About
My name is Stanley Tang and I’m a 17-year-old entrepreneur, best-selling author and student who will be attending Stanford University in the fall of 2010. I started my first online business in 2006 where I began in information marketing, affiliate marketing and social media. Since then, I have developed dozens of websites and launched several products, accumulating over 6,000 subscribers and more than 100,000 followers on Twitter. I am also the author of eMillions which was published in the fall of 2008 and debuted as a best-seller on Amazon.com.
My current focus is on web startups with my latest venture BuzzBlaze – a social news aggregation website. The purpose of this site is to dispense my thoughts and opinions on online businesses and comment on emerging technologies and trends, based on my real-world experiences as an internet entrepreneur.
My Story
Here’s how it all started: I’ve always been sort of a tech junkie from an early age. I got my first ever computer when I was just 3 years old (back then they were still Macs) and always loved playing around with different softwares and programs. In 2001, I got involved in web design when a friend introduced me to HTML & Javascript. That was when I created my first ever website with friends as a hobby and hosted the websites on free servers such as Angelfire and Geocities. It was mostly a period of hacking and messing around with designs and codes.
I first discovered my entrepreneurial instincts at the age of 11 when I started a “business” at school. My school only sold a limited variety of snacks and people usually had to wait a long time in line during break times outside the tuck shop. I spotted this opportunity and began to start selling snacks myself in classrooms. I basically went to 7-Eleven every day after school and bought a few dozens of chips and “Mamee Noodles” at around HK$3 per pack and sold it at school the next day at HK$10. My venture only lasted for two weeks but I managed to make a few hundred dollars – enough for a 11 year old’s pocket money.
A few years has gone past, when one day, in the summer of 2005, I came across a book at my local bookstore that ultimately changed the course of my teenage life. It was called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. The book was a huge eye-opener for me as that was the first time in my life that I was exposed to the concepts of money, business and cashflow. In fact, I loved the book so much that I bought the entire Rich Dad series as well as several other business books. It was the first time I ever realized the vast amount of opportunities there was in the world of business and entrepreneurship – and that there were other options besides getting a safe, secure job and climbing the corporate ladder for the rest of my life.
I began going on the internet, trying to learn as much as possible about business and entrepreneurship relating to the lessons taught in Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I downloaded tons of ebooks and audio interviews on the subject but, unknowingly, I also signed up to tons of email lists…
TURNING POINT:
Then on May 13th 2006 (I remember the day very clearly – it was a Saturday), I received a “spam” email with the subject along the lines of “Make Money Online With Zero Dollars”. I opened the email and watched a 40 minute screen capture video on the subject of Google Adsense. It was at that moment that I realized just how huge the potential of making money from the internet was.
I followed the instructions from the video step-by-step where I created a blog, wrote some articles and slapped a couple of Adsense ads on it in one weekend. That very night, I made my first $1.97. And that was the story how it all begun – the moment where my two passions of business and internet fused into one by starting my first ever internet business.
And they say the rest is history…
By August 2006, I made my first $100 and also registered my first domain name. I started creating content-rich websites in niches such as web hosting, magic tricks and business. In January 2007, I made my first $1,000 (in under 48 hours) selling an ebook called Co-Registration Secrets Revealed that I wrote in a hotel room in Shenzhen over two nights. I later went on to sell the rights to the ebook, pocketing another $1,000 in less than 48 hours. Slowly, I began building a following and customer base with over 4,000 subscribers on my email newsletter list. I did my first ever official product launch in June 2007 when I released The Viral Marketing Blackbook which garnered rave reviews and created huge buzz in the internet marketing industry. In my first proper year online (between January and December 2007), my business has generated over 5-figures in sales (not bad for a 14-year-old).
In the summer of 2007, I took on my biggest project yet when I began on a journalistic mission to interview the most successful internet entrepreneurs in the industry. It was a long and grueling 15 month process that was packed with adversities and obstacles that I had to overcome. In December 2008, eMillions: Behind-The-Scenes Stories of 14 Successful Internet Millionaires was published and became an instant #1 best-seller on Amazon.
You can also download a free digital copy of my book (all 260 pages – unabridged) by clicking here as a bonus for reading my about page 
In April 2009, I purchased The University Kid, a young entrepreneur blog, from my good friend Jason Pereira. I turned it into an online magazine and grew the subscriber base from 800 to over 2,500 subscribers in just a few months. It was later resold back to Jason (out of coincidence) in February 2010. During that period, I also took on an internship at Taobao (Alibaba) – the largest e-commerce website in Asia.
In 2010, I decided to quit the information marketing niche as I shift my focus towards more on the technological aspects of the web. I am now working on a social news aggregation website called BuzzBlaze, due to be launched in the fall of 2010.
Milestones
- 2001 – Created my first ever website
- 2003 – Started my first entrepreneurial venture at school selling snacks, making several hundred dollars
- May 13th 2006 – Began my first online business
- August 2006 – Made my first $100 online
- January 2007 – Sold my first ever ebook and made $1,000 in less than 48 hours
- June 2007 – First ever “official” product launch with The Viral Marketing Blackbook
- October 2007 – Made my first $10,000 online
- December 2008 – Released eMillions, debuting at #1 on Amazon.com in four categories
- April 2009 – Acquired TheUniversityKid.com – a young entrepreneur blog
- July 2009 – Marketing & web development at Taobao (Alibaba) – largest e-commerce website in Asia
- February 2010 – Reached 100,000 followers on Twitter
- September 2010 – Will launch BuzzBlaze – a social news aggregation website
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