Christian Leclair: Morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the Launch your Career Entrepreneurial Mindset event. My name is Christian Leclair, and I'm from TAFE NSW. Joining us today are my colleagues from the Department of Education, TAFE NSW, and our industry representatives and panelists will be speaking at today's session. Launch your Career is an NSW based industry and Government Awareness Initiative to highlight future skills and careers in industry, with this morning's focus on the Entrepreneurial Mindset.

We'll now put up our welcome of Country slides so we can do an acknowledgement of Country. As this event is taking place in the virtual space, each of us stands upon the lands of many different nations, and I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of all the lands remaining from today. I pay my respects to all Elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people joining this session.

So, I'd like to welcome you all to today's session. “An entrepreneurial mindset embraces innovation, resilience, and creativity to drive change and turn challenges into opportunities.” So, today we're going to hear from real-life entrepreneurs about their journeys and how they turn their vision into reality. For today's session, you can ask questions using the Q&A function, and our panel will review them the most popular questions and comments. I encourage you all to get involved so we can make this as interactive as possible.

So, first joining us today, we're really pleased to welcome Frank Newman from the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship. Frank is here to present on be an entrepreneur and talk about what it means to take on an Entrepreneurial Mindset. So, I'll mute out and pass over to you, Frank.

Frank Newman: Good morning, everybody. My name's Frank Newman, and I'm going to share with you my screen just now, bring that up. So yeah, we're going to talk about being an entrepreneur 'cause it's a beautiful and wonderful thing if you can do it. And if you can get there, I wholly encourage you. So, I come from a place called Sydney School of Entrepreneurship, we're in Ultimo in Sydney, and we believe that being an entrepreneur allows you to be kind of basically who you want to be. You can define your life in your own way. You can make, you can be You can be free, you can be the person you want to be based on your own creativity.

So, what is an entrepreneur? What is entrepreneurship? 'Cause it's a big word, it's very hard to spell. So, we see this identifying and creating, pursuing opportunities to establish and manage a business or startup venture. So that can be many, many things to many different types of people. It essentially involves taking risk. You've got to be innovative; you've got to kind of be good at organising things and getting people together and building your dream. So, entrepreneurship it's on the rise.

There's lots of different ways of approaching it. Technology has made it really easy or much easier. There's a million tools out there to do to start your business in lots of different ways. There's changing attitudes to work, which I'm sure other people will talk about. So, workplaces are looking for different skill sets, different ways of engaging with young people. The economy is unstable at times, so sometimes starting up a business is the best answer to getting a job. And people want to, they want to disrupt things, they want to change things.

So, often young people like you guys see the world as not perfect, and you want to make it in your own vision as you are the entrepreneurs of the future. And also, some people are just locked out for cultural reasons, racial reasons, for a whole series of reasons. But, sometimes starting up a business is the only opportunity they have to something, to getting a job, and that can be the most successful and the biggest gift to them in their life 'cause they start something up then everyone wants to be them. So, what is an entrepreneur? Do you know any? You probably do. They're sort of everywhere.

Here's a couple. Shelby Lyons, she's a Wiradjuri woman. She does incredible work. She kind of identified that she had a skillset, and she saw an opportunity to sort of make wood carvings. Her business is going incredibly well. She sells to sports girl and is kind of the go-to for lots and lots of different types of things. She has all sorts of products, she's constantly innovating, she's an absolute inspiration. Some younger entrepreneurs, they couldn’t find swimwear that was made by young people for young people, so they did it, which is a classic entrepreneurial story, sort of looking for a gap in the market or seeing a problem and then addressing it.

So, there's lots of different types of entrepreneurs. I'm going to sort of go through them a little bit here. They're here at the big five. There’s sort of be, could probably categorise it a little bit more further, but these are the big five that we see. So, Small Business Entrepreneurs, they're your classic setting up a small business. They may have sort of a lawn mowing company. They may sort of open up a restaurant or an ice cream truck, but they do it differently, and we'll talk a little bit about what the difference is between a small business and an entrepreneur in a second.

But Social Entrepreneurs are a different type of entrepreneur. They are addressing a social problem. I often set up not-for-profit companies or profit-for-purpose, which is an interesting way of thinking about profit. So, the money that you make goes towards doing good things in the world. So, the more money you make, the more good you're putting into the world. Social Entrepreneurship is on the rise.

Innovative Entrepreneurs, these are the people that see problem. Like Cinnamon Cove, they saw something, they saw a problem, they wanted it solved, so they did it. Innovative Entrepreneurs are often kind of in the tech sector. They see the opportunities for the technology to solve big problems in the world like climate change.

Intrapreneurs is a term you may not have heard of, but Intrapreneurs are basically entrepreneurs. But inside big companies, they try and change things from within and sort of make sure that company stays relevant and valid. So, they're often, they're change makers, they don't want to break the company, they just want to change it for the better.

Scale-up Startup Entrepreneurs are your classic kind of like tech startups think, Or Google started amazingly as a startup, and so did Apple. They're small things up and start in a garage and then grow incredibly quickly to be something massive and worldwide. So, how do you start? You start with a “desire”, you start with something you want to do, and you start with an “attitude”. which is what today being really about which is a “mindset”. And you've all heard growth mindset a million times in at school, but it’s in entrepreneurism, we call it an Entrepreneurial Mindset.

So, what is it? So, what do you think the Key Entrepreneurial Traits are or personal qualities? These are the mindsets. Have a little look at this list here. There's a whole bunch of them. There's too many to look at really quickly, but I'm just going to name the top five as we see them. And to be honest, this changes, because all of these things could be relevant depending on the business that you are starting.

