#010: Gerald Zingraf (28 yrs) on Making $2 Million per Year as an Engineer

Welcome to the hackiversity Podcast, where students learn how to achieve more by doing less in college. Learn the hacks from wildly successful recent college graduates as your host, Kyle Whiney, explores the colleges, majors and paths that produce the biggest results in college using less effort. It's hacking time. Hello all you beautiful people out there. Welcome to the hackiversity Podcast, where I, Kyle Whiney, show students how to achieve more by doing less in college. Today, I'm pumped to welcome to the show Gerald Zingraph. I've met some really successful people before, many of whom appear on the show, but few people like Gerald have achieved the quantifiable success Gerald has. What quantifiable success is this? In less than six years after college graduation, Gerald has used his engineering degree to create products he sells through his company, CubeFit, a company that makes more than $2 million per year. That's right, $2 million per year. You want to hear something even crazier? Gerald only works on his company for less than five hours per week.

30.

The rest of his work week he spends at a quote unquote real job. This episode is filled with the long and windy road of how Gerald got there. Unfortunately, many people, especially older folks, think that success works in a straight line fashion. You're supposed to graduate high school, then you're supposed to graduate college, and then you're supposed to do the same thing for the next 40 years of your life until you reach retirement. As you'll see, that was exactly the opposite approach of Gerald. Instead, Gerald used what I call in my book experimentation, which is the idea of trying a variety of things and generating feedback as quickly as possible. Gerald and I dive into this critical background at the beginning of the show and then plow into Gerald's extraordinary success afterwards. Also in this episode, Geraldine, Gerald and I discuss, first, the diminishing value of a 4.0 GPA and the soaring value of side projects. Second, how to select skills ready majors and avoid being 50% of students who graduate underemployed. And third, how to maximize learning by focusing on your own learning style. One last thing to note. Gerald is incredibly generous and in order to make this interview work, he slipped away from his vacation high up in the mountains of Utah. That's also why there was some cutting in and out during the show. Despite this, I think that you'll find the advice Gerald provides is totally worth it. Without further ado, let's dig in. Gerald, thanks so much for joining me today.

Yeah, no problem. Thanks for having me on.

Gerald so I've read a lot about entrepreneurs. I've met a few entrepreneurs, I've seen videos of entrepreneurs. But I think you are the first person I've ever met in person that I know is a wildly successful entrepreneur. So I'm super excited to have you on today.

Thanks for saying that, Kyle. I'm not sure wildly successful quite describes me, but I appreciate it.

We're going to get into that soon and I'm super excited about that. But before we do, Gerald, can you just set the stage and tell everyone how old are you?

Yeah, so I'm 28 years old and just been out of college for what, I guess six years now, but it feels like just yesterday.

Cool. I love that. So, Gerald, let's start out with your college experience. So you graduated in 2011 from Virginia Tech with a degree in mechanical engineering. Why engineering?

I think like most kids going to college, I had no idea what I wanted to be. And to give you a little bit of insight into my thinking process before going to college, I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to be an engineer, I wanted to be a business person, I wanted to be lots of different things. You know, I felt like an 8 year old kid my senior year of college. But ultimately I decided to do engineering for two years. Two reasons. The first is I went to a school that kind of excelled in engineering at the time. And I'm not sure where the ranking is now, but at the time, the major that I selected was the 12th best in the nation. So that's the first thing is, you know, I went to Virginia Tech and you know, you want to do what they do best. So that's one of the reasons. And the second reason is just because it's a really, really flexible major where you can come out and do a lot of different things. And as we kind of dive in into a little bit about what I've done so far since being out of college, you'll get to see exactly how flexible that major can be.

Cool. Well, speaking about engineering, Joe, I know that many students pursue engineering and they do so because they consider themselves tinkerers, meaning they love to kind of roll up their sleeves and actually build stuff. So to what extent is being a tinkerer ne to thrive in engineering?

I don't think it's necessary, but it's certainly helpful. I would consider myself a tinkerer for sure, but I had hundreds of classmates that I got to know pretty well while I was in school. And not everybody was. Some were very Theoretical kind of book smart type folks that would end up going on to get their masters and their PhDs in engineering. And I wouldn't say that they're their tinkers necessarily. They're more into kind of engineering theory, physics theory, things like that. I was more hands on. I'm still more hands on as we'll get into a little bit later. I like building physical products, even though my full time job right now is in software. But I think if you like to tinker, engineering is the perfect major for you. But I don't think that you should shy away from engineering just because that's not necessarily your thing.

Okay, so if it's not necessary to be a tinkerer, is it necessary to be a math wizard to pursue engineering?

