Hunter Porpora was 14 years old when he sold his first company. The exit was seven figures. He hadn’t started high school yet.
That was 2021. Five years later, the kid from Eastchester is 19, running a 24/7 live commerce business out of Norwalk, Connecticut, finishing a business degree at Southern New Hampshire University, and quietly stacking up a résumé that most founders don’t earn until well into their thirties.
He doesn’t post much about it. He doesn’t lead with the exit when he meets people. Ask him how it happened and he’ll tell you it wasn’t lightning. It was work.
The First Company
Porpora founded Ezzy Marketing Agency in September 2020. He was 13. The country was locked down. School was on a screen. Most of his friends were stuck inside trying to figure out what to do with their afternoons.
Porpora started cold calling brands.
His pitch was simple. Big consumer brands were spending real money trying to reach a Gen Z audience online, and most of them were doing it badly. They had budgets and products. What they didn’t have was anyone in the building who actually thought, talked, or shopped like the customer they were chasing. Porpora figured he could fill that gap.
Within months, Ezzy Marketing was running campaigns for two of the biggest names in the energy drink and gaming category: G Fuel and Ghost Energy. The work was social strategy, influencer marketing, and the kind of performance content that lives or dies on engagement.
In August 2021, less than a year after starting the company, Porpora sold it. The deal closed at seven figures. He was 14.
“I wasn’t trying to flip it,” he said. “I built it because I saw a real problem. The exit happened because the work actually moved the needle for the brands we ran.”
Streetwear, Sneakers, and a Celebrity Roster
Most kids would have stopped after that. Porpora started another company the same month.
Shoeshare Co. was a designer and hype clothing and sneaker reseller. The premise was straightforward. Resale was booming. Counterfeits were everywhere. Customers wanted authenticated grails and limited drops, and they didn’t want to gamble.
Shoeshare became the answer for a growing list of buyers. Some were collectors. Some were streetwear obsessives. Some were celebrities. Porpora doesn’t drop those names publicly. Discretion is part of why those clients kept coming back.
He ran Shoeshare from August 2021 until May 2023. The company taught him something the marketing agency couldn’t: how product, sourcing, authentication, and inventory actually move in the real world. He was 16 by the time he wound it down, with two companies behind him and a working understanding of supply that most people his age had never thought about.
Going Wholesale
In May 2023, Porpora launched Ezzy Distribution. This time he moved upstream into wholesale.
Where Shoeshare sold individual pieces to end customers, Ezzy Distribution dealt in pallets, truckloads, and overstock from major retailers. Health and Beauty became a focus, with sourcing pulled from names like Target, CVS, Sephora, and Ulta. Porpora built out broker relationships, learned the math of wholesale margins, and ran the operation for nearly three years.
He shut it down in January 2026 to focus on what he believes is the biggest swing he’s taken yet.
What’s Next: 24HRGO
In February 2026, Porpora launched 24HRGO out of Norwalk, Connecticut. The company is built around 24/7 live commerce. The tagline is simple. Fast, reliable, always on.
It’s also the first company he’s run that pulls from every previous one. Marketing instinct from Ezzy. Customer-direct experience from Shoeshare. Operations and sourcing from Ezzy Distribution. All of it folded into one business.
“Each company taught me a piece of what this one needs,” Porpora said. “I didn’t know I was building toward 24HRGO. Looking back, it’s hard to see how I wasn’t.”
He’s also developing a parallel venture called Lotlly, which he’s been quietly working on alongside 24HRGO.
A Pattern, Not a Lottery Ticket
Look at the five-year run, and a pattern shows up.
Porpora doesn’t chase trends. He doesn’t pivot for the sake of pivoting. Every company he’s built used the muscle the previous one taught him. Marketing taught him brand. Resale taught him product. Distribution taught him operations. The next one took all three and went bigger.
That’s not how young founders usually get told. The story is usually viral, lucky, one-and-done. Porpora is closer to the opposite. He’s slow. He’s quiet. He doesn’t optimize for noise. The seven-figure exit at 14 isn’t the line he opens conversations with. It’s a footnote in something he’s still writing.
Advice From a Founder Who Started in Middle School
Ask him what he’d tell other young people thinking about starting a company and he won’t give you a motivational quote.
“Pick something where the customer is already bleeding,” he said. “Don’t build because you have an idea. Build because someone will pay you today to fix a problem they actually have.”
He’s similarly blunt about being young.
“Being young is a tool, not a barrier. Brands wanted to work with Ezzy partly because I was 13 and I knew the audience they were trying to reach. The trick is making sure your work is the reason they stay. Not your age.”
For now, the focus is operational. 24HRGO is in early growth. Lotlly is taking shape. The business degree at Southern New Hampshire is being earned in parallel with the companies, not in advance of them.
If the last five years are any indication, the company that comes after this one will use everything that came before it.
But that’s a conversation for later. For now, Hunter Porpora is exactly where he wants to be. Building.
Hunter Porpora is the founder of 24HRGO and Lotlly, based in New York. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
