That’s really something of a feat! Imagine your 16 year old kid making his first million! That really sounds like a dream? Well…NO! We’re talking about Christian Owens, 16 years old living at Corby, Northamptonshire, UK.
This tech prodigy started his business at the age of 14 after being inspired by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. This British teen bought a Mac and taught himself web design at the age of 10. Four years later, at the age of fourteen he started his first company which was a simple website by the name of Mac Bundle Box that offered Mac OS X apps for a discounted price in a package.
He would negotiate with developers to get a discounted price and then combine various apps together in a bundle offer with retail price that was tenth of original retail value. On top of it, if enough buyers bought that bundle, an additional app would get unlocked for all buyers. This created a good word of mouth giving success to Mac Bundle Box. In first 2 yrs of its operation it made $1,000,000 (£700,000).
Owens did not stop himself here. He launched an advertising pay-per-click company ‘Branchr’ in 2009 and works after school and at weekends. Branchr brought a good success as well making a staggering £500,000 in its first year and now counts betting site William Hill and social networking site MySpace as devoted clients. The company now sells more than 250 million adverts to 11,000 websites every month and has acquired a second company, Atomplan, which provides business software
Now Christian employs eight adult workers in UK and America as sales and technical assistants and has plans to open more offices for Branchr in the next year. Here are his thoughts that he shared with swns.com
I really wanted to create something groundbreaking and simple, that would revolutionise the way advertising works. Mac Box Bundle was already becoming a success but I really wanted to push myself and do something different, so I came up with the idea of Branchr.
My friends and I don’t really talk about my success, to them I’m just a normal teenager and it doesn’t change anything between us.
There is no magical formula to business, it takes hard work, determination and the drive to do something great. I think everyone has business sense in them, they just need to gain experience and be determined to make it.
My aim is to become a leading name in the world of internet and mobile advertising and push myself right to the top of the game. I don’t know where I will be in 10 years time but I won’t leave Branchr until it has reached £100 million.
Well that is something amazing…what do you think? Share with us in comments!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
hard work and dedication pays off.
Well done lad.
Just wondering who paid him money to buy apps from developer at discounted price, u need some market credibility to get credit. Anyways well done Branchr is nice may be google would take it over
Mac OS x Sucks
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