Inspirational: Kelvin Doe, a self-taught 15-year-old inventor

Hey Guys I’m back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m so sorry about my absence on this blog. Life has a way of detouring you. I have been busy with work, daily tasks and of course writing my novels. I’ve been posting at my other site: Novelpro.weebly.com. I haven’t really focused on this one but all that is about to change. For those that still visited my blog despite my absence, thank you very much. If i could i’ll give each and everyone of you a giant hug of appreciation. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you very much for visiting it and i hope you are spreading my site to others so that they could be inspired as well. So my first post since being back would be a prodigy from Sierra Leone. Check out the YOutube clip. Again thanks for reading this and i will make every effort to post more news on this site in the future. Take Care:)

Business Idea: Butch Bakery

Source/ article from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/03/butch-bakery-cupcakes-for-guys-david-arrick_n_913696.html
In 2008, David Arrick thought he’d had a stroke of luck in the middle of the cratering economy. He’d lost his job as a commercial real estate lawyer with a Wall Street firm, but an intriguing opportunity in Dubai came along. He went over for three weeks, got the lay of the land on 120-degree days in the middle of Ramadan and decided that developer’s paradise was where he wanted to spend the next few years. By the time he returned to New York to get his affairs in order, however, the offer had been rescinded. “The whole country’s a big façade,” he says.

Arrick, 42, was caught in the same downward spiral many Americans have faced over the past few years. He sold his condo, cashed out his 401(k), collected unemployment as long as he could and tried to come up with a plan. “It was terrible,” he says. “Some days I couldn’t get out of bed, others I was bored out of my skull, going to yet another free Friday night at the MoMA.”

Inspiration struck while he was wandering around the streets of his Greenwich Village neighborhood. Salvation came from the Sex and the City gals’ favorite cupcake.

“It’s the middle of a recession, and there’s a line of women down the block at Magnolia Bakery,” Arrick says of the uber-popular cupcake outpost featured on the popular HBO show. “It’s sugar, it’s cake, people love it, but I thought, ‘Why aren’t my boys being represented?'”

Cupcake recipes and designs skew feminine. What Arrick craved was something more “aesthetically masculine.” The idea of cupcakes for guys started out tongue-in-cheek, but Arrick had nothing else going on, so he hired the best website developer he could and basically had the beginnings of Butch Bakery within a week. “It’s a testament to throwing caution to the wind,” he says. For around $10,000, he had the website, packaging, insurance, space in a commercial bakery in Queens and a guy to make the macho treats.

Arrick was confident in the conception, but knew the cupcakes had to be top-notch or it wouldn’t matter. Dudes aren’t so much into unicorns, jellybeans and pink flowers, so in what had to be one of the all-time great research-and-development processes, Arrick and friends collaborated on manly recipes. They mixed-and-matched chocolate, peanut butter, banana, buttercream, cinnamon, booze, beer and the dessert de resistance: bacon. (“Bacon makes everything better,” Arrick says. “And I’m a Jew.”) They came up with 12 cupcakes with names like the Rum & Coke, the Big Papi and the Jackhammer. Arrick likes a bit of crunch with his sweets, so each cupcake has a candy disk on top in patterns like camouflage, plaid and houndstooth.

They were up and running in late 2009. Orders were steady for the first few months, but when Arrick’s story made it on Daily Candy — ironically, a newsletter for women — just before Valentine’s Day, business skyrocketed. Butch Bakery went from 500 hits to 5,000,000, and media outlets came calling. Arrick was shadowed by a German TV show, interviewed by radio hosts like Chicago’s Mancow and Australia’s Ugly Phil and written up in the Village Voice. “We turned the cupcake business on its ear and tapped into something out there,” he says.

Cupcakes were requested for soldiers in Iraq and fishermen in Alaska, but the publicity outpaced baking ability. At present, deliveries are only being made in New York. The company recently moved into a new commerical space, but Arrick hopes to add a storefront soon. He’s adding product, like the new “mini mates,” and laying the groundwork to expand the operation.

A cookbook for guys is in the works, but that’s just the icing on the cupcake, as it were. Arrick spent a decade as an actor, graduating from NYU with stars like Philip Seymour Hoffman and Adam Sandler, but didn’t quite share in their marquee success. So he’s excited that there are reality show projects in the works. One is being developed with Marc Summers of Food Network’s Unwrapped fame, while another would focus on Arrick’s reinvention of himself, as well as a robust cast of characters, including his five employees, friends and family.

Is there a lot on Arrick’s plate? Yes. But let’s say he’s much happier with a glass of milk that’s more than half full.

“I was backed up against the wall, but I had to stop spinning my wheels and take action,” he says. “It’s been overwhelming, but I’m having a lot of fun bringing the cool to cupcakes.”

