Ben Chestnut
Atlanta, Georgia
Bachelor of Arts/Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
United States
email marketing, Self Made
$2,100,000,000
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#1116 Billionaires 2019
#383 Forbes 400 2018
Chestnut founded what later became Mailchimp with Dan Kurzius in 2001 as a side project to their web design company.Mailchimp's email marketing software for small businesses garnered enough customers that in 2007 they committed to it full time.Wary of giving up control to outside investors, Chestnut and Kurzius bootstrapped growth from profits and took no outside money.Chestnut and Kurzius each own 50% of Mailchimp, which has expected 2018 revenues of $600 million and is profitable.He is CEO of the Atlanta-based company, which has nearly 1,000 employees and millions of customers.
Chestnut learned about small business from his mom, who ran a hair salon from the family's kitchen in Georgia.He studied industrial design at Georgia Tech, taught himself how to build websites, and worked at Cox Interactive Media.
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