Northern Calif. Teen Entrepreneur Shares His Passion for Technology with TeenLife Readers

TeenLife had the opportunity to sit down with San Francisco area teen entrepreneur, Stephen Ou, 14, and talk to him about his interest in coding and his passion for technology.

TeenLife: You have two very exciting ventures that keep you busy outside of school. Can you tell us a little bit about oneextralap.com and teensintechnet.com?

Stephen Ou: Sure! OneExtraLap is a community for people to play around with quizzes in a fun and social way. I started it last December. So far, our beta users are loving the site. Some are actually addicted to it. I am planning to launch the site to public mid-August; so stay tuned!

Teens In Tech Networks is a media platform for teenagers to communicate and collaborate. I am the lead developer that joined half a year ago, and I am responsible for all the backend stuff; in other words code.

TL: You have an exciting summer planned. Can you tell us about it?

I actually just finished writing a two-page plan on what specific things I am going to do over the summer. I will be going to China for the first half and then working on OneExtraLap/Teens In Tech for the second half. After a school year of working on computers I am very excited to have time this summer to travel and then focus again on the technology world.

TL: Our readers are interested in what a normal school day looks like for you.

SO: I am in school from 8-3; just the same as everyone else. But I somehow manage to always finish all of my homework in school. So after 3, I will either go home, cafe or library, and start coding!

TL: This is very exciting. What do your friends think about what you do?

SO: My friends at school certainly know I am involved in technology and know I am a "tech geek", but they do not know exactly I am doing. Now, my online friends -- they are crystal-clear about my projects since I chat with them a lot, and I share a lot of my activities in my blog: http://stephenou.tumblr.com/.

TL: Can you share your other interests with us?

I am a big basketball fan. I play basketball every day in school. I've been following the NBA final recently, but one interesting thing to point out is that I don't really have a favorite team. It's more about enjoying the game itself instead of yelling against the wall when the favorite team loses.

TL: Who are your role models?

SO: Philosophy-wise -- Steve Jobs is the only one. I absolutely admire his leadership, communication, innovation and presentation skills. Technological-wise -- I have a lot. The two that stand out for me include, Marco Arment, lead developer at Tumblr and creator of Instapaper. His talent and time-management skills have taught me a lot on how I should behave. The other one is Jack Dorsey, co-founder of both Twitter and Foursquare. He is so creative and innovative and to have come up with two revolutionary ideas and execute them really well is amazing!

TL: Finally, what message would you like to share with other teens with a passion for technology?

Don't put any pressure on yourself. Just go out there and try whatever you want. If you succeed, continue pursuing your goals. But if you fail, don't hesitate, learn some lessons and try again. You are much more ahead than college graduates, and you don't have the rent and student loans to pay.

-Stephen Ou is a self described Web 2.0 lover, founder of @OneExtraLap and lead developer at @TeensInTech. You can follow Stephen's companies on Twitter and also Stephen's personal Twitter feed at @stephenou.