Farrah Gray is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and motivational speaker. He became a self made millionaire at 14 years old!

Farrah started his first entrepreneurial venture at the age of just 6 years old. He would sell homemade body lotions and hand painted rocks, for use as book ends and doorstops, in Chicago’s south side where he grew up. At 7 years of age he regularly carried his own business cards which read “21st Century CEO”.

When he was 8 years old this remarkable young entrepreneur was officially the youngest person to have ever had an office on Wall Street. This was the home of his newly founded company New Early Entrepreneur Wonders (NE2W), which was set up to educate and support “at risk” youth by developing and providing the tools to acquire additional income legally.

When Farrah Gray was 12 years old he founded KIDZTEL, pre paid phone cards for kids, which would end up making him a teenage millionaire.

His list of incredible achievements doesn’t stop their as he was a host on an interactive teen talk radio show where his voice was heard by over 12million listeners every Saturday night. At the same time he had yet another venture running, ‘Far-Out Foods’, food with a twist aimed at young people which brought in $1.5million plus, in revenue, in the first year.

Amongst many awards and accolades Farrah has received, he was given an honorary doctorate degree of Humane Letters from Allen University. ‘Dr’ Gray also uses his drive, enthusiasm and experience to host motivational speaking conferences.

At the age of 26 he is currently best-selling author and CEO of Farrah Publishing. What he has achieved so far in his life is extraordinary and is more than most people complete in a lifetime.

Farrah was motivated to work hard toward financial gain, after seeing his mother suffer in dire financial situations, as a youngster.

He is not all about money, money, money for himself though as he is a companionate person and regularly gives back to the community. Many of his entrepreneurial activities also are targeted at providing help and opportunities for those who are going through difficulties.

He is a social entrepreneur and this was evident in him from an early age as shown by his commitment to NE2W. I have no doubt you will be hearing a lot more about this young entrepreneur in the future.

Michael Mothner started working on Wpromote, a search engine optimization (SEO) company, in 2001, but he didn’t really fully take it on till 2004 after an infamous interview for a position at Goldman Sachs in New York.

When the MD of Goldman asked Michael about Wpromote, Mr Mothner replied he had had some success with the company in which he had started. To this the interviewer said, “So why, with this success, do you want to join Goldman?”

At this point Michael stood up and said, “You know what? You’re right. I don’t think this job is right for me.’”

This was the beginning of a journey that would lead Michael to being owner of a company that is on target to registered $12million in sales this year.

His decision to walk out on that interview obviously paid dividends. He could have easily settled for a comfortable desk job at the highly prestigious Goldman Sachs, but that would have been boring now, wouldn’t it?

Wpromote has grown rapidly since 2004 when sales were $500,000. In 2007 sales had increased to $6.2 million and they are hoping to rake in double that figure by the end of 2010.

Even after the economy went south, Mothner continued forward like a steam train, vowing to run the company as he would if he will own it forever.

Fraser Doherty is the founder of Super Jam. It all started when he was 14 and his ‘Gran,’ as he calls her, taught him to make jam.

The young Scot decided to commercialise the product in 2006. He did the research and found that jam markets had declined as there were no healthy jams on the market. He decided to engineer his own healthy jam based on his grandmother’s recipe but without the added sugar.

This kitchen to grocery shop shelves story is one of super determination (see what I did there).

Doherty’s in, came when he met a buyer for Waitrose. He pitched his idea and they were impressed, so with this encouragement he went and got a factory that was willing to do business with him.

Being of such a young age and having limited funds, people were reluctant to do business with him, but he never gave up. He hired an ad firm to design the labels, and they came up with a superhero theme.

Fraser returned to Waitrose, product in hand only to be turned down. “They thought the labels were silly, the factory I chose was too expensive, and they didn’t like the flavours,” he recalls.

He is a resilient lad and so he went home found a cheaper factory that was willing to do business with him, even putting up £100,000 in working capital to buy initial stock. He also got the ad firm to re-brand the product with a more professional and homely look.

On his return to Waitrose, he received a more positive response and they decided to launch the product in their Edinburgh branch.

This was a great success for Waitrose who sold 1,500 jars of jam in a day, which is even more than they would usually sell in a month.

