In today’s business world, it is not uncommon to see young entrepreneurs making a name for themselves. The self-made success stories we read about and hear on the news serve as a great inspiration and a reminder that age is just a number when it comes to achieving your dreams.
Self-made young entrepreneurs are a dime a dozen these days, and technological improvements mean it has become easier than ever to start your own business. However, not all of these businesses are successful. What separates the winners from the rest of the pack of hopefuls?
Although not every successful young entrepreneur has an advanced education, having a good education can put you in the right place at the right time. Mentors and team building can make all the difference. To be well-positioned for success in today’s competitive business world, you can enroll in an online MBA program at Aston University. This will help you extract the big picture and provide you with the tools needed to succeed. You will learn critical business topics such as marketing, management, business analytics and e-commerce, all of which will benefit you in today’s business world.
10 Successful young entrepreneurs
Many people assume that a teenager’s life revolves around studying, hanging out with friends and playing video games — but this is not the case for many young business tycoons. If you’re thinking about starting a business and need more experience, find inspiration from these 10 successful self-made entrepreneurs who started young.
- David Karp
After David turned 21, he founded Tumblr in the year 2007. This micro-blogging website has remained popular despite stiff competition from other social media platforms. Although Tumblr is now owned by Yahoo, David Karp has a net worth of more than $200 million.
- Mark Zuckerberg
While still an undergraduate at Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, which he originally called TheFacebook.com. In 2004, Zuckerberg dropped out of college to work on Facebook full-time with his roommates and fellow Harvard students Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin. He moved Facebook to Palo Alto that same year and began hiring employees; the site now boasts more than a billion users worldwide. Zuckerberg was listed by Forbes as the world’s fifth-richest person in 2010, and he is widely celebrated for his entrepreneurial success at an early age.
- Matthew Mullenweg
While attending Wellesley College, Matthew Mullenweg created the popular WordPress blogging platform as a teenager in the year 2005. It is now the most widely used blogging software on the internet. WordPress is used by more than 30% of the top 10,000 websites, and Matthew’s net worth is estimated to be $400 million.
- Catherine Cook
When she was just 15, Catherine Cook co-founded MyYearbook.com with her brother Dave. This helped digitize high school yearbooks by allowing them to be uploaded online. The website was a success and became famous in no time. MyYearbook.com now has millions of registered users, making it one of the most popular social networking websites for high school students.
- Pete Cashmore
Pete Cashmore is the founder and CEO of the blog Mashable. He founded the website at the age of 20 in the year 2005. Mashable brings people the latest news in social media and technology. Pete is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Mashable Business, a global entertainment and multi-platform media company. He is currently one of the top influencers in social media and digital news and a celebrity on Twitter with more than 8 million followers.
- Jon Wheatley
In 2009, Jon Wheatley founded DailyBooth, a photo blogging website, at the age of 22. The site made it easy for users to upload everyday photos, share them with friends, and follow other people’s photo blogs. The website was an instant success and went on to become the number-three photography website in terms of traffic. It is now in the top-500 most visited websites. Jon’s net worth is estimated to be $1.5 million.
- Blake Ross
At a time when internet users largely stuck with the stock browsers that came built into their operating systems, Blake Ross launched Mozilla Firefox at the age of 19. The browser attracted more than 10 million downloads in its first year. It had many advanced features like tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and search engines that allowed users to get results from Google and Yahoo. Firefox is now one of the most preferred browsers across various platforms, including Linux, Windows and Android.
- Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber is a Canadian singer and songwriter. He became popular by posting videos of his performances on YouTube at the age of 15. His videos have been watched more than 5.4 billion times on YouTube, and he is the most followed pop singer on Twitter with more than 83 million followers. His album Purpose reached number one on the Billboard 200 Album Chart and had five top-10 singles. Justin Bieber’s net worth currently stands at $285 million.
- Fraser Doherty
At the age of 14, Fraser Doherty learned how to make jam from his grandmother. Using this skill, he started selling his self-made jam to Waitrose stores. Fraser then founded a jam company and named it Super Jam; it is currently worth more than $5 million.
- Richard Ludlow
At the age of 22, Richard Ludlow turned down an offer of admission to an MBA course and a full-time job to focus on his idea of creating Academic Earth. He realized that the internet had the potential to become a great learning place and founded AcedemicEarth.org. The website helps bring equality to education by offering free videos and lectures on a variety of subjects such as history, math, physics, and computing.
The bottom line
These young entrepreneurs prove that if you possess a strong vision, innovative ideas and the ability to motivate your team to achieve your goals, you can find great success.
Although some young entrepreneurs can get very far with passion and a willingness to learn from their mistakes, those who are still exploring which career path to take can benefit from an MBA.
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