Today we are looking at 15 young women who are building and running some of the next great companies. These women who range in age from 15-29 are running multi-million dollar business in a diverse set of industries. Check out these women and the companies they are building…
Sarah Prevette
Company: Sprouter
Age: 28
Sarah Prevette wanted to find a better way to get answers to her pressing business questions so she started an online community for it called Sprouter. Sprouter is a fast paced environment that focuses on connecting entrepreneurs to socialize and share tips. Sarah has grown Sprouter to 10’s of thousands of users and is backed by angel investors. The community has been featured in numerous publications and is posed to grow as we continue to see growth of online communities and networking.
Ashley Qualls
Company: Whateverlife.com
Age: 20
Ashley started Whateverlife.com back in 2004 at only 14 years old and has been working with websites since the age of 9. The site was meant to provide free Myspace layouts and HTML tutorials for her age group. Now she has turned down offers to buy the company for as much as 1.5 million. According to the site the company receives anywhere from 130,000 – 360,000 daily visitors.
Catherine Cook
Company: MyYearBook.com
Age: 22
Catherine founded MyYearBook.com with her brother David Cook and has grown it into the most popular teen site in the world and a top 30 website overall. The site boasts over 25 million members since it was founded in 2005 and has revenue of over 24 million. With over $17 million in funding and a passionate user base the two founders look to keep building the platform to serve their community.
Justine Ezarik
Company: iJustine
Age: 26
Justine Ezarik is the definition of internet celebrity. Justine has over 1.2million Twitter followers, 400,000+ Facebook fans and almost 1 million subscribers to her YouTube channel all from creating viral comic videos online. In 2009 it was estimated her videos had been viewed over 64 million times and she makes over $75,000/year just from YouTube. This celebrity status has also led her to numerous appearances in movies, tv shows, and commercials all while she keeps producing her own videos that brought her to this fame.
Lauren Bush
Company: FEED
Age: 26
FEED is non-profit organization that in only a few years has had a major impact on the world by providing over 50 million meals worldwide. The idea is simple, FEED manufactures and sells reusable bags that resemble feed bags with half of the proceeds going towards feeding the hungry.
Lauren co-founded the company with Ellen Gustafson in 2007 and with a partnership from the United Nations World Food Program is pushing forward by producing more unique bags for people to buy. You can also now buy a variety of other items like bracelets, backpacks, t-shirts and other things at the online store.
Alexa von Tobel
Company: LearnVest
Age: 26
Alexa started her career at Morgan Stanley but left the job and invested $75,000 into her company LearnVest. LearnVest quickly recruited advisors like the former CEO of the Huffington Post and former COO of DailyCandy. After securing $1.1million in funding in 2009 the site launched and has signed up over 100,000 members.
LearnVest focuses on helping young women develop good financial habits early on in life. Today the company has raised over $5.5million in funding and with an experienced team behind it they are poised for growth.
Jennifer Hyman & Jenny Fleiss
Company: Rent the Runway
Age: 29 & 26
Ever dream of always having access to the latest fashion and hottest trends? Rent the Runway lets you rent dresses and accessories from over 100 designers and brands. The company has over 500,000 members to its member only platform and sees 20,000 more join each week.
With over $15million in funding and being called the Netflix of fashion the sky is the limit for these two ambitious young women.
Kyle Smitley
Company: Barley & Birch
Age: 25
Barley & Birch is an organic clothing line for kids founded by Kyle Smitley in 2008. The clothing line was quickly picked up by mommy bloggers and outlets that focused on eco-friendly products.
In 2009 Kyle led the company to over $400,000 in revenue and to the shelves of 25 stores.
Maddie Bradshaw
Company: M3 Girl Designs
Age: 15
Maddie Bradshaw is the founder of the $1.6million a year company, M3 Girl Designs. What started as simple locker decorations has turned into a thriving company for young girls. The companies necklaces and designs are sold throughout the U.S. and they sell over 50,000 necklaces a month.
Maddie has plans to expand the company into other accessories beyond just necklaces in the near future.
Danielle Snyder and Jodie Snyder
Company: Dannijo
Age: 25 & 28
These two sisters have always had a thing for fashion and designing jewelery. Even in high school friends took note of their creativity which led them to open their first store in Jacksonville, FL. Even though they ended up closing that store as they went off to college the two reunited in NYC a few years later to revisit their passion.
They launched Dannijo in 2008 and it quickly grew as their jewelry was worn by celebrities like Beyonce and has been seen at New York’s fashion week, in shows like Gossip Girl and the Today Show. Today the company boasts over $1 million in revenue and has been seen on numerous celebrities and fashion magazines.
Rachel Hollis
Company: Chic Events
Age: 27
Rachel Hollis founded Chic Events in her basement back in 2004. Her passion for throwing parties and putting some of the best events together has grown the company into a team of 4 and revenue close to a million dollars.
The company is based in L.A. and focuses on high end events like movie premiers, destination weddings and just plain awesome parties!
Alexa Hirschfeld
Company: Paperless post
Age: 26
Paperless Post was founded in 2009 by Alexa and her brother on the idea that people would use the internet to send wedding invites. So far that hunch has been a solid one as they have secured the company $6.3 million in funding and brought it to profitability in 2010.
Today the company is continuing to grow as they bring the formal and personalized feel of offline communication to people with the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the online world.
Prerna Gupta
Company: Khush
Age: 28
Prerna had her “dream job” after college where she worked long days dealing with high end corporate clients and power-point slides. Realizing that she should not be dreading work at such a young age she set out to find something different where she could be happier.
Prerna left her corporate ties behind to jump into entrepreneurship where she created a social networking site that grew to over 2 million users. While that venture did not work out in the end it was the jump start she needed to launch Khush in 2009 that produced an iPhone music App that has grown to one of the top 20 paid apps.
Jill Donenfeld
Company: The Dish’s Dish
Age: 26
The Dish’s Dish is a customizable and healthy home chef service. Jill recognized that people are very busy and she wanted to create something that would help them eat healthier. The service works around a weekly visit where a trained chef prepares a series of meals that you chose for the entire week.
Currently The Dish’s Dish serves NYC, the Hamptons, Los Angeles and Malibu. The company has also launched a video series to help people plan, shop and cook like their chefs and hopes to be expanding to more cities in the US soon.
Juliette Brindak
Company: MissOandFriends.com
Age: 21
Meet Juliette who released her first book at the age of 16 which has gone on to sell over 100,000 copies. Juliette came up with the idea for Miss O and Friends at the age of 10 and by 19 the company was worth over 15 million.
The company focuses on the “tween” market and prides itself on being for girls built by girls. Juliette prides the company on helping build self-esteem in young girls and developing who they are.
