About Me
Hi! I’m Hope Szymanski.
I create value in people’s lives both personally and professionally by using my great people skills and my acquired hard skills. I am an excellent problem solver, I enjoy a good challenge, and I’m always willing to learn.
In my free time I enjoy reading (see my Book List!), writing novels and blog posts (read my blog!), cooking/baking, acting, singing, creating value in the lives of others, and hanging out with friends and family!
To see my latest projects, check out my projects, or better yet, visit my NOW page to see what I’m working on RIGHT NOW!
My Story:
I was home schooled growing up, and that experience taught me how to love learning outside of the classroom. My mom always told me to focus on learning and to continue learning for the rest of my life and THEN worry about the grade.
I got very high grades all four years of high school and got a high score on my ACT because I knew that was going to get me into a college. And that’s what the world always told me I had to do to be successful: go to school, get good grades, get into a great college, and use that degree to get a good job. College never really seemed like a good fit for me, but it felt like the only thing I COULD do. The problem was, I felt like I was only going to get the piece of paper, and that the fun of learning didn’t seem to be present in college. But I felt pressured to jump through the hoops, so I got accepted at a local technical college on a partial softball scholarship and signed up for classes.
It was at this time when I found Praxis, a company that takes young adults who are passionate about creating value and have the drive to accomplish great things and helps them foster their skills to be paired with a business partner as an apprentice within six months.
I was so excited by this program because they described exactly what I was looking for in an education and career! More importantly, I would be able to work at a startup where my entrepreneurial spirit would be more valued and needed. I would be able to put my best skills to use without the rigid rules of a huge corporation. Ultimately, I wanted to start my career NOW (I didn’t want to wait two to four years to do it!) and do it strongly and boldly just like the program promotes.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t accepted on the first try, but in order to fully pursue my goal of getting into Praxis and jump-starting my career, I did one of the scariest things I’ve ever done: I dropped all of my college classes and started a fundraising campaign to gain more experience so I could apply again.
The campaign was a HUGE success! My team and I were able to raise over $20,000 and to top it off, I was accepted into Praxis with my second application!
After completing the first 6 months of Praxis Bootcamp, I landed my first role as an Account Manager at EquitySim in San Francisco, CA (ES is a financial market simulation company dedicated to bridging the gap between education and recruitment) Read more about my life in the startup world here. I loved working at EquitySim as it taught me so much about business and the startup world!
8 months later, I moved back to Minnesota and quickly became one of the top salespeople at another startup called Dispatch (the Uber/Lyft – aka the future – of B2B deliveries) for 14 months. My time there was incredible and I enjoyed getting to know more people in the business world while gaining more experience. During this time, I also contracted for a startup called OfferingTree as Director of Sales for 8 months and built their sales/marketing strategy from the ground up.
Fast forward to June 2020, I accepted the position of Head of Operations at yet another startup (what can I say – I love the startup life!) called Digifox! We’re an all in one finance app dedicated to making finance easy and accessible to everyone and giving everyday people more control over their financial futures 🙂
Looking ahead, I am excited to see what God has in store for my future. I am determined to continue learning and growing my hard and soft skills in order to make a difference in whatever company I work for!