Super Jam currently sells to over 1,000 supermarkets in the UK including Tesco and Asda and 2009’s revenue was $1.2million.

He is a refreshing change to the conveyor belt of online entrepreneurs, as the younger generation ditch traditional methods to embrace new technologies.

Thanks Gran!

Ethan Austin is the founder of GiveForward, a privately held social venture. The idea behind the organisation is to make it easier for people to raise money online for the things they care about.

Ethan Austin started GiveForward with Desiree Vargas in August 2008. Mr Austin is a social entrepreneur, which is someone who identifies a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change.

Ethan, along with Desiree, has recognised the difficulties in individuals raising money for good causes and created a space online with helps make the process easier.

At first Ethan didn’t feel he had the guts to go through with the idea, but the idea of working with Desiree allowed him to make the jump easier.

Sometimes it can be daunting starting a business yourself and so making sure you have like minded people around can sometimes make all the difference. Often partnering up with someone can help make it easier when starting up your first business.

Austin’s biggest lesson as an entrepreneur is to always be flexible and willing to adapt to changes in the market.

Ethan graduated from Emory University in 2004 with a B.A. in political science and holds a J.D. from American University, Washington College of Law and he is actually licensed to practice law in California.

Ethan is helping to change people’s lives for the better by providing a platform that enables this.

I wish him good luck in his future endeavours.

Matt Mullenweg is a young entrepreneur and the founder of popular open-source blogging software WordPress which he started whilst still in high school.

Mullenweg’s WordPress has become the No. 2 blogging platform behind Google’s Blogger, signing up 10,000 new bloggers daily.

WordPress is “open-source” software, which means that anyone can access and contribute to the program code, Which is a major issue as it is opened to security threats.

Matt who wanted to become a jazz saxophonist, after studying performing and visual arts in high school, but ended up spending most of his time coding and also loves photography.

He started by launching Ping-O-Matic with fellow wordpress developer Dougal Campbell in april 2004, Ping-O-Matic which currently handles over 1 million pings a day.

He quit the University of Houston after two years when tech news site CNet offered him a job in San Francisco and said he could continue dabbling with WordPress on the side. He left CNet when WordPress got too demanding.

Mullenweg released WordPress 1.5 “Strayhorn in February 2005, which had over 900,000 downloads, he left CNET in October 2005 to focus on wordpress

He founded Automattic, the business behind WordPress.com and Akismet in In late 2005

Mullenweg acquired the Gravatar service reportedly and also turned down an offer of US$200 million for
automatic in a deal woth US$200 Million.

In March 2007 he was named #16 of the 50 Most Important People on the Web by PC World, reportedly the youngest on the list.

Mullenweg being named to the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 by Inc. Magazine and one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web by BusinessWeek, again the youngest on BusinessWeek’s list.

Automattic began with $1.1 million in funding from several venture-capital firms. After an unsolicited bid for the company came in for $150 million — Mullenweg won’t say from whom — it received a second $29.5 million round of financing. Investors in the company include VC firms Polaris, True and Radar, and the New York Times Co.

Gurbaksh Chahal is an American entrepreneur and a self multi-millionaire, I actually got to know of Gurbaksh when he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss his life and business journey, and the interview really inspired me.

At age 16, Gurbaksh Chahal dropped out of high school and started his first venture, ClickAgents, I’m sure you can say he made the right decision when he started making $300,000 a month with the Internet advertising company he founded in his bedroom.

ClickAgents was an advertising network focused on performance-based advertising which after two years was sold to valueclick in a deal worth $40 million..

Chahal formed BlueLithium another advertising network which was recognized as an innovator in the online advertising space in a Business 2.0 article, Yahoo! Then bought BlueLithium for $300 million in cash On October 15, 2007.

By the age of 25, he founded two advertising companies worth $340 million, more recently appeared on several TV shows and published a memoir.

Chahal started his third venture, gWallet, a virtual currency platform for social media. He remains the Chairman & CEO of the Company.

On December 1, 2009, gWallet raised its first institutional round of financing totaling $12.5 million from Adam Street Partners, Trinity Ventures, Stanford University and various others.

He has appeared on other talk shows such as The Bonnie Hunt Show, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, CNBC, Current TV and on Neil Cavuto’s show.

