Yannell Selman, FTMBA 21 - Educator turned Female Founder

H@H: Ep 73 - Yannell Selman chats with host, Paulina Lee to share her journey from coast-to-coast and how her previous venture inspired her latest company, Cultiveit. Listen to the end to hear this female founder’s tips for preventing burnout!

This week’s episode is in partnership with two other clubs at Haas: Haas Venture Capital Club (HVCC) and Berkeley Entrepreneurship Association (BEA) who are hosting Pitch Nights as a way for student founders and investors to get hands-on experience. Yannell is the latest winner of best pitch!

On why education:

“I feel like education really forms our worldview and helps us understand what is true. And it's such a defining experience. One of my favorite things about working in education is that everybody has a story - relating to education - whether it's their own story, their parents' story. So it's just such a unifier in so many ways if you're able to access it.”

On what Cultiveit is solving for:

“We're realizing that burnout traditionally has been thought of as a medical problem. The burden has been on the individual as a patient to get better through self-care. And there's now a shift in thinking about burnout as a managerial problem and a team culture problem...The symptoms, we see it in individuals, but it happens at a company level, it happens at a team level. And so what are the managerial solutions to burnout? If you’re a leader, how can you prevent burnout?”

Advice for our newest Haasies:

“Do the thing you're not good at already. If you're a quant, it's so easy to just spend all your time in quant roles. And if you're a poet, to do all the soft skills classes and to really just feel like you're shining. There's value to that; there's a place for that. I don't think the MBA is the place for that. This is the place to go outside your comfort zone, try something new, fail a lot, and fall back on this incredible Haas community that we have. So don't do the thing that you normally would do; do the thing that you've always wanted to dip your toe into, but haven't.”