The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 112: Liz Wessel – Why You Should Cold E-Mail Your Heroes

Starting point is 00:00:00 One of the best pieces of advice is just none of us know what we're doing. Like, no one except for hopefully doctors, really know what they're doing. I'm sure when you started this podcast, you definitely were not an expert in podcast. And you probably just said, you know what? Maybe I love doing it. I love meeting and trusting people. I think I have a good voice for it. So I'm going to just do it.

Starting point is 00:00:19 And at the end of the day, I had no idea what I was doing when I started this business. I just knew I wanted to solve a problem. And I thought I had a unique solution to it. and I thought I had a great co-founder. And so we did it. And I just can't urge people enough to just take leaps and stop questioning themselves. Are leaders born or are they made?

Starting point is 00:00:40 Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey guys, remember episode number 97 with Alejandro Chayin? He is the CEO of Maat and Bao. We both promise to continue our dialogue as we both progressed on our journeys.

Starting point is 00:01:16 And we certainly have, just as I have, with the great people at Mizan and Maine. And Alejandro and his company have decided to sponsor the Learning Leader Show. This episode is brought to you by Motten Bao. I told the story on that episode of why I absolutely love their ridiculously comfortable, handcrafted premium jeans. Also, no ugly back pocket embroidery or weird stitching, just simple, elegant, great-looking jeans. And Mottenbao has a free try-on program. You get two sizes to try at home with every purchase. Keep the one that fits and send the other one back for free. These jeans are already priced under market because they cut out all the retail markups. But the deal

Starting point is 00:02:01 is even better when you go to mottenbow.com and use promo code Ryan Hawk for 20% off. That's M-O-T-T-A-N-D-B-O-W.com promo code Ryan Hawk. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk so excited for tonight's featured leader. It's with Liz Wessel. Liz is the CEO of a multi-million dollar startup called Way Up. Prior to starting her own company, She worked at Google, but told them on the day she got her offer, consider this my two years notice, meaning I'm going to work incredibly hard for you guys for two years and then I'm leaving to go start up my own business. And that's exactly what she did with Way Up. A few of the things we got into during this really interesting conversation. Fundraising, specifically how she's been able to raise $9 million for Way Up.

Starting point is 00:03:00 Incredible stories. I loved hearing the details around how she pitched investors. what specifically she said to them in order to raise so much money. Then advice she gives to young professionals, practical tips that we can all use as we progress through our careers, and then cold emailing, specifically cold emailing our hero. She encourages all of her employees to do this on a regular basis because it's helped her so much in her life. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's Liz Wessel.

Starting point is 00:03:40 Liz, I'm so excited to have you here on The Learning Leader Show. So first of all, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Yeah, and I got a quick question to get us going, and that's around people that you've spent time around who have sustained excellence over an extended period of time. Now, I know you've done a great job of surrounding yourself with high performers, high achievers, whether it's investors or great leaders like Cheryl Sandberg. You've done a great job of that. And you yourself are one at a very young age. So I'm curious, what are some of the common characteristics you've found that people who have sustained excellence all seem to share?

Starting point is 00:04:13 Yeah, I would say a few things. First of all of them have a great attitude. They're positive people when put in an uncomfortable situation or a situation that's just not ideal. It's all about the attitude. Also, just like that they're adventurous and kind of fearless that getting rejection, you know, being rejected or being told no is never a problem or a concern. It's kind of a so what. So I would say those two things are most common. Are there a few people that pop into your mind when you think of sustained excellence? They don't have to be famous people. I'm just curious of the first ones you think of when you hear that. I mean, people who have really like consistently shown a track record of success. Yeah, definitely. I mean, some of my investor, our first investor box group, which is led by David Tish and Adam Rothenberg, I think of them as having an incredible track record over a very long period of time.

Starting point is 00:05:09 They've been a role model of mine since I was in college of freshmen, so like, you know, 10 years ago. I would say definitely some of the more famous people, of course, like a lot of CEOs I can think of the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, et cetera. And then I definitely have some personal friends who've just always had a good attitude no matter what situation they've been in. And those are some of my friends that I love hanging out with the most. Let's dig into you now, Liz, and what you have going on now. You have really an incredible story already at a very young age. So I love to learn more about when people come up to you and ask you, Liz, what do you do? How do you respond to that question?

