How Sarah Chen Built TrojanTech from a USC Dorm Room to a $12M Series A

In this episode, we sit down with Sarah Chen, the co-founder and CEO of TrojanTech, to hear the unfiltered story of building one of USC's most successful student-founded startups. Sarah takes us all the way back to the beginning — a sophomore-year engineering class where she and her co-founder first sketched out the idea for an AI-powered campus logistics platform on the back of a napkin.

We dive deep into the early days: scrappy user research on campus, the first version that barely worked, and the pivotal moment that convinced Sarah to drop her plans for medical school and go all-in on the startup. Sarah is refreshingly candid about the co-founder tensions that nearly tore the company apart and how they rebuilt trust through radical transparency.

The conversation gets particularly interesting when we discuss TrojanTech's Y Combinator experience, the fundraising process during a historically difficult venture market, and the strategic decisions that helped them stand out to investors. Sarah also shares the frameworks she uses for hiring, the mistakes she wishes she could take back, and her advice for current USC students who are thinking about starting something.

Whether you're a first-time founder, an aspiring entrepreneur, or just curious about what it really takes to build a venture-backed startup while still in college, this episode is packed with hard-won lessons and practical wisdom.