Archive for Blog – Page 2

A New Way of Microblogging and Social Networking.

                      As new ways of communicating with other people have been invented, nothing has been like the microblogging and social networking site Tumbler. The story of Tumbler is interesting as well. At the age of 21, David Karp was just like any other entrepreneur who wanted two things in life: success and fortune. Being that David Karp had dropped out of high school when he was younger, all Karp really had was a few items and a dream, but, what differentiated David from any other entrepreneur was his drive and passion for his dream. While going about his daily activities one day, David had a genius idea about microblogging and social networking and as before, David always was very interested in this section of communication and had lots of knowledge in this sector of conveyance. David had the idea of Tumbler which ultimately is a  microblogging and social networking site that lets users express themselves, be themselves, and connect with other people. But what differentiates Tumbler from any other microblogging and social networking site is that Tumbler is very image-focused and ultimately there is no maximum word limit on posts that are created as many other sites have. On top of each image, Tumblr users can post videos, sound files, and many other types of content that other sites don’t allow their users to access. Finally, the biggest pro of Tumbler is the site’s ability to let users customize their life and portray it for all to see. Lots of other sites are very limited in this factor and do not let their users customize/personalize aspects of their profile, but Tumbler ultimately lets users customize every aspect of their profile. 

                      What is exemplary about David is that he didn’t let anything stand in this way. As a high school dropout, many people don’t do anything or have ideas that can change the future, but David ultimately dropped out of high school to follow his passion and pursue his dreams. What drives David Karp as an entrepreneur is his willingness to never settle for less. Although Tumbler was created in 2007, it has never stopped updating and inventing new aspects of the app to be more user friendly. What makes Tumbler an interesting idea is that David Karp created this successful app when he was 20. Although various apps were created by young entrepreneurs, David didn’t even have a high school diploma when thinking about Tumbler. He took his dream and passion and poured it all into His app. Entrepreneurial traits that David demonstrates are passion, persistence, and hard-working. David Karp is innovating day in and day out by teaching anyone that age doesn’t play a role in how successful you can be. Finally, David specifically inspires me to chase after my dreams even if they don’t make sense. When David Karp created Tumbler, in the beginning, nothing made sense. It seemed like an overall similar app to the competition, but with research and hard work, Karp ultimately made this dream become a reality. 

Hey it’s WordPress!

Matthew Mullenweg grew up with hobbies like coding, art and economics. A fun mix. One of the main founders of WordPress, his hobbies and skills throughout his life led to many amazing web related ideas. In 2005 Matt left school at Houston and a consulting job to start his overhead business, Automattic. This later led to a slew of other companies that used Automattic as a launch pad, including WordPress. He was just nineteen when he decided to change the way people use the internet to publish.

Automattic and all of its resulting companies has turned into a completely virtual company of over 1,100 employees in more than 62 countries.

WordPress, which is used by many authors and writers to publish blogs, was started because of the closure of b2, the only other open source platform option at the time. Having used b2 throughout his life, its end was a pain for Matt. The idea and plan for WordPress started when Matt was approached online by a fellow coder after he had talked about the lack of a publishing space.

Using b2 as a starting base and template, the two entrepreneurs proceeded to build upon the main idea while improving any faults. A classic mash up of ideas and innovation, WordPress is now used by over 31 percent of the web. It is only one of many successes Matt made for himself, but it very much added to the open source world of the web.

He works on it constantly and takes joy from the benefit people receive.

From educational to professional, WordPress has added levels of simplicity, convenience, and efficiency to the way people work. Matt has an entrepreneur’s  spirit, and from his career history so far, it is easy to see he looks for problems to solve and thrives in finding solutions.

Whateverlife.com – Ashley Qualls

In 2004, when Ashley Qualls was only fourteen years old, she found herself deeply passionate about graphic design and coding. She grew up in a lower-class household with her single mother and younger sister. However, she was determined that her situation would not define her. She worked hard and created Whateverlife.com, aimed at providing her audience with HTML Tutorials and free MySpace Layouts. Her audience was teenage girls like herself, as she wanted to invoke in others the same passion for graphic design and coding that she had.

Ashley built her website all on her own with no investor, big-wig mentor, or notable source of funds. All she had was her own self-determination. Though she did not have much growing up, the amazing work that she did by herself made her 70,000 dollars in the first month that her website was live. As online foot traffic increased for Ashley, she made modifications to Whateverlife.com that made it possible for viewers to create an account on the website, upload their own projects, and earn reward points that they could use to purchase digital goods for their designs.

