Young Entrepreneurs are on the rise! While the concept of one day finally being your own boss has been around for a long time, it’s the younger generation that’s increasingly successful at achieving this goal.
The road to entrepreneurship may be rocky but the rewards are more than worth the effort: independence and freedom at their purest; no more superiors to placate or to bow to, no dictated daily schedule, no personal effort taken advantage of by others. As an entrepreneur, you truly reap what you sow. You can be the boss of your life, directly determining your daily work routine – work/life balance just as you like it!
Starting on this road at an early age clearly pays off. Young people generally have less to lose when venturing into the open world of business, thus taking a risk is an attractive option, especially in regard to the aforementioned potential benefits. Furthermore, inexperience can be an asset – young entrepreneurs new to their business ask questions about things which everyone else assumes unquestioned. Looking for new answers in our ever-changing and advancing world might be the best way to succeed.
Speaking of success, what is it that enables a young entrepreneur to become successful? Most of them have adopted a set of productive habits. Constantly asking questions and reflecting upon your progress is one. Keeping an open mind – and a young mind is an open mind – while venturing out into the world is another one. But this open-mindedness is not without purpose; setting goals and focusing on these is another key habit of any entrepreneur. And while this might primarily apply to new projects and ideas, a regimented schedule helps organize not only your daily life but your overall success as well.
Now let´s have a look at these young entrepreneurs we had the pleasure to interview here at IdeaMensch – they might inspire you to start your journey to entrepreneurship!
Feel free to skip ahead to the section most interesting to you. We have organized this list alphabetically by first name.
Young Entrepreneurs From A-F
Young Entrepreneurs From G-K
Young Entrepreneurs From L-P
Young Entrepreneurs From Q-U
Young Entrepreneurs From V-Z
Also, if you enjoy these type of posts, check out our feature story on female entrepreneurs.
Young Entrepreneurs from A-F
1. Abhas Suman
Abhas Suman is a music producer, who started working in his very early age. He got his copyright certificate ID before he received his voter ID card at the age of 17 and got his first song released this year. He is also being mentored by many artists like ‘MAVJAK’ & ‘Mike Waters’ and KSHMR’s label ‘Dharma Worldwide’. He released two songs for Netherland based company RadioWave. The young entrepreneur was raised in a small town called Koderma in Jharkhand. He completed his high school this year from Patna and has now moved to New Delhi for graduation.
2. Abraham Lieberman
Abraham “AB” Lieberman is the CEO and Founder of Clicks Talent, an influencer & marketing agency specializing in promoting new social media platforms. At the age of 18, Abraham served in the Israeli military. In his downtime, he started working as a freelance social media consultant where he soon noticed how many creators and influencers had yet to maximize their talent in promoting social media apps – at the same time many social platforms seemed to struggle with having content produced for their apps. AB decided to bridge the gap between the influencers and the apps.
3. Adelle Archer
Adelle Archer is the CEO & co-founder of Eterneva, an innovative company that honors the lives of remarkable people and pets by turning their cremated ashes into diamonds. In 2019, Eterneva was named Consumer Startup of the Year by the Stevie Awards and was featured on Shark Tank, receiving investment from Mark Cuban. Adelle has been featured on both Inc and Forbes coveted ’30 Under 30′ lists. Prior to founding Eterneva, Adelle received her MBA in Entrepreneurship at the Acton School of Business, considered the ‘navy seal’ program for entrepreneurs. At only 23, she graduated valedictorian of her class. She spent four years as a Product Marketing leader in Tech, launching major products to market with partners like Amazon, Ebay, Square, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
4. Alexander Kulitski
Alexander is the owner of Smart IT, a company he founded with a group of close friends while still at university. Smart IT builds custom software and web applications for small-medium business and supplies the development and support teams for prominent enterprises internationally. With the team behind Smart IT, Alex co-founded the first online ticket sales service in his home country. He also took a key role in planning and building the software for the service. The business quickly scaled and became profitable. No other competitor has come close to replicating its success. To this day it remains the biggest and most popular online and vending-machine-based ticket sales service in the country. When not on the road, Alexander spends his time between Minsk and San Francisco. He takes an active interest in the quality of work on client projects, as well as managing several partner businesses focused on telemedicine in the US.
