Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n\n- Emil Barr built his first company, a social media agency called Step Up Social, from his college dorm room.<\/li>\n
- He made his first $1 million 14 months after launching the company.<\/li>\n
- Barr has since started another venture, Flashpass, which targets AI-driven job displacement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
It took Emil Barr<\/a> just 14 months of work to see his first $1 million hit his bank account. He was 19 years old at the time.<\/p>\nToday, at age 23, the founder and CEO, who created two companies while still in <\/strong>school, estimates that his personal net worth is around $35 million. He is unapologetically aiming to be a billionaire<\/a> by age 30.\u00a0<\/p>\nBorn in Russia, Barr moved to the U.S.<\/a> when he was three years old and grew up in a small Ohio town. He stuck out at an early age.<\/p>\n\u201cI was the weird Russian kid that didn\u2019t speak any English,\u201d he tells Entrepreneur<\/em>. \u201cI think I always felt out of place. And I think that as an entrepreneur, you have to be comfortable with discomfort and that feeling of cutting against the herd<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Emil](\"https:\/\/www.entrepreneur.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/09\/Emil-Barr.-Credit-Jerry-Ta-Fluff-Studio.jpg?w=1024\")
Emil Barr. Credit: Jerry Ta, Fluff Studio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIn high school, he made his peace with being different<\/a> and even leaned into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m convinced every high school has at least one weird kid that wears suits to school every day,\u201d he says. \u201cYou probably had one. That was me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Money, not ambition, first pushed him into entrepreneurship. When it came time to choose a college, Barr enrolled at Miami University, the only college that he could afford. He was looking into transferring to an Ivy League school<\/a>, but tuition was out of reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI was like, If money is the limiting factor, how hard can it be to make $100,000 [and] go pay for a year\u2019s tuition?<\/em>\u201d he says.<\/p>\nHow he made his first $1 million<\/h2>\n
Barr was on the lookout for money-making ideas when he met a classmate with 11 million TikTok followers<\/a> who was barely earning anything from her social media presence.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cShe got one brand deal<\/a> for $200,\u201d Barr says. \u201cThis is crazy because on Instagram, even if you had a million followers, that would be your full-time career. This was a platform that everyone was using. There was no revenue there yet.\u201d<\/p>\nBarr started his company, Step Up Social<\/a>, in his freshman year dorm room. His plan was straightforward: Businesses had no idea what to do with TikTok, but Gen Z did. Step Up Social positioned itself as a social media marketing and advertising agency focused on creating short-form video content.<\/p>\nStarting the company required little more than an iPhone<\/a> and an Internet connection.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe grew from $0 to $1 million in revenue in six months,\u201d Barr says of Step Up Social. \u201cAs an 18-year-old, I had no idea what I was doing. I never had a corporate internship or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead of spending the money, he reinvested in the company\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the first time I had truly a million dollars<\/a> in my bank account was 14 months in,\u201d Barr recalls. \u201cIt was the start of my sophomore year of college.\u201d<\/p>\nDecisions that led to rapid growth<\/h2>\n
Growing Step Up Social meant embracing risk, especially debt. When the company adopted 90-day payment terms with large clients, there was a funding gap. Barr had to pay influencers upfront while waiting months for invoices to clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was basically running around and taking out as many credit cards and bank loans<\/a> as I could to keep the company afloat,\u201d he says. \u201cI took out about $1 million worth of personally guaranteed unsecured loans, and everyone thought I was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\nHis logic was simple: At 19, he had no assets, so the downside was limited. \u201cIf we failed, what were they going to do?\u201d he says. \u201cWere they going to take my shirt or my car? I didn\u2019t have anything to take<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nThe third key decision, in his view, was prioritizing people over lifestyle. The \u201cabsolute best thing\u201d he spent money on was hiring people<\/a> with \u201c20 or 30 years of experience,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\nHow he grew Step Up Social<\/h2>\n
Early on, intent on gathering clients, Barr cold-emailed<\/a> a few hundred companies. The first serious bite came from Kao, a Japanese consumer giant and Procter & Gamble competitor. Barr drove his old, beat-up car an hour and a half to downtown Cincinnati and walked into a 47th-floor boardroom wearing a university T-shirt and shorts. The executives gathered there asked him for his deck.<\/p>\n\u201cI was like, \u2018What\u2019s a deck<\/a>?\u2019\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\nDespite underpricing himself at \u201c$2,000 a month,\u201d he landed the account. That one contract gave Step Up Social credibility and opened doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was exponentially easier for us to get our next 10 to 15 brands, and it was just off to the races,\u201d Barr says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From there, Step Up Social scaled into a full-service TikTok marketing agency, hiring influencers and managing online presences for brands and celebrities. By the time he sold it<\/a> last year, the firm, by then acquired and rolled into a larger agency, was working with Procter & Gamble<\/a>, Nike, Nordstrom, Kroger, Alo and Banana Republic.<\/p>\n\u201cWe were doing about $2 million a year in revenue, but it was extremely high margins,\u201d Barr says. <\/p>\n
