858: Helping MORE entrepreneurs GLOBALLY w/ Catapult x Catalyst @ UPenn's GSE

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento.

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But this is a very special episode that we've been so excited about, because this is our formal announcement of a new partnership that we're so excited about here at the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast, because for eight years, we have been so dedicated to bringing the realest, the rawest and the most actionable entrepreneurial content to all of you, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs all over the world, in over 150 countries, and we are so grateful for all the different entrepreneurs that have come on, all the different people who have been part of our community to spread that message and help us impact even more entrepreneurs.

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And today we're so excited about our partnership with a group of people and an academic institution and really a group that is so dedicated to exactly the same mission.

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So today is our formal announcement that we've partnered up in a content partnership with the team behind Catapult.

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Now Catapult is a new ed tech virtual accelerator by Catalyst at the University of Pennsylvania School of Education, graduate School of Education.

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Now Catalyst is a center for global education innovation at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

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They connect people and ideas to develop new ways to advance education in novel and meaningful directions.

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The content platform that they've put together.

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It's free of charge to entrepreneurs all over the world.

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They are bringing some entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast episodes inside that content platform to further distribute these real conversations.

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And speaking of real conversations, we're welcoming on two very incredible people at the University of Pennsylvania community Nene, who is a current student there, who she's not just a student, she's an aspiring investor.

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She is an entrepreneur from having done her gap year and she's got her hands in all sorts of entrepreneurial projects to uplift not just what she's doing but bring valuable content and lessons and strategies and resources to so many other entrepreneurs around the world, as well.

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As John Gamba, who is the entrepreneur in residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

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This is someone who has been a serial entrepreneur himself.

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He's one of us, as is Nene, and we so respect the work that John is doing to help mold these young minds, whether in a classroom setting or in the practical setting which is so beautiful, about what they do over at Catapult and at Catalyst at University of Pennsylvania.

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So I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview today with John and Nene.

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All right, john and Nene, we are so excited not only to kick off a partnership with you all, but we're excited to have you on the show.

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So first things first, welcome to being on the Airwaves.

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Hey, it's great to be here.

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Thank you so much for having us.

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Heck yeah, obviously I teased a little bit of the great work that you both are doing together, but I also know that individually, you're both up to some extraordinary things.

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So, ladies, first Nene, I'd love for you to kick it off and give us a little bit of your background, because I know that even outside the classroom, you've already done extraordinary things.

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So who's Nene?

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How'd you start doing all these things?

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Then, john, we'll kick it straight over to you afterwards.

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Thank you, brian.

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Thank you so much for having me and John here on your show today.

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A little bit about me I'm Nene.

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I'm currently a junior here at Wharton, studying finance and ESG for business.

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I was born and raised in Bangkok, thailand, and growing up here in Thailand, I recognize that there's a lot of issues within education, especially educational inequity.

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So I was really actively involved in high school volunteering teaching English to local Thai staff at school, as well as leading the technology council in high school, where I co-founded the Interschool Technology Conference, bringing together students and teachers in Thailand to really understand the value of technology and enhancing students' learning, recognizing the value of technology.

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I didn't initially know what startups or investment really was when I was in high school, but I knew that I really wanted to drive change in education.

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So I decided to take a gap year before coming to Penn and that was when I was really fortunate, after sending a bunch of cold emails, to join Disrupt Technology Venture, which is an edtech fund based in Thailand, and I was able to help edtech companies grow through the pandemic, seeing the significance that education technology has on not only learners but also educators who are trying to improve their education, pedagogy and things like that to students that they're teaching.

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And I was really fortunate to met John through one of my high school teachers in Thailand and was introduced to him, and John became one of the guest speakers at one of our conferences that we hosted here in Thailand and John really shared his wisdom in founding EdTech Ventures as well as supporting EdTech entrepreneurs.

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So when I came to Penn, I reached out to John and asked if I could still continue to be involved in the EdTech community here at Penn as well as globally, and John was really kind to let me be a part of Catapult forming the EdTech Virtual Accelerator here at Penn GSE, and I've been a part of Catapult since my freshman year and now I'm a rising senior.

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So over the past three years I've had the honor and privilege of working with John, who's been an amazing mentor and supporting me through this EdTech venture.

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But in addition to you know my involvement at Penn GSE and being a student here at Penn, I'm also actively involved with working with venture partners, vc funds around the US, where I help source and diligence investment opportunities in the space and obviously pushing for support of edtech companies here to really scale the growth of ed learning as I'm a part of Catapult and working alongside John Gamba, who's been an amazing mentor and supporter of this ed tech community.