5. Alexandria Sims
Alexandria is a 29-year old web content and copywriter who was born and raised at the Jersey Shore. A 2012 graduate of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Alexandria is a former best-selling author on Amazon, and a Top Rated Upwork Freelancer, as well as a travel and personal development enthusiast. She was working as an hourly shift manager for Burger King making $9.50 an hour. She was on the verge of losing her living situation and couldn’t afford to support herself. Following a friend´s mom suggestion she signed up with oDesk (now Upwork) and had her first gig within minutes of activating her account – a contract to write an autobiography for $600. With more and more money incoming and her skills improving along the way Alexandria got into copywriting and really liked the challenge it provided. She started to present herself professionally as ADS Copywriting.
6. Alisha Chocha
With over a decade in the marketing industry, Alisha Chocha started her entrepreneurial journey a couple of years ago by co-founding Your Marketing People, a digital marketing agency. Just recently, she, along with another fellow female traveler, launched Roam Often, a travel and lifestyle eCommerce brand that sells travel jewelry cases. After a promising start to the brand in the last few months, Alisha has experienced the true tribulations of being an entrepreneur, since they launched a travel brand in the wake of the CoronaVirus (bad timing).
7. Alyssa Hunt
Alyssa Hunt is the creator of The Life Hunt, a blog aimed at motivating people to hustle toward their business and financial dreams while navigating everyday life. Alyssa successfully paid off $30,000 in student debt by the age of 23 and started a business two years later. She is currently getting a Master’s degree in English Literature and spends her free time chasing her true passion: screenwriting.
8. Andrew Hughes
From Poulsbo, Washington, Andrew pursued the path that checked all the boxes that aligned with the socially acceptable narrative of success- from what he studied, his career, and his relationships. When failure found Andrew and the world he had constructed began to the crumble, he discovered that the foundations of life were built upon other people’s dreams and not his own. Faced with a choice to embrace the uncomfortable and unknown, the mountains answered Andrew’s questions of his own dreams. He embraced the journey of redefining his relationship with discomfort, which altered his perspective of achievement, and unified the fragmented aspects of himself. Now, he stands whole compelled to lead, inspire, and motivate others to redefine success, embrace the uncomfortable, and enjoy the journey with eyes wide open.
9. Andrew Woods
Andrew Woods is the CEO and co-founder of Duckpin, a brand-focused digital agency in Baltimore, MD. Serving local businesses and fortune 500’s alike, Duckpin provides a broad range of creative, web, and marketing solutions that are deeply rooted in brand strategy and storytelling. Outside of work, Andrew is an avid backpacker, sailor, traveler, and environmental advocate.
10. Aristide Basque
Aristide Basque is the co-founder of SHIFT AGENCY, a creative agency focused on data-driven customized advertising – showing only what people want to see to convert them. He’s well known in the eCommerce industry for his skills with Facebook & Instagram – Aristide launched and grew a watch company from zero to $1.3M in just 6 months!
11. Ashish Fernando
Ashish Fernando is the Founder and CEO of the EdTech Startup- iSchoolConnect, a Google-sponsored online admissions platform for international students. While applying for an MBA in the USA in 2012, Ashish realized the errors and bias in the international admissions process.Ashish pursued a successful career working with Artificial Intelligence and Data Science after his graduation from Bentley University, USA, before founding iSchoolConnect in 2017 with the help of Quantiphi Analytics, an AI and ML solutions company. So far, iSchoolConnect has provided services to noteworthy entities such as the New York University, ASU-GSV, Portland State University, and Kaplan Inc.
12. Brad Ormsby
Brad Ormsby is an entrepreneur who has leveraged a career in marketing to launch a variety of businesses in multiple industries. Just a few of the businesses he’s in include local service businesses, blogs, eCommerce stores, a wellness center, and a client-facing marketing company named Colorstone Marketing. Brad uses years of online marketing experience to build businesses with an approach that’s different than most. He first builds the customer base and then the business infrastructure to service the incoming clients. His unique approach has allowed him to build multiple successful businesses in a short time without the normal capital-output that most business owners are forced into. He parlays his experience in building and marketing his own businesses into helping clients build their businesses in a variety of industries and professions.
