Alex Qi was brought up in an entrepreneurial family and environment, growing up in one of the biggest tech hub in north America. One could say that he had the support, the background and the means to be successful early in life. But having a good background wasn’t the only reason of his success, but a lot of it is a result of his hard-work, building meaningful relationships and discovering his innate passion allowing him to explore things that he can do business about.

 

In this episode, Alex shared his valuable insights on how to start a business, how to form an idea by the help of networking, and what you need to possess to be able to be a valuable asset to a company. Learning about how his company, Mercku, was founded and became successful will also give us an idea on how a company’s culture plays a great role in its success.

 

Here’s What You Missed

 

• How your environment will impact you, but more so the mindset that you live with
• How luck plays a role in your success, but more so the hard-work and sacrifice that you put                             into it
• How you could start a business without foregoing your main job at the beginning
• How building meaningful relationships and keeping in touch will help you in building or being a part of a business
• How to discover your core passion and find opportunities around it

 

Knowledge Nuggets

 

 

[3:02] When you are surrounded with people with great ideas, it will shape your entrepreneurial dreams. People around you and the environment that you are brought up with will have an impact on you, one way or the other. You cannot choose in which place or community you are born in, but later in life, you will have the power to decide what kind of ideas, of culture and what kind of people you will let to influence you. 

 

[7:16] Enjoy experiences early on life. There is a saying that experience is the best teacher. If you are going through apprenticeship right now, or you are taking roles that you know you may not find yourself doing in the next few years, do not take for it granted. Embrace the experience, learn from it, and build meaningful relationships with the people you work with.

 

[11:34] Luck may play factor in a success, but hard-work plays the most part. Hard-work is a drive that you learn over time, from your mentor, from your colleagues or from the results that you get from your work. Success will look flashy front-end but it will take a lot sacrifice on the back-end.

 

[16:37] If you are starting a business, it does not necessarily mean you have to forego everything. Some started their business as a side hustle. Just like how we spend a lot of time with our hobbies, we can spend the hours after our main job to work on our business at the beginning.

 

[22:15] Building a team or being a part of one is about networking. Talk to people and start networking, get involved in local agencies, be active in a community you are a part of. Good opportunities may arise of you’ve networked for it in a while.

 

[29:02] More than the experience, companies look at the candidates’ characteristics if they align with the company’s culture. Because the experiences, roles, and tasks can be learned over time, if you have the right attributes.

 

[33:03] Find what your are passionate about at the core and explore things around it. This is one way of discovering an idea, an avenue and entrepreneurial aspirations that you could dive into. If you understand your passion, it’s not hard to go after it.

 

Important Reads and Links

 

Competing Against Luck by Clayton Christensen

 

https://www.mercku.com/

 

Connect with our guest

 

[email protected]

 

Alex Qi LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alexqi

 

 

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