hello my name is Kenji Yoshino I’m the
founder and CEO of infinite scope I run
a successful business that will likely
never turn a profit I’m living my dream
right now but it barely pays the rent we
live in a culture in which the success
of a business is largely determined
based on dollars and not impact through
running my own business I’ve been able
to radically redefine what success means
to me and here’s how you can do it too
step 1 disappoint the people that care
about you the most
now it’s particularly important that you
disappoint these people because the
people who care about you the most never
want to see anything bad happen to you
they want you to live an easy generally
low-risk life but people who would never
take risks generally don’t make any
change so about the time that my voice
dropped my parents told me and convinced
me that I was going to be a professor or
a doctor or a lawyer because in my
family those were the only acceptable
options growing up conversations around
the dinner table would start with oh Ken
G when you get your PhD now luckily when
I came to Grinnell I really enjoyed
studying chemistry and that path the PhD
was laid out in front of me but there
was a problem I did not want to go to
graduate school I didn’t I enjoyed
studying chemistry but I knew in mine
side like going to graduate school for
it just wasn’t for me this was confirmed
when I was at the American Chemical
Society conference in Anaheim during my
senior year I was presenting research at
a poster presentation and I looked
around and I realized that there were
about 3,000 people in that room that
cared way more about this than I did and
it was at that moment though I realized
I was never gonna get a PhD and I had no
idea how I was going to be facing my
family now while this advice and this
step is easy to tell someone to do it’s
incredibly hard to do yourself I know
that but
hear me I’ve disappointed quite a few
people in my life and I can honestly
tell you that the fear of letting them
down is far worse than actually letting
anyone down and to be honest if I had
taken more time to try to understand the
rationale for their expectations I’d
have learned that what they wanted was
just what they thought was best for me
what they thought would help provide a
safe and secure and happy life so step 2
discover your passions so while everyone
assumed that I was hard at work on my
way to go into graduate school I began
taking classes outside of the science
building my first semester I took stage
crafting and fell in love with technical
theater I started taking art classes and
I found my creative voice in wood and
metal working I learned that I love the
sciences and arts equally but I
struggled to figure out how I was going
to try to combine these into a career of
these seemingly incompatible interests
sorry I took the fifth year technical
internship as a way of deferring my
decision to go to graduate school but
the summer after I graduated before I
started working full-time in the theater
I was awarded a fellowship to teach
children’s science at the local public
library here in Grinnell I developed and
performed a show called try this at home
that taught basic concepts of biology
physics and chemistry of children
through hands-on experiments think Bill
Nye with a lot more explosions
I discovered that summer that my passion
my passion was getting people excited
about science to help them see the
application of science in their everyday
lives and try this at home was the
fusion of all of my interests it was a
theatrical performance and it required a
lot of creativity to make the science
lessons relevant to children so after I
worked in the theater for a year I
jumped over to my other passion for a
while and found a job at the science
learning center here at the college it
was the first time I really felt since
being a student that I had some time to
breathe and explore my interests I was
making my living tutoring chemistry
students during the day but at night I
was exercising my mind by tinkering it
was around this time five years ago that
it developed my first smartphone
microscope I invented a tool
that could transform any smart device
into a portable digital scope with just
ten dollars worth of material from the
hardware store
and with this scope I figured out I
could do I could recreate simple biology
experiments that I had done in high
school it was at that moment I realized
this could have a big impact on some
people’s education the scope who is
portable it was durable you can take
photos and video with it and it can be
used by multiple people at a time I knew
I couldn’t keep this to myself this I
had to share I wanted everyone else to
feel that same discovery and sense of
wonder that I did I wanted to
democratize science but providing an
alternative to expensive and difficult
to use scopes and it was obvious to me
at the time the best way to share this
idea with as many people as possible was
to give the plant away for free so I did
I published the plans on YouTube and on
Instructables comm and the YouTube video
quickly climbed to over a million views
and I started hearing back from teachers
around the world that were using my
microscope in their classrooms but it
just wasn’t just teachers and scientists
that adopted and embraced this open
source scope my inbox was full with
messages ranging everywhere from
children that had video recorded
Paramecium swimming in pond water to
