Imagine owning a multi-million-dollar company and being named the world’s top student entrepreneur, all before you’re 25. That’s the life of Simon Fraser University business student Milun Tesovic.
The 24-year-old is co-founder of Vancouver-based MetroLeap Media, which includes one of the most popular music websites in
the world, metrolyrics.com. Mr. Tesovic started the web-site – a place to get song lyrics legally – when he was just 16.
He says he played around on computers ever since his parents first bought one after they reunited in Canada in 1995 after leaving the former Yugoslavia. His first website was dedicated to the Japanese animated series Dragon Ball.
But his real ambition, he says, was “to make money, do something successful and start up a new business – something that I could run long-term and hopefully make into a company one day.” So he started metrolyrics.com.
Now, eight years later, his site gets more than 40 million unique visitors per month. Although he won’t disclose exact revenue, Mr. Tesovic said in an interview last year that it was “between $3 million and $10 million.”
This past November, Mr. Tesovic was crowned the top student entrepreneur at the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards in Kansas City. This adds to a long list of honours, including the Canadian Student Entrepreneur National Champion last May, SFU Student Entrepreneur of the Year in 2008, and inclusion in Billboard Magazine’s 2009 “Top 30 Under 30.”
Mr. Tesovic credits his team members and business partner with much of the company’s success. He hires locally, especially SFU students, as a way to give back to the community and because he says there is a lot of untapped talent in the Vancouver area.
After graduation next summer, Mr. Tesovic plans to continue working on the business. He is “proud and honoured” to have achieved so much, but says he doesn’t see himself as different. “It just feels like everyday work.”
Good work, http://lyricsmusic.name/ also started by students