13. Braden Parker
Braden co-founded Casca two years ago, marrying his passion and experience with inspirational brands to a cutting-edge, functional product. Jumping in with both feet, he has lead the company through a successful Seed fundraise, set up business operations, and built an impressive 10 member team. For the past five years, Braden has been determined to develop a company that enables people to achieve more. Prior to Casca, Braden consulted for multiple startups, applying his background in finance and branding. When he’s not focused on driving Casca’s business goals forward, you can find him at various entrepreneurial events, creating conversation around accelerating the bright future that lies ahead. He believes we all have a social responsibility to one another, and that Casca’s contribution is providing the world’s best innovators with the world’s best pair of shoes.
14. Brian Lee
Brian Lee is the CEO and Co-Founder of Label 428, a food creative and social media agency based in Toronto. Recently named a Canadian leader in Social Media and Content Marketing by Clutch, Label 428 brings their clients’ social media presence to life through channel management and content production. The agency specializes in producing content for restaurant franchises and consumer packaged goods (CPGs). Brian and his team pride themselves on making an impact for clients on brand awareness and sales.
15. Brittany Canty
Brittany Canty recently left the tech world to combine her passion of snacks and travel to launch Comfort Eats with her best friend. In her previous life she was a developer turned product manager, even earning herself a patent along the way. Currently she travels the globe, tasting all the amazingness that this world has to offer and hopes to bring comfort to every person away from their home as they thrive in their new environments.
16. Calloway Cook
Calloway Cook founded the herbal supplements company Illuminate Labs to solve the transparency issues in the dietary supplements market. He is a serial entrepreneur who raised an angel investment round in early 2019 for this venture. Calloway was taking dietary supplements when he came up with the idea for the company. He saw a gap in the market because consumers were willing to pay higher prices for tested and safe supplements, but no manufacturer was filling that need.
17. Carlos Castelán
Carlos Castelán is the Managing Director of The Navio Group in Minneapolis, a retail and consumer goods business consulting firm that works with companies to improve their internal management and productivity challenges, helping them perform better and succeed in today’s competitive business environment. Before joining The Navio Group, Carlos was a Partner & Chief Strategy Officer at Conlego, a premier negotiations and partnership firm. There he advised on growth strategy, negotiated key agreements and was the principal partner to open new accounts. Carlos previously founded & was the Managing Director at Noma Consulting Partners, a boutique firm where he developed tailored, data-driven solutions for clients in the areas of e-commerce, guest insights, and financial analysis.Carlos holds a B.A. and B.S. in International Studies and Economics from the University of St. Thomas and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He enjoys playing soccer and grilling in his free time.
18. Cher Hale
Cher Hale is the founder and director of Ginkgo Public Relations – a national boutique agency that believes in using storytelling and public relations as a force for good. They specialize in boosting visibility for underrepresented or marginalized authors, experts, and entrepreneurs through comprehensive communication and media relations efforts. As a first-generation Taiwanese-American, Cher is passionate about leveraging the power of media to tell diverse stories through online, print, TV, radio, and podcast mediums so she can play a role in reshaping how our society views social justice, give-back initiatives, feminism, and multiculturalism.
19. Chiara Lo Faro
Chiara Lo Faro is an award-winning professional who spent 7 years living and working in New Delhi. Chiara’s wish for a different perspective led her to leave Italy at the age of 22 to move to India, where she worked in strategy consulting for foreign companies entering the market. She then moved to the financial sector and worked for one of India’s largest private banks, supporting foreign corporates all over India for cross-border transactions and funding requirements. She has now registered a business aimed at providing cultural, language, and strategy support to European and Indian companies working together, thanks to her current knowledge of Italian, English, French, Hindi and other languages. She has been awarded as Top 40 under 40 Europe India Young Leaders by EICBI at the European Parliament in 2019 and has also been a TEDx speaker.
20. Cristin Smith
Cristin Smith is the CEO/Founder and Spiritual Director at Saffron & Sage, spearheading operations at Little Italy’s first-of-its-kind membership-based holistic health club. In addition to day-to-day operations, Smith serves as Strategy Director and Spiritual Director, holding space for individuals to explore their sacred pilgrimage while cultivating discernment and incorporating other ancient practices into their lives including solitude and meditation.
Smith founded Saffron & Sage in 2013, as a result of her personal healing journey and the search for holistic health care practitioners, non-toxic products, therapeutic practices and healing places to achieve wellness of the mind, body and spirit. Cristin calls Mission Hills home where she lives with Harper and Juniper, her fur babies. In her free time, Cristin enjoys sailing and traveling along with taking Harper, Saffron & Sage’s resident therapy pup out for adventures.