Starting point is 00:05:50 I am the co-founder and CEO of a tech startup that helps college students get jobs. That's how I answer. Okay. And so what's the follow-ups? I say, wow, Liz, tell me more. What do you say? Yeah, so usually I'll tell them a little bit about Way Up. So Way Up is the name of my company.

Starting point is 00:06:04 and it's now the largest online marketplace exclusively for college students and recent grads to get part-time jobs, summer internships, or even full-time jobs after graduation. And when I talk about what I personally do, I like to say I do everything from helping take out trash to coming up with kind of our key metrics and goals for the company, to meeting with investors about fundraising, to doing sales for, among our larger customers, to doing user support and talking to students so that we can know. know what to develop for them. How did you get the idea for this company? So my co-founder and I had actually worked on a side project together in college that was in a similar space. So we knew a little bit about how much of a need there was from both being college students.

Starting point is 00:06:49 And then we went on to work at Google and McKinsey and we saw the need for it from the other end. But we also just honestly talked to any college student. One of the biggest concerns they have there at the year is, am I going to get an awesome internship? Am I going to get even hired for my full-time job after paying? $200,000 for my education. And so a lot of the time, that's been a problem for so many decades.

Starting point is 00:07:10 And I thought it was kind of silly that no one had solved it in a realistic way. And so that's what we're trying to do. Well, talk to me about how it's going from the very beginnings, from the first day that it was officially accompanied to now, some of the growth, some of the numbers of users. Talk to me like we're on Shark Tank here, like how it's going because I love to learn about the origin stories, one, like the idea to then some of the execution and some of the keys to the really rapid growth that you guys have experienced, as well as some huge investment, I know, that you guys have been very successful in that arena as well.

Starting point is 00:07:43 Sounds great. So, as I mentioned, my co-founder, JJ, and I met in college, and we had worked on a side project that was similar. It was helping a specific set of students get a specific kind of job, and I won't get too much into it, but we then graduated. He went backhacking around the world as a freelancing web developer. I went to Google, and then he went to McKinsey. and I actually moved to India to lead the brand team in Google.

Starting point is 00:08:07 And while I was out there six months into my one year, JJ called me and said, I want to leave my job at McKinsey and I want to start a company or join a startup. What do you think? And I said, you're not starting a company without me, basically. Like I'm in. Actually, when I had even joined Google, I told Google that it was going to be two years and then I would be out to start my own company. And they knew that.

Starting point is 00:08:28 So it wasn't too much of a surprise when six months into my year in India, I said, you know, okay, I'm going to start thinking with JJ, what problem do we want to solve? So we went through everything. We went through travel startup ideas. We went through hardware ideas. We went through everything. But the idea we kept coming back to is like, why has no one solved campus recruiting in a realistic way? And so we decided to dive into it.

Starting point is 00:08:52 We started looking at other companies. We started talking to students. The number one way, over 80% of students we surveyed, like thousands of students we surveyed, said that their last job they got through nepotism. It was through their mom. dad, their brother, their nephew, their cousin, whatever it was. And so, not nephew, I'm sorry, their cousin or their neighbor. And so we thought that was ridiculous.

Starting point is 00:09:10 And we wanted to solve that problem. So July 1st, 2014, I moved back from India. July 13th, 2014 was my last day at Google. We started at that, you know, the company that evening under a different name, campus job, which we later changed names to weigh up. And then two weeks later, we raised a million dollars in seed funding from New York City venture capitalists. And a couple months after that, we went to Y Comeditor.

Starting point is 00:09:35 We launched in September 2014 just doing part-time jobs for students during the school year, a lot of virtual gigs, et cetera. But we started seeing demand from both sides of the marketplace, the students and the employer, saying January is around the corner, and we really want to do summer internships and use your platform for hiring for that, can we? And so we said, why not? So we launched summer internships, and then five months after that, we launched full-time jobs. And so we've raised just over $9 million to date.

