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Stuff Article: 'How Kiwi teen went from sharing inspirational quotes to working with US millionaires'
www.stuff.co.nz Business section article reproduced below:
While most of his peers are studying at university, working as apprentices or in entry level jobs, Josh Ryan is being paid to help US entrepreneurs gain Instagram followers.
What started as a hobby posting inspirational quotes on his Instagram page, turned into a business when his posts went viral and he began promoting products for money.
The 18-year-old, from Nelson, now runs social media marketing agency Cleverpreneur.
He started the firm at the beginning of 2018 - just months after finishing Year 13 - and now counts the owners of multi-million dollar companies, including Russel Brunson of software start-up ClickFunnels and "personal freedom coach" Preston Smiles, among his clients.
One of his Instagram pages, @millionaire.dream, has more than 400,000 followers.
His first big client was an international author and it was through that connection that he started networking with other US business owners online.
"Basically I just messaged him and said 'hey if you want to send me your book, I'll promote your book for free'," Ryan told Stuff.
"All my business basically comes from referrals. I guess I just really leveraged giving a lot more to these influential people and bringing a lot of value to them without necessarily asking for anything."
Less than a year later, he's earning a living running Cleverpreneur. He refused to disclose exactly how much money he makes but said his salary was probably similar to the average young professional with a university degree.
His job involves coming up with engaging content for his clients' social media platforms.
"Most of the people we work with aren't super focused on generating a short term income from this," he said.
"It's more about building up the reach and that - the more people we can get watching their Instagram stories, the Instagram TV stuff, the more people we can get onto their podcasts, YouTube channels."
While his clients in the US aren't fazed by his age, caring more about the results his work provides, he said New Zealand business owners had been reluctant to work with him and didn't seem to take him seriously.
"I think there's still a lot of that old school mind set like 'you haven't got a social media degree from university, what would you know?'
"I think young people often get a hard time. From what I've heard the older generation always sort of says how easy the younger generation has it. I think young people in general just want to find a way to do things a bit differently. They don't really want to do the standard thing."
According to international statistics portal Statista, social media content creation generated 22.9 million euros (NZ$36.5 million) in revenue globally in 2015.
University of Auckland associate professor Arvind Tripathi said social media had changed the way businesses communicated with their customers as it provided the opportunity for consumers to talk to companies.
He told Stuff young entrepreneurs, such as Ryan, had a potential advantage in the social media marketing industry - their age.
"Since a large number of users of social media platforms are relatively young, a teenager may understand their preferences and behaviour better than many older adults."
Stuff