17 years old, 11 startups | Hacker News Reader

17 years old, 11 startups

markbao.com

81 pointsacqq83 comments

Oh cool, I'm on here :D

18 now, and I've stopped calling them startups... a lot of them are just webapps :) (also no longer in high school, was going to update it two days ago until threewords.me came along, now at 1.8 million pageviews...) the new startup is http://supportbreeze.com !

Would like to note that my bhag (big hairy audacious goal) is to donate almost all my money into positive philanthropy (see below) and startup investments http://iam.markbao.com

18 now

Good. The honeymoon is over.

Now you can vote, join the army, get laid without legal worries, and most importantly, be considered a true peer here without the gratuitous "17 year old" prefix on everything said about you.

I have admired your progress and even enjoyed using some of your software over the past several years, usually thinking, "This guy is great. I wonder what kinds of cool things he'll be doing once he grows up." The wait is over. Full steam ahead and best wishes!

Hold up a second, he needs to go to college first where he risks being bogged down by details that will distract him and possible crush all his dreams, but if he pulls through, he will rise with a new sense of understanding that have lead all the great contributers of society.

It's sad how often comments about higher education are expressed in a light like this. Contact me if you have ideas on how to fix it.

I'm not criticizing higher education. My tongue-in-cheek comment was a reference to the book The Man Who Knew Infinity where G H Hardy expressed fear that teaching Ramanujan the details of math might stump his genius by making him feel less confident in his abilities.

I'm also expressing my frustration of not writing down my life goals when I first entered college...but even if I went back in time and asked my younger self what those goals were: "Intern at Revision3!? Man, you think you have it all figured out. I don't know how else to say this man, but..."

and I just made myself feel sad, in a nostalgic way.

Oh I see - Interesting. Well I still very much see it as a very valid criticism. I don't believe the situation should exist (or at least be as prevalent) where you can unfairly become discouraged to the point of no return. In most cases it's completely unnecessary and is a result of a misunderstanding on both ends. In most cases I believe it's a result of having no life direction and following a path laid down by certain expectations of you, or just poorly rationalized by you in general, and so you easily become swayed by insignificant details. Fixing that should focused on before going full force into a passion/study and spending thousands in the process.

Put differently, all those details you talk about should be in support of your development towards a future passion, not distract you to a point of no return.

Sorry if that appears incoherent - I'm in a hurry. Anyway I see that as a major issue in people and something our school system should do a better job of handling.

> get laid without legal worries

Not entirely true. Now he's gotta be careful not to become a statutory rapist.

Most states allow for a 2-3 year difference at the age of 18.

It's quite the admirable goal.. I'll be looking over your blog throughout the day and reevaluating my goals for next year... and hell, for my life, after reading the "About me" section.

One quick thing you should know - Ramania.org has a bunch of 404's in everything but the home page. Also, clicking Ramania.com links to genevine.com...was this intentional?

Yeah, ugh, lots of stuff to fix. Not sure why the .org site isn't working anymore.

Ramamia was renamed Genevine last year ish.

out of that group, how many are actually startups?

Congratulations man! I remember back to the days when you made the flash for this: http://seethewall.com :) :)

You have come a long way.

Now listen -- I know how much you hated high school, but college is the time when you make all the social connections that will last you for the next 10 years! (And some of them, well, a lifetime.) It is probably where you are going to meet the people who will help you meet your wife. Well, maybe not directly, but she'll definitely get a sense of your social group when your friends are making her have a great time and regaling her with their crazy stories about you. And so ....

REMEMBER

Do not treat college as a preparation for a lifetime of serfdom. Instead, treat college as a social opportunity! Oh and one more thing -- do your studying done early and go out :)

Did you just encourage this kid to go to college so he can get married? What?

that's an unexpected interpretation of what I wrote

I really like some of your design work, especially supportbreeze, very clean and slick look.

I really woudn't like to critize but I would make the disctintion building startups or businesses and building apps. The former usually have customers, employees, payrolls, revenues etc.

But anyway it's great that you're building things.

Thanks for the feedback :) Yeah, I came to my senses eventually. Check it out... TickrTalk: [x] incorporated [ ] paying customers [ ] employees [ ] payroll [ ] revenue. Nope.

