Jesse Pujji Reveals His Biggest Achievement

So Jesse, what’s your biggest career achievement?
It’s this picture. Why?
The answer will surprise you. Here’s the story:

It’s sophomore year at Parkway North High (very avg public school)… after class one day, my elitist english teacher asked me to hang back:

“You seem bright, what do you want to do with your life?”

Me: “Be an entrepreneur or business person”
Her: “Where do you want to go to college?”
Me: “uhhh I hadn’t thought about it”
Her: (looking at me dead in the eye).. “Wharton, you want to go to Wharton.”

I went home and asked my immigrant parents.

They looked blankly and shrugged: “We’ve heard of Harvard, not Wharton.”

I researched it, and I made it my life’s mission to get in.

As a junior, I learned about this program:

“Leadership in the Business World” – it was a one month “summer business camp” for 50 students from around the US, hosted at Wharton.

The admissions process was as intense as college: PSAT scores, grades, recommendation letters.

But I applied… and got in.

I was over the moon. I couldn’t wait to fly to Philly and start my Wharton journey…

Then I arrived.

As we did the initial intros, two other guys were ALSO brown, from the midwest, and were DJs!

We quickly introduced ourselves after the session and started talking about anything and everything.

By the end of the program, the 3 of us knew we’d be lifelong friends and all had a passion for entrepreneurship.

We visited each other during senior year of high school.

Then, luckily, all of us got in AND we became freshman roommates.

We shared tons of classes, worked hard in groups together, studied for exams into the late hours…

As freshman year closed out, we started to talk about starting a business.

We tried and failed multiple times: t-shirts, tourism, high school facebook, a sports social network. Fail fail fail.

As we graduated, we took elite jobs at McKinsey & Morgan Stanley but we were all disappointed we had had no entrepreneurial success.

At 25, with our worst case being business school, we were ready to try again. We left those jobs and leapt into business.

13 years later, it was an overnight success with the dream exit we always wanted!

But my crowning career achievement?

It’s this picture.

Why?

This picture was taken a couple months ago when the 3 of us went to celebrate the deal in Jackson Hole.

After 20 years of friendship, working together, disagreeing, failing together, you NAME it, we did it… we are still BEST friends.

So what are the lessons here?

1) Steve Jobs said it best: “you can only connect the dots looking backwards”

2) Trust always wins: We didn’t do things by the book. But it worked because we had insane levels of trust in each other.

3) Entrepreneurship is a LONG game: 2 decades from when we met until our exit…it’s normal to feel frustrated on your journey

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