Inspiration: Entrepreneurs who hit it BIG!

I love to read these stories. Have read so many that make me think, why not me?! Why not you?! It all starts from one small idea...

 

25 year-old’s Company Makes Millions On Cracked iPhones

His Company's commerical

 

We have guys that do that here in my local area, they only charge £55 for any iphone including iphone5 and they make house calls, they also do most other smartphones.
Lucrative if you know what ur doing, no one seems to be able to live without their smartphones for 5 mins these days.

 

This company does seem pricey...your £55 converted is about $80 USD. His prices are negotibale, so the city and/or the desperation of the phone user would influence alot, lol.

 

This one is a sweet favorite of mine....

Teen Entrepreneurs Take On Avon!


Brea (l) and Halle Holmes founders and CEOs of Sweet Dream Girlz


By Adrienne Burke: smallbusiness.yahoo | 06/18/2013

Halle Holmes was 10 years old in 2010 when she came home empty-handed and aggravated after a trip to the local mall. As hostess of an upcoming spa party, she had her heart set on finding all-natural beauty products in fun fragrances that her girlfriends would like and her sensitive skin could tolerate.

“We didn’t want to smell like lavender and sweet pea. We wanted something youthful smelling,” she says. Downright indignant that no such product existed, Halle says she turned to her teenage sister Brea and said, “Why don’t we start our own?”

As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. The Holmes sisters began researching their idea online, tapped their family dermatologist for advice, and sent their mom out to investigate a few cosmetics manufacturers they identified.

With $6,000 in startup funding from their parents, Halle and Brea officially launched their beauty products business the same year. Named Sweet Dream Girlz for a favorite Beyonce song, the Holmes’ line of moisturizers, cleansers, lip balms, and hair products are paraben- and talc-free, feature shea butter and natural oils, and come in “yummy” scents like Pink Sugar and Iced Lemon Cookie. From sales online, at trade shows, and in specialty stores nationwide, the business generated more than $25,000 in revenues its first year, and $42,000 in 2012. According to mom Lisa Holmes, Sweet Dream Girlz is profitable, but all income goes right back into the company to support marketing and new product development.

The young entrepreneurs—now 13 and 19—have been featured in USA Today, Tigerbeat, local television news, and various other media. They were invited to the 2012 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards where their products were featured in the swag bags. And they’ve made it to the final casting call for season 5 of ABC’s Shark Tank.

Halle Holmes in Sweet Dreams Girlz apparelDespite all the exposure, however, buyers at major stores including Dillard’s, Nordstrom, and Justice have turned them down. So have big beauty brands Ulta and Avon. “The typical response is that they haven’t carried it before, they’re skeptical they can move it in their stores, and they want you to come to them with big sales volume numbers before they’ll try,” says Lisa Holmes.

But the sisters are confident those buyers are missing out on a big market. Tween and teen girls are consumers of spa and beauty products, they say. The only reason they don’t buy products specially made for them is because they’re not available, they say.

So, they figured out how to reach that market themselves. This week they introduced Spa Diva, a network-marketing program that sells a $350 “mobile spa kit” to their business-minded peers. Girls as young as 16 can purchase the kit and earn commissions hosting in-home mani-pedi parties and taking orders for Sweet Dream Girlz products from their friends. The kit includes manicure, pedicure, and facial supplies, party-hostess advice, and a “business resource CD,” that tells how to make a professional presentation, talk about the products, and engage with customers.

Brea, who was in high school when Sweet Dreams Girlz launched, will start her sophomore year at Woodbury University in Burbank, Calif., this fall. In addition to her studies in fashion design and marketing, she dedicates about four hours a day to the business, including video-chat meetings with her sister at home in Phoenix.

What’s next?
The girls have already expanded their brand to tackle another shopping frustration: Why aren’t sweet, fun fashions like the ones Taylor Swift and Victoria Justice wear available in girls’ sizes 7-16? They designed and are now wholesaling a line of Sweet Dream Girlz apparel, sneakers, and accessories. They hired a sales rep with a showroom in the Atlanta apparel mart to raise awareness of their brand, and, says Halle, “We just finished the photo shoot for our spring 2014 line.”


Halle in their Apparel line...

Story link

 

Chances are if you own the latest iphone then you can afford it.
How much does it cost to repair it against the how much it cost you to buy the phone?



Thank god I'm an andriod user

 

I think they're on the money with the clothes, I have this problem with my 7yr old she's not grown up enough for some of the current fashions and she doesn't like babyish, I'm making some clothes for my girls myself, just finished a playsuit and dress for the baby, starting on a dress for the 7yr old next.

