Teen Money Making Ideas » Success Stories

Be Inspired: 8 Year Old Girl Makin Bacon With Her Million Dollar Idea

Amber — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:40:38 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:Do you think that because you’re a kid you’re ideas don’t count? This couldn’t be the farthest thing from the truth! The fact is, kids have come up with some of the best and greatest ideas ideas in all areas of life. Ramez Sasson once said, “success is the outcome of thinking, visualizing, planning and taking action”. Abbey Fleck is a walking example of this saying and she didn’t let being a kid stop her from visualizing her dream and taking action. Now fast forward several years later and Abbey Fleck is all the richer for believing in herself and her ideas. Read on and Be Inspired:

My dad was cooking bacon one Saturday morning,” remembers Abbey, now 15 and living in White Bear Lake, MN. “When he took it out of the microwave, we were out of paper towels to soak up the grease. So, he was just holding it up and the fat was dripping off of it.”

At that point, Abbey’s dad, Jon, joked, “It’s too bad we can’t just hang this up somewhere and let it drip dry.” It was at that moment, says Abbey, that her million-dollar idea was born. “I said, ‘Well, why don’t you just cook it hanging up?’”

That same day, Abbey drew a sketch of her idea and showed it to her dad. “We went down in our basement and tried making some prototypes (models),” she says. “We used wooden dowels and pieces of plastic coat hangers.” Then they inserted their wood and plastic racks into a glass dish, loaded the contraption with bacon, and put the whole crazy experiment in the microwave. “It worked! The fat dripped off the bacon,” says Abbey, laughing, “but the materials weren’t the best.”

Bringing Home the Bacon

The Flecks knew the Makin Bacon dish was a great product, so they offered it to big retailers like Wal-Mart and K-mart who, at first, turned down the funky-looking dish. So the Flecks took it to the Armour company, makers of Armour brand bacon.

Armour liked the Flecks’ bacon-cooking idea, and placed an ad for the Makin Bacon dish on the back of each package of Armour bacon. Customers sent in $6.99 and a UPC bar code symbol from the bacon, and got the Makin Bacon dish in the mail. This deal, says Jon, “was brilliant because we received the money before we shipped the product.”

As word of Abbey’s invention spread, she became company spokesperson to the media. Over the last six years, Abbey has talked to reporters from newspapers, magazines, radio, and TV, and appeared on television shows like Oprah, Dateline NBC, 20/20, and The Late Show with David Letterman.

All the press coverage soon got the attention of Wal-Mart and the Flecks got their original wish — a distribution agreement with a national chain store. However, this created another problem. The Flecks needed a lot of cash so they could make 100,000 dishes and send them to Wal-Mart right away. Abbey’s grandfather, George Fleck, took out a loan on his farm so Abbey and her dad could have the money they needed

Dare to Dream: The Million Dollar Toy Boy

Amber — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:47:48 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:Someone once said: “If you can imagine it you can create it. If you can dream it, you can become it”. And apparently Richie Stachowski took this advice to heart! He dared to dream and then he turned his dream into a reality. Today at 13-years-old, he is the founder and president of his own million-dollar company. Read and be inspired by this million dollar toy boy:

In most respects, Richie Stachowski, who lives in Orinda, California, is a typical, fun loving 13-year-old Richie Stachowski, who vastly prefers sports to school. On the other hand, Richie is the Founder and President of a company boasting about a half-million dollars in annual revenues. When he was 11, Richie’s family went on vacation to Hawaii. Richie was out snorkeling with his father, and was so thrilled by the numbers and colors of the fish he kept seeing that he wanted to be able to shout out to his dad each time he saw something new. Afterward, when Richie’s father, a registered diver, confirmed that no one had invented a simple way to talk underwater, Richie set about becoming that inventor.

Richie began sketching designs that very evening in the family’s hotel room. After returning home, Richie used the Internet to research underwater acoustics. Then he began building prototypes of an underwater megaphone, using the $267 he had in his savings account. First, Richie mounted a standard snorkel mouthpiece onto the tip of a conical, plastic soccer-field boundary marker. Then, in a series of tests conducted in the family swimming pool, Richie found that he could keep water from flooding the device by including a blow valve in the cone and a plastic membrane in the mouthpiece. After a month of further modifications, his invention was a complete success, allowing people to talk to each other underwater from up to 15 feet away.

Under the guidance of his mother, Barbara, herself an inventor-entrepreneur, Richie flew to Paramus, New Jersey to pitch his new “Water Talkies” to Toys “R” Us. Richie concluded his presentation by using a fish tank to ask, underwater, for a purchase order, and he got it—for 50,000 units. One of Barbara’s business associates helped arrange incorporation, patent and trademark search, and manufacture. Richie’s new company, Short Stack, LLC (named for Richie’s favorite breakfast, pancakes) soon concluded deals with Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and other large chain stores.

