The tech media and mainstream press routinely salivate over stories of 13... 15... 17... and 19 year old whiz kid entrepreneurs.
Yet there was a time when teenagers and young adults wrote software and tinkered with hardware, sharing their creations with friends and peers, on a journey of computing discovery.
There was a time when 'Demo Day' literally meant getting a group of friends together, travelling to a new city, and showing off your coding and artistic skills. The prizes were prestige and peer recognition. http://archive.assembly.org/1992
Now, kids and teenagers are being schooled to hustle and score big money. Where is the pure joy of discovery? Something has been lost.
EDIT: Just wanted to add, it's amazing what you can do in just 4kb (4096 byte executable, no external data files). This should inspire programmers of all ages.
Sure, but kids and parents are not immune to the media's filter bubble. Young programmers might feel pressure to emulate celebrity wunderkids instead of following their own passions.
The media are part of the hype machine but they aren't responsible for investing in companies like Summly, holding demo days, running weekend hackathons, acqui-hiring or bringing on board token celebrity investors... are they?
I just heard of Summly for the first time yesterday, it seems like their recent fame has come greatly as a result of the purchase by Yahoo!
But I can't judge as I haven't been closely following the story. Is there any general consensus on the funding as a good or bad idea?
For the record I really like their promo video. It shows off the product with a bit of witty comedy. I just couldn't find myself using it, and I don't know how it'll fit into Yahoo, but definitely a fun app.
Are you criticizing the startup scene for its salivation over youth entrepreneurs? Or are you now shifting your criticism to things like acquihires and celebrity investors?
I find nothing wrong with hacakathons and acquihires, personally. As for celebrity investors, if a social media startup feels they need that kind of marketing / media attention, good for them.
His name is Emil Hajric. A few years back, when Joel Spolsky's "Business of Software" discussion forum was at its peak, he used whois records to find the phone numbers of some of the most frequent contributors and to call us personally.
Congrats on the success! I'm actually contemplating moving to another country (albeit a more expensive, but wealthier, country) to target an under-served market. I'd love to hear more about how you found small business clients and pitched them on a web service because I will have to do the same.
For the curious/lazy, the parent comment roughly translates from Bosnian into English: "Why didn't you stay in Sarajevo?" (Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia)
Thanks Daniel.
This story has nothing to do with Bosnia anyway, because it is an US company and he is an US citizen. The fact that he is from Bosnia is just a coincidence and not a choice.
By the way: I think Internet Startups could be a great chance for this region, because of the independence from infrastructure. Ok, the mentality sucks when it comes to Entrepreneurship, but I see it more as an opportunity. I think that the US has enough companies. The Balkans deserve their own Internet- hub. dreamon :D
"Creepy"? How can it be "creepy" to make a business-related call to people whose names were publicized in a business context?
Creepy is showing up unannounced and unintroduced at the front door of an actor or actress you have a crush on. I understand that you may not like to be cold called, but it is not creepy - it's the way much of business is done.
Maybe this varies by area, but professional etiquette everywhere I've been is that you ask before taking an online conversation to the phone. If you're having a forum or email discussion with someone, it's not typical practice to look up their phone number and call them up. For example, I think it would be at least somewhat weird to call someone who posted a StackOverflow question or response, rather than responding to them on SO.
I don't disagree with you about professional etiquette, but to the extent that this is a forum about entrepreneurship, surely we might permit, or even encourage, not to mention applaud, a slight nudging of the boundaries?
It depends a lot on the nature of the call (especially as in this case the forum maybe provided an obvious alternative method of initiating contact - but even then calls can sometimes be more appropriate).
I think people can be forgiven for misjudging their cold-calling timing and technique in their mid-teens too.
And grabbing the numbers from WHOIS itself simply shows initiative
What's the big deal? People send unsolicited emails/tweets to other HN posters all the time. I'd like to think we're past the point where intermingling the "real world" (phone) with the "internet world" is deemed "creepy."
I'm sad to read comment like this. I was always under impression that entrepreneurs will help each other and support each other. But I guess I'm wrong.
Very interesting and cool story. But that article was dreadfully written. Just because you're writing about a teenager doesn't mean you have to write like a teenager.
It suggests a lot about print journalism when an article in Forbes clearly hasn't received even basic proofreading, much less proper editorial vetting.
It's a cool story but my experience reading it was diminished by the grade school sentence structure and bizarre grammar and punctuation errors. Stray commas in Forbes! Seriously now.
I caught that Capital Factory Demo Day. I have to say that I was intrigued by Helpjuice and was disappointed to see it just disappear. I'm glad to hear that I was wrong and things are growing well. Congrats.
If you find yourself back in Austin, drop me a note. I'll buy the first round of coffee to hear about how things are going. :)
> But, not all young entrepreneurs are like Nick D’Aloisio and Andrew Hsu. Some of these whipper snappers are the REAL deal.
This sounds very insulting to Nick and Andrew. I don't see any evidence that they're anything but earnest entrepreneurs. In the case of Nick, he succeeded (the reason is debatable), and as for Andrew, he simply hasn't succeeded (yet), but it's no reason to say he isn't genuinely trying. Older investors may be trying to take advantage of their youth, but it's not a discredit to these young people.
