5 years. 100 pilots. 9 drafts. 20 brilliant brains.
A reflection on my journey of writing my first book
I recently published my first book, Build With Impact: The Cheat Code to Social Entrepreneurship, which teaches readers step-by-step how to build a business that prioritizes creating a positive impact in the world, benefiting humanity and the planet—a social enterprise.
The content of Build with Impact originates from the educational curriculum developed by Fulphil, a nonprofit organization that I founded in 2018 that creates engaging, fun, and trajectory-changing educational content that has empowered thousands of young people to develop compassion, acquire essential skills, and create a positive impact in the world.
It’s been about a week since the book has been released and I’ve been asked many questions about how exactly the book came together.
However, I’ve consistently been having a difficult time finding a concise and straightforward answer because the process wasn’t a simple, linear one.
While I’ve often found myself stumped by this question, the most concise way to explain the journey is by quantifying it in plain and simple numbers and metrics.
Build With Impact is a work of: 5 years. 100 pilots. 9 drafts. 20 brilliant brains.
Draft 1
I started Fulphil in 2018 and began assembling content for the curriculum. Creating this first bare-bones version took the longest time out of all the drafts. After many months, I piloted the curriculum in 2019 in the form of various workshops that were tested across just 5 schools at the time between Philly and the Bay Area.
After each workshop, I maniacally sought feedback from the students and teachers and updated the content accordingly after each and every session. We iterated constantly to improve the curriculum constantly in hopes of making it the best possible version it could be.
This ended up being at least 100 workshops over the course of 3 to 4 months… until the COVID-19 lockdown hit.
Draft 2
Up until that point, we were lucky enough to have enough feedback to sufficiently flesh out the curriculum and make the most out of what we had and all we’d done.
When that first fully written version was completed, we tested that draft again with 3x the number of schools—but this time, in the world of online learning.
Draft 3
After every 1-2 months, we gathered feedback from teachers, redrafted the curriculum, and tested it again, this time with more schools, but this time, considering online and also hybrid learning.
Draft 4
Then once again, we continued to gather feedback, made tweaks, and adjusted it further for in-person learning like we used to.
Draft 5, 6, 7, 8
That version became the first draft of our manuscript. Up until this point through the previous drafts, we had worked with 17 contributors, not including me or my 2 other co-authors.
This version was then edited and redrafted yet again—this time, involving edits on the hardcopies themselves with a good old-fashioned red pen. We redrafted (4 more times to be exact) to make the content more relevant to general trade readers, both inside and outside the classroom.
Draft 9
That draft was then submitted to our editors—to help challenge and guide us through one FINAL redraft—to create Build With Impact—our, now, published book.
Writing a curriculum and writing a book models the design thinking methodology. Asking for feedback and embracing the iteration process is so important. In the book, there is a big theme of human-centered design—how it is important to design solutions for people and build what they want.
I am incredibly grateful for the journey of putting this book together and the brilliant individuals who collaborated with me—what a journey it’s been! 🙂
To me and the other 19 contributors, Build With Impact is more than just a 430-page book; it's a shared hope and vision of what education could be in classrooms and a vision of how young people can be inspired to lead meaningful lives of impact and inspire others to do the same. I’m all the more excited that it’s now available for all—to inspire and empower curious learners both inside and outside of the classroom of all backgrounds.
And always, I express my sincere appreciation to my remarkable co-authors Aditya Desai and Brooke McCormick, in addition to our wonderful contributors Emma O’Neil, Riley Gonta, Sam Stern, Grace Coughlan, Erin Flannery, Ashley Han, Elizabeth Guan, Emma Gould, Tyler Dickens, Geethika Koneru, Yunling Huang, Freya Busser, Jenny Tan, Abhi Suresh, April Zhou, and Osase Edogun.
Build For Impact is available for sale on retailers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Walmart.