Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Chelinde Edouard is Co-Founder and CEO of MustWatch, which connects people through television. Chad talks with Che about creating a social and user engagement platform that allows people to come back and constantly use an app without interrupting TV-watching experiences, how they use data to improve user experience, and fundraising and giving investors opportunities to help build out the app, increase marketing, and potentially build an Android version. MustWatch Follow MustWatch on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow Che on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel, and with me today is Che Edouard, Co-Founder and CEO of MustWatch, which connects people through television. Che, thank you for joining me. CHELINDE: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. CHAD: So astute listeners of the show will note maybe that name sounds familiar. And that's because you and MustWatch were mentioned on Episode 419, which was about the GK Fund with Michael Benezra. And I asked him for examples of the kinds of companies that he was excited about that they had given their grants to. And you're the one he called out, and so that jumped out at me. And thanks for joining the show. CHELINDE: Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it. And I definitely want to shout out the GK Fund. They've definitely been a huge support to us since giving us the grant. And they're definitely leading the charge in this new avenue of racial inequality and helping startups in that fashion in Boston. CHAD: So I'm curious; before we get too far down the road of where you're at today and how you got there, let's take a step back and just remind people what MustWatch is. CHELINDE: Absolutely. MustWatch is an app that's on the App Store now. So even if you have an iPhone, you can download it. And it's an app that's revolving around TV. So it allows you to see what shows your friends watch, chat with them about them, and send recommendations all in one place. So we think of it as like a social hub for all of your TV needs. CHAD: I think people who hear this might be like, oh, does this exist already? That kind of thing. And there are a couple of things a little bit like this, but it doesn't seem like there's really anything that's quite like this, right? CHELINDE: Exactly. So a lot of the social TV apps and other services today focus on one feature, for example, chat or recommendations, or giving reviews about shows, or having a list of them. But our app, we do all of it in one place. So on our app, it can show which shows you like. You can also share with your friends directly; hey, you should go watch this show because I think you should like it. We also have this feature called watchlist, which is our natural social recommendations of here are all the shows that your friends are watching that you don't watch. And so it's a way to give people a way to find new shows without getting the same recommendations from Netflix and Hulu that are not really accurate today. CHAD: How did you hit upon this idea? CHELINDE: Actually, one of my high school friends, we were all brainstorming and coming up with ideas for companies. And then one day, he was at work, and he was trying to talk about Game of Thrones, but his boss wouldn't let him because he wasn't caught up on the season. He wasn't there. CHAD: [laughs] CHELINDE: So he was like, how do I find someone or talk to someone who's caught up to where I'm at so I can actually have a conversation? And so we brainstormed, and we tried to solve the problem of let's just create a spoiler-free chat kind of solution that would allow people to talk about shows that they're caught up on. And then that we've iterated and evolved, and that's kind of led to where we're at today. CHAD: And when was that? CHELINDE: That was, I want to say, 2014. That was when I graduated from BU. So in the summer of 2014, that's when we first had the idea. And then from there, we just brainstormed, had a bunch of meetings, and then just took a year in stealth mode trying to figure out how we wanted to create a business plan. And then, from there, we hit the ground running. CHAD: You and your friend, what were your sort of core competencies, the two of you? CHELINDE: I'm the tech background, so to speak, because, as I mentioned, I went to BU. My degree is in management information systems, which is basically business IT. So I was trying to leverage all my technology skills there and also my business skills to say how do we, one, build the app and two, create a business that can actually support it for the long term? And he had more of the idea on the customer side of how can we create an experience or a user engagement platform that allows people to constantly come back and constantly want to find more reason to use our app? Because as we know, people watch the show on TV, but the app is a conduit to that. And so, we want to figure out a way to get people to constantly use our app but also not interrupt their TV-watching experience. CHAD: So you said you're trying to figure out a business plan. You're refining the concept. At what point do you start making the leap to actually writing an app? CHELINDE: With all apps, you start with this concept called wireframes, and so we built out a bunch of wireframes. Two of my friends from high school we all built the app together. And then one of them went to Miami, and his friend from Miami he's the one that actually helped us develop the app and code. And so we worked with him to actually say, "Hey, these are our wireframes. We're trying to make this into an app. Can you build it out?" And so, we worked with him over a year to make that a reality. CHAD: And it took about a year to get to launch. CHELINDE: We actually started on Android, and we were trying to create an MVP or prototype. And so we took that idea like I said, we were working for a year, to this company called Netcapital, which is a crowdfunding platform for startups and companies. And we launched on Netcapital in May of 2020. With that idea, we raised 50k in almost three months. And with that money, we actually built the app from there. And so the app you see in the App Store now is from the money that we've raised on Netcapital. CHAD: Did you throw away that original version and start over? CHELINDE: I wouldn't say throw away. We kind of used it as a launching point. But we don't have any Android version right now. We're strictly in iOS. CHAD: Yeah, that was notable to me. Tell me more about that. CHELINDE: So going from Android to iOS it was really a business decision there because our developer had knowledge in Android but didn't have the iOS background. And so when we went on Netcapital, we used that money to actually hire a real development team. That's who's building our app now. So we work with them to build our app. And going to iOS has allowed us to, at least in the meantime, expand in the U.S. market a lot quicker. CHAD: Now, are they building it in first-party frameworks only for iOS, or are they using something that is going to allow you to go expand to Android in the future? CHELINDE: So right now, we're strictly iOS only. We would like to move to a React Native or a tool that allows us to promote to both. When we first started, we wanted to just focus on iOS, given our costs. CHAD: These are common problems that a lot of startups or common decisions that a lot of startups have to make. And it's not always straightforward. Were you worried about this? CHELINDE: Yes. Because that's one of the things now it's we would love to have an Android version. But for me, being more of a purist, I didn't want the code to work in one system and not another. And given that we only had...in my mind, it's like you have one shot to make an impression. And when you go out and launch it on the App Store, I didn't want it to be half-baked in one and half-baked in the other. I'd rather have one be exactly how we want it to look, and then we can adapt as we grow. CHAD: How has it been working for you, then? CHELINDE: So far, so good. We're actually in the process of releasing some new features later this month, and so like I said, the watchlist feature, which allows you to add shows that you're going to watch in the future. We also have the ability to create chats through the chat functionality because previously, you had to create a new chat every single time. So we've made it easier for people to start chats, and also you can do group chats as well. So it's not just individuals. You can have a whole group of people in one conversation. CHAD: So some of these features there must be a backend server powering all of this, right? CHELINDE: Yes. So we use the Google Cloud Firestore for our backend. And another cool part about our app is we have a lot of analytics about what people are watching. And that's where we take their data from our cloud, the Google Cloud Firestore, and we send it to the BigQuery, also a Google platform. And then we use the Google Analytics that we have on the app to then do our reports around who's watching what, top 10 shows for the past month, the top 10 shows based on if you're male or female, based on what age group. So we have all the analytics on the viewing habits from the data that we've collected. CHAD: Can you tell me how many users you have now? CHELINDE: As of right now, we are at 820. We are looking to obviously get a little bit over to that 1,000 users mark, and then we can have a better sense of what kind of insights we can glean from there. CHAD: Well, hopefully, coming on this show will help you do that. So if you're listening and this sounds interesting to you, where are the best places...so people can search for MustWatch on the App Store, the iOS App Store? CHELINDE: Yep. And we also have a website mustwatch.com if people want to check that out as well. CHAD: Yeah, so let's do it. Let's push them over the top and get those numbers up. I'm curious about usage patterns. Are you able to see any patterns in terms of what causes people to either keep using the app or not? CHELINDE: Yeah. So the main thing that keeps people using the app is having chat groups with people and then also getting recommendations. Like I mentioned before, we have the social recommendations of people just showing you what shows people watch. But there's also direct one-to-one. If you're on the app, I could send you a recommendation. And that's what drives a lot of people to go on the app and find new shows. Another thing that we see is a lot of people just searching, just looking up the shows that are on the app because our database of shows is actually pretty robust. I was talking to someone yesterday; he's Korean. And he was using his phone to type in a show. And he was using a Korean keyboard, and the show came up. And he was like, "Oh wow, I didn't even know you guys support multiple languages." And I was like, "Yes, we support." Our database of shows is very expansive. So if you're in Korea, if you're in Japan, if you like anime, if you like telenovelas, we have all types of shows on our app as well. CHAD: Do you get that database from somewhere? CHELINDE: Yeah, so there's actually a TV show API called TMDB, which pretty much is an open-source, free database that you can pull from. So we use that as our source for shows. CHAD: That's cool. Speaking of shows, I noticed on the MustWatch website, on the team page, you all list your favorite shows and what you're currently watching. I think you and I have different tastes in shows. [laughter] I have heard of the shows that are your favorite, but I have not watched any of them. CHELINDE: Oh wow. [laughs] What are your favorite shows? CHAD: I think actually my shows match the shows listed by Rob, your CFO. CHELINDE: Oh wow. [laughs] CHAD: And my all-time favorite show is, I think, The Leftovers. CHELINDE: Okay. So yeah, and that's the cool thing about this app is like, if you're on the app, you would see Rob's shows on the app too. Because if you download the app, you become friends with all of us immediately, so you have friends on there to start. CHAD: Oh, that's a cool idea. CHELINDE: So it gives you a way to just see what the app can look like before...because if you're on there by yourself as one person, it's a social app. It's meant to be with people. It doesn't really give you that clarity. So I bring that up because that's the one cool thing about the app is you always are surprised by what shows people watch, even if they're your friend. It's like, oh, I didn't know you would like that show. Or oh, I liked that show, and you don't like that show. And it's a very cool icebreaker or just a social connection that you can make because everyone's putting shows on the app. And one way, actually...I was talking to someone the other day thinking about how like Spotify, you put all your playlists and all your shows. This app is kind of like a Spotify but for TV shows and also for movies. So it's not just shows, movies as well. CHAD: And the cool things that Spotify does in terms of the reports that they release annually to each individual person and everything. Like, that's all stuff you can do too. CHELINDE: Yep. CHAD: Yeah, it's cool. So your background actually is in sort of business intelligence, data analysis, and analyst, right? CHELINDE: Yes, that's correct. For my day job...I just want to back up. I also have a day job while also doing this. And I've primarily been the past couple of years a BI analyst. So previously, I was at HarbourVest, which is a private equity firm here in Boston. And then, I recently joined Liberty Mutual Investments also as BI data analyst. So I've been very involved in the financial services side of data analytics, which has allowed me to just get other insights on how technology works and just also getting exposure to the whole industry as well. CHAD: So you basically have two reasons why you want to get the number of users up. One is from a co-founder perspective and founder perspective; you want to get the number of users up. But from a data perspective, you want to get the users up so that you have more data to play with. CHELINDE: Exactly, exactly. The more users we have, the more data we can collect. And then data we can glean insights, and then provide value to our customers as well. Because our app users, if we can know which shows they are liking, we can also then tell them about shows that they also might like. Because once you find commonalities in shows that people are liking, you can then give them better recommendations. And we think that the social aspect of our app, the fact that we have all of your friends on there and they're giving you recommendations, it's better than just, oh, you've watched this show in the past three years, and it's on Netflix's algorithm of watched shows. That, to us, doesn't really seem as insightful and helpful to people. Mid-Roll Ad: When starting a new project, we understand that you want to make the right choices in technology, features, and investment, but that you don’t have all year to do extended research. In just a few weeks, thoughtbot’s Discovery Sprints deliver a user-centered product journey, a clickable prototype or Proof of Concept, and key market insights from focused user research. We’ll help you to identify the primary user flow, decide which framework should be used to bring it to life, and set a firm estimate on future development efforts. Maximize impact and minimize risk with a validated roadmap for your new product. Get started at: url tbot.io/sprint CHAD: So you mentioned you have another job in addition to all this work you've been doing on MustWatch. How has that been? You know, starting a company, working on it while also having a full-time job elsewhere? CHELINDE: Yeah, it's definitely been, I guess, one of the challenging things I would say. It's definitely been rewarding. It takes a lot of time management, I would say, because you have to balance your day job and manage something on the side. I think the biggest hurdle I had was when we were first launching the app on the App Store, meeting with developers, and trying to fundraise all at the same time because I was just pressed for time. Because of the COVID, COVID happened right when we were launching. So working from home all day everyday kind of helped because I didn't have an hour commute anymore. So I got two hours back in my day. So I could, instead of going to work and just commuting, I had an hour in the morning and an hour after. I could use that time for MustWatch. But I had to definitely sacrifice some of my social life to make that happen. [laughter] CHAD: I assume that you have the plans that you would hope that things with MustWatch get to the point where you could do it full time. CHELINDE: Yes. The goal is to get MustWatch to a point where we can pay our employees and have salaries, and everyone can just be working from the company. But as everyone knows, if you're in a startup, you got to just not pay yourself and make sure everything goes into the company. How I see it is you can't pay yourself until everything else is working. CHAD: Yeah, I mean, people hear the startup stories of raising a whole bunch of money, working exclusively on it, having more than enough. I think that that's actually not necessarily the norm; that's the outlier. I think it's more common, more widespread to do what you're doing, to have an idea, and to be working on it and growing it while also holding down another job. CHELINDE: Because as we all know, the bills need to be paid, [laughs] and those don't go away. But I didn't want to give up on the dream. So if you want to make it happen, you can make it happen because while I was at HarbourVest, I also was at Babson getting my master's degree in business analytics. So at one point in time, I was working full-time at grad school and doing MustWatch. To me, that was probably the most busiest period of my life, but I did get through it. [laughs] But definitely took a lot, but now we're here. And we've gotten support from the GK Fund, and I couldn't be happier with where the future lies ahead. CHAD: One of the things about the GK Fund is that it's a grant. It's not an investment where you're giving up part of your company in order to do it, which I think is really important, especially for very early-stage companies, not to have to give away a significant portion of their company just to get some angel investment or that startup fund. I assume that's one of the reasons why it's been a big impact for you. CHELINDE: Absolutely. I mean, one, having it not be an investment was a lifesaver for us. At the time, we were still trying to figure out how to just get cash to get to the next stage. And so, for us, a grant was literally the blessing or a miracle at the perfect timing because it allowed us to...it gave us a little kickstart. Because I mean, as everyone knows, if you're a startup, you're always low on cash. And you're always trying to decide what's the best way to move the company forward? And that just gave us that breathing room without having to worry about paying it back, or a timetable to now let us actually grow and do what we can do best. CHAD: Do you hope to take a more traditional investment in the future? CHELINDE: Yes. So we're actually planning to do another fundraising on Netcapital. This time we're planning to raise $450,000. And that's going to help us build out the app, increase our marketing, and then potentially also build an Android version. CHAD: So I'm not sure that everyone who's listening will know what Netcapital actually is. CHELINDE: Yep. So Netcapital is a crowdfunding equity platform which allows retail investors to directly invest in startups. So if you're looking for another way to get into early-stage companies, Netcapital is a great place to do that. It's similar to if you've heard of StartEngine. It's a similar concept to that. And it's mainly you pretty much buy shares in a company, and then that company will then take that money to then use it for the funds that they have set in their offering. And you actually get an equity stake in the company. And so, for us, it's great because typically, those types of fundraising opportunities don't come for us. You need to have VC-backed or some kind of angel investor to get to that level. But having it be open to everybody, there's a larger pool of retail investors that allow you to get to where you need to go. Because if you can get a couple of your family, friends around to give you like a hundred or a couple thousand, it's definitely a better avenue than just going the VC route or just getting a loan from a grant or a startup, an SBA loan, something like that. CHAD: Traditionally, something like Netcapital was not really possible. But my understanding is that in 2016, the laws changed to allow smaller investments and get actual equity and for companies to offer it in such a way that wasn't possible before. CHELINDE: Yes, I believe it's called a Reg CF, Regulation Crowdfunding, and that was the law that was passed in 2016. And that is crucial to us being able to have an offering on Netcapital. CHAD: So it's not like Kickstarter where, you know, in Kickstarter, you're offering a new product or something, and people aren't becoming investors in your actual company. Netcapital is they are actual investors. And so, as an entrepreneur, as a company, what do your obligations to those investors look like? CHELINDE: So because they're investors, we have to give them quarterly updates. We have to file our annual report. We have to disclose any conflict of interest. There's a whole SEC team that has to approve and review any offering that goes on the platform to make sure that we are following all SEC guidelines. And then also, we are liable because they're investors. So they can email us. They can reach out to us, and we will respond because they are our shareholders. [chuckles] And so we need to make sure they're happy as well. CHAD: Yeah, with one of the things that Netcapital does is it sort of works like Kickstarter in that if you don't meet the goals that you've set, it doesn't actually happen. CHELINDE: Yep, there's a minimum investment threshold, so it depends on how much money you're raising. So last time, when we raised 50k, the minimum was 10k. So if we didn't get over $10,000, all the investors would get their money back. But if we got over that threshold, then that's the money that we would be able to use for our company. CHAD: 450,000 is significantly more than 50,000. What do you feel like you need to do in order to make sure that you hit the goal? CHELINDE: So one thing is going on podcasts like this to make sure that people know about it. [laughter] Secondly, we're actually going to be partnering with the GK Fund to do some more media exposure there. And then we're also partnering with Silicon Valley Bank because they're actually our partners on the banking side. And so, I'm going to be partnering with their network to leverage their connections as well. And then we're also going to be just doing the classic social media, posting on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, friends, or family. All avenues of media we will be pushing out MustWatch. CHAD: When do you expect to open up that listing? CHELINDE: We're targeting mid-July right now. So that's when we're planning on going live on Netcapital pending the compliance review and all the other legal stuff, but that's when we plan to go live. CHAD: Okay, well, if you're listening to this episode, it's going to be going live in a couple of weeks. And so definitely follow along and check it out. Cool. Well, what are your goals for that next funding round? What do you expect to use it for? CHELINDE: We expect to use our funding round on improving the iOS experience, so adding more features because we've gotten some customer feedback. And we have a laundry list or a backlog of items we want to add but obviously limited by cash constraints. So once we have the money, we can do what we want to do. And then we also would like to improve our marketing. So we want to have a real marketing team and improve our SEO. And then we also have a connection with Hollywood. So the writer for Ford and Ferrari, his name is Jason Keller is on our team. And we want to see how we can get our foot in the door with Hollywood as well. CHAD: That's really cool. What would that look like in your ideal scenario? CHELINDE: Ideally, we'd have some celebrities or Hollywood A-listers on the app using MustWatch and then promoting their shows or promoting our app in one of their media engagements as well. CHAD: Or chatting with people about the episode that just came out and that kind of thing. That'd be really cool. CHELINDE: Yeah, exactly. We want to get people to just engage on the app with celebrities as well. That's definitely one of the avenues we were thinking as well. CHAD: One of the big trends right now is TV companies making companion podcasts to the shows that they make. I can totally see them doing this kind of thing as well. CHELINDE: As we all know, user engagement and fan engagement is crucial for these companies, and MustWatch would be a crucial way for a lot of companies to connect easily. CHAD: This is a little bit of an aside, but I was sort of surprised that you were able to get mustwatch.com. CHELINDE: It was not cheap. [laughter] I think for some people who were following us for a while, when we first launched, our name was WatchParty. And that's how we originally started our company. But as we evolved, Facebook released a watch party feature; Hulu, Amazon all have these watch party features, and they weren't exactly like our company. And we didn't want to get any confusion in branding. And so we had a long discussion around what name do we change to, and how do we still convey the right feel for the app, and what we want to do? Because on our app, you're not watching the show on our app, I want to make that very clear. It's all about finding a new show, chatting, and connecting with people, but you're not watching on the app. And so it's tough to...not tough, but we wanted to make sure that people knew that the app was for finding new shows. But also, it has to be like a must-watch. Like, I need to go watch this right now because it's something really good. And so that's how we came across this name. CHAD: You mentioned earlier on that expenses are tight when you're working on something new. How worried were you about spending money on a domain name? CHELINDE: So this is also where our partnership with Netcapital came into play because they helped us in terms of getting us off the ground. And we work with them on the business side as well. And this is one of the avenues where they helped support us. CHAD: Oh, wow. Wow. It's great that you're able to pull together these different resources and get that support. CHELINDE: Yeah, to us, it's been crucial because, without the support, it's very tough to get your name out there. It's very tough to promote the idea. And so, with Netcapital and the GK Fund, it definitely puts us in a better light than usual. CHAD: Well, Che, I really wish you the best and MustWatch the best and your whole team. And good luck over the next few weeks as you open up this round on Netcapital. I ask everybody, again, go check out the app. Sometimes we talk to companies of all different stages on the show. And I especially think it's important when we have someone that's just getting started really trying to hit these user numbers that if people could go check it out, that'd be great. CHELINDE: Really appreciate it. CHAD: If folks want to follow along with you, get in touch with you, that kind of thing, where are all the different places where they can do that? CHELINDE: Reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn, Che Edouard. You can reach out to us on mustwatch.com. We have a contact us email there. You can also email me at che@mustwatch.com if you want to reach out. I am available on all platforms. CHAD: Wonderful. And you can subscribe to the show and find notes and a complete transcript for the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Sponsored By:thoughtbot: When starting a new project, we understand that you want to make the right choices in technology, features, and investment, but that you don’t have all year to do extended research. In just a few weeks, thoughtbot’s Discovery Sprints deliver a user-centered product journey, a clickable prototype or Proof of Concept, and key market insights from focused user research. We’ll help you to identify the primary user flow, decide which framework should be used to bring it to life, and set a firm estimate on future development efforts. Maximize impact and minimize risk with a validated roadmap for your new product. Get started at: tbot.io/sprintSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Geronda Wollack-Spiller is the DEI Program Manager at thoughtbot. Chad talks with Geronda about implementing a successful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program at the company by providing a culture of belonging, the challenges, in particular, the tech industry faces, and acknowledging that many of us work in spaces where when we're bringing someone onto a team who has underrepresented identities, they might be the only one. How do we create a space that's as inclusive as possible? Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at thoughtbot Follow Geronda on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Geronda Wollack-Spiller, the DEI Program Manager at thoughtbot. Geronda, thank you so much for joining me. GERONDA: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. CHAD: In honor of Pride Month, we're doing something extra special for this episode in addition to just having you as an extra special guest. We're recording live in front of thoughtbot remotely. We've got a whole bunch of people watching. I can hear them cheering off in the distance for you as you make your debut on the podcast. GERONDA: [laughs] CHAD: Thanks for joining me. GERONDA: Thank you. Nice. [laughs] CHAD: So you joined thoughtbot as our first ever DEI program manager back...when was it? GERONDA: Oh, April, yeah, April fourth. CHAD: It's been a whirlwind few months. Thank you already for all of the contributions that you've made to the company already. GERONDA: Oh, thank you. No problem. CHAD: Tell us a little bit about your role. And then I can provide some fill-in terms of what we were thinking when we added this. But let's start with sharing a little bit about your role. GERONDA: A lot of my role is about...so it's a lot of understanding the processes that we have, people operations processes, and really thinking about how do we provide more of a...or improve our ability to provide a culture of belonging. And so a lot of what I do is I will partner across with people operations, and I'll look at things like promotions, and who are we promoting? Who are we hiring? Improvements to performance management processes. How are we giving feedback? Who are our managers? And a lot of what I'll do, too, is execute against the goals that were set by our DEI Council before I had joined, which the council is great. And I'll look to see are there different ways that we should be looking at goals? So one of the things that I'm doing right now is I'm building out a multi-year roadmap for DEI. And I'm incorporating a lot of the goals that the council has already put together, which has been super great. And I want to create a space that feels like a safer or brave space for anyone to come to me with concerns, questions, suggestions. And I partner a lot with different groups to be able to understand their needs and make sure that we are voicing and amplifying historically marginalized groups but also providing a lot of the education around what DEI means and how we can do that in our everyday jobs. So I am co-chair of the DEI Council. I support that council to take on different projects, build out task force, work with everyone across the company to contribute, and infuse diversity, equity, and inclusion within the company. So that's a lot of what I do. [laughs] Other things involved, but that gives you kind of a high level of my role. CHAD: Yeah, that's great. I've talked before on the show about the DEI Council in a few different episodes, mostly in passing. And overall, when we started on...the concept of a council came from some consultants that we had worked with previously to do an audit. They provided us with a few different suggestions about how we could continue on from that audit and take action. And one of the things, especially with our geographic studios, the way that we used to be organized the idea of one person from each of those studios coming together on a council to work together and then bring the work back to their studios for action really resonated with us as a structure that could work pretty well for us given the structure. We've obviously since gone completely remote. And the council is no longer specifically tied to those individual teams or those offices that we no longer have. But the council is still that, a group of people from a wide array across the company who come together and focus on and organize our work around diversity, equity, and inclusion. And we saw the opportunity in your role to have someone provide continuity and organization and experience to the council to help make it even more effective at thoughtbot. And I think we're just getting started with that. But I think it's been very positive overall, your addition, and like I said at the top of the show, thank you again for your contribution so far. GERONDA: [laughs] No problem. Thank you for hiring me. Thanks. CHAD: [laughs] Well, speaking of hiring, you've done a few different things over the years. And I'm curious; you started in more general human resources roles. Was it a goal from the beginning of your career to move into a DEI role, or did that evolve along the way? GERONDA: Ooh, interesting question. Yeah, it actually evolved along the way. I thought I would be an HR project manager and I would be leading projects across global companies. And when I started in my career, I was an HR operations analyst, and I was doing a lot of the HR product management. But what I discovered is every single time that I would be in a role, I kept looking at things from a DEI lens without realizing that I was. And then, as I started continuing to do that, I fell in love with it. And I was like, okay, this is my place of where I want to be. So even though I was doing projects related to HR, if I would do recruiting operations, I would look at okay, well, who are we actually targeting, and who are we hiring? And what are the opportunities and gaps? Then I worked in the education space, and I would look at, well, how are we actually...like, what types of demographics are we bringing to the schools? So I would do things in my role that were very diversity, equity, inclusion-focused even though I was an HR product manager or in operations. And I started realizing I really loved more of the diversity, equity, and inclusion side of things. So instead of continuing to get roles in HR, I was like, I have to get a role in DEI because that's where my passion lended itself more so. I made that decision from my last company that the next role I have, I will not take it unless it's DEI-focused. So it developed and evolved over time. CHAD: Some people might have the thought...I have to confess sometimes I've also had this thought as like, why can't just DEI be weaved through everything HR does or through everything everybody thinks about all of the time? Why do you need a specific DEI person at a company? And I've come to understand that it's hard to do that. [laughter] But I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that. GERONDA: It is challenging because you also have to think of it as everybody is in a different place with diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But there are some people who are incredibly passionate about it. And then there are others that are aware of it, but they may want to just kind of focus on their job. Or they might think, well, we just need to treat everybody the same. Like, why is that so hard? So because everyone's in different places in their level of understanding and the importance of it, it does get tricky to think of things in that lens, especially in your day-to-day job. Your priorities change consistently. So you might be working on a project here. But then you're now shifting to a new team, and you're shifting to all these different places. And it does become challenging to keep it top of mind for a lot of people in the company. And so I think that the overall almost resolution to that is the more that you start to continue to talk about it, the more that you have accountability. And you're training people like leadership and managers and everyone to be aware of what it means, and what the language is, and how you can think of these things. It takes time, but then it slowly starts to get easier. Sometimes there is an understandable fear of I don't know where to begin, and I don't know what I don't know. I don't want to make a mistake. I don't know how to look at this. And should I be looking at this? But I think that when there is a lot of the understanding from the leadership level, and it goes down to managers, and you start to infuse it across different spaces, it does come a little bit easier. So I'll say what I like a lot of what thoughtbot does is there's a lot of open communication and transparency around things like goals, around hiring, and trainings that we maybe want to offer. So I do think it can be hard. I don't think that you can also get every single person involved in an expertise level. And you shouldn't expect anyone to be an expert, but starting to think about their job and how this could impact themselves or others, it does take some time. CHAD: And I already alluded to this earlier, but I think we have an additional challenge which is because the majority of us are all on client work all the time and consultants, that through-line, that continuity of when we identify something, really having someone who can be that continuous force, an organization as people rotate through the council or as people's workload with client work or attention ebbs and flows. I think that that is one of the additional challenges that we have that you help with. GERONDA: Yeah. And the rotations on the council are super helpful as well and then creating a space for anyone to come to you with questions. I like that we have this anonymous forum where you can submit a question if you're not comfortable asking it publicly, whether it's you want to learn more or something's going on that you want to talk through. I think that's also very, very helpful. And just continuously educating and giving the space for the practical implementation of what you're trying and what you're doing will also give you a little bit more of that comfortability rather than learning about something and then hoping that you're doing it well. So it's challenging, but we'll get there, and it's worth it. [laughs] And every company has these types of challenges, so it's not unique. CHAD: So you didn't originally start off working in the tech space. And so I'm curious what you've learned or seen that either is good or bad about the tech space in particular, what challenges this industry has. And it is Pride Month, so I guess there's a lens, particularly of LGBTQ+ challenges. Is tech particularly challenging? GERONDA: Yeah, I think as an industry, it's particularly challenging. So I worked in education, as I mentioned. I worked in the optometry industry, which I will say has very significant challenges just for the industry itself. But tech is challenging. I think there are moves that are being made in tech. But what I'm starting to notice in terms of challenges for the LGBTQ+ community is a lot of things where there is this sometimes perception, depending on how visible you may be, that you are qualified and not qualified. And what I mean by that is for the trans community or the transgender community, in particular, it can be very challenging because you may not what they call pass as the gender that you are looking to reassign yourself to. So if you are male, and I hear this a lot from other people, is if I'm male and I want to transition to female, I may still be going through the process. So when somebody looks at me, I might still present masculine features. And there is this misconception or this uncomfortability that I may not be qualified to do a job. So in the tech space as well, it's really hard during the hiring process sometimes to be taken seriously because of how you might look or how you might present yourself. I will say that in a lot of spaces, the culture in a company in tech what I've noticed is it has this generally casual feeling to it and a sense of you can come in, and you'll be taken seriously. And you can meet with different groups. But I think what I've noticed is when you're trying to get into tech, there are not a lot of people that are similar to you. And it's really hard to find those types of people because not everyone's going to be out. There are assumptions that are made that if a woman's hair is short, she must be lesbian. So we misgender people. And when going into the tech space, I think that there's a hesitation because you don't necessarily see a customer base similar to you or other team members similar to you. There could be those things like mental health challenges because you don't know if you can come out in a space, or you don't know if you're going to come out, and that could affect your role. So a lot of times, you'll hear and what I've been hearing in the tech space, is those who are transgender are usually the only ones on a team that are transgender. If you look at also for the LGBTQ+ community, you have to also consider the varying identities that come with a person. So an experience for a Black woman who is queer could be very different than a white male who is gay. So there are those different identities. So the vulnerability piece, and in the hiring process, and going into tech, you already hear what's going on and the challenges that are happening for the community. So you may be hesitant or might be a little bit fearful of what that would look like. I think in the tech space as well, a lot of executive leaders or managers are predominantly cis-gendered white males. So when you see that, and there's not as much representation at the top, you kind of have that sense, and you wonder, is this a place that I feel like I can belong and have a generally safe experience? And then the skill set, too, I think what I've been hearing, and what I've been reading and just researching, and what I've been noticing just speaking to other people is the promotion opportunity for those in the community feels like you have to work much harder to get known and be visible because a lot of times, you may want to promote people that are similar to you. So if you have teams that are more cisgendered White males, you may find that those teams are not as diverse. And the industry itself, I do feel like it is becoming more diverse. I think Lesbians Who Tech, for example, was a conference that I'm so glad that you let me attend because -- [laughter] CHAD: I didn't let you. That's not permission, or rather I encouraged you to attend. [laughter] GERONDA: Better wording. Thank you, Chad. You encouraged me to attend, and you're encouraging me to attend the one in October. But just seeing in my experience and looking at the tech space, I wasn't sure what the demographic would look like. But going to that conference and then going to the one...I'm in Seattle, Washington, and there was a local one in Seattle, Washington. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gay men, lesbians, transgender, and I didn't even realize that there were so many of us in the community in that space. And it was fantastic and amazing to see. But I think visibility is another piece that we're struggling with because you want to be able to amplify those voices and give those opportunities. So that's what I'm seeing a lot in the tech space. I do think that we're improving in those areas. But those are the challenges that I see in that space. CHAD: To go back to one thing that you said, this idea of being the only one puts people in a difficult position. And I think because tech as an industry is not that diverse, to begin with, you end up with that in a lot of different identities, not just LGBTQ+. If you are historically underrepresented or have historically underrepresented identities, it's really likely that you're going to be the only one and especially the intersection of your identities. If you have multiple underrepresented identities, then it's very likely that you might be the only one. Mid-Roll Ad: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you’re tight on time and investment, which is why we’ve created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product’s next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at: tbot.io/entrepreneurs CHAD: As leaders, as companies, as a community that wants to do better, let's solve it all right now, Geronda. GERONDA: [laughs] CHAD: No, we're not going to solve it all now. But what are some ways...like acknowledging that many of us work in spaces where we might not have...or when we're bringing someone onto the team who has underrepresented identities, they might be the only one. How do we make a space that's as inclusive as possible for that person? GERONDA: The big thing that I always like to say is try not to put all of the work on that person to solve it for themselves. And when they come in, I think what's really great and what I've seen work well is having that initial conversation with that person who's joining, get to know them first, and give them an opportunity to say, "If there's anything that you would love to have here or anything that you find challenging, I want you to feel that you can come to me. You can go to HR or DEI program manager, whoever." So it's providing that space to say if you need support in feeling comfortable, whether it's in your job or just you as an individual, I want to offer that. And so please be as open as you can with me. And it's providing those different spaces to amplify the voice of that person. So, in meetings, if you're noticing maybe that they are more reserved or hesitant to speak, ask for their opinion if they're okay with that. Recognizing the great work that they've done, giving a lot of that recognition, and then also offering different ways that they can get the community that they want. So what I love is that we have Slack, and we've started ERGs. And so that gives you a lot of opportunity. We have a Slack channel for the LGBTQ+ ERG. But we also have a private channel for LGBTQ so that we can talk about things that are working, not working, working well. And definitely getting their experience and looking for ways that you can involve them and recognize them and continuing to check in with them. So regular one-on-one checking could just be how are things going? How are you feeling being a part of this team? What are some things that we can do differently to make you feel welcome? And that's a question that you can ask everybody so that it's not feeling like you're just targeting that one person. So asking those questions and checking in with that person is really helpful. And then, considering the people that are coming in, how are things like benefits being provided? So things like if somebody who's transgender comes in or an employee decides they want to transition, are we providing gender-affirming care as part of benefits? So those are different ways that we can have them be included and offering up the things that we provide that could potentially be a community like Slack, like the DEI Council, like having those different conversations. And when you start to do things like this, like us doing this pride event, that is pretty significant. We didn't just slap a logo on LinkedIn and just say, "Oh, okay, Happy Pride." We had lightning talks. We get education. We learned about the community. You're having me on here to talk more about it. We're doing a big celebration. And so that in itself is a pretty critical step. But it is checking in and learning about the person and asking pretty frequently their experience, how they're feeling, their needs, and then looking to increase that diversity over time on that team so that you're not feeling tokenized as that person and always being the only. So those are things that I would suggest. CHAD: One maybe misconception or feeling that people might have...and I think it starts in the hiring process because you're not supposed to talk about these things in the hiring process. You're not allowed, at least in the United States, to ask someone their sexual orientation during the hiring process. Or if someone was transgender and you're interviewing them, it certainly should be a topic that you as a hiring manager don't bring up during the interview. So my sense is, and speaking personally but also broadly, it can then feel like you're not supposed to talk about those things once the person joins either. Why is that wrong? [laughter] GERONDA: So a couple of things I'll say about that is so if somebody brings it up, that can open up the conversation. I'm very open at the fact that I have a wife and that I'm lesbian. And I purposely do that, personally, to see what the reaction is going to be and what the company is going to offer. So I can determine if I feel like this is going to be a good space for me. I think that when you're having an interview, it's just like for anyone who may not be in the community. You don't really necessarily ask someone if they're married or "Are you having children?" You don't necessarily ask like, "Do you fall in this community?" or "Talk about transgender." Because a lot of times, there is this feeling of I have no idea what this space is going to feel like for me. I'm not going to out myself, and you may even out somebody who may not be out in their professional or their personal life yet. And you want to provide that comfortable space. But you don't want to do that either because then that person and across other interviewing spectrums bias can amplify a lot. And you can mislabel someone's gender. You might use the wrong pronouns, and pronouns are always optional. So I always say look at the person for their experience and what you want to learn more about relating to the job. Of course, you want to learn about them a little bit more personally as well. But it is more harm to try to identify their identity because that could lead to bias and could ultimately lead to discrimination because you don't know what that person's view is in the interview process either. CHAD: But once someone joins your team and assuming that they're open about their identities, and this applies to all identities, I think, then quote, unquote "treating everybody the same or ignoring people's identities actually does the reverse of what people intend." It makes an environment where people feel like they don't belong, that the identities that they have or what are important to them aren't recognized. And so you're not recognizing the person's full self, and you're not accommodating it and trying to build an inclusive environment. It could actually backfire if you intentionally ignore people's identities, right? GERONDA: Yes. So it can backfire if you ignore the identities, especially the identities that have been shared openly. So if I'm going to fill out a survey, let's say where identify myself as part of our hiring process, as a manager, I may not say, "Hey, I noticed that you checked off that you're transgender. How can I support you?" But it is going through the onboarding process and other areas to say here's what we offer from ERGs to benefits, to how we work, how we work as a team. And if that person does disclose that they're transgender, or they're in the LGBTQ+ community, or they mention their culture or what have you, you can then direct them in the right places to say, "Oh, we actually do have this LGBTQ+ ERG if you're interested. I know you may be talked about it in the onboarding process. If you're open to it, you can definitely join us, and here's how." And then, over time, it is really thinking about you may not know the identities of your team but taking time to do things in practice that would touch upon all identities. So when you're thinking about having team conversations, there may be somebody on your team who is neurodiverse. They might have autism, or they might have ADHD. And how you're communicating...then you start to think about meetings. Do you just do Google Meet meetings? Do you just do Typeform meetings? You have to think about different learning styles and for different identities. Like it's Pride Month right now, just saying Happy Pride Month to everybody. And they may then be open to sharing more about their identity and sharing the activities that are happening in Pride Month, and encouraging them to do things on the council. So you want to make decisions that could think about different identities, even if you may not know what those identities are. And I also think it's being proactive and being ready that you might have those identities. So things like I had mentioned where you might be providing gender-affirming care, or you might look at your parental leave policies and other things that you have available for that. So I would say without knowing the identity, I think over time, as you build trust that [inaudible 28:24] start