Twitter Is Going Public, Files S-1 With SEC ALEX WILHELM

2013-09-12_14h21_11 Today Twitter confirmed that it has filed an S-1 with the SEC and is therefore on the road to going public. This is an important moment for Twitter, and for tech, as it shows that the IPO window is open. Here’s Twitter on its filing: Count to 10 and let’s hope the damn thing leaks right away. We don’t know much, but expect Twitter to go public at a valuation of roughly between $15 billion and $20 billion, roughly. Its last private money came in at around a $10 billion valuation, and those investors will want a return on their funds. Goldman Sachs is said to be the lead underwriter of the offering. Facebook’s IPO, for comparison, valued the social giant at around $100 billion on the day of its flotation. The irony here is that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg yesterday at Disrupt told the world that it should not be afraid of going public. Twitter did not decide to go public on the back of Zuck’s axiom, but it is nicely pat that it announced this news the day after his comments. Facebook’s public offering was marred with trading errors and a slipping stock price, and the company lost tens of billions of value before it recovered. Facebook is currently trading at fresh highs, helping to set the stage for Twitter: Whatever the Facebook IPO hangover was, it is no more. Twitter’s public offering has been a very long time in coming, and contains inside of it oodles of institutional pressure: With hundreds of millions of invested capital under its belt, Twitter has a number of investors that want their money back. It has been well-managed, sure, but cash has a certain feel to it. The IPO will be a zoo. But it will be a fun zoo, and that is all that matters. The NASDAQ and the NYSE are at war a bit on who gets to host more tech offerings, but I think that we’ll be seeing the NASDAQ scoop up this deal. Now, what are Twitter’s revenue and profit figures? We’ll actually get to know soon, though the fact they are filing in this fashion does imply that Twitter had less than $1 billion in revenue in 2012. So, there’s that. Top Image Credit: Emmanuel Huybrechts

9 Amazing (Very) Young Entrepreneurs

Credit: Young entrepreneur image via Shutterstock View full size image

Entrepreneurs are getting younger and younger these days. Stories of people launching startups right out of college and becoming CEOs in their 20s seem to pop up everywhere. But it turns out some of us don't even need to reach college age to start a successful company: These business owners aren't even out of their teen years yet! Check out our list of incredible young entrepreneurs that made a name for themselves before they could drive a car.

Leanna Archer

Leanna's Hair
Leanna Archer was just 9 years old when she began bottling and selling her own hair pomade to friends and family. Based on her great-grandmother's secret recipe, Archer's line of all-natural hair products has expanded to include a variety of hair cleansers, conditioners and treatments. The now-17-year-old serves as the CEO of her company and has been recognized by prominent business publications like Forbes and Success Magazine. She even started the Leanna Archer Education Foundation to help build schools and safe learning environments for underprivileged children in Haiti.

Robert Nay

Nay Games
In December 2010, a new mobile game app called "Bubble Ball" was launched on the Apple app store. In its first two weeks it received more than 1 million downloads, surpassing "Angry Birds" as the most downloaded free game from Apple. This game was built entirely by Robert Nay, a 14-year-old with no previous coding experience. According to CNN, Nay learned everything he needed to know through research at the public library, and produced 4,000 lines of code for his physics-based puzzle game in just one month. The teen entrepreneur's company, Nay Games, released 24 new levels for "Bubble Ball" in August 2013.

Lizzie Marie Likness

Lizzie Marie Cuisine
Like many little girls, 6-year-old Lizzie Marie Likness wanted to ride horses. To pay for horseback riding lessons, she began selling homemade baked goods at her local farmers market. Eventually Marie realized that cooking was her true passion, and with the help of her parents, she built a healthy-cooking website with instructional videos to help kids eat better. Now 13, Likness has taught cooking classes, appeared on the "Rachael Ray Show," and starred in her own WebMD video series, "Healthy Cooking with Chef Lizzie," through her culinary business venture.
[Do Confident Kids Have More Future Career Success?]

Moziah Bridges

Mo's Bows
Most young boys are revolted by the idea of getting dressed up, but Moziah Bridges is a rare exception. After being disappointed in the bow ties available to him on the market, Bridges learned how to sew his own with the help of his grandmother. The fashion-forward 11-year-old began selling his creations on Etsy, and his products were soon picked up by boutiques in several southeastern states. So far, Bridges has earned over $30,000 from his bow ties, and told Forbes that he eventually plans to start a children's clothing company.

Neha Gupta

Empower Orphans
From an early age, Neha Gupta has participated in her family's tradition of celebrating birthdays by traveling to India and bringing food and gifts to orphans in their hometown. In 2005, when Gupta was 9 years old, she decided she wanted to do more to make a real difference in these children's lives. She began selling handmade wine charms door-to-door and at community events to raise money for school books and other educational expenses for orphans. These efforts led her to create her own registered nonprofit organization, Empower Orphans. Gupta, now 17, has raised more than $1 million and has received awards from numerous charitable foundations.

Jaden Wheeler and Amaya Selmon

Kool Kidz Sno Konez
Jaden Wheeler and Amaya Selmon started making snow cones with a blender and an extension cord in front of their Memphis, Tenn.,home two years ago. Since then, the brother and sister team have upgraded quite a bit: at ages 12 and 11, respectively, they are now the youngest food truck owners in Memphis. In a Huffington Post feature on Kool Kidz Sno Konez, Jaden and Amaya explained that their mother purchased the truck for them after seeing how successful their (very) small business had become. The truck, which is usually stationed in local parks or at private events, now offers hot dogs, nachos, and more than 20 snow cone flavors.

Nick D'Aloisio

Summly
How many teens can say that a multinational corporation purchased their company and made them millionaires? There's probably not a lot, but Nick D'Aloisio is one of them. The 17-year-old entrepreneur is the tech prodigy behind Summly, a summarization app that algorithmically creates summaries of news articles optimized for the iPhone. At 15, he received backing from Horizon Ventures and other angel investors to develop his technology, and in March 2013, Yahoo acquired D'Aloisio's company for $30 million.

Anshul Samar

Elementeo (Alchemist Empire Inc.)
As a fourth grader, Anshul Samar loved playing card games. Two years later, he began developing his own, which he called Elementeo. Samar aimed to make chemistry fun with his board-based game, which involves pitting personified versions of each element on the periodic table against each other to "capture" electrons. Since the first iteration of Elementeo, Samar, now a 19-year-old Stanford University student, has continued to update the game and created a grant fund for other young entrepreneurs, says in a Taking on the Giant article. He has even given a TEDx Talk (an independently organized TED Talk) on his game.
This story was provided by BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Originally published on BusinessNewsDaily.