

Ten Teen Entrepreneurs To Watch - edw519
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/10/ten-teen-entrepreneurs-to-watch/

======
zaidf
If I was in their shoes and I got featured like this, I am not sure I could go
without getting a big head. Which sucks because it is one thing to make f-u
money and get a big head. It is another to be recognized in a way that
millionaires are often recognized--except you don't have the millions yet.

My advice to them would be to IGNORE the crap out of this. And keep doing the
great work! The ones that get too sucked up in _remaining_ on this list for
next year or _hating_ themselves for not making it are moving away from what
made them awesome to begin with.

------
maxklein
Sometimes I don't get why people like to talk about what they did when they
were young in our industry so much.

You see stuff like : I started writing Basic when I was 8 months old, and by
the time I was 2, I was using interrupts to force a pipeline recache that
would cause Pentium2 processors to execute 5 instructions in quasi parallel
mode, so that I could do a realtime render of my backstreet boys collection...

Another common thing is: Person in question started selling lemonade when he
was 7 and by the time he was 8, he had 15 extra lemonade stands staffed by his
friends...

Almost without exception, when you read such bios of people, and those people
write those bios by themselves, then they never amount to anything when they
get older.

Why am I saying this? Because the techcrunch synopsis about each of those
enterprenuer is almost directly lifted from each of their websites. Click on
their 'About' pages.

Apart from Mark Bao of course, he's just a cool cat.

~~~
Scriptor
Steve Wozniak definitely fits the description of someone who was doing cool
stuff while young. Of course, there was no techcrunch back then to widely
announce to the whole world how he'd built a calculator from scratch. Maybe
that's what it takes to keep your head cool and focused.

------
numair
This industry has an unhealthy obsession with youth.

~~~
unalone
What bothers me about posts like this is the unspoken underlying assumption
that the younger you are when you start, the more "valuable" you are as an
entrepreneur. Like, if you start at 12 then you're a better person than you
are if you start at 13. There's a similar age obsession in writing and in
fencing, both of which I was involved in during high school. I find that
certain other fields, music especially, are a bit more level-headed.

~~~
ams6110
I don't know about music being level headed. It's not uncommon for parents who
think their kid is a prodigy to have them in violin classes at age 3 or 4. I
don't know if the music community itself thinks this is good or bad, though.

~~~
unalone
Practice at a young age isn't a bad thing. But the music community, while it
acknowledges prodigies, usually doesn't appreciate music more or less based on
age. The first example that comes to mind is Chris Thile, who was in a Grammy
Award-winning band at 12. He was a prodigy, yes, but he became famous not for
that but for the music he produced.

------
JCThoughtscream
Let's put it this way: they started maybe a decade, maybe two decades, ahead
of everybody else. They're able to make a LOT more mistakes without suffering
for it than anybody else. Even entrepreneurs starting early into their 20s
don't have as near-perfect a sandbox for their efforts.

Unhealthy obsession with youth? Maybe. But not unwarranted, I think. Either
way, this has got to be plenty more educational for them than what they're
getting at school.

~~~
zaidf
_they started maybe a decade, maybe two decades, ahead of everybody else_

A big assumption you seem to be making is that these kids will keep
progressing at the current rate.

I actually think for most of these kids, they will hit a plateau and
exhaustion point a lot sooner where they may dabble in stuff they did not when
they were younger. There is NOTHING wrong with that and I have been through
this path myself. But it's important to understand that the direction and rate
of personal growth is not static. Some of these kids may dabble in drugs
tomorrow; some of their stoned classmates may dabble with startups when they
are older.

------
catweasel
"...an online network dedicated to supporting and engaging with young people
with an internet in the web, technology and entrepreneurship."

How is that even a sentence? Somebody needs to teach the young less about
entrepreneuring[sic] and more about proof reading.

~~~
zaidf
See, this is the problem I have with blog posts like these. These guys are in
the teens. Many of them got to this point by following a passion in
programming. Now that they are in the limelight, some will start worrying more
about their sentence structure and matching their shoes than continuing to get
better at whatever got them here.

Of course matching shoes and getting the sentence structures right is very
important in life--but not necessarily in your teen years.

------
kingkawn
I bet there are some awesome tweens entrepreneurs too.

~~~
MicahWedemeyer
Like Mary Kate and Ashley Olson. Tween bazillionaires.

------
bjoernw
Calling someone "worth watching" assumes that he/she has some kind of
characteristics, which could possibly make him/her successful. This was
written by a teen. Not sure if I trust his judgement on this. There are lots
of talented kids out there though, no doubt.

------
edw519
We use ramamia by Mark Bao and Jason Baptiste and are very happy. Glad to see
you in OP, Mark. Keep up the great work!

------
Bob5757
I agree with some of the others. Age discrimination reigns (as the younger
crowd who follow HN will find out in 10 to 15 years). Wasn't there a study
published recently that showed that a significant number of entrepreneurs
(especially the successful ones) were in their 30s and 40s?

------
ahoyhere
As much as I want to hate on this article with the rest of you guys, I can't.
I was expecting a load of "Look! Bobby has a blog with AdSense. How cute."
But, grammar aside, it surprised me. It's not just Mark in this list who's
made actual money. That Ashley girl has been in business 5 years and employs a
parent!

Which is a lot more success than (as far as I can tell) the vast majority of
HNers.

So, yes, I hate things that focus on age. Sure, by most accounts I was a child
prodigy and blah blah blah blah. The age-related attention certainly never did
me any good. It made me lazy, and vain, and I think I missed out on a lot of
opportunities because of it.

But whether or not these are teens to "watch," they should be considered a
challenge for anyone who's clocking all their time on the next revolution in
social bookmarking or social network messaging shopping kablooey.

Reality check: Ashley makes enough money to employ herself, a parent, and
apparently friends, too... off a site for _free_ _MySpace_ _layouts_.

That should tell us _all_ something.

