He started researching ways to lower the barrier to entrepreneurship, and zeroed in on fiscal sponsorship, a common practice in which nonprofits extend their legal status and back-end support to small projects with a similar mission. “I was under 18, so I couldn’t file legal paperwork or get a bank account on my own.” “But there’s just so much red tape for young founders,” he says. When Sanil Chawla was a sophomore in high school, he wanted to launch a web development startup as a way to monetize his hobby. “I’ll start somewhere at the bottom and work my way up.” He’s done it once - no reason he can’t do it again. Cory’s Cookies for a little bit,” he says. “When I get older and finish college, I want to leave Mr. Today, the company offers 14 flavors, and Nieves has high hopes for expansion - and for his own future. An e-commerce site was launched, “cookie helpers” were hired, and product started shipping across the country.
TEEN SUCCESS STORY TV
To scale, they sought outside investment and hit TV gold again: An appearance on CNBC’s The Profit earned Mr. “It caused a huge supply-and-demand issue,” he says. More orders came in than Nieves and his mom could possibly fill. He and his mom began taking cookies to local races and festivals, where Nieves would pitch potential customers with irrefutable lines like “Life’s too short to not eat a cookie!”īusiness (and local press) grew consistently, and in 2015, Nieves was invited to appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show - and the response was overwhelming. “That’s when we knew we had a business - when people started taking our cookies seriously,” says Nieves. After three months of baking with his mom, Nieves bit into what he thought was the perfect chocolate chip cookie. When he sensed an opportunity for more substantial treats, he started searching online for the perfect cookie recipe. “I was tired of taking the bus,” he says. “Only when you ground me,” Isabel replies.Īt 6, Cory Nieves had an ambitious plan: Sell hot chocolate in his Englewood, N.J., neighborhood, and save enough money to buy his mom a car. “I’ve been fired five times,” jokes CEO and mom Kim. “Sometimes we’ll be out to dinner and say, ‘We just need to be a family for 20 minutes.’ But it’s brought us closer. “We talk about bath bombs 24/7,” says Isabel, who’s starting freshman year at a local college just 20 minutes from Da Bomb’s warehouse. It’s big business - but it’s also a family business. Today, Da Bomb remains self-funded and generates more than $20 million in annual revenue. They don't understand the work we've put into this. “Some people who don’t know us will come up to us and be like, ‘Hey, you're the bath bomb girls how much money do you make?' I'd rather have them ask about what we do dat to day, or what it's like to sell a product. “Our friends and school have been really supportive,” Caroline says. The girls enrolled in their school’s On the Job program, which let them use a certain amount of school time as work time.
Production and storage moved to a nearby warehouse. “We knew we had to get our act together quickly.” Their mom stepped in as CEO, while the sisters focused on product development and marketing. “They wanted us in 1,800 stores,” Isabel says. Then Target called, and everything changed. “We were making 20,000 bath bombs a month, in our basement,” Isabel says. They tried selling a few at a local art fair in Minneapolis - and realized they had an instant hit.īy 2015, their product was in 30 local shops, and following a successful trip to Atlanta for an international trade show in 2016, they had placement in stores across the country. They experimented with their own recipes for the fizzy, fragrant balls, adding a surprise in the center, like a small toy. In 2012, Caroline and Isabel Bercaw were, like many 11- and 12-year-old girls, obsessed with bath bombs.
Eliesa Johnson Caroline Bercaw, 17, and Isabel Bercaw, 18Ĭofounders and co–chief creative officers, Da Bomb Bath
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