- The speaker started their first business in college after being inspired by a loyalty program at Stanford.
- They created a loyalty card called PennEats and sold it to students at Penn.
- They became addicted to the idea of creating something from nothing and solving problems.
- The speaker was not an engineer but was drawn to creating a software startup.
- They worked on a project in college that grew into a successful website.
- They left their jobs at Google and McKinsey to start their own company, WayUp.
- They sought advice from Roloff Botha, a venture capitalist, who recommended working at Google for the best operating experience.
- The speaker is a proponent of cold emailing and shared tips on how to find email addresses and write effective subject lines.

- The speaker emphasizes the importance of being concise and specific in cold emails to professionals.
- They suggest explaining why you are asking for help and showing that you have done your research.
- The speaker advises against asking for phone calls or meetings, as short questions are more likely to get a response.
- The speaker mentions that they don't sleep much and don't work out, but they eat healthy and drink a lot of water.
- They receive common questions from college students about choosing internships and starting companies, and provide specific advice based on context.
- The speaker recommends creating a holistic profile on WayUp and applying for a larger number of jobs.
- They also suggest researching the company, showing enthusiasm, asking thoughtful questions, and following up with a thank you note after interviews.

- The ideal timeframe for someone to understand your message is within 24 hours, as it may influence their feedback about you.
- To improve communication skills, it is advised to practice with friends or family members who can provide honest feedback.
- It is important to find a balance in showing interest in someone without crossing boundaries, such as mentioning personal details about their family or significant other.
- The process of finding a co-founder involved researching and reaching out to potential candidates, with the focus being on their skills and compatibility.
- The speaker did not vet their co-founder extensively, as they saw the project as a joint effort and did not initially pay each other.
- The speaker's business has been running for over three years, and although it is challenging, they find it fulfilling and a great learning experience.
- The speaker highlights that managing people and building a team was a significant aspect they had to learn after going through Y Combinator.

- The speaker discusses the challenges of managing and hiring a team after going through Y Combinator.
- They highlight the difficulty of convincing experienced individuals to join their company and take pay cuts.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of selling the vision and the management style to potential hires.
- They mention the role of recruiters in teaching them how to hire and create scorecards for evaluating candidates.
- The speaker also discusses the importance of personality fit and managing different types of people.
- They mention the struggle of prioritizing tasks and focusing on core objectives.
- The speaker explains the unique components of WayUp's platform for candidates, including personalized job recommendations, candidate sourcing, and content/advice.
- They mention the success rate of 1 in 3 people getting hired through WayUp.
- The speaker asks for advice on creating effective content to encourage people to start companies.

- The most effective content for getting people to apply through Way Up is unique content that combats misconceptions about certain companies or jobs
- Way Up tries to create targeted content for specific readers, such as diverse engineers or freshmen
- They use some Facebook ads, but focus more on highlighting what makes a company or job unique
- Companies should make themselves attractive to college grads by showcasing their mission and the amazing team they have
- The CEO hopes to make a positive impact in the world through Way Up and wants to be remembered for making a change for the better
- She is constantly working on improving herself in all areas and hopes to have a family in the future
- The CEO advises college students to try out different things through part-time jobs and internships to find what they truly care about
- She also recommends not choosing a job solely for the money, but for the happiness and fulfillment it brings
- Starting early and not worrying about finding the perfect job is important, as internships can help determine what one does not want to do
- Unpaid internships are less common now, with less than 9% of internships on Way Up being unpaid
- Going to school in a city, such as New York, can provide more opportunities and experiences
- The interviewee thanks the host for having her and they end the conversation.

- The speaker started their first business in college and became addicted to creating something from nothing.
- They left their jobs at Google and McKinsey to start their own company, WayUp.
- The speaker shares tips on cold emailing professionals and emphasizes being concise and specific.
- They provide advice on choosing internships and starting companies, including creating a holistic profile and researching companies.
- Communication skills are important, and finding a balance in showing interest without crossing boundaries is key.
- The speaker discusses the process of finding a co-founder and the challenges of managing and hiring a team.
- They highlight the unique components of WayUp's platform for candidates and their success rate.
- The CEO seeks advice on creating effective content to encourage people to start companies.
- WayUp focuses on showcasing what makes a company or job unique and attractive to college grads.
- The CEO hopes to make a positive impact through WayUp and advises college students to try different things to find what they care about.
- Unpaid internships are less common now, and going to school in a city can provide more opportunities.

