Academia to Startup Founder

Hey friends,

Welcome to roam’s newsletter! We write to you every week with:

• life lessons from a fellow international student

• tips and tricks we would have wanted our younger selves to know

• growth updates from our side to show you what we’ve been up to

To our new readers, I’m Ansh Mundra, Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer here at roam. I get to write, curate, and edit this newsletter!

We have a lot of things planned; value is king at roam and this newsletter will always embody that.

Currently, we are looking for ways international students can get scholarships. We aim to feature related resources in here. Please let us know what other resources you want featured!

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Student to Startup Founder

This week’s story + life lessons are brought to you by Yashish Hirani. Yashish recently graduated from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Mathematics and hails from Mumbai, India. He holds a deep passion for entrepreneurship and is currently building Moira Labs as Co-Founder and COO. Moira Labs is building The Lost War, a digital collectible card game where players can create their own cards! Besides building a startup, Yashish enjoys cricket, football, chess, and any sport you name.

To say that my four years of college as an international student have been a rollercoaster would be an understatement. I started my college journey as an aspiring academic who wanted to become a mathematician. I ended it as a passionate developer who could not be anyone but an entrepreneur. How did I make such a transition? And how did I finally build a startup in an industry I care about?

Freshman Year - Navigating Uncertainty in an Alien World

The hardest part about college is usually the first month. You leave your comfort zone, family, and friends and try to settle into a place you know nothing about. 

My first month was not very different; I spent most of it trying to meet people and getting used to my new way of life. Not every person I met in this phase of life became my best friend or even remained a friend until now, but I learned that college is filled with a lot of cool people. Every person showed me a different way of thinking and burst my bubble. This was the beginning of my journey to becoming a whole new person.

Studying at a university like NYU had its own positives and negatives. A big con was the lack of university culture. However, I felt like being in a city like New York greatly outweighed everything. I met people from all over the world and learned about cultures that I would have never been able to before. My advice from this phase of life is to take every opportunity you can to put yourself out there, meet new people, and experiment. You never know what will happen.

Sophomore Year - My career? My education?

When my sophomore year came around, I found a great set of friends who made me feel happier and shared my interests. However, this was the year I had to decide if I wanted to keep studying math (Spoiler Alert: Yes, it's the best). 

A year had passed, and I was beginning to love the idea of building. It mainly started when I took my first ever coding class. Having never programmed before, the simple idea of being able to create something from scratch entranced me.

However, I was not sure about my career path. Did I want to work in academia, or did I want to do a job? Or neither? 

So, I did the only thing I could think of - I tried it all. I began applying for internships with startups and companies and even began working on research projects, all with the sole purpose of figuring out what I wanted to do. 

Finding an internship is not easy; rejection is part of the process, and that is the next piece of advice I have. You should expect to face criticism when you put yourself out there, but NEVER let it bring you down. Everything that ever happens in life has a lesson attached to it, whether it is positive or negative. 

My rejections helped me become a better applicant and refine my search, and I finally got two internships with a startup and a medium-sized firm. However, I would have never gotten there without putting myself out there and being open to criticism. So this one is for every incoming freshman: aim for the best but prepare for the worst.

Junior Year - I made my decision.

The summer before my Junior Year was crucial. My experience working with a startup made me realize what I felt most passionate about in life. It was to innovate, to build.

In my junior year, I began pursuing ideas I had cared about for a long time. I wanted to build something I could call my own, and being at a university, I had every resource I could think of. After tremendous research into my ideas, I decided to pursue an idea in one of the hardest industries, but one that I cared about deeply - gaming. 

The most important thing for any startup is to find the right people. Without the right people, no startup can succeed, and I was so grateful to have found my co-founders, who are both insanely smart and equally passionate about our startup, Moira Labs. Stepping into this world of entrepreneurship is difficult, I am just as lost as I was when I entered college. However, NYU played an important role in molding me through resources and programs into a more equipped founder. 

This phase of life taught me another important lesson - it is all in or all out. I stopped applying for internships or jobs at big companies because I had decided to go all in.

Senior Year - The Endgame.

I will be honest. I could not wait to graduate, not for the degree, but for the freedom. Education is the best thing that ever happened to me, but one thing I learned over the previous years was that EVERYTHING can be learned elsewhere. 

I learned that the best thing about university is the opportunities you get and the doors that open, whether it is through a relationship you build with your professors or a friend who supports you through life’s challenges. I did regret some opportunities I did not take in the past, regretted not starting a company due to fear, and even regretted not putting myself out there more than I had.

So, in my last year, I applied to accelerators and incubators and went all in for my startup, trying to grab every opportunity I could. Got rejected, learned, grew, and went again, until I finally raised some money and built a prototype. 

What now?

If you are an incoming freshman, take my advice with a grain of salt. The decisions you make will be your own. The only thing that matters is doing what makes you happy to wake up every morning. University is the best place to find that passion.

Promise to Keep Your Promises

You’re probably scared to move to the United States. You’re afraid of how this new land and its people are going to perceive you.

“Will they judge me? How am I going to fit in?”

I hear you. I felt the same way.

Imposter syndrome and a feeling of inferiority kicked in from time to time. I felt average and did not think I could rise above my current habits and skills.

Little did I know, university has a way of shaking you up and strengthening you.

My lack of confidence and self-doubt slowly began to subside once I realized one crucial thing: confidence comes from keeping promises to yourself.

This realization changed everything for me. Confidence grows from intentionally placing yourself in challenging situations and emerging a better version of yourself each time.

It is a muscle you must build through multiple repetitions of doing the things that scare you.

Whatever it is you want to do, commit to it. Once you start fulfilling your promises through discipline and consistency, you will inevitably feel better about yourself.

Hope will replace self-doubt, and you will become addicted to growth.

Weekly Growth Updates

Hey, I’m Krish - founder and CEO of roam 🌏️

If you’re new here, welcome! We’re big believers in building in public, so this section is for those of you who are interested in watching us grow. Every week we share exciting news and updated stats about our progress, so stay tuned!

Here’s what we did this week 🌱

• FINALLY crossed 1,000 followers on Instagram wooohooo 🥳

• Crossed 430 subscribers on this amazing newsletter in front of you 🔥

• Grew our WhatsApp community to 500+ international students 🤯

• Partnered with TCC to bring a taste of home right to your doorstep 🍛

• Signed 2 new business partnerships, keep an eye out here for more 👀

• Redesigned the entire website → you will get to see it very very soon ⚡️

Next up 👀

Packing your entire life into two 23-kilo suitcases is an almost impossible task!

Which is why I am excited to announce that we’re hosting week 4 of our incredible 8-week webinar series this Sunday at 10am EST. We will guide you through our tips for well-being at university, and take you through all the packing essentials so you can ✨ thrive ✨, not just survive!

We have also invited a partner that can help you save thousands of dollars on health insurance and answer any and all questions you have. Join our webinar to simplify your move :)

If you made it this far, you’re a real one! 🫶🏽

We sincerely thank you for taking the time to follow along as we continue to build products to support the millions of international students who risk it all and leave their homes in search of a better life abroad 🙏🏽

PSA - We want YOUR international student journey and story to be featured on our newsletter. Please email us at [email protected] with some of your background and we will be in touch :)

That’s all for this week’s newsletter, see you soon!