Entrepreneur Story 1: Elisa's Entrepreneurship Journey

Meet Elisa!

Entrepreneur, Student at the University of Sydney, and Co-Founder of InXplore and Logieq

Here is her story in an interview with one of Enterprenerd’s Editors.

Editorial and Interview by Aileen Hou

Hi Elisa! Let’s start from the beginning. How did you get started in the start-up space? How was the learning curve at the beginning?

My entrepreneurship & business experience first started when I was 15 years old, having secured my first job & start-up role as a marketing & events intern at “Make A Mark Project” - a social enterprise helping young people in the education sector. After an initially steep learning curve, the experience opened my eyes to a whole new world, which initiated my love & passion for all things start-up. From there, I transitioned into my next role, as a student experience lead at 1Scope, an edtech start-up bridging the gap between high school students and industry, by connecting them with meaningful work opportunities.

How was it balancing your studies and trying to grow your business part time? Were you able to fit in any other extracurriculars?

It wasn’t easy. I did have to eventually leave the company due to my need to focus on HSC in year 12, but it was only one month after graduating high school before I got back into the business world. This included attending networking events, participating in hackathons and working on side projects. Fortunately, one of those side projects led me to co-founding a start-up one month later - inXplore. Simultaneously, I took up a new role as a marketing co-ordinator role at a B2B Marketing Agency (ThinkSmartMarketing) to help with boostrapping inXplore.

Throughout the next 12 months, I worked on growing the business part-time, which opened many opportunities, including pitching competitions which I continually sought out for practice. One of these opportunities includes being accepted into a start-up program run by SSE, including an all expense paid trip to India - funded by the NSW government. Other doors are being opened involving meeting a range of experts, founders and investors, whom I’ve had the pleasure of conversing & learning from. My role then transitioned into working on my start-up and working part- as a growth intern at a Y-combinator edtech start-up - InsideSherpa.

What would you say is the highlight of your entrepreneurship journey thus far?

My most notable achievement was being part of the first Australian team (and female), to not only win the regional finals of Hult Prize in Dubai (World’s largest social impact accelerator working with United Nations & Clinton Foundation) but received sponsorship to participate in their 6-week accelerator in London from 2019 March to 2020.

Elisa's team winning the Hult Prize Regionals Finals in Dubai

After enduring 6 weeks of intensive pressure, weekly pitches and the constant effort to grow our idea into a viable business, we were elected as the crowd favourite after presenting to an audience of Harvard & Yale alumni, leading venture capitalists, and business executives. As the crowd favourite, I alongside my co-founders were invited to meet Bill Clinton and present our start-up at the United Nations Headquarters.

What began as a simple idea to solve youth unemployment, became the start of an incredible journey

What began as a simple idea to solve youth unemployment, became the start of an incredible journey, presenting on a global stage in Dubai, London, New York and San Francisco. From meeting key industry leaders to having been mentored and supported by esteemed individuals such as Stephen Hodges (ex-partner at McKinsey) and others who closely worked with the likes of Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsi, Peter Thiel and Reed Hastings.

Since arriving back in Australia, what are your plans for the future?

As this journey is far from over, since arriving back in Australia, our team’s been working day in and out on our project Chance.io, an online platform combining gaming, education and recruitment to measure & develop soft skills among youth and connect them with employers. Using AI sentiment analysis, peer assessment and learning simulations, we’re able to quantify soft skills and focus on investing in the potential of youth rather than their past-experience.

As someone who earned her first internship at 15, because of a boss who decided to invest in my potential and focus on character, rather than my inexperience, it catalysed a doorway of opportunities & opened my eyes to the great possibilities of what I can achieve. But many others aren’t as lucky, whereby, because of their circumstances, they don’t have access to the same opportunities as their peers, despite their potential.

I believe it often can take one person, moment, or opportunity to change the trajectory of your life.

Check out our other video interview with another Entreprenerd, Kelvin Tran who started his entrepreneur journey in high school. Meet other EntrepreNERDs in the Discussion Forum and lets us know your thoughts in the comments below!