17 year old Aussie entrepreneur Lachy Groom is on his 4th startup, that's right his 4th.
His startup is called iPad Case Finder, and it does exactly what is says on the tin, help you find the perfect iPad case. The site stocks a number of cases from multiple manufacturers to ensure that you get the best choice.
“Basically, I had an iPad and my friend smashed the screen (accidentally). And that weekend my dad told me I should start making some passive income. So I set it up in a few hours on a Sunday afternoon. From that I’ve been promoting it and adding features like crazy,” says Lachy.
So he just set up a site in a few hours one afternoon, great if you can do that isn't it?
He says he has been promoting like crazy and it seems to have been working, as after only a few weeks the site going live, Lachy saw the site receive over 400,000 hits.
Lachy wants to be more than just a provider of a product and wants to be able to offer all the details such as texture, colour, material and features to ensure that you find the perfect iPad case online. The in depth level of detail provided helps consumers know exactly what they are buying before hand and makes sure that there are no unwelcome surprises when your new iPad case is delivered to the door.
Lachy's other startup is Cardnap, a secondary market for gift cards. According to the Australian Consumers’ Association 1 in 3 gift cards in Australia where expiring before they were being used so Lachy set up Cardnap to ensure that people across Australia were not losing out.
“We initially launched this as a Cardpool like company for Australia, but it failed due to lack of profitability and how intense it was. So we looked at our options, and looked at the pains of these sorts of sites. We found it was impossible to find the best discount, or all the available cards easily. So we fixed that problem,” says the young entrepreneur.
At the age of 16 he saw that his company was in a market where there was a lot of competition and it was not profitable, but instead of giving up he instead looked at opportunities abroad. Remarkable! Yes at 16 he took his company international, at 15 he was already travelling the world on business trips. In fact on his 15th birthday he sold his first startup, an online design company, to a US firm.
So what is Lachy Groom's advice to other teen entrepreneurs?
“Network! I think the word teenage is irrelevant, and that advice is the same for any entrepreneur. I like the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” I think that’s really true. But if I was to give advice straight to teens, it would be to have a good work/life balance. Make sure you enjoy yourself, that’s all that matters.”
