XiRepair was started by Jonathan Strange in 2014. Jonathan Strange grew the company from his small bedroom into its current retail space.

“Jonathan Strange owns a couple of tech companies, has customers in San Francisco and Chicago. He runs a store in the Eastchase shopping district and just finished a project in Georgia. He was in class when the phone rang Wednesday with a question about his cell phone repair business. “My teachers are sort of used to me answering the phone,” Strange said. Strange dove into the tech world when putting together a custom gaming computer as an eight-grader. By the time he was a freshman at Robert E....

“Jonathan Strange owns a couple of tech companies, has customers in San Francisco and Chicago. He runs a store in the Eastchase shopping district and just finished a project in Georgia. He was in class when the phone rang Wednesday with a question about his cell phone repair business. “My teachers are sort of used to me answering the phone,” Strange said. Strange dove into the tech world when putting together a custom gaming computer as an eight-grader. By the time he was a freshman at Robert E. Lee High School, he was repairing phones for classmates, teachers, family and friends. The word got out, and before long people from all over the city were contacting him. He launched a business at 15 and set up the online presence. At 16, he hired his uncle. “He’s already living a 25-year-old’s life,” Nathan MacKenzie said about his nephew. “I try to keep him humble.” MacKenzie watched the teenager’s business start to take off over the past few years. His uncle had a tech background and could see that his nephew needed to expand. “I said, ‘Hey man, want some help?’” MacKenzie said. “It’s been pretty fun.” Now he handles his nephew’s Eastchase business, XiRepair, while Strange is in class. They work on phones, computers, TVs, games or “just about anything with a power plug,” Strange said. Meanwhile, Strange used his experiences so far to launch SEOJ, a company that handles website design, logo design and search engine optimization for clients across the nation. Strange said the ideas behind it were “based on my struggles as a full-time business owner.” At 18, he’s already a member of the Business Council of Alabama and the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, which plans to hold a ribbon cutting for his Eastchase store next week. He transferred to Brewbaker Technology Magnet High School a few years ago and expects to graduate next month. When he does, he’ll leave school with more than a dozen industry certifications. Then, it’s off to Auburn University, where he expects to start as a sophomore thanks to the dual enrollment programs he’s been taking. There are bigger plans down the road. “I plan to turn XiRepair into a chain repair business and open multiple stores across Central Alabama in the near future,” Strange said. You can see more at XiRepair.com. XiRepair is open seven days a week at 8650 Minnie Brown Road. But don’t look for him there on Friday nights. He’s a part-time DJ on the weekends.” @jonathanjstrange