Christian Owens set up his first website three years ago and now has a business offering pay-per-click advertising in 86 countries.

He employs four people around the world and it is believed his website
is the 86th largest internet property in in the globe.

He was named winner of the teen category at the Enterprising Young Brit Awards, beating four other finalists to win £1,000 and a trophy.

The Brooke Weston Academy student and former Danesholme School pupil pitched his ideas to a panel of judges including director general of the Institute of Directors Miles Templeman and Penny Newman, chief executive of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Foundation.

His business Branchr, was set up using pocket money with the idea of
making online advertising accessible to all. Now it is used by brands such as William Hill and MySpace.

Christian, who lives in Briery Close, Great Oakley, said: “I taught myself basic web design and it was something I really enjoyed so when I was about 12 I started my first software promotion company.

“Then I started Branchr which connects people who want to advertise online with people who want to make money from their website.”

Even Christian was shocked to learn his website was being used in 86 countries. He said: “We went to a statistics company who told us we were the 86th largest web property in the world.

“We employ five people now including me, two in San Francisco, one in Boston and another in France.”

Christian runs his website in the evenings and weekends. He will take 16 GCSEs this summer and is considering delaying going to sixth form so he can run his business full-time.

His mum Alison, 44, is a secretary and dad Julian, 50, is a factory worker.He said: “I don’t think they really understand the ins and outs of the business but they are supportive.

“I would say I’m richer than most 15-year-olds but it’s not really about the money.

Megan Hurley is quite the force on her soccer team.

She is taking acting classes at Off Off Broadway, an acting school for kids in Phoenix.

She has even started her own business and clothing line.

All of this, and she’s only 8 years old.

About a year ago, Megan approached her dad Daniel with an idea to put some of her drawings onto t-shirts and sell them.

“She loves to design and do art work, she’s actually making jewelry, scarves, bracelets and stuff,” said Daniel Hurley.

She even helped her dad design the website and came up with the name for her clothing line, “Purrfect Clothing by Megan Leah.”

“Everything that I do I get approval from her, so if she doesn’t like it, it doesn’t get up on the shirt,” her father laughed.

Megan already knows the importance of giving back too.

A portion of every sale gets donated to the Humane Society and other animal-based charities.

Megan is a huge animal lover, she has four cats and two dogs of her own, all from the Humane Society.

She is selling her clothing at her acting studio, Off Off Broadway, and on her Purrfect Clothing

Along with being an actor, Megan says she wants to work with animals when she grows up.

“It’s a good thing, she’s helping animals and starting her little business,” said Daniel. ”At her age, it’s pretty incredible.”

At a time, when teens are glued to the computer screens playing games in the virtual world, there is a new breed of Indian Indian teens who are busy managing their own ventures in the real world. For example, Mohnish Nagpal runs a blog ‘Sensonize.com,’ through which he makes money online by advising people on how to make money online. Coming back home after college, Nagpal starts working at 5.30 pm when his target audience in the U.S. wakes up and logs on to the internet.

One of his posts lists blogging, affiliate marketing, paid surveys and writing articles for directories as some of the ways of making money online. “Very few people know that you can even earn by tweeting,” Nagpal says. With a steady five-figure income, he doesn’t have to worry about pocket money. “Every time someone clicks an advert on my blog, I get paid for it,” he adds.

This year, Nagpal, who first earned Rs. 5,000 off the internet at 13, started Limespace Networks, a website-hosting firm that caters to 35 customers. A student of commerce and IT at MMK College in Mumbai, Nagpal has already made it to a list of top international bloggers aged 21 or under on Retireat21.com, a forum for internet entrepreneurs.

Another teen entrepreneur is Mumbai based 13-year-old Monik Pamecha, who runs a website etiole.com, a networking site for ‘geeks’ called iluvtech.org and URL shortening service hop.im. Pamecha’s sites are so popular that they are regularly visited by Public Relation executives of gadget companies who deliver their latest products at his doorstep in anticipation of a review on his five-year-old blog, Etiole. Pamecha has recruited 26 other authors from around the globe. Each gets paid from the advertising income generated by the website traffic they attract. Apart from reviews, Pamecha posts technology tips. Now, Pamecha, a student of Lilavatibai Podar School in Mumbai, is all set to launch a media-sharing website also.

