

19 Year Old Flees America and Skips College to Bootstrap a Startup in Bosnia - camz
http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2013/03/27/the-anti-yahoo-wunderkind-19-year-old-flees-america-and-skips-college-to-bootstrap-a-real-startup-thats-profitable-in-bosnia/

======
bitcartel
The start-up scene is, in a way, kind of sad.

The tech media and mainstream press routinely salivate over stories of 13...
15... 17... and 19 year old whiz kid entrepreneurs.

Yet there was a time when teenagers and young adults wrote software and
tinkered with hardware, sharing their creations with friends and peers, on a
journey of computing discovery.

There was a time when 'Demo Day' literally meant getting a group of friends
together, travelling to a new city, and showing off your coding and artistic
skills. The prizes were prestige and peer recognition.
<http://archive.assembly.org/1992>

Now, kids and teenagers are being schooled to hustle and score big money.
Where is the pure joy of discovery? Something has been lost.

EDIT: Just wanted to add, it's amazing what you can do in just 4kb (4096 byte
executable, no external data files). This should inspire programmers of all
ages.

2012 Fireflies: [http://archive.assembly.org/2012/4k-intro/fireflies-by-
blobt...](http://archive.assembly.org/2012/4k-intro/fireflies-by-blobtrox)

2009 Muon Baryon: [http://archive.assembly.org/2009/4k-intro/muon-baryon-by-
you...](http://archive.assembly.org/2009/4k-intro/muon-baryon-by-youth-
uprising)

~~~
argonaut
You're making the mistake of: start-up scene = media coverage.

If you thought the real world = media coverage, you'd think there would be
murders and robberies and assaults happening all around you every hour.

~~~
bitcartel
Sure, but kids and parents are not immune to the media's filter bubble. Young
programmers might feel pressure to emulate celebrity wunderkids instead of
following their own passions.

~~~
argonaut
Then you should be directing your criticism at the media, not the startup
scene.

~~~
bitcartel
Why not both?

The media are part of the hype machine but they aren't responsible for
investing in companies like Summly, holding demo days, running weekend
hackathons, acqui-hiring or bringing on board token celebrity investors... are
they?

~~~
jakerocheleau
I just heard of Summly for the first time yesterday, it seems like their
recent fame has come greatly as a result of the purchase by Yahoo!

But I can't judge as I haven't been closely following the story. Is there any
general consensus on the funding as a good or bad idea?

For the record I really like their promo video. It shows off the product with
a bit of witty comedy. I just couldn't find myself using it, and I don't know
how it'll fit into Yahoo, but definitely a fun app.

~~~
bitcartel
Summly discussion over the past few days:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5442290>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5445159>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5449394>

------
stevoski
His name is Emil Hajric. A few years back, when Joel Spolsky's "Business of
Software" discussion forum was at its peak, he used whois records to find the
phone numbers of some of the most frequent contributors and to call us
personally.

I found this rather creepy.

~~~
auctiontheory
"Creepy"? How can it be "creepy" to make a business-related call to people
whose names were publicized in a business context?

Creepy is showing up unannounced and unintroduced at the front door of an
actor or actress you have a crush on. I understand that you may not like to be
cold called, but it is not creepy - it's the way much of business is done.

~~~
_delirium
Maybe this varies by area, but professional etiquette everywhere I've been is
that you ask before taking an online conversation to the phone. If you're
having a forum or email discussion with someone, it's not typical practice to
look up their phone number and call them up. For example, I think it would be
at least somewhat weird to call someone who posted a StackOverflow question or
response, rather than responding to them on SO.

~~~
auctiontheory
I don't disagree with you about professional etiquette, but to the extent that
this is a forum about _entrepreneurship_ , surely we might permit, or even
encourage, not to mention applaud, a slight nudging of the boundaries?

~~~
trentmb
Not in this respect, no.

------
rayiner
Very interesting and cool story. But that article was dreadfully written. Just
because you're writing about a teenager doesn't mean you have to write like a
teenager.

~~~
peteforde
It suggests a lot about print journalism when an article in Forbes clearly
hasn't received even basic proofreading, much less proper editorial vetting.

It's a cool story but my experience reading it was diminished by the grade
school sentence structure and bizarre grammar and punctuation errors. Stray
commas in Forbes! Seriously now.

~~~
citricsquid
This is not a Forbes article, it's from their knock-off "contributors"
platform.

~~~
waterlesscloud
I think that effectively the contributors platform _is_ Forbes now.

Unfortunately that doesn't pull the contributors up to the magazine's level as
much as it pulls the magazine down to the contributors level.

------
fatjokes
> But, not all young entrepreneurs are like Nick D’Aloisio and Andrew Hsu.
> Some of these whipper snappers are the REAL deal.

This sounds very insulting to Nick and Andrew. I don't see any evidence that
they're anything but earnest entrepreneurs. In the case of Nick, he succeeded
(the reason is debatable), and as for Andrew, he simply hasn't succeeded
(yet), but it's no reason to say he isn't genuinely trying. Older investors
may be trying to take advantage of their youth, but it's not a discredit to
these young people.

~~~
ryguytilidie
I think to insinuate that Nick is not "the real deal" seems completely fair.
Sure, he "succeeded", but he succeeded in the same way people who were born on
third base and think they hit a triple think they succeeded.