Starting point is 00:10:01 And now we are a marketplace where we like to say we have jobs, everything from barista to banker, everything from part-time jobs, full-time jobs, virtual gigs, et cetera. And we're 34 people based here in New York City. Wow. What an incredible story. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. 18 months later, it's from 2 to 34. It's insane.

Starting point is 00:10:21 And they raised that amount of money, especially before I was reading as I was preparing for this, two things that actually. caught my attention. One, I don't know many people who the day they get hired at Google say, this is my two years notice. I just love that quote when I read that you told them the day you got hired that, just so you know, I'm going to be here for two years and I'm out. Like, that takes some serious guts to say that too. What, what, like, allowed you to have the confidence and the ability to tell them that on the day that you got hired? So it was actually when I got the offer. And when they gave me the offer, I wanted to make sure that I didn't burn bridges with Google

Starting point is 00:11:01 and that I would also be in a situation where I could thrive and learn as much as possible that would help me specifically to start my own company one day. And so when I was talking to the recruiter, I just wanted to be very honest. Google is an incredible company to work for, and it's a place where you can be very honest, as long as what you're being honest about does not hurt the company, Google. And so, you know, I said, like I'm choosing between this job. And I'm, you know, I said, like, I'm choosing between this job and I could also apply for other jobs out there. But I would love to work at Google. I've been told get as much operating experience as possible from the best companies in

Starting point is 00:11:34 the world. And at the end of the day, Google is one of the best companies in the world. So I said, I want to work at Google just as long as they won't hate me if I leave after two years. So, yeah, it wasn't, I didn't even think about it. It wasn't even like a concern of mine. If anything, the recruiter, when I was trying to make the decision, she actually introduced me to a few people who had done my exact job.

Starting point is 00:11:55 and then left after a few years to start their own companies. And now I'm still friends, good friends with some of those people. Really interesting. I love that story. Another aspect of your business is the rapid growth. And you mentioned I've seen before that you wanted to bootstrap this company, but it wouldn't allow you to grow at the pace that you want to grow at. And I even read that you're obsessed with growing quickly.

Starting point is 00:12:21 So that's what led to seeking out outside investment. Can you explain that process and what you're thinking in regards to your strategy of initially wanting to bootstrap, but then realizing you wouldn't be able to hire the people you needed to hire to grow at the rate you wanted to grow and do it that way? Yeah. So what basically happened was we thought bootstrapping at the very beginning was right because we didn't even think we were in a position where we could fundraise. We didn't really have a product that would be a campus job. We didn't have much of a team other than my co-founder, myself, et cetera. But when we decided that we were going to grow by hiring.

Starting point is 00:12:55 our own users, our student users to promote us as our campus reps. We said, okay, well, we know who we want to hire, but we need money to pay this person. Her name is Nikki. And so we said, okay, let's just raise a couple hundred thousand dollars, like $250,000. And we will hire Nikki and one developer and will, and all Liz, I will be the salesperson and JJ will be the CTO. And so that was kind of the plan. And then we went out and one of the first funds we met with said, you know, we're really

Starting point is 00:13:25 interested but we want to do way more than that and then the next one said we want to do more than that et cetera and so we ended up raising a million dollars and at that point we didn't really know we were launching campus job and so we didn't really know what would happen to the business would we ever go beyond summer internships and full-time jobs to you know maybe it's to 20-somethings or would we ever even go beyond campus jobs and even get into full-time jobs etc and so we had no idea what would be of the business other than that we wanted to grow and help as many students get hired and make money or build their resume. And it was after a few months that we started to see the traction and started getting

Starting point is 00:14:03 emails from students telling us that their business, our business changed their lives, whether they were able to pay for their tuition or whether they decided to change their major because of a job they got through us, whatever it might be. And that was the first time that really we said, wow, we can actually make this into something much bigger than we even expected at the beginning if we grow faster. And so then it's a matter of, you know, you don't want anyone else to catch up. There's, as I mentioned at the beginning, there's no shortage of people who've tried to do this before. So then it was a matter of, okay, now we just need to grow quicker than the rest.

