Recession on Main Street Deepens in January

When high school students think about the future, the ambitious ones seem to think no further than the transcript. Plenty of teens are content to party their way through their school years, committed to classes or not. Those who do commit, do so to wrangle a top spot in college. But can your career start early? If you can, who shows you how?

Jeff, John, Scott, and Wyatt, of CastleWave, LLC (Spanish Fork, UT), have discovered that ambition and adolescence make a perfect match. At the age of seventeen, these four friends have bypassed the food service industry to go straight into the online realm. Called the “Asset Managers” at their company, they have done more before college than many students do after—even the ambitious ones.

When Rich Christiansen and Ron Porter began writing a hands-on guide to “bootstrapping your own business,” they realized that the principles needed proving. As part of the experiment, they founded a website, Bootstrap Business, and hired these four young entrepreneurs to start fleshing things out. Their goal? Make one million dollars—but start with only $5,000. Rich and Ron theorize that anybody with a worthy goal, a work ethic, and a bit of solid know-how can succeed.

Among Jeff, John, Scott, and Wyatt, the responsibilities they carry sound just like an upper-division corporate engineering team. They research markets and demographics, brainstorming ideas that give birth to website ventures. High school life and high tech research produce websites that range from Dating to Pizza Coupons, even to free clip art. One of their biggest accomplishments was pushing 1Pizzacoupons.com to the top ranks of Google when you search “pizza coupons”, they did this in an amazing 5 weeks! While Jeff and John spearhead most of the web asset management, each of the four takes a role in managing at least one of the company’s assets (hence the name “Asset Managers”). In addition to that responsibility, Scott also leads out with managing an engineering team in India and Wyatt is the assigned theorizer-ponderer—that is, his brain does most of the storming and testing.

While other high school students are learning how to grease a lawnmower or potato slices, these four teens learn monetization methods, Internet marketing, human and asset management, and the structure and process of consulting. All of these lessons and more come directly from Rich and Ron’s tutelage, as well as from their book and website. More than making money, these students break new ground. They prove that high school isn’t just for AP tests, after all.

Most recently, the Linkers created UniversalClipart.com, which offers free clipart. This website received praise from another image library for its “clean, professional layout in contrast with the often messy and hard-to-navigate layout of similar sites.” Read that article here. With the likes of Cats and Dogs-Tell also under their belt, the Linkers prove their unique job even while Rich and Ron prove the principles of their book. Money definitely helps—all four are saving for college and a volunteer mission for their church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—but more importantly, these four have learned just what Rich and Ron wanted to teach. In high school and in life, transcripts are secondary to what actually transpires. If they do it right, they can make it meaningful—and, maybe, they can make their millions.