22 year old young entrepreneur, Ooshma Garg is the founder of Anapata (means ‘find, attain, and achieve’ in Swahili). Anapata is a networking platform aimed at connecting diverse law students, attorneys, and socially minded law firms via online technologies. The company has been based in California since its foundation in 2008.

Ooshma had the idea for Anapata when she was in college. She was co-president of networking group, Stanford Women in Business, at the time. She would regularly get large corporate firms offering $5,000 or so to network with those who are a part of the group. This was a start, but firms tended to be pretty poor at then going on to recruit from a diverse set of applicants. This is how Anapata was started.

The diversity-focused recruiting and networking platform for the legal profession, was started with $80,000 of her own capital. She then went to work at Morgan Stanley during the summer, where she realised it was time for her to seriously pursue her dream, of owning her own business.

The young entrepreneur charges law firms between $2,500 and $20,000 per annum for access to a highly targeted database of diverse job seekers in law. So far 70 per cent of clients have renewed their subscription and Anapata has double its user base in the past year.

Ooshma didn’t stop there; she has expanded Anapatas offering by adding an Analytics tracker to further increase the value of Anapata to users. This tool tracks the detailed perceptions of those in the database about the employers in the law field. She says that two thirds of subscriptions see the analytics tool as the main feature of interest.

Ooshma Gargs plan of action for the year is too increase investment in the firm, so as to be able to add a large following of Business School students to the database which currently has around 4,000 student lists. The company is still a little under the radar and so she hopes this move into a wider audience will also boost the profile of Anapata among a wider audience.

Mentored by the likes of Aaron Patzer founder of Mint.com and Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist, Ooshma certainly has the help and knowledge around her to match her ambition. With the greater importance networking is taking in our lives, I’m sure that Ooshma Garg will take Anapata far. So watch out, seems another success story is in the making.

Not everyone has such a sweet connection to start off their entrepreneurial journey with, well i guess you can’t go wrong with your dad being Charles Kushner – the real estate mogul and with your brother owning new York observer and married to Ivan trump that pretty much wraps it up.

Joshua is only 25 years old and already has investments in 15 startups including Group.Me, Paperless Post, email startup Sailthru, and Hot Potato, which was just acquired by Facebook, not your typical 25 year old right? He is the founder of investment company – Thrive capital and already been called a veteran in the internet space.

As a junior in Harvard he partnered up with his classmates Daniel kafie and Mario schlosser to form a social gaming startup called votsu, called the zynga of brazil.

He later graduated from Harvard College in 2008 with a BA in government.

Joshua founded the Friendship Circle of Boston, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating friendships between students and children with mental disabilities.

Vostu, headquartered in NYC, has some 35 million registered users and 180 employees. The company has raised more than $15 million from Intel and General Catalyst, with “revenue in the high double-digit millions of dollars and ‘very profitable’,” according to a recent write-up in the Wall Street Journal.

In addition he is taking two days of classes per week at Harvard Business School.

Talk about working round the clock.

Jess is the 20 years old founder of gaboom – an easy way online for gamers to swap games, GaBoom automatically matches users based on the games they want to swap, sell or buy

Prior to starting Gaboom, jess has always been gamer, having originally come up for an online game swapping platform at age 15 for pc and video games but wasn’t able to execute the plan due to funding.

Jess an undergrad at Royal Holloway, University of London studying Management (BSc) recently took a gap year to focus on Gaboom after winning the NACUE National Varsity Pitch Competition – UK’s premier business plan competition for university students and getting herself the grand prize of £10,000, she is also involved in the mini- seedcamp, looking to get more investment for her company.

We wish her the best.

Article by Rishi Chowdhury

So who is Ian Hogarth? Well he is the co-founder of songkick.com, which helps users track their favourite bands for tour dates, get the latest events at venues of your choice and you can also buy tickets from a choice of 94 different ticket vendors in 60 countries. The site also has a calendar where you can track your upcoming events.

Launched in October 2007, Songkick has grown to having 1.3million users. Songkick make their money from getting commission from the sale of tickets when they direct users to the ticket sellers site. Ian managed to secure $15k in seed funding used to help the company with their initial launch as a Y-Combinator start-up. A year later Songkick proved themselves enough to get $1million in angel funding.

