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10 Teenagers Who Have Become Self-Made Millionaires

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Ten teenagers built real fortunes before they could legally rent a car.

Forget lemonade stands. The subjects in TheThings’ countdown “10 Teenagers Who Have Become Self-Made Millionaires” were negotiating supermarket shelf space, filing incorporation paperwork, and cutting checks worth more than most adults earn in a decade — all before they finished high school. Their businesses ranged from online ad platforms to homemade jam to bow ties sewn by a grandmother, but the common thread is the same: each one spotted a gap in the market and refused to wait until they were “old enough” to fill it.

• Cameron Johnson turned Beanie Baby sales at age nine into an online empire that included EZ Mail and Surfingprizes.com, at one point generating monthly checks of up to $400,000.
• Fraser Doherty built SuperJam at 14 using his grandmother’s Scottish recipes, then left school at 16 to run it full-time, landing UK-wide distribution with Waitrose in 2007.
• Farrah Gray went from selling homemade body lotions at age six to booking over $1.5 million in orders for his company Farr-Out Foods by 13, making him a self-made millionaire at 14.

The Nine-Year-Old Who Cracked Online Retail

Cameron Johnson’s résumé started with invitation cards and Beanie Babies, sold online through a company he called Cheers and Tears when he was just nine years old. Rather than cash out early, Johnson kept stacking businesses on top of each other — EZ Mail, an email forwarding service, and Surfingprizes.com, an online advertising platform that at its peak brought in monthly checks as high as $400,000. By the time he walked at his high school graduation, Johnson had already banked a multi-million-dollar net worth, the kind of number that usually shows up on a résumé decades later, not on one still listing a high school as the most recent education.

A Grandmother’s Recipe Becomes a Supermarket Staple

Fraser Doherty didn’t invent a new product category — he just made jam better, and he started at 14 using recipes his grandmother had used for years. Two years later, at 16, Doherty left school entirely to run SuperJam full-time, betting his education on a batch of preserves. The bet paid off in 2007, when Waitrose agreed to stock SuperJam on its shelves across the UK, a placement that opened the door to other major British retailers and turned a teenager’s kitchen project into a multi-million-dollar brand.

From Neighborhood Lotions to Wall Street

Farrah Gray’s first business wasn’t glamorous — homemade body lotions and body products, sold door to door in his own neighborhood starting at age six. By 13, he’d scaled that hustle into Farr-Out Foods, a food enterprise that pulled in more than $1.5 million in orders within a single year. That run made Gray a self-made millionaire at 14 and, notably, one of the youngest people to ever open an office on Wall Street.

Farrah Gray booked $1.5 million in food orders in a single year — while most of his classmates were still worrying about getting a driver’s license.

Bow Ties, Shark Tank, and a Nine-Year-Old CEO

Moziah “Mo” Bridges was nine when he noticed there wasn’t much high-fashion neckwear made for kids, so he and his grandmother started sewing bow ties themselves. That idea became Mo’s Bows, and an appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank, paired with partnerships with major media figures, helped push the brand into luxury-accessory territory with a valuation in the millions — all while Bridges was still young enough to need his grandmother’s help threading a needle.

Fixing Computers Into a Multi-Million-Dollar Business

Tyler Dikman’s origin story is the most relatable on the list: at 15, he started fixing computers for friends and, eventually, executives, and turned that word-of-mouth repair work into Cooltronics. He didn’t stop at hardware — Dikman layered on web services and subscription offerings until the company’s tech-repair roots had grown into a business worth millions, proof that the fastest route to a teenage fortune isn’t always an app. Sometimes it’s just noticing what everyone around you already needs fixed and charging for it. That same instinct for spotting an underserved niche shows up across other self-made success stories, including the fast-turnaround hustle detailed in Made $1 Million in 7 Hours, Ruined a Whole City in One, and the grind chronicled in Turning $0.01 Into a House in 1 Week: Days 7-28.