9 entrepreneurs who ignored the gatekeepers and built anyway
Ashley Couto
People with decades of experience love to gatekeep. They tell young founders to wait their turn, pay their dues, learn the landscape first. But experience can become a cage. The more you know about how things have always been done, the less likely you are to try something that seems impossible. Naivety is an asset when it means you haven’t learned what you’re supposed to fear.
These nine founders started before they had networks, credentials, or permission. A 17-year-old working with MrBeast and Nike. A 16-year-old whose Alzheimer’s program was adopted by the Department of Education. A 20-year-old in Serbia who turned LinkedIn into a business because it was the only room she could enter without asking. They didn’t wait to understand the rules before playing.
Some are now in their 30s and 40s, but the message is clear. Start young. Start before you are ready.
I started my first business at 22. Looking back, the naivety helped. You don’t need to know how the deck is laid out in order to play your ace cards. You don’t get experience first. You get it while you’re walking the path. These founders prove that waiting for readiness is just another way of staying stuck.
9 founders who built businesses long before they were ready2.5 billion views at 17
Max Behrens (age 17) works with MrBeast, Nike, Disney, General Motors, alongside his business partner Dimcha, and many more of the biggest creators and brands on YouTube. He built a thumbnail and packaging system after watching great videos underperform because of weak visuals, turning it into a repeatable, data-driven process. “I had no network, capital or credibility when I started,” Behrens says. His work for General Motors became a 100x outlier and the most viewed video on their channel. The outliers keep coming almost daily.
The Department of Education adopted her program at 16
Alzheimer’s stole Riyaa Sri Ramanathan‘s grandfather before her family saw it coming. At 16, after two years of constant rejection and revision, she created the world’s first Alzheimer’s education program adopted by a Department of Education body. It now reaches 80,000+ students across 125+ regions on two continents. “When systems fail to act early, step in and create solutions they can’t overlook,” Ramanathan says.
First author from Harvard at 22
Camila Giuliano crowdfunded her way to Cambridge, completed a PhD in France, and had her first author-publication from Harvard at age 22. She realised science moved too slowly to create the impact she wanted, so she started a side business bringing Brazilian artists from marginalised communities to tour Europe. That business closed after two years. She started again. “My mission is to help 100k women build financial freedom before my 40s, so I’m on the clock,” Giuliano says.
LinkedIn was the only door without a lock
A 20-year-old university student in Serbia with no network, capital, or credibility, Nikolett Jaksa (now 22) needed remote income and had zero access to traditional business circles. “LinkedIn was the only room I could walk into without permission,” Jaksa says. Within her first year, she turned the platform into a business, helping founders and CEOs across B2B, SaaS, and SEO with their LinkedIn content. No ads, no pods, no viral tactics. The biggest risk today is being invisible while getting ready.
Only one selected out of the whole university
In her final year of university in 2019, Shivani Virdi gave everything to break into big tech and failed. As graduation approached and peers landed roles, it felt like all that effort had been for nothing. Then out of her entire university, only four resumes were shortlisted for a new internship at Adobe. Hers was one of them. She was the only one selected. “You don’t need privileged access, capital, or perfect timing to build something meaningful,” Virdi says. She walked away from Microsoft to build NeoSage, an AI engineering education company now teaching 70,000+ students.
First scholarship at age five
Education was meant to be Toyyib Adelodun‘s way out of poverty. He earned his first scholarship at age five. His mother used his books to teach his siblings because they couldn’t afford more. He dropped out of school twice due to financial hardship, was denied visas seven times, and spent five months in psychiatric care after a mental health crisis. “No money. No job. No stable housing,” Adelodun says. He couch-surfed, worked as a construction labourer, and rebuilt. Today his story has grown into a 1.3 million strong coaching community across platforms.
University rejection became the foundation
When Muhammad U (age 21) got rejected by Brno University of Technology in 2019, it hit so hard he had a panic attack. At that moment, he felt like there was no way forward. He picked himself up, trusted the process, and focused on building his skills. “What once felt like an insurmountable failure has become the foundation of my journey,” Muhammad says. Today he runs his own development agency as CTO and architect, having shipped 67+ single-page applications, marketplaces, and SaaS platforms.
45 days from finance to founder
A finance guy who had no business being in marketing, Sourav Mohanty discovered a $400 million pattern of growth penalties while being an agency client. Most social media platforms penalise agencies for growing by charging per client and capping posts. “I built and launched PostLily on Christmas Eve, exactly 45 days after entering an industry where I had zero network,” Mohanty says. He conducted global research from the US to Tajikistan, mapped the entire industry on a Miro board, and built a solution agencies actually asked for.
3,100 to 126,000 followers in 14 months
After nearly two decades of building successful creator brands for others, Ashley Couto finally built one for herself while working full-time as a director in tech. She went from 3,100 to 126,000 LinkedIn followers in 14 months. “I’d been trying to build my business for 10 years with no success,” Couto says. “Finding the right mentor with a growth strategy aligned to what I personally wanted was a huge unlock.” She works European hours, uses AI strategically, and is offline by 6pm.
Stop waiting to be ready: young people can build awesome businesses
Nine founders who started before they had permission, credentials, or a complete map. They got experience by walking the path, not by waiting at the start. Your age is irrelevant. Your readiness is a myth. Stop learning and start building.