Meet Connie Zhang

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Connie Zhang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Connie below.

Connie, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I come from a family of immigrants and entrepreneurs, and that means – we get the job done. No matter the difficulties.

Growing up in a family full of entrepreneurs is definitely interesting, and different. While other kids were learning folktales, I was more familiar with proverbs such as “early bird gets the worm” or “work hard, play hard”. Attending business dinners with my parents at the age of 6 was one of the common activities we would do as a family (which later on I found out this wasn’t a normal activity for other families). My parents wanted to teach me social etiquette and business talks, and most importantly, they wanted to spend time with me despite their crazy entrepreneurial hours. Quite frankly, I had fun learning outside the classroom setting.

I was always in the mentality of searching for the next big idea. I guess that’s where the entrepreneurial DNA kicks in. Like many other entrepreneurs, I value success a great deal. However, to achieve success, one must create a good working environment for their team.

Work ethic is defined differently from an employee vs employer perspective.

As an employee, I was punctual every day. I had my SMART goals and was constantly asking my bosses for feedback. They were my mentors who helped me improve. I always wanted to overachieve in my KPIs and help the company grow. Because I worked hard, I took pride in what I did and excelled quickly in my position.

As an employer, work ethics mean much more than my individual performance. Entrepreneurs have a huge hunger for success, and I’m no exception. Especially at the early startup stage, missing a benchmark could lead to the company’s demise.

As success-hungry as I was, I’ve learned that success is built by a strong team. And it is the employer’s job to provide a healthy, positive work environment to help the team thrive. Instead of telling them what to do, do the tasks with the team. Be respectful, fair, and honest.

Every day, I still start working either on time or earlier than every else. I’m a firm believer of lead by example. Because my business is in EdTech, I built an office culture that values everyone’s opinion. We reduced the hierarchy and increased team structures and responsibilities. We encourage everyone to take ownership of what they do. They are working not just to improve the business, but also to build their own personal growth and success. The business can only succeed if every team member is thriving.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
Mocaa.com is a platform that connects students with college admissions counselors for 1-1 guidance. Originally this was my research project at the University of Cambridge to solve educational inequity.

Our mission is to democratize the admissions consulting industry and make private counseling services available AND accessible to all families. Mocaa is a free resource for students to find private counselors and help them get into their dream schools. The best part is that students can now book a counselor’s service on an hourly basis instead of committing to a year-long, expensive service package.

This year, Mocaa was a finalist in the Cambridge Downing Enterprise competition. Additionally, Mocaa is a partner of Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) to help MBA candidates find admissions advisors for applications.

We are proud to join the Western Association for College Admission Counseling, and we will be exhibiting at the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s annual conference. We are expanding our services to high schools, serving as an extension to help high school’s college counselors reduce their workload and offer more 1-1 time to students.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The top 3 skills that were most impactful in my entrepreneurial journey would be quick to adapt to different situations, kindness to others, and critical thinking. If you are in a startup, then your day-to-day’s are constantly changing. You have to be planning multiple routes at once in case one fails. Even if success means completely changing the business’s core or model, you’d have to be comfortable with the idea of change and adapt accordingly.

I always believe that people in startups have a greater ambition than just money. For someone who is willing to risk it all to make an idea come to life, wealth is a nice-to-have. The fundamental ambition is to make this world a better place for the future generation. Being kind to another is being kind to yourself. Only through success can we achieve what we truly want to achieve.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Mocaa is looking to partner with high schools. As the student-to-college counselor ratio is increasing to 400:1, we can help reduce the counselor’s burnout by offering our services as an extension. Mocaa has free videos on college planning and application tips. Our network of advisors also has different backgrounds (ex-college admissions, Fortune 500, current T20 college students, etc.). We can support the school counselors and offer more 1-1 personalized guidance to each student.

If anyone is interested in connecting with me, you can reach me at hello@mocaa.com.

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Image Credits
Mocaa

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