Power to the Bold
Any competitive pursuit — whether it be starting a small business or a new sport — requires time, thought, care, empathy and persistence when it seems that the endeavor isn’t paying off.
To me, this is what it means to be bold. My parents always encouraged me and my sisters to take risks …to fall …and fail again and again, but most importantly to also pick ourselves back up.
As a teenager, I found a fondness for squash. The sport taught me about the importance of resilience, trust and community. I trained really hard every day, but still lost a lot of my matches.
At this same point, my mother said she was glad I had this experience. I was perplexed… Why would my mom celebrate my failure? The more I played, and once I started to get better, I began to understand what she meant.
My teammates and I often exchanged jokes about how there weren’t many clothing choices for female squash players. One day, I saw my little sister drawing skirt and dress designs in her notebook. I asked her if she could draw me a squash dress. It was perfect. That's how my first company, Nova Apparel NYC (a fashionable squash gear brand for women) was born.
I wanted to see my peers, my mentors, my teammates and the generation of girls after me be able to express themselves fully on the court.
I learned a ton from building Nova — at times it was frustrating to watch hundreds of people walk past my sales booth without so much as a nod or glance, but I kept going with the encouragement of my family and friends. I continued building relationships with people in the ecosystem and eventually things changed.
After a few months, three of the top 20 professional players in the world were wearing Nova and we dressed the U.S. women’s squash team for the Pan American games and the U.S. girl’s team for the world junior championships.
Over the years, and across many defeats on the court and in building Nova, squash helped me better understand why my mom wanted to instill in us that failure is valuable. While it was brutal to lose, it was equally important to process and learn from my losses. It made me cherish my wins even more.
I wrote my college honors thesis on how Silicon Valley’s technological success was driven by interpersonal relationships, and I experienced collaboration-driven success firsthand as an investment partner at the Dorm Room Fund while in college.
I am grateful to be at CRV for this exact reason: a deep acknowledgment of the proven advantages of shared purpose, teamwork and diversity.
CRV made the deliberate choice to maintain a small, but diverse team both in terms of peoples’ backgrounds, experiences and personalities, that feels a bit like home for me.
Community empowers people to be bold and empathetic in shaping the future of tech.
At CRV, my primary area of expertise and interest is in app layer investing. I’m eager to work with hungry early-stage founders who are dead set on solving problems, especially if they’re underestimated or underrepresented.
I know founders pour their hearts into their businesses. I’m proud to be their partner. Whether you need a sounding board for new ideas or to be supported through some of the psychological challenges of the early stages, I’m here for you.
