Blind Entrepreneurship With Johnathan Grzybowski

Reach Out To Mentors and Take Advantage of Opportunities David was a senior in high school and just wanted to play basketball! He wasn't involved or even cared about the tech scene, nor did he care about startups. After finding a love for writing, he used his story to get in front of some of the biggest and best entrepreneurs in the world! From David's experiences, he now has a column for Huffington Post and also Forbes Magazine. Don't Be Afraid To Try "Some of the hardest things to do is getting over the initial part of your business, you're struggling and you don't know what you're doing. So, just do it!" Says David Ongchoco #Timestamp 00:30- Introduction 04:30- Struggles in Creating YouthHack 09:45- Failure 13:00- Habits During David's Entrepreneurial Career 15:35- Tech Needs/Resources 21:00- Formula to Success? 24:30- Reach Out to Mentors and Take Advantage of Opportunities, Focus, and Don't Be Afraid To Try 27:00- RAMEN! David Ongchoco Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidongchoco Twitter

You Don't Know Anything "Everything you think you know, you don't. Go out and solicit advice. If you don't understand an industry or if you question what you're doing or something within your company happens and you are unsure of. Go out and find people that can answer the question." Said Zubin Teherani. Sell It Before You Build It "Sometimes you think it's (your business) a great idea, and you want to pursue it, but the only real validation are your customers. With Leagueside before we started, we sold something we didn't have. We sold it and then our customers totally saw the value in what we were bringing to the table and then finally we realized we were onto something." Said Zubin Teherani. Never Stop Learning "Surround yourself with brilliant people. Read or listen to everything you can. Constantly have that want to get better and if you're passionate, things will fall into place." Said Zubin Teherani Zubin wants to also discuss how important Venture for America meant to him

Take Risks Ian's risk was his decision to drop out. That decision weighed a lot on him and it took time for him to make sure it was the right thing to do. Ian thinks that if you want to be successful and to move the needle, you need to take risks to separate yourself from the pack. Make Sacrifices There are so many things you want out of life, but you have to be able to prioritize them in order of importance. In order to make things happen, you need to make sacrifices on the things that don't matter at that exact moment. By doing this, it will lead to the things that are in order of importance to happen first. If you want to be successful, you’re not going to get the nice house, or the nice car, right away, but you will if you work at it. Shut Up For A Year Entrepreneurship is the buzz word right now. A year ago, Ian was using the word entrepreneurship quite often. Ian suggests to go into hiding and work on your business, for a year or so. Go to work, get stuff done, and when you believe you're ready or at le

Rafael grew up in Brooklyn, but went to school at Drexel University. During his time in college, he lived with a roommate. Him and his roommate were sick and tired of Grubhub, it wasn't on demand. Their final frustration came from ordering from one of Philadelphia's favorite cookie joints called Insomnia Cookies. They order cookies from the popular cookie chain, and received their order two hours later. They looked at themselves thinking, "It has to be an easier solution than this." Six months later, they had a business, an app, and over one hundred items in a warehouse. GoPuff is currently in five cities, they are currently expanding their business into Denver, Colorado and are hopeful to expand to a a new city every two months! Fully Commit to What You're Doing "There is no doing it part time! If you truly believe in something, just quit." Hire People Who Are Smarter Than You "You don't know everything. If you hire someone and they are doing the job right, get out of their way!"

Share Your Idea With Everyone A lot of entrepreneurs think that people are going to steal it. Yeah people can steal your idea, but no one will have as much passion or desire to move things forward. Lead By Example You being the CEO/Co-Founder, your attitude consistently reflects back onto your team. Being the leader you have to be the first one in the office and the least to leave. You also have to be eager to learn more be optimistic. Showing emotion may make people nervous that the business isn't doing as well as they think it's doing, or it may make them uncomfortable with the direction that you're trying to take the business. Don't Quit (Taken from Minute 15) Andrew suggests to just dive right into your business. When Habitat started, they knew nothing about tech. They barely used apps, but every day they worked on their business, the vision became more clear. When creating your business, you should be paranoid as hell, that someone is catching up or working on beating you out! This amount of pressure has

