Thomas Jiang's Lessons in Turning Problems Into Purpose at LaunchX

At 16, Thomas Jiang has already built two nonprofits and earned a spot at LaunchX. What connects them isn't ambition for its own sake but a habit. He notices the problems people around him have learned to accept as normal, and instead of accepting them too, he asks what he can do about them.

Solving Cost Barriers in Youth Soccer

Playing club soccer in Houston, Jiang learned fast that the sport is expensive - coaching, fees, camps, all of it adds up fast. It was until one of their better players had to leave the team due to his family not being able to afford the fees, that Thomas felt the need to do something about it. 

In 2022, he and a few friends built Soccer for Fun, a free program that's since coached over 200 kids, run by 25 to 30 volunteers, including players who've competed at the highest levels in the country. Jiang led it for two years before handing it off to a friend. It still runs every summer.

Shared Table Project: Two Problems, One Gap Between Them

This one started years earlier, with Hurricane Harvey. In 2017, Jiang's family had to evacuate their home and stay with people they barely knew. Those strangers had little, and gave all they had.

"Their hospitality showed me that even people with very little still actively give what they have to others," Jiang said. "That really motivated me to do something in the future."

This summer, that motivation turned into the Shared Table Project. The idea is simple: restaurants throw away food every day, while people nearby go hungry. Jiang and a co-founder started calling restaurants and hotels, collecting surplus food, and routing it to groups like the Houston Food Bank, Hope Center Houston, the Star of Hope Mission, and Second Servings - close to 400 pounds in the first few weeks.

A manager at a nearby Dunkin' Donuts told him chain policy blocked any donations, but admitted just how much food they threw out every single day. Jiang saw a vast opportunity, where restaurants already wanted to give and food banks already wanted to receive. There was no shortage of good intentions. All that was needed was someone willing to make the calls in between.

LaunchX: Learning There's a Better Way to Solve Problems

Jiang entered LaunchX's Innovation Program, a three-week applied experience where students collaborate with corporate partners to solve real-world business problems. He brought strong community-organizing skills but limited exposure to core financial mechanics like pricing. 

Tasked with addressing a core challenge from the MKE Tech Hub regarding how to retain mid-career tech talent, Jiang helped shape the concept, name the Bedrock Project, and scout real-world locations, while pricing gave him headaches the whole way through. During the program's negotiation simulation, he sold his simulated company for $990,000 against a $1.3 million base, placing his team in the bottom three. 

"I got absolutely destroyed," he reflected, viewing the setback as a valuable lesson. While his nonprofit background excelled at rallying people around a cause, LaunchX provided the first environment that required him to integrate financial viability and make the numbers work.

Living Outside the Struggle vs. Inside

This summer, Jiang got injured and spent weeks bedridden. Getting upstairs took assistance. The hard-hitting moment was when he needed someone to walk him to the bathroom, something that had never once required a second thought.

"That really made me appreciate the ability to walk," he said. "I had completely taken it for granted." Reflecting on his close friend being born without a left hand and most of both legs, Thomas realized that as much as he'd spent three years building programs for people whose struggles he could see from the outside, this was the first time he truly felt the frustration of living inside a problem that feels far away from a solution.

That empathy shapes everything he builds, rooted in the simple choice to "Notice what other people walk past, and make it easy for someone to come to you about it."