βI forged sick notes to take client calls in the school loosβ
Timothy Armoo knows a thing or two about balancing school work with running a business.
"I was pretty good at maths… then people started coming to me for chemistry, physics, biology.”
The 26 year-old is now CEO of Fanbytes, a marketing agency he founded, that helps brands connect with young, social media savvy consumers.
Speaking on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 5 Live's Million by 30 with Sean Farrington podcast, Timothy explains how he first dipped his toe into the world of business when he was 14, at school, offering a maths tutoring service. It soon took off.
To cope with the demand, he asked his teachers who the best subject tutors were in other school subjects, then approached them “to become the connector”.
He says thinking of an idea and putting it into action “felt like a super power”.
"I was a poor kid," he says.
"I was born in Hackney, but then I went to live with my nan in Ghana for ten years.
"Then I came back here and I lived with my dad. We lived in a council flat. He was very much a first generation immigrant... his mode of thinking is survival. Get a good job, play your position, put food on the table, done.
"We never had a lot of money. That put some steely determination in me."
Another motivation was a friend betting Timothy that he wouldn't see £500 by the time he was 18.
His business was becoming successful.
"Within six weeks I had 65 tutors on my books."
He would forge sick notes so he could take calls in the school toilets.
"There was a time when I probably left the class seven times."
He says some of his teachers cottoned on to what he was doing, but were "quite supportive".
But as time went on, he noticed the amount of money he was earning from commission fees was falling.
"If you find a good tutor, you stay with them, so there's no point going back to the source."
He turned his interest to technology instead.
This led to him starting an online magazine and media company, Entrepreneur Express.
He was making five figures a month.
"I became very good at being able to grow Facebook pages."
Timothy eventually sold the business to Horizon Media, a large media agency from the United States.
He later founded Fanbytes. It works with brands to create social media campaigns that would appeal to Generation Z - loosely, that's people born between 1995 and 2010.
"I think Fanbytes can be the WPP for Gen Z. That's where I think we can go."
He jokes that some of his family still don't know what he does for a living, despite his success.
"Because I said I do stuff on social media, my grandma thought I owned Facebook."
His father died four years ago, which he says gave him "internal fortitude" and the determination to do well.
"He was around when Fanbytes was just a bit of an idea... he really wanted it to do well, but he was just never around to see it."
He says that by 2018, the value of the business was more than a million pounds.
"We've now made several million... going back to my dad, I did think it would be cool to come home and say 'we've just passed a million', but such is life."