Liz Wessel - https://twitter.com/lizwessel - is the cofounder and CEO of WayUp - https://www.wayup.com/. WayUp is a job and internship platform for college students and recent graduates. They were part of the Winter 2015 YC batch.

Read the transcript here - https://blog.ycombinator.com/advice-for-students-and-recent-graduates-on-finding-jobs-liz-wessel-of-wayup

The YC podcast is hosted by Craig Cannon - https://twitter.com/craigcannon

At what point did you know you wanted to start a company?

So my sophomore year of college, I was at Penn.

And I actually started my first business at the end of sophomore year.

So I went to Stanford for a three-day bootcamp called BASES, Entrepreneurial Boot Camp, or something like that.

And I remember going to the Jamba Juice at Stanford and they asked me, can I see your Stanford ID?

And they said, oh, you'd get like 10 or 15% off your Jamba Juice.

And I paid full because I was a Penn student, but I remember thinking, wow, that's really cool.

So I get back to campus and I walk around to all the restaurants and I say, do you have any loyalty program for students?

And so I said, okay, if I got your logo in the wallet of thousands of students at Penn, would you give them 10, 15% off?

And every single restaurant and bar said yes.

And so I said, okay, and I'm not going to, you know, pay you for that or anything.

And I'm actually going to charge students.

And so I ended up over sophomore summer, I also was doing an internship at Blackstone in Tokyo.

But Meanwhile, I was starting, as we all do.

But meanwhile, I actually went about hiring this company in China to create thousands of cards that would put the logos of all these businesses on the back.

And I got back to campus in my junior summer.

I hired all my friends to basically go around selling these cards for 15 bucks a pop and we sold like thousands and it was awesome and it was very, very, very cool.

I thought the concept of creating something from nothing and solving a problem or helping people is just such a cool opportunity and why wouldn't you want to do that over and over?

No, I took a bunch of computer science classes but I was not what I would call an engineer.

Yeah, and so were you inherently drawn to creating a software startup or did you like try out other ideas?

That first business it was like a Wix website and a bunch of plastic cards so not really much software there.

Though I did, to be fair, sell a bunch of cards online, but not much software there.

I remember, though, my senior year when I wanted to start that next project, and that's the 1 I worked on with my co-founder now of WayUp, JJ.

We very much were keen on having it be a software business, or an internet company.

Okay, but you didn't start it immediately after school.

So the story of the way up, the high level is my senior year, I'm happy to tell like the funny version of it from college, but the high level is my senior year, JJ and I worked on a project together that would help college students find campus ambassador jobs.

And so we worked on that, we launched it, and then I went and went to Google in California, and then I moved to India to lead brand initiatives for Google.

Went traveling around the world as a backpacking freelancing web developer, and then as all good backpackers do, went to McKinsey in New York.

And so we kept in touch over the years, but that website kept growing and growing to tens of thousands of users and big businesses and so on.

And we knew we each wanted to start a company.

And so we quit our jobs 2 years after college and started way up with the insight that that website we had started in college, which was really just a project, had grown so much.

You know, at YC they say make something people want.

If you build a website that you barely do any marketing work for and it's grown that much, then we knew that they had something.

And so we shut down that website because it was just like a kind of half-assed project.

But we took the insights from that and built way up off of that.

Okay, so I'm really curious about how and when you decided to leave Google because a lot of people who could start companies and are in the position, you know, like financially they have enough flexibility to leave just kind of get in this cycle.

They're like, oh, you know, they get a raise every 6 months or whatever, and they stay there forever.

So I always wanted to start a company full time after college, But my senior year I applied for, so I'd already done a summer internship between junior and senior year at Google as a product marketing manager intern.

