As an aspiring entrepreneur developing my startup venture, everyday is about startups, building businesses for me. A typical day would see me pour through dozens of yc pitches and lessons, landing pages, startup documentaries, and an occasional shark tank episode. Today I chanced upon the story of Shawn Tsao, 34, the co-founder of food delivery app Caviar.
Shawn started as an architecture student at Berkely, who found a higher calling in developing quality products that solves real problems. The greatest asset he had was his team, and remarkable leadership and vision. What started as a food deals company, eventually led to one of the first few successful food delivery app. Realizing he had a great team, Shawn did not give up on his entrepreneurial dreams and eventually started Caviar to solve a simple problem - favorite restaurant delivered.
The company was bought out by Square for a hundred Ms, all stock, with the engineering support from the tech giant. This eventually translated into a deal worth $410 million with DoorDash. Every single day of operations, Shawn was just laser focused on developing a valuable product. Today he runs multiple food businesses, and still offers advice to early founders.
Personally I find this truly inspirational, not just because we have the same name, down to the A-W-N, but also his vision and courage to deviate from his architectural path. A great lesson would be sometimes we just have to trust our gut, and do the thing we’re meant to do. Everyone is fantastic at something, which just may not be the thing you’re studying or working as right now.