Farrhad Acidwalla is the Founder and CEO of web development and media company Rockstah Media. “I created an aeromodelling and aviation website that attracted a lot of attention and sold it later,” says the HR College student who has several customers including corporates. “I have just bagged clients from the education industry in UK,” he says. Acidwalla, who earned his first revenue at the age of 13, stays up all night to run his business. Today, the self-taught web-developer works with a team of web designers, developers, search engine specialists and social media marketers to build and promote websites.

TJ Dzine is a firm managed by Tanay Jaipuria, which provides web design, graphic design and search engine optimization services. Jaipuria works for 20 hours a week and occasionally gives up hanging around with his friends. Charging between $75 – $100 for a logo and $250 – $300 for a website, the Mumbai based lad designed 25 logos and created ten websites last year. Jaipuria dreams of studying computer engineering and starting a business venture in the manner of Silicon Valley start-ups.

After being recognized as the world’s youngest certified professional web-developer at the age of 14, today at 23, Suhas Gopinath is the Chairman and CEO of Globals, an IT consulting firm that specialises in web-related services. Gopinath began his journey at an internet cafe in Bangalore where he struck a deal with the cyber cafe owner and offered to run the place during lunch if internet use was made free for him. “With internet charges at Rs. 10 per hour and pocket money of Rs. 25 a month, I needed to maximise every opportunity I got,” he says.

The first website Gopinath created was called Coolhindustan. “But, of course, Hindustan is much cooler today, thanks to the power of the youth,” he says. During his entrepreneurial journey, Gopinath had to face several obstacles to gain the confidence of companies, due to his young age and the lack of academic qualification.

We just love stories like this at UKpreneur – keep them coming and do let us know about your venture.

A high school freshman from Holland is making a name for himself in the cyber world.

14-year-old Zachary Collins sold his second Web site in less than a  year to a company in California.  Zachary developed yazzem.com in his own personal think tank, which happens to be the basement of his parent’s home. The teenage entrepreneur says the Web site lets visitors share their thoughts about anything by sharing topics.  The catch is they can only write out their thoughts in 200 characters or less.

Teens in Tech paid $15,000 for it.

“At first I did think it was a joke,” said Zachary.

Zachary only became interested in computers three years ago.  His father says he started with an old, used laptop.  Zachary built his first Web site in two days.  In June, he sold the Twitter application search engine for $2,000. 

“It’s pretty amazing just to be able to connect with people from California and meet people like the founders of Twitter,” Zachary said.

Profits soared for yazzem.com, and like any responsible businessman, Zachary split the profits with his team and his co-founder, Dustin Snider from New York.  The two met each other online.

“He’s wanted to be a millionaire since he was at least eight.  It may have been younger, but he knew he was going to do something to be a millionaire,” says Zachary’s mother, Jennifer.

Zachary says another goal of his is to someday meet Bill Gates.

In 2006, Perez started Girls Spa Parties, a mobile spa that caters to clients by traveling to their homes, businesses and other locations to provide salon and spa services including hair, makeup, pedicures and massages.

With a team of 13 stylists, nail technicians, estheticians, massage therapists and even a yoga instructor, Girls Spa Parties is following a national trend of salon and spa owners taking their businesses on the road.

“Mobile spas have increased in popularity because they are a convenient way to complement your current spa visit regimen,” said Lynne McNees, International SPA Association president. “Their accessibility makes it simple to have an afternoon massage in your own backyard, or throw an impromptu spa party.”

Kimberly Bean hired Girls Spa Parties for her upcoming February wedding party out of convenience and to help take some of the stress out of a wedding. “By having the spa come to us, we can have breakfast, relax and be together before the wedding,” said the Henrietta resident. “And we don’t have to worry about possibly getting our hair and makeup messed up.”

Adds Perez: “For different events, it’s hard to find a salon that will accommodate large groups — especially wedding parties. This is a totally different environment.”

Also popular for showers, bachelorette parties, corporate rewards programs and other special events with a large group, the mobile spa trend is catching on with individual clients. In the past, in-home spa services were a luxury. But, said Perez, her pricing is in line with traditional salons. A standard pedicure is priced at $40, a hair updo is $55 and a 60 minute massage runs you $85. Perez said the only extra expense they add to the price is a travel fee of $10 per professional.