But you need to be comfortable with risk and you need to be passionate and motivated. You need to be good at critical thinking and problem solving. And very importantly, you need to be innovative. Creativity and innovation are at the core of, starting something new 'cause the new bit is the creative bit. And you need to be persistent, resilient, because it's going to be hard, and you need to be able to get up in the morning and kind of keep going.

Even when someone said, "No," to something you thought was perfect, you need to keep pushing. So, these are the traits, but there's lots of them in there, which you probably could draw on as well. And some people would argue really strongly for project management, or networking, or financial acumen. But if you're going to want to start, you need to be these five are super important.

So, Innovation is the Driver of Entrepreneurialism. That's a pretty well-understood idea that Entrepreneurialism is about starting something new. And when you're starting something new, you are innovating. So, what's the difference between a small business owner and an entrepreneur? Well, it's Innovation. If you think about sort of a restaurant that's set up in exactly the same way as it's always been, that's a great restaurant. It could be a really successful business, but an innovative restaurant, they're going to be thinking about it differently. They're going to be thinking about how they can work with their customers. They're going to be innovating at every aspect or every part of the supply chain of their business, and it's this Innovation which sets them apart.

So, what is the driver of Innovation? It's “Creativity”. It's that thing that's the ability to kind of. To join the dots between things. Now, everyone is creative. Even there's lots of people that will say, "Oh, I'm not creative," but what you're really saying is, "I'm not good at art." So, it's creativity, I hate to say it, but it's not art. But art is creative, obviously. Everyone has the ability to join the dots between different ideas, and that's really all creativity is. It's about combining different things that have not yet been combined. And so, it's bringing different ideas together to create something new.

And so, you think about kind of like the smartwatch, it was bringing together phone and a watch. It was something that had not been done before. So essentially, it's combining different things to make a new product or service which the market hasn't yet seen. And you are making that offering by bringing things together. At its core, that's all it is. So, it's about “Connecting the dots.” Creativity is often people will refer to it as “Problem solving.” They'll refer to it as being “Flexible” and “Responsive.” So, you have to respond to something by bringing a new idea into that space.

“Saying Yes," is an incredibly powerful motivating force for creating new things. If you just say, "Yes," to an idea you don't even agree with, but try and play with that idea, you'll often find yourself kind of, making it into something you do like. So, “Saying Yes,” is a really powerful motivator. All those people doing drama will know what I mean.

Being “Collaborative,” is a really important part of being creative. “Divergent,” that means thinking divergently. It's not staying. It means opening the idea up and kind of thinking about it in lots of different ways. “Rule-breaking,” I'm sure your teachers don't like me saying that, but that's part of it. Otherwise, you're known as thinking outside of the box. But yeah, breaking rules, that's part of being creative, being “Expressive” and “Emergent,” letting things arise. So, truly great entrepreneurial teams have a mix of the creative and analytical minds.

You just can't get away from those two things, and they need each other. You need imaginative and creative thinking to wrestle and reinvent the technical problems and the technical challenges. That's the analytical. So, the two things require each other for entrepreneurialism to really take hold.

So, the Entrepreneurial Journey involves identifying a problem, coming up with an idea to solve that problem, then researching and validating whether your idea is any good 'cause the market's got to want your idea for it to be an idea that's going to take off. Then, you need to plan, you need your business planning, you need to get your finance together, and you need to launch. And in and of that cycle, there's lots of iterative parts of that cycle which keep going backwards and sort of cycle in and out of each other until you get to this launch phase.

But at the end of the day, like I said at the beginning, entrepreneurialism really is about freedom. It's about kind of believing that you've got an idea and that this idea could be the thing that takes you forward in your life, and you can be the creator of your own destiny. So, entrepreneurialism, is it for you? I hope so. That's me.

Christian Leclair: Thanks, Frank. I think you've given everyone listening in a fantastic look into entrepreneurship, as well as the types of entrepreneurial skills that can really make a difference, and really important message there that everyone can be creative and therefore learn these skills. That's fantastic, and really appreciate you being here with us today. Thanks again.

Frank Newman: Pleasure.

Christian Leclair: So, for everyone listening in, we're now going to speak with our live panel who are real-life entrepreneurs and business owners to find out what it's like taking an idea and bringing it to life. And hearing their stories and experiences will hopefully inspire you to think about your future skills and career pathway. Our first panelist today is James, who's the creative director of SoCreative, which provides video production services to businesses. James, thanks for joining us. Could you tell us what inspired you to start your business and tell us about the journey to get it to where it is today?

James Daher: Thanks, Christian. So, my journey started, I'd say, right about the end of school. So, I was in Year 12, I did visual arts, and for my HSC major work, created a video. And I didn't know this at the time, but I got into an exhibition and that was It prompted me to go by camera 'cause I thought, "Look, I was pretty good at making videos, let's just give it a shot." So, changed my preferences at university from business to media and started making videos.

And the way I started was I loved cars. So, I go to events, film videos for free, happened to bump into a few small business owners that had, I'd say, a super car for example. And they approached me saying, "Hey, I need a video for my small business. Can you help film that?" And from there on, I just started making an income from like what was really my passion.

And a few years went by, I was struggling to really scale what I was doing. I was a one-man band. A lot of the time, people were asking to work directly with me. So, it was hard to delegate, but I definitely wanted something more. So, I guess in a way, the inspiration behind what SoCreative is today it was that desire to just be able to like step back, definitely continue what I was passionate about but create a more scalable business.

And now, SoCreative is a platform where, yeah, like you said, businesses can film, request someone to help film, upload content, and receive a video within 48 hours.