I think to insinuate that Nick is not "the real deal" seems completely fair. Sure, he "succeeded", but he succeeded in the same way people who were born on third base and think they hit a triple think they succeeded.
I can wholeheartedly agree to this, I probably should've done a better job communicating that. I meant it more as a pointed commentary at the older investors.
(Note, I will totally admit that it was written to gain attention)
I can't speak for Nick but I find it ridiculous that Andrew is catching flak for not having had commercial success (yet) when he, at 20, is a PhD dropout with 3 B.S. degrees earned at 16. He's obviously trying and is in a ridiculously good place to succeed, thanks very much to his own hard work and intellect.
I'm just eager to see how long will it take him to fail in Bosnia (not because he's not capable but the Bosnian legislature is shit for anyone not doing illegal work, same goes for Serbia, Croatia and maybe even Kosovo.)
Yes that probably helps, since our countries suck to do any real business. (and don't make me quote, this is a known fact here).
I do hope you do very well, I just can't seem to get over the fact you had to go back to Balkans, sucks for you and your business but I do wish you all the best with your enterprise.
But don't take my comment to negatively either, if nothing food is great and people are full of humor! At least something to make you feel better ;)
I completely get your point, and Emil is a great role model for all (not just young) entrepreneurs faced with failure.
What I don't understand is all the animosity towards Nick D’Aloisio. What makes him not a "real" entrepreneur? Whatever the means, he still took a company from inception to acquisition, which fits any definition of entrepreneurship.
There are lessons we can learn from Emil, and also lessons that we can learn from Nick. They've both had valuable experiences that I'm sure many of us would love to hear about.
Not at all. In fact, I was insinuating that a lot of the start up crowd is motivated by the wrong reasons - money.
You can get rich by buying up real estate and charging rent. All you did is sign paper and make money. "Charging rent" isn't a service. "Allowing you to live in property I purchased." isn't really providing value either.
"Building a house and selling it to a family." <=== that's creating value.
Emil- I am glad you're finding success, but please make sure you give back to Bosnia by keeping employees there or doing some community outreach. It would be unfair and kind of crummy to use the country and bail.
Not that I am accusing you of doing so, just hoping you keep in mind who was there for you in your time of need!
> Edit: Please note, that I unfortunately used a photo that was unwise due to my lack of knowledge and understanding of Bosnian history! I removed the image out of respect and I apologize! Thanks!
Isn't 19 too old to be considered a "wunderkind," per the article title? It's hard to consider someone to be a child prodigy when they're legally an adult.
EDIT: Not criticizing the article, I'm just confused with the language.
19 doesn't seem particularly young though. Even some people who explore post-secondary educations after high school will be out in the workforce by that age.
That hardly seems relevant. I'm far older than most figure skaters, but I still feel quite confident in the fact that 19 is not a particularly young age for a woman to become a figure skating champion. In fact, doing it 10 years later would actually be more noteworthy.
Old enough to have been 19 many years ago. Its young on the timescale of the human lifespan, certainly, but by 19 one has the opportunity to be already fully established in society and industry. You expect people to be working on amazing things by that time. Any greatness that may come from that work does not seem particularly unusual to me.
I am actually quite surprised that there has been such negative reaction to my comment. When does one age beyond the "wonder years" if not by 19?
True, he's not exactly a wunderkind (though he started "starting-up" in his early teens). But his backstory is more "bootstrappy" than some of the others. . .working-class family from Bosnia...started his successful company in Bosnia and returned to US. The wunderkind points he loses for being 19 are offset by the points for his more humble roots, I think.
Having personally spoken with Emil a number of times, and being a user of Helpjuice, I think Emil is going to turn it into a great SaaS company. Nice work man.
I think they will both probably be incredibly successful, the problem is they are poor role models for people hoping to make it on nothing but guts since their success came from money and connections rather than just hard work. Whether hard work was ALSO involved is another story, that is frankly irrelevant to the discussion.
That would be my fault. I meant to say that Patio11 suggested that Emil should talk to his customers. Emil was more focused on building the product than communicating with his potential customers, which was why he faltered in Picopy.
Unfortunately, that's something that is automatically done through the platform. I'm not used to it yet and I'm still trying to figure out how to turn it off.
The tech media and mainstream press routinely salivate over stories of 13... 15... 17... and 19 year old whiz kid entrepreneurs.
Yet there was a time when teenagers and young adults wrote software and tinkered with hardware, sharing their creations with friends and peers, on a journey of computing discovery.
There was a time when 'Demo Day' literally meant getting a group of friends together, travelling to a new city, and showing off your coding and artistic skills. The prizes were prestige and peer recognition. http://archive.assembly.org/1992
Now, kids and teenagers are being schooled to hustle and score big money. Where is the pure joy of discovery? Something has been lost.
EDIT: Just wanted to add, it's amazing what you can do in just 4kb (4096 byte executable, no external data files). This should inspire programmers of all ages.
2012 Fireflies: http://archive.assembly.org/2012/4k-intro/fireflies-by-blobt...
2009 Muon Baryon: http://archive.assembly.org/2009/4k-intro/muon-baryon-by-you...