It’s been quoted that Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, once remarked that if you haven’t started your tech company by 25 – you’re finished. Whether that’s true or not -- it’s definitely a fact that the online landscape changes faster than ever these days. And there’s one group who live, breathe and totally excel in this space…the young entrepreneur.
That’s why the day before the main Underground® VI event you’ll get to hear from some of the Nation’s top online talent (who barely shave). You’ll hear from a young breed of upstarts who are crushing it online! This new generation of young moguls grew up with a computer and their use of technology, marketing techniques and connection is unprecedented.
This is the first time we’ve brought in specific Underground rogue agents, who are all under 25, to share exactly what they are doing.
The line-up is still taking shape but you’ll hear directly from the movers and shakers who are blowing up social media, selling their Internet ventures for a princely sum and developing the next generation of mobile applications.
Here’s A Quick Peek at the Young Underground Moguls You’ll Hear From:
 Neil Patel — SEO Guru and Social Media Expert, CrazyEgg.com & QuickSprout.com
Not many people can claim to be both an SEO Expert and a Social Media Expert, but Neil Patel fits the bill. Neil is also the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal. He’s been paid $100,000.00/month to be on retainer for companies and you’ll see why when you hear him speak!
Derek Johnson, Founder Tatango.com
Just like Bill Gates, Derek, is a college CEO drop out! His innovation was releasing an application in 2007 that allowed you to send text messages to groups of phones from the Internet, at first he offered the service for free but quickly moved to a paid model with over 10,000 members paying between $20 and $200 depending on the package they use. (And the best part is customers keep paying month after month!) He’s also been featured as one of Business Weeks top young entrepreneurs of 2009.
Joshua March, co-founder of iPlatform
London based entrepreneur Josh started his first company aged in 2005, aged 19. A couple of companies on (and lots of mistakes and lost money out of the door), he set up iPlatform at the beginning of 2008 to build Facebook apps and products for big brands and agencies, and become Chairman of the London Facebook Developer Garage, a monthly event for developers and entrepreneurs working on the Facebook platform, sponsored by Facebook. iPlatform works with brands like The Economist, Swatch, McDonalds, Unilever, Gumtree, Nestle and more, either direct or through media agencies, and is the only official Facebook 'Preferred Developer' outside of America. The service side of the business is turning over seven figures, and they've just released a new software as a service dashboard to help brands manage and moderate their social campaigns.
Josh Mullineaux, Unique Blog Designs
Shortly after graduating from Arizona State's W.P. Carey School of Business, Josh quit his job as a licensed banker and his two other co-founders (Nate Whitehill and Matthew Blancarte) started Unique Blog Designs in August of 2007 from a 2-bedroom apartment! Armed with just $50,000 in funding, Unique Blog Designs started life a a purely service oriented company and over the course of two years, has transformed into a 90% product, 10% service company. Josh and co-founders also were able to pay back their investor and currently own 100% of their company, something rarely seen in the startup world.
Besides being responsible for developing the blogs/websites for John Reece, Frank Kern, John Chow, Yaro Starak, Tony Robbins and working with companies such as MySpace, Yahoo!, Azoogle Ads, Josh and Unique Blog Designs have also managed to release multiple products, each making over $100,000 within the first month of launching!
Today, Unique Blog Designs is one of the most recognizable brands in the blogging and internet marketing realm and one of the few full service marketing firms that have managed to transform successfully into the "all too elusive" product company.
Andrew "Fashion" Thompson
Andrew Thompson has lived the American Dream - from High School drop-out to self-made Millionaire at aged 18
Andrew founded MySpaceSupport.com way back in 2005 - a kid barely out of school who by November 2005 was earning over $100,000 per month. Social Media was in its infancy and Andrew was an early adopter - someone who sensed were all this Social Media thing was going and who was taking advantage Big Time!
Andrew made a lot of money and Andrew lost (wasted / spent) a lot of money and by his own admission has made a lot of mistakes along the way, but there is no doubting Andrew's Entrepreneurial credentials. Listening to Andrew is like listening to a much older entrepreneur than Andrews young years. Andrew like all great entrepreneurs has bounced back many times and currently is running BeModel.com, a professional networking website which provides aspiring models and photographers a whole new marketplace for their skills.
Andrew is also the author of an upcoming book about his experience called: Young & Stupid: How I Made And Lost 2.5 Million Dollars
All entrepreneurs no matter what their age will be inspired by Andrew Thompson.
Plus there are more of these ‘young guns’ continually being added to the roster!
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