Entrepreneurs are a remarkable species. They jump far out of their comfort zone to follow their dreams, even if other people consider them crazy. They do things every day that others are not willing to do, even if nobody understands.
And, if they’re under 18, they’re faced with some uncertainty and sometimes even bigger risks and obstacles than adults. But, thank goodness, they’re our future and they have an indefatigable drive to keep pushing for their dreams to come true, no matter the cost.
As the school year comes to a close, we want to highlight the impressive students of the Young Entrepreneurs Academy – a partnership between Frisco ISD and the Frisco Chamber of Commerce.
These kids are a part of a groundbreaking educational program that guides students ages 11 to 18 through the process of starting and running real businesses/social movements over the course of a full academic year. (They’re now accepting applications for the 2020-2021 school year Y.E.A. U.S.A.)
Please visit each of these budding entrepreneur’s websites, buy their products, help them with introductions to potential partners, OR make an investment in their companies!
Written by each one of the Founders and CEOs of the following Y.E.A. companies:
Cool Wool
Co-Founded by Rena Garlock and Shreya Kulkarni: Many people want to save the environment but they have no idea how to do it.
Cool Wool helps solve both of those problems by selling 100% wool, non-toxic dryer balls that will help you save electricity, time, money, and the environment!
Made of 100% wool, the dryer balls will absorb the water from your clothing and shorten your drying time. They can also eliminate toxins in your home and help give scent your clothes.
Cool Wool is planning to launch their business on May 1, 2020, and releasing their website by May 20. Support Cool Wool by buying a dryer ball as they change the world-one dryer ball at a time!
Ad Bomb
Founder and CEO, Aparna Amarneethi: Ad Bomb is a unique company that wants to merge 21st-century technology into traditional outdoor advertising platforms.
We’ll do this by locating advertisements in a high traffic area and sending out information about the advertisements via bluetooth for nearby pedestrians.
We believe that every small business should reap the benefits of having digital and physical advertising to serve their advertising needs. We plan to launch our business in June because many of our target businesses will be marketing to consumers around then. Our future plans for this business are to set up a website and secure five locations within 2020.
Apparatus Diagnosing
Co-Founders, Shobhit Agarwal and Harkhik Sripuram: Apparatus Diagnosing aims to increase the efficiency in the process of diagnosing cancer.
The company plans to target local hospitals and sell directly to those hospitals. We’re still gathering all of the needed information and documents, so there isn’t a set launch date.
Apparatus is starting clinical trials downtown with the Institutional Review Board at UT Southwestern. Also, we’re in contact with a few doctors, including Dr. Brett Lee from Texas Health Frisco.
Second Brain
Founder and CEO, Taha Qamari: The Second Brain app provides students and professionals who want to be productive, organize everything into a schedule without having to juggle many different things.
An all-in-one application, it has everything you need to be productive, including a calendar and a schedule-based system that creates a plan for your day. It will also be able to pull in information from other applications and there will also be a section designed to help high school students plan and track achievements.
Second Brain is planning to launch around September of 2020. Let us do the heavy lifting while you do activities that matter most, being productive.
Generations Hope
Founder and CEO, Lindsey Kopplow: Generations Hope is a youth-led non-profit organization that seeks to improve the lives of children in local, multi-family communities by sharing love and hope through quality time, fellowship, and faith-based mentoring.
We would love to partner with other organizations that can help us in our mission to feed needy children and families.
This can be done with monetary donations, purchasing through our Amazon wishlist on our website, or providing grocery items.
Groundify
Founder and CEO, Gurnoor Narula: Groundify will serve as an innovative social enterprise that creates a circular economy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by repurposing spent coffee grounds to become a catalyst for new products rather than becoming a harmful pollutant in landfills.
Our mission, therefore, will be to champion the shift towards a circular economy in the coffee industry by redefining the way spent coffee grounds are repurposed to keep them in the economy for a sustained duration of time.
The company itself will provide a pickup service to our suppliers and pick up their spent coffee grounds, depositing them in our warehousing facilities rather than leaving them to decompose in landfills. Following this, our enterprise will repurpose these spent coffee grounds into a variety of marketable products such as facial scrubs, biodegradable fire logs, water treatment sponges, premium agricultural compost, and sale of vermiculture.
As an overarching theme, all of these products will be environmentally friendly end products derived from coffee grounds.
d-ball
Founder and CEO, Destiny Smith: d-ball is an app that can help athletes with their dribbling, passing, and shooting. The app not only helps athletes with the three main components of basketball but also boosts their confidence.
Some athletes aren’t confident but the d-ball app can fix that by helping them feel better about their technique. d-ball’s launch date is June 2020. The goal is to have videos that encourage others to improve on and off the court.
Academy Aid
Founder and CEO, Anika Chebrolu: Millions of children around the world do not have access to proper sports equipment.
AcademyAid aims to give these children a chance for a well-rounded education by providing schools in underprivileged areas with the materials and facilities they need for sports.
We plan to launch our company by May 2020 and will be taking donations online through our website starting April 13, 2020. AcademyAid hopes to make its first donation to Hill Street Government High School, Secunderabad, India, by the end of the next quarter.
Pawpular Playsets
Founder and CEO, Shishir Balamurali: Dogs, especially puppies, love to tear things apart, but it’s damaging in a lot of ways. Typical dog chews are hard to clean up, harmful to the environment, and can only be played with for a short amount of time.
My product solves that by making an alternative, long-lasting, and eco-friendly block puzzle for dogs. It’s made of four block puzzle pieces and will cost $10.99.
We plan to launch at the beginning of August, or, if the COVID-19 spread is still a threat, we will launch after it’s over.
Styled Stitch
Co-Founders, Varun Kedia and Shaaran Balamurugan: Many kids throw away their formal attire with only having worn it once or twice.
We want to allow them to get the same comforts as buying and wearing fresh clothing but with less waste.
Our company will help limit the amount of formal attire that gets thrown away and help save money. Our goal is to reduce the amount of resources that are being wasted and to reduce the number of clothing purchases that parents make.
Ballparkk
CEO, Aadit Jha, and CFO, Avaniko Asokkumar: Our app is designed to take the hassle out of finding parking at major sporting events.
Ballparkk saves people time by finding a private driveway within walking distance where event-goers can park.
Homeowners that live near sports stadiums benefit from a passive income, and sports fans save time and money. We plan to launch by the end of May.
Kulfi Kream
Co-Founders, Aum Pahuja Pahuja, Eshan Iyer, and Nehal Inturi: Our company is solving the problem of people with nut and gluten allergies who don’t have desserts that are fresh, natural, and inclusive.
We would like to launch in another year when the current pandemic has ended. After the first 6 months, we will assess our business performance and decide when to bring on additional employees. Until then, all labor for the company is voluntary.
Money Flow
CEO, Sarah Lamar, and CMO, Samuel Xavier: Money Flow is an app and website aimed at educating teens in money management skills with the help of teen-friendly financial terminology.
Preparing kids for financial concepts before they are introduced to them as adults, we pride ourselves in helping teens achieve financial literacy at a young age.
The Money Flow app is expected to launch in the fall of 2020.
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