Just so much old literature on the internet that I haven't bothered to update. Too busy hacking ruby and python to care.

Well I had a similar mentality at that age: ambitious with a naive sense of the world. It was a time before reality seemed more clear, so you had all these ideas that you believed would enrich the world. Only difference here is that you actually went out there and made stuff. Like a grown citizen of society, but you weren't even old enough to vote. You are one focused dude, unlike me, and for that I...oh look a ladybug!

I know Mark well and we even worked together on Genevine for a bit. He's one of the brightest people I know. Seriously, he gets things done fast and understands business along with tech. They're mostly projects, he knows the distinction as shown below in a comment. It's great to build things and tinker. Eventually one of them makes sense to you, takes off a bit, a bigger vision presents itself, and you turn it into a startup. Some of the comments here gave him crap for his track record. That scares me because it might prevent people from building things. On the other hand, I think the entrepreneurship community needs to do a better job distinguishing from projects=> startups. Startups involve customers depending on you, peoples well being via salary/career as employees, possible investor's returns, and a lot of other serious responsibility. We need to emphasize the responsibility that comes with it. In closing though, keep in mind facebook started as a fun project. Zuck had built a ton of things by 19. Eventually there was a point where it turned into a startup. Maybe it's fair to say the turning point of when a project becomes a startup is when the livelihood of others depends upon said "project". Really curious to hear others' thoughts. (Sorry for long rant mode. I'm on my way to the airport on my iPhone. Will probably make some of this subject matter one of my first articles for 2011 after getting some comments here)

Really appreciate the kind words, Jason. Thanks :)

Some thoughts: one pretty important metric for determining whether it's a startup or not is ramen profitability. Not when the project owners' livelihood depends on the project, but when it can depend on the project if needed. However, the caveat is when it isn't profitable at all but still considered a startup (like when a lot of time and money is put in but it hasn't entered that stage), in which case the determination is more murky. Thoughts?

I upvoted you, but I'd simplify that point even further. I'd call it a startup when it has traction. Technically speaking Twitter has never been ramen profitable. However, their obvious traction and growth brought in tons of investment, enough to allay any monetary concerns.

Awesome.

One suggestion I have is to select either the first or third person and use the same voice for both the title and the article. I think its ok to write your own bio, but to show that you are writing and then appear to pretend that you are not is a bit annoying.

I don't mean to imply any actual pretense, of course, because there is nothing wrong with using the third person. I just don't think it works here as a literary device. Not that I am any expert.

And I'd consider the first person. You have achieved a lot and there's nothing wrong with saying so yourself.

Hey, thanks! I wrote that bio when I was 16 and just added on when I started something new, so it's basically like an exquisite corpse except by only one person (but just as much as a hodgepodge.) So it's a mess. But thank you for the suggestion. My new page is a lot better (though still very much in progress: http://cl.ly/2o0g3f3e2d1f022S3d2X)

and when I have a clue what I'm clicking on, I'll gladly check it out :-)

good luck.

Interested to know the detailed plans for the life goals (http://markbao.com/lifegoals), particularly this one:

$5+ billion net worth

Actually now $10 billion (not that it matters :p), but the big plan is to put 90% of that into medical/cancer research grants, life extension, political action, humanitarian action, space exploration, and other positive action, and 5% into startup investments

more here: http://iam.markbao.com/

edit: oh! detailed plan is to eventually put complete focus towards the main project, Avecora... what we're basically trying to do is build a new, integrated, but open communication platform for data (between applications, appliances, and users.)

I think the parent poster meant is - how would you achieve that, not how you would spend it :)

Ha, I love that part about it though. Maybe making the 10 million is already predestined in his head. The hard part now is figuring out how to spend it. Probably something Napoleon Hill would be proud of.

he's 18. bright, but 18.

When I was young, I wanted to become an astronaut.

and then?

Life.

The gravity of life.

When I was 17, all I wanted to do was get laid and play video games.

He posted that yesterday

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2051288

about his last app

Not to hate on Mark because I think he is likely a brilliant person, but I fail to see why it is intriguing that someone young started 11 startups.