Water Talkies™ were a summer sensation in 1997, and for 1998 they were joined by two new inventions. Richie’s Scuba Scope™ allows snorkelers to see underwater and above water at the same time; his Bumper Jumper Water Pumper™ is a sit-down float whose paddle doubles as a water gun. Soon, Richie plans to expand the Short Stack® line even further, adding an underwater hockey game, novelty diving goggles, and an underwater pogo stick.

Although Richie’s achievements have won him a great deal of attention in the media, from CNN to the Christian Science Monitor, he remains a kid at heart. For example, Richie canceled a scheduled June 1997 appearance on NBC’s “Tonight Show” due to a conflict with a more pressing commitment: summer basketball camp.

That is as it should be, since not growing up too fast is the key to Richie’s success. As his mother puts it, “Kids are so creative. . . Their barriers haven’t been built up yet.” Richie Stachowski would probably agree with his mother’s theory, but in his advice to aspiring young inventors he prefers to use simpler terms: “If you think you have a good idea, just go for it!”

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The Next American Idol: A 13-year-old in Second Year of College

Amber — Fri, 07 May 2010 06:33:32 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:He’s not an American Idol contestant but these days he’s certainly getting the “star” treatment. Not only is he a Sophomore in college at the age of 13, but Stephen Stafford also just started his own software company and is already getting job offers. His advice to kids his age? “just keep trying and don’t give up”, which is our message here at TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

Check out the article and video below and be inspired!

A Lithonia 13-year-old may be the next American idol when it comes to academics. Stephen Stafford is a sensation at Morehouse College and much more. At 13-years-old, Stephen Stafford is an accomplished pianist and is in his second year at Morehouse College.

Stafford is majoring in biology, computer science and mathematics and also tutors children and fellow students at Morehouse. The teen says he has his sights on graduating within three years and becoming a doctor specializing in infertility by the time he’s 22.

“I always loved babies and actually helping them come into the world would be a great experience for me,” said Stafford.

Stafford’s mother said her son started learning as a baby. Instead of TV he would play school with his older sister. Stafford was in public school for a little while before his mother decided on home schooling.

“It was really based on his ability and that’s how it has been,” said Michelle Brown-Stafford.

Stafford’s ability had him whizzing through advance placement tests. At 11-years-old, Stafford audited mathematics at Morehouse to test his intellectual prowess. Stafford scored the highest averages in algebra and calculus, but he’s never had an IQ test.

“They were more interested in what he could do with his capability so the IQ thing became a non-issue,” said Brown-Stafford.

Besides college, Stafford is also starting a computer programming business.

Stafford’s mom said the teen is still a kid, who plays computer games and takes out the trash.

Stafford brushes off the genius label and said he tries to focus on helping others instead. “Don’t stop trying because the more you try the easier it becomes,” said Stafford.

Stafford’s mother said on Tuesday, an Atlanta software company offered the 13-year-old a job. Brown-Stafford said the family turned the offer down because they felt it was not in the teen’s best interest.

Source: http://www.myfoxatlanta.com.

For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

10 Creative Kids Who Started Their Own Business

Erica — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 19:11:34 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:If you are having doubts about being an entrepreneur or are currently inspired into action by some of the most popular and powerful entrepreneurs whom we consider our idols – well here’s more to shake things up: 10 creative kids who started their own business. Crazy, right? Crazy genius, we say. To be so young and yet so creative, we admire them for being risktakers and industry movers:

Children are some of the most creative entrepreneurs to ever launch businesses in our society. They are ambitious and driven and less likely than adults are to be deterred from their dreams. They have ideas that are fresh and new. They have imaginations that are overflowing. And they have a lack of experience that makes them unable to see the barriers that adults sometimes allow to cut their own goals off at the start. Channeled correctly and aided along appropriately, this energy that children have can lead to some of the most amazing businesses every created. Get inspired by what kids have done. Take a look at these ten creative businesses that were all started by children.

1.Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Would you believe that a four-year-old helped to start an organization that funds pediatric cancer research? Alex Scott was four years old in 2000 when she decided that she wanted to take the traditional idea of a neighborhood lemonade stand and use it to earn money to be donated to the hospital that was treating her for cancer. She was active with her lemonade stand for four years before she passed away from the disease. Her story inspired many people and the organization continues on despite her passing in the hopes that a cure for pediatric cancer will one day be found. If you’re saying to yourself that a lemonade stand doesn’t sound all of that creative then you don’t have the thinking that kids do. Your idea doesn’t have to be a brand new one for it to be creative. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel; you just have to add your own spokes.

2.Kids Saving the Rainforest. This business was launched by two girls who were living in Costa Rica when they got interested in saving the rainforest there. They started their business by painting rocks with decorative art and selling them at a table by the roadside. They donated the money that they earned to a cause that saves the area’s rainforests and endangered wildlife. They went on to grow their business into a store that sells their own art and the work of other artists with proceeds continuing to benefit the rainforest. Not only was their art-on-rocks a creative idea but they managed to sustain a creative partnership which is tough for people in business of any age to do successfully.

