Dec 2, 2021
Do You Write About-Me Articles on Medium? Well… here’s mine
So I am clearly a beginner on Medium. I am currently trying to familiarize myself with and understand the social nuances of Medium. For now, my goal is to engage with as many people as possible before I write too much. Am I supposed to write an “About-Me” article first? When digging around the community, I saw that Holly Faupel Karen Nimmo and Clare Z Young all do, so I thought I’d give it a shot!
My goals on Medium:
1. Meet/learn from cool people outside of my network, which is predominantly in Shanghai, China 🇨🇳
2. Build a personal brand 👩💻 I have always hidden behind my businesses and been insecure about my age, race, or femininity, and I’m flipping that narrative now and forcing myself to write about + publicize these insecurities.
3. Write stories for fun! And get better at writing 📝
At least now I don’t have a totally blank profile! So here goes:
I was born in Canada 🇨🇦 and moved to Shanghai, China when I was 12 where I discovered the world of entrepreneurship.
My best friend and I are both horse riders, so we created our first start-up at 14: Equestrian athleisure brand Hart Outfitters, focusing on styles that go from stable to street. Learned a lot about bootstrapping 🥾 + entrepreneurship, and still learning!
Around the same time, I was a freelance portrait/product photographer but a few years later fell more in love with marketing. In 2019 I rebranded to RKZ Creative: A marketing & branding platform dedicated to impact-driven & sustainable brands. At the heart of what I do is a combination of being a storyteller + being creative. It’s also freelance and my main $$-er.
I run a three-month internship program through RKZ Creative where I help individuals gain experience, learn a new skill, and/or develop their portfolios. Then, I help them get a higher-paying job 💰.
Around the same time in 2019, I cofounded a China-based women entrepreneurship community called SheUp. We are all about inspiring, encouraging, and connecting women in business/leadership to pursue their personal or professional dreams 🙌. We have an online community and presence and run events every month. We just ran a social campaign called The Why Wait? Collective which featured a full-day conference with 200+ attendees in Shanghai on Nov. 20.
TLDR: I do a lot of things and have a lot of passions. At my core is being creative, building communities, and creating opportunities for others. I am a huge perfectionist, a feminist, and learner of new languages.
My personal life goals at the moment:
1 👩🎓 Figure out my college situation. Currently gapping and in the midst of applying to universities.
2 ❤️ Keep up my relationships with the people I love (in long-distance relationships with my boyfriend, best friends, and sister right now)
3 🥕 Build better personal habits! With fitness + healthy diets
Super nice to meet you all. Genuinely. I really appreciate it if you read this far and would love to connect personally! Maybe we can keep our goals in check as well haha.
IG: @rachelkzhang
Twitter: @rachelkzhang (barely existent, working on it)
LinkedIn: Rachel K. Zhang
www.rachelkzhang.com
