Young Millionaires: How These Entrepreneurs Under 30 Are Changing the World

Young people today don't just sit around and think about changing the world to suit their purposes--they do it. They may be inexperienced, but they're fearless when it comes to tackling long-stagnant business models and technologies with fresh new approaches-- ones that align with their internet upbringing and their expectation that commodities and information be transparent and easily shared. What might seem naive or reckless to the old-school regime is simply business as usual to big-dreaming upstarts who've been raised on the belief that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to.

5 Things Successful Entrepreneurs Do Daily

There is a saying that there are only three types of people in the world: those who watch what happened, those who wonder what happened and those who make things happen.

Entrepreneurs fall into the last category, of course. They are change agents, people who don't see the world as it is but as it could be. Entrepreneurs don't sit on the sidelines and wish for a better world. Rather they go out and create it. They don't wait for things to be different. They are the difference.

Don't Just Start a Business, Solve A Problem

As long as consumers have problems, they will always search for solutions. People will always look for better, faster and smarter ways to accomplish everyday tasks. And fortunately for entrepreneurs, there are still lots of rooms for improvements in existing products. That said, the biggest issue for most founders is finding these painful problems and matching them with the best solutions possible.

Here are a couple pieces of insight to get you started.

5 Essential Reads for Startup Entrepreneurs

For entrepreneurs to stay afloat in the startup world, they have to be able to learn on the fly. Otherwise, they will just sink.

While I believe the best lessons come from actual experience, founders can also learn a great deal from listening to experienced entrepreneurs, talking to mentors and simply picking up a book.

Here are a handful of reads I’ve found that perfectly encapsulate the woes of scaling a business and provide a great blueprint for helping founders through certain startup phases.

The 7 Elements Investors Look for in Your Funding Pitch

Q: How can we work to land a successful investment?

-- Shaba Shams

Here’s the short answer: start with a great pitch deck. The pitch deck is arguably the most important single document you will generate in the life of your company. It is the opening salvo and “the hook” by which you will (or will not) capture the attention and imagination of a potential investor.

5 Warning Signs a Startup Is a Bad Investment

A company that’s not growing is dying. This is an unpleasant reality that comes with the capitalist system, and it’s especially harsh for smaller or newer companies. Between concerns over debt, resource acquisition and client maintenance, plenty can go horrifically wrong. It’s no wonder that 80% of small businesses fail.

2 Sure Ways to Tell Whether Your Startup Can Win, If You Avert Clouded Judgment

When the head of a new venture sets sights on a fresh market opportunity, success is hardly guaranteed. But most entrepreneurs have thick skins, a strong belief in themselves and an overpowering vision.

The question is whether they can listen to reason and be talked out of moving into a market that they might have scarcely a chance of winning. The two key questions that entrepreneurs must ask themselves are the following:

50 Signs You Need to Start Your Own Business

An entrepreneurial type reads the signals and suddenly realizes it's time to make the leap and ready a launch.

If you’re sitting at your desk, daydreaming about starting your own business, this is the article for you.

You already know that launching a company can be an intimidating process requiring tons of hard work. But the question has been lingering with you day and night. Maybe you're just unhappy with your current position. Perhaps you've always dreamed of opening your own shop or consulting firm. Or maybe you just need a drastic change in you life.

9 Lessons You Won't Learn in Business School

More and more in Silicon Valley, we’re seeing less and less of an interest in pursuing MBA programs. It seems every week a new story highlights the opportunity costs of these programs, the unemployment rates for its graduates (though less than 5 percent of Harvard's class of 2012 was unemployed three months after graduating) and the celebrated entrepreneurs who didn’t finish college let alone a graduate program (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg).

Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media, Moment by Moment

Many people have questioned the sudden rise of “personal branding.” Why do we care so much now and why the emphasis on the topic?

While in some cases we can thank reality television for turning ordinary people into authors, product developers, spokespeople and marketers, the truth is that the concept of selling yourself has been around for decades.

Tight Budget Launch Dilemma - Outsource or DIY?

As a self-funded entrepreneur, you start off as little more than a freelancer but, eventually, you are unable to do everything. You can’t design and manufacture a product from beginning to end while building a media company to promote yourself and a stylish, intuitive ecommerce platform.

