![]()
Part I
DISCOVERING YOUR SUPERPOWER
![]()
1
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IS FOR EVERYONE
We read and hear an outsized amount about Silicon Valley startups and founders. These companies are usually technology companies and are often backed by venture capital. In reality, 16% of the US adult population are entrepreneurs, but only 0.62% of startups raise venture capital funding.2 This has warped many studentsā perceptions of what entrepreneurship is. You donāt need to raise venture capital or build a company valued at a billion dollars to be an entrepreneur. Similarly, you donāt need millions of dollars to start a business: The foodie who starts her own restaurant is an entrepreneur, the writer with a paid newsletter is an entrepreneur, and the professional taking wedding photos on the weekends is an entrepreneur.
At The Garage, our definition of entrepreneurship is quite broad. We think of it as the process of bringing any new idea to life. Some people think of entrepreneurship as starting a business, like a coffee shop, or building a big tech company, like Snapchat. We like to include all new ideas from starting a podcast to creating a musical ensemble to designing and selling a new style of notebook. Entrepreneurship is about starting anything! Entrepreneurial ideas can be for-profit, not-for-profit, or arts-based projects. In all cases, they require a product, experience, or service that is consumed by users, customers, or an audience. Your product or service should create value that someone is willing to pay for in some way, whether itās a customer, an advertiser, a subscriber, a donor, or another business.
We also borrow the definition of entrepreneurship from Australian entrepreneur Sam Prince that entrepreneurship is an activity and not an identity. Itās something you do, not who you are. There are many types of entrepreneurs. Some people do entrepreneurial things on nights and weekends after their day job. Others add entrepreneurial āchaptersā to their careers, oscillating between starting companies and working for companies, while others become serial entrepreneurs and hop from venture to venture with brief breaks along the away.
We believe that entrepreneurship is for everyone! Itās not an innate talent, which means anyone can learn to be an entrepreneur. Learning how entrepreneurs think and act will serve you well whether you go on to become a serial entrepreneur or a doctor, lawyer, business executive, artist, environmentalist, caregiver, musician, designer, parent, or any other path you may choose. The skills you learnālike collaborating, prioritizing, listening, adapting, and taking risksāare applicable to everyone.
Throughout this book, weāll occasionally jump into an anecdote from a student who has passed through The Garage that emphasizes the value of the concept weāre talking about. We think these real-life stories demonstrate how and why these frameworks are useful, and we hope they arenāt too jarring.
Hereās the first one: Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, Lauren Washington never thought of herself as a businessperson, and she certainly didnāt think of herself as an entrepreneur. During her junior year of high school, she took a film photography class and an English class and fell in love with film and creative writing. She also began to delve into other creative arts, including photography, attending the NAACP convention, and taking photos to build her first online portfolio. During her senior year of high school, she got her first taste of screenwriting and produced her own mini documentary titled The Importance of Representation in the Entertainment Industry.
Her older, more entrepreneurial brother, Brandon, on the other hand, started a music label in middle school, recruiting musicians and building an audience of 3,000 subscribers on YouTube. In high school, Lauren helped Brandon expand the idea to include visual artists, fashion designers, and other creatives like herself. They named this community of artists FILO.
In college, Lauren majored in film. Her eyes were opened after a school-organized trip to Los Angeles to explore the film industry, visiting companies like Hulu and FX. That trip solidified her focus on screenwriting and directing, and it also helped her realize she wanted to be in charge of her own unique career path and that she didnāt want a traditional job.
Intrigued by this idea of independence, Lauren took an introductory entrepreneurship class, and it changed her thinking completely. Through that class and the programming at The Garage, Lauren realized āartists are inherently entrepreneurs, because they make new ideas and put them out in the world ā¦ and I realized that I was a creative entrepreneur.ā
Today, Lauren and Brandon are still working together on FILO and running it as a startup. They are launching a platform for creative artists and partnering with brands to offer unique opportunities for their communityāfor example, partnering with visual artists to produce posters and other visuals for film projects.
Lauren plans to pursue a career as a film director, but, through her startup, she has learned important skills that she believes will make her a better, more creative film professional. She has learned the importance of being comfortable with ambiguity, pivoting ideas, finding other people to join her vision, patience, networking, and advocating for herself and her ideas. She advises other students, āIf you want to create something for yourself, take a step away from what you think entrepreneurship is. Itās really for anyone who wants to create new ideas, and it has value no matter what career path you take.ā
While we couldnāt agree more, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. āBut wait, I thought you just said ā¦ ?ā Yes, but hear us out. While the skill set and mindset are for everyone, being a founder isnāt. In recent years, the media has glamorized being a founder through movies like The Social Network and television shows like HBOās Silicon Valley. In reality, being a full-time entrepreneur is for very few people. As a career, it is a very nontraditional path and one that can be lonely, frustrating, and full of uncertainty. Itās very different and much more difficult than showing up at a job and having a boss tell you what to do every day. Some people donāt like the ambiguity, the challenge, and the whiplash from the high highs and low lows. Itās completely okay to prefer a job and lifestyle with a steady paycheck and less responsibility.
