The Founder Effect

When genius meets opportunity, remarkable things happen. I’ve had the privilege of witnessing this firsthand with Yi “Sherry” Zhang—one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs I’ve ever encountered. I came to know Sherry through my work convincing communities that they succeed when they invest in themselves—by embracing founders like Sherry.

I’m Joe Kirgues. My co-founder Troy and I started gener8tor in 2012 with a simple mission: help communities invest in their own brightest talent. Our accelerator program selects most promising founders, provides seed funding, and offers intensive support over twelve weeks as they build their startups. Today, our team of over 120 people operates across 40+ cities in four countries. Our graduates have raised more than $2 billion in investment, generated billions in revenue, and created over ten thousand jobs.

But those statistics don’t capture what makes Sherry’s story so extraordinary.

Before launching her startup, Sherry was a scientific researcher in epigenetics, well on her way to leading a cutting-edge academic lab built around her intense focus on science and publication. When we first met in our accelerator conference room, I expected Sherry to follow the traditional path of an academic scientist who envisioned transferring her technology to the market. Typically, brilliant academics like her develop innovations but remain in the safe harbor of academia while others commercialize their work.

This is one of the most common tensions in helping academic research turn into startups: the researchers behind the innovations often feel torn between the predictable, structured path of academia and the unknown, uncertain world of startups. More often than not, they choose the certainty of tenure over the risk of entrepreneurship—and hope someone else will build the company.

That’s why our universities have built tech transfer offices filled with hundreds of patents waiting to be commercialized. What we lack is a strong enough community of entrepreneurs willing to take a chance on these amazing innovations.

So, I was unprepared when, during that first meeting, Sherry told me that she wanted to leave academia and build a startup herself. Sherry defied those conventional expectations. Despite having already achieved remarkable success in her academic career, she was ready to venture into the unknown world of entrepreneurship—to start over, learn new skills, and face unprecedented challenges.

What drives someone like Sherry to take such a leap? In these pages, you’ll discover how her identity was forged through generations of “warrior women” in her family, particularly through her mother’s struggle and triumph during China’s Cultural Revolution. You’ll see how these deep familial bonds manifested when Sherry’s research uncovered a genetic marker tied to health issues that might have helped her own mother—creating a powerful intersection between her scientific work and personal history.

Sherry’s genius isn’t confined to one domain. She moves with remarkable fluidity between art, science, and entrepreneurship. In one touching moment from this book, she describes practicing piano with her mother, creating unique finger movements together—a beautiful metaphor for how genius emerges through practice, connection, and love.

This is what makes Sherry’s journey so compelling: it reveals genius not as isolated brilliance but as an expression of love—for her family legacy, for her parents, for those who dream alongside her, for her husband and son. These relationships provide the foundation from which her achievements in multiple disciplines spring forth.

This book describes our journey supporting her—and eventually challenging her—as her startup evolved from a budding idea into a company demanding her full-time commitment. We stood behind her as she created a platform that now serves thousands of people with health information to improve their lives.

Her courage has generated wealth, jobs, and leadership in our community while establishing her as a role model whose influence now extends to you, the reader. Much like her product connects people to their genetic history to better understand their present, Sherry’s book connects us to her narrative history to help us understand what makes an entrepreneur.

When Sherry invited me to write this foreword, I wondered how she could tell her entrepreneurial story while still being so early in her journey. Sherry has already achieved incredible heights—but the best is yet to come. But therein lies the book’s unique value—like a dream captured upon waking, these pages preserve the vulnerability and immediacy of building something meaningful from nothing. A version of this story told decades from now might lose the raw honesty that comes from writing in the middle of the journey.

For those aspiring to become an entrepreneur, Sherry’s story offers a rare, real-time glimpse into what it truly means to build something from the ground up—and what it feels like to find your place along the way. Her journey reminds us that the greatest risk we face isn’t failure—it’s never trying at all.

I invite you to experience Sherry’s remarkable journey through her own words.

Enjoy.

—Joe Kirgues