#icoolkid

[theweirdkidlife-blog]

Ask Jenk: our teenage agony uncle solves London kids’ problems

As the 13-year-old CEO of iCoolKid, Jenk Oz seems to have life sorted. So we tested his mettle with some problems from everyday kids

Hey, Weird Kids! Need some advice? Jenk Oz from iCoolKid has the answers in his latest advice column for Time Out London!

[jamesfitz789]

Meet the 12-year-old CEO who’s founded a version of Time Out for tweens

Cool kid Jenk Oz just knew he wanted a tween’s answer to Time Out. The 12-year-old ended up becoming Britain’s youngest CEO.

When you’re an only child like me, you get used to spending lots of your time with adults. You get comfortable talking to them, and maybe you even start acting a bit like them too. So it actually didn’t feel too weird when I recently started up a company, employing people who are quite a few years older than me! I’m 12, and thanks to my website based in London, I’m now the country’s youngest CEO. It wasn’t something I ever planned, really.

At first there was only an idea. Me and my mum started emailing out a newsletter with tips of fun things for my school friends to do at weekends. I didn’t seriously think something like that could turn into a business. But I kept working on it anyway, and one day got to present it to my whole school in a show-and-tell. 300 kids and teachers: persuading all of them was my first big task. Luckily, they were really encouraging.

So the original idea became iCoolKid, a website telling 8-15 year-olds about all the cool stuff they need to visit, watch, listen to, buy, and sign up for – from DJ lessons to ping-pong tournaments. We get 4000 hits on some days, have 55,000 social followers, and employ seven staff. We were definitely inspired by what Time Out does. But there’s not much information out there for people my age. Why not? Generation Z want to go out and have a good time just like anyone else.

One of my favourite memories of my upbringing in London is getting to see some big West End theatre shows. Billy Elliot, Matilda, Wicked – the ones with child stars inspired me to get into performing arts myself. I’ve been playing music, dancing, and acting since I was 4 or 5 years old, and I was even in Idris Elba’s film 100 Streets. Interviewing Idris for my website was maybe the most amazing thing I’ve ever done.

My mum worked in banking and my dad’s an orthopaedic surgeon - they’re not creative at all; they would admit that. But their support has just been astronomical. I mean a money aspect, but also the work they put in. Mum is part of the business and her scheduling is so important to it all. She won’t let me break it! If I’m not at the iCoolKid headquarters because it’s a school day, I make time before lessons or during lunch to call the office. I like to pass on what the other kids have been talking about that day, since they’re exactly the right age for the website. The school are very forgiving of me spending time on this - there aren’t many others doing it.

I’ve always filled my free time with all sorts of London events like Comic Con - or with clubs and classes, from lessons in martial arts to graffiti art. It’s helpful that the things I love doing can feed into iCoolKid - because everything apart from schoolwork has to be one hundred per cent about the business. That’s how you make it as a young entrepreneur. But I know that one day, I’ll be too old for our target audience – then it’ll be time to put someone new in front of the camera! Interview by James FitzGerald Photo: Jenk Oz. Courtesy of iCoolKid.