Centennial College’s commitment to connecting students to career success extends to young entrepreneurs, visionaries who want to create their own business and be their own boss. Thyagi DeLanerolle is one such entrepreneur, who, after a long career at Bell Media, struck out on her own and became the founder of the new social network, OOT. Before that, however, she was a student of Centennial College’s Financial Services program, and was involved in the College community as the president of the Student Association, the CCSAI, among other roles. Here's how she got from there to here, and what she learned along the way, in her own words.
Unusual Lessons
“I came [to Centennial] for Financial Services, because I wanted, more than anything, more financial stability for myself,” Thyagi says. She’d initially planned to get into accounting, but decided that she liked the personal touch of financial services better. “It was a combination of me being able to help people with their financial wellbeing, but also getting a chance to meet a number of folks, which would make things more interesting in life,” she adds.
“In terms of practical experience, of course, having knowledge of how to maneuver the world of planning for your future is always important,” she says. “And how would this ultimately help me in my current role as a founder of a start-up? The planning element. When you think of financial planning, so many elements are around understanding what the future goals are, and then working backwards and putting the necessary steps in order to help achieve your goal. And I think that has absolute relevance when it comes to starting a company, understanding budgets, and knowing what your ultimate goals are and how you're able to navigate those.”
The Student Council
Thyagi would go out of her way to do more than go to class at Centennial College. When she wasn’t studying, she had a long career in student politics, which would help her develop even more critical career skills.
“There was a number of skills that I was able to hone during my time at Centennial, mostly because of the fact that I had an opportunity to run for CCSAI President,” Thyagi says. “It really helped me come out of my shell during my college years.”
“I was a Director of Business the prior year and I thought, well, if that went so well, let me run for CCSAI President. And I don't think anyone ran against me! I think it was because I was so vocal as a Director.”
“Aside from the program itself, I think being CCSAI President was extremely important for me and my growth,” she says, “because it really taught me a lot about leadership skills, working with staff, and also working with a board and understanding how to plan accordingly to get to certain goals. So it definitely gave me some very good practical skills that I needed at a very early age.”
“Listen, any type of post-secondary education is important, because it helps you develop certain skills around making sure you're able to hit timelines,” she says of her college days. “The most important, biggest impact that it had on my start-up career is really around being student president. That had a lot to do with how I was able to start to really gain confidence in leading a team.”
The post-school career
After graduating from Centennial, Thyagi would enjoy a long career at Bell Media, eventually working her way up to Enterprise Sales.
“I started in the contact centre environment,” she says. “And, you know, working in the contact centre can be pretty daunting. But what I did have was crystal-clear focus. I knew what the goals were, I knew what I needed to do in order to excel and execute effectively, and I knew what my numbers had to be. So I would always work really hard towards those goals. And every time I exceeded the goals, they just kept promoting me. So I kept getting promoted for two years, until I got into Enterprise Sales.”
“At that point, I had the ability to make significant amounts of money that would allow me to live a great lifestyle, but also to save comfortably for my future,” she says. “And it allowed me not only to do those two things, but also a third thing, which was take more risks in my life.”
One of those risks would lead to her new start-up, OOT.
Getting OOT there
As a social network, OOT is specifically designed around connecting people with new friends who have like-minded interests, and helping them meet in real life, outside of the internet (hence the name, meant to be pronounced like “out,” with a strong Canadian accent). Thyagi would create it, simply because it offered something she’d wanted that didn’t exist.
“I had gone through a breakup five years ago, and that resulted in me buying a condo in downtown Toronto,” she explains. “At the time, I had thought, wow, this is going to be amazing, I'm going to have such a great social life. But what ended up happening is that many of my girlfriends lived outside of the city, so for me to form a new friend circle inside of the city became extremely difficult. What I realized was, there's all these various social media platforms, but if you don't already have existing formed social circles, it becomes extremely daunting.”
“I knew there had to be a way for anyone to indicate what their interests are, to find out what you’re into,” she continues. “We call them communities on OOT. So what are you ultimately into? And can you meet other people that are into these things, who are strangers? Can you now connect with them in a way that's real-time that allows you to spontaneously meet people in real life, as opposed to all the digital forums, these different chat groups, these Discord channels, Facebook groups, all of these different channels? It's extremely difficult to be able to meet in person. So we knew that we wanted to formulate this entire solution onto a social map, where you can see communities, and then tap into them by chatting with the communities at a venue level, and then being able to match with people when you get to the venue that you have similar interests with.”
Interested would-be socialites can sign up at OOT.live, and Thyagi encourages anyone with feedback to directly contact her at Thyagi@oot.live.
Grains of Wisdom
Throughout her schooling, career and start-up, Thyagi’s acquired three pieces of wisdom for anyone looking to follow her footsteps.
“Get outside your comfort zone, and try different things,” she says, as the first bit of advice. “While you're in school, this is an opportunity for you to literally do an A/B test on your likes. In my case, I signed up to be Student Director for Business, which then led me to go on to becoming president.”
“Number two, figure out ways to make multiple streams of income,” she says, referencing the money that helped her get OOT off the ground. “It's good advice.”
“Number three would be take risks,” she says. “I think it's important to take calculated risks that may lead you to opportunities. Risks have led me to live a very joyful life, because of the opportunities that followed. It makes you feel like you're living your life to the fullest.”
“You want to give yourself many opportunities to succeed and to fail, right?” she says. “Because it's important that in order for growth to really take place in anyone's life, you need to be willing to get outside your comfort zone. So those were tremendous opportunities that I had before me at a very young age. It was all because of my time at Centennial, and I'm very appreciative of that.”
Written by: Anthony Geremia