By Elaine Zhai, grade 10, Harker DECA Director of Communications
In mid-November, almost 50 students from the Harker DECA chapter flew to Anaheim for the DECA Western Region Leadership Conference (WRLC). Marking the beginning of the 2018-19 competitive season, this event was Harker DECA’s second time attending WRLC, a non-competitive conference designed to provide students with competitive tips. Through workshops and keynote speakers, students bonded with one another and developed skills to prepare themselves for their next conference.
“This year’s WRLC was a really great experience that had a good balance between being fun and also informative,” said Shania Wang, grade 12, Harker DECA CEO. “I felt that the workshops and speakers had really important messages and was able to learn from each of them, and the competitive aspect was also super helpful in terms of introducing members to competitions. At the same time, being in Anaheim and having chapter time really allowed our chapter to come together and get closer while forming lasting memories. As a whole, even being a senior, I definitely feel that it was an overall well-done conference that had a lot to offer to everyone.”
Members staging in the conference are as follows:
Competitive Event Testing Session
Claire Luo, grade 10
Shania Wang, grade 12
Ronit Gagneja, grade 11
Riya Gupta, grade 12
Role-play Tournament
Riya Gupta, grade 12
Shania Wang, grade 12
Yejin Song, grade 9
Mahi Kolla, grade 11
DECA Garage Top 3 Finalists
William Chien, grade 9
Shrey Khater, grade 9
Vinay Sudarsanam, grade 9
Students opened the visit by preparing for the introductory workshops that afternoon, which included an alumni story session, DECA Competition 101 and a Tell Your Story workshop. Attendees were then given the rest of the afternoon to participate in the Competitive Event Testing Session and grab dinner before the opening session.
In the opening session, DECA members from throughout the Western Region, including California, Arizona and Washington, assembled to hear the keynote speakers share their stories of success.
On Friday, the chapter gathered to attend the general session and listen to speakers share insightful lessons they have learned throughout their professional careers. Students were given the opportunity to engage with experts in various fields, and left feeling inspired and encouraged to pursue their own dreams. Creating a perfect environment to network with students from other states, these educational and interactive workshops served as learning experiences for the chapter.
“As a first-year DECA member, the workshops provided a more fun and interactive way of learning about the DECA experience,” said Tuhin Chatterjee, grade 10. “I’ve definitely gained a variety of skills, and I look forward to applying them in future conferences.”
After a busy day of workshops, students were able to unwind and spend time bonding with one another and enjoying the attractions of Disneyland.
On Saturday, all members of the chapter participated in the DECA competitive events. In round one, where they competed against other students in a role-play tournament, judges were able to give students feedback and constructive criticism on their performance to prepare them for future competitions.
“The role-play mock competition was overall an incredible learning experience for the students,” said Claire Luo, grade 10, Harker DECA director of role-plays. “For many of the attendees, this was their first role-play in an actual conference setting, and it gave them a great taste of what to expect. In particular, they got to do the role-play in front of an actual judge, which was a new and eye-opening experience for many of the members. The role-play itself was also really interesting and allowed the students to come up with all sorts of creative marketing ideas and plans. In all, I thought that the mock role-play competition benefited the students a lot, especially as they prepare for their next conference.”
Throughout the morning, students also visited The Hub to support fellow members of the Harker DECA chapter, Phil Han, grade 11, vice president of competition; Anay Karwal, grade 11, director of technology; and Enya Lu, grade 12, vice president of California DECA, in the DECA Fashion Show. Furthermore, William Chien, Vinay Sudarsanam and Shrey Khater, all grade 9, participated in the DECA Garage Pitches and placed in the top three among teams from across the nation.
Then, students attended another set of workshops, which covered various topics including creative storytelling and public speaking. Again, these workshops provided a unique experience for new members, who could not only socialize with other like-minded students but also develop and hone useful life skills.
On Saturday evening, members of Harker DECA gathered for a quick excursion at BowlMor Lanes in Anaheim. For two hours, students were able to relax and compete with one another while snacking on mozzarella sticks and buffalo wings.
“Chapter bowling was a really fun experience because I got to take some time out of the trip to relax, interact, and have fun with my roommates and talk more to the other chapter members,” said Alysa Su, grade 9. “It’s a great way to connect with some people you might not have known before and a great bonding experience for the entire chapter.”