Her menu includes packages such as the “Spa Tea Da” pedicure party, and the “Slim and Sassy,” which includes an anti-cellulite treatment.

And the team of Girls Spa Parties professionals travel prepared. They come with everything to set up a spa and plenty of extras. “With all of our parties we bring plush spa robes, candles, floral arrangements, music, linens, welcome tables, signs — everything to get the spa feel,” Perez said.

Before starting the business, Perez worked as a nail technician at in a traditional salon setting, but wanted to be an entrepreneur. Her original business plan focused on catering to children’s parties, but she quickly realized the potential to branch out. “There are so many different things I can do with this business,” she said. “And you can always find a reason to spa.”

A YOUNG entrepreneur has launched a discount card that allows shoppers to cash in on deals at shops, restaurants, bars and even taxis in the North East.

The Edge card is the brainchild of Wil Cheung, 29, who has already signed up 200 businesses in the UK, including Tiger Tiger, Blu Bambu nightclub and clothing shop Union in Newcastle.

The card already has 10,000 members, which Cheung expects will more than double by next year, and can also be used at businesses in Manchester, Leeds and Edinburgh, with companies in Nottingham to be added later this year.

Mr Cheung realised that some of the North East’s smaller businesses could benefit from a card that included a wider range of ventures, such as Hustlers Pool Club in Newcastle and Noda Taxis, unlike most loyalty cards that stick to shops, bars and restaurants.

He studied a post-graduate degree in business at Warwick University in 2004 before moving to the North East to help his parents run the Palace Gardens restaurant in Newcastle’s China Town and then the Golden Dragon in Hexham.

However, he soon realised there were opportunities as a result of the recession and left to set up his own business.

He said: “I know there are many discount cards on the market at the moment, but this one is different as it includes offers on a vast range of things.”

Some of cyberspace’s biggest websites and the computer industry’s most powerful companies were once nothing more than a few big dreams in a small garage.

Now one Johnson City man is following the same garage-to-greatness approach made legendary by Hewlett-Packerd, Apple, and Google with his new dot com start up.

News Channel 11 introduced you on Tuesday to Eric McCarty, the founder of Fellowtip.com, and his self-induced garage lock-in. If you missed it, McCarty has vowed to stay put in his family’s garage in Johnson City until 500 new users join his forum site.

McCarty’s moved in to the small garage on Sunday. We visited a few days later to find out about the decision to set up shop in the shed, what he’s doing to pass the time and his belief that his website can one day change the world.   

Although I’m not too sure his website will take off, I do applaud his attempt at generating some good PR for himself! And FREE!

“After a year studying medical engineering at the University of Bath, I felt quite unfulfilled, and decided to take a gap year to see what life was about. I travelled in South America, Turkey, Italy and Spain until I ran out of money, and then worked in bars, teaching English and driving quarrying machinery until I had enough money to continue my adventures.

What I really wanted to do was volunteer abroad, but I couldn’t afford the gap-year industry’s expensive, all-inclusive packages. So in the end, I travelled to Bolivia with no contacts and, by pure luck, I linked up with a charity out there. I didn’t intend to found a business that year, but I was frustrated that people like me were prevented from working with charities because of the cost – and I had the idea of starting Travellingbug.

I set up my company so that volunteers pay £350 for their own, individual placement, including a £100 donation to the charity. In the first pilot trip, with one charity and one group of students, we took just under £3,000 and secured £6,000 through business competitions. I’ve invested revenue back into the company and into our partner charity in Bolivia, so this year we have availability for 50 volunteers. It’s going really well – we now also work in Uganda. Travellingbug is now my post-uni employment plan.

My gap year was a great time to start being an entrepreneur because I had a lot of time on my hands. I’m now back at university, but Travellingbug is still a full-time job, so last year I took on a fellow student as a business partner. It can be hard to focus completely on studying – I try to attend all my lectures, but it’s not easy!

Having said that, my uni has been really supportive. I’m a member of the university’s Sife [Students in Free Enterprise] team, involved in educating people in ethical business. Sife’s staff and other students help me to keep Travellingbug growing in the right direction. We work together, sharing our time and ideas, and the buzz must be catching, because my flatmates are eager to start up their own business ideas. I can’t wait to get behind them.