I wouldn't say you need to be a wizard. I wouldn't consider myself a wizard, but I did enjoy my math. I loved math in high school and I love science, so it seemed like a natural fit for me. I think if you're a math wizard, you would probably do mathematics as your major, but you definitely need to be good at math to do engineering. We did everything from calculus, differential equations to a lot of different math classes all the way up through my junior year of college. So if math isn't your thing, I'm not sure engineering would be a great fit. But there are a lot of other majors out there that could give you similar kind of experience without the heavy focus on math.

Yeah, so what would some of those majors be?

So a lot of folks that started engineering my freshman year that found out quickly that they didn't like the kind of deep theoretical mathematics, ended up going into business, architecture. Some of them have even gotten into some kind of softer sciences, political science, things like that, they found things that are more interesting to them. And I actually think that's really important about college is you don't have to have everything figured out when you go to college, and you don't have to have everything figured out when you get out of college either. But I know plenty of successful people that change their major once, twice, sometimes even three times while they're in school. And I think it takes more guts and you have to be more. You have to be a little bit more brave to do that than to just stick it out with something that you're not very good at or you don't like very much.

Yeah, I love that, Joe. I think it's so true. So for someone like you who came into college and thought you wanted to be a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, A fireman, an astronaut, you know, a platypus, all at the same time. How did you decide to actually exclude all those things except for engineering and pursue engineering?

I actually, and to this day, I feel the same way. I don't think I'm necessarily excluding those things. Of course I had to. For school, you can only pick one thing. But I was fortunate enough to have some mentors in my life that taught me that the most interesting people in the world don't necessarily have the same job their whole life. So if I wanted to, you know, in my 30s, decide that I want to be a doctor, I could go back to school and I can, you know, study for my LSATs or whatever test I need to take and go and try to get my doctorate's degree or my, you know, whatever, whatever degree is necessary to be a doctor, a lawyer, whatever I want to be. You don't have to have everything figured out at 22 years old. So because the mentors taught me that at a pretty young age, I felt comfortable with sticking through engineering. I enjoyed it, I was decent at it. So I knew that this wasn't the stamp on my life and my career and I had options later on if I wanted to. That made it a little bit easier to give up those other things because I never really look at it as permanently giving them up.

Yeah, John, you're onto something so true and so real in today's environment. I just feel like many people, particularly older folks, haven't yet grasped this. And that's exactly what you're saying. And that is what you major in is not going to be what you do for your entire life. In fact, statistics show that up to, to around 50% of people when they graduate. So, you know, first year out of college don't do anything related to their major. I mean, that's their first year out of college is incredibly high. So yeah, you're entirely right in that a student who majors in anything isn't necessarily guaranteed to do that thing their entire life, let alone even their first year out of college.

Yeah. And really quick, just to piggyback on that, and this is very anecdotal, but the CEO of my last company had. In a world full of CEOs that have MBAs and all sorts of experience with business and the like, he has just a bachelor's degree in forestry.

Forestry.

Forestry, yeah. And he's the CEO of a high tech software company making easily 400, 500k a year. So yeah, that's a great example of somebody that clearly outperformed by changing the direction of their career after college.

Yeah. Well, Gerald, you're speaking about engineering being such a flexible major and I want to hear your perspective on that in a second. But let me just set the stage by saying in my book, I call these very flexible majors, that is majors that lead to a variety of career paths, not just the name of the major. I call those majors skills ready majors. And that is because it gives you the skills to tackle a bunch of different industries in a bunch of different areas. That way you're not kind of siloed into one thing. And certainly engineering falls under that umbrella of skills ready majors, that is majors that are super flexible in today's job environment. So can you talk about some of the career options you were presented with when you neared graduation or at graduation simply because you had an engineering major?

Yeah. And I love the terminology that you used there. So my first job out of school was I did process improvement engineering and research and development for a manufacturing plant. My second job after that was software and systems integration consulting for Accenture, one of the big consulting companies out there. And then my next job was a software product manager for a green clean tech software company. And then right now on the side, which we'll talk about a little bit later, I have these startups that are in a physical product space, the monthly subscription space, and all sorts of different things. And the reason I was afforded all of these different options is exactly what you're saying. These kind of. The major gave me these opportunities, I think through a couple different ways. The first way is I think a lot of companies love to hire an engineer, whether it's for a specific engineering job or a consulting job, or a business related job, or an analyst related job. There are a lot of jobs that these Fortune 500 companies would love to hire an engineer for.

Why do you think that is?

