Mark Zuckerberg. The name itself is synonymous with young entrepreneurship. He took a familiar route of the greats: smart enough to get into a prestigious school (Harvard); recognized by those who knew him as capable, creative, and committed; and he dropped out of college to found a multibillion dollar company. Some speak of him with reverence, others with envy, but none can deny that Mark Zuckerberg changed the world we live in. Social media is a hot topic, with enough moral issues for a study of the French Revolution, yet it’s enlightening to think of how social media happened before thinking about what it’s done.

In creating Facebook, Zuckerberg either stole it, built it using spare parts from other ideas, or came up with it along with others, depending on who you ask. What’s undisputed is that, with no patent to aid him, Mark Zuckerberg created a website with scale and function that the world had not seen before. I believe that two distinct traits led to his success.

He Thought BIG

Even if he completely ripped the concept off of 3 friends, Facebook would not and could not have happened without the Zuck’s massive magnification of the concept. An idea was floating about a network for students at the university. Zuckerberg saw Harvard as nothing but a beta test pool, a trampoline off of which to jump. An idea for 7,000 students became an idea for 7 billion people because Mark Zuckerberg refused to be contained to what’s right in front of him. When ideas are left alone, opportunities are lost.

He Acted

10 years after Facebook was launched, Zuckerberg recounted his first thought of a global social network. Unsurprisingly, it was in the midst of a casual conversation about the college social network. How many great innovations have been thought of in passing, but thrown to wind? Zuckerberg represents the proactive-ness that entrepreneurs should have. It’s often better to juggle 2 great ideas and a bad idea than to pick one early on, and pray it’s the right one.

In Zuckerberg, we find our generation’s Jobs. Web interaction has been wholly changed by encompassing social media networks, and thus, so have bodily interactions. For better or worse, Zuckerberg is proof that often, the biggest innovation comes through preexisting ideas, given new proportions.

Money is a strange thing, often taken for granted. Human history has used all sorts of items for trade, and for millennia, these items always had value of their own. In ancient civilizations, tradesmen bartered, offering the products of their craft for the products of another man’s craft. The blacksmith traded armor for produce, swords for furniture, and tools for meat. This system eventually led to a more flexible system of trade: money. Coins were made of precious metals, usually having their worth based simply on the worth of the materials used.  Later, governments instituted money that had no particular value of it’s own, but rather was backed by a treasury, which owned gold allotted to every worthless piece of money. “Money” became a promissory note from the government, and when the “gold standard” was left behind, money became arbitrary, worth only what people would be willing to give in exchange for it. This gave way to new methods of trading money, such as digital banking, and online money transfers. Now, an entire new currency has emerged that is entirely digital: bitcoin.

Bitcoin has grown in popularity and in value, leading to new opportunities for entrepreneurs. Brian Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase, is taking advantage of this new opportunity with a familiar business concept applied to an untapped platform. Coinbase aims to be the “Paypal for bitcoin,” making it simple for technological laymen to buy, sell, and send gifts using bitcoin. Coinbase acts as a virtual bitcoin wallets for users, providing security as well as simplicity. To retailers, however, Coinbase is a payments processor, with the option to instantly sell the bitcoin for USD, giving companies the confidence to use bitcoin in the face of high volatility. Merchants are given multiple benefits, including low fees (1% via Coinbase vs. ~2% via credit card companies) and higher flexibility for the customer. Armstrong’s business deals with objections well, with a promises of zero chargebacks and fraud, as well as easy refunds, even when the company has sold the bitcoins. Because of this, they have secured clients such as Overstock.com, Dell, Google, and even their predecessor Paypal.

Like many other great technopreneurs, Brian Armstrong worked for another successful young start-up, airbnb, prior to starting his own tech company. After working as a software developer there, he left to start Coinbase. Coinbase is known to be the most well-funded bitcoin exchange, and shapes up to be the leader of the fast-growing, dynamic market that is digital currency.

