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The man behind the monitor: Kevin Johnson is wise beyond his years
BMW, Deloitte Consulting, and
Polaroid, as well as pending deals
with the Atlanta Hawks,
Hookt.com, and Kozmo.com.
A Spanish major who claims
Boston, MA, Kevin is also the
founder and CEO
of Nivek Internet
Solutions, Inc.
(Niveklnc.com),
an Internet soft
ware develop
ment company
founded in July of
2000, an en
deavor that has
been aided by the
contacts he ob
tained through
ClubAUC.com.
Kevin and Chief
Technology Of
ficer , Farai
Mtetwa spent
most of their holi
day break coding
and finalizing
OmniPublisher
version 1.0, a
web-based appli
cation that aides
print periodicals
in making their
articles Internet
accessible
through creating
and managing
their web-sites.
Equipped with a
business plan,
market research,
identification of a
target market, and
viable means of
funding through
interested “ven
ture capitalists” and “angel inves
tors,” Nivek Internet Solutions has
a good chance of competing with
its principle competitor Zwire.com
and hopes to exceed one million
dollars in sales within three years.
At twenty-one years old,
Kevin joins the ranks of several
young adults on the brink of ma
jor success, including media-mo
gul Shawn Fanning, creator of
Napster, and Howard student
Kyiesha Kelly, founder and CEO
of HipHopCloset.com. It seems
that our generation is full of col
lege students who have decided to
dip their feet in to the entrepreneur
ial waters much earlier than usual.
This often means that they are left
straddling school and business-re
lated responsibilities until gradu
ation, at which point they emerge
equipped with advantageous expe
rience and a strong work ethic. But
are they ready for the real world at
such a young age? I had the chance
to sit down with Kevin and ask him
if he thought his business would
sink or swim after his graduation
in May.
ness?
Kevin Johnson (KJ): No.
Not really. There were three things
that prompted me to do this. The
first was in the spring of last year
The man behind the monitor. Kevin takes a breather
Beth Perry
Arts & Entertainment
Editor
Kevin Johnson isn’t the
typical college senior. Instead of
giving you a hug, he’ll bless you
with one of those perfectly firm
handshakes that Wall Street 9 to
5’ers dream about receiving. In
stead of wearing a Maurice
Malone sweat suit and Timber-
lands on a daily basis, he wears
Dockers, button-up shirts, and
black dress shoes. He’d rather
spend a Friday night playing pi
ano with his jazz band than at a
club mingling with scantily clad
women. By some accounts,
Kevin Johnson could be a thirty-
year-old man. Yet he somehow
balances his prodigious qualities
with a sense of boyish charm; the
youthful side of him becomes
readily apparent through his
contagious smile. This guy is a
genius!
Kevin realized that in a
perfect world, there would be a
magical place where we AUC
students could view the cameo
appearances by Lisa Raye and
Mya at Morehouse’s Homecom
ing game, sell our textbooks for
more than the $3.17 that the
campus bookstore is offering,
and win gift certificates to try
Puff Daddy's cornbread, all at
the same time. In March of 2000,
the gods smiled upon the entire
AUCenter and blessed us with
the creation of this divine con
cept: ClubAUC.com.
During its ten months of
existence, the site has spread
through word of mouth and fly
ers to acquire over 2,000 mem
bers and even received 55,000
hits oh the day of the
Morehouse/Spelman Home
coming Fashion Show.
ClubAUC.com is an informa
tional smorgasbord encompass
ing almost every facet of Atlanta
University Center life, including
news, events, a chat room, an e-
mail directory, a housing board,
a personal ad section, message
boards, photo galleries, a talent
showcase, a book exchange, and
more. The site appeals to stu
dents outside the AUC as well,
with Georgia Tech, Harvard, and
Stanford all ranking among its
top fifty schools that visit the
site.