Young Entrepreneur: Chris “Drama” Pfaff

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/14/chris-drama-pfaff-young-and-reckless_n_908864.html

Chris “Drama” Pfaff has spent his entire adult life under the watchful eye of an MTV camera. In 2007, fresh out of high school, he moved from the suburbs of Ohio to the Hollywood Hills, to become the assistant to his older cousin — professional skateboarder and soon-to-become reality star Rob Dyrdek. For three very successful seasons, Pfaff thanklessly washed clothes and looked after a miniature horse on Rob & Big, a buddy comedy chronicling the travails of Dyrdek and his 6-foot-6, 415-pound bodyguard, Christopher “Big Black” Boykin. While Pfaff served as the picked-on little brother, the experience served as an unlikely entrepreneurial apprenticeship.

Dyrdek, a serial entrepreneur with ventures ranging from clothing lines to cartoons, gradually took Pfaff under his wing. And when it came time to launch Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, a (slightly) more serious look at his business side, he gave Pfaff his first office — and the “mini mogul,” as Dyrdek dubbed him, was off and running. Today, four seasons later, Pfaff has become not only a household name in his own right among the MTV set, but a rising star in the urban apparel world, as the founder and CEO of Young & Reckless.

“I’m very proud that my cousin has gone on to be a successful entrepreneur,” says Dyrdek, a member of the AOL Small Business Board of Directors. “What any mentor could hope for, more than anything, is that he understands the true value of hard work and dedication. And this has definitely been shown this through the growth of his brand.”

Featuring T-shirts, sweatshirts and accessories, Young & Reckless is now sold at major retailers across the country, and has become a favorite of celebrities ranging from 50 Cent to Zac Efron. While Pfaff is the first to admit that he has an enviable, built-in marketing platform on Fantasy Factory — a tactic he learned first-hand from Dyrdek — he recognizes that the brand must have relevance beyond the show (as well as the upcoming Ridiculousness, set to premiere in August on MTV). That’s why he spends much of his time cultivating the celebrity relationships, chatting up his some 300,000 Twitter followers and cross-promoting through Causin Drama Productions, his budding music label.

For the 24-year-old Pfaff, it’s been a whirlwind journey so far — and he has every intention of staying “Young & Reckless” for a very long time.

I caught an old episode of Rob & Big the other day and realized something — you’ve literally grown up on TV. How did this all begin?

The moment I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to move to L.A. So that’s what I did. I really moved here with the goal of getting a job at a skate shop and living in a one-bedroom apartment with my brother, which is pretty insane. I remember sitting with my friends before I left, talking about how awesome it was going to be. Like, “Man, we’re going to have our own apartment and it’s going to be warm all the time and we can just drink and skate.” That was making it for me.

What ended up happening is Rob said, “You can move in with me for two months until you find a job at this dream skate shop and find yourself an apartment.” That was just a couple months before they started filming the pilot for Rob & Big. What had happened was a blessing from the gods — the kid that was supposed to be Rob’s assistant on Rob & Big called the night before they started filming and said, “Listen, my girlfriend won’t let me move to L.A. from San Diego. It’s either her or you and I’m going to have to choose her.” So Rob literally came out of his room, didn’t know what to do — they were filing the next day. He looked at me and said, “Hey, do you want to be my assistant?” And, at the time, I was an 18-year-old kid fresh out of Ohio, and I didn’t even really know what that meant. So I was like, “Um, I guess so? I don’t have a car out here, I don’t have anything, I don’t know my way around. Sure.”

So that happened, we ended up getting picked up for Rob & Big, I turned into his assistant-slash-slave and the rest kind of led me to where I am now.

You and Rob are pretty far apart in age. What was your relationship prior to all of this?

Before this, we barely knew each other. We always joke about this. I say to him, “I can’t believe you’re still my friend after all those years of me being the annoying cousin.” He would come to Ohio once a year and I was the annoying little cousin that was asking him to do tricks on his skateboard and asking why he didn’t bring me more T-shirts. Just annoying as can be. The funny thing is, now when I go back to Ohio, I have those cousins, and my mom always says, “Remember how nice Rob was to you!”

On TV, people have seen you rise from assistant to CEO. How natural an evolution has this really been?

I don’t want to say completely a natural evolution, that these things just came to me, but I’ve always been this type of person. Like when I was younger in Ohio, I would make skate videos with all my friends and sell them to the local skate shops. So I always kind of wanted this hustle and wanted a business, but didn’t know what it meant or what it would be. It all came together and it came from watching Rob and watching the people around me and learning the game. But when I moved to L.A. from Ohio, if you would have told me, “In six years, you’ll have a clothing line, be on TV, have a production company, all that stuff,” I would have laughed in your face and said, “Where’s my job at the skate shop?”

What’s been the biggest takeaway from this experience thus far?

