

18 year old Diane Keng of MyWeboo.com - raptrex
http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/109472/teenage-entrepreneurs?mod=career-work

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Jun8
Third startup and she's 18!! I'm totally hopeless (~40 and just recently
started _thinking_ seriously about it). Then I read a bit more and saw this:

> Ms. Keng has several advantages in pursuing her entrepreneurial ambitions,
> including her father, a venture capitalist who splits his time between
> Beijing and Cupertino and gave her $100,000 in seed money.

Hmm, so that partly explains it. However, younger "kids" still hold the upper
hand in this domain. Yes, yes, you gain more experience as you get older, etc.
But I think there's a huge stigma associated with an older founder, the
thinking going like "Well, if he is founder material, he would've done it
earlier." I mean, look at the photos on our very own YC page, can you see
anyone older than, say, 25, other than the speakers?

Of course, the dearth of older founders may be a good thing: you can think of
ideas that may not occur to younger competitors, e.g. monitoring personal
health. Still, I'm kicking myself for not being more like Ms. Keng, 20 years
ago.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
You're kicking yourself for not having a wealthy VC father to give you $100K
in seed money when you 18 years old?

~~~
Jun8
:-) Nope, although that would have helped. I think I should've have started
thinking about my own company sooner, rather than getting graduate degrees and
working in a safe job.

But then again, I'm from a country where job safety is highly valued by the
society and your family, so risky entrepreneurial moves are frowned upon. A
lot of European countries are like this, I guess.

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yardie
Everytime I hear of young startups it's always been a young entrepeneur, who
happens to have a rich father, who happens to be a VC, who just happens to
live in SV. If it's not MyWeboo, it's MyYearbook. BTW, whatever happened to my
yearbook. I heard they were bought out.

Show me the young entrepreneur that raises capital by washing cars on
weekends, selling lemonade, or busting ass at McDonalds. I'd have a startup
too if money wasn't a problem, I had daddy's connections and could get my
startup featured in yahoo.

Anyway, everytime I see these "youth-targeted" websites I think, limited
appeal to a slowly shrinking demographic. Whose sole existence is to be
acquired by a facebook or yahoo because they haven't developed a longterm
strategy.

~~~
ericz
Occasionally there are those real self-made young entrepreneurs. Those I
respect the most.

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thinkdifferent
Well, she's young but living in Silicon Valley, with a rich venture capitalist
father who can provide her money, advice and contacts in the business world.

You can't consider her a normal 18-year old.

I'm 27 but I live in Italy, with blue collars parents. I discovered the
startup world and began thinking it can be done only recently.

