The Creative Founder — Lessons Learned

Story Arc of My Entire Journey of Creative Founder

“Time flies when you’re having fun” — that is the first line came across to my mind when we are ready to recall our entire journey of being in this “Spin Class.”

After nearly four months of grinding, I have experienced the true meaning behind this saying — “you grow as you learn and you learn as you group.” As an interaction design student, I have never thought it’d take a class that is about entrepreneurship (Although that’s something my mom wanted me to do initially — to become a businessman)

Where it started

It all started with reading the course description of this class — something we will be doing is to bring our design ideas into a venture and to connect with real customers with our product. Initially, it sounded extreme fascinating to me, which is the idea of practicality. Who does not want to have their design and product to be validated by talking to the real customers?

After officially signed up for the class, I have heard a lot of good things about this class too, stuff like, this class might be challenging, but we will tremendously. Overall, I was excited to take this class and had somewhat a high expectation of what we will be learning throughout the entire semester.

Lessons I valued the most

Every class and everyday has created new opportunities to learn whether academically or non-academically.

1. Being in this class and forming a team are stimulating a real-life start-up company. I have learned that before start doing anything with the team, you have to align your goals and set up your expectations TOGETHER. A team cannot survive with togetherness and having a sense of solidarity.
2. Team assessment t is one of my favorite moments in this class. As much as I loved to worked with my teammates (Dayeon, Mikayla and Irene,) I really wanted to hear each other’s pinions on how we were doing as a team halfway throughout the semester. I wanted all of us to get even better at working with each other. The team assessment could be a little awkward from moments to moments, but that is what it takes to get better at giving and receiving feedbacks: to be honest, to be respectful and don’t take these feedbacks personally.
3. It was at the pivoting week, we were dwelling on one of the features for a long time and could not, more like scared, to make a final decision on whether we should get rid of this feature or not. As the CEO of the team, I had to make a critical decision at this point to make sure we are not wasting our time on something that could be quickly solved. I learned that, being a start-up team is all about pivoting ideas and features. The start-up company’s process is very fast-paced because of the limited amount of time and funds. I have learned that, if one of the features or ideas doesn’t work, then get rid of it and move on. Moreover, you can always come back to it when you have more time or when you are confident enough.
4. Sure we did — we went back to one of the features we pivoted. This is a lesson about never give up. Since our core value is to protect people from going out and drinking, we never wanted to give up on this feature. Somehow in the very last week, we put this feature back into our product and tested it one more time with new participants, and it turns out to be working just fine!
5. Overall, it’s just an experience. Our pitch week was super nerve-racking and, to some of my teammates, frighting. As the CEO, I wanted to make sure all of my teammates are feeling just all right. I started to have all of us going over presentation, again and again, running through the 7-min presentation over and over, so I assumed that practice could make all of us less nervous. However, I realized that this is part of the experience, the experience of learning, and possibly failing (not getting investors invested). What’s important is we all have witnessed this together as a team, so we can grow as we learn.

When I go out to this world…

I have learned that not only about how to work in a start-up company and how to run a team together, but also getting the encouragement of “moving forward.” By saying that, I meant, to seize every opportunity if I can; to say “what’s next” when an idea is not working; to keep searching when a participant is not replying.

Working with the same team for the entire semester is not easy — every individual has their psyches and ways of thinking and doing things. The most important characters we should have to work in a team is to respect each other and always communicate our needs. When I go out to this real world, I will adapt to any situation when it comes to team obstacles. Most importantly, to have a little bit of faith in each other and in what you are making.

The end

I appreciated the pitch day — the opportunity of going on “stage” and presented all of our hard works to the start-up professionals and getting really valuable feedbacks about our “business.”

I cherish every moment in the class and outside of the course (running around doing customer validations). I want to thank all of my teammates for carrying this work together with faith and integrity. Last but not least, I want to thank our professor for pushing us in every step of the way and for instilling all these knowledge patiently and passionately.