Aaron Chavez's résumé reads like that of an accomplished businessman: founder of a national fundraising website, owner of a successful consulting business and author of a blog with 2.8 million followers.
What makes Chavez stand out is this: He is a 19-year-old from Dinuba.
After earning $20,000 in one month through his social media consulting business, Chavez decided to drop out of his freshman year at Reedley College to focus on his entrepreneurship.
Since then he has turned his attention to his latest project, Sevenly.org, a for-profit company that raises money on behalf of nonprofit organizations. The site has taken off like wildfire since Chavez and his 26-year-old partner from Southern California launched it last month.
It's selling 50 to 60 T-shirts a day, each week featuring a different shirt and benefiting a different charity. Seven dollars from each $24 shirt sale benefits a new charity each week.
Aaron Chavez shows his website Sevenly, at home with his mother, Denise Hernandez, and siblings Faith, 8, Caleb, 5, and Ava, 6 months. Entrepreneurial-minded Chavez quit Reedley College six weeks into his freshman year because he earned more than $20,000 in one month with his consulting business.
It's not unusual for someone in their late teens or early 20s to start a business; Fresno State's Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is full of young business owners.
But to be so successful with several business at such a young age is uncommon, said Eric Nasalroad, who was Chavez's instructor at Reedley College and who also teaches at the Lyles Center.
"He's the kind of guy who starts big businesses that will grow," Nasalroad said of Chavez. "That's very rare."
Chavez's social media know-how plays a big role in his success. Sevenly was set up to go viral, using Facebook, Twitter and other social media tools to spread the word.
"That's what's making it blow up big time," he said.
Faith-based start
Chavez was raised by devout Christian parents, spending his teen years in a home surrounded by orchards on the outskirts of Dinuba. His own faith inspired him to start the Facebook-based blog "I'm Proud to be a Christian" while a 17-year-old senior at Dinuba High School.
Interest in the page exploded. He now has 2.8 million Facebook followers who respond to the Scripture quotes he posts and add their own inspiring messages.
While still in high school, Chavez researched everything he could find about social media and launched his consulting company. He got his first customers by cold-calling online jewelry companies and other types of businesses. He taught them how to set up Facebook pages and how to use them to market themselves.
The business took off.
Most of it was done by phone, so his customers didn't know his age.
Chavez dealt with the occasional bumps of running a business while still living at his parents' house with three siblings, ages 8, 5 and 6 months.
He often would retreat to the pantry for a quiet place to make a consulting call -- a challenge in the bustling household, said his mother, Denise Hernandez.
"I'd be like, 'Aaron, clean your room,' and he's on a business call," she said.
After earning $20,000 in one month, he decided to drop out of Reedley College during his first semester. He wanted to squeeze as much business as he could out of Facebook and Twitter while they still were hot.
He told his parents and Nasalroad, his teacher, that he was dropping out. Initially, they were upset. But when Chavez shared just how well his businesses were going, they supported his decision.
It "absolutely is the only time" he would agree with a student's decision to drop out, Nasalroad said. His mother still hopes Chavez will return to college.
Since then, Chavez has teamed with Dale Partridge, 26, of Corona, who started an in-home fitness-training business when he was 17.
Source: Read more: http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/07/03/2451884/dinuba-teen-succeeds-in-business.html#ixzz1RLsYtZyr
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