At 29 and a millionaire, money is the last thing on his mind

Peter Ward’s brown blazer, black silk shirt, torn blue jeans, brown suede boots and backpack may say cool, but they definitely don’t say millionaire.

With his spiky gelled hair, the 29-year-old Briton looks like just another young guy in Kenya to enjoy what the country has to offer and have fun without a care in the world.

He mingles freely with everyone and doesn’t command any special attention—until he steps up to the dais to be introduced to the crowd of university students.

“We wish to welcome Mr Peter Ward, an exceptionally talented young millionaire who is the CEO and founder of WAYN.com. He is here to offer us insights on entrepreneurship and also tell us how he made it,” goes the first of many glowing introductions he will receive.

Even Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka could not keep from marvelling at the “young man in torn jeans who has made it”. He goes even further to say that if the two of them were to compare bank accounts, his would be nowhere near Ward’s.

WAYN (an acronym for Where Are You Now?) is a social networking website that aims to unite travellers around the world. It was voted the most popular community at the 2007 Website of the Year awards and has been featured in the British press as one of the Internet phenomena of the year.

A user can visually locate where in the world each of his contacts is situated; the site is used by members to keep friends informed of their whereabouts while travelling, but is also for people to find out who is coming to visit their location from some place else.

Members can find out more about a destination they’d like to visit, find another member online from that destination and get a first-hand summary of what to do and what to see. Members can also find out which friends have already visited a certain destination so they can get quick tips when planning a new trip.

The names Peter Ward and Jerome Touze, his co-CEO, likely will not ring a bell with most people; they are just two of a growing number of multi-million-dollar entrepreneurs who are making it big through the World Wide Web.

Welcome to Web 2.0 where 20-year-olds are revolutionising the world with just an idea and a laptop.

While multi-billion-dollar companies hold their meetings in boardrooms to strategise about their next big move, these young minds keep in touch via e-mail, chatrooms or even face-to-face at bars and come up with ideas that confound established international businesses.

The guys with the ideas that have become websites like Google, Facebook and MySpace have raked in billions of dollars, turning them into young multi-millionaires who fraternise with the very same companies for which they might have aimed to work after college.

State of the art

They don’t wear suits and aren’t driven in state-of-the-art vehicles from their waterfront properties to their air-conditioned offices where, once inside, you realise why global warming is a major concern what with all that furniture made from oak trees.

These young men just dare to dream big and execute their ideas anywhere they deem fit. Even Bill Gates had to launch his idea in such circumstances.

Mark Zuckerberg launched an online empire, Facebook, from his dorm at Harvard, while Larry Page and Sergey Brin came up with their revolutionary idea, Google, while students at Stanford University.

Peter Ward conceived WAYN in a bar and turned it into the world’s leading social networking site for travellers.

It grew from a 45,000 members in 2005 to the current 13 million; the company that runs it is reportedly now worth $200 million (Sh15 billion).

The site attracts a record 200 million page views a month and signs up 20,000 new members every day.

“In 2002, we were at a bar when a friend gave me the idea of putting up a website where we could see all our friends wherever they were across the world. It was to be a sort of a map. Neither of us knew anything about technology, but we thought it was fantastic idea and we decided to pursue it,” Ward told Sunday Nation.

WAYN has spread rapidly thanks to an innovative idea that consists of enabling users to find old friends and make new friends based on their whereabouts. This concept has now been widely adopted across other services, notably the extremely popular “Where I’ve Been” application available on Facebook.

Sunday Nation caught up with the multimillionaire at the new Coca Cola complex on Upper Hill where he was giving a talk to members of SIFE (Students In Free Enterprise) from several local university campuses.

Ward was comfortable with the students who were mesmerised by his millionaire status and eager to learn how one of their age-mates had made it in a short period of time.
But it wasn’t just the students who were impressed.

“I’m looking at this young man with his torn jeans who has made it in the world, and I am very impressed. The first time I saw such jeans I thought they were torn, but my son told me that is fashion,” said the Vice-President. “Peter is such an inspiration; I would like to hear his story and go tell it to my son.”

But the secret of his success might just be that he is able to demonstrate what he can do or achieve without having to appear “important”. And he says he will never be caught wearing a suit.

The students were eager to learn his secrets in hopes that they, too, could become rich and successful young entrepreneurs.