Just shy of her company’s third birthday, Whateverlife.com had already recorded between three and four million page views. Ashley and her customers were not the only ones fixed on the betterment of her business, as an anonymous buyer liked the idea so much that he offered 1,500,000 dollars to purchase the website from her. Just months later, Brad Greenspan, the co-founder of MySpace, was so impressed with her work that he offered an even larger sum of money in exchange for the company, not just one time, but twice. Ashley still determined to grow her website even larger, rejected all offers.

In 2006, after being offered millions of dollars for her online HTML Tutorial and MySpace Layout business and turning it down, Ashley purchased a house for her and her family. Unfortunately, shortly after turning seventeen and becoming a millionaire, Ashley was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that caused her to suffer mass gastrointestinal issues. Her prosperous life went into turmoil, not to mention the loss of her business, house, and unborn child. Even throughout all of this hardship, her entrepreneurial spirit never died, and her determination to succeed never faded. She would not give up. In 2015, Ashley got a job that also vanished like sand between her fingers as she could no longer persist in the work environment with her worsening disease.

Though Ashley’s disease stunted her ability to do what she wanted, she was reinvigorated with hope when she read an article in The New Yorker by Megan O’ Rourke. This article made her realize that countless other people also struggle with the same disease as she does. This inspired her to create a blog called SickNotDead. SickNotDead, to this day, provides her with a place to advise, support, and create a community for others that suffer in the same way that she does. It is apparent in her motivational writings that now, more than ever, Ashley’s entrepreneurial spirit is alive and thriving. Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, and Ashley Qualls is an incredible example of this.

Matthew Mullenweg

As we are writing out our posts I don’t think any of us really pay attention to the platform we are using, or maybe you are and I am in the minority. No matter what, someone had to create this platform for us to write out our blog posts. This is where Matthew Mullenweg comes in, a performing arts school graduate and jazz saxophonist, but also the founding developer of WordPress. As Mullenweg and his team was still developing the platform, a competitor drastically increased its prices which opened up the opportunity for WordPress to be the main blogging platform.

What is interesting about the creation of WordPress, is the fact that they weren’t the first blogging platform, Movable Type was. Mullenweg just saw an opportunity to create a basically “free” platform. Something Movable Type does not do and still does not. This is an amazing example of a product that differentiates from the already established competitors. This is inspiring because though there is so much innovation around us, there is still so much more out there to innovate. This includes already existing products and services.

How Tumblr Came to be – David Karp

Karp’s Upbringing:

Karp was born on July 6, 1986 in New York, NY. At a young age, he found a love for technology and by eighth grade he was already designing websites for local companies.

This made him drop out from school, resorting to home-schooling just so that he could

save time. He did plan on going to one of the league universities later in his life but some great opportunities came his way and changed his plans completely.

At the age of 14, Karp started interning at various software companies. A few years later, he was made the head of ‘UrbanBaby’, a parenting forum that he developed a software for. A few months after that, he took off for Tokyo to get better at his business and computer skills (which he did). Within a few years, he formed an independent consulting firm called Davidville.

Birth of Tumblr:

Karp was looking to hire some employees for Davidville so Marco Arment joined the team as an engineer after replying to Karp’s craigslist ad.

Karp had been interested in microblogging for some time and was waiting for one of the established blogging platforms to introduce their own microblogging platform. After a year of waiting, Karp and Arment began working on their own microblogging platform during a two-week gap between contracts in 2006. Tumblr was launched in February 2007 and within two weeks, the service had gained 75,000 users.

In October 2007, Karp shut down his consultancy business because his work with Tumblr was interfering with his client work. Davidville was renamed Tumblr, Inc. and 25 percent of the company was sold to a small group of investors.

 

On May 20, 2013, it was announced that Yahoo! and Tumblr had reached an agreement for Yahoo! to acquire Tumblr for $1.1 billion. As of November 1, 2017, Tumblr hosts over 375.4 million blogs. Karp announced in November 2017 that he would be retiring from Tumblr by the end of the year.

And that’s how the young genius, David Karp became one of the most successful entrepreneurs of the world with a net worth of $200 million (as of 2017).

The Entrepreneurial Side of Karp:

David doesn’t like to talk about his age as he isn’t entirely secure about people knowing how young he is. He doesn’t want the story of Tumblr to be “all about his youth.” He wants the story of Tumblr to be about the remarkable genius of a young boy who dared to believe and achieve.

That statement right there, “believe and achieve” is what being an entrepreneur is about. Any one can come up with an idea, but it’s the ones who believe in it and act on it that are real entrepreneurs.

