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From poverty to success -- man from Springfield is one of top 100 U.S. entrepreneurs

Jason Baudendistel operates a successful internet marketing company.

August 16, 2012|by Jay Scherder, KY3 News | jscherder@ky3.com

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- It's a Springfield success story. From welfare and poverty to best selling author and entrepreneur, Jason Baudendistel is making waves in the business world.  He was raised by a single mother, in poverty, with the odds stacked against him.  Instead of letting it drag him down, he used it as fuel for a better life.

Baudendistel, 27, is a man of many talents.

"[I] started my first company. I look at it as a minor success because I got to work with some major artists from the music industry," he said.

"[I] spent a little while in the tech startup industry."

His latest project is one he started himself.

"What I do is I help people put together an Internet marketing strategy."

People are starting to notice. He's been named one of the top young entrepreneurs in the country.

"It is really awesome. It's a huge honor," Baudendistel said.

It's called the Empact 100.  Empact's work, according to its website, "focuses on facilitating a culture of entrepreneurship in communities across the world through exposure, celebration and early stage start up support."

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Empact recognizes the top entrepreneurs under age 30 with revenues more than $100,000.

Baudendistel didn't always have it so great. When he grew up in northern Illinois, he lived in poverty. His family was on welfare. He was homeless not once but twice.  Then Baudendistel's family moved all the way down to Mt. Vernon, Mo., where they bought their first home.

That's when things really started to come together for Baudendistel.  He graduated high school and joined the Navy.  He left the United States and started traveling half way across the world.

"We hit Rhodes, Greece and Lisbon, Portugal," he said. 

Aside from his online business, Baudenistel is also a published author. His book "Strategic LinkedIn Marketing" is a top seller on Amazon.

"So many people barely know how to set up a [LinkedIn] profile, let alone anything else.  That was something I thought was very underserved," he said.

Baudendistel isn't done just yet.  He has a few plans in the works from a niche search engine to a Facebook gaming company.  But, no matter how successful he gets, he says he'll never forget his past.

"Desperation. You don't want to know what that situation is like again.  I think that is a part of what fuels me because you know what that extreme desperation is like and you don't ever want to ever revisit it."

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