Stacey Ferreira said during our interview, “It stands out when people are young and doing amazing things.” She stated that being a young entrepreneur is an advantage, and she has certainly taken advantage of every opportunity that has presented itself. Twenty year-old Stacey Ferreira was just 18 when she and her brother Scott scraped together $2,000 each for a chance to meet face to face with Sir Richard Branson at a cocktail event for charity. They found out about the opportunity through a Twitter post, and the rest is history. Two months after the meeting, their startup mySocialCloud received approximately one million in seed funding from Richard Branson, Jerry Murdock from Insight Venture Partners, and entrepreneur Alex Welch. This rare and extremely unlikely entrepreneurial success story would not have happened if it […]
The post Success Beyond Her Years: Interview with Stacey Ferreira Founder mySocialCloud appeared first on Under30CEO.
As a sports fan coming from a strong background in math and statistics, Nik Bonaddio came up with the idea for Numberfire – a business that uses quantitative analysis to provide advanced predictions on sports matchups and fantasy sports. Fantasy sports data may seem like an extreme niche, but more than 27 million Americans play fantasy sports each year. The number of free online platforms for fantasy sports has significantly increased the need and popularity for predictions, guides, and statistics that help make tough decisions related to a user’s specific fantasy game. Nik had the talent and experience to create Numberfire on his own, but because of his full-time career, he was not able to dedicate enough time to build the business properly. Like many young successful entrepreneurs, he was able to secure a large amount of capital to allow him to build his dream business. Unlike many young entrepreneurs, he received his startup capital from the television game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. After walking away with $100,000, Nik bought a TV, a comfortable couch, and quit his job to work on launching his business idea. Nik spent the next 6-8 months building everything – the design, […]
The post Fueling Your Sports Fantasies with Data: Interview with Numberfire Founder and CEO Nik Bonaddio appeared first on Under30CEO.
Advice on how to start a business from those who’ve been there. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview! Today, we are announcing a new interview series here on Under30CEO sponsored by Hiscox Small Business Insurance. This interview series will focus on ambitious young entrepreneurs from across the country who have taken the leap into a small business of their own. Some are just starting out; others are running multi-million dollar companies in their twenties. Each young entrepreneur has a unique story and journey that had led him or her to launch their own company in hopes of carving their own path in life. Hiscox came on board to support the series because they not only specialize in small businesses insurance needs, but also strive to help more small businesses succeed. Hiscox is excited to highlight and bring attention to some really awesome young entrepreneurs who are working everyday to build an empire of their own. If you’re running a small business, you need to be prepared for the risks you have. Hiscox offers insurance products to protect your small business while you focus on making it a success. Why would Hiscox be […]
The post Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur Interview Series appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview with young entrepreneur Sachin Kamdar on starting his business Pars.ly.
This is part one of the ten part series. Follow the Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur interview series and don’t miss an interview!
The post Starting a Business as a Young Entrepreneur: Interview with Sachin Kamdar, CEO of Parse.ly appeared first on Under30CEO.
Something everyone of us deals with is a “comparison complex,” where we are always comparing ourselves to others or getting jealous of someone else’s success. We tend to judge ourselves based on other peoples’ standards and it gets us nowhere! Ending your comparison complex is all about tossing aside your need to feel perfect or compare yourself to other people and I’ve got a few tips to help you learn how to do that, in this confidence-boosting episode of She Takes on the World TV. For more inspiration and practical advice for your business and life, come join us at http://www.shetakesontheworld.com. Natalie MacNeil is an Emmy Award-winning media entrepreneur, #1 Amazon best-selling author of She Takes on the World: A Guide to Being Your Own Boss, Working Happy, and Living on Purpose, and founder of SheTakesOnTheWorld.com, which has been named on Forbes’ list of “Top 10 Entrepreneurial Sites for Women.” Come visit us to get Natalie’s free 14-day Conquer Course to turn your small business into something big! http://bit.ly/conquercourse
The post Video: Stop Comparing Yourself To Others appeared first on Under30CEO.
David Tisch’s entrepreneurial journey started like many children’s – buying and selling baseball cards. Setting up a table at trade shows turned into selling cards online in the late 90’s. Although the bulk of his baseball card collection no longer exists due to a busted pipe in his parents’ basement, David and BoxGroup co-founder Adam Rothenberg are collecting something else – investments in startups. In just three and a half years, BoxGroup has invested in 100 companies. Their past investments include Vine (acquired by Twitter), Boxee (acquired by Samsung), and MileWise (acquired by Yahoo!). One hundred investments in fewer than four years may seem like an aggressive investment strategy, but the group analyzes between 100-200 investment opportunities for every company they choose to work with. David co-founded startup accelerator TechStars NYC and served as the Managing Director before stepping aside to work full-time as Managing Partner of BoxGroup. He’s an admitted internet nerd and has always been interested in the online space. “Since I can remember back, I’ve been playing with things that have launched on the Internet…I just didn’t know how to translate that into a business.” David was practicing law when he decided to stop in 2006. After […]
The post Investability of a Startup: Interview with BoxGroup’s David Tisch appeared first on Under30CEO.
Still under the age of 30, Taykey Founder and CEO Amit Avner’s entrepreneurial roots trace back to when he was just 14. In 1999, Avner built a search engine named WittySearch. Four years later Avner created a social note-taking application – Witty Notes. In January of 2009, he started advertising technology company Taykey, which “helps to make advertisers more real-time by delivering media based on what is topical for their audience.” The company recently announced another $6 million in funding and has attracted a total of $17 million in funding over the past 5 years. They are expected to use those funds to double the number of employees from 50 to over 100 in the next 8-12 months. Although the company is growing at a tremendous pace, Avner remains very modest. Q: What is one thing in your career and work that you want to accomplish that you haven’t yet? A: “I don’t feel like I’ve really accomplished anything yet, so there are too many to say. That’s a question for Over60CEO.com.” It’s clear that Avner remains focused on the success and growth of Taykey and not his personal accolades. When asked about challenges he has been faced with and overcome, Avner […]
The post Making Success Look Easy: Interview with Taykey CEO Amit Avner appeared first on Under30CEO.
“Self-storage is very sexy contrary to popular belief,” said Chuck Gordon in response to the idea that self-storage isn’t the most appealing industry for a young entrepreneur to pursue. Chuck Gordon is co-founder and CEO of Sparefoot, the world’s largest online marketplace for self-storage. Gordon described Sparefoot as the ‘Hotels.com for storage’. Chuck Gordon is from Washington, D.C., and attended UCLA. When he decided to study abroad in Singapore during his junior year, he needed a place to store his belongings. As one can imagine, Los Angeles isn’t the best place to find affordable storage. Instead of spending $1,000 on a storage space, Chuck put half of his stuff in his co-founder Mario’s attic in Bakersfield and the other half at his girlfriend’s place in San Diego. We all know the light bulb moment comes next; ‘there had to be a better way.’ Based on the idea of renting out your extra space to store other people’s stuff, Sparefoot was born. Launching the business in 2008 turned out to be perfect timing as people were searching for ways to make extra money as the economy took a tumble. News stations took the angle of riding out the recession by renting […]
The post Self-Storage Turned Sexy: Interview with Sparefoot’s CEO Chuck Gordon appeared first on Under30CEO.
A year and a day before I spoke with Michael Mogill, Crisp Video Group was born. Only 366 days later, the company has grown to 8 employees and is projected to earn $850,000 in revenue for the year of 2013. Having success as an entrepreneur is nothing out of the ordinary for Mogill, who at the age of 12 launched a web design company out of his parents’ home. “I’d have web design clients come to my house and my mom would let them in the front door.” Now 27, the Atlanta based entrepreneur and Crisp Video Group have landed clients including Audi, Red Bull, and Verizon, while simultaneously building a niche in the dental and medical industry. The company specializes in promotional videos less than 5 minutes long, often called sizzle or highlight reels. After seeing an opportunity in the dental industry, Crisp Dental was launched and focused on filling marketing voids. Q: How have you been able to grow Crisp (to this level) in one year? A: “It’s really just company culture and work ethic. From the very beginning I’ve been committed to doing this the right way.” In addition to being the sole owner of Crisp, Michael […]
The post Startup to $850,000 in 1 Year: Interview with Crisp Video Group’s Michael Mogill appeared first on Under30CEO.
A man walks into a bar and his favorite song starts playing. Someone yells “Go Bears!” his favorite football team, and a beautiful woman approaches and starts talking about their favorite TV show. The man has never been to the bar before, but everything falls into place just like he was in an odd, but fantastic scene from a movie. Is this a fantasy, or could it be a future reality? According to One Application co-founder Cory Levy, they are “personalizing your reality” to bring these perfect scenarios to life. One is a mobile application that was founded based on the idea of connecting people around interests and location. Using your personal information, One links you to people with similar interests and in the future, will be able to customize your experiences based on what you like. The most powerful aspect of the application may be its ability to point out people who are right next to you that you should know. “People didn’t have a way to connect with people that they don’t know yet that they should.” Co-founder Michael Callahan was walking down Market Street in San Francisco and had 3 hours in between meetings. While walking around […]
The post Personalizing Your Reality: Interview with One App Co-Founder Cory Levy appeared first on Under30CEO.
A few friends were kicked off of a beach because they were drinking alcohol out of glass bottles. So what would any rational, entrepreneurial-minded Millennial do? Invent a way to put alcoholic drinks in a portable pouch. Craig Cordes and his co-founders set out to do the impossible and turn margaritas into an adult version of a Capri Sun. After coming up with the concept, they took to Google to find out who regulated alcohol and researched laws within their new industry. After discovering that many states required spirits to be sold in liquor stores, while wine and beer could be sold nearly anywhere, the choice to make a wine-based drink was clear. Craig worked a full-time job in Houston to help fund Cordina Cocktails, which is based out of New Orleans. Craig would drive back on Friday nights to work on the business with co-founders Tony and Sal LaMartina. During my interview with Cordina Cocktails’ co-founder Craig Cordes, he stated, “The right mix is extremely important.” He’s not speaking about a cocktail mix, but the mix of the founding team. Craig credited his business partners with keeping each other motivated when times got rough and extra motivation was needed. […]
The post Finding the Right Mix: Cordina Cocktails’ Craig Cordes Interview appeared first on Under30CEO.
The dorm room startup is a beautiful thing. Alex Moazed started the mobile innovation firm Applico while studying at entrepreneurship powerhouse Babson College. Alex was surrounded by friends who were running successful companies, raising venture capital, and launching new ideas. As Alex explained, “It’s baked into the community of the school.” Now focusing on the community created at Applico, Alex has turned the company into one of the leading mobile application development firms in the space. Applico’s success didn’t come without tough strategic decisions and an important pivot. Their first revenue stream developed out of a bestselling travel based application. In the first year, Alex had an important decision to make about the focus of Applico. “I had two concurrent business models going (product and service based). At the end of the first year I knew I had to make a decision because focus is very important. It is hard to do one thing well and pretty near impossible to do two things well unless you are Jack Dorsey.” Jack Dorsey is the brain and co-founder of both Twitter and mobile payments company Square. When asked why he decided to shift from building products to creating applications for other companies, […]
The post Building Apps in a Dorm to Mobile Innovation: Interview with Alex Moazed of Applico appeared first on Under30CEO.
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) was started in 2007 as a service that connects journalists with sources. It allows journalists to get the information they need on time to meet deadlines and allows sources to get free press by giving information, interviews, and quotes to journalists. What started as a Facebook group grew quickly into the world’s largest free source repository. When asked what the keys to the success of HARO were, Founder Peter Shankman displayed his clear focus on the importance of listening to and pleasing the consumer. “You have to listen to your audience and you have to give them what they want,” said Shankman. “The more you listen to your audience, the better chance you have of doing well.” Focusing on pleasing online readers and customers is nothing new to Shankman. He started his blog Shankman.com in 1995, is founder and CEO of social media and marketing firm Geek Factory, and is recognized as one of the leading experts in email marketing and social media. The focus on the customer, which in HARO’s case was both the journalist and knowledgeable sources, is the force behind HARO’s success. From daily emails promoting opportunities for journalists, to literally asking […]
The post Listen To Your Customer! Interview with HARO Founder Peter Shankman appeared first on Under30CEO.
If you’ve raised startup capital from family or friends, what is one tip you’d give a fellow entrepreneur to make sure the deal doesn’t affect the relationship? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. 1. Protect the Relationship Some entrepreneurs think they don’t need a contract with a loved one since it’s a close relationship. That is all wrong! The closer the relationship, the more important it becomes to protect the relationship. That’s why it’s important to have a contract when raising money from family and friends, ensuring you both have a clear understanding of the arrangement and exit plan if something goes wrong. – Rachel Rodgers, Rachel Rodgers Law Office 2. Don’t Do It Just don’t do it. If your idea has merit, you can find investors who don’t come with the baggage of a personal relationship. – Robert J. Moore, RJMetrics 3. Rely on Honesty and Transparency If you’re […]
The post 8 Tips for Raising Money From Family Members appeared first on Under30CEO.
In 2005, Catherine and Dave Cook were 15 and 16 respectively when they came up with the concept for myYearbook. With a $250,000 investment from their older brother Geoff, they worked with overseas developers to launch myYearbook.com. They went from being normal high school students, to staying up until 3 AM in the morning working on the site and showing up to their 7:30 homeroom classes late. Catherine said, “We didn’t realize to ourselves how young we (were) and how unusual that was.” Despite their young age, determination showed people and investors that they were serious about their business. At the age of 16, Catherine was meeting with investors to acquire seed capital for myYearbook. “All of a sudden you are asking for millions of dollars and you can’t even drive, it just seems crazy.” The group of family founders raised $4.1 million in their first round of funding and as Catherine explains in the interview, turned down additional funding that was offered to acquire additional equity in the startup. In 2008, they raised an additional $13 million in a Series B round. In 2011, myYearbook accepted a $100 million merger with Quepasa. The business was then rebranded, and is […]
The post No License Needed for Venture Capital: Interview with MeetMe Co-Founder Catherine Cook appeared first on Under30CEO.
How do you save money on your personal style (haircuts, suits, good shoes, etc.) but still look professional when you need to? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons. 1. Shop With My Habit There’s an awesome service started by Amazon called My Habit. It offers private, daily sales of more than 60 percent off on designer and boutique brands that can really spice up your wardrobe. Pair a few fashion-forward accessories with good-quality, non-designer fundamentals, and you can seriously rev up your look. – Robert Sofia, Platinum Advisor Strategies 2. Establish a “Look” As an entrepreneur, you can dress casual when going to meetings these days while still looking professional. Nice accessories like a decent watch and some good denim will last you quite a while, and you only need one or two of each. This will allow you to wear something as cheap and easy as a Hanes V-neck […]
The post 10 Ways to Cut Back on Spending Without Sacrificing Style appeared first on Under30CEO.
Michael Gluck started his entrepreneurial career at the age of 4 – painting smiley faces on coconuts to sell to people on the beach. Today, Michael Gluck is the founder and CEO of VG Market, a growing and profitable market research company that focuses solely on gaming companies. The company spawned out of Gluck’s work with EA Games. A couple weeks after leaving the company after his contract wasn’t renewed, Gluck had the infrastructure in place to start VG Market at the age of 24 and never looked back. Since their start in 2007, VG Market has disrupted the video game market research sector by providing a specialized service catered to that industry, which offers unmatched prices and turnaround. Focusing all of their efforts on that specific sector of market research has helped VG Market obtain a large market share and grow into five locations and multi-million dollars in revenue each year. After asking if competitors were quick to adapt their pricing and delivery methods to the new standards set by VG Market, Gluck replied, “Competitors have still not changed their models to compete.” The stubbornness of competitors to adapt has benefited VG Market as they continue to grow. Gluck […]
The post Interview: How Michael Gluck Turned $5,000 into $1,000,000 with VG Market appeared first on Under30CEO.
Since we officially rolled out our new travel company Under30Experiences last week, we’ve been busy telling our story around the web. We’ve had such amazing ups and downs building Under30CEO and Under30Experiences, that we decided to share some actionable advice, lessons learned, and the whole inspirational story to help you along your own journey… Here are 13 quotes we’ve rounded up from our recent interviews: “Building a company requires a team of passionate people, with different roles and responsibilities— not just a passionate founder.” —Six Lessons Learned From Turning My Passion Into a Business on Forbes “When you put your back against the wall, you make sh*t happen.” —An Open Letter to Frustrated Entrepreneurs on Business Insider “People don’t just want to travel anymore, they want to have an experience.” —Interview on MO.com with Matt Wilson “Success is far more rewarding when you have to work for it.” —Remarkable Interviews about Under30Experiences and Under30CEO “I want our generation to go down as the one that changed everything. We have a lot of work to do.” —Some actionable advice on Idea Mensch “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 1,000 ways that don’t work.” –Thomas Edison The Entrepreneurial Lifestyle and Creating a Legacy “We don’t travel […]
The post 13 Quotes & Places To Hear the Story of Under30CEO & Under30Experiences appeared first on Under30CEO.
For the last year, I’ve had the honor of authoring the young entrepreneur interview series here at under30ceo.com. During that time, I’ve spoken to over 40 of the most talented, passionate, innovative and hardworking individuals I’ve ever met. In addition to being consistently inspired, educated and entertained by their stories, I’ve been given a unique glimpse into the entrepreneurial mindset that has relevance to business people of any age. Over time, certain themes have emerged in these conversations. Here are a few of the most prevalent ones I’d like to share with you now. 1) Follow your passion. This is probably the thing I’ve heard most. The road to starting your own business is going to be fraught with unending obstacles, long work hours, and many ready-made opportunities to bail. If you don’t absolutely have a burning desire to make this business happen, don’t even bother. 2) Do your research. Everyone has good ideas. Most of them will not get off the ground, and even fewer of those will succeed over the long haul. One of the key ingredients to success is knowing your market and understanding your competition. Make sure that your business is filling an actual need, and […]
The post Nine Lessons I’ve Learned From Interviewing Young Entrepreneurs appeared first on Under30CEO.
Matt Wilson: When you started Hurley you were 26. Can you tell us a story from the early days living the surf entrepreneur lifestyle? Joe K: 1980, 26 years old, happily married with Cindy and our young son Joel, teaching Junior High 4 years, waiting tables, exporting surfboards to Japan and managing Hurley Surfboards. And, I was still able to surf just about every day; albeit in an exhausted state. Fast forward 4 more years, now we have a daughter; an ex-hoarder’s home we bought in Costa Mesa, CA — and out of many, many prospective candidates approaching Gordon & Rena Merchant (founder and owners of Billabong in Australia) — we picked up the license for Billabong USA. All the partners were approximately the same age; and we all were doing what we needed to do to provide for our families. Bob Hurley was shaping boards under his own label, Hurley Surfboards – which I was exporting to Japan; also for Wind-an-Sea and Lightning Bolt; Mike Ochsner was a senior cost accountant at Hughes Aircraft, Bob Rowland a pastor at Calvary Chapel Huntington Beach…. and Billabong USA was starting to really catch fire. My main focus was product. Many days I’d […]
The post Building a Business You Love with Joe Knoernschild, Co-Founder of Hurley appeared first on Under30CEO.
Tiffany Tabar is the CEO and co-founder of UpSpring PR, a boutique public relations firm specializing in architecture, interior design and product manufacturing. She and her co-founder, Sarah Nelkin, the company’s President, have built a strong niche in the hospitality, residential and commercial design markets, precisely by targeting clients working in these areas, such as the design of new restaurants. Their current roster includes a nice mix of big design firms and individual industrial designers, including ICRAVE, Vincent Celano, and Guillaume Gentet. Tabar and Nelkin, childhood friends who grew up in NYC and then attended George Washington University together, decided to try their hand at public relations during their senior year at school. In their last semester before graduating, they took on several pro-bono clients from NY and DC to see if they could convert any of them into paying ones, “… at least that was the pitch to our parents.” As you may remember, 2009 was not a favorable time to graduate and enter the workforce. While many of their friends were having trouble finding or holding onto jobs, Tiffany and Sarah hit the ground running with the one NY-based, paying client they retained from their initial group […]
The post Interview: Tiffany Tabar and UpSpring PR Focus on Design appeared first on Under30CEO.
Lucas Mendieta’s story is unique among the array of young entrepreneur chronicles I’ve rolled out on these pages. About five and a half years ago, in his mid-20’s and without the benefit of a college degree, Mendieta launched Cutting Edge Elite, a New York City event staffing agency. He and co-founder Nathan Perry have since grown the company to be one of the top firms in town, regularly providing catering and support staff for well known fashion, design and A-list celebrity events nationwide. I have worked personally with this CEE several times over the last few years, and can attest to the quality of their work. It’s one of the reasons I was inspired to share this particular CEO profile… Mendieta’s rise to success is a reminder of the power of sheer grit and determination. Born in New Jersey and raised in South Carolina by his construction worker dad and factory worker mom, he had his sights set on NYC, where he moved after “barely making it through high school.” Starting at the bottom of the employment food chain, he worked as a mail room assistant, a janitor on Wall St. and a box mover on Craigslist, until he fell […]
The post Lucas Mendieta and Cutting Edge Elite – The Story Behind the Glamour appeared first on Under30CEO.
Meet rising star, Monica Berrondo, with Macromoltek. She’s an inspiration and role model for blazing new trails as a scientist in biotechnology and on top of that having a computer science background that empowered her to lead the development of the software herself! You can follow Monica on the Macromoltek website and on LinkedIn. Want to be a featured rising star or mentor who’s built a $1M+ brand? Click here for details!>> Tell us about the company you’ve built, the inspiration behind it and where you’re at today. Macromoltek is a scientific software company for the pharmaceutical industry, focused on the research side. We have created a web-based system for antibody modeling where a researcher can upload a sequence of an antibody and after the software processes the data, the structure of the antibody is produced. This process occurs much more quickly than is typical in the market today, think hours instead of weeks, and, it’s web-based, so researchers can access their work from anywhere, when existing solutions tie a researcher to the lab. As a scientist myself, my goal was to revolutionize the process, as working firsthand with existing software left me frustrated. We are in the market validation phase, […]
The post Interview: Rising Star Monica Berrondo from Macromoltek appeared first on Under30CEO.
Sometimes great companies are formed in a very straightforward manner. Identify a problem, come up with a solution and then implement it. Oh wait. That’s how it works in our dreams… In real life, we all know it involves many more steps, and a bunch of unexpected twists and turns. However, once in a while, the elements do come together in an exquisite case of perfect timing. This seems to be the case with the latest company I’m profiling, Plated. I recently chatted with CEO Nick Taranto about the deceptively simple model he and his co-founder Josh Hix have developed to solve the problem of not having enough time to experience the joy of cooking good meals at home. Plated offers would-be gourmands an easy way to create home cooked recipes designed by top chefs, in under 30 minutes. Their online service offers home delivery of pre-portioned ingredients to delicious dishes, along with step-by-step instructions on how to prepare them. The selections are affordable and change weekly. Clearly, it’s a case of the right idea at just the right moment. First of all, people have become more comfortable buying food online, and there appears to be a trend of rediscovering […]
The post Nick Taranto: Redefining the Way America Eats, with Plated appeared first on Under30CEO.
Under30CEO is excited to present the winner of the 2013 Entrepreneur Mashup! Let’s run through some of the stats on the competition and the extraordinary involvement of readers and voters throughout the process. Competition Stats 16 entrepreneurs out of more than 100 applicants made the tournament. There were a total of over 21,000 votes in all rounds. The Championship Game had 7,790 votes. The competition featured entrepreneurs in industries ranging from health devices and financial planning to SaaS companies and mobile hair stylists. Congratulations again to all the competitors! Your stories are inspiring, and we look forward to keeping track of what you do and where you go over the next year. Now let’s get to know our winner, Robin Wilson. Cue “One Shining Moment.” Interview with Robin Wilson, co-founder of Style By Bravura Why did you start Style By Bravura? We both left the salon environment more than seven years ago and found ourselves out styling for a wedding one April morning. We hadn’t seen each other in years, and neither of us knew the bride or bridal party. I’d contacted Jacki after someone I knew had double booked herself and needed to send a stylist out. We had a great time, […]
The post Robin Wilson Interview: The Under30CEO Entrepreneur Mashup Champion appeared first on Under30CEO.
In keeping with the theme of my last interview with In Good Company’s Adelaide Lancaster, as well as one I did a little while back with Killstress Design’s Minglie Chen, I’m profiling another small business founder – friend and colleague, Liz King. Liz’s NYC based event planning company, Liz King Events, focuses on technology integrated events as live components to the branding efforts of smaller companies and organizations. She has also developed a number of programs aimed at developing relationships and sharing resources within the NYC event planning community and beyond (which is how she and I began working together a couple of years ago). For the first two and a half years, King ran her company at the same time as she held down a full time position planning events for the Columbia University Career Development office. Her story echoes that of many would-be entrepreneurs – people in jobs that no longer satisfy them, but who crave the opportunity to pursue a course that better fulfills their passions. Their desire to strike out on their own, in light of the financial realities of survival, may seem difficult to fulfill. However, Liz’s passion for creating a new company was built […]
The post Interview: Liz King Events Takes a Risk for Success appeared first on Under30CEO.
Yael Cohen makes her mission clear: to educate and engage the youth about cancer, and how to prevent it. Just like the name of the organization, Cohen doesn’t hold anything back when it comes to executing her mission. She travels across the country speaking to people of all ages about how most forms of cancer (90%) can be prevented if caught in stage one. Could you imagine a world where most cancer is stopped in its tracks, leaving hundreds of thousands of people to continue living healthy lives? Yael can, and it’s what keeps her and her team motivated every day. It all started with a simple desire to support her mother, who is now a cancer survivor. She never thought it would turn into a charity that could help other people. From social media campaigns to brand co-sponsorship and a website full of resources, Fuck Cancer offers an array of services to help educate generation Y about how to detect the early stages of cancer, and how to engage in conversation with their loved ones about the deadly disease. Read our interview below to learn more about how she runs her business, the community she serves, and what keeps her motivated […]
The post “Be The Change That You Want To See” – Yael Cohen of F*ck Cancer appeared first on Under30CEO.
I recently had an opportunity to chat with Adelaide Lancaster, co-founder of In Good Company, “a first of its kind community, business learning center, and coworking space for women entrepreneurs located in Manhattan.” When we think about entrepreneurship, we often imagine tech startups, hitting the ground running with angel funding or VC investment, then scaling to a national level until they are big enough to be bought by one of the internet giants. However, this scenario really describes only a small fraction of new businesses. According to Lancaster, at any given time up to 98% of small company owners are very content operating as micro-businesses, where they can realize precisely the kind of lifestyle they are seeking. Helping women achieve these ends among the many options available to them has been a prime focus of In Good Company WorkPlaces, as well as the book, “The Big Enough Company,” both of which were collaborations with business partner Amy Abrams. The two had previously worked together at a consulting company that was dedicated to assisting women looking to transition out of corporate positions into starting their own businesses. In 2007, they opened their space to provide women entrepreneurs a place to come […]
The post Interview: Adelaide Lancaster Supports Women Entrepreneurs with In Good Company appeared first on Under30CEO.
