31-year-old millionaire sold his first business at 17 for over $100K—he lost it all in 15 months to bad investments: ‘I got cocky, I got arrogant’

Millionaire Timothy (or Tim) Armoo made his first fortune at 17, before he could even legally vote. He blew through every penny of it before he turned 19.

“I made my first bit of money at 17—that was the first business that I meaningfully sold,” Armoo told Fortune. “And then I lost all that money from that.”

Despite arriving in the U.K. as a child with no money, no network, and years of instability behind him, Armoo started his first business—a tutoring service—at 14 and scaled it to 65 tutors within six weeks. Then he built Entrepreneur Express, a publication he sold to Horizon Media at 17 for a life-changing amount. 

“That company got bought for £110,000. I’m this kid from like South London, I was like, bro, this is £110 million,” he added. “So I got cocky, I got arrogant, and I started to invest it in stuff that I had absolutely zero clue about.” 

Convinced his early success meant he’d unlocked the secret hack to building wealth fast, he tried to turn his newfound fortune into passive income. He poured some of it into a dentist affiliate website he was convinced would take off. It didn’t. Then he tried spread betting next.

“I thought, I did it before, so I’m just going to do it again,” Armoo explained.

“I thought I knew how to make money, and spread betting seemed like an easy way to make........

© Fortune