3.Streaming Futures. We often hear about ingenious teens who launch web businesses that earn them a lot of money before they even get out of high school. The founder of Streaming Futures, Joel Holland, could have been such a teen but he was more interested in serving others than making a mint for himself. At 15 he launched this free video-based website which is designed to assist other teens in figuring out what jobs they would like to do in their lives. Joel travels around the world interviewing people about their careers and posts the videos for teens to watch so that they can get important insight into what it’s like to do different types of jobs.

4.Qwesty. When Lauren was six years old she was a very inquisitive child. In fact, she was inquisitive that she would drive her parents nuts by asking them too many questions when they were busy with other things. That’s how she came up with the idea of Qwesty, a plush stuffed question mark that kids can raise to let their parents know that they would like to ask a question. Parents can use the toy to teach kids to be quiet during certain times (like when they’re on the phone) without making the kids feel ignored. Genius idea from a genius kid and it’s gone on to be quite a successful little business for her and her family.

5.Don’t Fret Note Map for Guitar. Nicholas Ravagni was barely out of kindergarten when he came up with a brilliant idea to help kids learn where to put their fingers on the fret board when playing guitar. He essentially took plastic wrap and a marker, wrapped it around the guitar and put finger position dots on it to make it easier to remember where to put the fingers when learning to play. His dad helped him turn this into an actually product that was marketed and sold well to a number of different music stores. His creative act helped a lot of other kids learn how to be creative more easily. He went on to create and sell other products as he got older.

6.Leanna’s Inc. Leanna Archer loved getting compliments on her hair when she was a little girl. She was still young when she realized that the homemade pomade that her grandma created to put in her hair was a big factor in why she received those compliments. She was just nine years old when she decided to launch a business selling this product. She’s now the 13-year-old entrepreneur of a company that sells not only hair products but various other beauty products as well. Most teens are just starting to experiment with beauty supplies; Leanna is selling them!

7.CGKidz. Cynergreen is an eco-friendly company that creates green stainless steel water bottles designed to replace the plastic water bottles that are causing so much damage to the earth. The company is run by two adults but the design of the water bottles is the work of their twelve year old daughter Riley Hoffer. This creative young girl is also the one who designs and runs the company’s kid-based website which provides eco-information to children ages 5-14 in an interactive and fun format that they can understand.

8.McDonald’s Memorabilia Collector. When Luke Underwood was seven years old his father bought him a collection of McDonald’s memorabilia for £250. He hung on to the collection for four years, keeping it in great shape. At the age of eleven he turned around and sold the collection at an auction for a whopping £8130. It’s not easy for kids to be so good with their toys that they actually increase in value. Seems like a budding resale entrepreneur is on the rise here!

9. Alchemist Empire Inc. This business has created a game called Elementeo which provides youngsters with a fun way to learn science. The game is a card-based fantasy combat game that teaches you chemistry while you play it. What a cool creative idea for kids who have a tough time learning in a traditional setting. And the business was created by a kid named Anshul Shamar who is only 14 but the CEO of the company all the same.

10.Cody’s Individual Comfort Kits. Cody Clark was twelve years old when he had t go to the emergency room. He quickly realized what most of us already know; hospitals are not comfortable places to be. Instead of griping about it, though, Code decided to do something about it. He started created individual comfort kids to give to children who have to go to the hospital. These kids include things like blankets, books and rattles that are designed to make kids feel a bit safer and more comfortable during their hospital stay. Cody has used fundraising to raise the money to create approximately 200 comfort kits. Cody has now gone on to also create grandma and grandpa kits for elderly people in the same position.

Written by Kathryn / [Source]

For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs Likely to be Millionaires in the Future

Erica — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:38:58 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:Last week we showed you the top 25 teenage millionaires, as well as UK’s top 20 richest kids – now here are more young entrepreneurs who are hard at work at working their way to their first million!

Here is a look at ten young entrepreneurs who started their businesses early and managed to make a decent profit off of them while they were still young. Who knows what kids with this kind of drive and talent could end up doing throughout the rest of their lives?!

1. Anna and Sarah Levinson. These sisters were 14 and 17 when they launched a line of nail polish out of their home. The whole thing started as just a way to make some creative new colors for their own nails. The colors turned out to be interesting. The polish was popular with their friends. Before they knew it they realized that this could be a money-making home-based business. After a couple of years they managed to become a top-selling cosmetics company for their type of product. Their company, called Ripe, now earns over $200,000 annually.

