Selling bubble tea, hunting engineers for Silicon Valley’s tech companies, driving “Magic School Bus” to teach children in rural India, and founding an NGO to help rural artisans improve their livelihoods; these are some of the enterprises thirty-two-year-old Gary  Mao ventured into during the past fifteen years. There were many failures along the way, but Gary lived to tell his tale to XMUM students during Innovation Talk Series #2 on 18 December 2018.

Gary Mao: “Storytelling can make positive experiences amazing and bad experiences inspiring.”

The Talk featured Gary Mao and Wang Xiaoxiao, both of whom are serial entrepreneurs with colorful start-up experiences. Two speakers received their MBA degree from Stanford University and Yale School of Management respectively. 

Gary started the talk by sharing his business adventures and failures, which drew laughter among the audience. After that he gave XMUM students some advices on entrepreneurship:

“Apart from getting financial capital for your start-ups, you also need emotional capital. You need to make sure you have people who can remind you that almost everything in your life, as long as it does not get you killed, can recover to its normal state.”

“Don’t over think or over analyse. What you need to realize about entrepreneurship is that, a large part of it is about adaptation. There will be changes. You need to be flexible enough so that if the economy or business situation changes, you know how to adjust. YouTube started out as a dating site, and it finally evolved into a humongous media platform.”

“Love randomness. There is no GPS to success. As an entrepreneur, you are building the road.”

Wang Xiaoxiao: “As a woman, I met the glass ceiling that prevent my career progression.”

Ms. Wang Xiaoxiao took over from Gary to share her story of becoming a serial entrepreneur after working for a nuclear power plant for nine years. To make sure that the students bring home some useful and practical entrepreneurial knowledge, Ms. Wang conducted a “Marshmallow Challenge” (a teamwork game helping participants to explore the design process) Workshop to illuminate her advices:

“The key to stand out in the innovation and entrepreneurship competition is not analysis, but a prototype which shows that you have the capability to implement your idea.”

“In the perfect world you would have something unique. But in real life, you will face a number of competitors. Do it first. You can start small. Show the investors that you are the most skilled in getting people to join your platform or buy your product.”

Groups of participants took up “Marshmallow Challenge” during the talk.

The second part of the talk was a personalized coaching session. Ten groups of students, who intended to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship competitions, took the opportunity to consult the two speakers on the feasibility and market needs of their ideas and projects.

Ding Tingting and Huang Zuer proposed an idea to fill the gap in Malaysian market.

First-year Accounting student Ding Tingting expressed her view on the talk and the coaching session:

“It was an inspiring talk. Mr. Gary and Ms. Xiaoxiao helped us to sort our thoughts, which was definitely useful for beginners like us. In addition, they mentored us on what the investors wanted to see most in our business plan.”

Third year student Xie Zhuofan from Software Engineering Programme offered her appreciation:

“Xiaoxiao and Gary’s advices help us think outside the box. They gave some practical suggestions to solve the problems we faced and guided us to improve our product by using existing resources.”

Though Gary Mao and Wang Xiaoxiao have different background, they share a common interest in entrepreneurship. They co-created Project Global LLC., a start-up aimed at empowering youth by offering bespoke experiences that foster creativity, empathy and entrepreneurship to make an impact on the world.