So here are 10 entrepreneurs, founders and co founders, who you may want to watch in 2012, there are some great companies here and I’m sure you will be hearing a lot more about them over the next 12 months.
Here they are:
Josh Buckley (MinoMonsters)
Josh Buckley is the CEO and founder of MinoMonsters, a Pokemon type game where you can battle and trade pet monsters. Josh is the youngest CEO to have raised funding from investment giant Andreessen Horowitz at 19 years of age.
The Kent born youngster sold his first company at the age of 15. He created ‘Menewsha’ a community where users create whimsical avatars and interact online for fun. He sold this for a six figures sum while still in school.
He then moved to Silicon Valley & participated in Y Combinator to help take his company to the next level and take on Pokemon brand. His USP is it is a game for iOS where Pokemon is not available.
Expect to be hearing more of this young CEO as he ventures into the mobile gaming space with no fear.
James Gill (GoSquared)
James Gill is the CEO and co founder of GoSquared a real time web analytics service which he started during his gap year. rather than taking the year to travel, he decided to build a web app which people would pay for and by the end of the year him and his co founders realised they had done just that.
James now works on GoSquared at White Bear Yard from which GoSquared got their angel funding and they are surrounded by other great startups which will help them as they look to grow and take on their main rivals Chartbeat.
Lucian Tarnowski (Brave New Talent)
Lucian Tarnowski is the founder and CEO of Brave New Talent, a social recruitment network. The passionate young entrepreneur loves social media and leverages the sharing and engagement inherent in social networks and applies it to job recruitment.
Lucian has also been honored as Europe’s youngest Young Global Leader (YGL) by the World Economic Forum. He is also the youngest entrepreneur to join UKTI (United Kingdom Trade and Investment) so age isn’t a factor as he goes about his mission to change the face of job recruitment and skills building.
He is a confident leader and looks set to have a big year in 2012.
Maria Constantinescu (Slick Flick)
Maria Constantinescu is the founder of SlickFlick, which allows you to create storyboards on the iPhone using your photos. An ex lawyer Maria left law to start Curious Quests and the Slick Flick app.
Maria is trying to take creativity to the masses and has been get the app out into the film industry and creative industries to get support and name out amongst a sector which will find it used by most. Being based in the heart of Shoreditch she is surrounded by creatives in every direction which should serve her well.
Having secured an association with Apsmart, they have a great partner which can help them continue to improve the app and add weight to their proposal when they go for funding.
Ry Morgan (PleaseCycle)
Ry Morgan (right) is the founder and CEO of PleaseCycle, provides products and services for organisations to encourage cycling within the workplace.
Ry went from being an intern at CURB media (a really cool startup by the way!) to founding PleaseCycle with the founder & CEO of CURB media, Anthony Ganjou (left). A born entrepreneur Ry has gone from top student, to graduate to founder & CEO.
He has a great drive to grow PleaseCycle massively and his determination and vision has helped him build a great experienced team which will in no doubt help see them progress rapidly in 2012.
Emi Gal (Brainient)
Emi a young Romanian entrepreneur started Brainient in 2009. Brainient is a a video advertising technology company, based in London’s silicon roundabout, and currently has two products. First an interactive video advertising product and second one is a personalised video retargeting platform.
Emi has a lot of experience with startups at his young age, having previously founded two and has also been an advisor or helped out on various other tech startups.
This experience will hold him in good stead and help as Brainient looks to grow further in 2012.
Kevin Flood and Mike Harty (Shopow)
Kevin & Mike started the company, a social shopping engine and community, straight out of university raising £830,000 in angel funding.
Founded in early 2010, it was launched in May 2011 and currently works directly with over 22,000 online retailers to help give them the most accurate price comparison.
Currently available in the US & UK they look to grow further in 2012 and with the social nature of the site and strong community it has the ingredients to rapidly accelerate growth as members share recommendations across there networks.
The company is expecting to surpass £3million in revenue in it’s first year has already seen it’s popularity abroad with 50% of revenues coming from overseas.
It has been dubbed the ‘Facebook of shopping’ & the two founders have already been named in Growing Business Young Guns.
Luke Hood (UKF)
Luke Hood is a 19 year old from Frome, Somerset who is taking Youtube by storm with his UKF channels. After starting putting up his favourite dubstep tunes up on youtube and showcasing fresh new music he found his subscribers rocketed and he was soon over 1 million!
What started as a hobby has become a business. He is super passionate and since this was what he was passionate about in the first place it will help in growing it as a business.
He has started expanding into events and live online events as well so youngsters into dubstep and drum n bass who can’t get into these events can view it from online.
There is lots of scope to grow and he already has the subscribers, maybe in 2012 he can do what Jamal Edwards has done in 2011.
Jack Smith (Vungle)
Jack Smith is the founder of Vungle, a mobile app user acquisition platform focused exclusively on video ads. The company helps those with apps to show the apps full potential through video advertising rather than just text descriptions and user reviews. Using video to help acquire quality users.
Although just 22, Jack has a fair bit of experience having started his first company at the age of 15 and then while at uni, set up ideabox an undergraduate business ideas competition and was MD at Mediaroots.
He has now seen Vungle expand to the US with an office in San Fransisco and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jack get funding for Vungle this year.
Joshua March (Conversocial)
Joshua March is now onto his second business, Conversocial an integrated Social CRM and marketing software which helps companies with marketing and customer support via social media.
With social media becoming a mainstay in our day to day lives it is essential for all businesses to be active on social networks and be able to effectively monitor conversations around your business and industry.
Josh saw this and started Conversocial a couple years ago and has developed it too a position where they can expect to grow rapidly as more and more businesses start realising the potential of social media.
Josh previously founded the first preferred Facebook Development company in the UK with Dan Lester and has lots of experience in the social space from it’s early days.
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