What feels like so long ago, there was a young girl who graduated from a Poly Prep Country Day High School in Brooklyn. After years of being a competitive soccer player, she thought she wanted to become a sports scientist for a professional soccer club. No one in her family had worked in a career path like that. They all had obvious entrepreneurial tendencies, but she was blinded to the pattern. She began studying at USC with her own mission in mind, believing she knew her destiny. While we can believe we have our minds so set on something, usually life has other things in store for us…
After heading to the UK in the summer of ’21 to work for a pro soccer team, Blackpool F.C., and having an incredible time, her takeaways were not what she thought they would be. Working closely with pro athletes should have been the perfect stepping stone for her sports science career, but instead, she saw the light beaconing her to take an entirely different path.
After a month of tossing and turning on this sudden change of where she found her passion lying, she was itching to take action. But, alas she found herself in front of one “little” hurdle: she didn't know anything about how to start a company. Never being one to sit and dwell in confusion, however, she sought a community to teach her how to learn fast and fail even faster. That's when she met the people at Sigma Eta Pi, USC's premier entrepreneurship society. After a rigorous application process that felt much like applying to college again, she found herself in an incubator and community that taught her the 0-1 of startups. From there, she learned the ins and outs of creating a startup, and to be frank, it came to her with so much ease. She won her first demo day that she ever took part in. Feeling quite a rush from combining her creativity with practicality, putting use to all the self-motivation she enacted—well, she became addicted to that feeling and from there, she could never look back again. SEP changed her life. What she thought to be her purpose was completely disrupted by this newfound passion for growth hacking, building disruptive solutions, learning the lifecycle of a product, learning how to tell a story and build communities. How could she not fall in love?
For the next two years, she integrated herself into USC and LA’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, learning about every startup she could. She worked for a few startups, one of the the coolest ones being in psychedelic therapy (Wondermed), and eventually, she realized the aspect she had become most in love with was speaking to passionate founders and figuring out how to help them towards their goals. So it was time she deep-dived into the world of VC. She built out her network that grew with each day, talking to founders and investors, seeing where she would fit into all of it. Little did she know, once it came her senior year, after amassing her experiences at various startups and learning from her network, she would be elected president of the very incubator that changed her life.
After spending months wrapped in the bogged-down grind of breaking into VC, she received an amazing offer to be Head of Platform for Crescent Fund, a student-led VC firm. Unsurprisingly, due to her cheeky demeanor, they asked her to be the firm’s outward-facing voice to increase transparency and foster more community engagement. With this, she began Moonshot—a newsletter for the firm, where she wrote monthly updates about firm activities and relevant startup/VC investment news in the SoCal region to highlight local wins. It was an amazing experience and one that reminded her that she should never pursue anything that wouldn’t allow her the freedom to add her personality into any trade she takes on. Through all the overwhelmingly positive feedback and responses to each issue she published, she was reminded that she never has to lose herself to fit into any industry. While VC continues to be a passion and future goal of hers, continuing to run SEP while doing this only strengthened her love for startups and seeing products grow, as there is simply nothing more invigorating than watching people build something so passionately. With that, she knew it was her time to return to the startup side of things for a bit.
That’s when I found myself at Basic.Space—a highly curated marketplace for creatives to have a platform to continue tastemaking as they do so well. It was for creators of all kinds: music, fashion, film, writing, DJing, etc., at the time selling their clothing, jewelry, and home decor. I learned so much there: from doing user research to seeing how to create a more frictionless app and desktop experience for people to fall even more in love with their product; to creating content and thinking of partnerships that can accurately represent the brand outwardly.
With only a month left until graduation, I ended my time there and was left with the gift of free time (as classes wound down as well) for the first time in four years to think about what I truly needed uninterrupted by any other efforts or obligations…
In this free time I couldn’t help but look back on all I had tried, all the twists and sudden turns I had taken and as I got ready to walk across the USC Dornsife stage on May 10th, I had come to peace with the fact that perhaps I won’t know what my purpose is because if the last 4 years taught me anything it is that like in startups, life is full of constant pivots. The best thing we can do is allow ourselves to fail fast and adapt quickly.
I have always been a multifaceted human (perhaps even to a detriment) with many diverse interests and skills. I have come to learn that this makes me a generalist–through and through. I am currently pursuing paths in VC, startups, consulting, product management, growth hacking, intrapreneurship, vibe curation, community building–something really at the intersection of these things that I have truly loved being a part of.
So, for this generalist, a month after grad, what is next?
The truth is, I don’t truly know. But what I do know is this: the last 4 years have helped me develop 5 pillar philosophies–amongst a plethora of lessons I have been collecting and documenting in a doc all of undergrad–that I will carry with me into whatever the next phase holds. They are:
If you want something, just ask for it. Whether it is straight up asking or asking the right questions to guide towards it. Just. Ask.
Never treat any interaction in a day like it doesn’t matter. Whether it is your daily barista, professor, janitor, colleague, mentor…Anyone can change your life from one second to the next. You could find your next job, soulmate, or best friend if you bring your true self to all encounters and find the difference between interacting to extract meaning rather than transactionally (because there is a difference).
If you’re the smartest person in the room, get the he** out. Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations is the most conducive to achieving constant self growth (professionally and otherwise).
Carry yourself with confidence. I like to call this an “of course” pretense—this is the premise that any time I am up against competition or in a challenge, I go into it assuming, “OF COURSE I can do it, OF COURSE I can win”. And thus even if it is not of course, your performance is instrumentally better. This is not to be confused with arrogance. Don’t lie to yourself, admit your weaknesses, admit when you are wrong, BUT remember you are essentially capable of ANYTHING so you damn right should operate through life and carry yourself that way.
Know thyself…Love thyself. It is a form of brutally honest conversation with oneself in order to grow. Introspection and the ability to know oneself as well as hold oneself to a high regard is a super power that really does take one to the next level and sometimes I wish I had come to that realization sooner but at least here we are now.
Currently looking for any generalist roles in VC, startups, tech, PM, or consulting preferably based in NYC or Zurich but still open to other locations. If you are hiring, are an undergrad looking to chat/want to be connected to someone, or are just someone who wants to become acquainted, please reach out!
