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Omar Faruk Media List
18 years old — and a CEO .................................................................................................. 2A Portfolio of Young Business Owners ...............................................................................6YOUNG BIZ WHIZ SALVAGES TOP HONORS .......................................................... 10Young Entrepreneurs to Close the Day at NASDAQ But Usher in the Future.................11EntrepreneurshipWeek USA Kicks Off with Workshops, Networking Opportunities .....141
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asia! Magazine (print)
18 years old — and a CEO
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MELANIE HILARIO
With a Wall Street address and wisdom beyond his years, Mohammed Omar Faruktells
asia!
how business can take care of the world.
Youthful entrepreneurship is hardly new; in the US, selling lemonade or delivering newspapers for a little extra money is practically a rite of passage. But in these high-tech times, an age where thebest source for pimping your MySpace page might very well be your 13-year-old nephew, youngpeople are not only forging new roads in business but giving old ones a makeover.In Brooklyn, Mohammed Omar Faruk is one such up-and-coming businessman. Omar and Irecently connected one Friday, coordinating his early evening in New York with my late afternoonin California, to chat about how he came to lead the somewhat double life of an 18-year-old highschool senior and CEO of BlueStream, a company that provides low-cost web services andcomputer training to non-profit organisations.With our sole contact via e-mail and phone, I wouldn’t know what he looked like were it not for hisimpressive Google presence; one of the search hits yielded — what else? — his MySpace page,readily disclosing he’s five foot ten, has chin-length black hair, he’s single, and he’s a Cancer.Still, he was a CEO, so I kept my professional hat firmly affixed through all our correspondence,signing e-mails with “thank you” and “regards” (rather than the decidedly less formal “peaceout”). Then, while we were both scoping out the best spots on our respective coasts for proper cell phone reception and interview-level quiet, he got a call on his other line.“Oh, excuse me,” he says.In the background: Miguel...hey man, are you still coming over?
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I suddenly felt at ease. Omar Faruk, wunderkind chief executive, also seemed like a nice, normal,18-year-old guy, about to hang out with a friend on a Friday night.One of his 308 friends on MySpace.Yeah, he definitely knows a thing or two about networking.Not surprisingly, Omar’s economic savvy and penchant for taking chances appeared early on. “Ihelped people bag groceries for tips. I was like, 11,” says Omar, who had intuitively followed abasic business principle: find a need and fill it. But the need was also his own. His family had justmoved to the US from Bangladesh, and with nine children including himself, simple thingsbecame money issues: “School trips cost money. When [the trip] was free, I got to go, but foodand everything was always more.” With his earnings, Omar was able to fund those grade schoolfield trips, and he didn’t stop there. In junior high he sold cakes, and later on, began his firstentrepreneurial endeavor — one the staff at asia!could appreciate — his own magazine.“Well, it was more of a newsletter,” he admits, adding it didn’t last as long as he’d hoped: “Youknow how they say 50% of companies fail the first year?” He is extremely candid, almost self-effacing, telling me this venture didn’t work out as planned. I for one didn’t know 50% of companies didn’t make it the first year.I helped people bag groceries for tips. I was like, 11. School trips cost money. When [the trip] wasfree, I got to go, but food and everything was always more.
Omar Faruk
He felt slightly impeded when he launched an online retail business with his brother-in-law at theage of 16. “We originally wanted to import stuff. Sell wholesale products online.There wereissues, lots of trial and error,” says Omar. Because of his age, there were problems with himgetting a bank account, as well as legal concerns with being President and CEO, preprintedbusiness cards or not. Fortunately, his brother-in-law and partner lent support there, and hisyouth was less of a liability in the ecommerce market, where government regulations differedslightly.What did his family think about him starting a company at such young age? “I was theindependent and rebellious one. They didn’t ask questions,” Omar says of his loved ones,including his Bengali-only-speaking mother, who might have trouble with the English as much asthe technical jargon — arguably a language of its own — needed to explain the details of what hedoes. Nonetheless, his background informs his work: eventually the company moved into webdesign (one of his personal interests), and Omar began to devote part of his efforts to helpingothers succeed in business, and getting people and businesses to become more involved in thecommunity.One example is BlueStream’s collaborations: “I currently have a mentor who’s helping us with theAction Network. They get movie tickets, clothing, and other commodities and offer those productsas incentives.” Omar also clarifies he doesn’t do the website design and consulting serviceshimself, but facilitates the outsourcing, uniting freelancers seeking jobs with clients seeking thefreelancers. “BlueStream’s not set up to do millions of dollars, or even a few,” Omar says with alaugh, but just as he did in his first job, he’s recognized a need and filled it. Despite his not beinga millionaire yet, the company’s pulled in a $20,000 revenue since 2004. Along with other entrepreneurship related activity, that’s enough to support both himself and the continuedoperation of BlueStream.
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