to develop and come out. But it's also if somebody's coming to you in confidence with something, really taking that very, very seriously. If I, God forbid, came to you, Chad, and was like, "Chad, I'm coming out to you. I am lesbian, but I'm not comfortable with sharing with everybody else." I would trust that you wouldn't share that amongst other people. So that's another piece to that as well. CHAD: Yeah, that's a really good point. I think as people in that position, in management positions, we need proper training around those kinds of situations to ensure that we handle them well. I think training is an important part of being a manager but also just DEI in general training and equipping everybody. GERONDA: Yes. Having a common language across the board and a common understanding across the board is very important. Because when you think of diversity, equity, and inclusion, everybody may have varying understandings of what those mean. Some people may not know what those mean, and so having that common language across the board and understanding. And then yes, training, of course, and opportunities for you to then practice that training in spaces and getting feedback along the way. CHAD: So I imagine that there are a lot of people listening who this is really important to them. It's an important topic or a place where they want to make improvement for themselves or their company. They might not have a lot of support or resources at their company. There might not be a DEI Council already. And I know every company is different. Every team is different. But are there some things that individuals or leaders might start thinking about or doing specifically if they're just getting started with this? GERONDA: So if you're just getting started, I always say there are a lot of great resources out there for you to consider. So whether that's a book...LinkedIn has really great training on just understanding DEI and how to be an inclusive leader or work in an inclusive environment. But I would say a really great place to start is if you don't have this already, think about what your demographic looks like. And what are some things that other companies may be doing? So joining different channels and saying, "We're at the beginning stages. What are some things that we can do?" But I think what's most helpful to start is you have to gauge where you are as a company and understand your people and the demographic and do something that allows for an open discussion and open forum to get perspectives from other people. So I know things like listening tours where you might talk to different departments or different teams. Or if a company is small enough like our company, you can meet with each person and then think about what are some common themes that you're seeing? That can also create a great space for that. I'd also say you can put out a survey to see what the experience is. So if you are doing things like engagement surveys, you can absolutely include things in there about what do you think we're missing? What would you hope to see? But I think a lot of it is you have to understand your people and what you have available to you at the company and provide an opportunity for everyone to share their ideas and perspectives to that. So what I've seen work really well is one, when you start to understand there has to also be this communication and this accountability at the leadership level to say, "This is why we're focusing on this. This is why we think it's important. We want to hear from you." And something that I thought was really unique and helpful is if your company is small enough or even if it's big enough, a lot of companies what they'll do is they'll have the CEO, or they'll have managers host these kinds of forums where you can meet with them, and you can share. You can ask them a ton of questions. You can share your ideas. You can share what you hope to achieve from this and just starting to get perspectives first. And that may, over time, start to evolve into a council or people wanting to do an ERG. But really get as much as you can from people and then learn a lot from that as well. CHAD: That's great. I asked that question, and then it turns out it was one of the ones that someone submitted in the chat from a thoughtbot person. GERONDA: [laughs] CHAD: So I wanted to acknowledge that even though we overlapped the question, that question technically comes from Amy Wall, a developer at thoughtbot. Another question from Fernando is how can other employees support DEI people like you from a daily perspective? GERONDA: Just take over my job. [laughter] No, I'm just kidding. So it's always helpful for me to have transparent conversations of where you are. If you want to help me, it's helpful to learn about your experience and come to me with things that you're seeing or ask me questions. Also, don't be afraid either to say, "I really don't know what this means or what this is. Can you help me?" And it's also bringing learning as well because I'm not a developer, and I'm not a designer. [chuckles] I think that the work that our team does is fantastic. And they're super smart. And when I look at a lot of the things that are happening, like coding and conversations, although I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, it's really amazing to see. But from your perspective, there may be things that I am suggesting, like, oh, maybe we need to increase accessibility, and we do need to do these things. But be okay to challenge me and say, "I actually don't know that that's going to work well or not." But I think to support me in my role, the more that I know of the challenges, and the more that I know about you individually, and the more that you continue to bring these things up from a DEI perspective is super helpful. So what I've noticed and what I've really loved about working here is we have those opportunities to have those very open, transparent conversations. And we can post about issues, and we can post about things that we want to change in our handbook. And sometimes people come to me with questions. And I love that people come to me and say, "This is what I want to work on more. Do you have any suggestions?" That really helps me in my role because as much as I would love to know everything that's happening with every single person, it can be challenging. So be honest with me and just share what's going on and be willing to learn and share resources with me too. Yes, I'm a DEI practitioner, but that doesn't mean I know everything. I know it's very surprising to a lot of people right now that I don't know everything. CHAD: [laughs] GERONDA: But share things you're reading. Share things that you've noticed. That helps me a ton. So that's how I say you can help me. And thank you for that question, Fernando. I appreciate that. CHAD: A thing I would add is recognizing that there are, especially at thoughtbot, multiple levels of ways that you can support and contribute to our efforts. So we try to identify on the council okay, this is the thing we want to work on. The council isn't intended to do everything. But so what we'll often do is we'll say, okay, we're going to gather a group of people in a task force, and we're going to work on this. I think that's another level of contribution. So showing up for those participating in them when they arrive, and frankly, not signing on to too much because you spread yourself too thin and then can't do a good job doing everything that you want to do. So yeah, those are some tips that I would add. Geronda, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I really appreciate it. GERONDA: Thank you for having me. I appreciate that. CHAD: Happy Pride. [laughs] GERONDA: Yes. Happy Pride. I'm so excited. I feel like I'm a little biased, but this is like my favorite month of the year. [laughter] Lots of fun celebrations. And of course, I recognize other holidays, and I think they are very important. But this one is generally very close to my heart. So thank you. CHAD: Well, if folks want to follow along with you, get in touch with you, find out more, where are all the places that they can do that? GERONDA: Yes. Follow me on LinkedIn, Geronda Wollack-Spiller. I'm on Twitter at @gerondaws. And I think those are the two best places to follow me. I'm most active on LinkedIn. And I usually respond there pretty heavily. CHAD: We'll include those links in the show notes, which you can find attached to this episode. And you can subscribe to the show, find all those notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. And thanks to all the thoughtbot people who were in the chat, and with the questions, and paid attention and listened to this episode. And see you next time. GERONDA: Yes. [laughs] ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Geronda Wollack-Spiller.Sponsored By:thoughtbot: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you’re tight on time and investment, which is why we’ve created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product’s next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at: tbot.io/entrepreneursSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Panos Siozos is Co-Founder and CEO of LearnWorlds, an online course platform for creating, selling, and promoting online courses. Chad talks with Panos about building e-learning platforms dating back to 1999, providing rich feature sets and catering to customers located in lots of different places, and deciding to stop bootstrapping and take investor money. LearnWorlds Follow LearnWorlds on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. Follow Panos on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giants Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel and with me today is Panos Siozos, Co-Founder and CEO of LearnWorlds, an online course platform for creating, selling, and promoting online courses. Panos, thank you so much for joining me. PANOS: Hi, Chad, and thanks for hosting me. CHAD: You have been working on LearnWorlds for a while now. Where did the idea come from? PANOS: I guess this has been brewing in our minds, mine and my co-founder's, for many years. We built our very first e-learning platform back in 1999, right after completing our studies in computer science. And we started postgraduate studies in educational technology. So in an academic setting, though, we had built many, many e-learning products, platforms, and authoring tools. And we were always exploring the state of the art. And we always had it in the back of our minds the possibility and our obligation, I guess, to create a commercial product at some point and try to get the state of the art of e-learning that we were exploring in the academia and put it at the hands of actual trainers, and teachers, and give them the tools to create the best possible online courses that they could. That was always at the back of our minds. And after completing our Ph.D. studies, after working in different jobs and different roles, we got back together at some point in 2012. And at that point, the conditions for e-learning were very, very mature. It was like bandwidth was in abundance. It was easy to create videos. It was easy to distribute videos. Cloud computing made it even easier to create software as a service platforms. And we understood that it was the perfect moment to come together, take our expertise, and try to put it in an amazing product that would be commercial and help all those people out there that wanted to create online courses. CHAD: So I think you launched in 2014. PANOS: Yes, we spent a couple of years. We started building the platform in 2012 in stealth mode. We were, I guess, traditional engineers. We had this build it, and they will come mentality. CHAD: [chuckles] PANOS: We had done almost like in the first year almost zero research on customer development and business development. We just had in mind to create the best possible platform that we could, and then obviously, people would just buy it because it's the best. Obviously, things don't always work that way. So we created the platform then we started talking with potential customers. We launched commercially in 2014. And this is when we had our very first customers, people who had the online courses. They had the online content. They had audiences, but they didn't have a platform. It seemed a huge burden and a huge task to create an actual platform to deliver and sell their courses. And this is where we came in and started providing our tool as a software as a service solution. CHAD: So in 2014, I'm sure that there were other competing products on the market. Today, there are probably even more. What makes LearnWorlds different from all of those or better from those? PANOS: In 2014, it was very early, I guess, in online courses. Most people were going to marketplaces like Udemy or Coursera. It was very difficult back then to create your own online school, to own the website. We had people who were either using traditional clunky Jurassic; I would say, learning management systems. CHAD: [chuckles] PANOS: And they were trying to adapt them for e-commerce and all the stuff, and it was always very difficult to do. Others were trying to duct tape together WordPress sites and plugins and custom codes. And that was something that wasn't scaling very gracefully. I would say after a couple of 100 users, it was almost impossible to maintain sites like that. Others were trying to create their own platforms, write code internally or hire a couple of developers. And then a few months or a couple of years and after having spent a couple hundred thousand dollars, they were realizing that this is very difficult to develop a tool like that unless you've done that in the past and you know what you're doing. So it was very timely to bring to the market a product like that. What differentiated us from the others and what still differentiates us is that we have an obsessive focus on the learner experience. We're probably the only, I don't want to sound presumptuous, but we're probably the only course platform creators or, let's say, founders or co-founders of a course platform who have actually studied that. And we have PhDs in edtech. So we are bringing lots of our academic background into the platform. And we know that initially, this was even detrimental to growing the platform because, in some ways, the platform was even too complex for what people were expecting and could absorb back then in terms of features. But as the years passed by, we managed to find an excellent balance between how powerful the platform can be in terms of amazing design, offering great, interactive, engaging learning experiences, and also offering the ease of use and all the commercial features that users would expect. So we have a deep product with lots of offering affordances. For example, people can create amazing interactive videos very easily, just like editing a PowerPoint, I would say. You can just upload a normal video that you shot yourself, perhaps using a mobile phone, and you can convert it into an amazing interactive experience. And this is something very important for the students, the customers that will actually, at the end, consume the content. So to this day, the platform is very innovative. We're still participating in research projects, and we're seeing what is the state of the art of e-learning? And we're trying to implement that into the platform, obviously, now with amazing feedback from thousands of customers and millions of end-users. So it's an amazing opportunity to give to the people the things that they actually need and use to create the best possible online courses and sell as many of them as possible. CHAD: One of the things, and it speaks right to the value proposition of the product that you use, is that there are so many features that you can have. And so, if you embark on the journey of creating your own platform, it's really easy to look at the surface level of what that looks like and say, "Oh, that's easy." PANOS: Yes. CHAD: But then, when it comes to other features, you have the ability to make mobile applications on LearnWorlds and those kinds of things. Like, that's a rich feature set that is really difficult to deliver on your own, right? PANOS: It's very difficult to deliver on your own, and some things look deceptively simple. And when you actually see what is under the hood, it is very, very complicated to deliver a super user-friendly and easy tool or platform or authoring environment. So the platform is very powerful because people have all these different needs. We're talking here this is a platform that can support both the, I don't know, the nice, old lady that wants to sell some knitting courses, and she has a community of a couple of dozen people who follow her and consume her courses, all the way to online schools that run with more than 300,000 users. It's extremely difficult to be able to scale a school to a size like that. And in many cases, people might start simple. They might even create a nice, simple user interface with a couple of videos. This is something that everybody believes that they can do. And they can do it initially, but once they have a couple of hundred users, or a couple of thousand users, their success becomes problematic. They cannot keep up with all the demands for something like that. And then they need more features. They need more features for doing their marketing. They need analytics. They need the scale and the reliability that a platform that serves a few thousand users requires. There are all sorts of things that people miss. So we believe that you don't necessarily have to reinvent the wheel, especially when there are amazing ready-made wheels out there, white-labeled wheels where you can just go to a platform like ours. And in a couple of days, you can have an amazing online school customized and optimized for your own case study, for your own audience, for your own language, for your own design. The settings that you need to power your own business model, whether it's selling courses on their own, selling memberships, selling subscriptions, bundles of courses, all those different things that look simple on the outside but they require lots of precision to work great and delivering in scale. CHAD: So, given the rich feature set, I'm sure that you have a lot of customers located in lots of different places. I'm sure they have different needs, too, different profiles. How do you as a company go about deciding what to work on? And how does the workflow through your organization? PANOS: This is always a very interesting task, something that we are doing almost every month. We update our roadmap on a quarterly basis. But every month, we go out and check again the feature requests, and the trends in the market and the industry, and all the things that are happening. We receive hundreds of feature requests from our existing customers every week, and these are being organized and prioritized. And we always try, obviously, to help our own existing customer base. But we work with many partners and other platforms as well to create integrations and to deliver features, and uncover needs that people have today. And in the past couple of years, as you can imagine, with COVID, we had to adapt many changes to the new business models and the new ways that people started creating, delivering, and consuming online courses. For example, when COVID started, almost overnight, there was a huge demand for creating and delivering live courses with no pre-recorded videos. That's something that used to be quite frequent feature requests, let's say. Before COVID, we had it in our roadmap. Once we understood what COVID would mean for the industry, almost overnight, we stopped other things that we were doing and started working hard on delivering, let's say, our Zoom integration. So in just a matter of a few short weeks, it was super easy for anybody who wanted to teach. You imagine how the situation was amidst the lockdowns. People their businesses were shutting down. They couldn't reach their audiences, their customers. Their revenue streams had ran out. So we brought to the market this integration, and it was super easy for a photography teacher, a yoga teacher, a coach from anywhere to just create an online course, plug in their Zoom account, and be able to deliver courses, either one-on-one, to a small group or even to hundreds of students. So we had to adapt as the market was adapting, and the same comes when it comes about business models, ways of getting paid, different payment methods. For example, some European countries...as a European company, we're also very attuned to what our European customers need. In several European countries, credit cards, traditional credit cards like Visa and MasterCard are not the most frequently used methods of digital payments. So we have to work with local payment gateways to provide these kinds of solutions. Also, for taxes, taxes in Europe are way more when you're selling from one country to the other. They’re much more difficult and complex than in the U.S., So we have to adapt to the demands from customers and offer solutions like that. So it's always anticipating, seeing what the actual users need but also keeping a large chunk, I would say, space for innovating, bringing to the product things that people don't actually ask for because they don't even know that they could exist and that they could be helpful. And this is where our expertise, I would say, comes into play. Our team is constantly researching trends and other platforms and how people interact with platforms and other tools. And we try to stay ahead of the curve, not just follow what others are doing but be the leaders in this kind of chase. And rightly, you mentioned there are dozens of platforms out there. It's great to see so much innovation in so many different platforms. Especially after COVID, I can say that it seems like there is a viral spread of new platforms. We almost see one new platform every week. And it's nice because it seems that the industry is very hot. And there is lots of demand for these kinds of solutions. We do have a head start, and we will continue to improve the product and bring an amazing solution to people who want to use something like that. MID-ROLL AD: Now that you have funding, it’s time to design, build and ship the most impactful MVP that wows customers now and can scale in the future. thoughtbot Lift Off brings you the most reliable cross-functional team of product experts to mitigate risk and set you up for long-term success. As your trusted, experienced technical partner, we’ll help launch your new product and guide you into a future-forward business that takes advantage of today’s new technologies and agile best practices. Make the right decisions for tomorrow, today. Get in touch at: thoughtbot.com/liftoff CHAD: One of the features that you have is localization, being able to have your content in lots of different languages. How early on did you add that feature? PANOS: This is something that we had to do very early on. The first iteration of the platform, before even founding the company when we were just a side project, was built for the Greek market and the Greek language. So that was in a very difficult situation back in 2013, 2014. There was a huge financial crisis in Greece back then. So once we had the product ready, we realized that nobody wanted to invest in e-learning. It was a very tough situation to be in. So that's probably one of the best things that happened to us. Because almost overnight, like in day two, we had to go to an existing mature market, which was the U.S. market, where people were willing to test a new platform. They really liked what the platform could do. They were ready to risk a product, a new product that was brought into market by a small ragtag team from the other side of the world. And so we had to adapt to a new language. So that was something that came in very early on and was very helpful in dealing with different markets and different localizations, working with different payment gateways, and becoming an international product from very early on. So right now, we have customers in more than 110 countries; even though U.S. is by far our biggest market, almost half of our market is based in the U.S. But we are very willing and able to work with new markets and help them and help people bring their own localizations and their own translations into the platform. CHAD: Yeah, that jumped out at me because I've seen other products that don't have that feature. And I think it's in part because a new company started in the United States knows that they have a fairly big addressable market just within the U.S., and they don't necessarily need to support multiple languages. And I thought that, and that's what I heard, was that the fact that you were not in the U.S. compelled you to have localization really early on. You've also mentioned a few other ways in which that has influenced you. How do you think being in Greece and being a European startup has influenced you as a company overall? PANOS: This is the DNA and the blueprint of how the company eventually grew. For example, we started in Greece amidst a dire financial crisis. We were, from day one, a remote company because of the conditions of the co-founders. So we happened to be in three different cities, two different countries. And we just wanted to work together. We didn't have any long-term plans of how a company would evolve. So from day one, we became a remote company. So as you can imagine, in the next few years, that gave us...and even when COVID came, that gave us an immense advantage because that's the way we had been working. We knew that full remote was an option from day one. The second thing that really also influenced us is that because we were growing in a situation...amidst this financial crisis, we were a bootstrapped company. We didn't have access to any external funding, which obviously made things much more difficult at the beginning. We couldn't get access to funds and invest in marketing very early on and push the platform heavily. On the other end, as a bootstrapped company, we developed a mentality of being very resource-efficient, cash-efficient, paying great attention to all of our KPIs and our unit economics, doing lots of unscalable things, as Paul Graham would say, you know, wearing lots of hats, investing a lot in people who didn't have the credentials, let's say, or the experience that one would expect from to hire in a U.S-founded startup. So we had to invest in the local people, in the local skills, amazing youth. We're talking here back in 2013, 2014. Youth unemployment in Greece was about 70%. So it was a terrible situation. It's like this meme where people were asked to have experience, but nobody was giving them a chance to develop this work experience. So we invested in people like that. And that's