Rick Alden

Skullcandy

Steve Jobs

Blake Ross Apple - Rick Alden is the founder of Skullcandy. Skullcandy markets headphones, earphones, MP3s, and more.

- Skullcandy was meant to target skateboarders and snowboarders.

- Alden was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but eventually moved to Colorado where he attended University of Colorado. • Headphones were the first product that Rick Alden and Skullcandy came out with.

• Alden thought of the idea when he was on a snowboarding trip in 2001.

• For publicity of Skullcandy, Rick would go to some of his best friends’ stores to try and get them to sell Skullcandy products. Rick Alden is one of the most successful entrepreneurs America has ever seen. I believe he is so successful because…

• He was part of the crowd he was addressing his product to. He was an active skater and snowboarder, this is who he wanted to buy his product. • He is a very creative man. He used very vibrant colors on his products. But not only did he use bright colors, he also gave his products interesting and catchy names: Skullcrushers, Hesh, and Lurkers. • He is outgoing. It takes someone with a lot of guts to pitch a brand- new product to big companies such as: Target, Circuit City, and even Best Buy. • Blake Ross is well known for his work on Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla is a that is free to the public.

• When Ross was 15 he began working as an intern at Communications Corporations. After he graduated high school, Ross attended . In November 2004, when Ross was only 19 years old, Mozilla Firefox was released. And in less than one year, it reached 100 million downloads.

Growing up, Ross didn’t take classes to learn how to create and design websites. He taught himself how to code. Blake Ross is one of the most successful young entrepreneurs to come around. I believe he is so successful because…

• He started at such a young age. Ross created his own website when he was ten years old, and kept creating all through middle school.

• He started working with smaller companies and worked his way up the ladder to larger and larger corporations, ending at Mozilla, and now working for . • Steve Jobs is known for his outstanding work with Apple and Pixar. Where he was the Co-founder and CEO of both.

• Before his death in 2011, Jobs’ net worth was estimated around $8.3 million!

• Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. But after only one semester, he had had enough and dropped out. • In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple in Jobs’ parent’s garage.

• While still in high school, Hewlett-Packard offered Jobs a summer internship. It was here that Jobs met Wozniak for the first time.

• Just to get Apple started, Jobs sold his Volkswagen and Wozniak sold his HP calculator Steve Jobs was arguably one of the most famous and successful entrepreneurs the world had ever seen. I believe he was so successful because…

• He was so outgoing and wanted to push everything to it’s limits. He wouldn’t stand for just “good”, he wanted to be “great.”

• He put his time in. He may have had a temper and gotten frustrated easily at his employees, but he would have meetings past midnight, and start another at 7 am.

• He was the perfect guy to start a big corporation, like Apple. Jobs was very persuasive and charismatic in his work. • I think that in years to come, Rick Alden, will continue to amaze skaters and snowboarders with his products. I think he may take his talents and possibly start another successful business.

• I believe Blake Ross will continue to design and work on successful websites such as Facebook. I think he will continue to develop Mozilla Firefox into one of the best search engines ever created.

• Steve Jobs is now deceased. The world will forever remember his work and the man he was. But I think he has a bright, heavenly after-life ahead of him.