In spring of 2017, I decided to go to a startup school. There are many incubators around the world and it’s a door to venture capitalists. The programs are rigorous and only a few make it out successfully. Thousands of startups apply to these schools, perhaps a few hundred selected, and only about one hundred receive a test. The test is designed by many prestigious school, with the ability to weigh in on both be present and intuitive, both in known and known situations. When I started taking the test, middle way through, my thought was, “are they fucking with me?” Then thought of quitting came to my mind, but still I continued on taking the test. Not knowing how I am going to score. I turned in the test, fully completely. I found out a week later that I passed the exam. Only ⅓ of startups pass the exam.

My startup was selected, 1 of 38 total startups were in the program. We started in april and grinded away in all aspects of building a startup. Presented our ideas to many investors and also received great mentorship. The name of my company, foodal. My previous startup, mytweetmark and homecookme, one that helped with social media and marketing, and the other with marketing for local food and farmers markets. The best part of building a startup is networking with co-founders, investors, business folks, engineers and many other in the space. In our incubator program, we met with many like-minded folks, went out for drinks, mingled and discussed our ideas. We worked on my startup idea very hard, spending about 80 hours a week, for three months. The experience is very similar to shark tank on television, where the investors and heavy on the pitch, critique, and displaying all forms of risk factors.

There is no win or loss in building a startup. The lessons learned are invaluable, and sets up for next phase of life. It is an honor itself, to be given the opportunity to build a startup, especially under the guidance of venture capitalists.