Well, I think similar to going to a top tier school, engineering kind of puts a stamp on your resume that you were, I guess, bright enough, hard working enough, whatever it is that you needed to do to get through a pretty rigorous program and come out the other side with a degree. It's the same thing that going to Harvard or MIT or Stanford says on your resume. It says this person is good enough to get into this school, so they might be worth a shot.

So it's a credential even if you don't use the actual degree itself.

Exactly. And now that I'm on the other side of it and I'm hiring folks for my full time job and Also for my startup on the side, that's a major that I look for quite a bit just because I know that that major, whoever got through an engineering degree, is able to kind of handle a lot of different things.

Gerald, let me just piggyback on that because I think so often when people used to hire graduates about, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, they would look for just a college degree by itself and they would think the exact same thing. They would say, okay, well I know this person is capable and competent because he or she graduated college, therefore they must be right? But now everyone has a college degree, everyone does. So you're not unique. And the very fact that you graduate doesn't really say much of anything because everyone has the same thing to say. So people still want to filter out bad candidates and so they just look for something else. That something else is no more a college degree by itself. But I think it's trending toward much like what you're saying. And that is, what are the majors that filter out, you know, the good candidates from the bad ones. And engineering is certainly one of those majors.

Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't necessarily mean for the kids out there that, that are really passionate about marine biology or these other majors that you can't be an all star coming out of that degree. And I certainly don't limit whenever I'm looking to hire people, I don't limit based on that, but it definitely helps me, as you mentioned, filter through.

So, Gerald, many students out there are considering entrepreneurship and they believe that they themselves need a technical background to be an entrepreneur. And as a result, engineering is in their crosshairs. So do entrepreneurs need a technical background to be successful?

Not at all. Not at all. I think it could help, but so just to help answer this question, I want to step back a few years and I took a few programming classes in college. Mechanical engineers, they're kind of the jack of all trade engineers. You don't really go deep in any one subject, but you kind of touch the surface on a lot of different things. So I took about three programming courses in college. After college I saw these programmers making a ton of money. I saw these software startups doing really well. So I started learning programming on the side and eventually I built an online application and they went, no, nobody used it, nobody bought it, nobody did anything with it. And I realized really quickly, thankfully, without wasting too much time, that the value is not necessarily in the product. Of course you need a great product, but sales, marketing, some high level strategy. I think those Things are way more important and that you still need to have some sort of technical capability, but you don't need necessarily technical skills. I think you need to be creative, you need to be a hard worker and you need to be able to understand some basic things. But if you go and look at some of the top tech companies today, like Airbnb for example, that was founded by two non technical founders. So no, I don't think that you need to have a technical degree or have any technical skill sets to be a successful entrepreneur, but it can help.

Cool. Well, I'm glad you talked about sort of your side project in class. And this goes for both entrepreneurial folks and non entrepreneurial folks. And that is, Judd, you were tinkering on the side outside of class. So even though your product failed, to what extent did that open up other job opportunities for you? Were employers impressed that you were doing stuff on the side, building things, rolling up your sleeves? And if so, how did that compare to how impressed employers were in regard to the grades you were getting in the classroom?

Yeah, so great question. They were absolutely impressed. So I had to take on a lot of student loans from school. So I worked throughout school. I worked a lot of different jobs, from a bagger at grocery store to a barista or coffee shop. I smiled and dialed for our alumni kind of hit line is what I called it, where we're asking for donations. I did a bunch of different things which I needed to do to help pay off some loans. Mostly just make sure the interest stays down as much as I could throughout college. But yeah, whenever I put those things on my resume, I don't think that impressed employers near as much as some of the other kind of side projects that I had as well. So my grades were okay. I ended up with a 3.4 GPA. It's not fantastic, but it's not terrible either. There were definitely a lot of classmates that graduated way ahead of me academically, but I think it did help. I think the GPA kind of weeds you out or at least filters you. So only a few can pass through for certain jobs. Once you get through that first layer, I think having those side jobs, having the side projects on my resume, things that I can speak to intelligently about, really, really set me apart from all my classmates that didn't necessarily have that, that spent so much time studying to get the, the 3.9 GPA, the 4.0 GPA. Once we got through that first filter together, I felt really, really confident that I had a much better chance of getting the job than they did.

I think that's so true. In my book, I talk about grades, obviously, because they're just such a big component of college. And very much like what you said, Gerald, it's really a filter. And once you make it past that first round, I mean, everyone is the same, regardless of whether you have a 40 or a 3 4. And really where I think that line is is around a 3.0, maybe a 3 2. But after that, there's significant diminishing returns. And like you said, for those people locking themselves in the way in the Library to get a4.0 at the expense of actually doing things and building things and making themselves marketable, I mean, they are falling way, way short of people like you who do enough to get the grades that they need to make it past that filter. But then once they're inside, they're actually building things that employers really, really, really want to see.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that.

