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Who Knew You Could Learn So Much from Fruit |
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Written by Sheila Mielcarek
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At the early age of five years old, Cameron started his first
business selling tomatoes door-to-door for a hefty price of $1
each. He received just as many No's as he did Yes's but unlike
most people, he took the rejection as a challenge. When he
received a 'No", he asked why and many times got to a 'yes'. He
learned early on to "believe in yourself, trust your instincts
and very importantly, learn to sell yourself".
From Home Alone to Home at The Plaza Hotel
At eight years old,
Cameron saw the movie Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. A great
deal of the movie had been filmed at the Plaza Hotel owned by
Donald Trump in New York City. After seeing the movie, he struck
up a deal with his dad. The deal included a trade of straight
A's for a trip to New York with a stay at the Plaza Hotel.
Without his parents knowing, Cameron wrote Donald Trump to tell
him he would be coming to Manhattan. He did not get a response
in the mail, however, Donald had a surprise for Cameron when
they arrived at the Plaza - a stay in the same room the movie
was filmed and an exclusive shopping spree at FAO Schwartz. His
parents were stunned. Cameron sent Donald a thank you note and
enclosed a card telling him to keep watch because he will be the
next "Donald Trump".
Cheers & Tears
A few lemonade stands and commissioned yard sales
later, Cameron started his first real business. At the age of
nine, his parents gave him his first computer and printer and
from it he created Cheers & Tears - a customized stationary
company that also sold greeting and business cards. He sold his
products to relatives and neighbors. Everyone loved his products
and told their friends and soon his business grew. From it's
success he learned the power of word of mouth marketing.
The Power of the Internet
By age eleven, Cameron learned the
power of the Internet and eBay and began his next venture in
selling his sister's Beanie Baby Collection. Before long,
Cameron grew Cheers & Tears Beanie Babies to become the second
largest Beanie Baby retailer on the Internet, profiting $50K in
one year From this experience, he learned to start small - find
and start businesses that are low-cost to operate and can easily
generate word of mouth marketing.
His next business was also an Internet based business offering
free email accounts which blocked junk mail. From it, he created
tens of thousands of users and later sold the business. Looking
for something new to do, Cameron started MyEZMail which was a
company that would provide an e-mail forwarding service where
subscribers could keep their email addresses confidential.
The Next Michael Dell
All of these successful businesses brought
Cameron much deserved notoriety. As a result, he was nominated
to receive the Junior Achievement "Young Entrepreneur of the
Year" Award. At age 14, he became 1 of 3 finalists from over
100,000 applicants. They were looking for a teenage Michael Dell
and Cameron had all the qualifications.
Although he didn't win, there were many more good things in
store for this young entrepreneur. We'll follow Cameron's story
in part two of this article.
Cameron Johnson has started, run and sold twelve successful
businesses by the time he was twenty-one. His successes have
been featured in Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, USA Today, and
many more publications, as well as on the Today show and Good
Morning America. When he was fifteen, he became an advisory
board member of a Tokyo-based company.
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