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Yeah, brian, I mean, how do I top that?

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We call Nene our secret weapon at Catalyst at Penn GSE.

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Great background, nene.

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Great to see you.

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Thank you, brian, for having us on.

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My name is John Gamma.

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I'm the entrepreneur in residence and director of innovative programs at Catalyst at PennGSE.

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I'm also a serial entrepreneur who has founded, funded, overseen several ed tech companies in my 30-year career and just honored to provide support to hundreds of entrepreneurs worldwide through our Catalyst at Penn GSE programming.

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Our vision and mission is to advance impact, innovation and equity in worldwide education and we do that through a continuum of programming meetups, boot camps, my entrepreneur in residence hours, our signature program, the Milk and Pen GSE business plan competition, which is now in its 15th year.

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In that period of time, we've supported 1,500 entrepreneurs from over 50 countries not 150, brian, but 150 countries and those companies have received $2 million in non-dilutive capital and have gone on to raise $200 million in follow-on capital.

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So the impact is really there.

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Nene and I are so honored and humbled to work with so many purpose-driven entrepreneurs.

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During the pandemic, we went out and polled those entrepreneurs and said what more could we provide?

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And what we heard loud and clear was more support and more flexible support from mentors and advisors, given the fact that our entrepreneurs were from around the world and the pandemic had taken its toll.

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So Catapult, our first and only 100% virtual accelerator for ed tech entrepreneurs, was launched, which connects ed tech entrepreneurs to learning resources, strategic advisors, classroom practitioners and academic researchers, all within an entrepreneurial community of practice.

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Catapult now has 100 members who have access to learning resources from partner content providers, including the WANTrepreneur franchise, which we're thrilled about partnering and announcing that partnership today.

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A wealth of content, all taggable, all personalized to the needs of the entrepreneur, and then our advanced member track, which will be announced in the next month, which will take the experience of Catapult to a new level, providing even more support through the lens of leadership, product market and finance.

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So we're very excited about the work we're doing.

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We're humbled to have Nene working with us as our content manager.

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She was humble in her bio.

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She's also award-winning, taking home a new award at the University of Pennsylvania for her leadership impact across the campus, and just thrilled about the work we do and excited to be here today.

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Yes, gosh, I so appreciate and love the overview from the both of you and John.

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I'm glad that you were the one to humble brag a little bit for Nene, because she has been extraordinary.

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From the very first time that we connected to talk about the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast being a content partner, Nene's excellence and brilliance has just shined through and for me, as someone who started my first business after my freshman year of college, seeing young entrepreneurs committed not just in the classroom but outside the classroom, it's to me that's magical and that's where great ideas happen and that's where great execution happens, especially when I'm going to give both of you credit here when you marry that to access to resources, access to real life conversations and, John, you kept saying words like mentorship and strategic advisory and Nene, hearing your perspective on bringing these resources to people all over the world.

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I think that that's a really powerful thing that I remember when I was a student.

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I graduated from college in 2011 in Boston and I was already three years into my business journey.

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I didn't know where to find other entrepreneurs, and so, John, hearing that you bring with yourself a wealth of entrepreneurial experience firsthand, and, Nene, you're out there not just learning about it, but you're also doing it and networking with others, accelerating your own path.

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I love that this is the academic conversation we're having here today.

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It's certainly changed since I was a student, so and networking with others, accelerating your own path.

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I love that this is the academic conversation we're having here today.

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It's certainly changed since I was a student, so I'd love your perspectives on this, Nene.

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From your perspective as a student, what these types of resources?

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How do they complement and accelerate the learning that you're doing inside the classroom?

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And then, John, bringing in what I was starving for when I was a student the real life entrepreneurial experience.

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What's that like?

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Imparting it on young minds that I think aren't bogged down by all the logistics of why something may not work?

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For sure no.

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Thank you, brian, for your kind words, and I would like to say that you know, having access to these resources and content not only for young entrepreneurs at Penn and someone like myself, but also entrepreneurs globally who are building their ad tech ventures around the world it's really significant for them to have access to these types of resources because, as you mentioned, a lot of people are building and, as John polled, all of our companies in our network.

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A lot of the things that they need is really access to freely access resources and content that are really tailored towards what their needs are.