Step Up Social earned revenue by connecting brands with creators. For example, a brand might pay the company $600 for a video. The company would then pay the creator $400 to make it and count the remaining $200 as revenue for arranging and managing the deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cGross transaction revenue was closer to $8 to $9 million,\u201d Barr says. <\/p>\n
Convincing his university to pay him<\/h2>\n
Barr didn\u2019t just build a business while attending college; he turned the school itself into a revenue source and marketing machine. He convinced his university to cover his tuition fees. The school also paid him $200,000<\/a> and gave him a faculty parking pass.\u00a0<\/p>\nMiami University had introduced its entrepreneurship program relatively recently. Barr saw leverage. \u201cI was effectively the only student entrepreneur on campus,\u201d he says. If he dropped out, \u201cthey would have no student entrepreneurs. It wouldn\u2019t be a very compelling case study.\u201d<\/p>\n
He started with \u201csmall asks\u201d like flexible attendance, arguing that it was more important for him to run his company than to participate in group projects. Then, he applied for every grant and pitch competition he could find at the school, winning \u201c$40,000 in a couple of months.\u201d<\/p>\n
From there, he reframed himself as both a case study<\/a> and a vendor. Miami University became a client. Barr\u2019s agency turned the school into \u201cthe most-followed public university on TikTok in America,\u201d a result he argues paid back any support many times over.<\/p>\n\u201cFor every $1 they spent, whether it was in contracts with us or grants for the business, I\u2019m sure they made at least $10 back in tuition from students<\/a> who heard of Miami and were drawn to the school,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it was probably a good deal for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\nBuilding Flashpass<\/h2>\n
Barr\u2019s latest venture, Flashpass<\/a>, looks very different from a TikTok agency. At its core, Flashpass is his answer to a looming question: What happens to workers if AI replaces 25% to 50% of jobs?<\/p>\n\u201cIf we could actually build a way for these 25% to 50% of people who might lose their jobs to be able to quickly get certified online and go find a new job in 30 days, that would be a very valuable service to government as well as to individual users,\u201d Barr explains.<\/p>\n
Flashpass is an online platform built around \u201cmicro credentials.\u201d Users can learn a new skill<\/a> in 30 days or less and then be matched with jobs in industries that need talent.<\/p>\n\u201cWe have things like natural energy, like oil and gas careers. We have things like medical billing and coding,\u201d he says. \u201cThese are all industries where they have a lot of job openings, and they can\u2019t find enough people, and the average pay is over $80,000 a year<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nHow Flashpass makes money<\/h2>\n
The platform doesn\u2019t charge individual users or employers. Instead, Flashpass sells its services<\/a> to state governments.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cTypically what we do is we\u2019ll partner with a school, and the government will pay the school, and we will split the revenue with the school,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The school helps build curriculum and recruit candidates; the government treats Flashpass as one more education and workforce tool.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we could take this Flashpass idea and actually give it to the government and make it free for everyone who loses their jobs as a result of AI<\/a>, we could build a very valuable business,\u201d Barr says.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe bet appears to be paying off<\/a>. Flashpass began with a $4 million, two-year pilot contract in Ohio, with roughly $2 million in annual revenue. Barr says he invested about $75,000 of his own money to build a demo, then used it to land that pilot. Since then, the company has added contracts in Louisiana (about $1 million a year) and Delaware ($2.3 million a year), and has proposals out in 17 states.<\/p>\n\u201cThis year, just based on the existing contract volume, we\u2019re set to do at least $8 million, and that\u2019s a four-fold increase over last year,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
Work-life imbalance<\/h2>\n
Today, Barr estimates his net worth is around $35 million, up from $25 million<\/a> when he spoke with Business Insider in December. He\u2019s open about the personal cost of becoming a millionaire<\/a>. In college, his schedule was packed to the minute. He took college classes from 8 a.m. to the early afternoon, then conducted back-to-back calls until 7 p.m. and went to networking dinners. He did his \u201ctrue work\u201d on the business until 4 a.m., finishing his day with three hours of sleep<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI gained 80 pounds,\u201d he says. \u201cI lived off of Red Bull\u2026four or five cans of Red Bull each day.\u201d He skipped holidays and ignored invitations to go out. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s since lost 30 pounds<\/a> and hired a trainer who comes to his house twice a day. The hardest part, he says, is realizing \u201cit\u2019s three times harder to undo the damage than to do the damage initially.\u201d<\/p>\nHe also has a personal chef, a home assistant and a driver. Barr still works 19-hour days<\/a>, but he says he\u2019s calmer and more measured as a leader with the extra help.<\/p>\nOne lesson he wishes he\u2019d learned earlier: Don\u2019t spend your 18- to 20-hour days chasing small goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes the same amount of effort to do something big as it does to do something small,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