Christian Leclair: awesome, and so did you have any supports in place in setting up your business, and how important was that ultimately in reaching your goals and growing the business along?

James Daher: In terms of supports, I think one big thing is like where I am today, actually. So that's the Macquarie University Incubator and I've only joined the incubator this year.

But the time I've been here, two reasons why it's been super valuable is one, because you're surrounded by amazing like-minded people who really want to help you as well. So, you have people with experience who have done it before. You can ask questions, and they have great mentors that can point you in the right direction. And secondly, they really push you to be outside of your comfort zone.

For example, like they constantly ask me to pitch in front of students, for example, and just do things that I wasn't really doing in the past where I usually just sit either at home or at my office, and just have my headphones on and just work away. So, that in itself has been super valuable.

Christian Leclair: Yeah, it sounds like making those connections with other like-minded people in entrepreneurship can really help along as well and help your motivation. So, just another question. What challenges have you encountered, and how did you adapt to overcome them?

James Daher: So, the challenge is I'd say the biggest challenge so far was definitely building something that like the tech platform that I had no knowledge in whatsoever. So, initially I just thought Okay, we need to build a platform.

I don't have much money, so let's just go offshore and try our luck. And it just became a disaster because we got to like the near end point of what I thought was this perfect platform, and it didn't work as well as intended, and we really had to like just scratch it and restart the whole build locally. So, little things like that. And there's been problems all along the way, but that was probably the biggest one for me and lot of learnings came from just that problem in itself.

Christian Leclair: Yep, sounds like you had to pivot and adapt what you were doing, and that's, yeah, definitely one of the challenges, but it's great that you overcame that. So, my last question is, so you're now running a business day to day. Did you need to develop any new skills to do this, and what skills or knowledge has been most important to you?

James Daher: In terms of new skills, definitely just like you mentioned, doing things that I wasn't used to doing back in my years of mostly being a freelancer, where I was doing most of the work myself.

So recently, I've stepped back completely from touching any of the work inside the business. Like, I'm putting a lot more time into developing the product and all the things that I think would help scale the business, as opposed to like actually create those videos. And then teaching people as well how to create videos to a standard that you going to pass on to customers. 'Cause inevitably, you're putting your name to something. You want it to be represented well.

And then just I guess a lot of mistakes that you make along the way, it's inevitable to make the mistakes. I think the sooner you can make the mistakes, the better. And every time we do make a mistake, new learnings come from that. So yeah, definitely, I think I've been trying to embrace the mistakes. It can be disheartening at times, but you definitely learn so much.

Christian Leclair: So, making mistakes and then changing what you're doing is all part of the journey then, isn't it?

Well, that's fantastic. I really appreciate the insights into your journey, James. And we're now going to jump across to our second panelist.

Next, we have Jessica who is the co-founder of Dodie.ai, which is an AI tool designed to help users improve their writing skills. Welcome, Jessica. Could you tell us what inspired you to start Dodie? And tell us about the journey of building an AI startup.

Jessica Wei: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Christian. So, what inspired me to start Dodie was my personal experience. So, when I went through high school, I was a really keen English student, it was my favourite subject, but that is, more often than not, the dominant experience for most students. And I saw that firsthand when I became an English tutor after graduating.

So, after graduating, I was studying a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English, but then I was also teaching a lot of students going through that HSC process. And what I saw was a major student pain point, the fact that they desired so much more feedback for their writing than it was possible for teachers at school to provide, simply because of time constraints.

And feedback is the number one way that students are able to improve their writing and improve their skills in English. And so this problem was one that I'd been contemplating for a while, but just over a year ago now, the advent and the amazing advancements in AI and in large language models sparked an idea in me which was to draw upon that technology in order to make feedback, high-quality feedback more accessible for students at scale, specifically as it pertains to the HSC right now.

So that is what Dodie was born out of. Since that time, the idea has snowballed to something very much bigger than what it was when it started. It solves a massive problem, I believe, in education, which is teacher burnout. So, looking into the space teachers, there's a statistic which is within five years, one in five teachers quit the profession. That's an alarming problem. And there is a study done by the Black Dog Institute which spotlights the key issues here to be overwork and to be burnout.

And the burden of marking is such a large part of the unsung labor that teachers do. This often has to be done outside of class time on weekends in the evenings. And I really do believe that so much of this work can be reduced because there are principles of good writing, which Dodie can point out, which essentially allows the vast majority of common writing pitfalls to be addressed before the piece of writing even gets seen by the teacher.

And so, the teacher can then point out the high-level things that really only they can address with a context specific knowledge. And so yes, Dodie launched about a year ago, and since then it's grown primarily through word of mouth to several thousand students, and we've also entered into some strategic partnerships in order to spread the word of the tool.

Christian Leclair: Amazing, so using the power of AI. And you won a pitching event with UNSW, I believe. Could you tell us about that experience and how did it develop your skills?

Jessica Wei: Yeah, sure. So that was an amazing experience. We participated in the UNSW Peter Farrell Cup for several reasons. We really wanted a concentrated vessel for us to work on the startup with the supports that were available. It got us thinking about Dodie in a way that was more “businessified”, if that makes sense, because prior to that point, it was very much a project that compelled my co-founder and I, but we hadn't thought about it in the more technical aspects of serviceable, addressable market for example. We even like profit and loss statements. And so, the program was really helpful in getting us to think in those ways.

And aside from that, we were really grateful to be put in touch with certain mentors who are quite influential. For example, we had a pitch coaching session from Shahe who I believe is one of the other panelists in this meeting. And it was so helpful in getting us to crystallise our storytelling. We very much came from the perspective of students, and we understood the students' struggle extremely clearly. But he got us to crystallise and reposition our storytelling to focus on the issue of teachers and their almost insurmountable workload, which I think was really helpful in sort of making our messaging even more compelling and helpful to helping us win the pitch night.