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So, for example, if these EdTech ventures are looking for specific type of content, such as sales and marketing, we have content that are tagged as well as filtered for them to really go directly to the content that fits their needs the most, and I feel like these types of more personalized content, as well as a wide variety of resources that we have in both audio, video and blog format, allow for them to really be able to understand what their unique needs are and find content that best match their needs, and I think that helps accelerate their process in developing their ventures, getting their questions answered through these resources that we are able to provide, as well as connecting with others in the community, because I think, growing up in Thailand, I didn't know exactly what types of content and resources are available globally or what people were building in other countries, but I think having Catapult allows for entrepreneurs globally to understand what types of companies people are building abroad and really understand how to replicate or using best practices of companies and successful business founders around the world to really build their products that are localized towards their countries, as well as being able to bring their ventures to the next level.

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And I think you know these kinds of things are free to access and we want to really democratize access to these types of content.

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And for me, as a young entrepreneur helping support these tech ventures around the world, I really see the impact that we're able to create and, honestly, really honored to be a part of the ecosystem and to have partners that are really supportive of our platform and allowing us to share the content to these amazing entrepreneurs who are building.

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So, brian, talk about humbling.

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You said you graduated from college in 2011.

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I don't think Nene was born yet, so that's although she did have a gap year, so it's probably pretty close.

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That's an amazing overview of our programming and sort of the why behind Catalyst and Catapult.

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I'll break it down a little bit in terms of the research right, we're a research university and talk about the research that we did and what we learned in polling our entrepreneurs.

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So, if we break down the entrepreneurs on our platform to ideation or very early stage entrepreneurs those who have an MVP and are actually out there testing, co-creating, co-constructing their applications, solving the world's most serious and seminal issues in education and then our Series A and beyond entrepreneurs.

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We kind of classified the feedback we got from each of them and incorporated that feedback and that research into the design and development of Catapult.

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And what we learned is the ideation stage, ed tech entrepreneurs globally were really interested in sort of that making sense of a lean canvas, making sense of a lean startup, making sense of this idea of how do we fail fast, fail smart, how do we develop and iterate an idea and make sure that the business fundamentals are behind that.

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What is the problem?

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What is the solution?

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Tam Sam Sam, key metrics and we're supporting a lot of educators turned entrepreneurs who have a lot of experience in the classroom but really need a lot of support with those business fundamentals.

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We do not believe in a 6,500 page business plan.

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We really believe in getting intentional with a lean canvas and being really specific about developing the insights around that problem and solution and doing the customer discovery necessary to really validate the value proposition, the MVP stage, which is probably the bulk of our entrepreneurs someone who had an idea, got the business fundamentals right, have an MVP and are starting to sell and maybe even raise a little capital.

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They came to us and said we really want more insight into what we consider our secret sauce at Catalyst at Penn GSC, which is research to practice or efficacy based or evidence based design and development of a product or service.

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And that gets into asking the entrepreneur who has an MVP what is the underlying or foundational research that you've used to substantiate your value proposition, so that when you're asked by an investor oh how did you come up with this virtual tutor?

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Or how did you come up with this mental health application that's going to help students?

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If you can convey that we started by looking at the two sigma problem from Bloom, or if we were looking at some of Pam Cantor's work, who's in our platform on trauma informed practices for underrepresented students.

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That's a great start in terms of knowing that this is evidence or research based.

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Then, on the flip side, when an MVP is developed, we ask what is the evaluative model that's put into place, where you're measuring the impact and can you show that you are actually delivering the measurable impact that you say that you're able to do over time?

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Because that usually leads to more investability, sustainability and scalability.

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So this research basis and research to practice is something we work with our entrepreneurs.

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And third, the more the series A and beyond and we talked about this earlier mentorship.

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We find that a lot of entrepreneurs find it I wouldn't say easy, but a lot of them get to that 1 million, 2 million, 3 million, even 5 million in ARR annual recurring revenue.

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But once you go beyond that it's really tough to think about.

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How do you get from $5 to $50 million or $50 million to $100 million in recurring revenue?

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And in that case they all said we need somebody who has done it before, we need a mentor, we need an advisor with the kind of domain expertise to help us put a cross-functional team together and help think about the key dynamics in HR and operations and sales and entrepreneurs to a mentor, a personalized mentor who meets the needs of that entrepreneur, who's going beyond series A and can hit sustainability and scale with intention.

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Yeah, gosh, you're saying all of our favorite words here at the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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That word intentionality, John, it's something that is so prevalent in all the work that we do, because I always argue growth doesn't happen by mistake and I've always been a big fan of that.