My family are proud of my independence, but they keep my feet on the ground. They get the occasional shout from me to say ‘Mum, that was the Guardian on the phone’ – but it doesn’t seem to get me anything extra in my Christmas stocking.”

·James Jardella is about to start his final year at Bath University

Tanya Budd from Winnersh, near Reading

“When I was 17, I was out sailing with friends when I realised there was a need for a recovery device that could rescue an unconscious person overboard with the aid of just one person. I was in sixth form at the time, and when I was asked to design something for the community for my A-level in product design, my idea came back to me. That day, HypoHoist, a simple device to get people out of the water, was born.

I had always planned to take a gap year, but my intention was to do work experience at a hospital, as I was aiming to study medicine. But HypoHoist changed my plans. When I won the title of Young Engineer of Britain in 2005, I decided to use my gap year to get my product into production. I had to apply for a patent and get advice from a designer and engineer about how to make it commercially viable, and then had to get it tested and approved. Next, I had to find a partner company to manufacture and distribute the product, before I finally had the big international launch at Southampton boat show – it was a busy year. I also spent time promoting engineering to other young people.

I didn’t plan the year, just took it as it came, and there were downsides. Because I was working constantly, I missed two holidays so I could get my product launched. But through the HypoHoist I did get to travel – to America, representing Britain as a young engineer, and to Denmark, where I took part in an international competition.

When I started at uni, studying design and engineering at Brunel University after my gap year, at first I found the age gap between myself and the others in my year a bit difficult, my whole work ethic and schedule were completely different. But I settled in, and since then everything has happened fast. I won the Enterprising Young Brits Award, supported by the Make Your Mark entrepreneurship campaign, and that opened loads of doors for me to develop my product as well as my business and my personal skills.

Sales are going very well and the money I’m making is helping towards my university fees and savings. While at uni, I’ve scaled down the time I spend on my product. I put project work first, because that’s my real future – I have to focus on new projects to diversify my skills and widen my knowledge. But my gap year launching HypoHoist has taken me on a truly life-changing journey that I will remember for ever.”

· Tanya Budd is just about to start her final year at Brunel University

Not long after Catherine Cook arrived at her new high school aged 15, she was flipping through an old yearbook with Dave, her 16-year-old brother, when they spotted the name of a girl they both knew. Yet the yearbook picture looked nothing like her. In that moment an internet empire was born.

You have heard of Google, MySpace, Facebook and the geeky boy geniuses who made billions from brilliant computer ideas. Now meet a geeky girl genius – a New Jersey teenager who turned a stroke of high school inspiration into what is now the fastest-growing online social network in America.

Three years after it occurred to Cook that one of icons of the American educational experience – the high school yearbook – was badly in need of updating, she is sitting on an internet fortune.

The website she launched with her brother at Montgomery high school in Skillman, New Jersey, has exploded into a multi-million-dollar online business, with 10m members of myYearbook.com registering 1.5 billion page views a month.

As the site’s co-founder and features guru, Cook, now 18, presides over a roster of online activities that have expanded the yearbook idea into a games, video and quiz-packed site with a heavy accent on the joys and perils of dating. Popular quiz topics include: “Do boys like you? What kind of kisser are you? What’s your break-up style?”

Launched in 2005 with an initial investment of $250,000 (£135,000), the site is now earning more than $10m a year in advertising sales and Cook has become a millionaire.

Hitwise, the leading internet monitoring group, has calculated that in June myYearbook became the third largest online social network in the United States, behind MySpace and Facebook, both of which are intended for older users.

“We’ve had some offers from people who want to buy us out – and a few pretty big ones,” Cook said last week.

“But we’re not interested right now. I’m having too much fun working on the site.”

With their joky style – the website declares that its “vice-president for marketing” is Dusty, the family dog – Cook and her brother may have dealt a death blow to the rather dreary school annuals that in recent years have been read mainly by magazine editors seeking embarrassing pictures of celebrities.

“I realised when I was talking to Dave that those old yearbooks really sucked,” said Cook, who wears big glasses and admits to being “a bit nerdish”.

She added: “The pictures always stink and the books never really tell you anything about the person. So we thought: why not put it online? Why not have a profile page that can list your TV interests, the music you like, your extracurriculars?”