A few years ago we published a huge roundup of interviews with awesome people. However, since then, many of the links were broken as videos and articles had been moved and of course, many new interviews have been produced. Below, we have updated the links, added in more recent interviews where needed, and added a whole bunch of new people to the list. As a result, everything on the list below will educate and inspire you. Spend a few minutes watching these must-see interviews with amazing entrepreneurs. 1. Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Back in happier times, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates sat down at the All Things Digital Conference. 2. Larry Ellison, Founder of Oracle Oracle founder Larry Ellison on Achievement.org. 3. Mark Cuban, Owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet “When I die, I want to come back as me,” says Mark Cuban at TechCrunch. 4. Oprah Winfrey, Media Entrepreneur Larry King interviews Oprah on The Secret. 5. Richard Branson, Billionaire Founder of Virgin 15 small business lessons with Richard Branson at Open Forum. 6. George Soros, Billionaire Investor Eric Schmidt interviews George Soros at Google. 7. Jeff Bezos, Founder of […]
The post Must See Interviews With Amazing Entrepreneurs and People appeared first on Under30CEO.
Every so often, I interview someone from a company that’s still in the early stages of development, but has created a truly unique business with enormous potential. Such is the case with Noa Santos, the co-founder and CEO of HomePolish. Together with company president Will Nathan, Santos has created a full service interior design firm whose mission is to make this luxury service accessible to the masses. Their formula is simple. They start by recruiting top young designers from the best firms in the city. For a mere $50 fee, clients can schedule an in-home or virtual consultation with a designer who has been carefully matched with them. From there, design packages begin at $500. With no added design fees or furniture markups, HomePolish designers are free to seek out the best deals for their clients, since they are not motivated by commissions. As Santos explained, they endeavor to create a collaborative environment in which designers work to embody a client’s personal style into his or her home. Furthermore, the company fosters a non-competitive spirit of cooperation among all their designers, so they can easily help one another to deliver their best work on behalf of their clients. The centerpiece […]
The post Interview: Noa Santos and HomePolish are Making Interior Design Affordable appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jonas Falk is an accidental activist. As a businessman with a vision to provide cost effective, nutritious, restaurant quality lunches to schoolkids, he has created a company capable of serving the needs and desires of many concerned parents and health conscious individuals. Falk is the founder and CEO of the Chicago based company, OrganicLife, currently the leading provider of healthy lunches for early childhood and elementary schools in the state of Illinois. They specialize in high end restaurant style food management for preschools to high schools, colleges, hospitals and other institutions. “We all relate to one thing, which is we had really bad food when we were growing up in school.” Falk decided to do something about this. Growing up in a big family with an appreciation for his mom’s amazing home cooked meals, he later trained in Hotel and Restaurant Management at Michigan State and then received a degree in Culinary Arts from Kendall college. After working in the kitchen of five-star restaurants Les Francais and Le Lan under James Beard Award-winning chef, Roland Liccioni, he decided to apply the knowledge gained from his mentor to the business plan for institutional food preparation he’d devised in college. Like many […]
The post Interview: Jonas Falk’s OrganicLife is Revolutionizing School Lunches appeared first on Under30CEO.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Alison Johnston, the CEO and co-founder of InstaEDU, an innovative, online tutoring on demand service she founded a couple years ago with her brother, Dan and their Stanford classmate, Joey Shurtleff. Alison and Dan had previously operated an in-house SoCal tutoring service called Cardinal Scholars, where they quickly learned that they could do better than the local competition by offering more affordable rates to clients and providing their tutors with better compensation. They set out to solve these problems. They paid someone $600 to build them a basic website, gathered up a dozen qualified Stanford students and began marketing to Palo Alto families. Their business grew quickly and they immediately started discovering what they could do to improve their product. Although they recognized the value in providing high quality instruction, they also saw that there were holes in their current service delivery system, and sought to bring more personalization and technical facility to the way their website worked. One of the main reasons the team was drawn to develop their service in its current form is that they realized that many students, although not in need of regular hour-long blocks of assistance, […]
The post Interview: Alison Johnston and InstaEDU – Tutoring on Demand appeared first on Under30CEO.
When Shama Hyder graduated with a Masters’s degree in Organizational Communication from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008, Facebook’s popularity was just coming up on that of MySpace and Twitter was still the new kid on the block. Social media was a nascent field, ripe for someone with her intelligence and drive to step in and plant the seeds of a new consulting firm. Zen Media, which she launched in 2009, rapidly found itself a place in this burgeoning industry as a full-service entity. From its fully bootstrapped roots and original four members (Hyder invested $1500 in getting it off the ground), Zen Media now encompasses over 30 people and is a full-service web marketing and digital PR firm. Hyder is also the author of the top-selling book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing. In fact, offering quality content via her website was a key early choice that contributed to her company’s development. Shama was blogging at least once a day well before the trend towards robust online content became a driving force in SEO rankings. The desire to be a source of education and assistance for her clients was the fuel behind Zen Media’s early success and […]
The post Interview: Shama Hyder and the Timely Success of Zen Media appeared first on Under30CEO.
Getaround is a marketplace for peer to peer car sharing – think Airbnb on wheels! The idea is simple. Car owners can share their cars when they’re not using them, and renters can get access to anything from a Tesla roadster to a Prius. There are no membership fees, and the entire process is smart phone accessible, including initiating the rental and unlocking the car doors. The company is the brainchild of Jessica Scorpio and engineers Sam Zaid and Elliot Kroo, who were all members of the inaugural class of Silicon Valley’s Singularity University graduate program. As part of that institution’s mission to foster the use of accelerated technology to solve the world’s grand challenges, the team took on the problem of “car overpopulation.” Thus, the idea for Getaround was born. I had the recent opportunity to chat with the Getaround’s co-founder and Director of Marketing Jessica Scorpio, about the trajectory of bringing the group’s vision to fruition. From the start of development in 2009, it took a year and a half to bring the company to launch, and another 18 months to scale to over 10,000 car owners currently signed up to rent out their vehicles. The benefits of […]
The post Interview: Jessica Scorpio and Getaround are Changing How We Rent Cars appeared first on Under30CEO.
Let’s say you live in an apartment, and let’s say you really wish you could grow your own vegetables and herbs. Well, in the best tradition of using entrepreneurship to meet a big need, Windowfarms founder and CEO, Britta Riley has invented a small scale hydroponic gardening system specifically designed for urban dwellers to hang in their windows. A serial entrepreneur and technology designer, she has taken her passion for environmental concerns and harnessed the power of crowdsourced creativity to create a product so innovative, that it is currently part of a major installation at NYC’s Museum of Natural History, on display until the end of this summer. Riley developed a foundational love for nature growing up on a Texas ranch with her seven siblings, where she also honed her DIY tractor maintenance skills. With a liberal arts degree from St. John’s College, combined experience as a journalist, early adopter of online communications, co-founder of four socially conscious businesses and a master’s degree from NYU’s ITP Interactive Telecommunications Program under her belt, Riley was poised to create relevant, tech forward contributions in her field of choice. In her last company, Submersible Design, Britta created large scale interactive projects and exhibits […]
The post Interview: Britta Riley and Window Farms – It’s All About Resilience appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jennifer Carter Fleiss Company: Rent the Runway Age: 28 The numbers: $50 million funding with over 3 million members Rent the Runway is a membership-based website that rents high-end designer apparel and accessories on a 4- or 8-day basis. The company was founded by two Harvard Business School graduates, Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Carter Fleiss. Launched in November 2009, the website now offers over 35,000 dresses and accessories from over 170 designers such as Badgley Mischka, Vera Wang, and Calvin Klein. Susan Gregg Koger Company: Modcloth Age: 27 The numbers: $44.8 million in funding ModCloth was launched as a website in 2002 by Susan Gregg-Koger with the help of her then-boyfriend, now-husband Eric Koger. ModCloth.com is an online clothing, accessories, and decor retailer with a focus on independent and vintage-inspired fashion. Modcloth is expanding with more than 300 employees and more coming on board. Hayley Barna & Katia Beauchamp Company: Birchbox Age: 28, 29 The numbers: $11.9 million in funding BirchBox is a monthly subscription service that delivers beauty product samples to users on a monthly basis. The site offers relevant editorial content and a e-commerce site. With $11.9 million in funding and over 100,000 users since their launch in Sept. 2010. Birchbox also […]
The post 22 Young Women Entrepreneurs and Their Companies to Watch appeared first on Under30CEO.
Traditionally, women seeking success in the business world have been up against different sorts of challenges than their male counterparts. Operating outside the benefits of the “old boys network” and subject to different expectations regarding likeability and domestic responsibilities, women professionals have often had to forge ahead largely on their own, without any major support. In 2011, Caroline Ghosn, along with Amanda Pouchot, decided that they would tackle this problem on behalf of Gen Y women by co-founding an organization to develop access to jobs, skills and community, in support of their careers. This organization is the Levo League. A membership organization with an open network, the Levo League has attracted the attention of ambitious women between the ages of 18 and 35, as well as many peers who are attracted to the idea of helping the cause and serving its mission. What started as a two-person, self-funded operation has, in short order, attracted investors the likes of Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. This is a company that is in active development. As of the time of our conversation back in January, a new activity feed had just been launched on their website, marking significant advancement of the community development portion of […]
The post Caroline Ghosn and the Levo League – Move Over Old Boys Network! appeared first on Under30CEO.
It’s that time of year again when we put together our 30 most influential young entrepreneurs list. Each of these founders and CEOs are running incredible ventures that have taken a lot of sacrifice and hard work to get to where they are today. There are multiple companies on the list this year carrying valuations in the billions of dollars along with our first young entrepreneur running a public company. The 30 companies below are worth hundreds of billions and employee thousands of people. All of these companies are still private (with the exception of Facebook) but we found as much financial information and data from 2012 as we could. Mark Zuckerberg Company: Facebook Age: 28 The numbers: $104 Billion at IPO Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004 at Harvard and since then, the social network has grown to over 1 billion monthly users. He is the world’s youngest billionaire with Facebook receiving a valuation of over $100 billion at it’s IPO. Zuckerberg has literally changed the way people interact and has broken down social walls faster than ever imagined. Time Magazine named Zuckerberg Person of the Year for 2010 and is the only young entrepreneur on this list with a public company. […]
The post 30 Most Influential Young Entrepreneurs of 2012 appeared first on Under30CEO.
Buying art on the internet is not a new concept, but Tze Chun has brought something fresh and unique to the scene with her online art gallery, Uprise Art. The mission of the company is to make the process of collecting art easier, more enjoyable and more affordable. At their website, you can currently view the works of over 30 artists, join up to get invitations to live art viewings, and make arrangements to purchase your favorite pieces with an affordable payment plan. It’s not surprising that Chun would end up creating an enterprise with such a fresh and inspired vision. No stranger to entrepreneurship, she is also the artistic director of Tze Chun Dance Company, which she founded in 2006. That company, currently developing new work in residence at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, has recently completed a series of site-specific performances throughout Brooklyn as well as a tour of China during the summer of 2010. Tze, a Massachusetts native, originally came to New York City in 2002 to attend Columbia University. A dancer as well as a visual artist, she earned a double degree in Dance and American Studies, with a focus on American Art. She also honed […]
The post Tze Chun and Uprise Art – Bringing Art Into People’s Lives appeared first on Under30CEO.
Once upon a time, in 2010, Joe Coleman was living in Las Vegas, looking for a way to develop quality content for PR and marketing for his successful internet company, CashCrate. He contacted his longtime friend Shane Snow, a Columbia School of Journalism grad who was writing for Wired magazine, living smack in the middle of a pool of talented NYC journalists, all looking for work. The two soon realized that they had identified a set of complementary needs. They brought in Shane’s colleague, programmer Dave Goldberg, to help them brainstorm a solution. Thus was born Contently. Contently is essentially a storytelling platform that connects brands with qualified journalists. In addition to providing an ingenious matchmaking service, it also offers a workflow tool that helps organize editorial decision making and scheduling of assignments at the highest level, and a vehicle for writers to pitch their best ideas to receptive editors. As a bonus, while harnessing creative talent to meet the specific requirements of businesses, Contently also offers an opportunity for all parties to benefit from the latest evolution in content driven SEO. This kind of writing is a far cry from the soulless amalgamations of keywords catering to Google’s old […]
The post Joe Coleman of Contently – Content Matchmaking at its Best appeared first on Under30CEO.
Social Enterprise Law in Beta – A Conversation With Kyle Westaway Social enterprise: an organization that uses the forces of the market to do good in a socially or environmentally conscious context. Although it can be structured as a for-profit business or non-profit organization, it is distinct in that its social aims are primary, and profits are secondary. Different from companies who may raise money for charity in service of or as an adjunct to their for-profit mission, the chief focus of a social enterprise is to change the world for the common good. Read more Aaron Greenwald: Enabling Pizza Eaters Everywhere with Bold Organics There are few things in this world that make me geek out as much as pizza. So when I interviewed Aaron Greenwald, President of Bold Organics, it wasn’t hard to get me excited about his company and his product. Aaron and his partner, award-winning St. Louis chef Eric Brenner, have developed a line of gluten-free, dairy-free, organic non-GMO pizzas with their brand, Bold Organics. Read more Brandon Craft Gets Innovative at Clinvue Brandon Craft is the Head of Research and Design for Clinvue, a medical device innovation company based out of Westminster, MD. Trained at Virginia Tech as an […]
The post 30 Young Entrepreneur Interviews You May Have Missed in 2012 appeared first on Under30CEO.
You may remember Avi Zikry, Jesse Friedman and Alex Ushyarov for their inclusion in the recent Under30CEO Awards. As founders of New York Construction Company, one of the leading home improvement companies in New York City, the trio earned a spot in this distinguished list of young entrepreneurs for launching their company during the bowels of the recession in 2008, and building it up to an $8,000,000 success story by 2011. That year, they decided to expand their operations to an online platform with Click and Improve. Click and Improve offers customers the unique online experience of being able to access pre-screened contractors to perform specific home improvement tasks at a fixed price. Customers then have the safety of knowing that the contractors don’t get paid until 7 days after the job is completed, subject to their satisfaction with the work. It eliminates the hassle of comparing widely divergent project bids and provides a measure of security not found when shopping around for service providers independently. This team of Queens, NY natives is no stranger to innovation. A large part of the success of New York Construction Company has been the combination of offering financing in addition to quality contracting […]
The post Interview: Click and Improve Brings Home Improvement Online appeared first on Under30CEO.
Social enterprise: an organization that uses the forces of the market to do good in a socially or environmentally conscious context. Although it can be structured as a for-profit business or non-profit organization, it is distinct in that its social aims are primary, and profits are secondary. Different from companies who may raise money for charity in service of or as an adjunct to their for-profit mission, the chief focus of a social enterprise is to change the world for the common good. Attorney Kyle Westaway stumbled into this field several years back when he was working with some friends on a project to help women in Southeast Asia coming out of the sex trade to transition into a healthier and more stable life. Together they created a fashion brand called Biographe that employed these women in a way that contributed more positively to their lives and their communities. He felt so passionate about this work, that he decided to devote himself full-time to the practice of law in service of other such projects through his firm, Westaway Law. Social enterprise and social enterprise law are still relatively new fields, but have been gaining increasing popularity over the last decade. […]
The post Social Enterprise Law in Beta – A Conversation With Kyle Westaway appeared first on Under30CEO.
This summer, Under30CEO launched a nationwide campaign to discover the most promising young entrepreneurs from all across the United States. The goal of the Under30CEO Awards is to highlight the next big innovators, leaders, and world changers from our Top 10 Cities for Young Entrepreneurs. In order to qualify, the entrepreneurs had to meet revenue requirements of between $50,000 and $10,000,000 (OR) over 10,000 users, (OR) have between $50,000 and $10,000,000 in funding, under the age of 30. The following are the 2012 Under30CEO Award Winners from Washington, D.C.. Washington, D.C.’s young entrepreneurs had over $11,600,000 in revenues, $8,500,000 in funding and employed over 190 people. Congratulations to all of the winners! Melaine Privitera Age: 30 Company: Mobius Consulting, LLC. Description: Mobius Consulting is a women-owned small business that provides systems engineering, technical analysis, program management, and organizational strategy expertise to the Federal government. We advise and assist government organizations on issues of national and global significance. Our engineers, analysts, and program management professionals provide our clients relevant and actionable solutions to their current and emerging challenges. We believe in approaching our work with innovation and creativity, a combination that results in lasting value for our customers. Mobius Consulting is committed to exceeding […]
The post Under30CEO Awards: 14 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch in Washington, D.C. appeared first on Under30CEO.
There are few things in this world that make me geek out as much as pizza. So when I interviewed Aaron Greenwald, President of Bold Organics, it wasn’t hard to get me excited about his company and his product. Aaron and his partner, award-winning St. Louis chef Eric Brenner, have developed a line of gluten-free, dairy-free, organic non-GMO pizzas with their brand, Bold Organics. Like many journeys to entrepreneurship, the path to creating his company was inspired by his personal experience. In high school, Greenwald was a competitive tennis player. Seeking ways to help him improve his performance, his mom suggested he try a gluten and dairy free diet. The results were remarkable. Aaron lost 20 pounds in two months, while his energy and ability to focus increased dramatically. The only problem was he couldn’t find the kind of pizza and pasta that he loved so much without breaking his new diet. When he entered college at Washington University in St. Louis, his original focus on architecture quickly shifted to business, and in particular, entrepreneurship. By his second year, he began researching his plan to develop a gluten-free, dairy-free pizza company. He learned that there was a huge American […]
The post Aaron Greenwald: Enabling Pizza Eaters Everywhere with Bold Organics appeared first on Under30CEO.
My recent interview with Bassam Tarazi was unlike any other before it in the history of my work for this site. Having met at a fundraising event, he and I had originally connected over our mutual history as writers and creative seekers. At our subsequent meeting for this article, we easily fell into casual conversation, which slowly evolved and naturally flowed to the topic at hand. Bassam is the founder of Colipera – a name that sounds vaguely like some sort of deadly virus. This is by conscious choice. He’s in the business of sharing knowledge about getting and staying motivated, creative and productive, something he’s been busy making viral. His book, The Accountability Effect, The Book Your Excuses Don’t Want You to Read, is offered free online, and forms the basis for continued work with him via workshops and coaching. Bassam’s ideas, while well grounded in the wisdom of the human potential movement of the last century, are informed by the rather recent perspective shift of the social media age that maintains that generosity of spirit goes further than secretive, competitive behavior. Open sharing and promotion of one another’s ideas foster a sense of open exchange – honesty and […]
The post Interview: Bassam Tarazi’s Wisdom Goes Viral appeared first on Under30CEO.
This summer, Under30CEO launched a nationwide campaign to discover the most promising young entrepreneurs from all across the United States. The goal of the Under30CEO Awards is to highlight the next big innovators, leaders, and world changers from our Top 10 Cities for Young Entrepreneurs. In order to qualify, the entrepreneurs had to meet revenue requirements of between $50,000 and $10,000,000 (OR) over 10,000 users, (OR) have between $50,000 and $10,000,000 in funding, under the age of 30. The following are the 2012 Under30CEO Award Winners from New Orleans. New Orleans’s young entrepreneurs had over $14,000,000 in revenues, $1,200,000 in funding and employed over 164 people. Congratulations to all of the winners! Beau Button & William Sossamon Age: 29 & 29 Company: Archon Information Systems, LLC Description: We provide all levels of government and governmental agencies with comprehensive, progressive tax related and treasury management solutions. Our company’s philosophy is to provide clients with the highest quality products, services, and counsel, on a timely and responsive basis, while upholding the highest ethical standards. Our CivicSource® (www.civicsource.com) platform is a leading provider of delinquent tax collection, online property tax auctions and tax collection software. Reid Stone & Shaun Walker Age: 29 $ 28 Company: HERO|farm Description: An […]
The post Under30CEO Awards: Top Young Entrepreneurs to Watch in New Orleans appeared first on Under30CEO.
Brandon Craft is the Head of Research and Design for Clinvue, a medical device innovation company based out of Westminster, MD. Trained at Virginia Tech as an industrial designer, he founded the consultancy firm in 2010 along with his two partners, fellow industrial designer and mechanical engineer, Paul Fearis and surgeon Dr. Jonathan Sackier. Informed by their combined expertise at identifying the needs of all stakeholders in the design and implementation process, they provide research and development services for cutting edge medical technologies. The Clinvue team conducts extensive field research and consultation with patients, clinicians, scientists and businesspeople involved with both the development and use of the product. They then create a detailed data package that chronicles the entire history and application of the device. A veritable encyclopedia of all aspects of the product’s development, it includes tech specs, narrative descriptions, pictures and even video footage. This detailed documentation of the development process assists clients in navigating their way through clinical trials and creating a product entirely in synch with their specific market. The hybrid process that Clinvue’s founders have developed combines the best of business school and design school with the clinical tools of research and observation. By immersing […]
The post Interview: Brandon Craft Gets Innovative at Clinvue appeared first on Under30CEO.
This summer, Under30CEO launched a nationwide campaign to discover the most promising young entrepreneurs from all across the United States. The goal of the Under30CEO Awards is to highlight the next big innovators, leaders, and world changers from our Top 10 Cities for Young Entrepreneurs. In order to qualify, the entrepreneurs had to meet revenue requirements of between $50,000 and $10,000,000 (OR) over 10,000 users, (OR) have between $50,000 and $10,000,000 in funding, under the age of 30. The following are the 2012 Under30CEO Award Winners from Kansas City. Kansas City’s young entrepreneurs had over $12,000,000 in revenues, $1,200,000 in funding and employed over 60 people. Congratulations to all of the winners! Blake Miller Age: 28 Company: Think Big Partners Description: Think Big Partners is an early-stage business incubator, startup accelerator and mentorship-based collaborative network. Simply put, Think Big Partners build and grow great technology companies. Jason McAninch Age: 26 Company: J-TEK Description: J-TEK provides quality IT support services to businesses that need assistance with day to day operations of their IT environment and consulting services to help businesses get technology to work smarter and more efficiently for them. In addition, we also have a sector of our company that serves residential customers with their […]
The post Under30CEO Awards: Top Young Entrepreneurs to Watch in Kansas City appeared first on Under30CEO.
This summer, Under30CEO launched a nationwide campaign to discover the most promising young entrepreneurs from all across the United States. The goal of the Under30CEO Awards is to highlight the next big innovators, leaders, and world changers from our Top 10 Cities for Young Entrepreneurs. In order to qualify, the entrepreneurs had to meet revenue requirements of between $50,000 and $10,000,000 (OR) over 10,000 users, (OR) have between $50,000 and $10,000,000 in funding, under the age of 30. The following are the 2012 Under30CEO Award Winners from Boston. Boston’s young entrepreneurs had over $7,000,000 in revenues, $10,800,000 in funding, 400,000 users and employed over 150 people. Congratulations to all the winners! Todd Boucher Age: 30 Company: Leading Edge Design Group Description: Leading Edge Design Group is a leading national provider of energy optimization services that delivers significant energy savings through efficient data center designs and emerging LED lighting and wireless lighting control technologies. Founded in 2007 with the goal of pursuing, promoting, and providing the finest energy optimization solutions available, we help our customers minimize the environmental impact of their businesses while improving operational reliability and reducing costs. Leading Edge Design Group is dedicated to encouraging, challenging, and contributing to energy industry innovation […]
The post Under30CEO Award Winners: Top Young Entrepreneurs in Boston appeared first on Under30CEO.
Sometimes keeping it simple is the best way to be successful. Just ask Laura Roeder, founder of Roeder Studios, and the popular website LKR Social Media. She has made a career of selling social media training courses to small businesses looking to grow and develop their online presence, and with nearly 38,000 subscribers, I’d say she has locked onto her own formula for success. Laura got her start as a web designer, where she developed an interest and growing expertise in the tools of social media. In 2009, she made the decision to translate her informal sharing and consulting with her design clients into the focus of a full-time business creating online courses to teach others what she had learned from her own experience. Her first offering was a course on leveraging Twitter to help your business, one that she still sells. The key to Roeder’s popular approach is to keep things easy going and personable. “It’s social media – you don’t have to take it so seriously, you can’t screw it up too bad.” She advocates taking it one step at a time, learning at an easy pace, and incorporating the tools into daily practice in a way that […]
The post Keeping it Simple and Dominating Social Media with Laura Roeder appeared first on Under30CEO.
There’s something funny going on in Charleston, South Carolina. Somebody’s producing awesome parties to raise money for international charities AND branding a kickass wine and culture website AND trying to shake up the US wine distribution system, all at the same time. Are you serious, you ask? Well, check out Wine Awesomeness and see for yourself… The brainchild of serial entrepreneur Logan Lee and Charleston restauranteur & sommelier Brad Ball, the site is run along with partners Dale Slear and Luke Correale. According to their manifesto, Wine Awesomeness is on a mission to educate younger wine drinkers while making positive contributions to the world at large. I caught up with Lee recently in NYC, and he broke down the story behind his innovative company. Inspired by a presentation at a 2010 Harvard Business School conference on social entrepreneurship by a group called Tickets for Charity, whose model is to share profits from ticket sales with various charities, Lee realized he could apply the same concept to the high margin sales of sparkling wines. Champagne (v.) – for a cause was the initial expression of this vision, and the first charity they supported was the UN Foundation’s Girl Up, a non-profit […]
The post Why is Logan Lee Slinging Wine All Over the Internet? appeared first on Under30CEO.
Continuing on with a review of the awesome young NYC entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed over the past several months, I’m happy to share this second half of my list with you. Once again, I was struck by the diversity in ideas and vision that continue to make New York such a vibrant and exciting city to launch new businesses and other innovative projects. Avi Millman CEO and Co-founder of Stray Boots, an online company that changed the shape of tourism with its interactive urban adventures in major US cities. With a second consecutive “Certificate of Excellence” award from TripAdvisor for another year of 5-star reviews under their belt, the company recently launched in Miami. See the full interview Gina Mancuso owner of LoveThatFit, a new online, virtual fit technology set for imminent beta launch. This serial entrepreneur and mom is inspiring for her proven track record of successful businesses and innovative ideas. See the full interview Derek A Webster Founder and CEO of Local Bonus, a credit card based loyalty program supporting local merchants in five major US markets. The company just received its latest round of funding to support its ongoing growth and expansion to new cities. See the full […]
The post Eight More NYC Young Entrepreneurs to Keep an Eye On! appeared first on Under30CEO.
Fam Mirza is the Founder and Creative Director at Mirza Minds, a product branding and marketing firm based in Chicago. With a number of successful celebrity related projects under his belt, Mirza is now hard at work on launching the 1Face Watch campaign, which marks his entry into the charity space. I recently caught up with Fam to talk to him about this latest development in his career. According to Mirza the 1Face project is much more than a watch, it’s about the brand which socializes the product, meets metrics, and creates social change throughout the world. The brand’s mission is “Changing the world, 1: face at a time.” When people grasp that concept and want to share it on their social media pages and with their friends, that’s when the campaign takes on a life of its own. Sales of the watch go to fund six different charities, such as the American Cancer Society, Keep a Child Alive and The Adventure Project, each one linked to a different color watch. Consumers contribute to the charity of their choice by purchasing watches and are told how many they must buy in order to underwrite nutritional supplements for a child for 1 […]
The post Fam Mirza and Mirza Minds – Changing the World 1-Face at a Time appeared first on Under30CEO.
Over the past couple of months, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing an impressive group of New York City based entrepreneurs realizing their vision in a variety of fields. Below is the first half of a list that covers everything from non-profit organizations to internet start-ups. Stay tuned for part two! Gauri Manglik CEO and Co-founder of Fondu, a food review site that lets users share their opinions about restaurants with friends in their social circles. Since launching earlier this year, the site has been slowly gaining users around the world. Over the summer, Apple presented them at WWDC as an example of a first-class on-boarding process. See the full interview Alex Torrenegra Serial entrepreneur and founder of Torrenegra Labs, a suite of online marketplaces and companies concentrating on the online booking and voiceover spaces. His most recent company, VoiceBunny, which utilizes crowdsourcing to find voice talent, just came out of beta. See the full interview Becky Straw Co-founder of The Adventure Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping individuals in developing countries find work on life-sustaining projects. The group was recently nominated as a finalist for “Best New Charity” of the Year for the Stay Classy Awards. See the […]
The post Eight NYC Young Entrepreneurs to Keep an Eye On! appeared first on Under30CEO.