It took Emil Barr<\/a> just 14 months of work to see his first $1 million hit his bank account. He was 19 years old at the time.<\/p>\n Today, at age 23, the founder and CEO, who created two companies while still in <\/strong>school, estimates that his personal net worth is around $35 million. He is unapologetically aiming to be a billionaire<\/a> by age 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n Born in Russia, Barr moved to the U.S.<\/a> when he was three years old and grew up in a small Ohio town. He stuck out at an early age.<\/p>\n \u201cI was the weird Russian kid that didn\u2019t speak any English,\u201d he tells Entrepreneur<\/em>. \u201cI think I always felt out of place. And I think that as an entrepreneur, you have to be comfortable with discomfort and that feeling of cutting against the herd<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In high school, he made his peace with being different<\/a> and even leaned into it.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m convinced every high school has at least one weird kid that wears suits to school every day,\u201d he says. \u201cYou probably had one. That was me.\u201d<\/p>\n Money, not ambition, first pushed him into entrepreneurship. When it came time to choose a college, Barr enrolled at Miami University, the only college that he could afford. He was looking into transferring to an Ivy League school<\/a>, but tuition was out of reach.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, If money is the limiting factor, how hard can it be to make $100,000 [and] go pay for a year\u2019s tuition?<\/em>\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Barr was on the lookout for money-making ideas when he met a classmate with 11 million TikTok followers<\/a> who was barely earning anything from her social media presence.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cShe got one brand deal<\/a> for $200,\u201d Barr says. \u201cThis is crazy because on Instagram, even if you had a million followers, that would be your full-time career. This was a platform that everyone was using. There was no revenue there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Barr started his company, Step Up Social<\/a>, in his freshman year dorm room. His plan was straightforward: Businesses had no idea what to do with TikTok, but Gen Z did. Step Up Social positioned itself as a social media marketing and advertising agency focused on creating short-form video content.<\/p>\n Starting the company required little more than an iPhone<\/a> and an Internet connection.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe grew from $0 to $1 million in revenue in six months,\u201d Barr says of Step Up Social. \u201cAs an 18-year-old, I had no idea what I was doing. I never had a corporate internship or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of spending the money, he reinvested in the company\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the first time I had truly a million dollars<\/a> in my bank account was 14 months in,\u201d Barr recalls. \u201cIt was the start of my sophomore year of college.\u201d<\/p>\n Growing Step Up Social meant embracing risk, especially debt. When the company adopted 90-day payment terms with large clients, there was a funding gap. Barr had to pay influencers upfront while waiting months for invoices to clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was basically running around and taking out as many credit cards and bank loans<\/a> as I could to keep the company afloat,\u201d he says. \u201cI took out about $1 million worth of personally guaranteed unsecured loans, and everyone thought I was crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n His logic was simple: At 19, he had no assets, so the downside was limited. \u201cIf we failed, what were they going to do?\u201d he says. \u201cWere they going to take my shirt or my car? I didn\u2019t have anything to take<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The third key decision, in his view, was prioritizing people over lifestyle. The \u201cabsolute best thing\u201d he spent money on was hiring people<\/a> with \u201c20 or 30 years of experience,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Early on, intent on gathering clients, Barr cold-emailed<\/a> a few hundred companies. The first serious bite came from Kao, a Japanese consumer giant and Procter & Gamble competitor. Barr drove his old, beat-up car an hour and a half to downtown Cincinnati and walked into a 47th-floor boardroom wearing a university T-shirt and shorts. The executives gathered there asked him for his deck.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, \u2018What\u2019s a deck<\/a>?\u2019\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n Despite underpricing himself at \u201c$2,000 a month,\u201d he landed the account. That one contract gave Step Up Social credibility and opened doors.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was exponentially easier for us to get our next 10 to 15 brands, and it was just off to the races,\u201d Barr says.\u00a0<\/p>\n From there, Step Up Social scaled into a full-service TikTok marketing agency, hiring influencers and managing online presences for brands and celebrities. By the time he sold it<\/a> last year, the firm, by then acquired and rolled into a larger agency, was working with Procter & Gamble<\/a>, Nike, Nordstrom, Kroger, Alo and Banana Republic.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were doing about $2 million a year in revenue, but it was extremely high margins,\u201d Barr says. <\/p>\n Step Up Social earned revenue by connecting brands with creators. For example, a brand might pay the company $600 for a video. The company would then pay the creator $400 to make it and count the remaining $200 as revenue for arranging and managing the deal.