Most families would consider themselves lucky to have a member that went on to become a self-made millionaire. For the Cook family of Skillman, New Jersey, they didn’t get lucky just once but three times!

How To Make $100 Million

Money is important. However, it’s not the sole driver of every entrepreneur. Some want to make the world a better place. Others just want to offer a product or service that is the best it can possibly be. Catherine and David Cook just wanted a way to meet kids their age at their new high school. After realizing their new school’s yearbook was a terrible way to meet people, Catherine had an idea: why not digitize the yearbook?

Getting to Market with a Good Idea

Many of us have had an idea like this. It makes sense and is needed by the market. Unfortunately, most of us have these ideas after someone else is already working on it or we lack the money to pursue the project. The Cook kids were in a completely different position. It was 2005, just a year after Facebook launched with an exclusive focus on college kids. At the time, there was no real option for high school students to engage with social media other than the incredibly popular MySpace, which focused on self-expression. To get a foothold with teens, the Cooks family would have to give their potential customers something new and exciting.

But how do a couple of teenagers (Catherine was 14 and David was 16 when they started the company) manage to raise the start up capital for their new enterprise? Simple. They just asked their Harvard graduate older brother, Geoff, that had also founded his own successful startup. He decided to help his younger siblings with advice and, most crucially, a whopping $250,000 to fund the company.

Find Your Niche

The Cooks’ new company, MyYearbook, decided to focus on helping its users meet and connect with new people. Armed with funding, a capable older mentor, and a great idea, Catherine and David Cook began creating a website, saving cost by outsourcing much of the project to developers in India. Their focus on helping people discover others with similar interests appealed to gamers other small communities. The company continued building technology to improve the connectivity element of their platform, such as chat and shared media streams. By 2008, MyYearbook had raised more than $17 million in funding from venture capitalists.

Growth Can Mean a Lot

In 2011, a mere six years after fouding the company, the Cook Family decided to sell it. The buyer, Quepasa, a social media network with a heavy focus among Latin American users, decided to buy the company for $100 million in cash and stock. As a result, the Cook kids are all multimillionaires. Geoff Cook agreed to become the new company’s, renamed MeetMe, Chief Operating Officer (COO). Catherine graduated from Georgetown University and now works for MeetMe full time as VP of brand strategy. David completed his studies at the University of Colorado.