An Enlightening Conversation

Week of 10/19 - 10/26

During this week, I have focused my full attention on contacting professionals via email and by phone. As I mentioned in my last blog, I considered this to be one of the greatest challenges in my journey because contacting CEOs, Founders, and other high positions of startup companies are usually hard to get in touch with. However, I was able to get a response back from one person that I emailed for a time to interview.

I interviewed the professional on a Wednesday afternoon. I asked her questions in the way we had been taught in ISM first asking her about how she got into entrepreneurship. She discussed her background in entrepreneurship saying that she was from a family of entrepreneurs. I already found this to be quite interesting because growing up in a family of entrepreneurs shows that you've had lots of experience being from that background. She wasn't necessarily your average entrepreneur who started a business and hired employees. Rather, she played a major role in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, connecting entrepreneurs to accelerators, incubators, startups, and large corporations. Moreover, she talked about how she's helped entrepreneurs all over the world get connected with the right people as well as guide their startups towards the right path. It immediately caught my attention when she mentioned that she was a role player in the entrepreneurial ecosystem because I believed this to be an entrepreneur's greatest guide to successfully building his/her startup. Toward the end of our discussion, we discussed a lot more about the field of startups and how a young entrepreneur like me can fit into the industry.

To sum up the interview, I believe that it was a major stepping stone that I took in my journey as my conversation with the professional went very smoothly. In fact, the professional wants to learn more about my journey and try to see where I am as an entrepreneur. In future meetings with my professional, I hope to understand more about the professional's experience and advice she gives me in terms of my career running a startup.