Jun Loayza is a 25 year-old entrepreneur from Southern California.

RewardMe, his business, is the easiest way for restaurants and cafes to create a loyalty program.

Users earn points by dining at restaurants or cafes and can later redeem points for appetizers, drinks, or desserts.

Jun shares his experiences.

The Challenge: The most difficult challenge so far has been raising funding.

During the Summer of 2010, we needed funding to complete our product, hire more sales people and developers, and expand rapidly.  Without an injection of funding, we would grow slow and steady — a fate almost worse than failure for an entrepreneur.  

The Solution: We raised funding because I leveraged my personal blog.  I wrote a post titled Viralogy is raising Angel Funding, which raised a total of $75,000 for us. Not too bad for a personal blog.

The Aftermath: After our injection of funding, we hired two sales people, one developer, finished our product, and expanded our clientele by 300 percent. The funding we raised allow us to expand our product and clientele quickly to get ready for 2011.

The Lesson: I learned that a personal blog can be used for much more than building connections, getting a job and becoming a topic expert. My blog has become one of my most powerful assets.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (Y.E.C.) provides its members with access to tools, mentoring, community and educational resources that support each stage of their business’s development and growth. Our organization promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment.