According to Business Insider, 18-year-old Ace Yip He Hua started building her career tech startup in March and launched the initial prototype in July. The product aims to solve recruitment problems for fresh graduates in Singapore, the US, and China. Yip, a final-year high school student in Singapore, manages a 10-person international team with members in New York and San Francisco, often juggling investor calls with her school lectures. Despite the intense schedule, which sees her sleeping at 2 or 3 a.m., she is committed to attending university after a planned gap year. She has applied to study law in the UK and pre-law with data science in the US, explicitly rejecting the Silicon Valley narrative that founders must drop out to succeed.
The dropout myth meets Gen Z pragmatism
Here’s the thing: the “NGMI” (not going to make it) pressure she describes is real in startup circles. It’s this almost cult-like belief that total, monastic dedication is the only path. But Yip’s stance is a fascinating pushback. She’s not saying college is necessary for the degree’s content. She’s framing it as a strategic resource. Her ideal customers are on campus. The structured thinking from a law degree is a skill set. It’s a wildly pragmatic take that treats higher education less as a required pedigree and more as a deliberate tool in her founder‘s toolkit. How many 18-year-olds have that level of calculated foresight?
The grueling balancing act
Let’s be real, her daily schedule is brutal. Up at 6 a.m., working during her commute and every lunch break, then grinding on the startup until 2 or 3 a.m. It’s the classic founder hustle, but layered on top of a full high school curriculum. What’s interesting is her method: compartmentalization. School time is for school, startup time is for the startup. That level of discipline is rare at any age. It also highlights a modern reality—geography means nothing. Her team is global, so the workday never really ends. She’s essentially running a mini-multinational before she’s even voted in an election. That’s a crash course in management no classroom can provide.
Leveraging youth instead of hiding it
She mentions the prejudice. People see a young face and assume she’s just chasing the AI hype cycle. I think her response is brilliant. Instead of trying to fake decades of experience she doesn’t have, she leans into her native advantages: being quick to learn, being digitally native, and building fast and scrappy. In a tech landscape moving at AI-speed, that agility is a massive asset. It forces a focus on merit and the idea itself. And you know what? It’s working. She says people have started to notice and appreciate the boldness. That’s a powerful lesson. Authenticity and speed can sometimes trump a fancy resume.
Why college still makes sense
So, why go at all? Her reasoning is multifaceted and, frankly, mature. First, it’s direct market immersion. Building for students while being a student is golden. Second, she wants personal growth, not just professional. College challenges you in weird, unexpected ways. Third, she hints at possibly working in a larger organization to gain product and management insights. That’s a long-game perspective you don’t often hear. She’s treating her early 20s as a continued period of R&D—for both her company and herself. In a world obsessed with “blitzscaling,” her plan to learn in a structured environment, whether in a UK law lecture hall or within the US startup network, feels almost rebellious. And maybe that’s the point. The real risk isn’t going to college; it’s blindly following a myth instead of crafting your own path.
