10 Inspiring Young Online Entrepreneurs

One really awesome thing about the Internet is that there’s no such thing as age discrimination when it comes to being successful.  It doesn’t matter if you’re 12 or 72 - you have just as much chance as anyone of becoming rich and famous through an online business.  To illustrate the point, here, in no particular order, are 10 young entrepreneurs who are making their dreams a reality through internet businesses.

	Jonathan Mead, 23 of IlluminatedMind.net - Full-time blogger and life coach Jonathan Mead delivers a steady dose of inspiration and how-to content on his blog, and through his popular e-books, Reclaim Your Dreams, and The Zero Hour Workweek - How I Liberated Myself From the 9 to 5 by Getting Paid to Be Me. At just 23, Jonathan has figured out the “secret formula” for becoming a successful entrepreneur by sharing his story and expertise through blogging. Twitter: @jonathanmead
	Michael Dunlop, 21 of IncomeDiary.com - Michael Dunlop started his first profitable website when he was just 16 years old.  Now, at the ripe old age of 21, Michael is truly living what he calls the Internet Lifestyle.  Michael’s blog is all about helping others achieve this same dream.  Through interviews with some of the true thought-leaders in online marketing, as well as instructional content, Michael brings great information to anyone looking to become a pro blogger. Twitter: @michaeldunlop
	Pete Cashmore, 24 of Mashable.com - From the Mashable site: “Pete Cashmore is the 24 year-old CEO and founder of Mashable.com, a Technorati Top 10 blog worldwide. He founded Mashable in a small Scottish town in 2005 at age 19. In 2009, Cashmore was chosen as one of Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30, Forbes’ Top 25 Web Celebs and the Huffington Posts’ Top 10 Game Changers 2009.” Twitter: @petecashmore and @mashable
	Adam Horwitz, 18 of AdamHorwitz.tv - 18-year-old Adam Horwitz says on his site that he has a goal to make a million dollars a year by the time he’s 21.  All signs point to that becoming a reality.  Adam started out in Internet marketing at the age of 15 and has become an expert in the areas of affiliate marketing and PPC (pay-per-click) advertising.  Now he makes money teaching others to make a living in these areas.  His blog is full of informational videos, tips, and lots of goofy stuff that might not make you a better entrepreneur, but just might make you laugh. Twitter: @AdamHorwitz
	Kevin Sproles, 25 of Volusion.com - Kevin Sproles started designing web sites at the age of 16.  After receiving lots of requests for a shopping cart solution, Kevin, with very little money and a great deal of perseverance, started coding shopping cart software.  Now, at the age of 25, his company supplies the most award-winning e-commerce solution to over online 100,000 entrepreneurs as well as major companies. Twitter: @volusion
	Gurbaksh Chahal, 27 of gWallet.com - Gurbaksh Chahal has an amazing entrepreneurial story.  After dropping out of high school in San Diego at age 16 to start ClickAgents, a performance-based ad network, he grew the company for two years, at which point it was acquired by ValueClick in a $40 million all-stock deal. His next venture, another ad network called BlueLithium, was acquired in 2007 by Yahoo! for $300 million cash.  Gurbaksh started gWallet, a virtual currency platform for social media, in September of 2009.  In 2008, Gurbaksh published his memoir in a book called The Dream. Twitter: @gchahal
	Catherine Cook, 20 of myYearbook.com - Since co-founding myYearbook with her brother in 2005, at the age of 15, Catherine Cook and her team have raised over $20 million in capital and have grown the site into one of the largest US social media sites with over 20 million members.  The site makes meeting new people easy by introducing members to innovative social games that are all tied together by a single virtual currency called “Lunch Money.” Twitter: @myYearbook
	Sam Lessin, 26 of Drop.io - After graduating from Harvard, Magna Cum Laude in 2005, Sam Lessin started Drop.io.  Drop.io is a simple, private, real-time, sharing, collaboration, and presentation site where users can upload files of any kind and have the ability to access, share, and edit those files from any Internet-connected computer.  Sam is also the co-founder of SocialGreat.com, a location-based social media site with a growing user-base. Twitter: @lessin
	Ryan Allis, 26 of iContact.com - Ryan Allis is the co-founder and CEO of iContact, a leading provider of email marketing tools for small businesses.  Ryan has built North Carolina-based iContact from its start in 2003 to its current size with more than 175 employees, 50,000 customers, and $28 million in annual sales, while raising $10.8 million to grow the firm.  Ryan is also the author of the book Zero to One Million, which reached the Wall Street Journal Bestseller list in 2008. Twitter: @ryanallis
	Derek Johnson, 25 of Tatango.com - Derek Johnson was bit by the entrepreneur bug early in life, starting his first business of selling candy bars to fellow students at recess by the age of eight. Derek, a self proclaimed workaholic, puts in 100+ hour workweeks to help fulfill the vision of Tatango.com.  Originally launched as networkText.com in 2007, Tatango has since facilitated the sending of tens of millions of text messages to groups of varying sizes, through their simple-to-use group texting platform. Twitter: @TheDerekJohnson

Once you’ve seen these success stories, you might want to ask yourself: What can they do that you can’t? Chances are you won’t find that they have anything special, beyond a drive to succeed, the belief that it’s possible, and a willingness to work as hard and as long as it takes.  So whatever your age, whether you’re younger or older than those above, know that you too can make your dreams of business success a reality, if you’ll just go for it and keep at it through whatever may come.