Chahal appeared on an episode of the Fox TV reality show Secret Millionaire, where he went undercover in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco to give away at least $100,000 of his own money. Chahal was the pilot episode for the series. He is shown donating $90,000, but claims that other donations (which raised the total above $100,000) were “left out of the editing room floor.”

Not bad for a kid who started his company at 16 in his bedroom.

Name: Carlos Leon

Company: CML Media group

Age: 26

Location : North Hollywood

Position: Founder/CEO of CML Media group

Details of company

The CML Media Group now offers all sorts of services including web design, graphic design, video production, marketing, printing, studio and equipment rental and much more. It has an in house list of dozen of talented directors, cinematographers, photographers, animators and motion graphics artists.

A rooster of hundreds of crew members, locations, props, models, actors, and production contacts are also an asset of the company.

CML now has clients from practically every state in the union and some major corporations including Warner Brothers, Discovery Channel, VH1, MTV and Sirius Radio and from as far as Canada, the United Kingdom and Dubai.

The studio was featured on national television on a VH1 reality series and was the location for the latest music videos for Warner Brothers recording artists “Hot Hot Heat” and the Smashing Pumpkins

Background Description:

Carlos Leon, 26, is the founder of the CML Media and Entertainment Group. He was born in Havana, Cuba in the summer of 1983 and emigrated to the United States in 1985. From a very young age, Carlos showed a knack for media and cameras.

He began shooting several family events, schools functions and other video projects with the 8mm family camera. In school he excelled in several leadership positions and at 14 was named the editor in chief of his school’s newspaper at his Junior High in Whittier, CA. His photo in the yearbook had the headline “most likely to succeed”, a sign of things to come.

At 15, he started a Cuban American website portal that got the attention of several publications in Los Angeles and Miami including the Miami Herald and several local spanish newspapers.

He then went on to launch a Spanish online news website called “Oye! Gente” which covered several ground breaking news stories and was featured in several publications, radio stations and websites around Latin America.

At 19, he packed his bags, took out a loan and without vehicle or any acquaintances in the area moved across the country to attend Full Sail University, one of the top multimedia institutions in the country located in Orlando, Florida.

In 2003 he graduated with honors with a degree in Film and Video and almost immediately moved back to Los Angeles where began a production company from scratch. With no resources or funds, he began a full production multimedia company from the corner of a room in his parent’s modest mobile home in Orange County, California.

The company began providing multimedia services such as web design, video production and marketing. He placed several free ads in a local directory by stricking a bartering deal with the publishers and mailed out 100 letters to local businesses in the area. Thanks to this, he signed his first contracts and aired his first local television commercials. Some of his first clients included several multi-national corporations and companies in Miami and New York.

Simultaneously, he also launched a spanish online entertainment channel from Universal City Walk in Hollywood, CA called “Gentevision”. The online channel has covered some of the biggest latin celebrities and events from Los Angeles to Miami including the Oscars, Imagen, MTV and the Billboard Awards. It has a variety of hosts and programs currently under production and there are plans on making it a regionally based network for all of Latin America. it has covered several events from Coast to Coast including the Oscars in Los Angeles and the Latin Billboard Awards in Miami.

In 2009 it was an official media sponsor of the Billboard Awards and covered the event side by side with major media companies from around Latin America.

Carlos has also organized and promoted several company events at some of Hollywood’s top spots.
In 2008, the Entrepreneur, Studio Owner and Producer was named one of America’s Best Entrepreneur under 25 in the country by BusinessWeek magazine and called a “media mogul in the making”. He was published in countless publications around the world.

He continued his climb in the world of entertainment in 2009 with the launch of CML Music, a full fledge record label with two signed artists and production team. He introduced the label and it’s artists at a red carpet bash at Hollywood hotspot “Area” in the summer of 2009 and is currently working on developing and producing several songs with his team.