Starting point is 00:14:33 And we also want to grow because the more we grow, the more people are getting hired. And so we decided to raise a little bit more money. We didn't necessarily plan to raise $8 million more for our Series A, but it worked out that way. Yeah, I was going to say, what type of responsibility do you feel with $9 million raised? by outside investors. Obviously, people, the reason they invest is because they want to see a return at some point on that. How do you strategically decide to spend all of that money?

Starting point is 00:15:03 So you want to do it in a way that, first of all, I studied math in college. I'm kind of unit economics obsessed. And if anyone listening has been paying attention to the fundraising environment recently, a lot of the companies that are being hurt are the companies that didn't really care about unit economics and we're just focused on growth without any thought on margins or making their business model sustainable. And so we've always cared a lot about unit economics. And so a lot of the money that we have been spending, aside from just hiring people who

Starting point is 00:15:35 could do things like, you know, I was doing all customer support for the most part up until a week ago when we finally hired a customer support person and user support I was doing for the first nine months of our business until they hired a user support. user support means the student. So I would say for the most part, you figure out how to raise money by saying how can we be as efficient as we can be with our time. And then also how can we make sure that we're only investing in things that are good for the company's long-term sustainability. So hiring more salespeople, that makes us more money. They pay for themselves. So there's no reason not to hire more salespeople. Whereas you're not going to just hire 50 new marketing people unless you

Starting point is 00:16:13 actually know that one marketing person can like add to this part of your business. etc so even engineers like you know we're i think we're almost done with our engineering hiring for right now by for right now i probably need two months or three months for now but at the end of the day we know that we want to we have a very aggressive product roadmap and we know that we need x number more engineers to meet that road map one of the interesting parts about your what you i think teach and preach and actually live that i've i've read about the fact that you ask employees to reach out to their idols and send them emails. And I've really done that throughout this whole, from the beginnings of my podcast.

Starting point is 00:16:56 It's part of the reason why I do it. It gives me an opportunity to reach out to really empowering, inspiring leaders who have done some incredible things and get to learn directly from them and then spread that message to others. Talk to me about your philosophy on pushing others around you to reach out and cold email their idols. Yes. So I have not gone into where I am without the fact that I've had amazing support. And that's everything from my parents, from when I was born, to my friends, my family, et cetera, my colleagues.

Starting point is 00:17:30 But I will say I've also gotten support from strangers. And that's everything from when I was deciding where to go to college. I reached out to random people who had gone to my high school saying, hey, I know we've never met, but I know you go to Penn. When I was in college choosing which job to, actually, when I was a sophomore, thinking about my summer internship, I wanted to work in Japan because I speak Japanese. I used to be much more fluent, and there were no Japanese companies hiring for Japan roles from Penn, and so I just emailed a bunch of alumni and ended up working at Blackstone in Tokyo as a private equity analyst intern.

Starting point is 00:18:08 And then junior, a senior year when I got job offers, I was choosing. between going to venture capital or going into an operating role at Google, and I cold emailed, roll off both of Sequoia and said, you have an incredible track record. My goal is to start my own company one day. You invest in great entrepreneurs. Which route should I do? The venture capital route or the operating experience, which one is going to help me be set up more for success with starting my own company? And he said, definitely the operating role.

Starting point is 00:18:33 So, I mean, at the end of the day, I cold email all the time, and I've gotten to where I am because of that. And I am so young and I'm 25 years old. I don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time, to be honest. And so I reach out to people who do at least seem to know what they're doing and get advice from them. And so I always encourage people at my company to do the same week. We're very big on internally promoting people. And so just one example is someone at my company. Nina just recently switched from one role to doing a more, from a marketing role to doing a much more PR and communications role.

Starting point is 00:19:05 And she had never done PR or communications at a company before. And so I told her when she started, I said meet as many people in this world as possible, made as many journalists, et cetera, and just pick their brain, learn about best practices, learn about how to communicate with them. And the list goes on, and she's been doing that and doing a phenomenal job at it. And so I always encourage everyone at my company to grow as a person and grow in their professional role by reaching out to strangers. And you reached out to Cheryl Sandberg to have asked for dinner as well.

Starting point is 00:19:35 Is that correct? I reached out to a few people. Yeah, it's been pretty fun. How was that dinner? It was really good. It was great. Is it something you don't want to talk about? No, it was awesome.

