He was a teen-trepreneur.
A US high school dropout set social media’s eyes pinwheeling after revealing how he retired at 22 after becoming a millionaire in his teens.
“I had started to make a pretty substantial income from my business when I was 17-years-old, and that was in the E-commerce industry,” Hayden Knowles said in a recent TikTok video. “I still work, I love to work but I am technically retired because of the money I’ve set aside from real estate.”
He added, “The money that pays me does support my lifestyle.”
Knowles frequently shares the secrets to his meteoric success on TikTok and on Youtube, where he boasts nearly 130,000 followers and over 300,000 subscribers respectively.
After dropping out of high school at 17, the budding businessman founded the platform EcommSeason, which charges up to $575 for courses on making money online.
These get-rich-quick tutorials discuss everything from dropshipping — the practice of accepting customers’ orders without keeping actual stock on hand — to mastering TikTok’s advertising algorithm.
Knowles then invested earnings from EcommSeason into real estate to help bolster his portfolio.
Through this double-pronged approach, Knowles was able to buy a Lamborghini at 18, thereby achieving the apparent litmus test for manhood set by fellow TikTok millionaire Sebastian Ghiorghiu.
By 19, he was a bonafide millionaire.
Knowles would continue to add to his millions in the years to come, earning $15 million in revenue, and $3 million in profit last year from e-commerce alone, LadBible reported.
Throw in his real estate and EcommSeason earnings, and the rich-fluencer raked in a total of $7 million in 2022.
Knowles frequently details the spoils of his success on social media, inundating his feeds with footage of his luxury whips and trips to Bali and other exotic locales.
What’s the secret to making boatloads of cash in a flash? The mogul claimed in another clip that it’s paramount “to have a singular focus.”
Rather than pursuing a million different ventures — the trend among today’s side-hustling youth — the social media star advises pursuing “something scalable that you want to do long term.”
Budgeting is also important to keep in mind when riding the road to riches, per the wealth guru.
“Wealth is a ratio between our income and our expenses. It’s not a flat number,” explained Knowles, who claims that successful people live on only 20 percent of what they earn.
“If you can do that, you’re going to be able to save and invest and double down so aggressively,” Knowles declared.
Ultimately, the youngster declared he doesn’t regret missing out on university experience.
In one clip, he described his earlier years as having all the “stupidity” of college “but you take it up like 20 levels further because everyone has money.”
“Instead of a practical joke where I throw a pie in your face, it involves a private jet and there’s $10,000 behind it and you’re hiring people to help you pull off a prank,” he said.
Knowles’ isn’t the first Zoomer to go from rags to riches at a young age, thereby bucking the popular stereotype of Gen Z-ers as Snapchat-addicted layabouts.
Virginia’s Andy Kong became a millionaire by age 20 by starting a variety of ventures, including e-commerce firm Project Wifi and cryptocurrency mining firm BlackWater (not to be confused with the controversial private military company of the same name).