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The dapper Englewood, NJ, fifth-grader is the founder and CEO of Mr. Cory’s Cookies
In 2009, Cory Nieves and his mother, Lisa, moved to Englewood New Jersey from The Bronx. And while Cory, who was 5 at the time, loved being surrounded by birds and trees, he didn’t like riding the bus when it was cold outside.
In 2012, Mr. Cory’s Cookies LLC was officially launched. Child labor laws forbid Cory from working in a commercial kitchen (his mom handles the baking), but he developed all 10 flavors, such as chocolate chip, lemon and Madagascar (white chocolate) with Lisa, the company’s COO. “I started looking up recipes online and I started making my own recipes,” he says. “There’s no preservatives or artificial flavors. I wanted to make a natural cookie, because I like to eat natural stuff and I don’t want to give people things I don’t eat.”
On a typical school day, after homework and karate class in the afternoon, mother and son have a 15-minute business meeting. “The first thing he asks me is, ‘How is the business going?’?” says Lisa. “And I say, ‘Cory, do you want to ask me about my day, first?’
Most entrepreneurs would be thrilled to take meetings with the likes of West Elm, JPMorgan Chase and Barneys New York. They’d love to appear on MSNBC and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” to talk about their business. They’d clamor to sell their goods to big-time companies like Facebook and the Gap.
Cory Nieves has already accomplished all that — at the ripe old age of 10….