Teenage millionaires who got rich all by themselves
YOUNG PEOPLE, BIG BUCKS
Think of teenage millionaires and cartoon character Richie Rich and his own personal rollercoaster might spring to mind. But there are many real-life teens who’ve capitalized on their creativity and ingenuity to make a fortune.
NICK D’ALOISIO
Smartphones and their little screens were in their infancy, and there was limited mobile-only content available. Summly was a hit because it made it easier to read on smartphones by summarizing long articles into 500 words or even 140 characters. It attracted celebrity investors like Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Fry and Yoko Ono, and was eventually sold to Yahoo for a reported $30 million in 2013. D’Aloisio was just 18 and a millionaire.
D’Aloisio is now 21 years old. He worked at Yahoo as a product manager and launched a couple of new products, including the critically acclaimed Yahoo News Digest. He left the company to pursue a degree in computer science and philosophy at Oxford University. He has been busy with scholarly work recently, and his peer-reviewed article “Imagery Overflow: we see more than we report” has been published in acclaimed scientific journals.
JORDAN MARON
Born in Los Angeles in 1992, Jordan Maron found fame and fortune on YouTube, at a time when that was practically unheard of. Maron launched the CaptainSparklez channel in 2010 at the age of 18, where he discussed videogames. It was an immediate success. From early on Maron started partnering with brands in order to monetize his videos.
To date Maron’s channels have amassed over 2.8 billion views, and he has close to 10 million subscribers. He’s estimated to be worth more than $8 million, and in 2015 he splashed out $4.5 million on a swanky pad in the Hollywood Hills.
Though he is best known for CaptainSparklez, Maron is also a successful musician. He distributes his music through yet another successful YouTube channel called Maron Music. In 2015, he launched his own mobile gaming company, XREAL, too.
To date Maron’s channels have amassed over 2.8 billion views, and he has close to 10 million subscribers. He’s estimated to be worth more than $8 million, and in 2015 he splashed out $4.5 million on a swanky pad in the Hollywood Hills.
Though he is best known for CaptainSparklez, Maron is also a successful musician. He distributes his music through yet another successful YouTube channel called Maron Music. In 2015, he launched his own mobile gaming company, XREAL, too.
BRENNAN AGRANOFF
Brennan Agranoff is still in high school but last year he sold over $1 million-worth of custom-designed athletic socks. He is the founder and CEO of HoopSwagg, a start-up he founded when he was just 13 years old.
After noticing that the student athletes in his high school were all splurging on plain white designer socks, Agranoff wondered if they would be willing to shell out for better, more interesting apparel. After six months of research, he managed to persuade his parents to invest, and their $3,000 seed money helped Agranoff launch the business out of the family garage in Oregon.
HoopSwagg owes much of its success to social media, and today it employs 17 staff as well as Agranoff and his mother. The teenager manages the sock empire single-handedly, and has even taught himself to code so he could manage the website and online shop. To top it all off, he is graduating high school early with plans to grow HoopSwagg to retail in stores and offer more customized products like shoelaces and ties.
JULIETTE BRINDAK
Brindak has been the driving force behind the business. Her plan to keep it as a safe, age-appropriate and cool online destination for girls “who’ve outgrown Barbies but are not ready for Beyonce” attracted the interest of Procter & Gamble, which remains its biggest investor.
Miss O & Friends has around five million unique monthly visitors and is worth around $15 million, according to Procter & Gamble. Brindak was only 16 when Procter & Gamble got involved, and remains the CEO of the company now, nine years later.
EMILY MATSON AND JULIANNE GOLDMARK
The business really took off when Jennifer Aniston stepped onto the red carpet wearing one of its hair-ties, and within a couple of years Emi Jay was turning profits exceeding $10 million a year.
All Emi Jay hair ties and apparel are handmade in Los Angeles and the girls always use sustainable fabrics, which has helped Emily and Julianne gain a massive online following. Today they are both in college, but they continue to run the business with their team. They are also dedicated philanthropists and donate 20% of all company profits to charity.
SEAN BELNICK
Belnick had saved up the $600 he initially invested in creating BizChair.com by selling Pokemon cards on eBay and mowing lawns, but by the age of 16 he was a millionaire. He has since sold chairs to Microsoft, Google and Abercrombie & Fitch.
Belnick still runs BizChair.com today. It operates out of a 70-hectare site in Georgia and sells over 25,000 chairs a year.
BRIAN WONG
Kiip immediately piqued the interest of venture capitalists and Wong – along with partners Courtney Guertin and Amadeus Demarzi – has raised over $32 million in venture capital to date.
Wong, now 26, is still the CEO of Kiip and has written a book “The Cheat Code: Going Off Script to Get More, Go Faster, and Shortcut Your Way to Success” to inspire others to follow in his successful footstep.
JON KOON
Koon really hit the big time when Extreme Performance Motorsports became one of the main suppliers for MTV’s classic Pimp My Ride TV series. He decided to take a break from business in order to attend Georgetown University, but by then he was already a multi-millionaire.
When Koon got his degree in international business and management, he decided to move into the fashion industry and bought brand 8732 from Jay Z. Today he runs Tykoon Brand Holdings, which runs a variety of fashion brands that he says is worth $80 million.
ROBERT NAY
Though Bubble Ball is still available and popular for download, Nay has continued to develop smartphonepuzzles through his company Nay Games.
The teenager from Utah is said to have learned to code in his local library before spending a month writing the 4,000 lines of code needed to launch the game. According to estimates, Bubble Ball earned Nay over $2 million in those first two weeks of downloads alone.
ADAM HILDRETH
At one point Dubit was the biggest social network for teenagers in the UK and it earned Hildreth $2.6 million by the time he was 19. He also knew when to get out of the social media game as bigger fish like MySpace and Facebook emerged. Hildreth now advises companies on how to advertise and market their products for younger audiences.
He has also launched Crisp Thinking, a company that develops ways to keep brands safe from social media risks like illegal and offensive content, spam, scams, social PR crises, trolls, security risks, IP and trademark violations and regulatory issues.
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Categories: Fortune Cookie Wisdom, Retirement & Savings