Most teenagers don’t spend their summers teaching, or learning about, entrepreneurship. But Michael and Marc Guberti aren’t your average teenagers, and their business, Teenager Entrepreneur, doesn’t serve average teens.
The two Scarsdale brothers—Michael is 18, Marc is 16—got their start in entrepreneurship several years ago when they launched a blog about baseball, giving up-to-date player information and posting teams’ wins and losses. But the Guberti brothers soon decided that instead of summarizing the successes of others, they wanted to kickstart their own success by elevating others and helping to turn people’s ideas into realities. So they started Teenager Entrepreneur, a web site that prepares people for a life in business.
With a mantra that “age is no limit to success,” the Guberti’s business aims to help anyone—teens, retirees, stay-at-home parents, small business owners—further their “entrepreneurial evolution.” Their goal? Teach would-be entrepreneurs how to “package passions into profits” by helping them learn how to create products, promote themselves, and adopt a success-oriented mindset using a four-step formula: utilize passion, create many products, promote yourself worldwide, and propel career success. It’s a formula geared toward teaching customers to monetize their message.
The Teenager Entrepreneur site is full of advice, packed with posts like “The 3 Best Ways To Get More Twitter Followers,” “How To Attract Your Ideal Customers on Facebook,” and “Why SMS Marketing Is Crucial For Your Business.” Michael and Marc also offer private coaching and speaking services, but the teens’ key product is their Teenager Entrepreneur Boot Camp, which Michael describes as “a four-day educational and empowerment event, teaching attendees how to utilize their four pillars of progress.” For teen attendees, the Guberti’s promise a boost to their resumes (perfect for impressing on college applications), as well as the skills to start a business and a head start in the professional world.
The camp started when the Guberti brothers began to see that “people with a dream of becoming business owners did not know where to begin,” Michael says. “It seems that every generation has a message to share with others, and their resonance with our program is evident of that.”
But what qualifies these teenagers to act as entrepreneurial sages? Social media prowess, for one thing. At only 16, Marc Guberti already has approximately 207,000 Twitter followers and is considered to be a top 5% global social media influencer. The two believe that social media is one of the most powerful methods to reach individuals. “The peak quality of our daily tweets, posts, and pins spike viewership. Innovative, value-driven content usually garners global attention, and we are honored that ours has achieved such caliber,” say Marc and Michael.
Through social media, the two were able to sell out their boot camp in 2014, and were honored with the Best Small Business Marketing Campaign of the Year award by Likeable Local. Their efforts have also attracted media coverage in The Huffington Post, US News and World Report, and Yahoo Small Business Advisor.
During the camp, the Gubertis discuss exact methods and how-to strategies to become an expert on entrepreneurship. Each of the four days is devoted to their four pillars of passion, product, promote, and propel. To make the presentations more exciting, Michael and Marc hold Shark Tank-style competitions where students pitch their ideas and, in turn, receive “promotional support, partnerships, and professional feedback.”
The Teenager Entrepreneur boot starts in July; enrollment is currently open. The cost of the four-day camp is $497. For more information, go to teenagerentrepreneur.com/registertoday