2. Donny Ouyang. This Canadian guy launched several websites when he was still in high school which all turned out to be popular. At the age of 11 he wasn’t earning any income at all. He started making websites the following year and sold his first websites for $200. By the age of 15, he was earning nearly $80,000 per year. He’s written an ebook on how he managed to do this through e-business. His key tip for others is to do the part of a business that you are good at and to outsource all of the more difficult parts to experts who can do it all better and faster than you can. Smart kid. No wonder he’s making a fortune at such a young age and still enjoying the work that he does!

3. Josh Buckley. This kid is another one who has made a successful career out of the world of online business. He started making his own profitable websites while he was still attending school in England. Like Donny Ouyang he sold his first website for a mere $200. By the age of 14 he was earning four figures per month in the website business. At the age of 15 he sold a site called Menewsha.com for a sum that was almost six figures in size! He also won the Best Idea Award on the website Retire at 21 for his great website ideas. He wants to be a millionaire by the age of 21 and has a long-term goal of making at least one billion dollars and moving to California to enjoy it!

4. Adam Cohen. Adam Cohen was five years old when he first began to invent gadgets. At 15, he created something called an electrochemical paintbrush which is a miniature device used to etch information on microchips. It can etch lines of copper so small that they can spell out fifty words in the same amount of space as the width of a human hair. That’s tiny! And what it means is that he’s been able to amass a big fortune. He earned a $40,000 scholarship for his efforts. Today he has over 200 inventions pending. One of the main things that all of these young entrepreneurs seem to have in common (besides drive and ambition, of course) is that they are truly creative!

5. Krysta Morlan. If you have ever had to wear a cast due to a broken bone then you know that one of the most frustrating things about it is that it gets itchy. This young woman helped to solve that problem when she was in high school by creating a device that cools the cast and reduces the problem. She has since gone on to create other inventions and is considered a leading teen inventor. She says: “I discovered my positive attitude, problem solving skills, interest in science, and challenges due to my disability made a great combination of tools in the field of adaptive technology.” There doesn’t seem to be any information available online about just how much money she has earned from her inventions but she’s well-known as a female inventor who started off at a young age so it’s likely that she’s made a tidy profit while helping others with her creations.

6. Ben Casnocha. By the age of 19, this boy had already owned a start-up software company for five years and written a book about his experiences as a young CEO. He was named among the Top 25 in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and was also named a Top 25 Entrepreneur under 25 by Business Week. He is a radio commentator, a public speaker and the co-runner of an “intellectual discussion society for business and technology executives”. He may not be banking millions but he’s got to be getting close and it all started when he was still a teen.

7. Stephen Yellin. This kid started talking about and writing about politics at the age of 13. By 19 he was a well-known political blogger. He blogs at the Daily Kos which is a Technorati Top 100 blog. He is interested in politics at all levels and once believed that he might make his own way in the world of politics. However his extensive research into the business of politics has deterred him from that course. Instead he hopes to live the rather humble life of a college history professor. Despite these humble aspirations he is sure to do his job well and to make money at it in the meantime.

8. Andrew Sutherland. Back in 2005 this young man was 15. That was the year that he started Quizlet, a highly successful website designed to make it fun to learn vocabulary. It was initially a shoestring operation that was created out of the student’s own frustration with the boredom of learning vocabulary when studying a new language. It turned into a highly successful website which is now used by hundreds of thousands of people. Use of the site remains free but Sutherland has gained a lot of attention for his ingenious idea and is sure to be one of those people who always ends up making good money off of great ideas.

9. Garret Yazzie. This amazing entrepreneur is known as a “junk yard genius” because of his invention of a solar-powered water heater that was made from recycled materials taken from the junkyard. This invention would have been an impressive accomplishment coming from any thirteen year old but it was particularly impressive because Yazzie was a low-income Native American student who was living on a reservation and attending a school where the interest in projects like these was almost non-existent. His invention succeeded in winning first place at the 2005 Arizona American Indian Science and Engineering Fair and becoming one of only 40 finalists to make it all the way to the Discovery Channel Young Science Challenge. Perhaps more importantly, the invention itself could be used to heat his own home in an affordable and eco-friendly way. The attention that Yazzie got for his invention earned him an invitation to complete his education at an advanced college preparatory school where he has been able to create additional inventions. He may not be making millions but he is doing well for himself and his family.

10. Liam Goodwin. This kid was in his teens when he launched Filmonic, a popular UK movie blog that launched back in 2007. Earlier this year it squeaked on to a list of Top 30 money-earning blogs. It came in at number 30 with a monthly income of over $2200. This is a list filled with other great blogs including Mashable, TechCrunch, ProBlogger and Perez Hilton. This guy is doing great for himself with just this one website. Imagine what else he can do!

