Courtesy of World Economic Forum
Youtube is a free online video sharing service where anyone can publish, watch, and discuss shared videos uploaded by the community. Youtube has grown significantly since its initial launch back in 2005. Video has since taken over the internet as a primary form of media making Youtube a smash hit both from a users perspective and a money-making one. That’s why this week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Chad Hurley who created Youtube. We’ll look at just how he did it and highlight what lessons any upcoming entrepreneur can learn.
Summary:
Name: Chad Hurley
Age: 34
Location: Pennsylvania
Claim to fame: Youtube (Video website)
Initial cost: unknown
How He Did It:
Chad Hurley grew up in Pennsylvania where he graduated high school in 1995 and Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1999 with a BA in Fine Arts. Hurley started work upon graduation at the then new company called Paypal based out of California. He was responsible for creating the current Paypal company logo that we now all know. Paypal was bought out by eBay in 2002, which gave Hurley a bonus pay offering as an employee at the company. He would go onto use this bonus to fund his next job, which would be the popular video site known as Youtube. Hurley worked with two other engineers who he met up with at Paypal to design and launch Youtube to the public in 2005. In 2006, Google bought out Youtube for roughly $1.7 billion dollars landing each of the three creators including Chat with over $340 million. Hurley is currently the CEO of the Youtube site we have all come to love today based out of San Francisco, CA.
Lessons Learned:
- Simple ideas can often turn into great ideas when exposed to the masses (Hurley started the site as a simple solution to a problem among friends, which has since grown to what we know it as today.)
- You have to take action to see any type of results (Research is good, but there comes a point where action must be taken)
- Entrepreneurship is a process of trial and error (You have to do both in order to learn and grow)
- Working in teams can often balance out your weaknesses in other areas (You don’t have to go the road of entrepreneurship alone.)
- Good things take time. Remember to stay motivated and give your idea time to grow.
Did you miss last weeks spotlight? Check it out here: The Entrepreneur Spotlight: Niklas Zennstrom of Skype.
Be on the lookout for our next entrepreneur spotlight article in this ongoing series. In the meantime, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think about the success of this week’s entrepreneur. Also, please let me know if you have an entrepreneur you would like to see featured here in the weeks to come.
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