A 20 year old south London whizz-kid is being hailed as “the next Mark Zuckerberg” after selling his first on-line business and winning a prestigious fellowship from a Silicon Valley billionaire.
James Proud, 20, who grew up in Sutton, and taught himself to programme when he was 9, set up a site called called giglocator to help people find live music while at Sixth Form. It was sold this week to a New York businessman for an undisclosed six figure sum.
Proud, who decided to skip university to focus on the business and is now based in California, has also gained recognition from one of the biggest names in the technology world.
He won one of a number of $100,000 scholarships for promising young entrepreneurs from Peter Thiel of Paypal.
Proud applied on the advice of Shakil Khan, one of London’s best known entrepreneurs, who has worked with firms such as Spotify and Path, and acted as a mentor.
Proud said: “When I found out I had won, I wanted to escape, “so I booked a flight to New York and got ready to leave. The people at the foundation found out, and then wired me money straight away, and I ended up in San Francisco.”
“I just decided I didn’t want to pause what I was doing to go to university. I was learning so much that I didn’t want to stop it - I knew what I was learning by doing things was far more valuable. I used to sleep through lessons.”
However, Proud did apply to several universities to keep his parents happy, admitting he only told them of his decision on the day he was due to leave for a computer science degree.
He now hopes to develop other sites. “The sale and the fellowship are a comfortable amount, so I can focus on other projects,” said Proud, who has also been advising other firms in Silicon Valley.
“I’m interested in big data projects, I think that there are a lot of hardcore problems out there that are still to be solved.”
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He also admits he would have found it harder to work in London. “I love London, but the tech scene is nothing like it is in San Francisco, although it is bubbling up. Here in San Francisco, everything is set up for entrepreneurs to succeed, you have to spend time selling yourself to people like accountants. I just want to keep building stuff.”
