Teen Router Developer Success

A story about how Furqan got his start in tech as a teenager during the dotcom boom.

"I grew up in the bay area and started programming as a kid. When I was 15, I had a unique experience where I worked at a dotcom. I had just finished my sophomore year and was really into computers. My dad knew this guy who needed people to make a website. They had a router for hotel rooms - hotels wanted to put in DSL and good internet, and they needed an interface like the Linksys interface for their router.

At the time, HTML was really basic - you could just put some stuff together. I showed my dad how to make a menu and he thought it was groundbreaking. If I had worked the whole year, it would have been about $120k, which was pretty ridiculous. The company didn't work out though - they were spending too much money, obviously, paying 15-year-olds $120k.

After that, I went back to high school. I was bored and really into computers and gaming. I had this idea that since people like to trick out their cars with lights and fun things, why not do this with computers? I found some forums online where people were doing this, but there was nowhere to buy things, especially in the US.

I started an ecommerce store kind of accidentally. I figured if I buy these things in bulk, I could get them cheaper, sell some off, and have cash on the side. We started with $800 of stuff in the corner of my garage. Within the first year, we did $1 million in revenue. I was 17 at the time, still in high school. It went from one corner of the garage to a full 3-car garage to living room and family room - there were boxes everywhere."