Ian believes there is a real opportunity in increasing the size of the concert going market. Currently in the US adults spend 35 times as much on going to the cinema than they do on attending live music concerts. Ian saw that 70% of adults in America attend a live music event every year and believes that people just need more information on when and where performances are taking place. Ian is looking to grow Songkick by integrating applications such as iTunes and Last.fm to increase usability.

Ian Hogarth’s success and drive has seen him win the British Council’s UK Young Music Entrepreneur competition 2010. There was a lot of competition for the award, but Ian’s knowledge of Mandarin as well as his innovative business ideas and top presentation skills put him over the top. Ian has been in love with China since the age of 18 when he went there to learn Mandarin.

He saw the potential the country had as a future economic power at the end of the 90’s. He has since been back in 2003 and 2005.

Using the prize fund he received from the award, he is using it to develop Songkick in China. His passion for music and the belief he has for the website, led him to the UK Young Music Entrepreneur award and the opportunity to develop the company in China. He has brought together his interests in China, music and technology and has built a base for the rest of his career.

Article By Rishi Chowdhury

Sumon Sadhu is the 26 year old serial entrepreneur, He is a self styled achievement junkie and innovation obsessive.

Sumon says he is only working on projects that will have a deep and meaningful impact on the world. He also ensures he has the right people around him.

By that I mean having the mental attitude that will be positive, ambitious and motivated to reaching the overall goal of Sumon which is ‘to be a successful serial entrepreneur and build (at least one, preferably more) lasting, enduring businesses worth over $1Billion.’

In October 2005 the Imperial Entrepreneurs Society was founded by Sumon.

The society is for Technology student entrepreneurs. It is the largest of its kind in Europe. It was set up to transform entrepreneurial aspirations for the next generation of disruptive technology entrepreneurs.

It was set up during his year at Imperial College where he did an Msc in infectious disease. This was after spending 5 years at Oxford University, studying Biochemistry.

During his time at Oxford he was also a part of the Entrepreneurs society. Being surrounded by other like minded individuals inspired him and this was one of the reasons he set up the society at Imperial College.

Sumon is the co-founder of Snaptalent which was around between 2007 and 2009. This company was involved in the online recruitment industry.

Even after realising that the growth of the company into this market was not as high as expected and that opportunities were limited, Sumon did not give up his pursuit of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and instead he moved onto other opportunities.

Currently Sumon is a director at the hugely popular YouNoodle, A site is a large community of start up companies and entrepreneurs. He is also still reaching for his goal of at least one billion dollar company and good luck to him! He has the desire and the network to achieve this.

Article By Honey Carew

The dream of being a boss at a young age – rarely exist, however Matt Wegrzyn is only 22 and such concept is his reality. His genuine desire for the Internet began at the age of 15, where he was a developer within the website ColdFusion.

Complex issues occurred, as he was a developer of ColdFusion, these issue helped form ideas within him. From the age of 17, he started his journey in becoming a domainer.

His role as a domainer is presently notice via his website bodis.com. His first step as a domain began as he started buying the domain of forums, considering the fact that forums regarding technology and the internet are areas that he aims to dwell in within his own website.

Investors aren’t always easy to find, neither are banks that are looking to give loan money to a teenager.

In Matt’s case, his parents became his bank by loaning money to him in the early days of bodis.com.

Currently, his domains are roughly worth a six-figure number. Bodis.com began in January 2007, and is present till this very day. This website is currently a 3 in 1 systems for people with domains. The system basically helps, sell, buys and park domains.

Good researching helps an individual, to have a stronger mind frame of what needs to be done within their area.

Matt personally taught himself regarding marketing, which helped, sharpened his entrepreneurial skills. His beginnings were small, yet he believed on the concept of never giving up, This is his advice for upcoming entrepreneurs.

Article By Rishi Chowdhury

Jordan Poulton is a graduate of Oxford University. He finished his education at Oxford in the summer of 2009.

While at University he was a president of the famous Oxford Entrepreneurs Society, which boasts over 5,000 members.

Jordan is one of many successful entrepreneurs to have held the post. Under his stewardship he has seen the society grow 24.7% and from being the largest of its kind in Europe to the largest in the world. In his first 18 weeks he organised and managed 50 events.

He is the founder of CrewDates Ltd. He started this in 2008 while still in University. CrewDates is an old Oxbridge rowing tradition.

The tradition is that two teams, one male, one female, would go out for dinner with each other to widen their social network and in the hope of boosting team morale. Jordan designed a website to enable crews to organise dates much easier and also gives opportunity for those who have previously not experienced a Crewdate. Jordan strives for continuous improvement and this philosophy bodes well in an ever changing world.

