Alumni Entrepreneur Spotlight: Sophie Nguyen of So Gold Marketing
Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation alum, Sophie Nguyen, is now the CEO and Founder of So Gold Marketing, a real estate marketing and media company based in Silicon Valley. Her husband Tommy Nguyen, is an alumni of the Certificate Program and encouraged her to pursue the program while she was a Computer Graphics major at Purdue and she is very thankful she did. Little did they know that So Gold Marketing would result from participating in the ENTR program.
Sophie shares, “Engaging with the Purdue community was a huge part of my educational experience. I was fortunate to have a ‘work’ community when I interned for Purdue Marketing and Media as a social media intern, where I was employed during the school year and summers, managing the @LifeAtPurdue presence. I loved my boss and team! I learned so much from them!”
Sophie was a member of the Purdue Filipino Association. Although she is Laotian and not Filipino, she felt very welcomed by the group and having an Asian American community was very special to her. She also was also a member of a group of women at Purdue, from all different majors and backgrounds, who met once a week to share their passion for business and entrepreneurship.
One of her most memorable classes in the Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Innovation program was ENTR 31000, Marketing and Management for New Ventures. The course was taught by instructor, Stroh Brann, who Sophie states, “always pushed me to reach beyond my limits and for this I’m thankful.” It was in this class that the idea of So Gold Marketing was first born. She credits the course for helping her overcome her fear of public speaking, by learning how to receive constructive criticism and grow from it. It also pushed her outside of her comfort zone and enabled her to grow as a social media marketer. During her ENTR capstone course, she had the opportunity to engage in a real-world consulting experience. Sophie shares, “This experience prepared me to make my business idea a reality. I got a fair share of push back in launching So Gold, but five years later, I am so glad I launched my company!”
Her husband works with her full-time, handling business operations and systems. Sophie is thankful to have him on the team as he has expertise in systems and operations developed in his job prior to So Gold. They have had to grow their So Gold team to support their clients. They also started a podcast called “A Nguyen Nguyen Podcast,” that can be found on YouTube at the following link: http://bit.ly/ItsANguyenNguyen. Sophie says, “Everyone at Purdue should consider the ENTR program! It’s a great way to meet students who are not in your major and you learn a lot of things you can apply to your professional life.”