A self-funded entrepreneur almost always must come up with the product idea and its unique selling proposition, then define your unique position in media space. Beyond that, it all depends on what your particular skills are. You should outsource some of the following:

How to Find the Absolute Right Mentor to Steer You to Startup Success

When I started out in business I had bravado, a visage of courage and a swagger like I knew what I was doing.

I soon found out that I had virtually no idea what I was doing and that I was either going to stick with the "fake it till you make it" mentality or I would adopt the "know it to grow it" approach.

Well, I went with the second option and I'm thankful every day for having had the courage to check my ego at the door and ask for some help, insight and guidance.

4 Tips for Attracting That Bit of Luck Every Entrepreneur Needs

Sometimes, as the adage advises sagely, a little luck is the best plan. Here are four things you can do to increase the likelihood that good things will come your way. Each one is designed to put you in a better position to advance toward whatever is your goal

Turning Crisis Into Opportunity: 5 Ways to Deal With Hardship

Entrepreneurs face obstacles from the moment they wake up in the morning, whether they're trying to satisfy investors, struggling to meet payroll, dealing with unexpected complications or delivering a new product to market.

Of course, not everyone is cut out for these rough seas. But some individuals stand out as being particularly well-suited for dealing with what investor and advisor Ben Horowitz calls the “hard things.”

Going From 'Least Likely to Succeed' and Charting a Path to Prosperity

Success is a loaded term. For some it is measured purely in money and how much one earns. For others it is determined by the happiness and longevity of interpersonal relationships. For most, however, it is a combination of factors, some tangible, some less so.

As an immigrant of Pakistani descent who moved to the United States as a kid and worked a series of odd jobs to help my family make ends meet but never graduated college, success is defined by how well I and those whose lives I’ve touched have maximize the opportunities around us.

3 Push Notification Strategies to Increase App Engagement

Mobile push notifications can engage your users when your app is not in an active state.

Because most users don’t go back to apps after using it once for lack of engaging content, push notifications are vital.

There are many forms of engagement through push notifications. Try one or more from the following based on your app and its customers:

5 Ways to Create More Mental Space

We live in an information-rich, time-poor world. Here are five simple ways to unclutter your mind, think more clearly and boost your effectiveness.

Today's hyperactive and attention-demanding world makes reflection no easy task. Nonetheless, we still must find a way to carve out "mental space" so we can think clearly, plan, reflect, dream. Peter Drucker expressed the value of reflection years ago even when the world was not so information-rich and time-poor.

He said, "Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action."

How Social Media Can Reinvent Your Staid, Old Sales Tactics

Twitter and Facebook are disrupting your brand's traditional marketing efforts. Here's how to adapt.

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." --John Wanamaker, late 1800s.

More than a century ago, the founder of Wanamaker's department store uttered those words (or so the legend goes). A pioneer of merchandising and sales, John Wanamaker knew advertising helped drive purchases, but the why and how remained a mystery.

Money Is Not What Makes Successful Entrepreneurs Tick

Fact: a very high percentage of startups fail. They might run out of money, and they might very well bankrupt their founders in the process. Despite the odds, more people are jumping onto the entrepreneurial bandwagon.

Brutal Lessons From 4 Failed Startups

With thousands of startups worldwide building new products, it’s no wonder 75 percent of them fail. It’s actually a good thing because startup birth and death helps the ecosystem overall. Entrepreneurs can learn as much from mistakes as successes. Poor management, ineffective marketing and team stress are some of the many reasons why companies fail.

5 Tips to Creating a Successful Content-Marketing Campaign

The phrase “content marketing” is all over the web these days. Content has become a conglomeration of many things: webinars, blog posts, videos, social network shares and more. It sounds like a great idea. If done right, a well-executed digital campaign will yield considerable benefits for both established businesses and entrepreneurs. Such a strategy has the power to position a business as a topical authority and establish the owners and executives as experts.

