Chahal was born in the town of Tarn Taran, near Amritsar in Punjab, India to Avtar and Arjinder Chahal. In 1985, his parents received a visa for America through a lottery-based system in India. At the age of 4, he immigrated to the United States with his family and settled in San Jose, California. At that time, his parents arrived in the U.S. with only $25 in their pocket and struggled working menial jobs in their early years. Their main goal in life was to see their four children succeed. Gurbaksh was the youngest of his siblings.
He came from an exceedingly strict and disciplined background where education was paramount. Chahal went to public schools all throughout his early life in San Jose, attending high school for two years, but soon enrolling in Accel Middle College, which allowed him to enter college while finishing his high school degree.
Being from Indian descent, the typical route for Chahal was to take the "traditional" Indian path of being either an engineer or doctor since those are the two options typically Indian parents instill in their children.However, he chose a different route. Even as a teenager, Chahal was an avid risk taker. He realized early on that life is all about risks and that the definition of failure is only when you let fear take over your instincts.
Therefore, at the age of 16, he dropped out of Accel Middle College to start his first venture, leaving his college and high school degree behind. Having seen the amount of money being made by prominent Internet companies of the 1990s, Chahal founded ClickAgents, one of the first online ad networks to focus on the needs of performance-based advertisers, rather than brand advertisers. He was the Chief business, sales, and strategic visionary behind the company. His strategic vision paid off. Just two years later, in November 2000, ValueClick agreed to buy ClickAgents for $40 million in stock, making him a multi-millionaire by the age of 18.
In January 2004, at the end of his three-year non-compete agreement with ValueClick, at just 21-years-old, he went on to found his second company. BlueLithium was the next generation ad network focusing on data, optimization, and analytics and was a pioneer of behavioral targeting. Under his leadership, BlueLithium was named one of the top 100 private companies in America three years in a row by AlwaysOn, and in 2006, received highest honor as Top Innovator of the Year. Previous winners of this award included Google, Skype, and Salesforce.com all multi-billion dollar companies. On September 4th 2007, Yahoo! announced that it was acquiring BlueLithium for $300 million in cash. The transaction closed on October 15th, 2007.
Chahal's current projects include the completion of his book currently titled "The Dream" as well as a reality-TV show concept with the same title.He is living proof that no matter how humble one's beginnings may be, there is truly no limit to what an individual can achieve no matter their age.
About the author:
Gurbaksh Chahal is the founder of several advertising companies. He is the founder of Bluelithium and Click Agents. BlueLithium was an ad network focused on data, optimization, analytics and a pioneer of behavioral targeting. Learn more about what his past, present and future project will be at http://www.chahal.com
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