Cool. So, Gerald, in many ways, you are actually someone I hold out as a model graduate. And let me explain that. So first, when it comes to your college that you graduated from, you graduated from a flagship state school, meaning, you know, one of the biggest kind of prominent state schools in your state, which is Virginia Tech. And so that is something that I highly, highly recommend for students. The second thing is you graduated with a highly marketable degree, and we already covered this. It's a skills ready major, it's an engineering degree. And so you kind of combine those two things. The fact that you got your college selection right, you got your major selection right. And that is, you know, more than half of what I think makes for a great candidate. So can you talk about the opportunities that you were given, job opportunities, that is, you were given kind of compared to some other friends you had during college who might not have had similar resume as you, maybe from other schools or whatnot, and kind of compare how you fit into the whole job market.

Comparing myself to other Virginia Tech grads in majors that weren't necessarily engineering, more Bachelor of arts degrees, things like that. A lot of my friends that had those degrees did have a really tough time. In fact, the vast majority of them went home, lived with their parents, and I feel bad kind of saying this, but worked at local grocery stores, things like that. They were definitely underemployed for six months, some of them well over a year until they could. Until they could finally get the job that they were looking for. But I would say even to this day, a lot of Those folks are underemployed in comparison to the degree that they got, the money that they spent in their degree, the expectations coming out of school, their skill sets, all sorts of things. And it all kind of bubbles back to what you were saying, which is their degree, because when we both started freshman year, me and the person that got a BA degree, we both graduated top of our class from high school. We both excelled in sports and all these other extracurricular activities that helped us get into a good school. There wasn't much different between the two. But four years later, I was able to get a job. In fact, I graduated on Saturday and that Monday I started my job. So that's the first thing. And then comparing myself to high school friends that went to other smaller schools, very, very similar experience. You know, they had a much tougher time getting a job. I attribute a lot of that to the economy at the time. But I would assume that even today they're going to maybe not have as hard of a time getting a job, but maybe I would believe that they're going to have a harder time being adequately employed. I see a lot of underemployed employment out there for folks in smaller schools with smaller alumni networks.

Yeah. Still today, about 50% of graduates are underemployed. And just like what you said, they're working as bartenders, as grocery baggers, as that kind of thing. And you know, there's nothing wrong with that. But when you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a degree with the expectation that you won't be doing that, then that's a huge problem. So it's crazy to think that some of your friends, still four, five, six years out, are still underemployed. I'm not surprised at all. But it's crazy that the major that you select, if it's not a skills ready major, can lead you in such a different career trajectory versus someone who majored in a skills ready major, just like engineering. I think the big takeaway there is, you know, students just be super cognizant of what your major is. And, you know, there's some really great majors to select and there's some really, really, really bad ones to select. So go. Skills ready.

Yeah. Yep, absolutely.

Cool. So, Gerald, let's switch gears here and talk about your career and kind of where you find yourself and where you found yourself after college. So you mentioned that you did some software work, you did some consulting work right after college, but I would love to hop right into the entrepreneurial aspect of your career and the startups that you founded. So I believe your first startup that you founded is called Date to Door. Is that right?

Yeah, that's right. That's the first startup that actually made money.

First startup that made money. Okay, cool. So before we get into Day to Door, then, how many startups have you founded collectively?

Well, I wouldn't necessarily say founded. I would say tinkered with going back to the beginning, going full circle. I like to explore ideas all the time. There's a great book called the Lean Startup Methodology, and I use that all the time. And the crux of the book is basically start with an idea, test it as cheaply and as quickly as possible, and if you have any sort of positive results, continue. If not, either give it up or pivot and do something a little bit differently.

That's actually one of the cornerstones to hackiversity. It's how I recommend students approach their entire college career for that reason. Test what you like, figure it out. If you don't like it, get out of there quickly and go to something else.

That's perfect because this whole book is tailored 100% to startups and entrepreneurs. But I've actually used that methodology for everything in life. And had I known this back in college, I think. Not that I regret too much about my college experience. I got lucky with great mentors, but. But yeah, I would have absolutely done the same thing. So test, test, test. Gather feedback and figure out if you want to keep going or change or stop altogether. So, yeah, that's what I did with these previous I'll put air quotes out there, startups.

And how many would you say?

I'd say maybe half a dozen.

Okay, so around six?

Yeah. Between end of college to Day to door. None of them necessarily. None of them actually did make it to the point where I decided to actually pursue trying to get customers.

