I’ve always found it encouraging to see other young entrepreneurs become successful. I don’t feel like I’m in competition with other people’s successes. Rather, seeing other people be successful gives me ideas for how I can become more successful. It motivates me to try harder. To reach for the heavens.

I find that after reading about someone else’s success story, I dig deeper, fight harder, and drive faster towards my own goals.

Below is an infographic showing the top 10 young entrepreneurs of 2011 under 30 from Business MBA. If you look in their eyes, you will see people who have lived with passion and intensity and drive. That’s what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

From: BusinessMBA.org

Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs of 2011

Matt Mickiewicz, 99designs Co-Founder—27 Years Old
Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowski, Dropbox Founders, 28 and 25 Years Old
Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, Instagram Founders—25 and 27 Years Old
Hussein Fazal and Kristaps Ronka, AdParlor Founders—29 and 24 Years Old
Alexa Andrzejewski, Soraya Darabi, and Ted Grubb, Foodspotting Founders—27, 27, and 29 Years Old
Jason Baptiste and Andres Barreto, Onswipe Founders, 25 and 24 Years Old
Siamak Taghaddos and David Hauser, Grasshopper Founders—Both 29 Years Old
Matthew Corrin, Freshii Founder—29 Years Old
Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp, Birchbox Founders—27 and 28 Years Old
Daniel Gomez Iniguez, Solben Co-Founder—20 Years Old

What makes a quality link? Any link that was placed via an editorial decision by a real human being. In other words, when a blogger or web site owner organically decides to reference your site or content.

By measuring CPQL we can get a firmer grasp on which organic link building methods offer the best bang for our buck and focus our attention there. In the past, we’ve really just shot from the hip and tried anything and everything. But our new growth strategy is to measure and optimize everything.

Basic point: don’t waste your time with college unless you are prepared to major in a high-skill field like science, engineering, health or technology.

For everything else, the cost of college both in time and money is not worth the investment. You’d be better off starting an online business with minimal startup fees and just bootstrapping for 4 years, learning along the way. My bet is that with 4 years of hard work building an online business, as a small business owner you have a good chance of out-earning most people who go to college and choose unmarketable degrees.

From: The Best Colleges

In other words: I will provide you with free education and the potential for profit if you provide me with free work.

It’s an internship. You’ll be responsible for building out the best, most useful, most respectable web hosting review site on the planet. If you are successful, and meet pre-set goals, this could turn into a full time job as I will give you the first $5,000 per month, each month, in revenue (please note, the site currently makes nothing… it hasn’t been developed). Let me know if this opportunity excites you, both the topic and revenue potential (the education too;) and prove to me that you have a good research ethic and work habits -> ryan@college-startup.com

This got me thinking. Most people, reasonably, are looking for safe jobs. So when they search for the highest paying jobs, they are really not looking for a list of the highest of high paying jobs (which are rare and risky) but that nice sweet spot…. the jobs that anyone can get as long as they put in the time and effort.

But the one noticeable job they left of the list was the one that I, and all entrepreneurs value the most: the job of owner. It is the pinnacle of creative and financial freedom. But it is also very risky.

I think that in today’s day and age, the best way to become an owner is to take the safe route. Start off with the safety and security of a safe, high paying job and use your spare time to bootstrap yourself there. Just make sure your “safe” job leaves enough free time to work your way into ownership.

This year I noticed a post over at Brainz titled The 15 Greatest Board Games of All Time was doing really well in search. I honestly hadn’t built the content with the idea of monetizing it via referrals. I had built it with the intention of getting links (building great content that people would link to).

But I decided to run a little experiment and see how that article would monetize given that ’tis the season to go shopping. I put Amazon.com links to each board game. And I’m generating a good $100 per day average off that single article. Now, I’m not expecting these rates to continue past December 25. But all things considered, that’s an extra $6k over November and December that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. And next year, the article will be poised to monetize with the holiday season again.

So given the accidental success of this board game article, I decided to try my hand at another, higher margin but equally popular Christmas niche: the dollhouse. The article is titled 10 Best Dollhouses for Girls. Will this article convert as well as the board game one? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is that given the success of the board game article, I was able to develop a new model for monetizing the holidays. In fact, my goal is to invest a good $6k (100% of the revenue generated off the board game article) into product-oriented link baits with the aim of monetizing them next Christmas.

