I’ll take advice from the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence and negotiated the Treaty of Paris to end the Revolutionary War. 🤷

That’s some hardcore start-to-finish persistence. 👊 

Today, we’ll uncover ways you can help your kid achieve Ben Franklin-level persistence.

In today’s issue:

1. Tactical Tuesday: Remember the kids who are disrupting a ~$3 trillion industry? We’re breaking down how they’re doing it, and how your kid can too.

2. Something to inspire you: Damn, this guy is unstoppable. Meet Kyne, the college sophomore who is rocking business and healthcare. 

3. Ivy’s Takeaway: There are lots of talented losers out there. Make sure your kid isn’t one of them.

The ultimate extracurricular: Building a startup

Last week I wrote about Shakeel and Navin, two teens whose company, PayBridge, is disrupting the ~$3 trillion peer-to-peer payment market.

Oh, and they’re still crushing it in high school. 👊

Their path has been unconventional, but Shakeel and Navin don’t think it should be — they believe kids can (and should!) build businesses.

“We want to be living proof that you can be a high schooler and also successful in business,” says Shakeel.

Here’s how they did it:

1. Find a problem

Businesses offer solutions to problems.

So how can your kid find a problem to solve?

The best place to start is with problems they face in their daily lives.

Navin was having a heck of a time collecting money from peers for a group project because everyone was on different payment apps — so he decided to build a solution.

Have your kid walk through their headaches and hassles.

Chances are, they’ll find a problem worth solving.

2. Validate the problem

The next step is to make sure their problem has a market behind it. In other words, they have to make sure it’s not just a “you” problem.

The team at PayBridge made a Google survey to find out if other people were experiencing the same frustration with payment apps.

The more information your kid gathers, the better. Have them talk to: 

• Friends

• Family

• Neighbors

• Students at school

• People on internet forums

• Anyone who will listen to their idea 👂

“Through that [research], we were able to justify that this problem actually existed,” Navin told me.

3. Assemble a team

Navin smartly assessed his own strengths and weaknesses: 

👍 What was he good at? What did he love doing?

👎 What was he not so good at? Where did he need help?

Then he assembled a team to fill the gaps in his own skills.

And he absolutely recommends this exercise to young business builders.

Pro tip: don’t restrict your search to your geographic area. 🌎

The PayBridge team (like all teams at BETA Camp) is entirely remote — and with the help of some tech tools, they still get the job done:

• Discord for quick chats

• Canva for group slide decks

• Google Docs for collaborating on documents

• When2Meet for scheduling calls

• Github for working on code

4. Build a prototype and test your product

Now, it’s time for your kid to build their first prototype — and share it!

Have your kid find some “customers” (yes, parents, siblings, and friends count). 

This will allow them to test their product and get any initial hiccups out of the way in a low-stakes setting.

Most importantly, it’ll teach them to cope when things don’t go to plan.

Then they can continue to: 

To be successful, they’ll need to be persistent.

“We had over a year of no real growth, no customers, no feedback,” says Navin. “That time was extremely hard for us because we were working so hard.”

The team suggests keeping the end goal in mind for the moments when your kid feels like giving up: remember why they got started with this in the first place. 

Starting a business is the easy part. The real test is sticking with it.

And sure, sticking with it doesn’t guarantee your kid will build the next unicorn startup, but it does mean they’ll come out of the experience with something even more valuable: grit. 

And that will be their secret weapon for whatever goal they set their sights on next. 👏

Meet Kyne, the college sophomore who refuses to take the easy way out

Kyne Wang has two passions — business and healthcare. 

So when it was time for college, he was excited to find a dual-degree program that would allow him to pursue both passions at once.

❌ Unfortunately, his application was rejected. 

Before you cry him a river, Kyne was accepted to the prestigious Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, so he decided he’d just go to business school instead. 🤷

For most kids, this is where the story ends.

But Kyne’s passion for healthcare lingered like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

First, he put himself in the right place.

While his peers slacked off with easy electives (like classes in cooking or anime), Kyne chose to take difficult biology courses.

Few students are willing to challenge themselves when they don’t have to, but it helps when you really enjoy the topic.

“If you have that genuine interest,” says Kyne, “you can go down the rabbit hole and spend hours and hours on it. That’s how you’ll get ahead.”

Then, he found the right tribe.

Tackling challenging bio courses didn’t just sharpen Kyne’s mind, it connected him with friends who shared his passion for healthcare.

As the saying goes, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

In other words, your kid will go farther when they surround themselves with people who share their passions and goals.

That’s because they’ll:

• Make faster progress (learning from each other’s mistakes)

• Get more motivated (ambition is contagious)

• Feel a sense of belonging (you know those people who just get you?)

“If you’re persistent about going into a new year with intention about who you want to be and who you want to associate with, you’ll be setting yourself up for success,” Kyne says.

And Kyne’s friends reminded him that although he loved his business classes, something was missing.

At last, an opportunity!

Kyne tried applying again to a dual-degree program that would allow him to pursue both passions.

He chose a competitive program, one that only takes 24 exceptional students. 🤯

✅ This time, Kyne was accepted.

🎓 Now, he’ll graduate with the two degrees he’d hoped for: a Bachelor of Arts in a life science major, and a Bachelor of Science in Economics.

The hustle never ends…

Even though he finally got into his dream program, Kyne isn’t content with coasting:

🧬 Last summer, Kyne did an internship in bispecifics at Regeneron, a leading biotech company that is developing new, life-saving medicines.

🏦 This summer, he’ll be completing a healthcare investment banking internship on Wall Street at Lazard, one of the most competitive firms.

🏥 And if that weren’t impressive enough, Kyne was also accepted into the school of medicine at Mt. Sinai — after only his second year of college. 

Kyne’s future is pretty much set: “I’ll be a doctor in 2031,” says Kyne.

But even though he has his future secured eight years in advance, he won’t be resting on his laurels:

“Once people get admitted to grad school they think they’re done,” says Kyne. “I could slack off, but I won’t because this is a passion.”

I don’t think “slack off” is in Kyne’s dictionary.  😉

Persistence is the difference between winners and losers

Winners don’t win because they have talent. Loads of people have talent.

And many talented people are losers. 👎

Why?

Because all of the talent in the world won’t save you if you don’t have the work ethic to back it up.

When I was a competitive figure skater, I encountered many athletes who had far more natural talent than I did.

So instead of focusing on the thing I couldn’t control —the talent I was born with— I focused on what I could control — my persistence.

⏰ I woke up early every morning to train.

⛸️ I repeated jumps over and over no matter how many times I fell.

👊 I showed up to compete with a determined attitude no matter how poorly I performed in practice.

We need to stop rewarding kids for talent, and reward them for persistence instead.

And while it’s true that talent should be nurtured, kids need to understand the difference between what they’re born with and what they should be proud of working hard to achieve.

Until next time,

Ivy

CEO Prequel, BETA Camp, Apollo

Follow my journey on LinkedIn