Starting point is 00:19:48 It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. So she's an amazing woman. Yeah, I think her book's great. And some of her speeches and the things that she gets into is she's an inspiring leader, I think, for a number of people. It's done a lot of big things. So I really like that part about your story and about pushing others to do it. Because I think what's the worst that's going to happen?

Starting point is 00:20:07 They just delete it or they don't respond. I mean, I know, right? In the worst case, you spent 10 or 15 minutes writing a really well-written email and they didn't respond and then who cares. Exactly. Your tagline at the company is if you're not on way up, then you're probably on your way down. If you're not on your way up, then you're probably on your way down. Yeah, it's kind of a bold statement. Talk to me more about how you came up with that.

Starting point is 00:20:30 Yeah. So, I mean, being on your way up to me means that you are trying to grow. You're trying, you're kind of taking your fate into your own hands. You're not waiting for, I'm just going to put myself in the shoes of a student. You're not waiting for a business to come on campus, meet you at a career fair, tell you that they want you. You're actually going on to way up or you're doing whatever you can to hustle and find your own job or internship that's right for you. And so at the end of the day, if you're not doing that, then everyone else is going to do that. Everyone at least is smart.

Starting point is 00:21:00 And you're not going to quite rise the ranks, whether it be professionally, personally, etc. So that's what that means to me. How many users you guys have at this time, and how many businesses are you working with? We have around 400,000 users, and we've had over 8,000 businesses use us in the past year and a half or so. Wow. And so what does that look like moving forward over the next year, two years, five years? What are you hoping to do? What are some of your longer-term goals?

Starting point is 00:21:28 Yeah, it's a great question. I would say we definitely want to get all students in the country using our platform. I mean, something that's great is that we don't rely on your university to work with you. We just go straight to the student and we don't charge students, of course, or anything like that. We make money from employers. So at the end of the day, we want to get as many students using us as possible and be the place that has the biggest reach. We have students at over 3,200 schools, which we're really proud of. So I would say get as many students as possible.

Starting point is 00:21:55 And if we're talking five, 10 years, I think there's no place right now that's great for 20-somethings to find a job, period. There's like, you know, websites that are white pages of blue links and you click each link and you get brought to a new page where you have to fill out your profile over and over again. There's products like LinkedIn, which are awesome products for the profile, et cetera. But I don't have any friends who would use them to actually find a job and apply for jobs. So I think we can be that. But it's a long-term, it's a long-term game for sure. Will it expand outside of just college students? Well, that's what I'm saying.

Starting point is 00:22:29 Yeah, I think we could one day be the place for all 20-something. thinks to find a job, but I'm talking one day. One day. Yeah, I'm thinking of some people who are potentially listening who hire people. And this is, I think, as you know better than anybody, it's really tough to find the most talented, greatest people to work for your company. That's what everybody's looking for, and those people are in such demand. So talk to me a little bit about how the process works, both on the student side and on the

Starting point is 00:22:59 employer side as well as you mentioned how you guys make money and then explain a little bit about the way that you guys are able to make to profit from it absolutely so students sign up and they register with the dot edu email and we verify who they are so we know that they're you know a student that goes to that school and then they fill out a profile and so we get a bunch of interesting fun facts and information about them such as their major their minor their fun facts their hobbies their skills, what programming languages they know, what languages they speak, etc. Once we get all that information, we only show them jobs that they're qualified to apply for, and it's all automated.

Starting point is 00:23:37 And so, for example, if you speak Spanish, then you're going to see the job that requires you to be able to speak Spanish. But if you speak French and you don't speak Spanish, you're not going to see that job. And when you see a job you like, you simply click apply. We already have your phone profile, and so it's kind of like the common app for applying for jobs. You could just click apply. Sometimes there might be an essay question, like, why do you want to work here?