Christian Leclair: Amazing, and that kind of answers my next question is: What helped you bring the idea to life and what helped you along the journey? Anything you'd like to add to that, Jessica? So, you mentioned Shahe and that guidance around how to pitch your idea. Anything else you'd like to mention there?

Jessica Wei: Oh, yes, mentors, that was certainly helpful. And the other thing which has been exceptionally helpful is to have a team member to go through everything with. So, I'm one of the co-founders of the tool but the other co-founder is Alex. And the way we split the roles is that he focuses on more of the technical aspects, whereas I focus more on the product development and the talking to stakeholders, and it's so helpful to have someone to go through the journey with because as probably many of the panelists here can relate, it can be a lonely journey if you don't have people to bounce your ideas off. So, I'm very grateful that I have sort of a partner to kind of go through it with.

Christian Leclair: Awesome, and to people with different skill sets, being able to work together is also really, really helpful. My last question, kind of a double-barreled question. How do you see Dodie evolving in the future? We all know that AI is progressing so fast, so what changes do you see there? And finally, what do you love about what you do?

Jessica Wei: So, to answer your first question, our vision for Dodie is quite big. So, the technology is very flexible. It's ideal for helping students improve their skills in essay-based humanities subjects. So although we've currently and initially niched down into HSC English, there's potential for Dodie to be expanded to a wider breadth of HSC subjects, for example, economics, legal studies, different levels of English, and also subsequently there's potential for it to be developed for other systems in different states and even different examination systems globally.

And the ultimate vision for Dodie is for it to be a personalised source of help for students who are keen to improve their skills in this important subject. One that is often dictated by socioeconomic outcomes but don't necessarily have the resources to secure that expensive private tutor or the resources that students from more affluent backgrounds would be able to more easily obtain.

In terms of what I love about what we are doing, I love solving problems and I really love how, technology combined with entrepreneurship, allows us to sort of come to grips with the fact that things don't always have to be done in the way that they have been before and that we should be bold in trying to change things for the better. And it’s amazing how technology has made this sort of change accessible to people who may not necessarily have, obtained those skills in university traditionally that would have enabled technology entrepreneurship.

Christian Leclair: Some of that's great words to finish up, and thank you for sharing your story, Jessica. We're now going to jump across to Annie. Annie, our next panelist, is the founder of Worn Up a sustainability startup that transforms school uniforms and textiles into functional products. And welcome Annie. Could you tell us about your journey and how you came to found Worn Up?

Anne Thompson: Hi, everybody. I don't know if your school has participated in Worn Up, but we are very grateful if you have. We used to make school uniforms, and we decided that school uniforms going into landfill was not a great thing. What could we do about that? So, we collected them, and we worked really hard to turn them into something that went to our vision of being a waste-free world.

We turned them into desks. So, can you imagine taking this school uniform from Tasmania and turning it into this, which is now being used as a desk? So, we actually grew very slowly. It's taken us about four years, but we wouldn't have been able to get there without many of the schools that are probably participating on the call.

Christian Leclair: Amazing, so that looks like a real artwork behind you there, Annie. So, it's amazing what you can produce with that material. So, you're also an advocate for sustainable practices and I know you've done quite a bit of study in this area. Do you see sustainability as an area that is growing with a lot of opportunities in the future?

Anne Thompson: I think that a lot of people and one of the very concerned at the moment and one of the reasons that we wanted to help kids and teachers be optimistic about the future was to show them that there are lots of people working on sustainability so that the planet can get healthier.

We didn’t waste is a major problem, everybody's aware of that, and it can cause a lot of worry for people 'cause you don't always see where your plastic bottles end up. We wanted to create something where kids and adults could see that it turns back immediately into something useful. That waste isn't always waste, it's just what we call waste. And often, it's made of materials that can be reused, and we wanted to prove that so that people could be more optimistic about the future.

Christian Leclair: Fantastic, and what key knowledge or skills did you need to build Worn Up to where it is today, and were there any significant challenges that you faced along the way? So, this is a bit of a thing asking our entrepreneurs today about what were the obstacles and challenges as well.

Anne Thompson: Oh, my gosh. Look, it's interesting when Frank was talking, and I'm thinking, "Oh, am I an entrepreneur?" You don't wake up and think of yourself as an entrepreneur. I think the biggest thing was coming up with an idea and being passionate about making it work. We knew that we wanted to not see more waste produced from anything that we made. So, that drove us, and we wanted We really wanted other people to see that as well.

One of the challenges was that thinking through how you're going to get to your end product and what that end product might be really needs a lot of discipline and rigor, and you need to do things like check: Is anyone else doing something? What are the rules around what I'm doing? Do we have the equipment available? In a lot of what we do, equipment has been the main issue.

So, we collected two ton of uniforms in just 18 months of our pilot, and the pilot proved to us that the uniforms are the best things to collect 'cause we know what they're made of. And then we had to work out what can we turn them into, and we had so many failures and we learned not to be afraid of failing, that in fact what we learned the most was what we had to improve in terms of something like fail, how do we do it differently?

I can't tell you how hard it is to stand at a hot compression press, and try, and try, and try, and put something through and it still doesn't come out right. But we did get there in the end, and I think that's really important that being optimistic about things and really feeling that that passion can carry you through to a solution is important. And being adaptable. I think what the other panelists have said, and it was really important for us is our idea has shifted all the way. The community support and the school support has been absolutely invaluable.

