As we always say at the City Girl Business Club, you’re never too young to start a business.
One of our favorite websites Inc.com always posts incredible stories about entrepreneurs who have launched successful businesses. We find their stories to be incredibly inspiring and think this is a website every entrepreneur should visit regularly.
We would like to share with you Inc.com’s list of 30 young entrepreneurs who are building incredible brands.
The list:
Name: Joe Mclure
Age: 29
Company: McClure’s Pickles
Website: www.mcclurespickles.com
2009 Revenues: $390,000
Story: Joe McClure spent his childhood in Detroit buying cucumbers and dill at farmers markets. Now, he pickles professionally. Today, an estimated 70 percent of McClures sales of pickles – a second, spicy, variety as well as new products such as relish and Bloody Mary mix – comes from retail stores, with online and market sales comprising the rest.
Name: Naveen Selvadurai
Age: 28
Company: Foursquare
Website: Foursquare.com
2009 Revenues:Undisclosed
Story: It’s been a busy month for Naveen Selvadurai. Foursquare, the location-aware social networking app that Selvaduri co-founded in 2009, picked up $20 million in a Series B round led by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen‘s venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. Less than two weeks later Foursquare hit 2 million users, doubling the audience it had in April. The start-up is still growing steadily by 100,000 new members a week, with plans for a big redesign at the end of the summer.
Name: Jack Abraham
Age:24
Company: Milo.com
Website: www.milo.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: The San Francisco start-up Milo.com tracks 2.8 million products across 50,000 retail stores. “Amazon and eBay are Web 1.0,” scoffs founder Jack Abraham.Abraham got the idea for Milo.com when he was working at comScore. “We had data that showed people were using the Internet to research products, but buying them more often offline than online,” he says. “Everyone was innovating in social media, but no one doing anything in shopping. Amazon and eBay are Web 1.0.”
Name: Sophia Bush
Age:26
Company: FEED Projects
Website: www.feedprojects.org
2009 Revenues: $1.5million
Story: The former president’s niece embraces social entrepreneurship with a growing line of bags sold online and at Whole Foods. FEED works directly with WFP, and other organizations such as UNICEF and Millennial Villages, to fund anti-hunger programs worldwide.Their bags are sold online, where buyers are told the exact impact of their purchase (for instance, purchase a $60 “Feed1” bag and you’ll be feeding one school child for an entire year). So far, FEED has sold just over half a million bags and provided more than 56 million meals worldwide.
Names: Garry Tan and Sachin Agarwal
Ages:29 & 30
Company: Posterous
Website: www.posterous.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: Posterous takes all the fuss out of posting content online.The concept for Posterous is decidedly simple: E-mail, its founders believe, is the gateway for sharing information—text, photos, and videos—online. Instead of logging into Facebook to post photos, or writing your thoughts down in a blogging platform, Posterous makes it feasible to do all that from an e-mail account.
Name: Sarah Prevette
Age: 28
Company: Sprouter
Website: www.sprouter.com
2009 Reveneus: Undisclosed
Story: Sarah Prevette has created a service that entrepreneurs can use to socialize, share tips, and ask questions in a rapid-fire, short-attention-span fashion. Using a Twitter-like format, Sprouter is a place online where entrepreneurs can socialize, share tips, and ask questions in a rapid-fire, short-attention-span fashion. Users leverage the site for a variety of needs, from getting peer feedback on their product ideas to learning the best practices for developing metrics for sales teams, to gleaning insight from other founders on pitching specific investors, and requesting introductions to media, potential corporate partners or investors. “Users support one another, motivate each other and help with day-to-day questions or concerns,” Prevette says.
Name: David Schottenstein
Age: 26
Company: Astor & Black Custom Clothiers
Website: www.astorandblack.com
2009 Revenues: $11,360,000
Story: A big fan of the British tailoring tradition, Schottenstein started Astor & Black, a company that sold custom bespoke clothing, at the tender age of 21. He used money he had saved from his previous business ventures to fund his vision, which was to bring custom tailoring to the general public at affordable prices. The suits, which are made in China, Hong Kong, Italy, and Brooklyn, start at $499; prices increase depending on the fabric, with the bulk of transactions in the $895 range.
Names: Michelle You, Ian Hogarth, Pete Smith
Ages: You, 29; Hogarth, 28; Smith, 28
Company: Songkick
Website: www.songkick.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: By meticulously compiling upcoming concert listings, the founders of Songkick have amassed an audience of one million fans—and the backing of Y Combinator, the prestigious incubator. The concept, which they named Songkick, piqued the interest of start-up incubator Y Combinator, which provided seed funding and counsel during the summer of 2007. Hogarth, the CEO, and Smith, COO, spent the summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Y Combinator was then based, while You commuted from New York City on the Chinatown bus. She soon quit her job at Theme, a lifestyle magazine, to join Songkick full time as co-founder and chief of product. The company raised $1 million in an angel round led by former Skype VP of Marketing-turned-investor Saul Klein that winter, when it moved to London, and landed another $4 million in a Series A round led by Index Ventures last year.
