Neil Patel's life story is an American classic - the tale of a self-made millionaire.
Through a combination of insight, determination, and hard work, Neil Patel's net worth has grown from virtually zero to an estimated $30 million.
Not bad for a man who celebrated his 34th birthday in April.
But the story of how Patel pulled this off isn't just inspirational - it contains clues to how anyone can grow their wealth.
Let's find out more about this fascinating entrepreneur/angel investor...
Who Is Neil Patel?
Neil Patel was born in London in 1985 to immigrants from India. When he was still a toddler, his family moved to Orange County, Calif., taking up residence in low-income housing. His dad worked in a print shop. His mom was a teacher.
Humble beginnings, to be sure.
By the time he was 15, he'd started working at the Knott's Berry Farm amusement park -- cleaning restrooms, sweeping up garbage, and emptying trash cans.
No one who saw him then would have imagined that in just a few years, this unassuming teen would be a millionaire.
While in high school, he started to dip his toe into the entrepreneurial life by selling burned music CDs and re-selling after-market auto parts to his fellow students. He also spent time as a door-to-door salesman selling Kirby vacuums.
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Patel was constantly seeking new and better ways to build wealth. And it soon became clear that he could make more money by launching his own business.
Intrigued by the Monster.com business, Patel used $5,000 he'd saved from his other ventures to start his own job search website called Advice Monkey. The business failed, but the experience introduced Patel to the lucrative field of Internet marketing.
This was just the kind of opportunity he'd been looking for.
Not long afterward, he wrangled a job as a $3,500-a-month marketing consultant for a firm called Elpac Electronics. Using that as a springboard, he launched his own Internet marketing agency, Advantage Consulting Services (ACS). He started landing clients through his connections at Elpac.
At 16, he was making $20,000 a month through his consulting business.
Then Patel's career really started to take off...
How Neil Patel Grew His Net Worth to $30 Million
As his consulting business thrived, Patel didn't relax - he sought out more opportunities. At age 21, he founded Crazy Egg, a website analytics platform that helps customers optimize visitor behavior.
He started launching social media advice blogs like ProNet Advertising and Quick Sprout to further build his brand.
In 2008, Patel launched another business, KissMetrics, a website analytics company. In the years that followed, he built both Crazy Egg and KissMetrics into multimillion-dollar companies.
But even that wasn't enough for this ambitious entrepreneur.
Patel decided to use some of his freshly minted fortune to become an angel investor so he could back other promising startup companies - and in the process, grow his wealth even more.
As an angel investor, he's hit more than his share of home runs.
He invested a few thousand dollars in a startup called Walk Score. It measured the value of schools, parks, restaurants, and other amenities in a neighborhood.
Before long, all the real estate apps started to include it with their home descriptions. And not long after that, Redfin bought the company. Patel received a $40,000 check and shares in Redfin, which had yet to IPO.
After the Redfin IPO, he sold his shares for $88,000. So for an investment of just a few thousand dollars, Patel earned a $128,000 windfall.
When he discovered a startup called Remitly - which built a smartphone app that lets people wire money directly to family members living in other countries - he invested $25,000.
A few years later, Patel cashed out with $425,000 - a gain of 1,600%.
But these huge wins were not just blind luck...
Neil Patel Shares His "1,000x Formula" for Finding Unicorn Startups
His secret is something he calls the "1,000x formula." In a nutshell, he looks for smart companies solving big problems for a big market. The goal is to find companies that match these criteria and thus have the potential to deliver a 1,000x return.
Of course, ordinary investors will see that and think, "That's great for Neil. But I don't have the background or the resources of an angel investor."
Actually, you do.
Because Neil Patel is now sharing the secrets of his success with investors like you.
Today, he's walking everyone through his "1,000x formula" for finding the most successful startup investments - the ones with unicorn potential.
With this formula at your disposal... investing in startups is about to get a whole lot easier. (In fact, you can act now with as little as $50.)
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About the Author
David Zeiler, Associate Editor for Money Morning at Money Map Press, has been a journalist for more than 35 years, including 18 spent at The Baltimore Sun. He has worked as a writer, editor, and page designer at different times in his career. He's interviewed a number of well-known personalities - ranging from punk rock icon Joey Ramone to Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Over the course of his journalistic career, Dave has covered many diverse subjects. Since arriving at Money Morning in 2011, he has focused primarily on technology. He's an expert on both Apple and cryptocurrencies. He started writing about Apple for The Sun in the mid-1990s, and had an Apple blog on The Sun's web site from 2007-2009. Dave's been writing about Bitcoin since 2011 - long before most people had even heard of it. He even mined it for a short time.
Dave has a BA in English and Mass Communications from Loyola University Maryland.