7 Tips to Guide Young Entrepreneurs

The world needs new entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs create jobs, lift the standard of living, usher new technology into society, and keep competition alive in the marketplace. Starting a business is difficult, and it’s crucial that the next generation has as much ammunition as possible. We are all relying on you to carry on the proud tradition of innovation.

5 Questions to Determine If You're Ready to Be an Entrepreneur

The only difference between people who want to be entrepreneurs and the ones who actually are is the work and the risk of getting started. If you feel like you want to be an entrepreneur but aren’t certain if you’re ready yet, here are five questions to help you determine your capabilities.

5 Tricks to Get Influencers to See and Share Your Content

On the Internet, messages are meant to be heard. From high-powered advertising agencies to in-house marketing departments to individuals with a few hundred Twitter followers, everyone yearns for their message to be conveyed and shared. Finding a high-powered industry influencer can help jump start a sharing craze and kick your message into viral overdrive. A single retweet, blog link or public compliment can do more than you think.

Want Your Startup to Dominate the World? Start Thinking Globally -- Now.

It’s common knowledge that the world is growing smaller and smaller every day and this movement could not be more true than in the business world. While running a small business is already a massive undertaking, the need to think globally from the start is vital if you want your company to grow to its utmost potential.

5 Tips for Picking a Great Boss and Why it Matters

The biggest influence on how I currently run Zola, my own startup, is the knowledge I gained working with great leaders during my time at Gilt Groupe, a high-growth tech startup. A range of great leaders there taught me about leadership and management styles. Here are the five most important tips on how to seek a great boss you need to know, before and after your first day on the job:

Franchise Players: Helping Her Son Brought This Mother to Franchising

After Kristel Thomas's son Louie was diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder, neurologists told her he would never talk or ride a bike. Unwilling to believe them, Kristel found the perfect program to help Louie at a Brain Balance center. Brain Balance is supplemental education franchise that helps children with learning and behavioral disorders reach their full potential though a drug-free approach.

How To Write A Business Plan

Now that you understand why you need a business plan and you've spent some time doing your homework gathering the information you need to create one, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get everything down on paper. The following pages will describe in detail the seven essential sections of a business plan: what you should include, what you shouldn't include, how to work the numbers and additional resources you can turn to for help. With that in mind, jump right in.

5 Presentation Lessons From Apple's New Rock Star

Since I wrote a book titled The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, I’ve been searching for a presenter -- at Apple or any other company -- who comes close to sharing Jobs’ presence on stage. It hasn’t been easy. Jobs was charismatic, inspiring, humorous, dramatic, engaging and polished, and his slides were beautifully designed.

Apple is giving one vice president more time on stage and he’s the most compelling business presenter I’ve seen in a long time. His name is Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.

Get Your Head in the Game: 3 Easy Skills to Master Your Mind

Success in life is what you do with your ideas and vision. While action is important, the first step of success deals with training your mind.

While your brain can be a powerful tool for any entrepreneur, it can cause someone to stray from his focus. So many times entrepreneurs find themselves off in the weeds thanks to some thinking that got them into trouble.

5 Tricks To Brainstorm Like It's Your Job

Your next business idea is just around the corner: You just don't know it yet. Many people I have talked to who want freedom from the cube farm say that the lack of an idea is the only thing holding them back. But why let that be the case.

Before I started my last business, I worked in the innovations group of a major ad agency. It was my primary responsibility to think up and execute marketing tactics that had never been done before for Kia Motors America and Dr Pepper and Snapple Group. Toward the end of my tenure at that agency, members of my group had the opportunity to pitch ideas to a big company looking for some unique ways to make an impact at a music festival in a few weeks.

The Secret to Hiring: It Starts Before You Post the Position

Before you scope for a new hire, make sure you know exactly what it is you're looking for.

The moment has come. You know in your gut that your business, team, or department needs to bring someone new on board.

With that comes a feeling of pressure--you know how difficult it can be to find great people, and you’re not sure of all the steps you need to take to ensure that you're not wasting your time. And on top of that, you know the costs of time and money that come along with open roles and bad hires. You know you need to get this right.

5 Steps to Build a Creative Business from Scratch

Any economist will tell you that the creative sector is a leading component of worldwide economic growth, employment and trade. Over the last decade, there has been a significant shift from individuals choosing to work in traditional vocations such as health care to investing in the creative sector.

