(upbeat music) - Are you ready to take the leap and become your own boss?

On the Career Center, we explore the exciting world of entrepreneurship.

We'll talk to successful business owners about their journeys, learn the skills needed to start and grow a business, and discover the rewards and challenges of being your own boss.

Stay tuned.

- [Narrator] The Career Center is made possible by General Motors, (upbeat music) and by these supporters, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(electronic music) (upbeat music) (car revs) (birds chirping) (students chattering) (bell rings) - Choosing a career is a big decision.

So what are you both doing now to help you make that decision?

- I started making a pros and cons list.

- I started taking career exploration quizzes.

- That's fantastic.

You're off to a great start, and I'm gonna add something else to your list.

Conducting an informational interview.

- I thought interviews were to get a job?

- It's true, interviews are often part of the hiring process, but what I'm talking about is something a little bit different.

So an informational interview is an informal conversation that you can have with somebody who's in the field that you're interested in.

So as an example, what sort of questions do you think you would wanna ask somebody who's an entrepreneur?

- Why entrepreneurship?

- What benefits do you get being an entrepreneur?

- Another student of mine, Callie, she's interested in becoming an entrepreneur, and she recently conducted an informational interview with an entrepreneur just to find out what the day-to-day is like.

Let's take a look at what she found out.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Calli] Start off by telling me a little bit about your company.

- [David] Yeah, so Wired Off-Road is a conversion kit supplier.

If you have a gas dirt bike and you wanna go electric, we sell a kit that contains everything you need to go fully electric.

And all you need is just some simple hand tools to complete the conversion.

- [Calli] How would you like define entrepreneurship?

- To me, entrepreneurship is solving a problem that exists in the market or that people have and acting on it and creating a solution for that that's better than other people's solution for that problem.

- Your day-to-day as a like full-time entrepreneur, how does it like shape up?

What does the kind of like week in your life look like?

- It's definitely different from a nine to five.

So I come in, and I do any number of things.

I'm assembling things, I'm shipping, I'm receiving, I'm everything, right now at least.

And then when I get home, the job continues in a different kind of capacity.

It's maybe more of just a back of the mind mental thing.

I think I'm decent at compartmentalizing and shutting things off to some extent, but it never fully stops.

I'm always thinking about the next step, the next improvement, the next product, the next step, whatever.

- What would you say was kind of a good starting point on like how you got the business going, like just laying out ideas, and like how would you say is a good idea for someone to start.

- Creating something that proves out what your ideas, what your solution is for the least amount of money and effort.

And so you wanna fail fast, and fail cheap, and learn.

And if something's not working, be ready to change and stuff is not going, inevitably not going to work.

And so you're enough to pivot, you're enough to move, you have to be agile and being open to that.

- As you're talking about like having to be able to like adapt to change everything, what is something that you think like every entrepreneur like needs as a characteristic?

- I think just being a reliable and responsive person.

I mean, it's as simple as just like replying to emails promptly and communicating well.

And I know that's where I'm good at, and I think that's gotten me, put me at a better place than other people.

It's an important characteristic to have, but really an entrepreneur, you have to be rounded, well-rounded and have a lot of different skills.

And there's not just one that you can be good at, you have to be good at a lot of stuff.

And every day I'm learning how to be good at more things.

- So what's the biggest lesson you've learned working on Wired Off-Road?

- I think just keeping an open mind to anything new, any new ideas, any changes or pivots.

It's all about being agile and listening to what the customer says and addressing those pain points that they have.

I think that's the biggest thing.

- [Calli] As you are looking in the future a little bit, where do you guys see yourself in five years?

- So right now this is kind of our, what we'd call an MVP, a minimum viable product.

So we're proving out the market, proving out the concept, and the solution to the e-bike problems.

Right now it's just this one model of dirt bike, but in the future, motorcycles, street motorcycles, four-wheel vehicles, cars, and there's millions and millions of vehicles that are gonna be getting obsolete.

And so that's what we're shooting for.

- [Calli] All of them, okay.