Name: Ooshma Garg
Age: 22
Company: Anapata
Website: www.anapata.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: Ooshma Garg experienced the aha moment that led her to become an entrepreneur during her junior year of college when she served as co-president of a networking group called Stanford Women in Business. “Companies like Goldman and McKinsey would pay us $5,000 just to have dinner with my group,” Garg recalls. Yet corporate types were still pretty abysmal when it came to recruiting from a diverse field of applicants. So Garg launched Anapata, and online platform to connect employers and qualified job candidates. The name comes from a Swahili word that means “to find, attain, and achieve.”
Name: Amos Winbus III
Age: 26
Company: CyberSynchs
Website: www.cybersynchs.com
2009 Revenues: $2million
Story: Amos Winbush III has partnered with Sun to build an app used on 500,000 phones. “We’re taking the company global,” he says. “I’m super stoked.” It took losing 150 contacts on his cell phone for Amos Winbush III to stumble upon the idea for his company. In the summer of 2008, the aspiring musician and cousin of R&B singer Angela Winbush was preparing tracks for his debut album. After a late night in the recording studio, he noticed that his iPhone had gone black. That led him to investigate a way to synchronize data between his phone and his computer, and soon after, to launch CyberSynchs.
Name: Tim O’Shaughnessy and Eddie Frederick
Ages: 28 & 29
Company: LivingSocial
Website: www.livingsocial.com
2009 Revenues: $5-$10million
Story: With the acquisition of a little company called Buy a Friend a Drink, the online-bargain site LivingSocial came together in its present form. The online daily coupon industry may not be the sexiest space on the Web, but it sure has venture capitalists licking their chops. First, Chicago-based Groupon raised a whopping $135 million from Russian investment firm DST in April. And before you could say “discount,” LivingSocial had raised two consecutive rounds totaling approximately $40 million from U.S. Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Tim O’Shaughnessy, LivingSocial’s co-founder and CEO, estimates that, together, the two companies own 98 percent of the market. Both companies partner with businesses such as restaurants and spas to offer subscribers deep discounts on goods and services via a daily e-mail coupon. Right now, for instance, I could buy a LivingSocial coupon for a watercolor painting class for $47 – a discount of 69 percent off the regular price.
Name: Alexa Von Tobel
Age: 26
Company: LearnVest
Website: www.learnvest.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: Backed by Goldman Sachs and some successful executives, LearnVest founder Alexa von Tobel seeks to give young women personal finance advice. LearnVest offers online budgeting calculators, video chats with certified financial planners on the company’s staff, and free e-mail tutorials on topics such as opening an IRA. The company earns revenue from advertising and by referring its users to companies such as TD Ameritrade. In April, after just four weeks of fundraising, von Tobel closed a $4.5 million investment round led by Accel Partners, which has also invested in Facebook and Etsy. (Incidentally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lived in the same dorm as von Tobel at Harvard.)
Name: Jennifer Hyman and Jenny Fleiss
Ages: 29 & 26
Company: Rent the Runway
Website: www.renttherunway.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: Rent the Runway’s mission, according to Jennifer Hyman and Jenny Fleiss, is to bring the Carrie Bradshaw clothing experience to budget conscious fashionistas and turn them in to loyal customers of designer brands. Rent the Runway is a membership-only designer rental company where women can rent dresses and accessories from over 100 designers and brands including Herve Leger, Diane von Furstenberg, Proenza Schouler and Badgley Mischka. Dress rentals start at $50 for 4 days and $10 for accessories.
Name: Ryan Allis & Aaron Houghton
Ages: 26 & 29
Company: iContact
Website: www.icontact.com
2009 Revenues: $26.5million
Story: Within three days of meeting, Ryan and Aaron developed the idea for iContact: They would leverage a tool that Houghton had developed to help small businesses manage their e-mail marketing. iContact generated $26.5 million in revenue last year and has raised a total of $18 million from NC IDEA, North Atlantic Capital and Updata Partners.
Name: Dan Schawbel
Age: 26
Company: Millenial Branding
Website: http://www.personalbranding.com/
2010 Revenues: $100,000
Story: The mission of Schawbel’s business, Millennial Branding, is two-fold: He teaches members of his own generation why a personal brand is important and then shows them how to create one using social media; and he works on corporate branding strategies for companies including Time Warner and Citigroup.
