Millionaire at 21, Bankrupt at 22: Andrew Thompson’s Story

Image Source: Mail Online

Andrew Thompson’s story is a perfect plot for any movie that would be titled ‘There Today, Gone Tomorrow’. By the time he was 21, Andrew had amassed a $2.5 million fortune. This money he made from advertising revenues from his website, MySpaceSupport.com. The website was created to help Myspace users to decorate their pages. Andrew gathered many Myspace friends and would market his site to them.

In so doing, he went high up in Google ranking and continued climbing. One evening, he added Yahoo ads to his site and that’s when everything changed. In about 12 hours, he made $2,500. According to Mixergy.com, as Andrew’s site got more “Google juice”, it got more traffic. Soon, he was up to $200,000 in revenues. Fast forward to some months later and Andrew became a millionaire. He started to live large. He dropped out of school and bought an expensive house in Los Angeles, several luxurious sports cars, played high-stakes poker in Las Vegas, jetted around a lot and bought all the latest gadgets. Andrew was on top of the world and was living life on the fast lane. Until reality caught up with him.

Andrew’s site began to drop in the Google rankings and the money started to run low. The reason for this was that he improved his site. He improved it so much that Google thought it was a new site entirely and pushed it back in rankings. That’s how he lost everything. From being a millionaire at 21, Andrew had become bankrupt by the time he was 22. Talking to Business Insider, he said that his money just disappeared. He wasn’t accountable in his spending. In fact, he mentioned that his friend wrecked a car and he too, wrecked a car and paid for that out of his pocket. Andrew’s friends tried to fleece him of his money. He said that five of them stabbed him in the back. That period, he knew who his real friends were. Andrew is quoted thus on Mail Online: “I found out who my real friends were. Five of my friends back-stabbed me. This guy was a good friend for a year or two and we hung out often. Then he told me that he would give me a deal at a shop, because he worked at BMW. He ended up taking five grand. I definitely learned a lot. I have a lot of haters, I guess. But I also have a lot of people who are really positive and who are rooting for me.”

After the turbulent years, Andrew has been able to get back on his feet and is gradually rising out of the ashes. He has launched a social networking site, BeModel.com, which was inspired by his passion for photography. He also has his autobiography in the works. The book will be titled ‘Young & Stupid: How I Made and Lost $2.5 Million’. He was able to raise $150,000 without having money in the bank. He has also made $250,000 from internet advertising. Andrew now lives in Littleton, Colorado (as at October 2010, Source: Business Insider).

He has learned his lesson. In the interview, he highlighted some of his plans for the future as follows: “Instead of blowing money on toys and cars, I am going to invest it back into the company or another company. I will do the typical saving, like 401(k)’s and rainy day funds. But before I even start my retirement account again, I’m going to invest: real estate, stocks, commodities – whatever I can do.” He also highlighted Real Estate developing as his calling, and not the internet- despite his love for it. He said: “Not an internet guy. I love the internet and I will always work with it, but my ultimate goal is to build casinos, hotels, and nightclubs. I’ll start in the Denver area, open a night club with a partner, and then eventually will move to Las Vegas and California to build some hotels and casinos. I want to be a skyscraper guy.” (Source: Mail Online).

You must have learned something tangible from Andrew’s story. Do share what you have learned right here in the comment section. You never know who you’ll be helping.

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