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Concept of success leaves clues.

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Look at any successful business, any successful person, anything.

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Look at the actual buildings, the infrastructure that creates our cities and our society.

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None of those things just magically appeared by mistake.

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There is that level of intentionality that I love, the fact that you both are spearheading inside what you're doing with Catapult is bringing that stuff to others, and this is a question.

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It's funny in almost 900 episodes I've never asked this question here on this podcast and it feels a bit silly because we say the E word so much, we say entrepreneurship so much and I can share from my own perspective, coming from an immigrant family is that the word I use when I talk about entrepreneurship is amplify.

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Entrepreneurship allows us to amplify everything.

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And, John, coming back to your point about the Milken competition, you've awarded over $2 million to over 50 educational entrepreneurs.

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Those ventures, to show how much that's amplified, have gone on to raise over $200 million in follow-up, follow-on capital, and so that is amplified.

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If you follow these traces here, the three of us are just three dreamers who are talking to entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs in over 150 countries.

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It's crazy, the impact that we can have which leads me to this question that I've never asked.

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Why entrepreneurship?

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What is it about entrepreneurship for each of you?

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John, I know you've had an incredible career.

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I'll humble brag for you for a little bit.

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You were a strategy consultant for KPMG.

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You've performed research and written articles for NASA, just casually bringing in some rocket science here, and so Nene for you as someone who grew up not exposed to this side of the world as far as business goes, not geographically, but your eyes have been open to a whole world of possibilities.

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So I'm just going to throw this broad question at the two of you and see where you take it.

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Why entrepreneurship?

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Well, I'll take this one first, because I always ask the question in my teaching.

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I teach a course at the Wharton School in the leadership in the business world of young, rising entrepreneurs, high school students who are going to go to college, and I always open because most of them have had some entrepreneurial experiences.

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What is entrepreneurship?

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And the real smart Wharton young aspiring students raise their hand.

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They say, oh, coming up with a product or service or taking a risk, and those are all good answers in terms of what and why entrepreneurship.

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But then I always say here's my definition of entrepreneurship.

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And they kind of lean in and they think that I'm going to pull out Michael Porter or something, some seminal researcher in strategy and entrepreneurship and I say how many of you have used ChatGPT in the last year school year?

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And 100% of the students raised their hand that they've used ChatGPT.

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And I say, well, last year in giving the same lecture when I asked that question, nearly no one has raised their hand and so you got 100% adoption of a technology in 365 days.

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I said that's really entrepreneurship.

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And I define it by saying entrepreneurship is innovation happening at the speed of imagination, supported by research, evaluation and iterative design.

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They kind of lean in and I have to say it and give them examples Innovation at the speed of imagination, supported by research, evaluation and iterative design research.

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Then I ask what's the most important slide in your PowerPoint deck when you're presenting to investors?

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And they raise their hand.

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They say my team, the financials, the competitive landscape, and I say yeah, those are all really important.

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But I think the most important thing when you're presenting is the footnotes.

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How are you substantiating your value proposition with citations and evidence and research Critically important.

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And they write that down.

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And I said, whenever I look at a PowerPoint, if somebody makes a claim and they can't back it up with research, I really look at that with some necessary criticism, evaluation again, what is the impact that you're trying to deliver?

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How do you align to standards in the case of ed, tech and education?

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How are you looking at quantitative and qualitative measures of success that are delivered through random controls, trials or mixed methods?

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Research If you can't measure it, you shouldn't do it.

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I always cite John Doerr and his Measure what Matters books.

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I think it's required reading.

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Huge fan of John Doerr, big fan of OKRs, objectives and Key Results.

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And then iterative design.

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You look at Conmigo, you look at some of the greatest inventions that are coming out right now using AI and education, they'll tell you that it wasn't what happened in the engineer's room that really created the magic.

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It's what happened when they got out there.

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They left the building and they tested and measured and iterated on whatever they were developing.

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In case of Conmigo I cite them because I'm working in part with some of their design and development team it was through the work with students that they didn't really see the raw value of AI and machine learning.

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But when the students started saying why is this important, that I'm learning this, that they started seeing the magic of Conmigo and they've built that button, why is that important?

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To spark real world problem solving and relevance into the tools that are being built and are at the basis of Khan Academy and the Khanmigo tool, and I think that's fascinating.

