The Business Journal’s annual report on young entrepreneurs, some of whom entered the working world while in their teens.
When most 14-year-old boys were playing video games or pickup basketball, Robby Berthume was pursuing his dream of becoming an entrepreneur: He launched a Web design company in 2000 for the real estate industry.
“Creating a business would be a sense of security, freedom and independence,” Berthume said.
While his age might have been a disadvantage, Berthume used his online savvy to win over clients.
He kept building his business through several high schools (his family moved around a lot), doing as many 30 small projects simultaneously. He took it with him into Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., the Christian liberal arts school founded by Jerry Falwell, where he met fellow student Samuel Moon.
While the idea of running a business appealed to Moon, he had not acted on that urge, preferring to concentrate on his studies. As they moved through college, both Berthume and Moon were intrigued by the rapidly developing online social networking phenomenon and sought to reorient Berthume’s Web design company toward this market.
This retooled company, now called Epsilon Concepts, launched in May 2007, just as they were graduating from college. But north central Virginia was not a bustling center of online social networking ventures, so, a year later, the two moved to Los Angeles.
“More than half of our clients were based in Southern California and most of our leads for new clients were coming from this area, so it made sense to move here,” Moon said.
Rather than hire full-time Web designers here, Berthume and Moon decided to save money by looking abroad. They ended up establishing a satellite office in Serbia, staffed with 16 Web designers.
That left Berthume and Moon with some time to consider new ventures: a global online social networking directory and a resource guide for businesses considering outsourcing work to other companies.
The biggest challenges, Berthume said, are managing the natural peaks and valleys of the Web design business and making sure they hire the right people. “We’ve had our share of issues with employees in the past who just weren’t the right fit.”
The other challenge is trying to find time for personal lives while working 60 to 70 hours a week.
“We’ve found time to go to Vegas and do some traveling. We both like to read and play basketball. We do try to be normal,” Moon said.
FAST FACTS:
– Robby Berthume, 22, and Samuel Moon, 25: co-founders, Epsilon
Concepts Inc., Los Angeles
– Business: Web design for online social network organizations
– Employees: 18 (including 16 in satellite office in Serbia)
– Financials: 2008 revenue of $600,000
– Fact: Berthume and Moon have never taken any outside financing