Yeah. Okay, cool. So day to door then marks what number out of the six?

Probably seven.

Cool. So day to door company number seven. First to make money though. So what exactly, Gerald, is date to door?

Date to door is a. And it's kind of silly, but it's a subscription box company where we plan a creative date for people and we put all the ingredients together in the date for folks and send it out. So think blue apron and how they give you the instructions for cooking and they give you all the ingredients for cooking and you just have to do it. That's what date to door is. And the ideal target was folks that were both parties were working hard and didn't really have Time to plan creative dates anymore. So date night ended up being dinner and a movie, which is, if you think about all the date nights you've had where it's dinner and a movie, not many of them spend stick out. So we were trying to give folks experiences that they can remember.

And what are some of the items in the date to door box?

So it changes every month. One example is that we theme every date box, but one of them was the five love languages. A guy named Gary Chapman wrote a book about how people perceive love, how they feel loved by their significant others.

So, Joe, I can't help but notice a box of date night activities has absolutely nothing to do with mechanical engineering. Right?

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

So is this a good example of what we were talking about earlier in that whatever the college student is majoring in or pursuing in college, they're not going to do for the rest of their life?

I think society wants to force us into picking a career or picking a major, picking a career and sitting your butt behind a chair for the rest of your life, doing the same thing and, you know, enjoy decent benefits, decent pay and job security for a long time. And that just maybe, maybe that's great for some folks, but that sounds so boring for me. The most interesting people that I know had psychology degrees and now they're out saving whales at 45 years old or they majored in, I don't know, art, and now they're helping out with some sort of artificial intelligence research. Those people are just. They live really, really interesting lives.

Yeah, I think that's cool. And that is one of the ways that college students can differentiate themselves. And I talk a lot about this in my book, but that is embrace interestingness and that's actually a real thing. And that can actually separate you. Just like what you're saying. Those are the sorts of people, those interesting people who you gravitate to. And college students are no different. If you are a college student and can do something interesting to make you stand out, to have a unique story or unique experience that makes someone go, wow, that's really cool, that will set you apart from other job applicants.

Yep, absolutely. Absolutely. And it doesn't even have to necessarily help you in the job world. And a small example of that is I was interviewing a bunch of folks who are data analyst positions and one of them was in a band. It just stands out.

Yeah.

The fact that he can play drums or guitar or sing really well has not nothing to do with how well of a data analyst he is. But he's interesting.

So, Gerald, let's talk about, I believe it's company number eight, CubeFit. Is that right? Company number eight, that's right. Okay, so Cubefit, you are the founder of CubeFit. CubeFit makes ergonomic office products. So how long after graduation was it until you found a Cubefit?

Gosh, I think about five years.

Okay, so in only five years after graduation you found a qfip, but that was just kind of one of the many companies along this string of companies you founded since graduation. So Joe, what made you want to found CubeFit in the first place?

So actually to take a step back, Datador was the first successful, in air quote successful startup that I had. But I was a solo founder there and one of the. Actually the only goal of that startup was to learn as much as I could. And one of the things I learned the most is I don't like doing this alone. Having somebody else in a trench with me would be a lot more fun and it would be helpful during the low times and the times where things are kind of tough just to help motivate me and I can help motivate them. So cupfit I co founded actually myself and my wife co founded with a good friend of mine and his wife. And how we founded it is he was an entrepreneur tinkering around with a lot of different things. I was an entrepreneur tinkering around with a lot of different things. And we just kind of came together and said, hey, let's, let's do something else. We both went our separate ways, put a list of different interesting companies and business models together and came back and Kubefit was just one of maybe 10 or 15 on the list. And that's what we went forward with.

Cool. I just want to get right down to it, Gerald, because I think it's so amazing. QFIT has been not just successful but, but wildly successful. So I just can't hold it in anymore because I just want to talk about it. How much money will Cubefit make this year?

About 2 million.

You are on track to do $2 million this year?

Yeah. Yep.

And you're 28 years old.

Yeah. Lucky 28 year old.

Wow. So how. I mean, because this is crazy. I mean, this is exactly what I was talking about when I introed you at the beginning. And I say, you know, I've met a lot of, I've met some entrepreneurs, I've obviously read about a lot of entrepreneurs. But to meet an entrepreneur at 28 years old who's not just working on a product that's kind of in infancy and has some hope to it and some promise, but someone who's actually making real money, not spending investors money or something, but someone who's actually making real money and in the millions of dollars is, I think, really unique and really incredible. Joe, how does it feel to run a company that makes so much money?

