Alright, Alicia Shaffer isn’t technically making a million, but she’s pretty darn close. This mother of three earns $960,000 a year from her Etsy shop, ThreeBirdNest. What began as a hobby to supplement her boutique blossomed into a full-time career; her success can be attributed to hard work and social media marketing savvy. ThreeBirdNest specializes in breezy boho clothing and accessories made with her fifteen-strong team of moms in California.
(photo via @ThreeBirdNest)
At fifteen years old, Nick D’Aloisio created Summly, a smartphone news aggregate; by seventeen, he sold his product to Yahoo for $30 million and was hired to work for their mobile engineering department. D’Aloisio also spearheaded the release of Yahoo’s award-winning Yahoo News Digest app, which was heavily influenced by Summly. This teenage multimillionaire has already been named the 2013 “Innovator of the Year” and appeared in Forbes’ “30 Under 30”. What did you do in your teens?
(photo via Official Leweb Photos, CC)
The true identity behind DisneyCollectorBR, a Youtube user known for toy unboxing videos, is a mystery. We know two things: she is probably Brazilian, and she earned 4.8 million last year…all from opening and reviewing new toys. These days, people can make enough money from Youtube ad revenue and sponsorships to quit their day job. Can they say their videos made more than Taylor Swift’s? Probably not.
(photo via Loren Javier, CC)
Back in the days of Myspace, a 14-year-old Ashley Qualls spent 8 bucks on a domain to host her HTML layouts. Qualls created Whateverlife.com in 2004, and after only three months, she was raking in $10,000 a paycheck. As a teen millionaire, she didn’t splurge her millions away. Her big purchase consisted of $250,000 home for her family; Qualls, her mother, and her sister had been living in a one-bedroom apartment. She left high school to focus full-time on her company, and although Whateverlife.com closed in 2013, Qualls is still working in web design and social media marketing.
(photo via Jim Whimpey, CC)
Who ever thought you could be a Bitcoin millionaire? If you’re one of the skeptics, listen to this guy’s story. Christopher Koch bought into Bitcoin before the hype, spending $27 on 5,000 Bitcoins out of pure curiosity. In 2013, his little investment blew up to $1,010,000. According to the March 2015 exchange rate, his fortune has grown to $1,244,800.
(photo via Stern)
Cha Kil-Yong is a math teacher in South Korea. He also made 8 million dollars (in USD) last year. Cha makes a living as an online cram school instructor at SevenEdu, recording lessons dressed in silly hats or using fun props to make his math lessons more engaging. What makes this industry so lucrative? There is a strong culture of education in South Korea, one that places an emphasis on admittance into the best universities. In order to reach that goal, students often attend afterschool lessons at these cram schools, where they prepare themselves for a rigorous entrance exam.
(photo via Star Daily News)
It can be hard for aspiring writers to get their big break. Writers send their work away to publishers, often receiving rejection after rejection. Best-selling author Amanda Hocking was one of many amateur authors to be published the old fashioned way. She took her paranormal stories to the internet, where she self-published her work as ebooks. Hocking’s novels were met with wild success after a few months, and she’s made $2 million from sales.
(photos via Amazon)
Jason Sadler earned a fortune by simply wearing clothes. No joke. Sadler founded IWearYourShirt.com in 2009 as a promotional service. Here’s how it worked: he started off by charging a dollar to wear a corporate shirt on January 1st, then two dollars on the 2nd, and the price would increase based on the day of the year. His first year of t-shirt marketing earned him $83,000, and his profits have only increased since then. Like a true entrepreneur, Sadler moved on from IWearYourShirt to a new project: Jason Does Stuff.
(photo via Andrew McCluskey, CC)
