Student entrepreneur turns bold ideas into real-world ventures

Senior Easton Dana (BS Business Entrepreneurship '26) discusses sustainable retail in business and the gamification of investing.

Easton Dana was 14 when he launched his first business: A sticker company that didn't make a single sale.

"I didn't sell any stickers, unless you count my grandpa. But since then, I've started around 13 businesses," Dana says.

Dana's early ventures ranged from sneakers and clothing to chickens and kayaks, none of them profitable. He found success, though, with Canned Goods, a sustainable retail company he launched from his dorm room in 2023.

An avid hiker, snowboarder, and surfer, Dana saw firsthand the impact of plastic waste in apparel production. Through Canned Goods, he developed a model in which clothing is shipped in recyclable aluminum cans instead of plastic packaging. The concept quickly gained traction, generating more than 300,000 social media followers, 50 million views, and tens of thousands of orders.

"I really dug deep into my core beliefs and thought about the kind of impact I could make while using my business skills to drive change," Dana says.

Now a senior at W. P. Carey, Dana is also the founder of GameStock, a multiplayer platform that brings competition to investing. Inspired by the growing gamification of finance, it allows users to compete in tournaments and leagues designed to make investing more accessible and engaging.

GameStock has been featured in Forbes and raised $2 million in pre-seed funding, reflecting Dana's broader goal of helping students become more confident, competitive investors.

Dana's path as a student looks different from most, as balancing multiple ventures can be challenging. Still, his experience reflects a broader belief: Real learning often comes from action and hard work.

Through ASU's entrepreneurship ecosystem, Dana discovered the Venture Devils program, open to ASU and Maricopa Community College students looking to launch or grow a business. He won $20,000 through the program to expand Canned Goods.

He also credits the New Venture Challenge, an application-only, eight-week program that provides funding opportunities for student entrepreneurs, with offering practical, real-world business advice.

"Easton exemplifies the entrepreneurial mindset we strive to cultivate at W. P. Carey — identifying opportunities, thinking creatively, and building ventures that create both economic and social value," says Konstandinos Voutsas

Dana plans to move to New York City to continue scaling GameStock alongside his co-founder. As he prepares to graduate, he spoke with W. P. Carey News about building his businesses and navigating the challenges of being a young entrepreneur.

Question: When did your interest in sustainability begin, and how did you come up with the idea for Canned Goods?

Answer: After founding my second clothing brand, I realized that people want to support causes larger than themselves. As someone who's made his best memories interacting with nature, I know that plastic waste is a large issue, and something I always disliked about the other brands I started was the amount of plastic waste in the apparel design process. From ordering blanks to printing and packing, each tee is individually wrapped in plastic three separate times. The waste adds up and is a huge contributor to microplastics.

The challenge was finding a unique way to combat plastic waste while bringing attention to fun, unique alternatives. I was inspired by Nike's "Chunky Dunkys" shoes that shipped in ice cream cartons, and decided to build a brand focused on plastic packaging solutions. Every single Canned Goods T-shirt is shipped in a fun-to-open, recyclable, and reusable aluminum can.

To inspire upcycling, every can is shipped with flower seeds to plant inside after the customer opens up their shirt, and to further our impact, I donate to the Dollar Donation Club for every can sold. Canned Goods is now the fourth-largest contributor to plastic cleanup in the U.S. via that organization.

Since 2023, the brand has grown exponentially, and most of our business comes from other businesses, schools, influencers, and cafes that order custom cans for their community.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for GameStock?

A: The idea evolved from many conversations with my co-founder, Antoine Mistico, the founder and CEO of Zen Shuttles, and software engineer, Vivek Prasad, both I met through the ASU entrepreneurship ecosystem. The momentum in the finance world is moving toward gamification, which is why organizations like Kalshi and Polymarket have become so popular. If our generation wants to be successful, we need to keep up and become competitive investors.

Since humans instinctively lean toward competition, it was natural to introduce that competitive nature to the growing gamification of finance. Finance is becoming a sport, and Forbes, which has featured GameStock twice, has said GameStock is becoming the league.

My goal is to make my peers smarter investors and approach finance like a competitive sport. To do this, GameStock offers to sponsor and host investing tournaments for ASU campus clubs, where students can learn to invest and engage with finance competitively from their phones. We will give the best-performing students $100-$500 to start their investing journey, and winners have the chance to compete against other schools in the Collegiate Finance Cup for a chance to win $10,000.

Q: What is the most challenging aspect of growing a business?

A: The hardest part is finding and hiring the right people. The business is only as successful as its weakest link. Canned Goods has had problems with fulfillment and customer success due to poor fulfillment systems, which helped me realize I needed to build a better system with better talent.

Q: What is your advice to other students interested in pursuing entrepreneurship?

A: Just do it: There are no rules. Start immediately and try to get your first sale at all costs. You'll learn so much by just starting.

As Dana looks ahead to his next chapter in New York City, he's continuing to build on the same mindset that started it all at 14: Take risks, learn fast, and keep going.