- Yep.

- Thank you so much for telling me a little bit more about Wired Off-Road and explaining the entrepreneurship side.

- Thanks for coming.

(upbeat music) - Do you wanna start a business?

Maybe be your own boss?

Today I'm in Ann Arbor, Michigan to talk about entrepreneurship with Natalie Fang, founder of the video game design company, Nochi Studios.

Natalie, thanks for having me.

Can you tell me about Nochi Studios?

- So we are a studio creating games for female gamers.

Specifically we're making romance enemy games because we believe that there can always be better games out there for female players.

What we like to say is that we have the creativity of an indie studio, but we develop with the professionalism of a large studio.

What we've done is basically use anime artwork.

It's a gamified version of Manga or Web Tunes.

And so we have a story that we're telling to share the romance aspect.

So you're in this story experiencing things.

You're choosing what you wanna do in this game.

All the choices that you make impact the end result.

So you hope to end up with a love interest that you have been going after in the game.

- How'd you get into this industry?

- I think first and foremost, all of us on our team are gamers at heart.

So we grew up playing games, right?

For me in particular, we played all sorts of games, and that made me really interested.

And that's what started Nochi too, was that there wasn't enough of these games when I was younger.

And so that's why we want to develop it.

Other than that, like all of us on the team have been doing projects, right?

Either as a hobby or as a student.

For an example, for me, I've been in product development from a professional career as well.

So I've gotten used to pushing product out, doing customer research, marketing.

So as a student I recommend doing as much projects as you can, whether it's from a hobby, class projects.

And once you have all that experience, you're able to show that to a company and be like, hey, I have these skills.

I've published a game as well.

We would love to have more female developers and creators in the community because usually when we go to gaming events or conferences, if I'm there, I'm usually the only female in the room.

So that is a challenge.

And that's something as a community I think that we can do to support each other more.

And also it's not a win-lose situation where I'm only gonna promote my game, but if you promote everyone's game, everyone wins together, right?

People are constantly consuming games.

It's not like you're only gonna watch one movie a year.

You're gonna watch lots of movies in a year.

So we're going to do some storyboarding right now.

Alexandria has written an episode called Candy Coated Hyper Love, and we- - Natalie invited me to participate in a brainstorming session.

We created content from mini game.

Can you tell me about how you make the games?

- We start with a lot of research, development work, concept, brainstorming, creative analysis.

Eventually we get to something that we really love as a team and that we think people will resonate with, and we have a lot of customer research in this aspect too.

Eventually we go to pre-production.

So programming, artists, writing, et cetera, all of it.

Eventually we start doing the work and implementing everything that we've planned, designed.

Then we go into testing.

Throughout this whole process we're constantly interviewing people, letting people try our product.

So we're constantly tweaking.

And eventually once we get into a state that we really like it and we're getting really great feedback from potential players, we publish the games.

So I think we have a ton of great ideas.

We'll take it back, and then we'll refine them down.

Or Alexandra, you'll probably do the refining down.

- [Interviewer] As founder of Nochi Studios, would you consider yourself an entrepreneur?

- Yeah, I think first and foremost I'm an entrepreneur.

The game design aspect, the marketing aspect, that all comes under the entrepreneur umbrella, and it's what excites me, gets me out of the bed every day to have like a goal, to build a company, to grow the company, to have it be sustainable, and then to come into the office, and every day work on something a little bit different, right?

There's a different kind of fire to put out.

Maybe it's a technical issue, maybe it's a marketing issue, a customer service issue, but that really drives me.

- I sat with Kira to program our suggestions into the actual mini game.

It was interesting to see the results of the brainstorming session.

- And what I've done over here is just plug in the three questions that you've just written.

- [Interviewer] What should people know about starting a business?

- Don't be afraid to ask for help.

It's really important to find a community, whether it's people who are in the same niche as you or someone who's just starting a business.

You can share a lot of tips and tricks with each other or even just commiserate.

I mean, sometimes it's really hard to build a business by yourself, right?