Sometimes entrepreneurs face extreme challenges that do not have their origins in the business world, but still manage to impact their business greatly. I’m talking about health problems. I recently had the pleasure of getting to know a 27-yr-old entrepreneur based out of Miami, Florida, named Elchonon Hellinger. The owner of a successful online company known as Thrifty Computer, Elchonon was born with a rare and troublesome condition known as Neurofibromatosis Type II, or MISME Syndrome. This condition is characterized by the continuing development of non-malignant tumors in the brain and other parts of the body. The brain tumors primarily affect the auditory-vestibular nerve that controls the transmission of sensory information from the inner ear to the brain, and can affect hearing and balance. These and other painful body tumors can necessitate multiple surgical procedures to remove them over the course of the person’s life. By the time he was 18, Elchonon Hellinger was almost fully deaf. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – it was not a good time for him. But like anyone who lives with a chronic, debilitating condition, he had the choice of whether he would get on top of the situation or let it take him down […]
The post Elchonon Hellinger and Thrifty Computer – The Rocky Road to Success appeared first on Under30CEO.
“Indiegogo is the world’s funding platform, where anybody can raise money for absolutely any idea,” says Co-Founder and CEO, Slava Rubin. This vision of democratizing the fundraising process is what drives indiegogo, one of the earliest and most well known leaders in what has become a very active field of crowd sourced funders on the internet. From its completely bootstrapped beginnings in 2008, launched entirely on the savings of founders Rubin, Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell, the company recently announced they’d received $15 million in funding from Insight Ventures and Khosla Ventures. Clearly they are onto something! With this infusion of capital, they are currently in the process of significantly expanding their worldwide operations. Rubin’s entry into this world has its roots in his personal experience. Born in Belarus, he moved to the US as a kid and was raised first in Brooklyn, then later in the fair city of Scranton, PA. At the age of 15, he lost his father to cancer. Ten years later, with a degree in finance and entrepreneurial management from U. Penn/Wharton under his belt, he formed Music Against Myeloma, an annual charity event, in his Dad’s honor. Hooking up with Ringelmann and Schell in […]
The post Slava Rubin and Indiegogo – “Go Fund Yourself” appeared first on Under30CEO.
There are many reasons people start their own companies. Sometimes it’s because they are extremely passionate about making a difference; other times it’s because they just need to be in charge. Then there are those opportunities to make big bucks. And once in awhile, there is this crazy notion that a better life is possible. This is the story of Minglie Chen and Tyler Smutz, CEO and President/Master Craftsman of a full service design and fabrication company called Killstress Designs. I first met Tyler and Minglie a few years ago when they moved in next door to me in the semi-suburban Bronx neighborhood known as Riverdale. It did not take long for me to notice the cool looking guy with the infectious smile who rode a bike and seemed to enjoy my son’s long diatribes about Transformers (his obsession at the time). We soon got to chatting about work and stuff, and I learned that he was involved in the theater and production, my own field. Later on, I learned that his girlfriend was an actress currently touring in a Broadway show. That would explain why I hadn’t met her yet. Soon enough, I noticed strange sounds coming out of […]
The post What They Did For Love: Minglie Chen, Tyler Smutz and Killstress Designs appeared first on Under30CEO.
That night, I was doing what many entrepreneurs do. My good friend and powerhouse, Cosmo Fujiyama, brought me to a drink gathering with five other incredible people who would ultimately be the reason I chose to visit Panama. Kassidy Brown, Co-Founder of Journey of Action, and Amanda Slavin, who were present, had just returned that evening from visiting Kalu Yala, a sustainable entrepreneurial settlement nestled in the heart of Panama. I didn’t know much about Kalu Yala, but after hearing them rave about their visit with such optimism and excitement in their eyes, I knew I had to go. After visiting the website that night, I admit that I still didn’t quite know what Kalu Yala was all about, but I would soon find out that I was on the right track. It’s a place that certain people are attracted to; the right people. “We’re not intentionally mysterious, but we also don’t intentionally answer questions that we don’t necessarily have the answers to yet. There are a lot of people asking for you to say what you are before you are these days, especially when you’re a start-up company…and we’re a start-up culture as much as we’re a start-up company. […]
The post Town 2.0, Leader 2.0: Lessons in Entrepreneurship from Jimmy Stice appeared first on Under30CEO.
Did you know that the first commercial scale hydroponic rooftop farm in the country is located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn? Gotham Greens is the brainchild of CEO Viraj Puri and Co-Founder Eric Haley along with Greenhouse Director Jennifer Nelkin. With 20 full-time employees, this 15,000 sq foot state-of-the-art, climate controlled greenhouse facility produces over 100 tons of premium quality greens and herbs for sale annually to the local NYC restaurant and retail market. With an impressive 55 kilowatt solar panel installation providing over half of its energy needs during the summer months, the facility is a model of sustainability, with a concern for public health at the core of its existence. When I visited with Viraj at the greenhouse a few weeks ago, he shared more about the creation of this forward thinking business. Puri’s background in natural resource use and public health had caused him growing concern about the current state of traditional agriculture. Having previously worked at an environmental engineering firm where he was exposed to a hydroponic greenhouse, he was compelled by the idea of producing high quality produce using a fraction of the resources and with a significantly reduced environmental footprint. The creation of a local, urban […]
The post Viraj Puri and Gotham Greens – The Great Taste of Urban Agriculture appeared first on Under30CEO.
Did you know that less than 25% of all local businesses have websites, and less than 10% of them post their pricing anywhere on the internet? Well say hello to Centzy, the local search engine that offers pricing and store hours alongside basic contact information, ratings and reviews for the local businesses you use on a regular basis. Dry cleaners, nail salons, oil change stations and yoga studios are among the 15 services you can research on this unique and useful site that went live earlier this year, with more services already in the works. I recently sat down with CEO Jay Shek, who together with CTO Jeremy Clemenson developed this idea out of their desire to create something innovative in the local space. They wanted to solve a problem that no one else was really looking at, and after a thorough, logical process of elimination, they seem to have tapped into something quite practical. If you want to find the closest gym to your home or office, that costs less than a certain amount, and has a four star rating on both Citysearch and Yelp, then Centzy is the place to go. Launched in May in New York City, […]
The post Jay Shek and Centzy – Bringing Local Businesses to the Internet appeared first on Under30CEO.
Recently I had the opportunity to chat with Olivier Lasry, the Founder and CEO of Wingsplay, a new and innovative network for advertisers seeking to distribute their viral videos through influential social media users. These influencers are given the opportunity to earn money by leveraging the power of their networks on Facebook and Twitter and through their blogs. The best part about the concept is that it builds upon the natural tendency of certain individuals to share quality content with their online friends. In fact, the idea came to Lasry after he noticed that he and many of his friends would often share their favorite videos with one another on Facebook and Twitter. By tracking and monetizing this spreading of content, he realized he could create a new kind of advertising network that would grow organically. Olivier and his team carefully pre-screen all of their content to pass on only the funniest and most clever videos to their network of influencers. In this way, Wingsplay has developed a funnel for sharing only the highest quality work with one of the most powerful markets around. It’s a win-win situation for both advertisers and end users, who often get to discover great […]
The post Olivier Lasry and Wingsplay – Leveraging the Advertising Power of Social Media appeared first on Under30CEO.
Pop quiz. What company started out with the idea to create a few simple little apps and has developed into a successful software developer and tech incubator with an impressive list of clients across the spectrum of private industry and government? That would be Appetizer Mobile. The brainchild of CEO Jordan Edelson, Appetizer Mobile is “a creative mobile application development, consulting and marketing company.” They work with clients in a variety of industries to develop, market, brand and implement mobile apps designed specifically for them. With a broad range of contracts in multiple industries, including music, entertainment, finance and security, Edelson has managed to create a self-financing business with significant equity potential. Some of you may recognize Edelson from his earlier successes. The former owner of Game Broadcasting Live, (a digital streaming video game broadcasting channel that premiered on Time Square’s Jumbotron), and eSportsTV, (a portal for streaming live electronic sports and professional video gaming broadcasts, where he partnered with Samsung), Jordan made a name for himself in the gaming and tech space before he even graduated from high school! He was later CTO of H3 Enterprises, the first publicly traded Hip-Hop Company, (creators of the Hip Hop Soda Shop), […]
The post Jordan Edelson and Appetizer Mobile’s Unique Recipe for Success appeared first on Under30CEO.
Does anyone out there remember S&H Green Stamps? Well, back in the day, people would earn these stamps from grocery stores and other local merchants every time they bought something, and paste them into books, and once you filled up a certain number of books, you could win a toaster, or other sorts of prizes. It was fun, it was easy, and it really made you want to buy your stuff from participating stores… Derek Webster has applied modern technology to this classic idea to create a company he calls LocalBonus. It’s an easy-to-use consumer based loyalty program, designed to support commerce with local mom and pop merchants such as restaurants, bars, florists and wine stores. Consumers use their existing debit or credit cards to automatically earn rewards simply by shopping at local businesses. Sign up is quick, and once in the system, there’s nothing left to do but go shopping and accumulate rewards. Inspired by his years of travel in his previous job, Webster wanted to develop a program similar to the frequent flyer programs and hotel loyalty programs that captured his attention. He has created an easy to use product that allows customers to search for stores by […]
The post “I Work Harder, I Stress More. I Wouldn’t Trade it for Anything” – Derek Webster of LocalBonus appeared first on Under30CEO.
Mario Casabona is a serial entrepreneur and an active angel investor. In my interview with Mario he talks about his journey as an entrepreneur, his latest venture, TechLaunch, a startup accelerator, and provides his best advice to aspiring entrepreneurs. Here are the questions I asked: 1.) Can you introduce yourself and talk a bit about your past and current ventures? 2.) Tell me about TechLaunch – What can entrepreneurs expect to gain during the program? 3.) What types of companies are you looking for? 4.) Given your experience as both an entrepreneur and investor, is there any advice you think would be particularly helpful for young entrepreneurs? Listen to full interview here: [powerpress] Interview by: Mike helps startups through mid-size companies with capital raising, mergers and acquisitions and strategy. He also teaches a Skillshare class on capital raising and can be reached at twitter.com/mfishbein.
The post Interview: Mario Casabona on the New TechLaunch Accelerator Program appeared first on Under30CEO.
Gina Mancuso is the owner of LoveThatFit, a new online, virtual fit technology that is set to revolutionize the way we go shopping for clothing. Currently in private beta, the company is looking towards a beta launch this summer, with a wide release slated for the fall, in time to showcase winter fashions. A former professional equestrian, Mancuso turned her international riding experience into her first successful business buying and selling horses from Holland and Germany. She sold that business after the Euro came onto the scene and went back to school at the University of Miami. While living there, she launched and operated her second business, a boutique fitness studio, which she also sold for a profit after a year and a half. The inspiration for LoveThatFit came from the fact that Gina, like so many of us, hates trying on clothes. She decided to create a positive shopping experience that would virtually mirror the best aspects of the real thing. Utilizing an individual API for every retailer that uses it, the program embeds directly into their existing website, allowing shoppers to mix and match outfits and use the store’s interface to buy clothing, compare past and future purchases, […]
The post Inspiration From a Serial Entrepreneur – Gina Mancuso and LoveThatFit appeared first on Under30CEO.
Mentors are more than a nice thing to have; they are essential if you want to accelerate your career. Mentors make the difference between people who simply advance up the corporate ladder one rung at a time and those who skip rungs. Studies show that: – Professionals who have used a mentor earn between $5,610-$22,450 more annually than those who don’t. Among executives interviewed in one study, 75 percent say mentoring has played a key role in their careers. – Those with mentors have higher job satisfaction, productivity, and retention. Recently, I had the honor of “innerviewing” Bert Gervais, The Mentor Guy and author of bestseller Who Is In Your Top Hive? Below is a transcript of our conversation about finding and developing great mentoring relationships. Jullien: What are some myths about mentorship? Bert: I’ve identified the top 3 Myths about mentorship… 1. MENTORS ARE STEPPING STONES: It’s important to remember that mentors are not stepping stones they are real people. Build rapport, align interests, and figure out what you can give. 2. ANYBODY CAN MENTOR YOU: What you’re chasing is wisdom, not titles. You must find someone with the relevant skills, but in order to do that, you need to […]
The post Did You Know People With Mentors Make More Money? Interview with Bert Gervais appeared first on Under30CEO.
Bob Moul is a serial entrepreneur who has worked with several successful companies, including Boomi, which was sold to Dell. He’s now CEO of appRenisaince and President of Philly Startup Leaders. In my interview with Bob he talks about his journey as an entrepreneur, his experience selling to a big company, his efforts to build out the startup community in Philadelphia and provides his best advice to young entrepreneurs. Here are the questions I asked: 1.) Tell me about your past and current ventures 2.) What was it like selling to a big company? Is there anything you would have done differently? Any advice you would give to an entrepreneur who’s beginning the sale process? 3.) Tell me more about Philly Startup Leaders. What are your objectives for the program and how do you think it can help the city of Philadelphia and the entrepreneurs who live there? 4.) Given all your experiences, is there one piece of advice you think would be particularly helpful to entrepreneurs who are listening? Listen to the full interview: [powerpress] Interview by: Mike helps startups through mid-size companies with capital raising, mergers and acquisitions and strategy. He also teaches a Skillshare class on capital […]
The post Bob Moul on Selling a Company and Building a Startup Community appeared first on Under30CEO.
A few years ago, Avi Millman was on a family trip in Rome, his face buried in a guidebook, shuttling from one historical site to another, thinking to himself, “Wow, this could be so much more interactive.” That glimmer of an idea would eventually grow to become Stray Boots, which Avi describes as “your own private ‘Amazing Race’ on your cell phone.” Participants receive clues, learn facts and earn points as they complete the challenge of an urban adventure. Each “game” is a 2-3 hour experience, but can be spread out over the course of a day in whatever way feels comfortable for the players. Recommended start and end times are provided, based on when certain locations are open, but aside from that, participants are freed from the constraints of a conventional walking tour. If they want to stop along the way for a bite to eat, or to explore a certain site more thoroughly, that flexibility is built into the experience. Millman credits his undergrad history degree with fueling his passion for travel and urban exploration. After graduating from Princeton in 2005, he worked for the COO of the popular clothing chain, Steve & Barry’s during a period of […]
The post Turning Fun Into a Business – Avi Millman and Stray Boots appeared first on Under30CEO.
The Global Renewal Renewal Energy Education Network (GREEN) is an innovative program that exposes students and young professionals to renewable energy technologies in Costa Rica. It was created in 2009 by three Rutgers University students, Mikhail Naumov, Melissa Lee and Ben Lapidus, together with a visionary sustainable architecture engineer from that country. Concerned with the lack of adequate educational training for the clean energy industry, the group developed this total immersion experience designed to accelerate the careers of students and young professionals through experiential learning. I had the opportunity to learn more about GREEN in a recent conversation with Co-founder and Director of Development Mikhail Naumov. In a concentrated 12-day program, participants have the opportunity to learn about five different forms of renewable energy at their base of operations in the unique cultural setting of Costa Rica. It is a singular experience, complete with hands-on training and the opportunity to develop significant relationships with a diverse group of highly motivated individuals from around the world. So far, the program has been quite successful. From its inception as a pilot project for a small group of Rutgers University students, GREEN is now working with over 80 schools worldwide. To date, a […]
The post Mikhail Naumov and the GREEN Team – Creating a Global Clean Tech Workforce appeared first on Under30CEO.
What do you get when two Columbia Business School grad students apply their tech and business savvy to the age old problem of finding the right girl to date? You get DateMySchool.com. Co-founders Balazs Alexa and Jean Meyer got the idea for this innovative online dating service for college students and alumni, when they realized that they weren’t the only ones frustrated by how difficult it was to meet potential romantic partners in their overwhelmingly male department. Young women from the mostly female Teacher’s College felt the same way. What started about a year and a half ago as an online platform designed to bridge the gap between the sexes at Columbia has since expanded to include every 4-year college in the country. As the website now tops 110,000 users, the company is currently poised to expand to the nation’s 2-year colleges. This is clearly more than just a scheme to get girls. Recently I spoke with Balazs Alexa, to learn more about this successful company. He explained that DateMySchool.com offers college students and recent alums a safe, fast and surprisingly effective method of meeting like-minded individuals for all kinds of relationships. Male, female, straight or gay, the service provides […]
The post Balazs Alexa and DateMySchool.com – Helping Students Find the Right Dates appeared first on Under30CEO.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Alex Torrenegra, the founder of Torrenegra Labs, a suite of online marketplaces and companies. Part development laboratory, part accelerator, Torrenegra Labs has overseen the creation and or development of 16 different companies, in fields ranging from travel and booking to voice-over talent and translation services. Born into humble beginnings in Bogota, Colombia, Alex got his start in business at the age of 14, when he charmed a bank manager into giving him a loan to buy a computer to launch his first company, a data entry service to help college students print out their homework. Within a year, he had paid back the loan and hired an assistant. This company eventually evolved into a 20 person IT consulting firm working with small and midsize businesses in Bogota. When Alex Torrenegra was 19, he and his family moved to the United States. Although he did do some time working at McDonald’s, where he “…learned to make great coffee but really bad hamburgers,” he was eventually able to gain work as a consultant to several tech startups in Miami, including Yahoo in Spanish and Terra Lycos. When he was 22, he co-founded Rentalo, a rental marketplace, […]
The post Alex Torrenegra Secret to Success – Amazing People appeared first on Under30CEO.
Sometimes a new technology has the power to transform an entire sector. This is what co-founders Lily Liu and Vincent Polidoro are working to do with their company, PublicStuff. Their powerful product uses internet and mobile phone technology to facilitate local and state government’s ability to respond efficiently to citizen issues and concerns ranging from potholes to wild animals. By automating both reporting and response functions, they have created a viable alternative to the traditional 311 non-emergency complaint hotline that is both cost saving and efficient, and best of all, it’s being greeted enthusiastically by government offices. I recently spoke to the company’s CEO, Lily Liu. She explained, “PublicStuff is a suite of online and mobile phone based tools that allows cities to engage their residents.” Individuals may submit service requests through the web and smartphone apps, but also via text and toll free dial-in numbers. Cities can manage through a back end workflow analytics software tool, or use their own, as well. The system facilitates a two-way communication process, allowing for responses and feedback between citizens and government workers. According to Liu, although the 311 system has traditionally been implemented in larger cities, it requires a call center, live […]
The post Lily Liu and PublicStuff: Transforming How We Talk to Local Governments appeared first on Under30CEO.
Tim Raybould is the CFO of TicketLeap, a venture capital backed startup that provides ticketing and box office solutions for event hosts, and recently founded Capography with the objective of replacing Excel as the standard tool that startups use to maintain their capitalization table. Capography saves companies time and money by making maintaining a capitalization table extremely easy. With no previous programming experience, Tim learned Ruby, built Capography himself and launched the company, all while working a full-time job! In my interview with Tim, he talks about how Capography can help entrepreneurs, provides great advice on learning how to code, starting a company without quitting your job, and raising seed stage funding.” Listen to the full interview: [powerpress] Interview by: Mike helps startups through mid-size companies with capital raising, mergers and acquisitions and strategy. He also teaches a Skillshare class on capital raising and can be reached at twitter.com/mfishbein.
The post Learning How to Code to Build Your Business with Tim Raybould of Capography appeared first on Under30CEO.
How do you create a non-profit organization from scratch? According to David McCoy, co-founder and executive director of the Global Alliance for Community Development (GACD), you start with vision and commitment, and build on it, one small step at a time. David and co-founder Christina Perelli worked on a graduate school development project in Ghana. They found that they wanted to stay connected to the communities where they had created significant relationships. In the villages of Adaklu Sikama and Klave, in the Volta region, they met individuals who were not living in dire circumstances, but also not necessarily thriving, rather stuck in a kind of intergenerational poverty rooted in a cycle of subsistence farming and petty trading, but little else. They posited that the key to breaking this cycle lie in helping the communities improve their health and educational programs. Methodology For any assistance to make sense it needs to be rooted in a genuine partnership. In 2008, the pair began working on a plan to help the communities identify their own needs. With the goal of developing improved options beyond the hand to mouth existence that currently followed their primary education. The total population between the two villages is […]
The post David McCoy and Global Alliance for Community Development – A Series of Tiny Wins appeared first on Under30CEO.
One of my favorite parts of doing these interviews is learning about a hidden gem buried in what seems like an otherwise straightforward business concept. In the case of Deepti Sharma Kapur, 25-year-old founder and CEO of foodtoeat.com, her business plan contains within it the seeds of a progressive social movement. Her company provides an online service that allows people to order food from restaurants, foodtrucks and food carts in NYC. But it’s more than that. It also provides tangible business support to scores of family businesses, many run by immigrants, by teaching them how to use technology to further the success of their business. In so doing, she’s providing a bridge of social interaction – reshaping awareness of immigrants as being capable of so much more than just selling you your chicken and rice or hot dogs. Deepti completed a double major in business and politics at Long Island’s Stony Brook University. A concentration in operations management within the food industry coupled with years of hands on restaurant experience set the stage for an idea that was actually born out of her day to day experience. Studying for the LSATS at the mid-Manhattan branch of the NY Public Library, […]
The post Building Business and Raising Consciousness: foodtoeat.com’s Deepti Sharma Kapur appeared first on Under30CEO.
Young entrepreneur interview with Trevor Mauch by Paul Yevzikov. Trevor Mauch interview: [powerpress] PY: Hi everyone, special guest here today is Trevor Mauch, founder of Automize and Mach One Media, serial entrepreneur and founder of a few multimillion dollar businesses. Today he’s going to be speaking with us about how to discover your passions, keys to starting businesses without funds, and how to get over your fear and other motivational things that young entrepreneurs are going to benefit from. So without further ado, Trevor… if you could say a few words and introduce yourself and give some background on your experience. TM: Yeah absolutely. First of all Paul, thanks man for having me on, I really love sharing this stuff that I’ve experienced and learned and helping other entrepreneurs. So the quick background, before we start, I want you to walk away with stuff you can apply, and really kind of have a couple mind shifts during this call, so I’m not gonna really talk a lot about myself. But my background is I come from the real estate world, I started off when I was really young, my parents were entrepreneurs, my first business was going out and buying […]
The post You’re Never Too Young to Succeed: Trevor Mauch of Automize appeared first on Under30CEO.
What do you get when you cross a professional makeup artist with business savvy and a vision of creative freedom for top quality makeup artists? You get Gloss and Glam. In 2010, when she was only 24 years old, former makeup artist Nikki Robinson decided to create her own company. Already a beauty and fashion industry veteran, Nikki had also worked in marketing, product and brand development in such notable companies as LVMH, Avon and Bath & Body Works. Out of her accumulated experience, she decided to fill what she saw as a huge industry void. Robinson noticed that there was, “…an amazing amount of talent in the hair and makeup industry doing celebrities and film and magazines, but no companies catering to bringing the talent to film & tv and also to private clients and brides.” This was the inspiration for Gloss and Glam. Her company is founded on a very simple notion that makes a whole lot of sense. Professional artists should be able to explore their passion and creativity, working in different areas of the business gathering inspiration and experience. Thus, instead of being pigeonholed into one style or type of work, Gloss and Glam artists work in […]
The post Taking a Risk on the Glamorous Life: Nikki Robinson of Gloss and Glam appeared first on Under30CEO.
Sometimes you just have to go for it. That’s the main thing I learned from my conversation with recent NYU grad Gauri Manglik, 23-year-old CEO and co-founder of the popular app, fondu. Built on top of the Foursquare platform, the program allows users to give personalized recommendations for any restaurant, bar or coffee shop in their database. It’s twitter meets yelp for foodies, or as Gauri says, “bite sized reviews from people you actually care about.” At NYU, Gauri Manglik majored in computer science. Around the time that Foursquare was taking off, she took an entrepreneurship class where she and her collaborators developed an app called Spot On. This app allowed users to create personalized recommendations for eateries in a similar fashion to Netflix, with ratings. After launching Spot On at TechCrunch Disrupt in May of 2001, they began to notice that people were using the app more as a social network than a review site. They were more interested in telling their friends what they thought about particular places. They focused this concept, and it evolved into fondu. Here’s how it works. You can leave a 175 character review plus a rating, and friends will see it if they […]
The post “You Just Have to Go For It” with Gauri Manglik of Fondu appeared first on Under30CEO.
In 2010, Becky Straw was 29 years old. She had just spent three years working to develop charity: water, a non-profit organization that brings clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Directing funding in Africa, South Asia and Haiti, she exchanged with many people living in difficult conditions, listening and learning from them. Along the way she met Jody Landers, a mother of six from the state of Washington who was actively raising funds for the organization’s work in Liberia. The two began to compare notes, and realized that in order to make the most social impact, they would need to assist people in being able to take care of themselves and their families. The Adventure Project was born out of that idea. The Adventure Project is part of a movement to honor the dignity of individuals who require assistance by helping them find work on life sustaining projects. The 10-year goal of the organization is to create one million jobs worldwide. With current operations in India, Haiti, Uganda and Kenya, they focus on projects related to four areas: environment, health, hunger and water. Through strategic branding and PR, Becky and Jody have built an enthusiastic “tribe” of […]
The post Creating One Million Jobs Worldwide: Becky Straw and The Adventure Project appeared first on Under30CEO.
Q. What do you consider to be the most common misconception about entrepreneurship? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment and provides entrepreneurs with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth. A. You’re Born with It! Many people believe that you are a born entrepreneur, which is true for many people, but that does not discount those who were not born with the business skills or desires. Great entrepreneurs are made through nurture, not through nature. If you are passionate and have a great idea, you too can become an entrepreneur as long as you never quit and see your idea through to the end. Louis Lautman, Young Entrepreneur Society A. You Need to Be Niche Entrepreneurs always worry about finding an incredible differentiation point so they can outwit and outsmart their competitors all the time. The fact is, a niche does not guarantee success and it won’t save your company from failure either. Businesses should be built if they will offer a valuable product or service at […]
The post 14 Common Misconceptions About Entrepreneurship appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we had the chance to talk with Jason Fiedler who is one of the founder of Splash.FM. Splash.FM is a new music discovery tool that is based on music from people you trust. The company is aiming to grade your music taste and selection similar to how Klout grades your social influence. The founders, Jason Fiedler, UPenn ’11 and Alex Gatof, University of Michigan ’12 have raised a friends and family round of funding. Check out Jason’s answers below to learn more about how he started and what he sees for Splash.FM. Tell us the story of getting the idea for Splash.FM. I was driving back to college (UPenn) and by accident took my brother’s iPod. There were a bunch of new songs and artists my brother had been listening to that I discovered. So for the last month, while I had been groaning over my painfully stale music collection, my brother had a whole playlist for me. I called Alex and we set out to create a better way to discover music based on the notion that those you know and trust (friends, family, artists, celebrities, etc.) were more valuable than anything else. You previously work on another company […]
The post Ranking Your Music Taste: Jason Fiedler of Splash.FM appeared first on Under30CEO.