There is a growing trend of freelancers throughout the world. Although her beginning is very similar to hear, her path has many interesting twist and turns. Melissa started her entrepreneur career during her studies of marketing at Temple University. After college, she worked at a few ad agencies before she went completely on her own as a freelancer. She felt comfortable with her decision to become a freelancer because she likes traveling, she likes the ability to make her own schedule, being own boss, and of course all of the additional life style perks of a talented individual who freelances. During her time helping some of the best marketing companies throughout the world, Melissa started her own online magazine called Femme and Fortune. Femme and Fortune currently has over 90 contributors discussing things like dating, culture, lifestyle, tech, travel, and so much more. All for the millennial female! Melissa's next business is a co-working space, all for women. "Creating the Hive Philly has been a li

At the young age of 16, where most kids are out playing video games or trying to attend their friends sweet 16 parties, Zach Medina created Shockwave Entertainment. Which was a party planning and entertainment company that helped teenagers and their families with their parties. At the early of his career, Zach didn't know he was an entrepreneur. As a kid, Zach was always looking for ways to make money, even before his first official business he decided to become a caddy. In which as a kid 7th grader, he carried golf bags that gave him $50 a day! He thought "shoot, I can do something here!" Next, eBay came out and like any hustler/young entrepreneur would do, he started selling stuff on the platform. He would buy broken iPods, fix them, and then later resell them for profit. Not once during this time, Zach thought he was an entrepreneur. It didn't dawn on him until people started calling him one. During his time at high school he ran track. There he met one of his first DJ's that helped him start his

Let's face it. Is it really always sunny in Philadelphia? Despite what is being said on TV, we have bad days and at times its gloomy. For David, the sun is always shining, regardless of where he is throughout the country. David Feinman found himself in an interesting predicament. David wasn't looking to become an entrepreneur, you can argue that it found hm. David declares himself as an "accidental entrepreneur." During his studies, David thought he wanted to be a physical therapist. Eventually during his studies in both high school and college, he found running to be his vice. Not only in the sense of what calms him but also motivates him to be better. In his old neighborhood of Bucks County, David and one of his good friends wanted to run a marathon, but they realized that there wasn't any kind of marathon within their community. So, they created one. That one marathon segued into a few other businesses and eventually landed on the Zombie Run. The Zombie Run toured the entire country where David i

At the wise age of 23, Chalmers Brown has accomplished more in his short life than most have in their entire lives! Due.com is now Chalmers’ fifth business, all in which has a particular theme of engineering. Now, not engineering in the sense that he’s creating something tangible but more so building infrastruces/processes and procedures to help people become more efficient throughout their day. Chalmers started his first business in college, with multiple failures and of course successes he’s created Due.com Due.com is time tracking and invoicing software targeting small businesses and freelancers. Due is on a mission to make payments awesome! Due.com helps these individuals keep track of their time and lets them invoice like a pro. You can keep your times organized by clients, projects and tasks. The system itself is beautiful. The user interface is stellar, Listen to the charismatic advice from Chalmers at the 15 minute mark of this interview: Don’t be afraid to get started Chalmers feels like too many peo

If you can't tell how much passion this young man has, just wait until you listen to the interview itself. Josh has been creating businesses since he was in high school. Listen and feel the electricity from Josh. You can learn more about his three pieces of advice he'd give to millennials at the 21 minute mark of this interview: It Took 8 Years To Be An Overnight Success Jack Dorsey said it best. There are a ton of entrepreneurs that look like an overnight success, but more than likely, they have been grinding for years on end. It's just you either haven't paid attention to them, or they are finally getting their big break. Josh is one of those that have worked their butt off for years and are finally getting the attention that they deserve. Even at the ripe age of 22, he's accomplished a lot. Josh mentions that when you're starting a business, it's ok to want to be rich, be your own boss or other ways to fill up the ego. Every entrepreneur has a goal similar to that, even if they don't openly admit it. Money

