"Instead of stomping his foot in protest, he found a like-minded teen on Facebook, Cameron Zoub, to help him build a bot that would buy limited-edition sneakers for people before they sell out. "We basically spent the next eight years building a ton of different products," Schwartz tells Fortune. "We built marketplaces, we built consumer apps, we built games, we built social networks, we built SAS companies, people agencies, and we did pretty well.""
"Now in their mid-twenties-and at least 22 side hustles later-Schwartz, Zoub, and third cofounder Jack Sharkey are running Whop, a marketplace for digital entrepreneurs. Think Etsy meets LinkedIn. According to Schwartz, the platform, which launched in 2021, is currently valued at around a quarter of a billion dollars and processes around $400 million a year in transactions. For those old enough to remember dial-up internet, it's hard to imagine building businesses online and moonlighting as a tech boss after school hours."
Steven Schwartz began building a sneaker-buying bot at age 13 to obtain limited-edition shoes. He partnered with Cameron Zoub and spent eight years creating marketplaces, consumer apps, games, social networks, SaaS companies, agencies, and more. Schwartz, Zoub, and Jack Sharkey later founded Whop, a marketplace for digital entrepreneurs that launched in 2021. Whop is valued at about a quarter-billion dollars and processes roughly $400 million in annual transactions. Many Gen Z graduates pursue founding careers and prefer online entrepreneurship, content creation, and building communities over traditional corporate roles. Younger generations leverage smartphones and online platforms to moonlight as entrepreneurs and scale side hustles into full businesses.
Read at Fortune
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