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So really thinking about research, really thinking about evaluation and really thinking about iterative design and the co-constructed process, I think really makes for an amazing entrepreneurial process and things that are lessons learned that I didn't have as I was on my entrepreneurial journey.

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I didn't have access to researchers like we have access to at the University of Pennsylvania and I wasn't thinking intentionally about the evaluative models.

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I was trying to.

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I was kind of getting lucky, closing deals, delivering value, doing some polls, but I wasn't intentional, brian, in those areas.

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And I think the more that entrepreneurs can be intentional the better.

00:23:39.136 --> 00:23:43.191
And that kind of leads to entrepreneurial mindset, which we talk a lot about.

00:23:44.133 --> 00:23:49.451
Entrepreneurship is how I defined it and the students kind of go off in their own definitions.

00:23:49.451 --> 00:23:54.318
But the entrepreneurial mindset is the actualization of entrepreneurship.

00:23:54.318 --> 00:24:01.140
It's the, it's the, the emotion, and it's what they bring to the body of work that they're doing.

00:24:01.140 --> 00:24:07.598
It's resilience, it's failing fast, it's being perseverant, it's you know this isn't for the faint of heart.

00:24:07.598 --> 00:24:11.167
You know entrepreneurship is about going one for ten.

00:24:11.167 --> 00:24:11.509
Right.

00:24:11.509 --> 00:24:16.391
It's harder than baseball, where 300, you know, three for ten is a good metric in terms of hitting.

00:24:16.391 --> 00:24:24.377
So you have to be really, really comfortable with failure and you have to have a mindset that allows you to.

00:24:24.377 --> 00:24:27.195
And bringing it back to Nene and she can share her.

00:24:27.195 --> 00:24:39.166
That's kind of what I see in a in terms of everything that she's involved in and everything that she's done in her early, early career as a successful entrepreneur and a rising expert in finance.

00:24:40.934 --> 00:24:46.325
Thank you, john, and I don't know how I could top your definition of entrepreneurship in the background.

00:24:46.325 --> 00:24:51.326
But personally, as Brian mentioned, I didn't grow up knowing what entrepreneurship really was.

00:24:51.326 --> 00:24:58.469
My family's all doctors, so I grew up with, you know, really stable what people would view as a stable, I guess, job.

00:24:58.469 --> 00:25:04.989
So I didn't grow up knowing exactly what entrepreneurship was, nor do I really know when I was in high school.

00:25:04.989 --> 00:25:20.779
But I was really actively involved in, you know, founding new projects when I was in high school, founding conferences and leading initiatives, because I really wanted to make change and I thought that being an entrepreneur is really taking what you want to make change and taking actions towards.

00:25:20.779 --> 00:25:28.708
You know, making that change and that's why I was really drawn towards entrepreneurship is that people don't wait for a really long time to make that change.

00:25:28.708 --> 00:25:32.888
They actually take the time to take action and make the impossible possible.

00:25:32.888 --> 00:25:46.662
You know, all the entrepreneurs have had the opportunity of working with really believe in the things they're building, and I think that's something that I'm really fascinated by, because my parents never really thought I would be able to go into finance because they said we don't have any connections in finance.

00:25:46.662 --> 00:25:49.136
But I always ask them, you know why not.

00:25:49.136 --> 00:26:00.832
You know I think it's possible and I think you know making the impossible possible is a trait that entrepreneurs all have and all firmly believe in is that they really want to create change and they want to take actions to recreate that change.

00:26:00.832 --> 00:26:11.698
So I think, being really mission driven, creating revolutionary changes in our community, is that something that entrepreneurs all do, and I think personally in within education.

00:26:12.259 --> 00:26:37.825
When I saw that you know, there's a lot of technology tools that are able to improve students learnings whether that be through my own personal experiences using technology tools in classroom or when I helped my high school actually integrate virtual reality into the curriculum there was a really significant milestone in my lifetime when I was in high school where we literally drafted, you know, a proposal to the school board asking them whether or not they would approve ordering 50 VR headsets to our high school.

00:26:37.825 --> 00:26:48.486
And, you know, talking directly to the learning design curriculum designer to ask them, you know, what do they think about integrating virtual reality into classroom and would they be in support of that or not?

00:26:48.486 --> 00:26:58.634
And after being able to successfully implement that in our high school, I realized that technology really has a lot of value towards improving students educational learning and outcomes.

00:26:58.634 --> 00:27:05.382
As well as helping teachers reduces their workload as well, as you know, helping them enhance their learning, teaching, learning styles as well.

