Stories — KuzoClass Entrepreneurship Fellow: Jonathan Hsu
Jonathan Hsu
Age: 20
Profession: Student
Hometown: Vancouver, BC
University: University of Waterloo
Fun Fact: Venture Capitalist at Front Row Ventures
Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Jonathan Hsu, a graduate of Meadowridge School, BC, was highly devoted to his academics during his high school years. Jonathan recalls, “I wasn’t active in a lot of extra-curricular activities or clubs. I was mainly involved in academics as my school being International Baccalaureate was pretty tough.”
An avid Basketball player, he led his high school’s varsity team to 3rd position in intramurals during his senior year. Subsequently, he was awarded the “Male athlete of the year award.” When asked about his scholarships totalling $12,000, Hsu says, “I was fortunate to get good mentorship and letters of recommendation from my teachers. I think that I was fairly good at academics.”
Jon, the nickname his peers assign him, initially applied to both the University of Waterloo and Western University. Ultimately, he was accepted into the prestigious Ivey AEO program at Western but instead decided to pursue Science and Business at Waterloo. In his own words, “I wanted to dive deep into science as well as business, so I thought of considering a program which provided me the best of both these worlds. The opportunity for co-ops at Waterloo attracted me.”
With a zeal for business consulting, Hsu tapped into WatSolve Consulting Group, an indigenous consulting group at UWaterloo, as a consultant, where he worked with clients to deliver solutions for their business needs. Soon he started his first internship at Bank of Montreal as a Business Analyst. Around the same time, he got involved with Front Row Ventures, a student-run venture fund, as an Investment Associate, an experience which got him hooked to entrepreneurship, Jon recalls, “I learnt a lot about sourcing deals. My experience before joining FRV was watching Shark Tank and Dragons’ Den, so I underestimated VC’s role as receiving applications from companies looking for funding and just scanning through them and providing them with funding.” He is currently in a process to raise $10 million for the fund.
Little did he know that his mania for entrepreneurship would lead him to embark on a two-week exchange at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, followed by Shenzhen University, an experience which he describes as entrepreneurial in every dimension. On his exchange, Hsu jumped on an opportunity to visit Tencent, DJI’s headquarters, as well as Hax, a renowned business incubator.
Hsu is currently widening his horizons on an academic exchange term at the National University of Singapore. To sum it up in his own words, “One of the reasons why I want to embark on such global exchanges is that I am working on a podcast called, “Broaden Your Perspective,” so I want to visit different places all over the world and get first-hand experience on the way people approach their problems. I feel that most of the time, we get stuck in the status quo and think that there are only a few escapes to a problem.” During his free time, he loves reading books and interacting with people.
Interested in joining the KuzoClass Entrepreneurship Accelerator? Join the waitlist today at www.kuzoclass.com or email john@kuzoclass.com with your LinkedIn and a few sentences on why you’re passionate about entrepreneurship.