 

How a 15-year-old entrepreneur got her product into Nordstrom

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advi...neur-got-her-product-nordstrom-233738356.html

Yahoo editors have selected this article as a favorite of 2013. It first ran on Yahoo Small Business.. and was one of the most popular stories of the year.


Young entrepreneur Madison Robinson with her Fish Flops

She launched her business two years ago, but Houston teenager Madison Robinson has yet to face something most new entrepreneurs do: rejection. Every store buyer she has approached has placed an order for her Fish Flops for Kids shoe brand.

Robinson came up with the idea for her sea-creature-adorned flip-flops with battery-operated lights when she was just 8, living at the beach in Galveston Island, Tex. Her dad Dan, a former banker turned t-shirt designer, helped her turn her drawings into a product and get samples made. More than 30 stores placed orders the first time they exhibited at a trade show, so he hired an overseas manufacturer and started shipping in May 2011.

Launched with “friends and family” financing, the enterprise is already profitable, the elder Robinson says. The shoes now sell online, in various retail boutiques, and at 60 Nordstrom stores nationwide for around $20 a pair. They’re also coming soon to FlipFlopShops.com, and Macy’s buyers in New York recently asked Madison to design a line for women. More than 60,000 pairs sold in 2012, making for retail sales of at least $1.2 million. That's not all Fish Flops' income; the Robinsons sell wholesale. But Dan Robinson says it's safe to say that his daughter, who is about to complete 9th grade, has already socked away enough profits to cover her college tuition.

The 15-year-old draws all of her own designs and chooses color combinations digitally, but has also learned how to pack shipments, stock the warehouse, explain her pricing, host a tradeshow booth, and make a sales pitch.

She has also mastered social media marketing: Through Tweeting from @FishFlops she got the young daughter of Entertainment Tonight host Nancy O’Dell to wear the shoes, and captured the attention of HSN fitness personality Tony Little. (Tweeting is also how she got this reporter interested in her story.)

But to get into Nordstrom, Robinson employed an old-fashioned sales technique. “I wrote a letter to the buyers,” she told a Houston Fox reporter. “I didn’t think I would get in, but I did.”


Several ideas that came from the kindness of her heart have also turned out to be savvy business moves. Her offer of free Fish Flops and volunteer work for a charity that supports the children of fallen military heroes led to a major order from the Army’s Post Exchange stores. At the Teen Choice Awards in 2011, she got celebrities to sign 300 pairs of Fish Flops for Texas Children’s Hospital patients. And by donating 10,000 pairs of Fish Flops to a community shoe drive and supporting the Texas Parks & Wildlife’s K-12 State Fish Art Contest she has garnered some good press.

Robinson says she’s learned more than just how to run a business in two years. “When I go shoe shopping now, I look carefully at the quality of the materials.” Fish Flops, she says, are sturdy and made without punch-out holes in the soles so the straps don’t pop out the way they do in generic flip-flops.

The experience has also honed her public speaking skills. All the practice explaining her product at industry expos and making presentations to stone-faced department store buyers, she says, “makes it easier to get up in class and talk.”

She’s also learned patience: The worst part of business, Robinson says, is “waiting for stores to decide” if they want her goods on their shelves. She’s also waiting to spend her profits. “My Dad won’t let me touch the money,” she says. “It’s for college.” For special purchases such as a new iPhone she relies, like normal teenagers do, on cash saved from birthday and holiday gifts.

What’s next for the Fish Flops founder? After summer break she’s looking forward to taking a 10th grade business and finance class. She also plans to study business in college. “Eventually,” she says, “I want to do something by myself.” Meantime, however, Dad says the Fish Flops brand is “just getting started.”

 

Teen's Invention Helps Keep Dogs Happy While Their Owners Are Away



By Caroline Golon | March 12, 2014


While many teenagers are dreaming about the lazy days of summer, 14-year-old Brooke Martin is looking forward to a summer of patents, production lines, distribution and marketing.

But Martin doesn’t mind. This precocious Spokane, Wash., teen has been working for nearly two years to launch her invention, iCPooch, an Internet-enabled device that lets dog owners remotely video chat with their pets and deliver a treat to them, all with the touch of a smartphone, tablet or computer. And today it makes its debut at Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Fla.
An Idea With Legs

It began as a creative class assignment from Martin’s eighth-grade teacher: conduct an independent project on anything that interests you. Martin chose entrepreneurship.

After researching the topic, Martin wanted to experience what it was like to create a business herself. “I decided to come up with an idea and pitch it at the local Startup Weekend,” she says. Startup Weekends are regional events where entrepreneurs present their ideas to the other people in attendance. The best ideas get a weekend’s worth of collaboration by participants.

But first she had to come up with a business idea. “I started brainstorming problems that needed solutions,” Martin says.

