Alumni Advice:Hiro Kuwana ‘16
By SAM ALTMAN and JINMIN LEE
For the second week of Alumni Advice, we have Hiro Kuwana ‘16, an entrepreneur and co-founder of Flybyrd, a tech startup that analyzes audio and video conversations to find data trends and provide customer insight.
After graduating from Exeter, Kuwana attended Brown University before founding several startups before Flybyrd, including Destinoma, a travel tech company that creates itineraries for any destination. As a recent graduate, Kuwana has lots of practical advice for Exonians.
Kuwana emphasized the importance of taking care of our health. “My first advice is honestly just sleeping. Do not compromise on that. At Exeter, I knew some people who slept only four hours or so. At that amount, you burn out. I always got seven and a half hours with fifteen minute naps and people were shocked. But sleep is number one for you guys.”
“The way to overcome obstacles is just to ask people. Even at Exeter, I told people, ‘I don’t know how to do my 20-page 333. I need your help.’”
Kuwana reflected on Exeter’s social and academic pressure. “The second thing is to be kind to yourselves (you don’t need LinkedIn, for example). You’re in such a high pressure environment that even one small mistake—you go to an A from an A-minus—and you think, ‘I’m not going to get Early Cum Laude and then I’m not going to get into Harvard.’ But don’t worry about that because the Exeter network is already better than any that a college could offer.”
Adding onto his point on the alumni network, Kuwana stated, “You guys have this golden card of being a student. Once you’ve graduated, it’s harder to get assistance, but while you are a student, the Exeter network is even more willing to help. If you can create connections with different generations, you’ll get connected to different opportunities that you never would’ve found.”
Mentioning his Exeter classmates after graduation, Kuwana said, “It’s a support network, because they’re Exonians and so you know they’ll listen, and they’re also usually sharp. Even if you think someone is very dramatic right now, a few years after graduation, people tend to get kinder and less cutthroat. You might say to yourself, ‘You know what, this person was actually decent. The jock was genuinely a good dude.’ Exonians are also all over the world so if you ever do study abroad you can just look up the city in the alumni directory and ask to meet up. You might be surprised by how many respond.”
Kuwana added, “Take a gap year if you can. Your whole life for many of you has just been your academic achievement. If you have a school you’re happy with and you can defer admission, just do that. Take a year and backpack—you’re only going to get one time in your life to do that, don’t save it until forty years later once you’ve gone through the ratrace.”
Kuwana described a challenge he faced in creating his startup. “The largest business decision I’ve had to make was the decision to choose the right co-founder. There were many times when I could have teamed up with someone, but I chose to be very picky until I met my current one. You have to be ruthless in prioritizing what your criteria are because I’ve seen scenarios with really bad co-founder matches and it doesn’t turn out well.”
When asked about a favorite quote he lives by, Kuwana responded, “I read Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov twice: once during my gap year and a second time during college. In its epilogue, he writes ‘Let us be, first and above all, kind, then honest and then let us never forget each other!’ It encourages me to create value for the people around me. And that’s what I live by.”
“Please do not put ‘No Ragrets’ as my quote,” Kuwana joked. “My friend will clown on me for it.”