Zero Equals One: Creating A Business From Nothing | Riley Csernica | TEDxCharleston

[Music] I hate lipstick it is just not my style so when I decided to put it on March 15th 2012 people knew I was up to something job interview I was 2 months away from graduating college two months away from taking my new degree in bi medical engineering and walking it straight into unemployment I was going to do whatever it took to make sure that I landed the job I was interviewing for that day even if it meant going so far as to put on lipstick now I don't know what happened when I walked into

that office something magical maybe I was born with it maybe it was Maybelline regardless I crushed that interview at the end of it the primary person I was speaking with said Riley you really impressed us today not only do you have the technical expertise you are funny you are enthusiastic you have ideas exploding out of your head you have so much vision for our company and we're not really looking to hire people like that she obviously could see the look on my face so she felt the need to explain herself she said Riley we are

looking for a quality control engineer we we need someone to stand at the end of a production line and check little boxes to make sure that our products are meeting FDA specification after talking to you for 60 minutes I could tell you would hate coming to work every day if that was the job you had to do and she was absolutely right no amount of lipstick was going to cover up the fact that I didn't want to be a quality control engineer for the longest time I had known I wanted to be an inventor I

wanted to take new products to Market but when I started going out into the real world searching for jobs very quickly I realized product development opportunities were few and far between so I set my sights lower and lower and lower and lower to the point that I would have taken any job that would have offered me a paycheck while I didn't leave the interview with a new job I did leave with a new outlook on life and an understanding of how important it is to choose a career that I loved I went back to school

with eyes wide open hoping I would find an opportunity I originally had missed and I did very quickly during my senior year at Clemson a group of classmates and I were developing a shoulder brace and I thought to myself what if instead of chasing jobs we finished out this shoulder brace that we had started I presented this proposition to my classmates and immediately Chelsea said I'm in let's do it and we decided from that day forward we would become medical brace entrepreneurs now most people think when you start your own company you just hire yourself

as the CEO and you're on your web way absolutely not how it worked in my case I had to interview for this position with my mom I distinctly remember going home sitting my mom down in our kitchen and saying I have a crazy idea instead of going and getting a job getting a paycheck would it be okay if Chelsea and I pursued developing out this shoulder brace and before you say no I just want to remind you of something you have always said you wanted me to get a job close to home and if I

become an entrepreneur not only will I live in your home I will work out of your home and we'll be together forever and I was absolutely shocked by her reaction to this she said Riley you are at a point in your life where you have nothing you have no house you have no husband no kids you have no car payments you literally have nothing to lose and only things to gain from this experience so as long as I see you and Chelsea working as hard as you can you are more than welcome to stay live

and work in my house guys I got the job 21 years old I was a entrepreneur a medical device inventor I got exactly what I wanted and I was terrified because my mom brought up a very excellent point I did have nothing right forget about the house and the car and the kids I didn't have job experience we didn't have a finished product I had no money no network no mentors how in the world was I supposed to start a business from nothing how could zero ever equal one the engineer in me told me that

this equation made absolutely no sense but despite what my head said my heart said go with it anyway so with no experience no mentors no network no money no product Chelsea and I set out to see what we were made of the very first thing we did was talk to anyone who would listen I distinctly remember packing up my 2003 Nissan Ultima with shoulder braces and I would literally drive around town and get out at any hospital system any pharmacy any physical therapy office and demand to speak to someone in charge and a lot of

times they demanded I left but every once in a while someone gave me a clue a hint of what to do next a piece of information a valuable contact and slowly but surely Chelsea and I became experts in our field before you knew it we were known in the state of South Carolina as the shoulder brace girls and while that was extremely flattering we had really exhausted talking the talk and it was time to sit down and walk the walk we needed to make a shoulder brace so Chelsea and I found free office space in

town we loaded it with elastic and velcro and plastic and cardboard pretty much everything but glitter and we got to work day in and day out week in and week out we worked on this product people in our office thought we were crazy they called our cubicle the Arts and Crafts Corner they thought what we were doing was a preschool art project but we knew better than that we knew we were on to something much bigger and eventually we had a product it was sitting on this mannequin we bought it was red blue yellow black

white and Peach the oddest looking thing you've ever seen however in our gut we thought it might actually work but thinking it works and knowing it works are two different things so we set out to find our first victim and very quickly we found a professional hockey player in town who needed a brace to get back to play now mind you this is no run- inth the-mill hockey player this is a 6'4 215b fighting machine they imported this guy from Canada he is the real deal Chelsea and I put the brace on him and it

worked and this was a huge moment of validation for our company because no longer did we feel like students finishing a homework assignment we were business women starting a company our shoulder brace wasn't an arts and crafts project it was an invention and in that moment I realized something so important something I didn't fully understand in the beginning of this journey while we had no experience and no mentors and no product and no money and no network we had one good idea and that was enough to get started all too often I meet people with

ideas for businesses ideas for products and they give me a laundry list of reasons of things they don't have and why they can't start a business I have no time I have no money I have no experience I have no business starting a business what I'm here to say is forget all the zeros because one idea is enough to create one business and another important ingredient to success is support had my mom not told yes had that interviewer not told me no I wouldn't be standing here today because of all the people who gave me

their time their money their resources their energy I have been able to build a company around this class project so when you meet people with ideas if you yourself have an idea don't let fear hold you back don't be distracted by all the zeros go make do create why bother because your dream job depends on it [Music]