00:27:05.762 --> 00:28:04.007
So I think entrepreneurship within me really stems from my passion to create change within education, and I think being able to take actions towards solving those types of issues is something that spurs my entrepreneurial background, and I'm excited to continue supporting entrepreneurs here within catapult ecosystem as, as well as you know, as an aspiring investor, I think I've always been able to interact with and talk with a lot of entrepreneurs in the Penn GSE community as well as beyond the Penn GSE community, and I'm always fascinated by the new ideas that they're talking about at their building, and it's something that people might think it's impossible to build, but they have really passion and conviction, and I think to have that conviction to build something, to solve certain issues, to build innovative products, is something that I really admire and really excites me, because I like learning about new things every day, and being entrepreneurial is all about learning, all about keeping up to date with the new innovations, and that's something that I hope to continue building and a skill that I will always foster.

00:28:10.256 --> 00:28:13.810
Yes, so well said by the both of you, and really, what I hear layered beneath both of your answers, because you both took it in such different directions.

00:28:13.810 --> 00:28:20.036
But underneath all of this is that entrepreneurial spirit, that testing of the boundaries, the going outside of our comfort zone.

00:28:20.036 --> 00:28:28.502
It's an inevitability in anything that we pursue in life, and so I love the fact that you both brought us there, because it's so revealing.

00:28:28.502 --> 00:28:36.304
John, you used the word a few times, iterative, and that's the thing is that this isn't just you know, you set your sales and you go in that one path and you're going to get to your destination.

00:28:36.304 --> 00:28:41.980
No, we will always have to reorient our sales and that's part of the fun, nene, you alluded to.

00:28:41.980 --> 00:28:47.640
That lifelong pursuit of learning is an essential part of the entrepreneurial journey and I think it's so important.

00:28:47.640 --> 00:28:57.260
So, listeners, in just a minute you already know I'm gonna tee Nene and John up to give you those links to get inside of Catapult and all the other cool resources that they're putting together for you.

00:28:57.615 --> 00:29:06.107
But in typical entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast fashion, I love asking this question at the end of our episodes because I have no idea which direction both of you will take.

00:29:06.107 --> 00:29:08.894
This one as well and that's something actionable.

00:29:08.894 --> 00:29:24.782
From your own experiences and with all the different things that you've seen, the bridges that you've built, nene, and working with so many incredible people and learning from them, john, from your own entrepreneurial career up to this point, I want to ask you guys what's that one takeaway for people thinking?

00:29:24.782 --> 00:29:34.027
The entrepreneurial journey looks like this, and I think you both have already illustrated entrepreneurship it's not a career path, it is a spirit, it is something that we embrace, it's a way of life.

00:29:34.027 --> 00:29:40.718
So, with all of that in mind, what's the one takeaway as we close out this episode that you hope every listener walks away with?

00:29:43.623 --> 00:29:44.443
Go ahead Nene.

00:29:46.287 --> 00:29:52.595
This is a hard one, but I think my main takeaway of being entrepreneurial is to do it.

00:29:52.595 --> 00:29:54.521
I think a lot of us always have ideas.

00:29:54.521 --> 00:29:59.663
We always come up with, you know, really interesting things and thoughts in our heads, especially for me.

00:29:59.663 --> 00:30:02.823
When I talk with my friends, we always talk about new ideas, what if you know?

00:30:02.823 --> 00:30:16.942
But to actually take actions to do it sometimes isn't necessarily easy, because we always look at the alternatives or opportunity costs of, for example, being in school and, you know, taking classes and being able to responsible for other things in life.

00:30:16.942 --> 00:30:33.251
But I think if you have a new idea that you think could be possible or maybe a lot of people think is impossible is to really take the action, to do it and follow your dreams, because there's actually a lot of issues in our world that needs to be solved and without those actions, we won't be entrepreneurs ourselves.

00:30:33.251 --> 00:30:37.503
So if you're really someone who wants to be a successful entrepreneurs is to really do it.

00:30:37.864 --> 00:30:42.922
And second, I would also say that to get a lot of feedback and iterate, as John mentioned.

00:30:42.922 --> 00:30:52.121
I think, working with a lot of investors, talking with a lot of entrepreneurs one of the most important things is getting feedback from your customers from the people you're trying to serve.

00:30:52.121 --> 00:31:06.182
If it's in education, talking to teachers, talking to students, I personally spent a lot of time also volunteering in West Philly schools to really understand the public school system in Philadelphia growing up in Thailand really localized education system.

