Sophomore Brent Comstock runs tech company from UNC

At 12 years old, most kids aren’t starting a project that will one day become a successful company. But Brent Comstock was, and continues to be, an exception.

Comstock, a sophomore Robertson Scholar from Auburn, Neb., is the founder and chief innovator of BCom Solutions, LLC, a creative marketing and technology solutions firm.

Growing up in rural Nebraska, Comstock occupied his time by playing the keyboard for his church’s choir and fixing computers in exchange for cookies.

Bob Engles, former mayor of Auburn and a good friend of Comstock’s, said he has always been mature.

“Whether it was academics, music, in the line of community involvement, you could tell he was always way ahead of all of his peers,” Engles said.

Even before Comstock graduated high school, he moved his childhood business into the adult realm.

“Everything was all me until junior year of high school. I was programmer, IT repair man, salesman, cable puller,” he said. “Then we started adding on a lot of web design components. So then we started to bring on team members.”

The title of “team member” was Comstock’s choice.

“We have 15 people in total who work as team members, no one is an ‘employee.’ It’s one of those cultural things that bothers me,” he said with a smirk. “It’s hard enough taking instructions from a 19-year-old.”

One of Comstock’s mentors at UNC, Ted Zoller, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, said Comstock sees opportunities where others do not.

“He is a hard-wired entrepreneur,” Zoller said. “There is no doubt in my mind that Comstock will be a wildly successful entrepreneur.”

Comstock said technological startups are much more rare in rural Nebraska than in Durham’s Research Triangle Park, and his Auburn community supported him immensely. Comstock also credits his parents for their support.

“My dad was a plumber and my mom was in public education and they always said, ‘When you’re going to do something, put your all in it,’” Comstock said.

Even though he’s busy managing his business from about 1,100 miles away, Comstock makes time for school.

“When I came to college, I realized I had to be a student then an entrepreneur,” he said. “From an academic standpoint, I’ve found classes that challenged me to apply what I was learning in the classroom to my business ventures.”

Even with the added responsibilities of working with the Wesley Campus Ministry and advising the Technology and Web branch of Student Government, Comstock said he has time to be a typical college student.

“I really enjoy playing the piano and musical things. Just doing things that don’t require a lot of energy, a lot of stress,” he said. “Anything that takes me out of technology, that brings me out.”

Engles said Comstock still puts an unparalleled amount of passion into his work.

“He is what small towns need to be evolving into.”

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