#1 Welcome to my Substack aka Diary!
Here's a short yet long introduction of my life story
Here’s what you can expect:
Sharing my experiences being an BDR (Business Development Representative) at a startup
Sharing life experiences
Sharing readings
But wait! I haven’t even introduced myself yet.
My name is Henry Zheng, New Jersey native, went to Rutgers Business School and currently in a job cold calling accountants to ultimately buy my company’s software.
Let’s take a step back from all the seriousness though. I’m that stereotypical Chinese kid with the iPad behind the counter taking your order and serving your food. It’s been 14 years since I’ve started helping my parents at the restaurant and still do today.
For the gamers out there who know. I grew up playing MapleStory, Combat Arms, and Starcraft 2 while consuming an absurd amount of fried chicken wings and boneless spareribs at the restaurant (that may or may not have contributed to my height growth). Funny enough, one of my aunts would get boneless spareribs for my cousin so that he could also grow. Don’t think that worked out but at least he got a win out of having good food.
Summing up high school, I met many interesting people, some that I keep in touch with and some who I haven’t spoken to since graduating. I was never the best at running on the Cross Country or Track team but I stayed the 4 years for the company. I took the SAT without studying (~1200 score), knew nothing much about college besides the fact that my brother went to Rutgers.
And so that’s where I ended up, I went to Rutgers Newark my first year and then got pressured by my brother and parents to transfer over to the flagship New Brunswick campus. Being in the Business School was a decent choice, I don’t think I would’ve survived in a STEM major (CS) due to my terrible studying habits and not doing homework. This might be a bit of a trauma dump here but I hated my 4 years of college, it was my fault for not getting involved into clubs/orgs early on and not putting myself and effort into it.
Connecting to where I am currently in a sales role, it’s taught me so much in terms of self-confidence, being myself, and just trying to be better at the role. I majored in Marketing then Supply Chain and ended up in Software Sales. The main reason I was aiming for a sales role so hard is because I interned at AWS Sales in 2022 and didn’t get a return offer. Truth be told, I wasn’t using my intellectual curiosity there, I wasn’t putting in the time to practice and learn more about sales. After that, I wanted to not only prove other people wrong but especially prove to myself that I can actually do the job.
A side segment here in my senior year of college, I interviewed for many sales internships at the biggest software companies all to fail at the final round. Looking back, there was so much I could improve on that I didn’t know (people don’t know what they don’t know). Eventually I did get an internship offer for a customer success role which I was very much interested in as well but I didn’t take it because it was in person at Alpharetta, Georgia. It was worth an exploration perhaps for a Summer but I didn’t want to be there full-time. Maybe I missed out on an amazing opportunity, Henry always does dumb shit guys take notes on that.
In the process of interviewing for my current company, AS CLICHE AS IT SOUNDS, it felt like the dots just connected. I was putting in the effort/research to be a good candidate and my interviewers were people that seemed like good coworkers. Believe I was interviewing them in early/mid August and it was extremely fast. I got a phone call one Monday morning and it was my manager telling me I got an offer and the start was the first week of September.
As privileged as it sounds, I wasn’t rushing for a job I could always just help out at my parent’s restaurant. I so much wanted to go to China, visit my grandparents, explore the village, big city, and take the bullet train all around. I visited when I was a baby and in third grade but that’s too far out to really remember. The last time I went was Dec 2019 into 2020 with my cousin’s family and oh boy was it a HUGE culture shock. I loved it so much, the food, the city, the views, the feeling of security/safety. We also went to Japan (Tokyo, Hokkaido) which was part of the culture shock.
Yet, I left with a sadness, a very so questioning mind bringing me back to imagining if I grew up in China, either in my parent’s village or nearby Tier 2 city. If I grew up in a town/area that was more Asian in New Jersey such as Bergen County or Fort Lee where my cousins lived. What if I grew up in the heart of Chinatown in New York City or the bustling Flushing Queens?
I’m going to skip a few steps here and end it off with:
If I do leave my current job, I’d want to visit my grandparents in China and take some time to (cliche moment) find my inner self/peace
Connecting above, I’d want to learn some skills and experience working at places like a bakery, cafe, boba shop, retail, etc. Perhaps I’d like to open my own shop one day