Developingeyes Entrepreneur Of The Week: Ephren Taylor

Posted by Brett on 16th, 2008

Hey guys, I know I’ve been M.I.A. these last few weeks, but I’m back and ready to give you tons of updates on what I’ve been working on these past few weeks. Let’s first get back into our routine.It’s another “lovely” Monday and so it’s time for the entrepreneur of the week where we focus on young successful entrepreneurs as a means of motivation for those of us still trying to be successful.

Ephren Taylor courtesy ephren.com This week’s entrepreneur is Ephren Taylor of City Capital Corporation and at the tender age of 25, is the youngest African-American CEO of any publicly traded company EVER. Quite an accomplishment where you’re the boss and younger than all your employees. Guy’s like Ephren Taylor show signs of entrepreneurship at a very young age. In fact, he started his first business at the age of 12, where he created 3D video games and sold them to his friends for $10.

At the age of 17, Ephren went on to build a million dollar ($3.4 million to be exact) technology company called GoFerretGo.com, which was then rated #4 of Teen Companies Nationwide by YoungBiz magazine. The guy really has a lot of very serious achievements under his belt. Finally, in 2006 Ephren Taylor became CEO of City Capital Corp, where he oversees over $150 million in assets for a number of clients for clients from Wall Street investors to professional athletes.

Ephren runs a blog where he gives pointers on how to create wealth beyond six and seven figures. I would suggest subscribing to it. Also take a look at the video below where Ephren appears on the CNBC show The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.

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Developingeyes Entrepreneur of the week: Ben Casnocha

Posted by Brett on 19th, 2008

Well it’s another Monday, and time for our weekly motivational post about a young entrepreneur. I’m a little late in getting this post together, it was a bit of a hectic action packed weekend so I ended up procrastinating quite a bit. Our featured entrepreneur this week is really exceptional as well and I think his accomplishments thus far will really motivate a lot of us especially those in the field of software and publishing.

Ben CasnochaThe entrepreneur this week is Ben Casnocha of Comcate. Ben is 20 years old and has already started his own software company (Comcate) at age 14 as well as written his own book! Comcate develops software designed to help local governments resolve citizen complaints.

That’s a pretty interesting niche one that can really only come from some sort of personal experience. Ben says he realised how poorly governments dealt with customer service issues from his own experience and that gave him the idea for Comcate. That was his second company.

Ben took a year off to travel and write a book, after finishing High School. He wrote about his experiences and called the book”My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley.” This is truly something this is a very well accomplished young man.

On top of this Ben has been named one of the nation’s top 25 entrepreneurs under 25 by Business Week. His blog has been named one of the top 25 in Silicon Valley by the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Furthermore while running Comcate he still had time to captain his San Francisco University High School basketball team and be editor of the school newspaper.

Ben Casnocha is now enrolled at California’s Claremont McKenna college and markets himself as entrepreneur, author and college student.

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Stepping it up a notch and creating my own product

Posted by Brett on 14th, 2008

I started my entrepreneurial journey back in January 2008 and have just taken the time to really observe the different ways people are making money online and determine which might best suit me. I must say I have learnt quite a bit from my ever growing blog library and rss subscriptions. Now I think I have an idea of the route I wish to take in building an internet business.

At first I must admit I was quite caught up in the Google Adsense hype. The possibilities seemed endless but from my own experiences with adsense I realise that it still entails quite a bit of effort and seems most unrewarding. My true realisation came after reading this post at bloggingexperiment.com by Max Davis the new owner of the blog.

After reading that post I have decided to begin creating my own products and leverage the strengths of others to help make my product and business successful. My goals for this month then, are two develop the product I intend to market as well as build some credibility in the particular niche and of course build a list.

Currently I am developing two free products (newsletter and free ebook) to use on some of my existing websites so as to capture some leads and eventually market a paid service/product. I will make sure to let you guys know how it goes right now I’m just working on structure and gathering information.

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Developingeyes’ Entrepreneur of the week: Suranga Chandratillake

Posted by Brett on 12th, 2008

It’s yet another Monday an at developingeyes.com we like to start it off with a little inspiration and motivation with our entrepreneur of the week. In this series we acknowledge a young entrepreneur that has found some level of success in his/her particular niche. The story is meant to motivate us as young budding entrepreneurs so that we keep striving and working towards our own success as well.