------
sdfjkl

      href="/Users/camz/Desktop/airylabs.com"
    

Is proofreading dead?

------
rdavl
I'm just eager to see how long will it take him to fail in Bosnia (not because
he's not capable but the Bosnian legislature is shit for anyone not doing
illegal work, same goes for Serbia, Croatia and maybe even Kosovo.)

~~~
hajrice
Thanks for the comment, it's very helpful for anyone looking to do business in
Bosnia.

Doing business in Bosnia might not be as good as you mentioned.

However, the company is based in US, and I'm also a US citizen.

~~~
rdavl
Yes that probably helps, since our countries suck to do any real business.
(and don't make me quote, this is a known fact here).

I do hope you do very well, I just can't seem to get over the fact you had to
go back to Balkans, sucks for you and your business but I do wish you all the
best with your enterprise.

But don't take my comment to negatively either, if nothing food is great and
people are full of humor! At least something to make you feel better ;)

------
DenisM
The "19 yo did this and that" headlines are on the same plane as "single mom
discovered one awesome trick" advertising.

It boggles the mind that people keep clicking on either. And yet, here we are.

------
got2surf
I completely get your point, and Emil is a great role model for all (not just
young) entrepreneurs faced with failure.

What I don't understand is all the animosity towards Nick D’Aloisio. What
makes him not a "real" entrepreneur? Whatever the means, he still took a
company from inception to acquisition, which fits any definition of
entrepreneurship.

There are lessons we can learn from Emil, and also lessons that we can learn
from Nick. They've both had valuable experiences that I'm sure many of us
would love to hear about.

~~~
brightghost
Funny; all this time I thought the goal of entrepreneurship was to build a
sustainable business.

~~~
alttab
Sustainability is a waste of time when your only goal is to cash out as big as
you can with as little investment as possible.

You are mixing up "entrepreneur" with "wanting to create lasting value." A lot
of what I see on HN is _not_ the latter.

~~~
jakerocheleau
I think I would classify myself and most of my startup-knowledgable friends in
the latter crowd.

Is that a particularly bad thing to not be motivated by large cashouts, and
instead by creating a company with long-term value?

~~~
alttab
Not at all. In fact, I was insinuating that a lot of the start up crowd is
motivated by the wrong reasons - money.

You can get rich by buying up real estate and charging rent. All you did is
sign paper and make money. "Charging rent" isn't a service. "Allowing you to
live in property I purchased." isn't really providing value either.

"Building a house and selling it to a family." <=== that's creating value.

------
lingben
<a href="<http://www.helpjuice.com/> target="_blank">knowledge base
software</a>

somewhere, an SEO just earned his wings

------
wambotron
Emil- I am glad you're finding success, but please make sure you give back to
Bosnia by keeping employees there or doing some community outreach. It would
be unfair and kind of crummy to use the country and bail.

Not that I am accusing you of doing so, just hoping you keep in mind who was
there for you in your time of need!

------
norswap
I was intrigued by the postscriptum:

> Edit: Please note, that I unfortunately used a photo that was unwise due to
> my lack of knowledge and understanding of Bosnian history! I removed the
> image out of respect and I apologize! Thanks!

I didn't see the photo, could someone explain?

~~~
camz
I was informed that the photo was a serb soldier that made a hand sign that
was politically inappropriate in front of a sign that said Sarajevo.

I initially meant it as just a photo of a guy in Sarajevo waving hello. So, I
was ignorant of the sensitive nature behind the photo.

When I was informed of the issue, I took it down immediately out of respect
and write the explanation.

------
minimaxir
Isn't 19 too old to be considered a "wunderkind," per the article title? It's
hard to consider someone to be a child prodigy when they're legally an adult.

EDIT: Not criticizing the article, I'm just confused with the language.

~~~
pc86
One of the less literal definitions is "one who succeeds in a competitive or
highly difficult field or profession at an early age"[0]

[0] <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wunderkind>

~~~
randomdata
19 doesn't seem particularly young though. Even some people who explore post-
secondary educations after high school will be out in the workforce by that
age.

~~~
pc86
I don't mean this as snarkily as it's probably going to sound.

How old are you?

~~~
chc
That hardly seems relevant. I'm far older than most figure skaters, but I
still feel quite confident in the fact that 19 is not a particularly young age
for a woman to become a figure skating champion. In fact, doing it 10 years
later would actually be more noteworthy.

------
chexton
Having personally spoken with Emil a number of times, and being a user of
Helpjuice, I think Emil is going to turn it into a great SaaS company. Nice
work man.

~~~
hajrice
Happy to have awesome people like you that I can call users, Chris. I don't
know what we'd do without folks like you.

------
DaniFong
Anyone who holds up Nick D’Aloisio and Andrew Hsu as examples of people who
are _not_ the real deal is going to look very very silly in a few years.

~~~
precisioncoder
I think they will both probably be incredibly successful, the problem is they
are poor role models for people hoping to make it on nothing but guts since
their success came from money and connections rather than just hard work.
Whether hard work was ALSO involved is another story, that is frankly
irrelevant to the discussion.

~~~
DaniFong
Apps don't just assemble themselves out of family wealth. If they did, where
are the apps from Qatar?

------
amix
Being born in Bosnia this makes me proud. Go Emil! :-)

~~~
hajrice
Thanks, Amir. Glad to be able to know someone like you :-)

