Hi there! My name is Calum Brannan. I’m a young entrepreneur and social media expert. Aged 21.

I created this blog to document my thoughts on entrepreneurship, technology, social media and a little record of life.

A little about my background

I come from Coventry originally, I now live between the Midlands and London due to the location of our offices for the businesses I am involved with.

My parents are a great inspiration to me, my mum looks after old people and my dad runs a small signage business for estate agents.

The first business..

I started my first business aged 15 which was a social network called ‘PPLparty.com’ – this social network was one of the biggest in the UK at the time with way over 400,000 users. I didn’t realise the impact it would have on my future at the time.

After starting PPLparty.com and dropping out of full-time education at 17 I went to work for Trutap, which was one of Doug Richard’s companies, Doug is famous for his appearances in Dragon’s Den.

I raised a large sum of investment money for 10% of PPLparty.com before my 18th birthday to evolve the website’s offering.

After creating a small return for our initial investors in PPLparty, the company produced Youmeo.com, one of the first of it’s kind social aggregation platform. (Further reading: PPLparty becomes Youmeo.)

From the classroom to the boardroom..

For the past 2 years I have been experimenting with opportunities and businesses which interest me and can create real change in various sectors. This has lead me to running and being involved in a selection of great businesses.

My companies/roles:

• Crowd Control HQ – social media software (moderation, control, posting, viewing, alerts and analytics).
• Appointment-Toolkit; this service provides text message reminders and marketing to doctors, hairdressers, salons, driving schools, dentists and more SME’s.
• Spendego – discount products through group purchase.
• Focus.com – Focus Expert writer, published blogger (example link).

My companies have had the great opportunity to launch social media platforms for the likes of Hello Magazine and Lighterlife.  I have advised/worked with some of the biggest brands in the world such as Simon & Schuster, Vodafone, Bebo, AGA, Lighterlife, Christian Vision, Yahoo and Glam Media to name but a few.

Awards and recognition

The youngest ever ‘Director of the month‘ by Director magazine. [link]

Trailblazer by Revolution magazine. [link]

‘The UK’s next Mark Zuckerburg’ – Sky News [link]

The Gurdian The return of the dotcom kids – but have investors learned their lesson? [link]

The Observer Favour for PPLParty [link]

The Financial Times From a classroom to the boardroom [link]

Articles have also appeared in:

Management Consultancy, CityAM, The Sunday Times, Birmingham Post, New Media Age, Mashable and TechCrunch.