Ethan Shaotran; Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI
- Ethan Shaotran, a Harvard senior, is developing an AI scheduling assistant called Spark.
- Shaotran balances his startup with full-time studies, leveraging time blocks and AI note-takers.
- He received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI and aims to onboard large enterprises to Spark.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ethan Shaotran, 22, a startup founder and senior at Harvard University. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified his education and funding grant.
I've always loved building things, and I started designing iOS apps when I was in middle school. Growing up in the Bay Area, which is known for being an innovation hub, also helped instill that entrepreneurship-type mindset of working hard and learning on the fly.
In the last three years at college, my passion for building things reemerged, and I came up with the idea for my startup, Energize AI. My AI scheduling assistant idea, Spark, was inspired by what I was doing at school and how challenging it is to coordinate all your commitments.
At the moment, I'm working on Spark on my own, and I'm in the process of taking it from private to public access. I already have a few paying customers, which increases the need for reliability. Spark received a $100,000 grant from OpenAI last year.
I juggle working on the startup with being a full-time computer science student at Harvard. I take four to five classes each semester and take meetings with companies and customers. I spend about 85 hours a week working on the startup, most of which is spent writing code.
I also constantly move around between San Francisco — where I'm based — and Harvard's campus in Boston.
Here are three ways I stay on top of my startup and college commitments:
Time blocks
A strategy that has worked well for me is blocking my time as much as possible. I decide when are my meeting hours, when are my other hours, and I try to abide by that as much as possible. It has been the single best way to keep me focused. For example, I will take three hours of calls, followed by one big time block for coding and working on improving Spark.
Blocking my time off has been helpful because there is such a big cultural difference between academia and the startup world. I wish it was a more friendly environment for young founders. Among my computer science classmates, there is a very small amount of individuals who are really willing to take the risk and build something different.
AI note taker
My next goal is to onboard three large enterprises and have them using Spark at a company-wide level, which means I'm on a lot of calls. I use an AI note-taker to make sure I can just stay focused on the call and not get distracted by writing things down. These note-takers transcribe the conversation and make a summary that is easy to refer to later.
Planned distractions
When I first started Harvard, I wanted to make the most of the four years and meet interesting people, like those taking liberal arts classes.
I haven't been able to do as much of this since the past semester since Spark has become my first priority. But I have found arts to be a helpful distraction in between all the meetings, classes, and exams.
A productivity tip that helps me is I've been taking a lot of painting, photography, or visual medium classes at Harvard. Those have been really helpful for relaxation in many ways.
Going to the gym in the evenings has been very helpful in clearing my head. It is usually the hardest part of my day, and my other tasks, like taking meetings or writing code, do not seem like a big deal compared to lifting heavy weights.