Hi, my name is…
Christopher
Oosthuisen
Click on any picture and step into my world…
About Me
Christopher Oosthuisen grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. His family immigrated from South Africa about 5 years before Christopher was born. Christopher got his first taste of entrepreneurship at the age of 14 when he started shooting competitively.
By 16, he was ranked number 1 in the COUNTRY for his category and started reaching out to sponsors to continue his sport. Pursuing the startup of himself he was making $50-60k a year in sponsorship deals.
He delved more into photography and videography and by 18 he created his first startup, a photo editing service for anyone to obtain professional looks. He was later published on Times Square.
During his time at college, he started two more companies and spent 6 months in Silicon Valley which introduced him to the world of technology and venture capital.
Now at the age of 21, Christopher has graduated with a degree in Entrepreneurship and is working on his 3rd and 4th startup. The first is ToyUp, an AI Ed Tech platform for children to learn through real-world exploration. The second is HeyLudwig, an AI dog trainer that personalizes curriculums to address problems, teach tricks and train obedience based on a dog’s behavioral traits. He also runs the marketing and sales for his family’s company doing 7 figures and growing 20% each year.
Lastly, he is starting his career in Angel Investing and will be increasing his portfolio by 4 companies this year. Christopher is an expert in investing, scale, growth-hacking, and efficiency with his goal of building and selling billion dollar companies.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you aren’t in the room.”-Jeff Bezos
Business Creations
Creating businesses is my greatest passion. I love building and creating companies that help solve problems. I love every moment of the journey from idea creation, product creation, launch, and growth. Take a look at the companies I’ve started or run below. They are by far my proudest creations.
ToyUp
ToyUp targets one of the industries I’m most passionate about… education. Education is one of the most important things facing society. With information being a commodity I’m much more focused on the soft skills that we can teach children. ToyUp is creating a toy for 2-6 year olds that can recognize objects and uses AI to create games and content based on the child’s environment that challenges each individual child without overwhelming him/her. Click on the picture above to learn more!
HeyLudwig
3 million dogs enter shelters every year, of which ⅓-½ are put to sleep. The number one cause of this is a lack of training. Today, a dog owner can go to YouTube or ask a friend and receive information that’s generalized and probably not credible. HeyLudwig solves this problem by using Partners’ experience working with 35,000+ dogs over the past 20 years to give personalized, high quality, and structured curriculums based on a dog’s behavioral traits. It works through Facebook messenger and you can start training here. Click on the picture above to learn more!
Partners Dog Training
Partners Dog Training is my family’s business that Ive worked for professionally since I was 16 years old. We’ve trained roughly 35k+ dogs over the past 20 years and are one of the largest and highest rated dog training schools in the country. We have developed our repetition in solving behavioral problems. Helping pet parents with everything from puppy manners to severe aggression. Our mission is to give every dog an extraordinary education and delightful relationship with their pet parent. In the past few years I’ve taken over running the marketing, sales, and much of the high level operations of Partners. We are now growing about 20% each year and I couldn’t be prouder. Click on the picture to learn more.
EditAddict
EditAddict was the first official company I started on my own. This evolved from my years practicing photography and falling in love with the process of editing photos. I created EditAddict with the mission of giving everyone professional quality photos that they could take from their phone. Simply send us a photo and receive back a professional quality image in hours. It still is running today though I don’t work on it full time. It’s still the name I do all of my photography under, which won me the opportunity to have my work published on New York Times Square. Click on the picture to learn more.
CityCup
CityCup was my first experience at a “failed company” though it taught me an incredible amount. I started it with my two best friends and roommates during my sophomore year of college. The mission was to bring together a community of local restaurants to support and market each other. We had 7 local restaurants on a single loyalty cup that a customer could buy and receive free refills at any restaurant featured. While the idea was to provide more value to the customer while keeping them loyal to the restaurants we supported we ran into a chicken and egg problem of not having enough customers to bring restaurants on board and not having enough restaurants to bring customers on board. Nevertheless it was a great learning opportunity and a ton of fun with my friends.
Still Creations
Photography is by far the purest form of creation I have. Photography allows me to express myself in ways that I’ve never known. I started in photography at the age of 15, with my dad teaching me everything he knew, and giving me the best equipment to create with. There’s not much else to say besides taking a look at the beautiful people I’ve created with below.
Moving Creations
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is immeasurable. I love every step of producing moving creations from the concept, filming, editing, color correction, and releasing to the world. I started videography at around the age of 15, learning from my father and grandfather who’ve both spent years in the cinematic world. I’ve produced content that has collectively achieved well over 1 million views (to be honest, I’m not quite sure of the number but maybe I’ll sit down and work that out one day). Take a look at my moving world below and see all the beautiful people and animals I’ve created with.
Voice Creations
I’m very passionate about voice. I don’t believe there is any other more intimate moment than speaking directly into someone’s ear. From the time of writing this (January 27th, 2019) I have not done nearly enough voice work yet. However, I hope by the time you are reading this I will have endless hours of sweet nothings to whisper into your ear.
The Oosthuisen Show
A show that I host with my father discussing everything about dogs, competition, business, marketing, personal development, investing, and anything else we can think of. Click on the picture above to watch or listen to the episodes!
The Ask Leighton Show
A Q&A Dog Podcast I produced with my father that would regularly get 10-40k views each week. It stopped when I went to a school program in San Francisco, but was a ton of fun! Click on the picture above to watch the episodes!
Written Creations
Since the creation of man, the written word has been one of our most powerful means of communication. I’m thrilled to be able to add to that story with my own written word. Take a look into what my mad mind and fingers have orchestrated below.
Partners Blog
Many of the online articles were written or edited by me. Mostly pertaining to dog training, tips, or fun facts.
HeyLudwig Blog
Another blog pertaining mostly to the education of dogs.
ToyUp Blog
A few posts written by me referencing education and the importance of exploration.
Creations I’m Funding-Still Coming
Being incredibly passionate about business and education, it’s tough to overlook angel investing as an opportunity of incredibly mental and financial stimulation. The following are companies that I’m an investor in, even on a small scale.
Creations I’m “Reading”
I’m incredibly passionate about continuing education. I think every moment of our life should be spent in growing, evolving, and improving ourselves. One of the best ways I’m doing that is with audiobooks. I listen to them at 2.5x speed and my goal is to get through at least a 100 this year. It’s said that the average high-level CEO reads 60 books a year, so I want to double that. (Yes, I know 100 isn’t double 60, but give me a break). Here are the ones I’m reading, and my thoughts on each. Enjoy.
Creations I’m Visiting
I love history, and I love exploration. Therefore, travel is a core part of my life. Funny enough, as social as I am, I love traveling alone. It allows me to do more what I want and work to my schedule. It also forces me to socialize with a plethora of people and cultures around the world. I’ve met some incredible people in the places I have visited and one of my life goals is to travel to every country in the world.
Shooting Creations
The world of competition shooting introduced me into the world of Entrepreneurship at the age of 16. Since then, I’ve traveled to all parts of the world competing, I’ve been the captain of the USA junior shooting team, I’ve been to the world championships twice, I’ve raised thousands of dollars in sponsorship, met some amazing people, and best of all, developed an incredibly strong bond with my father during our travels.
Create With Me