Cameron Johnson started his career when he was only nine years old. And to be precise, his career started the day he founded his company, Cheers and Tears. It started with simple handmade cards, created in Photoshop. Cameron made these cards for family and friends, but soon enough his neighbors and friends, teachers and strangers started asking him to make cards for money. The very first earnings were spent on toys, Beanie Babies specifically. Cameron bought the toys at wholesale prices and then resold them on eBay and via his own web-site. Thus, he earned his first 50,000 USD.
When he was thirteen, Cameron Johnson returned to the business with a new idea of a mail service. The service was called My EZ Mail, and the idea was to make it possible for users to send letters not compromising personal details. To implement this idea, Johnson hired a programmer. And in three years, the advertisement revenues reached 3,000 USD per month.
In 1997, Cameron Johnson decided to cooperate with his friends to found a new advertising agency specializing in the Internet marketing. Users were offered a possibility to make profits on web-surfing. And the principle was quite simple. Johnson signed a contract with advertisers. With a help of a special program, users were offered a possibility to browse contextual ads. For such inconvenience they gained 20 cents per hour. According to Johnson, he earned 300,000 to 400,000 USD per contract. And the boy was only fifteen years old back then.
A simple pyramid strategy was quite a success for Johnson. But as soon as he turned 19, Cameron Johnson sold the company together with the name and software. He admitted later that he earned his first million long before he finished his school.
Cameron Johnson entered Virginia Polytechnic Institute only to come up with a new idea for business. And it can hardly be denied that certofocateswap.com was another brilliant idea of Cameron Johnson. This portal made it possible for users to buy and sell unused gift certificates, or to be more specific to buy and sell certificates for the lowest price on the market. The thing is that buying and selling certificates was a normal practice on eBay. But the cost was usually very high. Sometimes, it reached 13%. Johnson and his friends wanted to lower the cost to minimum. And they easily managed to offer the most competitive deals, lowering the cost to 7.5%. The only profit for Johnson was the transaction fees. And believe it or not, but he earned quite much money on this simple idea.
In 2004, Johnson and his friend Turner sold the company once again. The precise amount is still unknown, but as someone said the boys earned a good six-figure profit.
Today Cameron Johnson spends most of his free time giving lectures and teaching other young entrepreneurs how to make their dreams come true. As he often says, the main key to success is to never be afraid to ask questions, to be ready for anything, to be creative and open to possibilities.
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