An entrepreneur who spent years struggling without a job and a home has spoken out on how a talent he discovered as a child led him to become a millionaire.
Harry Sanders, 23, from Australia, spent years sofa-surfing as a teen, moving out of his home when he was just 17 when his parents divorced.
He found himself “in and out” of government housing and even living on the streets for “a good year”, with no one to support him.
He told News.com.au : “Nobody every expects to see themselves become homeless but I didn’t come from a wealthy background, and sometimes when it’s pay cheque to pay cheque, a few small things can happen and that’s it.”
At the time, the only thing Sanders had to his name was StudioHawk, a search engine optimisation (SEO) company he had registered while at school.
He attempted to cancel this for a refund after being left desperate for money.
But luckily the company rejected him - and today it’s on track to be worth £5.83million.
Harry said he had grown up “tinkering away” on websites and had discovered his passion for SEO while working a part-time job at an agency.
He started working for free to build contacts and dedicated all of his time out of school to his talent out of “sheer necessity”.
Sanders had an old school laptop and a “cheap knock-off phone” and he would head into his local homeless shelter to use their Wi-Fi and electricity.
It took a year before Harry had enough money to move into a shared house, and in the first year he said he was “lucky to make $30,000 (£15,847) – with $6000 (£3,160) of that profit”.
But in 2019, StudioHawk doubled its revenue to 1.6million with Harry describing it as a “crazy journey”.
“To go from nothing to this has been a crazy ride and it’s so surreal getting on planes and doing all these things when not that long ago I was literally trying to scrape $10 together to get food,” he told News.com.au.
But the millionaire says he’s not taking anything for granted.
He added: “Making all this money now is great but it doesn’t really feel real. I have a company worth millions of dollars but sometimes I still catch myself fretting about a $3 bagel and asking myself, ‘do you really need this?’
“When I first started using UberEats I felt almost dirty thinking it was a disgusting waste of money – now I’ve got money in the bank and good things are happening, but I still don’t have crazy spending habits and I still have moments where I think it’s too good to be true.
“I’m just a guy who has given it a go and more people should do that,” he said.
“Other young people out there can do the same thing – I’m not special, I’m not a crazy boy genius.”