While you are most famous for co-founding Double Click which sold to Google you started as an entrepreneur right out of college. How did you know Intercomputer Security Systems (ISS) would be a hit? It eventually sold to IBM. I knew I wanted to start a company so I went and talked to a lawyer who connected me with Chris Klaus because he thought he had an interesting product. Chris was 20 had dropped out of Georgia Tech and was living with his grandmother. He had already signed up 10 Fortune 500 companies for 10k each, just by talking to them and showing them where their system had vulnerabilities. It was a brilliant technology but I don’t think Chris, or any of us, knew we could build a billion dollar business. I remember trying to sell it to my old company for 20 million. We thought it was too much but we thought we had a good product, but it was early day of the internet, a lot of companies were still not connected. Tell us about your experience taking DoubleClick public, laying off 1,200 employees and then selling to Google. I never focus on exit strategies, going public was never […]
The post Interview with Kevin O’Connor Founder of Double Click and FindTheBest appeared first on Under30CEO.
Over the past year we have had the chance to talk with some of the most successful and interesting entrepreneurs. Every time we are blown away by the new things we learn and the amazing stories behind their success. Below is a small recap of some of the best and most viewed entrepreneur interviews from 2011. 1. Seth Godin – Seth Godin Interview: The Riskiest Thing We Can Do Right Now is Nothing 2. Tim Sanders – Stop Waiting and Start Making Decisions Now with Tim Sanders 3. Barbara Corcoran – Interview with Barbara Corcoran on Starting, Scaling and Investing in Businesses 4. Sharon Lechter – How Sharon Lechter’s Marketing Genius Sold Over 27Million Books 5. Eric Ries – How and Why The Lean Startup is Becoming the Standard for Hockey Stick Growth 6. Catherine Cook – 32 Million Users and Growing – Catherine Cook founder of myYearbook.com 7. Lauren Bush – Interview: How Lauren Bush is Tackling World Hunger with FEED Projects 8. Chris Russo – How to Conquer the Online Media World with Chris Russo of Big Lead Sports 9. Kyle Smitley – Not Taking No For an Answer: Kyle Smitley Founder of Barley & Birch 10. Amos […]
The post Top 10 Best Entrepreneur Interviews from 2011 on Under30CEO appeared first on Under30CEO.
There is a movement going on in Silicon Valley and beyond. It has captured the cover of Inc Magazine, The New York Times Best Seller List, conferences and meetups everywhere. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries explains How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Eric Ries is the co-founder of IMVU, the world’s largest 3d chat community, but it wasn’t always this way. Learning from his own mistakes chronicled in his blog, his team formulated a methodology that is changing the world of startups. Eric makes statements like “failure is preventable”, “don’t launch” and urges entrepreneurs to stop using “vanity metrics”. If you don’t know the difference between your product launch and your marketing launch, have a handle on your “innovation accounting” or understand the process of “validated learning” take a listen to the interview below and check out the book. Interview questions with Eric Ries: 1. Tell us about the bubble and when is it coming in the tech industry? 2. Tell us about your own mistakes as a dorm room entrepreneur growing IMVU that led you to develop The Lean Startup methodology. 3. Why is the minimum viable product useful and why should you […]
The post How and Why The Lean Startup is Becoming the Standard for Hockey Stick Growth appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today, at Under30CEO we’re publishing an interview with 27 year old Adam Adler, CEO of Fuse Science, our first Under30CEO running a publicly traded company, ticker symbol: DROP. With a 27 year old CEO at the helm, Fuse Science has signed Tiger Woods, Michael Vick, David Ortiz and Arian Foster to their list of endorsers of their energy boost products. Adler can be seen with Tiger during an interview on CNBC yesterday. After conducting my research for the interview, I quickly became skeptical and wanted to be sure that this penny-stock wasn’t too good to be true. The endorsement team is extremely impressive, aside from Woods’ and Vick’s off the field troubles and Ortiz’s positive steroid tests. Professional athletes do have a record of making terrible investments, but as Adler points out in the interview, to sign Tiger must have been quite the ordeal. You would think Woods has a whole team of trainers, scientists, lawyers, agents, and PR people. Fuse Science’s board of directors is filled with scientists from places like Duke and leaders from former Fortune 500 companies. While most conversations I have with start up CEOs are easy going, as you can tell by my facial expressions in the interview, […]
The post 27 year old CEO Claims His Second IPO & Signs Tiger Woods to Endorse appeared first on Under30CEO.
This Under30CEO is one of the best we’ve had yet. Daniel Brusilovsky is insanely young. So young he’s been writing for Techcrunch since the age of 16. He is an advisor to several venture backed companies including Tatango and Everyme and was an employee at Qik which was recently acquired by Skype. Brusilovsky is Founder and CEO of Teens in Tech Labs which run both the Teens in Tech Conference and the Teens in Tech Incubator. We strongly recommend our readers attend and apply to both. Check out our interview with Daniel Brusilovsky below… Questions from the Interview: 1. How did you come to write for Techcrunch at age 16? 2. Have you read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and have you got your 10,000 hours in like Steve Jobs did living in Silicon Valley at such a young age? 3. Can you even relate to other people your age? 4. Give us the elevator pitch on the Teens in Tech Conference. 5. Tell us about how our audience can apply for incubator? 6. Do you get financial backing from the incubator program? 7. When is your conference in LA? 8. What’s one piece of advice for young entrepreneurs?
The post How This 18 Year Old Is Putting Venture Backed Companies on the Map appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jared James is a world renown speaker, real estate trainer, author, and broker that was ranked by Realtor Magazine as the #1 Real Estate Broker Under 30. His company Jared James Enterprises helps entrepreneurs and sales people sell at their peak levels, producing training events for major corporations as well as small businesses. Jared is selling out convention centers all across the country as people come hear him speak. There is a lot to learn from this motivational interview. Check out this interview with Jared James…. Questions in this interview: 1. Realtor Magazine named you the #1 realtor under 30 in the country. How did you do it? 2. How did you get through the hurdles of quitting your job and going out on your own? 3. Why would you quit being a real estate broker to start training others? 4. How did you grow demand for your training sessions? 5. What is it that people want to learn from you? 6. How’d you get your foot in the door with big companies like Century 21? 7. Give us one business system that you’ve implemented that we can take home from this interview? 8. Give us one piece of motivation for the […]
The post How Jared James Sells out Convention Centers for his Speaking Gigs in his 20's appeared first on Under30CEO.
Yesterday on the Daily National Under30CEO Co-founder Matt Wilson was interviewed on how to succeed as a young entrepreneur. After interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs and publishing advice articles from all across the world, the Daily National dove into ask Matt about the top markets and industries for young entrepreneurs, the best advice he’s heard, methods for success and the direction of Under30CEO, live from their New York studio. Check out the interview below… Questions from the interview: 1. Tell us about the function that Under30CEO serves for young entrepreneurs? 2. Who are Under30CEOs contributors? 3. Tell us about how you get started with your website? 4. How did the idea come to you? 5. How did you grow the site to the level it is today? 6. Who are some of the most influential people on the site you’ve spoken with? 7. Who do you look to emulate as a young entrepreneur? 8. What’s the best single piece of advice you’ve got from these entrepreneurs? 9. Are freelancers the future of work? 10. Aren’t too many freelancers bad for the economy and job stability? 11. Does it make sense to take a business abroad right now? 12. What are some of the […]
The post How to Succeed as a Young Entrepreneur appeared first on Under30CEO.
At Under30CEO one thing that we appreciate is great marketing, but what we like even better is when the person behind the “marketing genius” tells us that the product sells itself. This is exactly what Sharon Lechter does. Sharon Lechter is Co-Author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series with Robert Kiyosaki and has released a new book called Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success. This book was originally written as the sequel to Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich in 1938, but was never released. Sharon re-wrote the book for an updated generation and will be speaking in New York at the Under30CEO event on the 60th floor of the Empire State Building. Take a listen to Sharon and hear about how she has started a grassroots movement to solve financial literacy… Come see Sharon Lechter speak at Under30CEO in New York where she’ll be signing her book Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success. Questions: 1. Tell us a little bit about Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich and how you got involved with his unreleased sequel. 2. What was the marketing behind the Rich Dad series that made the fly off the shelves? 3. When it comes to financial […]
The post How Sharon Lechter’s Marketing Genius Sold Over 27 Million Books appeared first on Under30CEO.
It’s every young entrepreneur’s dream. Call a billionaire. Yeah, he’ll fund my idea. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what Sameer Mehta of Jungle Cents was able to do. Check out the story below how Sameer and his Carnegie Mellon frat brothers made this happen (via email). Not only were they able to hit up Mark Cuban for $1.5M but they’ve also added members of Guy Kawasaki’s Garage Ventures to their board. Not bad for a couple guys in an entrepreneur class. Jungle Cents is a group buying startup that works with brands like Yahoo! and AskMen to send out deals to their lists. Check out as we dive into the business model and see if the market can really support another group buying site… Questions: 1. As two students from Carnegie Mellon, when did you feel like this site could be big? 2. Explain to us how Jungle Cents business model works? 3. Tell us about your sales team that reach out to brands. 4. Aren’t you scared that a larger company could come along and do this better in such a crowded market? 5. What is the differentiating factor of your business in this group buying market? […]
The post How This Recent College Grad Scored $1.5M from Mark Cuban appeared first on Under30CEO.
Simon Baker was the CEO and Managing Director of the Australian-listed online real estate company realestate.com.au, which was the leading provider of online real estate sites – operating 22 sites in 10 countries. Simon delivered great returns for the shareholders by increasing the market capitalisation from $8m in June 2001 to over $600m in June 2008. In this Q&A interview with Alex Pirouz, Simon talks about all the various elements required to build a great online presence, what business owners need to look for when hiring agencies to help them with their online strategy and the common mistakes most business owners make and most importantly how to avoid them. For someone who has just started their business online, what would you say are some steps they can take in order to build a solid foundation for their business? First things first: they must have absolute clarity in their business model and that model must be simple to understand for anyone who interacts with the website. If you can’t explain what you do in your traditional elevator pitch, probably don’t do it because you have to explain this business concept a thousand times to a thousand different people from all fields: […]
The post How to Build a Successful Business and Grow Your Online Presence with Simon Baker appeared first on Under30CEO.
Emanuel Perdis is the dynamic Managing Director and co-founder of Napoleon Perdis Cosmetics. He has overseen and implemented double-digit business growth for the brand year after year for the past fourteen years and been an integral part of the global growth of the brand. Napoleon Perdis Cosmetics has over 65 concept stores and over 4,500 point-of-sale locations in Australia and New Zealand. In the United States they have 3 concept scores and are represented at over 300 Ulta stores across the country. They produce turnover of $80 million a year with a team of almost 500 staff. In this Q&A Interview with Alex Pirouz, Emanuel Perdis discusses what it takes to create a global brand, why customer service has been a crucial part of their success and the best way to handle challenges in business In your opinion, what has been the most contributing factor to your success? Focusing on what is important and knowing what is important. I think that is where most business owners can lose it. Having a good balance of macro and micro vision is also important. Having a dream is important but if you get stuck on the big picture, you miss out on the […]
The post How to Create a Gobal Brand with Emanuel Perdis appeared first on Under30CEO.
Robert Kiyosaki is an American investor, businessman, self-help author and motivational speaker, who has written 15 books, with combined sales of over 26 million copies. Three of Robert’s books, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Rich Dad’s CASHFLOW Quadrant, and Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing, have simultaneously been on the top 10 best-seller lists of The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times. In this Q&A interview with Alex Pirouz, Robert Kiyosaki discusses what it takes to be successful in business, the No 1 skill every entrepreneur should learn and the five qualities required by every entrepreneur in order to become successful. What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? It takes ambition and the desire to truly master the art and science of becoming a successful entrepreneur. And in my opinion ambition is far more important than brains, because if you have ambition you can always hire good brains. What is your number one rule of thumb in business? The more people we serve, the more money we make. It’s as simple as that Do you think it is easier now than when you first started? Well, first of all, it’s never easy; but in this day […]
The post Interview: Robert Kiyosaki Discusses What it Takes to be Successful appeared first on Under30CEO.
Barbara Corcoran took a $1000 loan to start her real estate business and turned it into a 5 billion dollar business which she sold for 66 million. Today she is the real estate contributor to NBC’s Today Show and an investor on the hit show Shark Tank. On Shark Tank Barbara has invested in 11 business which she is now building and leading to success. Barbara is also the author of 3 books, her most recent being Shark Tales. We had the chance to talk with Barbara about how she got started, how she scaled her solo business to an industry leader and what she looks for today when investing in new businesses. Check out the full interview below… Questions in the interview: 1. Could you talk to us about the early days when you first started and what challenges you faced before you had success? 2. Why did you choose real estate and how did you start? 3. How quickly did you see success and scale your business? 4. How do you take that business that is run from a kitchen table to an industry leader? What tips do you have for how to grow? 5. It’s fun to […]
The post Interview with Barbara Corcoran on Starting, Scaling and Investing in Businesses appeared first on Under30CEO.
Matt Barrie is an award-winning entrepreneur, technologist and lecturer. He is Chief Executive of Sydney-based Freelancer.com, which is now the world’s largest outsourcing marketplace connecting over 1.5 million professionals from around the globe. In 2011, he was named BRW Entrepreneur of the Year. Throughout his entrepreneurial journey, Matt has experienced his fair share of ups and downs. In this Q&A interview with Alex Pirouz he explains how a vision much bigger than yourself can make it easier to push through times of uncertainty and hardship. The main asset of what is now called Freelancer.com was launched in 2004. It wasn’t until 2009 that you took over. How did you build the brand after that so quickly? “I started purchasing outsourcing sites all around the world, ranging from thousands of users to hundreds of thousands, and put resources behind them such as an engineering team, marketing team, etc. “I had to see if it was going to be a good fit with the existing websites, if the price was right and if there was something compelling and unique that was going to add value to our existing infrastructure. “In doing so, two years ago we were placed in the top 5000 […]
The post Sydney Entrepreneur Matt Barrie Reveals How he Built Australia's Largest Outsourcing Site appeared first on Under30CEO.
From an early age of 15, Andrew Morello has always had the drive and passion for business. From running dance parties, working in the real estate industry to winning Channel’s 9’s TV series The Apprentice, he now works with Mark Bouris at Yellow Brick Road Management as the head of Business Development. In this Q & A interview with Alex Pirouz, Andrew Morello reveals the importance of working with the right people, why it’s about the journey and not the goal and why challenges are a vital part of achieving success in business. What’s the journey been like thus far? Andrew describes the journey much similar to stepping stones. “The biggest thing I try to partake on people is that sometimes you can be doing the most unproductive of work and think its point less but it leads to building the blocks and foundations for your next adventure,” Andrew explains. What have been your biggest highlights along the way? Even with my celebrity status, my biggest highlights haven’t been working with famous people but more so meeting the right people at the right time. I always tell people you don’t know when your next opportunity may come. Always look to pick other people’s brains […]
The post Andrew Morello, Winner of The Apprentice, Talks About Culture, Success and the Journey appeared first on Under30CEO.
As a teenager, John was involved with a negative ‘street’ lifestyle that could’ve easily led to jail or the morgue. In his quest to overcome these challenges, live a purposeful life and become a millionaire he studied brain science and quantum physics – as they relate to achieving success in business and life. Through consistent focus and application of what he learnt he was featured as one of the experts in the hit film and book The Secret. He is a New York best-selling author and has landed appearances on Larry King Live, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Anderson Cooper 360°, and many other major media outlets. In the last 20 years he has built several multimillion dollar businesses, and is the founder of REMAX Indiana, a company that has 1,500 sales associates, who collectively generate $4.5 billion a year in sales. We interviewed John to find out the importance of leadership within an organization. Having started and built many multimillion-dollar and a billion-dollar business, how important was it to have the right leadership within your organization? Having the right leadership is absolutely critical, it is no different to setting off on a military mission. You can have the biggest mission, vision or goal but […]
The post What Makes a Good Leader: An Interview with John Assaraf appeared first on Under30CEO.
From unloading trucks and being a grave digger to working with a legend in the internet marketing space (Mark Joyner), educating internet marketers all around the world, generating $6 million dollars in the last 18 months, writing his own book and now being CEO of Fushion HQ, Leon Jay has had his fair share of successes and failures. We interviewed him to see what it takes to be truly successful as an internet marketer. Leon, everyone has their own interpretation of Internet marketing, what is Internet Marketing in your eyes? It is a methodology that utilizes different online tools for the purposes of expanding marketing efforts on the internet. Internet marketing is about understanding human behavior. What are the benefits of using internet marketing over a traditional style? The great thing about the internet is that it allows for an interactive platform, you’re not limited by space and you can utilize social media. Because of this it allows you to build your list much quicker whereas with traditional style marketing you can’t. Education and authority building is also a massive advantage because you are able to spend a lot more time with a customer compared to traditional style approaches. The […]
The post The Keys to Online Marketing with Leon Jay appeared first on Under30CEO.
Becoming a business owner for the first time in 1977, Bruce Doyle has now owned and operated 27 businesses, 18 of which were developed from conception. Bruce has streamlined businesses that all perform predictably and profitably without his day-to-day input. He has been ranked “Global Coach of The Year”, “Victorian Coach Of The Year” and Action Coach’s most prestigious award, “Entrepreneur Coach of The Year”. Along the way there have been many key distinctions and things learned, but one which Bruce regards as the most important is Business Planning. “The most important thing about doing a business plan is becoming clear on what it will look like when it is finished. Most people don’t have an exit strategy. “A lot of business owners don’t have clarity in where they are heading because they don’t know the end step. Included in the business plan should also be a succession plan, over 70% of businesses don’t have this. “The main purpose is to have the business plan active and turn it into an action plan by breaking it down to 90-day cycles. Then chunk it down to weeks and then days,” Bruce explains. How long should a business plan be and what […]
The post Why a Business Plan is More Important than You Think appeared first on Under30CEO.
Mark Pracy was the first Warbird adventure operator based in the Hunter Valley, providing thousands of dream flights for many Top Gun passengers. He has performed for international superstars such as Eric Clapton, Alicia Keys, John Cougar, Cheryl Crow and many more. He then transitioned his passion for adventure into starting his own business as the owner of Jet Ride Australia, which is now Australia’s #1 jet fighter operation. We interviewed Mark to find out what key business fundamentals have helped him attain success within his industry. You have been able to successfully build the brand of being Australia’s #1 jet ride experience, why is that? Whatever you promise you need to do. Besides providing the service you promise, you need to provide the atmosphere for your demographic. The aviation industry is regarded as a serious industry but we had to break it down to a human level to help our clients enjoy the experience. Do you think entrepreneurs/business owners need to stick to their strengths and interests when starting a business? What ever you pursue you need to have a great understanding of the fundamentals. You don’t necessarily need to have the experience, but you do need to do your homework. […]
The post Mark Pracy on How Business Fundamentals Have Helped Him Succeed appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jack Delosa is one of Australia’s leading young entrepreneurs. In 2009 Jack was named in the top 30 entrepreneurs under 30. Today Jack heads up The Entourage, a movement which connects Australia’s best entrepreneurs with Australia’s next entrepreneurs. Jack writes for business publications internationally and has become a media spokesperson on issues relating to entrepreneurship and Gen Y. With the demand for intrapreneurship growing, we spoke with Jack to find out more about this growing trend and how it effects organizations moving forward. Jack, can you start by explaining what intrapreneurship means? This is the process of figuring out how to be intrapreneurial within another organization, how to be small in something that is big. It’s about moving from the traditional way of being reactive to proactive in the individuals approach to business. What are the key differences between intrapreneurs and regular employees? Intrapreneurs go in to work looking to add value. The intrapreneur’s primary concern is how much value can I add. They are always proactive and looking for innovative solutions whilst staying in the parameters. They actively seek advice from managers and mentors and are in full control of their career. Where as employees go into work going with the […]
The post What it Means to be an Entrepreneur Within a Company with Jack Delosa appeared first on Under30CEO.
In the 1990s, Jordan Belfort built one of the most dynamic and successful sales-organizations in Wall Street History. He has soared to the highest financial heights, earning over $50 million a year as the notorious Wolf of Wall Street and then sunk to the lowest societal-lows, succumbing to a massive drug addiction and doing twenty-two months in a federal prison camp. Yet along the way, he managed to provide over $1 billion of financing for various public companies, and held controlling stakes in more than thirty of them. In this Q&A interview with Alex Pirouz he talks about what elements are necessary to be successful in business, success and how to motivate sales staff to perform at their optimum level. Jordan you seem to have this tremendous ability to build business’s from scratch into Multi Million dollar corporations, what is the methodology behind this? The methodology behind this approach is a process I call: Failing elegantly, which basically means how do you get into business and be wrong. It is not usually the first generation or evolution of the idea that ends up working it takes 3 or 4 tries, you need to make adjustments, change your approach when necessary […]
The post Jordan Belfort, The Wolf Of Wall Street on Building a Multi-Million Dollar Company appeared first on Under30CEO.
Since its inception in 2001, RedBalloon has come a long way from its humble beginnings in the front room of Naomi Simson’s home (CEO and founder). Ten years later the business is powered by a team of 46 RedBallooners and has been listed on BRW’s Fast list 6 years running (2004 – 2009). We spoke with Naomi Simson regarding the importance of Market Research when entering into a new market with hardly any proven track record and how she went about building a well known Australian Icon. Given that it was such a new concept, how important was it in the early stages to do market research? There is a difference between doing market research and listening to customers. Market research is a science and it is analytical but when you are inventing an industry that nobody knows anything about, it’s a little bit hard to do research. There were clear trends when we were starting, one was the internet, and secondly the conversations were getting louder and louder about too much clutter in the planet. Just listening to some of my friends and them not knowing what to get their husbands gave me a great insight into a possible […]
The post How to Build a Brand with Naomi Simson of RedBalloon appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we had the chance to speak with Matt Beckham, CEO of Quibids.com. Quibids was started in 2009 when Matt was 27 and in only two years has grown to be a leader in its industry with over 80% of the market share. The company is in the interesting field of “entertainment shopping” where traditional shopping meets a game like experience. When you visit the site you immediately get taken in by live auctions and things like 70inch TVs selling for a couple dollars. Listen to the full interview below to learn more about how Matt got started and how Quibids is taking its industry by storm… Questions in the interview: Tell us about yourself and what you were doing before Quibids? Why did you leave the original ventures you were a part of? Where did the idea of Quibids come from? Could you explain how the company works and how the business model works? Could you explain the “entertainment shopping” industry and how Quibids has built on it? What are a few of the challenges you have run into since starting Quibids? When it comes to internet marketing what are some things you like to do to build an […]
The post How Matt Beckham and Quibids are Taking "Entertainment Shopping" by Storm appeared first on Under30CEO.
Co-Founder Janine Allis started Boost Juice in her garage in 2000 out of frustration that she could not find healthy takeaway products for her three children. Since starting their first store in Adelaide back in year 2000, 11 years later Boost Juice now boasts more than 180 outlets in Australia and 50 overseas (mainly in Britain, Singapore and South Africa). Boost was ranked seventh on BRW‘s list of fastest growing businesses in 2010 and Ms Allis is said to be worth $36 million on the magazine’s Young Rich List. We spoke with Janine regarding the importance of work culture and how that has attributed to the success of what is now the largest juice and smoothie bar in the southern hemisphere. Janine, you attribute the success of your business to the fresh, young and dynamic culture that pervades all aspects of the company. Why is that? The success of every business is based on the quality of people who are hired, that have the right attitude and on the path that you want them to be on. If you haven’t got the right culture or working environment you won’t attract the right people. When creating a compelling culture at work, what’s […]
The post How to Create a Compelling Work Culture with Janine Allis of Boost Juice appeared first on Under30CEO.
At age 20 Adam Davis owned one of the most recognised traffic generation consulting services in the world, with over 500 clients in four countries. He has educated crowds of over 1,500 people in Singapore, Australia, the UK, Indonesia and Malaysia on how to effectively send traffic to any website and make a profit. As the power and demand of social media grew so did Adam’s interest. His understanding and knowledge about the internet allowed him to understand the trends in the market. Since then he has started many campaigns with absolutely no marketing budget, all through the power of social media. “Social media really started when blogging was introduced. How people used to get ranked online seven years ago is a lot different to how people get ranked now. Google takes social media really serious these days, this has revolutionised the way people and businesses need to interact on line to best get their message across,” Adam Explains. Adam’s views on social media are far beyond just Facebook and Twitter. “Any type of media both online/mobile which enables people to interact with each other in a way that was never available before is social media in my eyes! Social […]
The post How to Use Social Media for Your Business with Adam Davis appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we had the chance to talk with Leena Chitnis who has recently won $25,000 in the Syracuse University business plan competition for her company PiezoTouch Inc. PiezoTouch will enable people to send a human touch, wirelessly, to another person through their electronic skin. Leena is aggressively raising money for the prototype of the technology which is what led her into the business plan competition. In the interview Leena gives some key tips on writing your financials, presenting and developing the business plan. Take a few minutes to listen to the full interview below. Questions in the interview: Could you tell us about your background and how you started your business? How did you get into entrepreneurship? Where did PiezoTouch come into all of this? Have you raised any other money for your project? Tell us about entering the business plan competition and the process you went through? What do you have to continue working on during the competition after you have entered? How did you go about writing your financial projections for the competition when you have not sold anything yet? Do you have 1 key tip for people going into a business plan competition? What will you be […]
The post How to Win a Business Plan Competition with Leena Chitnis of PiezoTouch appeared first on Under30CEO.
Aussie young guns, Jeremy Liddle, Andrew Cameron and Andrew Maciver started natural health company RioLife back in 2005. In 2010 they were featured as one of BRW’s top emerging companies, and also picked up a Fastest Growing Small Business Award from My Business Awards. RioLife is now stocked in over 1700 stores including Australian pharmacies and 2/3 of major health food stores and are on the cusp of expanding into New Zealand. From these launches distribution is expected to grow by another 1,000 pharmacy outlets over the next 12 months. Building a distribution line for a product from scratch is a challenge in its self but then you need to find a way to get them off the shelves. We spoke to Co-Founder Jeremy Liddle to find out exactly what is required in order to achieve success within the distribution industry. When looking to distribute a product, what should entrepreneurs be looking for? Something that there is a demand for, when we discovered Acai overseas we saw that there was an established demand in Rio, California and given that the culture and mindset was fairly similar we thought it may work for us as well. What is the quickest way […]
The post How to Succeed When Distributing a Product with Jeremy Liddle of RioLife appeared first on Under30CEO.