<\/p>\n \u201cGross transaction revenue was closer to $8 to $9 million,\u201d Barr says. <\/p>\n Barr didn\u2019t just build a business while attending college; he turned the school itself into a revenue source and marketing machine. He convinced his university to cover his tuition fees. The school also paid him $200,000<\/a> and gave him a faculty parking pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n Miami University had introduced its entrepreneurship program relatively recently. Barr saw leverage. \u201cI was effectively the only student entrepreneur on campus,\u201d he says. If he dropped out, \u201cthey would have no student entrepreneurs. It wouldn\u2019t be a very compelling case study.\u201d<\/p>\n He started with \u201csmall asks\u201d like flexible attendance, arguing that it was more important for him to run his company than to participate in group projects. Then, he applied for every grant and pitch competition he could find at the school, winning \u201c$40,000 in a couple of months.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, he reframed himself as both a case study<\/a> and a vendor. Miami University became a client. Barr\u2019s agency turned the school into \u201cthe most-followed public university on TikTok in America,\u201d a result he argues paid back any support many times over.<\/p>\n \u201cFor every $1 they spent, whether it was in contracts with us or grants for the business, I\u2019m sure they made at least $10 back in tuition from students<\/a> who heard of Miami and were drawn to the school,\u201d he says. \u201cSo it was probably a good deal for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Barr\u2019s latest venture, Flashpass<\/a>, looks very different from a TikTok agency. At its core, Flashpass is his answer to a looming question: What happens to workers if AI replaces 25% to 50% of jobs?<\/p>\n \u201cIf we could actually build a way for these 25% to 50% of people who might lose their jobs to be able to quickly get certified online and go find a new job in 30 days, that would be a very valuable service to government as well as to individual users,\u201d Barr explains.<\/p>\n Flashpass is an online platform built around \u201cmicro credentials.\u201d Users can learn a new skill<\/a> in 30 days or less and then be matched with jobs in industries that need talent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have things like natural energy, like oil and gas careers. We have things like medical billing and coding,\u201d he says. \u201cThese are all industries where they have a lot of job openings, and they can\u2019t find enough people, and the average pay is over $80,000 a year<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The platform doesn\u2019t charge individual users or employers. Instead, Flashpass sells its services<\/a> to state governments.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTypically what we do is we\u2019ll partner with a school, and the government will pay the school, and we will split the revenue with the school,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The school helps build curriculum and recruit candidates; the government treats Flashpass as one more education and workforce tool.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we could take this Flashpass idea and actually give it to the government and make it free for everyone who loses their jobs as a result of AI<\/a>, we could build a very valuable business,\u201d Barr says.\u00a0<\/p>\n The bet appears to be paying off<\/a>. Flashpass began with a $4 million, two-year pilot contract in Ohio, with roughly $2 million in annual revenue. Barr says he invested about $75,000 of his own money to build a demo, then used it to land that pilot. Since then, the company has added contracts in Louisiana (about $1 million a year) and Delaware ($2.3 million a year), and has proposals out in 17 states.<\/p>\n \u201cThis year, just based on the existing contract volume, we\u2019re set to do at least $8 million, and that\u2019s a four-fold increase over last year,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n Today, Barr estimates his net worth is around $35 million, up from $25 million<\/a> when he spoke with Business Insider in December. He\u2019s open about the personal cost of becoming a millionaire<\/a>. In college, his schedule was packed to the minute. He took college classes from 8 a.m. to the early afternoon, then conducted back-to-back calls until 7 p.m. and went to networking dinners. He did his \u201ctrue work\u201d on the business until 4 a.m., finishing his day with three hours of sleep<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI gained 80 pounds,\u201d he says. \u201cI lived off of Red Bull\u2026four or five cans of Red Bull each day.\u201d He skipped holidays and ignored invitations to go out. <\/p>\n He\u2019s since lost 30 pounds<\/a> and hired a trainer who comes to his house twice a day. The hardest part, he says, is realizing \u201cit\u2019s three times harder to undo the damage than to do the damage initially.\u201d<\/p>\n He also has a personal chef, a home assistant and a driver. Barr still works 19-hour days<\/a>, but he says he\u2019s calmer and more measured as a leader with the extra help.<\/p>\n One lesson he wishes he\u2019d learned earlier: Don\u2019t spend your 18- to 20-hour days chasing small goals.<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes the same amount of effort to do something big as it does to do something small,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nHow he made his first $1 million<\/h2>\n
Decisions that led to rapid growth<\/h2>\n
How he grew Step Up Social<\/h2>\n
Convincing his university to pay him<\/h2>\n
Building Flashpass<\/h2>\n
How Flashpass makes money<\/h2>\n
Work-life imbalance<\/h2>\n