The Fremont Podcast
The only podcast dedicated to telling the stories of the people and places of Fremont, CA. The diversity and integration of people and cultures of Fremont truly makes it a special place. This podcast explores these stories.
The Fremont Podcast
BONUS EPISODE: Introducing the Fremont Children's Business Fair
Fremont has amazing children. Already on this podcast we have heard from Fremont kids who are doing amazing things. This bonus episode highlights the dream and hard work of a few kids to bring many together help celebrate the innovation and creativity of the next generation.
Check out this conversation with Dr. Najwa Javed Mohammad as we discuss the story behind the new Fremont Children's Business Fair coming to the Fremont Hub on August 24, from 11:00am-2:00pm.
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Founder: Ricky B.
Intro and outro voice-overs made by Gary Williams.
Editor: Andrew Cavette.
Scheduling and pre-interviews by the amazing virtual assistant that you ought to hire, seriously, she's great: your.virtual.ace
This is a Muggins Media Podcast.
Well, Najwa, I'm glad that you're here for the podcast and this was very last minute, but I am really happy that we were able to make this work. So you reached out to me through Instagram, which people can get a hold of me on Instagram easily that way. But you are kind of spearheading. You and your kids are spearheading the very first Fremont Children's Business Fair, Is that right?
Najwa:Yes, that is absolutely correct.
Ricky B.:All right.
Najwa:Thank you so much for having us and doing this on such short notice.
Ricky B.:Absolutely, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about yourself first, and then I want to hear about where this idea for the Children's Fair came from.
Najwa:Sure Happy to. So I'm a local physician. I've been in Fremont for the last 16 years but I work down in San Jose, so that's where my office is, but I've been local here. I'm a physician, I work for Good Samaritan Hospital. My children both are small business owners, and so this is actually it's their doing that started all of it.
Ricky B.:How old are your children?
Najwa:So my son is 14 and my daughter is 12.
Ricky B.:Okay, wow, small business owners. Wow, that's great.
Najwa:I know 2020 for a lot of people was pretty difficult, but in our house it was a spark of innovation and my son was 10 at that time and he started to write some books and then he, you know, continued to pursue that passion, which we thought was transient but it wasn't.
Najwa:And he's made obviously like he's made a business out of it. He's made obviously like he's made a business out of it. He actually attended a small business fair in one of the local Bay Area towns and was so inspired with all the children that were there and the innovations that they had come up with their business ideas that he was like Mom, we've never had one in Fremont and I want to do one in Fremont. Wow, so that's how this all started.
Ricky B.:So when was that? When did that conversation happen?
Najwa:So he approached me in December of this year and then by March he had basically hounded me like we have to do this. And he wanted to actually do this for his 15th birthday, that's cool, I know crazy, so his birthday is.
Najwa:August 26. And he was like mom for my 15th birthday. So that's cool, I know Crazy. So his birthday is August 26th and he was like mom for my 15th birthday. I want this. It's like for his birthday last year, when he was turning 14, he wanted to do a book signing at Barnes and Nobles, because that's where he published his first book, yeah. So he actually did a book signing at Barnes and Nobles in Walnut Creek.
Ricky B.:Oh, my word, that is cool. So I'm just gonna have to say Aiden, um, he's reached out to me a number of times and, uh, he, um, I think he's going to do some amazing things in the future. I think he's already done some amazing things, but he's reached out to me a number of times and we, uh, my team and I have had him on a list to contact him and you know, things get busy sometimes, but, um, he, he's impressive. Like from, at least from a distance at this point that I've seen, he's impressive, and the fact that he's, uh, only 14 years old and he's he's doing what he's doing, as well as being able to make the contacts with different people the way he has, is pretty awesome, you know he, he's a very special child.
Najwa:I mean, I'm not going to lie that. His tenacity and his like sheer ambition really inspire me and I'm not joking, not because I'm his mom, but you know he, he wanted to know how to become a bestselling author and he was gung ho about getting an bestseller to be his mentor. And he reached out and he got Mr Stuart Gibbs from the spy school kids to be his mentor.
Najwa:That is awesome, I know I know he wanted to share his books with Christopher Polini um and the bestselling author of Aragon, and he did and he went and met him.
Najwa:He has a letter like multiple like it's just, he's very, he really is dedicated and he really loves to inspire kids so he does a lot of um tours around the Fremont school districts to bring the joy of reading a book back to kids because he feels like that's a lost art and he feels like everybody's on their phone and on the computer which he thinks is great too but like he loves books and he reads about 50 books a year, so that's great so, yeah, it's fun with him and so it's him.