the best thing we did. So we're talking about a remote bootstrapped startup with a can-do mentality with access to amazing people, not specialized or skilled, let's say, or experienced in this particular software as a service role but very smart and willing to work and excel and do better for themselves and for the company. So I think that was the recipe that helped the business grow. And also, coming from a small market, we had to adapt to a fragmented European market. Europe is a huge market of about 500 million people, a few less now, a few million less now, barring UK. But this is a fragmented market. You don't have a unified market of one language. One currency may be, yes, in most countries, but we're talking different languages, and different tax regimes, and all the staff and different mentality even. So we had to adapt. This is difficult. But also, it gives you the resilience and the flexibility to adapt to all these different cases. And then going international was very natural to us. It's not that we started in a small market, and then we're trying to create a foothold in a second market or the third market. From day one, we had to look outward to find the people who would use and dare to use a platform like ours and try to be our best selves and try to give them an amazing product. CHAD: Yeah, that's great. You mentioned that you initially bootstrapped. Have you taken investment since then? PANOS: Yes, we have. We did a small seed round of about $1.1 million in 2019 with a small local VC. And then last year, about a year ago, we closed a Series A funding round of $32 million with Insight Partners. CHAD: That's great. Congratulations. What caused you to make the decision to stop bootstrapping and take an investment in that seed round? PANOS: That was the point when we realized that we needed the extra fuel in order to push the pedal. We were seeing that we already had a great product. We were on to something. It would have been too slow to continue working in a bootstrapped mode with a few resources that we had. We wanted to accelerate. We wanted to accelerate hiring, product development, and all this stuff. So we didn't actually need the money back then for the viability of the company, which is actually, I guess, the best reason to raise money and the best time when we don't actually need it. So that's how we started. That gave us the extra confidence. It allowed us to bring in a few extra people. We started investing more in hiring professionals that had already done that, who had already experience in SaaS businesses and international businesses. And that gave us a lot more certainty and trust in ourselves to keep growing the product and going further. And this last round with Insight Partners...Insight Partners is one of the top VCs in the private equity funds. They also bring in an amazing team of operators who can always jump in and help in case we need something. So it helps us expand our horizons, be more aggressive in our hiring, much more confident about what we can do. And that also has given a great boost to the business and the team. CHAD: This idea of acceleration and going faster is an interesting one. I've seen it in our clients as well where, especially if you're in a competitive market, you could have a good growing reasonable business, but if everyone else around you is raising money, raising capital, and accelerating, that can put you back especially if you don't realize it. Do you feel like that was part of what was causing you to want to accelerate? PANOS: Yes, yes, definitely. So e-learning is a complex industry, let's say. What we're doing is very competitive because the market is always changing. People demand more. New business models require new features, and everybody wants an all-in-one platform that will keep doing more and more. So you cannot just stand still. It's not like a micro SaaS where you can have a feature the same working for five years, and you can still have people signing up and using that. You have to be ahead. You have to adapt. This is a very fast pacing industry. And now there are so many different players from all different industries who look at online courses and content delivery in general in new ways and start approaching from different angles, whether they are marketing tools, or video hosting providers, or email marketing providers, or traditional learning management systems. So there are many people around this online course industry. So you need to have a war chest. You need to bring in experts. You need to keep investing in R&D and improving the product and also customer success, making sure that your amazing customers can perform even better, and they can take advantage of all the features in the platform. So you cannot just stand still; that's not an option. You can perhaps get away with it for two to three years. But eventually, the product will fizzle out. We will not be able to compete with what is happening. You mentioned all these different platforms coming into the market. You have to stay ahead. And luckily, now, with the recent funding and obviously with the help of our customers, we have all the resources that we needed to implement the vision that we have for the product. All the things that we couldn't do in the past because we were constrained in terms of resources, and time and money, now we are able to innovate much faster, bring many more new features to the platform and to the market, and help people create the best possible online courses. CHAD: You mentioned that when you raised that initial seed round, you did it with a local investment company. Was that intentional? I took a peek; the company is Marathon Venture Capital. And they specifically say on their website that they day one partner to Greek tech founders, so they're very focused. [laughs] PANOS: Yes, they're very focused. There is a huge network obviously of Greek founders almost everywhere in the world. So they have a deep pool of people to reach out to and a huge network. It was definitely; also there was a parameter of convenience, you know, them being close, being able to communicate easily, having the same kind of mentality and the same kind of experiences. This obviously makes things much more easier. I guess at that point; it would be much more difficult to go from a bootstrapped remote ragtag team to a fully funded company with a traditional, let's say, Silicon Valley-based VC. Even explaining back then in 2019 that you are a remote company wasn't easy. It's something that made some people wonder about how serious you are about that. What are your plans going forward? How are you going to hire? How are you going to compete? How are you going to hire people if you don't have these amazing startup offices with the pool tables and all the stuff? But we were saying that it's feasible. You can do it. I mean, you can find the people who want this kind of lifestyle who appreciate this flexibility, who want to be close to their families and work from their small cities somewhere in Greece or in other countries and be close, let's say, online with another team. We weren't crazy back then. So it was much easier to make these kinds of propositions to a local team. I guess it was convenient, and we had a good match. But already, this investment prepared us a lot in terms of organizing the business, due diligence, taking care of our finance and reporting, and all the stuff, and legal and made us ready to go for a bigger investment later when we needed it and when the time was right. CHAD: So from three co-founders in 2014, how large is your team now? PANOS: I think with the recent hires, we're about 120 people right now. We are still fully remote. In fact, in the next few weeks, we will just open a small co-working space in Athens where about half of our staff resides. But this is going to be more of a co-working space kind of experience. I think right now; we have people in our team from 16 different nationalities in 11 different countries. But still, the majority of the people are based in Greece, so here are the roots of the company. But we are internationalizing fast, getting people everywhere we can find them. People that fit the business, we're happy to bring them on board, and these kinds of remote-first flexible environment that we have is very fitting for some amazing people from all over the world. And they prefer that actually than returning back to an office. CHAD: For yourself as a leader, how have you needed to grow or change as your team has scaled so much? PANOS: We're still doing that. CHAD: [laughs] PANOS: It's not just me. It's my co-founders as well, my two co-founders, Fanis and Giorgos. I wouldn't have been able, obviously, to do anything alone, neither any one of us, without having the others. Still to this day, we're very hands-on. We're involved in all the projects. In some cases, we were a bit more reluctant to delegate. But still, the team really appreciates that we're still in the trenches with them, learning, solving problems every day, trying to not give solutions from both ad hoc but be with them, solve problems with them. That's something that they appreciate a lot. And obviously, we are still...every day we are transitioning. We started as a team of three people on a side project that was just taking a few hours of our time per week. And this business came to be the biggest part of our lives, spending 12-plus hours every day and more, and weekends, and everything else with a growing team amidst some very difficult conditions like COVID where things were, you know, in our families and our cities, things were blowing up. And we had to stay close to our teams and keep delivering a product that was skyrocketing in terms of demand. So we are still learning; that's our motto here in LearnWorlds, getting better every single day, trying to enable our team be more enablers now and better project managers, inspire people in order to help them deliver the best that they can. We are lucky to be in a great industry with amazing customers, all of them creative people who create great content. They love their products. They love their own customers. So this is something that helps us have a great mission that our employees also share. So they see that it's not just about the numbers or about getting the MRR or getting the sale or whatever. But they really enjoy helping our customers and helping them create amazing little, online businesses and get their products online. Every day we get amazing feedback from our customers, and that really makes people around here very happy. At the end of the day, they go home, and they know that they helped launch another business or two and help people, in some cases, realize their dream of becoming independent, you know, escaping nine-to-five, or helping a coach or a trainer get some amazing reward for the fruit of their labor and the content that they have created with so much work. So this is a great thing to watch. And it's great being around people who enjoy this kind of business and this kind of environment. CHAD: Is there anything that when you were starting the company based on your prior experiences, both good or bad, at the other companies that you had worked at along the way in your career or your co-founders’ careers when you said okay, we're starting LearnWorlds. We're starting our own company. We specifically want to not make this mistake or instill this value in our culture that you were very intentional about? PANOS: There are probably a lot of things. I'm not sure if I can name one in particular, but we always wanted to create a business that we would love being employees of. So we wanted to be in an environment that we would enjoy being ourselves. That's probably kind of egocentric, like, it was about us. But I think there were some unspoken values in some cases or cases where we would see that no, this is bad; we shouldn't go down that path. We didn't want to replicate ourselves and create a company of people who'd look like us and react to the same things that we would. But we always wanted to have an environment that we would feel happy, and we would love to be part of. So far, at that scale of 120, we have managed, I guess, to do that. In many cases, this is also our number one priority. Features come and go. People come and go. Customers come and go. But we know that the biggest strength of this company is the minds of the people who work for us. We want them to be happy. We want them to come to work happy every day and bring their best. That is our major priority. And especially in times like that, their mental and physical well-being as well it's a major priority for us. And we believe that if we create these conditions of safety and trust, the empowerment and learning as well of constant improvement, we will achieve our goal, and we will have a team that will be working for a product that is going to be better every day and every week. And this shows, at the end of the day, this is something that customers can appreciate, either by seeing a new feature in the platform that they love or by receiving some amazing help from one of our customer support reps or an amazing demo from one of our salespeople. This is something that we are lucky still to show everywhere in the company. This is the mentality of the entire company. Hopefully, we'll be able to preserve these kinds of values and attitude as we scale. CHAD: That's great. I really wish that for you. Good luck and congratulations on all the success. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your story and your wisdom about scaling the company. If folks want to learn more about LearnWorlds or get in touch with you or follow along, where are all the places that they can do that? PANOS: You can always come to our website www.learnworlds.com. Our platform offers a 30-day free trial, no credit cards, no strings attached. If you have any questions around online courses or any ideas about what you could build yourself for your business, come to our website. Join us, and we will be happy to help you out and show you what is possible today. CHAD: Great. And you can subscribe to the show and find notes and a full transcript of this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Panos Siozos.Sponsored By:thoughtbot: Now that you have funding, it’s time to design, build and ship the most impactful MVP that wows customers now and can scale in the future. thoughtbot Lift Off brings you the most reliable cross-functional team of product experts to mitigate risk and set you up for long-term success. As your trusted, experienced technical partner, we’ll help launch your new product and guide you into a future-forward business that takes advantage of today’s new technologies and agile best practices. Make the right decisions for tomorrow, today. Get in touch at: thoughtbot.com/liftoffSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Tarush Aggarwal is the Founder and CEO of 5X, the modern data stack as a managed service that enables companies to answer business questions without having to worry about building data infrastructure or bringing in the right data engineering team. Chad talks with Tarush about the modern data stack movement, choosing things that make sense on behalf of their customers, and building a team culture at a company with a fairly large time zone distribution. 5x Follow 5x on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. Follow Tarush on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Tarush Aggarwal, the Founder and CEO of 5X, the modern data stack as a managed service that enables companies to answer business questions without having to worry about building data infrastructure or bringing in the right data engineering team. Tarush, thank you for joining me. TARUSH: Chad, thank you so much for having me on the show. Really looking forward to being here and hopefully adding some value for your listeners. CHAD: Yes, I'm sure that they will. I think many companies are either thinking about how they build their data infrastructure or thinking about how they leverage data for their business now. So 5X provides a path for them to do that, and I'd love to dive in. How does 5X, like I said in the intro, enable companies to get started without having to worry about building this infrastructure themselves or this team themselves? TARUSH: Yeah, totally. It's a great question. Just to kind of zoom out for a quick second, the data space has been really hot for a few years now, and there's this area often called the modern data stack, which is really led by a few vendors mainly around this concept of the data warehouse, reporting tools, and modeling, and ingestion. And this is really a new area for the data space, which has really become popular. So you also have, you know, ten years ago, you had Hadoop and Spark, and all of these different data tools, which in general have become less popular, and the modern data stack movement is one of the big movements happening. So at a macro level, we have this new movement. If you zoom in, this movement happens to be one of the most fragmented movements. So what that means is for each different layer, you have different vendors. And so, even if you want to do something today as simple as building dashboards, you have to first ingest this data. In your average company, you've got [inaudible] at different sources. You need to put it in. You need to then store it, you need to model it, and then you can build a dashboard. CHAD: You also need to make all the different choices about which ones you're going to choose at every level. TARUSH: Exactly. At each of these levels, you have multiple billion-dollar companies today competing. So the thing about fragmentation of the space and, you know, I think data along with maybe DevOps and security are probably the most fragmented spaces. The thing about fragmented spaces is that they are great for extremely savvy customers; think of large tech companies who have 100% data teams. But for 90% of businesses, if you want to get value from data, it makes it much harder because you have to sign multiple contracts with these vendors, architecture, set up security. So what 5X very, very fundamentally is doing is we're business-focused. We allow you, you know, in a month or two, you better go to 5x.co and add your credit card, and you will have business analytics out of the box. And we can help you make some of these decisions as to what are the best vendors for your price points, for your use cases and give you an end-to-end platform so that you aren't worrying about signing these bills and sort of setting it up. You're focused on your business outcome and your business use cases. CHAD: Where did...I happen to know, but because I did my research for the episode. [laughs] But you were at WeWork leading data at WeWork, right? TARUSH: Yes. CHAD: So I imagine you faced this problem and saw this problem firsthand, right? TARUSH: You know, I've been fortunate that I've spent my career in the data space. So back in the day at Salesforce and now and most recently at WeWork. And companies like this, in general, are aggressively hiring and aggressively growing these teams. So at WeWork, we had 50 people working on stitching together the platform and finding the best vendors, and being involved in that. So at WeWork, we were really focused on building our own version of the platform. I think what's interesting is ever since I left and especially over the last 24 months, where the sort of startup space has become so active, I'm still getting pinged on LinkedIn like every day or two with companies looking to get started. And over a period of time, you see the trends that everyone is reinventing the wheel. What do I do first? What's the first use case? What infrastructure do I need? How do I set this up? So the idea of this really came less from WeWork, where we had the team and the expertise. It came more from the other 90% of the companies that don't have the resources that WeWork had, at least at that time. CHAD: So what do your customers of 5X typically look like then? Are there particular industries or data needs? Or on the tech side, on the development side, what do their development teams look like interacting with 5X? TARUSH: That's a great question. And again, at a macro level, data is a global phenomenon. It's not industry-specific. Now, different industries have different requirements. So obviously, as a consumer, what you need to collect, the tools and infrastructure you need are quite different from a B2B business. So there is this concept that for each vertical, what stack makes sense, and that's, again, something which we can do. Typically, our customers have found some sort of a product-market fit. They have a business, and now they're looking to go scale the business to get to either entering growth phase, or an optimization phase, or a profitability phase. And in each of these phases, data plays a vital role. So they are at this point where they know that they want to get value from it. They might even have a data team with 4,5,10 people. And they really might have figured out their first use cases and had the basic dashboards. And, inevitably, they come to this question of what now? What do we do now? So that's one large sort of vertical. And then the other one is they want to go do it. They want to go invest in data, but they have no idea how to do it. And in that case, they're looking at us not just the platform, but we also have this concept of on-demand talent. Today, we're interviewing thousands of data engineers a week. We get to hire the top 1%, and we pre-train them on different stacks. And then, companies can integrate these lead engineers at a weekly level or completely on-demand and use that to go build out the dashboards. We have never thought of replacing data teams for companies. But it's really interesting to see that some of the early-stage companies are using our platform and our on-demand talent to literally do end-to-end data as a service. CHAD: So at 5X, you're actually providing those team members, those consulting services? TARUSH: Yeah, so we look at it less from the consultant point of view, you know, a consultant typically you would go, and you have your statement of work, and that's going to be a three-month project, and it might be a fixed price. And sort of inevitably, they're looking to...they don't work with hundreds of thousands of companies, a few of them might, but in general, we work a little bit differently. So we have this concept of on-demand talent. So we have these engineers who we hire, and we pre-train them and essentially build software to basically allow people to add these engineers on top of the platform and sort of use them. So they work in one-week sprint cycles. It's fully on-demand. So you can have a group of engineers for one week and the next week not have that. And typically, consultants don't work in that way. And we don't really do the statements of work, and here's what's going to happen. These engineers are sort of put into these things what we call pods, and pods are three engineers and a product manager. And they operate on these one-week sprints. You can use this end-to-end team or these engineering pods to go build out your use cases, which is similar to what a consultant on the services model does, but we do it in more of a platform-first approach. CHAD: That's really interesting. I've had some guests on before where they talk about doing consulting or doing services on top of the recurring revenue platform that they've built or not doing it because it's not interesting to them or that their investors say like, "Don't get into that TNM business time and materials business. You want to focus on recurring revenue." How have you balanced that in your business? TARUSH: The reality is that it doesn't matter which vendor you are in the modern data stack space. You might be Snowflake, or you might be Tableau, or you might be Fivetran or DBT. These are just some of the popular ones. Each of these vendors is just one small part of the stack. And what that means is that they don't have a services model and [inaudible] investors happy. But in reality, it's because they don't have end-to-end stack exposure; you know, there's no company today which knows what their stack looks like. Snowflake doesn't know what their entire stack looks like. I mean, Snowflake [inaudible] its success in engagement because they just want [inaudible] And what 5X is is, you know, we've had to spin these stacks up from scratch for mid-market companies. You'll be able to map your stack. So you might have a few pieces. We can help you see what's missing. But again, because we have visibility end-to-end, having that services model, if you want to call it, makes a lot of sense because, ultimately, we're focused on adding business value. And no one's doing data for the sake of doing data. And no one is doing it to build a 50-person data team. They're doing it ultimately to enable the business. So given that we have this end-to-end scope, we look at our on-demand talent as a massive value-add of using the 5X platform is that you have this ability to get engineers end-to-end that are pre-trained on the platform. So we like it a lot. And we think it's a competitive advantage for us. CHAD: How opinionated is the 5X stack, the default stack? Can you make a lot of choices within it? Are you using lots of different things? You already mentioned Snowflake, Tableau. So it sounds like you're choosing the things that make sense on behalf of your customers. TARUSH: Yeah, so for launch, we're focused on the core BI stack, which is ingestion, storage, monitoring, reporting, and in this stack, also we have picked the best-in-class vendors so Fivetran, Snowflake, DBT, Preset. In some ways, the usual suspects which you think of as you're looking at the stack. Now our goal and really what we're building is this program called the Certified 5X Program, and that's for vendors. And that program allows us to integrate with different partners and do things like account provisioning, configuration, user management, our billing agreement, workflow setup. And as we integrate with more and more vendors, the idea is to really have a single form for the modern data stack. So, in ingestion, for now, we might be using Fivetran since they're the [inaudible], but the idea is we're also talking to Plausible, and Airbyte, and Stitch, and all of the other vendors. So at some point, we really kind of pick and choose between any of them. So the idea is, again, there could be a set of different stuff for a company, which is extremely budget-conscious, and if you're looking more for enterprise capability to use a different vendor in that same category. So ultimately, we're enabling customer freedom in the next few months. At launch, we'll have a smaller selection. But as we get into Q4 and as we get into the next year, we have the next 10-15 vendors lined up who are going to be part of the certified 5X program, and that allows us to add more and more optionality in terms of existing categories. And then, we also will focus on adding new categories like reverse ETL, or data lineage, or augmented analytics. CHAD: I love the idea of being focused for launch, saying these are the biggest things that we need to hit. How long did it take you to get to launch? When did you start working in earnest on 5X and get to a public launch? TARUSH: We've been working on this since last June. So we're 11 months old now. What we really did initially is go build relationships with these vendors. And the first thing we did is we started off more as a services business where we sort of built this automatic interview process where we were interviewing hundreds of engineers a week and adding these engineers and training them on the platform. We would go set up the platform for the customer in a semi-automatic manner. So we have been operational. We're probably working with 15-20 customers at this point, but we did it in a sort of semi-automated way. And over the last few months, as we understood more and more what their needs are, we are transitioning to a platform-first company instead of a services-first company. CHAD: So that means that you were able to be public and start getting customers fairly early on in your journey. It's only been 11 months since you started. And when did you get your first customer? TARUSH: 11 months ago. CHAD: [laughs] So at what point did you find investors and raise money and start to build a team? TARUSH: We've been fortunate enough that we were producing revenue on day one just looking at the services aspect of the business. So we needed a very tiny fundraise back in October, a very small amount. And now that we're getting closer to the platform launch, we might be announcing something soon. CHAD: What did you take money for if you were revenue-generating? Was there something specific that caused you to take it and that it was for? TARUSH: So if you kind of zoom out again and look at this whole concept of building out, you know, I think if we focused on services and focused on growing that part of the business organically, there's no real need for that. But the idea now is we're having a 20-person platform team, building out these integrations, building up software for even things like board management, hiring. The main task today is sort of engineering. So we raised capital to double down on the platform vision and become a platform first. