Million dollar teens!!

I was on msn today reading news and I came across an article about young entrepreneurs who started their businesses in their very early teens (one started at only 9 years old!)and turned them into million dollar businesses. some are now in their EARLY 29's and are making 6 figures. yeah just off ideas that they had one day. It sure is inspirational and makes me wanna try my hand at an online business since now I have all the time in the world to do so... but what??.... hmmmm I'll think of an idea but for now, you guys gotta check this out. I mean the creativity and business mindsets of these young adults is amazing!! read their stories here... Most of these nine entrepreneurs had launched businesses by the tender age of 16 (and one before he broke double digits). Some identified problems and created companies to solve them; others turned their hobbies into moneymaking ventures. Some teamed up with friends, siblings and mentors; others plowed ahead on their own.

* Video: Turn a hobby into a business (part 1)

* On Bing: How to start your own business

Their common threads: singular focus, preternatural financial savvy and the optimism and confidence to wrest financing from seasoned investors. Here's how they did it.

Continued: A new vision
When 21-year-old university student Jamie Murray Wells attempted to buy a pair of prescription glasses in 2004, he had a vision for a new type of business. Nonplussed by the glasses' $300 price tag, Wells decided to leave school and funnel his $2,000 student loan into what would become Glasses Direct, an online retailer based in London.

* On Bing: Ideas for new businesses

In the first year, the company's revenue topped $2 million. Today the company pulls in $5 million a year in sales and employs 70 people, and it has raked in $34 million in venture funding. (That should tide Wells over until he turns his first profit.)

Continued: Building from the basement up
In 1996, when Michael Furdyk was 16, he started MyDesktop.com, an online computer magazine, in the basement of his parents' home in suburban Toronto. His site was filled with tips and advice that Furdyk had gleaned in online chat rooms, where he came across fellow teenager Michael Hayman.

* Video: Is the office dying?

Hayman, an Australian, moved to Toronto to help build the business. Running lean, the pair bartered for website storage and office rent. Soon, MyDesktop.com was bringing in $60,000 a month in ad revenue from blue-chip clients such as IBM and Microsoft. (Microsoft is the publisher of MSN Money.)

* On Bing: Ideas for new businesses

In 1999, Furdyk, Hayman and a third partner sold it for more than $1 million to Internet.com, which absorbed MyDesktop into its site.

Continued: The benefits of being jammed up
At age 14 in 2002, Fraser Doherty started making jams in his parents' kitchen in Edinburgh, Scotland. By age 16, Doherty left school to work on his jams full time, starting SuperJam.

* Video: Turn a hobby into a business (part 2)

SuperJam's revenue hit $1.2 million in 2009. Doherty remains the company's only full-time employee, and his debt-free stake is worth an estimated $1 million to $2 million.

* On Bing: Small-business pitfalls

Doherty asserts that his supply chain and operations can safely scale to meet heavier demand. "We're sticking with what works," he says.

Continued: From video games to job postings
Ephren Taylor began his first business at age 12, after trekking to a local Borders bookstore in Overland Park, Kan., to read "How to Make a Video Game in 21 Days" by Andre LaMothe.

A few months later, Taylor coded his first game. He went on to sell about 30 copies for $10 a pop. At 13, Taylor started designing websites under the banner Flame Software. Taylor quickly upped his $200-per-site charge when he realized competitors were charging thousands for the same service.

"When I got a $3,800 check (from an online retailer of vitamins and legal supplements), my parents thought I must be selling drugs," he recalls.

* Video: A working vacation for kids while Mom and Dad relax

Taylor crossed into seven-figure territory at 16 when he teamed up with friend Michael Stahl to build GoFerretGo.com, a job-posting website for high school and college students. Soon the site had attracted 30,000 visitors. Again, Taylor sold himself short, charging a paltry $38 per job posting, until he realized Sprint, Citigroup, Pizza Hut and other companies were willing to pay nearly 100 times that amount to find young talent.

* On Bing: Small-business pitfalls

The company dissolved in the 2001 tech bust, but at its height was valued at $3.5 million. Today Taylor is the chief executive of City Capital, an asset management company in Franklin, Tenn.

Continued: Parents' party launches entrepreneur
Cameron Johnson launched his first business, Cheers and Tears, in 1994 at age 9. Using Photoshop in his Virginia home, Johnson began making greeting cards for his parents' holiday party and soon received orders from their friends and colleagues as well.

Johnson used money he'd earned to buy Ty Beanie Babies, then resold them on eBay and on his Cheers and Tears website, making $50,000. At 13, Johnson started My EZ Mail, a service that forwards e-mails to a particular account without revealing the recipient's personal information. Within two years, My EZ Mail was generating up to $3,000 a month in advertising revenue.

* On Bing: How to start your own business

In 1997, Johnson joined forces with two other teen entrepreneurs to create online advertising company Surfingprizes.com, which provided scrolling advertisements across the top of users' Web browsers. People who downloaded the software received 20 cents an hour for the inconvenience of having ads splayed across their computer screens. Referrers would nab 10% of a new person's hourly revenue. Johnson partnered with the likes of DoubleClick, L90 and Advertising.com, which collected 30% of any ad revenue sold, leaving the rest to Johnson and company.

"I was 15 years old and receiving checks between $300,000 and $400,000 per month," Johnson says. In 2001, he sold portions of the company and closed the remainder of it.

Another Johnson brainchild, CertificateSwap.com, allowed people to buy and sell unwanted gift certificates online. Although gift certificates routinely had changed hands on eBay, the auctioneer charged a healthy fee -- "up to 13% of the cards' value," says Johnson. "We took only 7.5%."

Johnson sold CertificateSwap.com in 2004, when he was just 19, for an undisclosed "six-figure" amount.

Continued: Sign my yearbook?

In 2005, Catherine Cook, 15, and her brother Dave, 17, were flipping through their high school yearbook and came up with the idea to develop a free interactive version called myYearbook.

The Cooks soon merged their social-networking site with Zenhex.com, an ad-supported site where users post poems, jokes and other content, more than doubling traffic to their site. By 2006, myYearbook had raised $4.1 million from the likes of U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital. The business attracted advertisers such as Neutrogena, Disney and ABC, grew to 3 million members worldwide and raked in annual sales in the "seven figures," Catherine says.