Just got this story of this amazing young man and what he's accomplished in his life at the young age of 20! Oh my...[UPDATE: I just did a search online for his book and have to make a major correction.
This young man became a millionaire by the time he was 14 not 20!]
Farrah Gray, 20-Year-Old Millionaire
By Janet Alicea, Special for AOL BlackVoices
Farrah Gray -- 20-year-old entrepreneur, venture capitalist and self-made millionaire -- likes recipes. That's why one of his favorite sayings is, "If they're going to give me lemons, then I'm going to make lemonade, lemon pie." This proved handy. Raised in the projects of East Chicago, Gray learned at an early age how to make any sour ball sweet.
"People tell me, 'Boy, you were just born yesterday.' I always say, 'Yes, but I stayed up all night,'" says Gray, the author of 'Reallionaire: Nine Steps to Becoming Rich From the Inside Out.' He brings this clear-cut, frontal perspective to everything he does.
The list of Gray's accomplishments in a week is dizzying. Shuttling between offices in New York and Las Vegas, he manages businesses in both cities. Currently, he publishes Inner City magazine, owned by Inner City Broadcasting Corp. (ICBC), parent company to radio station WBLS. He sits on the advisory board of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce (he was the youngest person ever to do so) and the National Association of Realtors. In addition, he heads the Farrah Gray Foundation, which he funds to support community initiatives and provide seed money for youth entrepreneurial projects. And through it all he maintains a healthy social life.
"I believe there is a recipe for success," Gray says. For him, that means wanting change. "Comfort is the enemy of achievement," he says. "I was just familiar with struggle. The ghetto life makes everybody uptight."
His first venture came at age 6, when he created his own blend of body lotion by mixing the remains of near-empty bottles he found in his bathroom. He renamed the product FG Enterprises and sold it door to door for $1.50. That earned him $9. To celebrate, he took his mom out for Chinese food. "In the 'hood there's not much. We don't lack brain power. We lack [the funds] and the resources," he says. "We don't have any rich relatives, and if we did, they've moved out."
So he set out to learn from the pros. Using homemade business cards he began carrying at age 7 that read 'Farrah Gray, 21st century CEO," he approached local business people about supporting UNEEC (Urban Neighborhood Economic Enterprise Club), a club in which he and his friends could learn about business and entrepreneurship. Guests became mentors and future business contacts. "My friends were getting arrested for taking stuff from the store. I decided ... I wasn't. I figured the same knowledge I would have of being a drug dealer is the same knowledge I would have of buying wholesale and selling retail," he says.
Shortly after forming UNEEC, Gray persuaded some local businesspeople to lend the group money to invest. They made $15,000. "In the 'hood we wanted entrepreneurship just as much as we needed it," he says. Gray believes you must know your market. That's why at 13 he began his first company, FarrOut Foods, where he sold his grandmother's strawberry-vanilla maple syrup. "My grandmother used to make all of our syrup from scratch because we couldn't afford it," he says. That netted him his first million dollars. At the same time, he funded the Farrah Gray Foundation with company profits. Other successful business ventures have included Kidzel calling cards (prepaid calling cards that allow children to phone home for free from anywhere in the world) with telecommunications giant WorldTel.
Despite all the success, Gray still seems surprised by it. He likes to go undercover as food editor for Inner City, just so he can try different restaurants. Not that he needs to. "Now I can order the lobster on the menu," says Gray. "That's the big ghetto meal."