You don't wanna be in a silo, just spinning.

And ask for mentors.

Usually ask for a coffee session with someone, get to know people.

You never know when those connections will bring something really helpful for you or can help your business.

I've never really had anyone say no or like say they're too busy.

So yeah, get yourself out there.

- [Interviewer] Are there any misconceptions about being a business owner?

- I think social media's interesting, right?

Because you see a lot of these influencers, and they sort of give a vibe of the business owner, and it's not always glamorous.

It's a lot of hardware.

My team, we have pulled all-nighters for certain things to make sure that people are happy with our product.

So I think don't believe everything you see on social media.

If you really wanna get to know the business, like talk to other entrepreneurs and see what their experience is like.

- What resources are available for aspiring entrepreneurs?

- Yeah, so there's really great resources online now.

You can YouTube something to learn, Google to find out what the experts are saying.

But in Michigan in particular, there's so many awesome programs.

Like there's incubators, accelerators, also university programs.

Almost, I think most of the interview universities have some kind of entrepreneurship or innovation center, and you can learn a ton from them.

You can get training from them.

They can give you advice on your business.

So really try to soak up as much as you can from all these like formal programs and from the state is a really great way to like de-risk and make sure your business is successful.

- [Interviewer] Thank you, Natalie.

It was inspiring to hear your story and learn about the video game design process.

It's actually more fun and collaborative than I thought it was.

Entrepreneurship doesn't have to be done alone either.

Even though you might be starting the business yourself, you can still collaborate with other aspiring business owners and network with like-minded creators.

As Natalie said, it doesn't have to be a competition.

We should try to lift up each other.

(upbeat music) - So to become an entrepreneur, do you have to go to college?

- All of the entrepreneurs I know went to college.

- Well, you don't necessarily have to go to college.

There's no specific degree requirement for becoming an entrepreneur, but there are definitely benefits to becoming trained.

- What kind of training does an entrepreneur need to have?

- It seems like entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs because they're good at something.

So if they're already good at something, what training would you need?

- That's a good point, but remember there are a lot of other things that you're responsible for as an entrepreneur.

So you have to think about marketing, you have to think about sales, budgets, and accounting, management, many different skills.

Let's take a look at this video that I have.

(upbeat music) - One of the things that I hear a lot about working as a small business owner in southeast Michigan, in Detroit, is that there is a community of partnership and essentially inability and a want for people in this business environment to help each other out.

Is that something that you've experienced when running your business, when getting started, when you come up against a obstacle that you need a solution for?

How has the business community in southeast Michigan, in Detroit, been there?

- I will say that everybody I've come in contact with, like, I don't know if I'm just blessed to meet like the nicest people.

Like people are very like caring.

They're very warm, welcoming, and like they give you information.

So if I know I'm trying to do something different that I wouldn't normally do, I'm not good at no either.

So when people say no to me, I'm just, that just means I'm talking to the wrong person.

So I will go to people who will help me get the information that I need because I don't know everything.

But I also think vice versa, the things that are working for me, I share it with the people that were in my circle.

So and honestly the people in Detroit, we're like open books to each other.

Because the thing about it is, what is the purpose of me having this information?

I die with the information.

It's just gonna die with me.

Why would I not wanna share that?

- Right.

- And so like I'm very big on that, and I'm also very big on keeping a circle of people around me that we're sharing because we should all win.

There's enough for all of us to win.

In my mind, I don't look at other restaurateurs as competition.

I don't have competition.

My competition is, I'm my own competition, not everybody else.

We should all be able to win, and if I'm doing something that's working for me, and it makes me successful, why would I not wanna tell you so you can be successful too?

- How has the development that's happening down here, how do you feel about it?

When it comes to the development, are you excited about it?

Are there concerns?

Is there any trepidation?

Where do you feel like you fit in?

- I'm always looking at the positive.

When I say I always look at the positive, there is no negative for me because the negative is a waste of the energy.

So my brain, I'm always looking at mission, my purpose.

If I know who my clients are, how do I market to those customers?