Ricky B.:I think aiden will need to be my mentor at some point in time, because I think he's uh, I think he's, he's doing things that I that I have yet to even begin to do. So that's, that's really cool.
Najwa:I think it's because when you get older, we're no longer naive to the world, and he's so naive Like he's just like. Well, they said no, it's no problem, let's move on, let's just bother them again.
Ricky B.:That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's awesome. So tell me about your 12 year old. I don't want to. I don't want to. I don't want to overshadow, shadow them in any way yeah, no, no, I'm, yeah.
Najwa:So my 12 year old obviously was like how come I'm not getting any of the spotlight and she's the actress in our house and so, um, you know, she's a fan, a fan of the stardust theater, that. So that's another local uh fremont area amazing um yeah business.
Najwa:Uh. So she was like mom, I have this amazing idea to, um, make customizable perfume oils. And I was like Mom, I have this amazing idea to make customizable perfume oils. And I was like what? What is that, you know? And we had gone to a trip to the south of France and we went to this perfumery that's owned by nuns and it's actually that's. The only way you can buy this perfume is if you go there.
Ricky B.:Oh, my word.
Najwa:It's called Fogonard and she saw their process of making perfumes and she was just like really inspired by it, and so when we got back home, she was like, I want to make one too, and so her company. Basically, you can pick your oils that you um have like an. You know, if you whatever smells that you like like I like rose and lavender, and she will mix that with the dried flowers and make a perfume oil that's roll on a bowl.
Ricky B.:So it's cool, it's really cool.
Najwa:And people love it, like people get Jasmine on Jasmine and for men. So she first realized that, oh, like this is great for girls and women, but like, what about men? And then so she was like oh, mom, you know like we can make essential oils that are like soothing and relaxing for men. So she has like peppermint and eucalyptus and, you know, tobacco oils. And like they, they just smell really nice and that's great. So that's her company.
Ricky B.:Wow, that's cool. So. So Aiden really wanted to have this children's fair and really encouraged you to help out with it, and they've kind of taken it and run with it, right, yes, okay, yeah.
Najwa:So let me. So these kids. They were just like, okay, we want to have as many kids come and apply and they want them to be vendors at this event. And so I was like, okay, so initially, like we opened, we, the Acton School of Business, is a great, great partner.
Ricky B.:Okay.
Najwa:They're the ones who actually gave us the footprint on how to make this fair possible.
Ricky B.:Okay.
Najwa:Because the Acton School of Business actually does fairs throughout the world. Actually, and just some statistics on them they have about 3,000 fairs a year, 71,000 entrepreneur children entrepreneurs they're in 27 countries and in 623 cities. So we've never had one in Fremont. So Aiden was like let's bring it to Fremont. And so we opened up the applications, where first he had to apply with them. We got the okay from them and then here the way that the process works is that you have to apply on the central portal and then, once you get the applications of the vendors come in, you have to approve them and then you actually have to then set up the fair. So he didn't think that we were going to get that many applications and we not only sold out of our applications, but then we have a huge wait list.
Ricky B.:Wow.
Najwa:And he was like mom, I don't, I don't feel bad to say no to all these other kids and I said well, we can't accommodate we have a, you know like we can only have so many, but then we can do it again later, like at a later time.
Najwa:So they, um, they had to find sponsors, they had to find judges, they had to find a location. Um, they had to find judges, they had to find a location and they had to do press. So you know, aiden reached out to press teams and everybody to, like you know, help him. So you know, writing all those letters, those query letters like both of the kids, like they were really working hard. They've been working on it for six months.
Ricky B.:Wow, Wow, how many, how many. So how many? And there's a waiting list, but how many vendors are actually accepted? 34. 34 vendors.
Najwa:We had 30 that were that we had, but then there were four others that like literally just begged to be on it. And so we added four more, so we are at 34 right now.
Ricky B.:Wow, and so these are all children, uh? Business owners.
Najwa:All children business owners. All children business owners age six through 16. And majority of our bulk is within the age group of six to 12.
Ricky B.:Yes, yes yes, so what kind of businesses are we talking about? Like you talked to, you told me about your kids, but like, what are kind of like, what are the what's the scope of businesses that these kids have?
Najwa:It's incredible. You would not believe it. So we have kids who are doing amazing things in STEM, like robotics. They're building out products that are STEM based. We have other kids who are doing really creative things, like one of them makes skateboards that you can use, that you can be, that are customizable and paintable and all of that.
Najwa:So we have kids who are making jewelry, we have kids who are making candles and slime and bar soaps. We have actually at our event we're actually going to have a vendor who is also a brother-sister duo that won the national kids baking championship wow, wow, that's really cool on the food network on the food network.
Ricky B.:Yes, so they are going to be there.