Students finally convened for the closing session. While there, students watched as Chien, Sundarsanam and Khater represented Harker DECA in the DECA Garage Shark Tank Panel Pitches, presenting their proposal in front of a panel of judges and hundreds of students. Students also experienced a performance by Brian Nhira, a former contestant on The Voice, and after the closing session, members gathered to take a chapter photo and pose with Nhira.
“DECA Garage was a great experience overall,” said Chien. “In the beginning, we were introduced to Jason Lucash, the founder of Origaudio, who has appeared on Shark Tank. They then let us start working on making our company and developing our pitch. After that, we had to do a form of crowdfunding where every student was given DECA Dollars, and we had to convince them to invest in us. Our company raised enough money to be in the top three, giving us the opportunity to present in front of five sharks and the 1,500 people attending the conference. In the end, we didn’t win but it was still the highlight of my DECA career so far. Huge thanks go out to everyone in Harker DECA, the officers and my teammates, as none of what happened would have been possible without them.”
Overall, Harker DECA’s experience at WRLC was definitely a learning one, where students were able to network with students from across the nation and develop the critical skills to aid them in becoming competitively successful in the future. The chapter looks forward to applying their newfound knowledge to the first competitive conference of the 2018-19 season, the Silicon Valley Career Development Conference. Go Eagles!
About The Harker School DECA Harker DECA is an international competitive business organization that prepares emerging leaders and entrepreneurs in four fields of business: marketing, finance, hospitality, and management. Our DECA chapter integrates classroom instruction, applies learning, connects to business and promotes competition in order to prepare the next generation to be academically prepared, community oriented, professionally responsible and experienced leaders.
In late November, CareerConnect was excited to have Kai Huang, the co-founder of Guitar Hero, speak about starting a company, succeeding in it and becoming an angel investor.
Huang began by discussing his experience in college, and how he changed his major to something he never expected he would enjoy, which later helped his future companies succeed.
He talked about starting RedOctane, the company that founded Guitar Hero, with his brother, and discussed the origin of the idea for the company. He also talked about expanding the company to include other services, such as dance pads, and eventually the Guitar Hero program.
Huang also shared the various challenges of beginning a startup, such as figuring out how to maintain and expand revenue, and financial troubles startups may encounter. He mentioned that while creating the game, the company struggled to keep from going bankrupt a few times. Once the game was released, it became an instant hit with sales going up every year; in the fourth year after the game was released, it made over $1 billion in sales.
It was inspiring to hear Huang discuss his hardships honestly, as well as share how his hard work paid off. He also discussed his current career pursuits as an angel investor and gave students a brief insight into some of the companies in which he has invested, such as Manticore Games, an electric bike company. He ended the talk with a Q&A session about Guitar Hero and his experience in the gaming industry, as well as what aspects of his investment portfolio he finds compelling.
Sasvath Ramachandran, grade 9, commented that, “The talk was very informative and [I learned] that all entrepreneurship is connected in some way, no matter the industry. … You don’t know what’s going to happen but have to adapt based on the situations.”
Freshman Sujith Pakala said of the event, “The talk was really interesting, and knowing I might want to start a business in the future, this talk helped me learn that no business plan is set and things can change.”
Overall, the talk was a great success. Students were able to learn some valuable lessons about how to start a company, and also were exposed to potential struggles that they may have to deal with as future entrepreneurs while starting a company.
The upper school show choir, Downbeat, was recently accepted into the 2019 Varsity Vocals International Championship of High School A Cappella, a global competition highlighting high school a cappella groups. They will travel to Portland, Ore., in January to compete in the quarterfinal round. Varsity Vocals organizes a cappella competitions for high school and college students that attract thousands of singers from across the world every year. The collegiate-level competition is featured in the “Pitch Perfect” series of films, which has become one of the highest-grossing musical comedy franchise of all time.
“We are thrilled to receive this wonderful opportunity!” said Downbeat co-director Jennifer Sandusky. “It will provide a new performance venue for our singers’ musical growth with adjudicated feedback on our singing and performing skills.”
In a Harker alumni chain reaction, following his employment at DoorDash, Barrett Glasauer ’09 has co-founded WanderJaunt, which partners with property owners to maximize value for short-term rentals.
Post-Harker, Glasauer went to the University of California, Berkeley, and picked up an electrical engineering/computer science degree. “While at college, I joined a fraternity, TKE [Tau Kappa Epsilon]” said Glasauer, “and made a bunch of friends who I’m close with to this day – and am lucky enough to have a number of them working with me at WanderJaunt.”