I also got the offer at a top tier VC venture capital fund.

And for me I'd gotten enough advice that, and I'd started that Penn Eats company, saw that there was so much I had to learn, whether it was managing people, legal documents, like marketing, sales.

And so for me, I basically said, I want 1 experience that will help me before I start, you know, before I start whatever company I 1 day start.

I did not know it was going to be called WEP or that it would be WEP.

And I said, I really want to do it for 2 years.

Whatever this job is, I'm going to learn as much as possible for 2 years, and then I'm gonna quit and I'm gonna start a company and hopefully do it with a co-founder that I love, which I have done.

I got these 2 offers and I didn't know which 1 to take, which 1 would set me up for more success.

To start, I said to HR and both of them, I want you to know I'm going to leave this job in 2 years and start a company.

I mean, they, especially the program I was applying for and that I got the offer to is called the APMM program, Associate Product Marketing Manager job.

And the whole program is filled with alumni.

They hire like 25 to 50 US college students each year to be in this program and it's filled with alumni who have started unbelievable businesses.

Robbie Stein was a, sorry, some former Googlers.

to say actually someone from my high school too.

But anyway, Robbie Stein has started a really cool company called Stamps, sold that to Yahoo.

So long story short, all of these people were in this program.

So they actually said, it's totally fine if you leave after 2 years and start a company.

Meanwhile, the VC fund was actually like, yeah, we highly recommend that you do VC for 2 years and then get your MBA or start a company.

And this VC fund had had many, many successful founders as well, 1 who just recently had his company go public.

So I couldn't choose and so I did what I always tell college students they should do, which is cold email someone who they want the advice from.

So Roloff Botha was someone who I had seen speak at the Stanford Bases entrepreneurial bootcamp.

So at the end of the day, I email Roloff Botha and I say, you are, you know, 1 of the best venture capitalists in the world, you've seen, he's at Sequoia, and I said, you've seen so many successful founders grow huge businesses.

I want the best possible experience I can get beforehand.

Go to XYZ fund or start my own or go to Google in this program.

And he said I would get the best possible operating experience I could get.

And Google is 1 of the best operating companies in the world.

You'll be surrounded by great managers, great engineers.

You'll meet great talent that you might hire 1 day.

I've heard you talk about this on a couple other podcasts.

1 of the people I really admired in San Francisco when I was still living in New York, I emailed, cold emailed him, Skyped him, and I was like, oh man, it's just so weird.

I'm going to be in San Francisco next week.

If you can afford to do that, that's the best.

Entrepreneurs do that a lot apparently to get venture capital meetings.

So say you don't have a brand name or whatever.

Can you like walk us through the steps that you use?

So to start I have Reportive on my computer which is this software that LinkedIn bought.

But basically if you install it into Chrome and your Gmail, what you can do is you can figure out someone's email if you can't find it already online by basically guessing.

So like, for example, I don't remember what Roloff's email is, but I probably would have looked up Sequoia's domain.

I guess it's probably Sequoia Venture Partners or whatever.

So I'd look up the domain of the website and then I'd guess like RoloffB at sequoia.com.

And I'd keep guessing until his image shows up on the right in reportive.

And that's when you know you got the right person.

So sometimes if they're a big enough name, you can find their email address online.

But if they're not, then that's the best way to do it.

So once you have that, I would say subject line has to be something that's going to catch their attention.

So want to pick your brain from a college student, not going to stand out.

My best email, cold email I ever sent was to probably arguably the most famous woman in business in the country, maybe woman in tech business in the country.

I'm not going to say her name and you can guess.

And my subject line, I saw that she had taught like aerobics or done aerobics in high school or college or something.

And I had taught water aerobics the summer between high school and college because they pay a lot of money.

And so I actually like wrote in my email and I think part of the subject line, like fellow former water aerobics professional or something silly.

But it caught your attention because if you see something ridiculous that someone clearly had to do a lot of research to find out about, they're going to open the email.

And then in the email, I wrote, dear blank.

And I start off with, I'm a college student at blank.

