Timothy Armoo, co-founder and former CEO of Fanbytes.
Timothy Armoo
Timothy Armoo is a 29-year-old millionaire who became rich by selling his influencer marketing company for an eight-figure sum. But the young black entrepreneur had to defy all odds to find success.
Armoo, the co-founder and former CEO of Fanbytes, comes from one of the formerly poorest areas of south London and as a teenager lived with his father in a fourth-floor council housing project on the Old Kent Road in the borough of Southwark.
“It was the poorest place,” Armoo said in an interview with CNBC Make It. “It was at its peak when Peckham, Brixton and Old Kent Road had their argument. [British slang for conflict] So it was in the middle of the gang war. Between 2005 and 2012 was the peak of the South London gangs.”
Trust for London names Southwark as one of 19 boroughs where the poverty rate is “significantly” higher than England as a whole.
Armoo knew he was poor, but he had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and managed to scrape together some money at age 14 by starting his own tutoring business.
He taught mathematics to fellow students and when more and more students asked him for help in other subjects, he put them in touch with private teachers he knew and received a portion of the fees.
“I remember the first time I brought these two people together,” he said. “Jane needed help in chemistry, and I brought her together with Harry, and Harry helped her, and I got £5 (about $6.60) commission for the connection, because [the business] £15 per hour.”
It was only when Armoo received a scholarship at the age of 16 to attend a private boarding school where he could complete his high school diploma – the equivalent of the Advanced Placement program in the USA – that his attitude towards wealth changed fundamentally.
“I remember this kid being picked up in a helicopter one day,” he recalled. “It opened my eyes that there is a way to build wealth and you don't have to be Richard Branson. There's a whole world of people in between.”
He realized that “money was a tool” to change his life and that starting his own business was the fastest way to escape poverty.
“Growing up in that fourth-floor public housing apartment, I always told myself, 'This is only temporary. This is only temporary. This is only temporary,'” he said. “I couldn't choose the circumstances I lived in at 10 years old … but I could at least choose what happened in the end.”
Here's how Armoo managed to start his own business from a social housing estate and become a millionaire before he even turned 30.
Your first business doesn’t have to be a “billion dollar idea”
Armoo was 17 years old and still studying for his A-levels when he sold his first business, an online blog called Entrepreneur Express, for £110,000 after just 11 months of operation.
“Everyone’s goal was to go to Oxbridge [The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge] and mine was simply, 'I want to make money and get out of this shitty situation,'” Armoo said.
The 29-year-old interviewed high-profile personalities for “Entrepreneur Express” such as the co-founder of the Virgin Group Richard Branson, the face of the British TV show “The Apprentice” Alan Sugar and the actor James Caan. But making the blog profitable was a challenge.
He had initially created a print version of the blog for university groups, but as the deadline approached, he realized he did not have enough advertising to sustain the print edition.
The young entrepreneur then devoted himself to placing advertisements on the online blog. “I was successful with that,” he says.
He said his “hack” was spreading content from the blog through viral social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook, such as meme pages and feel-good quote pages.
Armoo packaged the articles in social media posts with a hook like “10 quotes for…”, directing people from the post to his site.
“We made money in two ways: firstly through programmatic advertising – just banner advertising. Secondly, I sold sponsored slots to tax consulting firms, law firms and accounting firms so they could get a direct ROI. [return on investment.]”
Armoo said your first business doesn't have to be a “billion-dollar idea.” Instead, “your first business should just get you on the first money ladder.”
He echoed the advice of the late investment guru Charlie Munger, who said making your first $100,000 is the hardest part, “but you have to do it.”
Armoo agreed, saying: “If you make the most of that first £100,000, work hard and go crazy for it, life gets easier because then you know the rules of the game a little bit. Now at least you have a financial cushion to make decisions that aren't as risky.”
“By selling the company you create wealth”
Armoo founded Fanbytes in 2017 along with Ambrose Cooke and Mitchell Fasanya.
Tim Armoo
Armoo sees himself as an early pioneer in the emerging creator economy industry, having co-founded influencer marketing firm Fanbytes with Ambrose Cooke and Mitchell Fasanya in 2017.
The goal of Fanbytes was to connect brands with influencers to create advertising campaigns – a popular marketing strategy at the time when companies were moving from traditional advertising to using social media influencers to sell products.
Their strategy worked, as Fanbytes was able to build a significant customer base from Nike, Samsung, Amazon and ITV, Armoo said.
A 2016 study by TapInfluence found that influencer marketing on social media was 11 times more effective than banner ads on a website. This was the reason why brands started turning to influencers more, according to a report by CNBC.
“I witnessed the rise of influencer marketing in the US,” said Armoo, and decided to replicate the idea in the UK.
As an entrepreneur, you don’t always have to invent something new, but can “satisfy existing demand,” advises Armoo.
The company collected “small amounts” in various phases before finally raising £2 million in funding.
“The very first investment was about 15,000, then 40,000, then 120,000, then 300,000 and then 600,000,” Armoo said.
His work with Fanbytes earned him a spot on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list in 2021, and soon after, in October of that year, the first offers came in from people wanting to buy Fanbytes.
He then hired a bank to coordinate deals for the company, which then found six companies interested in acquiring Fanbytes.
Armoo, then 27, and his co-founders sold Fanbytes to Brainlabs, a global digital marketing agency, in May 2022 in an eight-figure deal that made them all multimillionaires.
“The goal was always to build something you could sell,” Armoo said. “I talked to this guy once when I was very early in my career and he said you can make money running a business, but you create wealth by selling the business.”
Armoo always knew he didn’t want to run Fanbytes for the rest of his life.
“Fanbytes could have sold shoelaces to frogs and I would still have been excited if I had thought that we were building a business here and that our ultimate goal was to achieve financial security,” he said.
“I never saw myself as a black entrepreneur”
Armoo and its co-founders sold Fanbytes to Brainlabs in May 2022.
Timothy Armoo
Black founders often struggle to raise capital. In fact, Black-founded startups in the U.S. raised just 0.48% of all venture capital dollars in 2023, according to data from Crunchbase previously reported by CNBC.
This is a result of the decline in funding for black-owned businesses since 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the social justice movement that followed his death.
Meanwhile, 87% of non-white founders said they face greater barriers to fundraising than 79% of white founders, according to Atomico's State of European Tech Report 2023.
Armoo says it was all a matter of perspective and he was convinced that the color of his skin did not hold him back.
“Everyone remembered the bearded black guy in a room full of white people. Everyone remembers that, and for me it boosts the memory,” he said of his experience attending events to meet investors.
He explained that you can either walk into a room and feel insecure because there aren't many people who look like you, or you can believe that this factor will help you stand out from the crowd.
“I never saw myself as a black entrepreneur. I always just saw myself as an entrepreneur,” he said.
“I think I may be too logical for my own good. I thought to myself, 'Investors want to make money. This business is going to make them money. I'm going to show them how to make money at it.' That's all. I didn't think they really cared if it came out of a white man's mouth or a black man's.”
Today, Armoo, a 29-year-old millionaire, believes this worldview has “served him well.”
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