How a 29-year-old London slum dweller became a millionaire

Timothy Amo is a 29-year-old millionaire who made his fortune by selling his influencer marketing company for an eight-figure sum, but the young Black entrepreneur had to overcome the odds to achieve success.

Amo, co-founder and former CEO of Fanbytes, grew up in one of the most deprived areas of South London, and as a teenager he lived with his father on the fourth floor of a council house (public housing) on ​​Old Kent Road in Southwark.

“That was the poorest area,” Amor told CNBC Make It. “It was at the height of the Peckham, Brixton and Old Kent Road feuds (British slang for conflict), so it was right in the middle of the gang wars. 2005 to 2012 was the height of gang power in south London.”

London Trust It singled out Southwark as one of 19 boroughs with poverty rates “significantly” higher than those across England as a whole.

Amo knew he was poor, but he had a keen entrepreneurial spirit and at the age of 14 he saved some money by starting his own tutorial classes.

He taught his classmates math, and as more and more students asked him for help with other subjects, he began connecting them with tutors he knew and taking a cut of the fees.

“I remember very clearly the first time I contacted these two people,” he said. “Jane needed some help with chemistry and I referred her to Harry, who helped her and I got a commission of £5 (about $6.60) because (the company) charged £15 an hour.”

It wasn’t until the 16-year-old Amo won a scholarship to a private boarding school and completed his A-level exams (the equivalent of the American Advanced Placement program) that his view of wealth changed forever.

“I remember one day this kid got picked up by a helicopter,” he recalls. “That opened my eyes to the fact that there is a way to build wealth and you don’t have to be Richard Branson. There are a lot of people in this world who can do it.”

He began to realize that “money is a tool to change life” and the fastest way to escape poverty is to start his own business.

“When I was growing up in that fourth-floor tenement, I always told myself, ‘This is only temporary. This is only temporary. This is only temporary,’ ” he said. “I couldn’t choose the environment I was in when I was 10 years old … but at least I could decide what would happen in the end.”

Here’s Armoo’s story: He went from being a public housing resident to building his own business and becoming a millionaire before he was 30.

Aged 17, while still completing his A-Levels, Amo sold his first business, an online blog called Entrepreneur Express, for £110,000 after just 11 months.

“Everyone’s aspiration was to go to Oxbridge (Oxford and Cambridge universities), whereas mine was just ‘I want to make money, I want to get out of a bad situation’,” Amo said.

The 29-year-old blogger has interviewed many well-known figures for Entrepreneur Express, such as Virgin Group co-founder Richard Branson, British TV show “The Apprentice” spokesperson Alan Sugar, actor James Caan, etc., but making the blog profitable is a challenge.

Initially, he was going to offer a print version of the blog to college societies, but as the deadline approached, he realized there wasn’t enough advertising to sustain a print publication.

The young entrepreneur then turned his attention to placing ads on online blogs. “That’s where I found success,” he said.

He said his “hack” was to spread blog content through viral social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook, such as meme pages and motivational quote pages.

Armoo ​​would package articles into social media posts with hooks like “10 quotes from…” so that he could draw people from the posts to his website.

“We make money in two ways: one is programmatic advertising. — So just banner ads, but I will also sell sponsored ad spots to tax firms, law firms, and accounting firms so they can get an immediate ROI.

Your first business doesn’t need to be “a billion-dollar idea,” Amo said. Instead, “your first business should just be the first rung on the money ladder.”

He agrees with the advice of the late investment guru Charlie Munger Who says making the first $100,000 is the hardest? “But you have to do it.”

Armoo ​​agrees, saying: “If you optimise for the first £100,000 … You work hard and you go crazy for it, and life becomes easier because you know some strategies… Now, at least you have a financial cushion to make less risky choices.”

Armoo ​​considers itself to be thriving Creator Economy Because he co-founded the influencer marketing company Fanbytes in 2017 with Ambrose Cooke and Mitchell Fasanya.

Fanbytes’ goal was to connect brands with influencers to create advertising campaigns — a popular marketing strategy at the time as companies shifted from traditional advertising to using influencers on social media to sell products.

Their strategy worked, and Fanbytes amassed a following of NikeSamsung, Amazon and Independent TelevisionArmoo ​​said.

A 2016 study by TapInfluence found that social media influencer marketing is 11 times more effective than website banner ads, which is why major brands are flocking to influencers. CNBC report.

“I saw the rise of influencer marketing in the US,” says Armoo, who decided to replicate the idea in the UK

As an entrepreneur, you don’t always need to invent something new, but rather “fill an existing need,” advises Amo.

The company has been “raising money bit by bit” at different stages Eventually £2 million was raised.

“The first investment was $15,000, then $40,000, then $120,000, then $300,000, then $600,000,” Amo said.

His work at Fanbytes allowed him to Forbes 30 Under 30 In 2021, the game made it onto the Fanbytes list, and soon after in October of the same year, buyers who wanted to buy Fanbytes began to make purchase offers.

He then appointed a bank to coordinate the deal for the company, which then found six companies interested in acquiring Fanbytes.

Armoo, then 27, and his co-founder Sell In May 2022, Fanbytes inked an eight-figure deal with global digital marketing agency Brainlabs, a deal that made them both multi-millionaires.

“My goal has always been to build something that I could sell,” Amo said. “In the early days of my business, I talked to this guy who said you make money running a business, but you build wealth by selling a business.”

Armoo ​​always knew he didn’t want to run Fanbytes for the rest of his life.

“Fanbytes could have been selling shoelaces to frogs, but if I thought this was a business we were building and its ultimate goal was to be financially secure, I would still be passionate,” he said.

Black founders often have a hard time raising funding. In fact, according to Crunchbase, Black-founded startups in the U.S. raised just 0.48% of all venture capital funding in 2023. CNBC previously reported.

Funding for Black-owned businesses in the United States has declined since the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the social justice movement that followed his death.

Meanwhile, 87% of non-white founders said they faced more barriers to raising capital, compared to 79% of white founders. Atomico’s State of European Tech 2023 report.

Amo said it’s all a matter of perspective and he believes being black won’t hold him back.

“Everybody remembers the black guy with the beard in a room full of white people. Everybody remembers that, so to me, it makes you more memorable,” he said of attending events to meet with investors.

He explains that you can feel insecure when you walk into a room because there aren’t many people who look like you, or you can believe that this factor will make you stand out.

“I’ve never thought of myself as a black entrepreneur. I’ve always just thought of myself as an entrepreneur,” he said.

“I think maybe I was too rational. I was thinking, ‘Investors want to make money. This business is going to make them money. I’m going to show them how it’s going to make them money.’ That was it. I really don’t think they care if it comes from a white person or a black person.”

Today, as a 29-year-old millionaire, Amo believes this worldview “has served him well.”