Catherine Cook, 18, started the social media company MyYearBook.com with her brother Dave three and a half years ago when she was still in high school. Now, the site is the fastest growing social networking site and has 10 million registered users and tens of millions of dollars in ad sales. Were you pulling down eight figures after your first year in college?
Catherine and Dave Cook first marketed MyYearBook.com by wearing t-shirts they made to school for days on end. As momentum for the Web site grew, the Cooks started implementing some of the features that set MyYearBook apart from rivals MySpace and Facebook. First, it is geared primarily towards high school students. Second, all of the applications on MyYearBook are unique and created in-house.
MyYearbook.com grew 384 percent in market share last year and is the third largest social networking site in the U.S. Catherine Cook is a model of the type of success a Web startup can achieve, and she has done it all by age 18!