Has anyone else noticed the sudden rash of young entrepreneurs
hitting the headlines? Teen businessmen Christian Owens, James
Cunningham and Connor Pickering all grabbed column inches last week
- and I thought it was policemen that were 'always getting
younger'. These days, kids are starting businesses before they've
even got their maths GCSE.
The most successful of the bunch is Christian Owens. The
16-year-old should be busying himself with videogames, coursework
and hormones. Instead, he's launched two successful businesses and
has just made his first million.
At just 14, Owens began stock-piling his weekly pocket money to
build his first venture, Mac Bundle Box. Launched in 2008, this
online business sells a combination of popular Mac applications for
a fraction of the price: "Retail: $458.59, Our Price $49" proclaims
the website. Mac Bundle Box pulled in a total turnover of
£700,000 in two years. But this young entrepreneur wasn't
content. He didn't retire to his Xbox or splurge his earnings on
wild parties. Instead, he reinvested the profits into the business
and, in 2009, started pay-per-click firm Branchr.
Branchr has notched up an impressive roster of clients including
William Hill and Myspace, turning over £0.5m in its first year. The
company sells more than 250 million adverts to 11,000 websites each
month. Owens has even completed his first acquisition. In August
2009, Branchr bought Atomplan, the SaaS collaboration suite, in a
cash and equity deal. Atomplan's CEO Mark Bao (another young
whippersnapper - Bao is only 18) is now CTO of Branchr.
Owens has ambitious plans for the future to boot. "I won't leave
Branchr until it has reached £100million," he told The Daily
Mail.
Twitter fans will doubtless have heard of 17-year-old James
Cunningham. The young entrepreneur caused a furore last
Tuesday with his Twifficiency service. Twifficiency spread through
the Twitterverse like wildfire, spamming users pages with their
"Twitter efficiency" scores and becoming a trending topic on
Twitter and Google. Bless him, young Cunningham was completely
bewildered by the viral success of his site: "It wasnt [sic] meant
to be spam," he announced on Twitter. "it wasn't mean [sic] to be
used by this many people. Nothing I ever do catches on so it wasnt
[sic] a concern".
Twitter suspended the app for breaking the cardinal rule of
"auto-tweeting" results. Cunningham told angry Tweeters:
"Twifficiency shouldn't tweet your score automatically :/ Error on
my behalf, I was just learning to use oAuth :(" Cunningham fixed
the glitch within 24 hours and the service was reinstated. Has
Cunningham made any money from this service? Not a penny. But you
can't buy the kind of publicity and kudos this kid has generated in
a few days.
Connor Pickering has got a cracking CV too - and he's only eight
years old. The kiddie entrepreneur launched a tuck shop at his
primary school to raise money for the Warwickshire &
Northamptonshire Air Ambulance paramedic crew. Pickering earned
himself the moniker "Alan Sugar Jnr" for firing two of his
employees after they failed to meet sales targets. The young
entrepeneur used the Apprentice star's famous catchphrase
"You're fired" when his two friends failed to shift enough cupcakes
during break times.
Pickering raised a total of £150 for charity through his
fledgling venture and has announced intentions to follow in Lord
Sugar's footsteps by buying an ice-cream van when he grows up -
surely every eight-year-old's dream job.
Suralan, who joined Twitter last week, paid tribute to his
little protégée, writing: "What a fantastic young man. I
wasn't that entrepreneurial until I was 11 at least!" And Sugar
wasn't short of praise for another of our young businessmen: "Just
read about Christian Owens," he tweeted last Monday. "16 years old
and made his first million - now that beat me. Well done young
man."
But not all young entrepreneurs are lucky enough to receive such
support. In his guest blog for Smarta, 18-year-old Jamie Dunn,
founder of the Jamie Dunn Academy, announces his intention to be a
millionaire within two years. Dunn attended Peter Jones' National
Enterprise Academy and makes no bones about his desire to succeed.
"I have found that a lot of people say that I am boastful but I
believe that the things I have done so far have not touched upon
what I can achieve in the future." Comments on his blog include:
"Passion is impressive but what do you actually do? Teach others
about business when you haven't had a substantial business
yourself?" and "Ah, the naivete and arrogance of youth." Harsh
words for a young man who has overcome a number of obstacles to
succeed: "I didn't do very well in school," Dunn admits.
Despite the criticism levelled at Dunn, there's no denying that
the UK is a land of opportunity for young entrepreneurs. And, as
these success stories prove, no matter your age or experience, a
great idea can take you far.
By Rebecca Burn-Callander