nature photographers that were taking
photos of snowflakes I was surprised how
quickly the maker community adopted the
scope I was even more surprised just to
see quite how many of them modified it
customize it for their own needs and
then they would share those ideas there
are remixes back with that online
community I truly believe that it was
that sense that feeling of shared
ownership and collaboration that allow
the microscope to reach as many people
as it did so step 3 find every reason
you can not to try now it was very
pleased with the reception of the
smartphone microscope on the online
community I really was I thought it was
amazing that the maker community had
really made it their own and they came
up with applications for that device
that I would never have dreamed of but
that excitement was quickly replaced by
anxiety
I started getting messages about where
is your next big invention and why can’t
I buy this on Amazon or a ten dollar
microscope
how about the $800 smart device required
to make it work does valid but I started
to feel like a bit of an impostor I
really did
I thought the design might have been a
fluke I felt a lot of pressure to
continue designing not because I wanted
to but because I felt I had to prove
myself also I had a lot of friends and
family that just could not understand my
reasons for wanting to give the scope
away they decided that decision was
foolish
you should have patented that and made a
lot of money all the while I had
incredible mentors here at Grinnell both
in the arts and the sciences and they
supported me every step of the way but
the weight that I should have given
their opinions
I gave instead to random people on the
Internet yeah I I was convinced what I
felt most during this time what I
remember most from it was an
overwhelming feeling of isolation in
doubt I was convinced that there was no
way that I could make a living in
science education I had allowed the
expectations of a few strangers and
people who didn’t know me or my goals to
stop me from even trying so step 4 find
a reason to say fuck it a few more years
in Grinnell and eventually the job that
I held that the local art residency
cease to exist and I moved back home to
central New York now at this time I had
a lot more experience working with
children with my microscope having done
a lot of outreach events similar to try
this at home but at Children’s Museum’s
hospitals libraries and major spaces I
also knew that if I wanted to continue
sharing the idea of the microscope I was
going to have to do so directly back at
home I knew all the local teachers and
the schools and that would be enough for
me to get my foot in the door but more
importantly I knew that I had nothing to
lose by trying and I would probably
always regret not taking this
opportunity so I started a small
business the plan was to start working
with the K through 12 teachers
integrating my scope into their science
technology and art curriculum it’s a
good plan X
I knew nothing about how to run a
business sure I was good at teaching
kids science but that only turned out to
be like 10% of the actual job after
struggling for a year trying to work
with schools I started using the local
business resources I joined two
entrepreneurial incubators and I was
received a state grant in a 2017 we
formed my company infinite scope to step
5 make sure what you’ve started is what
you want to continue now infinite scopes
goals were the same as mine when we
first released the original $10
smartphone microscope we wanted to make
science accessible by providing tools to
let people explore and then share their
discoveries we wanted to see the scope
in as many people’s hands as possible my
entrepreneurial mentor saw a lot of
potential in our product they gave us
expert advice on how to grow the
business and urged us to redesign the
scope into a commercial-grade product
that we would sell directly to consumers
online here again I had a path that was
laid out directly in front of me and as
long as I didn’t stray from it I got
their approval so we were coached on how
to pitch our business how to talk to
investors how to identify the pain
points of our target audience and all of
those skills turned out to be invaluable
to us as I started exhibiting at trade
shows maker fairs and education
conferences we redesigned the scope we
improved the optics we made a more
durable made more user-friendly we had
had feedback from hundreds of teachers
and we had demonstrate the product to
over 30,000 people we were confident we
were making a better microscope but I
became increasingly uncomfortable with
the business itself you see in in the
name of trying to increase profits and
keep our costs down we had to consider a
lot of things that I didn’t particularly
like like moving manufacturing out of
the region and out of the country and to
possibly have to withhold content
upgrades and material from our users so
that we could try to sell it to them at
a later time now
these business practices aren’t
considered unethical but they did get me
to pause and really consider the methods
that we were using to advance the
see to me the business was a means to an
end it always was not a means or an end
in itself and I had conflated the two
what it meant to be a successful
business and how to fulfill our mission
many people had told us or we believed
that to be a successful business we had
to Bro make profits get the product on