I'm going to be honest, it doesn't feel any different than a year and a half ago when I wasn't running a company making so much money. My days are sometimes a little bit more stressful because we have two employees right now we are looking to hire as we continue to grow. So when you have other folks depending on you, it can be a little stressful. But yeah, I mean, I guess on occasion I'll actually think about it and it feels great, but most of the time I don't really think about it. So just as a disclaimer, I haven't actually taken a dime out of Cubefit. We reinvest everything. I have a full time job, so that's what kind of pays the bills for me.

So you are making $2 million a year on your business while you also have a quote unquote real job?

Yeah, well, number one, I love my job. I'm a product manager for a software company. And it's just really fun and it's interesting and I want to keep doing it until it no longer becomes interesting to me. And yeah, Kubefit doesn't really take that much time. If I wanted to just keep it going because we have employees, I might spend a few hours a month on it. But because I want it to grow, you know, I might spend, I don't know, maybe five hours a week, 10 during really tough times.

Wait, so you, you are spending five hours a week making $2 million a year?

Yeah.

So Gerald, a lot of people out there are going to think, boy, I hope I make that kind of money in a lifetime. But for the, the people who look at this differently and say, I want to do that, I want to do what Gerald does. I want to be able to work when I want, where I want, at the time I want and make a good amount of money. So what is it, Gerald, that that person should do?

I think that there are certain character traits and qualities about people that make them more susceptible to success and more likely to have successful companies. Persistence is one of the most important qualities. So if you are hard working, if you are creative, I think those are two really Important qualities and you're persistent. Persistence, I think, is what creates luck for people. Because if you look back at what I was talking about, you said, this is startup number eight. That's persistence. I was unlucky, you might say, for the first seven. So I think persistence can help you create luck and I think that's a really important quality. But you have to have some of the other technical or creative characteristics as well.

Yeah, I think that's gold. Persistence. What are those practical steps that students can take to grow persistence?

I think setting long term goals and then figuring out what specific steps or milestones or gates you need to get through to get to that goal really helps with persistence. Because I think the difference between a persistent person and a non persistent person is a persistent person has a goal so they know where they're going and it's hard for them to give up. A non persistent person typically doesn't. They don't make goals for themselves. And I don't think it's enough to say that in a year I want to be an amazing guitar player or I want to be fluent in Spanish. I don't think that's quite enough. I think that's the starting point. And then I think you say, okay, if I want to be fluent in Spanish a year from now, what do I have to do? Let's first make four different milestones to get there and then I'll break it apart even more and I might get it down to the weak level every week. I know exactly what I need to do to get to my ultimate goal. So I think that's really helpful in developing persistence because it becomes a little bit more organized.

Let me drill down on that even farther. So you came into college not really knowing what you wanted, but you knew that you were persistent. So you take that framework though, and you apply it to what you just said about setting goals. So how is someone like your 18 year old college self, who has really no idea what they want to do supposed to set long term goals? What goal did you set and how did you go about accomplishing it in light of that persistence?

That's a great question. My goal was to graduate college, to be honest with you and get a job. Those were my early goals. I was the first one in my family to go to college, first one to graduate college. So that was really important for me. I assumed that it was very attainable. I didn't think that it would be that difficult, but that was a goal. And I don't think that your goals have to necessarily be Unattainable or hard. It's nice to have stretch goals, but that was definitely one of my initial goals. And then as college kind of went on, I would have other kind of smaller micro goals along the way just to help me get better. I'm always trying to get better at certain things that I'm passionate about or things that I find interesting.

So aside from kind of the graduation goals, what are some good goals for people pursuing an engineering major to set for themselves?

I would set goals up based on the seven different intelligences. And please don't ask me what all seven are, because I don't know. But if you Google seven intelligences, then you should be able to find them. And the crux of it is that there is, I think everybody's familiar with iq and most people are familiar with EQ emotional intelligence, but there are many, many, many other. Maybe not many. There are specifically five other intelligences out there, from athletics to just empathy and being able to understand people and things like that. I think that for me personally at least, I really want to try to be as well, rounded as possible. And that's, that's how I experience life the most, is by growing in a lot of different areas. So I would take a hard look at yourself. If you're not, on occasion, sitting down and being introspective and analyzing where you are in life, then I'm not sure you're quite, quite progressing in life, you know, if you don't know where you're at right now. So I would, I would encourage kids to sit down, look at all seven intelligences, find where your weak points are, and then set specific goals to kind of improve not just in your strengths, but your weaknesses as well. So I know for me specifically, empathy is not something, not one of my strong suits. Luckily, I married probably the world's most empathetic person and she teaches me every day. But that's definitely one of the goals that I'm working on right now, and I remember specifically working on in college as well. And I try to quantify all of my goals. So for empathy, I might put down, I have to meet with five people every week and hear about their problems, their struggles, and really try to put myself in their shoes and deal those problems with them. So that's just maybe a poor example, but an example nonetheless of how I would first identify where I'd want to set my goal, then identify what the goal is, and then lastly kind of quantify what that goal, what success looks like for that goal.

