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19 Year Old Flees America and Skips College to Bootstrap a Startup in Bosnia
- DaniFong 14y agoAnyone 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.
- precisioncoder 14y agoI 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.
- DaniFong 14y agoApps don't just assemble themselves out of family wealth. If they did, where are the apps from Qatar?
- minimaxir 14y agoIsn'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.
- RougeFemme 14y agoTrue, 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.
- pc86 14y agoOne 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 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wunderkind
- randomdata 14y ago19 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.
- pc86 14y agoI don't mean this as snarkily as it's probably going to sound. How old are you?
- randomdata 14y agoOld 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?
- chc 14y agoThat 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.
- CamperBob2 14y agoToo young to be considered a wunderkind or a failure, I'd say.
- fatjokes 14y ago> 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.
- camz 14y agoI 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)
- ryguytilidie 14y agoI 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.
- awad 14y agoI 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.
- stevoski 14y agoHis 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.
- hajrice 14y agoHey 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.
- kenan_austria 14y agoZasto nisi ostao u Sarajevu?
- dmiladinov 14y agoTypically 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)
- kenan_austria 14y agoThanks 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
- joonix 14y agoCongrats 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.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- camz 14y agoThat would be my fault. I meant to say that Patio11 suggested that Emil should talk to his customers. Emil was more focused on building the product than communicating with his potential customers, which was why he faltered in Picopy. Unfortunately, that's something that is automatically done through the platform. I'm not used to it yet and I'm still trying to figure out how to turn it off.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 14y agoVery 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.
- peteforde 14y agoIt 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.
- citricsquid 14y agoThis is not a Forbes article, it's from their knock-off "contributors" platform.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoI 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.
- pavel_lishin 14y agoWhich also suggests a lot about modern journalism, print or otherwise.
- maxerickson 14y agoForbes.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.
- lgray 14y agoAgreed. 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.
- sdfjkl 14y agohref="/Users/camz/Desktop/airylabs.com" Is proofreading dead?
- rdavl 14y agoI'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.)
- hajrice 14y agoThanks 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.
- rdavl 14y agoYes 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 ;)
- lingben 14y ago<a href="http://www.helpjuice.com/ http://www.helpjuice.com/ target="_blank">knowledge base software</a> somewhere, an SEO just earned his wings
- bitcartel 14y agoThe 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 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-blobtrox http://archive.assembly.org/2012/4k-intro/fireflies-by-blobt... 2009 Muon Baryon: http://archive.assembly.org/2009/4k-intro/muon-baryon-by-youth-uprising http://archive.assembly.org/2009/4k-intro/muon-baryon-by-you...
- argonaut 14y agoYou'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.
- bitcartel 14y agoSure, 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.
- got2surf 14y agoI 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.
- hajrice 14y agoThanks 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. :-)
- brightghost 14y agoFunny; all this time I thought the goal of entrepreneurship was to build a sustainable business.
- argonaut 14y agoThat is one possible goal. That is not the goal for everyone.
- alttab 14y agoSustainability 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.
- jakerocheleau 14y agoI 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?
- DenisM 14y agoThe "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.
- amix 14y agoBeing born in Bosnia this makes me proud. Go Emil! :-)
- hajrice 14y agoThanks, Amir. Glad to be able to know someone like you :-)
- chexton 14y agoHaving 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.
- hajrice 14y agoHappy to have awesome people like you that I can call users, Chris. I don't know what we'd do without folks like you.
- norswap 14y agoI 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?
- camz 14y agoI 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.
- wambotron 14y agoEmil- 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!