Ryan Deiss is a splendiferously successful internet entrepreneur from Houston, Texas.  Though Deiss grew up in an average middle-class family, he dreamed of greater success from an early age.  When adults asked the young Ryan what he wanted to be when he grew up, he gave a different type of answer than they expected: Ryan wanted to be a millionaire.  His childhood hero was not a sports start, a celebrity, or even the superhero associated with him; it was Bruce Wayne.  From Bruce Wayne’s life, Deiss formulated his goal not to have a specific occupation, but to achieve financial success.  When inheriting a fortune wasn’t an option, he was led to entrepreneurship.

Ryan realized the entrepreneurial power of the internet in an unconventional way: a job with an internet spammer.  By being a part of the modern-day equivalent of a telemarketing company, he witnessed “the shear volume of sales that can be generated with just a couple clicks of the mouse.”  For Ryan, making one transaction per customer interaction seemed inefficient, and hard to maintain.  By combining the surging popularity of internet shopping with the tried-and-true system of subscription-based services, he created for himself a revenue model with which he could predict his monthly income prior to the event, as well as repeat and apply to different services for different markets.

In talking about his approach to his myriad of businesses, he notes one thing they have in common with each other, that differentiates them from other revenue models: he’s not selling products to customers, he’s selling membership to a club (from which members may buy products.)  Not only is he getting automatic repeat business, he is also creating demand with the appearance of exclusivity.

Deiss has innovated internet selling in many ways, arguably helping lead to the surge of internet “clubs” seen recently.  He innovated the process, by getting customers to pay him for the opportunity to buy his products.  He changed the perception of buying somewhat normal items, giving them prestige and rarity by placing them within the confines of a club.  He has perhaps shown the greatest entrepreneurship by understanding and applying these innovations to over 20 companies, with millions of revenue each year.

Brian Wong is the 23 year old founder or Kiip-a company whose technology allows mobile in-app advertisements to improve the user experience, rather than diminish it.  Even prior to founding Kiip (pronounced “keep”), Brian was a noteworthy wunderkind, graduating from the University of British Columbia at the age of 18, starting one company, and spending 5 months working on Digg’s mobile app.  This beginning gave him the credibility he needed to receive funding from a venture capital firm, becoming the second youngest entrepreneur to do so.

The idea for Kiip came out of a plane ride.  Wong noticed the pervasive use of iPhones and iPads for gaming, and thought of how annoying it is to be “rewarded” for an achievement (such as a level-up or beating a high school) with pop-up ads.  He thought that advertisements should a) have relation to what you’re doing in the game, and b) reward you for your success.  According to Kong, an advertisement should take advantage of what is happening in the moment you see it.

To accomplish this, Kiip partners with app-developers and advertisers and tailors custom rewards from the advertisers to offer users upon achievements.  For instance, when a child beats a level on Candy Crush, they might be offered free Sour Patch Kids in congratulations.  This has a two-fold effect: app-developers are happy because users enjoy their app more, and look forward to milestones even more; while advertisers are happy because they now have more effective advertising, and instead of being an annoyance to their target, they’re creating customer delight!

Brian Wong followed a familiar path to innovation.  First he noticed a problem: ads are nothing but an annoyance for users.  While considering this problem, he also took notice that this hurts the companies advertising their products as well.  In creating a technology that solved both of these problems, he is able to double the demand, and insert himself as a third partner in advertising.

Particularly unique to Brian is his genius focus on the significance of the moment.  He doesn’t consider Kiip a mobile advertising company, he considers it a moment capitalization company.  The premise of the service is that consumers are particularly open to certain advertisements and offers at certain moments.  A discounted oil change is of much greater interest to me after Mojio alerts me that my car needs an oil change rather than after I watched a video on YouTube.  Now I have an incentive to keep using Mojio, as well as an incentive to go to (insert a mechanic’s shop here) instead of where I usually go.

In Kiip, Brian Wong has exemplified many great entrepreneurial traits.  The innovation that Kiip brings could change mobile advertising as a whole.  In creating a broad mission (to capture the power of the moment) he refrains from limiting Kiip to a single category of advertising.  Finally, he has made use of every opportunity he had.  All this has led to his great success.