👇 Get connected with Aarya, Veda, and i3
Check out i3 Competition
💡Some ‘A-ha’ moments from the podcast
Find your WHY and accountability partners to keep you going as an entrepreneur
“I did it with Aarya because I needed someone to push me, and get stuff done. It was our way of keeping each other accountable”
“After the first season of the competition, it was so inspirational to us to see the results, and it is something we wanted to continue even beyond high school”
When looking for a co-founder, a great way to test working relationships is to work together in other situations e.g. at work / at school
“When you are working with someone, you need to have the faith that you know they will put in the work. We have seen each other work in different environments, and we kind of knew how we would work together”
Build a ‘Board of Advisors’ that can provide timely input and advise you through difficult times
“We recognize that we are young founders, so it was really important to build a strong network of mentors for ourselves. We have a slate of partner organisations to not just source business owners, but also executives to coach us as founders…taking little things into account all the way to giving us operational tips to implement”
Target funders who have a natural tendency and/or history of funding founders with your background
“We didn’t think about funding at all in the first cycle of the competition as we were focused on understanding the different incentives of students and small business owners. [When we realized we need a prize money], we did a lot of research and found mission-aligned organisations that were funding young changemakers i.e. high schoolers like us. It’s harder to apply as a 16-year old to the Federal Government, so targeting people who were already champions of young people helped”
When starting/operating a non-profit, speak the language of ‘Value’. It takes you far to communicate and ask for value vs make things sound transactions.
“Value for value is truly the way we operate in this non-profit. It’s about the opportunities we can create. And if we talk in terms of value, we hope we can be given value in return and we can share that with more people”
💬 Aarya and Veda’s advice to women who want to build businesses on their own terms
“Find that network - even if you are young, you don’t realise how many people are going to come out to help you. Ask for help, ask for advice so that you can know more about your business and learn from people who have done it before…Be able to advocate not only for yourself but only the mission that you are working towards. As a woman or a girl, there are a lots more barriers to entry, but have faith in yourself. You’ll be really impressed by how far you can go and what you can do”
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