Let's be honest, starting a company is not hard, anyone with $300 could file a C-corp in delaware. But how many people have actually built just one business with a few million in revenue, how many sold for even more? Sure starting a company is glorious, but I expected people on this board to value building a successful business more. =\

Mark, if you're reading this, any plans to stick around in one company for a while and build the next Baidu/Taobao/Youku in the US?

You're living a life that most of us could've only dreamed about... well, ok I speak for myself in that regard, but you're clearly doing awesome things! :) I can only say take a break every once in awhile and remember to play and do all the stupid stuff that you can get away with in your youth. Being irresponsible is frowned upon as an adult(and I mean that in your mid/late 20's and beyond). Ok enough grown-up talk - you're seriously awesome.

Although I am very much impressed by Mark's work, his dedication and particularly the way he is trying to be different from other teens in the same age group is really appreciable. But I am not inspired with his philosophy of 11 startups, my advice please start thinking big (I mean what is that threewords.me thing anyway), you can certainly do better things if you try to keep the larger picture in mind.

thank you very much! big is http://avecora.com - I've been told it's too big.

threewords.me was an MVP I built in three hours (two of them being design) that just randomly took off. never really meant it to be anything huge.

hey mark I'm glad you designed avecora front page now - explains very well what it does and I support it

I like that idea so much that actually I have been working on a social network doing just that. And it's gonna come out before 2013 :P Sorry :) Better hurry up!

Could someone tell me what MVP means? I see that term used everywhere on HN, but I don't know what it stands for.

Google for the below

site:news.ycombinator.com what does mvp stand for

MVP: Minimum Viable Product.

I'm 19 and got nothing more than a Google Summer of Code and some halfdecent apps. Makes me feel insecure :(

Yes, you've only had your work accepted to a program run by the company with some of the best software engineers on the planet, that rejects at least 98% of those who even apply.

What could you possibly do to surpass the kid who bought 11 domain names, some of which have apps attached to them?

No offense to Mark Bao, by the way. I greatly admire that he's put together so many projects and is trying to interact at an adult level. I was not enamored of being a businessperson at his age but I produced projects at about the same rate. However, I didn't know the value of what I was doing, and Bao does. He also knows how to market himself.

But I just get deeply angry when I see people discounting their own achievements in favor of people who've put a lot of effort into personal marketing.

Agreed 100%.

yuvipanda, seriously, the last thing I want to do is make other (young or old) people feel like they're inadequate... some of these that I used to call 'startups' are basically half-baked MVPs with marketing on top. Don't sell yourself short dude.

It sounds neat when you put it that way, but maybe I'm just a bit bitter about 'what it could have been'. Was writing apps (and producing stats/charts) 3 years back, and was rather productive. Then got sidetracked in 'college' (India) and tried to become 'normal' and 'fit in'. 2 years I could've spent better.

It did teach me I'm normal though, so not bad :)

Normal Teen angst. I'm over it, and back to doing stuff. Probably hacking on Chromium next, and writing an xkcd game now.

Firstly, congratulations. You're a very impressive person. I hope to see many great things from you in the future.

I second that, you should definitely apply for the Thiel Fellowship. At first i was skeptical of it, but now i understand. The entire program is structured for individuals such as yourself.

Ok, I know this is completely inappropriate, and i'm sorry about that, but i have to ask. Having founded 18 companies, sold more than a few of them, been featured in alot of very popular publications like techcrunch, mashable etc. Most startup founders won't achieve anywhere near what you have.

So my question is, are you rich yet? Rich being defined as a millionaire? (By that i don't mean valuation, i mean physical finances).

> Thiel

Applied :)

> Rich

Physical finances, nope. I wouldn't say so. Investing a lot of money into building some stuff (namely Avecora).

Excellent, I really admire such young prodigies and all. Points that come to my mind upon reading it, [x] The likes of Bill Gates,Steve jobs,Larry Page,Warren Buffett and all did like 1 startup. You can easily achieve 25 by age what 40. [x] I never saw any webpage created by them advertising there personality.

But again you are only 17.

...their personality.

That's nonsense. Each of those people had tons of smaller projects before they hit it big - they didn't just immediately know what was great and started working at it.