00:31:06.182 --> 00:31:19.278
Being able to understand your customers and your target audience, getting the feedback and iterate upon that feedback is something that's critically important, and investors always, always ask what is the feedback from your customers and how are you going to iterate upon that?

00:31:19.278 --> 00:31:25.624
So take actions and listen to the feedback of your customers and make sure that your products and services really suit their needs.

00:31:27.597 --> 00:31:29.423
To kind of summarize and build off that.

00:31:29.423 --> 00:31:39.701
I think being a successful entrepreneur requires that you demonstrate the paradox of humility and will, and we talk a lot about this.

00:31:39.701 --> 00:31:41.840
Humility is being coachable.

00:31:41.840 --> 00:31:44.083
Humility is having an inquiry mindset.

00:31:44.083 --> 00:31:45.237
Humility is recognizing that you don't know is having an inquiry mindset.

00:31:45.237 --> 00:31:55.096
Humility is recognizing that you don't know at all whether you're a 23-year-old entrepreneur or a 54-year-old entrepreneur, that you still are coachable, that you have mentors, that you have advisors and that you listen.

00:31:55.798 --> 00:32:06.597
And will is the will to run through walls to be successful, the will to overcome adversity, to be perseverant, to keep fighting, to keep trying to keep doing it.

00:32:06.597 --> 00:32:22.417
As Nene has said, the paradox of humility and will is that we see a lot of entrepreneurs that have a lot of humility and they're coachable and they're learning a lot and they come and they ask questions and they come to office hours, but they don't have the will to do whatever it takes to be successful.

00:32:22.417 --> 00:32:26.567
And I certainly have a lot of entrepreneurs who have the will to be successful.

00:32:26.567 --> 00:32:39.125
They'll run through walls, they'll work 80-hour weeks, but they're not humble, they're not coachable, they don't take direction very well because they want to be Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and be on the cover of Time magazine and their ego gets them.

00:32:39.125 --> 00:32:54.009
It's the ones that have the paradox of both humility and will are the ones that tend to be the most successful, and my experience with working with a lot of rising, aspiring and swinging entrepreneurs.

00:32:54.894 --> 00:32:57.203
Yes, I love the way you phrase that, john.

00:32:57.203 --> 00:32:59.061
I love the baseball analogy in there.

00:32:59.061 --> 00:33:02.803
Coming back to that, one for 10, that's where that will really plays in.

00:33:02.803 --> 00:33:22.050
Sure, if you miss, we did an episode once upon a time about Colonel Sanders, who started KFC, and how he brought his recipe and his idea for fried chicken for the masses to over 1,000 restaurants and kept getting rejected, and I forget the number, but it was something like the 1,034th person said you know what?

00:33:22.050 --> 00:33:23.295
Let's give this a shot.

00:33:23.295 --> 00:33:30.440
Let's bring it to the reality, bring it to the masses, and I think that that's such an important entrepreneurial lesson and a very firm reminder from the two of you.

00:33:30.440 --> 00:33:47.890
And this is so in line with why we here at the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast are committed to bringing real life conversations just like this one to people all over the world five days a week, and why we're so excited and really grateful to be a part of all the incredible stuff that you both are doing inside of Catapult, inside of your content hub.

00:33:47.930 --> 00:33:55.657
So, listeners, I not only have the great pleasure of being part of the content hub, but I have gotten my eyes inside of there.

00:33:55.657 --> 00:34:00.117
I'm a member myself and I'll tell you what in today's world, there's no shortage of information.

00:34:00.117 --> 00:34:02.260
You can find information literally everywhere.

00:34:02.260 --> 00:34:05.265
You can have chat, gpt, dream up some information for you.

00:34:05.265 --> 00:34:24.626
There's a lot of ways to get entrepreneurial information, but what Nene and John and the entire team behind Catapult have done inside of their content hub is really pick content providers and content partners that they trust and that bring this real life advice with that level of intention, and I think that that's such an important takeaway.

00:34:24.626 --> 00:34:26.800
So I know that listeners are going to be keen.

00:34:26.860 --> 00:34:32.744
Obviously, all of our listeners are very deep into personal development and investing in themselves and their own education.

00:34:32.744 --> 00:34:37.003
So, john and Nene, I'd love to pose it to the two of you Drop those links on us.

00:34:37.003 --> 00:34:39.478
What will people find inside of Catapult?

00:34:39.478 --> 00:34:40.661
What are the resources there?