After graduation, Glasauer joined Palantir Technologies, a data analytics company, and led teams of engineers and data scientists helping protect clients from cybersecurity and fraud threats. “After 2.5 years at Palantir, I wanted to get closer to a true startup and reached out to Andy Fang (Harker Class of 2010) about openings at DoorDash,” said Glasauer. “He mentioned that they were starting up a business operations team, which sat at the intersection of data and strategy. It was a great fit for what I was looking for and I had a great time working with a bunch of other Harker alum, notably David Kastelman (Class of 2009), Rohan Chopra (Class of 2010) and Kevin Fu (Class of 2010).
“While at DoorDash, I met my two co-founders for WanderJaunt, Andres Green and Michael Chen. Andres was a general manager for the city of Boston and Michael was building out a bunch of our back-end merchant operations functions. They had a pretty terrible Airbnb experience during a DoorDash East Coast summit, and we got to chatting about how we’d do it better using what we’d learned building an operational tech company. That’s really the genesis of WanderJaunt – the belief that we could take our experience growing a three-sided marketplace at DoorDash with a ton of operational complexity and apply it to the short-term rental space.
“Airbnb, Homeaway, Expedia and all the rest of the online travel agencies (OTAs) had proven that people wanted to stay in homes over hotels when they traveled. The growth proved the fit was there, but the experience from both a host and a guest perspective was littered with inconsistency and operational complexity. It’s that inconsistency that prevented people like my parents from ever trying Airbnb. We believe that we can bring the best of both worlds together to create amazing guest experiences.”
The team finds properties to update and rent out by searching Trulia, Zillow, Craigslist and Redfin for properties available for rent. They also go direct to apartment buildings and lease a number of units at once, using multiple listing services to find properties that are about to go back into the rental market. “We also have acquired a significant chunk of our portfolio through referrals from people we manage properties for. It’s a pretty easy sell for most homeowners – more money, less work,” Glasauer noted.
“To get the properties ready, we have an internal activation team that handles everything from design, painting, furniture install to cleaning and photography,” Glasauer said. “We’ve basically got the process down to a point where we can have a property go from unfurnished to ready for guests within 10 days of us signing the lease. In order to facilitate this speed, we maintain a warehouse in each of our operational markets that stores 15-plus homes worth of furniture at a time to help us combat any lag in furniture delivery. When we first started two years ago, it would take us a full month just to get a single property ready. This November, we’ve managed to activate 20 individual properties.”
The company started out partnering with owners to operate their properties, but is evolving to maximize the use of company resources. “We’ve learned that our business model allows us to create much higher yields on a piece of real estate than owners would get in the traditional long-term market,” said Glasauer. “Looking into the future, we want to capture both the yield upside as well as the appreciation of the real estate asset. To do that, we’ve started raising a private equity real estate fund with the explicit purpose of buying and selling real estate. We expect to buy our first homes by Q2 of 2019.”
Glasauer is clearly a seeker of adventure! When asked what the scariest part of starting a company was, he replied, “Truth be told, I was more scared at the beginning of not taking the chance and I was fearful that if I didn’t take the leap, I would forever kick myself or wonder what could have been. For me, viewing the whole journey as a crazy learning experience that I wouldn’t get in any other company mitigates most of that ‘fear.'”
After all the planning and groundwork, it was exciting to actually open the doors of the first property, he said. “I think getting our very first guest was a huge moment for us,” said Glasauer. “It was the first validation that we could actually put something out there that people were interested in experiencing. I also think it resonated deeply with us that we were building the right thing when we got our first reviews where people said we gave them the best short-term rental experience they ever had or talked about how we helped their family get through things like a funeral or provided a great place to celebrate a birth.”
The journey has been thrilling as Glasauer grows into his management role. “To use a sports analogy,” said Glasauer, “when we first started out, I could be a player 100 percent of the time and it was super clear how outcomes were affected by my inputs. As I’ve played more and more of a team captain or a coach role as the [organization] has grown, the distance between my immediate inputs and the eventual outcomes that we deliver have also grown. It’s been personally challenging to feel like I have less control over the actual output since it requires a larger number of involved players to get to (reach?), but also incredibly rewarding to see super talented people working together to solve problems I never could on my own.”
The company is growing rapidly and WanderJaunt, like so many companies, is seeking good workers. “We would love to talk to software engineers and data scientists located in SF,” said Glasauer, “or folks who’d love to own a P&L [profit and loss concern] and help build the business from the ground floor by running entire markets in Phoenix, Austin and soon Chicago! Further, if anyone owns investment properties in the Phoenix or Austin area, I’d love to chat!”