When I opened right here on Woodward, there was nobody else.

It was like a clothing store.

It was nothing.

This was a block that was not, there was no gentrification, okay?

It was like, Que, why would you wanna put this right here?

Girl, because my brain said healthy food in every hood.

People should not get food based off of their zip code.

They should get food because it should be their human right.

So my focus is always, how do I make this food more available?

So in my mind, just as fast as you see, every time you see a McDonald's in my head, in the future you're gonna see a kitchen because the goal is to put healthy food everywhere because we have to be the people to change the perception of what it is.

So I'm very glad that they're bringing things back to the city.

I'm glad that they're allowing the people that are from the city to actually get these locations as well.

There are different associations that like are always, they're always pushing for you to support the people who are local, allow them to get into some of the places.

Whereas like, you've got the Metro Detroit Black Business Association.

Like they're always for the small business owner.

And that's a cool backing to have.

But again, you make these allies with the people that are gonna help you keep growing, and you keep building.

So for me, I like the community and the way it is now, but I also like that we are getting to see more, but you can't make your whole business focused on, if everybody else is on the block.

It's how am I gonna bring clients to my location?

- The biggest challenge that Southeast Michigan is facing, a big challenge that Detroit is facing, all metropolitan areas are facing is how do we get millennials and anyone who wants to start a business, or anyone who wants to be a part of the workforce to come to Southeast Michigan to come do it in places like Detroit.

- So my focus again, you know it's gonna be my mission and my purpose, but it's also like families.

What do people do as a family?

What do people do to get back to the table?

So my brain wants to do things to bring people here.

So like for us, we do cooking classes that you can bring all age.

We have to get people out of their houses, and we also have to stop pushing fear on people.

You gotta think about what people are at home looking at when they're on the news.

You can't come to Detroit 'cause of this.

Yes, we're changing the perspective of it, but it needs to, I think people just need to see like, it's a really family oriented place.

There's things for you to do.

You can come out to eat at all the restaurants.

Or if you're a person that has a business idea, don't sit on it, but create program that have them where they can come and sit with people who are business owners like me.

Like, hey, you got a business idea.

Let's sit and work with you on a business plan.

Let's get you from plan A to B to C. Like what does that look like?

And make it more.

And it's not to say that there are not programs like that out there, but I think we need to talk about it more.

As much as we can talk about negative things, if we talk about those type of things, I think it will pique the interest of people that are not here, not here in Detroit.

Because you get people from out, I have people that would say, I'm leaving New York to move to Detroit.

So you get the, but what about the people that are here?

I'm always saying, look in your own backyard.

Look around the city of Detroit, all the places that people are, when people were in the city and they moved to the suburbs.

And now why do we want them to come back?

Put the same thing, the same amenities that are in the suburbs in the city of Detroit.

I shouldn't have to go to the suburbs to find a healthy grocery store.

I'm super excited that they brought more, they're bringing more grocery stores to Detroit.

But there's a, Detroit is large.

We should all have the same accessibility to healthy food.

How do I make that?

How do I make that become like the squeaky, wheel gets the oil?

Like I tell people that come to my classes, like if you don't open your mouth, closed mouths don't get fed.

If you don't open your mouth and tell your neighborhood, hey, at every gas station or the corner, I want you to stop just giving us chips and cookies.

Give us healthy food.

Until we make the noise, it's not going to change.

(upbeat music) - Leadership is a really important skill for entrepreneurs to develop.

So what does leadership mean to you?

- It means lending a helping hand or a voice to those who may need it.

- Pushing a team that extra mile to become their better selves.

- That's perfect.

Now my next question is, what are you both doing to develop your leadership skills?

- Well, I'm on my school's district-wide student council, and we talk about what we could do for the betterment of our district.

- I'm a captain of my cheer team, and I help them with their stunts in their cheers and anything else they need help with.

- It's really fantastic that you're both involved in these roles.

Proud of you both.

So this is reminding me of the latest video that I've done for my 21st century skills.

