Australia’s startup wunderkind Lachy Groom on the next big thing, tips for success, and building credibility

17-year-old Lachy Groom knows a thing or two about running full-fledged, online businesses. At 11-years-old, he started learning to code in HTML and CSS, and by the age of 13, he founded PSDtoWP, a company that turned PhotoShop files into WordPress pages. The company was sold nine months later.

Next, he started PAGGStack.com, a website that sells nutritional supplements to customers around the world. Again, he sold the company in months. By the age of 15, Lachy was already onto his third online business, iPadCaseFinder. Launched in 2010, the site lets users search for iPad cases and find out where to buy them. The website was successfully acquired.

He then moved on to his next two ideas, which he still owns today. The first is Cardnap, which is a site for visitors to buy and resell discount gift cards. The second one is TheWP.co,  which builds WordPress sites from scratch and also offers Photoshop file to WordPress conversion.

Lachy now has his eyes set on Silicon Valley. He has visited regularly to absorb the culture and interacting with entrepreneurs. He has also kept a keen eye on Dev Bootcamp, a startup that turns total noobs into novice web developers in 10 weeks. Passionate about education, he hopes to one day start a company in the industry.

But one thing stands in his way. Read more