“Who Am I to Be Here?”: Christopher Carrillo on Finding His Place as a Founder
My name is Christopher Carrillo, and I recently graduated from CSULB with my MBA. Looking back, the MBA program was genuinely life-changing for me. It gave me the language, frameworks, and knowledge to better understand business, how to analyze financial statements, think through strategy, diagnose organizational problems, understand company culture, evaluate opportunities, and build toward a collective vision. But the biggest transformation I experienced did not come from learning those concepts in a classroom. It came from being pushed to apply them through the CSULB Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Before getting involved with the Institute, I carried a lot of insecurity about whether I truly belonged in business. My undergraduate background was in film and screenwriting, and for a long time I saw that as something separate from entrepreneurship. I thought it made me less qualified. I would sit in classrooms with people who had more work experience, more technical knowledge, and more confidence, and I quietly questioned whether I was behind. I knew I cared deeply about my idea, Aurascan, but caring about something and believing you are capable of building it are two very different things.
That was the internal battle I was facing. I had an idea, but I also had fear. Fear of being seen. Fear of not being smart enough. Fear of pitching in front of people who knew more than me. Fear of finding out that maybe I was not actually capable of turning this into something real.
The Institute changed that for me.
Through the competitions, mentorship, feedback sessions, and the Saturday small business seminars hosted in Long Beach at Studio 111, the Institute gave me a place to keep showing up even when I felt uncertain. Those Saturday seminars helped me more than I can properly explain. I would walk in with confusion, pressure, and scattered ideas, and I would often leave feeling grounded again… like I had a clearer next step. They gave me practical tools, but more importantly, they gave me momentum. They helped me understand that entrepreneurship is not just about having a good idea. It is about structure, discipline, resilience, communication, and the willingness to keep moving even when you feel unprepared.
One of the most pivotal moments in my journey was the SDSU Social Venture Challenge.
Representing Long Beach State at SDSU was an incredible opportunity, but it also terrified me. It felt bigger and more public than anything I had done before. I was not just presenting a classroom project anymore. I was standing in front of judges, other founders, and people who were evaluating whether this idea had real potential. I remember feeling the weight of that moment deeply. I was nervous, overwhelmed, and honestly scared. I wanted to make CSULB proud, but I was also battling the voice in my head that kept asking, “Who am I to be here?”
That experience became a turning point. The Institute had helped prepare me not just with the pitch, but with the belief that I could stand there in the first place. The support from Ingrid, Wade, and the broader Institute team made me feel like I was not carrying the entire thing alone. They saw something in me before I fully knew how to see it in myself. They helped nurture a part of me that was shy, reserved, and afraid to take up space, and slowly gave me the confidence to put myself and my work in front of people.
Winning at SDSU was meaningful, but the deeper win was what happened inside of me. I left that experience different. I started to understand that Aurascan was no longer just an assignment, a pitch, or an idea I was experimenting with. It was becoming a real venture. And I was becoming the kind of person who could lead it. That same foundation carried into the Sunstone Innovation Challenge.
Winning Sunstone would not have been possible without the Institute. The competitions, the mentorship, the business planning, the seminars, the honest feedback, and the constant encouragement all became stepping stones. The Institute created the structure that Aurascan stood on, and in many ways, it created the structure that I stood on too.
What has meant the most to me is that the Institute did not just support Aurascan as a project. They supported me as a founder. They helped me move from self-doubt into action. They helped me take something that started in a classroom and begin treating it like something that could genuinely impact people.
I am incredibly grateful for the Institute’s role in my journey. Programs like this matter because they do more than fund ideas or host competitions. They help students believe that they are capable of building something meaningful. They create the environment where a student can walk in unsure, afraid, and inexperienced… and leave with confidence, direction, and a real path forward.
For students like me, that kind of support can change everything.