The framework that you just Provide, I think is on point, but. But I really also love the tactical element of that, and that is actually meeting with people, five people is fantastic. And not just listen to them, but actually feel what they're feeling, try to walk in their shoes in a very real way to cultivate that empathy. Because at the end of the day, like I think you said, Gerald, self awareness, not only in life, but in particular in college, I think is the game. It's one half of the game. And that is if you know what you're good at, what your strengths are, kind of what brings you to life, you can build an entire college career around that. So, Gerald, let's transition to the last part of the show, which is also my favorite part. And that is the rapid fire question section. And this is where I offer up some quick hitting questions. But that doesn't mean that your answer has to be quick hitting. So are you ready?

I am ready, as ever.

Joe, would you say there's a specific college track to get you where you are today?

I think that the most important thing I learned in college through the engineering track was how to learn. And I think that got me to where I am today. It taught me how to figure things out. So I would say for me specifically, yes, but I can't necessarily say that. That a specific college track is necessary for everybody.

Gerald, what made your college experience unique compared to everyone else?

I think that I just tried to drink from a fire hose every day. From playing sports to taking lots of different classes just to. I guess what made it unique is I didn't follow the rules. I skipped maybe 30 to 50% of my classes. I remember taking differential equations and my very first class, I heard singing next door. And I. The very next day, the very next day I had that class. I went to that class instead. It turned out to be black church in America. And I continued taking differential equations, but I never showed up to class anymore except for tests. And instead I would show up to black church in America and we sung songs and we had Friday potlucks, and on Sundays, once a month, we'd have to go to an African American church in the city. So that's just like one example, you know, other times I would be walking to class and ready to go. And, you know, one of the few times I actually went to class and there'd be a group of guys playing ultimate Frisbee on a field that I have to pass through, and I would drop my books and, you know, roll up my sleeves and go play and meet a bunch of new friends. So what made my college experience unique is that I didn't follow the rules. I didn't do dangerous, illegal things, but I didn't follow the rules that college says you should do to, you know, be the perfect college student. And that, for me at least, turned out wonderfully cool.

Yeah, potlucks do sound a lot better than differential equations. My third question for you is, did you complete all of your homework? And if not, how did you determine what homework to complete?

I did the vast majority of my homework. I did. And the reason why I did is because that is how I learned. I mentioned already that I miss 30 to 50% of my classes. That doesn't mean that I said, screw school, it's not important. I love learning. That's just not how I learn. I'm not an audible learner. Going to the class wasn't going to help me retain the information. So I learned pretty quickly that I can go through a textbook and by going through the homework, that's how I can do well in school. So, sure, I might have gotten a little bit of higher GPA by going to class and learning by listening to a teacher as well, But I think that education has been tailored to the masses or designed for the masses. So it includes a lot of things that might appeal to a broader group of people. But by college, if you haven't figured it out yet, really figure out how you learn. Are you a physical learner? Do you have to touch things? Do you have to go through homework? Do you have to listen? Do you have to see it written on a whiteboard? Figure that out. Do what you need to do to learn. I don't think that you need to follow all the rules. So I did. But I don't think everybody necessarily has to.

Yeah, I love that. Joe, you and I are very similar in that regard. In law school, my third year, I actually stopped going to a lot of my classes for the exact same reason that I just learned better by going through the textbook and actually wrestling with problems myself, rather than just have someone preach to me from the front of the class. So I think that's it. You just got to figure out how you learn best and just go do that, even if you're, quote, unquote, breaking the rules. So I think that's great. Gerald, suppose next month is your first day of freshman year, and you must retake all of your courses, you must reselect a major, you must do everything over again. Where are you going to concentrate most of your energy?