We stopped collecting uniforms because we realised the volumes were extraordinary and it costs you more to store uniforms than it does to convert them into a new product. So, at the moment, we are actually doing that conversion, and we are working with a lot of the large companies to get financial support to do that as well.

But it's well and truly on its way, and I think we do a lot of shows, and sometimes we do STEM activities with schools, and the kids often bring up, I mean we turned, We've turned these uniforms into this tile, and the first thing that people do is go, "Can you smell it?" And it’s sort of like, "No, it's a completely different object, and we melt the uniforms down, and we go through a lot of processing." But it's so great that they recognise that it comes from one of something that was previously waste that they might have generated.

Christian Leclair: Fantastic and Annie, I believe there's also furniture that was created. Furniture items.

Anne Thompson: Yes.

Christian Leclair: Is that true?

Anne Thompson: Yeah, so I'm sitting at a desk, and I wish I could show you. This is a picture of a desk that's made from old school uniforms, and I could probably tell you the school and where the uniforms come from. And now, we are starting to make large pieces of furniture for very large companies.

We did a design expo, and we think we would love to have an activity of 1 million desks made in a circular way going back into schools so that kids can actually see and experience what they thought was waste coming back to them as a useful product, and it just becomes the norm.

Christian Leclair: Amazing, and my last question is What advice would you give to someone wanting to start their own business or a young person, for example, who has an idea that they want to pursue?

Anne Thompson: No idea is a bad idea. It's just around working out what works and what doesn't. Sometimes, ideas don't make any money, sometimes they're just for fun. Sometimes, doing something differently just keeps your brain active.

But to start a business around an idea is important to know what the rules are, what the authorities need from you, how you're going to fund that, how you're going to get mentors and people engaged, and understanding that there's lots of systems that are set up to help you with the universities, and TAFE, and schools.

One of the Duke of Ed kids that comes into me every Wednesday and they take logos off of uniforms that are still wearable and then they go off to charity. She said, "Why don't you have a CNC? Why don't we use CNC? I've got a CNC at school." So, use these things that are at school to play with to learn how to use. Take advantage of everything around you: the incubators, the schools, everything.

There's so many people there that can support you and help you develop that idea.

Christian Leclair: That's great advice, and thanks again for joining us today, Annie. And I'm really impressed with what you can do in the sustainable space and in recreating new things that it's really amazing. Thank you again.

Anne Thompson: Thank you.

Christian Leclair: But we're now going to jump across to our next panelist, Ben, who's the founder of Watergate Labs. Welcome, Ben. You created a working prototype of an energy power panel that runs on moisture from the air, and you started this industrial in secondary school. Can you tell us a bit about the story, how you got started?

Benjamin Lenehan: Yeah, thank you for having me. So, I initially started it as a Year 10 science project. We had to do an SRP which is just a couple pages long, sort of your basic science report. And that was initially to turn nitrogen gas into electricity. And if you don't know, nitrogen gas is 78% of the atmosphere.

So, there's quite a lot of it, but it's quite hard to turn into electricity. And I found that out about two months into my experiments, and it’s actually It's not really possible, but I was still seeing electricity being generated, which was weird, obviously, right, 'cause nitrogen can't be turned to electricity. And through further research, I found out there was actually the water in the air that it was getting turned into electricity.

And from there, I kept researching and sort of improving my prototype and refining it. And yeah, so that's sort of where I'm at. Now, I'm at UNSW in their post-grad labs researching with them, which is really cool. And yeah, that has been through some instrumental people, and yeah.

Christian Leclair: That's great, so you're in an environment now where you are connecting with other people, and I'm guessing you're learning a lot about working in those labs. What else supported you along the way in building your entrepreneurial skills? Did you get involved in any pitching events or those types of programs, and how did that help you build entrepreneurial skills?

Benjamin Lenehan: Yeah, so my first pitching event was October last year. It was pretty nerve-wracking. First time I've ever sort of actually spoken to people like in public. And I had some help from Shahe sort of before to get my pitch deck together and everything, and that experience was really great.

It was honestly probably the best pitch night I've had so far just 'cause the amount of value I got out of it. I learned how to pitch, learned how to talk to people, it was very on the spot. 'Cause after the pitch, everyone tends to come up and talk to you, which is really great. So, you kind of learn on the spot how to deal with those sort of sorts of things. But like the value that you get out of pitch nights is incredible. You get the skills yourself. So how to talk to people, how to present properly, and then also how to talk to people that want to support you, how to deal with those things like that, how to arrange events for after that.

So, a lot of people come up to you and be like, "Oh I'd like to come have a meeting with you or do this and that." You need to be able to say, "Yeah, I'd love to do that," and I feel like that's something you can't get taught in school, and that's definitely something you have to learn on the go.

So, I think that's been really valuable. And pitching events, I'd say, are like the best opportunity and best thing you can do as an entrepreneur sort of getting your idea out there. Whether you've got a product or a prototype or not is definitely, I'd say, the best starting point.

Christian Leclair: Right, so that hands-on experience and building your communication skills as well. So next question is How important has support been to you and to get to where you are so far today, and who or what has made the biggest difference?

Benjamin Lenehan: Yeah, the support has been incredible. I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of people like Shahe and other sort of people I've found from those pitching events. I'd say they're very, very, very instrumental.

And as a student or someone who's young in a very adult-dominated industry, people are willing to come to you and support you for absolutely no cost at all. It's really incredible. But the amount of value that you can get out of people just offering up their time, like not even money, it's just amazing. And the whole reason I've been able to get into UNSW is from knowing people, knowing the right people.