Considered one of the world’s leading authorities on human behavior Dr Demartini travels 360 days a year to countries all over the globe, sharing his research and findings in all markets and sectors. He is the author of 40 books published in 28 different languages. He has advised for fortune 500 companies including: IBM, Shell Oil Company, ARK Financial Group, Ferrari and many more all around the world. Working with these organizations has given him great insight as to what ingredients are essential when it comes to creating a unique and compelling vision within organizations. “A company vision is like a road map, if companies are clear about where they are going, the people who work for the company can get clear with them. Any details you leave out of the vision is an obstacle and challenge you face on the journey. It’s congruency to the vision that inspires managers, teams and companies to greater heights. There are two essential ingredients. It has to much the needs of the world and the values, vision and needs of the leaders in the company. If they are waking up everyday, inspired and enthused in going to work they will blast through various […]
The post Creating a Compelling Company Vision With Dr. John Demartini appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we had the chance to speak with Zak Boca and Dan Ushman of SingleHop. Before SingleHop Zak and Dan had started a web hosting company called Midphase which after the initial investment of $1500 grew to over 100,000 clients in only a few years. During that venture both had decided to drop out of school to pursue the company full time and they never looked back. After selling Midphase the two started their current company SingleHop which has a $20 million run rate. While in similar industries the two companies had very different targets and marketing plans behind them. Listen to the full interview below to hear more about how these two entrepreneurs have built not one but two thriving companies. Questions in the interview: Could we hear about your background before SingleHop? Did you drop out of college? How did you initially fund your first venture? Is there a reason you have never pursued outside funding? You mentioned having 4 clients on the first day some people would love to have that in the first month. How have you marketed? Could you talk about some of your major obstacles within either of your companies? Could you each give […]
The post How Two Young Entrepreneurs Have Built Two Thriving Companies Together appeared first on Under30CEO.
iGottaGuide.com is a new startup based in New York City that connects local and visiting tourists to professional and amateur tour guides within a city. The startup currently only serves New York City but has big plans to expand over the summer months. We got the chance to talk to co-founder Keith Petri about the company and it’s future plans. Could you explain the problem iGottaGuide is solving? The tourism industry is fragmented and hard to navigate with a massive amount of information and options available. The best way to experience a new city is like a local without spending much money. How do you find your local guides and who can be one? We initially reached out to “professional” tour guides to help fill the site. For example we have 1 guide who drives around in an old Cadillac Hearst and takes 7 people at a time around NYC showing them places where famous NYC deaths have taken place. However we’re aiming to have current college students, young professionals, artists and actresses who come to the site and say, “I am knowledgeable about X”. They can then bring that unique knowledge to the site and its users. Who is […]
The post Interview: Connecting Tourists to Tour Guides – iGottaGuide.com appeared first on Under30CEO.
When it comes to public relations Dale Beaumont knows more than a thing or two about what is required to get the media’s attention. He has generated over $5 million worth of free media for his clients, earned the title ‘Australia’s Most Prolific Author’ by publishing 11 books within a single year and been featured in over 100 on and off line media publications. Dale’s approach to public relations is very simple. “If you think of TV or radio they have 24 hours of dead air that they need to fill with something that draws people to viewer their message. Doing this will enable them to get better ratings and charge more for advertising, For an individual or company to get PR all they need to do is research and supply the stories relevant to the publication they are looking to get into. Your story needs to be compelling, have a unique edge and be accompanied with statistics to back up the article. It’s a matter of sitting down and asking yourself questions to discover what makes your story different and what will make someone stop drinking their latte and read your article. Before doing anything individuals first need to […]
The post Getting PR for Your Small Business with Dale Beaumont appeared first on Under30CEO.
One out of every seven minutes of media consumption today takes place on mobile devices; the worldwide smartphone market is expected to grow 49.2% in 2011 as more consumers and enterprise users turn in their feature phones for smartphones with more advanced features. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, smartphone vendors will ship more than 450 million smartphones in 2011 compared to the 303.4 million units shipped in 2010. Moreover, the smartphone market will grow more than four times faster than the overall mobile phone market. We recently had a chat with Catherine Eibner from Microsoft Australia (Developer Evangelist), to gain her views on mobile technology. Catherine looks after Microsoft’s BizSpark program which is designed specifically to support early stage companies particularly with emerging technologies. “In Australia we have 99% coverage over the entire continent which for most growing economies is unusual and over 80% of children under the age of 16 have a mobile phone. These are the digital native’s, the people who are driving the demand for what is next. The availability and cost viability of data plans provided by telecommunications companies has consistently been dropping meanwhile the amount of data included in […]
The post Why Your Business Needs to Understand the Mobile Market with Catherine Eibner appeared first on Under30CEO.
Kyle Smitley, founder of Barley & Birch, found there was a huge gap in the apparel industry from what producers were saying about the clothes to what they were actually made of. She realized this huge market opportunity to create a product that was 100% organic and to do it right. Without any experience in running a business or the clothing industry Kyle buckled down, made some mistakes and dove into the experience. Initially stores were reluctant to carry the line and sales were starting to fall short. So Kyle took to the blogosphere and started emailing bloggers about the brand and with offers for their readers. After a positive response from the bloggers stores started coming to Kyle to talk about carrying the clothing line. The hard work and taking the leap seems to have worked out for her as Barley & Birch is on pace to do $2million in revenue this year all off of an original $10,000 loan. Listen to the full interview below to learn more about how Kyle took Barley & Birch from idea to a thriving organic clothing line. Questions in the interview: Where did the idea for Barley & Birch come from and […]
The post Not Taking No For an Answer: Kyle Smitley Founder of Barley & Birch appeared first on Under30CEO.
Prerna Gupta tried to put herself in a position to learn about starting a business by jumping around from job to job. At her last position, which lasted all of 6 weeks, she realized no job was going to prepare her for what she wanted and she had to go and do it for herself. This attitude led her to create a social network in India that reached 2 million users. While 2 million users is a impressive mark she acknowledges how they failed to monetize the site and they had to shut it down after 4 years. Although it was a set back she had learned more than any job or class could have taught her and felt more prepared than ever to tackle the startup world again. Now she runs Khush which is a popular iphone app that acts as a reverse karaoke for users. We had a chance to speak with Prerna about her ventures and how she bounced back from her first company. Listen to the full interview below. Questions in the interview: 1. What were you doing before you started your businesses? 2. Was the social networking site failure a discouragement? How did you bounce […]
The post Put Yourself Out There and Risk Failing – Prerna Gupta of Khush appeared first on Under30CEO.
Renowned as one of the world’s best self development experts, and ranked 4th Best business Coach in the World 2010, Rhiannon Rees has worked with stars including the Spice Girls, X-Files, Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice cast members. She is the author of the book, ‘How to Climb Mount Everest in Sandals’ and has been featured in countless TV, Radio and in print publications in both Australia and North America. Throughout her coaching career in working with business owners all around the world there have been many key distinctions and learning’s as to what is required for an entrepreneur to be successful. According to Rhiannon the most important element in any successful business is to have a vision. “By not having a vision or an end destination entrepreneurs tend to get lost along the way, there must be a purpose; an inner map to achieve and strive towards. When the going gets tough people will leave but if you have a purpose it becomes more than just money. Entrepreneurs also need to think of how the business is going to end, most get caught up in the day to day work requirements and have no actual vision for a future. […]
The post Entrepreneurs Need to Think First and Take Action Second appeared first on Under30CEO.
Pie Face was established by the former Citigroup operative Wayne Homschek and his partner, Betty Fong, in 2003. Given that there was no national brand doing the classical Aussie Pie they noticed a gap in the market place and decided to move from the fashion industry to making pies. Pie face now has over 47 stores nationally with a vision to open up 300- 500 stores in the country before expanding globally to America, England and other countries world wide. It has been featured in BRW Fast Starter 2007, 2008, and 2009, BRW fast franchises and won The Cool Company Award in 2010. We spoke with Co-Founder Wayne Homschek to find out how he has been able to build Pie face to an Australian brand many have experienced and are now familiar with. How did you come up with the name Pie Face? Me and Betty were sitting around one night trying to come up with a killer brand. We worked on it for three months and could not come up with anything. It wasn’t until we signed our first lease, that night we came up with the name by starting to draw faces on the napkins at the restaurant […]
The post The Importance of Branding in Your Company with Wayne Homschek of Pie Face appeared first on Under30CEO.
Catherine Cook is the founder of myYearbook.com which is one of the top 25 most visited sites in the United States. The idea came while she was browsing her high school yearbook to find that many of the pictures were just not that good and she thought she could do it better. She then launched the site with her brother David Cook in 2005 and saw 400 people from her school signup in the 1st week. Today myYearbook.com has over 32million members, is growing by almost 20,000 people each day and does 30 million a year in revenue. Listen to the interview below to find out more about how she took her small idea and turned it into a must have for teens everywhere. Questions in the interview: 1. How did you get the idea for myYearbook.com? 2. How old were you when you first started? 3. Starting a business as a high school sophomore is not exactly the norm. What did your family and friends think of the venture? 4. Was there a turning point for the idea and the business? 5. What is the size of the site today? 6. How would you say you have competed against […]
The post 32 Million Users and Growing – Catherine Cook founder of myYearbook.com appeared first on Under30CEO.
Filling a market need with your product is an arduous endeavor in any industry but even more so in a marketplace where so little innovation actually occurs. Thus was the film website landscape in which Ryan Parson, founder of Trailer Addict, found himself ensconced before and after his high definition movie trailer website launched. Ryan has learned many lessons through starting–up Trailer Addict and shares his insights about bootstrapping, approaching banks, and acquiring the tools needed for success. Read the interview below to find out how he brought Trailer Addict to life. 1.) What sparked the idea for Trailer Addict? Working on a film blog back in 2007, I noticed that film blogs have begun a new trend of embedding movie trailers from 3rd party sites. Though a cool idea, the trailers were always in a low resolution that was easy to stream. The original concept behind TrailerAddict was to be the first video site to allow embeddable HD content. Today just about every video site offers HD content, though TrailerAddict specializes in film. 2.) What business or consumer need does Trailer Addict fill? The fanboy, or anybody that considers themselves a fan of high-production video. We’ve come to understand […]
The post Ryan Parson Interview: How Trailer Addict Grew to 11 Million Monthly Pageviews appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we had the chance to speak with Adam Marcus from OpenView Venture Partners. Adam joined OpenView in 2009 after previously working with marketing service investments at Battery Ventures, corporate development with the Boston Celtics, and M&A investments at Lycos. Adam now focuses his work on several industries including software, digital media and technology. He is passionate about finding and working with entrepreneurs to build the next great companies. Listen to the interview below to hear about his advice for young start-ups pursuing venture capital investments. Questions in the interview: How do you go about finding the right venture capital firm to partner with? What are a few specific things you would look for in a presentation from a start-up looking for funding? What is a common mistake you see in most presentations? Are there disadvantages to raising venture capital or companies who should not pursue it at all? Besides the money what else does a venture capital firm provide the companies they invest in?
The post Interview: How to Pitch Your Company to a Venture Capital Firm with Adam Marcus appeared first on Under30CEO.
Steven Le Vine graduated college in 2006 with a degree in PR and immediately went to work as an intern for a larger agency. He knew that the corporate life was not for him so he decided to try and pursue his own dream of starting a pr firm. After landing his first notable client, actor Michael Carbonaro, he knew he was on to something, this was the start of grapevine pr. Steven eventually landed a profile on the front page of a major newspaper which his employer happened to see and promptly asked him to either leave or halt his own business. You can guess which option he chose. Today Steven has represented over 100 clients in the entertainment industry including actor Danny Pintauro (“Who’s the Boss”) and Project Runway’s Jack Mackenroth. Listen to the interview below to learn more about how he made the leap into his own business and some helpful pr tips for young entrepreneurs… Questions in the interview: 1. What were you doing before you started your own PR firm? 2. Did you ever work a 9-5 job or did you start your firm right out of college? 3. What inspired you to take the leap […]
The post Steven Le Vine Left the Corporate World to Start His Own Successful PR Firm appeared first on Under30CEO.
Lauren Bush co-founded FEED Projects along with Ellen Gustafson with the mission to “create good products that help feed the world.” Previously Lauren was well known for being the niece of former President George W. Bush and having a successful modeling career. She had been featured on the covers of Vogue and Vanity Fair and signed a contract with Tommy Hilfiger while still in college. While in college Lauren had the chance to work in the United Nations World Food Program which is what ultimately led to her leaving the modeling world and creating FEED Projects. FEED originally sold only the FEED bags but has grown to sell a variety of products all aimed at helping world hunger. Today FEED has sold over 500,000 bags and has provided over 60,000,000 meals around the world. Listen to the interview below to learn more about how Lauren got started and the challenges she has faced. Questions in the interview: 1. What inspired you to start FEED and what is FEED Projects all about? 2. How have you expanded into more projects beyond just the FEED bag? 3. You were already successful in modeling and fashion. What was the transition like starting another […]
The post Interview: How Lauren Bush is Tackling World Hunger with FEED Projects appeared first on Under30CEO.
Willie McGinest may be best known as a dominating linebacker for the New England Patriots during 3 of their Superbowl titles, however he has gone on to new heights with various business ventures. Willie has always been interested in business ownership and began exploring these ideas, especially franchise ownership, during his NFL days. Today Willie is the head of his own entertainment company, 55 Entertainment and his foundation the “Willie McGinest Foundation”. He is also a franchise owner in Wingstop and Swirls and previously owned a Baskin-Robbins. Willie talks about his experiences with business ownership and how young athletes today should prepare themselves for life outside of sports in the interview below… You can find out more about Willie at WillieMcGinest.com or follow him on twitter @WillieMcGinest. Questions in the interview: What led you to get into the franchise business after football? What led you into specifically the restaurant industry? How did you put a team together to help support your business while you were on the field? There have been so many publicized athlete blunders with bad investments and poor business decisions, how did you go about finding your business partners? What would you suggest to some young athletes […]
The post Interview: Superbowl Champion Willie McGinest on Business Ownership appeared first on Under30CEO.
Thomas Edwards is The Professional Wingman where he helps people enhance their dating and social lives. The company was started in 2009 as he realized people were often coming to him for advice and support in their social lives. Today Thomas is frequently referred to as the “real-life Hitch”, as he has built a successful business around his coaching. His advice has been featured in publications like The Wall Street Journal, Maxim, The Boston Globe and more. Starting this business was not exactly his intention back in college and it has not come without its own set of challenges. However by going after something he was passionate about Thomas is now able to do what what he loves every day. Watch the interview below to learn more about his story and how he fell into being The Professional Wingman… Questions in the interview: Why the move to New York City? What is your target market? How did you end up doing this? Tell us about the days before you started the business and what led to it. You mentioned how reading “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” changed your mindset. Tell us 1 thing you really took away from the […]
The post How Entrepreneur Thomas Edwards Became "The Professional Wingman" appeared first on Under30CEO.
We had a chance to speak with David Gorodyansky who is the founder of AnchorFree and its newest product Hotspot Shield. Hotspot Shield secures the pages people browse online and in turn allows people to access sites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google and more in countries that have restrictions on internet use. Recently Hotspot Shield has been a major player in Egypt and Libya where the governments have stepped in and put restrictions on the internet. Hotspot Shields traffic went from 100,000 to a million overnight when Egypt implemented restrictions. Continue reading to learn more about how David is helping people communicate around the world… Your company has been recognized as a major player in the recent revolution in the Middle East and is enabling free speech in places like China. Did you start your company trying to change the world? We always wanted to change the world. I grew up inspired by people like Muhammad Yunus and other entrepreneurs that worked for improving the world for social good. Our original vision was to impact people’s lives by giving away a free ad-supported privacy/security tool (called Hotspot Shield) to millions of users online. The value proposition of Hotspot Shield is […]
The post David Gorodyansky: Young Entrepreneur Enabling Free Speech in the Middle East appeared first on Under30CEO.
MyBankTracker.com was founded in 2008 by 25 year old Alex Matjanec and two partners with $10,000. The company helps consumers find the best banks, interest rates, peer reviews and more to assist with your financial decision making. Since founding the company it has grown to over 500,000 monthly visitors, 11 full time employees and partnerships with companies like Chase, TD Bank and American Express. While running MyBankTracker Alex also founded AD:60, a digital advertising agency, where he and his team take on specific projects with major clients like Ally Bank, Rodale Publishing (Men’s Health, etc) and BLT Restaurants. Today we had the opportunity to speak with Alex about his two projects and how others can follow in his successful footsteps… Questions in the interview: Before MyBankTracker what were you doing and how did you get into starting your own business? How did you know it was time to leave your job and pursue your business full time? Was there a tipping point for the company where you knew this was something that had a lot of potential? Have you taken any funding? What was the initial investment to get everything started? Could you explain your other company AD:60 more and how […]
The post Interview: How Alex Matjanec is Running Two Successful Companies at Age 27 appeared first on Under30CEO.
This week we had the chance to speak with best selling author and entrepreneur Seth Godin. Seth has published 13 books, numerous ebooks, writes the most popular marketing blog in the world and is a highly sought after speaker. Basically everything Seth does is pretty awesome and we are thankful he took some time out of his day to speak with us. Seth just released his latest book Poke the Box and launched his new venture “The Domino Project” both of which he talks about in the interview. Questions in the interview: Could you tell us about your new book “Poke the Box” and why you wrote it? What do you think stops people from taking action and going after their dreams? Once you make that jump into a business you then want to stand-out from the crowd. How do you do that with so many others making that same leap? Many people we talk to say things like “starting a business is to risky”. You said “the riskiest thing we can do right now is nothing”. Could you explain why that is the riskiest thing we can do? What are some things a person can do to put themselves […]
The post Seth Godin Interview: The Riskiest Thing We Can Do Right Now is Nothing appeared first on Under30CEO.
Finding internships can be tough enough, but virtual internships? Where would one begin? Talan Torriero is answering the question with the launch of his new business, CyberInterns.com. The MTV Laguna Beach reality star-turned actor-turned entrepreneur said he could rarely find opportunities which offered both the benefits of interning and the convenience of virtual communication. That’s when he knew he found an opportunity to create a site for both applicants and employers alike. After launching CyberInterns on February 1st, he’s already seen a strong response and is gearing up to start approaching colleges and universities marketing the site as a useful resource for a more flexible type of industry learning experience. The site is free for internship seekers and has various listing fees for employers. What inspired the idea for CyberInterns.com? In the last four years I’ve had the opportunity to intern at some pretty incredible places from Warner Brothers Records to Akiva Goldsman’s Production Company. Interning for Akiva Goldsman was the best experience I think I could have had. It was an inspiration being in the presence of such talent who wrote many hits including A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, and Batman & Robin. In the past two years I […]
The post Interview: Former Actor Talan Torriero Creator of CyberInterns appeared first on Under30CEO.
When you think of online sports news a few sites come to mind like ESPN, Fox Sports or Yahoo Sports. However a company you may not of heard of is right behind these giants with over 19 million unique visitors each month and is the #1 independent online sports property in the U.S. BigLeadSports.com is a sports media site that has aggregated over 600 sites across all major sports in a little over a year. Today we had the chance to talk with the founder and CEO of Big Lead Sports Chris Russo about the company and online media in general… Tell us a little about the company and the idea? I was the head of digital media for the NFL from 1999-2005. During my time there I recognized that there were a lot of independent content sites in the sports arena but they did not have the best business model. This was when paid subscriptions were going down and their sites were to small to draw the big advertisers. So I set out to organize the best sports sites and aggregate them to create packages for the big advertisers. Originally it was called “Fantasy Sports” which was for the […]
The post How to Conquer the Online Media World with Chris Russo of Big Lead Sports appeared first on Under30CEO.
Touring the country, 14hr days in the recording studio and living like a rockstar does not necessarily make you think of a hot tech startup. But this is exactly what happened for Amos Winbush III who left the music industry to create CyberSynchs. CyberSynchs is a cost-effective way to safeguard data by making it easy to sync and transfer data across various platforms. Today we had the chance to speak with Amos about how he started CyberSynchs with no industry knowledge or experience yet has built it into a leader recently signing over 298million worth of contracts. Tell us about your background before CyberSynchs… I was actually in the music business until 2008 where I was recording and touring, basically living the rockstar lifestyle. However I really saw some other exciting opportunities and realized that I wanted to be that manager who finds the person who has to travel 300 days a year! So I haven’t left the music industry but I think I am in a more exciting position right now and doing more good than before. What sparked the idea for CyberSynchs? I was in the recording studio putting in a 14hr day and the battery for my […]
The post Rockstar Lifestyle to Hot Tech Startup: Amos Winbush III of CyberSynchs appeared first on Under30CEO.
Kyle Vucko and Heikal Gani ran into a problem while Heikal was out looking to buy a new suit in college. He just could not find the right size, look and feel that he was going after and they started thinking about why there was not a better way. So they made one… Indochino tailors each suit custom to each customers specifications and does it in 48hrs. The company which was founded in 2006 has secured funding and has become an online leader in custom made men’s suits. We had the chance to speak with Kyle about how the whole idea got started… How did you get into entrepreneurship and Indochino? I went to school for accounting in Victoria, Canada but I really knew I had a passion for something more with my business partner, Heikal Gani. The idea for Indochino came randomly one day when Heikal went out to look for a new suit. He found the process of finding one both online and offline very difficult. At the end of the day he ended up at Menswarehouse which we realized was just not where the young guys wanted to be. So the next step for us was to […]
The post Indochino Makes Your Suit the Way You Want It appeared first on Under30CEO.
The nominations and votes are in from the Under30CEO audience and below we have put together the 30 most influential Under30CEO's from 2010.
Influence was asked to be judged on how much the person's ventures were impacting the world and the way we live everyday.
This entire group is tremendous and together their ventures are valued near $100billion and reach millions if not billions of people across the world.
The post 30 Most Influential Under30CEOs of 2010 appeared first on Under30CEO.
Since starting Hodara Real Estate Group in 2009, Alex Hodara has brokered millions in real estate sales, was named to Businessweek’s Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under 25, and graduated from Boston University. Today I had the pleasure of interviewing this up and coming tycoon to discuss the development and future of his business. About a year ago you were on CNBC discussing how you started the first student run real estate brokerage in America. At the time you were doing mostly student rentals, is that still the case? We are still brokering rentals for students, but our business model has evolved. We now primarily concentrate on brokering and managing high-yielding, off market multifamily investments around Boston. Although we have changed our focus, we have continued building our rental brokerage by expanding our rentals from students in the Boston University area to a broader variety of clientele throughout Greater Boston. Why do you deal with off market deals rather than on market deals? I focus on finding deals that are off market because the returns on these properties tend to outperform on market deals. Almost any on market deal that is not taken within a few days of becoming public knowledge is […]
The post Interview with The Founder of Hodara Real Estate Group appeared first on Under30CEO.
How did Paper Feet start? I had just graduated from The University of Michigan with a nuro-science degree but really had always been interested in entrepreneurship from my early days of mowing lawns and selling on eBay. My love for the outdoors was the real driver behind the creation of Paper Feet. Paper Feet started in class as I tried to come up with a concept that brought nuro-science and art together to make paper thin shoes. I originally used the envelopes from my eBay business to make the shoes, which at that time literally looked like paper. The envelopes were a thin paper and living by water at the time I would cross the street and the shoes would fall apart. I wanted it to work better outdoors so I figured I would have to come up with something else for the shoes all together. There were at least 20-30 versions of the shoes as they evolved into the ones today that work in all conditions. Today’s shoes use billboard vinyl which I learned about from a contractor at the time who was quoting me on ways to repair my trailer’s roof. We then sold the 1st pairs at […]
The post 3 Young Entrepreneurs and Their Socially Good Startups appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today marks a monumental day where to of Generation Y’s most prominent entrepreneurial leaders launch their first authored books. Wiley Publishing has recognized the success of two Under30CEOs, Scott Gerber and David Siteman Garland and are publishing their secrets learned after several years of building businesses. Scott, author of Never Get a Real Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke has written the Gen Y handbook for creating a cashflow positive business out of school. Scott is a straight-shooter and tells it like it is. The picture for our generation is grim and we need to step it up. Scott tells you how using strategies he’s learned in his own ventures and as writer for Entrepreneur Magazine. David, author of Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-Boring, Fluff-free Strategies, for Marketing and Promoting Your Business writes about your next steps in business, once you’ve quit your job and started your business how do you break all the old rules they might have taught you in school and market to people 21st century style. David has interviewed hundreds of top notch entrepreneurs other the years and even has a rave review from Seth Godin on the front cover. […]
The post How to Never Get a Real Job Smarter, Faster, Cheaper appeared first on Under30CEO.
Is it your dream to wake up everyday and hop on your yacht? For many of us it is, but for most it takes tons of time, luck and most importantly, millions of dollars. But not if you get creative. At Under30CEO we are firm believers that if you are determined enough to do something and set out a plan utilizing your resources at hand it truly is possible to create a business around something that you are passionate about. Forget Passion. We want you to do something you are addicted to. When people ask you the age old cocktail party question “what do you do?” Are you going to say “sit in a cubicle, surf the web until my extended lunch break where I avoid my boss before coming back to file PPS reports”? Or are you going to say “yeah, I run a fractional yacht ownership business and send people on their dream vacations”. Hear from a man who does just that. Today we bring you an exclusive interview from FranchiseHelp.com with Chris Tucker, the owner of SailTime Channel Islands, a Southern California based SailTime franchise. Chris explains the in’s and out’s of running a lifestyle oriented franchise […]
The post The NetJets of Yachts: How to Start Your Dream Business Today appeared first on Under30CEO.
He is one of the Australia’s most respected entrepreneurs and has taken home almost every advertising award in the world for his creativity. Siimon Reynolds built The Photon Group from nothing, to 50 companies with 6,000 staff and a value of $500m on the ASX, making it the 15th largest marketing group in the world. He speaks with Jack Delosa about marketing, money and why people fail. “What are the reasons people fail?” I ask Siimon as he sits across from me in a black Mercedes. “Well there’s a stack of them…” He says laughingly, “and I’ve experienced most of them.” His overall message is clear, “Pick one thing and become the greatest in the world at it.” Siimon illustrates the importance, particularly in the early stages of business, of knowing your core business activity and sticking to it. “There’s so much competition, unless you specialise and unless you focus, why should anyone go to you?” While building The Photon Group, Siimon went from a two-man band, to owning over 50 companies, most of which were still in the growth phase of their business. “70% of your time within the first year of a new business should be spent on […]
The post Interview: Siimon Reynolds on Marketing, Money and Why People Fail appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jenna Arnold was not your average teenager who wanted to gossip about who she saw at the mall or who was hooking up with who. Instead Jenna began to notice simple problems in the world when she was traveling and thought about how they could be fixed. After working in the education system and the United Nations Jenna started her own company, Press Play Productions. Jenna realized that the only way to educate a large group of people on social issues was through media and at the same time she needed the flexibility of her own company to produce things how she wanted. This attitude is what led her to success on numerous projects most notably “Exiled” which was sold to MTV and is now airing in over 100 countries. Read the interview with Jenna to see how she thinks and what drove her to start her company… What inspired you to start helping people? When I was 13 I went to Mexico for the first time. I was in a van with a bunch of kids from grade school when the van came to a halt because of a bottleneck. After about 20 minutes we realized it was because […]
The post Jenna Arnold Started Press Play Productions to Inspire Change in the World appeared first on Under30CEO.
Freshii was founded by 29 year old Matthew Corrin back in 2005 in Toronto. Today, the healthy and casual restaurant chain has grown to over 60 stores with 400 more in development. Matt started out in the PR business but saw an opportunity in the restaurant industry, an industry he had no experience in. We had the chance to catch up with Matt at the New York City store opening to learn about how he got started and his advice for young entrepreneurs… Questions in the interview: How did Freshii get started? How old were you when you started and how many stores do you have today? How did you go from the PR business to the restaurant business? What were some of your keys to success and the fast growth of Freshii? You have over 400 stores in development, a wife, 2 kids…What is your average day like? Any time management tips? If you had 1 piece of advice for young entrepreneurs today what would it be?
