Entrepreneurial

Earlier this month, Reuters Money featured a story with advice on how to get on the road to Millionaire Row. But what if you're in a hurry, like so many multi-tasking teens of the 21st Century? What if your goal is to make that million by the time you turn 21? Can it be done?

The answer is yes, if you take the fast lane as an entrepreneur on steroids — something common to the four millionaires we polled for this follow-up. Three made it to the seven-digit milestone by 21; the fourth reached it when he turned 24. Here, those wealthy whiz kids past and present share the secrets that contributed to the fortunes they made.

Jon Koon, 27

Position: Owner and designer of the Private Stock denim line, marketing guru and manufacturer of auto accessories.

How he made it: A licensing and fashion marvel, Koon made his first million at 16 as a pioneer in car tuning, where vehicles are modified with special parts to enhance appearance and performance.

Top tips for millionaire hopefuls: Get a business plan.
Koon saved $5,000 to start his first company, but the business plan helped him get substantial backing. “Investment is always tied to a clear opportunity for profit and that exact stream of profitability needs to be identified from the beginning,” he says.

– Dave McClure is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and the founder of Internet seed fund 500Startups. He has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel and Microsoft. The views expressed are his own. –

Over the holidays Silicon Valley is a ghost town while most geeks and venture capitalists are busy hitting the slopes at Tahoe or playing Angry Birds Holiday Edition.

If you haven’t had enough football or eggnog yet, stop reading this blather and go watch some grown men beat the snot out of each other while drinking yourself into yuletide stupor. If that doesn’t sound more appealing then you’ll just have to settle for my crazy tech predictions for this year.

– Dr. David J. Brailer is the chairman for San Francisco-based venture firm Health Evolution Partners and served as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under President George W. Bush. The views expressed are his own. –

2011 will be a chaotic and unpredictable year for investors.

We will see the first big changes of health reform play through – regardless of what the incoming Congress does. No one can predict what health reform means, particularly alongside the dwindling of the financial crisis and the ongoing jobs bust. The only sure thing is that 2011 won’t be a replay of the last two years where safe deals got done and a lot of companies traded from investor to investor.

Here are a few trends – and a few pitfalls – to pay attention to:

1. Please, no more meaningful use. Health information technology has been hyped into the stratosphere, and every entrepreneur is trying to raise capital while they can. Many are spinning their wheels because they mistake the investment bubble for their own shrewdness. The market will figure out in 2011 that federal subsidies will happen far slower than planned or that they may be cut back by a deficit-hawk Congress. Once the bubble pops and people get their feet back on Earth, deals will start to happen again. There are some very good health information technology companies coming to market in 2011 and they are going to rock healthcare in the coming years.

The end of the year is in sight. But with taxes still in flux, it’s easy to succumb to your own worst instincts and just block out all the noise: After all, how can you even think about your own year-end tax planning when you don’t know what the rules are, and may not know till after the end of the year?

“People can get paralyzed, and not take any action,” says Rich Kohan, principal of personal financial services at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

With December rapidly approaching, there’s very little time for Congress to act on the Bush tax cuts, which are slated to expire at year-end, increasing the risk that nothing will happen before that date. Democrats would like to see the tax cuts extended for couples who make less than $250,000 (or $200,000 for singles), while Republicans want them kept in place for everyone, including the richest Americans.

– Mark Suster is a former serial entrepreneur and a partner at Los Angeles-based venture capital firm GRP Partners. This article originally appeared on his blog “Both Sides of the Table”. The views expressed are his own. –

Everyone seems to be in such a rush to get shacked up these days.

In normal times investors will look for “traction” before investing. We want to make sure we’re in love. This sometimes frustrates entrepreneurs who just want to “get back to running the business.” But if you understand it you’ll see that it’s perfectly rational and it should also influence how you form relationships with investors. And remember, if we get married you’re stuck with us, too.

The first time I meet you, you are a single data point. A dot. I have no reference point from which to judge whether you were higher on the y-axis three months ago, or lower. Because I have no observation points from the past, I have no sense for where you will be in the future. Thus, it’s very hard to make a commitment to fund you.

– Jeff Bussgang is a general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School. He is also the author of “Mastering the VC Game”. This article originally appeared here. The views expressed are his own.  –

“Security Analysis” is cited by Warren Buffet as one of his top four favorite and most influential books. Written by Columbia University professors Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, it was first published in 1934.

The book is a thick tome that articulates the thesis of value investing – the analytical techniques for valuing securities and seeking to invest in those securities in the context of their underlying value. The latest printing, the sixth edition, contains a foreword from the Oracle of Omaha himself as well as a preface from hedge fund investor Seth Klarman of The Baupost Group, who is regarded by many to be one of the modern masters in the art of value investing.