The girls basketball team became champions of the Pescadero Tournament as it went 3-0 and outscored its opponents 165-60 over the weekend. In their opening round game, the girls defeated Averroes High 67-5 with Prameela Kottapalli, grade 12, Sara Sullivan, grade 11, and Maria Vazhaeparambil, grade 10, each scoring 9 points. Next, the Eagles took down Mendocino 53-19 led by 11 points from Akhila Ramgiri, grade 12. In the championship game, Ramgiri scored 12 points as the Eagles defeated Pacific Bay Christian 45-36. Ramgiri also was selected to the all-tournament team. The girls begin the Santa Clara Tournament this Wednesday.
Boys Basketball
Over the weekend, the boys basketball team went 2-1 at the James Lick Tournament losing in the championship game in overtime. The Eagles started the tournament with a 69-31 win over San Jose High with Richard Wang, grade 12, and Jarrett Anderson, grade 12, each scoring 12 points. The boys then took care of Fremont High 54-28 led by 13 points from Jack Connors, grade 11. Finally, the Eagles fell to Wilcox 60-63 in OT with Anderson and Connors leading the way with 15 points each. The Eagles begin the Lynbrook Tournament this Thursday.
Girls Soccer
Last week, the girls soccer team opened their season with a 1-1 tie against The King’s Academy and a 5-0 win over Independence. This week, the Eagles host San Mateo on Tuesday and travel to Wilcox on Thursday.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team began its season with a 2-4 loss to South San Francisco last week, but rebounded with a 4-2 win over San Mateo later in the week. On Wednesday, the boys travel to Saratoga.
Wrestling
The wrestling team travels to the Los Gatos Tournament in early January to open its season.
Earlier this month, the middle school concluded its yearly food drive, which began Oct. 26 and ended Nov. 15. A total of 2,465 food items were collected for delivery to the Second Harvest Food Bank, which each month serves more than 257,000 people in need in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. This drive is one of several annual community service projects carried out by the middle school during the holiday season. Others include Suits2Empower, which donates business attire to young people whose families cannot afford it, and the Family Giving Tree, which provides holiday gifts to impoverished families in the Bay Area.
Fifth graders Farhan Ansari, Sahil Jain, Mihir Gupta, Daniel Wu and Jaden Chyan won the Robot Design Award at last month’s First Lego League Northern California Qualifier, held at Lowell High School. The win secured them a spot at the Northern California championship in January in Berkeley.
Prior to the qualifier, the team had been hard at work redesigning their robot, adding two motors, two color sensor and a gyro sensor. “They made clever use of gears to build attachments for performing different tasks on the field and made their programs modular for ease of use,” said Farhan’s mother, Monica Ansari, who coaches the team along with Sonali Jain, Sahil’s mother.
The team also put together a research project that delved into the link between astronauts’ emotional states and the foods they consume while in space, working with health science experts and scientists at NASA.
Monica credited Harker’s science programs with fostering the team’s enthusiasm for robotics. “They projects they have done at school in science and computers have really sparked their interest in robotics and science,” she said, “and it has helped them to tackle the challenges in FLL.”
The three women identified the need for a comprehensive gifting service that lets both consumers and corporations send high-quality, personalized gift boxes for any occasion. The company (shopBOXFOX.com) projects more than $6 million in sales this year. Suri currently serves as BOXFOX’s chief strategy officer.
She met co-founder and CEO Chelsea Moore at her first job in advertising, who then introduced her to Jenni Olivero, her other co-founder and COO. Together, they bring experience from the worlds of advertising, PR, sports and e-commerce, and contribute to BOXFOX in distinct ways that cater to their strengths.
“I oversee long-term growth and business objectives for the company,” said Suri. “I’m always thinking a year, two, even five years ahead, ensuring that we stay relevant and competitive. On a day-to-day level, I oversee our corporate sales division (BOXFOX Concierge), broader partnerships, web initiatives, trendspotting and more.”
As a unique operation, there were challenges. “The hardest part of starting BOXFOX was doing so without any kind of rulebook,” said Suri. “We’ve bootstrapped since day one, so there were a lot of decisions that we just made from our gut (and usually a lot of Google searching), from picking the right box manufacturers to pricing our product to choosing the best shipping carrier.
