Episode 6: Moonshot Challenge, TKS Demo Day, and Presentations.
My review of April and May
I have decided to change the format of my newsletters (and no this is not an excuse for me missing April). Instead of writing one every month, I will do one every two months. I think this gives me more time to work on my projects and means that I can have more content per newsletter.
Oh boy do I have a lot to share for this one, it has been an absolutely amazing past couple of months and I have been getting sh*t done. I think that life and work come in waves. Some months it can feel very routine and you are just going through the motions, and then other months you feel like you have a million things going on. This phenomenon occurs because all those months doing routine and boring things are really just setting you up for moments of serendipity and big successes.
All the time I spent learning those mindsets and skills at TKS and beyond really came in handy these past months. Reflecting on April and May, I was thinking about the idea of delayed gratification and how you often get outsized returns weeks, months, or even years after you initially started to put in the work. The idea of delayed gratification is why consistency is so important; if you stay consistent every day and never miss a day, one day you will get “lucky” and get that big win.
Anyways, on to what I did
Sanavo: A proposed solution to Glioblastoma treatment
A bulk of my April consisted of the moonshot challenge at TKS, which is where you and a group of 1-2 other people look to create a company to solve a key problem plaguing our world. Since I am interested in pretty much anything science or medical-related, I brainstormed problems in this area.
I then remembered the day that I toured Vanderbilt University. What was special about that college tour was that I could sit into a class (if you ever do a college tour, definitely email a professor to see if this would be possible). The class that I visited was an introductory class to biomedical engineering, and what was special about that class was that they had a guest speaker that day. The speaker talked about her journey as a biomedical engineer and what she is doing with this degree now.
Currently, she is striving to be a neurosurgeon, and she mentioned that one of the key things that she was looking at was patients with glioblastoma. Glioblastoma is a super deadly brain tumor that grows very quickly and can invade and destroy healthy tissue. Only 25% of patients survive more than a year with glioblastoma and only 5% of patients survive more than 5 years.
As I was sitting on my deck recollecting that day, I realized that this was a perfect problem for me to tackle. While I knew nothing initially about glioblastoma or brain tumors as a whole, I knew that this problem was serious and thus something worth exploring.
This moonshot challenge showed me what it takes to actually build a company or at least start that process. From creating your idea, validating it, all the way to creating a website and pitching it, this challenge was amazing and really pushed my limits:
Here are a few key takeaways:
Validate early: Can you believe that 42% of startups die because “there is no market need”? How tough would it be to create your idea just to realize that no one actually wants what you are building. Talking to your customers early means that you can get super early feedback and also see if your initial business plan actually makes sense. You want to see if people would actually pay for your product. The founders who created DoorDash first just created a simple static landing page to test demand and see if people would actually pay for their service.
Here is a great short read about why startups should talk to their potential customers at a very early stage
Delegate tasks and meet often: One of the biggest learning curves was learning how to lead a group of people. I think it's super important to figure out what your other founders are especially good at and put them in a place to show off those skills. For example, it would make no sense to ask a non-technical person to do the technical work. Put people in roles to succeed. Another key thing is to meet and communicate often. If it's hard to either physically or virtually meet, send each other daily updates letting everyone know what you have been up to and if you need help.
Research competitors. This goes hand in hand with validating your product but research what people in the space are already doing. You want to be able to answer the question “What are other people missing?” “Why have other people not thought of what you are doing?”
Put stuff out early. If you managed to validate your solution, put stuff out there and get feedback. Create a first draft of a website, create a mockup of your product, and do anything you can to put something out there that you can get feedback on.
Have a clear business outline. At the end of the day, you need to figure out if you are a for-profit or non-profit business. If you are for-profit, you need to figure out how your product makes money and be able to clearly communicate that.
My work focused on how we can improve the treatment and detection of glioblastoma. If you want to check out my work, here are a couple of pieces of content that we produced.
Here is a website.
Here is a video of me actually pitching our solution at TKS in front a panel of judges.
It truly is amazing how much you can learn in a month. I found that I had a really solid understanding of this field and the basics of how to start a business by the time the month was over. Although upon later inspection I realized that I may have simplified some aspects of the issue, this still was an amazing exercise that taught me a lot.
TKS Demo Day
With TKS concluding, I had a super exciting opportunity to present all the work that I had done throughout the year. Being able to practice presenting is something that I look forward to because it is a skill that I really want to master. I think that learning how to talk in front of a crowd and be able to communicate effectively is super valuable no matter where you go in life. My director hosted an event at Betaworks and it was the first time that I was able to present at a real event and talk in front of random people. I was actually super nervous because it was the biggest crowd that I presented in front of and I honestly felt the pressure.
Honestly, while it wasn’t my best performance, I think experiences like these are super valuable in learning. Every presentation can’t be perfect, but it's important to reflect, analyze your mistakes, and then improve upon them. Regardless, it was an amazing experience and it gave me a taste of what it's like to present on a real stage. I got to meet tons of really cool people and it was great to show my parents all that I learnt and did.
A few tips that I learned from this experience:
Practice, practice, practice: The only way to be confident on the stage is to know that you have practiced and done all you can. You need to simulate the real thing multiple times before presenting it for real. That was probably my biggest mistake as I should have been more strict in how I practice. In other words, practice how you play.
Talk conversationally. A big mistake that I was taught was to talk in this sort of high and then low tone. This way of talking makes you sound rehearsed and frankly boring. What I recently learned is that you need to learn how to present in a conversational and more casual tone. Instead of sounding super rehearsed, you should have a flat tone. In other words, you should start the sentence with the same tone that you finish it. Imagine that you are just having a conversation with the audience instead of speaking to them.
Be simpler. On the same note as the conversational tone, I realized that my presentation was sometimes too wordy. A good exercise that you can do is after writing your script or plan, pick a certain section and then summarize everything that you said as concisely as possible. Without sacrificing key details, you might as well use that summary in place of the previous content. A great presentation strikes a balance between specificity and concision, which is easier said than done but absolutely necessary.
Content of the Month
“Candide” by Voltaire. These past two months I have been far more focused on reading books and this is one that I quite enjoyed. It is an excellent short book which is considered Voltaire’s magnum opus.
“Super System” by Doyle Brunson. This is a fun book if you are into poker or applied math in general. I have played poker for fun with my friends for a while now and this is a great book if you want to master the game or if you are just interested in statistics because poker is quite a fascinating game from the math perspective.
Well, that is all for me in this entry. I hope to see you again in two months which will include all that I will do throughout June and July. Now that the summer has begun I have a lot more time to devote to project work and I am honestly quite excited.
Until the next episode, signing off.