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: So, when it comes to building a team, we're talking today, and you're in Bali. Is that where you spend most of your time now? TARUSH: I wish I could spend more time here. CHAD: [laughs] TARUSH: I'm pretty nomadic, which I really like. And I think we were born in COVID...a fun story; I got stuck in Bali for two years. I came here for vacation, and we were locked up. And it's not the worst place in the world to be stuck, and I felt very lucky that it was not somewhere else. So, in general, we started building the pilot while we were still remote. We have folks in 11 countries now. I spent six months of the year around America. That's where our clients are. About 80% of our business is from American companies today, and then I spend some time in India, where our engineering teams are aggressively growing in the Southeast Asian market. And 5X is a Singapore company. So we spend time in Singapore, and if I have some time, I come back to Bali. But in general, we are pretty nomadic. And I think as part of our culture, and how we attract people, one of our core values is what we call the hammock value where if I can build it or if you can build it while lying on a hammock in some part of the world, we're not interested in going back to an office. CHAD: With a fairly large time zone distribution of the team, how do you build a culture? How do people work together? Are people shifting their hours? Or do you build a culture of working asynchronously? TARUSH: We mostly work asynchronously. In general, the engineering teams are based out of India. So engineers who are working on the platform are in the same time zone. In terms of our pods, what's really cool is today, we hire in South America, we hire in Africa, we hire in Southeast Asia, so three distinct time zones. So you have Europe, you have the Americas, and you have the Asian time zone. And when we assemble these pods, and a pod has got three engineers and a technical project manager, we try and have at least two different time zones in a pod. So at least two of the engineers are in separate time zones, which means that for our customers, they have more around-the-clock support. They have more hours where they can get work done, which is great for productivity. So, what that means on our side is that we're really good at being able to communicate asynchronously. We have all this flexibility, and with that, in terms of accountability, the way we do it is we have daily updates. Again, it's asynchronous, so you can send that here's what you did, you know, [inaudible] by. At the end of the week, we do Loom videos really sharing what you've done. We sort focus a lot on like agenda -- CHAD: And Loom is an asynchronous video sharing. People can record videos and share it with everybody. Is that what Loom is? TARUSH: Yeah, sorry, I should mention. Loom is a great video platform that allows you to screen share, and it's just a really cool screen-sharing tool that we record these asynchronous videos and really ingraining it inside our culture. Everyone at 5X knows the importance of sending these updates and agenda before a call and summaries in a Zoom video. So that's how we are able to do it. CHAD: One of the things that we've not struggled with but dealt with at thoughtbot is we've started hiring all throughout the Americas, all throughout Europe, Middle East, and Africa. And we've got team members all over the place. And we want to treat people as employees and give them full benefits. And a lot of people want to work for a local entity and have employment laws and everything. But it's a challenge to do that. We don't necessarily want to set up entities in every country. So one strategy is contracting, another is to work with an international PEO or employer of record. How have you managed that? TARUSH: We use an international agency which allows us to hire in any country. I'm not sure the name of the platform we're using. Karan, our CFO, would know that. CHAD: [laughs] TARUSH: But it allows us on a macro level to be able to hire in all these countries as employees, you know, ask if you have the stock program. And it's also allowing us to give healthcare benefits and things like that, which we really want to have for everyone. And when it comes to the engineers on our network, at the moment, we're hiring them full-time as contractors, but again, we want to extend benefits to them and really, in some ways, give them that flexibility. Do you want to be inside a local jurisdiction where you can have more healthcare benefits and integrations with local governments, you know, employee programs and things like that? Or do you want to take advantage of our culture and be more nomadic? And these are exciting things which we're sort of figuring out now as we [inaudible] some economies of scale around, you know, having this [inaudible] CHAD: Yeah, that's great. And for what it's worth, that's the route that we've taken as well is to work with an international employer of record who actually employs people locally. And many people don't realize, like, you highlighted health benefits. A lot of countries have national health care. But it's really common, especially in white-collar or tech industry employment there, to augment that with supplemental insurance, which is not very expensive, but it is expected and oftentimes necessary to get the kind of coverage that you want to have. TARUSH: I think the world is changing. We're becoming remote-first as well. And the two areas which I believe it's going to affect the most is number one, employment and number two, education. It's just a no-brainer that more and more companies are going to emerge in this space, making it easier to hire remotely and provide benefits and, in some ways, build that operating system for remote entrepreneurs. So I'm not sure if the tools today are great. I think they solve the problem for now. But I expect there to be a lot of innovation in this space over the next few years. CHAD: Well, and I think that the pandemic has pushed that, accelerated that. There are companies now that existed before, but the scale at which they're able to operate now because so many companies have started to go remote and want to employ people everywhere; it's really driving that growth and investment in that area too. And as a result of that, there's going to be a lot of data [laughs] that these companies generate and need to get a handle on. So maybe they'll become customers of 5X, or maybe they already are. TARUSH: Yeah. If you look in the last ten years, I think the last ten years were all about digital marketing with social and sort of advertising, making it very obvious that if you don't have a web presence, if you don't care about your customers think, and if you don't find ways to attract customers, you're not going to exist. So ten years later and all those companies which didn't set up websites and they didn't figure out customer acquisition online probably don't exist anymore. In the next five years or in the next ten years, a lot of these will get a lot more sophisticated. And certainly, data comes in as a competitive advantage. So if you're not focusing on how a customer is using your product and how you personalize and being able to compare the way of spending money in terms of your lead acquisition and really, really optimize at it, what you'll face is that it will become difficult to compete because your competition is getting more and more sophisticated. So a lot of the investment in this is really predicated on becoming more efficient at these core groups of things like go-to-market strategy, engagement, optimizing internal operations as a way to find efficiencies which is typically what technology has enabled. CHAD: Especially small businesses or businesses that are just getting started, if you don't have experience with that, it can feel really overwhelming. And we talked about how 5X by coming to the table with a stack, with a team that can help do that, that's great. And it helps solve that problem. Say that I'm a founder or a CEO, maybe non-technical, and I really am just getting started, but I have a big need; how do I engage with 5X? What's the best way to think about that? And are there things that I might do as a founder that you would recommend, hey, I recognize you can't do everything, but do this, and you'll avoid some pain later on. TARUSH: We have some customers today who use us pre-product. They don't have a product. They don't have any customers. They have no data. But they use us because when they launch, they want to have the right tracking and visibility and reports and metrics. So I would have never thought someone that [inaudible] 5X. But it kind of makes sense that you want to have the right [inaudible] knowledge. You have pros and cons. I think the pros of it is instilling the data culture from day one. Data acts as a bridge between engineering and the business, Chad. It just connects the products from like the business goals. So there is an upside in bringing this on earlier on and building that and instilling that into your culture. I think the flip side of it is that if you don't have product-market fit, if you're shooting darts and seeing what works. And in general, companies at that point are running more on intuition and trying different things to see what sticks. And having systems in place at that scale, very frankly, could also be unnecessary. And at that point, if you're spending $100, you probably want to spend 80-90 of them on bringing out your product and the design that you've got. And I think they'll want to sign to be able to acquire customers, and that sort of shifts then you see the data spending increase. So again, we're obviously happy to help, and our technical product managers have a lot of experience. They're the ones who have been data leaders that are growing companies and businesses like Uber, WeWork, Alibaba, top tech companies. They've already been data team members, so they've always been part of that growth. So they're good people, the on-demand talent. You have expertise over there from someone who's seen this before. And a few of our early-stage companies leverage these people more and more, but the flipside of it is focusing on actually building a product first. CHAD: I love that. I think that that's great advice. And so I assume that there are people who come and to your team or you start talking with them, and you say, "You're not ready for us yet." TARUSH: Yeah, we sort of have done that. We have told folks, you know, Google this, this, and this, and once you have this in place and you're about to go to market, that's the right time to come engage. But at this point, honestly, it might not be the best time for you to start thinking about [inaudible] CHAD: Focus on improving your user experience, getting new users, making the best product you can. That's really great advice. TARUSH: On the flip side of that, I think the problem, not the problem, I don't know if it's the word. I think the mistake a lot of companies make is that they actually get into it too late. The typical fallacy is that the founders are sitting in this gold mine of data. We're just going to have a data scientist come, and he or she is going to start generating all these insights, and we're going to be a data-driven company. And the reality of everything in life is that things take time. You can have the stack from day one, and you can have amazing engineers. But it takes time for you to really understand what's happening in your business. And initially, your data model that's sort of changing because the understanding of the business is changing. Visibility in your data leads to asking better questions. And with asking better questions, you start changing the mental models of what's happening. It takes three iterations before your data model starts to stabilize. And what that means very, very often is that the founder is expecting in three months that the data is going to have a positive ROI and the output the business is getting from the data team is going to be positive. And that's not really how it works. It takes six to nine months. You'd have reporting in the first month and the first two months. But as you move from reporting to visibility and to actually optimization and using that data as an insight, we think of that as a three-quarter project. So number one, I think companies don't know that, and they expect that it happens much sooner. And number two is also the mindset around I'm looking at data to provide positive ROI within a small duration, which is also, in reality, not how it is. CHAD: Tarush, that's really great advice, and I hope people take it to heart. If folks want to get in touch with you or follow along with you or learn more about 5X, where are all the places that they can do that? TARUSH: So our website is 5x.co. Again, that's 5x.co. You can reach out to me at tarush@5x.co. We're also doing a lot of stuff on YouTube. We're doing a lot of podcasts to educate on the data space. We make weekly videos on different topics on our YouTube channel. I'm sure you can just search for 5X. That's another great way to engage with us. CHAD: Wonderful. You can subscribe to this show and find notes for this episode along with a complete transcript at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Tarush Aggarwal.Sponsored By:AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. Learn more and sign up at thoughtbot.com/agencyuSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Deborah Levine is the Director of LGBT YouthLink at CenterLink, which supports, strengthens, and connects LGBT centers. Chad talks with Deborah about working on something new called imi: a free digital research-backed mental health tool intended to support and help LGBTQ+ teens explore and affirm their identity and learn practical ways to cope with their sexual and gender minority stress, founding Q Chat Space, a digital LGBTQ+ center where teens join live-chat, professionally facilitated, online support groups, and how over the time that she's been doing work in LGBTQ+ spaces products and online interaction have changed and evolved. CenterLink Follow CenterLink on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or LinkedIn. LGBT YouthLink Q Chat Space HopeLab Follow Deborah on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel, and with me, today is Deborah Levine, Director of LGBT YouthLink at CenterLink, which supports, strengthens, and connects LGBT centers. Deborah, thank you so much for joining me. DEBORAH: Thanks, Chad. I appreciate you inviting me. CHAD: So I was first introduced to you and to CenterLink through the Q Chat Space product. And that's still going, right? DEBORAH: Yeah. CHAD: But you're working on something new called imi. DEBORAH: Mm-hmm. We actually just launched imi on June 1st. CHAD: Congratulations on the launch. DEBORAH: Thank you. Yes, it went pretty smoothly. [laughs] CHAD: That's good. So, what is imi? DEBORAH: So imi is a free digital research-backed mental health tool. It was developed by Hopelab in partnership with CenterLink, and the It Gets Better Project, as well as hundreds of LGBTQ+ young people across the U.S. It's a little hard to describe, to be perfectly honest. It really is intended to support and help LGBTQ+ teens explore and affirm their identity and learn practical ways to cope with their sexual and gender minority stress. And we really hope that the tool is helpful, relevant, inclusive, and joyful. It is a web app, but it operates...it's not a lot of reading. It's listening, and doing, and thinking, and really giving youth an opportunity to explore and consider ways that they might help support themselves. CHAD: That's great. And I suppose it's even a compliment to your prior work at CenterLink and with Q Chat Space, which is an online support community. DEBORAH: Yes. CHAD: People can use both. DEBORAH: Exactly. We actually engaged in a partnership with Hopelab because we recognize that though youths were really excited about and engaged in the support groups that Q Chat Space provides, those are synchronous, and they happen once or twice a day. They last for an hour and a half, but that's all there is. So if you come to the website when a chat isn't happening, then there's not much to do. And we wanted to be able to provide youth with something else, and imi really fills that gap. CHAD: So when it comes to the product itself, how long was it in development for? DEBORAH: Great question. Of course, there was the pandemic, so there were some delays related to that. But it was about two and a half years from when Hopelab first approached CenterLink until the actual launch date. CHAD: That's a fairly significant amount of time. DEBORAH: It is for when you're working, I think if we were only tech firms, but both Hopelab and CenterLink are nonprofits. And the process included a lot of steps. So we actually had a prototype pretty early. But because we wanted to make sure that we did put something out into the world that actually had the impact we were seeking, we did a randomized controlled trial. We had 270 youth, half of them using a similar-looking website with just resources and the other half using imi. And we did that randomized controlled trial as well as a test of marketing. Those were both pieces that extended our timeline. And then ultimately, we also wanted to launch during Pride Month, so we timed it for that. CHAD: This idea of a randomized control trial is pretty incredible to me. A lot of product people wouldn't necessarily do that; maybe certain companies do. Why do you think you went in that direction? DEBORAH: So our goal is not to make money. And ultimately, if that was the goal, then we put something out, we see if people are using it and using it at the rate and the ways...I'm a social worker, so my business lingo is going to be limited. [chuckles] But that's the way to test it. And if youths use it but don't have any impact or potentially even harms them, which is not the case usually; it's just neutral, but if it doesn't have any impact, it's not worth our time. And so, a randomized controlled trial really allows us to see whether or not it's working and then to make changes if it's not. We're testing not only whether it works in terms of the impact but also whether or not youths were interested and wanted to use it. And those are important elements for us before we're going to go out with something. CHAD: That's great. That's what I was thinking you [chuckles] would probably say. In your work, correct me if I'm wrong, but your main demographic that you work with is youth. DEBORAH: Yes. CHAD: You alluded to this earlier, but how do you make sure that you're building products and things that they want to use? DEBORAH: For sure. So it's really about involving them in the process. Going back in time to Q Chat Space, the idea for Q Chat Space actually came from focus groups we did with youth. It wasn't an adult who thought this is a good thing to do for youth. We really went to them to see what it was about and then kept youth involved in the process. We had youth involved in the design process. We had youth involved in the conceptualization and design and continue to this day to have a Youth Advisory Board who participate in Q Chat Space chat and give us feedback. And when we want to change something, we look to them. And similarly, with imi but we have even more resources. We have, over time, including the randomized controlled trial, involved over 600 youth in the production and creation of imi. And really, the process was so deeply embedded with the youth that we used the language of co-creation and really make sure that youth are saying exactly what it is that they want and need and that they'll be willing to do. So we did qualitative research in 2019 with over 350 youth initially all across the United States, all the way to Anchorage, Alaska, and to Birmingham, Alabama, and a bunch of places in between. And of those interviewed, 61% identified as racial and ethnic minorities. We really did want to make sure that this reached those youth as well as trans and non-binary and gender-nonconforming youth. So we always oversampled or over-included those youth. And we also engaged with organizations that serve youth and know youth in a daily way, a lot of LGBT centers, and other organizations as well. And really, again, focused on organizations that are made by and are focused on QTBIPOC or queer and trans youth of color. CHAD: Over the time that you've been doing this work, has expectations around online interaction, what products are, how youth will use them, has that changed? Has it been evolving? DEBORAH: It certainly has been evolving. I mean, I think it's an interesting question. I'm not sure of the timeframe that you're asking. In terms of the work that I've done, I started doing digital health education in 2007. And I remember very well because the person who interviewed me and became my boss said, "You don't have to even know anything about technology. Don't worry; we'll figure that out." CHAD: [laughs] DEBORAH: They didn't expect, and to be honest, I say to people all the time that if somebody came to me now with a resume that I had in 2007 for one of the jobs that I did then, I would not have hired them. Things have changed dramatically. I mean, that's obviously 15 years we're talking about. Things have changed so very dramatically in the last 15 years. But even I would say thinking about Q Chat Space, because Q Chat Space launched as a pilot in 2018 and then launched nationally in the summer of 2019, and then the pandemic hit 7-8 months later. And the concept of a digital support group we had to explain that to people at Q Chat Space. And now, post-pandemic, we don't have to explain that anymore. And if anything, we have to differentiate ourselves in ways that we never had to. The irony of Q Chat Space, in particular, is that it was started both because youth identified the need but also our member centers, the LGBT centers, often had inquiries from youth who couldn't access them in person, and many of them started satellite programs, but still, you know, a 13-year-old you could live next door and not be able to get. There are other barriers besides location and distance. And so, at that point, centers really wanted to do something digitally, but they couldn't because they didn't have the resources. They didn't know how to do it, or they were concerned that it would start and then youth from all over the place would be contacting them. But in a matter of weeks, maybe months, once the pandemic set in and the kids were...just like school figured out how to do things, the LGBT centers did as well. And so now Q Chat Space is one of many virtual programs with many different mechanisms. But I think it's really shifted, and youth are more open to it. Not that they weren't before, they definitely were, but they know more. There are less questions about what's this? What's going on here? I think there's a broader definition of what a virtual experience can look like because youth have been participating in synchronous and asynchronous and in text-only and video, and it's just there are so many ways. In terms of imi in the last couple of years, all over the pandemic, but imi itself, I think, actually, the landscape for imi hasn't changed. But interestingly enough, Hopelab actually came to us with another product that they had already developed and they were hoping to use as the backend, which was a chatbot. They had created something called Vivibot, and it was helping young cancer survivors build resilience. And we know that resilience is an important quality for any person, but particularly: youth, it's important to develop it. And when someone's young, it's easier, not that it's easy. [laughter] And they thought that they would be able to use that technology, but ultimately the testing with young people really revealed that they didn't want a chatbot. If you check out imi, which is imi. guide, you can see that there are actually several chat experiences within that are the last remnants of that initial chatbot that we started with. But youth weren't interested in a chatbot, and I think that's one thing that's changed is that they have much higher expectations for automated communication. I formerly worked at Planned Parenthood. They have a great product called Roo, that's a chatbot. We talked about it before I left there. I wasn't there when it was started. But there are high expectations for what a chatbot can do. And I think there's also just an understanding, oh, this is a bot, and that's okay. Versus a few years ago, maybe people wanted to pretend that it was a real person. And now it's like, no, it's fine that's it's a bot. I understand, and it's okay that this kind of conversation can happen with a chatbot. So there are a few things that I think have changed, but I'm also not a trend person. [laughter] CHAD: No, that's okay. That's great. So when it comes to...we talked a little bit about the timeline and the process you went through to arrive and launch imi. With multiple parties all bringing things to the table, how do you tend to manage the products that you work on? DEBORAH: Sure. So Hopelab, really, I give almost all credit to Hopelab. I mean, I was really pleased to partner with them. And I definitely feel that CenterLink and It Gets Better bring a lot to the table. But ultimately, Hopelab did something I haven't seen happen very often, which is really helping nonprofits work together in a collaborative manner. It's a struggle. I think nonprofits are competing for funds and donors. And it's a little bit more difficult to collaborate. But Hopelab really led this process and took us all through it and made sure to really put youth at the center, which I think is the force that we all have to remember when we do have conflicts between nonprofits is that we're all in the same missions, and missions that match each other in terms of helping the community. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: Do you have people...when it comes to a project like this, are you hiring people? Is it a full-time team working on it? How does it tend to usually shape up? DEBORAH: No. [laughs] It doesn't shape up like that. At this point with imi, Hopelab really focused on what our current capacity was. They're continuing to support us in a lot of ways. And they do have a full team. But the product that they're handing over to me, me as a non-techie social worker, I can manage it. It's on Squarespace. There are a lot of integrations, but they have made sure that those are things that I can really manage. I mean, I'm not a non-techie, really. I'm underestimating myself. I'm under-selling myself. But ultimately, I am going to manage that with...I have a staff person who works full-time on Q Chat Space, not a technical person. They're really there to support facilitators and the youth as an administrator and manager, and that person will help me with promotion. But otherwise, imi is a tool that is out there and doesn't...I mean, we'll update it and make changes. But ultimately, it's not a team once it's launched. But the development, yes, it was about 14 people more or less throughout the last two years. CHAD: I think that that's great and really important. Software isn't cheap. It's not easy. And if you're put in a position where you're putting...I don't know the right word; burden comes to mind. Like, the burden of future work and maintenance and investment in an organization that maybe isn't set up to do that that could be a problem. DEBORAH: Right. Now talk to me in six months or a year, and I'll know more. [laughter] But that said, even with Q Chat Space, I, with hundreds of people, including folks at thoughtbot and other places, volunteers, and donors, and supporters, really made Q Chat Space a reality, but I was the lead on it. And again, I used, you know, off-the-shelf products, basically. And I have a developer for the website. But besides that developer, who is a part-time person, we manage. We figure things out ourselves. We get help from volunteers. We bring in a consultant here and there. But we try to keep the technology slim, trim, easy, user-friendly, whatever language we want to use. So that really serves the purpose of the youth. We don't need to be using anything fancy per se. CHAD: I could be misremembering, but I think when we were first talking, one of the first conversations we had this came up with Q Chat Space. Because if you look at what it does and the problem set, and particularly the market, I think there could be a tendency for someone looking at that especially, I'm a programmer, and so I want to solve problems by programming things. You could say, "We should really build something specific for this. DEBORAH: [laughs] CHAD: It's not that difficult. It's just a chat thing. There are lots of these things out there." And I'm right in terms of the actual core functionality. You could bang that out in a little while. But doing that would create a burden then to you have a custom piece of software that you need to constantly evolve, maintain, and those kinds of things. And so I think this was a discussion we had about what was out there in the ecosystem, what open source or other things you could pull together so that we weren't creating that burden. DEBORAH: Exactly. And interestingly, my developer has said to me many times, "I could just build something for you." [laughter] And I say, "No, like, I don't need that." And ultimately, we did end up going with an open-sourced product; it's Rocket.Chat. We picked Rocket.Chat. This was in 2017, I think. We looked at 30 different products. And there were that many products on the market already, and today, I think there'll be even more. But ultimately, we just took Rocket.Chat because it's highly customizable. For those of you who aren't familiar with Rocket.Chat, it's like Discord. It's actually the same code, from what I understand. It's sort of like Slack. But in the end, we were able to...because there's a lot of like, turn this on, turn this off, turn this on, turn this off, just a lot of different features, we were able to just make it into what we needed. We're using it in a way that very few people are using Rocket.Chat because we opened up a channel just for that hour and a half, and then it's gone. It's not an ongoing conversation. But Rocket.Chat has been a great supporter. They give us a fabulous nonprofit rate and really appreciate the unusual use case that we have for their product. CHAD: Yeah, that's great. I think one of the things that hopefully motivates a lot of people is having a positive impact on the world. This is Pride Month. You alluded to it already. And I think it's important that we celebrate Pride. I think you have a great organization that I hope people will get involved in and pay attention to even outside of Pride Month. How has it been for you? And sometimes, it's hard for me to judge are things better or worse in terms of really supporting LGBTQ+ youth today? DEBORAH: Both. [laughs] It's better, it's worse. There's no question to how far are we going to go back? But there's so much more media representation, and more schools have GSAs, and more people know someone who's LGBTQ. And I think it's different for lesbian, gay, and bisexual folks than it is for trans and non-binary and gender non-conforming folks. There's more acceptance of sexual orientation differences than there are gender differences. But I think culturally, that's changing, and as a result, there is currently quite a large...the word coming to me is flashback, but that's not the right word. Backlash, push back, exactly. And we are seeing alarming numbers of legislative efforts to particularly limit what transgender and gender nonconforming and non-binary youth can do and what their parents can do. And that is very alarming and certainly highly regressive. But I do think that it comes out of the fact that we have moved forward in so many ways. So for any young person who's listening or any of you who are listening, you can say this to the young people in your lives like, "You deserve to be yourself. You deserve to be able to be yourself and open. And you deserve a good and strong and mentally healthy life." And that message is really what imi certainly gives, a joyful life. It is about pride. We are proud to be LGBTQ. There's nothing to be ashamed of. And yet there are many forces in our culture and government who do make young people and adults feel shameful about it. So that's really what we're trying to counter. CHAD: And that's one of the great things I think about when it comes to online tools is because you could be in an environment where you're not supported, where you don't see that support or people like you, or it could be very isolating. And the ability to reach beyond your family boundaries and geographic boundaries and connect with people who can support you is really great. DEBORAH: It is. And to know ultimately, the tools are really designed to acknowledge that some young people have to keep it a secret or private. They're not ready to come out. Both websites have a quick exit, so a young person can click on that and go right to Google. imi also times out after 10 minutes. And it's an interesting thing because the folks who are regressive, going back to our last bit, those folks jump on that and say, "Look, they're keeping it a secret from their parents." And we're like, well, if the parents are going to be abusive, then yes, we're going to keep it a secret from their parents. But if the parents want to figure out how to be affirming, we are with them. We want to help them be affirming. So it really does allow youth...both tools really reach youth who may feel as if they have no one around them. And imi, in particular, provides community in a way youth don't even have to talk to anybody else. But they're going to hear the voices and see the faces of other young people dealing with similar things. imi is rich with those stories as well as other activities. And then on Q Chat Space, they can connect to a real other teenager who's dealing with similar things but maybe in a different state or a different country even. CHAD: I guess that's another...I think the conversation I was having was very U.S.-centric, too. And you think things are bad here; they're even worse in a lot of other places in terms of LGBTQ rights and support. DEBORAH: They are. CHAD: And I guess that's another benefit of online. It really crosses those boundaries too. DEBORAH: It does. And we have enabled that on Q Chat Space and imi. Both are accessible from anywhere in the world. We have heard from youths in 149 other countries, I believe [laughs] on Q Chat Space. CHAD: Wow. DEBORAH: And we just launched imi, so we don't have that data yet, but it is available. Unfortunately, right now, imi is only in English. Q Chat Space, we do have a weekly chat in Spanish. So we welcome any youth who prefer to chat in Spanish on Monday nights. But imi from now is just in English. But other than that, I mean, the reality of colonization is that a lot of youth speak English, even if it was not their first language. So we have had chatters from Korea, Vietnam, Australia, UK, and everywhere in between. CHAD: That's great. If folks want to get involved, where are the best places for them to do that? DEBORAH: Sure. So anybody who feels like they can help in any way, whether it's tech help, or with financial support, they can connect with us through the websites. And we will happily figure out ways to get engaged. In terms of your more traditional volunteer situation, I recommend folks go to the LGBT Center Directory that we have on CenterLink's website; CenterLink's website is lgbtcenters.org, and find your local LGBT center. They have many opportunities for volunteers as well as support and tech help. If you check out their website and you think it doesn't look so great, [laughter] offer help with their website. So there are a lot of ways to get involved in the LGBTQ community between these two products, as well as just the LGBT centers that the two products are really meant to serve. I didn't really mention that, but we have 300+ LGBT centers that are part of the CenterLink network that we work to support, strengthen, and connect. And imi really is a product that none of them would be able to develop on their own. And this way, they're all able to use it as if it was their own. That's one of the beauties that, of course, the greatest impact is for youth. But for our centers to be able to have that kind of resource available to them, we owe a huge thanks to Hopelab for doing that for CenterLink and all of our members. CHAD: We're going to include links in the show notes for all of the things that you just mentioned. DEBORAH: Awesome. CHAD: I really encourage people to if you want to reach out with your time and get involved, that's great. You can also, as Deborah said, go there and donate. If you can't donate your time, but you can donate some money, that'd be great. Deborah, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us. I really appreciate it, and I appreciate all the work you do. DEBORAH: Absolutely. It was a pleasure. Thanks so much. CHAD: You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Deborah Levine.Sponsored By:AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. Learn more and sign up at thoughtbot.com/agencyuSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Johanna Mikkola is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wyncode Academy, recently acquired by BrainStation, whose project-based programs have helped over 100,000 professionals launch new careers in the tech industry. Chad talks with Johanna about creating a digital skills training bootcamp, the hiring and training market and challenges, and prioritizing inclusion and diversity in the student population. BrainStation Follow BrainStation on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Follow Johanna on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. And with me today is Jo Mikkola, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Wyncode Academy, recently acquired by BrainStation, whose project-based programs have helped over 100,000 professionals launch new careers in the tech industry. Jo, thank you for joining me. JOHANNA: So excited to be here. Thank you. CHAD: I actually think that the weather we're calling from today might not be so different. It's very warm and sunny, and everything in Boston. So I'm pretty happy today. How are things where you are? JOHANNA: That's great. We're coming to you live from the 305 in Miami, and it's turning into summertime here, which means it's pretty hot and sticky. But I'm originally from Finland, so I can't complain. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: The novelty after eight years of living here has not worn off on me. I do enjoy the sunshine and the palm trees. CHAD: That's great. So we'll definitely circle back and talk about Miami and the tech industry there and everything. But before we do that, I'm curious; you have recently been acquired by BrainStation. Let's rewind a little bit to getting started with Wyncode and what brought you to creating a digital skills training bootcamp. JOHANNA: It's been quite the journey. It all started back in 2013, and at the time living in Toronto. I, at that point, had been working at the National Hockey League in Toronto for eight years and had just joined the management there on the hockey operations officiating team, which was an amazing chapter of my professional journey, and I love all the individuals that I worked with there. But I got to a point in that career where I didn't quite know what the next step would be professionally, and I was looking at getting an MBA. But at the same time, while I was working at the NHL, I was helping lead an internal software build project. And it kept coming to the forefront for me that wow, hockey is being disrupted by technology or technology is being very integrated into something I thought, you know, I didn't think I would see that happen. And at the same time, my co-founder, who's also my husband, we're both from Finland. His name is Juha. He was an entrepreneur in the e-commerce sporting goods space, and he actually had joined a coding bootcamp in Toronto, an early one. And as he was going through the process, we were both kind of at this inflection point professionally about what we were going to do. And so everything he was learning, the transformation of individuals he was witnessing first-hand, him experiencing that himself, and me being a non-technical business person leading a technical project at the NHL, we were like, wow, we're on the cusp of some serious change in the world, and we want to be part of that wave. So we were like, where can we go and be first to market to provide this life-changing, career-changing education and, in turn, really dive into not only education but also the technology space? And ultimately, we landed on Miami. We had actually looked at Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles as options as well. But we arrived here in Miami, and it was very like a Hollywood thing. We were sitting at the coolest cafe in Miami at the time. We were here on Christmas holiday. And we, on a napkin, started writing ideas and brainstorming. You know, founders get very excited about logos and brainstorming names, or at least I do. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: And it all came together really quickly. That was December 2013. We attended a startup meet-up here. We met four key players in this ecosystem, some of which are major drivers today, like the Knight Foundation and Endeavor. We heard their vision, and what they were doing, and how much funding was being put at the time into building a tech ecosystem in Miami. And we were like, wow, we want in. So we went from concept to launch in three months’ time. And it was a pretty exciting ride. I mean, so much happened in that time [laughs], and obviously, the acquisition came early last year. And so we've kind of seen it go full circle. And for me professionally, I went from being a startup founder working very regionally, being somewhat nationally known but being a strong regional player, to being a global player overnight with BrainStation. So that also has been really exciting. CHAD: At thoughtbot, we helped create a web development bootcamp around the same time actually. JOHANNA: Love that. CHAD: And that was for Kaplan, and they ended up purchasing Dev Bootcamp and then shutting it down. So I have some experience, and not only that, but thoughtbot has hired a lot of people from bootcamps into our apprentice program. JOHANNA: Love that. CHAD: So, from a hiring and training perspective, I think it's great. From a business perspective, it seems to have been a very challenging market. How did you weather that? JOHANNA: Oh yeah. I mean persistence, unwavering commitment to the people we worked with, and the people we were helping gain these skills to change their careers. And like with any startup, there are moments where it's like, wow, you know, this is a big challenge. How are we going to overcome this? But we've always had the mentality of if there is a will, there is a way. And don't get me wrong, it doesn't always work out. But fortunately, now that I have hindsight, I can say that that mentality resulted in where we are today, and it was very positive. And I have the really fortunate position of looking back on those stressful moments and seeing the lessons now, which is such a gift and maybe also alludes to me being old, I don't know. [laughter] But it really was a great journey. And I mean, the challenges started in the beginning for us, which is turns out it was a federal offense to operate without a license in the state of Florida, you know, lots of details to talk about there. But come full circle, we ended up being the first coding bootcamp to be licensed by a State Department of Education in the entire country. So even though other people were operating in their states, it was different statutes, different legal requirements. And so, we were the first to be licensed. And as a result, we actually helped advise some of those other big names that we all see in the coding landscape to explain how it worked for us. And shout out to the Florida Department of Education and Commission for Independent Education for working with us to make it all come together. But it started off with a very exciting beginning getting that letter, which was essentially telling us to shut down before we had even begun. [laughter] And it all worked out. And we have a great relationship with them. And we learned a lot there. And I will say just in the coding landscape, what ended up happening and what's happened with a lot of for-profit education is there was a huge opportunity, and there still is. People really genuinely need these skills. They really need this vocational training, and the companies hiring really need this talent, as you know firsthand. And so a lot of people jumped in and saw that there was money to be made because professionals and maybe also people who can afford it...there are a lot of financing companies that came in. And so the thing that started wavering is the quality in terms of the training. And that's one of the things that you just, you know, one of the things we were unwilling to compromise at Wyncode and also why BrainStation, I like to say, is our soulmate because they feel the same way. To go from zero to software engineer or zero to UX designer (We also teach data science and digital marketing.), it really takes high-quality education, high-quality educators, and a high-quality network to do that at the level that we want to do that. And then the other thing that a lot of people fell into is this desire to scale really quickly, so take in too many students which quality goes down, open too many locations, quality goes down. And to be the best, you got to learn from the best, and that means learning from software engineers, product designers, individuals who are really highly sought after right now. So, in the same way that software companies are facing talent issues, for us, that was also a key piece for us to solve and work out. We're really fortunate that in the space of education, this is such rewarding work. We build such amazing relationships with the people coming through the programs and, in turn, are contributing so much to our local ecosystems that it hasn't been that hard to attract amazing talent to be our educators because it is so rewarding. They're getting an opportunity to apply their craft to something they love and really shape the minds of future technologists. And it's just a wonderful thing to watch and be part of, so really fortunate to be in that space. CHAD: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's one of the things that has made the space challenging is you come into it with the desire to have that really high quality, but there's a cost to that. And if you don't scale the number of students, you might have trouble covering that cost. How did you balance that? JOHANNA: In the early days of Wyncode, it was easy because we were self-funded, and we were growing organically. So we were quite conservative about how we scaled and how many people we took on, and we stayed very true to that. And honestly, we stayed very focused on the state of Florida. So at one point, we actually had three locations; we had Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, and we scaled them down to have a large HQ in Miami. Because we saw that when the team was together, and the community was together, the overall experience from network to learning was better because we were self-funded. And then, later, when we had partners who were committed to quality, we were able to make decisions for the sake of quality instead of profitability. And then now with BrainStation, I mean, BrainStation is an incredible company. It's been around for ten years. It has been very successful. And right now, what we've been able to do is invest. BrainStation is in a position where we're investing in different pilots to see what things will make learning even better than it already is, although I will say it's at a really high quality right now. And so we're in a fortunate position where, of course, it still needs to make sense. The unit economics needs to make sense. But we're also doing everything we can to continually iterate and make it a great environment for people to learn in. And I think that has come with taking the approach that we're in a long-term marathon. We're not in a sprint with what we're building right now. And I think a lot of the companies in this space that ran into issues were really sprinting to a certain scale, which is a way of operating that we haven't operated. CHAD: Well, so based on what you've said so far, I can make certain assumptions about how you answer this next question. JOHANNA: [laughs] CHAD: But I think it's an important topic, and so I want to make sure even if it's obvious that we talk about it and that's how to bring in students, how to scale the business while still prioritizing inclusion and diversity in the student population, in your organization. What sort of attention did you put on that? JOHANNA: Yeah, so this is a really key one. I mean, in the early days of Wyncode, we were able to do things in a different way than we are now with BrainStation. But I would say Miami is naturally a very diverse and international ecosystem. And so, from the beginning, we really wanted to see that reflected in the people who were in our programs because I knew that would, in the long term, provide so much value to building a great ecosystem. And so, in the beginning, we partnered...we worked very hard to partner with The Knight Foundation to launch what was called The Future Leaders of Tech Fellowship. This is an example of something we did with different groups throughout all the years and continue to do today, but I'll use Knight as the example, which essentially was a full-ride scholarship for underrepresented individuals in technology. So the first iteration we ran of that was a full-ride scholarship because we thought that was the main barrier. Then we realized that a lot of these individuals who hadn't had the means before and didn't necessarily have the educational training needed a little extra training, and they needed to start working right away. So what we created was a pre-program for them. It was a full-ride scholarship, and then it was a guaranteed three-month paid internship at a tech company. And of all the people who went through that program, the majority transitioned, with the exception of two, transitioned into full-time salaried roles. And those are incredible stories that are truly life-changing. But I think the important thing there and what we learned over time is people need support, financial and educational, and they need time. So obviously, in an accelerated learning program, you want things to go as quickly as possible but through the help of partners and making it work for certain communities, we were able to do that. We also partnered with the YMW...it's the