So in my case, I'm a Penn senior currently trying to figure out what I want to do with my life between 2 job offers.

So it just gets to the point of, you know, being short, sweet, and here's who I am.

No 1 doesn't want to help college students.

I feel like the second you graduate, you lose this huge badge of pride that you get to say, I'm a college student.

And the second you graduate, like people are much less likely to help you.

So use it and abuse it while you're in college.

But I mean, I get cold emails all the time.

I hope I don't get a barrage of them after this, but I do get a lot.

And they always start with, like, I'm a college student at X school.

And then get to the point, what do you want help with?

And ideally show that you've done your research, so why are you asking me?

So in a specific case for Roloff, I remember I said something to the student of like, you've seen so many successful founders.

If I had just asked him, where should I move, New York or San Francisco, why would I ask Roloff?

So I do think that a very big part of your email should be saying, why are you asking this person?

And then show somewhere in there that you've done your research and that you're not just trying to email like famous people.

And I think if you do those things, you'll probably get a good response rate.

We did a podcast with Casey Neistat about a month ago and he literally has pick your brain as a Gmail filter to trash.

So I would not recommend picking someone's brain.

I would not recommend asking them out for coffee or 20 minutes for a phone call.

And sometimes I get people asking me if I'll hop on a phone call, and I know it sounds so crazy, but like literally my calendar starts at 8 a.m.

Almost every day, 5 to 6 days a week, And so for me, 20 minutes on calendar is actually a really big deal.

Asking me an email that I can just answer on my walk from, you know, 1 meeting to another is not.

And to diverge a little bit, you talked about your calendar.

I read online that you don't sleep a lot.

Okay, why don't I start by just saying this is a genetic thing.

Most people in my dad's side of the family don't sleep a lot.

And so it's not like I'm wearing this with a, you know, with pride and trying to show off.

So if I have any sip of alcohol, I do sleep.

So if I have like a glass of wine, I will fall fast asleep or a beer or anything.

But assuming I don't drink, which is most nights, I can go 3 or 4 hours of sleep and I'm good to go and I'll be just as energetic as right now.

I think right now I'm going off of like 3, 3 and a half hours of sleep.

Same with my co-founder, but he shouldn't be like that because he doesn't have that gene.

And so your whole life you've been like this?

I mean, in high school I remember my friend Laura came to me 1 day and was like, I have a Hanukkah gift for you.

She was like, I'm gonna be your assistant because I feel like you never sleep and you have such a crazy agenda and a calendar and I just wanna help you.

And I was just like, I don't need an assistant, but thank you.

I think I've always had like a crazy calendar.

So given that crazy schedule, do you have any like particular health regimens you need to like stay normal?

People are gonna judge me, but I don't work out.

I think I've been to the gym once in the last year, twice in the last 3 years maybe.

I love walking around New York, so I guess that's exercise.

I love walking or Uber if I'm on a call and I need quiet.

I'm not like a, I don't like sweets much.

I'm not 1 of those people who do yoga every day.

And by the way, I don't judge people who do yoga.

My family, most people live a long life and most people are about as regimented about their health as I am, so.

If you sit down with me at a meal, you will hate me because I will ask for 2 pitchers of water because I will drink water the entire time when I'm not talking.

So what are the most common questions you get when you are getting these cold emails from college students and what tips do they ask for, for internships?

Probably the most common 1, which is an awesome problem to have, is which internship should I choose?

I wonder if it's because of the roll-off story.

I get a lot of people asking for advice when they're a student entrepreneur and they're starting a company.

I mean, when I started my business in college, I would say I was 1 of like 5 people I knew who had starting companies.

Now I feel like it's a prerequisite to graduating from college in the US, or at least at Penn, it just seems like everyone's starting businesses, which is funny, because it's not like I graduated so long ago.

I graduated in 2012, but it definitely was not as common back then, so I think that's another 1 I get a lot.

Okay, And so what kind of answers do you give?

Is it very specific or do you have like a mental model for choosing this kind of thing?

And often I respond saying like, you need to give me more context here.

