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These Advertising High Rollers Are Still in High School
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Ruchit Shah and his vice president, Richard Hecker, are two high school students who are big players in the Internet advertising arena. Shah is only seventeen years-old but he and Hecker already run an Internet company called Clickzen.com.

The company, which acts as a broker bringing together buyers and sellers of Internet media, had sales of over $1.5 million in 2000. Clickzen makes its revenues through commissions from each sale.

There are two basic groups that Clickzen.com deals with. The first is publishers and the second is advertisers. When dealing with publishers, Clickzen looks at how many page views they have, how many unique monthly visitors, what their reach is, and their demographics.

When dealing with advertisers, Clickzen manages a campaign that will benefit both the company and the publisher. The technology they have allows them to do this automatically.

The two high school students have managed an advertising network that, until recently, served around two billion monthly advertising impressions. Since signing big companies like Lycos and Excite, their monthly impressions have swelled to over 12 billion.

Ruchit Shah received his first computer in 1992, when he was in fourth grade. In eighth grade, his father hired a tutor to work with him on computer programming. At the age of 16, Shah was running an Internet site called Stock DJ that gave stock market advice to investors.

He began looking for people to join him with his endeavor, so he sent out an e-mail to potential investors. The first response Shah received was from 15 year-old from Richard Hecker of Brooklyn, New York.

The two began working cooperatively on Stock DJ. Through advertising networks, they began to make revenue by placing ads on their site. The amount of effort involved and the revenues coming in were not enough to warrant continuing with that site.

The two then borrowed $800 from their parents and invested $280 of their own money to begin Clickzen.com. Within two weeks, they had made enough money to repay their loan.

Clickzen's first publisher client was NewMP3.com, run by a 17 year-old in Bulgaria. They began selling advertising for the Bulgarian company and signed their first advertiser on May 2nd.

Clickzen.com currently does work for companies like Mastercard, Advertising.com, and other successful companies. Clickzen has a staff of nineteen that works remotely from their homes. They will be opening their first office in New York next month. Shah and Hecker plan on managing their company from their own home areas and hiring others to work from the office.

Shah says that because he and his partner are so young, they have an advantage over their competition when it comes to creativity. They constantly have new ideas to promote companies and products. However, Shah says that he and his partner still struggle with the prejudices that many people have against youngsters in business.

Shah is currently a senior at Charlotte Latin School in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is involved in extra curricular activities such as being the news editor for his school's video magazine, being on the debate team and involved with theater. After school, Shah usually relaxes for a bit, eats dinner, and then gets to work. Between 5 and 5:20 P.M, he makes the last calls to his East Coast employees, and around 6 P.M., he makes calls to his West Coast and Midwest employees.

Shah is currently a senior at Charlotte Latin School in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is involved in extra curricular activities such as being the news editor for his school's video magazine, being on the debate team and involved with theater. After school, Shah usually relaxes for a bit, eats dinner, and then gets to work. Between 5 and 5:20P.M, he makes the last calls to his East Coast employees, and around 6P.M., he makes calls to his West Coast and Midwest employees.

EnTrends asked Shah what his schoolmates have to say about him being a high school entrepreneur. Shah said that he remains humble about his endeavors and does not bring it up with schoolmates unless they ask. "There are so many people at my school who are talented in academics, music, art, and athletics. Everyone has their own niche."

Finally, EnTrends asked Shah about his lifestyle now that he is successful. Shah said that he and his partner invest their earnings and do not spend much. Shah does not even have a car. In fact, he has not even taken Driver's Education yet. He has been so busy that he has not had time to. Shah said, "What we've hit on is something that everyone should have hit on a long time ago, which is to make more money than you spend. It's very simple, but I am amazed at how many people cannot do that."

Shah's future plans are to have Clickzen.com go public by his Birthday in August of 2003. "If and when we do go public, I am not worried about losing too much control. I am just happy to see Clickzen.com grow."


As for advice Shah would give to other entrepreneurs starting out, he said, "It's two-fold. The first is to believe in yourself. The second is not to believe in yourself so much that you ignore other people's advice. You live and you learn. When you do make a mistake, own up to it and make fun of yourself for it. Even if you do not do well at first, have faith in your idea and you will succeed."
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