✨In this episode, we interviewed Gilbert Wai, who embarked on his entrepreneurship journey in 1980 (when EECS was still a single major :D), transitioning from a hardware startup to a software startup. His journey includes three exits, two IPOs, and one acquisition (the first IPO occurred in 1995, followed by an acquisition by Dell Technologies).

0:00⁠ Path to an immigrant startup leader

13:10⁠⁠ The first thing in PMF is where the market is

28:33⁠⁠ How to scale your product and team from 1 to 100?

36:36 Navigate cultural differences as a minority leader in Tech

51:30 How to live with the technology cycle

01:00:39 Manage a big engineering team and hire the right people

Subscribe to our ⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠ for more content and insights!

Follow Gibert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilbertwai/

About Startup -1 to 1: Our mission is to accompany immigrant founders who shape the future, from -1 to 1. 0-1 is the process of building your MVP to PMF. What happens before 0? What to prepare, how to pivot? We define this process as -1 to 0. We are here to bring startup stories from -1 to 1 and accompany immigrant founders to go through this path.

In this episode, the Upturn squad was joined by Qian Wang, a serial entrepreneur in the real estate and property technology industry to explore his upturn journey:

0:00 Intro 00:24 What led to the downfall of WeWork? 05:03 How I became an entrepreneur: it's a lifestyle 12:26 How to Qian started his first business 23:38 Prep before your first startup: business process, discipline, focus 30:18 Challenging is normal. When it's easy, you are going downhill 38:54 Entrepreneurship is a lonely journey. How to build resilience? 43:18 Restart: Collab Home - disrupt the traditional value chain 47:12 Why focus on student housing? 48:58 How Collab disrupt traditional value chain? 56:03 Product Demo: transparent property info for investors 01:02:30 Follow first principle of real estate industry to build a proptech startup

Subscribe to our ⁠Substack⁠ and ⁠YouTube⁠ for more content and insights!

About Startup -1 to 1: Our mission is to accompany immigrant founders who shape the future, from -1 to 1. 0-1 is the process of building your MVP to PMF. What happens before 0? What to prepare, how to pivot? We define this process as -1 to 0. We are here to bring startup stories from -1 to 1 and accompany immigrant founders to go through this path.

Hello there, welcome to Startup -1 to 1's #Upturn series! The team got together for the first episode to discuss:

(0:00) Welcome & Team Intro

(04:25) Kevin on the difference between working at a FAANG company vs. a startup

(06:38) Tian's journey from software engineer to investor

(12:30) Carrie's motivation behind starting Upturn podcast with the team

(15:36) Brian's online fitness business story

(20:41) Why we create the Upturn podcast series & our vision

(29:49) Should everyone join a startup?

(36:39) Our mental model for why startups fail | what to expect in the upcoming guest interviews

Connect with the our co-hosts:

Carrie Chen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cai-chen-338137140/

Kevin Hsieh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hsiehstyle/

Tian Lan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tianlan9090/

Brian Yu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-boming-yu13/

Subscribe to our Substack and YouTube for more content and insights!

About Startup -1 to 1: Our mission is to accompany immigrant founders who shape the future, from -1 to 1. 0-1 is the process of building your MVP to PMF. What happens before 0? What to prepare, how to pivot? We define this process as -1 to 0. We are here to bring startup stories from -1 to 1 and accompany immigrant founders to go through this path.