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this podcast is brought to you by
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knowledge at Warton please visit
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knowledge. won. up.edu for more
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information 18 and entrepreneurial that
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is fast becoming the million-dollar
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mission of teens around the globe
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starting a business is thrilling
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impressive and profitable which makes it
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all the more enticing to Young business
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owner wannabes two out of three
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teenagers who completed a recent Jun
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achievement poll said they hope to start
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their own business one day beyond a
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get-rich quick attitude entrepreneurship
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has become a mindset for the 21st
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century companies large and small crave
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job candidates with entrepreneurial
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skills such as creativity and passion
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Boris M silver a sophomore Wharton
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believes wholeheartedly in the power of
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Entrepreneurship hooked on the internet
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from a young age he now runs his own
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sports media business called Sports
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interactiva that is focused on Facebook
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knowledge at Wharton High School asked
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Boris about his entrepreneurial
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Endeavors as well as how he sees
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entrepreneurship changing his life and
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the lives of others Boris welcome to
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knowledge of Wharton podcast hey first
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can you tell us about your own
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experiences as an entrepreneur what
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businesses have you started and how did
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you first get interested in this so I
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just was always in into just being
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active in the community so when I was a
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little kid I did a lot of really basic
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stuff like I shoveled snow in
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Connecticut and I red leaves for people
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and soon I realized there's a lot of
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houses so I started getting my friends
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to work for me and I would basically
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subcontract out the houses I couldn't do
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to my friends so then we started doing
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smaller parts of the neighborhood and we
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expanded and eventually I I'd be able to
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get a bunch of houses done and make more
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money because I was able to essentially
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hire people so I learned from a young
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age is just it helps to kind of work
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with other people and grow so that was
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always fun for me and that's kind of
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what I did when I was younger and then
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came around Yahoo auctions and eBay
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which was at the start of the internet
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and I said this auction stuff's kind of
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cool so I started buying up items
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selling them back at different sites and
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making profit there and then I started
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getting more money so I could buy more
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bulk and basically economies of scale
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kicked in so what kind of items would
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you buy so I I really like The Fad hype
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items things like Pokemon cards Beanie
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Babies PlayStations PlayStation 2s all
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those kind of items that you could
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easily look ahead of time just by
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reading the newspaper or just looking
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online and knowing wow this probably
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going to be like a big deal so I'd be
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able to buy buy some of those things in
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bulk and then and sell them for decent
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profits when I was 11 or so so that was
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a lot of fun and then I got more into
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web design and Graphics part of that was
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I got into high school and I enrolled in
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the graphics program which was in the
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technology department so I got a lot
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more experience doing graphic design and
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I had played around with web design and
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coding and um building websites on my
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own so I started building websites for
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people and um working for some record
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labels and I worked with a friend of
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mine who I met in graphics and we just
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started making these sites for musicians
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and bands and this was actually the
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start of my space so we got really good
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at making these promotional Pages for
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artists to reach out to new fans all
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across the world so that was kind of the
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start of my exposure to social
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networking your experiences with
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Facebook led to sport interactiva right
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right so can you talk a little bit about
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that in terms of Facebook I was just a
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user in the sense that I use it all the
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time to stay in touch with my friends
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and I loved it everybody I know uses
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Facebook everybody in high school wanted
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to be on Facebook before they opened it
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up and now literally everybody in
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college that I know has it so in the
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back of my mind I just knew this is the
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internet in a sense for a lot of people
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in college they actually have the
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stickiest website on the internet so
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they have 60 million users now and 50%
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of those people log in every day so on
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any given day you'll have 30 million
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people logging into Facebook as of today
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so a year from now the number is
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probably going to be through the roof
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and I just knew there's a lot to be had
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here and when they came out with the
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platform which is essentially a
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third-party tool which allows other
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companies to come in and create software
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for users on Facebook I just realized
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wow I can reach 60 million people with
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anything I make so I also happen to be a
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big Sports Enthusiast and my whole
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theory behind building companies is the
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way Peter Lynch invests in stocks you do
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what you know so for example he'll
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always go to a restaurant before he
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invests in any restaurant company and
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just get a sense for the atmosphere and
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it's really to familiarize yourself with
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the market and the product so I know
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Facebook I know Sports and Fantasy games
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cuz I play them with my friends since I
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I was probably 13 so I decided I'm going
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to make Sports on Facebook and that was
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that was the launch of the company that
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what does it actually what does the
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company do we
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provide Sports gaming and sports content
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on Facebook if you look at any major
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site like ESPN or Yahoo sports CBS
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Sports it really falls down to two
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things there's Sports content which is
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going to be things like news articles
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videos photos message boards Etc where
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the fans are really interacting around
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sports-based content and then the second
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side is going to be Sports
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gaming that's where people compete
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head-to-head in leagues against their
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friends or people they may have met in
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different formats of sports games where
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they get points based on their ability
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to predict real life player performance
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or how teams are going to do and that's
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about a$3 billion doll industry in the
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us alone so how do you make money so we
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make money through a variety of ways
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primarily advertising merchandising and
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ticketing sales those are really the
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biggest things in sports and they're
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pretty easy to sell because people are
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really passionate about things like
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sports what about starting these
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businesses and startup Capital um how
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did you end up getting that did one just
