Archive for websites

How did you Blog today

Ever notice when going to post on this blog, “Millennial Entrepreneurs” for assignments, what you log in through. Well it is WordPress, founded by Matthew Mullenweg when he was in college in 2005. Today it is used as one of leading, and most successful websites to upload and create blogs worldwide. How ironic that the cite we use to talk about all the entrepreneur’s in the world, is one created by a millennial entrepreneur.

Like most college kids, Matt was struggling keeping up with his grades. He also didn’t feel he was in the right spot, and college wasn’t his thing.  So he wanted to vent those feelings to kids in the similar situation, but noticed there was no way to connect and do that. He did however, realize the World Wide Web was on the rise and the new place to be, so why not there. He created WordPress to connect with kids who didn’t “fit in/like” college and started a blog. Little did he know it would take off and blow up how it did. Today, there are about 60 million blogs on WordPress alone, one of which is ours. He saw a way to take venting and expressing his feelings to the next level. He knew, the only way to do it before was write it down, and save it and share with friend if you were brave enough. He wondered about making it better and in real time by allowing blogging to happen at your finger tips, and be published when you want.

WordPress and millennial entrepreneur is one thing I never expected them to go together. I never saw us talking about entrepreneurs and writing about their success and what they did, on their platform. It is a small word to say the least, and very ironic that it comes together how it does.

 

Brother-Sister Pair Create Multi-Million Dollar Online Yearbook

Who knew that a pair of brother-sister millennial entrepreneurs could create a multi-million dollar business by the ripe ages of 14 and 25? Geoff and Catherine Cook of New Hope, Pennsylvania, built a website called MyYearbook from the ground up – and they did this while Catherine was still in high school. In 2002, when their family decided to make the move to New Hope, Catherine was extremely interested in making new friends at her new high school. One day, she was flipping through the pages of her yearbook when she realized that this was not the most efficient way to make new friends. She thought if only there was an online yearbook where she could reach out to people who did not already know her, but who were interested in making new friends as well. She brought the idea up to her already successful brother who had recently graduated from Harvard and had sold a few of his own companies, and he jumped right on board. He invested a whopping $250,000 and stepped in as CEO. These siblings launched what would become one of the nation’s most-trafficked websites from the comfort of their parents’ home. Within the first week of its launch, 400 users had already signed up and were avidly using the site. After reaching out to investors and focusing on branding their company as “MySpace for high school”, Catherine and Geoff were able to hire a team of engineers to expand their company even further. In 2011, MyYearBook merged with Quespasa – a $100 million deal – that allowed them to reach an even larger Brazilian and Mexican audience, with the new name of: MeetMe. Through this deal, they were able to take their website worldwide and affect millions of people around the globe.

Catherine and Geoff Cook are exemplary millennial entrepreneurs because they started with a simple idea, and through hard work and dedication, they were able to create a world-wide business out of their parents’ home. They were motivated and dedicated, a combination that would drive them to succeed and achieve even more than they could have imagined. Catherine had a vision and at the age of 14 was able to pursue her dreams by pushing every limit and overcoming every stereotype that tried to hinder her. She did not allow her age to stop her, nor did she allow the opinions of others at her new school to impede her goals. She simply worked countless hours, contacted the right people, and most importantly never gave up.

I believe Catherine and Geoff’s story is inspiring and can teach many lessons. Their passion and persistence led them to astounding success and drove them to continually innovate their idea. Catherine talked to other students every day while Geoff networked online to truly see what others though of their site. They constantly critiqued, tweaked, and pivoted their idea based on their target audience’s desires so that MyYearbook became one of the most popular social networking sites in the world.
This has taught me the importance of continuous improvement. I believe that products and ideas can always be improved. As society changes and technology, stereotypes, and expectations change along with it, companies need to constantly develop their products. Even a successful product can always be improved because improvement leads to more success. This is a concept that I intend to bring into the products and businesses that I create both now and in the future.