21. Davis Siksnans
Davis Siksnans is the co-founder and CEO of Printful, the print-on-demand drop shipping startup that makes it easy for anyone to sell custom print products online. Davis co-founded Printful in 2013 when he was 22, and in just six years he’s grown the company from five to five hundred employees across the USA, Mexico, and Europe, Latvia.
Young Entrepreneurs from G-K
22. Grechen Huebner
Grechen is Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Kodable. An entirely self-taught designer, she always had an interest in computer science but was never given the opportunity to learn. She founded Kodable with her co-founder Jon Mattingly in 2012 in his Louisville dorm room. Since then, she has helped Kodable reach tens of millions of kids in every developed country around the world. A Westly Prize winner and member of the Forbes 30 under 30, she has dedicated her life to giving kids from all walks of life, genders, and socioeconomic backgrounds the opportunities she wished she had as a child. In her free time, Grechen enjoys spending time in nature, climbing, and hanging out with Kodable’s Chief Morale Officer, her dog Mo.
23. Holman Gao
Holman is a software engineer turned entrepreneur with a love for education. He currently is the Founder/CEO of BoostMySchool, the all-in-one fundraising platform for schools. Holman started his tech career in Silicon Valley as a senior software engineer at several venture-backed startups, one of which was acquired by Google. When his former high school needed to raise money to cover funding lost due to budget cuts, he built the first version of BoostMySchool to assist with their efforts. Since then, BoostMySchool has onboarded K-12 schools and universities coast-to-coast and helped them raise millions of dollars.
24. Jacob Landis-Eigsti
Jacob Landis-Eigsti has been helping small and medium-sized companies with online marketing, social media, and video production for the last 8 years. He started his own company, Jacob LE Video Production 4 years ago, with the goal of helping over 1,000 businesses gain new clients through online marketing and video production. Jacob saw so many entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized businesses who were struggling with telling their story, connecting with their audiences online, and building up their online presence – he knew he could help companies line up more customers and hit their goals using his experience as video creator and marketer.
25. Jessi Beyer
Jessi Beyer is a personal development speaker and coach who specializes in helping her audiences break through the chains of societal expectations and stereotypes, unleash their authentic selves, and live passionate, successful, and fulfilling lives. Known by her friends and family members for her drive, determination, authenticity, and passion, Jessi is unafraid to figure out what she really wants out of life and pursue it with everything she has, and she believes that doing so is the key to a successful and fulfilling life. This belief has inspired her to build her mission around helping others do the same.
26. Jordan Wavra
Jordan Wavra is a Holistic Health & Lifestyle Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, and Mindfulness Expert who supports fellow moms on their journey towards a healthy, vibrant, energetic life. She’s a wife, mom, and adventure seeker. Her hobbies include travel, hiking in the mountains, reading a good book, and going on adventures with her family. Her family’s most recent adventure has been to eliminate all the “stuff” and take life on the road. She and her husband just recently bought an RV and are currently based in Arizona with their son and two black labs.
27. Josyah Lavina-Maldonado
Josyah, aka Kid Boom aka JoJo, is a 9th grader and professional music producer with credits that include MTV, Nickelodeon, and having NBA superstar, Russell Westbrook, and megastar actor, Millie Bobbie Brown, as fans. He is one-third of the hip hop group, TRNDSTTRS, who create music, videos and design clothing with positive messages for kids, by kids!
28. Justine Beauregard
Justine began her career as a small business marketer in 2008. In 2014 she launched her own consulting agency Mirelle Marketing, LLC with one goal in mind – to help small businesses achieve faster, more purposeful growth despite limited resources. Through networking and a successful referral program, she has helped hundreds of small businesses and start-ups worldwide set and achieve their marketing goals. Her work and expert opinions have been featured in major publications such as CIO.com, FitSmallBusiness.com, and Business2Community.com. She also leads a marketing community called Growth Mindset Marketers where she assists entrepreneurs with easy, fun, and effective marketing strategies for pennies a day.
29. Katarzyna Iwanich
Katarzyna Iwanich is the Co-Founder of Insightland.org, an SEO agency. As an expert in business relations with over 10 years of experience she worked for and with JWT, Tesco, Allegro (Naspers Group), Liberty Direct. Previously, as an employee of the companies, she was not able to influence certain processes, only establishing her own company allowed her to spread her wings. Insightland came from the need for independence, freedom of work how her Business Partner and she see it and knowledge of how SEO can provide a positive impact on every business. Moreover, she wanted to challenge herself as a female leader and change an optic of how SEO agencies, mostly masculinized, can be seen and operate.
