Top 6 Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2015
It’s still so astonishing to see the rise in young entrepreneurs – we are no longer after the perfect job and scratching our heads wondering why we didn’t get the all-important call back. Instead young entrepreneurs are taking matters into their own hands by beating the economic crisis while giving the world something new and innovative.
After all what’s there to stop us?
Here are our the top 6 entrepreneurs to watch in 2015:
Jules Coleman & Tom NImmo, founders of Hassle
Hassle aims to mak it easier to get a cleaner. Rather than having to trawl through the internet trying to figure out who will provide a good service, you can browse reviews for cleaners in your area and book directly through the app. The service costs £10 per hour to use and around £8.50 goes to the cleaner.
The pair gained $6m (£3.8m( in funding from Accel Parrtners in May this year and could be set for bigs things in 2015.
Jamal Edwards, founder of SBTV
A 24 year from a west London council estate who carved out a business from a humble Youtube channel featuring grime rap and pop stars, this lead on to him achieving millions of views. Jamal was given his first camera at the age of 15 and within 8 years he grew a broadcasting company into an empire worth more than £8 million.
After being turned down 3 times, he finally managed to persuade Youtube to pay him a percentage of their advertising revenues for linking through from his videos. Jamal is now a Prince’s Trust ambassador, author or Self Belief: The Vision and counts Richard Branson as one of his friends
Arthur Kay, founder of Bio-Bean
Arthur Kay is the co-founder of energy start-up bio-bean, which is one of those innovative and obviously brilliant business ideas that leaves you asking “Why didn’t I think of that?”
The green energy company collects used coffee grounds from London’s wholesale producers and coffee shops (and we all know Londoners love their coffee – we produce over 200,000 tonnes of caffeinated waste), converts it into biodiesel and biomass pellets then sells it on to transport and heating industries.
Ben Towers, Towers Design
Ben has built a profitable digital media agency with impressive turnover and has a team of 15 people working for him, although ironically he’s not even old enough to hire people so has to have them as freelancers or interns.
He founded the Kent-based company in September 2011, aged 13, after working as a freelance web designer for two years and dealing with several requests from family friends who would give him £50 to create a website. Although the young entrepreneur admits that he has lost large contracts in the past due to misconceptions that young people aren’t sure of how to run s business – he has beaten all the odds with company turnover set to hit £500,000 in 2015.
Ella Woodwards, founder of Deliciously Ella
Ella Woodward is a 23 year old, who has grown the Deliciously Ella brand from a clean-eating blog, started after the young founder was diagnosed with a rare illness, into a lucrative business. Alongside her hugely popular blog posts – the site now gets over 150,000 hits a day and she has an app, runs events, cooking classes, produces products with partnering companies and most recently released a recipe book. Talk about kicking butt!
Ella’s unprecedented success is all based around her mission to get people eating vegetables with her vlogs (over 36,000 subscribers to date), daily newsletters (over 30,000 subscribers), book and online platforms filled with plant-based recipes.
Hyrum and Josh Cook, founder of Zeven Media
While sitting in their Manchester kitchen 2 years ago, the pair came up their business idea. Zeven Media specialises in digital booths for commercial events and retail venues; allowing users to pose for a photo and share it instantly via text, Facebook, Twitter or email as well as offering a branded printout.
A UK first for photo booths, the Cooks landed their first none other than Selfridges, on the back of an initial cold call when they first started trading and the pair have since gone on to work with some of the country’s leading brands. Their portfolio of high-profile clients includes Harvey Nichols, Revolution, Harrods, DKNY, Adidas and The Shard, and they also boast celebrity endorsements from the likes of Olly Murs and Alexa Chung.
