How A Teen Entrepreneur Grew Up To Be The Youngest African American CEO Of A Publicly-Held Company — with Ephren Taylor

Ephren W. Taylor II, City Capital, Marketing, Marketplace

At 13, Ephren Taylor read a book about how to make video games. A few months later, he made and sold 30 copies of his own game at $30 each.

This is the story of where those entrepreneurial instincts took him. You’ll hear how the job site he created in his mid-teens got a multi-million dollar offer and what happened after it was turned down. You’ll hear how he followed that up with a business that sold to deep-pocketed insurance companies. And how he became the youngest African American CEO of any publicly-held company.

Ephren W. Taylor II

City Capital

Ephren W. Taylor II is the CEO of City Capital Corporation (Stock Symbol: CTCC) and Incoming, Inc. (Stock Symbol: ICNN.OB). He’s the author of Creating Success from the Inside Out and the upcoming book, The Elite Entrepreneur.

 

Andrew Warner: Before we get started, have you seen articles like this on TechCrunch about companies that were launched by startups who joined the Founder Institute? Well, the Founder Institute is accepting applications right now and I want to encourage you to apply right now before it’s too late on FounderInstitute.com. The Founder Institute is a technology startup accelerator, an entrepreneur training program, that launches companies in 13 cities worldwide. What do you get if you’re in the Founder Institute? Training, mentorship, help getting investors, and just about everything else you need to get a startup launched properly. Go apply right now before it’s too late. FounderInstitute.com.

Do you remember Patrick Buckley, who I interviewed? He came up with an idea for an iPad case, then he built a store to sell it. In a few months, he generated about a million dollars in sales. Well, the platform he used is Shopify. If you have an idea to sell...

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Published: Aug 18, 2010