It’s been a while since I’ve written, but much like Charlie at the end of Perks of Being A Wallflower, I was “too busy trying to participate”. By no means does this mean that there were 37 of us in the trunk of Patrick’s pick up driving through a tunnel listening to David Bowe’s “Hero,” but rather that we were nose deep in work and struggling to keep afloat while maintaining sanity within our groups. Since my first (and only) post, we’ve finished three intensive, interesting, and engaging courses and traveled to a very, very warm place beneath the earth’s surface and back.
The program is alm
ost over. With just two weeks and two major pitches left, we find ourselves breathing premature sighs of relief. Spring is in the air, cheery blossoms are blossoming, and we’re looking around thinking that we’ve made it. We’ve hit a number of glass ceilings only to wind down and shoot up to shatter through them, but this was by no means easy. Each one of us had to compromise in one way or another. We had to sacrifice aspects of ideas we were married to in order to find common ground and actually build some amazing companies. I’m not here to sugar coat how easy this semester was. Filled with some sleepless nights, difficulty to grasp foreign concepts (not French concepts, but new concepts), and countless amounts of barricades, this opportunity is one that I will forever be grateful for. It’s been the hardest and most rewarding semester of my university experience, and I’m sure the same goes for my classmates. To quote a good friend of mine, Siv Padhy who took this program last year, “nothing has ever hurt so good.”
There’s a reason for this and it comes in the form of corporate visits and incredible, informative guest lectures. We’ve spoken to angel investors, leaders of social innovation in Vancouver and Seattle, creators of some awesome ideas that are currently being developed, and then some! While I didn’t participate in the week of corporate visits we had during Reading Break, I can still reflect on the calibre of people we’ve met.
One example that is close to home is Colin Stansfield, the Executive Director at Potluck Café & Catering. He spoke about how the company operates in two parts: a for-profit entity and a not-for-profit entity. We learned about how making money doesn’t need to be sacrificed for social impact, rather it’s a huge part of it. I won’t get into the specifics of what he said, but it opened our eyes a lot. The company employs, trains, and feeds many individuals in the Downtown Eastside. Now, when you combine that with many for-profit initiatives you may find yourself in an ethical gray area, but not Potluck Café. With their business they give people a second chance, help them with almost every aspect of their life, and ensure that they get back on their feet.
In the last 7 weeks we’ve learned how to design products with little to no prior skill, how to develop those designs into testable prototypes, how to develop our finances to ensure we have a feasible business model, and how to enter and grow in the market we’re aiming for. To put this all into perspective, just 10 weeks ago we had no clue what we were doing. Heck, we didn’t even have a group yet. Now we have 8 incredible ideas that actually have the ability to materialize and can be developed into a fully functional business. Now it may have taken countless sleepless nights, immeasurable amounts of frustration and hours of problem solving and pivoting to get to where we are, but trust me when I say that nothing as been more worth it.
I said before that whatever we create won’t be mediocre and I can say without a doubt that I’ve kept my word.
