19 Year Old Flees America and Skips College to Bootstrap a Startup in Bosnia | Hacker News Reader

19 Year Old Flees America and Skips College to Bootstrap a Startup in Bosnia

forbes.com

104 pointscamz77 comments

The start-up scene is, in a way, kind of sad.

The tech media and mainstream press routinely salivate over stories of 13... 15... 17... and 19 year old whiz kid entrepreneurs.

Yet there was a time when teenagers and young adults wrote software and tinkered with hardware, sharing their creations with friends and peers, on a journey of computing discovery.

There was a time when 'Demo Day' literally meant getting a group of friends together, travelling to a new city, and showing off your coding and artistic skills. The prizes were prestige and peer recognition. http://archive.assembly.org/1992

Now, kids and teenagers are being schooled to hustle and score big money. Where is the pure joy of discovery? Something has been lost.

EDIT: Just wanted to add, it's amazing what you can do in just 4kb (4096 byte executable, no external data files). This should inspire programmers of all ages.

2012 Fireflies: http://archive.assembly.org/2012/4k-intro/fireflies-by-blobt...

2009 Muon Baryon: http://archive.assembly.org/2009/4k-intro/muon-baryon-by-you...

You're making the mistake of: start-up scene = media coverage.

If you thought the real world = media coverage, you'd think there would be murders and robberies and assaults happening all around you every hour.

Sure, but kids and parents are not immune to the media's filter bubble. Young programmers might feel pressure to emulate celebrity wunderkids instead of following their own passions.

Then you should be directing your criticism at the media, not the startup scene.

Why not both?

The media are part of the hype machine but they aren't responsible for investing in companies like Summly, holding demo days, running weekend hackathons, acqui-hiring or bringing on board token celebrity investors... are they?

I just heard of Summly for the first time yesterday, it seems like their recent fame has come greatly as a result of the purchase by Yahoo!

But I can't judge as I haven't been closely following the story. Is there any general consensus on the funding as a good or bad idea?

For the record I really like their promo video. It shows off the product with a bit of witty comedy. I just couldn't find myself using it, and I don't know how it'll fit into Yahoo, but definitely a fun app.

Summly discussion over the past few days:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5442290

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5445159

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5449394

Are you criticizing the startup scene for its salivation over youth entrepreneurs? Or are you now shifting your criticism to things like acquihires and celebrity investors?

I find nothing wrong with hacakathons and acquihires, personally. As for celebrity investors, if a social media startup feels they need that kind of marketing / media attention, good for them.

His name is Emil Hajric. A few years back, when Joel Spolsky's "Business of Software" discussion forum was at its peak, he used whois records to find the phone numbers of some of the most frequent contributors and to call us personally.

I found this rather creepy.

Hey Steve,

I do remember those days...and I'm very sorry about the cold call. I figured it was worth at least a shot

Really sorry if I creeped you out there. I'm just a 20 year old kid, that's trying the best he can.

Zasto nisi ostao u Sarajevu?

Typically we comment on HN in English.

For the curious/lazy, the parent comment roughly translates from Bosnian into English: "Why didn't you stay in Sarajevo?" (Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia)

Thanks Daniel. This story has nothing to do with Bosnia anyway, because it is an US company and he is an US citizen. The fact that he is from Bosnia is just a coincidence and not a choice.

By the way: I think Internet Startups could be a great chance for this region, because of the independence from infrastructure. Ok, the mentality sucks when it comes to Entrepreneurship, but I see it more as an opportunity. I think that the US has enough companies. The Balkans deserve their own Internet- hub. dreamon :D

Congrats on the success! I'm actually contemplating moving to another country (albeit a more expensive, but wealthier, country) to target an under-served market. I'd love to hear more about how you found small business clients and pitched them on a web service because I will have to do the same.

Nowadays this is called "hustling" and would likely net him $millions in venture capital.

"Creepy"? How can it be "creepy" to make a business-related call to people whose names were publicized in a business context?

Creepy is showing up unannounced and unintroduced at the front door of an actor or actress you have a crush on. I understand that you may not like to be cold called, but it is not creepy - it's the way much of business is done.

I could be easily pm'ed via the forum. That would be a professional way to call me.

I neglected to mention that the phone call came late in the evening, and on a weekend I think.

Maybe this varies by area, but professional etiquette everywhere I've been is that you ask before taking an online conversation to the phone. If you're having a forum or email discussion with someone, it's not typical practice to look up their phone number and call them up. For example, I think it would be at least somewhat weird to call someone who posted a StackOverflow question or response, rather than responding to them on SO.

Especially if you used WhoIs information to get their number.

I don't disagree with you about professional etiquette, but to the extent that this is a forum about entrepreneurship, surely we might permit, or even encourage, not to mention applaud, a slight nudging of the boundaries?

