My experiences at the Morgridge Entrepreneurial Bootcamp (MEB)

I really enjoyed my experiences at MEB 2025 . It was very memorable, meaningful and helpful for me.

The first day I was so tired and constantly sleepy during lectures. That was because of three reasons: 1) I didn’t sleep well the day before and 2) The lectures on the first day were boring to me; 3) Being among a large group of people was exhausting to me.

In fact, I thought about quitting the program on the second day. I didn’t, because I felt that I’d better stick to it rather than giving up so quickly. The worst scenario is that I would waste five days. I can accept that.

Luckily, starting from the second day, I felt better and better. I was getting enough sleep during the night and the lectures were becoming more useful and meaningful for me. Plus, the food is super good!

I have long been wanting to start my own business. I talked about my ideas in Chinese here . The basic idea is to teach AI novices AI. After all, writing tutorials is all that I am passionate about. I believe any high school graduate can master key AI knowledge and skills within three years.

In fact, I was among the twelve people who signed up for the “elevator pitch” among the whole class and four small investors. I asked the group, most of whom are PhD students in the STEM fields, how many of you are confident that within one year, you will be able to build a small-to-medium-sized language model (such as GPT-2) from scratch. Among over 60 people, only two or three people raised their hands. I believe this shows how bad our current tutorials are: even STEM PhD students at a top research institution are not confident that they can do this.

Okay, enough about my own idea. Next, I want to share my thoughts and experiences at this bootcamp.

What struck me the most is that I was able to personally “connect with” those who have started their companies (or led a company). For example, a biotech company that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

The panels and the lectures that shared personal experiences that I can relate to are the most helpful sessions for me. For example, Chad shared his experiences with Flame Disk . I can relate to his experiences because to me, it is just like writing a research paper: so many details to pay attention to, so many unexpected problems for you to solve, and you don’t know what the results would be like in the future. Unfortunately, not all ideas/startups/research projects will end up well. It surprised me that Chad worked on Flame Disk for over seven years! This is as long as a PhD! I can’t imagine how many struggles he needed to overcome, how many high-stake decisions he needed to make, and how much despair he had to go through.

I have never thought about consulting firms before. But the panelists opened up my horizon. I got a rough idea of what working at a consulting firm is like.

Also, in one of the lectures it was mentioned that on average, starting your company is not riskier than taking a normal job. In fact, on average, entrepreneurs might earn more on the long run.

Listening to the legendary John Morgridge is also very inspiring for me. It really doesn’t matter what he said. Simply being in the same room with him is meaningful. I cannot believe he is 91 years old. He stood straight and was so energetic. He gave many suggestions to us, but I only remembered one thing: pay attention to your physical and mental health.

Another useful activity is the “Entrepreneurship Simulation” developed by UPenn. I played the role of an employee who is looking for a job. In the beginning, I had really high hopes and wanted to find the best job I want. I was asking a lot and the company didn’t recruit me in the beginning. Then, I was so anxious because I might become the only one who didn’t find a job. Then, I was asking around like crazy but it didn’t end up very well. A lot of the people I asked would respond either that they had found the right person or that I didn’t have the necessary skills they were looking for. Eventually, I was employed by the first company I talked to. But the terms were lower than what I asked in the beginning and it is not the most ideal company I had in mind.

This taught me these things: 1) It’s better not to have very high expectations in the beginning; 2) Don’t be picky unless you already have several job offers under your belt; 3) No need to worry or hurry and panic when I do not have jobs yet. Have faith. Slow down. I cannot rush to make good things happen in my life. Trust the flow of life and believe that the right person will come to me.

Lisa Collins, one of the organizers, was so warm and helpful! She managed to remember all of our names before the first day. It really impressed me. She was always smiling when I talked to her.

Lastly, it was very meaningful to have met all the MEB members. It’s quite a meaningful week!

#Experiences

Last modified on 2025-06-25 • Suggest an edit of this page