Alex Au Process for Persuading Parents to Support OSE Immersion
Here are the steps I followed to getting financial support from my parents to do the OSE Immersion.
First, there were a few contextual considerations:
1. Trust & Delegation - unlike most Asian parents, mine weren't trying to get me to do xyz to conform to their image of success. Instead, they trusted to me and delegated to me accountability for choosing my own path.
2. Focus of Review - my parents are focused on: "Is OSE a scam?" and "Can you make money enough to support your livelihood?" and "Does this offer job prospects for 1 year from now / what is the long term benefit to your financial well-being?" Note that they're not trying to be convinced that this is what they think this is best for me, but just that it meets "objective" criteria such that I won't get burned by OSE Immersion.
3. Parental wealth - my parents have enough wealth to considerably financially support my OSE immersion tuition / training.
Here are the things I did:
1. Applied to OSE
2. Scheduled interview with Marcin of OSE
3. Told parents: 30min -- described OSE in my own words
4. Got a job offer
5. Shared more info w/ parents: 2 hours -- they think that OSE is a scam because I'm being employed but I'm paying for my training upfront, which reflects poor management or scam to them. I hold space for their opinion and redirect convo towards getting more info from Marcin, other references, and if by some long shot chance against all odds that it's not a scam, would they support or are there any other concerns, which at this point, the marketing piece for getting workshop attendees came up.
6. Curated links and shared with parents Alex Au Intro to OSE for Parents
7. Family Chat w/ parents and older brother -- explained OSE again, focusing on how it's not competing with 3d printer workshops, but is creating a suite of products that manufacture various items. Other topical points is that it's similar to a coding bootcamp, but it's for hardware, and that just like coding, you don't need a degree or an engineering background to excel, and that there's supporting programs that will run calculations on your behalf when necessary. It was important to breakdown the unit economics of how much money you make from a workshop. It was important to say there was risk and unknown. It was important to emphasize what OSE is trying to accomplish: open source hardware to introduce post-scarcity. It was important to relate OSE mission back to my own interest: helping organizing efforts now. It was in this convo that parents agreed to pay for build materials cost (half of tuition/training) because they saw how the skills were really valuable and possibly better than a grad school education. Parents still want more clarity on my own vision for my own development in new few years and how this plays a role in that.
8. Sent Marcin an email with questions asked by parents, including references for workshop attendees and previous OSE developers and shared with parents.
9. Shared Offer Letter with parents
10. Chatted with parents again. They recommended doing my own marketing to look over my financial well-being. They agreed to financially support full tuition.