And I feel like that's a big part of the game is knowing the right people and doing the right thing, and then actually acting what the support that people are giving you. I feel like that's really the way you need to go. But yeah, people like Shahe has been really amazing getting me into the right spots and getting me in touch with the right people.

Christian Leclair: Great, making connections and finding mentors is really important, it sounds like. Next question is how do you manage things with school time and studies? I might just leave the rest of the question for the next part but tell us a bit about that 'cause you're at school and you've got all these things going on. How do you manage all that?

Benjamin Lenehan: Yeah, it's tough sometimes, but I like to think I've got a bit of a list in my head. I call it the dynamic priority list, where basically, depending on the time in the school term, I'll prioritise certain things. So, when assessments aren't heavy or it's just homework, you're kind of cruising along. Tends to be holidays and start of the school term. I'll be prioritising my business and sort of getting ahead on that sort of stuff.

And then obviously, as assessments get Assessment time comes along, I start to hang back on the business, still make progress with it, and put any extra time I have into that, but obviously prioritising my schoolwork. So, I think it's important that you go through with school 'cause you never know with business. Sometimes, it doesn't out, and that's okay, but you don't want to be putting all your eggs into one basket.

So, I think it's important to have a dynamic priority list where you can change and understand where your time and effort should be spent. But yeah, it gets tough, but you need to learn on the go, and I think that's really important. That's key to your time management skills.

Christian Leclair: Time management skills would be very important there. And last question is any words of advice to all the other young people out there listening in about if they're thinking about starting a venture themselves?

Benjamin Lenehan: Yeah, I think the thing is, is just start whether you have an idea or not. Like, look for the opportunities, just start it. You never know where it could take you. I think the amount of value that you can get out of it is incomprehensible until you actually do it.

So, I think do that, just start it, 'cause the amount of support you'll get is incredible. Put yourself out there, use all the resources that are there. They're there but you just don't really know they're there, so put yourself out there, start it, and yeah, seize the opportunity.

Christian Leclair: That's great, awesome. Well, thank you Ben. We're now going to jump across to our final panelists today. Who is Shahe? Shahe is the founder of Young Wisdom and co-creator of the Secondary Schools Program at Macquarie University Incubator, where he's also an entrepreneur in residence. Welcome, Shahe.

My first question is Could you tell us where did you get started in entrepreneurship, and what led you to found Young Wisdom?

Shahe Momdjian: Well, good to be here. Thanks, Christian. Young Wisdom started originally when I was in high school, so it was a bit of a fluke. I was getting some business mentorship from a family friend, like around goal setting and stuff.

I was always very entrepreneurial growing up. Like came from an entrepreneurial, hardworking kind of family. My best mate and I would play lego and pitch ideas to our parents, like through primary school and everything. Not always things they could actually help us with. I think we pitched an airline once, but like it was only in high school when I really started to think about: Could I make a career out of doing things like that? And so yeah, this fluke, just through talking to this family friend, business mentor, actually got a consulting engagement.

So, the original idea of Young Wisdom was businesses would want to hire young people to listen to us and share our advice with them. And I had a couple of experiences like that in high school. Another really formative thing was this program that existed at the time, Young Achievement Australia, which I did in Year 11. That was a fantastic way to like, although we were like designing and selling badges, fashion badges at the time, it was just a great experience of working with lots of other people.

And then again just thinking: Could I really make a career out of this? And then from there, I took a very different path. I thought being an entrepreneur meant going into a corporate career. So, I applied for the most corporate thing I could and ended up like working in a big four accounting and auditing firm. I thought like entrepreneurship meant business at the time, so that was interesting.

And then I guess came back to Young Wisdom again right after Uni, and realising that it was all about creativity, and innovation, and all of the great things that the panelists have discussed today. I kind of restarted Young Wisdom after Uni and have been kind of at it ever since. I guess it's been 12 years now of, yeah, being self-employed in different ways and a very long and meandering journey. Yeah, leading up to that.

Christian Leclair: Shahe, you work with a lot of young entrepreneurs. What are some common traits you see in successful entrepreneurs, and what types of skills do students need to learn? And we've heard a lot about the skills today in Frank's presentation and in our conversations. Any comments on that?

Shahe Momdjian: Yeah, one great thing is that list was long. Like, there are so many skills on that list, right? And to me, this sends a great message that most of us can have already practiced parts of the skill sets and mindsets of being an entrepreneur.

So for me, like in my experience, it's things like obviously an element of creativity, and I loved what Frank said around it is not art 'cause I was not an artist at all, but always interested in discussing ideas, and talking about ideas, and thinking about how problems could be solved, like Jess was saying, in new ways that maybe hadn't been done before. So definitely like enjoying discussions that are of a creative nature was one thing.

And then communication, liking the idea of speaking to people about it, not like a really formal public speaking kind of stressful like speech experience, which can be stressful, but just casually talking to people about ideas and being able to stand up and like present them in front of an audience eventually, like Ben was saying, is a great thing to kind of practice because it's a great way to build like momentum around ideas, but also get great feedback from people.

I think empathy and listening come to mind as well, when having those conversations with people actually able to Being able to elicit things that they're experiencing, and their feedback problems they may be experiencing, and their feedback on ideas that you've got is really important.

And then of course, like generosity, and I think people in the community, I've noticed being a part of many different incubators like where I am now, the Macquarie University Incubator, and coworking spaces all over the place. It's a community spirit, like wanting to contribute, giving up time, like our panelists are, I think there's lots of free mentoring that goes on and people exchanging ideas, and swapping advice and tips based on their experience and so many different perspectives. So, I think that generosity as well.

