Senior Adrian D’Urso and junior Freddy Kellison-Linn started their YouTube channel iPod Uplink out of hobby in 2009, never thinking that it would amass such a large following. Since then, they have become teen entrepreneurs, running one of the Internet’s most popular tutorial websites for jailbreaking. The two will share their experiences and learnings on March 29 as the first students to speak at Paly’s career month.
Jailbreaknation.com and their YouTube channel, youtube.com/ipoduplink, provide Apple news and rumors, along with tutorials on how to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod easily.
Jailbreaking is a software that removes the restrictions that Apple puts on its devices. For example, a jailbroken device can download some applications that are not on the Apple app store. Additionally, it enables one to add themes or customizations to their iPhones.
Jailbreak Nation has become one of the most popular tutorial sites for jailbreaking, though it started as just a fun hobby.
“The idea expanded upon our YouTube channel in which we started for fun to help people,” D’Urso said. “Jailbreak Nation started as a supplement site to our videos, which eventually grew more popular than the channel itself.”
Once the site and YouTube channel became popular, D’Urso and Kellison-Linn realized they had a potential business and started to sell advertisements to make money. With almost 700 videos, the iPod Uplink YouTube account has accumulated over 100 million views and has amassed over 430 thousand subscribers and 250 thousand likes on Facebook.
“Entrepreneurship is as valid of a career as any, so we hope that other Paly students could be inspired in something they want to pursue, either while in school, or after” Kellison-Linn said
Although only high school students, D’Urso and Kellison-Linn have faced many of the same difficulties that any other entrepreneur would encounter. They have even hired lawyers, accountants, and filed taxes. Along with all their success D’Urso and Kellison-Linn have faced some challenges that have helped them grow and create a better business.
“We have experienced a wide range of problems, from site outages to disagreements, but we haven’t met one that we were not able to overcome” Kellison-Linn said.
As the popularity grew, their focus shifted from a small scale website and YouTube account into a business. More time was being spent on adding advertisements, maintaining the site and administrational work.
As career month approaches, it is encouraged to take advantage of the lunchtime presentations, which can open another door to a previously unknown career interest.