Top 25 Young Entrepreneur Success StoriesFor two years I scraped and scoured the internet hunting for the world’s top young entrepreneurs so I could harvest their secrets.

If I wanted to be successful, I had to learn from the best. I needed to hear their stories. How they started. How they grew. How they are building their empires right now. And I needed to hear it straight from their mouths.

So I narrowed my list of 100+ young entrepreneurs down to the top 25. We contacted them, gathered their secrets and published a book. Here’s a list of the world’s top 25 young entrepreneurial success stories.

Read their interviews, visit their sites, follow them on Twitter and learn as much as you can from their remarkable stories. Oh, and find a link to discover how they do it at the bottom.

Adora Svitak, 12

Tiny Literary Giant

Adora is a 12-year-old who has published two books and transformed her writing success into speaking and teaching success. She has spoken at over 400 schools and presented at the annual TED conference. She has been featured on Good Morning America and on CNN.

Read Adora Svitak’s Interview | Visit Adora’s Site | Follow @adorasv

Savannah Britt, 15

Youngest Magazine Publisher

Savannah started her own publication – a magazine called Girlpez – making her the youngest magazine publisher in the world. The magazine features coverage of events, like concerts and fashion shows, along with interviews from the likes of Shwayze, Kevin Rudolf, and Dawn from Dannity Kane.

Read Savannah Britt’s Interview | Visit Savannah’s Site | Follow @savlovesyou

Philip Hartman, 15

Young Inventor of the Year

Philip is a home-schooled high school senior at the ripe age of 15. He won the 2008 Young Inventor of the Year award for inventing a new system for fusing optical fibers. His latest invention emits steam onto a windshield and is capable of defrosting a frost-covered windshield in about 15 seconds.

Read Philip Hartman’s Interview | Follow @PhilipHartman

Alex Fraiser, 16

World’s Top Young Blogger

Alex and his business partner, 24-year-old Seth Waite, launched their first product – a web theme modeled after Blogussion’s unique style – to immediate success. With an Alexa ranking under 20,000, Blogussion is now the highest ranking blog by a 16-year-old on the Internet.

Read Alex Fraiser’s Interview | Visit Alex’s Site | Follow @afrais

Farrhad Acidwalla, 16

Top Young Indian Entrepreneur

Farrhad has launched Rockstah Media, a cutting-edge company devoted to web development, marketing, advertisement, and branding. It is just over a year old but it has clients and a full fledged team of developers, designers and market strategists spread across the globe.

Read Farrhad Acidwalla’s Interview | Visit Farrhad’s Site | Follow @farrhad

Mark Bao, 17

11 Companies, 3 Foundations

Mark is a 17-year-old high school senior and he has already launched 11 web-based companies (and sold three of them) along with three non-profit foundations. Some of his projects include TickrTalk, the Ramamia Foundation, Classleaf, and Avecora – a technology network launching sometime in 2013.

Read Mark Bao’s Interview | Visit Mark’s Site | Follow @markbao

Stanley Tang, 17

Instant Best-Selling Author

Stanley published ‘eMillions’ in December of 2008 and it rocketed straight to the top of the Amazon Best-Seller lists. At just 14 years old, Stanley was the world’s youngest best-selling author. He just graduated high school and is currently attending Stanford University.

Read Stanley Tang’s Interview | Visit Stanley’s Site | Follow @stanleytang

Adam Horwitz, 18

$1.5 Million in Three Days

Adam has learned from his mistakes and now teaches people how to make money online. His courses, ‘Tycoon Cash Flow’ and ‘Cell Phone Treasure’, have each earned over $100,000. His latest, ‘Mobile Monopoly’, bagged $1.5 million in a three days and set all sorts of affiliate marketing records.

Read Adam Horwitz’s Interview | Visit Adam’s Site | Follow @adamhorwitz

King Sidharth, 18

The Outlaw Entrepreneur

King is a speaker, author, magazine publisher, rad dude, and he’s organizing a conference for teenagers called Createens. It will give young people an opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship, blogging, and more from world-wide experts. Find out why King considers himself to be an outlaw.

Read King Sidharth’s Interview | Visit King’s Site | Follow @kingsidharth

Arjun Rai, 18

Teen Battling Google

Arjun became the COO of a quickly growing online advertising company, but he soon set out to follow his own, unique vision. That vision is a brand-new venture called odysseyAds, an online advertising network with a focus on catering to 21st century marketer needs.