Not in this respect, no.

> at least somewhat weird to call someone who posted a StackOverflow question or response

I think that's just straight-up weird

It depends a lot on the nature of the call (especially as in this case the forum maybe provided an obvious alternative method of initiating contact - but even then calls can sometimes be more appropriate).

I think people can be forgiven for misjudging their cold-calling timing and technique in their mid-teens too.

And grabbing the numbers from WHOIS itself simply shows initiative

Creepy or driven? Either way it's probably better than that email correspondence between a Gizmodo writer and that Nick D'Aloisio kid.

Thanks for the comment, Mladen! I hope you found the article somewhat interesting...

Heh, I've got him on linked in... always wondered who he was.

What's the big deal? People send unsolicited emails/tweets to other HN posters all the time. I'd like to think we're past the point where intermingling the "real world" (phone) with the "internet world" is deemed "creepy."

You find whois creepy?

I'm sad to read comment like this. I was always under impression that entrepreneurs will help each other and support each other. But I guess I'm wrong.

Very interesting and cool story. But that article was dreadfully written. Just because you're writing about a teenager doesn't mean you have to write like a teenager.

It suggests a lot about print journalism when an article in Forbes clearly hasn't received even basic proofreading, much less proper editorial vetting.

It's a cool story but my experience reading it was diminished by the grade school sentence structure and bizarre grammar and punctuation errors. Stray commas in Forbes! Seriously now.

This is not a Forbes article, it's from their knock-off "contributors" platform.

I think that effectively the contributors platform is Forbes now.

Unfortunately that doesn't pull the contributors up to the magazine's level as much as it pulls the magazine down to the contributors level.

Which also suggests a lot about modern journalism, print or otherwise.

Forbes.com/sites is a bunch of blogs with what seems to be minimal editorial oversight.

I guess a magazine brand probably isn't worth so much these days.

Agreed. There's a picture of him, and it says it's of him at demo day, but the article doesn't mention anything about Y Combinator. Very confusing.

It's Capital Factory's demo day.

Yep -- absolutely, right, Cody! Thanks for the comment; Hope you're doing well!

I caught that Capital Factory Demo Day. I have to say that I was intrigued by Helpjuice and was disappointed to see it just disappear. I'm glad to hear that I was wrong and things are growing well. Congrats.

If you find yourself back in Austin, drop me a note. I'll buy the first round of coffee to hear about how things are going. :)

Hi! Thanks for the comment, very happy to hear that.

I'll be in Austin in 2 weeks. There's no way I'm letting you buy a first round of coffee. Rakija's on me.

Would you mind emailing me at emil@helpjuice.com ? I'd love to connect with you.

Come on, it wasn't that bad. If anything, the writing was heartfelt. I rather liked it.

I'm not defending Forbes though. Like, eww.

> But, not all young entrepreneurs are like Nick D’Aloisio and Andrew Hsu. Some of these whipper snappers are the REAL deal.

This sounds very insulting to Nick and Andrew. I don't see any evidence that they're anything but earnest entrepreneurs. In the case of Nick, he succeeded (the reason is debatable), and as for Andrew, he simply hasn't succeeded (yet), but it's no reason to say he isn't genuinely trying. Older investors may be trying to take advantage of their youth, but it's not a discredit to these young people.

I can wholeheartedly agree to this, I probably should've done a better job communicating that. I meant it more as a pointed commentary at the older investors.

(Note, I will totally admit that it was written to gain attention)

I think to insinuate that Nick is not "the real deal" seems completely fair. Sure, he "succeeded", but he succeeded in the same way people who were born on third base and think they hit a triple think they succeeded.

I can't speak for Nick but I find it ridiculous that Andrew is catching flak for not having had commercial success (yet) when he, at 20, is a PhD dropout with 3 B.S. degrees earned at 16. He's obviously trying and is in a ridiculously good place to succeed, thanks very much to his own hard work and intellect.

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Is proofreading dead?

I'm just eager to see how long will it take him to fail in Bosnia (not because he's not capable but the Bosnian legislature is shit for anyone not doing illegal work, same goes for Serbia, Croatia and maybe even Kosovo.)

Thanks for the comment, it's very helpful for anyone looking to do business in Bosnia.

Doing business in Bosnia might not be as good as you mentioned.

However, the company is based in US, and I'm also a US citizen.

Yes that probably helps, since our countries suck to do any real business. (and don't make me quote, this is a known fact here).

I do hope you do very well, I just can't seem to get over the fact you had to go back to Balkans, sucks for you and your business but I do wish you all the best with your enterprise.

But don't take my comment to negatively either, if nothing food is great and people are full of humor! At least something to make you feel better ;)

I completely get your point, and Emil is a great role model for all (not just young) entrepreneurs faced with failure.

