Born into a family of entrepreneurs, the guy seems to have absorbed the business flair with his mother's milk. He earned his first money by selling vegetables to neighbours. At the age of 9 Cameron established a small home print shop: he printed invitation cards and sold them to his own parents who would often throw parties. A little later, he got orders for manufacturing cards for his friends and parents' colleagues. Cameron called his first company «Cheers and Tears». By the time he was 11, Cameron had several thousand dollars in his bank account.
Then Cameron was selling some toys of his younger sister through eBAY, the girl getting 10 per cent of the gain; later he would buy toys wholesale and sell them in larger quantities. Thus, at the age of 12 he earned $50 000. At 13 he created My EZ Mail with the help of a hired programmer. This is a service by which emails can be sent so that the sender remains secret. In a couple of years the profit from the sale of advertising through My EZ Mail was $ 3,000 per month.
But the real success story and serious money began later. Teaming up with two other young entrepreneurs, Johnson founded the advertising agency Surfingprizes.com. They were selling ads at the top of the browser window. The heart of the matter was: a user downloaded the program that allowed to display ads in the top window of the browser.
The user got 20 cents an hour for the inconvenience. Johnson and Co. took away 70% of the profits.
"I was 15 years old and I was getting checks between $ 300,000 and $ 400,000 every month,"Johnson says. At the age of 19 he sold the company and the software (but not the customer database) to not disclose buyers. He says, "Before I finished high school , my combined assets had been worth more than $ 1 million"".
Johnson Kameron, an interview with Forbes
Johnson also had CertificateSwap.com, an online project that allows people to sell unnecessary gift certificates via the Internet . This service had already existed at eBAY which took 13 per cent of the transaction, whereas CertificateSwap.com took only 7.5 per cent.
In 2004, Cameron Johnson sold this company, and the exact amount of the contract was not disclosed. Now Cameron Johnson writes books about business and gives lectures re business. He is interviewed, he participates in many television projects. In 2008 Cameron was one of the top ten outstanding young residents of Virginia, and in 2009 he received an award from the US Junior Chamber as one of the ten outstanding young Americans. His success story ia a vivid example of what you can earn on absolutely anything! The main thing is to believe in oneself and to build up the right strategy, finding weaknesses of competitors.
