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Cool, Determined & Under 30

 

Bobby Kim

Current Venture: Co-founded with Ben Shenassafar (right) The Hundreds, a company in Los Angeles with a clothing line, three retail stores, and an online magazine. Sales are on track to hit $4 million this year.

Why He's One to Watch: The Hundreds enjoys a rabid following. When the company opened its first store in San Francisco this year, it was mobbed.

What's Next: A deal with Disney. After The Hundreds paid homage to the Lost Boys characters from Peter Pan in a few designs, Disney approached Kim, 28, to talk about a line of Lost Boys streetwear. The Hundreds is pursuing the project eagerly and without irony. "Disney is a huge part of American culture," says Kim, "so being involved is a great opportunity."

Dalton Caldwell

Current Venture: Imeem, a social networking site in San Francisco that lets users listen to music and watch videos for free. More than 27 million people visit the site each month.

Why He's One to Watch: Caldwell, 28, beat out MySpace and Facebook to sign deals to share online ad revenue with all the big music labels, a coup that landed major advertisers such as Apple and Toyota. Ted Cohen, a board member and former EMI exec, says Caldwell succeeded where others failed because "he has no ego, and he gave the labels confidence that this was a true partnership with long-term revenue expectations."

Employees: 90

On Being a Young CEO "I've been doing this nonstop for four and a half years. I actually feel kind of old."

Ben Shenassafar

Current Venture: Co-founded The Hundreds with Bobby Kim (left)

Employees: 30

The Backstory: Shenassafar, 28, met Kim at Loyola Law School, and together they came up with the idea for The Hundreds. "I was 100 percent sure I was not going to practice law," says Shenassafar, who put off studying for the California bar exam to pack boxes in the company's warehouse.

What's Next: The Hundreds plans to open two or three more retail stores in 2009.

Sanjit Biswas

Current Venture: Meraki sells low-cost wireless routers that allow telecom companies in developing countries to charge $10 a month or less for Internet access.

Why He's One to Watch: Biswas, 26, has raised $25 million from Google and Sequoia Capital; has won an award at Davos; and has elicited praise from Nicholas Negroponte, the head of the One Laptop per Child program. "Meraki allows communities to grow their local infrastructure at costs that are orders of magnitude smaller than what is normally expected," Negroponte says.

The Backstory: Meraki began as a project to provide free Wi-Fi to MIT grad students.

Employees: 40

Smart Move: Without aid or approval, Meraki put up a test network in San Francisco that now has 100,000 users and serves as a huge ad for the company. "It really helped people connect the dots," Biswas says.

Sumi Krishnan

Current Venture: K4 Solutions, a federal contractor specializing in IT work, based in Falls Church, Virginia

Why She's One to Watch: Krishnan landed her first government gig -- a contract to create a database of images for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms -- seven years ago, when she was a senior at Virginia Tech. After graduation, she took a job at the Patent Office but eventually quit. "You can't do it part time and expect your company to grow," she says.

Employees: 80

What's Next: Krishnan's status as an 8(a) certified business should last for another six years, but she is already planning for the day when her company outgrows it. She has gone through the intensive process of getting cleared to go after defense contracts, including classified work.

On Being a Young CEO "My father always says, 'If you don't accomplish something great by the time you're 30, you're never going to accomplish something that great.' That kind of always inspired me."

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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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