And then I guess as someone who also advises startups of all ages and like run startup programs, I think there's an element of what's really important is probably being open to advice and feedback from other people as well and not really having a fixed mindset about any of your ideas. So, really important things have been said around like learning from failure and having an open mindset. And that's something I still struggle to wrap my head around, like the idea that I, I mean, I make mistakes and have failed along the way, but I still struggle with that idea sometimes that it's all about learning through failure, but it absolutely is.

So, being ready to do that and being able and willing to listen to people who might have a challenging perspective for you and take on that advice, and experiment, and possibly fail, and then keep going, really, really crucial.

Sorry, I could just... I could keep going, but I should probably stop there. For me, one last thing Christian, one last thing. More than resilience, like there's this term that I'm not an expert on, it comes from a book, it's called antifragility. It's the idea that in the face of setbacks, it motivates you even more, you get even stronger.

So, it's not just your ability to cope with challenges and setbacks and be resilient and keep going. Definitely that, but also it almost motivates you. It almost like motivates you to keep going, and you get stronger, and you work harder, and you work faster. And it's definitely a trait I've seen in some of the most successful entrepreneurs.

Christian Leclair: Yeah, no, really appreciate those comments, Shahe. So, it's not just about skills and it's about that mindset that you take as well. So yeah, really important. Next question's a little bit different. It's something very critical when you're starting out. How can entrepreneurs make the most of limited resources or funding when they're starting out on their journey?

Shahe Momdjian: Yeah, I'm Definitely like, well-versed in this too, like not working in a corporate environment since Uni. There are a few responses that I'd say. So, the situation has changed a lot since I was starting out like in high school and right after Uni even. And the startup ecosystem in Sydney and all over the place beyond has really grown massively.

So, I think grants and in terms of like getting money for startups, if that's something, actually the first thing I'd say is not being afraid to have jobs along the way because of the growth of the startup community. We talk about having a job and having a side hustle, but if your priority is entrepreneurship and having entrepreneurial projects, have a side job. There are opportunities to teach along the way, and run startup programs, and coworking spaces, or learn about investment. And even within the startup ecosystem, there are so many jobs now that you can have while you build your venture. That's one thing. And of course, there are any number of other jobs you could have along the way. I'm a more risk-averse Entrepreneur, so it's worth saying for.

For those who aren't able or willing to just go all in on their entrepreneurial venture, maybe you're still building skills and contacts and putting things in place that will help you succeed ultimately, you can take jobs along the way while you build. The other thing I would say is services businesses can be a great place to start.

So, it's not the case that we always have to raise money from investors and our first venture has to be really super scalable and go global. We might run a consulting business. When I started Young Wisdom after Uni, it was really marketing communications services, and then extracurricular education, and what we do today as well. But it's still all of the things. So very much like a services-based revenue-generating activity with very low overheads.

That is another thing that we don't often talk about in the startup ecosystem, but it's very much worth thinking about if you are starting out in high school and you're doing services that generate revenue, you're having a great experience of learning what entrepreneurship will ultimately mean in terms of dealing with customers, selling things, paying taxes, having a bank account, doing things that will ultimately help you succeed in a more scalable venture later potentially. So, I think services is the second thing.

I think a third thing is because of the blossoming of this ecosystem that grants and prizes are a genuinely like viable thing to win pitch comp. I've seen people, startups, and Jess included, Ben included, win lots of money at pitch comps in the startup space, in the University competition space, thousands and thousands of dollars are up for grabs in prizes. And it's also a great way to get feedback on your idea. And then, of course, grants. So, although it can be difficult to get and take a lot of time, a way to get money without giving away equity just yet.

So, I guess the final thing I'd say is, again, because the startup ecosystem has become so, so rich and multifaceted that there are so many free events and abilities to access space and people, free mentoring programs, whatever it is.

Sometimes, free food helps when you're really on a startup journey. So, there are just lots of ways to also access free support, including even free working space at, say, the Sydney Startup Hub for example. And then all the different programs that are available, including with us in the Secondary Schools Program at Macquarie University Incubator, which are also often online so you can access them from anywhere. So, yeah.

Christian Leclair: That's really practical advice to a pretty bit of a tricky question, but there's definitely opportunities out there to access funding and why not. If you could work alongside your venture, that's something you should consider. So that's great. And you've really given a lot of great advice. But my last question was, again, of that broad question. What advice would you give to young aspiring student entrepreneurs thinking about developing an idea?

Shahe Momdjian: Yeah, so I think that it's, again, something I struggled with. Growing up was the idea of learning from failure and also this idea of building in the open, being really open with people about what you're doing and involving them. Like, talking to them about what you're doing and seeking their feedback and really seeking their feedback. So, if you pitch an idea to friends and family, they're like, "Yeah, that's a great idea, sweetie. Of course you should do that."

Really drill them. Just be like, "No, no." Have you ever bought anything like this? Would you pay for something like this? What would it need to look like for you to pay for something like this? So, there's generally love and support, and that's great, but also like really seek out feedback from people around you, whether it's friends, family, teachers, people in your community.

I think building in the open, being open and receptive to that feedback, and then understanding it may cause you to change your idea, go in a different direction, or even fail and move on to something else. Just being open in that way and speaking to people is important for many different reasons on an entrepreneurial journey, which is inherently difficult and risky. So, that would definitely be one thing.

Also, find something you care about and find something you can also act on today. It's really important to be aware of what's going on in the world on a global scale and the worldwide problems, but it doesn't mean you necessarily have to solve something global with your first attempt. It could be some small thing you could do at your school, in your local community, and go from there.

So, find something that you actually feel capable of acting on with the resources and people that you have around you right now. And then actually experience it while you also learn and dream about the bigger things that you will do on this continuing journey.