All in all, I would say the most meaningful thing is simply work ethic. That’s something that I originally learned from Rob and I kind of saw from the people that he’s around. Learning that you truly have to dedicate your life to whatever your passion or dream is — that’s what it takes.

As Young & Reckless expands, what’s your strategy?

We’ve already built a good foundation. Thank God we had the show to kick off all of our marketing and all of that stuff. It was huge, but my biggest goal every single day when I wake up is to make sure that I’m letting the world know and letting all these kids know that Young & Reckless is bigger than me. I don’t want it to be a Drama merchandise company, I don’t want it to be something that kids only buy because they are fans of the show. It truly is — the operation itself is way bigger than me, and the mindset, the culture that I want to create behind it is a lot bigger than me. As far as where I want it to go, the sky’s the limit. I don’t have any dreams of creating this ultra cool-guy exclusive expensive brand. That’s not what I’m in it for. I’d like to create a brand that’s very accessible at a very low price point that still has that same cool factor as these other brands. I think somebody that does it flawlessly is Nike. They are everywhere, but at the same time, they are leading the game in cool points, so I love the way to they juggle that.

This is a “factory,” but you’re obviously not making shirts here. What does your operation look like?

The operation is actually relatively small. We have an office right down the street, luckily. I would say there is total of maybe 15 people at this point. That’s a big thing to me too — not letting it get too big too quick internally, cause that’s a good way to screw yourself. If people aren’t communicating and you’re not all on the same wavelength, it just isn’t going to work. It’s a small office, a small amount of people listening to aggressive rap music all day trying to make dreams come true. We come up with all the designs, we do all that stuff in-house, all the printing is done at a printer and then shipped directly from the printer to the stores, so we don’t have a huge stock. Our only stock is for the online store.

What do you think is the biggest disconnect between “TV Drama” and “CEO Drama” that people don’t see?

I think there are a million disconnects, to be honest. Due to my role on the show, people think that I’m borderline brain-dead a lot of the time. People think that I’m really stupid, that Rob must be doing this for me. So a lot of people just aren’t really familiar with how a business runs. I think the biggest disconnect is that I am now 100 percent on my own and it is a real company. I’m a real business man out here, guys, believe it or not. We play it down a little bit because there is nothing cool about sitting in meetings on TV.

Fantasy Factory is funny and entertaining, but a lot of people don’t stop and realize it’s fundamentally a show about business. And in the process, it’s become a pretty brilliant promotional tool for your brands.

I have to give 100 percent credit for the whole setup of the show to Rob. He’s the one who came up with it and it’s absolutely genius. Luckily, now I have my own brands, I am blessed enough to be able to use this outlet that he’s created to promote. Any show that involves one of my companies or brands is, I would say, 80 percent my concept because I think we are both on the same page. He is very good at cleaning up stories and he’s very good at finding funny details in things that aren’t necessarily funny. And bursting into singing and aggressive rapping. A perfect example to me is last season. We did an episode about Young & Reckless, and at the end, I had to jump out of a building to prove that I was young and reckless. The whole rest of the storyline was my idea because it was all stuff that was going on with the brand. But he came up with the genius idea of leaping out of a building.

Did you know you were going to be doing that? If I remember correctly, you looked pretty surprised when you got there.

Yeah, I was! What they do to me is horrible, even though I’ve been doing this now for four years and I always tell them to stop. They hide storylines from me. So I literally will just show up one day and they are like, “Oh, hey, you’re going to have to jump out of a building.” They do that because it does keep my reactions extremely real. But at this point, man, just stop and show me, please — let me pretend to be scared, please!

In addition to the promotion on the show, you’re very active on Twitter and Facebook. What’s your advice to other entrepreneurs about social media?

I cannot stress enough how important social media is. I think a lot of massive businesses, still to this day, don’t believe in it and still keep trying old ways and cannot figure out why it’s not working. It’s absolutely insane to me. Our entire business, our marketing entirely — other than, obviously, the show — is built on Twitter and Facebook and our website. We don’t do print ads, we don’t do commercials. We haven’t even considered that because our reach is so much better with social-media outlets. As far as my personal Twitter goes, it is very important to me to have a balance because as much as I want to tell those 300,000 people to buy this new T-shirt, if you do that every single day, people are just going to un-follow you or stop reading your tweets or just not care. You can definitely overdo it. I try to balance being funny and being personal.

What does “Young & Reckless” mean to you?

I didn’t want to do a brand with just a random name and expect people to buy into it — I wanted to create a culture or some sort of bigger message for kids to follow. And after months and months of just racking my brain, “Young & Reckless” is what I came up with. Young & Reckless can mean anything. A lot of people think it means illegal activity. Not necessarily, but a lot of it is very reckless. My mom called me the other day and said, “Chris, I just wanted to let you know I was reckless today.” And I said, “OK, Mom, what did you do?” And she said, “I put three scoops of sugar in my cookies instead of one.” And I said, “You know what, Mom? You’re reckless.” So, really, the overall message to me with Young & Reckless is your mentality of living outside of the box and letting go a little bit, not caring about all the rules at all times.

