Ruslan Kogan, an Australian serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Kogan.com and a number of other eCommerce-related businesses, was born in November 1982. From 2011 till his 30th birthday in November 2012, he was Australia's wealthiest person under the age of 30. The Financial Review 2020 Rich List calculated Kogan's net worth as A$575 million in 2020. Kogan has expressed a number of widely disseminated and contentious opinions about the consumer technology sector, including his opposition to the Australian Government's proposed internet filter and his criticism of the government's handling of the Set Top Box Scheme. He was also the only CEO from a consumer electronics company in Australia to oppose the widespread adoption of 3DTV.
He has written articles as a guest and regular contributor for a number of major media outlets, including Forbes, Fast Company, VentureBeat, The Age, and Gizmodo. He has also written a guest post for Gizmodo outlining his opposition to the filter, and a guest article for VentureBeat outlining the importance of social proof in business. He also wrote a series of guest columns for the business publication BRW throughout 2011 and frequently contributed to TechCrunch, the most popular technology blog in the world. He was spoken with in 2015 for the Bloomberg Television programme High Flyers.
Early Life & Career
Born to Belarusian-Jewish parents, Ruslan Kogan relocated to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1989 together with his sister Svetlana and his parents. When Kogan was 10 years old, he established his first business by recovering lost golf balls, cleaning them, and selling them to golfers at Elsternwick Golf Course on Saturday mornings for $0.50 apiece. Kogan grew up in the Elsternwick Housing Commission flats. Kogan developed a keen interest in technology at a young age, creating his first computer when he was just nine years old. Since he was ten years old, he has launched almost twenty enterprises, with Kogan.com being his most recent and most lucrative endeavour. Before earning a Bachelor of Business Systems (Information Technology) from Monash University, Kogan attended Brighton Secondary College and Melbourne High School.
Kogan.com
In 2006, Kogan, at 23 years old, launched Kogan.com in the garage of his parents' Melbourne home. In September 2011, the company started selling supplementary items from a variety of companies, including Apple, Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Motorola, and others. The company quickly expanded to a wider range of products, including Digital Radios, GPS devices, netbooks, tablets, and video cameras. Sales for Kogan reached A$3 million in the third year, A$8 million in the fourth, A$22 million in the fifth, A$70 million in the sixth, and A$200 million in the seventh. The Wall Street Journal said in 2013 that Kogan might be worth more than $400 million. With daily sales of more than A$1 million, Kogan.com delivered more than two million goods.
Kogan.com began with no outside money or support, and as of 2011, it had developed into one of Australia's fastest-growing enterprises across all sectors.
Private Life
After making a deposit on the US$200,000 ticket, Kogan became the first Australian to sign up as a passenger on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic sub-orbital mission. Kogan lives in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia with his wife Anastasia.
Net Worth
According to the Financial Review 2020 Rich List, Kogan had a net worth of $575 million. Kogan fell short of the requirements to be included on the 2021 Rich List.