So, a few ideas there, but just mainly know who's around you in your school community and what access you may have to various programs, and spaces, and startup ecosystem events, like this even. And like fully capitalise on all of those things, and build in the open, and be receptive to advice, and don't be afraid to learn from failure and keep going.

Christian Leclair: Thank you so much, Shahe, for those words of advice.

Shahe Momdjian: Pleasure.

Christian Leclair: And that ends our panel discussion. So, for everyone listening in, we're now going to talk to you about what you can do to build your entrepreneurial skills. And I'm going to firsthand over to Gigi from the Department of Education.

Gigi Awadalla: Let's explore some steps you might consider taking while you are still in school to develop your Entrepreneurial Mindset. Look into opportunities for work experience while at workplace. Or while at the workplace, observe areas where processes could be improved or streamlined to practice your problem-solving skills. Many schools offer project-based learning opportunities that let you tackle real-world challenges. So, make the most of them. Consult your careers advisor for guidance on your entrepreneurial journey. Reach out to small businesses or entrepreneurs to request a shadowing experience or even Q&A session. Start a small project or side business.

Be sure to ask your parents for permission and advice. Practice pitching your ideas to friends, family, or teachers for feedback, and Shahe unpacked that beautifully, so thank you very much for that. Research inspiring entrepreneurs and startups, especially those who've overcome early challenges. Look for entrepreneurial competitions, like Hackathons, Design Sprints, or Innovation Challenges. Thank you. I'll pass it back over to you, Christian.

Christian Leclair: Thanks, Gigi. So, I'm now just going to highlight some of those opportunities to build entrepreneurial skills. For TAFE courses, there's the school's launchpad program, so “years 11 and 12 students.” can enrol into a Cert III Business Entrepreneurship Stream, and TAFE also offers the full qualifications in the Cert III and Cert IV Entrepreneurship and New Business.

Your teachers and career counselors have all the details, and we encourage you all to get involved and start building your skills. So, with that said, we're now going to jump across to our Q&A. I think we do have a couple of minutes in so we can ask questions to our panelists. Gigi, you are looking at the Q&A chat. Is there any questions that we'd like to highlight for everyone listening in?

Gigi Awadalla: There has been a quite a bit of interest with your business there, Annie, and people were just asking how much it costs and things such as, Let's see. Where you could buy these desks. So, tell us a little bit about your website.

Anne Thompson: Thanks, Gigi, and thank you everybody. We are trying really hard to make the desks the same price as you'd pay through the procurement process of the Education Department because we don't want sustainability to be expensive. If it's expensive, then people kind of can't really then justify the spend, and we think it should be the norm. So, we are starting out with pricing, and we are trying to work with the Education Department about procurement. So, we're on that journey, which is amazing. We did during COVID because the school's closed and just so everybody knows one thing when I said I'm not. I'm sort of an accidental Entrepreneur; we started with a pizza oven. We started experimenting with a pizza oven. So, we've gone from very small to quite large, and one of the things that happened was during COVID, the schools closed.

So, we pivoted then towards our corporates, and we are finding that the corporates are very supportive. And so, we go right from the preschool desk right up to the corporate board table, if you like, and they're all priced around the same. I've been a little bit surprised at how expensive just normal desks are.

So definitely within our framework of making them in a reasonable price. I can't remember the prices off the top of my head, but I have popped the website on there. And any questions, just give us a call, we'll work with you. We do make a lot of the We try to make the desks out of the uniforms that have come from the school if there's an order in because we think that really then shows that we've used your old uniforms that you thought would have to go to landfill. Anything that's new that comes in, 'cause often there are new things that come in, we cut the logos off, and we donate them where we think a charity might need them.

But remember, uniforms in particular, 'cause you can't send them offshore, no one else can buy them and often they've been handed down three and four times. So, we take that material and probably starting at the same price as a normal desk.

Gigi Awadalla: Awesome, thank you.

Anne Thompson: Pleasure.

Gigi Awadalla: Have we got time for another question, Christian?

Christian Leclair: Let's go another question, Gigi, go for it.

Gigi Awadalla: Oh, okay. This is just a general question for the panelists. How did you target and reach the ideal audience for your startup?

Christian Leclair: That's a very good question, I think, because you've got to promote your startup early on. Let's go to. Is Jess still with us? Jess?

Jessica Wei: Yes, I am. Hello.

Christian Leclair: Yep, Jess.

Jessica Wei: So yeah, in response to that question, we had been building an audience of students long before we launched Dodie. So, I mentioned in my segment that I'd been an English tutor for a number of years and besides the one-on-one tutoring I would do, I had a small audience of students who would subscribe to my educational study content that was free.

And so that was an audience that we launched the tool directly to, and that was exceptionally motivating and helpful because we knew that we weren't necessarily just building in a vacuum, and we were sure that we had a very good instinct, at least, that this was a tool that would have immediate utility for students in our audience.

So, in addition to that, what we found amazing for traction was partnerships. So, we questioned, "Okay, what institutions or what companies had audience of students that were in our space?" And we decided that would be tutoring companies, and of course that would be schools.

Christian Leclair: Fantastic, so you offered something free, actually, to your audience, and that's giving them something to garner their interest as well. That's a one great method of promoting your business early on as well. Fantastic.

Thank you, Jess. So now, we're going to wrap up then. So, I'd like to thank you all for joining. Thank you for listening in. I think we've been given some great insights into the entrepreneurial mindset and the types of skills and attributes that can benefit your future career pathway. So, take advantage of all the learning opportunities available to build your skills, and we'll wrap up there. So please stay safe, and I look forward to talking with you all again. Thank you.