I’m sure most of you are already jealous just after reading the headline of this story, I know I am and i’m 17. Well first things first his name in Christian Owens from Corby, Northamptonshire, England he is just 16 and made his first million in just two short years. Here’s how he did it.
At the age of 7 he got his first PC, then 3 years later he got himself a Mac and taught himself web design at the age of 10. Then 4 years later in 2008, he started his first company at the age of 14! It was just a simple very Appleish site which he used to sell bundled applications for the Mac OS. He says he was inspired by Apples CEO Steve Jobs, and hence his loyalty to Apple products.
His site, “Mac Bundle Box” sold a package of handy little Mac OS X apps for a discounted price for a limited time. He would contact and negotiate with developers to try and get a discounted deal on their apps. The resulting bundle that he sold would normally retail at around $400, be he was selling it off for a tenth of that price.
What’s more, if enough people bought the package, a new application would get unlocked for all buyers, so this pretty much guaranteed good promotion via word of mouth for him, and led to more and more sales. And to really top it off, he donated a percentage of the sales to charity.
His idea did very well, so well in fact that Mac Bundle Box made $100,000,000 (£700,000) in it’s first two years. So by the age of 16 he was already a millionaire.
But of course as any great entrepreneur is, he wasn’t happy with his success and since then has started up a new venture called Branchr. a pay-per click advertising company which distributes 300 million ads per month on over 17,500 websites, iPhones and Android apps. The company, which claims to deliver “contextual, behavioral, publisher-defined, and geographically” targeted ads in those platforms, has already made $800,000 in its first year and currently employs eight adults one of which is his 43-year-old mother, Alison! Can you imagine being employed by your own son!
So where does he see himself in 10 years? Well he’s not really sure but what he wants to do next is make 100 million pounds with Branchr! Ambitious but he already seems to be on his way there. Branchr is growing strong, and has already bought out another company.
The secret to his success?
There is no magical formula to business, it takes hard work, determination and the drive to do something great.
So there’s something for this teenage generation to live up to.
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