A school project that scaled
KIRO 7 in Seattle reported on 6 June 2019 that a student at Gibson Ek High School in Issaquah had launched an online education business from school. The product was Gimkit, a live quiz game teachers run in class: students answer questions on their own devices and earn in-game currency for correct answers, which turns revision into something closer to a game economy than a worksheet.
The scale KIRO 7 described was already national and then some: roughly three million users in 100 countries while its creator was 18. Gibson Ek is a project-based school, and Gimkit started inside that model, as coursework rather than a startup.
Under a year of code
The detail that makes the story unusual is the starting point. By KIRO 7's account, Feinsilber had less than a year of programming experience when he began building the thing that would end up in classrooms on six continents.
That is a different profile from most teenage founders, who tend to arrive with years of hobbyist coding behind them. It also explains the product's design: Gimkit solves a teacher's problem first and shows off technically second.
The decision not to go to college
Feinsilber skipped college to run Gimkit full time, and by 2019 he had five employees. Business News Daily has since listed him among its companies founded by young entrepreneurs, keeping the case in circulation as a standard example.
Five staff is a small business, not a unicorn, and that is the point. The company was already generating enough to employ people while its founder was too young to have finished a first-year university course.
Why teachers made it big
Classroom software spreads by word of mouth between teachers, not by advertising, and Gimkit is one of the clearest recent examples. Its user numbers came from teachers recommending it to other teachers, which is why a product built by a teenager could reach 100 countries without a sales force.
It also means the search demand around it is enormous and mostly from students, which is how a founder with almost no press coverage becomes one of the most-searched names in education technology. Millions of children use the product every week and could not name the person who wrote the first version of it. The asymmetry is unusual: a household name inside classrooms, an almost invisible one outside them, and a paper trail that amounts to one local television report and a handful of list entries.
What is documented and what is not
Documented: the creation of Gimkit as a high-school project at Gibson Ek High School in Issaquah, Washington; about three million users in 100 countries by 2019; his reported age of 18 at that point; less than a year of coding experience at the start; the decision to skip college; and five employees in 2019.
Not documented here: his date of birth, any revenue, valuation or net worth figure, current user numbers, and the company's status after 2019. The birth year on this page is an estimate from his reported age in 2019.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rishi Shiv Prasanna | India | Winning the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in 2023 at eight, for… | Age 0 |
| Cannan Huey-You | United States | Presenting research on a Milky Way gas cloud at the American Astronomical… | Age 11 |
| Ángela Olazarán Laureano | Mexico | An AI medical assistant built in Veracruz, designed to work where there is | Age 14 |
| Josh Feinsilber | United States | Building the classroom quiz game Gimkit | Age 16 |
| Émer Hickey | Ireland | Co-winning the 2014 Google Science Fair grand prize | Age 16 |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Built Gimkit as a project at Gibson Ek High School, Issaquah, Washington
- About 3 million users in 100 countries reported by KIRO 7 in June 2019
- Had less than a year of coding experience when he started
- Skipped college to run the company, which had five employees in 2019
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- Exact date of birth is not published; the birth year here is an estimate
- No revenue, valuation or net worth figure is documented
- No user numbers or company details recorded after 2019
Questions people ask about Josh Feinsilber
Who made Gimkit?
Josh Feinsilber, who built it as a project while a student at Gibson Ek High School in Issaquah, Washington.
How old is Josh Feinsilber?
He was reported as 18 in 2019, which puts his birth year at about 2001. No date of birth appears in these sources.
How many people use Gimkit?
KIRO 7 reported about three million users across 100 countries in 2019. No later figure appears in these sources.
Did Josh Feinsilber go to college?
No. He skipped college to run Gimkit full time, with five employees as of 2019.
What is Josh Feinsilber's net worth?
No revenue, valuation or net worth figure appears in any source used here, and none is estimated on this page.
How much coding experience did he have?
Less than a year when he started building Gimkit, according to KIRO 7.
Is Josh Feinsilber on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article is recorded for him. The KIRO 7 report is the primary reference.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Josh’s story?
What is Gimkit?
How many users did KIRO 7 report in 2019?
How much coding experience did Feinsilber have when he started?
Sources
- Issaquah student launches online education business from high school — KIRO 7 News (Seattle), 2019-06-06
- 15 Companies Founded by Amazing Young Entrepreneurs — Business News Daily, 2025-09-29
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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