Neither Cook nor her brother knew anything about building a website, but family help was at hand. Catherine and Dave have an older brother, Geoff, who had already made an internet fortune of his own while studying at Harvard University.

Geoff had devised and sold a pair of websites that helped students with essay writing and preparing CVs. He immediately saw the promise in his younger siblings’ idea. He wrote them a cheque to get the website off the ground and has since become the venture’s chief executive.

“Geoff is 11 years older than me,” said Cook. “He was running his websites out of Palm Springs, California, and my mom used to send us out there to stay with him. His office was just so cool and I knew when I saw it that I didn’t want a proper, typical job. I wanted to be an entrepreneur.”

At 15, when most of her schoolmates were shopping at the mall and worrying about boys, Cook was firing off e-mails to a team of website designers in Mumbai.

“It was very helpful to have a close personal relationship with someone like Geoff,” she said.

“He knows how to hire programmers in India, lease server space in Texas and start conversations with venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.”

By April 2005 the family was ready to test its new toy. She and Dave turned up at school wearing T-shirts with slogans that read: “Are you the prettiest girl in school? How about the dumbest? Find out at myYearbook.com.”

As teenagers around the country flocked to the site, they were followed by a stampede of investors and advertisers. The site now employs 70 people and Cook and her brothers may eventually be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Facebook, for example, which is privately controlled, is estimated to be worth between $3 billion and $15 billion.

Cook is about to start her second year as a student at Georgetown University in Washington DC, but she acknowledged that she was finding it hard to combine her studies with running a budding internet conglomerate.

“I do want to graduate,” she said. “But I may have to take one or two years off to work on the website first.”

 

Ryan Gindlesperger has spent years chasing high expectations he’s been at least partly responsible for setting.

As a freshman at Bishop McCort High School in 1999, the Crushers hockey team won a state championship. Gindlesperger and his teammates spent the next three years chasing lofty expectations. He said he actually felt some disappointment in only finishing among the top four teams in the state each of the next three years.

Now, at age 24, Gindlesperger is the president and owner of a one-year-old company, 1sTeam Advertising, 107 Station St.,

Ferndale. And again, he’s setting the bar high for himself and expecting to win.

“We started out wanting to be a high-tech firm offering indoor digital advertising services,” said Gindlesperger, whose company has grown to two employees in addition to himself.

“The more we did that and the more clients we met, the more we were asked if we did anything else. Since then, it’s grown into a full-service advertising agency, and we’ve added media buying and some strategic planning services.”

Gindlesperger is younger than the average entrepreneur. But starting a business wasn’t his first exposure to the working world.

He interned for a staffing company based in Baltimore and spent his time learning more about how to run a business than about the staffing industry. After graduating from Penn State-Altoona in 2006 with a degree in business management, featuring a concentration in marketing, he went to work doing strategic marketing for a medical equipment sales company in State College.

He said he was initially turned off by the idea of being an entrepreneur because he knew the long hours it involved. But when he found himself putting in

50 to 60 hours of work per week, he began to wonder why he wasn’t doing it to build a business of his own.

“With the amount of work I was doing, I figured I could be doing this on my own and helping out a lot of other companies instead of just one,” Gindlesperger said. “At the same time, this allows me to sort of control my own destiny.”

Gindlesperger said he’s learned a lot about running a business from his dad, Dean, whom he refers to as his mentor.

Dean Gindlesperger and a partner founded Allegheny Manufacturing and Electrical Service Inc. in Ferndale more than a decade ago. Since then, the elder Gindlesperger has added two more businesses to what is now a portfolio of companies.

“I was exposed to a lot by my dad,” Gindlesperger said. “I’ve been able to learn a lot about successfully running a company firsthand from him.”

Another part of the reason Gindlesperger has gone into business for himself is because the Richland Township native wants to stay here in his hometown.

He believes that the region has nowhere to go but up.

He believes that the more companies in the region cooperate with one another, the more successful they can all be in helping to revitalize the region’s economy.

“Rather than trying to compete with one another on a daily basis, we should be partnering together and combining our services,” Gindlesperger said.

“If we try to do that and go outside the area and bring clients here, I think we can pull more revenue into the area. Ultimately, that will stimulate the economy, adding more jobs, and we will all experience growth as a result.”