What My Uncle Said About Birds
A story about learning to build useful things from whatever is available, from improvised grocery delivery to product work.
I remember the day I asked my uncle about birds. "You mean they take supplies, put them together, and turn it into something that has utility? ...Birds?"
Although I don't fly around Southern California with hay in my beak, that conversation is the genesis of my passion for building things that serve a purpose. During the COVID-19 quarantines, I worked with my roommate, a business major, to create our own grocery delivery service using a Costco membership, Shopify, Snapchat, and Postmates' API. Like the birds, I used what I had on hand. It resulted in us securing groceries for a disabled hallmate and ourselves when other delivery services were overburdened, in a more efficient and cost-effective way. Weeks later, at an early-stage product pitch competition, I presented to a panel of executives, drew on what I'd learned improving usability for the grocery service, and won second place out of twelve hundred international applicants. During a subsequent internship, that same instinct led me to take charge of building Boost, a TikTok influencer analytics startup that lets musicians predict how popular a song will be for a particular influencer's audience, making song marketing more efficient.
The thread running through all of it is the same thing my uncle described in birds: use what's available, put it together, make something that works.