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Friday, May 8, 2009
Whiz Kids
High school junior Bao on his second startup
By Lynette F. Cornell, Special to Mass High Tech
MHT managing editor Rodney Brown on NECN: 22 tech companies give back to community
Flash Slideshow: Mass High Tech All-Stars Thought Leadership Roundtable
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Before he even reached middle school, Mark Bao was coding in Windows Visual Basic, having taught himself from a book when he was 11 years old. In sixth grade, he was selling snippets of software he had written, and by age 15, he had sold his first Facebook application.
“I just started writing random pieces of software,” explained Bao, who just recently turned 17.
Those random code snippets quickly evolved into much larger projects. Entering his freshman year at Wellesley High School, he joined the school’s debate team. The group was in need of a website for organizing events. Bao and a teammate, Ryan Speers, founded Debateware.com, a site for teams to register for and request debates.
Soon, he was coding in PHP, creating Facebook applications. He made five or six and sold three of them. The most successful one was Facebook Idol, which allowed users to show off their talents through video clips to the rest of the Facebook community.
That summer, Bao started his first company, Avecora, and launched its flagship product, Avecora OnDemand, a web-based business management program that integrates various web applications into a single, streamlined package. His goal, he said, was to create “one unified and ubiquitous technology network.”
He is currently expanding the product line to include the Avecora Communicator, a universal mobile communications device that connects to the Avecora Network to provide remote access.
One of his latest endeavors is Ramamia, a website that allows families to privately share photos and information, including events and links. He founded the company with Miami-based entrepreneur Jason L. Baptiste in September 2008 with a small amount of angel funding.
His strategy, he said, is to sketch out his ideas, taking them from concept to product in three to four months, working either on his own or with a partner. The result is a low-overheard operation that can churn out new products quickly and simply.
“I try to get in the head of the consumer and see things from their prospective,” Bao said.
Bao balances entrepreneurial endeavors with class time, course work and helping others. He shares his knowledge of business with fellow students as president of his high school’s Finance and Investment Group and also serves as president of the debate team.
His goals are simple yet ambitious. They include plans to acquire a personal net worth of more than $5 billion, help people who can’t help him, enjoy life without boundaries and to change the world. Although he doesn’t have as much as experience as most entrepreneurs, he is confident that his endeavors will be fruitful. “Entrepreneurship is not a matter of time, it is a matter of impact,” said Bao.
Lynette F. Cornell is a freelance writer in Manchester, N.H.
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