Coming Soon to a Device Near You: Web 3.0

Hold on… aren’t we still figuring out what Web 2.0 is?  Well, yes.  But those on the cutting edge have been dreaming of Web 3.0 for quite some time already.  In fact, the oldest reference we can find to Web 3.0 was when Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, was asked about it at a conference back on August 2, 2007.  In any case, whether we’re ready or not, Web 3.0 is on its way, so let’s start the conversation about what it’s all about.

But before we start talking about Web 3.0…

It makes sense to get clear on what Web 2.0 is all about.  When the Internet first took off (we can call it Web 1.0, although it was never referred to as such back then), it wasn’t really interactive at all.  It was basically like a library of information.  You could look for what you wanted, read the results, and that was about the end of it.  The most interactivity we found was the ability to purchase products and maybe email a company for more information (through a web form if the site was really high-speed!).

With the emergence of Web 2.0, the Internet has become very interactive, even to the point where site visitors create the web content.  The most prevalent sites on the net, like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter could not exist without members contributing content.  To a lesser degree, even smaller sites, from news feeds to personal blogs, give visitors a chance to weigh in on the content, through comments, ratings and forums.  Some of these sites, news feeds in particular, actually decide which content visitors see first, based on ratings by previous visitors.  In this way, while the content itself is generated by the site, how that content is delivered is decided upon by the masses.  Then there are the social bookmarking sites, like digg, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, Reddit, etc.  These also depend on reader submissions for their existence.  In general, Web 2.0 has made the web hyper-interactive.  In other words, it has allowed people worldwide to interact with sites and with each other whenever they want, wherever they want, in real time.  This has made the Internet more intuitive and vastly more useful.  Of course, there’s more to Web 2.0, including design elements and mobile connectivity, but that’s a brief overview.

So, what can we expect from Web 3.0?

Web 3.0 continues the evolution of the Internet.  Unlike a software application, we can’t put a “release date” on the next version of the web.  There won’t be a day when we say, yesterday Web 2.0 ended, and today Web 3.0 begins.  Instead, just like with all evolutionary processes, the transition to Web 3.0 will be gradual.  We’re already seeing some signs of this transition, but most experts predict we will be safe to say we are fully in Web 3.0 some time after late 2011 and before 2014.

What will this next version of the web look like?  No one knows for sure.  Technology and ingenuity is continually advancing, so it’s likely that it will include features we can’t even imagine right now.  We can however predict more generally what kinds of functionality we can expect.  The word most used by web experts to describe Web 3.0 is “intuitive.”  For example, let’s say the Academy Awards show is going to begin in a few hours.  You want to know what time to tune in, so you go to Google and begin to type your query: “what time do the a…” Google, in a failed attempt to be intuitive, provides these search suggestions:

Above are Google’s actual search suggestion results on the night of the 2010 Academy Awards. The American Music Awards, the first suggestion, airs more than three months before the Academy Awards.  On the night of the Academy Awards, the search suggestion function wouldn’t have to be all that intuitive to know that that is, if not your most likely search query, at least much more likely than the AMAs.  Instead, “what time do the academy awards start” is the last suggestion, even below “when do the arizona cardinals play…” well after football season has ended.

Will it be your best friend ever?

The prediction for Web 3.0 is that all of the searches and a lot more will improve immensely.  Not only will sites be more generally intuitive, they will be tuned into you and your personal preferences.  This is actually true with Google’s search suggestion function now, when you have your search history turned on, but it still has a long way to go.  According to Wired Magazine’s Kevin Kelly, Google and others will indeed go a long way in the new Web 3.0 environment.  Kelly and others envision a web that knows you better than anything or anyone, when it comes to what you like, what you don’t like, and what you want and don’t want.

For example, rather than searching five different travel sites to find the best deal on a vacation package, the evolved web will not only come up with the best deals, but will narrow the results down to, for instance, tropical locations that are kid-friendly.  Want to go to dinner and a movie?  You would just need to type the phrase “dinner and a movie tonight” to get a list of movies now playing and your favorite restaurants that are within five miles of the theater closest to you.  Web 3.0 will “learn” about you based on your online activity and will get smarter, the more you use the Internet.