The 7 Principles of Launching a Super Successful Blog

Otto von Bismarck famously said that “Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” When it comes to digital marketing, there’s much that we can learn from those who have already been where we’re trying to go.

Venture Harbour’s Marcus Taylor wrote an in-depth analysis deconstructing how six blogs, including Mashable, KISSmetrics and ProBlogger, grew to over one million visitors each in as little time as six months.

The 3 Keys to a Successful Crowdfunding Campaign

After watching crowd-funding for several years with great interest, I recently decided Trident, my product commercialization company, would try our hand at it with Quickey, a one piece, key-shaped multi-tool designed to open mail and packages. Our 60-days campaign onIndiegogo far exceeded our wildest expectations with contributions totaling $221,619 from 7,460 backers. More than 35,000 Quickeys were earned as perks.

5 Things Investors Want to Know Before Signing a Check

Pitching your idea to investors, regardless if they are bankers, VCs or angels, can be intimidating, so prepare by putting yourself in the investor’s shoes. What do they look for when evaluating your company? Here is a list of the five most important things that an investor wants to know before sinking money in a company.

How to Build Great Credit for Your Fledgling Startup

Young entrepreneurs must overcome significant hurdles to achieve success -- from managing investor perceptions to handling the egos of older employees. This is particularly true when it comes to funding.

10 Interesting Investments to Make in Your 20s

Your 20s is a time to set yourself up for debt-free 30s. The money you save now will pave the way for real estate and college funds. In the throes of student debt and low pay, here are 10 ways for a 20-something to start investing in their futures, a few dollars at a time.

5 Social Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Social media marketing holds a special allure for startups. It is the best vehicle, ever, for propelling your new business forward fast and gaining momentum you can build on. However, social media has to be done right. To execute properly, you have to begin strong, know what to do and what to avoid.

How a Teenage Entrepreneur Built a Startup on Bitcoin Riches

When 15-year-old Erik Finman turned a $1,000 Easter gift from his grandma into $100,000 after cashing in on his Bitcoin investment, he wasn’t all like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece. He was all business.

The Idaho robotics champ and early North Idaho College student used his Bitcoin riches to launch Botangle.com, a burgeoning online video tutoring startup, according to Mashable.

Successful Entrepreneurs Do These 5 Things Daily

There is a saying that there are only three types of people in the world: those who watch what happened, those who wonder what happened and those who make things happen.

Entrepreneurs fall into the last category, of course. They are change agents, people who don’t see the world as it is but as it could be. Entrepreneurs don’t sit on the sidelines and wish for a better world. Rather they go out and create it. They don’t wait for things to be different. They are the difference.

Being forward thinkers, entrepreneurs continually push themselves to become better and do better. They are game changers. They ooze confidence and inspire greatness.

How to Conquer Your Sales Fears

Five common sales worries business owners face -- and ways you can combat them to close the deal.

The expression, "He could sell ice to an Eskimo," acknowledges that certain people are born salespeople.

For most small-business owners, however, the selling process is anything but easy. In fact, when it comes to pitching their product or service, many entrepreneurs struggle with any number of issues, including lack of confidence in themselves or their product, fear of failure and fear of closing the deal. The good news: Experts say these fears can be overcome with the proper attitude, training and practice.

For Long-Term Growth, First Scale Your Foundation

Tech startups are busting out of the incubator daily, ready to take on the world and grow to new heights as quickly as possible. Ambition is a terrific thing, but focusing too much on the now can really hurt your business in the long term. The best thing you can do as a tech startup looking to take over the world some day is to focus on scale but think out, not just up.

Far too often, young companies make the mistake of building solely for now, and then are left to start over when their business changes five years down the road. You can’t blame them. They see the social media models of stacking millions of users on top of each other as quickly as possible, like a really tall skyscraper. They want to replicate the process. Instead, they should picture a pyramid and scale out, constructing a strong base that will allow them to build on top of later on.

