The Silent Three Weeks

Week of 4/5 - 4/11

In this week's blog, I want to take a different approach. No update on my startup I am working on from iStart Valley. I know it can get tiring to constantly hear about a young entrepreneur's successes and failures in his journey. So that's why I wanted to talk about my journey through the Independent Study and Mentorship (ISM) program.

These past couple of weeks, we have not had ISM class due to my teacher conducting interviews to find future ISM students and the number of asynchronous days we've had that have kept the class from meeting up. However, this was no time to rest. This was the time to take the training wheels off the bike and explore what we could do on our own. Our Original Work, which I have mentioned in past blogs, is due by May 3rd for our final presentation. I also mentioned in previous blogs that ISM has a Final Presentation night to showcase all our work based on our topic of study.

With that in mind, I have consistently made progress through my original work, which is another startup idea aside from what I have at iStart Valley. My team and I have scheduled meetings every other school day to meet up and create a pitch deck which I will use as my Original Work, revising elements such as the business plan, finances, customer segments, competition, etc. We have made a great deal of progress within the past three weeks but, we still have many chances to make before our pitch is "perfect". I say that in quotes because there's never such thing as true perfection as there's always room to improve. My team has also made progress building our Minimum Viable Product which I will also showcase at Final Presentation night and am very excited to build and test. I am very satisfied with how well I spent my time on my ISM work without the help of a guide, showing me what it will really be like in the real world where there will be no one to hold your hand. It may sound easy to some to work without a guide however, many people feel challenged to do so since they're not being told what to do and they have no direction. This is perhaps my biggest takeaway from the past 3 weeks.

With the fast-approaching deadline of my Orginal Work, I expect things to get rough as I bring my Original Work to a close. Yes, I do expect to struggle but, I also expect to persevere from the struggle and keep moving forward. The silent weeks have brought a great deal of realization upon me about who I really am and my purpose and I will use that to finish off my ISM Original Work the strongest I can.