With $6k I can develop and market a good 12-15 product oriented linkbaits. Let’s say that 25% of them rank well enough to generate revenue. Given that I’ll probably being aiming after higher margin products than board games, let’s conservatively multiply the $6k this season by 4. It is not unreasonable for me to expect to earn around $25k in seasonal revenue next Christmas season.

And that thought makes the egg nog I’m drinking right now taste a little bit sweeter.

Some friends of mine have been busy for the last year building a cool new social app called Keepio. The social service is built around a simple but very useful idea: that human socialization isn’t just about communication, chatting, texting, etc. It’s also about the exchange of goods. And sharing information about goods.

So Keepio is a platform for keeping track of your own possessions, but also allows you to review things that you own for the benefit of others, and best of all it sets up a nifty structure for exchanging goods in a variety of ways: selling, trading, loaning, etc.

Ever loan a book and never get back? Keepio gives you what you need to keep track of the things you’ve loaned out so that you don’t forget. Ever want to sell something within your social circle and not have to deal with random people you don’t know on Craigslist? It’s these sort of things that Keepio tries to address.

My understanding is that Keepio is going to be adding a bunch of new features in the next two weeks, but still I recommend that you give the service a try and check back in a few weeks to see all the new bells and whistles.

I’m a big fan of education. I just don’t think it’s necessary to succeed. Especially with the advent of the Internet and all the free information that’s out there. Still, I think education is a very valuable thing. Being exposed to the greatest ideas the world has ever known is no small thing.

Interestingly, there are some people out there who feel the same way, and who choose to get educated even when they don’t need to for economic reasons. Take some of the rockers on this list who got their PhD degrees, some after already attaining success.

Writing a great application essay requires lots of pre-planning, a thorough execution, and multiple revisions. Admissions offices at prospective colleges use the application essay to go beyond academics and extracurricular activities to get a better understanding of a perspective student. Admissions teams use the application essay to ascertain specific qualities and experiences which helped a student grow, learn, or change.

To begin writing a great application essay, choose an application essay topic to that best identifies a personal experience, characteristic, or issue that is of tremendous importance to you. Use your response to the application essay to fully express and illustrate what will make you a valuable and unique student of a prospective college. Be honest, open, and genuine with your response, as essentially you are marketing your uniqueness and branding precisely what “you” are to a team of strangers.

Brainstorming ideas, defining your thesis, and formulating an outline is the first step to writing a great college application essay. Be certain to be genuine and base your response to the application essay topic on a meaningful life experience or characteristic of yourself. Also be sure to not “recycle” an essay you’ve already submitted. Do not base your application essay upon controversial matters or typically overused topics like “what my room says about me.”

Admissions teams at colleges seek students who know themselves well and will flourish in academic and extracurricular environments. Prospective colleges seek individuals unafraid to be themselves and who will contribute their uniqueness positively to campus and student life.

After you have determined your thesis statement, be sure to concisely and directly stay on topic. Don’t be afraid to be creative, as most admissions teams read hundreds and thousands of essays and sticking out may work to your advantage. Be sure to make your application essay memorable with a solid and attention catching introduction, followed by a descriptive (but not preachy or wordy) body focusing on your overall experience. Provide examples and back up your original thesis and introduction with entertaining or informative aspects of your experience. Follow up the body of your application essay with a tidy conclusion that summarizes your initial thesis.

After completing your first draft, revise, refine, and proofread beyond spell check as many times as you can. Enlist your friends, family, teachers, coaches, and advisors for constructive criticism and be open to their input, despite differences in opinion. Be certain to polish, sharpen, and shine your application essay to ensure perfect spelling and eradicate grammatical errors. Reading your application essay out loud allows you to perhaps detect “ebb and flow” problems and hear your essay as others would. Remember to adhere to spacing and word limitations to effectively convey your ideas. Be sure to perfect your application essay with many proofreading sessions to ensure your best.

Writing a great college application essay is can be tremendously intimidating but it is a vital and necessary aspect of the application process. Meticulously responding to application essay topics while allowing your true colors to shine, combined with revising your finished product, may very well be the gateway to the school of your dreams.