Najwa:They're called Lajabab um, okay we also have other kids who are making, like these, organic lemonades and organic honey and, like the parents, the whole thing is is that the kids have to be in charge of their business Sure. And it's incredible because half of the time the parents like they don't, they don't know how they're like, they're like I don't know. I have to ask my kid, like how, how do they harvest this honey? But it's really, really it's really incredible.
Najwa:That's inspiring, so inspiring like you feel, like as an adult, like man, like I miss that that's right.
Ricky B.:That's right. So how? How many of the kids are actually from fremont? Are the? Are these from outside the area? Are they all?
Najwa:90 of the kids are all within fremont and neighboring cities oh, that's great so we don't have anybody from coming, like to afar, like everybody's within, like a 15 to 18 mile radius at the most you know. So 90% are all Fremont kids.
Ricky B.:That's amazing yeah.
Najwa:Our local kids.
Ricky B.:Wow, so you're I mean your kids are inspiring. Obviously, they had to be inspired by somebody, so I'm assuming that you, you inspired them in some ways. What do you do, and what has it been for you to be able to be involved in this as well?
Najwa:so that's such a great question, like I wish I could take so much of the credit of what these kids do, to be honest. But I've learned that you cannot make your kids do anything. They really have to want to do it themselves yeah but I will tell you this that as a parent, I've always any idea that they've had. I've really have wanted to foster their love for that idea and just innovate in any sense. Right, as people ask me, like how did Aiden become an author? Like what did you do?
Najwa:And when he was like seven years old, he just made like a comic book that we self-published for him, and we share, shared it with our neighbors and, um, when one of our uh friends who's a teacher, she took it to her kindergarten class, they loved it so much that they wrote thank you cards and I think that that positive you know affirmation that you know you can do something at seven years old like that really plays into it.
Najwa:I myself have a startup company, and so I think that that also shows the kids like you could be a business owner, you can take risks and you know you can do hard things, and so I think that those types of things, those narratives, just kind of play out in our house and they help to foster how my kids approach things that they think are hard to do, but everything's hard right, yeah, yeah, your startup company.
Ricky B.:I'm just curious is that something that I mean, I can imagine like? I mean, I have the Fremont podcast. It's not I mean, it's not like a major business, it's really just been a hobby and a gift. But I know that it's inspired my son, like my son has talked about wanting to do the Kids Fremont podcast or wanting to go interview his friends and stuff like that. So it's something that I've enjoyed sharing with my family and sharing with my son. But there's also parts of that too, where I know I'm off interviewing people and he has no clue where I'm at or what I'm doing or what the interview was like or anything like that. I'm just wondering you know, I'm curious with your business and your startup how much of that is like normal? Is that stuff that you share with your family, or how much? I guess what I'm saying is there's the inspiration behind something, but then there's like the logistics of like how something has to you. You know all the things that have to happen in order for it to actually develop into something real. So how?
Najwa:much of that do you share within your own household. So you know that's a great question. So my, so I'm a, I'm a foot and ankle surgeon, I'm a podiatrist. Um, I do you know, I've I've been in the medical field for so long, but, but, doctors are really risk averse.
Najwa:Sure, you know they, they, they really are there. They like to have their very stable thing. That's very mathematical. And the startup world, or starting a hobby or starting a side hustle, anything there's a lot of volatility and variances in it and not it's not for the faint of heart, cause you have to logistically right, like forget the inspiration. Logistically, like, you have to figure out, like, how to work that part of your life into a very stable environment of your family your kids, your, you know your work and um for me, when I started my, I have a luxury footwear company.
Najwa:It's, uh, built on medical technology. Medical technology, you know. It's manufactured in Italy, it's at Nordstrom's. And that whole journey for eight years that I went through was so difficult, worse than residency. Because you know residency, you're trained to become a physician.
Najwa:But when you're not from a business background or a footwear designer and you're trying to bring medical technology to it, it's just so different and I had such hardships. And in our house we are very open. We always have an open circle. We talk to our kids, we share all ideas with them, the good and the bad.
Ricky B.:That's cool.
Najwa:And I think that that trickled down into their brain about you know like mom is doing something so hard and some days she's so exhausted because she works all like 13 hours in the hospital and then comes home and she has to do like customer service emails because you know when you're.
Ricky B.:You have a startup, you're everybody right, like you are doing everything quality control.
Najwa:You're the ceo, you're the janitor.
Najwa:You're you know ordering supplies, you're taping your boxes, like everything, and I think that just having them watch that you know taught them that you have to be logistically inclined, you need to know how to make this business run, and I think that that's where it helped, because these kids now they have to figure out, like their Excel sheets, like sheets Like how much product are you going to sell, what are you going to do, and I thought it would make them bored, but you would be surprised. Kids, they really want to be adults.