From Paper Boy to Music Mogul: Entrepreneurship Lessons from Sean 'Diddy' Combs

The Grammy Award-winning album that shot rapper and business mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs to stardom in the '90s was titled "No Way Out." But if Combs could decide his true legacy, it's that he has inspired inner-city kids to realize they can get out. Just like he did.

When he looks back on his career, Combs wants to be sure that he was an example for others, particularly those growing up in poor neighborhoods. He wants to know that he "was able to give them hope," and that success is possible with hard work, no matter where you start off in life.

The One Basic Skill Every Startup CEO Needs

When starting a new venture, it is critical to your success that you effectively communicate your vision to build trust in people around you -- everyone from your business partners to investors and customers need to believe in you. You need these people to buy into your new idea. This is done through effectively communicating the value proposition in what you are trying to do. It must be succinct and to the point or else you will quickly lose the interest of others. This is where the skill of writing comes into play.

3 Traits Entrepreneurs Need But Probably Weren't Born With

Though counterintuitive for many entrepreneurs, there are three ingredients for their success.

The 15 Ronald Reagan Quotes Every Business Leader Must Know

No leader communicated so plainly and effectively as Ronald Reagan. With an acting and public-speaking background, Reagan's approach was simple: Say what you mean, say it directly and make folks smile as often as possible.

Reagan was a champion of capitalism, a defender of freedom and never met a regulation he didn't hate. Many of his quotes still resonate today, particularly since the themes of high taxes and intrusive regulations continue to addle new-business creation in the United States.

Seven Secrets of Self-Made Multimillionaires

First, understand that you no longer want to be just a millionaire. You want to become a multimillionaire.

While you may think a million dollars will give you financial security, it will not. Given the volatility in economies, governments and financial markets around the world, it's no longer safe to assume a million dollars will provide you and your family with true security. In fact, a Fidelity Investments' study of millionaires last year found that 42 percent of them don't feel wealthy and they would need $7.5 million of investable assets to start feeling rich.

How Michael Rubin Went From Bankrupt to Billionaire

When Michael Rubin was 16, he built a 142-foot ski ramp made out of 45,000 pounds of ice so customers at his ski shop could test their gear. In August. In 98 degree weather.

“I believe there are two types of business people -- risky and rational,” the then 16-year-old Rubin told Small Business Chronicle in September 1988. At the time, Rubin owned Mike’s Ski Shop in the suburban community of Conshohocken, Penn. “And since I am the risky type, a ski run in 98 degree weather sounds great to me!”

5 Quotes to Inspire the Optimistic Entrepreneur in You

Keeping a good attitude will help you weather the storms of entrepreneurship. The daily life and grind of entrepreneurship can be filled with big highs and lows, but staying focused on the end goal and seeing the opportunity in your challenges will take you far.

10 Questions to Ask Before Quitting Your Day Job to Run Your Own Company

The dream of being one's own boss is what leads many people to start businesses, but leaving your bread-and-butter job to fulfill that vision is a move that shouldn't be made hastily.

In his book, Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job (Lampo Press, 2011), Nashville-based author Jon Acuff says that between 70 and 80 percent of people think about quitting their job to do something more fulfilling. “A lot of people wake up Monday morning and say, 'How did I get here?'” he says. “You take a six-month stop-gap job sometimes and find yourself still there years later, but it doesn't have to be that way.”

5 Ways to Get More Respect at Work

“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.” Clint Eastwood.

Seemingly this formula worked well for Clint Eastwood in his career and if you want to be better respected at your job, it can work for you too.

5 Ways Millionaires Approach Their Careers

In the majority of cases, it’s not luck that makes people money, nor is it who they know. Rather, the people who make the most money in their careers are the ones who display discipline, and who have a definitive sense of purpose and heavy duty resiliency.

The positive news is that even if you don’t possess these skills now, it is very possible to obtain them. The first step in doing so is to analyze how millionaires approach their careers and begin to alter your thought processes, practices and overall professional approach.

To get you started, here are five ways the highly successful approach their careers:

10 Questions to Ask When Recruiting New Employees Online

In order to find top talent to fill the most important roles at your startup company, you'll most likely want to advertise that you're hiring those positions online. But finding, recruiting and hiring rockstar employees isn't as simple as slapping a quick job description on a random job board online and hoping a needle will spring out of the haystack.

