Younger generations have been doing what they can to redefine success by turning their hobbies into profitable businesses. In some cases, they’ve even been able to make millions. The rise in social media and this generation’s fearless approach to entrepreneurship have helped them change their respective industries in big ways. Let’s take a look at some of their inspiring stories.
1. Adam Hildreth
At 14 years old, Adam Hildreth came up with the idea for a social networking site called Dubit with six of his friends. The site was aimed at teenagers and had a mix of education and entertainment. Eventually, it snowballed into a company worth $3.7 million. Ultimately, Adam and his friends were able to identify the right material to feed the young audience.
Now, Dubit is a marketing agency that is aimed at young people. They research the market and identify the needs of the youth around the world. This helps them come up with ideas to give to major brands to tailor their products to a younger audience. Overall, Dubit helps understand the young mind and has a professional approach to reaching them with new ideas.
2. Maddie Bradshaw
Maddie Bradshaw was one of the lucky people who appeared on Shark Tank and got some of the sharks to sign on for her idea. She was looking for a way to decorate her school locker. She’d come across a large number of bottle caps and decided to decorate them and add magnets on the back to give her locker a little pizazz. Who knew it would turn into an entire business?
It soon gained the attention of the entire school. At 12 years old, Maddie started thinking about other ways she could use bottle caps. She started making jewelry and other decorative pieces. By the time she was 13, she’d made her first million. Getting three of the “sharks” to invest in the “Snap Caps,” Maddie was able to expand her business and become a successful businesswoman.
3. Nick D’Aloisio
Nick D’Aloisio was 15 years old when he came up with a huge idea that would change the internet forever. Trimit took walls of text and condensed them to 1000, 500, or 140-word abstracts. It was featured as an interesting app by Apple. It also caught the attention of a billionaire investor. After receiving funding from this investor, Nick became the youngest developer to receive venture capital funding in the field of technology.
The young man took criticism of his app in stride and re-launched it under the name Summly. The intention behind this app was to fix problems with the way news is perceived on smartphones. Summly’s first version had more than 200,000 downloads. Eventually, he sold Summly to Yahoo in 2013 for $30 million.
4. Brennan Agranoff
Brennan Agranoff was a junior in high school when he founded his own company called HoopSwagg. His company focused on designing custom athletic socks. He noticed that the basketball players at his school wore all the same bland Nike-brand socks and wanted to do something to change that. Brennan spent a little over six months researching what would be involved in launching his business and went to his parents with the idea. They gave him $3,000 to get started.
By tapping into social media, he was able to grow his business substantially. Five years later, HoopSwagg had more than 200 original designs and was shipping over 100 orders every day.
5. Emily Matson and Julianne Goldmark
Emily Matson and Julianne Goldmark were in the seventh grade when they came up with the idea for a hair tie and headband company. Now, the company’s products are sold in more than 3,000 stores in North America. It has also started to be distributed around the world, with many celebrity supporters like Jennifer Aniston, Gigi Hadid, and Kim Kardashian.
This started as a hobby for the girls, who liked to create their own accessories. However, when one of their original hair ties was spotted on Jen Aniston on the red carpet, it launched them into a full-blown business. Ultimately, they reached the exclusive millionaire teenager club with their “hobby.”
6. Brian Wong
Brian Wong worked for the business development department of Digg. What was a devastating layoff at the time turned into a huge opportunity for pursuing his own business, Kiip. At the age of 19, Brian was traveling on a plane when he observed a number of people using their devices to entertain themselves with games. He noted that ads often took up a lot of screen space without adding any value.
So, he came up with the idea to incorporate achievements into the advertising. This gave brands the chance to reach audiences when they were actively engaged. He partnered with some of his former coworkers at Digg to raise $15 million in venture capital.
7. Dominic McVey
Who wouldn’t love to be a millionaire by the time they turned 13? That was the reality for Dominic McVey. Two years later, at 15, he was worth more than 15 million pounds. How did he do it? Well, he sold scooters.
He found an American company called Viza and offered to help sell their scooters in the United Kingdom. The company agreed and said he’d get a free scooter for every five he sold. After scraping some money together, he started selling scooters, eventually making thousands per week. It was a simple, yet effective, approach to making millions.
8. Michael Furdyk
TakingITGlobal was Michael Furdyk’s claim to millions. He sold an online network that he created with his friends. This social network encouraged young people to participate in discussions and raise awareness about things that impact their local communities. For Michael, it was about more than just making money, he wanted to make a difference in young people’s lives who might not have had the same support he did. Since then, TakingITGlobal has won a number of awards from Microsoft, WorldBlu, and Mark Drake.
9. Matt Wegrzyn
Matt Wegrzyn was buying and selling domain names when he was 17 years old. Two years later, he was a teenage millionaire. At first, he started buying forum domains. Then he bought Bodis.com, a domain parking website. Now, his domains are worth millions of dollars and he’s been able to flip them and make serious cash.
10. Fraser Doherty
Fraser Doherty was 14 years old when he received a recipe from his grandma for jam. He started making them for friends from church and family. At 16, he decided to launch his own small business selling Doherty’s jams. Eventually, they reached the international market via Walmart. What started as a family recipe exploded into millions for the teen.
The Future Belongs to Young Entrepreneurs
These ten teenagers are proof that there is no age barrier to building a successful business. Whether they sold grandma’s jam or came up with a trendy hair tie, each one of them created million-dollar empires. Their stories are inspirational and serve as a reminder that the next big idea could come from anywhere.