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

Raising Money for a Thoroughly Unreasonable Venture

A couple of years ago, Tyler Hartung, Daniel Epstein, Teju Ravilochan and Vladimir Dubovskiy had a very, well, unreasonable idea. The three, all in their twenties and University of Colorado at Boulder grads, had worked in businesses with social missions and knew how hard it is to jump start a social venture. So they decided to launch The Unreasonable Institute, a Boulder-based not-for-profit that takes its inspiration from the well-known tech incubator/accelerator, TechStars. The name of the organization comes from a George Bernard Shaw quote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
The idea was to gather 25 social enterprises in Boulder for ten weeks, give them access to mentors, networks and the opportunity to raise capital, and watch them take off. The criteria:  “The ventures need to address the root cause of an environmental or social problem or need," says Hartung. Plus, all candidates must have sustainable revenue models. In the Institute’s first two years, the founders encouraged both for-profit and not-for-profit ventures to apply. This year marks a major shift, with the requirement that all must be for-profit businesses. “We were seeing for-profits take the most value out of the Institute,” says Hartung. The change also made it easier to attract mentors and capital partners who could potentially invest in the ventures.
But the most interesting aspect of The Unreasonable Institute is how its "fellows" are chosen.  This year, there were 306 applicants from around the world and 100 were deemed promising enough to advance to the second round, which involved a phone interview. Of those, Hartung and his co-founders chose 46 candidates from 25 countries whose ventures are featured on The Unreasonable Institute’s marketplace for 50 days (you can check them out on the Institute’s website until early March. That’s where individual donors fund their favorite entrepreneur’s $10,000 tuition fee, one donation at a time. Tuition goes toward transporting and supporting the fellows for six weeks, plus transportation costs for mentors. The first 25 finalists to raise $10,000 in 50 days become fellows and spend six weeks in Denver, starting in June.  To insure that deep-pocketed friends and family don’t tip the scales unfairly, maximum donations are set at $10 for the first week, then increase incrementally each week.
Currently featured in The Unreasonable Institute’s marketplace are, for instance: Quetsol, which is developing energy solutions for poor families in Guatemala; Waste Enterprises, which is tackling the crisis of waste collection and treatment in Africa; and Praki Design, a maker of charcoal stoves that decrease fuel consumption and smoke emissions.  They, and 43 others, are hoping to be among the 25 companies that will gather in June to live with one another and the mentors who will help them evaluate, improve, and scale their companies.
Hartung says that all but a small fraction of The Unreasonable Institute’s fellows from the previous two years are still up and running and that 66 percent of first-year fellows who were seeking funding received that funding. Among the Institute’s alumni success stories: Solidarium, a Brazilian company that connects local producers with big retailers, such as Walmart and J.C. Penney; and Eco-Fuel Africa Limited, which makes organic charcoal from agricultural waste and whose founder, Moses Sanga, was selected as 2012 TED Fellow. Sanga’s company also received a $20,000 investment after his participation in the Institute. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s a fortune in Uganda. “His trip to Unreasonable was the first time anyone in his village had been on a plane,” says Hartung. He’s hoping for similarly dramatic results from this year’s class.
Pictured: Co-founders Daniel Epstein (second from left) and Tyler Hartung (third from left)
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