30. Kayla Pendleton
Founder of Make Her Mark, Kayla Pendleton, worked out of her home for several years while telecommuting for her career in digital marketing. She found that working from home was distracting and it was really tough to have a healthy work/life balance. On top of that, she developed social anxiety and depression because she had been isolated for so long. What do you do as an entrepreneur when you see a problem with no solution? You start a business!
At 26 years old she launched Her Space, a coworking space for women in Fresno, Ca. After only a year and a half, there are 75 women that work out of the office day today.
31. Krista Schrader
Krista Schrader is a Realtor who co-owns Schrader Group, Keller Williams Realty alongside her husband, Luke, as a team. She is a top producing agent in the Greater Kalamazoo, Michigan area, and bought her first home when she was just 20. Now at 25 years old, she helps dozens achieve the same dream of obtaining their very own home. She believes the human mind and body are very capable of accomplishing nearly anything for those able to achieve high accountability and a determined mindset.
Young Entrepreneurs from L-P
32. Maksym Babych
Maksym Babych is a CEO of SpdLoad, a startup development company located in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The company helps startups to launch their products and build software applications. Maksym established SpdLoad in 2013. Today it has 20+ successful products in SaaS and Marketplace industry and several own products. SpdLoad was recognized as one of the top 20 web developers on Clutch. Maksym is a serial entrepreneur and IT professional. As a startup adviser at Startup Chile – the largest business accelerator in South America, and Startplatz – the local Cologne startup incubator, helps early-stage startups with setting up and scaling configuration of business processes.
33. Maryna Shkvorets
Maryna Shkvorets is an entrepreneur and a Persuasive Speaking for Introverts coach. Her online coaching programs offer structured, yet counterintuitive steps that will take you from anxious, dull, or monotone to a confident and engaging presenter. Her signature program focuses on a three-part framework: detach from fear and step into the speaker you want to be, grab attention and keep attention, and get in the zone and nail it. If you’re ready to start seeing yourself as confident and engaging, check out her free resources and get connected.
34. Max Kamenkov
Max Kamenkov is an entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of SplitMetrics, a company that builds innovative products for mobile publishers. SplitMetrics is headquartered in Minsk, Belarus and also has offices in San Francisco and Europe. The company’s software solutions, SplitMetrics and SearchAdsHQ, are powerful and easy-to-use tools for mobile growth. SearchAdsHQ is a platform for Apple Search Ads campaign management and optimization with advanced analytics and unique automation features. SplitMetrics is an A/B testing tool for improving conversion rates on the App Store and Google Play. World-famous companies and brands, like Rovio, Wargaming, Google, MSQRD, Prisma, Flo and many others, take advantage of SearchAdsHQ and SplitMetrics.
35. Morgan Swank
Morgan Swank is an Emmy-winning television writer and children’s author based out of Atlanta and Los Angeles. She got her start working on Broadway Video productions such as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, 30 Rock, and Saturday Night Live. Currently, Morgan is working hard on her own pilots for networks and developing her children’s book “Mort” into a feature film. She is also the CEO of Moonscar Productions with her business partner Blair Allison. Moonscar Productions is a full-service film and television production company dedicated to producing projects that elevate the human experience for filmmakers of color and women and non-binary identifying people. The company is currently projected to release 3 music videos, 2 animation shorts, and one feature for Sundance Labs in 2021.
36. Navit Reid
Originally from the United States, Navit has a B.A. from Hampshire College with a triple major in ecology, photography, and ethnomusicology. She has 6 years of experience in scientific research and data analysis, particularly related to climate change. A wanderer ever since she picked up her first National Geographic at the age of 5, she’s spent most of her life traveling or living a nomadic lifestyle, having visited 41 of the 50 United States, 30 countries and lived in 3. After 3 successful careers before the age of 30, Navit co-founded Wanda Maps in 2018, which synergizes a love of maps, meaningful and sustainable travel, and the power of data for the greater good.