YHP Interview with Carlos Leon

Name: Jacob Cass

Company: Just Creative Designs,logooftheday and logodesignerblog

Age: 22

Location : Sydney, Australia

Position: Founder/CEO of justcreativedesign, logooftheday and logodesignerblog

Details of companies

JustCreativeDesign: His site Just Creative Design was launched in November 2007, it focuses on all areas of design and creativity, ranging from but not limited to; graphic design, logo design, web design, advertising, branding, typography, life, other graphic designers, blogging in general, resourceful material, his work, photography, colour, marketing and more

Logooftheday: Logo Of The Day is a high-profile logo design award scheme that rewards the best professional logos and trademarks designed throughout the world. All suggested logos are screened by our two judges Jacob Cass & Jeff Fisher to ensure this.

LogodesignerBlog: Logo Designer Blog is a blog focused purely on branding, logo & identity design.

Education: University of Newcastle, Sydney Australia -Bachelor of Visual Communication (Graphic Design Major).

Background Description:

Jacob was Born in Queensland, Australia in 1987, Moved to Sydney, Australia in 1990, had his first website at the age of 12, got his first freelance job designing a website at age 16, he then went on to study design & IT.

Received a Higher School Certificate within the top 10% of his state. major of his work was redesigning his high school’s website and final mark was in the top 1% of the State.

Completed Design Elements Cert II. course at TAFE college

Lived, studied & worked in Gothenburg, Sweden for 11 months.

Returned from Sweden, moved to Newcastle and started studying at Newcastle University. Won several Youth Design Awards. Started Just Creative Design in November. Took a cruise around the Pacific ocean and then flew to Fiji in December.

Just Creative Design: His site Just Creative Design was launched in November 2007, it focuses on all areas of design and creativity, ranging from but not limited to; graphic design, logo design, web design, advertising, branding, typography, life, other graphic designers, blogging in general, resourceful material, his work, photography, colour, marketing and more.

Charity: Raised USD$1620 for charity through this blog.

Personal Quote: My life is design, I love it and I surround myself in it every day.

Personality:

Passionate (I absolutely love what I do)
Enthusiastic (I want to learn)
Sceptical (I think critically)
Focused (I have the right attitude)

Hobbies: From Staying on the beach to travelling(has already been to 32 countries so far) and listening to music.

Future plans: He plans to move to new York in January 2010 to work for carrot creative design studio for 1-2 years.

YHP Interview with Jacob Cass

Name: Derek Johnson
Company: Tatango, Derek Media
Age: 25
Location : New york

Position: Founder/CEO of Tatango, Founder/CEO of Derek Media

Details of companies

Tatango: A group text messaging website
Derek Media: A social media consulting agency

Education: University of Houston
: University of Washington

Background Description:

With the vision to provide groups a free, easy and fast way to communicate with group members via SMS, Derek Johnson founded Tatango.com in 2007. Initially started as a way for his Fraternity to communicate with his Fraternity brothers, Tatango.com has grown to the leader in its industry.

As CEO, Derek is primarily focused on how to best translate user needs into a great service w
while directing Tatango.com in their strategic direction.

A 22-year-old dropout of the University of Houston Entrepreneurial program, Derek has raised half a million dollars in investments for the company from private investors and the Bellingham Angel Group.

Tatango.com has done over 35 million messages since their launch and services all types of groups such as College organizations, churches, athletic teams, political candidates and non-profit groups.

As any entrepreneur will tell you, launching a company is hard work. Derek, a self proclaimed workaholic puts in 100+ hour workweeks to fulfill his vision of Tatango.com.

Derek and the Tatango.com team have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Seattle Times, Mashable, TechCrunch, PC World, LifeHacker and other national publications.

YHP Interview with Derek Johnson

Name: Suliaman Amoako

Location: London

Business: Poetry

Suliaman aka Suli Break, a young law graduate from University of Sheffield with a known Talent. His un – hidden Talent is creating poems but most of all putting life into these poems on stage or by voice. His sole aim is to make Poetry kool, which explains how his poems generally consists different styles. Suli Break makes you think in a humorous within his poem.

Suli Break is a strong man of God with the intention to emulate the prophet, Mohammed who is also a role model to him. Along with stars who are the best at what they, such as Kobe Bryant and Denzel Washington. He is shown to write by the feelings of his heart; writing is not a routine or a compulsion. It’s his way of being an individual, a young man, a poet but most of all…his true reflection are on display by the words he speaks in his poems.

Read his interview with YHP