10 teenage CEO stories to inspire you

When it comes to doing business, we mostly assume entrepreneurs to be someone who is at least 20 years old, they must have finished college, and must have a strong financial background. This is an outdated idea because in today's world new ideas, executed well, are even more important. The business idea is always unique and different from what others are doing, or better in terms of quality and efficiency. More important than someone's age and college degree is a willingness to do the hard work that leads to becoming a CEO. Ultimately, new business ideas are easy enough to come up with which is why we keep seeing young entrepreneurs popping up and many of them are in fact teenagers. Here are a few to inspire you:

Ben Pasternak

Failing is just one more step in bringing you closer to success, and that is what we learn from the life of Ben Pasternak.

Born in Sydney and living in Soho, New York, Ben is an Australian tech CEO who created software at the age of 13 and by the age of 15 he was getting offers from both Facebook and Google for an internship. Although tempting, he was confident that he can do something greater with his software than those options, so he rejected both offers and decided to drop out of the school and start an app named flogg. Flogg connects young people together where they can purchase and sell items, but sadly, the company didn't last long due to lack of profit. As positive as he was in pursuing his dream, he learned from this experience and used this failure to learn from. He then founded nuggs, an American based nutriment tech, that has since made US$57M while keeping profits at the forefront of his business planning. What is more important about nuggs is its unique idea of plant-based chicken nugget which got him the attention of many other companies. He is currently listed in Forbes under 30 wealthy entrepreneurs.

Callum Daniel

At the age of just 7, Callum became the youngest CEO in the UK. His mother realised her son was always fascinated by robots, so she decided to bring him one that he could build by himself. He went through learning coding to be able to make it move. It took him about four weeks to build the robot his mother brought for him from the store. Not being able to find a robotic coding course for kids made Callum decide to open a company to help other kids learn. Callum had to go through a long process starting from searching for robotic materials, to lectures online, and making notes kid friendly, to finally be able to make a whole company work seamlessly online. At his age, he is not just smart but also very generous and humble to provide free courses to those kids who cannot afford it to make sure he helps to make as many kids learn robotic coding as possible.

Alina Morse

Every kid likes to eat candy, which sometimes also gives them teeth issues. When Alina used to visit places with her father, she used to get candy. Her father once told her not to have candy because it has a lot of sugar in it, and it is not good for her health. That is when the idea began! She asked her father if they could make their own candy that don't have sugar in it, so it doesn't harm our health, and we can still enjoy it. Her family funded her $7,500 in startup funds trying to make it happen. After many failed attempts, research, and trials, they finally made what they were looking for and named it zollipop. She was just 13 when she started Her company, and it has grown so fast since its inception that now it is worth over $6 billion dollars despite her fast growth in becoming rich, she has decided not to quit her education and is currently thinking about which college to enrol in.

Hillary Yip

Parents are often worried about their kids having access to content online that is made for adults. Once their kids go into the world of the internet, it is a world which often becomes hard for us to judge who is who. There are cases of kids being manipulated and cases where kids have faced online abuse without their parents knowing. Hillary yip Hong Kong-based CEO of Minor Mynas came up with the idea of making a platform where kids of her age could hang out and also learn from each other at the same time. This also helps from a very early age since it's an international platform for kids, they get used to hanging out with kids of their age from different parts of the world.

Shravan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran

India is a country that today is a hub of producing CEOs. Whether we look at Microsoft or google we will find out the person holding the CEO title to have Indian roots, and it is of no surprise that one of the youngest CEOs and techies app developers are Indian brothers named Shravan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran, they started their app development company named godimensions when they were 12 and 14. Their app ‘catch me cop’ got the attention of thousands, maybe even millions. Steve Jobs is their inspiration, they said. Up until now, they didn't decide to do anything on a large scale despite being offered investment from big firms, however, they do want to go big with their plan and are optimistic that half of the app users in India will probably use their apps in future.

carson kropfl

Where there's a need and there's a person who takes that need as an idea for a business, the potential for that business to become a reality becomes very high and that's what happened in the case of Carson Kropfl the young teenage boy. Carson just wanted to be able to put his skateboard inside his school locker, but the locker was smaller than the size of his skateboard and that's when he decided to cut the size of his skateboard by the help of his parents he got the tools he needed and was not only able to reshape the skateboard but sold it to his schoolmates and got the attention of a dealer which made it possible for him to sell 700 skateboards in 2 years at a price of $100 per piece every sale he made, he made sure to donate to ocean conservation because his main goal is to be able to help our planet and ocean conservation.

Jack Bloomfield

When you meet someone ambitious and motivated towards their goals you will not see that person trying to find an excuse for not using their potential and that is true of Jack Bloomfield. A teenage CEO of bloom ventures from Brisbane, Australia, Jack says there's no excuse for people who can start their own business and are not doing so because the internet has made it easier. He started his first business just at the age of 12 and is now worth $1 million dollars after launching multiple eCommerce stores, all without any financial backing from his parents.

Carson Grill

After the paint bucket they kept in their house for touch-ups became extremely rusty over a period of time, 15-year-old Carson and his father came up with the idea of making a cup that removes clumps when the cup is shaken. They claim the quality of paint doesn't change for years. They named their invention the touch-up cup. In just two years' time touch up cup made $220,000 (Link12) and since then they have also more add on products on their list like donut fresh muffins, a demo is available on their website for those curious to see if it really works and can be ordered online. Their products are now also available in stores like Walmart.

samantha zumwalt

Sometimes we judge children after they begin writing or drawing on walls because we see them making a mess, but we often forget the other side of it is a good sign showing your child is creative and exploring and their brain. When 15-year-old Samantha Zumwalt asked her Mom to get her a slime (a slippery liquid substance kids like to play with) her mom didn't allow her thinking she will make a mess out of it but eventually got her one. It only took a week of playing with it for her daughter to realise the market for it can help her do business. Her mother helped her to start a company, and they named it Samantha slime shop and made over $100,000 in their first year, and they're doing pretty well ever since.

cory nieves

To buy a car for his mother, Cory Nieves initially started selling chocolates in a restaurant but after some time he turned that idea into selling cookies for which his mom helped him try to make the best recipe. It took them a year to finally get the taste they wanted with most of the ingredients being natural, after which they launched their own cookie company and named it Mr. Cory's cookie which was trending soon after their launch. He became a millionaire at the age of 15 and secured a $100,000 investment. He also got a lot of attention for his style and fashion. Being one of the youngest and most successful CEO’s of all time. He's been interviewed by the Washington Post, Oprah, CNBC, and other media giants. He is an inspiration for many other teenage children like him to believe in themselves and never give up on their dreams.