I’ve been overwhelmed with the quality of applicants for the Underground® 5 Scholarship Challenge for young entrepreneurs aged 13-21. Applicants came from around the world and just 6 points separated the top 10 and only 11 points separated top 20 so it was really, really close. Each of the winners will be my special guest during Underground® 5 and get the ultimate young entrepreneurs experience there including a special VIP lunch with speakers and Maverick Business Adventures® members. In fact, I just got confirmation this morning that Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com, will be attending this luncheon also.

Here is a quick blurb on each of the winners (if you are coming to Underground® 5 please say ‘hi’ to them):

Albert Steven, 21
A native of Indonesia, Albert Steven always had the desire from his early childhood to “do something more”. While his mother consistently reminded him that he must make his own way, she also encouraged him to take the ’safer’ path. Albert finally relented and enrolled in college. With nothing in the bank aside from his tuition money, he decided to take a huge risk and invest part of it to launch his business. His risk paid off as now his company has grown to 17 outsourced employees and grosses in the low to mid five figures per month. Albert is still continuing his studies as he runs his business part time.

Tyler Lamphere, 20
Tyler Lamphere believes he bleeds entrepreneurship. Both his father and grandfather were entrepreneurial from their teen years. Tyler has found a lot of inspiration from his father who built a successful construction company in his early 20’s. While Tyler dabbles in all kinds of internet marketing related businesses but his claim to fame is knowing the ins and outs of domain flipping. He states that in some cases he has been able to earn profits that exceed 3,000% of a tiny investment after just a week of ownership and for all who attend Underground 5 Online Seminar he will share his tricks of the trade.

Marshall Haas, 19
Marshall Haas loves fast things especially motorcycles. So it is no surprise that after reading Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week he would immediately start implementing a few of the strategies he learned to get his work done faster so that he could enjoy his motorcycle just a little more. Marshall thought of an idea of creating a company that actually integrated outsourcing into the business model. Today his company, inVision Projects, provides architectural renderings for architectural firms, home builders, developers and designers. His company outsources all of the work overseas, resulting in tremendous savings in both time and money for all parties involved in the transation.

Chris Allen, 21
A few years ago Chris Allen went backpacking alone across the USA and met a range of varied and wonderful people. He returned home inspired and motivated but his parents quickly brought him back to the real world as they proceeded to kick him out on the streets with nothing to his name. Doing what he had to do, Chris worked odd jobs to pay the bills and enrolled in college. Then one day he was approached by a former client. That conversation led to the creation of Networkology which provides live online speed networking for businesses worldwide. The software is unique and Chris has written more than 100,000 lines of code to make his dream a reality while he continues to pursue his college studies in BioTechnology.

Patricio Quezada, 17
Patricio Quezada stated that he has changed his business idea 4 times since he formally became an entrepreneur. He said that it wasn’t because they didn’t work but because he had to align his values within himself to successfully enjoy what he is doing. His belief is that this is the key to entrepreneurial success. Patricio’s company provides bilingual technology training to the Hispanic community. He got inspired to start this business because his Spanish speaking neighbors often sought him out for help. When he realized there was little technology support available for the Hispanic community he decided to come out with a line of workshops and programs that were bilingual. He is currently writing a bilingual computer training handbook that will be released in March 2009.

Asantewa Disroe, 14
Asantewa said that her greatest challenge was that older people tend to think that because she is young she does not know what she wants in life. Instead of giving her advice which she listens to and REALLY want they tend to try to tell her what to do. So in an effort to help herself and others she started a fun friendly teen networking site for girls that provides an open platform where they can discuss issues like malicious gossiping, teen pregnancy, sexual predators and family issues. Asantewa also has a line of branded clothing and accessories and hopes that the Underground 5 Online Seminar will help her think of ideas to expand her line of teen empowerment programs.

Danielle Renae Herb, 15
After experiencing an unexpected family tragedy when she was 14 years old Danielle Herb states that she completely understands what it means to live life as there will be no tomorrow. This rally cry is the motivation behind her company which teaches character self-esteem and overcoming fear to children and adults through natural horsemanship and equine assisted learning. Danielle also owns a private school with her mom called “The School Without Walls” where she teaches 5 days a week and does case studies on students who are profiled as ADD/ADHD. She is working on developing a host of programs for them using her natural horsemanship programs. Aside from running her business and teaching, she also cares for and feeds her 9 horses daily.

David Leggett, 20
David Leggett made an extremely powerful statement when he answered the legacy question. He said that he doesn’t want the world to remember him because he is not that important. What he is doing is important and what he is doing is trying to save children who are stuck in terrible situations. David runs a company were he is an independent publisher who sells ad space. His sites see up to 2 million page views per day. And in less than 6 months one of his sites has become one of the largest Photoshop sites online.

Avais Charania, 18
Avais understands what it means to take risks with money being that he started trading stocks when he was just 13 years old. He has dabbled in a few online ventures from eBay to online liquidation of wholesale products but his current business is a network of websites which allows users to convert videos to mp3 format. Avais has a couple of sites that are getting about 50,000 daily visitors and generating some nice little pocket cash while he is pursuing his studies at Penn State.

Radu A., 16 (Pending)
Radu is in the process of getting his company off the ground although he is currently generating 4 figures a month from what he calls ‘personal experiments’. He has learned to earn profits from buying and selling websites and affiliate marketing but he realizes there is so much more to learn. He seeks friendship and inspiration from all across the globe as he comes from a country where barely 5% of the population is connected to the Internet.

I’m incredibly excited to see what happens with this first “batch” of young entrepreneurs exposed to some of the world’s top online marketers. Hopefully one of these winners will be the next Internet Titan and look back on this as a pivotal breakthrough.

Will This Be Your Breakthrough Too?

Quite frankly, that’s the case of many attendees when the come ready to apply what they hear. In fact, I just got a note back from an attendee from 2 years ago who is now doing over $2.8M in his first full year jump-started by information and people he met at Underground®. (As of right now I cannot disclose too much more about the product but it’s in the beauty industry and nothing to do with making money on the Internet.) If are considering coming to the Underground® 5 – the final deadline is February 10, 2009. Hope to see you there.

BTW – I just got back from Baja a few days ago with the Maverick Business Adventures® group and will have some updates (pics/videos) for you shortly.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 9:55 am and is filed under Philanthropy, Start-up. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.