13 Year Old Builds Successful Bow Tie Business With Help Of Shark Tank

13 Year Old Builds Successful Bow Tie Business With Help Of Shark Tank

Yesterday, we featured a brilliant little girl who built a deliciously successful lemonade business with the help of ABC’s hit show Shark Tank.

Today, we feature another young entrepreneur who managed to take his love for high fashion men’s accessories to a money making bow tie brand!

Via Entrepreneur reports:

Last September, “Shark Tank” investor Daymond John flew his mentee Moziah Bridges, the then 12-year-old founder and CEO of bow tie company Mo’s Bows, to New York City for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

Besides taking him to events and making introductions to power players in the industry, John accompanied Bridges on a morning taping of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Later that day, John got a call from Karen Katz, CEO and president of the Neiman Marcus Group.

He assumed the call was for him, he tells Business Insider, but it was for Bridges.

“I’ve never been in Neiman Marcus with any of my brands, and it takes the 12-year-old child to get Neiman Marcus to call me!” John says, laughing. “So that’s the student teaching the teacher, you know?”

Today, the precocious CEO is 13. With the help of his mother Tramica Morris (“Mo is the CEO of the company, but I’m the CEO of Mo,” she says), he’s sold about $200,000 of his handmade bow ties and other men’s fashion accessories. He has seven employees — including his mom and grandmother.

John became Bridges’ mentor in 2013 after he and his mom appeared on “Shark Tank” in its fifth season. The mother-son entrepreneur duo from Memphis sought $50,000 in exchange for 20% equity in the company.

Bridges had the idea for Mo’s Bows when he was just 9 years old. His grandmother, a retired seamstress, taught him early on the importance of dressing sharp. He asked her to teach him how to sew, and soon he was making bow ties and selling them online and to several stores in the South.

By the time he taped the “Shark Tank” segment, he’d sold 2,000 bow ties he made by hand with his grandmother, bringing in $55,000 in revenue. Kevin O’Leary offered a deal for the $50,000 in exchange for a $3 royalty per tie sold, which Mark Cuban and John advised Bridges not to take.

The FUBU shark shared his story on he started his successful clothing brand much like Mo’s Bows:

John says that when he saw Bridges up there with Morris, a single mother, he was reminded of his own situation growing up. He told Bridges that in 1989 he declined an offer of $10,000 for 40% of his hat company; 10 years later, that hat company had grown into FUBU and was valued at $100 million.

We love hearing about these kids with a huge work ethic, imagination and drive to build their own businesses. You can check out more of Mo’s Bows HERE!