Where does your music fit into this?

I spend close to an equal amount of time on it. Young & Reckless runs a little bit more traditionally, as opposed to the music business, which is all over the place and you’re always in here super late at night. The other massive difference in the music business is that nobody cares that I’m on TV. It means absolutely nothing. Now, with the clothing, I was able to put it on an episode and instantly have sales. With music, it doesn’t really matter what I do, because it is purely based on talent and product and connections. Sometimes it’s really frustrating because I’ll have a great day with Young & Reckless and feel like I’m on top of the world, then I’ll have a couple bad calls on music and feel like a kid back in Ohio. But at the same time, it’s great because it is a real, real passion of mine, and I do believe that when it properly comes back around and pays off it will be rewarding in a very different way, because it was 100 percent built outside of everything else.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve been involved with on the shows?

Getting attacked by sharks. Even though I personally didn’t get bit, it was the scariest thing of my life because we did not know how to scuba dive. We had a 20-minute training course in this little kiddie pool and then they are like, “Alright, cool, let’s go” and took us out in the ocean. All of a sudden, you’re surrounded by like 50 sharks. I’ve never had to just let go of fear and logic as much as I did that day.

And what’s the craziest thing that never made it to air?

One day, on Rob & Big, when I was still the 19-year-old stupid assistant, I came upstairs and the dog cage was sitting in the middle of the kitchen with the door open. Somehow, Big Black and Rob convinced me to crawl in it. They said, “I bet you can’t fit.” So I said, “Alright, let’s see where this goes.” I climbed in, they instantly closed the door, locked it, took me out to the edge of the pool and sat me on the edge. I thought there was no way — I’m fully clothed, cell phone, wallet, like, “OK, guys, this is funny, now take me out.” As I’m screaming, they push me into the pool, so I hit the water, freaking out and it didn’t really get to me until I hit the bottom of the pool.

Long story short, I got to the point where I said, “I’ve got to take a breath and it’s going to be water, this is it, this is how I’m going out — in a dog cage.” And right as I took my breath, Big Black lifted me above the water and set me back on the edge of the pool. It was one of the scariest things ever. They wouldn’t let us air it because it was too easy to recreate. A kid could have done it at home. It was one of the funniest things we ever shot. They were running around talking about Deadliest Catch and pulling up the crab box. Man, it was amazing.

You mentioned your mom earlier. Do you think you can stay young and reckless forever?

I think that you can. That story about my mom is the perfect example. Like I said, I do believe that it’s a mindset and not “Oh, I spray painted on a wall, I’m reckless.” You can be a senior citizen in a nursing home and give a couple extra pushes in your wheelchair down the hallway and be reckless, run from the nurse for a second, whatever. It is just a mind state about letting go, having fun and living life your own way — and you can do that until the day you die.

Entrepreneur Spotlight

Name: Chris “Drama” Pfaff
Company: Young & Reckless, Causin Drama Productions
Age: 24
Location: Los Angeles
Employees: 15
Revenue: Undisclosed
Website: http://www.youngandreckless.com

Business idea: Mommie Helen’s Bakery

Video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2009/01/19/sbs.bakery.cooking.success.cnn