Starting point is 00:23:55 but other than that, you submit your application right through the site or through the app. And then on the business side, I love how it works. So if you've ever run like a Facebook or a Google ad campaign, you'll know what I'm talking about. But you fill out the job description and then you check a bunch of boxes for the targeting. So you can say, only show my job to students in the New York area or only show my job to biology majors or whatever it might be. Only show my job to freshmen or seniors, et cetera. And so once you post that job, you also tell us how many qualified applicants you want. to receive so I only want to receive 20 students because I just want to make one hire and I think

Starting point is 00:24:30 I do 20 great applicants in order to make that one higher and the list goes on and then once you get all the applicants you decide who you want to hire and it's it's in your your ball court from there. So yeah, we've been able to match hundreds of thousands of students with jobs and tens of thousands of students have been hired through us and so we've had a lot of success and I can't tell you enough like every company listening, I hope that you hire an intern or a new grad or whatever it might be through us. So then that's how you make your money from the companies and pay. So we make money from companies.

Starting point is 00:25:00 So they pay us for every application that they receive. So if you say I want 20 applications, the price per application is based on the filters that you use. So if you say, I want to get 4.0 computer science major from MIT and it has to have those three things, then maybe that will be like $7 per applicant. or if you say I want anyone, it could be $4 per applicant. The list goes on. So it's anywhere from $4 to $15 per application that you receive. And then you can always put a cap.

Starting point is 00:25:26 You can say, I just want to get 10 applicants. And then you'll never pay more than that. So it's your job to provide great applicants to these companies because that way they'll see, wow, every time I go to way up, I'm getting these 10 quality people. And I'm going to continue going over and over and over. And that becomes one of their primary missions and ways to recruit. Exactly. I would say it's quality and it's also diversity. We will get you. Most businesses are shocked by, first of all, like 70% of our user base is female, one and every three engineers in our user basis female. So we get a lot of women, but we also have a lot of ethnic diversity on our site. And so businesses tend to be really excited by the diversity of applicants that they get. Is that one of your strategies that you specifically target women or you want to know? No, isn't that funny? It just happened that way.

Starting point is 00:26:16 It just happened. It's so bizarre, but I'm not questioning it. Yeah, I think that's really cool. Talk to me about the relationship with your co-founder at JJ. I know I've read a lot about it, but the fact of, I'm always curious to hear how this dynamic works is I would imagine you have to, you both have your individualized strengths. You're not great at the same things and hopefully you fill in the gaps for each other as my guess. But talk to me about that. Yeah, so JJ and I are, you know, he's like my other half.

Starting point is 00:26:43 We're very, very close. And so I would say he's the CTO and I'm the CEO. So most of my day is focused on much more of the businessy stuff and a lot of product as well. And most of his day is focused on more of the infrastructure, the security, keeping our site up, making our site faster, making it more efficient. And then, of course, he's super involved as well in the other half, which is the business half. So we work together really, really well. We have good overlap, but we're also very complimentary. If you met us, most of our team members at Way Up definitely think we're not opposites, but very, very different people.

Starting point is 00:27:21 I'm a little more cheery than he is. He definitely has more of a poker face, if you will. So it's pretty fun, but we work together really, really well. And we spend probably 16 to 18 hours a day together. So it's like six or seven days a week. So I know a lot about him. And he knows a lot about us. I've read that you don't sleep very much.

Starting point is 00:27:43 I do not sleep very much That's correct So you literally wake up super early And work all day Into the night, past midnight Every single day I wake up not too early I usually wake up between 730 and 830

Starting point is 00:27:57 Pretty much every morning And then I usually go to sleep around 3 to 4 a.m So you're 3 or 4 hours a night of sleep Yeah Wow how are you able to operate at such a high level For so much time every single day Um, you know, so I, my, in my genetics, like my family, my whole dad's side, no one really sleeps more than three or four maximum five, but usually three to four hours a night. So it's definitely a family thing, but I've always been like this since high school, since middle school.

Starting point is 00:28:30 I've always been the type who would just work through the entire night. Um, I don't know. I guess I just don't need too much sleep to have energy. Do you take vacations much? So I have taken, I mean, when I used to work at Google, I definitely did. Now, I think I've taken like five days off in the past year and a half since starting the company. And by the way, all five days have been glued to my phone. And I know that it might sound bad, by the way.

