Students Who Started Successful Businesses

It is never too early or too late to start your own business. For example, check out these inspiring stories about five golden youth. These young entrepreneurs are busily running their own businesses and earning six figures a year, all while still going to school.

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The Making of a Successful Young Entrepreneur

There are plenty of ways for college students to go out and accomplish great things. Take your inspiration from the young achievers below.

Kevin Gelfand

At the tender age of 23, while he was a student at San Diego State University, golden youth Kevin Gelfand co-founded a company that produces protein drinks.

Kevin stepped out of the San Diego University gym in July 2010, sipping on a warm and lumpy protein drink. “It tasted like dirt,” he says. He decided to mix his own healthy and delicious cocktail of fresh fruits, nonfat milk, and protein powder. It tasted so good Kevin decided to start a company based on the recipe.

He called his gym buddy Martin Reiman, another golden youth. Kevin told Martin about his business ideas. Together they came up with more than 60 different cocktail tastes. They decided to call the company Shake Smart. Before long, they had set up a Shake Smart kiosk near the gym. Almost immediately, they were selling as many as 120 drinks a day.

Kevin graduated from SDU in June 2012, but the story doesn’t end there. This spring their company opened its second location. Kevin and Martin expect the company to earn around $740,000 this year.

Alexandra Abraham

In May 2010 Alexandra Abraham was a student at Seattle University. Another of our golden youth, she was working at her job as a waitress when she slipped on the wet floor and landed on her back. However, she was more annoyed than hurt.

In order to prevent such slips, Alexandra asked her boss to install a basin that would catch the drips from washed dishes. However, her boss told her that such thing didn’t even exist!

Alexandra didn’t believe him, and she spent the next few months trying to find one on the Internet. She didn’t find one, so Alexandra created a small plastic tray herself. What’s more, she found a Chinese manufacturer who agreed to make a prototype. Alexandra called it DripCatch.

Alexandra sold 600 DripCatch trays in 2012. Moreover, she earned almost $1 million from DripCatch that year. Alexandra was completely focused on her business idea during that year. Therefore, research paper writing service was her best friend in school.

Sam Barnett

Sam Barnett was 22 and a student at California Institute of Technology when he started a fund that uses a special computerized quantitative model to trade money. Called SBB Research Group, the fund grew out of Sam’s early interest in the stock market.

Sam grew up in Highland Park where his father runs a real estate investment business which invests in real estate. When he was only 10, Sam asked his father to buy him some stocks from Emerson Electric. The stock price for Emerson was pretty cheap at the time, so his father did as Sam suggested. However, the stock rose 25% within a only couple of months. By the time Sam left home for college, he had about $250,000 of his own money.

In the year 2010, Sam developed a computerized quantitative model for trading his money. He found investors who were interested, and SBB Research Group was born. His fund is now worth $50 million, and this golden youth is thinking about opening another fund.

Oliver Bogner

Oliver Bogner is 19 and a student at Chapman University. He also owns a company called Bogner Entertainment, which produces reality shows.

Oliver started his company when he just starting high school. At the age of 13, when most young people are learning about persuasive writing, Oliver convinced his grandmother to become his first investor. He wanted to buy audio equipment to become a DJ. By the time he was 15, he had earned more than $100,000. Oliver’s father, aware of his son’s talents, suggested to Oliver that he start producing reality television.

At the age of 19, Oliver is the youngest executive producer of reality TV in Los Angeles. He sells the TV shows he creates to various cable networks, earning around $100,000 from such deals.

Riley Goodman

Riley Goodman and Jake Director have been friends since grade school. Together, they had long nurtured a dream to start their own business. Since they both played lacrosse, their idea to develop high-quality socks for lacrosse players was a natural. These days, 25 stores sell Strideline socks, and the company earned around $200,000 last year.

Riley is now a senior at the University of Washington.

Are You a Student with an Idea for a Business?

Starting your own business while you’re still a student can be challenging. However, as these five golden youth illustrate, college students can take the plunge and start successful businesses. If you have a good business idea, what’s stopping you from kicking it off?

Why not take a high school or college-level entrepreneurship class? Talking it over with a teacher and other students could help you to understand the entrepreneurial process more clearly. If you are passionate about your idea, it just might become the next big thing.