Name: Stephanie Kaplan, Windsor Hanger, and Annie Wang
Ages: 21
Company: Her Campus
Website: www.hercampus.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: The three partners decided to create an online magazine that would serve college women nationwide with content in six different topic areas – Style, Health, Love, DormLife, Career, and World – and also house micro sites for other schools with campus-specific content maintained by students on those campuses.
Name: Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk
Age: 28, 28, 27
Company: AirBnB
Website: www.airbnb.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: San Francisco start-up AirBnB is like a Craigslist for the couch-surfing set . AirBnB is used in nearly 5,000 cities in 142 countries. The company landed a $20,000 investment from Y Combinator; recently, the Wall Street Journal reported an investment from Sequoia Capital, but the trio of founders won’t comment on that. The company is hiring so fast – and is still based out of the original South-of-Market apartment – that Chesky has been pushed out of his bedroom. That’s right – he’s pledged to be homeless. He’s using only AirBnB to find accommodations for the year. A PR stunt to be sure, but also a test of the infrastructure of this laid-back but wildly popular business that started with a “yeah, whatever.”
Name: Callie Works-Leary
Age: $29
Company: City Craft
Website: www.citycraft.com
2009 Revenues: $35,000
Story: Dallas entrepreneur Callie Works-Leary hopes to build CityCraft into the Crate & Barrel of the sewing world. To build a community of sewers around CityCraft, Works-Leary created a sewing lounge at the store. She describes it as “a studio fully stocked with sewing machines, cutting tables, and all the necessary supplies and materials to create beautiful sewn creations whether in a class, workshop, or during an open sewing lounge night.” On sewing lounge nights, the store serves complimentary wine and snacks and plays music. “Customers use the store like their own studio, sewing in an encouraging, relaxed group setting,” says Works-Leary. CityCraft also has summer sewing camps for kids and teens.
Name: Jeffrey Powers & Vikas Reddy
Ages: 27 & 26
Company: Occipital
Website: www.occipital.com
2009 Revenues: $1million
Story: The founders of Occipital launched one of the most successful apps around. Then they sold it, to help them fund yet more app development. The business has developed RedLaser, the best-selling iPhone app that lets users scan barcodes. RedLaser has been downloaded more than two million times, mostly at $2 a pop (Apple takes 30 percent of that), making it one of the most popular paid-iPhone apps on the market.
Name: Ashleigh Hansberger
Age: 28
Company: Motto Agency
Website: www.mottoagency.com
2010 Projected Revenues: $600,000
Story: To help companies launch, grow, and reinvent their brands through good, old-fashioned storytelling and innovative use of social media, Hansberger, 28, launched Motto Agency. Her Myrtle Beach, South Carolina-based company is on track for $600,000 in revenue this year.
Name: Fraser Doherty
Age: 21
Company: Super Jam
Website: www.superjam.co.uk
2009 Revenues: $1.2million
Story: Just call him Jam Boy. Fraser Doherty doesn’t mind a bit. In fact, he encourages it. Doherty, a boyishly charming Scot with a brogue to match, is the jam darling of the U.K Doherty’s big break came when he met a buyer at Waitrose, a major supermarket chain in Britain, and tentatively sold him on the idea. He then lined up a factory. At every step of the way, his age prompted skepticism. “I was a teen with no money and no experience, so most people rejected me,” he recalls. “But then I finally convinced a jam facotry to work with me and we figured out how to produce the recipes that I had developed in my parents’ kitchen on a big scale.” He also hired an ad agency, which came up with a comic book-like brand identity for the product.
Name: Andrew Kortina & Iqram Magdon-Ismali
Ages: 27 & 26
Company: Venmo
Website: www.venmo.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: Venmo is a mobile-based platform that allows friends to exchange money using their phones.
Say you’re having a drink with a friend and you’re short on cash. If your buddy also has Venmo, you can use your iPhone or Android to pay him for your share of the tab by simply texting Venmo “pay Andy $12.50.” You can keep a balance to draw from in your Venmo account, or your payment can be charged to a credit card or bank account that you register with the company. Your friend can then transfer the money from Venmo to his bank account. “Every time a payment is issued from your account, you get a text message and an email,” says Kortina. “And you can pin protect your transactions.” Venmo also allows you to set up “trust” relationships with other users – typically family members or close friends – who can draw upon your Venmo account without prior authorization.
Name: Chris Easter & Bob Horner
Ages: 26 & 29
Company: The Man Registry
Website: www.themanregistry.com/
2009 Revenues: www.themanregistry.com
Story: The Man Registry, a website with more than 3,000 gifts that appeal to grooms, Easter was two months away from marrying Horner’s younger sister. t was then that the two became aware of what they saw as an appalling lack of guy-friendly gifts on traditional registries and decided to do something about it. “We’re all about groom involvement in the whole process,” says Horner. So in March 2008 he and Easter teamed up with several retailers that offered gifts for guys, such as sports apparel, grilling accessories, and the always popular remote control beer cooler. Orders are placed through The Man Registry and then the retailer ships the items directly to the customer, allowing Easter and Horner to avoid the burden of maintaining inventory.
