What I’m Working On 🛠️

This will be a section where I focus on what I’m currently working on and the learnings or challenges I’ve been facing because of it.

Mockt

To give some context, Mockt was started by Adam, Hasan, and I as we found a need for a mock interview platform. We started with a goal; to democratize access to interview preparation for all students. Since September, we’ve been able to validate our idea and work through some key challenges. Here is what's happening now.

Keep Going: Those are the two words I would use to describe our planned partnership with Rotman and even trying to develop relationships with other career centres. We’ve gotten some interest now from a few other career centre’s and I’m super excited to where this pans out next. Thinking of exploring in the tech and engineering space now…more on this later.

When it’s Time to Pivot: So we figured out where we want to fit into the employer side by tackling the enterprise and SMB’s that need better quality student data for their hiring decisions. There are still a lot of assumptions being made, and much of this side of the business relies on us having students on the platform from partnerships developed with career centre’s. We also got some feedback from Nazuk Thakkar (Ripple VC) about our business model and it really got us thinking. However, we still believe in our mission and are continuing to push for the career centre side because this is a clear pain point. The most important motto to us right now? Do things that don’t scale.

Conferences: Being in this space has given me experiences I don’t think I would’ve been able to have without co-founding Mockt.

• Tech@RBC x UTE We were invited in early January to host our company booth at the joint event hosted by Tech@RBC to showcase some of UofT and RBC’s innovations. We were 1 of 8 companies showcasing at the event, which led us to making many new connections among career centre’s, recruiters at RBC, and students.

• Ripple VC Fellow Night We pitched our company to Nazuk who liked us so much, we got invited to Ripple’s Fellow Night where we got to come as guests and learn more about some of the cool companies being built under Ripple’s Fellowship Fund. We networked with a lot of cool people and got to learn from Nazuk why Mockt wasn’t the right fit for Ripple. All amazing things to learn from and experience.

• Hult Prize Pitch Competition We will be pitching on Feb 21st to a panel of judges to hopefully pass the University of Toronto round and advance to the regional qualifiers in Boston, MA in competition for a $1M prize to the first place winners. I’m not expecting much but I know that what I want out of it is some brand awareness and new connections, which I am sure we will get.

Rejection: Learning to (and continuing to) deal with rejection has been an amazing journey throughout Mockt. We continue to have our successes and our rejections.

Team: One thing I love about our team is that we’re speak first, reconciliate later. This does not by any means mean that we’re allowed to be rude or condescending to each other, but we can speak our minds and opinions to new ideas or suggestions without having to worry too much about shutting down or offending anyone. This has led to a lot more efficiency and good work being processed.

Church

Progress on the short video series is…pretty bad. It’s a pretty big learning curve to get used to working with ToonSquid. I actually don’t even own an iPad right now because I sold my old one and haven’t prioritized the time to get a new one. On top of all that, I want to make sure I put my 100% effort into it, which also means it’s taking me much longer to make progress on it. Will hopefully have better updates by the next time I write.

However, we had a great time at Yulin’s Winter 2024 retreat. I presented a seminar on apologetics with Gordon (the dude taking the selfie and also Jamie’s BIL) and overall got some time to relax from an otherwise busy time.

I find that church is important for me not only to grow my faith but also to find time to rest. Sunday is probably the only day in the week where I’m not fully stressed about other things going on and wondering if I’m forgetting to do something.

Life Recently 🌿

This section will be for what’s usually most changing in my life. I may not always update every section, depending on how much has changed or how badly I want to update these parts since the last time.

School

Started school again but thankfully my IB credits are saving my life these days. Only have to do 4 courses and 1 of them is asynchronous. The other 3 all have 1 class each. This allows me to prioritize school at the bottom of my list and put other (more important) things above it.

Family

Had a great time over winter break spending it with family and with Tiger. Went on a 1-night trip with Tiger and managed to hike ~16KM in one day. As I’m getting older, beginning to value time with family more and more. The hardest part is balancing everything.

Music

3 songs I’ve really been enjoying:

Friends

Had a great final gathering with “PCH” our large group of friends. Danny Wang hosted it and we had a great time. That was the last time I saw a few of them. However, we kept meeting up for another final dinner. We had final dinner #2 at Boston Pizza. And then finally to satisfy it final dinner #3 at McDonalds (mini menu challenge).

Also was finally able to do something non-work related with Adam and Hasan which felt like something we haven’t done in so long (maybe since Coldplay and near-death hike in Vancouver in September). We went rock climbing and I was super satisfied with how much I challenged myself. I hit the threshold that the instructor said is a good place for first-time beginners to start with and it made me kind of want to keep going. It’s so expensive though; we went with Rotman Commerce Student Life which made it cost $10, but it’s usually $43 for a day.

Looking Ahead

Super excited to keep progressing in the terrain park and carving skills on my skis this winter. Only went twice so far but trying to fit in time to go when I can. Wish Blue Mountain wasn’t so far though…

Reading Room 📖

I hate self-help and productivity books so don’t expect anything of those nature. Mostly going to be Christian books or war novels.

Reason for God - Timothy Keller (9.5/10)

Finished this book previously but currently reading chapter-by-chapter with my Church. If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about Christianity or are a skeptic - this is the perfect book for you. My favorite chapter: How Could a Good God allow suffering?

Mere Christianity - CS Lewis (8.5/10 so far)

Another great book I’ve been reading from the 1940s from famous writer, CS Lewis (he also wrote the Narnia series). A little lower in rating because it’s a lot harder for me to understand the concepts at times.

Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God - JI Packer (9/10 so far)

A great read so far about reconciling evangelism and the doctrine of sovereignty in the Christian faith and what that means for Christians. Also super short but straight to the point which is what I like about it so far. On page 90/120 so need to find the time to just finish it off.

Health 🏋️

Holding myself accountable here and documenting any big changes throughout my time since the last post.

Physical

Current Weight: 156 lbs

Current Bench: 170 lbs

Target Weight: 170 lbs

Target Bench: 225 lbs

Not gonna lie, need to be going to the gym way more than I have. Used to go 4-6 times a week consistently but it’s now more like 1-3 a week. Signed up with this UofT Fitness club free personal trainer thing, let’s see what happens from there.

Mental

Biggest thing right now has got to be time prioritization and new stress with where my career is going and how I’m going to provide for my future. Mockt is a huge commitment but also a huge risk. The upside potential is huge, but so is the downside potential. But I really want to do Mockt. Hedges are being made in the backend which I won’t share too much now. Let’s just see what happens 🙂 Figuring out what exactly I want to do and how I’m going to provide is something that constantly comes in my mind these days. It feels like there isn’t enough time.

Random 🏁

Might be word vomit, might be very cohesive. Or just random thoughts that have come up (and thankfully remembered).

Adventure

Sadly won’t be going to Japan this reading week like I had envisioned. Hoping to travel around America in May prior to the start of my internship. Definitely going to the West Coast but let me know if anyone has suggestions!

Something Random

Haven’t had access to my Windows Desktop PC since end of November. This has both stunted and propelled my work productivity (less distractions but less efficiency). There is data I don’t want to lose on the main drive but the Windows boot up is corrupted. 😡 I also found that I find myself eating out alone pretty often, which I enjoy as a chance to unwind and enjoy good food. Hence the title, table for one.