Top 10 Teen Entrepreneurs To Watch In 2020
Proof you can become a successful entrepreneur at any age
With entrepreneurship becoming an increasing trend, teenagers across the world have exemplified that they can also take on the task. You can, too, my friend. Many of these teenagers have a passion that even the most mature adults do not have. Here are 10 successful teen entrepreneurs who have proven age doesn’t matter when it comes to starting and running a successful business.
Cory Nieves (Age 16)
The Business: Founder and CEO of Mr. Cory’s Cookies. His entrepreneurial journey started very early; one of Nieves’ first ventures was selling Swiss Miss for $1 a cup. As a teenager, when he sensed an opportunity, he started searching for the perfect cookie recipe. Soon, he and his mom began taking their cookies everywhere. Today, the company has over 14 flavors.
Ambitions for the future: When Mr. Nieves finishes college, he wants to leave Mr. Cory’s Cookies and start from the bottom to create another business.
Kenan Pala (Age 16)
The Business: Founder of Kids4Community, which is a non-profit organization helping kids find activities. Pala has also raised $1 million to benefit local homeless shelters.
Ambitions for the future: Kenan Pala wants to hand off the organization to his younger brother, who is passionate about volunteering.
Langston Whitlock (Age 17)
The Business: He is the Cofounder and CIO of Safe trip, a ride-sharing app that is geared towards helping the homeless and the elderly. Patients, caretakers, and health care providers can use the app to book medical transportation. The company has raised $2 million, with $3.4 million in revenue last year.
Ambitions for the future: Whitlock still wants to graduate school in 2020. His plans are singular for now. He just wants his mom to have happiness and what can you achieve that’s better than that?
John Feinsibler (Age 17)
The Business: John Feinsibler is the founder of Gimkit, which is a learning application that allows teachers to create kits for their class. Kits are quizzes for students to test what they learned in class. John first came up with Gimkit when he was brainstorming for a new project and came across Kahoot, which is similar to Gimkit, and decided to improve it.
Ambitions for the future: Right now Josh wants to keep growing GimKit and see how far the learning can go.
Jeremy Miller (Age 19)
The Business: Jeremy Miller is known as a marketing guru. In 2014, Jeremy started a skateboard manufacturing company called Void Longboards after overcoming years of heavy depression. While operating Void Longboards, he expanded his companies online presence, which landed him over 100 million organic visits.
By 18, he grew a successful advertising agency with natural clients, national partners, and dozens of press interviews. Right now, Jeremy is the CMO and a board member of an educational non-profit.
Ambitions for the future: Jeremy plans to continue expanding his company called SnapShyft.
Erik Finman (Age 19)
The Business: Erik Finman started his entrepreneurial career in a very special way. He bought $1,000 worth of bitcoin at only 12 years old. Erik sold $100,000 worth of bitcoin and used all of his earnings to start an education business called Botangle. This platform allows students to find the right teacher for personalized one-on-one tutoring. Additionally, Erik is a part of a NASA project in which he is currently working on launching a satellite containing a digital time capsule into space.
Ambitions for the future: He is working on a big project to build a new school and to disrupt the American educational system.
Isabella Rose Taylor (Age 17)
The Business: Isabella Rose Taylor was an artist before becoming a fashion designer and high school entrepreneur. She is the youngest designer to have worked at the New York Fashion Week. Isabella is now collaborating with Poetter Barn Teen, which is a home furnishing company. She partnered with the company in 2017 to create her own bedroom studio collection, which is inspired by her love for art.
Ambitions For The Future: Isabella is focusing on finishing school and continuing to expand her fashion line.
Rachel Zietz (Age 18)
The Business: Rachel Zietz is the founder of Gladiator Lacrosse, a lacrosse equipment company that focuses on high-quality, long-lasting equipment at reasonable prices. By the age of 15, Rachel had already built a $1 million company. She also appeared on Shark Tank and was a finalist for the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce’s 2015 Entrepreneur Award.
Ambitions For The Future: Rachel is now attending Princeton University and working as much as she can to expand her business.
Zandra Cunningham (Age 17)
The Business: Zandra became an entrepreneur at the age of 9. She started brainstorming ideas for lip balms she could make herself because her father would not buy her any. By the time summer came around, she realized she could make money out of her new passion and started selling at local farmers’ markets. Now, at the age of 17, Zandra rebranded her company to Zandra Beauty and sells nationwide in stores like Whole Foods and Costco.
Ambitions for the future: Zandra plans to continue growing her business. Last year, Zandra Beauty was worth half a million dollars, and today it has doubled to over a million dollars.
George Matus (Age 18)
The Business: George Matus loves drones. At the age of 12, George was already building drones and working with companies to build new, innovative drones. Teal was born out of all of this. Teal is a state-of-the-art drone that can fly up to 70mph and has a built-in Nvidia compiler capable of machine learning and image recognition.
Ambitions for the future: These days, George is working on drones for commercial use, such as supervising building projects.
Do you know any other successful teen entrepreneurs? Let us know down in the comments.
This article originally published on GREY Journal.
This article originally published on GREY Journal: https://discovergrey.com/hustle/inspire/top-10-teen-entrepreneurs-to-watch-in-2020/