Read Arjun Rai’s Interview | Follow @arjunrai96

Syed Balkhi, 19

Social Media Prodigy

Syed, along with a handful of college friends, has started a successful web service company called Uzzz Productions. His blog for WordPress beginners, WPBeginner, has been up since July 2009 and already attracts an incredible 145,000 unique visitors each month.

Read Syed Balkhi’s Interview | Visit Syed’s Site | Follow @syedbalkhi

Keith J. Davis Jr., 19

Entrepreneur of All Trades

Keith is 19 and he’s gone from his middle school’s ‘bubble gum man’ to a college freshman at the University of Houston and an entrepreneur of all trades. He somehow finds time to be a nationally known public speaker, actor, model, newspaper publisher, and author.

Read Keith J. Davis Jr.’s Interview | Visit Keith’s Site | Follow @keithjdavisjr

Ben Weissenstein, 19

Major League Young Entrepreneur

Ben and his booming business have been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and on the Dr. Phil Show. He has started The Entitled Group, a company that helps musical artists, and he’s franchising Grand Slam Garage Sales, a garage sale service.

Read Ben Weissenstein’s Interview | Visit Ben’s Site | Follow @bentheceo

Sabirul Islam, 19

Fired at 13, Founder at 14

Sabirul self-published his first book, ‘The World at Your Feet’, at age 17. Since, he has sold 60,000 copies, launched a board game, become a globe-trotting public speaker (over 600 speaking engagements), and started his own publishing company for aspiring teen authors.

Read Sabirul Islam’s Interview | Visit Sabirul’s Site | Follow @Sabirul_Islam

Lindsay Manseau, 20

Beyond Freelance Photography

Lindsay photographed 25 weddings as a freelancer in 2009. Her business was thriving, but she wanted a way to better connect with her couples and the wedding industry. So Lindsay began developing My Marriage Market, an online platform where couples and vendors will be able to connect.

Read Lindsay Manseau’s Interview | Visit Lindsay’s Site | Follow @lindsaymanseau

Marshall Haas, 20

Young Architect Outsourcer

Marshall recruited a team of 20 artists in the Philippines to create architectural images from floor plans and he began attracting as many as eight clients a month. He is also developing a mobile web application called Podums, which will use game mechanics to encourage people to be productive.

Read Marshall Haas’s Interview | Visit Marshall’s Site | Follow @MarshallHaas

Catherine Cook, 20

$20 Million from Dorm Room

Catherine is a 20-year-old junior at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and myYearbook.com has over 20 million members. myYearbook is ranked in the top 25 most trafficked websites in the U.S. according to comScore and it pulls in $20 million in annual revenue.

Read Catherine Cook’s Interview | Visit Catherine’s Site | Follow @cncook

Michael Dunlop, 21

Most Likely Millionaire

Michael dropped out of school and began to develop websites, including RetireAt21.com. Today, Michael is 21 years old and, though he isn’t retired, he is netting six figures a year with his websites. His latest, IncomeDiary.com, has attracted well over 10,000 subscribers.

Read Michael Dunlop’s Interview | Visit Michael’s Site | Follow @michaeldunlop

Update: Since interviewing Michael for this book, we co-founded AwesomeWeb, a simple freelance marketplace to help you find web designers and developers.

Emil Motycka, 21

From ‘Mow Boy’ to $135K

Emil owns a company which provides work for about 65 people in Northern Colorado. Motycka Enterprises offers everything from building and janitorial maintenance to lawn care, tree care, snow removal, and even Christmas light installation. Emil earned $135,000 his senior year of high school.

Read Emil Motycka’s Interview | Visit Emil’s Site | Follow @emotycka

Lauren Amarante, 21

World Entrepreneurship Day

Lauren co-founded World Entrepreneurship Day (WED) as a sophomore at Arizona State University. WED’s first celebration of entrepreneurship, in 2009, was a huge success with 22 countries participating. Since then, WED has partnered with the United Nations to scale it to 35 countries in 2010.

Read Lauren Amarante’s Interview | Visit Lauren’s Site | Follow @lafactor

Alex Maroko, 21

$0 to $100K in 5 Months

Alex went from training clients in person to doing everything online in 2009. His first product, a video that teaches how to dribble a basketball better, earned $20,000 in the first week of its release. In the six months since, Alex has been developing more websites, products and an online coaching program.

Read Alex Maroko’s Interview | Visit Alex’s Site | Follow @alexmaroko

Juliette Brindak, 21

‘Miss O’ Valued at $15 Million

Juliette launched Miss O and Friends, a by-girls-for-girls site where tweens can go to safely interact, get advice, and play flash games. She has sold over 120,000 books. In 2008, Procter & Gamble invested in Miss O and Friends and estimated the company’s value at $15 million dollars.