Women's...YMCA for women. I cannot remember the acronym right now. CHAD: WYMCA. JOHANNA: Thank you. Thank you. We provided a program in-house for them specifically. CHAD: No, it would be the YWCA. [laughter] JOHANNA: Yeah. CHAD: Sorry to interrupt you. JOHANNA: I'm sorry. I'm not doing you all a good service here. But it's an amazing organization here in Miami. And that was geared specifically towards women from disadvantaged backgrounds, giving them the education they needed. And with that group, we had actually a 70% success rate, which was wonderful. Those are individuals who had no options for any type of white-collar position, many of whom we still keep in touch with today. So, in the beginning, with diversity and inclusion, we were doing things at a smaller scale, very specialized, and very catered to make sure that they were successful in the hope of eventually building more momentum to do this. And the work very much continues. So BrainStation, larger company, we have a lot more firepower in terms of what we're able to do. So we've partnered with companies like Ernst & Young, Shutterstock, Microsoft with our Impact Scholarship, which is also full-ride scholarships for the underrepresented communities in technology, and that's been really successful as well. And, again, education is really rewarding, but it's also really rewarding to see, in particular, those success stories. CHAD: Yeah, one of the things when I speak at bootcamps or when I talk to apprentices who are joining us, I often reinforce or remind them that they bring something to the table, which is really special. I started programming when I was in middle school. I went to school for computer science. Aside from a brief stint as a dishwasher and a checkout person at a grocery store, this is all I've ever done. And I recognize that that has pros and cons. Like, I just don't have the same perspective and diversity of experience, let alone actual demographic diversity that many of our team members bring to the table. And there's something special in that, whether it be from your experience working in another industry like hospitality or something like that. You bring a perspective. There are so many hospitality startups, for example, that would love to bring a new developer onto their team who actually has industry experience. It makes it very powerful for people. JOHANNA: Yeah, absolutely. And I think oftentimes, people in anything when you're transitioning a career, there's maybe a little bit of imposter syndrome or a lack of confidence. And I see oftentimes not only minority groups but everyone shying away from their previous professional backgrounds. But technology is built for us, for humans who are very diverse in background experience and the products and services that we need. And so we really try to emphasize at Wyncode and at BrainStation to lean into your past profession. Because if you can bring that through and really focus on the things you learn there, you can provide so much firepower to what you're building with technology, and it’s super important. And I will say healthtech is big in South Florida. And so we have had various people with some type of health background, whether they were an assistant or worked in a medical office, or we've had a few doctors go through the program. They were, as you can imagine, really sought after for the healthtech companies because not only do they bring technology skills, but they have this understanding that no one else does. So it's really unique. CHAD: You're part of the tech industry now. [laughter] How has that diversity of background...you mentioned at the beginning, at the top of the episode that you were originally at the NHL, to starting to lead software projects there. How have you leveraged that for yourself and for your business? JOHANNA: Oh yeah, 100%. So we do an exercise at BrainStation where you have a chart, and you plot out your past professions, and you look at the things that you learned, and the mistakes you made, and the things you didn't like, to start to build a thread of what are things carrying over? And for me, the thing that has come to the forefront is technology or not...and I feel like anyone investing is also saying this all the time, and maybe founders say it too. But it always comes down to people and relationships and how you are listening and taking in the information to then digest it and deliver something. And so, I think my ability to connect with people and mobilize people around common goals is something that has been a common thread throughout my career. It's interesting. I'll say some of the best things I learned as a founder came from engineers, the first being agile. Like, we weren't operating like an agile company in the beginning because we weren't a software company. And our very first hire was a guy named Ed Toro, an MIT graduate. Shout out to Ed. It's actually his birthday. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: Incredible, incredible engineer originally from Boston. He was our lead educator for software for so long. And he just brought so much knowledge to us about how software is built and works. And we integrated that into how we operated as business people and organized the company. I mean, it's amazing. I actually don't remember what it's like to not be organized in that manner anymore. Although I can tell you going from the NHL to Wyncode was a huge jump because NHL, even though we were using and leveraging technology, was still organized very traditionally. And so I'll give you a simple thing, some software teams...I know a lot of software engineers appreciate transparency. So, in addition to organizing in a very agile method in terms of how we operated the business, we also pivoted to be extremely transparent as a team as well in terms of how the company is doing, which is something that is not common in a multibillion-dollar industry like the NHL. Although you see that more and more with tech companies, which is interesting. CHAD: How long ago did you join up with BrainStation? JOHANNA: So we were introduced to the founders and owners of BrainStation really because they were potentially looking at coming to Florida. And a mutual friend, a mutual business person, had said, "Hey, you know, if you guys are looking at Florida, probably you guys should meet Jo and Juha. They built something called Wyncode. You're going to get to know them anyway." And so I would say a little bit over a year and a half ago, we started chatting. And we realized that we had a lot in common in terms of how we had built the businesses, where we wanted to see the business go. And the rest isn't history because we're a year and a half in. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: So you know what happened. It all worked out. It's really great but also really excited for the future. Because now with the BrainStation acquisition comes a lot of firepower in terms of experience on the team, much larger team, capital, reach of team. We have students in over 100 countries. So I'm very excited for what we're going to do in the future as well because we can have so much more impact, and that is really exciting as well. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: You mentioned before you had a very Florida-specific focus previously. Is part of this next stage to be working across BrainStation and really working more globally? JOHANNA: Yeah, so working regionally with a focus on South Florida but with the know-how and the resources of a global team for sure. And being on the senior leadership team here, I am still 100% focused on Florida, but I get to have perspective from all the other markets. We have five campuses in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, London, and now Miami. So that's very interesting. And I have to say, when we were running Wyncode, we were always like, man, I wonder, how it's going in New York? CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: Or I wonder how it's going in Vancouver. Well, now I know. So it is really interesting because it also gives you not only a perspective in terms of bootcamps and how that's going but also a perspective on those ecosystems and how the tech companies there are growing and hiring. Because we're at that really interesting spot where we always know everyone's closed a round of funding because they go on a hiring spree. And then we see the bigger companies who are continually hiring. So we always kind of have a little bit of a pulse on what's going on in all of the ecosystems. And also really, before, we were primarily American students in the southeast, but now as BrainStation, I mean, it's global. So seeing how different everyone is but also still so similar in terms of their end goals and collaborative, it's really special. And yeah, it's been great. CHAD: So you have the campuses, the geographic locations, and then you have the global students. Are they in different silos, or do the two groups of students interact with each other at all? JOHANNA: Yeah, great question. So we do execute our..., and we call them diploma programs for the bootcamp programs, both online and in person. So as you can imagine, students in over 100 countries we're executing in all the time zones because of online delivery. But much of that, if they're outside of the geographic region of one of our campuses, they're likely an online student. CHAD: Are they being taught by an instructor in one of the campuses, or is it a separate thing? JOHANNA: Yeah, our educators are located in our campuses geographically. CHAD: How did the pandemic change or not change the experience of students, and what you needed to offer? JOHANNA: Wyncode, at the time, we were still Wyncode when the pandemic hit. I'll never forget having an all-hands meeting in our conference room and being like, hey...it was a Thursday. We're like, come Monday; we're going fully remote. We weren't a remote educator at that time. Everybody needs special permissions and licenses to also have remote teaching, which most governments made exceptions for because of the pandemic. So we were all good there. But we were thinking at the time, oh, maybe it'll be a month. Well, two years later, we're just about to have our grand reopening of the space in Miami. Our other campuses have already opened. And it was pretty exciting. When the pandemic hit, there was definitely an oh no moment. Like, people paused their enrollments, understandably. That was March. But as we got into early summer, we actually saw enrollment skyrocket. So huge success was pivoting to go remote. We were very fortunate that we had a pretty seasoned senior team on our software and UX side. And they had been through the world of remote learning and just being on tech, you know, Yahoo, Google. They had worked at Yahoo, Google, so they knew remote, and they were able to help us and bring that expertise. So the transition to remote was easy. And then we got all these students. And actually, that started a wave which has continued to this day of really people having an appetite for online learning and continuing to want to pivot careers into technology, both out of individuals' interests for technology but also because of the demand. So the pandemic was terrible. Business-wise for sure, there have been challenges, but there have, I would say, been a lot more successes and opportunities as a result of the pandemic. And for me personally as an entrepreneur, the pandemic got us, you know, we were doing well and having a lot of success, so the pandemic also got us on the radar for BrainStation. We started that conversation, and that was really exciting. And, again, here we are as a global educator now. CHAD: I've talked to a lot of people and seen it in our applications as well, like, it was really two things: people losing their jobs because of the pandemic and then getting that opportunity to take a look around and say, you know what? I'm not going back to that industry, and I want to learn to code. And then a lot of other people saying, you know, sort of the great resignation kind of stuff saying like, I want to change and actively switching as well. And you can see it in our applications the number of switchers, the number of people who have taken the last year, year and a half to do a remote bootcamp and make a career transition. It was always high. It's even higher now. JOHANNA: Yeah, totally agree, like, very respective of what we see as well. And we've had a great relationship with CareerSource South Florida as well. And they fund workforce transformation. And so initially in the pandemic...we're not seeing those layoffs now, but initially, a lot of those people who were getting laid off many of them were able to qualify for CareerSource as well, which also really fueled people's ability to take part in this education. And South Florida is interesting. I think 65% of the workforce before the pandemic...a lot has changed. Tech has moved in, a lot of big names have moved in. But before the pandemic, 65% of people professionally here were working in hospitality or real estate so it was definitely a big pivot for some people to go into the direction of technology. CHAD: That's great to hear that they were able to be helped by that because that can be a big impediment to this. I believe that the cost of an average bootcamp for what you actually get and for the impact it can have on your salary or your compensation is worth it. But if you can't afford the tuition, then it's a non-starter. JOHANNA: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then it goes without saying, but there are some people...there are a lot of opportunities. There are a lot of jobs. There are a lot of ways to get in, but it doesn't mean that it's for everyone. And I think for us, some of the work that's required to get into the program in our admissions process and our advisors who spend a lot of time with people considering this are also helping people guide this thought process of what they go into and what they're going to do to decide if it's the right direction for them. And I think ultimately, the large majority who come in have done good research and good work and have really thought it through, and it's a good fit. But again, it's not for everyone. So it goes without saying it's good to go online, do some coding. Download Figma if you're going to go into UX. Tinker around with some stuff. Ask some people, go to some meetups, and then start looking into the education piece. CHAD: Yeah. Are there ways in which you're exploring how either through partnerships or that kind of thing like it sounds like you've done to make it more accessible to people? JOHANNA: Yeah, so we put, again, Wyncode and BrainStation now puts a lot of importance on building a diverse, inclusive environment. And the most important thing is just collaborating also with organizations in our various regions that serve communities that are underrepresented in tech so that we can provide certain pathways to this. And one of the key things that we're doing with our Impact Scholarships, I think we've committed over $1.2 million just as BrainStation to giving those pathways. The other thing that we're piloting right now is what we're calling Tuition Free. So we piloted in London. Miami is the only other city we're testing it with in-person learning, not online, but it being completely tuition-free for the individual coming into the program, which we're calling a trainee. And then working with some amazing partners here in South Florida, in London who essentially, if they opt to hire someone for the program, are going to be paying a percentage training fee for hiring that individual. So we're really excited to be piloting what's called a reverse model. But more so, training people in a very specific skill set that companies need, eliminating financial barriers as much as possible, and then also providing a very robust, rapid pathway for this incredible talent to then join companies. And maybe we'll do a synopsis in about a year, and I'll let you know how it all went. CHAD: [laughs] That'd be great. That'd be great. So a common thread throughout this conversation has been Miami, and it's come on my radar recently in terms of the ecosystem there and how it's expanded and grown significantly over the last several years. You mentioned you picked up and moved there because you identified it as a great market. What has it been like for you? JOHANNA: It's been a whirlwind. I mean, #Miamitechisonfire, literally. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: It's a pretty exciting time to be here. I got to say, when we moved in 2014, our campus was and still is based in Wynwood, which is a wonderful creative space but also mixed in with tech companies. CHAD: Is that why it's called what it's called, Wyncode? JOHANNA: Yeah, that's right. [laughs] Wyncode and Wynwood, yep. So the landlords knew they really had all the leverage, right? But we have had, and I've always had, an amazing space here. And when we first opened, the biggest complaint we got from people who took the program was there were not enough places to eat. And for anyone who's listening who's from Miami and spent time in Wynwood, that sounds crazy because now all the hottest restaurants are here in Wynwood. And that's happened in the span of, you know, I know we've been here for eight years, but that's happened like in the last five years. So a lot has changed. Wynwood is kind of an analogy to what's happened in the rest of Miami. It was kind of like a little bit quiet and slow, known for hospitality, awesome partying, real estate, not really known for all of this other stuff. The pandemic, again, was horrible from a business standpoint, terrible for some people, amazing for others. It was amazing for Miami. The state of Florida remained relatively open throughout the pandemic. So that attracted people here. The tax situation, no income tax, has also been very appealing, particularly for anyone who's made a lot of money in tech and crypto, in particular from Miami. And then we have this incredible Mayor, Mayor Francis Suarez, who, long before what's happening now, has been an advocate and supporter of the tech ecosystem and startup founders here, which I've personally had experience with. He's been amazing. You know, in Silicon Valley, there was some social media going on for anyone who saw it on Twitter, and he tweeted back, and he said, "Hey, Miami would love to have you, guys. How can we help?" And so there's this tagline in Miami which is how can we help? Trying to be an ecosystem that's here to help that's open to all. And that's been going on now for almost two years. And as a result, there's been a huge number of people in technology in particular who have moved here, both big names like Jon Oringer, Founder of Shutterstock, Keith Rabois, Founders Fund. There are so many people to name down to founders who are like; I'm starting a new startup. I don't want to do it in New York or Silicon Valley. I want to do it in Miami. So that's really exciting. I can tell you; there's more going on here than I could...before I could keep an Easy Calendar, I knew everyone. I knew what events were going on when and now it's just...there are multiple events, meetups, multiple companies to meet. So it's really, really an exciting time. I think Mayor Francis Suarez has said this, too but definitely making a play to be the capital of crypto. So there's a lot going on in the crypto space here, a lot going on in Web3. Like Web3 being at the beginning, this is still at the beginning. This is a moment that we're hoping to turn into a movement, and I think it's really, really exciting. I don't think everyone is going to stay here. I don't think Miami is going to be the next Silicon Valley or New York. It has its own character. It has its own vibe. It has its own way of functioning, and that's what it is. Its original kind of environment is also what's attracting people. So it's an evolution right now. It's going to change. The people who have come here and who have been here are all in the process of evolving to what the next chapter of Miami tech is. But it's definitely an exciting time. It was a place for me where I came to professionally reinvent myself as well and really be a part of building an ecosystem. And that's very much true today for anybody who is coming here. And I think that type of opportunity is really, really exciting. There's definitely an energy, yeah. CHAD: The state of Florida has passed laws like the Woke Act recently, which can present a challenge to employers strictly speaking. You're not allowed to ask certain questions around diversity or inclusion in interviews now. And that can be uncomfortable or difficult to do business in or to say, "Hey, we're the most welcoming company. Come here. Come to Miami." Is that something that's, you know, I'm not there. So is it a challenge on the ground, or does it not really affect people day-to-day? JOHANNA: I mean, that's a really good question. I would say I haven't encountered it personally or even on the professional side with how we've been hiring. So it's hard to say from my perspective. I think certainly there are some things going on in Florida that Florida and California are very different. I myself I'm not an American. I'm not as involved in the politics. But it'll be interesting to see what happens in the future and how these things shape. I will say that employers have a lot of power because they're the ones who are bringing in a lot of money into a state. They're hiring people. And so some of the responsibility is also on the companies and employers who are in their respective areas to advocate for the things that they want to see. And one of those things is diversity, inclusion, which not everybody has made that a number one priority. And the one thing that I've said in the past is creating an inclusive and diverse ecosystem is the opportunity I think that Miami has because it is a less established tech ecosystem. The canvas isn't fully painted over, so we have an opportunity to be unique and be different and to try to avoid maybe some of the biases that have existed in other tech ecosystems. But at this point, while there has been progress made and there are some amazing individuals doing amazing things like Leigh-Ann Buchanan leading Tech Equity Miami and JPMorgan Chase coming in to support that in a really big way and Knight Foundation, we're still at a state where the minorities are advocating for the minorities. And that's something I hope to one, personally contribute to changing but as an ecosystem as a whole hope to see that happen. Because, like I said, Miami is attracting people for a certain reason, and that's great. And I think if we could build a diverse ecosystem, that would also attract certain people and retain certain people. And I am a firm believer, and, I mean, there are also stats to back it up, but the best products are built by the most diverse teams. So it goes without saying that the most diverse ecosystem is going to result in the best companies, best environment, et cetera. And I think that's the big opportunity for Miami, but we still have a lot of work to do to get there. CHAD: Yeah. Well, if folks want to follow along with you or get in touch with you or learn more about BrainStation, where are all the places that they can do that? JOHANNA: Yeah. I would love to connect with everyone. On LinkedIn, we have all of our respective social handles just at BrainStation. Even our Wyncode handles are still alive, so that's great. My parting words would be if you know someone amazing, a professional who wants to pivot careers and learn in person, now is an amazing opportunity to apply to BrainStation for incredible education and network. And I'm really looking forward to seeing amazing professionals come through the program. CHAD: And I assume if you're in a position where you're hiring talent that you should also check out BrainStation. JOHANNA: Yes, thank you, Chad. We 100% the thing we take the most pride in is connecting this amazing talent with awesome companies. I always like to tell everyone to keep a very wide lens on the type of talent you're hiring for your technology teams because some of the best individuals have very non-traditional tech backgrounds but bring so, so much to the table. Our team does a lot of work in terms of once we get to know a partner, which I would love for you all to reach out and join; we do a lot of work to make sure that we are connecting curated talent to companies. And if you go to brainstation.io/hiring-partners, you'll be able to sign up there. CHAD: Wonderful. Jo, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. JOHANNA: Great. Thank you so much. Great to be on. CHAD: You can subscribe to the show and find notes and a transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Johanna Mikkola.Sponsored By:AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. Learn more and sign up at thoughtbot.com/agencyuSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Jeni Barcelos is the Co-Founder and CEO of Marvelous, the world's most beautiful all-in-one teaching platform. Chad talks with Jeni about what makes Marvelous different from other teaching platforms out there, the importance of elevating women to leadership positions, and why applying for and getting accepted into an accelerator program was the right path for the company. Marvelous Follow Marvelous on YouTube, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Follow Jeni on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Jeni Barcelos, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Marvelous, the world's most beautiful all-in-one teaching platform. Jeni, thank you so much for joining me. JENI: Thank you for having me, Chad. I'm excited to be here and excited for our conversation. CHAD: So I'm really excited to dig into more about Marvelous as well. So why don't we start there? What makes Marvelous different than other teaching platforms that are out there? JENI: Marvelous is different in that we prioritize design, I would say more than any other competitive platform. And we also prioritize live events in a way that I think is pretty unique. So we started in the wellness space. We primarily are serving wellness creators, although all kinds of other creators use our tool as well. So we specifically built Marvelous with the goal of serving their unique needs, which involves a lot of teaching live classes and having a really great community space where students and clients can build relationships with each other. And then, because our audience has a particular design aesthetic and is non-technical, we've created the tool in a way that makes it really easy to make something look beautiful very quickly and simply. CHAD: So what caused you to differentiate yourself based on design? JENI: I think just personal preference and aesthetic, to be honest. As we