The now high school freshman considered many ideas, but one that stuck with her was the issue of separation anxiety in dogs. Her shelter dog, Kayla, had suffered from it after the Martins adopted her. Martin says the Golden Retriever would become anxious and chew destructively when the family was away. Martin likes to use video chat platform Skype to keep in touch with her friends, so that gave her an idea. “I thought it would be cool to Skype with your dog, make them feel better, and give them a treat,” she says.

She developed a 60-second “pitch” about her concept and prepared to present to the all-adult audience at the weekend event. “I was kind of nervous, but how are you ever going to learn if you don’t try?” she says.


Positive Feedback

Martin’s concept was a hit, earning the most number of votes among the Startup Weekend audience and the opportunity to work with fellow entrepreneurs on her project throughout the weekend. “It was a lot of fun,” she says.

That might have been the end of her class project. But, after the invigorating weekend, Martin’s parents asked her if she wanted to keep working on her idea. She did, so she and her father, Chris, began building prototypes in their garage.

It was clear Martin wasn’t the only one who believed her idea was a good one. That spring, she entered and won second place in the national Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, which, among other things, allowed her to spend the summer developing and testing her idea with a 3M scientist mentor.

After trial and error with prototypes, then more testing and development, the product evolved into a standalone plastic unit that has a Wi-Fi-enabled tablet mounted on the side of it. Pet owners can "call" their pets remotely from their computer, tablet or smartphone. Like with a video conference, the pet will see his owner's face on the screen and hear his owner's voice through the speakers. The owner can also hear and see the dog. Then, with the click of a mouse or swipe of a touch screen, the owner can activate a mechanism inside the unit that delivers a treat through a chute and into a tray at the bottom of the unit, where the dog can access it.

After continued encouragement, Martin and her parents established a management team and set out to raise capital to develop the product's Skype-like technology and for production, marketing and other business expenses. They found individual investors and an investment group within their community to help fund the startup. Then the iCPooch team tapped into Kickstarter, an online fundraising tool where individuals can donate to a business or cause they're interested in supporting. The Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $30,000 in additional funding for the project.

The Marketplace and Beyond

Martin's iCPooch debuts today at Global Pet Expo. With early retail interest and positive feedback, the company is poised to begin its first manufacturing run in April. Martin and the iCPooch team are ready to continue talks with retailers and distributors about their plans.

No matter what happens from here, Martin knows that the experience has been invaluable. “I’ve been amazed by the support and the positive reaction I’ve received from people,” she says. “So many people and professionals have taken time and energy to help us and give me advice. It’s overwhelming and amazing.”

Along with her iCPooch work, Martin keeps busy with her other favorite pastimes — riding her two horses, playing piano and violin, and spending time with friends. As for her career aspirations, "I'm excited to see where this will go," she says. "But I'm also very interested in medicine."

 

ONE SIMPLE IDEA...

How an Arizona teen turned her jewelry passion into a multimillion-dollar business

By Morgan Korn, Daily Ticker




Arizona teen Bella Weems wanted a new car when she turned 16. Her parents weren’t planning to buy her one, and she doubted she’d earn enough money babysitting to afford the white Jeep she dreamed of.

So in 2010 Weems started selling jewelry at a local mall kiosk. She called the company Origami Owl and logged a remarkable $20 million in sales the first year. (WOW!)

Four years later, the company has a professional CEO, employs hundreds of workers and markets its products through 60,000 independent sales representatives nationwide.
Retail sales last year surpassed $330 million.

Weems, now 17, still oversees the designs of the lockets and charms her company sells and stops by the Chandler, Arizona office almost every day after school.


"I want to be involved in the business for the rest of my life," she says in the video above. "When I was 14, I never thought this would have happened. It's been a dream come true."


Bella's 16th birthday, when she received her dream car!

Origami Owl has succeeded through a direct sales model: "designers" purchase a kit for $149 and host parties (aka "jewelry bars") at their homes. The kit contains everything needed to sell the lockets, chains and charms, which customers can personalize to their liking. A gold-plated locket and chain excluding charms starts at $50; charms retail for at $12 apiece. Robin Crossman, CEO of Origami Owl, says the company's paradigm allows individuals to start a mini business in their home, with the company getting a percentage of the home sales.

Her interview here... http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/dail...a-multimillion-dollar-business-144953394.html

 

The CEO of the company I work for is a pretty amazing woman. In 1986, she was just a nurse who decided to open her own little home health company in the third poorest county in the state. It was simply her and three other nurses providing care. Almost thirty years later, her company encompasses about 3/4 of the state and she's a multimillionaire. When she said she wanted to start her own business years ago, she was laughed at for being "a little doctor's wife who just wanted to busy herself." She showed 'em.