'When I had to leave my job in Chicago, I decided to go to grad school in southern California to study entrepreneurship and innovation,' Ms Sun told Daily Mail Australia.' In hindsight, losing out on a visa was actually the best thing that's ever happened to me because otherwise I wouldn't have been inspired to found SoGalChinese-born entrepreneur Pocket Sun is a woman with a multi-million dollar empire at her feet, but it wasn't always that way. After an unlucky turn in the US visa lottery led to Ms Sun losing her tech-based job in Chicago, she turned misfortune into opportunity by going back to university for a masters in entrepreneurship. At the age of 24, the gifted businesswoman became one of the youngest people in history to grace the cover of Forbes magazine. Now 27, Ms Sun runs the multi-million dollar investment company SoGal which supports female and minority-led start-ups. The Singapore-based entrepreneur shared her inspiring story with FEMAIL and revealed her hopes for the next generation of women in business. The concept of SoGal, which Ms Sun describes as her 'life's work', emerged in response to a problem she saw with how modern business is done.' Since most investors are male, women sometimes feel unwelcome in the corporate space, not taken seriously. I saw this as a problem, experimented with solutions and the end result was SoGal.' Historically, there has only been one opinion and one voice in business that has been valued and respected, the one that belongs to men.
I was always one of the only women in the room at technology events, and my entrepreneurship classes had very few female speakers. Ms Sun said that environment risked alienating half the world's population, and missing out on the ideas that female entrepreneurs were generating.' There are so many opportunities waiting to be discovered by looking through a different lens and taking marginalised people seriously.' The Forbes cover was not part of the plan, but I guess that's what being an entrepreneur is about - there is no plan!' I was 24 at the time and an editor from California nominated me; somehow the selection committee thought what I was doing was interesting, and they made me the featured honoree in the finance and venture capital category.' In 2017, Ms Sun was featured in the motivational career book 3 Billion Under 30. SoGal now has two arms, a venture capital firm which invests in start-up companies with diverse founding teams.' Our aim is to support diversity, and we think of that in a broad sense: gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, language all of these matters.' The other branch of Ms Sun's swiftly growing empire is the SoGal Foundation, which promotes education for women, youth and marginalised minorities. Asked what advice she would give young women and, indeed, her younger self, Ms Sun said girls in particular need to invest in themselves.'Never underestimate the power of your thinking and your ideas really focus on yourself and think about your brand and reputation. You should be constantly thinking about going out on your own, creating something yourself. I firmly believe your best potential and ideas cannot be generated in an environment where you are undervalued or underappreciated.'Take time to figure out what you stand for and be your own agent you can do anything once you take ownership of your path.' And if there was ever a case of practising what you preach, Ms Sun is a shining example. To date, SoGal Ventures has invested in more than 50 startups along with world-class founders in the United States, Asia-Pacific and Europe.' SoGal is a way of thinking, it's an empire I hope we can bring change to every industry so future generations can do business differently,' she said. Pocket Sun will be speaking at StartCon Sydney on November 30.CEO of StartCon Cheryl Mack said: 'Pocket Sun is an inspiration. Her story is one of fearlessness, ingenuity and determination. 'She has helped to show women they have the power to create and lead truly groundbreaking, change-making businesses.'