What you can learn from a 19-year-old entrepreneur who raised $1 million to launch an app

This weekend I spoke at Wabash College’s 2nd Entrepreneur Summit. The other keynote speaker was 19-year-old Cory Levy. There’s buzz that Cory might be the next Mark Zuckerberg. He likely grows tired of the comparison, but he looks the part.

For 19, the dude dropped some wisdom.

On Asking

If you ask for money, you’ll get advice. If you ask for advice, you’ll get money.

This is what he learned as he tried to raise funds to launch his app. Too often we approach people asking, “What can you do for me?” instead of, “Hey, I respect what you’ve accomplished and I’d love to pick your brain a bit.”

Admitting that you don’t know everything and asking for advice will get you farther.

On Golden Nugget ideas

Someone asked Cory about having potential investors sign non-disclosure agreements. Here’s his response:

An entrepreneur not sharing an idea is like a comedian not sharing his jokes.

On Patience

After two years, Twitter only had 2,400 users.

His best advice

Go work for your hero.

When he was a teenager, Cory started to reach out to tech entrepreneurs through Facebook. He established relationships with some of the major players before he was even able to vote. It seems there’s no way that he should have been able to make the connections he did.

He showed up. He offered to help. He was in. Now he’s got an idea that he’s super passionate about and 1 million bucks!