Seems like a pretty awful track record.

are you joking? how is building and releasing this many products ever a bad thing?

If you give up too quickly, and don't focus and create too many applciations?

Come on, he's only 17. Why do he needs to focus? He was just doing this for fun. As he grow, he'll have more the sense of business and the will to make money/create a company and will focus on one product.

Nevertheless, this will give him varied experience that will improve his choice and selection later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8G_aUxbbqWU

Written by 14 year olds. Several orders of magnitude more difficult than what mark has done. (A lot of asm, 3d code, matrix maths, fitting together pascal, c, asm in DOS, etc)

Sitting on your ass and playing games consoles would be a particularly bad track record from someone of Bao's age, yet many of his peers do it. He is one motivated kid, so don't knock him for it.

Sitting on your ass playing games consoles for someone Bao's age is perfectly fine! I understand your sentiment, but the startup world of "rush rush rush" really pains me. It does no harm to just bum about.

Great achievers tend to try and fail often

That's dedication.

Doesn't Mark Bao miss riding dirt bikes, chasing gals, playing baseball.

Who says he doesn't do all of that? And also, where riding dirt bikes and playing basketball is your idea of fun, his may be programming, running startups and doing bizdev.

I'd say that you can start companies at any stage of life. You can start a company age 50, and probably have far more chance at success based on your extra knowledge.

However, you can't really go to night clubs, chase girls, play dirt bikes etc age 50.

> you can't really go to night clubs, chase girls, play dirt bikes etc age 50.

I guess you're not older than, let's say, 25?

FWIW, I'm 32. I guess you can go chasing girls in night clubs when you're older, but it's way easier to do that stuff when you're young.

Similarly it's possible for people to wait until their 40s to have kids, but I'd say it's far easier to have them when you're young and have the energy.

I'd be interested in seeing a graph of difficulty of raising kids with age and income -- it probably depends on parenting style, but I think it would (will? maybe.) be easier for me to have kids at 40 with >$bignum than at 18 with $1k, assuming I'm in excellent health for my age (honestly, I'm healthier and more fit at 31 than I was ever before, and hopefully at 35 will be even more so -- not being into exercise early is probably my biggest regret).

Money is fairly irrelevant to raising kids IMHO

The key attributes are energy and time I think.

Can't money be used to create time, either by not needing to work, or by paying people to provide goods and perform services?

This is the correct answer. For example, when your stay at home wife is coming to the end of her rope, and you can decide on the spot to put your kid in a part time day home to give her some her-time, with no need to consider the cost, it makes life a lot easier. Ditto for so many other things in life.

Whether a person should have to do this is another discussion entirely. ;(

    However, you can't really go to night 
    clubs, chase girls, play dirt bikes etc 
    age 50.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt about the dirt bikes, but I know several people in their 40s who do those other things.

My uncle rides dirt bikes aged 54 and is the Scottish senior champ

I'm fairly sure you would 50 year olds that could do all of those.

Thanks for mibbit :)

Somehow I still manage to fit in time for everything. [x] going to nightclubs [x] chasing girls (though at this stage a big waste of time, seriously) [x] dirt bikes [x] video games ...

Thanks :)

Cool, as long as you can fit in all you want to achieve in life it's all good.

I spent a lot of my teens sat in front of a computer writing assembly language, and although infinitely enjoyable and useful to me now, I probably did miss out on some of the social aspects of being young (Not that I was particularly interested in those things at the time).

The other thing is I started roller skating when I was about 30. I really wish I'd started learning when I was 20 or 10. Some things are just a lot easier when you're younger.

may be you are a scary good programmer now I may guess?

Thanks, Mark. You have answered my question.:)

Richard Branson agrees completely, going to clubs, chasing girls, and dirt biking is too immature at 50. Girls chase him to go to his private island and do this:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/04/20/article-1171739-04...

I think Branson may not typify the average human ;)

wait somebody photoshoped the girl in right!

Considering that he has a business and therefore money, he's very likely to be able to do all these things and better than his peers.

Agreed, May be he is different

Great comment - besides spending time with my girlfriend, nothing makes me happier than bizdev and planning (even if it's for another company rather than my own)

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