Due to my own crippling fear of underachieving, Iโve always been super suss on young people who overachieve. Russian gymnasts winning Olympic Gold at 14-years-old? Must be blood doping. Genius primary school kids getting into Harvard? Show me the birth certificate. So when I came across yet another puff piece about Jack Bloomfield, Australiaโs very own self-confessed and self-promoted teen millionaire, my inner-cynic was quick to dismiss the piece as PR fluff.
For those unfamiliar with the Jack Bloomfield story, it goes like this: born and raised in Brisbane, Jack was business savvy from a young age. Heโd earn extra cash selling lolly bags at his parentโs tennis centre and mowing his neighbourโs lawns. Using his lolly dollars, he eventually saved enough to create his first app โ he was 12-years-old.
By 15, he was deep into eCommerce, setting up online stores that sold a variety of gimmicky items โ remote controls, flashlights, money clips. Using the drop-shipping method, where a store sells the product and passes on the sales order to a third-party supplier, who then ships the order to the customer, he started making money.
And just like that, the narrative was written: Jack Bloomfield, a self-made millennial โmillionaireโ before heโd even finished high school.
Unsurprisingly, the media couldnโt get enough of this business wunderkind. A quick Google of Jackโs name offers up myriad newspaper articles and TV interviews lauding the youngsterโs success.
In every story Jackโs youth and wealth are inextricably linked, heโs always listed as either a teenage millionaire, millionaire teen, 17-year-old eCommerce entrepreneur, and my favourite, teenage serial entrepreneur. Amongst the overwhelmingly positive press on Jack Bloomfield, there were a few comments that warranted a double-take.
Now itโs news to no one that the internet can be a hive mind of conspiracy and craziness. But the same questions kept popping up: how does Jack Bloomfield actually make his money? What are his businesses? What do they sell?
Despite his well-reported success, Jack never discloses what his businesses are; theyโre only vaguely ever referred to as โeCommerce stores.โ Thatโs not an issue on its own, but these days the teen millionaire is leveraging off his entrepreneurial reputation by selling online eCommerce courses via his website.
The paid programs promise to help users โlearn how to Master, Excel and PROFIT off EVERY area of eCommerce.โ Now admittedly, at thirty years old (and certainly not a millionaire), I have a million reasons to be envious of the now 18-year-old Jack Bloomfield.
But parking my envy, I was mostly curious about how a self-made teen becomes the subject of so much adoration and speculation (and the odd bit of scathing criticism). And so I found myself reaching out to Jack Bloomfieldโs (PR) team and sitting across from Australiaโs most mysterious teenage millionaire. Below is a transcript of our chat over lunch, Iโll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.
Thomas Mitchell: Jack, there are so many articles about you being a teenage millionaire. How do you feel about being the poster boy for young entrepreneurs?
Jack Bloomfield: I donโt like the fact that through promoting me as this young, successful individual that somehow is above everyone else. Growing up, I was never special at anything, was never good at anything. I was never class captain, never school prefect, never really excelled in one thing, I was just really average. And yet, business was just something that I loved, and I could do quite well. That was just me.
TM: Have your parents ever helped you out financially?
JB: Not at all. Not a single cent financially. The $500 I used to start my first business, half of that came from mowing our lawns so, if you want to look at it that way, then sure, but in terms of cash, buffers or loans or anything like that, not at all.
TM: So BloomVentures โ or is it Bloom Group? Anyway, thatโs the umbrella company, and as part of that youโve got โ is it six different dropshipping stores?
JB: Actually, we are up to fourteen.
TM: Yeah right. And so, what are the websites?
JB: My biggest I guess concern with the media and [listing the businesses] is it does affect the business.
So when it comes to that question being asked publicly or on TV, as soon as everyone knows what youโre selling and how youโre selling it, they know the products. Anyone else with half a brain would go โhang on โ heโs doing well with those products, sourcing them from China.โ
Thatโs something that anyone can do and then also advertise them on Facebook, which drives my advertising costs up and everything else in between. So it presents an issue, and there are some people who will go, โWell you wonโt say what these websites are how can I believe he makes that much money?โ
Even if I said what the websites are, they are just selling general products. For example, one sells hair removers.
TM: But can you understand why people might feel a little sceptical? If you say youโre doing all this business, but not able to show where, or what the business is?
JB: Certainly, and it comes back down to if people can find any reason to downplay you or have that sort of suspicion in their mind to make themselves feel better, or somehow write you off, then they will.
Which Iโm sure some people might because of it, and that is the risk Iโm willing to take.
TM: I do find it odd that you kind of canโt disclose any of your eCommerce websites.
JB: But do you see why?
TM: I do, but then I also see youโve shifted into mentoring and offering eCommerce courses. Could it be problematic to keep that other stuff on the down-low?
JB: Um, yes and no. If you look at my Instagram, for example, I promote it maybe once every one or two months. For me, my biggest gripe with the industry is the joke that if you sell one thing online somehow, youโre qualified to build a course.
The reason why Iโve put mine together was after the first interview on The Today Show I had all these people going โI like what you do. But how can I do it too?โ
And I was like โOh shit, umโ, I canโt talk to everyone on the phone.
