Daniel Ek is a great example of a successful millennial entrepreneur. Daniel is well known as the founder of Spotify. While growing up in Switzerland, Daniel always had a knack for technology and music. During his late teenage years, Daniel started to create websites for local businesses. Later, Daniel enrolled at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology to study engineering, only to drop out after the first few weeks to pursue other endeavors. After dropping out, Daniel founded an online marketing firm, Advertigo. After years of success, Daniel sold Advertigo to a fellow Swedish company called Tradedoubler. After his success with Advertigo, Daniel worked with a former employee, Martin Lorenzton, to develop Spotify. Spotify is a unique music application that offers patrons the legal opportunity to stream a variety of music free of charge in exchange for viewing video or audio advertisements or the option to pay a nominal $5.00 monthly fee to opt out of advertisements.  Daniel’s innovation turned the music industry completely upside down. He was able to offer a low-cost alternative, which ultimately allowed Spotify’s profits to soar past its competitors. Today, Daniel’s net worth has surpassed $1.5 billion and Spotify’s value is estimated at $8 billion. Daniel’s innovation and entrepreneurial spirit is inspiring. By combining his passions for technology and music, Daniel was able to create one of the most successful streaming services in the music industry.

Adam D’Angelo is a great example of a successful millennial entrepreneur. Adam is well known as the founder of the website, Quora. While growing up, Adam always had a passion for technology. During his high school years, Adam attended the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, an independent secondary school known for its innovation and interactive conference style of learning.  At the academy, Adam became friends with Mark Zuckerberg. Even in high school, Adam and Zuckerberg demonstrated a knack for innovation as they collaborated to develop music suggestion software known as “Synapse Media Player”, a successful program that would later be acquired by Microsoft. This youthful collaboration would not be the last time that these two creative minds worked together. After high school, Adam went on to study computer science at the California Institute of Technology. Upon graduation, Adam reunited with Zuckerberg and became an integral member of the original Facebook team. At Facebook, Adam served as the Chief Technology Officer and the Vice President of engineering. In 2008, Adam left Facebook to pursue other endeavors. In 2009, Adam and Charlie Cheever, another former Facebook employee, founded the website Quora. Quora is a platform that allows a community of users to ask and answer questions. Today, Quora continues to thrive and Adam still serves as the CEO of the company. Adam has enjoyed financial success from his endeavors as his net worth has surpassed $600 million and he is recognized as one of the wealthiest millennial entrepreneurs in the industry. Adam credits his success to the execution of good ideas and encourages others to do the same.

Pete Cashmore is a great example of a millennial entrepreneur. Pete is well-known as the founder of the website, Mashable. At the age of 19, while living with his parents in Scotland, Pete founded the website. A major driving force for finding Mashable was his passion for reading and writing. Historically, Pete would subscribe to as many blogs as possible because he loved learning about others’ experiences. Mashable is a website that covers a wide variety of topics such as breaking news, science, business, and social good. Originally, Mashable was only a tech blog; however due to Pete’s entrepreneurial foresight, he expanded the blog to a vast amount of topics to reach a larger audience. Pete has accrued a long list of accomplishments such as being listed on Forbes 30 under 30 list, named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people, and listed as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Today, Pete’s net worth is over $100 million and he is still the CEO of Mashable. Mashable continues to thrive and evolve in the social media realm. Mashable reported that it averages over 25 million visitors a month. Pete’s entrepreneurial instincts led him to create one of the most well-known social media websites in the industry today.

Gerard Adams is a great example of a millennial entrepreneur. Gerard is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently 32 years old. By the age of 24, Gerard was a multimillionaire. However, Gerard’s journey was not solely a success story. Gerrard dropped out of college after his first semester at Caldwell University. After dropping out, Gerard got a job working for a financial firm in the investor relations department. From here, Gerrard worked at various financial firms until he decided to follow his own entrepreneurship dreams. In his pursuit, Gerard emphasized that hard work and determination were responsible for the realization of his dreams. Though, he also highlighted the importance of failures and the valuable lessons he gained from them.

