BAX Over and Out.

Lessons Learned — Creative Founders

I have to admit, before taking Creative Funders I knew what I was going to get myself into, kind of… I had heard all of it; The good and the bad — the drama, the sleepless nights, but most importantly, people came out of that class differently than how they came in. Whether that change came through a mostly positive or negative experience, at the end everybody learned something new that helped them grow as entrepreneurs, as designers, and as people.

And so, I decided to take on this experience for myself.

To be honest, when coming to the class, the goals of learning how to become and entrepreneur or building a startup from the ground up were not in my top priority learning goals I had for the class. Yes, I knew I would learn some methods on the process of building a startup, but I had never really imagined or pictured myself founding one (ironically, I did my summer internship at a startup), so I kept it on the back of my head. My top three goals where: 1. Become better at public speaking during presentations 2. Learn how to be concise when presenting, and 3. Learn how to be persuasive and convincing to my audience through a combination of my previous two goals, and through strategizing the content presented.

I am glad to say that I not only accomplished these goals by the end of the class, but I exceeded in them. Self-confidence has always been something I’ve had to work extra hard for, and that lack of it reflected on how I presented myself, and my work to a large audience. Now, I am more than happy that I am not as afraid to stand up in the middle of a crowded room, and confidently talk to a large audience. Sure, the nerves are still there, but my level of self-confidence in me has increasingly gone up.

Of course, I learned way more than the goals I originally set for myself from beginning. It was all thanks to three groups of people:

Throughout three long months, my amazing teammates, Bibiana Bauer and Xuan(Karen) Song, helped me understand how to successfully and patiently work in a team. I consider the fact that three people with completely different personalities, backgrounds, and working styles getting assigned to work together to be a blessing in disguise. It was in the instances when all our differences seemed to clash together when we came closer as a team, and worked together to resolve our differences in opinions to work more efficiently, and to learn to care for each other. Our hardest and most challenging times came at the beginning stages of building our startup, when we were trying to identify a need for a market and its profitability. I’m sure my teammates can recall the high tension and frustration felt at every team meeting and first couple of presentations, when a method for communication between us was not properly established. Through a combination of team-bonding exercises, through constant learning from failure, and applying such learnings forward is how we achieved to effectively collaborate and communicate together. Surely, we were not a perfect team — but that imperfection is what made our teamwork valuable.

BAX (Karen, Bibiana & me) ready to take on the world.

Remember when I said learning how to become and entrepreneur and building a startup from the ground up were not in my top priority learning goals? Yeah well, our incredibly knowledgeable and kind-hearted professors Kate Rutter and Christina Wodtke who always pushed us to do our best, changed that. Both had very unique teaching styles, that made our takeaways from critiques and class lectures extremely valuable (even on those days when we got destroyed and eaten alive by them). Both, Kate’s frank, yet supportive ability to give honest feedback, and her willingness to take the time to rally us up as a team when she saw team dysfunction was on the verge, as well as Cristina’s constant encouragement to experiment and fail in order to learn, encouraged me to always give it my all on whatever project in life I’m taking on — whether it’s on a school project, senior thesis, or building the next startup that’ll change the world for better, always pour your passion into it (while validating, validation is very important too).

And last but not least, the understanding and empathetic, yet critical nature of our class as a whole, allowed us to create a safe and enjoyable space for everyone to learn from our mistakes and our accomplishments — something that reflects the true values of a healthy and happy working environment.

Thank you everyone for a valuable and irreplaceable learning and bonding experience.

Currently, continuing on BAX, the startup that our team started building, is not in my near-future plans, as I consider finishing my last year of college a top priority, with as little outside hurdles or distractions as possible that might sidetrack me from my last semester, and my senior thesis (which by the way you can check out here and here). However, I am not discarding the possibility of using the skills and knowledge attained from this class through my teammates, my professors, and my classmates, to start a startup for something I am truly passionate about, and believe could change the world for good.

BAX, over and out.

Now if you excuse me, I’m going to go catch up on the countless hours of sleep I lost during the class.