Who would believe that one day a teenager by a lack of money would be able to create the largest company of scented candles in the world? This is exactly how Michael J. Kittredge began his journey as an entrepreneur.
The year was 1969 and Kittredge had led hitherto a common teenage life in his high school. Involved in a rock band Kittredge had his first disappointment when his dream of success guitarist evaporated by the end of the band. Disappointed that his dream was over, Michael was seen without money, without many hopes and to make matters worse it was Christmas time.
"I was 16 -year- old kid," Kittredge reflected in an April 2007 interview with Gifts & Decorative Accessories magazine. "My rock band had just broken up, I had no money, and I needed a gift for my mother." It was in trying to find a solution to his problem that Michael began his unexpectedly career that although it was not a rock star, would turn into a successful entrepreneur.
No money to buy the coveted Christmas gift for his mother, Michael instead relied on his own resourcefulness. Kittredge looked around, and started collecting scraps on your home. It was with old metal bowls, used crayons, old milk containers and fragrances that Michael produced his first candle. Although the problem had been solved in time for Christmas, his mother did not receive a gift.
The entrepreneur side of Kittredge prevailed. The candle was eventually sold to a neighbor for US$2.00, and from that point Michael's life began to change. After selling his first creation Kittredge made a candle gift for his mother, but the urge to turn it into a business that generate profit remained in his mind.
Michael despite the lack of experience in business and had no money, but he believed in hi...
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... I come to the following conclusion: an idea is worth absolutely nothing! What counts is to run it!
Every day I see myself, and I see people putting off projects in an attempt to find the right time to put them into practice now. We tend to stay in our comfort zone without wanting to go beyond that. With all these concepts studied can clearly see that there is no right time, nor guarantee of success without risks, but the view can be formed when the things and the way scenarios are winning, we need to be more creative and learn to deal with what we cannot predict.
An entrepreneur does not always come in trying to meet an existing need, as well as Yankee Candle, E-bay, Starbucks, Staples, and many other business brought values where none existed before. Entrepreneurial thinking is exactly this, possibility to explore 'uncharted waters' and take most advantage of it.
You are the social media director for Tiblana Candle Company. Tiblana is a manufacturer and sells candles through partner retail stores such as novelty stores found in shopping malls, as well as big box retail and department stores, and online through sites such as Amazon.com. The company has a solid 20-year reputation for making popular household decor candles in a variety of scents and colors. Candles are sold in elegant, well-branded boxes. The primary customer base is women 30-45 years old (but Tiblana wants to start targeting women 45-60 as well). Tiblana’s CRM data shows that customers average eight purchases each over lifetime, very good for their niche. The company is profitable and growing.
When Michael Oher was a child, his life was a mayhem of homelessness and starvation. If you take a glimpse at him now, you never would have suspected that he came from such an unfortunate beginning. However, his book I Beat The Odds reveals certain times in his life where had he not made such phenomenal decisions for his future he might have not succeeded. This story also deciphers the reason he is so spectacular today, because of his past. Flashing back to Michael’s childhood, it is observed that Michael had an abounding amount of siblings in his family. He was one of the younger brothers, yet he felt the responsibility to foster his siblings at a very young age. His family never said “I love you” and they by no means had enough food to go around. His
Before he goes to Briarcrest, Michael Oher has no family taking care of him, and he has no future. Michael needs some one: “Big Mike was going to drop out,” said Big Tony. “And if he dropped, out he’d be like all his friends who dropped out: dead, in jail, or on the street selling drugs, just waiting to be dead or in jail” (3). With no one to guide Michael, he has no f...
As a single parent, Michael takes on the roles of father and mother to his teenage son. His brother-in-law even refers to him as, “a non-traditional mother,” in, “S.O.Bs” (Day and Vallely). Michael is a non-traditional parent in that he displays the qualities of a traditional mother as well as a traditional father. He fulfills the expectations of traditional father in disciplining his son, George Michael. When Michael chooses to transfer his studious son to a new school in, “S.O.Bs,” he is oblivious to George Michael’s unhappiness (Day and Vallely). After discovering what he believes to be the truth regardi...