37. Nik Delgado
Nik is the founder of BoldSTRYD, a marketing agency that specializes in helping sell-out events using social media. Nik found his spark and passion for entrepreneurship after spending his college years leading a team of student engineers to develop an innovative Hyperloop pod for Elon Musk’s SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition. Quite literally building the future is what excites Nik to do what he does and he plans to take lessons learned and seed funding from BoldSTRYD to start his next venture and do just that.
38. Pedro Espinoza
Pedro David Espinoza was born in Lima, Peru. His family has Quechua, Andean, and Incan roots. In 2012, he received admission – with merit-based scholarships – to the University of California, Berkeley. Additionally, Pedro David enrolled in classes at Stanford University where he took management science, engineering, and entrepreneurship classes. It was in an engineering class at Stanford, that he felt inspired to start SmileyGo: a platform that helps companies invest in nonprofits. Pedro David Espinoza became a US Citizen at the age of 23 – the same year he also gave a TED talk in Georgetown University where over 200 attendees were inspired on the power of building bridges, relationships, and connecting the dots. Today, Pedro David serves on boards of nonprofits, corporations, advises startups, implements keynote presentations, and leads Pan Peru USA – a 501c3 nonprofit organization with the mission of empowering women to become entrepreneurs through training programs.
39. Peter Yang
Peter Yang is a millennial entrepreneur, a second-generation restaurateur and the co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Pokeworks. Yang was exposed to the restaurant industry at a young age. After earning his degree from UCSD in structural engineering, he went on to pursue a career in the field. However, Yang soon decided it wasn’t a fit for him and went on to follow his passion for the restaurant industry. His father was bringing a concept from China to the US, launching in New York and Peter jumped at the opportunity to manage the entire launch in Manhattan at just 22 years old. In 2015, Yang capitalized on his expansive knowledge in restaurants and co-founded Pokeworks, a millennial-fueled brand bringing Hawaiian-inspired poké burritos and bowls to the masses catering to the rising trend focusing on healthy and sustainable lifestyles. Today, Pokeworks is one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing poke brands in North America with 46 locations open and more than 180 under development since 2016.
40. Porscha Sterling
Porscha Sterling is an Atlanta, GA based author, publisher, entrepreneur and influencer. She’s best known for her breakout hit novel series “King of The Streets, Queen of His Heart” series. Her debut novel “3 Queens” was released in 2014. Shortly after Porscha launched her publishing company Royalty Publishing House, which quickly became the #1 woman-owned, independent publishing company in the nation. Her work has won numerous awards including being the 2019 Literary Honoree for the Kimmie Awards by Sheen Magazine. She just produced her first feature film for Amazon with more films on the way.
Young Entrepreneurs from Q-U
41. Radu Reit
Dr. Radu Reit is the founder and Chief Technology Officer at Ares Materials, where his work is focused on expanding the use of UV-curable polysulfide chemistries into the electronic display manufacturing space, with a specific focus on enabling new products for dynamic form-factor displays in flexible or foldable applications. Dr. Reit is also the Vice-Chair of the Marketing Committee at the Society for Information Display (SID). SID provides a unique platform for industry collaboration, communication, and training in all related technologies while showcasing the industry’s best new products. Display Week 2020 will be held June 7-12, 2020, in San Francisco.
42. Robert Luo
Robert is a three-time entrepreneur. He sold his first company for $300,000 while he studied at the University of Southern California. He is a Forbes Under 30 Scholar and Global Shaker’s Sustainable Fashion Innovator 2019. He is also an Entrepreneur Hall of Fame at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. He first learned about the food waste problem while visitng his uncle’s dairy farm in China in 2018. When he came back to the US, he started researching the process of turning milk into by-products – resulting in his company Mi Terro.
43. Ryan Chan
Ryan Chan is CEO and Founder at UpKeep Maintenance Management. He is a Chemical Engineer from UC Berkeley, was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 for Manufacturing in 2018, and is part of the Official Forbes Technology Council. Ryan started UpKeep out of passion and frustration by the lack of mobility in today’s maintenance management software. UpKeep has now been deployed to over 10,000 businesses and is a leader in mobile-first maintenance management software.
44. Rytis Jakubauskas
Rytis Jakubauskas is the General Manager at Latana, a Berlin-based tech firm. A tech entrepreneur at heart, he is now taking on brand and market research. Rytis started working at Dalia Research, the parent company of Latana and it was here that he got a deep insight into how consumer firms operate. He became really intrigued by the type of insights they seek out, with the brand being the most important. Rytis decided to start Latana as a spin-off within Dalia, with the ultimate vision to demystify the brand and provide marketers with the tool they need to make data-driven brand decisions.
