Top 30 Richest Young Entrepreneurs
You know you’ve made it when you are on every single newspaper and magazine publication known to man, or even better when they have a movie about the birth of your company! There are so many ways to make money online, it could be a physical product that you are selling, maybe you create software and want to help those pesky spies from gaining government information? What ever your flavor of entrepreneurial streak may be, there are some sure-fire ways to make it in the online world.
Whats more, you can often start making money without even putting any in, although this will probably cause a slower return rate and lesser volumes but you could still do it. The truth is that any Tom, Dick or Harry could start a business if they really wanted to. BUT…there’s a catch. Of course there’s a catch, there’s ALWAYS a catch right? “Well, go on tell us what the catch is!” I hear you ask, it’s simple, you just need to know. You need to know what it is you are selling, how you are going to sell it and you have to know it has a reasonable value. There’s no good selling rubbish if the value is zero.
Also you need to “Know” how to motivate yourself, how to motivate others, how to hustle with the best of them. Let’s stop a minute and rethink this through.
In order to make money online you need to have qualities, and give quality to your customer, client or subscriber. Sometimes content is king, sometimes it’s the person behind the content. With that in mind I offer to you, the kings and queens of the entrepreneurial world. “The 30 Richest Entrepreneurs Under 30″…
…Enjoy
FYI: Net worth’s are estimates based on stock prices, company shares, investment, annual earnings, estimates made by professionals, insider information & research from the internet.
#1 Mark Zuckerberg Aged 26yrs
Worth an estimated $6.9 billion
If you don’t know who Mark Zuckerberg is already, you really must have been living under a rock. Mark is an American entrepreneur who co-founded and is currently the CEO of the social networking behemoth we know as Facebook. Hailing from White Plains, New York, Mark started his programming at a very early age back in “Middle School” and it looks like that really paid off. Currently owning approximately 24% of Facebook, Mark is now a Multi-Billionaire, with a fortune of roughly $6.9bn and growing. So why is he top of the list? Well, I can think of a few reasons, 6.9 billion reasons in fact!
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#2 Dustin Moskovitz Aged 26yrs
Worth an estimated $1.4 billion
Now Dustin may be a little less familiar to you than Mark (above) but he’s definitely someone who has struck lucky. In fact Dustin was one of the co-founders of Facebook along with Mark. Dustin has since left Facebook (back in 2008) and has now set up his own business, Asana a company that apparently tackles the problems of workplace collaborations. Still in it’s early development stages, Asana is currently in Beta mode if you are interested? So how much did he make? A little over $1.4bn.
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#3 Andrew Mason – Aged 29yrs
Worth an estimated $600 million
Andrew Mason is the founder and CEO of the online business Groupon. A site you have all more than likely heard about or used before. Andrew Now just 29 years old is worth an estimated $600 million due to the sites huge success. Founded in 2008 Groupon has been steadily increasing it’s traffic and it’s income for the grateful founder. The aim of the website is to offer out daily deals to people all over the world via an online coupon service. Each and everyday Groupon releases new “Groupons” to its customers allowing them to receive discounts on anything from subway meals to laptops and much more. Andrew was given $1 million dollars by his previous employer in order to start this venture which has now made them both a lot of money in the 2 short years it has been up and running. I’m sure we can expect more from them in the near future.
#4 Matthew Mullenweg – Aged 26yrs
*Worth an estimated $250 million
Its nice to have one of our own on the list, and I’m pretty sure we all know who this young chap is. Matthew Mullenweg is the founding developer of WordPress, a resource a lot of us use on a daily basis. Funnily enough his background is anything but technical, he went to a performing arts school, learned to play the Jazz Saxophone, and then he went on to created one of the best website and blog programs in the world. In 2005 he started the company Automatic, which became the backing force behind WordPress and Akismet. Well done Ma.tt – You see what I did there?
