Hello readers! Today's article is not really about technology, but rather to look at some notable people who have achieved glory and success on the Internet and checking out how they've done it.
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| Mark Zuckerberg |
Blake Ross |
Sean Belnick |
The fact is, even you (yes, you!) could be the next "Mark Zuckerberg." I strongly believe, that even us Sri Lankans can do the same and perhaps do better than most people out there. Technology has evolved so much over the past few years that the world is now "flat"; meaning, you and a person in the US have the same amount of resources and knowledge at hand. It's just a matter of having the motivation to use it and create something new.
Here are some stories behind the makings of some of the biggest names on the Internet today and hopefully, will help to jump start your ideas as well.
Mark Zuckerberg (Co-creator
and CEO of Facebook)
Age: 24
Education: Harvard, dropout
Net value: USD 700 million
Mark launched Facebook as an on-line social networking site for Harvard and it was an instant hit getting more than two-thirds of the schools students signing up within the first 2 weeks. After seeing its success, Mark then opened up the community site to the rest of the Ivy League colleges and within a couple of months hundreds of thousands of people were using it. As a company, they started off in a small house which they leased out in Palo Alto, San Francisco. Over time, through investments by individuals and venture capital firms, Facebook grew into a campus with seven buildings and several hundred employees.
What did he do? Looked at a problem, which was to bridge the communication gap between students and found a solution that was simple, involved no cost and was done for fun!
Blake Ross (Co-creator of
Mozilla Firefox browser)
Age: 23
Education: Stanford, dropout
Net value: USD 120 million
While working as an intern at Netscape, Blake came about with the idea of Firefox after finding his work with the Netscape browser not so interesting. Blake envisioned a smaller, easy to use browser that was fully open source. When Firefox first came out back in 2004, it quickly grabbed the browser market with over 100 million downloads of it coming in less than an year. At the time, Blake was only 19-years-old.
What did he do? Started developing websites early (He was 10 when he did his first), started contributing to Netscape open source project. Wanted to rethink how the browser was built and came up with an alternative.
Sean Belnick (Founder & CEO,
Bizchair.com)
Age: 19
College: High-school
Net value: USD 42 million
Sean started Bizchair through a fascination he had for selling things over the Internet. At the age of 14, he created a website that sold chairs for businesses. He started off with just a few office chairs and eventually with one employee. He now sells over 25,000 products for customers such as Microsoft, Google and the US government.
What did he do? Built a website to sell chairs. Very simple. What's important to understand here is that he realized the business value before anyone else did. Honestly, who would have thought you can become a millionaire by selling chairs over the Internet?! Point is, anything is possible.
The quick start to becoming successful
Here are some pointers for you to remember, if you want to be someone like Mark, Blake or Sean...
Think of a common problem. It could be as crazy as trying to find a way to sell chairs faster!
Find out how others have done it.
Try to rethink what is already there and try to find an alternative solution.
Always plan simple and in small steps. Don't plan to launch a web site that has 100 features at first, but enough to get it working and caters to the requirement at hand. Over time, you can make the site more comprehensive.
Use free and open source software. This way you don't have to use pirated copies of proprietary software or even be worried about having to buy the original copy which is expensive.
Learn the traits of on line marketing. This can include Blogging, Google adsense and much more.
Always try to enjoy what you are doing.
If you have anything in mind, let me know (technopage@gmail.com) and perhaps I might be able to help you out. |
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