Written by Kathryn / [Source]

Time to get a-cracka-lackin’ and work for that first million! For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

Blimey! Here’s UK’s Top 20 Richest Kids

Erica — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 03:33:29 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:As if the world’s top 25 teenage millionaires aren’t inspiration enough to all of us, here’s the Top 20 Richest Kids in the UK:

Singer Charlotte Church got her multi-million pound fortune when she turned 18. But a newspaper list shows Britain has its share of wealthy teens. Along with Prince Harry and Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe, the list of the UK’s top 20 richest teens included a few surprises. Top was entrepreneur Richard Branson’s son Sam, who’s set to inherit £1bn. And Busted’s Charlie Simpson, the only teenager in the band, also made an appearance at number 17. His Nu Pop hijinks have made him an estimated £1.2m, the report says. There were also a few self-made teens, like Chris Philips, who made nearly £2 million from his own web company. 18-year-old Pirates of the Caribbean star Keira Knightley also showed up on the list, at number eight, as she’s apparently worth £4 million.

Here’s the full list from the paper:

1. Sam Branson, 18, £1 billion (Richard Branson’s son)
2. Luke Berkley-Portman, 19, £850 million (son of a Viscount)
3. Prince Harry, 19, £28 million
4. Charlotte Church, 18, £16 million (opera singer, although some reports say it’s only £5.5 million)
5. Dan Radcliffe, 14, £10 million (actor)
6. Cristiano Ronaldo, 18, £8 million (footballer)
7. Glen Johnson, 19, £5.5 million (footballer)
8. Keira Knightley, 18, £4 million (actress)
9. Wayne Rooney, 18, £3 million (footballer)
10. Harry Brooks, 19, £3 million (singer/songwriter)
11. Gareth Gates, 19, £2 million (singer)
12. Adam Hildreth, 18, £2 million (internet business owner)
13. Chris Philips, 17, £2 million (internet business owner)
14. Callie Rogers, 16, £1.87 million (lottery winner)
15. Jamie Bell, 17, £1.5 million (actor)
16. Carl Churchill, 19, £1.5 million (web designer)
17. Charlie Simpson, 18, £1.2 million (pop star)
18. William Felix, 17, £1 million (lawnmower company owner)
19. Hannah Taylor-Gordon, 16, £1 million (actress)
20. James Milner, 17, £1 million (footballer)

[Source]

Looking forward to seeing all of your names in those lists someday! For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

Be Inspired: The Top 25 Teenage Millionaires in the World

Erica — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:09:38 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:Some of them you have probably heard of already, either by their sheer popularity or because you’ve read their success stories here. Nevertheless here is a great article putting together side by side some of the most brilliant and creative minds of our generation, who have dared to think different and succeeded. Let’s all get inspired now, shall we? Because teen entrepreneurs can change the world!

Can you imagine making over one million dollars while you were still in your teens? The following kids didn’t just imagine it; they did it. Through entrepreneurial skill, astounding levels of self-motivation and a whole lot of creativity, these twenty five teens managed to make a whole lot of money before most of them had even graduated from high school. Many of them started their businesses before the age 10! Although the majority of them became successful through working on the web, a few of them started more traditional businesses and one even made his money through his poker skills. All of them are an inspiration to those kids out there who want to start making money at a young age.

1. Adam Hildreth. This young man was fourteen when he first launched a popular English social networking site called Dubit Limited. By the age of 19, the site had made him one of the richest teens in the UK with an estimated net worth of over $3.7 million. He continues in the business world today. His latest business, Crisp Thinking, is in the foreward-thinking area of Internet monitoring and online child protection.

2. Ashley Qualls. This well-known young woman took an $8 loan from her mother to purchase the domain name Whateverlife.com and by the time she was 17 she had turned it into a million-dollar business selling MySpace layouts to teenage girls.

3. Cameron Johnson. This young man is not only an entrepreneur but a skilled PR genius who has made numerous appearances on talk shows to promote his own work. He started his first business at the age of 9, made $50,000 selling Beanie Babies during the year when he turned 12 and had earned his first $1,000,000 before he had even graduated from high school. In his early twenties today, he authors books and gives lectures about how to become a teenage millionaire.

4. Catherine and David Cook. These siblings were still in high school when they created MyYearbook, a popular social networking website. The site got over $10 million in advertising sales in 2008. They were lucky to have the help of an older brother in getting started in this venture but it’s been their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit that really earned them this kind of cash.

5. Chris Phillips. Back in 2004 there was a web article about the UK’s richest teens. Most of those teens were celebrities or kids who had gotten money from their parents. However, there were also a few entrepreneurial teens on the list including Chris Philipps who had made nearly £2 million as a teenager operating his own web company.

6. Fraser Doherty. Not every kid starts their business on the web. Fraser Doherty is an example of a young man with a more old-fashioned approach to business. At age 14 he started making and selling homemade jam. Before he was out of his teens, he had managed to launch a business called SuperJam which has an estimated worth of over $2 million based on current sales of $1 million annually. With a good heart he reinvests some of that money into charity work.

7. James Murray Wells. This English entrepreneur was still in college when he saw a great business opportunity. He saw that there was no UK online retailer selling eyeglasses. He used his college loan money to start just such a business and it was successful enough to earn over $1 million during its first year in operation. By last year it was being called a “£4m-turnover recession proof” business.