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#5 Blake Ross – Aged 25yrs
Worth an estimated $150 million
Blake Ross is an American software developer, known best for his work with Mozilla Firefox. That’s right at the age of 25yrs he has been able to accumulate a total fortune worth $150 million. In 2005 he was nominated for the Wired Magazines top “Rave Award” opposite some very popular names including Larry Page and Jon Stewart. Blake also co-founded the company Parakey which was eventually bought out by, yes you’ve guessed it, Facebook.
#6 Gurbaksh Chahal – Aged 28yrs
Worth an estimated $100+ million
Gurbaksh Chahalis an American author and entrepreneur that has managed to create, build and grow two businesses into a massive empire worth $340 million, and all that before he is even 30yrs! Born in India, his family finally settled in California, by the time he was 16yrs old he had dropped out of school and decided to embark on a career in business. Gurbaksh is now the CEO and founder of gWallet.Inc. What an awe-inspiring story.
#7 Naveen Selvadurai Aged 28yrs
Worth an estimated $80 million
You may not have heard about Naveen but rest assured he is definitely a big hitter. He made most of his money through a joint venture that you may have heard of, Foursquare anyone? However before co-founding Foursquare he had worked extensively with some very well known brands, Nokia, Sun Microsystems and Sony to name a few. $80 million, yes please!
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#8 Angelo Sotira – Aged 29yrs
Worth an estimated $75 million
Angelo, is someone a lot of you graphic designers, photographers, and web developers may know very well. He is the pioneering brain behind DeviantArt, The website was co-founded back in 2000 with Scott Jarkoff and Matt Stephens and is bigger than ever today. It really is the Facebook of the art/digital art world. The community is very strong and it’s a really intriguing and inspirational website. Still $75 million for creating a website back in 2000, I think I could wait 10 years for $75mil, how about you?
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#9 Nat Turner – Aged 26yrs
Worth an estimated $70 million
Nat Turner is one lucky entrepreneur, but lets not be harsh on him, he worked extremely hard in order to get lucky. What I mean is that he was lucky enough to build a brilliant company, Invitemedia, which is a “universal buying platform” for display media according to their website. Where he got “lucky” is when the global giant that is Google, decided to buy him and his co-founders (Zach Weinberg and Scott Becker – both aged 23yrs) out for a nice round figure of $70 million. Good job Nat.
#10 Peter Cashmore – Aged 24yrs
Worth an estimated $70 million
Peter Cashmore is is the CEO and founder of the unique media website Mashable.com which he started back in 2005. Pete has been lucky enough to appear in the Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 as well as getting a mention in the top 25 web-celebrities. There have been so many great reviews by so many large publishing brands and the brand itself seems to just getter better with time. The site now has over 10 million readers monthly, and is set to have even more by the end of the year.
#11 Alexander Levin – Aged 25yrs
Worth an estimated $56 million
Alexander is one of the co-founders of the very popular image storing website ImageShack. Racking up a huge $56+ million fortune along the way, Alexander has done very well indeed. Starting the website back in 2003 after coming up with the concept in high-school, it is now one of the largest image hosting websites in the world. However Alexander was not alone in the creation of ImageShack and if it hadn’t have been for his older brother Jack, he might never have gotten the website onto the server! Well done boy’s, nothing like brotherly love.
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#12 David Schottenstein – Aged 26yrs
Worth an estimated $52 million
David is the founder and CEO of Astor & Black, his main revenue is made from his 82 independent sales representatives, from all over America. Astor & Black is an online business which sells bespoke, original and very high quality evening, and business wear. David has his team of “Clothiers” who for a fair price, will come to your home and give you a unique style, enhancing your wardrobe so you look fit for the real world. This niche is obviously for very high end and very high maintenance type persons, but nonetheless he has made a large sum of money for what he does, and he does it very well.
#13 Sean Belnick – Aged 22yrs
Worth an estimated $50 million
Sean Belnick first started his own business back when he was only 14yrs old, locking himself in his bedroom for almost three days, he emerged with what we now know as Bizchair. He began selling a few office chairs here and there, eventually gaining an employee until he finally got his sales down to a tee. He currently sells office furniture to the likes of Google, Microsoft, and many more. He is now worth an estimated $50 million. Not bad going,
#14 Tim O’ Shaughnessy – Aged 29yrs
Worth an estimated $45 million
Tim O’Shaughnessy is one of the co-founders of the popular website Livingsocial.com, they are a social buying company, specializing in daily deals, across the western countries. The aim of the game is to offer as many people products and promotions for heavily discounted prices, very similar to the Group-on company. So far they have given thousands of deals on a daily basis to millions of happy customers, lets hope they can keep up with Groupon.
