Impacting More Than a Million Founders in 10 Years with Arjita Sethi, Founder of Equally and New Founder School

This episode features a conversation between Phil Dillard, Founder of Thruline Networks, and Arjita Sethi, Founder of Equally and New Founder School. Equally is a venture-backed, Silicon Valley, ed-tech company that's building a universal platform for kids to ignite their curiosity and imagination. New Founder School describes itself as a place where new founders can build and launch their dream startup ideas without going to a business school.

Arjita began her entrepreneurial journey in India at the age of 16. Since then, she’s founded two successful startups and has been granted the Alien of Extraordinary Ability Visa for her work in social entrepreneurship. In 2017, her startup Equally became a semifinalist in the Global Learning Xprize sponsored by Elon Musk. Arjita also trained more than 400 women at Google's Women Tech Makers Conference in NYC, Cambridge, and Nigeria. In 2016, she got the SOCAP social entrepreneur scholarship, and in 2015, she completed her Masters in Social Entrepreneurship from Hult International Business School. In addition to managing Equally and New Founder School, Arjita is currently a co-founder at Startup India Advisory, sits on the Advisory board of Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, and teaches entrepreneurship, innovation, and Media at Hult International Business School and San Francisco State University.

In this episode, Arjita talks about getting started in entrepreneurship at the age of 16, the value of building a strong tolerance for ambiguity in business, and her goals for positively impacting more than one million founders in ten years.

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Guest Quote

“Earlier in my life I wanted to be an activist. I've been part of some of the biggest movements in India, whether it was for security of girls, whether it was the anti-corruption movement. I went everywhere, and I tried to join, but I realized that making a change at a policy level is such a long process and so much is out of your control. And then I realized, wait, I can create solutions being a founder. So that fascinated me even more and I realized I'm never giving this up. So from that activism to entrepreneurship, I think it gave me more control and made me feel more powerful to see that change actually come into life. And that's how I became an entrepreneur, a founder.” - Arjita Sethi

Episode Timestamps

(03:18) Arjita’s role

(05:31) Becoming an entrepreneur

(08:29) Arjita’s ‘aha’ moment

(13:06) Defining impact

(17:32) Founding New Founder School

(22:51) Running an functioning organization

(29:26) Building tolerance for ambiguity

(36:39) Organizations that inspire Arjita

(43:04) Final thoughts

Links

Arjita Sethi’s LinkedIn

New Founder School

Phil Dillard’s LinkedIn

Thruline Networks