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generate the next or how did it work so
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part of it as being young entrepreneur
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it's being able to find these smaller
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opportunities in a sense that have
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potential to be larger so part of
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capital was probably stuff that I made
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along the way in high school but a lot
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of it was really being able to start out
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small scale and um working with someone
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to help me build out our first product
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for very little and being able to launch
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it and as it kind of grew it sort of
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snowballs in itself and I like to
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operate on the idea of Leverage so once
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you can get a little bit of success you
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have to be able to leverage that into
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the next step and you have to keep going
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and building and building so it's really
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better to start out small and not invest
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a lot because it gives you the
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opportunity to fail a lot easier and
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move on to the next thing so about how
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many hours do you spend on this and how
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does that work in with your with your
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education here the studies ands and all
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that in the summer when this first came
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out
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I just got flooded with emails the first
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three weeks asking me to put up more
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teams and more Sports so I started
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adding things like NASCAR and
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competitive food eating and rugby and
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literally all the sports in the world to
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aggregate all that Sports content all
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the logos and information and videos and
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photos into our application on Facebook
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and that was the first three weeks and I
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probably slept maybe four hours a day um
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those three weeks so that was a lot of
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work but it was fun I it was really
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exciting in the beginning times now with
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school it's definitely a bit more
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balance I still probably overall put in
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about 40 hours a week on it and that
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probably includes stuff like reading
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news which I spent about two hours a day
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flat beginning of my day doing so it
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it's harder to balance with school but I
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think it's definitely
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doable can you talk a little bit about
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the the entrepreneurial intern
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Fellowship sure and how that led into
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What You Did Last Summer Okay so last
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year I saw an advertisement from war and
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entrepreneurial programs to apply for
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people who are planning to work in
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entrepreneurial settings in the summer
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and I thought that would be really cool
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so I had gotten an internship with a
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Wharton student who had also started a
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company and the company was called MBI
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dealt with mobile devices and mobile
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Commerce so I decided to work there in
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the summer I got the internship which
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really in a sense gave me this framework
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to in a sense reflect on my summer and
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put it into a more serious framework and
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more serious perspective where I kind of
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really had to think about what I'm going
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through and at the end of the summer I
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wrote a reflecting piece where I really
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just went through and thought back on
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the amazing summer
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had did it change the way you look at
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entrepreneurship at all that
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experience I I think I think in a
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certain degree everything you do is
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going to change how you look at things
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it's all about experience so the more
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things you can experience in life the
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more information you have the better
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decisions you can make so working at MBI
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was great I got to learn a lot more
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about the process at a very early stage
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company and there was another company
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right next door invite media they shared
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office space so I really got to watch
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two companies grow I got to really
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experience a lot of things and it was a
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pretty fast-paced environment there was
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definitely a lot of responsibility and
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just watching how a company progresses
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through critical stages in early things
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like possibly working with investors or
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creating strategic Partnerships or
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building up a team and management issues
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those are all the kinds of things I got
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to essentially see and WI and use in my
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own company it sounds like you've been
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managing people since you were 11 do you
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have employees you have other people
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working for you now with this Venture so
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right now I have a partner and I like to
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think that we're working together
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because we're both Equity holders and we
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have really the same vision so we work
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pretty closely together and there's a
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couple of part-time people who will
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bring in higher on more of a Consulting
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basis to help us get certain things done
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so in a sense I like to I probably like
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to work more with people laterally
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horizontally then I like to establish
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these vertical
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managerial well let's wrap up with
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question we always ask entrepreneurs
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what advice do you have for people who
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are who want to start out either in high
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school or college with with a
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entrepreneurial
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Adventure so I think the key is working
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at small companies I think in High
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School especially if you're not
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necessarily ready to take any sort of
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step to starting your own thing or you
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just don't really know what to start
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work at small companies you'll get a ton
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of experience and you really get to
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literally interact with people who run
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the business especially in local
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communities there's a lot of these small
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businesses and just looking outside of
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your own network or going to talk to
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people you can really find certain
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things that people will need and part of
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it might be kind of grunt work just
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filing things or getting things moved
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and stuff but if it's a small enough
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company they're definitely going to be
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opportunities where you can step up and
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take on responsibility and at the end of
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the day that's what really allows you to
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learn having real responsibility at a
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young age so the biggest thing I think
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for me was being able to work at small
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businesses and small companies from a
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young age um in addition to that really
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being relentless in and who you talk to
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um when you're young you can really talk
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to anybody and I think a lot of people
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are intimidated to step up and just send
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blanket emails to random people I tried
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to ask Donald Trump for a college
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recommendation it it didn't work too
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well but I just think taking those kinds
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of steps if you do it enough times
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you'll eventually hit with someone who
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you might want to talk to and they'll
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probably be able to give you great
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advice well someday Donald Trump will be
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tring trying to get you to return his
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cost that's right thanks for yeah thank
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you thank
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you for more information please visit
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knowledge. won. up.edu
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