#15Eddie Frederick – Aged 29yrs
Worth an estimated $45 million
Eddie, is the President and also the co-founder of Living social.com alongside Tim (above) they have managed to help countless people get amazingly good deals for products and services all over the western countries. With a massive turnover coming from advertisers as well as revenue from the sales of the products and services they dish out, it’s no wonder they are millionaires today.
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#16 Matthew Mickiewicz – Aged 26yrs
Worth an estimated $40 million
Matthew Mickiewicz is one of the co-founders of the company Sitepoint, which many, many of you will already know. Sitepoint also runs the website 99designs which became an overnight success, reaping in millions of dollars for Matthew. Speaking of his success Matthew stated the idea of the whole business came about after becoming engrossed in website design and development. 11Yrs since the start of his career Matthew is still going strong and the businesses show no sign of slowing. Good on you Matthew.
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#17 Ryan Block – 28yrs
Worth an estimated $30 million
Ryan was a regular kid from South California, when in 2004 he started working for Engadget as a part-time reporter, moving swiftly up the ranks Ryan managed to climb the ladder to the Editor-in-Chief position. In July 2009 using an approximate $550,000 investment Ryan created his business gdgt.com, along with some help. He know has thousands of loyal followers and answers a plethora of questions on the topic of gadgets. Not bad for a part-time reporter.
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#18 Catherine Cook – Aged 20yrs
Worth an estimated $30 million
Catherine Cook is no stranger to the world of online social networking, in fact she helped create the industry at the young age of 18yrs with her highly respected website MyYearBook.com. Another self made millionaire, Catherine has made most of her money through advertising revenue from which the website is supported. If you have not been on the website, which is aimed at mostly under 18yrs from the US then check it out. Think Facebook mixed with Friends Reunited.
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#19 David Cook – Aged 22yrs
Worth an estimated $30 million
David is the older brother of Catherine Cook (above), and he has done amazingly well by helping build and develop the website. It’s funny to think that many of us have sibling rivalries and yet these to inspirational entrepreneurs pulled together to make a huge fortune for themselves. The site was initially funded by their older brother Geoff who was at the time (and possibly still is) a budding entrepreneur himself, it seems lending them the $250,000 for their idea was a successful leap of faith.
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#20 Ryan Allis – Aged 25yrs
Worth an estimated $28 million
Ryan is the CEO and co-founder of the company icontact, the nature of the business is not unlike that of mailchimp. They provide marketing tools of the email variety and his efforts to further email marketing sales for himself and his clients has earned him a very nice amount of revenue. Able to boast over 50,000 clients globally, and with a best seller on the bookshelves entitled Zero to Million, Ryan is going places, fast.
#21 Aodhan Cullen – Aged 27yrs
Worth an estimated $18 million
No he is NOT one of the vampires out of the Twilight series of films, though I bet he was a bit of a night owl whilst starting his business empire. Aodhan Cullen is the CEO of the online company StatCounter. If you don’t already know, StatCounter is a web analysis and statitics company that was founded in 1999 when he was a mere boy aged 16yrs. The website has had huge success and in mid-2008 the members tally had grown to a whopping 2 million (globally). Good stuff Aodhan.
#22 Susan Gregg-Koger– Aged 25yrs
Worth an estimated $15 million (combined)
Susan Gregg-Koger is the CEO and co-founder of Modcloth.com, operating the site via her college dorm-room where she managed to process orders herself whilst keeping up with her academic classes, that’s hard work right there! Her website was designed by her then boyfriend (now her husband – below) and the site went from strength to strength and is going remarkably well even now. The site boasts over 300 designers all creating one-off unique garments for their customers, sounds great.