Jordan is also the founder of Oxford Investment Club. They help students gain a better insight and understanding of analysing stocks in the FTSE. Jordan has also made time to devote to volunteering. He carried out his volunteering at the Inti Wara Yassi animal refuge where he was responsible for walking, feeding and general care of the baby pumas.

Article By Rishi Chowdhury

Kirill Makharinsky is a 25 year old internet entrepreneur, who graduated from Oxford University in 2005. While at university he was president of the Oxford Entrepreneurs Society, which happens to be the largest student enterprise club in Europe. He emerged from Oxford with an impressive double first in Mathematics. On completion of his degree Kirill went on to work a popular start up, Slide.com, where he managed data and analytics.

In 2007 however he became co founder of Younoodle.com, an emerging business analytics company. Younoodle is a place where the university entrepreneurs and latest start ups can be found and supported.
Using his mathematic skills and entrepreneurial spirit Krill has come up with an innovative start up analyzing model. The model predicts future value of a firm based on rigorous quantitative analysis of historical data and the application of the latest relevant theory.

Krill felt that since large investments in start ups these days were increasing, it would be of value to be able to value firms based on quantifiable data, as opposed to solely being decided to humans and very often their gut feelings.

This tool used to help advise firms interested in investments into start ups, has been featured in many publications such as The New York Times, The Telegraph and Tech Crunch. Partly funded by the founder of Paypal, Max Levchin, Younoodle has grown to a community of over half a million. It is the largest database of emerging businesses in the world and has been used more than 25,000 businesses.

Kirill Makharinsky has taken what he is good at and combined an ambitious and determined mentality, to become one of the top young entrepreneurs around. His start up has also allowed many others around the world to gain exposure and possible investment opportunities.

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Drew Houston is the founder and CEO of Dropbox. At the age of 25, MIT graduate Houston, has a successful website which earlier this year passed the 4 million users landmark.

Dropbox has grown rapidly since being publicly launched in September 2008 and now has 24 employees on the team.

His passion was to make a product that rocks and can be in the hands of millions. So what is Dropbox? Well it’s essentially an online folder where files can be dropped and then shared over the internet with any computer you choose. Well now he is living his dream. Dropbox, a web 2.0 file hosting service has won multiple awards from places like CNET and PC Magazine.

The company is swiftly expanding having just launched its official android application, iPad/iPhone apps and new mobile API.

Dropbox was originally founded in 2007 and received investment from start up funding firm Y Combinator. Getting investment can often be the hardest part but Drew makes it looks easy, helped by having a great product. These days Dropbox is healthily funded by Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Amidzad.

So why does Drew believe his company has flourished? Well he feels it’s down to keeping the company lean and frugal while staying close to the customers. He ensures that the Dropbox team focus on what they do well.

Don’t forget to check out our sponsor: QuickLingo
Quick Lingo is a professional translation and interpretation service provider to the corporate community and public sector.

Andy Young co-founded Internet Company Groupspaces.com in 2006 with university buddy David Langer. He and David came up with the idea for GroupSpaces while studying Computer Science at Oxford University.

Groupspaces.com provides a platform for groups and communities to manage themselves online. The inspiration came about after experiencing the frustration arising from poor online organisation of societies at Oxford.

Andy was a part of many clubs and societies at university, including the Oxford Entrepreneurs student society and felt the need for a better way of organising themselves online. He and David were inspired to run with the idea and the business venture began.

Andy decided to take a year out to start the business. This proved to be a good move for him as the business developed nicely, and he even managed to complete his degree in 2009. He shows it is possible to start a business while at university.

Andy has many years experience of professional web development working for a number of firms and is heavily involved in GroupSpaces product development.

After trialling the service with 300 societies in Oxford during 2006-07 they managed to secure 40 advertising contracts with blue chip companies.
This was after seeing 5,000 unique visits a month. GroupSpaces managed to get funding through Angel Investors, sought through Oxford Early Investments, following a successful pitch. This allowed for the rapid development of their product.

GroupSpaces has seen encouraging growth with over half a million users and expansion internationally.

Andy is a young exciting entrepreneur with an interest for music. Andrew had the bravery to execute his idea and present to some of the biggest companies. His belief and commitment, to solving a problem he has encountered, at a young age is commendable and he surely has a bright future.