The list of the Entrepreneurs around the globe cannot be defined in a page or so..

Below are the top 10 Tech Youngest Entrepreneurs and their learnings. The most important and significant goal of this article is to spread the learnings these people got and shared with the rest of the world.

Lets have a look -

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Anand Agarawala, 27

Funding: $1.65 million in government grants and from investors, including Andy Hertzfeld, a key designer of Macintosh software.

Developed as part of Agarawala’s master’s thesis at the University of Toronto, BumpTop turns your typical Windows desktop into a whimsical 3D room. You can stick Post-it notes on the walls and compile photos, Web sites, such as Facebook, and documents into piles, as you would on a physical desk. The first version, launched Apr. 8, has been downloaded more than 300,000 times. The company is in talks with PC makers to bundle the software in new computers.

Lessons learned: “The key thing is, stay as lean as possible,” says Chief Executive Agarawala. “We don’t have fancy espresso machines or offer massage in the office. But we do have a team that’s motivated. Every full-time employee should have a meaningful stake in the company.”

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Tasso Argyros, 27

Funding: About $25 million from Sequoia Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, JAFCO Ventures, Cambrian Ventures, and First-Round Capital, plus angels David Cheriton, Rajeev Motwani, and Ron Conway

When MySpace (NWS) wants to calculate how its tens of millions of users are spending time on its site, it turns to little-known Aster Data Systems. The startup’s powerful data analysis software is able to run efficiently because it cuts down on data flowing between servers. That eliminates a key bottleneck in software performance and makes it alluring to MySpace and other clients. Argyros, who was born in Greece, quit his Stanford University PhD program to start the company. “Every successful company has to have a dropout,” he says. But Aster faces strong competitors, including Oracle (ORCL), and IBM (IBM), and Teradata (TDC).

Lessons learned: “A lot of our customers buy Aster because we can add more business value to the bottom line,” says Argyros. “That’s a message that works inside and outside a recession.”

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Nik Bauman, 25, Emily Olson, 24, and Rob LaFave, 26

Funding: $1 million from First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, and TechStars

For a video interview with Foodzie’s founders,
Friends since their first year at Virginia Tech, the founders of Foodzie reconvened after college to build an online outlet for artisan food. Chief Marketing Officer Olson had worked at a specialty food retailer and saw how tough it was for local producers to get shelf space. Many mom-and-pop purveyors sell through farmer’s markets but aren’t big or tech savvy enough to land in stores or sell through large e-tail food sites, such as iGourmet. “There’s this huge divide,” adds CEO LaFave. Foodzie helps bridge the gap by handling credit-card processing and tax calculations and supplying prepaid shipping labels to the makers of grass-fed beef, sea salt caramels, and Sumatra coffee that populate its site. In return, Foodzie takes 20% of sales. Next up: tools to help bloggers and serious eaters promote Foodzie on Facebook and other sites.

Lessons learned: “If you always listen to the news, it’s easy to get disheartened,” says Chief Technology Officer Bauman. “What you need to do sometimes is disconnect and focus on what you can control.”

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Christophe Bisciglia, 28

Funding: $5 million from Accel Partners and such angels as Diane Greene, Marten Mickos, Gideon Yu, and Qi Lu

While working at Google (GOOG), Bisciglia preached a gospel of data. His message, to clients and conference attendees, was that companies and university scientists could crunch the numbers on supersize databases, gleaning new insights from stock trades, Web site visits, and even gene sequences. Google does this by pulling data from a number of sources and then distributing the computing tasks—which couldn’t be handled by one or a small number of machines—over hundreds, if not thousands, of computers. He has moved on from Google to a startup, where he hopes to make those services more accessible to other companies. His brainchild, Cloudera, sells technical consulting for the open-source Hadoop cloud computing software.

Lessons learned: “In a down economy, less-than-stellar ideas get filtered out,” founder Bisciglia says. “We were really lucky—we cleared our funding right before the economy really turned down. So we’re much more focused on building things people need than on guessing.”

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Rand Fishkin, 29

Funding: $1.1 million from Ignition Partners and Curious Office

Having served as designated Web expert for his mother’s Seattle-area advertising firm, Rand Fishkin knew the ins and outs of search engine optimization—essentially, how to help a site stand out in search results. First, he blogged on the subject. That led to consulting, which in turn spawned SEOmoz, which offers free and fee-based tools for businesses looking to stand out in search results. Launched in 2007, its 5,000 paying clients include real estate site Zillow, Village Voice Media, and four divisions of Microsoft—plus another 135,000 using the free tools.

