Students itching for a cheap pair of Wayfarer sunglasses with their frat's logo on the side have their needs covered thanks to one entrepreneurial 21-year-old.
Daniel Fine, a rising senior at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and member of the Wharton Venture Initiation Program, launched Glass U in 2012, a company selling foldable Wayfarer style shades branded with university logos and fraternity and sorority letters.
Right now, Glass U is licensed to "most" fraternities and sororities, Fine said, but have glasses in stock online for 16 Greek organizations. Fine said they're licensed for hundreds of universities, and selling glasses for 23 schools online.
"We’ve also worked with events ranging from Lollapalooza to SXSW and The Rose Bowl," Fine told The Huffington Post.
Fine said the company started as a way to claim the idea of custom college logo shades as a brand, rather than people having to Google search for "custom sunglasses." To achieve this brand recognition, he recruited students to be "Glass Gurus" to promote the company on campus. Would-be Gurus can apply online to bring Glass-U to their campus and make cash for doing it.
It's a for-profit company, but Fine wants to keep it socially oriented and plans to soon launch a campaign specifically focused on raising money and awareness for causes.
Anyone who knows Fine would not be very surprised to hear about his success with Glass U, as the co-founder of Team Brotherly Love, an organization that has raised $1.9 million towards Saving Lives and Finding a Cure for those with Juvenile Diabetes. He started it a decade ago after discovering his brother, Jake, had Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes.
Philadelphia Magazine recently named Fine one of their 23 "Best Philadelphians." Philadelphia Magazine noted he also came up with an app called Dosed that helps diabetics sort nutritional info at more than 500 restaurants.
With all of these projects on top of school, Fine admits time is always a challenge, but setting and accomplishing smaller goals along the way is key, he said.
"That said, it's never easy and taking the time to step back and breathe is a necessity," Fine said. "Daily workouts are a must for me. They clear my head and are often where I do my best thinking."
He added: "Another thing that's recently become more important for me is conscious reflection -- thinking about and realizing different successes and failures and understanding the process of why those things occurred. Then trying to implement those realizations into work and life. That doesn't mean going nuts over it, but it is important to think about fairly frequently. I'm far from perfecting this, but it's an area that i'm personally working on improving."