The 16-Year-Old Internet Entrepreneur Who Dropped Out Of High School to Make $40 Million By

The 16-Year-Old Kid Who Dropped Out Of High School to Make $40 Million By 18

First Published: ADawnJournal.com Nov 4, 2008

What kind of courage do you need to tell your dad at the age of 16 that you are planning to quit high school? Moreover, wouldn‘t it be a lot harder if your dad is an immigrant from India who came to the U.S. with only $25 in order to pursue a better life through education and a traditional nine-to-five lifestyle?

Gurbaksh Chahal gathered that courage and asked his parents’ permission to quit school when he was 16. His dad was nice enough to patiently listen what he had to say, but still was not convinced. He asked this kid to show him some proof. He had no idea what this kid was doing in his room on the computer day and night. Once Gurbaksh showed his parents his bank account, their eyes were about to pop out in disbelief, and they thought their boy was going to jail. They started to panic. Who wouldn’t? Especially an Indian parent, to whom saving $100,000 cash would be unimaginable over a lifetime. And here this 16-year-old kid is sitting on that kind of cash.

Gurbaksh assured them that this was not stolen money and he made it from his Internet entrepreneurship. His dad eventually calmed down after listening to his explanation and gave him a one year break from going to school. Gurbaksh was 16 at that time. Guess what happened after one year? His Internet venture went so well that he was able to make $40 million in two years. So here is this 18-year-old kid who made $40 by selling his first online company ClickAgents for $40 million. Gurbaksh, or G, is now 26 years of age and last year he sold his second company BlueLithium to Yahoo for $300 million. G’s current project is gWallet – a site that allows users to find great deals.

G will be featured on the new TV show The Secret Millionaire, due out in December 2008. He has also appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, FOX Business Network, The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Entrepreneur magazine, and many more. G is currently venturing into a few other TV shows.

G’s recently published book The Dream advises entrepreneurs to dream big, embrace risks, and go after new niches. According to Chahal, failure is not an option. I had a glance at The Dream and I liked it after reading the first few pages. I hope to review it for ADJ readers in the future. The success story of G shows us how you can overcome any barriers and succeed. All you need is a dream, perseverance, and a belief in yourself.

Read Gurbaksh Chahal’s blog:

Gurbaksh Chahal

Why Go For Outsourcing?

Outsourcing Can Benefit Your business

Outsourcing has grown in popularity in the last couple of years. For a long time, it was something that was the sole preserve of companies who had specific funds for paying outside contractors to do things that were outside their skill sets – for example if a company specialized in one field, such as sales and marketing, they would outsource things such as cleaning and IT solutions. However, among other things, the Internet has now made it more possible than ever to run a business from your home as an individual. In addition, with all business people aware of the old maxim, “time is money”, there are more and more things that the individual has found can be best addressed by outsourcing.

Outsourcing itself covers a very broad range of services that are best divided into two sections: Business and Non-Business needs. The difference between the two sections is more or less self-explanatory. Suffice it to say that Business needs are things connected specifically with the service that you, the business owner, requires in order to keep the business running – these include such things as web design, accounts and sourcing required items and services. Non-Business needs are more connected with personal or household tasks that take time that could be used to deliver what is required from you by your customers. This includes things such as cleaning and other essential chores.

There are very few tasks that cannot be outsourced in this day and age. As a business owner, it is for you to decide whether outsourcing is something that you wish to practice. In order to make this decision it is worth auditing what your daily routine involves, where you can make changes and where you wish to make them. If you feel that you are best served by having all your time free to concentrate on delivering what is required of your business, the chances are that you would be best outsourcing as much as you feel comfortable with. You probably do not much enjoy cleaning and tidying, for example. And depending on your arrangements you can end up spending a couple of hours a week at the task, which in turn can lead to lost opportunities to build and serve a customer base. Therefore, you should then ask yourself whether that task is a productive use of your time. If the answer is “no”, then you can look to outsource your cleaning to a specialist.

Business needs are, if anything, more crucial. If your specialist area is – taking an example – accountancy, then there is every chance that you are not the world’s best web designer. Nevertheless, an attractive, easily navigable website with user-friendly interface is more or less essential for an individual businessperson. In this case, handing over the task of designing a website makes all the sense in the world. It won’t come cheap if you are using a top designer, but if you cost the process based on how much business a good website will send your way (generally a very large amount), then it can pay for itself several times over.

Work at Home Trend Is On The Rise, Even Among Non-Entrepreneurs

Employees Are Catching Up With Entrepreneurs On Working At Home

First Published: May 21, 2012 EntrepreneurJourney.com

In the past, it was thought that working at home was a luxury that could only be afforded by entrepreneurs. However, in the post-industrial economy, a greater numbers of paid employees are choosing to work at home. Due to the availability of technology and the increasing popularity of working at home, more employers are offering the option to work at home than ever before. 