Lessons learned: “The buck stops here,” says Fishkin, adding that he took a substantial salary cut at the onset of the economic downturn.

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Thomas Foley, 25

Funding: $1 million from venture capitalist Tim Draper, family, and friends

Foley is building a site that would make it easier for private companies to raise funding online. Due to launch later this year, XChange will let investors pour money into specific companies or invest in index funds—say, for specific industries. The company plans to make money on transaction fees and by selling premium features.

Lessons leaned: “You find ways to keep costs down,” Foley says. “Instead of buying things for cash, you give equity. Instead of buying all new computer systems, you might buy used systems. You find ways to stretch your dollars.”

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David Friedberg, 28

Funding: $17 million from Index Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Allen & Co., First Round Capital, and other private investors

Former Google (GOOG) employee David Friedberg got the idea for WeatherBill a half-decade ago, as he noticed how deeply his local bike-rental shop was dependent on good weather. In January 2007, he launched WeatherBill to sell insurance against bad weather. The online service relies on a unique prediction engine that considers weather forecasts and other data to set fees and payouts for companies as varied as a farmer in Texas plagued by drought and a golf course in Seattle that’s frequently rained out. Much of the insurance is sold to big insurance companies, such as Willis (WSH) and Wells Fargo Insurance Services. Lately, travel companies have climbed on board. In 2008, Priceline.com (PCLN) began offering “sunshine guaranteed” vacations; for an extra $40, travelers can get a full refund on a trip if it’s mostly rained out.

Lessons learned: “You should always have multiple deals going on,” Friedberg says. “You should always have multiple partnerships available. You’re never there until you’re 100% there.”

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Joe Gebbia, 27, Nathan Blecharczyk, 25 and Brian Chesky, 27

Funding: Seed funding from Y-Combinator; otherwise, self-funded

In 2007, on the occasion of the annual Industrial Design Society of America conference, every one of San Francisco’s hotels was sold out. So roommates Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky opted to rent space in their apartment to three strangers planning to attend the conference. Gebbia and Chesky soon learned that a lot more people were willing to rent out space, too. Joined by Web-savvy friend Nathan Blecharczyk, they built a site that would match people with extra living space with travelers willing to pay for it. The site now lists lodgings for rent, ranging from couches and spare rooms to entire homes, in 830 cities in 73 countries.

Lessons learned: “People are willing to try new things to save money, and they’re willing to be resourceful,” Chesky says.

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David Karp, 22

Funding: $5.25 million from Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, Betaworks

Somewhere between full-throttled blog software, such as WordPress, and minimalist microblogging tools, such as Twitter, lies Tumblr. New York native David Karp introduced Tumblr in 2007, using money and experience he’d acquired as a software consultant for online parenting site UrbanBaby. Tumblr has attracted 800,000 users, including pop music stars Katy Perry and John Legend, who use the free service to keep an online journal of photos, videos, music, and text. Karp says $4.5 million raised in December gives Tumblr plenty of money to stay focused on attracting users. But he expects the company to generate revenue this year by customizing its platform for big media companies and by charging regular users who want extra services, such as more visibility for their pages.

Lessons learned: “Most of the good decisions I’ve ever made I can credit to the smart people around me,” Karp says. “My role models and my mentors have made a lot smarter decisions than I have.”

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Bismarck Lepe, 29

Funding: $10 million from Sierra Ventures and undisclosed private investors

Just before he left his job at Google, Bismarck Lepe was assigned the task of helping wring profit from online video site YouTube. Though intrigued, Lepe was daunted by the prospect of the red tape he’d face within a large company. So Lepe left to start his own online video business, Ooyala, in 2007. Since then, Ooyala has helped such big online players as AOL, Warner Brothers, TV Guide, and National Geographic make money on the videos they place on the Web. Using Ooyala’s flagship product Backlot, companies get detailed data on video viewership, including what sections are being skipped. Lepe expects Ooyala will turn its first profit by July.

Lessons learned: “Hire the right people. Ultimately, it’s about the people. Any time that we’ve been unsure about a candidate—sure enough, six months down the line it didn’t work out.”

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source: businessweek.com

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