It's on leadership skills.

So let's take a look.

(upbeat music) What do you think an orchestra sounds like with no conductor?

How well do you think a soccer team can play with no coach?

Chances are we'll still hear some music, and we'll still see a soccer match, but neither group will likely perform to their fullest potential.

Why is that?

Without a good leader, things might be disorganized, it might be more difficult to stay motivated, and it will be challenging to learn and develop new skills.

So today let's focus on the life skill of leadership.

(crowd cheering) Hi, I'm Andrea Pisani.

I work with students every day to help them explore their passions and make great futures for themselves.

Let's talk about the skills everyone needs to make it in the 21st century, 21st century skills.

A quick search on leadership advice will offer a ton of perspectives on the topic.

Take this quote from Sheryl Sandberg, founder of leanin.org.

"Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence."

Or this one from General Colin Powell.

"Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers who cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution.

Everybody can understand.

And my favorite from Michael Scott.

"Sometimes you have to take a break from being the kind of boss that's always trying to teach people things.

Sometimes you just have to be the boss of dancing."

Okay, maybe Michael Scott is a stretch, but these quotes all get to the essence of leadership.

Contrary to popular belief, being a leader is not about being able to boss people around.

It's about finding a way to get a group of people with different interests, and backgrounds, and strengths, all moving in the same direction toward a common goal.

Psychology today offers a few skills necessary for leadership in the 21st century.

First, be unique.

Everyone is different with unique perspectives and backgrounds, so don't feel pressured to mimic the ideas of others.

Management expert Peter Drucker once said, efficiency is doing things right.

Effectiveness is doing the right things.

It's important to be productive and get things done, but resist the urge of doing a bunch of random things.

Be strategic.

Take the time to prioritize your goals.

Think about the best people to help you achieve the goals.

You will make mistakes even as a leader, and being able to navigate setbacks will make the difference in your development as a leader.

Remember, every challenge offers two options, a win or a lesson.

Learn the lessons and let them guide you to your next goal.

Things are changing rapidly around us.

Technology is changing the way we work, learn, communicate, and do everyday tasks.

And change will only become more rapid.

As a leader, you have to be comfortable with change, and in many cases, be willing to be the change maker.

So now that we've talked leadership, what are some things you can do now to develop your leadership skills?

(bell rings) Student organizations are often managed by students.

For instance, the robotics team at your school probably has a team captain, treasurer, president, et cetera.

Participating in student clubs and extracurricular activities offers a ton of opportunities for members to become leaders.

(bell rings) Increase your leadership knowledge.

Leaders aren't born.

They are developed.

And broadening your awareness of leadership principles and strategies will pay dividends in your development.

Does your school offer electives and ethics, psychology, or conflict resolution?

These are all important aspects of leadership necessary to become an effective leader.

And don't forget about books, podcasts, and video series.

(Andrea clears throat) Like this one.

By the way, there are other videos on our website.

(bell rings) Volunteering gives students real life experience with collaboration and networking while serving those who need it most.

Internships give young people the glimpse of what it's like to work in a particular industry before investing a lot of time and money.

An internship presents the perfect opportunity for developing leadership skills by working side by side with colleagues who already have the abilities you seek.

To explore more 21st century skills, be sure to visit our website, mifutureofwork.org.

We have an entire series of videos taking a deeper look at each learning, literacy, and life skills that will help you prepare for life and work.

- Clubs are a great way to develop leadership qualities.

- Yeah, but I noticed some students will show up and not participate.

- That's a missed opportunity, because in these clubs you have the opportunity to build your leadership skills, and those can then help you when you're applying for college or applying for jobs.

And if you wanna learn more about building leadership skills or starting your own business, visit our website at mifutureofwork.org/entrepreneurship.

There you'll find videos, resources, and more.

And this week write up a list of questions about careers that you're interested in.

Then visit your career counselor and set up an informational interview with someone who works in the field.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] The career center is made possible by General Motors, (upbeat music) and by these supporters, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (electronic music) (soft music)