Well, yeah, because I appreciate if you want to keep the email short, but if you're someone yesterday emailed me, I think the student had seen my TED Talk about like 8 things you have to do before you graduate or whatever.

And so he emailed me and he said, I loved your TED Talk.

I'm choosing between these 2 job opportunities.

And I was just like, I don't know anything about you.

I don't really have time to look up each job.

So I think it's nice that he tried to keep it short and sweet, but I could only do so much.

What about on the actual application side?

Because I saw you guys have tons of content on your site for students,

What are your tips on just preparing yourself to apply for an internship?

Assuming it's very competitive but you have, you know, like probably the right qualifications for it.

It's wayup.com slash guide or wayup.com slash blog.

We have a ton of content, like thousands of articles.

What I will say is, number 1, and this is not meant to be self-serving, but we have these profiles on WayUp that are, in my opinion, a much more holistic perspective on who you are versus a LinkedIn profile that's just your work experience or a resume that people read the bolded words and then ignore the rest.

Our profiles on WayUp focus on your GitHub if you're an engineer, your YouTube if you are a performer or a public speaker, your Instagram if you're a designer.

They show your volunteer, your hobbies, your fun facts.

And so it's a little bit more of a holistic perspective of who you are.

And we hear from our recruiters that if a recruiter looks at your way up profile, your LinkedIn profile if you even have 1, and your resume, they're like significantly more likely to message you and be interested in your application if they see your way up profile.

So first of all, I know this sounds self-serving, but I honestly would say create a way of profile and promote it.

Other than that, I think a lot of people don't apply for that many jobs because sub-career service offices tell you only apply for 2 or 3 jobs.

The market unemployment rate, thank goodness, is so down.

And, you know, and therefore people are really getting higher left and right, especially if you're technical.

You know, especially if you're a lot of things.

And so I would say applying for a bunch of jobs and then really the feedback, the advice I give most often for people going into an interview is an acronym I like to call REAF, R-E-A-F.

So it's research, show enthusiasm, ask questions, follow up.

So research, if you show up to an interview and you show that you know more about the company than the person interviewing you, you will impress them.

I remember for my Google internship interview, I read an entire book about Google in like 2 days.

And I came and I was name dropping the person who – not that I knew them, but like I was mentioning, you know, the person who made the Google logo and this and that.

And I was showing, I knew so much and I just lived and breathed the company.

So as much enthusiasm as you might think I have right now in this interview, you are probably engaged with me because I'm showing I actually care about the conversation.

If you don't and you're playing like hard to get or too cool for school, then no one's gonna find you interesting or engaging.

Asking questions and you wanna ask good questions.

When candidates ask me at the end of an interview, why did you start way up?

I don't want to actually be rude, but it's like if you just Googled that question, you could find it in every podcast or interview I've done.

And not to say in any way that I am saying you should know everything about me, but show that you're coming with questions that you can't find on Google with 1 Google search.

So come with thoughtful questions, things like, if I were to stand out in this role as a rock star, what would that look like?

What are the people who really excel at your company have in common, et cetera?

And then F, follow up, just send a thank you note.

No 1, especially college students, tend to do this these days, and it makes you stick out so much and shows this level of professionalism, which really is pretty easy to accomplish by just sending a thank you note.

Do you mean written, like printed out, thank you note, like real or email?

Written will help you stand out way more, however, and You'll almost get a guarantee that the person's going to see it because everyone opens their, you know, a handwritten letter.

However, you do want the email or the note to get to them before ideally before they submit their feedback.

maybe if you write 1 and you give it to the doorman on your way out, that could be interesting if you actually write it after.

And by the way, the thank you note should not just be, thank you for your time.

It should be like, I really enjoyed that we talked about X, Y, and Z, or I really liked the insight that you gave me about ABC.

So as specific as it can be, that's great.

But I would say you want them to ideally get it if possible within 24 hours, because then maybe they'll get it before they submit feedback about you, and that might help them if they're in between a yes and a no, it might help them lean 1 way.

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Advice for Students and Recent Graduates on Finding Jobs – Liz Wessel of WayUp