Raising Entrepreneurs

Welcome back!

Last year, at TiECON 2007, the big technology conference in Santa Clara, California, this young man made his first public appearance.

The buzz on the expo floor was about Silicon Valley gaming startup Elementeo and its precocious 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar. “We inject fun into education,” the fast talking entrepreneur confidently proclaimed, touting his new fantasy role playing board game which he believes will change the way kids learn chemistry.

The conference featured keynote presentations from the likes of Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures) and Tim O’Reilly (Web 2.0 thinker), but the young Samar better represented the theme of this year’s conference: “The New Face of Entrepreneurship.”

VentureBeat interviewed the diminutive executive at Elementeo’s TiECON booth. Like other charismatic Silicon Valley CEOs – think Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison or Marc Benioff – Mr. Samar exudes confidence, vision and a passion to change the world. He’s more articulate than many CEOs four times his age.

Click here to see VentureBeat’s video of Mr. Samar delivering his elevator pitch.

Source: Venture Beat

Recently, Anshul was interviewed by Tynan On Technology:

TOT: What inspired you to start Elementeo?

Living in Silicon Valley, I have sees all of these people starting their own businesses, showing the world their product, and being entrepreneurs. I didn’t want to wait another 10 years to start my own business — I wanted to do it now.

TOT: Are you doing what you saw yourself doing as a small child? Are you living your dream? Or has your career path been more serendipitous?

As a small child, the only thing I wanted to do was to have fun by creating something new and unique. From writing poems since 2nd grade, stories on how to beat Microsoft in 3rd grade, creating 4 page newspapers in 4th grade, creating a printing press from colonial times in 5th grade, etc. And yes, I have had fun and am having fun.

My dream was to turn my idea into a real business — since fourth grade I’ve dreamed of being the CEO of my own business. And now in eighth grade I am finally one.

I haven’t thought anything about having business as a career, or anything else. I just do whatever seems fun to me.

If this business fails, I can still come home and have a nice dinner I will still have my basketball hoop in my backyard and my skateboard in the garage.

Read the rest of the interview on the Tynan Blog.

Jeff Livney thought he wanted to be an attorney, so, at 16, he secured a paid internship at a law practice in California.

For one of his first assignments, he was asked to create the firm’s Web site. “They assumed all young high school guys knew about this, and I didn’t,” he said. “But I had a friend that did. So I paid him less than what I was being paid and enjoyed a leisurely summer in California.”

With that entrepreneurial mindset, Mr. Livney created Livney+Partners, a full-service boutique marketing firm in the four years since that internship. In addition to creating Web sites, Mr. Livney and his five contractors do consulting in brand development and create interactive media presentations and shopping cart Web sites.

Revenue at his firm reached $64,000 last year. Clients include J.P. Morgan Chase and the Houston World Affairs Council.

“I like the sense that I’m creating my own wealth and wealth for other people,” said the Texas Christian University sophomore, who takes classes full time as an entrepreneurial management and marketing major. Mr. Livney has also invested in other companies.

“I’m young enough to where I can take those kinds of risks,” he said.

Neither of his parents is an entrepreneur. But they provided key help when he started, including setting him up with accounting and legal contacts. And they continue to play a role, he says. “They’re my biggest cheerleaders now, always handing out my business card.”

Source: Dallas Morning News

Sorry this post is so late – I came home to house full of sick people!

A better update next week, I promise …

But for now, I am still waiting on some promised entries, and hopefully will have some Renegade CEO stories for you soon. Oh, and a new publisher is in the frame, but I haven’t had much of a chance to catch up with that yet!

Back in sunny Sydney (although San Francisco and Washington were pretty sunny, too) – tired but still buzzing from all the great people I have met and the exciting business discussions we had.

I visited the offices of HubPages.com in San Francisco, which was a lot of fun. There are some great new developments happening there.

In Washington, I met Shonika Proctor – watch for more blog posts from her, and videos of her young Renegade Entrepreneurs! I also had a great time at the Focus Marketing Seminar – and I won a cruise! So it will be back to the US with us some time next year to enjoy that bonus.

But what I really wanted to talk about today is something that happened just a few days ago. Chris told me over Skype just before I left San Francisco that Erin and a friend had started a new business. The first he knew of it was when a woman rang him and said “I have just booked your daughter to babysit for us, I hope that’s OK with you?”

Apparently Erin and her friend had printed up some flyers, walked around the nearby streets and distributed them, had their first enquiry call, and made their first booking, completely without adult involvement. She’s still only twelve!

After that, she and Chris had a good chat about the difference between having a job and having a business, and she’s already thinking about how she can outsource the actual babysitting to other kids and take a percentage for making the bookings.

Meanwhile, she and her friend are meeting these kids this weekend, and babysitting them next weekend.

I was just so happy – clearly all the teaching we have done over the years has sunk in and stuck firmly. Already, at twelve, she’s self-reliant and enterpreneurial.

But that’s not the only piece of news.

Our place is a bit of a gathering point – we’re quite close to the school, so lots of their friends come into our place before school. Some even have breakfast. One – the partner in the babysitting business – wanders in without knocking and heads straight for the fridge!

Yesterday morning, I had just got back from the airport, so I got to observe the milling crowds. I noticed another one of their friends gathering up a pile of printed pages from the printer. Not only the fridge – they also use the computers. At least this time it looked like homework instead of playing computer games. She and Rachael headed off about half an hour early.

Just out of curiosity, I wandered over to the computer, and lo and behold, Rachael and this friend are starting their own business, too – in pet care. The flyer had prices for washing, walking and feeding (including discounts for purchasing two or more services), and their contact details, and was decorated with animal footprints.

They came back about 20 minutes later to print out a few more, and were off again. They are both twelve, as well.

Rachael still has money coming in from her online businesses – she made another sale this week of her information product at thatinternetgirl.com, and she has made a few dollars in Adsense revenue on her witchcraft site this week, too, making it a profit centre even though the e-book is still not ready for release.

She doesn’t need to start another business, but she has obviously decided that this would be fun. Or maybe the attraction is doing it together with a friend, or just that she likes animals. Whatever the reason, it’s something she is doing because she wants to, not because she has no money coming in from anywhere else.

It’s a nice feeling, knowing that no matter what happens in the future, they already have the skills they need to succeed financially, whatever the economy is doing.

Image: The Jamoker

A 17-YEAR-old Dublin man who makes wooden lamps was recently in New York representing Ireland at a National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) competition, an organization which prevents at risk young people from disadvantaged communities from quitting and teaches entrepreneurship to them both in and out of school.

Glen Doyle, who lives in Harold’s Cross in Dublin, proudly traveled to New York earlier this month to attend the annual international competition, which was held at the New York Marriott Marquis on Broadway.

Doyle, who was accompanied by his mother Janet, told the Irish Voice he “couldn’t believe it” but “he was over the moon” when he was chosen to represent his country in such a prestigious competition.

“NFTE really gives us a chance to see that we can do it ourselves, that we can become something if we want to and I’m so grateful that I have had this brilliant opportunity,” said Doyle, who will continue with the Youthreach program for another year and a half.

Doyle said that there is nothing better than the feeling he gets when someone orders or buys one of his lamps. “I just hope it continues and my business will grow into a big one,” he says.

Read more at Irish Abroad.