00:34:40.661 --> 00:34:41.826
Who can join?

00:34:41.826 --> 00:34:47.181
I want you to talk about that one potential objection people might have and drop the link on us.

00:34:47.181 --> 00:34:55.556
Where should people go from here to follow along all the incredible work that you're doing to bring entrepreneurship to the masses, both locally and not so locally?

00:34:57.420 --> 00:35:05.490
Yeah, so it's catapultgseupennedu, catapultgseupennedu, catapultgseupennedu.

00:35:05.490 --> 00:35:11.079
And it is free, uh, for anybody who's an aspiring education, ed tech, social impact entrepreneur.

00:35:11.079 --> 00:35:14.786
A lot of great resources, catapultgseupennedu.

00:35:14.786 --> 00:35:18.065
We also have some great resources at catalyst at penn gse.

00:35:18.065 --> 00:35:19.811
So just google catalyst at penn gse.

00:35:19.811 --> 00:35:20.534
Join our newsletter.

00:35:20.534 --> 00:35:33.961
If you're interested in anything regarding global education, entrepreneurship, global education impact and equity, please join us there in our community at Catalyst at PennGSE.

00:35:33.961 --> 00:35:40.503
You can find me at JohnGamba7, at JohnGamba7, on X I still call it Twitter and you can find me on LinkedIn, johngamba.

00:35:40.503 --> 00:35:44.188
I'd love for you to connect with me, ask any questions, sign up for an Entrepreneur in Residence hours.

00:35:44.188 --> 00:35:45.702
We'd love for you to connect with me, ask any questions, sign up for an entrepreneur in residence hours.

00:35:45.702 --> 00:35:51.199
We'd love to connect with you and I'll let Nene provide some of the insight on her handles.

00:35:52.686 --> 00:35:52.967
For sure.

00:35:52.967 --> 00:35:53.730
No thanks, john.

00:35:53.730 --> 00:35:58.242
And to add, on Catapult, we have over 30 content partners and growing actively.

00:35:58.242 --> 00:36:04.983
We have over 700 curated and tagged content, so would love for you all to sign up and join and be a part of our community.

00:36:04.983 --> 00:36:07.527
We're also actively looking for partners as well.

00:36:07.527 --> 00:36:26.715
If you're posting and hosting a lot of content where we would love to talk to you and you could reach me at Nene Montauan via my LinkedIn or email me at montauan at whartonupennedu, and I'd love to connect with you and foster this amazing EdTech community together.

00:36:26.715 --> 00:36:36.960
Whether you're an entrepreneur looking for investments opportunities or you're a partner that would like to help us support these EdTech entrepreneurs, we'd love to connect with you.

00:36:36.960 --> 00:36:39.534
And not only that we have content partners.

00:36:39.534 --> 00:36:48.568
We also have strategic sponsors and partners that we work with, not only in supporting Catapult, but also the Milk and Pen Education Business Plan Competition that we host every year.

00:36:48.568 --> 00:36:53.666
So if you're someone who's interested and excited about ed tech, we're here and would love to connect with you.

00:36:54.414 --> 00:36:57.726
Yes, gosh, we so appreciate the two of you coming on here today.

00:36:57.726 --> 00:36:59.197
Listeners, you already know the drill.

00:36:59.197 --> 00:37:08.914
We're making it as easy as possible for you to find all those wonderful links that John and Nene just dropped on us down below in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode.

00:37:08.914 --> 00:37:31.155
So, john and Nene, and your entire team behind Catapult and all the great work that you're doing at UPenn, no-transcript.

00:37:32.275 --> 00:37:32.938
Thank you, brian.

00:37:32.938 --> 00:37:34.143
It's really really an honor to be here.

00:37:35.175 --> 00:37:40.739
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:37:40.739 --> 00:37:44.708
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:37:44.708 --> 00:37:53.920
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at theentrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:37:53.920 --> 00:38:04.556
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate days a week for you.

00:38:04.556 --> 00:38:06.119
And it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:38:06.139 --> 00:38:06.880
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:07.443
These are not infomercials.

00:38:07.443 --> 00:38:09.867
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:38:09.867 --> 00:38:20.826
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:38:20.826 --> 00:38:29.315
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:38:29.315 --> 00:38:30.657
We also have live chat.

00:38:30.657 --> 00:38:34.487
If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

00:38:34.487 --> 00:38:36.677
Initiate a live chat.

00:38:36.677 --> 00:38:46.126
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.