“Just believe in what you do, never give up, don’t be lazy and avoid excuses, and you will be successful,” are some of the tips Ward gave them while using his experience to hammer the points home.

Growing up, Ward always knew he wanted to be successful and to stand out from the rest. He therefore became set on trying different ways to achieve that goal.

Failed in ambition

However, things seemed to change when he failed to gain admission to Cambridge University, his dream college. He never got the required grades.

"I was a bright kid growing up, taking home As and at the very least a B, but as I grew up I became complacent and started being cocky, which is true with many teenagers. So I stopped taking studies seriously, and that is why I never made it Cambridge,” he said.

Although he landed in Brunel, a world-class university based in Uxbridge, West London, Ward cried for failing to get into Cambridge.

“I was mad at myself because I was the one to blame, but I later picked myself up and even saw it as a blessing in disguise because I started taking life seriously in a way,” he said.

He and several other students set up a society at Brunel in which he was the events organiser who would get successful people to come and give motivational talks to students.
It was through such an event that Ward met the person who changed his life.

“So one day, here comes this fat ugly guy with a Ferrari and a hot girlfriend to give a talk on campus, and I remember wondering how he made it, so I decided to listen to him. His speech changed my life. He changed my thinking, and although I won’t tell you who he is, I thank him,” Ward said.

His role models include Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and Brent Hoberman; he hopes to meet his idol Branson one day.

Fly Virgin

“I use all his products, I fly Virgin and am hoping that one day I will meet the guy; he really inspires me,” Ward said.

After the life-changing talk, Ward set up another society on campus, and that was when his childhood dream came alive — sort of.

“I got a call from Cambridge after they heard about the campus society, and they offered me and several other students a free fellowship on entrepreneurship! I was over the moon on that one, and I continued working hard.”

While at Cambridge he entered a business plan competition and was among the top five finalists. After college, he decided to tour the world and ran up a £30,000 debt (Sh3.9 million) which he bragged about to his friends.

“I knew that I would pay the money back somehow so I was not losing sleep over it, and every time you tell someone you have such a debt, they are always shocked, and I love the expressions,” Ward said with a little smile.

After college, Ward, who now lives with his childhood sweetheart, got a job with Accenture, the world’s largest consulting firm. He was able to pay off his debt with his good salary.

“Then one day, a friend calls me and says that he has a website idea. We were having a beer and decided to pursue it. The three of us decided to make that idea an investment opportunity, and so in September 2002, WAYN was launched.”

In May 2003, they secured financial backing from Stephen Pankhurst, the founder of the well known UK school reunion site Friends Reunited, which was recently sold to ITV for £175 million (Sh22.7 billion).

The site grew through word-of-mouth and reached almost 50,000 members by the end of 2004, although it seemed as though the decision to charge subscription fees was holding them back.

“We realised that was not a sustainable business model if we wanted it to grow, and that was the best thing we ever did because it grew from 6 million members to 14 million today, and it also allowed advertisers to reach a wider audience,” Ward said.

The money followed, and his millionaire status was solidified; his life was never to be the same again.

“When I made my first million pounds, I photocopied the bank statement and framed it, and I bought myself a house and a Porsche, a childhood dream,” he said.

After the relaunch of the site in 2005 to remove the subscription fee, it grew exponentially, reaching more than 2.5 million members by the end of 2005.

Competition from sites like Facebook is big, but Ward says as long as they stick to their business model of travel and lifestyle they will be good.

“We learn from sites like Facebook, and we just keep to our business model and we will continue to grow and become successful,” he said.

Early this year there were reports that WAYN might be bought by AOL for $200 million, but this was immediately denied.

“Our main focus is to grow WAYN into a respectable international brand, and then maybe we can sell it for a whole lot more money in the future. That is our main concern,” he said.

So, does it mean that they also indulge in some activities that fellow millionaires do like holidaying in St Tropez or the French Riviera?

“No, we have the money, but right now, we want to make a lot more before we can start spending luxuriously. Right now all our money is geared towards helping WAYN grow even bigger than it is,” he said.

But he did say they had begun to invest in real estate in new hot spots like South Africa and Montenegro.

Ward’s advice to young people is not to be afraid of dreaming big and to pursue their talents and ideas to fruition and never give up. That might give them a chance to join him on the millionaires’ list.