Local Bakery�s Pies Draw Daily Crowds and Celebs

Wednesday, 15 August 2007

COLTON By Lynette ParkerSweet Success for Mommie Helen’s BakeryIt’s not uncommon to see people waiting outside Mommie Helen’s Bakery before it opens. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, people often wait in their cars to be the first to get the bakery’s pies, which have become famous around the country.Celebrities and athletes such as Shaquille O’Neal contact her for special orders, sometimes for events, sometimes just because they have a craving for her famous sweet potato pies, made from owner Dorothy Pryor Rose’s mother’s recipe.”People end up meeting in the parking lot,” said Rose, 61, who runs the bakery with her daughter, husband and six other employees.One couple even began dating after the woman missed out on getting one of the sweet potato pies. In the ultimate act of romance, the man gave her one of his pies – a prized possession since the bakery puts a two-pie limit on customers during busy times. The rest is sweet history.”He promised me and let me know when he proposed,” Rose said.     Dorothy Pryor Rose talks to customers    While local people are really just getting to know about the bakery, others have known for years about the love and   care that goes into making peach cobblers, pecan pies, the “Sok it to me cake,” sugar-free cobblers and others. The     walls of the bakery are lined with  pictures of people such as Laila Ali, Tom Arnold, John Salley, Shaq,  Magic Johnson and other celebrities.   On a recent Tuesday, a line formed to the door with faithful customers who don’t mind traveling from as far away as Nevada and Arizona to fill up their coolers with Rose’s sweets. Hilton Bullard, 66, John Bullard, 69, and Roy Williams, 60, of Pomona stopped by the bakery to pick up their pies before heading to Moreno Valley to pick up food from one of their favorite soul food restaurants. “We started talking and Roy said to let him know when we were going to drive to get something to eat, and I said we’re going out there today,” said Hilton Bullard, who along with his brother John are retired. “These guys are regulars,” Rose says from behind the bakery counter. What makes people drive hundreds of miles, place next-day mail orders and even send messengers to pick up Rose’s pastries? “You do it the way your mommy does,” she said. “Don’t skimp, don’t cheat your people and use the best ingredients.” The bakery began operating on a very small scale in 1999 after Rose took a peach cobbler to a potluck at her job at South Pacific Bell. “After that, they were like you don’t bring anything else to potlucks, you always just make this cobbler,” she said with a chuckle. She began making pies and cakes for friends and soon the clientele began to grow. That’s when she got a powerful message. “God told me to leave my job and open a bakery,” she said. So after 30 years, Rose left her job and took on the task of baking full-time. She began with her two sisters, a cousin and her husband. But it wasn’t until God led her to an event that Shaq was sponsoring that things began to take off. Rose said she contacted an assistant of Shaq’s and pleaded with him to allow her to be one of the caterers. He immediately declined, having never heard of Rose or her pies before. But again, God was on her side, she said. “He called back the very next day and said Shaq wants you,” Rose said. Shaq fell in love with the sweet potato pies, and the two are now friends. Even when he went to Miami, the orders continued. Other celebrities followed suit – Penny Marshall, Angela Bassett, Kathy Ireland, Stevie Wonder and James Worthy. She even sent a pie to a soldier serving in the Iraq war. Even though her new kitchen can make 300 pies a day, Rose envisions the day she will be able to make 2,000 pies a day. She has turned down franchise offers because she wants to keep the recipes as they are. She has had offers to take the pies to Costco and Sam’s Club. “We’re known around the world because they want the best sweet potato pies in the world,” Rose said. With all of her blessings, Rose hasn’t forgotten how she was helped by others when she was just beginning. She began supporting Little League clubs and started a scholarship foundation. One of her recipients is now pursuing his master’s degree. Rose also has had some hard times — she lost her mother this year and her sisters within a span of two years. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “But I never once had to have treatment, radiation or chemotherapy,” she said. “God is good.” God has more in store for her she says, she is scheduled to appear on the Dr. Phil Show to talk about couples and businesses, and she’s also in talks to make an appearance on The Oprah Show. Eventually, Rose said she would like to see Mommie Helen’s distribution centers in every state. That seems a little daunting to the employees who were working diligently, recently packaging and making cobblers. But, they say they have fun and the best part is they get to sample the products. “You eat them every day, it’s an every day thing and before you know it, a sample becomes a meal,” said Martha Godinez, 28, who has worked at the bakery for one and a half years. Rose’s daughter, Tedra Rose, 29, also works at the bakery and still can’t get enough of her mother’s pies. “When we were little, she would only make the sweet potato pies at Christmas and Thanksgiving and we would want them all year,” she said. That may have been a lesson Dorothy Pryor Rose learned from her mother. “We didn’t have a lot of money when we were growing up and we didn’t get toys for Christmas, but we would each get our own sweet potato pie,” she said. There were never any complaints from the children about the pies, but it did pose a problem if one child finished her pie before the others, Dorothy Rose said. For now, she said she is waiting to see what God has in store for her. She envisions lines wrapped around the corner every day, not just during the holiday season. “You know how you go by an In & Out drive-through and there’s always a line?” She said. “That’s what I want to see — lines every day.”

Link: http://www.blackvoicenews.com/content/view/41147/14/

Young Millionaire: Dominic McVey

A young man, his mobile phone and an idea. It’s the dream most kids have when they are young, but earning a million dollars doesn’t need ‘The Secret’, years of wisdom or even a car, according to one self-made millionaire.

 Using what he calls his childlike spirit, British teenage millionaire, Dominic McVey, made his early money with a simple idea and container load of zeal. By 15, he had made a million dollars.

“I was very, very competitive,” he said, starting up a business at just 13.

To save up for a collapsible scooter he thought filled a niche for London workers, McVey ran discos and did fund raising.

His hunch was right.

McVey’s Top 5 Tips for making a million 1)      If you are young, don’t draw attention to that.  I was young but I didn’t talk about it. I got on with what I wanted to do. I wanted to prove to people I could do it. 2)      Keep promoting – you have to get your product out there. 3)      Development – you have to move your product forward. You can’t let your product get stagnant or stale. Keep aggressive – have something new to offer all the time. 4)      Invest your money elsewhere. I invested in new brands, ideas, products, cosmetics, fashion. 5)       Be careful with your ideas because it might disappear at any time. If you have done it once, you can do it again.