I was looking for some stats to illustrate this trend. The most reliable I was able to find is a publication by Stats Canada made available in 2010. Let’s look at some numbers: 

Self-employed people working at home in 2000 = 1.4 million

Self-employed people working at home in 2008 = 1.8 million

Percentage of the workforce working at home in 2008 = 11.2% 

Percentage of people who are working at home and employees = 48% 

Percentage of people who are working at home and entrepreneurs = 52% 

More university graduates (22%) are working at home than high school graduates (7%). 

More male employees (29%) worked at home than female professionals (19%). 

More self-employed females (67%) are likely to work at home than males (56%). 

City employees are more likely to work at home than those who live outside a city. 

Now, if you are an entrepreneur and already working from home, you are well aware of the advantages of working at home. If you are an employee and would like to work from home, talk to your manager or HR dept. regarding work at home opportunities provided by your company. If you would like to search for work from home jobs, enter these keywords in your search queries: “work at home”, “part time”, “work from home”, and so on. 

What Is E-Commerce?

E-Commerce or Electronic Commerce

First Published: Nov 27, 2011 EntrepreneurJourney.com

E-commerce refers to commercial transaction or economic activity that took place on the Internet. E-commerce can be interchanged with the term e-business. It simply means the buying and selling of goods and services online, instead of doing business at a physical location.

Why E-Commerce

The main reason is that, unlike a physical store, e-commerce knows no boundaries of time and distance. An entrepreneur can run an online store from a remote island in the South Pacific and a buyer can purchase products or services from a world-class city like Toronto 24 hours a day - crossing the global boundaries and time restriction. 

E-commerce offers other advantages such as: 

- Easy to start up a new business
- Often requires a lot lower capital than a physical business
- The convenience it offers for buyers and sellers
- Ability to offer cheaper prices than physical business due to its lower operational cost

Is My Success Guaranteed If I Start E-Commerce? 

Like any business, e-commerce has its ups and downs, and it not guarantee that your business will not fail. Before starting an online business (or any kind of business), always do your research. Your success or failure will largely depend on what type of services and products you are offering and how efficiently you can serve your customers at reasonable prices. 

How Secure is E-Commerce

In the past, security was an issue while commencing e-commerce. However, technology has solved that problem by creating SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypted secure transactions. Also, most credit card companies are guaranteeing that online shoppers will not be responsible in case of fraudulent charges. 

What Does The Future Hold for E-Commerce? 

E-commerce has revolutionized the 21st century and yet this is just the beginning. The rise of mobile e-commerce (e-commerce from smart phones) is still a newer concept and will increase at a steady pace in the next few years. However, due to market saturation and fierce competition, the key to survival will be to offer innovative products and exceptional customer service skills at rock-bottom prices.

How to Incorporate a Business in Canada

Steps to Starting or Setting up a Corporation

First Published: Jun 13, 2011 EntrepreneurJourney.com

n Canada, setting up a corporation or incorporating a business is a straightforward process. Depending on the nature of your business and how accurately you file required documents, it is possible to start your new corporation within 1 – 2 business days if you submit your documents online. For example, my own federally incorporated business entity A Dawn Dot Net Corp. was approved in slightly more than 24 hours. Today, I am going to discuss how you can start a corporation in Canada in simple words.

Although there are many small steps involved incorporating a business, at the end it comes down to these three major steps you need to complete to start a corporation in Canada.

 Pick a Name – You need to decide on a name and even before that you need to know whether your corporation is going to be a federally or provincially incorporated corporation. A federally incorporated business can do business anywhere in Canada. A provincially incorporated business will have to be physically in the province where it was incorporated. Once you know what you would like your corporation to be called, you will have to search for your name availability using the NUANS (Newly Upgraded Automated Name Search) and obtain a NUANS name search report.

 Complete Articles of Incorporation – These are the documents that you file with the authority setting out to provide the legal structure of the corporation – in other words, Articles of Incorporation describe a corporation's purpose, rules, and regulations. For example, how many directors there will be. Where the registered office will be located. Where the remaining property goes if corporation winds up. What classes and how many shares the corporation can issue. Can these shares be transferred or should there be restrictions so the corporation remains private? And so on. Articles of Incorporation are what make each corporation unique. Articles of Incorporation are also known as Certificates of Incorporation.

 Submit Documents and Payment – The last step is to submit the documents mentioned above and any other necessary documents along with the payment to Corporation Canada or provincial authority.

Last Word

Although it is possible and may not be difficult to do everything by yourself online, I recommend you seek the expertise and assistance of a qualified professional. While setting up my corporation, I noticed that it would have been difficult for me to fill up some of the forms and submit everything online fast like the way my accountant was able to do. There are so many rules and regulations that I could not have been possibly known, had my accountant not mentioned those to me.