The post Matthew Corrin Founder of Freshii Has Over 400 Stores On the Way appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jonathan Barnett launched his first company while he was in college selling fireworks. He got into the franchise business by following his love of basketball into purchasing a basketball franchise in 2006. Then later in 2006 he started Oxi Fresh Carpet Cleaning which is one of the fastest growing franchises today. Through it all he says the most important parts have been the learning. Sure he made a few bucks in college with the fireworks business but it was the experience that led him into a much bigger venture today… You have done so much; briefly tell us about your successful business ventures. Your inspiration for beginning each and the moment when you decided it was time to move on and begin the next. I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, like my grandpa, who was an inventor and owned several businesses throughout his life. My first business venture was Johnny B’s Fireworks (2000-2003). I started this fireworks stand, while attending Oral Roberts University. I remember driving home from the gym and seeing a firework stand off in a field somewhere. I said to myself, “If someone else can run a firework business, why can’t I?” It became a […]
The post Dream Big and Take Action: Jonathan Barnett of Oxi Fresh Carpet Cleaning appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we had a chance to speak with Robert Levin who is the founder and current editor and chief of the New York Enterprise Report. Robert founded the business magazine in 2003 after spending years in executive positions at several companies. Robert has witnessed first hand the ups and downs of the publishing industry along with establishing himself as a central figure in the New York City small business arena. Read the interview to learn some of Robert’s business lessons and to see his thoughts on young entrepreneurs and young business leaders. NYE Report is focused in the NY Area. Why did you choose to be so niche instead of being a broader business publication? What advantages does being this niche provide you with? When you’re starting a business you can go down a few roads. Since I funded myself and had no outside investment for 6 years I knew I had to go niche. I figured that I could launch in NY with the funding I had. The biggest cost for a magazine was the printing and building up a circulation. We did a lot of guerilla marketing, used direct mail and made informal deals with places like the […]
The post Interview: Robert Levin Founder of the New York Enterprise Report appeared first on Under30CEO.
A love for finance turns into a innovative new educational platform. Hip Hop Stock Market was founded by Adam Blaire and Sherif Balogun to help educate and inform users on investing and finance. The platform lets you interactively trade stock for pop icons based on what you think they will do next. Things like album sales, lawsuits, endorsement deals and more all play into if the individuals stock will go up or down. While still in the early stages the market place is an interesting way to engage people with an interactive game but also educate them about finance. Read the profile below to learn more about the platform and the ideas they have for the future of it. What is the story behind your company? Adam Blaire and Sherif Balogun’s love for finance and investing was born in high school when the two met in the hallways of Coral Gables Senior High (Miami, Florida) After high school, the two continued their business studies at Florida International University, where Blaire majored in Accounting and Balogun in International Business and Finance. After learning how easy it was to turn a small investment into a great portfolio, meaning large monetary returns, they […]
The post Hip Hop Stock Market: Trade Stock of Pop Icons While Learning Finance appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we spoke with Rob Starrett who is the CEO and one of the founders of the fraternity Epsilon Nu Tau. The fraternity was founded at the University of Dayton in May of 2008 with the idea of bringing an entrepreneurial brotherhood to the collegiate level. See what Rob has to say about his experience there and how this organization can help young people at the collegiate level. Could you explain what Epsilon Nu Tau is? Epsilon Nu Tau is a professional co-ed fraternity founded in 2008 at the University of Dayton. It currently has four chapters and over 75 active members nationwide. We are committed to creating a society and community of entrepreneurially spirited individuals to advance the ideals of professionalism and entrepreneurship. Through our activities we strive for perfection in the art and science of salesmanship while encouraging ethical business practices. By combining these skills we give back to our community and contribute our time and talents to benefiting the welfare of society. We do not focus entirely on becoming a business owner or how to run a company. Instead, we focus on having the right mindset in life; to resist fear, create connections, put ideas into motion, and […]
The post The 1st Ever Entrepreneurship Fraternity: Epsilon Nu Tau appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we spoke with Gareb Shamus who is the founder of Wizard Entertainment. Wizard Entertainment is the largest media outlet in the world covering comic books and toys. They also run the comic-con tour which is the largest series of events in the industry. Gareb started the company because of his love for comic books while he was growing up. The job market was awful in the early 90s so he decided to try and create something for himself right out of college. That ambition turned into the industry leader everyone knows today. Read below to see what he has learned and what he thinks about young people starting businesses… Tell us about your background I grew up with 3 brothers and was always into collecting sport cards and comic books. I went to the University of Albany where I ran the advertising for the school newspaper. I was pretty good at it too. Right when the first mac computers came out we bought them for the newspaper. We did all of the publishing on them and that is when I decided I liked the business. The job market was very bad in 1990 so I started working for my […]
The post Gareb Shamus Turned His Passion Into the Industry Leader Wizard Entertainment appeared first on Under30CEO.
Do you know exactly how your body is responding to your workout or diet? If you are like most people then probably not. Keegan Hall is solving that problem with his BodyKey product from his company Emergent Detection. Keegan and his team have developed a product that gives you immediate feedback on how much fat your body just burned. This allows you to test different foods and programs to find out what gives you the best results. With health and especially obesity taking center stage all over the world this is a truly interesting product. The product involves a quick urine test with their disposable cartridges to analyze your system. Will people want to do that after each workout or each meal? Most importantly how accurate is the system and the results it gives? Both remain to be seen but if the product provides the correct information it should prove useful and popular for health nuts and others. Check out the profile below to learn more about Emergent Detection and its plans. What is the story behind your company? While finishing my MBA coursework at the University of Washington, I met two very intelligent people: Eric Fogel, a former research […]
The post Emergent Detection: Find Out How Much Fat You’re Burning appeared first on Under30CEO.
Evan Bailyn is the founder of numerous companies that have hit the million dollar mark in revenue. He started out in law school but realized the structure was just not for him so he set out on his own. That initiative has led him to start a sculpture company, an SEO company and even a doll company to name a few. He is only 29 and has sold 5 companies to date. Evan is constantly looking for the next big thing and his passion for creating his own path and earning his own money has driven him to this success. He thinks monetizing something that you love is one of the greatest things you can do in life. Read the interview to see how he got there and what his advice is for today’s young entrepreneurs… What is your back story before you started a company? I graduated Columbia in 2003 with no idea of what I wanted to do. I was always told that the only career paths for me was to be either a lawyer or a doctor. So I ended up in law school for half a semester but just couldn’t do it. I had a lot […]
The post Interview: How Evan Bailyn Has Sold 5 Companies by Age 29 appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today I had a chance to speak with Neil Patel of KISSmetrics and the entrepreneurship focused blog Quicksprout. At 25 Neil has already been the driving force behind 3 major companies and has been a part of countless others. He has always had the entrepreneurial drive dating all the way back to before he was 16 selling bootleg movies and cds to friends. Today he is on the right path with a goal of building KISSmetrics to a 100million dollar company before he is satisfied. Neil has learned a lot from his successes but even more from his many failures. Read the interview below to find out how Neil has become so experienced at such a young age… How did you get into entrepreneurship? I have been an entrepreneur since I was 16 years old. I would say even younger but back then it was not exactly ethical. I was selling things like black boxes and bootleg movies to friends, after a few years I got on the right track with a business. I never really had what you would call a career job. I had a bunch of part time jobs but never got anything to serious. However my […]
The post Interview: Neil Patel on Focus and Failure as an Entrepreneur appeared first on Under30CEO.
“Take a Chill Pill” a once popular idiom used to tell people they needed to calm down. Most of us know nothing about this; all we know is how to live life at full speed ahead with an endless variety of energy drinks we don’t have a reason to ever stop or slow down. 3 guys from Hawaii are out to change that. Using natural ingredients and methods native to Hawaiian Islanders they have created Rzo a relaxation drink to help us stop living our lives in fast forward. So let me get this straight you guys went ahead, created the product and ordered tons of it first before even creating a business plan? We always knew the direction we wanted to take RZO, but never laid out a set path to follow because we knew it would change. As problems came up, we dealt with them. As we learned what we needed to do, we did it. Our stance has been very dynamic from day 1 because we were lacking in experience. How many cans of Rzo do you guys drink daily? We spend more time selling them than drinking them. But after a long day, it really helps to drink […]
The post Rzo: 3 Guys From Hawaii Are Creating an Energy Drink Revolution appeared first on Under30CEO.
Tim Young is not like the rest of us. He actaully thought entrepreneurship was the norm and never considered working for someone else. Tim comes from a long-line of entrepreneurs and that environment led him to believe that building something for yourself and making an impact on society was the only way to live your life. Tim started Socialcast shortly after he graduated from The University of California Riverside. While running Socialcast Tim has raised millions in funding and worked with numerous mentors who are helping him build his company. Read his interview to learn some of his tips and find out what his advice for young entrepreneurs is… Tell us about your background and how you got into entrepreneurship I grew up in Southern California outside of LA. Both of my parents were entrepreneurs and successful ones. Even a lot of my extended family were entrepreneurs. I grew up in an environment where making an impact on the world and building something whether it be a product or service was drilled into my head in childhood. Really the idea of building something of my own was the way I understood things. Working for someone else seemed like the crazy […]
The post Tim Young on Funding, Mentors and Being a Young Entrepreneur appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we have Doggy Decadents, a gourmet dog treat company started by Chelsey Homan in Alaska. Chelsey is only 21 years old but is already gaining worlds of experience with her first startup company. Doggy Decadents is planning to relocate its headquarters to Washington State and open a physical store within a year. This is the kind of experience you do not get while sitting in class at business school. Check out the company below and Chelsey has a few questions for the Under30CEO audience that she would love to have answered! What is the story behind your company? In the summer of 2006 I received a scholarship to attended an entrepreneur camp for high school students, Camp $tart-Up, at Cornell University. At this camp we learned the basics of starting a business and formulating a business plan. The very next year in the summer of 2007 (after graduating high school) I was working at a local pet store in Eagle River, Alaska, and began baking treats for my newly acquired dog, Skipper. Having always aspired to run my own business, I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to try it out with little risk, I decided to begin […]
The post Doggy Decadents: Gourmet Dog Treats For Your Pup appeared first on Under30CEO.
This week on “Canada, eh?”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Spencer Thompson. Spencer is the co-founder and CEO of Canadian tech start-up, Sokanu, which is set to launch within the next couple of months. Now, why would I choose to interview someone whose business technically hasn’t done anything yet? Well, when a 19 year old who decided not to go to college to focus on his business full time receives offers from major Silicon Valley VCs, mentorship from uber successful tech entrepreneurs and has even turned down offers of employment from major social networks (sorry that all of this must remain confidential for now), I felt I should be the first to shed light on the business before reaching Spencer was next to impossible! What is Sokanu? Sokanu is a social learning platform aimed at helping individuals find their passion in life. The idea came about last year when I was finishing high school and I noticed that the majority of my classmates had no particular idea as to what they were going to do with the rest of their lives. Most people ended up taking generic courses at the same universities. Around the world, people struggle with the […]
The post At 19 Spencer Thompson is Making Moves With Sokanu! appeared first on Under30CEO.
Recently we had the chance to catch up with Joseph Guy who is a senior at the University of Dayton. Joe is the CEO of the student run business on campus called Flyer Enterprises. Flyer Enterprises does over 1.4 million in revenue each year and has 175 student employees across 8 campus businesses. The program has given Joe more experience than he could have imagined while at college. He believes that a program like this goes above and beyond traditional learning with just text books and professors. Read below to find out what he has learned and how he thinks other students can start a program like this at their school. How did you get into entrepreneurship. Were you always on that path? One of my first jobs was working at a car dealership which is where I was exposed to the sales side of business. Ever since then I have had an interest in business and wanted to run one of my own. During my junior and senior year of high school I ran my own cleaning business. My dad was looking for a company to clean his office so I told him I would do it for half […]
The post Joseph Guy: What it’s Like to Manage 175 Students While Still in College appeared first on Under30CEO.
This week we have two pretty cool startups to mention. Come Recommended helps connect employers and candidates by encouraging interaction rather than just posting to a job board. Heather Huhman founded it during her own days working at a company sifting through potential candidates for open positions. Our other company is Blue Reserve which is changing the way companies buy bottled water. They are helping companies get rid of the big 5 gallon jugs by purifying the water in the building. Check out both and help them out by answering some of the questions that they each have for the Under30CEO audience! What is the story behind your company? It all started when I set out to fill my very first job as a hiring manager—an entry-level position for a small public relations firm. We received nearly 100 applications after posting the position to both Craigslist and WashingtonPost.com. I scoured the stack looking for ways to “weed out” candidates and identify ones with potential. Finally, I narrowed the list down to five and started making calls. My “phone screens” have always been fairly in-depth because of the position I held with this company. If I brought someone in, he or […]
The post Startup Hot Seat: Come Recommended vs Blue Reserve appeared first on Under30CEO.
Leaving a job as CTO of Facebook may seem a little crazy but not for Adam D’Angelo. He had no problem leaving Facebook to pursue his own startup idea Quora. Quora is a platform that allows people to ask questions and get answers…think Yahoo Answers. However the site is apparently different because of who is answering and asking. With people like Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen and Fred Wilson contributing regularly on the site. Recently Business Insider did a great interview with this young entrepreneur and found out some great info about Quora’s plans and Adam’s relationship with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Some of the questions he answers are: How entrepreneurs can benefit from Quora Where the idea for Quora came from Business lessons learned from Facebook How to scale a startup and keep quality What it’s like to have VCs throwing money at you What’s with Gen-Y and entrepreneurship? Right now Quora is being supported by venture capital as it gets up and running. He said that they are focused on building good content rather than revenue at this point. Most young entrepreneurs do not have this advantage and in most cases it would not be recommended. However when you […]
The post Why Adam D’Angelo Quit his Job as CTO of Facebook appeared first on Under30CEO.
Katie Shea and Susie Levitt are the founders behind the New York City startup CitySlips. The two NYU students got sick of hobbling home after a night out or a day at an internship in their high heels….so they fixed it. The two turned to their professors and resources at NYU and before long had a shipment of 1000 pairs of their creative shoes sitting at Katie’s parents house. Now their efforts have been featured in things like entrepreneur magazine and the shoes can be found in over 500 boutiques world wide, just last week Neiman Marcus started carrying the shoes. Katie and Susie have learned a lot on this journey and still have some big plans for the future of their company. Read the interview to find out how some sore feet turned into a remarkable venture… Where did the idea for CitySlips come from? Well, for starters, we’re pretty short! With both of us standing no taller than 5’2”, we would hobble home in our high heels after corporate internships and dinner dates in NYC. Having lived in the city throughout our four years as NYU students, we had developed a love/hate relationship with our pointy pumps and […]
The post Interview: Katie Shea and Susie Levitt of the NYC Startup CitySlips appeared first on Under30CEO.
Matt Mickiewicz is not your average 27 year old. He started the popular website Sitepoint.com when he was 14, today it is ranked in the top 1000 most visited sites in the world. He did not go to college because in high school he was already making more money than his teachers. He also co-founded the popular design site 99designs.com which has generated over 50,000 designs some of which include the cover for Tim Ferris’s best seller “The 4 Hour Work Week” and also the t-shirts for the LA and San Francisco marathons. To top it all off he founded flippa.com which sold retweet.com for a quarter million. Matt is a passionate entrepreneur who hopes to continue to build more companies by being the first to market. Read below to see how he got started and what advice he has for people venturing into the business world today… How did you get the idea for SitePoint? Were you always looking to start business? Back in 1997 I designed websites as a hobby. Back then the internet was still very primitive and there was not a lot of information online on how to start a website. This meant I had to […]
The post Matt Mickiewicz on Creating Some of the Most Popular Websites in the World appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we have two startups looking to be the next big thing. One is Epic Fury Clothing which is a casual clothing line for men. The other Gen Cubed is a company that focuses on educating and developing the younger workforce in larger corporations. Both companies have been around for a about year but have established an image and future goals. Both ideas took minimal startup capital. More importantly they took the drive from the founders to make their ideas happen. Check out the two companies and take a second to address the questions they have asked! What is the story behind your company? I founded the company on the basis of a need in a niche market. Epic Fury Clothing is the perfect merger of fashion and functionality. The motive was to create a casual brand for active males; whether they are avid weight lifters, world class athletes, MMA enthusiasts or just your average gym rat, they have a clothing line to call their own without having to sacrifice fashion or their “look”. It truly is all about the look and feel. Our target market puts so much emphasis on the way they look and how they’re perceived, so […]
The post Startup Hot Seat: Epic Fury Clothing vs Gen Cubed appeared first on Under30CEO.
From almost losing it all in his first business to going on to build one of the fastest 50 growing ventures Australia saw in 2009, he’s the adrenalin junky who is now launching a movement that is developing entrepreneurs all over the world. Jack Delosa was named one the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 in Australian Anthill Magazines 30Under30 Awards. His business at the time MBE Education had a team of 6 staff and 25 corporate advisors who are today executing over $250m in corporate transactions on behalf of clients. It is no wonder he is now using his network and resources to connect the world’s best entrepreneurs with the world’s next entrepreneurs, through his new business The Entourage. He has also started working with The Branson School of Entrepreneurship in South Africa, to develop entrepreneurs where they’re needed most. We speak with Jack Delosa about failure, money and how to get ahead in the business world. The media has reported that you took the School of Hard Knocks to get to where you are, what’s the most difficult thing you’ve done in business and what did you learn? The most difficult period for me was definitely my first business. […]
The post Australia’s International Young Gun: An Interview with Jack Delosa appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we have Universities Finest and Bucks Happening profiled below. Both companies are making moves and cost virtually nothing to start. Universities Finest simply saw an opening and starting making calenders at campuses across the county. Bucks Happening is an extremely niche blog show casing everything happening in Bucks country Pennsylvania. Simple ideas that a few young people jumped on to take charge of their lives. Of course with any new company they are looking for feedback and have a million questions. Take a second and let them know what you think! Which companies model do you like best? What do you see as obstacles or opportunities? Each profile also has a handful of questions from the founders for you to answer! What is the story behind your company? One day Steve and myself were sitting in my dorm room at Southern Connecticut State University. Thinking about all the things we were restricted of doing since we were both RA’s. There were rules that we couldn’t work at restaurants or bars in the area, because our residents might go. Rules on duty nights and how we couldn’t party on some the best nights, and the list goes on and on. […]
The post Startup Hot Seat: Universities Finest vs Bucks Happening appeared first on Under30CEO.
This week we caught up with c the 28 year old graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder and co-founder of Load Delivered Logistics, LLC. While so many young people are jumping into tech startups trying to build the next facebook, Robert dove into the more traditional transportation industry. It seems as though he made the right move. Load Delivered is expected to do 14million in 2010 sales and 30million in 2011. His clients include 20 fortune 500 companies and numerous privately held corporations. Robert explains how the transportation market is huge and provides endless opportunity for companies involved. He also touches on what it was like starting Load Delivered and gives his thoughts on how to manage Gen Y… Could you explain what Load Delivered Logistics, LLC is? Load Delivered is a freight logistics and distribution firm that enables companies to deliver merchandise to a destination in a faster, more cost effective, and “greener” way. For example, we are working with Deckers Outdoor Corp (Nasdaq: DECK) to roll out their new Miami and Orlando UGG® Retail Stores. The members of the Load Delivered Team are mostly 20-somethings who are energized by the potential of working in the transportation […]
The post Technology, Trucks, and Trains: Robert Nathan and the Freight Fast-Lane appeared first on Under30CEO.
Below are two startup companies that are making big splashes in their industries. They are run by young entrepreneurs and even though they are off and running they have a lot of questions on how to move forward. Which companies model do you like best? What do you see as obstacles or opportunities? Each profile also has a handful of questions from the founders for you to answer! Leave your feedback in the comments and lets make sure these companies get to where they need to be! What is the story behind your company? While working together as brand consultants at Boulder’s Sterling-Rice Group, Warren and Riley recognized a need for more effective tools to accelerate market research and innovation processes. Thus, the idea for Napkin Labs was born. Napkin Labs is a turn-key crowdsourcing platform that enables companies to collaborate with customers, experts, and employees to accelerate the creation and development of meaningful new products that fuel growth. Our vision is to redefine how companies interact with consumers and experts outside of their walls. By enabling companies to democratize their innovation processes, we believe we can make large companies more nimble, while providing experts and consumers around the world […]
The post Startup Hot Seat: Napkin Labs vs Warrior Tea appeared first on Under30CEO.
Photo Credit: Mike Priggins and Kyle Reyes. This week we had a chance to speak with 27 year old entrepreneur Earl O’Garro, Jr. Earl founded Hybrid Insurance Group over a year ago and it has already done over a million dollars in business. Earl talks about how he got into insurance at such a young age and how many people might not think of the industry when they think of a startup. Earl always had a positive mindset when starting the business. Read below to see why he saw starting a business as a win-win whether he succeeded or failed. Could you explain Hybrid Insurance Group? Hybrid Insurance Group is an excess and surplus lines insurance brokerage firm specializing in the placement of hard to place property and casualty risks. Our clients are retail insurance agents who have insured’s who they cannot secure insurance through standard methods. Insurance is not the typical business for a young entrepreneur to get into. How did you get the idea and how did you take the leap and form the company? I managed a 35+ million dollar division for a privately held excess and surplus lines broker. Then I was approached by a private […]
The post Earl O’Garro Jr.: Why he Succeeded Whether His Business Did or Not appeared first on Under30CEO.
What do you think of this start-ups below? They are all run by young entrepreneurs looking to make their name in this world. Everyone needs advice to mold and shape their idea. Each start-up has some questions that they need answering or just leave your thoughts on the companies in the comments below. Lets see if we can give these young guns some feedback to take these or their next ventures to the next level! What is the story behind your company? As an attorney working with small and large business owners, I realized that when it came to trademarks, small businesses were under-served by the legal community. From that realization, I decided to develop a niche practice in trademarks. I left my small firm and opened my own law office, emphasizing trademark work. As an entrepreneur myself, I knew how important trademarks can be and how expensive the process can be if a small business person hires a major law firm to secure a trademark. My idea is to provide expert, personalized service to trademark seekers at a fraction of the cost that a big law firm, right in my D.C. neighborhood, would charge. What makes your company unique […]
The post Startup Hot Seat: Trademark Armor vs Business Empire Consulting appeared first on Under30CEO.
Originally published in the War Room of BusinessInsider.com
VillageVines is a New York City startup that has recently broke into the restaurant reservation booking market. For a fee they let you book reservations at high end restaurants for a discount.
The founders are 2008 Georgetown graduates and are both 24 years old. The two quit their Wall Street jobs and dove into the startup world not fully knowing what to expect. Dan Leahy explains how they went into this with no experience a shaky business plan yet have 10,000 members in the first two months.
This article is brought to you by the digital marketing firm Shadow Concepts LLC. Contact them to find out how they can help your company sell more by reaching its online audience.
The post From Wall Street to a Fast Growing Tech Startup appeared first on Under30CEO.
Russell D’Souza co-founded SeatGeek in 2009. SeatGeek predicts ticket prices for events based on a variety of factors and after analyzing millions of transactions to develop patterns. Russel graduated Dartmouth College in 2007 and has already raised over 1.5million for SeatGeek while also being part of the founding team of Scribnia. Russell is very focused on the business model behind SeatGeek and advises young entrepreneurs to stay away from the twitter and facebook models. He also talks about the importance of your network and how you have to focus on meeting the right people because they will drive your business in the end. Read Russell’s interview below… You guys launched at Techcrunch 50, how did this event help accelerate your success? You only get one shot to launch a business and you should do it on the biggest stage possible. TechCrunch50 is an instant stamp of validation and makes it easier to raise VC funding and to grab mindshare. How do you make such accurate predictions in your price forecast? We analyze millions of ticket transactions. Our algorithm looks at every factor that can conceivably affect ticket prices (e.x. the weather prediction, pitching matchups, playoff chances, artist popularity, etc…). We’ve […]
The post Russell D’Souza and SeatGeek are Changing How You Buy Tickets appeared first on Under30CEO.
What do you think of this start-ups below? They are all run by young entrepreneurs looking to make their name in this world. Everyone needs advice to mold and shape their idea. Each start-up has some questions that they need answering or just leave your thoughts on the companies in the comments below. Lets see if we can give these young guns some feedback to take these or their next ventures to the next level! What can we at Under30CEO do to better help these start-ups get feedback here? Different questions, different format, etc…? What are everyone’s ideas on how to highlight these entrepreneurs and get them the feedback they need to get to the next level? What is the story behind your company? I started Cupcake Central in September 2009, 3 months after I was laid off from my corporate IT Consultant job from a global consultancy firm, BearingPoint Inc. Having been in IT for 5 years, I knew there was something more to life than just working away in front of a computer and daydreaming of what could be. My passion for baking cupcakes started when I took a trip to New York and ate my first cupcake […]
The post Startup Hot Seat: Cupcake Central vs Cashier Live vs Music Dealers appeared first on Under30CEO.
Sean McCleese is the founder of StudentofFortune.com where students can get smart tutorial help in an open marketplace. Sean is 26 and had the idea back in college while he had a problem with a homework question and he could not find anyone else to help him. From there the idea was born and Sean has turned that idea into a mulit-million dollar business. Sean is extremely proud that Student of Fortune has become so successful with no outside funding. Sean is a determined young entrepreneur who hopes to continue building StudentofFortune.com by helping more students get the answers they need and getting the people with the answers the money they deserve. Continue reading for the whole story… How did you come up with the idea for Student of Fortune? I was taking a physics class in college and there were only a dozen or so of us in the class. It was late at night and there was a homework problem I was struggling with and no one else in the class could help me. My professor had already gone home and the other students were equally confused by the problem. I didn’t need help with the entire assignment […]
The post Building a Multi-Million Dollar Business with No Funding: Sean McCleese appeared first on Under30CEO.
What do you think of this startups below? They are all run by young entrepreneurs looking to make their name in this world. Everyone needs advice to mold and shape their idea. Each startup has some questions that they need answering or just leave your thoughts on the companies in the comments below. Lets see if we can give these young guns some feedback to take these or their next ventures to the next level! What can we at Under30CEO do to better help these startups get feedback here? Different questions, different format, etc…? What are everyone’s ideas on how to highlight these entrepreneurs and get them the feedback they need to get to the next level? What is the story behind your company? Each founder has startup experience and we met randomly through the ycombinator cofounder wishlist spreadsheet. Shane founded Scordit.com and he’s working on dino.sr (recently got press from this week in startups) and Bob founded Smarter Football.com and Pennza Detailing in Central New Jersey. They met one day and talked about ideas. A few weeks later, they got back in touch and discussed a few ideas. Within a week, they had the basic outlines for isWearing.com and […]
The post Startup Hot Seat: isWearing, Mapachat, Lexani Limousines appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we caught up with 24 year old serial entrepreneur Carl Taylor. Carl started his first business at the age of 15, unless you count the magic shows he used to run for his family at the price of 20 cents. Since then he has been involved in product sales, web design, a gift hamper company, his current company in the publishing industry, an education business and has written a book. Carl is driven by the excitement of the unknown and interacting with people on his entrepreneurial journey. He has no plans of slowing down and hopes he can inspire and help others along the way. Read below to learn more about Carl… How did you get into entrepreneurship? I started my first business at age 15, although you could say I got started in entrepreneurship even earlier than that because from about age 6 to age 10 all I wanted to be was an inventor. I would sketch ideas down in my notebooks things like Hoverboards, flying cars, spaceships that could leave and re-enter the atmosphere. I remember also after seeing the movie Jurassic Park I wanted to create my own theme park just like Jurassic Park, come to […]
The post Fail Fast and Fail Often: Interview with Carl Taylor appeared first on Under30CEO.
Victor Wong has been a successful young entrepreneur more than once. The Yale graduate has created a technology that creates a unique advertising display for your company by pulling information from the web automatically. Simply type in the name of your business and it builds a custom hyper local ad. Wong’s company Paper G has created some amazing resources for publishers to connect with local businesses. Victor had his start founding a microcredit group Elmseed providing small businesses training and capital to entrepreneurs. Wong has attracted a pretty amazing group of advisers including Stephen Taylor, publisher of the Boston Globe’s Boston.com during its first five years of existence, John Kannapell, former SVP of AOL Search, Local & Maps, and Mark Potts, co-founder of WashingtonPost.com and founder of hyperlocal startup GrowthSpur. With so many options for publishers to join ad networks, how did you have the confidence to go after this market? We felt a new choice needed to be offered to publishers — tapping local ad revenue rather than remnant direct response ad dollars. We thought offering the capability of attracting local ad dollars would be compelling and couldn’t be ignored by media companies — particularly local media companies. When […]
The post Q&A with Victor Wong, co-founder and CEO, PaperG appeared first on Under30CEO.