Aside from the occasional
advice of a couple friends, Kevin
has the colossal responsibility of
running the site by himself, in
cluding handling everything
from coding, design, and main
tenance to seeking sponsorships
and coming up with new ideas
to better market the site. So far
he has been extremely success
ful at the latter, acquiring a hefty
list of sponsors including
JobDirect.com, Hank Aaron
Spelman Spotlight (SS):
Have you always known you
wanted to own your own busi
while I was working at CNN.com
with mostly Georgia Tech stu
dents. The manager came up to me
one day and asked, “How techni
cal are you?” Basically, she wanted
to know if I could create an appli
cation that would document who
had posted certain articles and who
was doing what, so they could as
sess their employees. And I told
her, “I don’t know. It may take me
a couple weeks or so.” I ended up
doing it the next day. When I fin
ished, my manager was like “This
is exactly what we wanted!” So,
anyway, she went to the develop
ment side of the company, the
people who handle all the soft
ware, and set up a meeting with
the Senior Developer and the two
of us. In the meeting, she told him,
“This is exactly what we wanted.
It’s what we’ve been asking you
to do for the last six months.” And
he looked at her then asked to
speak with her privately. And I was
like “Uh oh. I know where this is
going.” You see, basically, there is
a chain of events, a bureaucracy
of doing certain things. You can’t
just come in and create something;
you have to go through all this red
tape. So basically, I got in trouble
for doing it.
The second thing was when
I worked with a company devel
oping software for them over the
summer. My internship was over,
and I worked very hard to finish
the project. Everything went well.
So when I
came back
to school, I
received an
email from
my manager
in October
saying that
the com
pany we
worked for
was trying
to sell the
application
that we did
for them to
another
company.
And I sent
him an
email, and
all I said
was “How
much?” And
in his re
sponse, he
avoided an
swering the
question. I
took that to
mean they
had sold it
for an
amount with
which I
could have
retired.
The
third one
happens all
the time because I’m always read
ing magazines at Borders. I was
reading the US News Publication’s
Annual College Review, the issue
in which they have articles about
how different students handled the
whole college thing. And there was
an article that said, “Starting an E-
Company.” So I thought, “Let me
read this.” And there were stories
in there about certain individuals
at schools making all this money,
and it featured three students who
had received a $ 10,000 grant from
their school for creating a book
exchange. The article gave the stu
dents’ web address, and I went to
the site thinking, “Yea this is go
ing to be tight. They have
$10,000.” But the place was a
ghost town. It was nothing in com
parison to ClubAUC.com or any
thing else I’ve seen, especially for
10K.
SS: When you figured out
that entrepreneurship was what
you were interested in, why did
you decide to pursue your con
cept and develop the business
before graduation? How did you
know what steps to take?
KJ: The reason I started now
is because of the way the economy
is going. Everything’s going so fast
that if you wait, you’ll run out of
time. People thought the whole
Internet thing was a fad, but it isn’t.
It’s just that you’re racing against
the clock.
But on a more personal
level, when ClubAUC.com started
getting popular, potential sponsors
would always ask me, “Are you a
legitimate business?” And I’d say,
“No. I’m just a kid who has an
idea.” And they would tell me,
“Well that doesn’t look good on
my end to write a check to a kid
with an idea.” So I figured that I
needed to get incorporated.
SS: How did you know
that you were mature enough to
handle all of these responsibili
ties?
KJ: Well, I would definitely
have to say that ClubAUC.com
showed me my abilities. Even
though I didn’t anticipate it being
so much work, it built up that way,
so by the time I was spending forty
hours a week on it, I was like,
“Okay, I might as well go for the
whole thing.”
SS: What problems/con
flicts have you had as a result of
your basically being a full time
student and full time CEO?
KJ: I figure that I have to go
to class because my schedules are
so hectic. It's really all or nothing
with me. You know? If I wanted
to screw everything up, then I
would just go and party. There’s
really no balance in my life, and
maybe that’s why.
SS: There must be some
balance in order for you to stay
sane. What do you do to relax in
your spare time?
KJ: I like playing the piano
with my band jazz sextet Rfo Ne
gro (www.jazzicons.com/
rionegro). We play about three gigs
a month ranging from private clubs
to high profile functions. I also
like to listen to salsa music and
dance to it, naked. (At this point,
Kevin gave me a serious look,
which he was able to hold for two
or three seconds before starting to
laugh.)
SS: Do you feel that you
missed about on the any aspect
of the college experience? For
example, you admitted to spend
ing up to 65 hours a week work
ing on ClubAUC.com. Do you
think you’ll regret not having
spent that time just going to par
ties or something later on in life?
If you would do it over, would
you change anything?
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