Read Juliette Brindak’s Interview | Visit Juliette’s Site | Follow @missoandfriends

Jacob Cass, 22

Inspired Designer for Hire

Jacob nabbed his first freelance job at the age of sixteen and in November 2007 he started a website and blog dedicated to his business, Just Creative Design. He immediately began raking in clients, awards, and recognition. In January 2010, Jacob received a prestigious job offer from his Twitter account.

Read Jacob Cass’s Interview | Visit Jacob’s Site | Follow @justcreative

Andrew Fashion, 22

Made and Lost $2.5 Million

Andrew had dropped out of high school in 2005 and started developing websites. After months of just scraping by, Andrew hit it big. He was pulling in $100,000+ checks every month. But after a few years of living the high life, the revenue stream dried up and Andrew went from being a millionaire to being in debt.

Read Andrew Fashion’s Interview | Visit Andrew’s Site | Follow @andrewfashion

Joe Penna, 23

Mystery Guitar Man

Joe makes videos with unconventional video editing and black sunglasses. Since getting started in June 2006, Mystery Guitar Man has amassed over one million subscribers and over 100 million total views – making it the 8th most subscribed channel on YouTube.

Tagged as: Entrepreneurship, Interview, List

Article by Nicholas Tart

I’m a 27-year-old, co-founder of AwesomeWeb living in Colorado. I'm the co-author of What it Takes to Make More Money than Your Parents. Add me on Google+

Nicholas has written 82 article(s) for JuniorBiz.com.

Visit Nicholas Tart's site

Lawn Mowing Guide

By Nick Tart & Emil Motycka

How much money do you think you can make mowing lawns in one summer? $500? $1,000? $2,000?

One of the authors of this guide made $135,000 his senior year of high school from his lawn mowing business. He is currently paying his entire way through college.

Paperback: $11.95 + $3.49 S&HeBook: $8.95

More Details...

Popular Posts

o Top 25 Young Entrepreneur Success Stories 206

o 40 Entrepreneurship Quotes You’ve Never Heard 65

o 40 Chinese Proverbs for Entrepreneurship 34

o Adam Horwitz Interview: Dude with Two 6-Figure Businesses 33

o 14 Teen Business Ideas for Young Entrepreneurs 47

o Lemonade Stand Guide 91

o Lawn Mowing Safety Tips 26

o Lemonade Stand Tips 72

o How to Successfully Launch Your First Blog 19

o Juliette Brindak Interview: ‘Miss O’ Valued at $15 Million 24

Entrepreneurship To start your business...

Marketing To promote your business...

Interviews To learn from others...

JuniorBiz Journey To brag about ourselves...

Management To run your business...

Finance To track your business...

Networking To build your team...

Giveaways To get free stuff...

Teenage Millionaire Entrepreneurs

Karsten Strauss ,

Forbes Staff

A journalist covering entrepreneurs, technology & business.

Nick D'Aloisio recently sold his company, Summly, to Yahoo! for $30 million.

The teenage years can be a confusing time fraught with highs, lows, revelations and sometimes disappointment. Imagine how much more complex it might be if you had to address the needs of a growing business at the same time.

Some teenagers do take on the responsibility of starting and managing ventures and a handful of them become rich doing it. Born with an almost preternatural desire to create or build, these young prodigies allow their ambitions and visions to blossom into businesses.

Most recently, Australian app developer, Nick D’Aloisio sold his product and company – a news summary service called Summly – to Yahoo YHOO -3.33%! for $30 million plus a job at the tech giant. With a firm base in computer knowledge, young people have a lot of tools at their disposal to create new products and companies that can gain traction. Plus, with a model that requires intense development of a product that, when finished, can be download and sold ad infinitum, the rewards in tech can be astronomical.

There are also opportunities for teenage entrepreneurs outside of tech. Galveston, Texas’s own Madison Robinson’s Fish Flops apparel business has grown to over $1 million in sales, putting its 15-year-old founder and CEO in the spotlight.

Though we could probably write a book on the subject of youthful entrepreneurs (yes, there have been books written about them, to be sure) we like to highlight a few of them in a gallery below.

Over $1 Million In Sales For The 15-Year-Old Entrepreneur Behind Fish Flops

Entrepreneurs are getting younger and younger these days. Stories of people launching startups right out of college and becoming CEOs in their 20s seem to pop up everywhere. But it turns out some of us don't even need to reach college age to start a successful company: These business owners aren't even out of their teen years yet! Check out our list of incredible young entrepreneurs that made a name for themselves before they could drive a car.