As founder of the sports news and information site The Big Lead, Jason McIntyre has become a very interesting voice in the blogosphere. The former staffer at US Weekly founded the site as a hobby and grew it over time, breaking media stories and feeding the insatiable need for information, especially amongst the sports and entertainment fan. However what McIntyre did best was create what every young entrepreneur wants and should do, find a unique voice and build from there. Over time, TBL became a trusted and well visited information source for both fans and the media, breaking news stories like Stephen A. Smith’s departure from ESPN. He also became a rallying point for the blogosphere, when ESPN’s Colin Cowherd urged listeners to deluge and crash the site after McIntyre criticized some of the decisions ESPN was making on air. All along the way he continued to seek out and interview media newsmakers, including luminaries like NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and steadily built his brand from hobby to 24/7 business. The payoff for TBL came in early June when he sold the blog to top five sports media company Fantasy Sports Ventures for a reported seven figure deal. McIntyre will […]
The post Blogger Success: Q+A with Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead appeared first on Under30CEO.
So you are young, hungry and stuck in a dead end job. What do you do? Steal a page out of Marissa Evan’s book and quit your job and start a web company with no money and no experience! Marissa is the founder of GoTryItOn.com a social media tool to help you decide what to wear. Stuck in the dressing room trying to decide on an outfit? Snap a quick picture of yourself and submit it to the service. It’ll get pinged out to Facebook and Twitter and with in an instant you’ll have the world’s consensus whether to wear it or change it. Like any great idea, GoTryItOn.com was born out of necessity. Marissa simply needed advice on what to wear and wished there was a web service to help her. The Cornell grad, like so many young entrepreneurs, sold t-shirts in her early days and finally decided it was time to take the plunge into full time entrepreneurship. Read more from our friends at Business Insider and learn how to risk it all starting a business at 26.
The post How to Quit Your 9-5, Risk It All and Start a Business With Nothing appeared first on Under30CEO.
Today we had the chance to catch up with Brittany K Earls the 23 year old founder of Genesis Magazine. In only 15months she grew the magazine to almost 40,000 print subscribers from 18 states. The magazine is making money through a traditional advertising model and we were able to hear Brittany’s thoughts on the advertising and print industry. As Brittany said she could not get the job she wanted working for a magazine so she took charge and created her own dream job! Read the interview below to find out more about how she started and where Genesis is going… Where did you get the idea to start Genesis Magazine? The thought of Genesis Magazine came from my love of thoughtful journalism. I have never cared about celebrity gossip; however, I was always interested in people who start their own companies, create wealth, have a new talent, new book, or broke barriers and achieved success. So, I created a magazine to cover the above interests and more. What is your background before Genesis Magazine? Career path? Goals? Before Genesis Magazine I was fresh out of college and starving for a job in my field. I was a server at […]
The post Creating Her Dream Job: Brittany K Earls of Genesis Magazine appeared first on Under30CEO.
In the third quarter of 2009, Ali launched YourVox Inc., a platform for sharing news, and perspectives on events taking place in the world in real time. At the age of 19, Ali is changing the way that we think about the news, as his platform enables global issues to become a participative discussion, as opposed to a passively consumed media product. Since then, the platform has developed into a multi dimensional platform being used by institutions and individuals all over. In April, Ali was selected as the youngest US Delegate to attend the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington D.C. What gave you the idea for YourVox? YourVox started as an experiment in “interactive journalism”. I have always been interested in the idea of using news as a global medium for collective change with technology as it’s catalyst. Rather than the opinions of a select few widely expressed on TV and over the internet, what if many people could chime into the conversation and come to meaningful conclusions? YourVox is the result of my curiosity, coupled with a desire to harness state-of-the-art technology to create global exchange by promoting probing, respectful dialogue between contributors with vastly different political, economic […]
The post Changing the Way We Think About the News: Ali Alam of YourVox appeared first on Under30CEO.
From scaling some of the highest mountains in the world, to workshops with Richard Branson on the future of philanthropy, exiting his business for over $100m to more recently captaining Australia in the World Elephant Polo Championships, he is the high octane adventurer at the forefront of what he now calls the “entreprenaissance”. Creel Price is part of a new breed of social entrepreneurs, or as Creel calls them “socialpreneurs”; Entrepreneurs that are no longer motivated by their own self-interests, and are now focusing on the big picture. “A socialpreneur is someone that uses their entrepreneurial ability to make a difference on the planet.” Creel explains. Like many socialpreneurs, Creel believes that the problems faced on the planet are not going to be fixed by Governments, corporations or charitable ventures but rather by social enterprise – organizations that utilize commerce for social benefit. “Government’s try to use regulation to redirect funds with often little success. Corporations can be well meaning but often have to serve the needs of their shareholders before anything else. Charities can do a fantastic job on one hand but sometimes a large percentage of funds go to administration and they need to put out their hand […]
The post Creel Price – Inspiring A 21st Century Renaissance appeared first on Under30CEO.
This week we caught up with Raymond Lei who is the 19 year old founder of ooshirts.com. He started ooshirts when he was 16 and has grown it to a $60,000 a month business. He says that recently the company has seen a %50 month over month growth rate which he is aiming to continue for the rest of 2010. Raymond has learned a lot from the big companies out there like Google and Walmart but he believes the most important stuff has come from his own trial and error. Read on to see how he started and grew ooshirts.com… Tell us about ooshirts.com. What is it and who is it for? ooShirts.com sells custom printed t-shirts to groups. Could you give us the background of the company? How did it start, where did the idea come from, what made you take the leap? I started ooShirts when I was 16, still a high school sophomore. I was ordering t-shirts for the tennis club at my school, and found that the existing companies were all either overpriced or had unskillfully made websites. I was disappointed by the fact that no companies stood out from the rest, despite the immense size […]
The post Young Entrepreneur Interview with Raymond Lei of ooshirts.com appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind your company? I originally wanted to be a shoe designer making custom, handmade shoes. I took a 5-day class in San Francisco with a London-based accessory school, Prescott and Mackay, to learn how to hand make a pair of women’s pumps. After taking the class, I realized that it wasn’t feasible to hand make custom shoes for women because the materials are extremely difficult to find and sometimes very costly. Then I met the owner of JGoods, a customization company that hand paints sneakers, at the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization National Conference in Chicago in 2008. This sparked my interest and I wanted to know if there were hand painted shoes for women. I looked everywhere and only found a few different options that targeted very specific styles of women. Since I’ve always painted, I wanted to try painting a pair of women’s pumps. I instantly fell in love and so did all my friends and family. So in 2009, I decided to start Musa by doing custom pairs of shoes and I have now expanded into creating my own line of Musa Signature Looks. What makes your company unique in its industry? In the footwear […]
The post Finding a Passion in Shoes: Startup Musa Shoes appeared first on Under30CEO.
We caught up with Peter Fertiguena, 27 year old founder of Academy Printwear. Peter attended Southern Connecticut State for 3 semesters but then dropped out because he hated learning facts and simply wanted to discover things for himself. He began touring with the band he was a part of which is where he ran into problems printing merchandise. This was when he decided to take on this task himself and before long Academy Printwear was born out of a basement. Academy Printwear has seen massive growth recently and with Peter’s hard work, innovation and constant desire to stay ahead of the curve he plans on pushing the company even further. Read the full interview with Peter below… How did Academy Printwear come to life? Whats the story behind the idea? I was in a band and we always felt like we were getting ripped off printing merchandise, so we bought a screen printing kit for $1500, I took 5 orders before we even knew how to print a shirt too pay for it, and started printing tee’s in our basement. 3 years ago when I had a bigger client base I took the leap and started doing it full time. […]
The post Building a T-Shirt Company From Your Basement with Peter Fertiguena appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind the company: My co-founder Himani and I were discussing our frustrations with email threads and web based group applications and soon realized there was an enormous problem to solve. Messaging regularly with your groups was just not easy enough. We decided to take our rough ideas to the Founder Institute where we solidified the concept and put together a base prototype. Early on we envisioned a product that helped groups communicate in a different way, one that was more efficient, organized, secure and incredibly simple. micromobs was born. What makes your company unique in its industry: Micromobs is unique because it is one of the few group applications that focuses exclusively on simplicity and security. Users do not need to use complex group/collaboration products that have an inherent learning curve. micromobs, instead allows users to quickly and easily add their groups and begin communicating in a way that is familiar to them. Additionally, users do not need to worry about who their posts are broadcast to. micromobs makes it clear who is in each mob and whether or not a mob is public or private. Future plans for the company: Having just launched our public […]
The post Micromobs is Making it Easier to Communicate With Your Group appeared first on Under30CEO.
Emily Dubner is the founder of Baking for Good, a New York based startup. Baking for Good sells all natural brownies, cookies, and other treats while giving %15 of every purchase to a nonprofit of the customers choice. Emily has made great strides with Baking for Good in the past year even though she had no thoughts of starting a business while attending Harvard for college. This year alone Baking for Good is expected to donate over $20,000 to nonprofits across the country. Along with a recent feature in Entrepreneur Magazine Emily is on track to make a big dent in the business world but in a good way. Read the interview with Emily below… Where did the idea for Baking for Good come from? I grew up baking and continued to bake through college and when I arrived in New York for my first job. I don’t think I ever saw myself running my own company (I’m pretty sure the word ‘entrepreneur’ was not in my vocabulary), but looking back, I realize I was always starting little businesses – selling tote bags or greeting cards or catering dinner parties for friends and family. After college, I joined a management […]
The post How Emily Dubner is Baking Her Way to Success with Baking for Good appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind your company? It is a funny story. The four founders met randomly in the business incubator “Business Lab”, which is connected to the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden. We are all passionate about competing and found that there were no one good website for Student Competitions on the market. However, we did neither have the programming, nor the design skills to get a service up and running. So we created a crappy beta-version in Drupal and went to the Swedish version of Dragon’s Den, pitched the idea, and won our investment! Now, we are backed by a Swedish IT tycoon and billionaire, who was among the first to sell microcomputers to companies and had a license to sell MS Windows. What makes your company unique in its industry? We are currently the world’s only website for global student competitions. At www.studentcompetitions.com , students can subscribe to competitions within their field of study and find opportunities from all over the world, that helps to take them forward in their careers or personal development. On another note, we help companies and organizations to get the most out of their competitions and maximize the impact and spread […]
The post Find a Competition With Startup Student Competitions appeared first on Under30CEO.
22 year old Drew Leahy is out to change the music industry with his company Mybandstock.com. Drew is juggling a growing startup and school at the University of Michigan. He mentions how this balance is one of the toughest things for him to do right now. Mybandsotck has recently signed a client from a major record label and received a round of angel funding to go with coverage on NPR and Techcrunch.com. Read on to see how Drew is changing an industry and what its like being a young entrepreneur… How did your idea for Mybandstock first come around? I was working for Evan Frankfort, a grammy award winning producer/composer in Los Angeles, after the summer of my freshman year. My buddy was visiting, who co-founded an independent record label with me and few other friends, and we had the idea of a stock market for bands. You could invest in bands and eventually cash out when the band was huge. Over the past 2 and half years the idea has evolved through several iterations, from working with small indie bands to focusing on granting access to the biggest acts in the industry. Could you explain your take on the […]
The post Drew Leahy is Tackling the Music Industry with MyBandStock.com appeared first on Under30CEO.
Milun Tesovic is not your average 24 year old. He started his first company at the age of 14 and is now the CEO of the 4th largest music website in the United States. Metrolyrics has grown rapidly since it was founded in 2004. Today it sees 120 million pageviews each month with lyrics from over 30,000 artists with 1.2 million song tracks. Milun describes the whole experience as simply “fun”. He didn’t start things for the money but rather because he was having fun experimenting with projects online. Find out more about Milun and Metrolyrics below along with his advice for young entrepreneurs… How did MetroLyrics start? Where did the idea come from? MetroLyrics got started as a solution to remedy the frustrations of the current lyric sites at that time. What I was finding were lyric databases that were inaccurate and consisted of lyrics posted based on an individual’s guess. It was a big market and one of the most searched for categories online, so the opportunity to do something there existed and I went with it. It was my belief, and later that of MetroLyrics, that it was possible to create a lyric database that was complete, […]
The post Building an Online Music Empire with Milun Tesovic and MetroLyrics appeared first on Under30CEO.
Although many people treat their business like it is a life and death proposition, 20 year old Chase Mattioli is actually faced with that prospect. The Pennsylvania native is finishing his sophomore year at Fordham University where he is majoring in business administration, but he is also the Vice President of Pocono-based Mattioli Racing. That means that Chase literally wears many hats, or helmets. He is a student, an aspiring race car driver (he is a Rookie of the Year candidate in the ARCA series, akin to AA Minor League baseball) and he is responsible for a good part of the bottom line for his company (and for Pocono Raceway), a multi-million dollar racing platform that hosts two Sprint Cup races for over 250,000 people. It is a mix that may not be unusual for seasoned drivers and executives, but it is very unusual for a young man who is trying to keep a growing business moving along while navigating race turns at 200 miles per hour on a weekend. Here is a look into Chase Mattioli and how he helps keep his racing business running: Despite coming from a NASCAR family, you appear to be making a lot of […]
The post Literally “Driving” A New Business, Chase Mattioli appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind Udemy? Udemy began as a project by two brilliant developers in Turkey, Eren Bali and Oktay Caglar, who were building a live virtual classroom on contract for another company. By the end of the project, the company had dissolved and the pair owned the rights to the virtual classroom tool. They decided it would be best if they could make it completely free and enable anyone in the world to access it. Eren and Oktay decided to move to Silicon Valley to start the company, and found jobs in the Valley so they could launch their company here. They joined the Founder Institute to improve their network and learn more about entrepreneurship, and it was there that they met myself, Gagan Biyani. The rest is, as they say, history ;-). What makes your company unique in its industry? There are 3 major value props of Udemy, and there isn’t a site to our knowledge that does all 3: 1) Content platform. The ability to upload multiple types of content (write blog posts, publish videos, and show presentations). I don’t know of another site that does that – but please let me know if there is! […]
The post Startup Udemy is Building a Virtual Classroom appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind your company? Alister & Paine is a digital magazine for 21st century executives… nothing new, we know. Sure, we have awesome writers (Jeffrey Miron, Harvard Economist–for one) and great interviewees spouting amazing advice (Rick Alden, CEO of SkullCandy) but our real value is what we do behind the scenes… our secret recipe of B2B Market Engagement that no one sees from the front-end. What makes your company unique in its industry? 1. We don’t publish a billion times a day, we only publish highly polished and selective pieces twice weekly. 2. When ever we review or discuss a product it’s based on experience… not press releases. 3. We provide our clients with a service you never find in a publishing company… and almost never find outside of six-figure business consultants… and that’s our Target Account Penetration Program (TAPP) a patent-pending business method. Future plans for the company? Keep doing what we’re doing, stay focused, and don’t deviate from who we are by trying to please everyone… no matter how tempting it is. What was the start-up budget? $1,200 Year Founded: 2008-2009 URL: http://www.alisterpaine.info Founders and Ages: Brian D. Aitken | 24 at time of founding […]
The post Startup Profile: Alister & Paine is Building a Digital Magazine appeared first on Under30CEO.
Alyssa Wasko is a student at the University of Arizona. However she is doing a lot more then going through the average college routine of classes and parties. She is already running her own fashion company, Donni Charm. Donni Charm scarves have been seen on celebrities and can be found in some of the top fashion boutiques around the country. Alyssa has an undeniable passion and drive for the business because of a personal loss and the support of her family. Continue reading to find out more about Alyssa and how she describes this entrepreneurial journey… What inspired you to start a business of your own? The loss of my father. I put my energy into starting a business as a coping mechanism after losing him. I like to think of our continued success as a “happy accident.” What has given you the most support in your entrepreneurial journey? Family and Friends. This wouldn’t be possible without the help of people that love and care and believe in donni charm. People have gone out of their way to help with no benefit to themselves just because they believe in the product and what we are doing. You mentioned your scarves […]
The post Alyssa Wasko Describes Entrepreneurship as Priceless appeared first on Under30CEO.
Phil Michaelson is 28 and the founder of KartMe.com. Phil is a great example of why you should start a company in college. As he said it was only a side project at the time but upon graduation he had something to run with. This is a great way to jump start your company. Phil continues to explain how he did the testing, tweaking and learning before he jumped in full-time which is a great strategy for college students. Today KartMe has been recognized by tech giants like Apple and is serving over 1 million page views each month! What motivated you to start your own business rather then a career path? I had too much fun working on this side project while at school to even consider looking for a job. I love sharing recommendations and discovering the great restaurants, recipes, books and music my friends share on KartMe. How did you take KartMe from idea to reality? I started testing small parts of KartMe’s consumer value proposition, marketing plan and business model. For example, I met with lots of potential members to learn about how they discover great things and share them with friends. I then built a […]
The post KartMe Goes From Side Project to Big Reality appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind your company? 20squared was founded in 2005 to fill the void for aftermarket performance parts for your Volkswagen and Audi. Our team is enthusiasts at heart and sell what we feel are the best products out on the market. Since 2005, we have put together a strong product line that is continually growing virtually on a daily basis and have developed strong relationships with both the leading manufacturers in the industry as well with fellow enthusiasts all across the globe! Through these relationships, we have been able to excel among the top of the Performance VW and Audi aftermarket. Our vehicles, customer’s vehicle’s, and products have been in many mainstream, worldwide publications both in print and online. In addition, we are active sponsors of many enthusiast forums and trade/car shows. It is important to note that we pride ourselves on providing our customers with the absolute highest level of customer service. We can’t stress enough how much the customers mean to us. In our eyes, that is the most important aspect of any business. Our thousands of customers can attest to the fact that we’ve been keeping customer service our top priority! Starting out as […]
The post Startup 20squared Thriving From Love of Cars appeared first on Under30CEO.
Harrie Bakst is a 23 year old CEO who has steadily and quickly built his company, Carnegie Sports and Entertainment, into one of the most respected emerging companies in the relatively new field of sports marketing philanthropy. The approach was one that Bakst stumbled upon almost by accident, but a unique combination of a life threatening illness, a love of sports and entertainment and the economic crisis spawned a new cottage industry, one that few had thought of just a few years ago. Carnegie’s approach is to work with brands to expand their allocated marketing dollars and get more ROI by combining those efforts with cause-related events. So instead of a brand like Chipolte or Coca Cola just doing conventional marketing, they use Carnegie to find causes that meet their marketing needs and also have a philanthropic twist. The results have been amazing, in a very short time Carnegie has forged relationships with the NBA, Major League Soccer, Stand Up For A Cure, as well as athletes like New York City Marathon winner Meb Kelfezighi, the Boston Celtics Paul Pierce, former New York Giants star Tiki Barber, even Survivor winner Ethan Zohn, to find ways to make the philanthropic and […]
The post Harrie Bakst: Bringing Sports, Marketing and Philanthropy Together appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind your company? In college, we talked about changing….. The idea is Kevin Bickart’s (CEO), who wanted to create products and innovative ways to inspire people to believe in themselves. He was interested in developing tools to help people live a more resilient and inspired lifestyle. Kevin is now an MD/PhD student at Boston University and CEO of iB-LIEVE. What makes your company unique in its industry? We are a team of 9 best friends (all under 30) whom travel across the country giving educational workshops to inspire students and young professionals to become aware of what they believe in and to build on those beliefs. We then encourage and support them to act on those beliefs. Secondly, we are unique because our theories and practices are based in our research of neuroscience, psychology and performance enhancement. Future plans for the company? In August of 2011 we are going on a tour around the United States to give workshops for youth empowerment. When we return, we plan on opening the first Believe Center in Boston, MA. What was the start-up budget? $10,000 Year Founded: 2007 URL: www.goibelieve.com Founders and Ages: Kevin Bickart (CEO) – 29 (currently) […]
The post iB-Lieve Aims to Empower and Inspire Young Professionals appeared first on Under30CEO.
Blank-label is a revolutionary start-up that lets men customize their own dress shirts. Blank Label has seen a great response from day one getting daily orders and being featured in things like The New York Times, BusinessWeek and Forbes. The founders Fan Bi (22) and Danny Wong (19) are not shy about saying they are business guys here to make some money. They are on their way with Blank Label and this is only the start. Fan Bi was kind enough to take some time to shed some light on the business and where the two ambitious entrepreneurs came from… What were your guys plans before Blank Label? Coincidentally danny and I both had dreams to go into corporate and get super rich that way. We’re both from first-generation immigrant parents so being super rich was pretty important to us. Neither of us were really clued into what we really wanted to do, just that we really wanted to make bucket-loads of money. That obsession with being rich has been somewhat muted by actually finding something we’re extremely passionate about. But make no mistake, we’re still capitalists. What is the story behind Blank Label? Blank Label started as a conversation […]
The post Design What You Wear: Interview With Fan Bi of Blank Label appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind DaFoodie? I stumbled on the idea after posting pictures of entrees I’d ordered from various restaurants on my Facebook page. I got a lot of comments from people asking me where I ate it and saying things like “Wow, it looks good! Where did you eat it?”. So that got me thinking… When you have a little cash to drop on a sit-down restaurant, how do you decide where to eat? Do you go to the same old places? Do you rely on recommendations from friends or from people who post reviews on local Web sites? If you’re a visual person like me, you’d probably rather see an example of a restaurant’s food than read about it. While restaurants have menus, most of them don’t have photos. That’s the reason why I started this mouthwatering site, DaFoodie.com. A lot of times when I went out to eat I had no idea where to go, and the name of the restaurant doesn’t say much. To me, obviously, the pictures say a lot more. What makes your company unique in its industry? I decided to actually make a site where all you look at is pictures of […]
The post Decide Where to Eat By How Your Food Looks: Startup DaFoodie appeared first on Under30CEO.
Photo: Inc.com John and Brendan Ready are the founders of ReadySeafood.com and CatchapieceofMaine.com. In a short time they have build up their seafood business to millions in revenue and have been featured in things like Inc’s 30 under 30 list. The duo spent summers learning the business when they were younger and even left college on the weekends to sell lobsters. It was hard work as John explains sleeping on the office floor for the first year. But both of them don’t regret a second of it and have achieved their dream and created an empire off the coast of Maine… What were you doing before you started readyseafood.com? Brendan and I grew up in Cape Elizabeth Maine and were introduced to lobstering by our Uncle Ted who was, and still is, a commercial lobsterman. He took us out lobstering when we were 6 or 7 years old for the first time. We worked with him during the summers as his helper on his lobster boat and were paid in old lobster traps instead of cash. In the winters we would fix up the old traps and then began lobstering on our own the following summer. We bought a small […]
The post How to Build a Seafood Empire at 25: Ready Seafood appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind Personera? The idea behind Personera was an epiphany that occurred when Sheraan Amod, a social networking and tech evangelist met Jaco de Wet, an industrial engineering grad and publishing enthusiast. Personera, a web to print company combining the best elements of Facebook and personalized digital print was founded soon after. With backing of angel investors, the startup launched publicly in November 2009. What makes your company unique in its industry? We were the first company in the world to launch a Facebook personalized print calendar that automatically includes a user’s photos, friends’ birthdays, and events. We are unique because: 1) Using Facebook Connect, we have made it fast and easy for people to personalize print tangible print products with their Facebook content. 2) Our new scalable and distributed production process allows us to produce products at a network of sites around the world, whereas our competitors are tied to a single manufacturing/print partner. Future plans for the company? By combining Facebook with the latest digital print technology, we plan to enhance everyday media such as calendars, cards, photobooks, planners and magazines. We believe in the individual’s need to enjoy a tailored experience with all of […]
The post Startup Personera Lets You Print Your Facebook Calendar appeared first on Under30CEO.
We had the chance to catch up with 22 year old Gagan Biyani who is one of the founders of Startup Roots. Startup Roots is a non-profit fellowship program that aims to connect startups and internship seekers so the two can have an awesome summer together! Gagan was joined on the project by Ajay Kamat, Himani Amoli, Andrew Chen and Louis Hong who all have extensive passion and experience in the startup world. Together they are giving both sides great opportunities and are looking to expand in the coming years. What was everyone’s Background before Startup Roots? Since Startup Roots is a non-profit, all of us have other startups that we spend most of our days on. I’ll continue explaining this in Question #3. I, Gagan Biyani, graduated from UC Berkeley in 2008 with a degree in Economics. I worked at Accenture as a Strategy Consultant for 1 1/2 years before leaving my job to pursue my startup full-time. While at Accenture, I started writing part-time for TechCrunch’s mobile site, MobileCrunch, which I still contribute to today. Currently, alongside Startup Roots, I’m co-founder of Udemy, a startup focused on democratizing online education. Ajay Kamat is the founder of micromobs, a […]
The post Want to Intern at a Startup? Startup Roots is Your Answer appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind Go Try It On? While getting ready with friends, Marissa noticed that no matter which friends she was with…everyone would ask the same questions in the moments before going out…”How do I look?” … She also realized when home, alone…there was never anyone to ask about her outfit! She thought, “wouldn’t it be great if there was a website where users could go, and take a photo of themselves and get a second opinion on their look before they go out!” What makes your company unique in its industry? GOTRYITON.COM allows users to upload photos of themselves and get honest opinions on their look, before they go out! Users can ask the community about their look, or if they prefer, they can keep their look private and just share with friends! No other site out there is so focused on getting users a second opinion in real time… Future plans for the company? We are building our mobile app. We are starting to speak with brands about partnerships opportunities. What was the start-up budget? $10,000 Year Founded: 2010 URL: GOTRYITON.COM Founder: Marissa Evans, age 26
The post Startup "Go Try It On" Makes Sure You Look Damn Good appeared first on Under30CEO.
We had the chance to catch up with Ben Lerer who is one of the founders of Thrillist along with Adam Rich. Thrillist is a free, daily email for guys. The newsletter gets guys the best of their cities food, drink, entertainment, travel and events. Thrillist has been funded with roughly $200,000 and has over 1.7million subscribers in 16 cities. The New York based newsletter is growing fast and the guys are having a blast helping guys live the high life in their cities. What to look for in the interview: Where the idea for Thrillist came from The importance for the edgy branding in Thrillist How choosing their niche has played into their success What the day is like for the founder of a million dollar newsletter Find Thrillist: Thrillist.com @Thrillist
The post The Making of a Million Dollar Newsletter: Thrillist appeared first on Under30CEO.
Shira Lazar has become a media empress in only a few years because of her passion and work ethic in the media industry. She has interviewed people like Pete Cashmore, Penelope Cruz, Snoop Dogg, Michael Arrington and many more in the music, movie and her personal favorite the tech industry. Shira has her own blog on CBSNews called “On The Scene With Shira”. She is passionate about merging old and new media and is positioning herself at the front of the industry. Skype was being annoying. Sorry for the video quality. In the interview: How Shira got to where she is The importance of passion and personal success Personal Branding tips for people starting out today Who Shira looks up to and has learned from Find Shira: ShiraLazar.com @ShiraLazar
The post Interview: How Shira Lazar Became a “Media Empress” appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the Story Behind Your Company? Many people never find something they love in their entire lifetime. I am fortunate enough to have literally found it in my backyard. Thirty minutes from where I grew up, wiffle balls and bats were manufactured at the The Wiffle Factory. Before I weighed thirty pounds I had wiffle balls and bats zinging around my living room. And before I was thirty years old, a childhood friend and I started Big League Wiffle Ball, the premier wiffle ball tournament in the country. My name is Nick Benas. Jared Verrillo and I grew up in Connecticut playing wiffle ball. It’s big where we’re from. Everybody plays. You get hooked on it because you don’t need that many people to play, the bats and balls are affordable, and you can easily adapt your playing field to whatever environment you’re in. Once you get a handle on how to toss a wiffle curve, sinker, or riser, you’re done. When that ball leaves your hand, it breaks the laws of physics. Your buddy gets that look in his eye like he’s going to crack the ball into left, but all you hear is the swoosh of air […]
The post Founders of Big League Wiffle Ball Followed Their Childhood Passion appeared first on Under30CEO.
