Two years ago, I struck up a friendship with a well known DJ & music producer named DJ Illo. Despite very different career paths, one thing that Illo and I shared was a strong passion to learn everything there was to know about our unique areas of interest – music for him and startups for me. After many long conversations about topics like ‘success’ and ‘ambition’, we found a larger connection to one another; both Illo and I started DJ’ing when we were 13 years old. We both agreed that the lesson of learning how to DJ wasn’t about the technical side of mixing music, it was actually about developing an interest in something complex (especially for 13 year olds), and making a commitment to spend the time and attention needed to learn that skill. We decided that we wanted to give others a chance to have the same experience we had. So last week, in collaboration with YouthNet, we organized an event called #Inspire2013, where 80 teenagers came to Shopify to meet with accomplished musicians, artists, and entrepreneurs. The objective was simple: ‘inspire them to relentlessly pursue the things they are most interested in’. The event was amazing! Here are the details from the Citizen.