So, it was just a case of letโs sit down and just record what I know in terms of the processes that I use and how I start and if anyone finds value and buys it, thatโs fantastic.
TM: Looking at the programs you offer: there is an eCommerce upskill course, and then you have an eCommerce university program.
JB: Yeah so eCommerce upskill is cheaper, itโs like $80 a month. Itโs like a cheaper alternative for a startup.
TM: And then you have eComm University, which costs a couple of grand?
JB: Itโs $2000. It used to be like $3 or $4k; now itโs down to $2k. My biggest thing is, if I can get as many people involved in what I want to do, theyโre going to learn from me, hence why the cheaper program.
TM: Itโs mentioned in a few interviews online that youโre turning over more than a million dollars in sales annually from the eCommerce business. Is that still the case?
JB: Yeah, but as you know, I canโt say precisely what the figure is.
TM: Is the main part of the income coming from the eCommerce stores sales or the fees from the education courses?
JB: I canโt provide the full amount, but I think one third comes from the education arm, and all the rest of it is from eCommerce.
My biggest gripe is the saying: if you canโt do, teach. There are so many people that canโt actually do eCommerce but decide to teach it because they figure there is better money in that.
TM: Do you see how people might look at your age and be like okay, wait a minute: Jack is 18 and released his online coaching course, which costs $2000. But he wonโt disclose exactly how he makes his moneyโฆso isnโt he doing exactly what he says people shouldnโt be doing?
JB: Ummm, look at the end of the day thatโs certainly a way to look at it, and thereโs always going to be some people that comprehend it in that way. If people want to look at it from that angle, fantastic, but the other angle is if you donโt want to do a coaching program of mine if you donโt want the education, then you donโt have to follow me, you donโt have to do any of that.
At the end of the day if you choose to actively be involved in a coaching program that I offer thatโs your decision. If you donโt like that to begin with, obviously youโre not going to be involved.
TM: You have all these different stores. How often are you changing products?
JB: Quite regularly. At the end of the day, something might last for ten weeks in the product cycle, and then you move onto something different. I have a team in the Philippines that does a lot of the research and tracking, so I get a list every Friday of which product they have found in terms of scores and ratings and stuff they go by.
TM: But if it is changing so much, why the need for such secrecy around them? If no two weeks will be the same.
JB: If Iโm constantly going to be updating people on what Iโm selling then, that presents another issue. I might sell products on a ten-week cycle; then I have to update people at week number five, to have everyone up to date. So [not disclosing] is a personal decision that I make, though I may cop some flack for it.
TM: Social media has become important to your brand; youโre the face of Jack Bloomfield, naturally. I looked at your Instagram followers, and there was a big jump in a short period. Have you ever bought followers?
JB: No.
TM: Never?
JB: No. Well, I mean I did run through a period of Instagram story advertisements and that kind of stuff. I guess my biggest thing was that the more people know about you and know what you do, the bigger your attraction as an individual becomes and the more doors that open up for you and Iโve certainly seen that.
TM: But if you can boost that by then buying 10,000 followers for $100โฆ
JB: Yeah, you can, but at the end of the day, theyโre not people. Therefore, the people that you are trying to engage and trying to appeal to arenโt people. So, it kinda goes against the whole idea of building a profile, to begin with.
TM: I guess what Iโm trying to say is the bigger your following, the more you can get your message across and the better it would be for your business and your brand.
JB: Oh, certainly. If you have more people following you and watching every single day and then you want to sell something, itโs better to have two million followers than two hundred.
TM: But you never bought followers.
JB: No.
TM: I have a lot of friends who have done it, and it is really easily traceable though โcause you can enter the username and see the spike in numbers.
JB: It is.
But also be careful when you start saying that. They do a lot of these things called the follower clean up, so if someone followed you but hasnโt used Instagram in the last two years, their account gets deactivated. Because that person who hasnโt used Instagram for two years, it no longer counts as an actual active follower. So, they, therefore, shouldnโt appear on someoneโs follower figures. So they have deactivated those accounts in terms of the number that comes up on who they follow. Which obviously for me, it affected me slightly.
TM: Have you thought about the next couple of years and what youโd want your life to look like?
JB: Well, itโs interesting because I was never really that happy being labelled a teenage entrepreneur millionaire. Because, at the end of the day, as soon as youโve been put on a pedestal, someone is going to want to take you down, so I never really liked that aspect. Cause you get those people that are like โWhy donโt you reveal your storesโ blah blah blah blah.
TM: When youโre having like, whether itโs a business meeting about some possible opportunity or whatever, do you reveal your stores to them?
JB: You would find no one really cares, at all. Youโd be the first reporter thatโs genuinely pushed to know because at the end of the day itโs obvious to see that through what Iโve done but more importantly who I am as an individual.
TM: Do you want to get out of the drop shipping game eventually?
JB: Um, I might. I think as long as I remain passionate about it and in love with it, thereโs no reason to get out of it. But, itโs just got to be managed with everything else that I do. Because, thereโs a lot of time involved, so itโs just gotta be kind of whatโs the return and whatโs the payoff.
TM: Thanks, Jack, looking forward to seeing what you do next.
JB: Thanks, Thomas.
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