Introduction and Foundations

Introduction: Pivot from conventional paths to entrepreneurship with confidence. Explore the unexpected turns, challenges, and triumphs that shape a successful business journey from the ground up.

Since I was a kid, I was married to the idea of becoming a doctor. Suiting up in a white coat. Helping patients and people smile. Making innovative strides in health care research. The idea of creating impacts through my career was a core tenet of what I wanted to achieve in my life. Over the years, as the idea and reality of the path to and through medical school became more real, I began to realize that enjoying what you do is also pretty important and not just the end goal.

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My college experience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill truly opened my eyes. The diversity and number of majors, students, clubs, organizations, and opportunities felt limitless. I started to move through my life with more of an open mind, and learned quickly that entrepreneurship was something that made me tick. 

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For me, I never considered entrepreneurship to be the first step of my professional career, but rather something I would get into once I had a stable salary figured out. I started a small business in high school, and it's still never crossed my mind that I do anything other than go to med school like Baaqir. I was only four classes away from completing the pre-med track in college, when I chose to forgo it in pursuit of building our first small business.

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I always remember my mentor challenging me, saying, no, it's not a risk to quit premed at this point. It's an investment in your future because you can do entrepreneurship. I always knew I wanted my job to involve something different every day, where I'd never stop learning, and entrepreneurship turned out to unlock that for me the best.

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I'm Baaqir. A thought-provoking yet serendipitous encounter with the Adobe Creative Cloud suite led me to buy my first camera just under a decade ago.

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That was the real game changer. That sparked something. I began to develop the desire to tell stories and create something of my own, leading to our first business venture. Cut to March 2020 and I'm thinking we've got it made. The business we began back in college is well-established and flourishing, and I'm relaxing on the beach with my best friends in Mexico on our last spring break together.

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And then, as we all know too well, Covid-19 entered the chat. Talk about a wake up call. The world is in chaos and so was I. Every emotion on the spectrum hit me like a freight train. But when you build something from scratch. There's this fire inside that just doesn't burn out. Sure, it was rough, but it was also a chance to double down, to adapt, to evolve.

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That's ultimately what you come to love about this lifestyle. You live for the next challenge. And now here we are. 

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I'm Tristan, by the way. Baaqir and I, we've taken all those lessons, all those years of grinding and channeled them into our new venture, Suora. We've got stories, failures, wins, and everything in between. And that's why we’re here – to share the raw, uncut truths and insights of this crazy journey. In this course, we're going to dive into various critical elements of business and startups. We'll explore the art and science of sales, how to craft a sustainable business model, build a positive team culture, delve into the psychology of entrepreneurship, and outline effective growth strategies. 

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Entrepreneurship is an ebb and flow. It's filled with high highs and a lot of low lows and has an aura of uncertainty around it. This idea that it's a very risky and unstructured path to freedom. We've gathered a wealth of strategies and channels to help grow your business and give structure to the uncertain. And trust me, once you dip your toes into the world of entrepreneurship, it's more than just a career choice. It really does become a lifestyle. And we're here to guide you through every step of that journey.