Young Cameron Johnson first started his business ventures at the age of 9 when he began to create invitations for his parents party. People noticed his skill and by the age of 11 he had saved up over $1,000 from making greeting cards. Doesn’t seem like much, but for a 9 year old its very impressive. Since then Johnson had done things like buy TY beanie babies at wholesale and sell them at retail making over $50,000 in cash. With this much cash at a 12 year old, what would you do? Well for Cameron Johnson he decided to start EZ Mail. This is a service that forwards emails to a particular account without the recipients personal information. After this he created Surfingprizes.com which provided scrolling advertisements across the top of users’ web browsers. Cameron’s time line as a kid is just him finding creative and ingenious ways to make money. He attended college at the Virginia Polytech Institute for less than one semester until he came up with another business idea called Certificateswap.com where people can exchange gift cards they wont use though Ebay. If a 9 year old can make money then anyone can. As long as we all use our talents and jump on any ideas that come to our heads. Johnson has been successful because he didn’t wait for someone else to use his idea. Every time he came up with a creative idea he went out an made it happen.
Dang! It sounds like Cameron has an eye for business. I found it funny that he dropped out of college after a semester. I think it proves a point that success does not have to come through an established set of rules. You can be successful through your own set of rules and that our society allows us to pave our own path.
Wow! This is an incredible story. Cameron is a great example of using our talents to create a business. I also agree that it’s important to act on our ideas before someone else does. It reminds me of what we learned in class that ideas can be discovered by multiple people, it’s just a matter of who is successful at it.
An important thing for entrepreneurs to think about is that Cameron started several different businesses! Many people might think they need to come up with one solid company and thrive off of that, but in Cameron’s case, he thrived from continuing the process of innovation and starting several different companies!
I will have to say that’s all super impressive for how old he was. The fact that he has started multiple different companies at that young of an age truly shows his potential. He also didn’t focus in one area of business which is a testament of how creative he is. He is definitely someone you would want on your team when starting a new company.