 After selling the first five to family and friends, he then imported another ten and before long he had sold 300,000.

He was inquisitive and always disguised his age, doing all his business on the internet from his bedroom.

“Whenever I did meet companies, even if I thought I couldn’t get any business out of them, I asked them a million and one questions about how they did business,” McVey said. “They loved telling me because they felt like the other brother telling the kid what to do.”

And yes, it helps to be living with your parents.

“The added advantage is that the money you make is in a sense all yours, because you don’t have a mortgage or bills, all I was paying for was the internet and my mobile phone.”

McVey makes the point that your money may not last. This much is true for Australia’s Rich List.

A look at last year’s Top 5 Richest Young Australians (by BRW) highlights tragic stories, one of Edmund Groves the founder of ABC Learning Centres, and the Crazy John’s mobile phones magnate John Ilhan. The family man died of a suspected heart attack while out jogging. He was 42.

 

Practicing what he preaches, McVey has several new ideas in the pipeline.

And it involves his other passion – music .

McVey is set to launch a new boy band, called Most Wanted, and a music show for TV is also planned.

When you add a line of condoms called ‘Newd’, and some high-end pharmaceutical products it seems, for now, McVey’s riches are still on the rise.

link: http://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/b/sunrise/8117/a-15-year-old-millionaires-tips-for-success

Business idea: Popcorn Seasoning

Business Idea: Spibelt

Video: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2008/12/29/sbs.running.cnn

When you go for a run or a power walk or to the gym for a workout, sometimes you just want to take the bare essentials. The SPIbelt’s goal is to be your “small personal item” (get it? Small Personal Item…SPI) pouch for just those types of activities.

The belt is a 7/8-inch-wide elastic strap with a snap buckle closure. The zippered pouch sewn into the belt is made from a lightweight, super-stretchy material. When it’s empty, it’s only 7 inches long and 1 inch wide. Trust us, though, this puppy can expand. One tester filled the SPIbelt with an MP3 player and a cell phone, each about 2 by 4 inches in size, as well as a driver’s license and two credit cards and the darn thing kept growing and growing to accommodate them. Another tester was able to easily fit a pepper spray can and an ID in it. Another runner tried it as a compact way to carry a couple of sports gels during a half-marathon.

SPIbelt touts that it “does not bounce, ride or shift while running or doing other activities.” One tester agreed, saying the pouch stayed still during her walks and didn’t twist around her waist at all. A running tester found that it sat well on easy jogs, but during a race, it tended to shift and bounce unless she snugged it down very tightly on her waist, which made it a tad uncomfortable. Also, out testers discovered that when they did not tuck in their shirt, the SPIbelt tended to pull a loose shirt up and out, so the belt ended up against their skin, which was a bit irritating.

Another reviewer noted that if you go a little crazy filling it up with an MP3 player, cell phone and multiple credit cards, the pouch does have a tendency to flip up a bit and not lie flat against the body anymore. But if you show more restraint, like one electronic device and an ID, it will lie more flat.

Also, when we used the belt during runs, it was difficult to fetch out ONE thing, such as a sport gel. Unless we stopped, we ran the risk of losing small items like an ID, money, a car key or a second gel. To remedy that, we’d suggest adding a key fob or some type of small slim pocket inside for an ID, credit card or that second gel. Of course, that may defeat the minimalist approach. One tester solved the issue by adding a large safety pin to secure a baggie to hold the goods or to attach a key. 

The SPIbelt can hold up to five GU packets, but only with care can you fetch one out without losing the others — again, unless you stop — which may be fine on a workout but not during a race or other event. And it was difficult to fiddle with the zipper to put the wrapper back in while we were in mid-stride (so one tester — not wanting to litter mid-race — shoved the packet down her shorts!). But, as a way to carry items that you won’t be fetching while in motion, it’s a nice compact alternative. You could use it during a gym workout when you want your valuables or an MP3 player handy, or simply while traveling when you don’t want to carry a wallet or purse but want your stuff close for security. As narrow and small as it is, it won’t be conspicuous. 

Despite a few fumbles, the SPIbelt is interesting and could be useful not only for runners, racers and power walkers, but also to hikers and travelers.

It’s available in two sizes: small/medium for 20- to 32-inch waists, and medium/large for 28- to 40-inch waists. SPIbelt’s website said it can also double as a race number belt by adding hooks you can buy for 50 cents.

Spibelt’s website: www.spibelt.com

Link: http://www.snewsnet.com/cgi-bin/snews/11660.html

Business Idea: Cereality

David Roth wasn’t always a success in business. He has dabbled in consulting and publishing and even sold frozen steaks at Sears while in college.But when he noticed a Wall Street executive taking surreptitious mouthfuls from a Cocoa Puffs box hidden behind his desk, Roth knew he was onto something.

