25 x 25
By Improper Staff Aug. 5, 2016
Tom Coburn
“College dropout” is far from synonymous with failure in the startup scene, and Tom Coburn joined the ranks of Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg when he abandoned Boston College—and plans for med school—to found digital marketing platform Jebbit. The idea came when he was waiting for a flight and opened Hulu on his laptop; an ad started playing, and he automatically opened Facebook in another tab while he waited for it to end. “But instead of scrolling through my newsfeed, I realized, a brand had spent money to show me something, and I couldn’t even think of the company, let alone the product,” the now 25-year-old says. “I wanted to create the most efficient way for a company or organization to understand, educate and influence its audience on a one-to-one basis.” Coburn and his team had to pitch their product to more than 500 businesses before securing their first deal; now they count Dunkin’ Donuts, CBS and Honda among their clients and have unveiled a new mobile product that’s a finalist for MassTLC’s mobile innovation of the year. And while he’s got his eye firmly on the future, Coburn credits a past mentor for some of his success. “My eighth-grade science teacher told me, ‘Life is full of experiences; a full life is taking advantage of them,’ ” he says. “That stuck with me.”
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