In the last 20 years, self-employment has become a common trend among the new generations. Perhaps because the Internet has expanded the possibilities of business opportunities, or perhaps because of the specific characteristics of young people living in this time, but today's young people have felt safer to take risks and start their own businesses.
Although some people believe that it would be better to wait until a certain age to start a business, in order to gain experience and maybe become more mature. The entrepreneurs that I will talk about below demonstrate that age, sometimes it can be just a number.
1.Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg
At just 19 years old, Mark Zuckerberg launched the well-known social media platform: Facebook. It was originally built for the purpose of connecting Harvard students with one another. But it only took a few years to become a global social network.
Today, almost 20 years later, Facebook is in the top 3 of the most used social networks in the world with 2.89 billion monthly active users. In fact, the company also currently owns 3 other of the largest social media platforms; WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.
As of 2021, Zuckerberg was worth $116.1 billion and it looks like he will continue to grow as an entrepreneur.
2. Creator of Mozilla Firefox, Blake Ross
Blake Ross was 19 years old when in 2004 he launched the cross-platform web browser, Mozilla Firefox. Considered a genius by many, Ross finds a way to earn user trust by creating a more user-friendly and secure browser compared to the competition.
Although the last 5 years have not been the brightest for Mozilla, in 2021 they still had 198 million users, and Blake Ross' net worth was $150 million.
3. Founder of WordPress, Matthew Mullenweg
In 2003, Matthew Mullenweg was 19 years old when he became the founding developer of WordPress, an open-source software currently used by more than 40% of the web. This is a platform that is used mainly to create blogs, however, its flexibility also allows you to create and design any type of website.
Today, WordPress has more than 1,100 employees in 62 countries and does not have physical headquarters. They call themselves a "company that works on and for the Web".
As of December 2021, the net value of Matt Мullеnwеg is around $450 million, which positioned him as one of the most recognized entrepreneurs in the development of the social media sector.
4. Founder of Tumblr, David Karp
Karp dropped out from high school when he was 15 to be home-schooled, and in 2007, at age 20 he and his partner founded the blogging platform Tumblr. It only took a couple of weeks for the platform to have 75,000 users, and 14 years later, in February 2021, Tumblr reported to have over 518.7 million blogs on its website.
During an interview with .net magazine, five years later, he said he was looking to set up a blog, but he wanted to create something out of the long-form traditional format like WordPress. Although he ''was determined not to compete with WordPress'', his true intention was to create a place focused on a specific market that wasn’t served by the already existing tools. In 2013 Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion, but David Karp remained CEO of the company.
Conclusion
To conclude, 19 years old seems to be a promising age to start a project. Three of the four entrepreneurs we talked about on this blog were that age when they started their projects, which today are recognized businesses. So, thoughts like "I'm too young for this" or "I don't have enough experience" or "I'll take a chance when I'm older" are not always correct.
The Internet is an amazing tool that allows people to have all kinds of ideas all the time, some of which are successful in the marketplace, while others are not. But the question is whether you want to be part of those who tried or those who killed their wings before even thinking about flying.
For more information contact us!
