THEY’RE the new breed of young tycoons making millions on the Internet. And the fab five have two things in common – they’re all in their TWENTIES and they’re BRITISH. Between them they run companies worth more than £2.3BILLION and have created 735 jobs. They all started with just one good idea – and turned it into a fortune. We persuaded them to take a brief break from business to pose for our exclusive Millionaires.com picture and tell BRIONY WARDEN the secrets of their success.
JASON DRUMMOND, 29
PERSONAL WEALTH : £35million in cash and shares.
STATUS : Married with two kids. Home is a five-bedroom mansion in Cobham, Surrey.
COMPANY : Virtual Internet PLC. Floated on stock market last January and now worth £55million. Offices in eight countries and employs 100 people in Britain.
THE BIG IDEA : Selling Internet names to companies setting up their own websites.
BEGINNINGS : At 15 he sold computer soft- ware to pals at Burlington Danes Compre- hensive School, in Fulham, South West Lon- don. Built up sales network through local newsagents and earned enough to buy a new VW Golf Convertible. Left school with four A-levels but turned down a university place for a job in tele- sales. Then he quit to start own business. He says : “I got the idea for my first busi- ness when my boss bought a fax machine – one of the first in the UK and I saw it was going to change everything. I resigned to set up my own business selling faxes and at 19 was earning £50,000 a year. “A year later I met my wife Jacqueline, an air hostess, and we went to South Africa where I set up another fax business. South Africa was quick to catch on to the Internet and I realised it would change everything again. When we moved back to Britain, I launched an Internet company.”
GETTING STARTED : “I set up shop in the basement of a snooker hall in Fulham with a woman to answer the phones. I called all the major companies and said : “You’re going to want a good web name for the Internet so buy one now.”
MY BIG BREAK : Warner Brothers were among the first to come on board. Now we have 15,000 clients – 48 in the FTSE 100.
FIRST BIG BUY : A Lotus Esprit at 20.
STYLE : Suits from Marks & Spencer.
NEXT STEP : Has won the licence to register the new dot.com company names.
ADVICE : “Avoid business opportunities where you cannot see the money.”
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