Cool, Determined & Under 30

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Leah Culver

Current Venture: Pownce, a San Francisco start-up that combines elements of blogging, instant messaging, and file sharing. Friends can use the software to send one another messages or trade files.

Why She's One to Watch: When Culver described the idea to her then-boyfriend, the creative director at the popular website Digg, he replied that his boss, Kevin Rose, was pursuing a similar concept. The three joined forces to launch Pownce, and Rose's involvement prompted buzz. Weeks after Pownce's debut, The New York Times proclaimed it "the hottest start-up in Silicon Valley."

The Backstory: "I didn't grow up with computers any more than your average suburban kid," says Culver, 25. "I wanted to be a graphic designer, but I sucked at design." So reluctantly, she majored in computer science at the University of Minnesota.

Employees: Two

Sample Budget Item: $700 for beer for the launch party

On Being a Young CEO "When we hit 90,000 users, I remember thinking that Pownce was bigger than my hometown."

Una Kim

Current Venture: An avid skateboarder, Kim hated the women's boarding sneakers then available -- "Pink, puffy pastel things that you couldn't even skate in," she says. Keep, the Los Angeles -- based line of footwear she created, aspires to be chic and "cruelty free," which means that Kim, 29, doesn't use leather and monitors conditions in her factories. Sales are approaching $2.5 million.

Why She's One to Watch: Kim mixes an elegant aesthetic and top-notch branding skills. A Stanford M.B.A., she began her career at Faith Popcorn's trend-forecasting company, where Kim developed youth-marketing campaigns for Tylenol and Campbell's Soup. She enjoyed the work but felt a bit like a sellout. "I thought, Wouldn't it be great to have a business that actually came out of the culture, as opposed to helping a big company see what young people want and spin it back at them?"

Employees: Six

On Being a Young CEO "I think the key is energy management. Passion comes quickly to the inexperienced, but having a lasting commitment is a different story."

Rob Kalin

Current Venture: Etsy, a vast website that helps artisans sell handmade clothing and crafts. The Brooklyn, New York, business processes 20,000 orders a day, at an average sale of $15. The site charges a listing fee and takes a small commission on each transaction.

Why He's One to Watch: In just three years, Etsy has attracted 200,000 sellers, a million registered users, and more than $27 million in funding.

The Backstory: The son of a Boston furniture maker, Kalin flunked out of high school, briefly enrolled in an art school, and then faked an MIT student ID so he could take classes on the sly. He so impressed the professors there that they helped him get into NYU, where he learned how to build a website. In 2005, he launched Etsy with two classmates.

Employees: 65

After Hours: Kalin is learning to sew.

What's Next: Kalin, 28, stepped down as CEO in July, though he remains actively involved as Etsy's chairman and chief creative officer. "A lot of companies are started and prepped for an acquisition," he says. "But I hope this will be an independent company for hundreds of years."

Brendan Ciecko

Current Venture: Ten Minute Media, a Holyoke, Massachusetts, company that creates websites for music industry clients, including Mick Jagger, Katy Perry, and the reunited New Kids on the Block. The business is on track to do $450,000 this year.

Why He's One to Watch: Ciecko's break came in 2001, when he won a fan contest to create a Flash webpage for the website of the punk band Slick Shoes. Sony BMG, Warner, and Universal saw Ciecko's work and hired the then-13-year-old to build sites for their artists. Given the music industry's travails, he is moving into the corporate market with clients such as MassMutual (NYSE:MCI) and Clear Channel (NYSE:CCO) in the pursuit, he says, of "major scalability."

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Donna Fenn

Inc. contributing editor Donna Fenn is the author of Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit From Their Success (McGraw-Hill, 2009). Both this blog and the book examine the ways in which GenY is changing the entrepreneurial landscape with new approaches to starting, growing, and managing their companies. Learn more at http://www.upstartsrock.com/.

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