What I don't understand is all the animosity towards Nick D’Aloisio. What makes him not a "real" entrepreneur? Whatever the means, he still took a company from inception to acquisition, which fits any definition of entrepreneurship.

There are lessons we can learn from Emil, and also lessons that we can learn from Nick. They've both had valuable experiences that I'm sure many of us would love to hear about.

Thanks for the awesome comment. It's very thoughtful and I completely agree with you there.

Nick is one of the youngest people (if not the youngest) to ever raise venture capital, perhaps to also sell a company for that range aswell.

He's definitely someone we should look up to. I actually find it pretty amazing, what he did. :-)

Funny; all this time I thought the goal of entrepreneurship was to build a sustainable business.

That is one possible goal. That is not the goal for everyone.

Sustainability is a waste of time when your only goal is to cash out as big as you can with as little investment as possible.

You are mixing up "entrepreneur" with "wanting to create lasting value." A lot of what I see on HN is not the latter.

I think I would classify myself and most of my startup-knowledgable friends in the latter crowd.

Is that a particularly bad thing to not be motivated by large cashouts, and instead by creating a company with long-term value?

Not at all. In fact, I was insinuating that a lot of the start up crowd is motivated by the wrong reasons - money.

You can get rich by buying up real estate and charging rent. All you did is sign paper and make money. "Charging rent" isn't a service. "Allowing you to live in property I purchased." isn't really providing value either.

"Building a house and selling it to a family." <=== that's creating value.

The "19 yo did this and that" headlines are on the same plane as "single mom discovered one awesome trick" advertising.

It boggles the mind that people keep clicking on either. And yet, here we are.

<a href="http://www.helpjuice.com/ target="_blank">knowledge base software</a>

somewhere, an SEO just earned his wings

Emil- I am glad you're finding success, but please make sure you give back to Bosnia by keeping employees there or doing some community outreach. It would be unfair and kind of crummy to use the country and bail.

Not that I am accusing you of doing so, just hoping you keep in mind who was there for you in your time of need!

I was intrigued by the postscriptum:

> Edit: Please note, that I unfortunately used a photo that was unwise due to my lack of knowledge and understanding of Bosnian history! I removed the image out of respect and I apologize! Thanks!

I didn't see the photo, could someone explain?

I was informed that the photo was a serb soldier that made a hand sign that was politically inappropriate in front of a sign that said Sarajevo.

I initially meant it as just a photo of a guy in Sarajevo waving hello. So, I was ignorant of the sensitive nature behind the photo.

When I was informed of the issue, I took it down immediately out of respect and write the explanation.

Isn't 19 too old to be considered a "wunderkind," per the article title? It's hard to consider someone to be a child prodigy when they're legally an adult.

EDIT: Not criticizing the article, I'm just confused with the language.

True, he's not exactly a wunderkind (though he started "starting-up" in his early teens). But his backstory is more "bootstrappy" than some of the others. . .working-class family from Bosnia...started his successful company in Bosnia and returned to US. The wunderkind points he loses for being 19 are offset by the points for his more humble roots, I think.

One of the less literal definitions is "one who succeeds in a competitive or highly difficult field or profession at an early age"[0]

[0] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wunderkind

19 doesn't seem particularly young though. Even some people who explore post-secondary educations after high school will be out in the workforce by that age.

I don't mean this as snarkily as it's probably going to sound.

How old are you?

Old enough to have been 19 many years ago. Its young on the timescale of the human lifespan, certainly, but by 19 one has the opportunity to be already fully established in society and industry. You expect people to be working on amazing things by that time. Any greatness that may come from that work does not seem particularly unusual to me.

I am actually quite surprised that there has been such negative reaction to my comment. When does one age beyond the "wonder years" if not by 19?

That hardly seems relevant. I'm far older than most figure skaters, but I still feel quite confident in the fact that 19 is not a particularly young age for a woman to become a figure skating champion. In fact, doing it 10 years later would actually be more noteworthy.

Too young to be considered a wunderkind or a failure, I'd say.

Having personally spoken with Emil a number of times, and being a user of Helpjuice, I think Emil is going to turn it into a great SaaS company. Nice work man.

Happy to have awesome people like you that I can call users, Chris. I don't know what we'd do without folks like you.

Anyone who holds up Nick D’Aloisio and Andrew Hsu as examples of people who are not the real deal is going to look very very silly in a few years.

I think they will both probably be incredibly successful, the problem is they are poor role models for people hoping to make it on nothing but guts since their success came from money and connections rather than just hard work. Whether hard work was ALSO involved is another story, that is frankly irrelevant to the discussion.

Apps don't just assemble themselves out of family wealth. If they did, where are the apps from Qatar?

Being born in Bosnia this makes me proud. Go Emil! :-)

Thanks, Amir. Glad to be able to know someone like you :-)

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