America's Best Young Entrepreneurs 2007

Most finalists are banking on the Web, but some have broken into more traditional sectors such as publishing, manufacturing, and investment banking

by Nick Leiber

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The credit crunch (BusinessWeek.com, 10/11/2007) notwithstanding, it's a heady time for young entrepreneurs starting new businesses in the U.S. The Web, a constant in most young Americans' lives, makes it cheaper than ever to get going, there's plenty of encouragement in the form of twentysomething role models such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and a wide array of entrepreneurship programs (BusinessWeek.com, 10/30/06) are available across the country. Plus, running your own business is considered cooler than ever.

"Millenials in particular want to be able to control their own destinies, and entrepreneurship allows them to do this," says David Galbinski, the chairman-elect of Entrepreneurs' Organization, a 6,600-member networking group for business owners whose businesses' yearly revenues exceed $1 million. The number of EO members in the 18-to-35-year-old age group has more than tripled since 2001, to 3,356, and Galbinski expects entrepreneurship to become increasingly attractive to young people.

That's also the consensus among this year's crop of finalists in our third annual BusinessWeek contest to discover America's most promising young entrepreneurs. This summer, we asked readers to nominate candidates age 25 and under who were running their own companies. Our goal was to find businesses that show potential for growth and establish the talent of the savvy young people behind them.

Immigrant Offspring Aim High

When the call for nominations ended earlier this fall, our editors and reporters sifted through the impressive talent pool and narrowed the selection down to 25 finalists.

We also reached out to last year's finalists to see where they are now and how far each has come over the past year.

Although it's no surprise that most of this year's finalists are building businesses around the Web, a sprinkling has broken into more traditional sectors such as publishing, manufacturing, and investment banking. Bryan Sims, 24, dropped out of college and devoted his energy to developing his startup, Brass Media, into a profitable enterprise after he learned his parents had to file for bankruptcy. Today his company delivers its quarterly print magazine (its mission is to make money relevant to young people) to about 450,000 readers, and Sims says it has been in the black since the beginning of 2006.

Shawn Liu, 25, is the son of Taiwanese immigrants. He watched his father ditch his job at to start an ink business out of the garage. Liu spent two years working at the Federal Reserve before starting a custom shirtmaking business, which he estimates will have revenues of $1.2 million by 2009.

More Women-Owned Businesses

Both 24, Francesco DeParis and Kyle Redinger co-founded a boutique investment bank that specializes in mergers-and-acquisitions advice for small tech firms. Redinger says the business has found a niche advising $10 million to $20 million deals that traditional Wall Street firms wouldn't normally touch.

Then there are the Web-based ventures. The challenge of getting a restaurant reservation at the last minute was the impetus for Gabriel Erbst, 24, the co-founder of TableXChange, to start his online marketplace for restaurant reservations. The business takes a 12% cut of each transaction and is gaining popularity, though it got its share of criticism from bloggers and local foodies when it launched in June.