For most 17-year-olds the choices are limited to another four years of academia or chasing stray carts around the grocery store parking lot. But wunderkind Daniel Brusilovsky has an option C.

Brusilovsky spends his free hours writing for Tech Crunch, a Web site that profiles start-up companies, products and Web sites and boasts over 3 million readers. He is the founder and CEO of his own start-up called Teens in Tech and takes meetings with the COO of a little Web site called Twitter.

It took us weeks to pin down a few minutes of his time for an interview -- he was out of the country in Italy on business. Makes that unbelievable kegger from your senior year seem even sadder now, doesn't it?

Keep reading to find out how Brusilovsky has managed to get more accomplished before his 18th birthday than the average person does in a lifetime.

Keep Your Connections Open
Says Brusilovsky: "I'm constantly checking Twitter and instant messenger programs so I can be quick to jump on everything. It's incredibly important to be active and engage and not just check occasionally and disappear. You've got to be connected when big news hits. For example, a Web site I really find invaluable is Venturewire. It's an RSS feed of all the latest company-funding announcements. If a company raises money and files an SEC report, Venturewire will pick it up and a person can jump on that information. Of course, it's impossible to be online 24 hours a day, but it pays off to stay as connected as possible."

Network
"Not just online but in real life. Attend local events, mixers and social functions because occasionally a company will launch or demo a product and you can be one of the first to test it out and talk about it through social media. It's important to see a product working firsthand, especially in my case, when writing for a Web site like Tech Crunch. I like to test a product before I can sit down and write about it. It's important to attend events and get connected to as many people as possible."

Stay Active in Your Local Community
"Get to know the important people in your area in whatever fields interest you. Get involved in the hubs where the influential people hang. It's just as important for people to know your name as it is for you to know theirs, so when something big hits they think to contact you first."

Newspapers
"It sounds crazy because newspapers are an old-school way of getting information, but most local papers have articles in the business section where they list local companies who have received funding and discuss what the business does, the products they develop or services they provide. It's a great way to stay in touch with the projects that companies around the corner are developing and to be the first to get on board."

Next big thing?
The obvious question for the boy wonder is "What is the next big trend?"

"Augmented reality is going to be huge," Brusilovsky answers without hesitation. "Especially with the explosion of the iPhone. Esquire just did an entire issue devoted to the topic, which I thought was great. Social networking is last year's thing. "