Recognition of success often comes early when a person dares to "just go for it." Alum Ryan Amos followed the siren call to Silicon Valley, co-founded two start-up companies and for his efforts has been named one of Forbes magazines "30 Under 30" for 2011. Forbes identifies young people they believe are the answers to these questions: "Who is reinventing the world? Who should you hire today? Who will you be working for in 20 years? Who, in short, under the age of 30, matters?" (from their webpage) They look for those who qualify in twelve areas. Amos received the recognition for his work in social and mobile media.
Ryan is a co-founder of the social media site DailyBooth, a photo site that takes the user's photo via webcam and posts it to the current feed. A site visitor can then click on a picture which attracts them and comment and even "follow" the poster's future uploads. With Jon Wheatley, he approached Y Combinator, a start-up funder, for initial capital and was accepted for investing. Since that first seeding the team has raised a total of $6 million from groups and individuals such as Sequoia Capital, SV Angel, BetaWorks, Chris Sacca, Aydin Senkut, Kevin Rose, Caterina Fake and several other angel investors.
Amos recently also created and iPhone application called Batch, a photo app that allows entire albums to uploaded instantly to sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This gives the user the chance to share photos in real-time.
Of his recognition, Ryan said "flattering to say the least. The reality is, many people fail at creating one product and making them successful. I've been lucky enough to be a part of two."