Author Archive for John Porter

“How I Made and Lost 2.5 Million Dollars

2.5 million dollars is a lot of money for anybody, let alone a 21 year old high school drop out.  That, however, was the income of millennial entrepreneur Andrew Fashion.  Andrew created websites which gave users the tools to personally design their MySpace pages. Upon his creation of these websites, Andrew started taking home checks upwards of $100,000.  Unfortunately, he was incredibly irresponsible with his money.  A luxurious house in LA, and multiple top-of-the-line sports cars.  This was just a start.  Newest advances in technology and trips to Hawaii, London and a number of other places around the world were soon tacked on to Andrew’s exhaustive spending.  The key to Andrew’s success?  Excellent marketing that resulted in his sites topping Google’s search rankings.

Unfortunately for Andrew, all good things came to an abrupt, and unpleasant end.  A massive overhaul of his websites in 2007 made Google think they were brand new sites, causing them to plummet to the seventh and eighth pages of Google searches. Andrew’s seemingly endless well of profit instantly dried up leaving him in massive amounts of debt.

Since then, Andrew has been blessed to dig himself out of his financial hole.  He has worked through his debt, and is now a successful internet marketer.  He has clearly learned from his mistake.  “Instead of blowing money on toys and cars, I am going to invest it back into the company or another company.  I will do the typical saving, like 401 k’s and rainy day funds.  Looking forward, Andrew hopes to move away from the internet business and become a real-estate developer.

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30 Million. 18 Years Old. Summly. Nick D’Aloisio

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The average 18 year old kid normally has a couple hundred dollars and is trying to figure out what moive they want to spend their money on. Not so with Nick D’Aloisio.  The British born Australian computer programmer and entrepreneur recently sold his company, Summly, for 30 million dollars to Yahoo! at the age of 18.  He currently plans to test out of high school and go work at Yahoo’s offices in London. D’Aloisio was awarded “Innovator of the Year” in New York City by the Wall Street Journal for his work on Summly and at Yahoo. Additionally, D’Aloisio was included in TIME Magazine’s ‘Time 100’ as one of the world’s most influential teenagers.

D’Aloisio created Summly to solve problems with the way news articles were viewed on smartphones. His initial app recorded over 200,000 downloads.  An influx in corporate support of roughly $1,000,000 in new venture funding spurred Summly to its eventual sale for $30 million. Prior to this, D’Aloisio was the youngest entrepreneur to ever receive venture capital at the age of 15.

Pradux-Linking You and Me to Societies’ Top Icons

Ever seen an athlete, artist, actor or any other icon and wish you could share their wardrobe with them? Alex Koblenz sure has. In fact, it happened to him just a few years ago.  Alex was at a Jay-Z concert and loved what HOVA was wearing.  Upon returning home, he spent hours pouring through the internet trying to discover what Jay-Z had on during the concert. Unfortunately, he was unable to find it.  His frustration turned into an ingenious business idea. His problem needed a solution. A thus came about the founding of Pradux.

Pradux is a website that allows users to browse products they see in their favorite magazines, on the web, on  TV, and in blogs. His site possesses a plethora of products from fashion to food, art, electronics, sports and more. The website is based of thousands of databases from popular TV shows to movies and iconic figures in pop culture.

Pradux is a very intriguing company from a business standpoint.  It allows users to submit the products that they see on TV and in the world.  In this manner, it works much like any popular social media site like Instagram or Twitter.  Every time a user engages a posted product, they receive a point.  These points add up and eventually unlock experiences with the brands on the website.  If someone buys a posted item, the user who posted that item splits the commission with Pradux 50/50. Over the course of the next five years, Alex sees Pradux being not only able to bridge the gap between, but also blend social, retail and entertainment into one ultimate experience.

In a society so caught up in current economic turmoil, Koblenz is a glimmering light of hope in the business world.  His positive attitude drives his business and innovation. “Never quit,” he insists, “always keep moving forward. Always try to find some type of positive each day, however small it is, to keep the momentum going.”

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ModCloth-Vintage Clothing and Accessories

ModClothLogoSusan Greg-Kroger loves vintage and indie clothing, accessories and decor.  In 2002 she launched a website with her  boyfriend, now husband, Eric Kroger.  The websites name was ModCloth.  At the time, both Susan and Eric lived in Pittsburgh, PA and attended Carnegie Mellon University.  They continued working on their website during their time at CMU and then went full time with it in 2006. Since then, the company has grown exponentially.  In 2009, ModCloth employed over 400 people and had revenues surpassing $15 million.  In 2010, the company relocated from Pittsburgh to San Francisco, where it continues to flourish. In 2012, ModCloth did over $100 million in revenue.

Since 2009, ModCloth has garnered a wealth of recognition.  In 2009, Susan and Eric Kroger were named numbers 2 and 3, respectively, in the Under 30: America’s Coolest Young Entrepreneurs. In 2010, the company was named “America’s Fastest-Growing Retailer,” as well as the “#2 Fastest-Growing Private Company in America. 2011 brought about Susan and Eric being named to Forbes, “30 Under 30” list for Technology.  A year later, they were named to Forbes, “30 Under 30” list for Art and Style.  Additionally,  the couple was named among the 30 Most Influential Young Entrepreneurs of 2012.  Within just the the first 10 months of 2013 Susan and Eric were named number 19 on “World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies” as well as number 14 on “Most Innovative Social Media Companies.”

In the jobless economic recovery, an online labor marketplace thrives-TaskRabbit

taskrabbit-logoLeah Busque was tired. She worked as a software engineer for IBM’s Lotus group did not really enjoy it. Leah’s favorite part of her job was when she attended an annual conference at Disney World which was the only time she had the opportunity to meet her customers. For this reason, she quit her job at IBM in 2008 right before the financial crisis began. The end of her time at IBM marked the beginning of a new endeavor: TaskRabbit

Leah’s vision for TaskRabbit was that people would be able to go online and easily hire others to ran errands for them and do other mundane jobs. Initially, she thought that this online job creator would mainly attract college students strapped for cash. She was wrong. Today there are roughly 13,000 TaskRabbits bid for jobs in 14 United States cities. The focus group of this business consists of what Busque calls “micro-entrepreneurs.” These are people like mothers, the underpaid and underemployed.  Some of the tasks done by these “micro-entrepreneurs” can be anything from fixing toilets to dressing up as a hot dog for a birthday party.

The pay for jobs from TaskRabbit runs from as low as $10 for small jobs, to hundreds for more skilled work.  The employer for each individual task pays 20% commission to TaskRabbit.

Busque believes that TaskRabbit has enormous potential.  Recently, it has expanded to help small businesses and even planers find temp workers without paying expensive fees to placement agencies.

“Our vision is huge: to revolutionize the way people work,” says Jessica Leber, a partner of Busque. “It is about offering people more choice on how they work, what their schedules are like how much they get paid, [and the choice of] being their own bosses.”