8. John Magennis. This web designer began working when he was 14. He started out charging just $15 to create a website for a company. Soon he was charing $30,000 per website. Within two years of his work as a web designer he was earning half a million dollars annually.

9. Tyler Dikman. This kid was a computer genius before others took having a home computer for granted. He set up a business helping people buy and use computers. Eventually he founded a computer company called CoolTronics which earned him over $1 million before the age of 17.

10. Farrah Gray. Talk about starting young, this student was 10 when he managed to get together with a group of friends and generate over $12,000 for his young business club. By the age of 12, he had gotten his first $1 million in investment money. Between the ages of 12 and 16 he operated a number of different businesses at least one of which, Farr-Out Foods, generate over $1.5 million in income. He has continued on in business making money hand over fist and also does a variety of public speaking and authoring.

11. Juliette Brindak. By the age of 19 this young woman was worth over $15 million. Of course, it helps that she’d already been in business for nine years at this point! She founded a site called Miss O and Friends when she was 10 and has been doing well for herself ever since. At age 16, she authored a successful book and she continues to serve as an inspiration to female kids interested in business.

12. Michael Furdyk. This kid’s story is like that of many young dot.com success stories. He launched a web business, it did well and he sold it for over $1 million. That put him on the Oprah show. He was 17 at the time.

13. Matt Wegryzn. This young man made his fortune in the business of buying and selling domain names. Some of the individual domains that he’s sold have gone for over six figures each. He was 17 when he got started.

14. Paul Bourque. Have you ever wondered if the business of affiliate marketing is a lucrative one? Look no further than this 19-year-old who is earning over $300,000 per month from his work in this area of the web industry.

15. John and Patrick Collison. These brothers were 17 and 19 when they set up a software business that rapidly grew and sold for millions of dollars. They are among the richest young adults in Ireland.

16. Abbey Fleck. This girl became famous when she invented a product called Makin’Bacon at the tender age of 8. The product cooks bacon in such a way as to reduce the fat content of the food without taking away its flavor. The product was such a success that she now earns over $1 million annually in royalties from the Makin’Bacon business.

17. Richie Stachowski. At the age of 12 this boy invented something called Water Talkies which allows you to communicate under water. This is just a fun water toy but it’s done well among kids. In fact, it’s done so well that it rapidly started earning him over half a million dollars per year.

18. Mike McDonald. This enterprising young man went a different route than most teen millionaires with his talents. He got involved in the world of professional poker playing. Scoff if you want but he’s earned millions from his poker skills. He earned $1.4 million in just one large poker game last year. He was 18 years old.

19. Carl Churchill. This UK web designer has been called the British Bill Gates. He started his business at the age of 12. By 19 he was making a turnover of over one million pounds. He is predicted to be worth over £100 million by 2020.

20. Brett Klasko. This young man was only 14 when he first became a business executive. At 17 he was running a multi-million dollar financial dot-com company. He serves as an inspiration to young business people today.

21. Anand Lal Shimpi. He was just 17 when he created www.anandtech.com and it was already earning over $1.5 million dollar in ad revenue that year. It continues to be a highly successful tech business today. He remains the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of the organization.

22. Jayson Meyer. Building customized computers can be worth a lot of money as this young man knows since his company doing just that was earning over $1.5 million in revenue by the time that he was 17.

23. Ephren Taylor and Michael Stall. These two paired up to launch a business called GoFerretGo which helps teens find employment. The site was quickly valued at over $3 million. Taylor had started into business when he was only 12 making videogames.

24. William Felix. How successful can a lawnmower company be? It can be a million-dollar business if you’re good at which was proven by the success of this seventeen-year-old.

25. Sean Belnick. This kid was 14 when he spent just three days forming a business plan and creating a business called BizChair which sells office furniture and other supplies. In less than half a dozen years, he was earning $50,000,000 per year! The business consistently ranks among the top retail businesses in the world.

Written by Kathryn [Source]

Remember, you are never too young to be an entrepreneur!For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

A Passion for Social Responsibility Makes Young Teen a Millionaire

Steve / moneywizkid — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:06:08 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:In the past we have featured teens who made money and became successful because of a business idea. These business ideas were entrepreneurial in nature, rooted in marketing strategies and tactics. But meet Adam Hildredth, who became a young teen millionaire as a result of caring a little more about social issues that are important to us. Find out more how this teenager proved to the world that social responsibility has its great rewards too:

Young Entrepreneurs – Adam Hildreth
By Inspirepub

Adam Hildreth started his first business, Dubit, in 1999 at the age of fourteen. Along with seven friends, he entered the Guiness Book of Records as one of the youngest company directors in the UK.

A social networking site for teens, Dubit now describes itself as a “youth marketing agency”, taking a wider view of the role of social networking sites in the wired world of the 21st century.