 

Danny Duncan

Danny Duncan is a famous YouTube star whose videos generate up to 3 million views. He performs stunts and comedy routines that interest your average day YouTube consumer. Due to his status as a internet celebrity, he has been able to generate a great amount of revenue from his websites and retail stores.

Duncan first worked at a Walgreens right out of high school before quitting to focus on making videos about skateboards and injuries. He was then hired to teach actor Jason Lee who sensed a great ability in Duncan to act and entertain. He told Duncan to focus on his YouTube channel as it would help with getting acting gigs and from there he took off. His most famous video is “Falling with 30,000 pennies” had close to 6 million views

Cites:

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/danny-duncan-41751.php

Pete Cashmore

Pete Cashmore is the founder Mashable, a media blog that provides news on celebrities, trends, and general gossip. Cashmore founded Mashable when he was just 20 years old back in 2005. In the beginning it was just a blog that became incredibly popular, fast forward to today and it is now one of the most popular news cites that people get their daily gossip and more from.

Due to the success of the website, Cashmore as accumulated a net worth of $95 million. Because of the success of the cite, he was able to sell the company to a gentleman by the name of Ziff Davis for a total of $50 million dollars. So in short, he’s a pretty successful guy

Fraser Doherty

Fraser Doherty is the creator of “Super Jam”. Super Jam is a Jam company that sells 100% all natural fruit flavored jams. Doherty learned to create these delicious treats from his grandmother, he then started to sell his creations at local stores and supermarkets. fast forward 15 years later and he now owns a company worth 2 millions dollars and growing.

Fraser’s identity is all about making a product for people who don’t just want the same, mass produced, chemical filled jams that we all buy today. He reaches a community who craves the simple taste of old time jams that bring them back to a more vintage era.

Doherty also sets the very definition of a young entrepreneur. He started his capitalistic adventures when he was just 14 years old. Taking the knowledge that his grandmother gave him, he began selling on a small scale but through promotion and marketing, was able to become international business. He is able to give all those young people who believe that their items are just too small hope; the hope that one day, through enough work, even their idea can take off

 

cites:

https://www.lifehack.org/588440/16-young-and-successful-entrepreneurs-who-prove-that-age-is-nothing-but-a-number

https://superjam.co.uk/pages/about-us

Drop Out to Success

Matt Mullenweg started his adult life as a political science major at the university of Huston. He soon realized that this was not the place for him and he dropped out of college. He then worked at a network company for two years before leaving and creating his own company. He and a friend started Auttomattic, an internet company that has brands such as word press and tumblr. It is great to see a success story where someone found out that school wasn’t their calling and decided to leave and pursue a different path. Mullenweg had extreme courage to leave the normal path and plunder into the path of the unkown. We sometimes think that to become successful we must follow the lead of many other successful people and go to college, the fact is that if the college path isn’t for you, you may still gain wisdom in other ways and become successful in your own way. Mullenweg is now the CEO of Automattic which currently owns Word Press and its over 70 million websites.

What the Hecht?

Jared Hecht is a millennial entrepreneur that changed the way the world communicates and made a significant impact in the startup space. In 2009, he graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Political Science. Straight out of Columbia, at the ripe age of 22, the young entrepreneur founded startup messaging platform GroupMe. A little over a year after its official launch, GroupMe was sold to Skype in 2011 for $80 million and Hecht began working for Microsoft, who later acquired Skype. In 2015, Hecht was named to the Forbes “30 under 30” list for his entrepreneurial impact.

Though extremely rewarding, it wasn’t always easy for the young entrepreneur to see the light at the end of the startup tunnel. “Some nights you are on top of the world and think you’re building the best thing ever, and then other nights you think that some horrible competitor is going to knock you off the face of the earth,” says Hecht.  However, even with the inherent risk, he confirms that developing ideas and changing the way people communicate is “the best feeling ever.”

Alongside his laundry list of impressive commercial accomplishments, Jared Hecht is vastly changing the social entrepreneurship game. Hecht is the current founder and CEO of Fundera, a start-up investment agency that provides loans and financial planning for entrepreneurial ventures. He has invested and advised successful startups such as Codeacademy, SmartThings, and TransferWise. He also currently sits on the advisory board of the Columbia University Entrepreneurship Organization and is a guest blogger for prestigious business sites like entrepreneur.com and Forbes. Jared Hecht is not only a man with good ideas, but he’s willing to take risks for ventures that he believes in, making him one of this generation’s greatest entrepreneurs.