There were many buildings around him with open doors, but Michael didn't know if they were places that served food. Plus he didn't have any money. As he started to become extremely hungry, Michael started to sit down as his stomach began to bother him. Never before in his life had he felt this way. This feeling of uselessness because he had no energy and this pain that came from his stomach. He felt awful and slowly began to wish he had never left. But from where did he come from? Michael had no recollection of where he came from or how he got to where he was. He had forgotten everything, even his own name. As Michael was sitting, he looked across the street and saw a man sitting on the ground just like he was. He began to pay attention to what the man was doing. There was a small bucket and as people were walking by, they would drop coins and dollar bills. Michael, seeing this wanted to do the same. But how, he didn't have a bucket or anything for people to their coins and bills in. Then he thought of something he considered brilliant. Instead of having to work for the money, Michael thought it would be easier if he were to just take the money from the man across the street. It was faster, and required a lot less work. He had to think of way to get the bucket though. He began to devise a plan. Michael thought that a distraction would be
The location didn’t aid the struggling teen’s life as Kurt said, “Aberdeen was nothing but rednecks and guns and booze.” He eventually found jobs as janitor and a YMCA lifeguard, but that was not quite the improvement a troubled teen needed. Kurt also struggled with fitting in during his school years. He spent much of his time hanging out with girls because he couldn’t deal with the generally macho attitudes of the guys in his school. He said, “I'm a heterosexual . . . big deal. But if I was a homosexual, it
Michael attended Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington. In high school Michael played baseball, football, and basketball. In his Sophomore Michael and Harvest Leroy Smith, Michael’s best friend, were invited to try out for the varsity team. At the time Michael was five feet nine inches and his friend, Harvest Smith, was six feet six inches. Harvest Smith ended up making the team, but Michael was cut. Michael went home and cried. Micheal later said that that was the worst day of his childhood. Michael was put on the junior varsity team. Although Michael didn’t make the varsity team the head coach, Clifton “Pop” Herring saw Michael’s potential. Coach Herring only lived a block away from Michael so he took Michael to school everyday an hour before school started. This gave Michael a gre...
Michael’s life began in Brooklyn, New York, on February 17th, 1963, where his parents James and Delores always stood by his side. His father, known for his unending support, always gave Michael advice on what to do, never letting him down. His mother made sure Michael headed in the right direction with everything he did. As a child he enjoyed athletics, engaging in basketball, baseball and football. He practiced baseball with his dad, persistently playing catch whenever time allowed. Baseball was his favorite. Even at a young age he had already tasted success by being voted Most Valuable Player on his team. “That was the first big accomplishment in my life,” Michael recalled (Harris, Laurie).
raised funds for people in Africa. Also, Michael was very generous as he made a
Known as one the largest global home-furnishing retailers, IKEA currently has over 139,000 employees located in 53 countries and generates roughly 39.3 billion US dollars in annual sales (IKEA, 2014). Ingvar Kamprad began selling different types of items and founded the company in Agunnaryd, Sweden in 1943. Kamprad found that his greatest entrepreneurial opportunity was in furniture. Many households at that time were changing from receiving furniture that was handed down to desiring new, inexpensive, and stylish furniture. Kamprad was able to find a business opportunity to change the current social situation since a lot of the furniture was priced high at the time. He wanted to be able to offer his customers a wide selection of functional and well-designed furniture at a price many could afford (Bartlet & Nanda, 1996). Kamprad had a better understanding of what the customer desired and how to go about meeting those desires at prices that were lower than other furniture companies, in turn creating a competitive environment (De Kluyver & Pearce, 2011).
It was the cold snowy morning of December 24 in Oklahoma City, and Christmas of 1870 was right around the corner. The Anderson Household of 4 was prepared to get their holiday spirit on by waking up at 10:00 to Mrs. Anderson’s wonderful cooking. Next at 1:00 they are going to drop Maliciah off his grandparent’s house who settles 30 minutes away. Then @2:00 Anna (who’s 15 and the daughter) will go pick up some firewood for the fire place and set up the embellishments around the house. While Mr. Anderson sits around the house doing nothing, but watching the red flat screen television, eating all the food and snacks, and sleeping on the white and blue memory foam couch.
The book starts out with Michael explaining his experience in high school and his lack of interest in his classes. His passion was somewhere else; he wanted a career in acting so he ended up dropping out and moving to L.A. Michael explains that even though he didn’t attend his high school classes, he was able to learn similar lessons from his own life challenges. Some lessons he learned along the way include the areas in economics, comparative literature, physics, political science, and geography. Although Michael did not follow a
In the year 1930 a small business opened in Kent, Ohio known as Kent Jewelry. Joe Sabo originally opened this business as a watch maker. Mr. Sabo ran Kent Jewelry for approximately seventy years before the store switched ownership after Mr. Sabo’s death. The most recent owner is Dennis Andrei, and Mr. Andrei is the third owner of Kent Jewelry. Mr. Andrei attended Bowman Technical School for watch repair, and Mr. Andrei learned about watches, jewelry and clocks. Mr. Andrei worked in Cleveland to start out and then became the owner of a jewelry shop in Stow, Ohio. Kent Jewelry became available and Mr. Andrei decided that would be the next purchase to further Mr. Andrei’s career path. So, in 1997 Mr. Andrei became the owner of Kent Jewelry in downtown Kent. Mr. Andrei continues to run a small yet, successful business that looks to continue to thrive.
Harlan Kent has nearly 30 years of experience working in consumer-focused public and private businesses (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015). He has a proven track record of helping to build brands by driving profitable growth across multiple channels of distribution (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015). Harlan Kent served as CEO of Yankee Candles. He spent 13 years with Yankee Candle and under his leadership the company has seen tremendous growth, growing 2.5 times more while he was CEO (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015). Mr. Kent has helped to create a team that is focused on growth and innovations across all 565 company stores and 30,000 wholesale locations (Alex and Ani Names Harlan M. Kent as President, 2015).
The mother tells her this is not appropriate behavior. The mother then asks if they should look on amazon to see what she wants for Chanukah.