45. Sam Sheppard
Sam Sheppard is the co-founder of Cabana, a digital marketing agency based in Manchester, UK. The team at Cabana help businesses in a range of industries to acquire, convert, and retain new customers through the use of digital technology. After graduating from the University of Sheffield in 2014, Sam took an entry-level marketing job, giving him experience in a wide range of marketing disciplines. It quickly became clear that one field in particular, digital, was the future of the industry. Now at Cabana, an agency he started with a couple of friends in early 2020, Sam is responsible for the agency’s search marketing function – increasing clients’ website traffic through channels such as search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC).
46. Sarkis Hakopdjanian
Sarkis Hakopdjanian is an experienced business and marketing consultant with extensive education and training from Canada’s leading academic and corporate institutions. He’s a published author in a textbook on the psychological influence of technology on consciousness. He offers a wealth of knowledge and experience in understanding human behavior through the psychology of sales, marketing, and management. After working for over 10 years in the corporate world, Sarkis decided to enroll back in school to study human behavior through psychology. During his studies, he realized that many health practitioners are passionate about helping people with their health, but struggle with the business and marketing aspects of their practice. He chose to found The Business Clinic to support health practitioners in business and marketing.
47. Sean Pour
Sean Pour is the co-founder of Sellmax, a used car buying company based out of San Diego, California. At the age of 14 he started working at his family’s company, inspiring him to continue in the industry. With over ten years of experience dealing with the purchasing and selling of used vehicles, Sean has become an expert in his field. His alma mater is San Diego State University, where he graduated with a degree in computer science. Sean has further specialties in web design and online marketing, skills he has employed to drive the success of SellMax. In his free time, Sean loves running, reading, and spending time with his family.
48. Stephanie Conway
Stephanie Conway grew up in the UK, then at 18 got accepted into a university in Los Angeles. After graduation, she loved the weather and lifestyle so much that she decided to stay and forge a career for herself in brand marketing and events, working on global marketing campaigns for brands and celebrities. For seven years, Stephanie worked in public relations and marketing for powerhouse brands like Samsung, Audi & T-Mobile at agency level in both the US & UK. Wanting something more she quit her stable agency career to develop her own marketing virtual assistant business which would enable her to live a laptop lifestyle and explore the world. Now, the Northern English girl with both UK & US passports has rebranded herself as a marketing digital nomad, currently residing in beautiful Bali.
49. Stephanie Purcell
A freelance producer by day working in film, TV and international sports; Stephanie started doing interior design as a fun artistic side venture while pairing with her husband’s real estate investment business. This gave her the perfect opportunity to practice her design skills while experimenting with styles. She is big on re-purposing items, finding budget-friendly solutions, and making a space unique. Her company, Redesigned Classics, specializes in eclectic, travel-inspired, often vintage, and color inclusive designs.
50. Tehzeeb Lalani
Tehzeeb is a young and dynamic entrepreneur with a degree in Clinical Nutrition and Food Studies from New York University. She is the proprietor of a Mumbai-based health and nutrition consultancy service called Scale Beyond Scale (SBS) where she helps her clients look beyond the weighing scale and guides them through a host of health woes – from diabetes to heart disease and everything in between. She has seen 300+ clients so far from all walks of life. In 2016, she co-designed an intensive, experiential, 6-week curriculum for Nutritionists and Dietitians who aspire to start and subsequently scale up their private-practice. 80+ students have graduated from this program thus far and have gone on to create successful nutrition businesses.
Young Entrepreneurs from V-Z
51. Waylon Chin
Waylon Ian Chin is the CEO & Managing Partner at First Serve Partners, a Miami based venture capital firm made up of business leaders, pop-culture influencers and current/former professional athletes. The firm invests across sports, media and entertainment, and uses their unique perspective, strategic relationships and experience in engaging emerging generations – millennials and Gen-Zers – to capitalize on what’s new and what’s next.
We hope you enjoyed this post about Young Entrepreneurs!
If you know of any awesome young entrepreneurs we should feature, let’s start by having them featured on IdeaMensch. You can learn more about our interviews with entrepreneurs, makers and doers here.
