Ryan Trahan: Youtuber and Entrepreneur
When considering young entrepreneurs, Ryan Trahan immediately comes to mind. He rose to fame as a Youtuber through his video series titled “The Penny Series”. These videos feature him traveling across states and even countries starting with only a penny. These series were intended to promote charities such as Feeding America, Water.org, and St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Each charity gained substantial donations because of Ryan’s videos.
Ryan has been interested in entrepreneurship even before he rose to fame. When he was in college at Texas A&M, he founded his own water bottle company called Neptune. The purpose of the company was to reduce plastic water bottle waste. The company had mild success, but never fully took off. However, this early attempt at innovation prepared Ryan for the success of his future product Joyride.
At the same time as Ryan’s YouTube success, an entrepreneur by the name of Tyler Merrick set out to produce a candy that was healthier than all the competition on the market. Seeing Ryan’s success in his YouTube videos, Tyler reached out to Ryan to be a partner in the company. Thus, Ryan became the co-owner, chief creative officer, and new face of the candy company called Joyride. People immediately fell in love with the product because it had the same taste delicious candy taste that they love, but with less sugar and without artificial ingredients. Ryan’s brand fit perfectly with the product because he is known on YouTube as being a family friendly content creator. Joyride is successful because it targets kids who want candy and parents who want their kids to have healthier options.
Almost immediately after Ryan became a co-owner, Joyride exploded onto the candy scene. Many different kinds of Joyride candy are available for purchase at industry giants such as Target and Walmart. Joyride has become a part of most of Ryan’s YouTube challenges and even has an account on Instagram. This type of online content helps people engage with the product.
Ryan claims to be a Christian, which influences his mission as a Youtuber and entrepreneur. He deeply cares about non-profit organizations and always strives to provide safe content for families to watch. These values are also evident in his work as co-founder of Joyride. He presents his goals for the product honestly, which endears him to the audience. A large portion of the trust he has with his audience is due to his personality and morals. Each play a part in Joyride’s and Ryan’s YouTube channel’s record-breaking success.
JOYRIDE. “Our Story.” JOYRIDE, www.joyridesweets.com/pages/joyride-story.
“Young Entrepreneurs: 9 Inspiring Founder Stories – Shopify.” Shopify, 3 Mar. 2023, www.shopify.com/blog/young-entrepreneurs.
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I like how you mentioned his faith and family friendly content that led to this collaboration! I think that shows how having your morals align with your company can lead to authentic products being trusted by consumers. I also think his platform being established before this brand started helped Ryan to advertise in an organic fashion to sell to consumers who are already familiar with him as a person.
I loved how Ryan learned from his first company, Neptune. Even though it never fully took off, he didn’t let that discourage him; he used that as a springboard into his next entrepreneurial venture. That really reflects his determination and values!
It’s also really neat that he instills Christian mission into his YouTube videos and posts; there is a lot of bad content out there, and it’s encouraging for families to know that his videos are family-friendly and contain good morals.
Great job on this post! The commentary was very insightful, and it seems as though you did a fair amount of research. I liked how you noted that Ryan did not have success immediately, but only after a first attempt did things take off for him. I also liked how you pointed out that Ryan used his platform to successfully launch and promote his business.