"If you want the best talent out there, you have to make an impact in the digital space and you have to stand out," says Allyson Willoughby, general counsel and senior vice president of human resources at Glassdoor, a popular jobs and career community website based out of Sausalito, Calif.

7 Reasons to Ditch the Corporate World for a Career at a Startup

Although a career in the corporate world has plenty of benefits, working for an established company can sometimes result in a mundane 9 to 5 with little room for growth and a lot of bureaucratic red tape.

This is why so many people are attracted to the startup life. While it can be a roller coaster of a ride, working on the ground floor of a new company can allow people to shine, "own" projects and possibly reap the benefits of the company's success in the form of equity, while simultaneously learning a lot in a fast-paced environment.

Need more convincing? Here are seven great things about working for a startup.

These 4 Personalities Make Up Your Startup 'Dream Team'

When you're building a startup, smart hiring is essential. You need to find the right people and place them in the right roles to create a quality product, build a strong brand and reach the right customers. In other words, you need to create a corporate "dream team."

I learned this firsthand when starting Software Advice. Hiring was a challenge early on, but since then, we've grown our staff to over 100 people -- and for the top performers, we've gradually developed specialized roles that take advantage of their unique strengths.

Get the Most From Conferences, Even on a Startup Budget

Much is lost in translation over phone/email. People need to see each other, in person, to develop lasting relationships and gauge trends in their industry. But entrepreneurs face a unique challenge choosing among the almost comical number of events offered every year. Las Vegas alone held over 22,000 conferences last year.

I attend a lot of events each year as a speaker, writer, exhibitor or general attendee on topics ranging from startups, sports, and technology. They are almost always productive, introducing me to clients, future co-workers and insightful industry trends. Steve Van, founder and CEO of Prism Hotels, once told me how a single conference helped catapult his hotel management business. Toward the end of the event, he was serendipitously the only person in attendance with expertise in managing distressed assets, resulting in a windfall of new business.

The Fearsome Nightmare Entrepreneurs Never Talk About

Over the years, I have discovered a topic that is very close to being a third rail among entrepreneurs in open forums. Very few will admit to it or even talk about it. But it is a very different story in private.

Discreetly, a surprising number of entrepreneurs, even very successful ones, confess that they clearly remember their bouts with it. For many, it appears regularly and even becomes an undercurrent of their life. For others it is an intermittent visitor, unpredictable, and unwelcome.

How to Become a Millionaire by Age 30

Getting rich and becoming a millionaire is a taboo topic. Saying it can be done by the age of 30 seems like a fantasy. It shouldn’t be taboo and it is possible. At the age of 21, I got out of college, broke and in debt, and by the time I was 30, I was a millionaire.

Here are the 10 steps that will guarantee you will become a millionaire by 30.

7 Steps for Putting Ideas Into Action

Here is a seven-step technique for developing ideas you can actually use to solve business problems.

Brainstorming is only a first step to innovation. What matters more are execution and implementation.

All of the above may seem obvious. Yet many companies struggle with it, say the authors of a new article from MIT Sloan Management Review. While brainstorming sessions "are frequently fun for participants, the output is too often considered impractical just days after the exercise."
A 7-Step Idea Generation Gameplan

As a remedy, the authors--consultants at Innosight, a global strategy and innovation consultancy based in Lexington, Mass.--offer a seven-step gameplan. Its purpose is to help you not only improve your brainstorming, but also to help you put your ideas into action.

The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship

Editor's Note: This article won an award in the Magazine Personal Service category in the 2014 Annual Awards Contest of the Deadline Club, the New York City chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

No one said building a company was easy. But it's time to be honest about how brutal it really is--and the price so many founders secretly pay.

By all counts and measures, Bradley Smith is an unequivocal business success. He's CEO of Rescue One Financial, an Irvine, California-based financial services company that had sales of nearly $32 million last year. Smith's company has grown some 1,400 percent in the last three years, landing it at No. 310 on this year's Inc. 500. So you might never guess that just five years ago, Smith was on the brink of financial ruin--and mental collapse.