The question remains, do we really want the web to “know” us that well?  Also, what about people who share computers?  The beauty of the web, whatever “version”, is that it naturally molds to the preferences of the majority, so these and other questions will work themselves out as the evolution continues.

As entrepreneurs, we know that the only constant is change.  So as uncomfortable as this new A.I.-like web may make some, we can say for sure it’s not a matter of if but when.  And the best thing we can do is spot the trends happening, adapt, and even lead when possible.  This will ensure that whatever the future brings, we’re ready to capitalize - for Web 3.0 and beyond.

How to Stalk Your Customers Like a Pro

Imagine going into your local electronics store, Joe’s Electronics, to look at a new flat-screen TV.  You check out the various models, talk with a sales person, and decide to think it over.  You’ve heard Best Buy has some good deals, and maybe you’ll head over there tomorrow to see what they’ve got.  As you walk toward your car, you encounter a guy wearing a Joe’s Electronics t-shirt.  You start your car and can’t help but be shocked by the coincidence as a Joe’s Electronics commercial comes on the radio.  Driving a little ways down the road, you notice a Joe’s Electronics billboard, featuring the TV you were looking at, then another similar billboard on the next block.  You get home to find a direct mail piece from Joe’s Electronics with your favorite TV highlighted, and when you flip on the TV (your old one), the first commercial you see is for - what else - Joe’s Electronics.

If this happened in real life you might be a little weirded out, but aside from that you’d probably pretty impressed with Joe’s.  You’d think they must have one heck of an ad budget, first of all, and they would have accomplished getting their message in front of you the seven times that researchers say are necessary, on average, for a person to see it before they buy.

Of course in the offline world, advertising is somewhat of a shotgun approach, so to get the kind of coverage that any specific person would see this much would take many thousands of dollars.  Online though, this kind of targeted marketing is becoming easier all the time.  A relatively new trend in online advertising, retargeting, is taking off in a big way.  Basically, the way retargeting works is that it allows you to present targeted ads to visitors to your site who don’t make a purchase.  After the non-buyer leaves your site, these ads are presented all over the internet using a number of ad networks, via tracking cookies.

If you have an ecommerce site or sell anything at all online, there are a few providers of this service you’ll want to look at.

FetchBack - Using what their patent-pending FIDO technology, FetchBack claims to be the only company that offers retargeting specific analytics.  This translates into saved time and strong ROI. On June 1^st, FetchBack announced they had been acquired by GSI Commerce, which will allow them to bring even more value to customers, as GSI is a leading provider of e-commerce and interactive marketing solutions.

AdRoll - Founded in 2006, AdRoll believes online advertising should be easy for small to medium-sized businesses to implement and understand.  AdRoll offers precise targeting through Google, OpenX, AdBrite, AdMeld and others, and their feature-rich retargeting product, RoundTrip, promises the best performing placements for site-targeted campaigns.

Specific Media - Located at Retargeting.com, Specific Media offers multiple levels of service depending on your advertising goals. Their Premium service is comprised of over 450 ‘Brand Name’ web publishers, such as, ABC, ABCNews, Gannett Newspaper Group, ESPN, FoxNews, FoxSports, Major League Baseball, NBC, NYTimes, The Weather Channel, CBS, CBSNews, Food Network, and others, whereas their Performance level product is a large aggregate of small to medium websites that are not known ‘Brands’ and typically wouldn’t attract the advertising budgets from large agencies or advertisers.

Google AdWords - You know when Google gets in the game the trend is usually here to stay, and they did just that in March of this year.  They call the feature “remarketing” and you can easily set up and create a remarketing campaign through the new “Audiences” tab in AdWords.

Any of these services will allow you to retarget your customers (or would-be customers) by “stalking” them after they leave your site.  If you, like many, are averse to tracking cookies and feel like this is, in some way, a violation of privacy, this technique probably isn’t for you.  On the other hand, if all that doesn’t bother you and you’re looking for an effective way to convert your visitors to buyers, retargeting might just be the answer you’ve been looking for.  If you are using retargeting or have tried it, help out the community by sharing your experience in the comments bellow.

Affiliate Network Review: EWA Private Network

Every now and then, a product, service or program comes along that really needs to be reviewed and promoted - not because it’s a paid review or affiliated site, but because it’s just outstanding.  Even though this is a paid review, that’s definitely the case with EWA Private Network.  EWA, which stands for Eagle Web Assets, is an affiliate network that has built a solid online reputation through ethical business practices, proving they really know what they’re doing, and taking great care of their affiliates and their advertisers.