Name: David Graff, John Wirtz, and Brian Kaiser
Ages: 27
Company: Agile Sports
Website: www.hudl.com/about
2009 Revenues: $475,000
Story: The Broncos, the Browns, and the Jets all use Agile Sports’s software to help players memorize offensive and defensive schemes. A month after signing with the New York Jets in 2008, Brett Favre memorized between 40 and 50 percent of the team’s complex offensive playbook. By the season kickoff, he had 75 percent of the plays down cold. He did it all with the help of coaching software developed by three twenty-somethings in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Names: Maverick Carter
Age: 28
Company: LRMR Innovative Marketing & Branding
Website: www.lrmrmarketing.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: If you’re a basketball fan who followed the LeBron James free agent chase, the name Maverick Carter should be a familiar one. Alternately labeled as James’s “business partner” and “manager,” Carter has emerged as one of the most trusted voices in the inner circle of basketball’s most dynamic young star. He has put together sponsorship deals for James with McDonald’s and State Farm, and he negotiated a contract extension with Nike when James’s original deal with the sports apparel mammoth expired this year. Carter says James will now focus on strengthening his partnerships with his corporate sponsors rather than adding new ones. Forbes estimates that James made $43 million in salary and endorsements in the past year.
Name: Tyler Balliet & Morgan First
Age: 29 & 26
Company: The Second Glass
Website: www.secondglass.com
2009 Revenues: $230,000
Story: Balliet and First loved wine but felt that no one was marketing it properly to their generation. Their company connects wine sellers to young consumers through wine tasting events, called Wine Riot, and through its website. The Second Glass, an online resource for wine information geared toward Millennials, was founded by Balliet after a part-time job in a Boston wine shop taught him that customers were yearning for basic information presented in a down to earth way.
Name: Luke Biewald & Chris Van Pelt
Ages: 28
Company: Crowdflower
Website:www.crowdflower.com
2009 Revenues: Unidisclosed
Story: Crowdflower matches an international online workforce with companies that need a large volume of simple work completed quickly. The cost to companies that use Crowdflower is based on the difficulty of tasks, the accuracy they require tasks to be done with, and a mark-up that varies depending on the complexity of finding quality workers, and assuring the quality of their work. By just filling out an online form, businesses, for a cost that’s much lower than hiring a temp staff, or opening a phone bank, can access a global workforce to do projects that range from mundane to time-intensive.
Name: Sean Whalen
Ages: 28
Company: AlterG
Website: www.alterg.com
2009 Revenues: Undisclosed
Story: When soccer star Oguchi “Guch” Onyewu ruptured his patellar tendon last October during the United States team’s game against Costa Rica, it seemed unlikely that the defender would recover in time for the FIFA World Cup in June. But recover he did, helping the U.S. tie England 1-1 on June 12. Sean Whalen likes to think that his company, AlterG, which makes the anti-gravity treadmill that Onyewu used for rehab, had something to do with the win. “To recover from that in seven months, and be fit for the World Cup, is simply an amazing feat,” says Whalen. “To us, it really validates the power and effectiveness of our technology.”
Name: Maia Josebachvili & Bram Levy
Ages: 26 & 30
Company: Urban Escapes
Website: www.urbanescapesusa.com
2009 Revenues: $250,000
Story: Josebachvili has a passion for skydiving but when she was an undergrad at Dartmouth she couldn’t afford it. So she recruited all her friends and acquaintances to go along with her and she was able to skydive for free.After graduation she continued to coordinate skydiving and other outdoor trips even while working as a derivatives trader on Wall Street at Susquehanna International. In 2008, Josebachvili decided to take the plunge and create Urban Escapes, offering a varied assortment of outdoor escapes such as hiking and hang gliding. In the company’s first year, it brought about 500 people on trips.
Name: Joshua Dziabiak
Age: 23
Company: ShowClix
Website: www.showclix.com
2009 Revenues: $4.5million
Story: ShowClix helps small venues distribute tickets entirely over text message and e-mail. ShowClix has gained some 1,000 customers and delivered more than 1 million tickets. The company sets itself apart by delivering tickets by e-mail or by text message, and by offering its customers access to real-time sales reports. Earlier this year, the business debuted an app that enables venues to scan tickets on customers’ phones with any Android-powered device. ShowClix charges venues between 7 and 15 percent of ticket sales—a much lower fee, Dziabiak says, than that of any of its competitors, including Ticketmaster.
For more information and to see videos of the entrepreneurs, please visit www.inc.com
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