Becoming a CEO at 19: How I did it
It’s been 15 weeks since I first sat down on Alex Budak’s “Becoming a Changemaker” class, and I’ve learned a lot about leading others and leading myself. I learned about the importance of nurturing your first followers (Sivers 2010), inspiring others through exemplary leadership, and empathy and humility to realize leadership that transcends the leader (Sanchez 2021; Stebbins 2018).
But above all, the class helped me reflect on my own journey from shattered University admission dreams to becoming the CEO of my startup at the age of 19. In this article, I want to share 3 stories that I believe were key moments in my development towards Becoming a Changemaker, how I grew from each and the life insights I gained. The first story is about how failures are opportunities to recover and level-up. The second story explores the how having a vision, thinking big, ignoring the naysayers, and working your ass off drives success. The third story chronicles how I got my first term sheet from Angel Investors and the role of luck in the pursuit of success.
Recovering from Ivy Day
When I was 15, I set my mind on being admitted to the Top University in the World, and for the next 3 years I devoted myself to realizing my vision: becoming part of the top 5% students in the world for the IB DP program, being 1 of 30 students from all Japan to be accepted to the Stanford e-Japan program, winning a $10k scholarship to be a healthcare volunteer to support refugees in Thailand, pushing for international diversity and non-discrimination as the Student Council’s Director, and founding my own startup for helping high school students with University admissions.
On April 6th of 2021, my admission results came for the Ivy League Universities. I was very nervous. I logged in to Brown’s portal first. I was rejected. UPenn, I was rejected. Princeton, I was rejected. I checked Harvard’s portal … I was rejected. On April 7th, I opened Stanford’s portal … I was rejected. I applied to 16 Universities from the US, UK, Canada, and Japan. I got into 6 of them.
It was very tough. Pouring your life into a goal and seeing everything fall apart is heartbreaking. For that entire week, I stopped going to classes, I lost interest in playing video games, I was very distant from my friends, and was very close to throwing the towel at various occasions.
During those days, I received an email from my mentor asking me how the University results went. It brightened my day because I felt other people cared about my success. After a moment, I came to think that he, the teachers who wrote my letters of recommendation and my alumni interviewees probably must be super anxious as well waiting, and fearing that I’d become hateful, blaming them for my rejections. So, I drafted an email to every single person who helped me notifying my admission results and saying thank you for all they’ve done for me.
I received extremely supportive replies, which were comforting and shifted me to be proud of being admitted to 6 top universities, among them UC Berkeley. I gradually regained my optimism: maybe I can still show that I’m worthy of being accepted to all the Universities that rejected me. Above all, I can still show myself that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. Emails like that of Jonathan Epstein, “Please use this as an opportunity to demonstrate to Princeton how their admissions process needs to do a better job at picking the winners”, helped me get back on my feet.
I didn’t knew it then, but getting rejected by those Universities has been one of the best things that has happened to me. I used to be overly self-reliant; I always preferred doing things alone rather than with others because I could get done things at far higher quality in a lot less time. But, when you fall hard, having people around you who can reframe your setback and support you no matter what more often than not will help you bounce back quicker and stronger than dealing with it on your own. Now, I always focus on building a friendship with the people I meet, as opposed to being transactional. As a result, I’m a lot more comfortable with failure because I know I have people who’ll help me get back up and I know I’ll level-up after it.
Climbing to the Top
Start with a vision. Arriving at Berkeley, I was impatient to win and rise to the top. I was full of energy. Nevertheless, I was directionless after my top university dream had come to an end. I didn’t know in which direction I should channel my energy. One day, I was fortunate to interview 1–1 Jamie Beaton, the founder and CEO of Crimson Education (valuation $1B NZD) and a Rhodes Scholar, for my Introduction to Entrepreneurship class. I learned about how he founded his startup as a first-year undergrad at Harvard, how he worked Monday to Sunday and barely participated in random social activities. As I learnt more and more about him, it became clear to me that that is who I want to be. I want to grow my startup, Reach Best, to unicorn as an undergrad, graduate as the top student at UC Berkeley, so I can become a Rhodes Scholar, and be invited to the World Economic Forum to shape decisions that will affect the course of human history. From that day on, I had a vision again and I was jubilant.
In my first semester at Berkeley, I maxed my schedule with 6 classes (when the advice for incoming freshman is to go super light to adjust to college), I got the position of Director of International Affairs in the student government, and I hired and ran my first internship program at Reach Best. I won the Cal Alumni Association Leadership Award Scholarship and became a Dean’s Honors List Student with a perfect GPA. I believed I was unstoppable and that things and people would fall into place so I can realize my vision.
