Val Kataev

The Uzbek teen who sold $10M of ringtones to Americans, solo

Sam profiles Val Kataev, a Jewish immigrant from Uzbekistan who started a cell phone ringtone business at 18 as the only employee and hit $10M revenue (essentially all profit) by year 3. He went on to serially bootstrap companies across ad tech, peer-to-peer lending, and jewelry software.

“He, at the age of 18, listen to this, he started a cell phone ringtone business. He was the only employee and it did $10 million in revenue in year 3. He started it when he was 18. So this is when he was like 21, $10 million. So $10 million in profit.”