Let me introduce you to William Chen

On August 28th, my Facebook Newsfeed was covered with William's updates.

10.22am: "Lunch with Tom from TomWaterhouse.com today at Rockpool Bar and Grill. Plus a very special guest, will reveal later!"

11.09am: "Other guests to lunch include Natalie Tran! Runner up Miss universe and Olympians! Nervous now!!" 

12.39pm: "For the sports buffs, lunch with Robbie Farah, Jarred Hayne, olympic gold medalist Stephanie Rice." 

I ask myself...What was he going on about?!
It wasn't until 4.05pm, pictures of him with Julia Gillard and many other well known faces started popping up.

Left: William Chen; Middle: Julia Gillard; Right: Tom Waterhouse

We usually chat on facebook with the usual "what's up", "how was your holiday" and so forth.

But this time I was in interrogation mode!

Amy: Lucky Bugger! 

William: Why Lucky? :(

Amy: It's not everyday you get to take a pic with our PM and all the celebrities.

Amy: Wait...so let me get this straight. You're a Magician, then you work for Google and now you're one of the top 10 personalities under 30...

Besides learning the fact that he is a blogger, web entrepreneur, web developer, teaches young people about money and wealth, doesn't work FOR Google but works ON Google by managing clients for Google's advertising etc, I've also learnt the fact that I'm not the greatest friend to have...

After reading into William's story, I feel like I haven't done much with my life yet. He got a taste of business at the age of 12 on eBay. Before his HSC, he launched his own web auction company Eroo.com.au. But I realise not every path is silky smooth. Being a one man team, he had to deal with hundreds of emails daily, leaving him no time to improve and market his website (mind you he also got accepted to University). So he made the difficult decision of selling it. If he had continued this venture, it would have been one of the earliest Scoopon, Groupon type of business to have launched. His story illustrates the power of the online medium. With his design and marketing skills, William was able to transform a traditional, old-style Italian restaurant into a popular, modern Pasta franchise.

We could get a vast array of rich information and knowledge off him. Whether it be him telling his success story as an Australian web entrepreneur, him giving tips and advice to other starting entrepreneurs, or even the reasons he's stayed in Australia (rather than going to California). It'd be excellent to capture what he does in our center photo story.

Here is his personal website. William has also kindly offered to help us with our website development.

I'm really looking forward to this project. We have lined up the SydStart conference, interview with Andrew Stead the Director Business Development at ATP innovations and a piece to do with William.

Now I have one more additional task to complete after week 12...take William out to dinner as a gratitude of his help!