However, in my second semester I struggled to get the recognition and support I needed to advance. People around me would tell me that my dreams would never happen. My older colleagues from student government would be very skeptical and make eyes at me whenever I spoke of growing Reach Best to a unicorn and inviting them to join me. When I asked for advice on how to get into a startup accelerator, they said I’d never make it if I didn’t have an experienced co-founder. My friends would tell me that raising $1M in funding is crazy and make fun of me saying “in your dreams buddy”. My roommates fiercely objected when I shared my dreams of becoming like Elon Musk or Steve Jobs.
I did not listen. I was not discouraged, and I kept working hard. I applied to several startup accelerator programs, including Y Combinator and Berkeley SkyDeck. In April 2022, my company was accepted to Berkeley SkyDeck’s incubator program. Most founders were age 22 (just about to graduate) or about 35 years old. I was 19, and was the youngest solo founder to have gotten in. I became friends with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, angel investors, and top leaders of UC Berkeley. It completely changed my student life. I had direct access to top law firms, PhD students, Professors, Corporate Perks, etc. I was at the top.
Ignore the naysayers. I would have never gotten to that position if I had been discouraged by naysayers, and filtering the information you send to your mind is incredibly important because negative waves can lead to unproductive self-doubt. I learned that an essential part of being a leader is to believe in oneself. You, and only you, are responsible for enacting the change. You, and only you, has the power to direct your life. No one else will direct it for you, not your bosses, not your colleagues, not your friends, not your family. I started with a vision, and I was the Ring-bearer responsible for achieving the dreams.
The Miracle
In the door of my freshman dorm, I placed a pink post-it in which I had written “Luck comes to the lucky ones.”
Being at Berkeley SkyDeck was a game changer and it was only a matter of time before a life-defining moment would occur to me. At Reach Best, we were struggling to fundraise because we didn’t know how to approach it exactly. In my Marketing class, I became friends with another student founder who recently raised $400k from Angel Investors and I asked him who funded him. He said that two of his Angel Investors were founders of startups (both had already exited their company), which was very insightful and it gave a plan for how I could potentially approach it. The next day, I visited the SkyDeck office and Jun came up to me, and introduced me to Japanese founders. After getting along with them, one of them casually mentioned he is using the money from the company he exited to fund his new startup. My antennas instantly went off, and I realized that maybe I could ask him to invest in my company. I invited him and his co-founder to dinner. Three meetings later, he became my lead investor and I signed my first term sheet. He is inviting his friends to invest and complete our Angel Round.
Looking back, it sounds so easy, but the truth is that I spent about 6 months trying different ways to fundraise. Just like Steve Jobs said, “you can’t connect the dots moving forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.” One of my biggest learnings from this experience was that as a Changemaker and leader I have to be resilient and persistent, and place myself in situations that maximize my chances of getting lucky. The mind is incredibly powerful; I’ve learned that the mind attracts results. If you focus on negativity and being unlucky, then bad and unlucky things will happen to you. If you focus on being positive and being lucky, wonderful things can, and probably will happen to you.
To conclude, I want to share with you a phrase my mom told me when I was 17, “Only great things happen to me.” She made me say it for myself after getting rejected by the Universities. To this day, I continue saying it to myself. I invite you to say and believe “Only great things happen to me”. Miracles happen if you seek them.
Extra notes
We recently released our Reach Best Web App v2.0 on product hunt, and we’d love it if you could try it out and leave a review if you liked it :) https://www.producthunt.com/posts/reach-best
You can learn more about my startup here: https://reachbest.co/
Bibliography
Bailey, James R. “The Difference between Good Leaders and Great Ones.” Harvard Business Review, 4 Oct. 2017, https://hbr.org/2016/09/the-difference-between-good-leaders-and-great-ones. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.
Coget, Jean-Francois, et al. “Anger and Fear in Decision-Making: The Case of Film Directors on Set.” European Management Journal, Pergamon, 19 July 2011, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237311000417?casa_token=Gl7tQxbGy1QAAAAA%3AUIRWQyXSE76wEC1eLS0Ey5iOEZ1EPHBwCygcvmv13SrRhSUZJaufiF8YG3E3zfSWKIWIml1ZRMCa. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.
Elder, Daniel. “Council Post: Becoming A Situational Leader.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 7 Aug. 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/08/10/becoming-a-situational-leader/?sh=1b35cacc6561. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.
Sanchez, Patti. “The Secret to Leading Organizational Change Is Empathy.” Harvard Business Review, 31 Aug. 2021, https://hbr.org/2018/12/the-secret-to-leading-organizational-change-is-empathy. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.
Sinek, Simon. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Penguin Business, 2019.
Sivers, Derek. “How to Start a Movement.” Derek Sivers: How to Start a Movement | TED Talk, TED, 2010, https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement?language=en. Accessed 2 Dec. 2022.
Stebbins, Gregory. “Council Post: Six Keys to Transcendent Leadership.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 27 July 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/05/11/six-keys-to-transcendent-leadership/?sh=e62093d7e2da. Accessed 28 Oct. 2022.
