Isaiah Turner (entrepreneur) explained

Isaiah Turner
Birth Date:7 August 1998
Nationality:American
Citizenship:United States
Known For:Co-founder of Monkey (2016)
Yo hacker (2014)
Education:St. Mary's Ryken High School[1]
Occupation:Entrepreneur, and engineer

Isaiah Turner (born August 7, 1998) is an American Internet entrepreneur and software engineer. He is known as the co-founder of the mobile apps Monkey,[2] [3] Poparazzi, and Gas.[4]

In 2017, Turner was included in Crain's New York Business Magazine '20 Under 20' list as a breakout tech entrepreneur.[5] [6]

Early life

In 2014, Isaiah was selected by Apple as one of about 200 students in the world to receive an Apple Worldwide Developers Conference Student Scholarship. This included free attendance at Apple's San Francisco, CA event.[7]

On June 19, 2014, Isaiah hacked Yo after the app exploded in popularity and raised over $1.5 million in venture capital financing.[8] He sent the following push notification to Yo's users which caused the hashtag "#YoBeenHacked" to appear on Twitter's trending topics list.[9]

wow. many 1337. such bad security.

I hacked Yo. Use hashtag #YoBeenHacked to talk about it.

Or Arbel, developer of Yo, hired Isaiah Turner to fix the app's security flaws. At the time, Isaiah was 15 years old and still in school.[10]

Following his time at Yo, Isaiah was recruited by a lunch delivery service, MunchQuick.[11] The Washington, DC based startup company raised $50,000 in seed funding and launched on June 30, 2014.[12] [13]

Career

Isaiah is the co-founder of Monkey. He started the company with his friend, Ben Pasternak. They created Monkey in response to their dissatisfaction with existing social media services. Monkey, which raised US$2,000,000, was acquired by rival Holla in December, 2017.[14]

Monkey is a video chat based app that has been described as something much like speed dating for friends.[15] Within its first year, Monkey had been used to make over 1 billion calls and received praise from Tim Cook.[16] At the time Monkey was acquired, it had been downloaded more than 3 million times and had over 300,000 monthly active users.[6] [17]

In August 2022, Isaiah co-started Gas, a social-media app where high-school students can anonymously vote in polls, which ranked No. 1 in the App Store.[18] [19]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Student Awarded Scholarship to Apple Conference and Job with "Yo" . SoMD News. 2014-06-11. 2017-04-17.
  2. Web site: Monkey is a new social network just for teens . Mashable. 2017-01-19. 2017-04-17.
  3. MEET MONKEY'S TEEN-AGE FOUNDERS . The New Yorker. 2017-01-16. 2017-04-17.
  4. Gas: The App for Teens That Is Refreshingly Positive . Gizmodo. 2022-10-17. 2022-10-18.
  5. Web site: 20 Under 20 - 2017 - Crain's New York Business . Crain's New York Business. 2017-11-27. 2017-11-29.
  6. Web site: Isaiah Turner - 20 Under 20 - 2017 - Crain's New York Business. Crain's New York Business. 2017-11-27. 2017-11-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20180821224335/http://www.crainsnewyork.com/section/20under20/2017/3480408/isaiah-turner. 2018-08-21. dead.
  7. Web site: WWDC: Meet tomorrow's tech stars . USA Today. 2014-06-05. 2017-04-16.
  8. Web site: An App That Just Says 'Yo' Has Raised $1.5 Million At A $5–10 Million Valuation . Business Insider. 2014-07-18. 2017-04-16.
  9. Web site: $1 million 'Yo' app has serious security flaws, users say . CNBC. 2014-06-20. 2017-04-16.
  10. Web site: Yo CEO hires hacker . Fox Business. 2015-05-24. 2017-04-16.
  11. Web site: MunchQuick rushes into food delivery with revamped website . Technical.ly . 2014-10-20. 2017-04-16.
  12. Web site: This New DC Startup Will Bring You Lunch in Under 20 Minutes . DC Inno. 2014-06-04. 2017-04-16.
  13. Web site: Newly Launched MunchQuick Aims to Deliver Healthy Hot Meals in Under 20 Minutes . Tech.Co . 2014-07-10. 2017-04-16.
  14. Web site: Aussie whiz-kid Ben Pasternak eyes next project after selling video chat app Monkey to rival . The Sydney Morning Herald . 2018-01-02. 2018-01-24.
  15. Web site: What Is The Monkey App? Connecting Teens To Strangers Via Video Chat . International Business Times. 2017-04-14. 2017-04-16.
  16. Web site: Sydney high school dropout sitting on million-dollar empire . 9Stories . 2017-04-16. 2017-04-17.
  17. Web site: This popular teen app is quickly turning into Chatroulette 2.0, complete with all its issues . CNBC . 2017-08-03. 2018-01-24.
  18. Web site: The co-founder of social-media app Gas tells Elon Musk to hire him as Twitter's product chief . Business Insider . 2022-10-29. 2022-11-03.
  19. Web site: Gas: The App for Teens That Is Refreshingly Positive . Gizmodo . 2022-11-03. 2022-10-17.