SpaceX Civilian Jared Isaacman Made His Billions in the Business World

Although his name might be in the news currently for his landmark part in the civilian trip to space hosted by SpaceX, Jared Isaacman was the talk of the business world for a long time before his mainstream fame. The self-proclaimed "space geek" has had his eyes set on the stars, but still remains planted firmly on the ground in terms of his remarkable success as an entrepreneur.

With that being said, how exactly did Isaacman make his money? Keep reading to find out all of the known details regarding his rise to success and how it translated into a massive valuation for his business.

While other people during their teenage years were caught up in one-dimensional pursuits, Isaacman was set on establishing himself as a successful entrepreneur from a young age. As a teenager in his parents’ New Jersey basement, Isaacman and his friend, Brendan Lauber, opted to work on fixing computers and building websites—something that translated into bigger gigs as he got older.

Mario Parisi, the CEO of Merchant Services Inc. (MSI), a payment processing company, and a former client of Isaacman's small business was so taken by the young man's phenomenal work ridding the company's computers of viruses that he gave him a position as an in-house IT consultant. Isaacman was thrilled to take his passion to the next level and even dropped out of high school to do it. Later, he earned his GED and a college diploma, but not before securing his future in a big way.

After only six months with Merchant Services Inc., Isaacman developed his own idea for a company. The brilliant young mind thought up the premise for a payment processing program that would effectively cut out the middleman for merchants and allow them to establish credit card terminals at their businesses with little strings attached. Using a $10,000 investment from his grandfather, Isaacman founded United Bank Card, which morphed into Harbortouch in 2012 and finally Shift4 Payments in 2018.

Since he was still a teen at the time, Isaacman enlisted the help of his father and his friend, Lauber, to run the business. He was afraid that showing potential clients his young age would scare them off, so he worked behind the scenes for the first few years. During that time, his trusted confidantes recruited customers and built out their client network. United Bank Card’s first big-name client was Mail Boxes, Etc., a shipping company that only a few years later would be acquired by UPS.

Currently, Isaacman's technology can be found in over 5,000 UPS stores in North America. The success helped him branch out to even bigger and better clients as time went on. Through continued success and the acquisition of other big-name clients, Isaacman's business boomed to a multi-billion dollar valuation. In 2021, the company's annual revenue exceeds $700 million and handles over $200 billion in transactions yearly. When it launched as an IPO in 2020, Shift4 Payments was valued at roughly $2.3 billion.