the store shelves maybe get on shark
tank but eventually sell the company for
profit and start another venture we
didn’t want those things we never wanted
toast things we just wanted to share an
idea so step six move forward boldly the
repeat step five as necessary now for
someone else the path that we were being
urged to follow might have worked I just
knew it wasn’t working for me so we
started to stand back and think about
what was the original goal of our
company it was to share this idea with
the largest audience as many people as
we could and we thought back to when I
originally released the original $10
smartphone microscope we were sharing an
idea not selling it we realized that
when we gave those plans over to a
community of people
it was once we were no longer the
arbiter of who got to use this thing or
got to hear about it that it was able to
be free and I grow organically it was
able to reach people that we had no
contacts with people that we didn’t even
know existed we realized that for
infinite scope to be a success as we
defined it we needed to give the plans
away again so here’s what we’re doing
now we redesigned the scope and I’m
proud to say that in two weeks we’ll be
publishing the plans to Eureka an open
source 3d printable smartphone
microscope now anybody who has access to
a 3d printer will be able to make our
scope on their own for free no we don’t
know what’s going to happen when we
release Eureka we don’t but we know that
we’ll likely have to repeat step five
and sort of check to make sure that what
we’re doing is what we intended to in
the first place and many of their
mentors and the people that we’ve talked
to about our newest business model fully
expect us to
some of them probably even want us to on
their terms but to me to my mind
anything that happens once we’ve
released these plans online made them
available so people can see them
download them and use them our business
so now now you all have a choice you can
go out there and chase the approval of
others and be judged by their
expectations or you can go out and chase
your dreams and to find success on your
own terms you know the choice I made and
to be honest it would be really
hypocritical of me right now to stand up
here and tell you what you should do but
if there is one thing I can leave you
with one bit of advice that I would
encourage you to act on it’s to go out
there and disappoint someone because
that that is the first step to
succeeding on your own terms and here’s
the secret no here’s the truth you do
not need their approval you don’t
because only you can define success for
yourself and you don’t need anyone’s
permission permission to chase your
dreams thank you very much for listening [Applause]
founder and CEO of infinite scope I run
a successful business that will likely
never turn a profit I’m living my dream
right now but it barely pays the rent we
live in a culture in which the success
of a business is largely determined
based on dollars and not impact through
running my own business I’ve been able
to radically redefine what success means
to me and here’s how you can do it too
step 1 disappoint the people that care
about you the most
now it’s particularly important that you
disappoint these people because the
people who care about you the most never
want to see anything bad happen to you
they want you to live an easy generally
low-risk life but people who would never
take risks generally don’t make any
change so about the time that my voice
dropped my parents told me and convinced
me that I was going to be a professor or
a doctor or a lawyer because in my
family those were the only acceptable
options growing up conversations around
the dinner table would start with oh Ken
G when you get your PhD now luckily when
I came to Grinnell I really enjoyed
studying chemistry and that path the PhD
was laid out in front of me but there
was a problem I did not want to go to
graduate school I didn’t I enjoyed
studying chemistry but I knew in mine
side like going to graduate school for
it just wasn’t for me this was confirmed
when I was at the American Chemical
Society conference in Anaheim during my
senior year I was presenting research at
a poster presentation and I looked
around and I realized that there were
about 3,000 people in that room that
cared way more about this than I did and
it was at that moment though I realized
I was never gonna get a PhD and I had no
idea how I was going to be facing my
family now while this advice and this
step is easy to tell someone to do it’s
incredibly hard to do yourself I know
that but
hear me I’ve disappointed quite a few
people in my life and I can honestly
tell you that the fear of letting them
down is far worse than actually letting
anyone down and to be honest if I had
taken more time to try to understand the
rationale for their expectations I’d
have learned that what they wanted was
just what they thought was best for me
what they thought would help provide a
safe and secure and happy life so step 2
discover your passions so while everyone
assumed that I was hard at work on my
way to go into graduate school I began
taking classes outside of the science
building my first semester I took stage
crafting and fell in love with technical
theater I started taking art classes and
I found my creative voice in wood and
metal working I learned that I love the
sciences and arts equally but I
struggled to figure out how I was going
to try to combine these into a career of
