Elvina Beck
Founder & CEO
PodShare
Los Angeles, CA USA
“There’s an entrepreneur in all of us and it comes in little pieces. Explore that and don’t be afraid to get in trouble.”
Videos
By Roadtrip NationElvina Beck
Milestones
My road in life took a while to figure out.
I was born in Moscow, Russia, and immigrated to the United States with my family when I was five years old.
We settled into a Russian community in Brooklyn, New York—the sense of community was strong and we all accepted each other without any discrimination of class, gender, or race.
I moved to California for college because I wanted to establish myself in either the entertainment or housing industry.
I worked a lot of good production jobs for people like Avril Lavigne, Jeff Dunham, and Miley Cyrus, but it didn’t really make me happy.
After the economic recession, I didn’t have a place to live and wanted to help others in similar situations, so I decided to build a housing pod in Los Angeles and start PodShare.
After opening that first pod, I was quickly at 97% capacity, proving that this was a good idea that the millennial generation really liked!
I used a crowdfunding campaign to help me open my second PodShare location in Downtown Los Angeles' Arts District.
Nine years later, we've grown to eight locations across California and hope to keep growing into other states!
Keep following my journey
Education
High School
Livingston
Livingston
Career
Founder & CEO
I founded an affordable shared housing network
Career Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Entrepreneurship
Design
Building Things
Advice for Getting Started
Here's the first step for high school students
Start by investing a little bit of money whenever you can into a stock or your own small businesses. Learn how to make and grow money and explore the things you're interested in while you're at it. When you're young, you have so much time to be able to explore your ideas and challenge the system.
Hurdles
The Noise I Shed
From Parents:
"This idea will never work."
Challenges I Overcame
Gender Discrimination
