BONUS #53 - Jake Jabs

Ellen Yin1h

Ellen Yin

00:06

Welcome to a bonus episode of Cubicle to CEO. The podcast where we ask successful founders the business questions you can't google. I'm here on campus at CU Denver's Jake Jabs Center for Entrepreneurship. To answer students submitted questions for a live podcast recording, moderated by the center's Assistant Director of Operations. And my best friend, Claire Seville. Whether you're a student with aspirations to launch your own business, or years into running your own venture, you'll find timeless actionable insights uncovered by the impressive depth and diversity of questions these CU Denver students asked class is officially in session.

Claire Seville

00:48

So to kick things off, just to reiterate, all of you submitted some incredible questions, there are 280 in total. So there's a lot to sort through, but it was a lot of fun as well. And from that, we narrowed it down, we're going to focus on 12 questions for Ellen. And then once we kind of get through those, we will open up to the group and we will do an open live Q&A. So with that, we will just jump right in. You guys won't be surprised by this first question. How big of a role has networking played in your growth and success?

Ellen Yin

01:19

Claire was telling me how she can't get through a single class without saying the word networking at least once. So let's tell we're at one for for today's session. Oh two for me saying it. Networking has definitely played I would say probably one of the biggest roles in my success, I really believe that people are your greatest assets in business. And I feel that almost every opportunity when I'm looking back, I don't know if you've heard of that Steve Jobs, quote, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. I think in the moment when I was meeting someone, I may not have immediately understood how that connection would play out down the line.

Ellen Yin

01:57

But when I look at every significant thing that has happened in my business, I can undoubtedly trace it back to a specific person or connection that made the opportunity possible. So I think one of the biggest things that I would always encourage you all, especially as you're going through school, but even after graduation is oftentimes when people go to events, I think where their attention is drawn is to the person on stage, right? You're like there to see someone's speaker, you're there for whatever reason, I would really encourage you anytime you attend an event, whether it's a small one like this, or a huge conference of 1000s of people always take more time to get to know the people in the room with you, the people who are sitting to the right and left of you those are the people who are actually going to play way bigger dividends in your life, I guarantee it than whoever's on stage.

Claire Seville

02:43

And that being said, obviously, you have a massive social presence. So the follow up question that would be how do you balance your online networking presence with offline networking?

Ellen Yin

02:53

I think both are equally important. And I say that as someone who the word creator, and like the creator economy, the creator business is definitely a newer term. I think, you know, in the early 2000s, and 2010s. It was like the influencer industry. And now you know, people resonate more with the word creator. So technically, because I own a media business, I am a full time creator, right? Like, my income comes from my podcast from my newsletter, from social media and brand partnerships, as well as digital products and courses that I've created on my own to teach other entrepreneurs how to grow their business.

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