Another relevant entrepreneur for students is Catherine Cook, creator of myYearbook, a free interactive online yearbook. At the age of fifteen Catherine and her seventeen-year-old brother Dave came up with the idea to be able to interact with more fellow students online. They quickly got their first investor from their web designer older brother and set to work. Soon after building their website, they combined with a user generated quiz site to garner many more interactions.
As they grew, Catherine’s business encountered some pivots as she tried to figure out what would work and what would not. At some points potential investors would want her to move headquarters or determine ad space. Ultimately, she stayed true to her business and vision and it paid off. MyYearbook.com was ranked one of the most popular sites for middle school and high school students in 2006. As her business grew, it attracted nicer advertisers like Disney and Neutrogena.
While she put time into growing it, as was a struggle for many school age entrepreneurs, school and grades started to suffer. Because being in the heart of her target market and being able to optimize her website with direct input and feedback made myYearbook more user friendly, it also became very overwhelming when trying to balance work and school. Later in her high school career Catherine found herself having to skip classes to work.
Yet through every obstacle and inconvenience, starting when she was just fifteen years old, Catherine Cook’s myYearbook has carved itself a niche for high schoolers and grown to 3 million members.
Cook kept up her business all throughout college, after which she sold myYearbook. She remains a partner however, working full time for the business. Catherine Cooke has become a very well-known entrepreneur, inspiring many young people to not let their age keep them from pursuing their big ideas.
Great Article! It really shows there’s no age limit to true innovation!
This story is really interesting. It’s inspiring to know that even if grades suffer from entrepreneurial adventures you need to push on. I love this story, and I really like the product she and her brother came up with.
This is great! I have felt it would be nice to have a way to keep in touch with old classmates – this seems like a truly innovative way of doing so!