Besides having cool hair, Guy is an extraordinary gentleman that is passionate about making change. Some may call him a friend, others may call him family, but I would like to classify Guy as a nomad. This young man has traveled the world and has reaped the benefits of learning from different cultures. Now, some people can say in confidence that they are focused individuals, but Guy on the other hand is on a completely different level. Guy, is laser focused on developing a better product for his company Publishizer. Originally from Australia, currently living in California (UPDATE: Guy is currently living in Bali), Guy has been working on Publishizer for 2 years now. Publishizer is a crowdfunding platform for authors and publishers. As of December 2015, Publishizer has funded $430,000+ in author earnings. Publishizer core mission is to connect authors to publishers. It has also become the first ever crowd publishing website. Get Started! There isn't a perfect idea! Guy mentions that you need to get started. S

Listen closely to Rajat's real life examples about finding the right co-founder and his current struggles in his business. You can learn more around the 22 minute mark of this interview: Don't Quit Some of the best tech companies in the world started while working for another great startup. Rajat mentions that if you have a dying passion for creating something great, you will find time to not only work on the project during working hours, but you'll also spend the extra time to finish code and begin marketing your company, outside of normal working hours. For example, Third Eye may have the chance of being incredibly successful but if not, Rajat's safety net is his education. Rajat mentions to don't just quit. Create an MVP first, fail, and see if your efforts will be worth while in the end. Finding That Right Co-Founder To his first point in not quitting, there is a chance that when finding a co-founder, he or she may not work out. In the beginning of Third Eye, Rajat spent much of his time trying to build t

Conrad Benner is easily one of the most gifted, artistic, creative, and passionate individuals I am still getting to know. Judging by his Instagram content, Conrad is a huge fan of street art, but more specifically Philadelphia street art. His photography consists of beautiful images of the city skyline, random streets with perfect shading and lighting, and even the occasional people walking around their natural habitat. If you would like to get inside the creative mind of Conrad, you can follow his blog called StreetsDept. Whats unique about StreetsDept. is the the fact that it's not ad driven. The content is driven based on current trends and what's going on throughout the fun city of Philadelphia. StreetsDept.'s content has been been around for over 5 years now. He is currently working on a new artist interview series with Neighborhood Films and Paradigm design. Although rarely featured behind the camera, Conrad has been featured Technically Philly, PhillyVoice, PhillyMag and much more. Here are Conrad's 3

You can find him under the username PadRagnarok. For Nick, the years he spent after college wasn’t as fulfilling as some may find it to be. He was trying to get a job but was never truly satisfied. While looking for a job, he realized he was ultimately searching for something that he didn’t want to be a part of. He would come home from his job and he realized his life was going down a path that wasn’t favorable for him. So he decided to “leave the matrix”. Because it was in his nature to not follow the norm, he started a website that focused around his favorite video game; StarCraft. A few months later his first business was started; EZ StarCraft. Here are Nick’s three pieces of advice he’d give to another entrepreneur (You can hear this more in the 14 minute mark): Shut Up And Do It No excuses here. Just get out there and do it! Nick mentions that you have to put your head down and accomplish your dreams. Write down a list of things you’d like to accomplish and go out and just do it. Don’t wait a couple of w

On this episode Andrew discusses: Be Resilient, Look At The Root, Do Not be Afraid of a No, Think 5 Steps Ahead, and so much more. Enjoy the first episode! Be Resilient A lot of people expect you to fail! One of the things you have to overcome early on in your career is your emotions. Something that may be hard to understand fully, but your closest friends and even family don’t really understand what its like to be an entrepreneur. So their most natural instinct is to criticize you. Don’t take it personal. They just don't know/understand the root of why you're doing what you're doing. Look At The Root When you understand the root of a problem, you're not upset with what comes out of the solution. Whenever you find a problem, you’ll never go wrong if you look at the sub level of the situation. If you do that, you will be able to be more resilient. Do Not be Afraid of a No Entrepreneurs are always hearing the word No! Do something random throughout your day to get a yes. While talking to your significant other,