  In 2012, Gerard and two of his interns co-founded the publication, Elite Daily. As an electronic news publication, the Daily Elite targeted millennial’s, essentially promoting it as “the voice of Generation Y”. This website focused on current interest stories and trending topics in sports, politics, college life and social justice. Through much hard work and dedication, the Elite Daily eventually surpassed 80 million viewers per month. In 2015, Gerard sold the Daily Elite to the Daily Mail publication for $50 million. After selling the Elite Daily, Gerard turned his focus to philanthropy, founding the social enterprise, Fownders. Fownders is a mentorship program that focuses on helping others reach their goals in the business industry. Gerard started this program in his hometown, Newark, New Jersey. Gerard’s ultimate goal is to expand the program to a national or global organization. As a testament to his success, Gerard highlights the importance of collaboration and networking. Today, Gerard is known for his presence on social media, a platform that promotes his ongoing mission of motivating other entrepreneurs to reach their full potential and success. As means to accomplish this, Gerard has posted a series of videos on YouTube called “Leaders create Leaders” in which he describes the necessary attributes to excel as an entrepreneur. In recognition of his contributions, Gerrard has been referred to as the “Millennial Mentor”.

One of the most successful millennial entrepreneurs is Dustin Moskovitz. Though Dustin is only 33 years old, his net worth has already surpassed $13 billion. Dustin is most notably known as the co-founder of Facebook, alongside Mark Zuckerberg. Moskovitz and Zuckerberg met at Harvard, where Moskovitz was studying computer engineering. The two collaborated to form arguably the most innovative social media platform of our time, Facebook. Dustin worked as the lead programmer on the Facebook developmental team. After 2008, Dustin left Facebook to pursue other ventures. In 2011, he founded Asana. Asana is one of the leading management applications in the professional industry today. Asana has the ability to create, integrate, and coordinate projects and tasks. It also has the capacity to track the progress of these tasks and facilitate collaboration and communication between team members using various devices.

After founding Asana, Dustin decided to turn his attention to philanthropy. Alongside his wife, Cari, the two founded the non-profit organization, Good Ventures. Good Ventures is an organization that focuses on the betterment of humanity and the advancement of society. Good Ventures has made significant donations to promote economic growth and health initiatives in third world countries. In 2012, Good Ventures teamed up with a fellow non-profit organization, called GiveWell, to form the Open Philanthropy Project. This project focuses on distributing large donations where they are needed the most. Essentially the goal is to optimize the donations to gain the greatest humanitarian benefit. In aggregate, this organization has distributed over $140 million dollars in grants and funds to charitable organizations. Additionally, Dustin and Cari Moskovitz have also been recognized as the youngest couple to sign the giving pledges established by the billionaires, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

In essence, Dustin’s innovation and genuine kindness are truly motivating. It’s also rather remarkable that Dustin was able to develop and contribute to two major technological applications before the age of 30. Perhaps, Dustin’s innovative spirit and creativity are only surpassed by his generosity and humanitarian contributions.

BizChair was founded by Sean Belnick in 2001. At the time of the company’s founding, Sean was only 14 years old. Sean developed this company by combining his entrepreneurial instincts with his love for technology. Sean discovered his passion for technology after his mother purchased a computer for his 10^th birthday. With a computer in hand, Sean started to explore his technological creativity by designing websites. Subsequently Sean’s experience with web design and technology, coupled with his stepfather’s twenty years of experience in the furniture industry, led to the development of BizChair.com. Essentially, Sean and his stepfather, Gary, combined technological advancements and business acumen to develop a very successful online furniture goods site and partnership.

With Gary’s insight of the furniture industry and research, Sean realized that most furniture stores were utilizing a “drop shipping model”. Stores would carry minimal inventory in their show room and then order and directly ship purchased goods to their customers. Sean also realized that there was a demand for online shopping by his personal success with selling Pokémon cards on the internet. Sean recognized the potential benefit and profitability of combining a “drop shipping model” with the growing demand for online shopping and developed BizChair.com. Essentially, BizChair offers online purchasing of furniture goods, office chairs, office desks, etc. at a reasonable price shipped directly to the desired location.  Sean’s innovation and business model offered the customer convenience and reduced cost by minimizing overhead. By the age of 20, Sean’s business had tallied a worth of over $38 million dollars. It’s rather remarkable that in just over five years, Sean’s entrepreneurial insight had grown a $600 investment to a company worth $38 million. Essentially, Sean’s success proves that youth does not circumvent insight and innovation and capitalizing on one’s interests and talents can be profitable both personally and monetarily. Additionally, Sean’s recognition of the growing demand for online shopping reiterates the old adage that “timing is everything.”

Resources:

1. http://seanbelnick.com/post/23199287296/starting-a-company
2. BizChair.com