Alina Morse – Creating Tooth Healthy Candy

Alina Morse, currently a 21-year-old entrepreneur, was only seven years old when she came up with the idea to make her sugar-free lollipops, Zollipops. She came up with the idea for her business when she went to the bank with her dad and was offered a lollipop. She wanted to accept the teller’s offer, but she remembered that her parents always told her that candy was bad for her teeth. Taking both of these thoughts into account, she came up with the idea to create her sugar-free lollipops that are good for people’s teeth. The Zollipops, which were named after how her sister said the word “lollipops” when she was younger, went to store shelves in 2014, and by 2018, reached over $6 million dollars a year in sales.

Alina’s dad has been one of her biggest supporters and assistants through this whole process. He, and her grandparents, financially backed her when she was just starting out. He helped Alina talk to specialists in both dentistry and nutrition to find ingredients that were not only vegan and sugar-free, but also helped remove plaque and prevent cavities. 

At the age of 13 and devoted to her project of promoting oral health care, Alina donated 10% of her profits to her own non-profit, One Million Smiles, which gives the money to public school’s oral health education programs. 

 “It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from, what matters is your passion and commitment to making the world a better place.” ~ Alina Morse

I learned that good ideas can come from anything that you see. If you’re passionate about a problem or issue, you can come up with an idea to fix it, and if you’re willing to take the risk of putting it out there, the business idea may take off and be really successful.