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Starting something from scratch.
Co-Host of #impact Podcast, Belinda Esterhammer, Founder of Springboard Group and NextGen Network sits down with Cynthia Cheung, Youth Economic Empowerment Consultant at UNDP Youth Co:Lab and Sophronia Cheung, Summer Intern at NextGen Network to hear all about starting up a purpose-driven business.
Recording time! Belinda Esterhammer welcomes this week’s guests.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU LEARN ABOUT…
- How gaining corporate experience helped Cynthia to start her own business
- How she started an e-commerce shop selling Christmas cards designed by homeless people
- Why some startups fail
- The importance of understanding people and solving problems
Starting up
Cynthia not only started several social ventures but also previously worked for corporations like PwC and Vodafone Global Enterprise and is now the Youth Economic Empowerment Consultant at UNDP Youth Co:Lab. A Hong Kong national she is based at the Bangkok UN regional hub. In her work she empowers young people in the Asia Pacific Region and works with the government, policymakers, stakeholders, 36 countries and 24 country offices, to develop roadmaps as well as programmes to empower youth.
It’s all about your creativity, dedication and hustle.
Cynthia’s journey
She studied business administration in Bath (England) and interned in two big corporations. She learned how these corporates work and also discovered the pro’s and con’s of the corporate world. These were valuable experiences and opened many doors for her career. She decided to go into entrepreneurship after graduation and won a startup competition. That venture failed but got her hooked on tech so she self-taught herself developer skills and convinced her friend to hire her as a developer.
Being young you should try as many new things as possible, whether it’s the corporate world, entrepreneurship or learning something new outside of your studies.
Cynthia opened her own e-commerce shop while she was still at university in England…
Not just any e-commerce shop but a shop that sells Christmas cards of talented homeless people. She came up with this idea when she saw homeless people selling cards and magazines on the street and after talking to them and seeing how creative they were she printed their art on cards. She describes it as one of those “why not?!” moments and just did it. Even BBC picked up on it.
Empowering communities and young people through Sparkle Academy in Myanmar
When Cynthia went on a missionary training around the ASEAN region and came across Myanmar she became inspired to start an initiative to give back. She met many founders, teachers and young people and decided to create opportunities for those young people to learn more about entrepreneurship and other relevant topics such as financial inclusion through Sparke Academy. Her goal is to empower change makers and to help them understand their community and what actions can be taken.
Cynthia is making meaningful connection everywhere she goes.
Corporate experience as catalyst for entrepreneurship
Cynthia’s corporate experience was useful as she learned how to scale – for example how supply chain and pricing work. Don’t stress too much on university studies as even if you don’t have business experience you can start a business. It’s all about your creativity, dedication and hustle!
Build relationships with the people that you want to help and understand their pain points Click To Tweet
Scroll all the way up and press play to hear Cynthia’s story
Our learnings from this episode. Have something to add? Get in touch with us here!
Advice for future entrepreneurs
Build relationships with people that your business is trying to help and figure out what their needs are. A few of her ventures started without her immediately thinking of starting a business but thinking “I have a friend who’s homeless, how can I help him?” or “if I have a friend with many kids who’s living in Myanmar and she can’t get a job, but she can is really good at weaving, how can I help her with that?”. So try to understand the people you want to help and pinpoint how you can do that with the resources they have and also combine this with your business as well.
Useful Resources & Links
Interested to learn more about entrepreneurship?
Whether you want to pitch a business idea or just learn first hand what it takes to start a company – participate in a startup weekend in your city! https://www.facebook.com/StartupWeekendHK/
Read about our hosts Belinda’s entrepreneurship journey http://www.asianentrepreneur.org/belinda-esterhammer-founder-of-springboard-group
Lastly, visit the website of the UNDP Youth Co-Lab http://www.youthcolab.org/ and follow their magical journey
Interested to learn more about mentorship and empowering youth? Visit www.nextgennetwork.org
