Problem solving, vision and collaboration are the basis for any successful athlete. That skill set is equally important for entrepreneurs hoping to take an idea to the next level.
Before she made a name for herself as an entrepreneur, Case Western Reserve University soccer standout Sandra Oh Lin (CWR ’97) set records for career points (74) and goals (30)—earning CoSIDA Academic All-America First Team, Second Team and Third Team honors. She is also one of only five four-time All-University Athletic Association honorees in program history.
Accomplished and triumphant on the field, it was the way she managed her off-field adversity as a student athlete that prepared Lin for future success.
While she hadn’t always planned to take the entrepreneurship route, the former chemical engineering student did have an interest in hands-on discovery that stemmed from her childhood—and she hoped to inspire the same interest in her own kids.
“I'd like my kids to feel that they have agency over creating things,” she said. “I want them to be creative problem solvers and critical thinkers—and I think a good way to build these skills and mindset is to get hands-on.”
Lin began creating at-home STEAM projects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) for her children, and started inviting her friends and their families to join in the fun. That’s when Lin experienced a moment of inspiration—with one of the moms suggesting, “you should start a business around this.”
That idea, coupled with a background in consumer products and eCommerce at Procter & Gamble, PayPal and eBay, gave her the confidence to launch KiwiCo in 2011.
With kits inspiring young minds to build their own archery sets or craft a “trashketball” game, KiwiCo combines an engineering mindset with the athletic drive toward a goal. To date, the company has shipped more than 50 million crates since its inception.
Like most successful entrepreneurs, Lin faced challenges along the way—particularly when securing early funding for KwiCo proved challenging. She credits her career as a student athlete for helping to shape her mindset to navigate challenges and disappointments along the entrepreneurial path.
“I was aiming for a stellar junior season,” Lin recalled. “I decided to join track for the first time ever and make sure that my conditioning was really great. I ended up in a place where I got injured and ended up with an IT band injury and tendinitis and I couldn’t even play soccer at that point.” She pointed to the injury and recovery as a lesson in navigating setbacks and disappointments, and focusing on what she can control and how she can prepare for the next opportunity.
“There were definitely times where business was just not where we wanted to be in terms of the numbers or the trajectory, but you have to take it and then brush yourself off a little bit and then try again,”
Any kid who has played with building blocks or built from a model kit knows castles can topple and sometimes it's necessary to revisit the instructions, but Lin’s goal with KiwiCo is to spark the “Whoa, awesome!” moment, which she describes as, “the first moment that the robot that you engineer takes its first steps or the first time you hear your mom’s heart through a stethoscope that you made,” even if it takes a few tries.