Roth is CEO of Cereality, a cereal bar and cafe chain with a location on Walnut Street. He spoke to an audience of over 40 students yesterday evening in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall.

The company is now growing rapidly, Roth said, with plans to open franchises across the country, as well as in Canada and the United Kingdom.

However, Cereality didn’t become successful overnight, Roth said.

Naysayers warned him that people would never feel comfortable eating cereal outside of their homes, that no one would pay more than $3 for a bowl of milk and cereal and that cereal manufacturers wouldn’t consider partnering with him.

However, Roth said that he “turned most of their basic assumptions about business upside-down,” Roth said, attributing his success to profitable connections, courage and luck.

Roth called himself and Cereality co-founder Rick Bacher “two outside-the-box marketing guys who are observers of human behavior and the wacky relationships people have with branded cereals.”

Today, Roth said, Cereality is more than just a cereal bar.

“We built a business out of Saturday morning,” he said. “It’s a promise to our customers that you can have five minutes of Saturday morning even on Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m.”

While talking at length about the inspiration for his company, Roth said he would not take questions about Cereality’s financial information because the company prefers to keep that information private.

Students said they enjoyed hearing about the process of creating Cereality.

“I think of myself as entrepreneurial as well, so it was inspiring to hear from someone with an entrepreneurial spirit that succeeded further down the line,” Wharton sophomore Andrew White said.

Wharton junior Bill Yau said Roth and Bacher bring with them an appealing message.

“Their marketing campaign … appeals to memories I had when I was a kid,” Yau said. “They’re doing a damn good job.”

Young entrepreneur: Ben Casnocha

Being a teen is hard work for this entrepreneur

By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — While most of his high school classmates bask in the glory of senior year, Ben Casnocha schmoozes with powerful high-tech executives, venture capitalists and real estate moguls in Silicon Valley.

Just 17, his typical day is a swirl of adult responsibility and teenage folly. On a recent weekday, Ben attended an angel-investor group meeting in the morning and high school classes in the afternoon. The previous evening, he had dinner with a venture capitalist. A few days later, he had breakfast with Marc Benioff, CEO of highflying software maker Salesforce.com, and lunch with a real estate mogul.

“It gets pretty crazy,” says Ben, who carves out breaks during school to help run Comcate, the San Francisco-based software company he started in his bedroom when he was 12. When he isn’t doing that, he’s captain of the basketball team and editor of the school newspaper. “Sometimes I have to pause to make the distinction between Ben the teenager and Ben the businessman,” says Ben, who also stands out because he’s 6-foot-4.

“It’s not every day you get to sit with a 13-year-old and hear about his plans to change the world,” says Greg Prow, a VC who met Ben in September 2001.

Figures are elusive on just how many teens start or run businesses, but Ben is one of an estimated tens of thousands in the USA, according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a non-profit organization that works with entrepreneurs.

Advances in technology, such as the Internet, and wider acceptance of entrepreneurship have made it easier for teens to start businesses, says Steve Mariotti, president of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, which works exclusively with teens.

At a Starbucks last week, Ben looks like any clean-cut teen grabbing a latte on the way to school. Dressed in a striped T-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he lugs an iPod, BlackBerry and PowerBook in his backpack.

Not your typical start-up

But not every teenager rubs shoulders with Motorola CEO Ed Zander and Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, as Ben did at a soiree last year. They don’t call city managers to pitch the merits of their company’s software, which helps public agencies improve customer service, as Ben does. And they certainly aren’t speakers at tech and education conferences, as Ben has been.

Last year, Ben trekked to Zermatt, Switzerland, and tried to crash a young global leaders’ conference. He was tossed out, but it got the attention of Salesforce.com CEO Benioff, who was attending, and the two soon struck up a friendship.

“He’s an exceptional person with a lot of potential,” says Benioff, 41, who started as a games maker when he was 15. “I want to help him, and have as many breakfasts as he wants.”

Comcate has carved a profitable niche, with annual revenue of about $750,000 and a few dozen customers in small and midsize cities in California, Florida, Indiana and elsewhere. Ben began selling gumballs to his older twin brothers when he was 7 and briefly ran a Web-design company when he was 11, says his dad, David, an attorney on Comcate’s board. Comcate started as a project for Ben’s sixth-grade tech class at Town School for Boys, a private prep school here. It was hatched from his bedroom, which is stuffed with books and athletic trophies. As Ben quizzed city agencies on how they resolved residents’ complaints, he realized many needed software. The project blossomed into a start-up.

