Program Reviews — Oxford Fintech, Stanford Entrepreneurial, Dan Lok, Mindvalley, Jumpcut, Singularity University, YCombinator, Russell Brunson

Published in

The Startup

6 min readDec 8, 2018

In the past year, I invested a lot of time and money into different personal development and business programs. This is a post to share my personal experiences.

Oxford Fintech

The Oxford Fintech program was the first one I enrolled to since I considered a career switch. To me, as a previous finance professional, fintech was a natural progression. I have been to Oxford in person a couple of times and really loved the academic scenery there so I was happy to be able to do a program from Oxford even though I couldn’t be there in person.

The program was a lot of videos from fintech professionals and gave a good overview of the fintech ecosystem and the opportunity set. There was a group project where the group has to come up with a fintech business idea. This was the first time I got exposed to thinking about a business idea so to me it was quite eye opening.

My personal opinion is that it is a good program if you are looking for a brand on your CV, want to get a better understanding of the fintech ecosystem and looking to come up with your own fintech business idea/startup. I know people managed to meet their cofounders during the program.

Stanford Entrepreneurial Certificate

After Oxford Fintech exposed me to startup, I thought what better place to learn startup than Stanford itself. So I searched around and found this online program.

I actually only did one course in the certificate but to me, it was eye opening again. It exposed me to the entrepreneurial mindset. What it means to be an entrepreneur, what do they think about, the world of technology, the problems and challenges, the opportunities, scaling your business, venture capital, stock options and a lot more.

It told me entrepreneurship can actually be taught. I learned about concepts such as 10x, lean startup, crossing the chasm, the Yahoo! case study. All these were really interesting to me and started paving the way for me to focus on becoming an entrepreneur.

Dan Lok

After starting to think about the possibility of being an entrepreneur, I started looking around for more inspirations and I came across Dan Lok and the High Ticket Closing (HTC) program.

Again, it was an eye-opening program because Dan was the first to teach me to work on my mindset. Having been in the banking industry for more than 10 years, there was a lot of negativity in me. Also, I am a pessimistic person by nature. Dan was able to speak to a lot of my fears and constraints and it was with Dan that my mindset started changing.

Even though I realised I don’t really enjoy being a closer after the program, I attribute a lot of my initial mindset change to Dan. I still do his 3 meditations daily.

Mindvalley

After understanding the importance of mindset, I started exploring more and came across the Mindvalley program with Vishen Lakhiani.

Again, this was an eye-opening program for me because it further improved my way of thinking. Vishen taught specific techniques on working with your mind, which will take years to master and I see myself keep going back to the materials whenever I have time.

This is the go to program if you want to go deep into mindset.

Jumpcut

Jumpcut was a program I came across randomly. They mentioned about financial freedom and quit the 9 to 5 job, which spoke to me and so I gave it a try.

This is the first program that exposed me to information products and funnels. It involves a lot of specific steps and the process, which was extremely useful. I learned a lot from their presentations and delivery as well, which focused on storytelling. You do end up feeling like you are friends with Jesse and Kong, which seems like are really cool guys.

I would recommend it to anyone looking to pursue their passion, produce their own information products with the target of quitting their jobs.

Singularity University

I did this program because I am not a tech person and so wanted to learn more about the latest technology. Overall, their materials are pretty amazing because they talk a lot about leading-edge ideas and businesses that I have not heard of but their delivery is a bit mediocre, if I am honest.

I haven’t watched a lot of their Youtube videos but this is one where I suspect you could learn just as much from watching their Youtube so may not really need to join the program.

YCombinator

This was a free program. I actually didn’t get in initially but they had a mix up and accepted everyone that applied in the end.

They had 3 videos on Youtube every week, which you could just watch on Youtube anyway. But for me, if I hadn’t officially enrolled, I wouldn’t have diligently watched all the videos every week.

To me, the videos were really good because they had successful alumni talking about their experiences, which I learned a lot from.

In fact, it also made me feel a bit old doing startup because most of the speakers look pretty young.

I also realised I am not really pursuing a tech startup as such.

They had a weekly update submission, which you have to make if you are interested in their $10k grant by the end.

I also got to meet a couple of fellow startups in my group that we keep in touch with.

Russell Brunson

I came across Russell Brunson because of Clickfunnels, which was used by Jumpcut.

I really like Russell because what he advocates really resonated with me. Find your message, building a tribe, creating a mass movement, making money from day 1 without VC backed, growing to contribute, creating a lot of value.

He helped me connect a lot of the things I have learned thus far.

I keep his book Expert Secrets in my bag all the time now.