Ephren W. Taylor talks about his experiences as a 12-year-old wanting to have video games and not being able to afford them during the Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour at Northern Michigan University Tuesday. Taylor accomplished his goal at the age of 12 by developing his own 3-D video games with the inspiration of his mother, a video game book and a computer at his local library. (Journal photo by Don Lhamon)

MARQUETTE — Making a lot of money while pursuing your passion and being your own boss was the theme of Tuesday afternoon’s Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour that came to Northern Michigan University.

NMU student Rob Carpenter, who is president of the university’s entrepreneurship student organization, introduced a series of young entrepreneurs who started up their own companies at a young age.

“Entrepreneurship is not just for business students,” Carpenter said. “We chose to bring this (tour) to NMU because entrepreneurship is the future.”

Sheena Lindahl and Michael Simmons, co-founders of the tour, encouraged the 30 or so students that showed up to the event to get started with their dreams now.

“Over 80 percent of millionaires are entrepreneurs,” Simmons said, who gave away prizes while speaking. “We really want you to see entrepreneurship is really the most powerful thing ... (but) going for your goals is extremely challenging but very rewarding.”

Lindahl and Simmons, both 25, are young entrepreneurs. For instance, Lindahl paid her way through New York University, co-founded a business and is writing a book. Simmons co-founded his first business, Princeton WebSolutions, at the age of 16. In addition, Simmons and his company have received several entrepreneurship awards. He has also written a book.

The first speaker of the afternoon, however, was 25-year-old Ephren W. Taylor II. At the age of 23, Taylor was recognized as one of America’s top young entrepreneurs. He has an extensive background with startup firms and corporations such as CitiGroup, Sprint, Target, Wal-Mart, Air National Guard, and city municipalities.

According to information on the tour’s Web site: “In 1999 he and a classmate started their own dotcom with $500 of savings, a job search engine for teenagers called the 4Teens Network. Then, in 2000, 16-year old (Taylor) won Microsoft’s Teen TechFest Challenge.”

Perhaps the most fascinating success of Taylor is the fact that he created 3D video games when he was only 12 years old.

With a $39 “How to” book, Taylor taught himself how to create video games because he was bored with the games his parents had bought him.

“A couple weeks later I created this crude three dimensional game,” he said.

Taylor added that his friends started to get interested in his game and soon asked if they can buy it.

“When you put passion into something, other people start to notice,” he said.

Besides Taylor’s presentation, the tour offered a “Dream Action” workshop, information on speed networking, and held an extreme entrepreneur panel. Local agencies such as Michigan Works! were also present. For more information, go to www.extremee.org.

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