Suri built a resume that gave her the chops to build a brand. She was a USC Global Fellow and earned a three-month summer fellowship in Hong Kong with Burberry, according to her bio. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in public relations. Suri held down a number of positions as BOXFOX got off the ground, including managing the corporate concierge program, driving B2B business development, and working closely with developers on site enhancements and solutions to constantly improve offerings.
With the company up and running, she has settled in to her current role a bit. “Today, the challenges look a little different. We’re fortunate to have an incredible network of fellow entrepreneurs and experts of all kinds we can call upon. As founders, we now spend a large portion of our time thinking about both managing and scaling our team while maintaining our company culture and values. Scaling can be as scary as it is exciting, but we hire hardworking, kind people who believe in our mission and entrust them to shape our ever-evolving culture.
The payoff? “The most rewarding part of our company is witnessing the impact we have on people’s relationships,” noted Suri “We started BOXFOX after a personal experience left us without a solution to being there for a friend in the hospital. We wanted to send a meaningful, tangible gift with items that would actually help her heal.
“In the four years since, it’s been deeply gratifying to see that same spirit behind the gifts our customers give every single day, from the products they choose to the messages they type. We’re making it easy and accessible for people to be there for the people in their lives, even when they can’t be there physically.”
Becoming an entrepreneur means pulling together disparate skills. Suri’s advice to help with that challenge: “Put simply: take advantage,” she said. “Harker is such a special place and was absolutely instrumental in getting me to where I am today. There are so many resources, between the courses, the faculty and the extracurricular options. Harker gives you the potential to explore anything you are passionate about; if that’s entrepreneurship, you can get a head start.
“More importantly, the people you meet at Harker will be in your network forever. They will be your co-founders, your bosses, future hires, neighbors and best friends. So make the most of the time with them both in and out of the classroom.”
Over the Thanksgiving break, the girls basketball team opened its season with a 65-24 win over University Prep Academy. Alexa Lowe, grade 9, led the Eagles with 14 points followed by 10 points from Sara Sullivan, grade 11. This Thursday, the girls travel to Pescadero to begin the Pescadero Tournament.
Boys Basketball
The boys basketball team officially opens its season this Thursday by competing in the James Lick Invitational Tournament.
Girls Soccer
The girls soccer team opens its season on Tuesday by hosting The King’s Academy at 3:30 p.m. at Davis Field.
Boys Soccer
The boys soccer team hosts two games this week to open its season. On Wednesday, the boys take on South San Francisco and on Friday, they face off with San Mateo, both at 3 p.m. on Davis Field.
Wrestling
The Harker wrestlers will compete at the Los Gatos Tournament in early January.
Alumni Sports
Vivian Wang ’18 Has been making a name for herself on the Princeton swim team! In her first match, a tri-meet with Florida Gulf Coast and Florida Atlantic, in the 100 back, she took second to her team captain by 9/100ths with 57.50. Wang came back in the 100 fly, winning with 56.70. Go alumni Eagles!
More than a dozen Harker students attended the QuickBooks Connect Conference at the San Jose Convention Center last week as part of Harker’s CareerConnect program.
This year’s topic was “Anything is Possible.” Attendees listened to a welcome speech from Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit, who explained the power of connections and the importance of hard work to achieve goals.
Next, Intuit’s executive VP Sasan Goodarzi (who takes over as Intuit CEO in January) spoke about Intuit’s innovative technologies that can help small and large businesses grow. Afterward, attendees got to hear journalist Lisa Ling interview a panel of three entrepreneurs about their experiences starting their companies.
Dylan Lauren, founder of Dylan’s Candy Bar, spoke about how she combined art, fashion and pop culture to create the world’s largest candy store. Jamie Siminoff, founder of Ring, a company aimed at reducing crime in neighborhoods using a Wi-Fi video doorbell, spoke about how his company grew from a Shark Tank reject to a billion-dollar company. The third speaker was Simon Enever, founder of Quip, a company dedicated to making brushing teeth simple and better. Each speaker gave meaningful insights on the process of starting a business and shared interesting experiences from his or her own journey as an entrepreneur.
“It was super duper interesting and just a great experience. I learned a lot about managing your business and just how to make your business thrive and grow as a whole,” said Laszlo Bollyky, grade 9.
For the rest of the day, attendees explored company booths and attended breakout sessions. This year, there were 90-plus companies with booths, including Chase, Aero, PayPie and Gusto.
“We learned a lot about how to network with people and how to interact with people to make connections,” said Michelle Liu, grade 9. “Most of the companies we talked to were the payroll companies. The people would talk about the company, and ask if we had questions. It was a very good learning experience.”