Leanna Archer

Leanna's Hair

Leanna Archer was just 9 years old when she began bottling and selling her own hair pomade to friends and family. Based on her great-grandmother's secret recipe, Archer's line of all-natural hair products has expanded to include a variety of hair cleansers, conditioners and treatments. The now-17-year-old serves as the CEO of her company and has been recognized by prominent business publications like Forbes and Success Magazine. She even started the Leanna Archer Education Foundation to help build schools and safe learning environments for underprivileged children in Haiti.

 

 

Robert Nay

Nay Games

In December 2010, a new mobile game app called "Bubble Ball" was launched on the Apple app store. In its first two weeks it received more than 1 million downloads, surpassing "Angry Birds" as the most downloaded free game from Apple. This game was built entirely by Robert Nay, a 14-year-old with no previous coding experience. According to CNN, Nay learned everything he needed to know through research at the public library, and produced 4,000 lines of code for his physics-based puzzle game in just one month. The teen entrepreneur's company, Nay Games, released 24 new levels for "Bubble Ball" in August 2013.

Lizzie Marie Likness

Lizzie Marie Cuisine

Like many little girls, 6-year-old Lizzie Marie Likness wanted to ride horses. To pay for horseback riding lessons, she began selling homemade baked goods at her local farmers market. Eventually Marie realized that cooking was her true passion, and with the help of her parents, she built a healthy-cooking website with instructional videos to help kids eat better. Now 13, Likness has taught cooking classes, appeared on the "Rachael Ray Show," and starred in her own WebMD video series, "Healthy Cooking with Chef Lizzie," through her culinary business venture.

[Do Confident Kids Have More Future Career Success?]

Moziah Bridges

Mo's Bows

Most young boys are revolted by the idea of getting dressed up, but Moziah Bridges is a rare exception. After being disappointed in the bow ties available to him on the market, Bridges learned how to sew his own with the help of his grandmother. The fashion-forward 11-year-old began selling his creations on Etsy, and his products were soon picked up by boutiques in several southeastern states. So far, Bridges has earned over $30,000 from his bow ties, and told Forbes that he eventually plans to start a children's clothing company.

Neha Gupta

Empower Orphans

From an early age, Neha Gupta has participated in her family's tradition of celebrating birthdays by traveling to India and bringing food and gifts to orphans in their hometown. In 2005, when Gupta was 9 years old, she decided she wanted to do more to make a real difference in these children's lives. She began selling handmade wine charms door-to-door and at community events to raise money for school books and other educational expenses for orphans. These efforts led her to create her own registered nonprofit organization, Empower Orphans. Gupta, now 17, has raised more than $1 million and has received awards from numerous charitable foundations.

Jaden Wheeler and Amaya Selmon

Kool Kidz Sno Konez

Jaden Wheeler and Amaya Selmon started making snow cones with a blender and an extension cord in front of their Memphis, Tenn., home two years ago. Since then, the brother and sister team have upgraded quite a bit: at ages 12 and 11, respectively, they are now the youngest food truck owners in Memphis. In a Huffington Post feature on Kool Kidz Sno Konez, Jaden and Amaya explained that their mother purchased the truck for them after seeing how successful their (very) small business had become. The truck, which is usually stationed in local parks or at private events, now offers hot dogs, nachos, and more than 20 snow cone flavors.

Nick D'Aloisio

Summly

How many teens can say that a multinational corporation purchased their company and made them millionaires? There's probably not a lot, but Nick D'Aloisio is one of them. The 17-year-old entrepreneur is the tech prodigy behind Summly, a summarization app that algorithmically creates summaries of news articles optimized for the iPhone. At 15, he received backing from Horizon Ventures and other angel investors to develop his technology, and in March 2013, Yahoo acquired D'Aloisio's company for $30 million.

Anshul Samar

Elementeo (Alchemist Empire Inc.)

As a fourth grader, Anshul Samar loved playing card games. Two years later, he began developing his own, which he called Elementeo. Samar aimed to make chemistry fun with his board-based game, which involves pitting personified versions of each element on the periodic table against each other to "capture" electrons. Since the first iteration of Elementeo, Samar, now a 19-year-old Stanford University student, has continued to update the game and created a grant fund for other young entrepreneurs, says in a Taking on the Giant article. He has even given a TEDx Talk (an independently organized TED Talk) on his game.

