This 20-year-old's startup does $44 million in sales

[Rickson9]

William Wolfram was 15 years old when he struck on his first successful venture, although as a business it was more of a hack than a carefully constructed enterprise. He would scour YouTube for popular user-generated videos and then offer to buy the accounts for $50 or $100. Because he was so young, his mom had to sign the checks. Then he would take over the accounts and insert affiliate links into the video descriptions. So every time someone watched a wakeboarding video, say, and then bought a wakeboard after following one of those links, he would pocket the referral fee.

This 20-year-old’s three-year-old startup did $44M in revenue last year | PandoDaily

 

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[KeonTheGreat]

The "Buy it now" option is genius. I never liked sites like that though feels like an unregualted lottery.

 

[InLikeFlint]

The "Buy it now" option is genius. I never liked sites like that though feels like an unregualted lottery.

That's the entire point of it, people are addicted to the lottery and the chance to win big...and when they don't they come back again and again. It's even called a lottery in the article.

-Unrelated-

I wonder what it takes to get a site like that running? I feel like with the right exposure it can easily be successful.

I suppose you could start with only like 5 items and move up as you make money.

Great article OP, loved reading it...thanks for the share!

 

[CommonCents]

As soon as these companies get big enough they'll encounter the government radar over lottery issues. Quibids is advertising a lot now as well. It takes a lot of educating consumers to this way of selling. Real interesting twist though.

 

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