Contributed by Garret Potter, ELP Cohort 2024-2025, Master’s Student in Information
These three quotes inspire action. Since hearing each, I have taken action — little by little, often just doing one thing for Everstory—each day since.
“Get one thing done today.”Mitch Rohde
Lecturer, Entrepreneurial Leadership Program
While working on Everstory as an optiMize Summer Fellow, there were plenty of distractions available; after the first week of busy administrative tasks and personally disappointing meager progress, I had to find a way to keep focused. Mitch’s advice echoed back to me: “get one thing done today.” I chose to split my available time in half each day from then on–whether it was only an hour or eight hours. The first half of my time went directly to achieving goals for Everstory–accomplishing the most pressing items (or, at least one item) on my startup’s Hot List or to-do list. I added and activated a donate button onto our website. I set up an Everstory LinkedIn account. I created a promotional flier. I interviewed candidates. I applied for a grant. I focused on priorities. Then, if I needed to, I would allow myself to clean up my emails and handle all of the many time-consuming administrative tasks…or not. I sometimes found that starting with the more creative and challenging priorities felt so rewarding that ⅔ or ¾ of the work day would end up focused with less time drawn away by email/admin tasks. It took self-discipline, and it was rewarding–both personally and for Everstory.
Inder Singh
Founder, CEO, Executive CoachGoing into the Summer I knew that I would have $4000 in optiMize grant funds to offer contributors. How could I stretch and go beyond that to add value to each person? With input from both ELP and optiMize mentors and coaches, I catalyzed a team, complete with communication tools and channels, project management tools, shared folders and files in an organized structure, weekly meetings, monthly meet-ups, required subscriptions, IP assignments, contractor payments, and more. Beyond providing gift cards and/or checks to contributors, I provided some with Curricular Practical Training (CPT) opportunities. I provided some with software licenses that could help them professionally. I provided AI credits. I started each interview, one-on-one meeting, and team meeting inviting each person to share personal updates prior to task or organizational updates. We listened to one another, got to know one another, and supported each other. Once a month, I offered in-person meetups for dinner, an arcade, or ping pong and drinks. We had fun. I offered value. They thankfully continued to come back to contribute to Everstory.
Grace Hsia Haberl
Lecturer, Entrepreneurial Leadership ProgramI thought I had one; I was wrong. At the start of ELP, I was under the impression that a wireframe was good enough to count as a prototype. Professor Hsia Haberl made it clear that I had no product to sell or scale. I could not gain customers or offer value to them. I needed at least a minimum viable prototype (MVP). And, I had tried before and failed to start the work alone. I needed a team. So, I recruited. And, I recruited strategically. I asked for help in how to ask for help. I built a “Call for Developers” flier with an experienced software engineer to ask other software engineers for help. Then, I relied on my extended network; I reached out to the multiple computer science departments on campus. They shared my flier with all of their networks. Then responses flooded in. More than 65 people responded. More than 25 followed up a second time. I interviewed eleven, and invited ten to join our team. I built the infrastructure needed to support this new team. And, we got to work, slowly building a prototype. The team assembled a sophisticated tech stack. Jess created our mascot. We added wireframes. Teammates created a database according to our schema. The team created APIs. We tested our code. We keep building. It takes time. Everstory version one is almost ready. It is a very exciting time. I am grateful for input, guidance, and support from Grace and the ELP team!
