Why Are You Taking New Enterprises: Discovery (BUSI221)?
Born with esotropia, a condition affecting my eye alignment and depth perception, I wore glasses by age two and underwent my first surgery at three. While I am told my chubby toddler cheeks and round blue glasses drew quite a fan club, my vision failed to secure celebrity status as I ventured into adolescence. My hand-eye coordination was in a league of its own—attempts at baseball looked more like dodgeball, and my tennis strokes, a unique form of interpretive dance.
Realizing sports wasn’t my natural arena, I didn’t dwell on it. Instead, I embraced my strengths elsewhere, fascinated by the world of ideas and opportunities. While my peers practiced their pitches on the diamond, I was more interested in figuring out how to sell lemonade—or, better yet, how to sell anything in the most efficient way possible.
Like many kids, my first venture into entrepreneurship started with the lemonade stand. But why stay bound to a street corner, waiting for customers to come to me? I quickly pivoted, inspired by the ice cream trucks roaming my neighborhood. In fourth grade, I launched Mobile Munchies, a snack stand on wheels. I packed a wagon full of chips, drinks, and candy bars, heading out to where the action was—the little league fields. My classmates showed up with baseball bats; I arrived with granola bars and Gatorade.
That first taste of entrepreneurship hooked me. By middle school, I expanded Mobile Munchies to the local ski hill, developed a prototype for Bamboo Panda—a Mandarin-teaching toy—which never quite made it off the shelf, and began a fascination with FANG stocks that led me to invest my profits in the market.
This entrepreneurial spirit continued into high school, but my focus shifted from making money to making an impact. In high school, skiing had become my sanctuary—it turns out that when you’re hurtling down a mountain at breakneck speed, depth perception is more of a suggestion than a requirement! But I realized that this sport, which had brought me so much joy and confidence, was inaccessible to many kids due to cost and distance. So, I founded Positive Altitudes, a nonprofit that has provided over 600 ski lessons to underserved kids in Milwaukee, covering everything from equipment rentals to ski passes.
As much as Positive Altitudes fulfilled my desire to merge entrepreneurship with impact, I realized I was still working within my comfort zone—building something on my own. Then came ARPANET- the subject of my National History Day documentary. I was captivated by the idea of an interconnected world and wanted to learn everything about how it came to be. Reaching out to historians, archivists, and even the pioneers of the internet themselves, I ended up, on a whim, emailing Vint Cerf, the Father of the Internet. To my surprise, he responded. “Dear Jackson, I am copying my Assistant to find time to chat. -V.”
During our conversation, Vint shared a piece of advice that changed the way I think about innovation: “Hesitating to ask questions and withholding knowledge leads to anonymity and powerlessness,” he warned. The internet was born from the questions no one was afraid to ask. Vint’s words made me realize that real innovation comes from questioning, not just from having the answers.
Before this, my self-confidence stemmed from being the person with the answers—selling things on my own and launching ventures solo. There was comfort in relying only on myself. Despite the joy of hearing the cash register ring, my ventures were often lonely, even as an introvert. Vint’s words stuck with me. I realized I needed others not only to scale my entrepreneurial ideas but also to fuel my personal growth.
Last summer, I gave Vints advice a whirl and applied to a boot camp focused on AI and data analytics, a subject very new to me. My team was tasked with developing an AI prototype solution to optimize dairy production, and that’s how Moo-Metrics was born—the Fitbit for cows. Our team, with diverse backgrounds and skills, asked great questions and challenged each other. Ultimately, our collaboration earned us a finalist spot at the program’s Demo Day, not because any one of us had all the answers but because together, we had something better.
From selling snacks as a fourth-grader to launching a nonprofit that’s opened the slopes to hundreds of kids, I’ve learned that making an impact isn’t just about having the answers—it’s about daring to ask the right questions and working collaboratively to create innovative solutions. While I’m still that kid with thick glasses who loves the sound of a cash register, I’ve come to realize that real innovation comes from curiosity, collaboration, and thinking big.
So why am I taking New Enterprises: Discovery? I am excited to immerse myself in formalized education and instruction in subjects I am passionate about, such as entrepreneurship and social innovation. I know I have more questions than answers, and in a room filled with future rocket scientists, AI wizards, and marketing gurus, I believe that by having the courage to ask bold questions, I may have the opportunity to be part of creating something extraordinary.