Yes, Friends, The Myth Survives

His name is Tyler Dikman, aged 17. He graduated from high school last May but was well on his way to business success, having already traded for five years. Last year his company, CoolTronics, grossed over $2 million, and in 2003 it looks like really taking off.

It's profitable business, too. After a very successful meeting with Michael Dell, he now has the equipment and support of the Dell hardware network. His office overheads are low - HQ is his father's study in Tampa, Florida; the Silicon Valley office is his dormitory at Santa Clara University; and the north-east US region is run by a friend who made it into New York University.

His operation is a lot like that - even though the Comdex party that CoolTronics threw was in the super-swank Venetian Hotel, at times it looked like the suite's inhabitants had just emerged from a downtown video arcade.

Tyler Dikman built his $2 million business
while graduating from high school.

But the business is real enough. He supplies computer systems at very reasonable rates. Then his team installs them. Then - here's the clincher - they spend time showing the purchaser how to use the system and training them in any special programs which may be required. The service does not stop there, either. They look after the machines and systems for their lifetime.

"We tell people that we are the concierge of their computers," Tyler explained between Cokes, "we're there with support and backup at any time." Now the technician who turns up to fix your late-night breakdown may be squeaky-voiced and lisping through braces, but he sure will know how to make your computer sing.

Now that the principals of CoolTronics have graduated to Uni, they have lifted their sights. The occasion for the party was their announcement that they had started a new service, called 'On Campus'. This is aimed specifically at students and their universities, and offers an all-encompassing service with the big-brother backing of Dell. They seemed very confident that it will rapidly take off, supported by the universities.

But will Tyler ever get to finish his own university education? And why bother?

Well it's a question that has been troubling his mother Jane, apparently. At one computing conference (she often attends them because Tyler is not yet old enough to drive - he's taken to jobs by one of his parents, or his clients come and pick him up), Mrs Dikman cornered no less than Bill Gates and said to him: "I need you to tell my son why he needs a good college education!" The answers were not entirely satisfactory: both Gates and Dell had dropped out of college themselves so they were not exactly good examples of how lack of a degree leads to failure in life.

Gates told him that if the opportunity facing him was such that it was that once-in-a-lifetime chance to make it big, then put your head down and go for it. But if it's just a lucky opportunity which will pay well for a time and then peter out, get the support of that piece of paper behind you.

At the moment the need for a decision has not yet arisen. And if the 'On Campus' scheme succeeds, he may be able to blend the two opportunities together without a hiccup. Already in high school he learned how to win understanding and leniency from his teachers, getting some flexibility about the delivery times of his assignments. They needed to give him some slack because, after all, it was probably their computer he was working on the night before.

Ah but even as we conversed the pressures of business cut into the party suite as an associate called Tyler over for a hurried conference. This was one of CoolTronic's technology partners and obviously a man treated with some deference as being wiser and by far the eldest of the party's hosts. In later conversation I ventured to ask what his venerable age might be. Well obviously he was past it. All of 26.

Web page: http://www.cooltronics.com.

Reprinted from the February 2003 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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