Adam was reportedly worth £2m in the 2004 UK top 20 richest teens list.

In 2006, he sold his share in Dubit and started Crisp Thinking, a company which develops protection software to detect “grooming” behavior by pedophiles operating online.

The 2007 Sunday Times Rich List ranks Adam as 28th in the 100 richest young people in the UK. In a study of British Millionaires of the Future Adam was predicted to be worth £40m by the year 2020.

Mike Briercliffe, Hildreth’s mentor and Dubit’s chairman, says the young entrepreneur “demonstrates what a fresh mind can do, and one day he’ll be a superstar.”
Online Grooming

It began with an apparently innocent “Hi” popping up on the young girl’s computer screen.

It blossomed into a whirlwind online romance between the 14-year-old girl and a person she thought was a teenage boy.

It ended with the girl being repeatedly abused by a 34-year-old pedophile she thought was her boyfriend’s boss – but who actually had been the person typing all those loving messages to her every day.

Hunky, 17-year-old “John” didn’t exist.

Lonely, isolated teens who spend a lot of time online are often targeted by predators, and Adam Hildreth wants to “put every one of them behind bars”.

Let’s hope his new software can deliver on its promising start!

[Source]

There is no doubt that Adam Hildreth is a great example for all of us. By helping out other people and having a very genuine and noble idea, he was able to fulfill some great goals. The money, in the end, was just extra.For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

Becoming a CEO at 17 Years Old

Erica — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:10:30 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:Here’s another inspirational success story of a teenager making it big! Because of one simple but brilliant idea, this teenager has made use of the internet as the vehicle for pushing his dreams forward. Read on:

Teen weaves big success on Web
By Joseph Busler

Brett Klasko is an editor, publisher and president of his own financial dot-com company.

In a few short years, he built his Internet business, Investors Alley Corp. (www.investorsalley.com) into an award-winning Web site that receives a quarter-million page views a month, has more than 10,000 registered users and publishes the work of a nationwide network of about 30 free-lance financial correspondents.

Already, Klasko said, he has turned down an offer of well over $1 million — “almost $2 million, really” — for the business, which he operates out of a small office at One Greentree Plaza on Greentree Road at Route 73 in Marlton, with two … employees.

An amazing-enough dot come success story, made all the more so by the fact that Klasko is just 17 years old.

The Cherry Hill High School East senior describes himself as his company’s “interim CEO” because he’s in the market to hire a permanent one.

“Everybody tells me I need to get some ‘gray hair’ in the business,” he said. “Also, I’ll be going off to college next year.”

He also needs to find someone to run his business so he can go off to college — business school, of course.

Investors Alley is a free, advertiser-supported financial news portal that offers news, opinion, investment research tools, interactive message boards, and a raft of model portfolios.

The site has received some major Internet awards, including the Go Network Money Award and recognition by Online Investor Magazine, Infoseek, Lycos, Netscape’s Netcenter, Snap and Hotbot.

It’s quite an accomplishment for any young executive, much the more so for one who won’t legally be able to sing an enforceable contract until his next birthday.

“I can’t even be on the board of my own company,” he said. “I can’t legally execute stock trades; the accounts have to be custodial accounts with my father’s name on them,” he said.

But such legal impediments ultimately don’t have much effect.

“I manage my father’s investments,” he said.

His father, H. Ronald Klasko, is Investors Alley’s vice president and legal counsel. His day job is head of the immigration department at the Philadelphia law firm of Dechert Price and Rhoads.

Klasko isn’t all business. He loves to play sports and is in junior varsity baseball at East. His grades are good, even though he’s worked out an arrangement to leave school at 1 p.m. to go run his business.

“I’ve really learned time management,” he said. But he said his father has told him that “he’d like me to bring home some normal teen-age problems once and a while, not just contracts and business problems.”

Klasko has been trading stocks since he was 13, but his affair with the market wasn’t love at first sight.

It wasn’t from his father — or his mother Marji — that Klasko got his fascination with the stock market. That came from his maternal grandparents, Elaine and Elwood Becker, who live in Florida.

“My grandparents gave me a subscription to the Kiplinger’s financial newsletter, but I hated it,” he said.

“I had no interest in the stock market,” he said. I wanted them to give me something like a football. I wanted to be a kid.”

Undeterred, the grandparents struck again, giving him 10 shares of McDonald’s stock.

“I didn’t want it. I didn’t see anything I could do with it. The dividend, about 75 cents, was ridiculous.”

But the grandparents’ persistence paid off: “Over time, I began to follow McDonald’s, then the stock market in general,” he said.

At 13, he began to trade stocks, companies such as Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Netscape, during the heady days of the great technology-led bull market. He made money. He also made mistakes and learned from them.

He was hooked.

Already an Internet user, he put up his first Web page when he was in eighth grade, in 1997.