these seemingly incompatible interests
sorry I took the fifth year technical
internship as a way of deferring my
decision to go to graduate school but
the summer after I graduated before I
started working full-time in the theater
I was awarded a fellowship to teach
children’s science at the local public
library here in Grinnell I developed and
performed a show called try this at home
that taught basic concepts of biology
physics and chemistry of children
through hands-on experiments think Bill
Nye with a lot more explosions
I discovered that summer that my passion
my passion was getting people excited
about science to help them see the
application of science in their everyday
lives and try this at home was the
fusion of all of my interests it was a
theatrical performance and it required a
lot of creativity to make the science
lessons relevant to children so after I
worked in the theater for a year I
jumped over to my other passion for a
while and found a job at the science
learning center here at the college it
was the first time I really felt since
being a student that I had some time to
breathe and explore my interests I was
making my living tutoring chemistry
students during the day but at night I
was exercising my mind by tinkering it
was around this time five years ago that
it developed my first smartphone
microscope I invented a tool
that could transform any smart device
into a portable digital scope with just
ten dollars worth of material from the
hardware store
and with this scope I figured out I
could do I could recreate simple biology
experiments that I had done in high
school it was at that moment I realized
this could have a big impact on some
people’s education the scope who is
portable it was durable you can take
photos and video with it and it can be
used by multiple people at a time I knew
I couldn’t keep this to myself this I
had to share I wanted everyone else to
feel that same discovery and sense of
wonder that I did I wanted to
democratize science but providing an
alternative to expensive and difficult
to use scopes and it was obvious to me
at the time the best way to share this
idea with as many people as possible was
to give the plant away for free so I did
I published the plans on YouTube and on
Instructables comm and the YouTube video
quickly climbed to over a million views
and I started hearing back from teachers
around the world that were using my
microscope in their classrooms but it
just wasn’t just teachers and scientists
that adopted and embraced this open
source scope my inbox was full with
messages ranging everywhere from
children that had video recorded
Paramecium swimming in pond water to
nature photographers that were taking
photos of snowflakes I was surprised how
quickly the maker community adopted the
scope I was even more surprised just to
see quite how many of them modified it
customize it for their own needs and
then they would share those ideas there
are remixes back with that online
community I truly believe that it was
that sense that feeling of shared
ownership and collaboration that allow
the microscope to reach as many people
as it did so step 3 find every reason
you can not to try now it was very
pleased with the reception of the
smartphone microscope on the online
community I really was I thought it was
amazing that the maker community had
really made it their own and they came
up with applications for that device
that I would never have dreamed of but
that excitement was quickly replaced by
anxiety
I started getting messages about where
is your next big invention and why can’t
I buy this on Amazon or a ten dollar
microscope
how about the $800 smart device required
to make it work does valid but I started
to feel like a bit of an impostor I
really did
I thought the design might have been a
fluke I felt a lot of pressure to
continue designing not because I wanted
to but because I felt I had to prove
myself also I had a lot of friends and
family that just could not understand my
reasons for wanting to give the scope
away they decided that decision was
foolish
you should have patented that and made a
lot of money all the while I had
incredible mentors here at Grinnell both
in the arts and the sciences and they
supported me every step of the way but
the weight that I should have given
their opinions
I gave instead to random people on the
Internet yeah I I was convinced what I
felt most during this time what I
remember most from it was an
overwhelming feeling of isolation in
doubt I was convinced that there was no
way that I could make a living in
science education I had allowed the
expectations of a few strangers and
people who didn’t know me or my goals to
stop me from even trying so step 4 find
a reason to say fuck it a few more years
in Grinnell and eventually the job that
I held that the local art residency
cease to exist and I moved back home to
central New York now at this time I had
a lot more experience working with
children with my microscope having done
a lot of outreach events similar to try
this at home but at Children’s Museum’s
hospitals libraries and major spaces I
also knew that if I wanted to continue
sharing the idea of the microscope I was
going to have to do so directly back at
home I knew all the local teachers and
the schools and that would be enough for
me to get my foot in the door but more
importantly I knew that I had nothing to
lose by trying and I would probably