EWA is made up of a small, hand-selected group of marketers, media buyers, SEM pros, and email marketers.  The company is run by Ryan Eagle and Harrison Gevirtz, who lead a team of dedicated Network and Affiliate Managers 7 days a week to provide the kind of support not often found in an affiliate network.  It is clear that their focus is on their affiliates and helping them to be successful in their affiliate marketing efforts.  They promise to maintain personal connections with all their affiliates and work closely with each affiliate every step of the way to ensure success, and they have a reputation of backing up that promise.

If you’ve been an affiliate marketer or have researched the possibilities, you’ve most likely either experienced or read about issues with affiliates of various networks not being paid on time, as much as promised, or not at all.  Not only does EWA pay out weekly, they pledge to beat any payout for the same program, and they pay everyone - on time.  They truly understand that taking care of the people who count on them (affiliates and advertisers) pays off for them in big ways, which is reflected in their motto: Help more; Pay more; Get more.

Highlights:

• EWA will beat any payout you get from any network.
• They pay weekly - from day 1, with no threshold.
• They are available 7 days a week to help you make your campaigns bigger and more profitable.
• They help you scale and optimize your campaigns and find traffic sources.
• EWA pledges to get any offer you are currently running at another network within 3 days and beat the payout!
• They have over 1500 offers for 60 countries on their network live and active.

So is there a downside to EWA?  Well, not really a downside, but it is a private network.  That means the only way in is usually through a referral.  However there is an application on the site, and even though having a referral will help, if you meet their criteria, you can be accepted without it.  For anyone who is accepted into their network, their “pickiness” is a very positive thing.  They really want to work with serious marketers because they plan on investing in your success through one-on-one training and support.

What others are saying:

If you want to see what the buzz around the net is, check out these other reviews and comments:

AffPortal

Zac Johnson

Affiliate Marketing Compare

Jeremiah Cooper

Bottom line is this: If you’re a serious affiliate marketer looking for an affiliate network run by people who know what they’re doing and who will do everything they can to help you make lots of money off your affiliate marketing efforts, you’d be crazy not to check out EWA Private Network.

How to Make Your Facebook Page Work!

Getting visitors to your Facebook page isn’t that hard.  Using basic Social Media techniques, connecting with people - on Facebook as well as Twitter and anywhere else you can - will get people visiting your page.  Once they get there though, the trick is to get them to keep coming back.  Facebook, like all social media, is about interaction and building relationships.  So to make the most of it, you’ve got to grab and hold people’s interest long enough and significantly enough so that they want to interact with you and your company.  How do you do that?  Glad you asked!  Below are 5 ways to make sure your Facebook page is working hard for your business.

1. Say it with pictures. People love to look at pictures, so use them to tell your story.  If you have a store or products, take pictures of them and post at least weekly.  If your business is just you - if you’re an expert and are blogging, writing, speaking, etc. - then post pictures of yourself doing what you do.  One great idea, if it suits the kind of work you do (restoration, web design, cleaning, etc.), is to post before and after pictures of your work.  Posting pictures regularly will help your fans get to know you, and you’ll be able to showcase your work too.

2. Say it even better with video. It’s no secret that if people love pictures, they really love video!  So take the picture idea, and turbo charge it by adding videos to your Facebook page.  Keep them short (3 min or so), and make them informative, fun, and instructional.  Remember, the goal is to get people coming back.  If you post videos that help or entertain, you’ll accomplish that goal.

3. Create a custom landing page. In case you haven’t heard, you are now able to create custom landing pages for your business.  This tells your page visitors you’ve got your stuff together and gives them an overall positive impression of your business - if it’s done right.  To make sure it’s done right, you have a couple of options.  You can learn FBML (Facebook Markup Language), or you can hire it out.  If you know HTML, you can probably learn FBML, but if you don’t want to take the time or aren’t interested in learning it, check out sites like Are We Connected or Social Identities.  For a great example of what a landing page can look like, check out Vaynerchuck’s page at Facebook.com/gary.

4. Offer something special. Any time you can make people feel like they’re part of an exclusive club, you’ll get people wanting to be in on it.  So consider offering sneak previews or discounts exclusively to your Facebook fans.  This definitely gives them a reason to keep coming back.  Not only that, but they’ll be likely to pass on your page to their friends.  People love sharing the inside scoop!

5. Engage! This is probably the most important tip of all.  Again, social media is about engagement, interaction, and building relationships.  So monitor your Facebook wall and engage with your followers.  If someone asks a question, get on it right away.  If someone posts a compliment or (God forbid) a complaint, address it appropriately.  The more people see you being a part of the conversation, the more they will want to jump in.  And if you can make it light and entertaining, many will just come to watch.  But don’t think that’s not valuable.  People who start out as observers often end up as buyers!

Remember, these pages are a great marketing opportunity - if they’re used properly.  So there you go.  Five fairly easy-to-implement ideas to make sure your business’s Facebook page is all it can be.  Do you have a Facebook page for your business?  Share it below.  We’d love to take a look!

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