At Under30CEO we are constantly pushing people to do what they are passionate about, to live a life that actually fulfills them and to make sound decisions independent of what society wants us to do. It’s about having that “go-getter” mentality and living a lifestyle that excites you every single day. We sat down with the Travel Team from The Summit Series an earth shattering weekend long conference where The World’s Young Innovators Unite. The Summit Series team lead by Elliot Bisnow who believes a critical piece of living that lifestyle and living out your dreams is surrounding yourself with like minded people who share your mission. There is no better example of young people who live by the idea that doing good and making money are not mutually exclusive than the curators of the Summit Series. Mark Korshak, Justin Cohen and Joshua Zabar joined us to talk about joining the team and doing things unconventionally. It’s not often that we cover those who work for others, but when they are on a mission to change the world joining forces seemed just the thing to do. You guys are truly “living the dream” can you highlight the lifestyle and mission […]
The post Embody Your Organization’s Mission: Live Like The Summit Series Travel Team appeared first on Under30CEO.
David Siteman Garland had a TV show before he even had a website. He pitched his idea for an entrepreneurial TV show until ABC picked him up and made his dream possible. He invested all his savings and started producing the show which has seen some incredible success. Today he has been featured on things like CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS to name a few. His show The Rise To The Top has grown into an online resource and community for entrepreneurs. As David says it is “The #1 non-boring resource for building your business. Smarter. Faster. Cheaper.” Also David makes an exciting and exclusive announcement at the end of the interview to the Under30CEO audience!
The post Interview: David Siteman Garland on Entrepreneurship and Running a TV Show appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind your company? The recession was just starting to get into full swing in 2008 and I realized that groups like sports leagues, churches, and schools would be feeling the effects of a downward economy and there would be a greater need for fundraising options. At the same time, the green movement was beginning to gain a mainstream foothold and eco-friendly marketing messages were dominating the airwaves. By marrying the two concepts together, I created an entirely new niche within the fundraising industry. What makes your company unique in its industry? In the fundraising industry, we are one of the largest players to focus exclusively on offering healthier and greener fundraising alternatives. Candy, cookie dough and wrapping paper have all had their day and customers have long been searching for options which are higher quality offered at a better price. We aim to provide that to them in a healthy and green package. Within the green fundraising niche, Go Green Fundraising is the only place where groups can find traditional brochure based fundraisers that utilize earth friendly and healthy products. Our competitors have focused on online offerings which tend to return less profit back to the […]
The post Go Green Fundraising Focuses on Earth Friendly Fundraising appeared first on Under30CEO.
Ashley Cook and Danielle Dankner graduated together from Washington University in 2008. Both found themselves in a tough job market and had trouble breaking into the competitive acting industry in New York City. Instead of giving up or getting depressed about the situation they did the next best thing…they started a company. Ash&Dans was born and quickly has become a known name in the fashion industry with features in things like Teen Vogue, Lucky Magazine and the Wall Street Journal . It took hard work and a lot of motivation but the duo is pushing forward and expanding their brand as we speak. You have an amazing private label clothing line, you started from your dorm rooms. What gave you the courage to move across the country to New York and how did you fund the business? Thank you, Matt. We actually did not start ash&dans in college; we came up with the idea shortly after graduation. Danielle was born in New York City and moved back in hopes of finding a job. Ashley, born in Colorado, moved to New York to pursue an acting career. While Ashley had some luck breaking into the industry, Danielle was not so lucky. […]
The post Tough Job Markets Lead to Fashion Industry Startup ash&dans appeared first on Under30CEO.
Jack Abraham has had the entrepreneur bug since an early age. His father started the public company comScore and he was amazed at the process of taking an idea and building it into a powerful company. At only 23 Jack is on a similar path with Milo.com. He attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania which he left early for Palo Alto. It was there that he and a friend began scheming business ideas in the shopping industry. Before long Milo.com was moving from a piece of paper to a reality. What is your background/story before you started Milo.com? Previous jobs? Career path? I fell in love with the idea of entrepreneurship at an early age when I watched my father start comScore. I loved the fact that he could take a strong idea, hire a couple of driven and talented people, and transform the idea into a company that employs hundreds and eventually goes public. My desire to be my own boss was coupled with my interest in data so I wrote software that crawled and analyzed arbitrage opportunities on eBay and traded products in real-time when such opportunities were identified. My eBay arbitrage company was […]
The post Jack Abraham has Taken Milo.com From Idea to 1M+ Monthly Visitors appeared first on Under30CEO.
What is the story behind BeMe? Individuality is something our family always embraced. Growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, we kept our parents busy by exploring a plethora of activities throughout our childhood- soccer, basketball, gymnastics, dance- you name it, we tried it. Our activities allowed us to form a strong sense of identity that played an important part in shaping our lives. These experiences inspired Tina to create a business plan for BeMe & dream up the BeMe Box while pursuing a MBA at Fordham University. What started as a class project quickly blossomed into much more. Tina had caught the entrepreneurial bug & asked Angela to join her in creating the business. We want to inspire girls to embrace their own unique personalities by creating fun, personal gift products that better represent girls today. You may be surprised at the stereotypes that have been overlooked! We aspire to create products that will inspire people, not in a blatant way, but it a way that girls should always be inspired, inherently, that they are capable of anything. What makes your company unique in its industry? We are taking a good hard look at the girls’ gift industry to […]
The post Startup BeMe Encourages Creativity and Individuality appeared first on Under30CEO.
Nathaniel Broughton is 27 and has already been involved with more then 5 start-ups and has gained the experience of someone twice his age. He graduated from the University of Missouri in 2006 with a degree in accounting although class was never exactly his thing. His companies have won Inc 500 awards and are currently reaching revenues of over 40 million. However he also touts an impressive record on NHL 97 with 7 Stanley Cups to his name and hopefully more to come. But it all took hardwork, dedication and that entrepreneurial drive. What is your background story before running a company? Any career path? Major? My first week of college, I responded to a classified ad in the Mizzou paper. It led me to Show-Me Tickets, an online ticket broker that was starting to take off through online sales. It was all organic traffic, old school SEO. I loved it! One of the co-founders, Brant Bukowsky, taught me the ropes and let me take over a lot of the company’s marketing. This was 2002-03 and I was 19 years old. I majored in Accounting but I started skipping class to go work. It was more fun. From your bio […]
The post Skip Class, Make Money: CEO Nathaniel Broughton appeared first on Under30CEO.
Year Founded: 2008 URL: http://www.businessbeware.biz Founders and Ages: Ashley Bodi – 26 What is the story behind your company? ie. where did the idea come from, how was it founded etc..: The idea for Business Beware started when Robert (my father) was talking with a friend about a customer they had problems with and turns out that same customer is the one that had given him problems too. Customers have the BBB, Angies List, Consumers in Control etc. but the businesses didn’t have an avenue where they could have a voice. Since there was nothing out there like it, my dad told me his idea and I thought “what an awesome idea, we have to do this!” I built and designed the site, layout, and everything that goes with it. We started it on our own and told friends and family about it thinking it would help out those we knew but turns out others caught wind of it and wanted to use it as well! We had no idea it would take off like it has! We added Canada as well since we had so many asking to open it up to them as well. What makes your company […]
The post Ashley Bodi and Business Beware Gives Your Business a Voice appeared first on Under30CEO.
Interview conducted by Kristi Frank, JW Dicks & Nick Nanton from CelebrityBrandingAgency.com Thanks for your time today, Mr. Trump – congratulations on the continued success of The Apprentice – how has the series changed in your opinion, and will we see another non-celebrity series again? The Celebrity Apprentice raises a lot of money for charities, as well as enhancing public awareness of the charities that are featured. It’s been a wonderful vehicle in the philanthropic arena, and has had terrific ratings. Since this format is working so well and on so many levels, we will keep it that way, but that’s not to say there won’t be another non-celebrity series again. Time will tell. In Think Like a Champion – in the opening pages you talked about multi-level focusing and how intersecting ideas creates innovation. Entrepreneurs rely on innovation, so can you elaborate on that? An example of that is the Trump International Hotel & Tower at 1 Central Park West in New York City. I had decided to do a mixed-use concept, which was the first time it had been done. To me it was common sense, although it was labeled ‘innovative’ by others and has been copied worldwide. […]
The post Think Like A Champion: An Interview with Donald Trump appeared first on Under30CEO.
Year Founded: 2009 Founders and Ages? Zak Normandin, 26 URL: http://www.littleduckorganics.com Tell us about your company: When my wife and I went shopping for food and snacks to give to our two young daughters, we always talked about the lack of selection in the baby aisle. We always enjoyed purchasing organic or locally produced products for ourselves, but we really weren’t finding anything like that in the baby aisle. In addition, many of the products that were available contained added sugars and preservatives that we did not want to feed to our girls. I decided shortly after that to begin researching what it would take to bring a food product to market. In February of 2009, I shifted my attention full time to Little Duck Organics and began negotiating with a manufacturing facility and a packaging supplier. It took the remainder of 2009 to finalize our packaging designs, launch our website, and finish production of our first product. During the first week of December (09′), we launched our first line of products, Tiny Fruits, in 12 stores here in New England as well as on Amazon.com. The product comes in three different varieties and contains only 100% natural organic fruit. […]
The post Little Duck Organics is Moving Forward with Organic Baby Foods appeared first on Under30CEO.
Lewis Howes is 26 and has already been featured in things like ESPN and Fast Company because of his expertise with LinkedIn. Lewis graduated Principia College in 2005 but not before spending some time at both Southwest Minnesota State University and Capital University. He had never looked past playing pro football until a career ending injury made him look to other options leading him to LinkedIn… What is your background/story before you started a company? Previous jobs? Career path? I went from being a two sport All-American in college, to playing Arena Football after I graduated. After one year of playing professional football, I had a career ending injury. It left me in a full arm cast for six months, with another 8 months of rehab following that. I have never worked a “career” job longer than two months in my entire life. I couldn’t get motivated building someone else’s empire, and honestly don’t like other people telling me I can’t do something. I hate the feeling of losing more than anything. I’ve trained my mind and body in any necessary ways so I can be the best competitor at all times. I think this holds true in both sports […]
The post Pro Football Player Turned LinkedIn Expert with Lewis Howes appeared first on Under30CEO.
Derek Johnson is 25 and the founder of SMS Marketing Company Tatango.com but he never even graduated college. He spent a brief period at the University of Washington but was denied from their business school so he left for the Universities of Houston’s entrepreneurship program. It was there he came up with Tatango with a little help from a sorority… What is your background/story before you started a company? Previous jobs? Career path? I’ve always been an entrepreneur. From a very young age, if I wasn’t selling something, I was working on my next business idea. This lead to dozens of small businesses, but nothing as big as Tatango. First off could you explain Tatango? What is it and who is it for? The Tatango service is very simple to explain. Tatango is a website that allows a group the ability to send an sms message to any size group at the same time. We have such a wide variety of groups using the service, such as religious organizations, athletic teams, businesses, non-profits, educational groups, etc. Our pricing plans are based on the amount of messages the group sends per month and range from $19.00 (400 messages) to $199.00 (5,000 […]
The post 100 Hour Work Weeks, a Sorority and Dropping Out of College Leads to Thriving Startup appeared first on Under30CEO.
Startup Profile: Zaang Year Founded: 2007 URL: http://www.zaang.com Founders and Ages: Michael Markarian, 23 Alex Kravets, 21 What is the story behind your company? ie. where did the idea come from, how was it founded etc..: Michael Markarian and Alex Kravets founded Zaang in 2007 while students at Babson College. They saw tremendous opportunity in bringing people together who share something in common – something lacking in the social networking and microblogging space. What makes your company unique in its industry? On Zaang, conversations happen in “Worlds,” gatherings of users who share something in common. While located in a certain World, you can learn, share and debate with other people focused on that same topic. Conversations are already happening on Zaang in a variety of Worlds – everything from fishing, to the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, to Lady Gaga. You can enhance your conversations on Zaang with videos, pictures and audio – a big advancement to the “text only” forum sites that ruled over the past decade. You can also “follow” Worlds as you would on Twitter, so all the content you would be interested in flows into a feed customized for you. Future plans for […]
The post Two College Students Aim to Connect People Across the World with Zaang appeared first on Under30CEO.
Startup Profile: FBC Worldwide Year founded: May 2008 Founders: FBC was co-founded by Nathan Yap, Farid Aliji (friend from college), and Imtiaz Khanji (Farid’s cousin) URL: http://www.fbctrust.com, www.pinakuratusa.com About the company: We import a variety of food food products from Southeast Asia into the US. Additionally, we will all be leaving in April for the Philippines to work on a copper project, exporting raw copper ore to China. A mining project was what we initially came together to form a company for, but the recession and resulting commodities dive pretty much killed our margins and made it unfeasible to continue. The food project was a side project that we randomly took on after mining went under. It has since grown to where we are importing 2 containers (40 tons worth of food products – soy sauces, vinegars, dried fruit) a month and supplying 450 stores in the US. Sales for this year are on track to break the $1M mark in revenue. Our business is just basic international trade; we don’t limit ourselves to a certain product line, market, or country. If there’s an exciting opportunity to pursue in a random country, we go for it. What makes FBC unique? […]
The post 22-24 Year Olds Running an International Import Company: FBC Worldwide appeared first on Under30CEO.
Tara Simon is 29 and the founder of The Sticky Pig. Tara has always been very entrepreneurial at heart but like most ended up with a job after her graduation from Temple University in 2002. After three and half years as a graphic designer she decided to go back to her first passion of fitness and became a certified personal trainer. But it was not until 2009 when she met a group of foodies that simply held dinner parties once a week that she got the motivation and push to unveil candied flavor bacon to the world.. What is your background/story before you started a company? Previous jobs? Career path? Food, exercise and nutrition have been interests of mine since high school. I decided to study nutrition in college but quickly realized this was not the path I wanted to take. I changed my tune and pursued my other love: art. I earned a Bachelors of Art degree from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and immediately began a job as a graphic designer for a start-up online intimate apparel company. As one of six people in this new company, I learned how to wear many hats as […]
The post Candied Flavor Bacon is the Passion Behind Tara Simon and The Sticky Pig appeared first on Under30CEO.
When was the company founded? June 9, 2009 Names of founders and ages? Jon Caballero, 24 Justin Mody, 24 Paolo Sagullo, 25 Asif Razvi, 24 Jillian Fortin, 23 URL: www.3KingsClothing.com Tell us about the company: A streetwear brand based out of Houston, Texas, 3Kings is focused on creating products with uncompromising style and quality. The label aims to distinguish itself from other brands through simple, clever designs conveying its core values – Pride, Power, and Prestige. 3Kings tirelessly strives to become a leader and influential player in local and global streetwear culture. The founders firmly believe that a talented team can accomplish vastly more than the individual. Strength lies not only in numbers, but in the ability to unite the best talent toward a common goal. Divided we fall. United three stand. Currently 3Kings’ main products are premium t-shirts. Consumers can visit the company’s website at www.3KingsClothing.com to make purchases online. The 3Kings team also maintains a blog (blog.3kingsclothing.com), the purpose of which, according to them, is to help their consumers keep up with “all kinds of cool stuff related to fashion, sneakers, music, art, film and TV, food, water, potpourri, baby seals, and life in general.” What makes the […]
The post Startup Profile: 3Kings Clothing appeared first on Under30CEO.
Mike Alfred graduated Stanford University in 2003 and like many jumped into the financial field. He spent years working as a financial advisor and investment manager at several firms including his own, Alfred Capital Management. However he had always had an itch to be a web entrepreneur and with the help of a little Maker’s Mark and Monday Night Football that became a reality… Could you describe Brightscope and what it does? BrightScope is the leading provider of retirement plan ratings and investment research. We’ve quickly become the standard rating for 401k plan quality and we market a suite of web-enabled software products to Fortune 1000 employers, investment companies, consultants, and financial advisors. In addition, we provide free ratings and analysis to 401k savers at our public website www.brightscope.com How did Brightscope go from idea to reality? I’d always thought it would be cool to be a web entrepreneur. In 2007, I was working with my brother at our investment firm when we were introduced to Dan Weeks. Dan had been working at HP for 25 years and was ready to try something new. With a little prodding, he convinced us to take a closer look at the 401k space […]
The post How Mike Alfred and Brightscope are Taking on a 3 Trillion Dollar Industry appeared first on Under30CEO.
When was the company founded? PuffingCigars.com published its first article on the internet in May 2008. Names of founders and ages? Rob Villalobos 22 Wyatt Bostic 20 Anthony Cantelmo 26 Grant Blunt 28 URL: http://PuffingCigars.com Tell us about the company: Puffingcigars.com is a website dedicated to the exploration, investigation, and promotion of all things cigar related. We try to focus on bringing up to the moment news on the latest cigars, industry players, and happenings of the cigar industry. In our coverage of the industry we look at various aspects of how cigars interact with other facets of life too, so we are often writing reviews on cigar friendly restaurants, alcohol pairings, and a culture/ tip section that promotes the dos-and-don’ts of all things related to the social enjoyment of cigars. In doing all of this we really try to bridge the gap between the “old school” cigar connoisseur and the new up and coming generation. What makes the company unique in its industry? PuffingCigars.com is unique in our industry for a number of reasons: The most obvious would have to be that we are some of the youngest insiders who are reporting on the industry. It’s important to note […]
The post Startup Profile – Puffing Cigars appeared first on Under30CEO.
Year Founded: April 2009 Founder: Matthew Goulart – 21 years old. Lives in Mississauga Ontario, Canada. Still at school studying at the University of Toronto. About the company: WebStarContent.com is an online company that manages an exclusive popular list of desirable websites. We also provide content development and consulting services for many of our clients. Our goal is simple drive traffic to our client’s sites and the traffic created will create a lead that our clients can convert into a sale or the traffic can increase ad revenue. We principally focus on content development for our clients. What makes the company unique in its industry? WebStar Content has many unique features and services that help their clients. Our consultants help our writers generate keyword rich content for our content develop business. These keyword rich and targeted keywords help generate more traffic to websites, we also promote certain articles on social media platform. We use our consultants to promote our client articles. It provides more value to the client and the client generates more exposure. Our business has three focuses from managing websites, consulting, and providing unique content. There isn’t many online companies with our specific business model. Each focus provides […]
The post Startup Profile: WebStar Content appeared first on Under30CEO.
Tell us about yourself and where you have come from? I created and handle all marketing for my product, The Hangover Cure. I am 25 years old and my supplement company is based in Dallas. I’m having a blast growing my brand every single day of my life since its creation. Where did the idea for “the hangover cure” come from? Like any great invention, the idea for The Hangover Cure came about out of necessity when I was in college at Texas Tech University. It seemed like a pretty logical fit for college kids and yet there really wasn’t anything on the market at the time like it, and this was in 2003, before the functional beverage craze I see now was even on the horizon. To give you an idea, no one came up to me on a Saturday morning in the dorms and recommended an existing product to me after a rough night, and that struck me as odd. So while I didn’t act on the idea at the time, the wheels started turning several years ago in college. I just knew that if marketed right, a product like mine would find an audience. What is the […]
The post Interview With Anthony Adams Founder of The Hangover Cure appeared first on Under30CEO.
Tell us a little about you and your company. Age, background, how you got going etc… My name is Bryan Roy I’m a 20-year-old junior from the University of Arizona. Born and raised in Agawam, Mass., I started Hottest College in America this past August after a popular swimsuit calendar decided to just feature Arizona State University students this year. Naturally from our in-state rivalry, we wanted to represent our school with pride and showcase our girls in a classy way. Everybody at home always asks about the weather and the women at school, so why not just show them? The same way Lute Olson coined this school’s nickname into “Point Guard U” — why can’t it be referred to the “Hottest College in America.” 110 degree afternoons can do that, and so can our models. And heck, why wouldn’t the football or basketball coach send his prospective recruits our calendar? Tell me that wouldn’t at least open a 17-year-old’s eyes. What motivated you to actually start the company? Did anything in particular make you take the leap? Did anyone tell you not to do it? School pride. I love the University of Arizona and everything about it (maybe with […]
The post The Young Entrepreneur Behind "Hottest College in America" appeared first on Under30CEO.
Tell us a little about Grasshopper. Where did it come from and where is it today? We started in 2003 as GotVMail Communications and re-branded as Grasshopper in May of this year. Our virtual phone system is used by tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to make starting and growing their small businesses easy. It helps them sound more professional and stay connected to callers, wherever they are. Our goal is to become the global brand for entrepreneurs and that takes a lot of creativity. We recently launched our second product, Chargify, to make it easy for web 2.0 entrepreneurs to charge customers and gain business intelligence. And over the next year, we plan to release more tools that empower entrepreneurs to succeed. How do you find inspiration and creativity for your company? My best ideas don’t come from a clichéd “ideation session” or a set time of day; they happen when I’m outside the office. So I travel. A lot, if for no other reason than to get the creative juices flowing. There’s a reason why the top floors of a building are the most expensive to occupy, why top executives have the best views of the city, and why […]
The post Tips for Inspiration and Creativity from the Founder of Grasshopper.com appeared first on Under30CEO.
Photo: Kristen Bartlett/The University of Florida Are your parents pushing you to be a Doctor, Lawyer, Economist or some other bull that you could care less about? There is hope for you This was the founder of Grooveshark.com, an amazing way to listen to your favorite music online. With 1.5 million registered users we’re talking remarkable growth–like 20%–last week! Under30CEO got the chance to talk with Sam Tarantino the 22 year old, music obsessed economics major at the University of Florida who founded Grooveshark after driving by a record store that still had a sign out “Buy, Sell, Trade CDs”. Clearly recognizing the fact that music has gone digital, Sam figured there had to be a better way to exchange music on the internet legally. This was Sam’s chance to get out of his rutt, get his parents off his back who had recently cut him off and show his parents he could make something of himself, just not necessarily as an economist. It was time to turn the digital world upside down. “Lets throw the traditional path out the window, and lets do it, forget working up corporate ladders… I could have stayed in school, got my econ degree […]
The post How an Economics Major is Leading Innovation in the Music Industry appeared first on Under30CEO.
U30: You’ve appeared on TRL, FoxNews, Comedy Central and Cosmo Girl. How’d you score the press? I started all this as a professional speaker- going around to high schools and colleges and speaking to large audiences. But that doesn’t translate to media. A speech is one person to five hundred. Media is one person to one person times give hundred. Once I understood this, I knew I needed to pitch myself to the media a teen communication expert or teen advice guy. Not a “motivational speaker” shoot me. That, and you need to be unique. Not in content or message, but in delivery. It’s not what you say- it’s how you say it. U30: What is some advice for young entrepreneurs who want to start diving into online video themselves? Just do it. Seriously. Stop thinking. And strategizing. And formulating your dream board and just turn on a camera and go. My first videos were awful. I mean horrible. But my fifth one was a bit better, and video #50 was pretty solid. Practice makes improvement. U30: How did you book your first paid speaking engagement? How do you make the leap from non-paid speaking to paid speaking? How did […]
The post Josh Shipp Used to Get Kicked out of Class for Talking: Now he Gets Paid to Talk appeared first on Under30CEO.
Online dating has exploded in recent years. We’ve all heard of people on sites like Match.com, eHarmony.com, or PlentyofFish.com. Most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that opportunity is everywhere and its no different with the explosion of the online dating industry. Laurie Davis has jumped on this opportunity and has turned herself into the eFlirt Expert optimizing people’s online dating profiles. Laurie has been featured in The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Health.com and many other publications because of her innovative service. Let’s look at how Laurie has built herself as the eFlirt Expert. Background: Laurie has leveraged her knowledge from years spent being a production consultant organizing conferences and events across the country. This experience in marketing has fueled her success as the eFlirt Expert where she “creates personal branding campaigns for singles.” Before she became the eFlirt Expert Laurie used to help her friends with their dating profiles and provide them with dating tips. She realized that she already had success in this business but wasn’t charging anything! This factor combined with the down economy which meant less corporate events led Laurie to “diversify her own business ventures.” How does an eFlirt Market? Laurie says social media has […]
The post Laurie Davis is Building the "eFlirt Expert" Brand appeared first on Under30CEO.
Not Your Ordinary Shoe Salesman: How Corporate Culture Sells More Than a Billion Dollars of Shoes A Year By Nick Nanton Branding Consultant and Celebrity Lawyer Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is focused on Zappos’ ultimate goal of being “a customer service company that just happens to sell shoes.” Although he focuses on customer service, he isn’t half bad at selling shoes either — taking Zappos to a new height of more than $1 billion in sales in 2008. But Tony is no rookie to big numbers or success. The Harvard grad sold his first company to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million. I have connected with Tony several times and love his insight and the style his uses to direct his rapidly growing empire at Zappos, so I asked if I could interview him to show you a deeper look inside the belly of a billion dollar CEO’s mind. I hope you enjoy what he had to say as much as I did and that you’ll see how his strategies can be put to use in any business, big or small. Nick: I’ve kind of heard the story about how you heard about Zappos, but I’d love to hear it […]
The post Not Your Ordinary Salesman: Zappos Tony Hsieh appeared first on Under30CEO.
If you missed it check out Young Entrepreneurs Turning Partying into Businesses. Here are two more Under 30 CEOs that are making things happen doing something they really love in life. They saw opportunities and grabbed them. The party did not stop after college for these guys. Andrew Moran – New York Bar Store Andrew grew up in Hartford, CT, attended the University of Connecticut and graduated in 2004 with no real career plans. After trying the business school out he became a history major and as he said “I graduated prepared to do basically nothing.” He then moved to New York City and after a job with a start-up company went south he started working as a mover, waiter, and bartender. Then out of nowhere things started to change. The Beginning “It was a rainy night and I can still remember standing on the corner of 28th and Broadway in the pouring rain and discussing with my good friend and soon to be business partner how we ‘had to do this’, ” said Andrew. They did not go into this with what you would call a plan, starting with “a loan with no plan on how to pay back, […]
The post Young Entrepreneurs Turning Partying into Businesses Part 2 appeared first on Under30CEO.
Remember those times when your parents said “If you put as much time into video games and socializing as you did school work you would have straight A’s”? Why not take that effort and passion for those things and turn them into businesses? That is exactly what these entrepreneurs are doing. Quitting the job hunt they are going after what they really love in life. From beer pong to partying to just having a good time, these guys love what they do and make money at it. Sam Pines – World Beer Pong Tour Like Beer Pong? Well this is the company for you! The World Beer Pong Tour founded by 26 year old Sam Pines in 2006 as the “New York Beer Pong Tour” is in its 4th year and hosts beer pong tournaments in 18 states across the US and Canada. Sam graduated from Marist College in 2005 but not with a degree in beer pong. “I had aspirations of being involved with sports media. I interned at the local newspaper when I was in college and wrote for the sports section. I also hosted a weekly radio show at Marist called ‘The Sam Pines Show’ with my […]
The post Young Entrepreneurs Turning Partying into Businesses appeared first on Under30CEO.