Najwa:Yeah, I think so, and they want you to give them something, and yeah. So I think that in our house we just have a lot of discussions, not realizing those are life-changing discussions.
Ricky B.:Right, right, well, I think I think something you said earlier too. I love it, um, and I know that there's been books written on this about, or at least you know portions of books that have been written on the children's imagination. You know, they, they, they, the sky's the limit. They legitimately think, you know, if it's, if I can imagine it or if I can dream it, it's possible, and I don't think that's a bad thing to to for people for, for kids to to, to believe in, because I do think it opens up a whole world that I think that as adults, we've kind of grown out of and we've we've basically convinced ourselves that, you know, dreams are just dreams and there's nothing else. We can't do anything else about it, you know.
Ricky B.:And so I do think that, like what your son and your daughter have uh pursued in the way that they've, uh, you know, turn their dreams into a reality, I think is just fantastic. I think that's, I think that's wonderful. So, uh, you know, tell me a little bit about more, about the fair here. I'm just curious. I know that you mentioned that, um, you, you reached out to me or you, you know, found out about me through Banter Books which they have been a fantastic sponsor for our podcast.
Ricky B.:Amy has supported us and has encouraged us, encouraged me in many ways. What are the other relationships you've had? Do you have sponsors that are helping support this fair, or what does that look like?
Najwa:So I wholeheartedly agree with you Banter Books is a bookshop. Banter Bookshop is just such an amazing local community business. I think we should all support them. They're fantastic. Amy. She introduced me to you, but they are one of our first sponsors. Aiden had a book signing there. They've always been so generous with their time and I'm an avid book reader, so all my books come from there, that's great. Aiden had also done a. He was a vendor at the Ohlone College.
Ricky B.:The flea market, and they've been a sponsor of the podcast for a while too.
Najwa:They're fantastic, I think that they're just really great. I think that their whole idea of trying to bring the community out on a Saturday and just kind of enjoy the day is really great and just walk around. We also have Bounty AI which is a tech company that they've sponsored us as well.
Najwa:Their CEO, usher Risky, was just really inspired by these kids. You know, he's a very young entrepreneur this is the second company and he just really wants to inspire kids to take that leap in STEM to, you know, go out and make something. And so, since we do have a lot of kids at the fair who are doing things in STEM and robotics, it was we were really happy to have him there. Kimco Realty from Fremont Hub they were so generous in allowing the fair to take place on their property.
Najwa:Fremont Hub is like very centrally located it's a great place for us to be able to host this, so we're very thankful to them. And then Bass Medical Group, which is the medical group that I work for. They were also very excited to support this Children's Business Fair, and so, yeah, we have some amazing sponsors. We're so excited.
Ricky B.:I love it. I love it. So give me some of the details, the date, location, and then what can we expect when? We show up for the fair.
Najwa:So we're so excited. Oh my gosh, I can't even tell you the date is August 24th, it's a Saturday. The timing is between 11 am to 2 pm. It's going to be at the Fremont Hub Courtyard, which is basically right next to the five below and where Old Navy is. That whole courtyard has been rented out to us.
Ricky B.:That's great.
Najwa:We have the most amazing talented kids. I mean, I'm blown away by them. I think it's so wonderful to see all of their different wares that they're going to bring out. I think that it's so important for us, as adults, to come out and support these kids, show them that it really matters to us that they've put so much time and effort into building their businesses and, um, just coming out and tell them hey, good job.
Najwa:You know, I think that that affirmation, it goes so many folds over, yeah, more than we can't even imagine. You know what I? Mean Like we probably don't even know what type of footprint this is going to give them in their life.
Ricky B.:That's great.
Najwa:And so we, yeah. So please come out, come and say there's 34 kids, there's going to be some food vendors, some drink vendors, there's going to be lots of arts and crafts, lots of school supply, stuff that you can stock up on, books that you can stock up on. So, yeah, perfumes.
Ricky B.:That's great, that's great. Well, it's history in the making too the very first Fremont Children's Business Fair, and hopefully it's not the last. Hopefully it'll be something that will become a legacy item, uh, within our Fremont community, which I think it's.
Najwa:I think it's well worth it, and so I hope we have so much talent here I would love, love to have kids show their where is it every year?
Ricky B.:Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you for um meeting up with me. Thanks for joining me on the podcast. I'm going to have to get you back on here with your son and, and we'll have to talk a little bit more about his journey with uh, book writing and all that stuff too, to give him love too.
Najwa:We'd be honored to. Thank you so much, ricky for having us.
Ricky B.:I really appreciate it Absolutely.