They’ve got big ideas and they’re not going to let age, a pandemic — or anything else — stand in their way.
Here are five local entrepreneurs under the age of 25 talking about their businesses, what inspires them, and where they hope to take their ventures:
Devon Creasman – ICT Box
What started as an idea to help local businesses by Devon Creasman has become a growing business in its own right.
Creasman, 20, started ICT Box just as Covid-19 restrictions last year began to clamp down on brick-and-mortar operations. ICT Box aggregates and delivers gift boxes and bundles that feature goods from local vendors.
The idea was Wichita-centric gifts that also get the names of local businesses out more broadly among the public and give those vendors a new avenue to potential customers.
“I recognized the importance of an e-commerce platform (for businesses that didn’t have one),” Creasman says. “It’s snowballed from there.”
She recently moved her operations to an undisclosed location in Old Town to double her square footage and better enable her to handle the increasingly large orders she is receiving.
This year, the plan is to continue to find more local vendor partners and continue to share their stories through their products and on social media and other digital platforms.
Boxes include information on each vendor and can be compiled on the business’ website, ictboxshop.com. And, Creasman says, deliveries can be made locally or shipments sent anywhere in the U.S.
“Anybody can get a slice of Wichita anywhere they are,” she says.
Cody Hanna — Victory Pyrotechnics
Cody Hanna is having a blast.
Hanna, 21 and a senior at Kansas State University studying operations and supply chain management, founded Victory Pyrotechnics in 2017. The Clearwater native has since grown it to an entertainment business that has presented multi-media fireworks displays across Kansas.
A past participant in the Koch Industries Inc.-backed Youth Entrepreneurs program, Hanna has plans for the business to blow up even more.
“We are still small in comparison to some of our competitors, but our success year over year has really proved the model,” he says. “Once I am able to dedicate all my time and energy to the business after graduating … I really think we will scale fast.”
That business is a passion for Hanna, one he credits Youth Entrepreneurs for helping show him it could also become a career.
After he graduates, Hanna says he will be on the hunt for more community partners — as well as ways to give back to those communities through his business whenever he has the chance.
“We are truly just getting started,” Hanna says.
Tiana Hardwell – Tiana in Real Life
Tiana Hardwell is leveraging a business model of the digital age.
Hardwell, 13, is a social media influencer, with her Facebook page "Tiana in Real Life" gaining a growing following. Local companies are asking her to do product reviews.
Not sold on the business model? Fox News reported last year that social media influencers on average can pull in $30,000 to $100,000 a year — all the way up to the $1 million per sponsored post commanded by Kylie Jenner.
“I am already on some social media, so it made sense to use my following to help others promote their business,” Hardwell says.
Hardwell says her mom — Ti’Juana Hardwell, owner and editor of Mamarazzi Entertainment Magazine — is her business hero. And she’s intent on carrying on that entrepreneurial spirit.
In addition to having been part of Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland for several years, the younger Hardwell also took home a “People’s Choice” award from the Kansas Youth Virtual Entrepreneurship Challenge last summer.
And as her following grows, Hardwell hopes someday it won’t just be other people's products she helps sell.
“I would really like to start selling products of my own,” she says. "I would also like to travel to showcase food and businesses all over the world.”
Jocelyn Galicia – 2U Auto
Jocelyn Galicia is bringing her business to you.
Early in her college career, Galicia, 24, was inspired by some family members who had started doing auto maintenance on the side — and for herself, a particularly long wait for an oil change at a big-box shop — to bring a new convenience to the masses.
“Everybody is trying to get their time back,” she says. “That’s the trend in everything.”
That was the birth of 2U Auto, which in recent years has pivoted based on demand to become a mobile auto cleaning service.
“We’ve cleaned thousands of cars in the Wichita area,” Galicia says of the service, which can be booked at 2uauto.com.
A first-generation American, Galicia says she was inspired to start her own business someday from an early age after seeing her mom work for a woman-owned business.
While the pandemic slowed business for a time in 2020, Galicia says work — she has around eight people working as contractors to meet demand — has picked back up.
In 2021, she hopes to expand to new markets and build the monthly subscription side of the business.
And from there, she hopes what started here begins to get a clean start far beyond Wichita.
“The goal is to take it global,” she says.
Madeline Shonka – The Co-Immunity
Madeline Shonka wants to be the helping hand she had trouble finding — all with the goal of transforming how people suffering from chronic illness receive care.
Shonka, 22 and a senior at Wichita State University, was diagnosed with lupus and narcolepsy with cataplexy as a senior in high school.
What she found as she began navigating that diagnosis was difficulty in finding available resources, especially as it relates to the emotional toll of dealing with chronic illness.
To help change that, she launched Co-Immunity in 2019 to become that connective tissue.
The organization’s foundation was granted 501(c)3 status last year and now Shonka is launching Co-Immunity Technology Solutions, which is an LLC and will be the technology arm — the app will be ready this month — that connects patients to resources at the touch of a button.
She is nearing a six-figure fundraising goal to propel the entire platform in 2021, with a goal of getting 5,000 participants in Co-Immunity by the end of the year.
For Shonka, who counts her mother and Steve Jobs as her entrepreneurial heroes, there are no limits to what she hopes that generosity ultimately means.
“I want us to be a nationwide company that revolutionizes the way patient care is done," she says.
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4% - The percentage of small business owners in the U.S. under the age 29.
Source: Guidant Financial
63% -- Percentage of Americans who believe entrepreneurship is a good career choice.
Source: Babson College
240 — That’s how many of every 100,000 people between the ages of 20 and 34 start a business every month.
Source: Kauffman Foundation