Starting point is 00:28:57 Like, I do have my phone with me and I'll be on call. But at the end of the day, I think it's irresponsible almost to think that you're going to have a lot of time to yourself when you start a company. It's kind of like from what I understand having a child, except you can't really just have a babysitter at the very early stage because of the fact that, you know, things can go wrong every day. So while I have an amazing team who can always look after the business, I'm very hands on with it. And to be honest, I've never been happier. I have the best time when I'm in my office. I absolutely love it. So it's totally fine with me.

Starting point is 00:29:32 I'm curious, do you risk burnout or fear that maybe? But that's the thing. This is like my life, right? So like I'm having more fun than ever. So I'm not going to be burning out if I'm having fun. It would be like saying you're burning out of what, I don't know, maybe you love sports. Maybe you love playing baseball. You can get tired.

Starting point is 00:29:52 Don't get me wrong of playing baseball. It's a physically rigorous sport. But at the end of the day, if you love it, then you're going to keep watching it or playing it or whatever it might be. So for me, this business is my life and it's what I love. And so I'm not getting burned out anytime soon. Yeah, so I have to believe in your work life and your social life are basically the same thing. Yeah, for the most part. I definitely have friends outside of this business and I get to see them a couple times a month.

Starting point is 00:30:18 I don't go out every single weekend. I do have to work and I travel on weekends a lot for work. But again, it's completely okay with me. I really do love what I'm doing and I have amazing friends who are very supportive and my family is super supportive as well. And it helps that my dad is on my kind of sleeping schedule. So we can always have calls or I can grab coffee with him at midnight and he'll be on the same page as me. Yeah. I'm thinking of people who are hearing your story and they're inspired and maybe they're in college right now. And they want to have, they want to do something similar.

Starting point is 00:30:55 When college age kids, and I imagine this probably happens more and more every day with you now, ask you for advice and say, Liz, I want to do what you do. what do you say to them? Yeah, that's a great question. I always first encourage them to figure out what they love and what they don't love. So for me, I mentioned I did a finance internship one summer, and I knew immediately that I did not love it. And so that prevented me from going the path that a lot of my friends went right after college, which was into a full-time finance job and then hating it and quitting after a year and being miserable for a year. So I would say use companies like Way Up or whatever you want to use to find different opportunities.

Starting point is 00:31:35 and try out as much as you can, outside of your major and within your major. And then once you figure out what you like doing, try to find creative and unique ways to actually do it. So if you love technology, maybe you want to work at a local startup. Maybe you want to start your own company. Something cool about being in colleges, you can get away with a lot more. And you are not really, usually, unless you have a crazy amount of student loans and you have to spend all your free time, you know, making money to pay them off, if you have the luxury. and are fortunate enough to be able to spend free time doing something else.

Starting point is 00:32:10 If you want to start your own business, then, like, for example, try starting your own business in college. It doesn't have to be a billion-dollar company. Maybe in college for me, for example, I did not start a billion-dollar company, but I did start my first business, which was a student discount company locally at Penn. And it ended up going well enough that I ended up franchising it to other schools throughout the country. And so I can't urge people enough to try things out while in college. and just see what they love and what they don't love. It reminds me of Adam Grant's book Originals.

Starting point is 00:32:42 He talks a lot about the fact that some of the best entrepreneurs in the world actually had some sort of a backup plan, or in your case you're in college so you're able to take risk, because then they can try new things without having, like, they don't have to make money. If you're in college or you even have some sort of backup plan, you have the opportunity and the ability, to risk some things, to try things out that might not work until you find the right thing.

Starting point is 00:33:12 And it feels to me like what you're saying is very similar to that. Yeah, I just, I can't urge people enough to try as much as many things out as possible and as diverse things as possible because maybe you don't succeed at your first favorite thing and maybe you find another thing that was your backup plan that you end up loving even more. You've also reached out like we mentioned earlier in the talk to a bunch of great leaders. What's the best advice they've given to you? That's a good question. I would say a few things.

Starting point is 00:33:43 So one was actually one of my friends' dads at graduation. And I thought this was really amazing advice. And he said that the best thing people can do when choosing a career. And when I say a career, I really mean like choosing what to do full time, not just your summer internship is thinking as seriously about it and wanting to be as passionate about it as you are about when you're finding a spouse to marry. And at the end of the day, he said that you're going to spend just as much, if not more time, with your job than you are with your spouse.

