About Me

Hi

My full name is Nathan Paul Waters. I was born in Moruya, NSW Australia on 16th July 1987 and grew-up in the same town - i.e. I attended Moruya Public School and then Moruya High School. I finished Year 12 at the end of 2005 and moved up to Wollongong (also in Australia) at the start of 2006 to attend the University of Wollongong originally studying a B.Computer Engineering/B.Commerce. I changed over to B.Business Administration (which I’m still studying now) after the first session which will allow the option of completing an MBA later down the track.

The entrepreneurial bug has always been with me, just not so much in the typical form of a business. For example when I was really young (maybe 8 years old) we had a couple of guinea pigs which I decided to breed and sell to people, and I did the same thing with mice later on, and also growing different plants from seed that I found around the backyard before selling them off.

Throughout my schooling I guess you could say I was the nerd of the school (although I would simply say I have a good memory - teachers tell you what you need to know). To give you a hint I was runner-up Dux in Year 7, Dux of Years 8,9,10 and I think 11 too. I came first in a few subjects in Year 12 but by that time I was more interested in business and realised how little our schooling system actually prepares you for the real world.

I’ve always been interested in computers and technology (especially the Internet) and after seeing the massive difference in product prices between online computer retailers and our 4 local computer retailers (for a town of only 5000 people) I decided I would startup my own home-based computer business. Both my parents have been teachers all their lives and no one else in my family has run their own business in the last 30 or so years (my Nan ran a hairdresser business). My Dad did run a small Kumon (tutoring) business as a side-income for a couple of years but that dwindled away.

So I’d say when I wanted to start my own computer business at the end of Year 10 (2003) there wasn’t any external influences. But ever since that time I’ve been dead-set on becoming a full-time entrepreneur. I simply do not want to do anything else.

Thus after a couple of months of research and planning I started “BlueyeT Systems” (pronounced blue-eye-t systems - a horrible name looking back on it). But since at that time I still had a lot of pressures to do well at school and especially in the looming HSC, I didn’t put as much effort into the business as I would have liked to - in fact I didn’t even advertise it, I just operated through word-of-mouth. So it was a good experience, but nothing amazing. I’m actually revamping this business and renaming it DropBuy.com.au - the site will offer all sorts of products cheaply and in an innovative way. I hope to essentially turn it into the Amazon.com of Australia.

During Years 11 and 12 I couldn’t stop thinking about business and it got to the point where I would be coming up with an average of 3 OK to very good business ideas per day, which I still have written down over 100s of pages. Even during so-called “study periods” during school time I would talk about various business ideas with a mate of mine (Tristan Grace) in the library, and I managed to create a fair bit of buzz about my “potential $72m idea” - it was all talk, but still fun. Tristan and I eventually decided to create our own educational site much like BoredofStudies.org after we saw how much they lacked in features, so we built a semi-complete prototype but the project caved in and the BoS site implemented most of the features we had planned for our site within a few months anyway.

Since then I’ve been very interested in the idea of an online venture. Simply because I don’t want to start a business which requires me to be awake at 6am, opening the shop at 8am and struggling through the day till it hits 5pm - it’s just not my idea of fun. I want the flexibility to work when I want to work, to do something technologically innovative and to have the ability to sell it to the world. So for the last couple of years I’ve been dabbling in all sorts of online startups, none of which have been very successful thus far sadly. PixTower.com, YEBlogger.com (partnership with Daniel Nerezov which suddenly stopped for an unknown reason), uniNews.com.au, WikiPreneur.com (stopped mid-way through developing) are just a couple. A lot of the time also, I would start building a website idea I thought was awesome, but before I managed to complete it I would be more interested in another idea that had come to me. It’s something that takes a while to get over and recognise.

My latest project which I think will finally break the ice is YEuth.com - it is a non-profit organisation for young and aspiring entrepreneurs. I’ve been an active user of many online young entrepreneur forums such as YoungEntrepreneur.com, YoungGoGetter.com and others and I noticed over the years that many other YEs had similar problems I had and many were after a support group of some sort. For many years I had the idea of setting up a worldwide organisation for young entrepreneurs, but brushed it aside thinking it would be more beneficial if I launched YEuth after having made-it as an entrepreneur and built-up a few successful companies.

But I figured, I may as well just start YEuth now. It will help me network with more young entrepreneurs a lot more easily and in turn hopefully it will help all YEs (including myself) to successfully startup their dream business ideas and grow them into successful companies.

The next project I hope to get stuck into while I also launch YEuth is a very innovative idea I recently came up with based on the online advertising industry. I’m currently looking for a founding team and programmers to help get this puppy off the ground, so that should be interesting.

So yeah, stick around and see if I’ve learned my lessons and can actually stick to a few ideas and grow them into something worth being proud of.

Cheers
Nathan Waters