Networking. Networking, by far. So I got my first job not through networking, but that's a rarity. Got my first job through really hard work and just kind of wowing the folks that were interviewing me and the things that we mentioned earlier, the fact that it's an engineering degree and yada yada yada. I had a few more things in my resume that helped me stand out, but I remember struggling my junior year. End of my junior year is when I was applying for full time jobs a year later. That's when I started. And having a few friends that their parents knew, somebody their family friend happened to be a director or a VP at some company and they just had the connections to land a job that to be honest, they weren't qualified for. And almost like sight unseen, no interview necessary, you've got the role. And that may not be exactly the case every single time, but I have learned since my first job, my second job and my third job have both been through networking. And now I've realized how important networking really is and I wish I could have done that more. I remember kind of throwing myself a pity party by saying, well, I don't have rich parents that have a lot of rich friends that can give me a job and just saying, woe is me towards the end of my junior, beginning my senior year. But in reality that's on me. I'm going to school with a bunch of kids and a lot of my friends. I'm sure their parents would be happy to help me out, but I didn't go to all the networking events on campus and I didn't really talk to friends, parents about opportunities. And I could have done that a lot better.

Traditionally, people perceive networking at college as something extra to do something if you have time. It's nice to do a little cherry on top. But networking is so fundamental to a successful college career. It's almost more important than whatever class that student is going to. It needs to be considered almost a class in and of itself.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Cool. Jode. What's the best lesson a teacher, a parent, or a mentor has taught you?

I think I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I'll repeat it in brevity this time. The best lesson I was taught was that what you do today is not what you need to do tomorrow necessarily. And of course it's, I'm speaking metaphorically, but I'm not signing up the rest of my life to be a mechanical engineer. So I think that's really important for folks to understand. Definitely, definitely, definitely. If you can, you have the capabilities Go for these majors that you had kind of, you had spoken to, I think you called them. What skills? Specific majors.

Skills ready majors, yeah.

Skills ready majors, Yeah. I definitely encourage those. But don't think that you're pigeonholing yourself because you're not cool.

Gerald, what is one thing you want a college sophomore listening to this podcast to know?

I guess to sum up some of the things we talked about, number one is networking. That's going to get you every job that you're not qualified for. If you want to get a job you are qualified for, then maybe you don't need it. But if you want to get a job you're not qualified for, you need a network. The second thing is constantly learn new things. It doesn't necessarily have to be the things that you signed up for for your classes. But the most successful people that I know in life and that I listen to and look up to are always learning new things. They're always reading books, they're always trying new things. So develop a hunger and never really quench that fire. And then the last thing is kind of ties into that is try new things. And it's very similar to what you said is one of the core principles of your book, which is try lots of things, test them out. You may think that if you asked me six, seven years ago if I would ever have a company that sold date night boxes, I would say, no way. That doesn't sound interesting at all. That's not me. But try lots of things and see if something sticks. See if you have some sort of interest, because interest and passion will take you a long way.

Last question for you, Gerald. If you could recommend something to a college student in the form of a tweet, what would it be?

Be curious. I think I'll just end it at that because I would want their creativity to kind of flow.

Where can students learn more about you and the things that you're doing and the work that you do?

So I guess you can find me through some of the websites of my startups that I work on, but the easiest way is either through Facebook. I don't check that very often, but Gerald's in graph on Facebook. LinkedIn is probably the best way to get in touch with me. Gerald's in graff on LinkedIn. There aren't many of us out there and if you have any questions, I would love to help out. I'm most passionate about helping other people kind of try to get to where I am, try to get past where I am. And yeah, if you're curious about doing your own thing, starting your own company, or even just being an intrapreneur within a company. Yeah, reach out. I would love to help out and have a conversation.

Gerald, we'll leave it there. It's been a ton of fun. Thanks for coming on.

Thanks Kyle.

Hey guys. Two things I want to emphasize before I sign off. First is the idea of experimentation. Gerald's extraordinary success did not come in a straight line fashion. In other words, success wasn't a step by step process. Instead, Gerald explored many different careers, mainly by building eight different companies. Of course, many companies failed, but who cares? Experimentation and failure are close companions along the road to massive success. And Gerald's story proves exactly that. That's why today Gerald's business that he built sells over $2 million every year. Second is the idea of reallocating time away from grades and into practical experiences. Look, unless you want to go to grad school, there's no practical difference between a 4.0 GPA and a 3.5 GPA. Employers simply don't care. What employers do care about is establishing good enough grades, and good enough grades are approximately a 3.0 GPA to a 3.2 GPA. After passing this threshold, students should not overstudy and instead they should invest into gaining practical experiences such as through internships or building things on the side. That's exactly what Gerald did, and now he makes millions of dollars. You can do the same. That's all for this episode. I'll catch you all next time. If you want more Hackiversity and achieving more by doing less in college, you can subscribe to the podcast Podcast on itunes or grab the book on Amazon. For the show notes and the latest on hackiversity, check out kylewiny.com don't forget to follow Kyle on Twitter at Kyle Whiney and on facebook@facebook.com hackaversity Till next time, happy hacking.