If Your Business Isn’t on Social Media, You Barely Have a Business
How a teenager became a serial entrepreneur and a pioneer of the future of business on social media
“Error! Your account has been deleted for violating our terms.”
Brendan couldn’t believe his eyes as he faced this message while he was trying to log in to Instagram.
He used this niche account to feature all the worst sports calls by referees in professional sports leagues — including the NBA, MLB, and NHL — and invested $10,000 into growing it by hiring a social media management company.
Within four months, the brand reached an audience of over 300,000 followers. But as he began monetizing it through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and sponsored posts, Instagram deleted it without warning. It was all lost within seconds.
After trying everything to get his account back and nothing worked, the boy put his huge loss behind him and just moved on.
“Dealing with business failure should be an important part of my learning curve,” he thought to himself.
It was 2017, and although Brendan was an eighth-grader, this was not his first entrepreneurial endeavor. But his first failed one.
He was born in Summit, New Jersey, to a father who is Vice President of adult books at Penguin Random House and a mother who is an interior designer.
Growing up, he was frustrated that he couldn’t make extra money like his older sister, Alyssa, who was babysitting, which is not possible for him because most parents prefer female babysitters².
But with the help of Mr. Google, he found a solution.
He went to a dollar store and bought a sleeve of three packs of gum for a dollar. Then, he sold each individual pack for a dollar in school and made $56 in profits on his first day.
“At that point, I was hopelessly addicted to the world of entrepreneurship,” he said.
At the age of 14, he reinvested his profits and bought an Instagram account with 100,000 followers for $900, and made his money back within a week via advertisements and brand deals. Since then, he expanded his network to manage five Instagram accounts with over a million followers.
Kicks Cases
After witnessing hundreds of small businesses and brands growing through the power of digital marketing, Brendan started Kicks Cases, a business that involves the design and marketing of phone cases.
Instead of hiring a graphic designer, he watched YouTube videos and taught himself Adobe Photoshop. Then he was able to design the cases on his own and get them manufactured in China.
Within one year, the company attracted an Instagram audience of over 111,000 people and had netted over $20,000 in gross profit.
Kicks Cases' experience allowed Brendan to discover his passion for graphic design, as well as to learn how to make promotional flyers and social media posts.
2015: Cox Visuals
After spotting the phone cases, a small Brooklyn-based clothing brand has reached out to Brendan asking for the name of the graphic designer.
This led to the birth of Cox Visuals, a brand and design agency, in 2015, and the outsourcing of all that clothing brand’s graphic design work to it.
Since then, Cox Visuals has helped thousands of unique clients to present themselves or their business by creating a sleek and eye-catching brand image for them. The clients range from real estate agents influencers to well-known streetwear powerhouse, like Habits 365, and several start-up companies such as Connect Club, Social-Proof.
2017: Teen Assistant
In November 2017, Brendan set up Teen Assistant, to pair teens in surrounding towns with odd jobs like moving or assembling furniture, landscaping, yard cleaning, and tutoring.
The company made a portion of the teens’ earnings and grew rapidly to reach over six figures in revenue annually. Later, Brendan sold it to another aspiring entrepreneur before he went off to the University of Scranton.
2020: Business Blurb
Aware of how most large companies are lacking in their knowledge of social media and don’t take advantage of the younger audience, who is more active with their phone, in 202, Brendan founded, Business Blurb with two other successful teen entrepreneurs; Devin Caherly and Faiz Imran.
Business Blurb is an e-magazine that features articles on topics like business, entrepreneurship, lifestyle, money, leadership, and technology.
Within one month of inception, the startup reached over 20,000,000 monthly impressions and collected a massive entrepreneurial-based audience targeted directly at Gen-Z. The readers and followers are coming from Tik Tok (close to 300,000 followers) and Instagram (over 300,000 unique users), among other platforms⁴.
At the age of 20, Brendan Cox was considered as one of “The Most Influential Young Entrepreneurs of 2020” by Business Insider and About Insider.
Final Thought
Brendan’s definition of success as a temporary point that is always a pursuit led him to build Cox Visuals, Teen Assistant, Kicks Cases, Cox Social Media Management (which is integrated into Cox Visuals in 2020), and Business Blurb.
With so much experience at a young age, he developed a unique perspective on entrepreneurship, which he shared in his recent book “Strictly Business: How to Crush it as a Young Entrepreneur”.
If you’re an early stage founder or you aspire to build your own business, you may find Brendan’s following tips helpful⁵:
Action over words: Instead of spending months perfecting every little detail on your business plan, take action.
Set realistic goals.
Don’t start a business with the sole purpose of making money because you will risk losing interest. Build a business that you love and are passionate about.
Connections with people are Key.
Social media is everything: It allows you to reach millions of unique users daily.
Don’t be afraid to fail: Take failure as an expensive learning experience instead of a mistake.
You don’t know it all: The business world is always changing, and you should always be willing to take advice and listen to others.
Understand competitive value: In order to make your brand valuable for customers, you need to allow your competitors to push you to improve your skills, services, and products.
Don’t be afraid of re-invest: By becoming comfortable with steady revenue, your business risks stopping growing. If you want to expand, you need to re-invest in yourself and your company. Brendan has always bootstrapped and funded each new project with a reinvest of his profits from his previous ones.
Thanks for reading! I hope you got some insights or inspiration from this story.
References
¹ 10 Most Successful Young Entrepreneurs 2020
⁴ Delivering Curated News: Business Blurb
⁵ 10 Tips For Success From A Teen Entrepreneur
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