This week’s entrepreneur is a bit more successful than what I’ve been writing about in the past but may still be a bit unknown to quite a few of us on this side of the Atlantic. Suranga Chandratillake is co-founder and CEO of Blinkx. Blinkx is a video search engine based in the UK and San Francisco, that indexes over 18 million hours of video online. According to their website:

Today, blinkx is the world’s largest single index of rich media content on the Web, delivering more content from a broader range of sources than either Google or Yahoo!

One of the main advantages Blinkx has over the other guys is software that turns speech into text and tells you how many times that word has appeared in a particular video. Blinkx has also taken on contextual advertising using a service they call AdHoc. Think of it as an "Adsense for videos".

The ads take many forms, clickable links that scroll across the screen, banner ads and interestingly a list at the end of the video that shows all the products mentioned in the video you just watched! This is some very interesting stuff and I think has a very good future ahead as more and more videos appear online. A story on Suranga and Blinkx can be found in the Business 2.0 September 2007 edition or on the business 2.0 website.

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Five types of Entrepreneurs, what type of entrepreneur are you?

Posted by Brett on 7th, 2008

I came across this in a book I was reading which had a section on entrepreneurship. The book is called New Era of Management by Richard Daft. It goes on to talk about five types of entrepreneurs. There were a few I knew about before but some are new to me. So I’ve decided to share it with you in today’s post. Let’s see what categories we fall under.

Five types of Entrepreneurs

Idealist

The idealist entrepreneur is the most common type of entrepreneur shown above. He/She likes innovation and enjoys working on something new or creative or something personally meaningful.

Optimizers

The optimizer entrepreneur comes in a close second and is content with the personal satisfaction of simply being a business owner.

I think everyone would have some sort of satisfaction being a business owner but if that’s what mostly feels important then I guess you fall here.

Hard Workers

The hard workers entrepreneur category includes persons who enjoy putting in long hours to build a larger more profitable business. They like the challenge it presents and of course reap the most rewards if the business turns out to be a multi-million dollar enterprise.

Hard work comes with all businesses but as we now see not everyone works hard for the business to grow as this group of entrepreneurs does.

Jugglers

The juggler entrepreneur likes the concept that the business gives them a chance to handle everything themselves. They are usually people with lots of energy and exist on the pressure of meeting deadlines, paying bills and of course making payroll.

Who doesn’t like pressure? J Last minute deadlines are lovely! I’m sure a lot of you have ended up in a situation where the deadline is approaching quickly. Maybe you’re a juggler

Sustainers

The sustainers entrepreneur category consists of people who like the thought of balancing work and a personal life. Most often they do not wish the business to grow too large where it will cut into their personal life too much.

These guys just need enough to survive. No big hopes and dreams of a multinational corporation or interviews on “The Big Idea” J

So there you have it five categories of entrepreneurs. I’ve been trying to figure out which category best describes me, but I think I have attributes of the first four types. I love creativity and innovation so am I an idealist? I think everyone would feel satisfaction as a business owner, a natural sense of pride would always come with entrepreneurship.

I definitely would love to see any business venture I undertake grow as large as it possibly can so then I’m a hard worker? Yet I work well under pressure I’d say I thrive on it a bit so then I’m a juggler.

I guess I am hybrid entrepreneur. What type of Entrepreneur are you?

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Developingeyes’ Entrepreneur Of The Week: Carl Ocab

Posted by Brett on 5th, 2008

Carl Ocab the KidbloggerWelcome readers, It’s another Monday and so it’s time for our weekly motivational story of a young entrepreneur. This week’s entrepreneur is only 14 years old and is by far the youngest I have ever come across online (or anywhere for that matter). I just heard about him myself last week, but I am sure most of you trying to make money from blogging must have heard of him before.

This week’s entrepreneur is Carl Ocab of carlocab.com. Carl is a 14 year old BOY from the Philippines. His major claim to fame is ranking number one in google for the keyphrase “make money online”. When I checked it he currently ranks fourth which is still far beyond anything I have accomplished.

Carl is really doing it big and still going to school. He blogs regularly after school and writes with great authority on his topics, much better than many of the make money online blogs run by adults I’ve come across. I think one of the things Carl has going for him is his family’s support. Many of his posts introductory make reference to his father who he says is a marketer himself.