Originally published on BusinessNewsDaily.

Nicole Fallon

Nicole Fallon received her Bachelor's degree in Media, Culture and Communication from New York University. She began freelancing for Business News Daily in 2010 and joined the team as a staff writer three years later. She currently serves as the assistant editor. Reach her by email, or follow her on Twitter.

Adam Hildreth

<img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-7075" title="Teenage Millionaire - Adam Hildreth" src="http://addicted2success.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Teenage-Millionaire-Adam-Hildreth.jpeg" alt="Teenage Millionaire - Adam Hildreth" width="170" height="137" />In 1999, at only fourteen years old, Adam Hildreth together with his six friends launched the famous English social networking site Dubit. Dubit became one of the most popular websites in 2004. By 2005, Dubit had a net worth of more than 3.7 million dollars. Adam later founded Crisp thinking, which developed software that protected people from online predators, online harassment and spamming. He is ranked 23 in the top 100 richest young people in the UK according to the 2011 Sunday times rich list.

Adam Hildreth is estimated to have a net worth of 38 million dollars.

 

Sean Belnick

< />When he was only 14 years old, Sean Belnick created bizchair.com, an internet retailer for all types of furniture. Sean Belnick began with an initial investment of 500 dollars and ran his business operaions from his bedroom. In 2004, he moved into his first warehouse and by 2009, he had more than 702,000 square feet of warehouse space from the initial 40,00 square feet. In 2010, bizchair had sales of more than 58 million dollars.

Sean Belnick’s net worth is reported to be 42 million dollars

 

 

Fraser Doherty

Fraser Doherty is the CEO of Super Jam. This Scottish young star was taught jam making by his grandmother when he was 14 years old. He started producing jam and selling it in the neighbourhood. He left school at the age of 16 to fully concentrate on super jam. In 2007, he began supplying super jam to 184 Waitrose stores. Nowadays Fraser Doherty currently supplies to all major UK stores and had sales of over 1.2 million dollars in 2011.

Fraser Doherty is worth 2 million dollars.

 

Cameron Johnson

>In 1994, at only nine years of age, Cameron Johnson began making money by selling invitation cards. By eleven years old he had saved up enough money to form his company, Cheers and Tears. Cameron then participated in several ventures including creating EZ mail, an email forwarding software, surfingprice.com, an online advertising company. By fifteen years old, he was receiving monthly cheques of up to 400,000 dollars.

Cameron Johnson’s net worth is currently 3.2 million.

 

Ashley Qualls

Ashley is is an America entrepreneur who made her first million at the age of seventeen. She did this by taking an 8 dollar loan from her mother and creating a website,whateverlife.com in 2004.The website focused on providing HTML tutorials for young people and providing free My space layouts.

Ashley Qualls is valued to have a net worth of 8 million dollars.

 

 

Chris Phillips

Chris Phillips made his first million when he was only 17 years old through dot5hosting. This website was used to register domain names, supply hosting space and hosting several e-commerce sites. By the time he was 19 years old, this British teenager was making over 10 million dollars annually.

Dot5hosting currently has a net worth of 2 million dollars.

 

 

Juliette Brindak

Juliette made her millions after launching the website Miss O and Friends when she was still only 10 years old. The site, which targets mostly teenage girls, is filled with celebrity gossip, games, quizzes and lots of feature articles. She has also launched a line of Miss O and friends books.

 

Juliette Brindak is currently the CEO and editor of her site and book line and has a networth of 15 Millions Dollars.

 

 

Catherine and David Cook

< Teenage Millionaire - Teenage Millionaire - Catherine and David Cook" width="170" height="115" />At only fifteen and seventeen years respectively, Catherine and David Cook came up with the social networking site, My Yearbook in 2005. The site has over 5 million users and has survived the Facebook domination.

My Yearbook has a net worth of over 20 million dollars whereas this brother and sister duo have a combined net worth of 10 million dollars.

 

Tyler Dikman

<. Cooltronics’ main purpose was to provide lessons to computer and internet users on how to get rid of computer viruses and how to upgrade your home PC. Subscriptions and advertising brought in the dollars for this lucky little man.

Tyler Dikman is currently valued to be worth 3.7 million dollars.

 

 

Farrah Gray

<i" />Farrah Gray started selling body lotion at the age of 6. At 13 years old he founded Farr-Out Food which in a period of one year had received food orders of over 1.5 million dollars making him a millionaire at 14.

 

Farrah Gray is the youngest person to have a Wall Street office and is estimated to be worth 20 million dollars.