What 10,000 hours in Entrepreneurship Really taught me

Ever since I read the book Outliers by Malcom Gladwell in highschool, I took it pretty seriously. Just your body doesn’t know if you’re smiling because you’re happy but you’re still happy because you smiled, I wanted to put 10,000 hours into something that I truly believed in.This mindset taught me perseverance. It gave me a framework for delayed gratification. And most importantly, it gave me the courage to keep going, even when the payoff wasn’t clear yet.

10,000 hours in — Am I an Expert now?

NutriVend Inc. was born on June 21, 2022, as a Delaware C-corp. We raised our first angel investment from Fusen World, led by Chris Klaus — a founder, investor, and rare champion of early-stage builders. His $25,000 investment came on top of the $5,000 grant we had received from Georgia Tech’s Create-X Accelerator. In 2023, I added another $35,000 in friends and family support — not to scale product, but to stay in the game. To keep building.

NutriVend wasn’t born just to capitalize on fitness trends. It was born to serve a version of myself — and people like me — who wake up early, train hard, and are obsessed with optimizing results. People who don’t want to guess when it comes to nutrition. We exist to make supplementation smarter, more personalized, and more responsive to real-world feedback.

Entrepreneurship wasn’t just a professional choice. It was a personal rebellion. I grew up in a deeply Confucian culture, where family expectations often masquerade as destiny. And when I diverged from that path — when I decided to pursue startups over stability — I wasn’t just risking failure. I was risking disappointment from the people closest to me.

The irony? Many of the worst outcomes in my life came from following advice I didn’t believe in. That’s when I realized: good intentions are not the same as good fit. I am the leader of my own life and it doesn’t and will never serve me right to be driven by others. All you get is have something to blame on other than yourself. Should you put it the work you said you would and truly work hard, there’s no regret.

My family’s warnings weren’t irrational. They came from love, fear, tradition. But they weren’t me. And they weren’t building what I wanted to build.

I wanted to be better than the generation before me — not out of arrogance, but out of purpose. Isn’t that the point of progress? If I simply replicate what came before me, what’s the point of moving forward at all?

Even in that conflict, I found gifts. My father rarely spoke about himself, yet he taught me more through action than words. He drove billion-dollar contracts in the Middle East. He never sat me down for lessons, but every frustration and outburst carried something valuable: diligence, discipline, and an unmatched work ethic.

So, while I rejected some of the paths laid out for me, I carry the values that built them.

10,000 hours in, I’m not claiming mastery. I’m claiming clarity. Clarity about why I started. Clarity about what I’m building. Clarity about who I want to be. Clarity in decision making and the reason behind it.

“The feedback that matters most doesn’t always come from the people closest to you — it comes from the ones who’ve walked where you want to go.”

That’s why I chose entrepreneurship. Not because it’s safe — but because it’s real. And because it’s mine.