Carl also has a free ebook called the kidblogger’s master plan, that he uses to make money online and replicates any number of times in different niches. Yes people he is 14 years old, and he started at 13. If this doesn’t motivate you to work harder I really think you should call it quits now. Check out Carl’s blog and read his posts he has some solid advice there and I would recommend subscribing to his blog and getting the free ebook.

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$10,000 in 37 days from facebook!

Posted by Brett on 30th, 2008

I know most of you may have heard about this by now but if you haven’t here goes. Brian Campbell of Internet Marketing University has made the claim that he will make $10,000 in 37 days from facebook. Even further he has invited everyone to join his group and follow him as he goes along.
This is pretty interesting stuff. He’s either going to be a huge success or embarrass himself horribly, either way its a good way to learn. I’ve already joined and became a fan of Brian on facebook so I can see what he does. I have some ideas as to how he might do it but I’ll still wait until he reveals his plans.
This post is of course a bit late. The end of the 37 days is May 16th 2008 which really just gives Brian a little over two weeks left to generate the money. Let’s see how it turns out!!

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Developingeyes’ Entrepreneur of the week: Brian Taylor

Posted by Brett on 28th, 2008

Good day readers, I must first apologize for my absence, I had to go away on business for my 9 to 5 job and I did not prepare adequately by writing posts in advance :s. But let’s get back to business.
It’s another Monday and we will begin our week with a motivational article about a young entrepreneur doing what we all hope to accomplish someday to some degree.

Brian Taylor of Kernel SeasoningsToday’s entrepreneur of the week is Brian Taylor of Kernel Season’s. Kernel Season’s began out of the dorm room of this 29 year old. The company makes seasonings for popcorn ranging from white cheddar to marshmallow chocolate. Imagine marshmallow chocolate popcorn, sounds good to me :-).

Brian says he made popcorn every night and created his own personal spice blends to add to it, his friends loved it and people came knocking on his dorm room door asking for the special seasonings.
Brian hired a team of flavour specialists to help perfect his seasonings and now has his seasonings in a reported 70% of groceries and movie theatres in the U.S.

This is some pretty good stuff here. Making money from something as simple as popcorn seasoning. You can read more about Brian Taylor and Kernel Seasonings here and maybe even try out some of his seasonings for yourself. Oh and his company reportedly made $5 million in sales in 2006!

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Developingeyes Entrepreneur of the week: Sam Altman

Posted by Brett on 14th, 2008

Well its another beautiful mournful monday for those of us who hate our jobs and would rather be doing anything else :-). Monday is the day I try to post a motivational success story by budding young entrepreneurs such as ourselves. Hopefully the story will help us to push forward and keep trying toward our goals of financial independence.

Sam AltmanThis week’s young entrepreneur is Sam Altman of Loopt. Loopt software gives location-based functionality to cell phones, which allows users to see where their friends are located on a map. Loopt is cleverly dubbed, “your social compass”.

The software does interesting stuff such as send text alerts when friends come in close proximity to each another. It can even tell you what locations your friends have tagged as favourite spots. The service is available on Boost Mobile and also on Sprint networks. Loopt seems to make its money from subscription. It’s FAQ states a subscription fee of $2.99 a month for unlimited “looping” :-)

Sam Altman is 22 years old (possibly 23 by now) and is doing well for himself. He has a start up that is showing some very good potential and one that seems to be growing daily. If we all could be so lucky!

Check out these two videos about Sam and Loopt. In the first video Sam gives a brief demo of Loopt, and in the second video he answers some questions about beginning your own start up. Enjoy!

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My first week making money online with Google Adsense

Posted by Brett on 11th, 2008

Smiling Frog makes money

Well this officially ends my first business week of making money online. I got accepted to Adsense on Saturday, and have been running Adsense on one of my websites for the past seven days (today included). I am pleased to announce that I have officially made my first dollar online.

It is actually my first independent income since the beginning of my journey toward financial independence. My income thus far has been a staggering $1.12 :-) . Of course I can’t go running off to buy my Gulf Stream private jet just yet; I must say I am very proud of the out come.

Mostly, this week was a testing week, to see what users ads users are clicking and what areas of my site get the most impressions. Next week I intend to do some more experimentation with ad colours and placement as well as ad size.

In addition I have been planning a marketing strategy in my never ending quest for more traffic. This too will be explored and put in place and I will naturally inform you of the results.

That’s it for now, just a short update. Thanks for reading and feel free to subscribe to full RSS feed.

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