Top 10 Entrepreneurs Under 30

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentorship and resources that support each stage of a business's development and growth.
When recently asked to name the top entrepreneur under the age of 30 who deserved an award for the work they've done in the past year, YEC members had the following to say.
1. Dave Morin of Path
It's been inspiring to watch Dave and his talented team at Path take their app from something that no one was paying attention to to one of the top apps out there. Path revolutionized iOS design by releasing one of the most beautiful apps out there, and has been on a roll ever since. —Ben Lang, founder of EpicLaunch
2. Shane Snow of Contently
Shane Snow is absolutely the most impressive individual I know for his accomplishments in recent times. A TechStars NYC alum, Shane developed Contently with his team and recently raised $2 million in a Series A round. In addition to that, he's the top infographic artist, period. Shane is also the coolest journalist you'll ever meet, having written for Mashable, Fast Company and Wired.com. —Danny Wong, co-founder of Blank Label Group
3. Drew Houston of Dropbox
Drew Houston, CEO and co-founder of Dropbox, led the startup from a simple vision—making it easy to store and share files in the cloud—to a massive business success with millions of users and sales. I am so impressed with his focus on an exceptional user experience. Drew and his team created a product that betters productivity and data storage so much, it's hard to imagine the Web without it. —Doreen Bloch, CEO and founder of Poshly
4. Nick D'Aloisio of Summly
Nick D'Aloisio, he's creating a way to summarize the Web. Not only is he young, but he caught the world's attention through Om Malik's expose on his app. The app is a window into a much more powerful concept around how content has become digestible in tidbits—especially content lacking opinion. It could be quite fascinating to companies that manage tons and tons of content that needs to be indexed. —Brian Wong, CEO and founder of Kiip
5. Ben Silbermann of Pinterest
There is a reason why Pinterest is getting so much attention right now. It's a beautifully designed product that solves a problem that nobody knew the Web was facing. It's the co-founder's vision that made it the impressive application that it is today. —Logan Lenz, president and founder of Endagon
6. Ben Milne of Dwolla
Ben Milne is the CEO and co-founder of Des Moines-based Dwolla, a peer-to-peer payment platform disrupting the mobile payments industry. Milne and his team have quickly scaled the business and is now moving over $1 million per day. Dwolla recently raised a $5 million round of funding, led by New York-based Union Square Ventures and a solid supporting team. —Jeff Slobotski, founder of Silicon Prairie News
7. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest self-made billionaire in history and arguably the greatest entrepreneur of our time. Facebook wasn't created in the past year, but Zuckerberg has presided over its continued dominance of the social Web and the company's skyrocketing valuations. And he is only 27. —Emerson Spartz, CEO and founder of Spartz Media
8. Catherine Cook of myYearbook.com
While most people want to say Mark Zuckerberg, I'd give the award to his female counterpart, Catherine Cook. Not only was Catherine just 15 years old when she started myYearbook.com, but she managed to stay under the radar by operating outside of Silicon Valley—in Pennsylvania. The site was recently acquired for a reported $100 million...while Catherine was still attending college! —Matt Wilson, co-founder of Under30CEO.com
9. Brent Beshore of AdVentures
Being a great entrepreneur isn't just about profits. Brent Beshore leads AdVentures (which was no. 28 on last year's Inc. 500), so he's made his share of money, but what I respect is his entrepreneurship for his community. When his hometown—Joplin, Mo.—was destroyed by a tornado, Brent used his skills to raise over $1 million in four days to rebuild the city. We should all strive to use our success for good, as Brent does. —John Hall, CEO of Digital Talent Agents
10. Jeremy Johnson of 2tor
Jeremy Johnson is 27 and is already changing the face of higher education. His current project, 2tor, is a visionary startup that helps top-tier U.S. universities bring their degree programs online. Jeremy, along with co-founders John Katzman and Chip Paucek, is on a mission to transform education, and as the highest funded U.S. education tech startup, 2tor is bringing that vision alive. —Zach Cutler, CEO and founder of Cutler Group

10 Apps That Make Me More Productive

We’re becoming an app happy world. Apps that run on our laptops, apps for mobile, apps for iPads and tablets—even better are the apps that sync across all of our chosen devices, keeping us on track in an increasingly online world.
Below are 10 applications that I use on a daily basis to get more done, manage more information, communicate more ideas and generally keep the plates spinning.
1. TweetDeck. This is my primary social media dashboard. It’s a desktop application that runs on Adobe Air and while there are lots of alternative choices, I’ve just always stuck with TweetDeck. (I do however use the Twitter app for my iPhone.) I have groups, lists and searches set up at all times and use the scheduled Tweets feature to meter out content I want to share throughout the day.
2. Evernote. This is my brainstorming, idea clipping, bookmark storing powerhouse. Evernote syncs beautifully across all devices and allows me to outline my life in many ways without having to commit anything to memory. I’ve stored everything from ideas for my books to wines I want to remember.
3. Dropbox. This is my online backup and file storage tool of choice. I probably overuse this tool, leaning on it as a file server for my team as well as a backup for important files, but it just works well. I also use it to share large files and grant conference attendees access to my PowerPoint presentations.
4. Reeder. This is an app that turns my chosen RSS reader, Google Reader, into something much more functional and much more attractive. I do most of my blog reading on my iPhone or iPad and the Reeder app gives me a ton of functionality. I can easily share a post on Twitter, clip to Evernote and bookmark to Delicious right from the post—great time saver.
5. Dragon Dictation. This iPhone app (at least that’s the only version I use) allows me to speak a memo and have it converted to text. I haven't really tested this out, but I think I could compose a blog post using this tool. The app then allows me to e-mail the text or manage it in various other ways. I use this tool whenever I get a flash of brilliance while driving or think of something when trying go to sleep and want to capture the idea right away.
6. HelloFax. This app is billed as a fax machine replacement, but I don’t really use that function. What HelloFax allows me to do is receive a document—like a contract, agreement, vendor form or non-disclosure—that need edits and my signature. Instead of editing, printing, signing, scanning and e-mailing back, I simply download the document, upload it to HelloFax, make my edits, drop in my stored signature and e-mail it back.
7. Text Expander. There are dozens of snippets of text that I need to use frequently. Text Expander allows me to write chunks of copy once and then paste those chunks whenever I need to with a couple keystrokes. I have entire e-mails that I send in response to certain requests, e-mail signatures, blog sponsorship messages and even HTML code  that I use frequently committed to short, time saving keystrokes that are easy to recall.
8. Pixelmator. This is my replacement to Photoshop. Now, I’m not a graphic designer, so I don’t have major league design challenges, but I’ve used Photoshop for years and for $29 this tool does everything I need it to do and is much easier to use than Photoshop. I’m sure Adobe would challenge this statement, but this tool is at least on par feature wise with the $99 Photoshop Elements.
9. Adium. I use Adium for all things related to IM. This Mac-only client allows me to converse with folks via instant message regardless of the IM platform they use—Facebook, Google Talk or AIM.
10. Transmit. This is my file transfer tool. It’s lightening fast and allows me to upload and manage files via FTP to my websites. I also use it to access my Amazon S3 file storage as I use Amazon’s cheap hosting and streaming for my videos and other larger downloads that I make available on my sites. I also use Transmit to move files around on my laptop. Instead of using two instances of the Finder on my Mac, I use a split window in Transmit that allows me to drag and drop files more easily.
Image credit: dougbelshaw via Flickr CC
John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine and the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.