Our broad definition of entrepreneurship is inclusive of everyone working on an idea for something new that doesnāt exist in the world today. The process of learning to be an entrepreneur can fundamentally change your life and unlock opportunities most people can only dream of. During this process, you will meet incredible people, develop yourself as a leader, and gain a better understanding of the world around you.
Success in entrepreneurship is not binary. We believe the lessons you will learn from an entrepreneurial pursuit are applicable no matter what you do professionally. An entrepreneurial skill set is critical for an entrepreneur, but it is equally important for anyone who wants to lead and make change in any field or industry. Before we dive in, weāll tell you a little more about our philosophy and why, regardless of whether your entrepreneurial project is a success or a failure, itāll make you a better, more well-rounded person.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
ā¢ We define entrepreneurship broadly as the process of bringing any new idea to life.
ā¢ Entrepreneurship is an activity, not an identity; itās something you do, not who you are.
ā¢ Entrepreneurship is for everyone, and the mindset and skill set you learn are applicable to all career paths.
![]()
2
FORGING YOUR OWN PATH
One of the lessons that many first-time founders unfortunately learn too late is that itās imperative to set the values and culture of an organization early on and that being intentional and focused can pay dividends in the future. In this chapter, weāll explore the values and philosophy that weāve chosen to help our student entrepreneurs at The Garage.
TRUST YOURSELF
We believe in the potential of your ideas. Each of us occupies a unique set of life experiences and perspectives that allows us to see problems or opportunities in different ways. This is true even when you are a young student and donāt yet have a lot of professional experience. Look around your campus, your community, and the world. What problems or opportunities do you see? What excites you?
Many students feel they donāt have the right skills to start something. This isnāt true. The internet empowers you to learn almost any skill, to connect with people interested in what youāre working on, and to reach a large, engaged audience.
For example, Mateo Price first came to The Garage with a friend and was interested in learning more about startups. In high school, as a passionate sports fan, he cofounded a sports blog and grew it from 20,000 to 5 million page views. Developing an online advertising strategy and managing the demands of a writing staff proved too much for a group of mostly sixteen-year-olds, and the siteās traffic began a slow, lethal decline over the next year. In college, he majored in economics and psychology and continued to explore his passion for digital marketing and branding.
Ready for his next entrepreneurial project, Mateo came to Melissaās office, and she asked him what he was interested in. He said heād been following a sports influencer on YouTube named Jesse (@jesser). Melissa encouraged Mateo to reach out to Jesse to offer to help him with his marketing. A few months later, after telling Jesse via email that he āwas going to be in LA,ā Mateo booked a flight to Los Angeles to meet with Jesse. After spending the day together, Jesse hired Mateo to optimize his YouTube presence.
Two years later, that first project has grown into Authentic Media Ascension (AMA), a growth analytics and digital strategy company that has helped YouTube influencers earn an extra $5 million dollars. Mateo and his team at AMA have brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, all while still full-time college students. Not bad for a student, right?
Mateo didnāt learn about YouTube analytics and strategy in class. Just like when he learned to grow his high school sports blog, he trusted himself to work hard to create the experiences and opportunities that excited him most. This has led to a journey full of enthusiasm and learning.
Chances are, the more you look, the more youāll see challenges and opportunities that you have the power to address. Which challenges are you most motivated to solve? Which challenge or opportunity do you connect with most deeply? Which challenges or opportunities align most closely with your talents and interests?
Trust yourself to have great ideas and to figure things out. Your unique perspective, knowledge, skills, and drive give you the power to forge new ideas and change the world!
DO THE WORK
A lot of people want to ābe an entrepreneur,ā but few are willing to put in the work. Youāll often see this when someone excitedly tells you about their ideas but never seems to actually make them a reality. To learn to be an entrepreneur, you must be an entrepreneur, which means doing the thing. Remember, being an entrepreneur is an activity. You can read books, articles, and case studies about famous founders and their companies, but to learn how entrepreneurs think and act, you must start your own project and do the work.
Starting a business or venture requires workāand a lot of it. Some students think that updating their LinkedIn to say āfounderā makes them an entrepreneur, but breathing life into a new idea requires a lot more effort. You will be managing sales calls, team disputes, funding scarcity, product development, engaging with mentors, and a million other things at the same time.
Long hours, late nights, and constantly thinking about and working on your venture are all required. Some of the work feels glamorous, like speaking to the press or hopping on an airplane to pitch a big customer. However, a lot of the work is monotonous, like sending cold emails, diving into analytics dashboards, and reconciling your business bank account. In a startup, even the CEO takes out the trash.
If you want to develop big muscles, youāve got to put in a lot of reps. Similarly, if you want to develop yourself as an entrepreneur, you need to get in a lot of reps. Each time you pitch your idea, each time you interview a potential user, each time you solve a problem youāre facing, youāre getting in a rep. And with each rep, you get a little smarter and faster for the next one.
Ibraheem Alinur worked on five entrepreneurial projects as a student at Northwestern. He got his reps in working for other studentsā startups before launching his own company. He ran marketing for a tutoring business and growth for a platform for discovering new opportunities on college campuses. He conducted hundreds of user interviews and recruited early new customers. At one point, he was even helping build a tabletop dishwashe...