“These guys were serious,” says Comcate President Dave Richmond,recalling when Ben and David Casnocha interviewed him for a job. Richmond, 41, was surprised to learn that the boyish executive asking probing questions, was only 14. The former VC, hired as the company’s first full-time employee, was later named president. The company employs several salespeople and programmers in the Bay Area and overseas.

Though he considers himself a mentor to Ben, Richmond calls their relationship “focused.” Busy schedules dictate a steady stream of e-mails and occasional phone calls each day to discuss strategic planning, marketing and sales. “We don’t spend much time shooting the breeze,” says Richmond, the father of two children. “Clients assume he’s older, based on his presence and demeanor.”

One of those clients — Silvia Vonderlinden, city clerk of nearby Menlo Park, Calif. — says age “makes no difference” working with Comcate. “I just think they’re extremely customer-oriented, and the product is very good,” she says. The city uses Comcate software to field questions from city residents via e-mail.

During the school year, Ben’s day starts at 6:30 a.m. He reads dozens of business-related e-mails, and monitors websites and blogs for news. In his spare time, Ben has jotted down 50,000 words for a prospective book on his business career. His blog (bigben.blogs.com) muses on topics as diverse as author Joan Didion and the CIA’s involvement in Afghanistan. And he says he has found time to read 120 books the past 16 months. He wants to read 4,200 over the next 60 years.

Striking a balance

Such an ambitious lifestyle can be gratifying — and confusing, admits Ben, who has applied to 15 colleges, including University of Chicago and Cornell University. For a while, he says, he adopted a “dual identity”: There was the professional Ben, who answered calls with a deep, raspy “Hello, Ben Casnocha,” and the happy-go-lucky teen who picked up the phone with a “Hey, what’s up?”

He admits things got hairy his freshman and sophomore years in high school, when his schedule overwhelmed him at times. As a sophomore, Ben had a C- in two classes, and his grade-point average is an ordinary 3.0. But he logged a 3.8 in the last semester.

Since then, he’s become more comfortable with his teen alter ego, crediting a sojourn into Buddhism and meditation. For 15 minutes a day, Ben plops into a seat, spine erect, and relaxes. He controls his breathing and concentrates on the word focus. His journey to self discovery has taught him the importance of the big picture, and he cringes when he is called a whiz. “I’m just the smallest dot in a big map of human history,” he says.

He’s also a keen observer of others’ behavior. “One of his favorite things to analyze is the social scene at high school,” says classmate Danielle Robin, 18, a senior who has known Ben for four years. “Ben once told me that high school is a plethora of superficial bull — – — -. We call him Ben the Businessman.” His son’s insatiable curiosity, however, has convinced David Casnocha that Ben will end up in journalism. “He loves to read and write too much,” his father says.

“I often tell him, ‘Dude, if your worst offense is being different than everyone else, you’re going to have a great life,’ ” adds Tim Taylor, 37, a former angel investor who sits on the board of several tech companies and advises Ben. “Where he’s grown is in exploring life beyond his company.”

source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/2006-01-17-tech-teen_x.htm

Business idea: PopCap Games

John Vechey, 28; Brian Fiete, 29; and Jason Kapalka, 37
PopCap Games, Seattle
Projected 2007 Sales: More than $20 million
Description: Creator and provider of downloadable games

Level One: When game designer Jason Kapalka first met John Vechey and Brian Fiete in 1997, the two 19-year-olds had just been wooed from Indiana to work at Kapalka’s former employer, a gaming company. “We hit it off really well,” says Kapalka, who was impressed by an online game the two teens had created. “We kept in touch, and around 2000, we were all a little unhappy with our jobs. We thought, ‘Hey, we could start our own company.'”

Beyond the Bust: As it turned out, the years 2000 and 2001 weren’t kind to internet companies. “We didn’t have the best timing, but we survived because we didn’t have many expenses,” says Kapalka. The business’s first low-overhead stomping grounds were in the co-founders’ respective apartments. PopCap adapted to uncertain times by experimenting with direct game downloads from its website. The gamble paid off, and within a couple of years, the company moved to a real office in Seattle. It has since added offices in Chicago; San Francisco; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Dublin, Ireland.

High Score: “We’re just trying to keep a very simple business model: Make games. If people like them, they’ll buy them,” says Kapalka, adding that top sellers include Bejeweled, Bookworm, Chuzzle and Peggle–all games that are easy to learn but hard to master. People certainly love PopCap’s games: Their content generated around $75 million in sales of their content across all platforms and partners in 2006. A lot of that is because the games have more in common with Pac-Man and Tetris than with World of Warcraft. PopCap is helping to engineer a shift from complicated, hard-core gaming to casual gaming for general audiences. Says Kapalka, “We’re moving toward the democratization of video games.” And that’s a winning formula.

Follow Their Lead: No matter how fast your company grows, stay focused on keeping your product quality standards high.  –Amanda C. Kooser