It developed into something called The Wall Street Page, a homespun investment site hosted by GeoCities.

“It was still in 1997 that GeoCities named me its ‘Cool Site of the Day,’” Klasko said. “I got maybe 1,000 hits that day.”

The attention resulted in his first advertising contract, a banner ad.

But then he went to update The Wall Street Page and it was gone.

“GeoCities kicked me off,” he said. “I found out that they didn’t allow you to make any money from pages they hosted, even thought I was paying them $5 a month for it.”

He learned from the experience, building a better site, which became Investors Alley, where commercial success wouldn’t threaten it. The new site attracted attention and, in August of 1998, won a cash award from a major search engine that brought not only price money but more exposure, more visits and, soon after, a $3,000 advertising contract.

“It was the first big check I received,” he said.

Today, just one of his correspondents is regularly paid — senior columnist Mike Kreusch, a Chicago futures trader with no previous writing experience, who receives $200 a month. (All the contributors are part time, with day jobs. Most write for the exposure or for the love of it.)

Klasko is ready to take his business to the next level — preferably before he has to leave for college. He has been spending a lot of time working on his business plan with an eye to seeking venture financing. He optimistically projects that, with sufficient capital to expand its revenue-producing and other services, Investors Alley could show a $50 million profit by 2004.

Currently, Investors Alley operates on a shoestring basis, with highly variable revenues of “$25,000 to $50,000 a year,” he said.

“Of that, there’s maybe 1 percent profit and I don’t take a salary,” he said.

He said he’s financed the business so far with [private] money and $7,500 to $10,000 in profits from his personal investments.

“Only with venture money will I be able to hire a permanent CEO, have a paid staff and provide coverage at the next level,” he said, adding that he is aware venture capitalists will want a solid road map to profitability.

“VCs don’t want to see BS,” he said.

[Source]

Here’s an interview with Brett Klasko on the importance of students saving money:
For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.

Internet Makes 18-Year-Old a Millionaire

Erica — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:42:48 +0000

The following article is from TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com:A small idea can always turn into a big business if only you have the guts to follow it through, no matter how silly it seems at first. Take your cues from Catherine and David Cook, whose idea of a website made them into millionaires!

Catherine Cook: The brainwave that made me $10m by age 18
By Jody Clarke

Founded in March 2005 by Catherine and David Cook, Myyearbook.com has taken the social networking world by storm. In just three years, it has risen to third place in the sector, behind Facebook and MySpace. It’s a feat all the more remarkable when you consider its two creators are only 18 and 19 respectively.

Three years ago, Catherine and David were flicking through their school yearbook – the annual compendium of photos and memories that is a feature of most American high schools – when they came across a picture of a girl they both knew. “This looks nothing like her,” said David. Catherine agreed. It was clear, as she puts it, that “the picture stank”. Wouldn’t it, they wondered, be much better to do the yearbook online, and let people post their own photos?

The pair were lucky. Their older brother, Geoff, was already an established internet entrepreneur who had built up two successful websites, EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com, which offered online editing and writing services. In 2002, he had sold them for nearly $10m. When his brother and sister mentioned their idea for an online schoolbook, he immediately saw its potential to be “as big as Facebook for high school”.

The Cooks’ parents thought the idea was crazy, but Geoff was undeterred. He offered $250,000 to get the yearbook project off of the ground, finding a web server to host it and a programming team in Mumbai, India, to turn it into a website for less than $25,000. It came complete with photo-sharing features and a place for students to outline their extra-curricular activities. Then, says Catherine, “it was guerrilla marketing all the way”.

In April 2005, the pair began their campaign to get attention by wearing T-shirts to school emblazoned with the slogan, “Are you the prettiest girl in your high school? How about the dumbest? Find out at Myyearbook.com”. It’s the kind of question that would have your average British student cringing with embarrassment. But not in Montgomery High School, New Jersey. Within a week, 200 classmates had signed up. Users were offered a free T-shirt for every five people they recruited – and within nine months 950,000 teenagers across America had flocked to the website.

This stoked up interest among companies such as Paramount Films, who began paying up to $500,000 to advertise on the website from July 2007. Suddenly Myyearbook.com was bringing in serious revenue. And David and Catherine haven’t looked back since. This year, they’re looking at $10m in advertising sales, having grown from three million users in November 2007 to ten million by July. But running a successful business while staying in full-time education hasn’t always been an easy balancing act. “What ends up happening is that I just don’t do my schoolwork,” says Catherine, now at Georgetown University in Washington. “I go to classes but I never do the reading, which means I just cram it all in before the tests.” Given the millions she’s now making, her classmates are unlikely to feel too sorry for her.

[ Source ]

How about you? What’s your big idea? You’ll never if it’s going to work unless you try Here’s more of Catherine Cook on CNBC’s Squawkbox:

For more information like this, visit TeenMoneyMakingIdeas.Com.