YGG began as a small forum back in August of 2005. It was originally created as an alternative to the other entrepreneur forums available at that time.

Since then, it’s grown into a large community of young go getters spread across the globe. It’s no longer just a forum. It’s exactly what our tagline says it is, the business playground for entrepreneurs young at heart.

We’re now on version 5 or so, built upon the lessons learned from the mistakes we made in the previous versions and the invaluable feedback from all of our members. It will continuously evolve as we make more mistakes and experiment with the standards implied upon most communities.

Hopefully YGG becomes a daily read for you and enables you to develop contacts and businesses that you normally wouldn’t.

Justin Nowak – Partner

A true deal maker at heart, Justin spends most of his time hunting for opportunities and businesses to start. Online business is the latest path he’s chosen to tread.

Off the clock he loves to spend time with his family, his lovely fiance Courtney and his handsome and healthy son Caden. Sports, video games, and books consume the remainder of his time.

He is really looking forward to helping YGG grow into an enormous community benefiting entrepreneurs. He is always looking for something new and exciting so don’t hesitate to get in touch with him.

Clayton McIlrath – Partner

A true entrepreneur at heart, Clay strives to be on the cutting edge in business and technology, and loves sharing his experiences with others. The world of blogging has opened multiple windows of opportunity for Clay and helped him discover his true passions, such as web design, business development and marketing.

Even when his mind isn’t racing, Clay still loves moving fast doing action sports with his family (skateboarding, snowboarding, and four-wheeling to name a few). When he does slow down, Clay kicks back and relaxes with his wife, Samantha, and 2-year-old boy, Gabriel.

Clay has watched the YGG community and helped entrepreneurs all over the US start-up or improve their business. He is a firm believer that despite economy and poor conditions, everyone has the ability to make their own destiny. Clay hopes to contribute to YGG by growing the community and giving back the favor that has been given to him.

Dion Delaurier – Partner

With entrepreneurs being abundant in Dion’s family, it was only natural that he follow in the footsteps of them. He is a successful investor with extensive sales experience. He has an ever increasing interest in real estate, communications and networking.

Originally from a small town, a young Dion wanted to be an explorer when he grew up. Keeping with that theme, he’ll take any opportunity to travel. You’ll usually find him rocking out to music or attempting to play the guitar. Every chance he gets, he’ll lace up his skates and probably claim he taught Sidney Crosby everything he knows.

Contributors

Our contributors add such an important diversity and perspective to our blog and forum. Everyone has the opportunity to make their own destiny and these contributors have stood out from the crowd and taken part in a blog bigger than any individual. We’re really thankful for them as well as the community that has contributed to this blogs’ success. We only hope we can give back to the community as much value as given to us.

Eric

Eric’s worn a lot of hats, and not figuratively, he actually has – to cover up his balding dome. But after reading Seth Godin’s blog he realized that you can still kick serious ass and be bald. Upon this realization, he ditched the caps and shaved it off. Happiness ensued.

An internet entrepreneur from the get go at a ripe age of 17, and most recently a specialized auto dealer and real estate developer, he continues to wear many hats (now figuratively speaking). He started YGG out of pure lust for business, both online and off.

He’s an avid Mac user. He has a beautiful, loving wife. His only children thus far are two dogs, both small critters (a pomeranian, Wesley, and a Yorkie-pom, Elizabeth). He like’s big dogs too, but with as much time as he spends on his boat, he can’t keep up with the extra dootie at home.

He attributes most of his success to surrounding himself with ambitious, like-minded people (*cough* Travis), taking risks, and being a tight wad.

Travis

Travis is a successful entrepreneur who can only attribute his success to attention defecit disorder. Were it not for ADD, he’d still be just a magazine publisher, or just a graphic designer, or just an art director, among many other things. But thanks to his glorious sickness, he was and is an insane culmination of all of the above.

Like Eric, he is slightly obsessed with the prophecy named Seth and also the initials C, P, and B. He can name the agency and client behind almost every ad that’s run in the past three years and you’ll find a copy of Comm Arts on each of his nightstands.

If you can’t find him in his office, you’ll catch him at the arena, on the greens, or in the closet he calls a “studio” playing a little blues.

Without Eric and all the other great people he’s met through YGG and his other projects, he’d probably be doing something else.

Darius Monsef IV – COLOURlovers

Not only is he the creator of COLOURlovers.com, which was nominated for Community Website of 2007 by the Webby Awards and an Official Honoree for the Social Networking Category, he is also the co-founder of Hands On Worldwide.

In the past 2 years, Darius has spent 11 months volunteering in disaster zones and leading relief projects. He was the operations of the Hands On USA Katrina Relief project where he organized more than 2,000 volunteers and delivered over $2,000,000 in aid and volunteer labor. He still serves as a operations director for Hands On Worldwide.