Starting point is 00:34:14 And so why would you just choose whatever's going to make you the most money or something like that? You're not going to be happy. So I loved that advice. And then I would say among kind of the more famous, successful people I've been honored enough to meet and be mentored by, I would say, one of the best people. of advice is just none of us know what we're doing. Like no one, except for hopefully doctors, really know what they're doing.

Starting point is 00:34:37 I'm sure when you started this podcast, you definitely were not an expert in podcast. And you probably just said, you know what? Maybe I love doing it. I love meeting and trusting people. I think I have a good voice for it. So I'm going to just do it. And at the end of the day, I had no idea what I was doing when I started this business. I just knew I wanted to solve a problem and I thought I had a unique solution to it.

Starting point is 00:34:57 and I thought I had a great co-founder. And so we did it. And I just can't urge people enough to just take leaps and stop questioning themselves. I love that advice. It's great. And it's so, I love it. It shares honesty, transparency, some vulnerability, which is, I think, keys to great leadership because it builds trust. A couple more questions, Liz.

Starting point is 00:35:21 I know we're up against it. Do you have any books you would recommend for people or maybe books that you give out as gifts to others when they ask you or books that I've had influence on you that have helped you? So the books that I love reading the most, and I've always been this way. I've never been a fiction reader, really from my whole life when all my friends were reading Harry Potter. It was just never for me. The first time I could read my own book, I chose to read presidential biographies. And so I still love reading autobiographies and biographies, whether it be Girl Boss or any of Richard Branson's autobiographies.

Starting point is 00:35:57 I think there's been some really great entrepreneurs who've written awesome books. So that's what I always love reading. And I love, for me, I think A, some people's lives are so interesting that it's like you're reading a fiction book. And sometimes it's so not to be believed how incredible their stories are, such as Sophia from Girl Boss, who's the founder of Nasty Gal. But I would say, yeah, I mean, I like reading to learn because, and for entertainment as well. but I also like learning. And so I think that's why I read nonfiction. I'm with you.

Starting point is 00:36:31 I'm pretty much a 98% nonfiction reader. So it's hard. I mean, and I think there's something to be said for reading novels every once in a while, but I always kind of just go back in that direction because there's so many good ones out there that could help you. Yeah. I do watch some TV.

Starting point is 00:36:48 I mean, don't get me wrong. I think I have two TV shows I watch every week, which are each 20 minutes. But I do have that. Modern Family. new girl. Okay, okay. And so those are my two not a fiction things in my life, I guess.

Starting point is 00:37:02 That's good. One more question, Liz. And I really appreciate being here because you've shared so many good nuggets here. I talked to you before we started recording about the purpose behind why I do this. And you just briefly talked about it as well, the fact that it's love learning about the art and science of leadership and learning from a really diverse set of leaders in all different areas of life. And your stories is really inspiring.

Starting point is 00:37:24 I love it. And the advice you shared. But I'm curious, when you hear the phrase learning leader, what's the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear a learning leader? I think of just people who ask a lot of questions and always question what they hear as well. So they're asking questions, but they're never just swallowing the answers and believing it immediately. So people who are positively skeptical, but also who are very inquisitive and curious. I love that answer. That's awesome.

Starting point is 00:37:56 Thank you so much. Where would you send everybody to learn more about you and WayUp online? Yeah, so they can go to WayUp.com or if they have a mobile phone and iPhone, you can download the iOS app. And we have a Twitter account at WayUp. And my personal Twitter account is at Liz Wessel, WESS-S-E-L. And then we also have a Facebook page and all that other stuff, Instagram, all the stuff you need to have these days. Yep, yep. Well, great.

Starting point is 00:38:20 Well, Liz, I definitely want to continue this dialogue with you as we both progressed. and I'm excited to hear and see how way up grows over the next few years. I'm excited for you. So thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. All right. Thanks. Talk soon.

Starting point is 00:38:35 Bye. Bye. Bye. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to LearningLeadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by

Starting point is 00:38:54 reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Learning Leader Show.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 112: Liz Wessel – Why You Should Cold E-Mail Your Heroes

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