When I first began thinking about a young entrepreneur, my initial thoughts jumped to Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson and Lord Alan Sugar, who all became successful when they were young. But after some further consideration, I realised I was thinking first and foremost about Mark Zuckerberg because he’s one of the most high-profile entrepreneurs. He’s the picture of success everyone has. I was thinking about Lord Alan Sugar as well, because he is also a high profile entrepreneur, and also likely because I loved his show The Apprentice, and I find his Twitter feed very entertaining. I began to realise that while I was in awe of Lord Alan Sugar’s success, I wasn’t particularly interested in following his lead. In spite of being an admirer of these businessmen’s savvy entrepreneurial skills, they didn’t create a desire in me to start a business.
I love YouTube, so one evening as I was scrolling through my subscription feed, I saw a new video from Zoella, one of YouTube’s biggest success stories. It occurred to me that Zoella, a.k.a. Zoe Sugg, was a young entrepreneur that had much more of an inspirational influence on me than the ‘mainstream’ entrepreneurs.
Over the course of eight years, Zoe Sugg has grown into a successful blogger and vlogger, and throughout this period of time she became an entrepreneur, as she used her love of filming and writing to create a brand name that people recognised all around the world, based on the personality they loved from YouTube.
In February of 2009, Zoe Sugg started her beauty, fashion and lifestyle blog, “Zoella”. Her following started to grow, so she was inspired to create a YouTube channel later that same year. The internet loved her and her name flew all around the world, with millions of people watching her content and reading her blog. By the age of twenty-four, Zoe Sugg had over 7.5 million subscribers on her main channel. Her success continued with more and more people watching her videos. As of June 2017, her main channel has nearly 12 million subscribers. She also has a major following on all the main social media sites, such as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
So, Zoe Sugg is primarily a vlogger. At what point did she become an entrepreneur? Zoe saw the opportunities that were coming from having such a following online. Zoe’s YouTube Channel essentially became her business, as endless companies continue to negotiate with her to have their products featured in her videos. But Zoe went further than just making money from advertising. She took her love of beauty and lifestyle products, and now her worldwide image has developed into her own brand. Zoella Beauty was launched in September 2014, and her first beauty range became a major success. Since then she has created other ranges, including the Tutti Fruity collection, The Sweet Inspirations Range and, inspired by her love of the festive season, a Christmas collection.
Zoe Sugg created a brand image out of her own name and personality. In 2016, she went a step further and launched Zoella Lifestyle, which was a homeware range including candles, diffusers, stationary, cushions etc. The same year, she collaborated with her brother Joe Sugg (known as Thatcher Joe on YouTube) to create Sugg Life merchandise which sells t-shirts and hoodies as well as phone cases and stickers. Zoella was moving quickly and dramatically from being an amateur vlogger who filmed her own videos, to an inspirational entrepreneur capable of bringing out products people are crazy about.
Zoe Sugg inspires me because she became an entrepreneur almost by chance. I don’t think Zoella ever had a plan; rather, she just did something she loved and through hard work, dedication, determination and probably a substantial amount of luck, she was able to grow a business out of her passion. I find this inspiring, because it shows that you don’t need to have business brains bursting out of your ears to be an entrepreneur. You don’t need to be selling lemonade as a kid and developing gadget products as a teenager to have entrepreneurial insights and abilities. You just need to be passionate and provide a product or service that people want.
While growing her following on YouTube and creating her own products, Zoella battled personal problems such as anxiety and panic attacks, made worse at times by the publicity she was receiving. I find it inspiring that she was experiencing these personal issues and still found the passion for creativity to bring out products she knew people would love, even if it would have been easier for her at the time to minimise publicity.
Zoella inspires me as an entrepreneur because she managed to create a brand by being herself, by being open with her followers, and by facing up to her own fears and anxieties, in order to work long and hard to produce high quality products and follow through with a business she had not originally planned on. If Zoella inspires me in one way it would be to take opportunities as they come.