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#23 Eric Koger – Aged 26yrs
Worth an estimated $15 million (combined)
Eric was the design expert behind the Modcloth.com website, andalso helped with the hosting side of things. Eric is still very much a part of Modcloth.com and helps with the design, working closely with other designers they employ to oversee things are how they want them to be. He also helps with the financial side of the business like budgeting and sales reports. He also takes some of the product photography from time to time. What a great pair they are.
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#24 Rishi Kacker – Aged 24yrs
Worth an estimated $12 million
Rishi is one of the co-founders of Voltage.com, a security based company, the nature of the business is the encryption and protection of online and offline data through the use of electronic devices. In other words they stop people stealing data and identities etc. Currently serving around 1,000 customers at the time of writing the company has gone on to very big things, and although Rishi is still part of Voltage.com it has since changed hands of ownership. Which has allowed Rishi to become very wealthy in the process.
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#25 Matt Pauker – Aged 24yrs
Worth an estimated $12 million
Matt was Rishi Kacker’s (above) business partner and another one of the co-founders of Voltage.com. The business started in 2002 and Matt is still there at the time of writing this. Matt has been involved with the design and architecture of the business and still gets deeply involved in all the processes which come with it. The company is now used by some of the biggest named brands and businesses in the world, and it is still growing. Matt was also named as one of the top 25 young entrepreneurs by Business Week as well as having been featured in numerous other highly respected publications.
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#26 Sean Whalen – Aged 28yrs
Worth an estimated $10 million
Sean is a very physical entrepreneur and doesn’t mind getting in there, and really getting his pulse racing. Sean developed the AlterG treadmill, which is essentially a treadmill for use in anti-gravity. Why? Well besides it being a very good idea, it is perfect for those athletes or the elderly who have injured themselves. It allows you to train using only 20 percent of your natural body weight, which allows the user to develop strength much more adequately, safely and without causing any more pain than necessary. Did I mention Sean’s dad was a NASA research scientist? That must be where he got the idea. Brilliant.
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#27 Joshua Dziabiak – Aged 23yrs
Worth an estimated $9 million
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Joshua started his first company, a web based hosting and design site aged just 15yrs, by the time he was 18yrs he had managed to grow the business to such a degree that he sold it for $1 million. Now that’s not bad by anyone’s standards, £1 million by the age of 18yrs from a company he started as a mere boy! Since then Joshua has managed to break through yet again and is now the CEO and co-founder of Showclix.com a ticket sales company that serves over 1,000 customers a year with over 1 million sales so far! It seems Joshua doesn’t know how to fail.
www.showflix.com
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#28 Aaron Levie – Aged 23
Worth an estimated $7 million
Aaron is the CEO of the website Box.net, for those of you that now of Box.net, here is one of the founders. Starting back in 2005 Aaron aged just 18yrs old created the website as a business project for college. The website came on in leaps and bounds through the college project and it was decided to bring the idea and project into the real world, Box.net was then officially incorporated that same year. The website business managed to gain capital from business “Angel” Mark Cuban, followed by some rather large sums of investment from third parties. The company aimed at helping businesses to share content and information internally and externally through their marketing and communication products and service.
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#29 Dylan Smith – Aged 22yrs
Worth an estimated $7 million
Dylan is the second in command at Box.net, and currently resides as the CFO there. Dylan has been the go-to-guy in a number of other various start-ups besides Box.net. Smith is the right-hand man of Aaron and focuses his efforts more towards the sales, management and budget side of the business. Together they have so far managed to raise nearly $15 million in funding for start-up corporations. I can see this pair are going to be hard to miss in the coming few years. Watch out.
#30 David Karp – Aged 24yrs
Worth an estimated $5.5 million
David started the company Tumblr.com in 2007, with the aim to help anyone, share anything online. Sounds a pretty good idea, but who is actually going to use it? Well, 4.2 million of us is the latest estimation, so I think it’s not a bad idea at all. So far he has been handed $5.5 million in venture capital funding (so this personal fortune may now be more or less) and he has helped hundreds and thousands of users to share their content around the globe.
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