Don’t Wait, Just Start

This story is from Prattfolio’s feature “Pivot Points,” on Pratt alumni navigating moments of uncertainty, change, and transformation in their life and work.

As founder of a logistics startup, Joshe Ordonez knows a thing or two about getting things from point A to point B. When it comes to her career, which has taken her from fashion design and production to the multihyphenate creative hustle to Google-funded entrepreneurship, the path hasn’t exactly been linear.

Ordonez grew up in Cuenca, Ecuador, where she was steeped in the history of textiles and artisanal craft and stories of how Indigenous tradition and Spanish influence had shaped the clothing of the region. Surrounded by making and design—from the traditions of sewing, knitting, and weaving in her family and her town to the global catwalks broadcast into her home on E! Fashion—it’s no wonder Ordonez made her way first to fashion, as a student and a professional. 

“What I love about fashion is its role as a form of cultural expression and its flexibility as a discipline,” Ordonez says. “It allows you to pull inspiration from so many areas—art, architecture, history, and culture, making it a constantly evolving creative space.” 

But her working experience added another dimension: “What I don’t love is the waste and overconsumption the industry generates,” she adds. “It’s through hands-on work that I really learned about how things are made, from supply chains to industrial processes.”

When she found out about Pratt’s Design Management program, part of Creative Enterprise Leadership within the School of Art, she saw an opportunity to address some of the issues she’d come face to face with: ”I was immediately drawn to the curriculum,” she says. “It covered so many of my interests—business, financial reporting, intellectual property, UX design—all while being deeply rooted in sustainability and using design as a driver for progress and innovation.” 

For Ordonez, digging into these areas as a student was ripe with opportunity, even if she wasn’t sure where her exploration would take her: “You don’t know what you don’t know, so the biggest challenge was always the learning curve. Every time I took on a new job or project, I had to dive into things I’d never even heard of before,” she says. “But I never saw school as a way to avoid the unknown; to me, it was more of a sandbox, a place to experiment, test ideas, and build confidence in navigating uncertainty. That mindset worked really well for me.” 

“I hadn’t come that far to fail, so that became my call to action.”

Part of that learning curve was pushing herself to speak up more, to ask more questions—“As an international student whose first language wasn’t English, the first few months were tough,” she explains. “I remember being nervous to speak in front of the class . . . But I hadn’t come that far to fail, so that became my call to action.”

In Pratt’s Design Management program, she began to think like an entrepreneur, developing commercial projects that would give her a foundation for launching her business. But before she arrived there, Ordonez had wanted to experience a role in the corporate world, at one of her “dream companies (which was a long list).” It would be a whole new challenge: “The imposter syndrome of applying to hundreds of jobs, going through interviews, and facing rejection was a humbling experience.”

“I’ve never been one to over-plan,” Ordonez says. “Business plans, career plans—things rarely go as expected. I’ve always been action-driven, and I approached this phase the same way I approach software or product development: throwing a bunch of things at the wall and seeing what sticks.”

Meanwhile, she was determined to make a living in New York City, and for Ordonez, that meant working on a lot of different projects with the creative and business skills she had in her toolkit. She did graphic design, photo and video production, social media management, manufacturing of wearables, and more—and she was also building websites, managing ecommerce, and working on system integrations. The pieces started to come together.

Advice from the field: Defy boundaries

“Try many things; you’ll never know what’s right for you if you don’t explore. A degree or title doesn’t dictate what you can or can’t do. . . . Just start, don’t waste time waiting for the perfect moment or for opportunities to come; create them yourself.”

There was a common problem she’d experienced in her various roles, and she had the tools to address it: how to get things from one place to another. “Wasting my creative and strategic energy on tedious shipping tasks inspired me to build Airpals,” she says, and her business was born.  

Ordonez went on to secure venture backing, and in 2022, a year after launching the company, she received support from Google’s Founders Fund to grow the business.  

The nuance to her experience has turned out to be her superpower. “One challenge I faced was telling a clear, concise story about my career since I had worn many hats, from product design to production,” Ordonez says. “But in the end, that adaptability worked in my favor. Moving fast allowed me to learn rapidly and connect with incredible professionals across different industries.”

Though speed and action have brought Ordonez to where she is today, among the guiding principles she’s learned along the way are the value of patience, how overnight success is an illusion, the power of collaborating on others’ projects—and having those collaborators show up for you too—and that sometimes, “the only way out is through.”

In her role now, staying curious is also essential, whether it’s about advancements in AI or different perspectives on creativity and leadership. “At the end of the day, learning never really stops,” she says. “I believe we should all push ourselves to pick up something new every day.”