always regret not taking this
opportunity so I started a small
business the plan was to start working
with the K through 12 teachers
integrating my scope into their science
technology and art curriculum it’s a
good plan X
I knew nothing about how to run a
business sure I was good at teaching
kids science but that only turned out to
be like 10% of the actual job after
struggling for a year trying to work
with schools I started using the local
business resources I joined two
entrepreneurial incubators and I was
received a state grant in a 2017 we
formed my company infinite scope to step
5 make sure what you’ve started is what
you want to continue now infinite scopes
goals were the same as mine when we
first released the original $10
smartphone microscope we wanted to make
science accessible by providing tools to
let people explore and then share their
discoveries we wanted to see the scope
in as many people’s hands as possible my
entrepreneurial mentor saw a lot of
potential in our product they gave us
expert advice on how to grow the
business and urged us to redesign the
scope into a commercial-grade product
that we would sell directly to consumers
online here again I had a path that was
laid out directly in front of me and as
long as I didn’t stray from it I got
their approval so we were coached on how
to pitch our business how to talk to
investors how to identify the pain
points of our target audience and all of
those skills turned out to be invaluable
to us as I started exhibiting at trade
shows maker fairs and education
conferences we redesigned the scope we
improved the optics we made a more
durable made more user-friendly we had
had feedback from hundreds of teachers
and we had demonstrate the product to
over 30,000 people we were confident we
were making a better microscope but I
became increasingly uncomfortable with
the business itself you see in in the
name of trying to increase profits and
keep our costs down we had to consider a
lot of things that I didn’t particularly
like like moving manufacturing out of
the region and out of the country and to
possibly have to withhold content
upgrades and material from our users so
that we could try to sell it to them at
a later time now
these business practices aren’t
considered unethical but they did get me
to pause and really consider the methods
that we were using to advance the
see to me the business was a means to an
end it always was not a means or an end
in itself and I had conflated the two
what it meant to be a successful
business and how to fulfill our mission
many people had told us or we believed
that to be a successful business we had
to Bro make profits get the product on
the store shelves maybe get on shark
tank but eventually sell the company for
profit and start another venture we
didn’t want those things we never wanted
toast things we just wanted to share an
idea so step six move forward boldly the
repeat step five as necessary now for
someone else the path that we were being
urged to follow might have worked I just
knew it wasn’t working for me so we
started to stand back and think about
what was the original goal of our
company it was to share this idea with
the largest audience as many people as
we could and we thought back to when I
originally released the original $10
smartphone microscope we were sharing an
idea not selling it we realized that
when we gave those plans over to a
community of people
it was once we were no longer the
arbiter of who got to use this thing or
got to hear about it that it was able to
be free and I grow organically it was
able to reach people that we had no
contacts with people that we didn’t even
know existed we realized that for
infinite scope to be a success as we
defined it we needed to give the plans
away again so here’s what we’re doing
now we redesigned the scope and I’m
proud to say that in two weeks we’ll be
publishing the plans to Eureka an open
source 3d printable smartphone
microscope now anybody who has access to
a 3d printer will be able to make our
scope on their own for free no we don’t
know what’s going to happen when we
release Eureka we don’t but we know that
we’ll likely have to repeat step five
and sort of check to make sure that what
we’re doing is what we intended to in
the first place and many of their
mentors and the people that we’ve talked
to about our newest business model fully
expect us to
some of them probably even want us to on
their terms but to me to my mind
anything that happens once we’ve
released these plans online made them
available so people can see them
download them and use them our business
so now now you all have a choice you can
go out there and chase the approval of
others and be judged by their
expectations or you can go out and chase
your dreams and to find success on your
own terms you know the choice I made and
to be honest it would be really
hypocritical of me right now to stand up
here and tell you what you should do but
if there is one thing I can leave you
with one bit of advice that I would
encourage you to act on it’s to go out
there and disappoint someone because
that that is the first step to
succeeding on your own terms and here’s
the secret no here’s the truth you do
not need their approval you don’t
because only you can define success for
yourself and you don’t need anyone’s
permission permission to chase your
dreams thank you very much for listening [Applause]
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