A huge motivation for applying for an entrepreneurship course was the opportunity for me to learn how to present myself confidently as well as being able to work on my public speaking. Being coached by Nathan Gold, one on one and also through his workshop, was really helpful. He helped me realise my weakness of not engaging or trying to connect with an audience enough, through delivery and also content. Nathan suggested that I take a much more personal approach especially for my pitch as I am extremely suitable and familiarised enough to talk about this topic. Through practicing with peers, I discovered that talking about a project that I am really passionate about and talking to an engaged audience were two extremely important things for me to be comfortable and present well. I felt that I was able to take what I learnt through this and apply it to my final pitch. Although I did not place in the final pitches, pitching and receiving feedback were very rewarding.
Another really big lesson I learnt from this program is the important of networking. Throughout the program, we were encouraged to “hustle” on the side of working on our startup and attending the workshops – it isn’t every day that we are in San Francisco. This hustle refers to reaching out to people you are interested in meeting, whether in person at an event or online on LinkedIn. Especially in the startup ecosystem, this is the easiest way to succeed there can only be a limited degree of separation. If you try hard enough, you can reach out to people and soon enough someone you know knows someone who knows someone who knows Elon Musk.
Watching one of my peers on the Hacker Exchange take advantage of this opportunity and go as far to receive a job offer from a company she really wanted to work at was really motivating and inspiring and encouraged me to seek out my opportunities. I had the opportunity to attend a panel and networking event for women in the space industry which aligns with all of my interests. At this event, I was able to make many valuable connections from talking to CEOs of successful satellite startups, to talking to other aspiring female engineers in the space industry. This experience, and hearing other people gain so much from networking, really motivates me to continue this mindset of hustling and not being to afraid to reach out to ask someone for a chat. From what I learnt about networking from this experience, everyone is willing to help, but if you don’t ask no one will magically present you with opportunities.
The Hacker Exchange 1.8 