were building the platform, I realized very quickly that people were choosing us...one of the big reasons people were choosing us was because of the simple nature of the user interface and because of the design that it produced. And so we decided really early to prioritize that. And I would say it's also just I care deeply about design, and I don't like the idea of using tools that make that an afterthought. And so I thought if I'm going to use it, and I do, I mean, we definitely dogfood our own platform and teach our own courses, we run our own communities there, I want it to look beautiful. [laughs] I want it to be a place that people enjoy spending time. We all spend more time, I think, than we want looking at screens. And so when you are going to engage in that practice and engage with other people on the internet, I think it's really nice to do it in a space that feels welcoming, and gentle, and beautiful. CHAD: So you have a co-founder, Sandy. Are either of you designers or have a background in design? JENI: Nope, not at all. Although I was one course away from minoring in art history in school. [laughter] No, I'm a lawyer. So I'm the opposite of a designer, although I think there's a part of me that thinks of myself as an artist. I wish that were my identity. CHAD: So, given the importance of design that you discovered, how did you go about executing on that? JENI: Hiring really great people, I would say, and having a really critical eye. And so, there's a tremendous amount of feedback that goes into our process. And now we have a head of brand in our company, and she can hold space for that design across both marketing and within product. So that hire, I think, has been critical for us to be able to maintain that as a priority. CHAD: Where were you in the product life-cycle and business stage where you were able to hire really great people? JENI: I would say within the last two years. So we are one of these startups that was in the right place at the right time when COVID hit. So luckily and unluckily, maybe we grew really fast in the wake of the pandemic, the beginning of the pandemic. And so that positioned us to hire pretty rapidly over the last two years. And that's when we really had the resources and the capacity to bring in that level of talent. I'll say our creative director was working with us for many years before that but just in a part-time capacity so, you know, running her own agency. And we were hiring her out as we could because we were bootstrapped. And so it wasn't until we reached a certain level of growth where we could bring her on as a permanent fixture in the company. CHAD: Yeah, that's often a way that I hear from founders to help get things off the grounds, particularly if you know of someone and would love to work with them and you know what they can produce, but you just can't afford to bring them on full-time as a member of the team at that point. Contracting with them, working with them part-time can be a great way to get that started. So let's rewind even further and tell me about the fateful day where you and Sandy first met each other. JENI: Yeah, so we first met in Colorado Springs at an entrepreneurship event. And it was for an online program we had both been in that was teaching us how to start a SaaS company. And we are two of the only people that had actually done it and gotten to paying customers within six months, which was a pretty audacious goal, I would say to go from being non-technical and having no experience in the startup world to having a product or at least an MVP with paying customers within six months and no funding. So we were 2 of maybe 5 or 6 people out of 550 in the program who did that. So we automatically kind of gravitated towards each other. And we were two of the only women also in the program. So we met at that event and got to know each other over the course of a number of days and retreated together. And then we just started really being accountability partners to one another as we were each building our own companies independently. And then that went on for another year, year and a half before Sandy joined my company. CHAD: Okay, so you were already working on Marvelous? JENI: Yeah. It had a different name at the time, but yes, I was six months into it when I met her. CHAD: How did you convince her to do that? JENI: We were actually growing...for a solo founder, we were growing to the point that I couldn't manage the company really on my own anymore. And so I applied to an accelerator just because I felt like I had other kinds of career experience but had, again, zero background in tech startups. And so, I came from teaching at a law school and building and scaling a nonprofit. And my background was in politics prior to that. So I had no idea what I was doing. Like, I didn't know what I didn't know, and so that thought scared me. And I just wanted to go immerse myself in an environment where I could ask a lot of questions and have access to resources and mentorships. So anyway, I applied to an accelerator and got accepted contingent on having a team and having co-founders. And I was like, [laughs] well, that's why I need to come here because I don't know how to do that. Like, I don't know how I would do that. And so I reached out to Sandy because I mean, she had been more closely involved in the company than anyone else because we were constantly working together online and going on Zoom and helping each other build our companies. She knew more than anyone else really what was involved. And she was always commenting how she wished she had started [chuckles] a company like this because it's just in the sector. Her background is in clinical wellness, and Marvelous really was serving yoga and wellness teachers. And so I said, "Well, why don't you come on board? I need to have at least one co-founder." Well, I was told I needed to have two, but I convinced them actually to accept me into the program with just one. So Sandy and I went into the accelerator together. CHAD: I feel like that's a great sign that you were able to convince them to bend the rule. [laughs] JENI: Yeah, I mean, I think that's actually my MO in life. So I also applied and got into graduate school at Yale without taking the GRE. So I have a history of these kinds of convincing arguments, I guess. CHAD: [laughs] JENI: And I'm a lawyer, right? So I was made for this. [chuckles] CHAD: Yes. You sound like a very enjoyable person, though. So I find it hard to believe that you're... [laughs] No, I'm kidding. JENI: I'm a human rights lawyer. So the only person I've ever represented in court was a pod of killer whales. So I'm a human rights and environmental attorney. So I'm not a corporate attorney by any means. CHAD: So some people might describe going after things, bending the rules as ambition. And I was reading some of the things that you've written, so I'm not pulling this out of thin air. But I know that you talked before about how sometimes ambition, particularly from female-identifying people, can be seen as a problem. Why is that? JENI: I mean, the short answer to that is the patriarchy of which we're all a part. Both men and women and non-binary people are all impacted greatly by the patriarchy. I mean, I think it's how girls are socialized. So that's a whole, I think, a whole other podcast conversation to have. But I mean, just even recently, I have a young daughter, and she was told not to raise her hand as much in school because she was so eager and raises her hand for every question that's asked. And that's unacceptable to me. But I was also told those things. And I think just men and women are judged very differently in our culture, and that's just a fact of life. I mean, just look at, I mean, this is maybe opening up a can of worms. But if you just look at the way the Elizabeth Holmes trial played out versus so many other startup stories, and yes, there are differences, but it's really common in our culture to villainize female ambition and to look at it as problematic. CHAD: Yeah, you're absolutely right that this is a whole podcast topic in and of itself, but I think it's an important one. But I'm curious; it can feel angering and powerless when something like that happens at school or in a system where it's very hard to control it or change it. But when it comes to your own company, you are in charge. So what have you done to try to make this different at Marvelous? JENI: Well, I would say elevating women to leadership positions to the extent that we've been able, I mean, we're definitely a female-run company. We make decisions. Also, just even the way we provide benefits and salaries, it's in my mind done from a more holistic standpoint than I would say a lot of other small startups are doing. We prioritize people and their families and try to treat people like human beings versus just kind of pawns in our scheme to build a company, I would say. It's not perfect. But I really think that so much of what goes on around kind of the women in tech stories so much of that and the women in fundraising stories has to do with women or non-binary people really having to prove themselves to a degree that is unrealistic in order to have the same treatment or the same opportunities as white men. So we are obviously very acutely aware of that. And so, in our own company, we're still very small but always trying to elevate the opportunities that women and people of color have in our company. CHAD: And as you said, this permeates. It's systemic. And so, what might you do when you have a male manager with the best of intentions in a female-led company? I'm of the opinion that it's not enough to just assume that, oh, well, in that environment, this stuff won't happen because it is so ingrained. So are there other things that we can do as founders, as people, and leaders, as a company to create an environment where it's better for everybody? JENI: I definitely don't have all the answers for this. But I would say we've put a lot of attention into coming up with core values that we really strongly affirm and reaffirm in the company and make sure that everyone is aware of those. I also just I'm constantly watching what's going on and noticing subtle cues when people start to pull back from contributing or some voices are much louder than others; just trying to notice that and not wait for something to be brought to my attention. I think so much of it is also the culture, and it's hard in a situation like ours where we're a fully remote team with people across the world with their own different, you know, they're bringing their own cultures and their own values to the company. I mean, it's definitely hard. It's harder than I ever would have expected to get people on the same page. And, I don't know, I don't have really good advice other than to say the founders should really agree on the core values. And then, those core values should be shared constantly. And I think it starts with the founder or the co-founder and the leadership team holding everyone to those values and standards. CHAD: So as someone who, like you said earlier, you're not a software developer, you're not a designer, yet you are working on this idea and bringing it out into the world. How did you manage to do that? What did the very early steps look like for you? JENI: So I started a company when I was essentially on maternity leave. I naively thought that that would be like a fun, little hobby project for me to start a tech company. Partly because I was spinning off what had really been a research project that was funded and incubated at a major university. I was spinning that off into a nonprofit with another co-founder, another lawyer. And I spent a great deal of time and energy fundraising and was constantly going and having meetings or drinks or dinner with people or even flying out to different foundations and meeting with donors. And I was like, this is for me who...I have a body of work and have developed expertise as a climate change expert. And that word is problematic but, you know, someone who knows quite a lot about climate change in the law, edited one of the major textbooks in the area, taught some of the first curriculum on energy and the environment. I was constantly having to just go out and raise money all the time and mostly from people who had cashed out of tech companies. So I was in Seattle at the time, you know, Microsoft and Amazon. There are a lot of people with significant wealth, and those are the people that are donating to organizations. And so I just thought I'm as smart and capable as these people. Like, why don't I have a revenue source that helps to fund the work that I want to do in the world? Which was a lot of human rights law and environmental law that's really underfunded really at that intersection of climate change and human rights. And so I thought, well, I'm on maternity leave. I'm really interested in the wellness industry. I see it really being broken. I had gone through yoga teacher training like right at the tail end of law school just for my own mental health and wellbeing. And I just saw all of these friends and colleagues of mine struggling, and I just thought something wasn't quite right. So the first thing I did was I decided I'm going to try to build something to help them. And I set out to interview 75 yoga studio owners or managers in North America and did some research on the biggest markets at the time. CHAD: Why 75? JENI: Because I just thought that was a good number. If I talked to 75 people, I'd be able to have some good information. And I will say I had just come off of a couple of major projects where I had put together a big international conference in my field in climate justice. And I had also put together sort of a retreat of leaders in the field of scenario planning around that. So I had really learned a lot and elevated my real career at the time by reaching out to people who I thought were thought leaders and experts in the field across different disciplines and having really honest, frank conversations and interviews with them. And I had been able to essentially tease out an entire field of work for myself from doing that. So I brought my research and academic skills to bear, which was like, if I talk to enough people, I'm going to start to find some patterns. And I was curious, like, I couldn't quite understand. This wellness industry had been growing for over a decade at that point. It was this massive industry, and yet no one I knew who worked in the industry made any money. And I thought that was really weird. And I'm like, why is all the money going to apparel companies or a couple of big brands? Something is really broken in this model. I don't think the technology...tech hadn't really arrived to wellness at that point. I came up with the idea to start doing this at the end of 2013, and so it was a long time ago. So I was just like, I'm going to talk to as many people as I can who are running businesses in the major metropolitan areas that are big yoga centers and just see what I can figure out. And so that's what really started it. And then, the idea for what was then called Namastream and is now called Marvelous came from those conversations. And it wasn't long; it was maybe six weeks into the research that I really started to...like, there were three or four ideas that I thought, well, here are product ideas that could really make a difference. And so what I did is I sent out about 200 cold emails, and I had 74 interviews from that. And then I agreed to create a report like a white paper because, again, this is what I knew how to do as an academic is like I'm going to do a bunch of interviews, and then I'm going to write a report about it. And I'm going to share it with people. So I agreed to share the research with everyone who agreed to an interview. And so I think that's part of why they agreed to talk to me. So yeah, so that's where the idea came from. And then again, I had no background in tech. I watched some trainings on how to do UX design, I think, like YouTube videos and stuff, and then I just did it. And I made the first prototype like a clickable prototype in Keynote because I knew how to use Keynote. CHAD: Yeah, that's so great. Talking to people, using whatever tool you're comfortable with, Keynote, PowerPoint, that kind of thing to do clickable prototypes that's the exact kind of thing I encourage, we encourage our thoughtbot early-stage founders to do. So you were spot on. I don't know if you realized it at the time. But that's really great. What problem did those 74 or some strong subset of them have that streaming helped them with? JENI: It was really interesting because there were a couple of studios. There were two studios at the time in Southern California that were doing this, and the bigger studios in these other major cities knew that. And so because there were so few, they were very well known way back. I mean, most of those conversations were in 2014 that I was having. Some of the studios, I mean, one of them is still a major company now. You know, most studios had like 2,000 members. Like, a studio that I would interview had 2,000 customers on their list, like, possible customers. Some of those were people who were drop-ins or punch cards or whatever. And then the studios that were streaming had like 30,000 customers. And so that was starting to be known. And people had no idea how to do any of that themselves. And so the problem that we are solving was when I would interview studios in the Boston area because that was one of the metropolitan areas I targeted; there were certain days out of the year that for snow closures like the studio would just lose all their revenue that day. In the south, there were studios that were impacted by hurricanes that were trying to figure out...and I'm a climate change lawyer, so I see this trend. I was looking at it from a disaster response scenario planning lens which was this is only going to get worse. I had no idea about the pandemic. CHAD: Little did you know. [laughs] JENI: Right? [laughs] I just thought like, wow, okay, the hurricanes are increasing in severity and duration. That's not going to change. Sea level rise is happening. Storms are becoming more unpredictable. Like, places that are cold are getting colder and have more snow on average. So all these people were complaining about lost revenue for these cataclysmic weather events. I just thought that as being a huge opportunity for a solution. So that was one reason why this idea really stood out to me. And then also just knowing that...this actually goes back again to my own story. I used to work for Al Gore. I was one of the people that led his environmental outreach on his presidential campaign when I was a teenager. And then I ended up being one of the first people trained to give the climate presentation that he made famous in An Inconvenient Truth. And so, I had been developing presentation materials in my legal and academic career that I was sharing with that organization. And I had to figure out how to record myself and then try to get it on a thumb drive and then send it to Nashville so they could watch it and learn how to present the slides that I was making. And so I actually had this very different use case where I was like, it was really hard. I was on the board of another nonprofit that was bringing together environmental leaders once a year to learn new training materials and then go back out across the world to disseminate them. Again, the same thing. I was like; there is going to be such a need for some kind of streaming tool that's accessible by whoever wants to use it to be able to share knowledge and information. So both as a business tool, but it also kind of scratched this other itch that I had seen in my previous career, like, the career I thought I was taking a short break from. And so I just was like, this is the future. And I had moved during this time across the country for my husband's job and had a new baby. And I missed my own yoga teacher. And so I thought, like, wow, I'm in North Carolina in this small town, and I really miss the Seattle community. And I miss my teachers there. I wish I could take these classes. So for all of those reasons, I saw this as being a trend that wasn't going away, and that was only going to be more in need. And it was really early adopters at that point, like definitely not 74 studios telling me they needed this. But it was a big enough chunk of early adopters that I thought this is when you get to make something new that changes the industry. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: So you have the clickable prototype, and you feel like this is something here. What was the next step for you? JENI: So I went back to everyone that had validated that idea, and I tried to sell it to them. [laughs] I had people PayPal.Me money in order to build it. I said, "You can become a founding customer, and you'll get access for a year included and with a payment." I think I was charging people; I don't know, a couple of thousand dollars. I don't even remember. It was a long time ago. It was under $2,000. "So you can get in now. You'll have a 20% discount on anything we make forever. If you want to participate, you can be in this founding member circle with me. And as it's getting developed, you can provide feedback and help to shape exactly what it becomes." So I had enough people throw some money into the pot PayPal.Me money. I also had no idea how to take money from anyone. It was sort of like pre-Stripe being a normal thing. So I just had random people PayPal.Me money. And I took the money, and I hired a developer to build a prototype. CHAD: How did you find that developer? JENI: That was hard. So through this entrepreneurship course that I ended up meeting Sandy in, there was somebody who was a classmate, sort of like a mentor-level classmate who had done the course before who was an engineer at Microsoft. So I asked him to help me. I reached out and asked him to. And if I hadn't reached out to him, I would have reached out to other developers that I knew, just people in my extended circle of friends and stuff. CHAD: So how long did it take from that point to get a product that people could actually use for their classes? JENI: Early use, I would say like four months. So it was very, very, very beta. It's humiliating what it was. CHAD: It should be. It should be humiliating. JENI: Yeah, it should be. So it was like kind of a WordPress plugin. It was basically a glorified WordPress plugin, and that took about four months. And so I onboarded our early adopters who had given me the money, the checks, the PayPal money. That was the beginning of the summer that year. And I said, "You're the only people that are going to have access to it for the first three months," and that was part of the deal. So I really worked around the clock helping them, working with my developer to solve any problems that were coming up, making changes. And then, in September, about three months later, I just figured out how to run Facebook ads. [laughs] So I just made up Facebook ads that ran to a one-on-one demo and let people book one-on-one demos with me through Facebook ads. CHAD: So in those early days, if you had to do it over again, is there a lesson you learned that you might do it differently? JENI: I don't think so, honestly. I feel like that first year; I feel pretty good about everything that I did. I mean, obviously, it would have been great to have someone like Sandy come in early on. But, I mean, I needed to figure some stuff out that I didn't need another person around to figure out, I guess. And I guess now, in like 2022, we're having this conversation. I wish I had dumped money into Facebook ads to have more demos because they were so cheap. [laughter] CHAD: Right. Right. JENI: It was so cheap for me to run ads. It was the golden days of online advertising, I guess. So I was probably paying like 40 cents a lead or something. [laughs] So yeah, maybe that. Because I was very much not wanting to put my own money into it. Like, once I raised the money to fund the prototype, I think I maybe in that first year put in like seven grand or something, but by the end of the year, I paid myself back. CHAD: That's great. JENI: I could have maybe put in a little more money. But I didn't know if it was going to work. Like, I wasn't really willing for...again, I wanted something that was very validated. And I expected fully to be going back to my career as soon as I got this thing launched. I was like, oh, this is just like a side hustle. This is going to be passive income. I did not understand that building a software company was not at all passive. I think I really bought into this idea that, like, oh, it's the internet. It will be passive income. CHAD: When did it become clear to you that it wasn't? JENI: Oh, I mean, I would say, you know, so I had a moment to go back to work, not my exact same job but to do work in my field between one month and two months after I launched and started running ads. I turned down a really incredible job offer, and I think that's when I knew it. I was like, if I take a job, if I go back to work full-time...and I have the kind of career that's all-encompassing, and I sort of, whatever, I'm going to give 150% to whatever I'm doing. And so I knew that this thing would kind of die, but it was taking off. And so, I think I knew at that point I had to make a choice. CHAD: And is that when you decided to apply to the accelerator? JENI: No, it was like another nine months of growing it on my own before I applied to the accelerator. And I just kept doing what I was doing, and it was working. But I was doing things that didn't scale, so that was the problem. And so I didn't know, I mean, there's only so many one-on-one demos that the founder can do before you start to realize [laughs] you need to make some changes because I was doing them around the clock. And then, at some point, I switched to webinars. I taught myself how to do webinars. And so then I was trying to do demos to multiple people at a time, but also, I didn't understand email marketing. I didn't understand copywriting. I was figuring everything out myself as I went, and I was burning out. So that's when I decided, like, oh, not everyone does this. I can't grow Microsoft or Amazon by doing this. I can't become that company. So obviously, I need to figure out how to scale. So that was when I decided to apply to the accelerator. CHAD: Why apply to an accelerator as opposed to start fundraising, for example? JENI: Oh my God. Well, so the whole reason I did this was so that I didn't have to go out for drinks with people and ask them for money. [laughter] I mean, I was not interested in that at all. And then I soon realized that that's what happens when you join an accelerator [laughs] is you basically just start learning to fundraise. But I didn't know that. I knew nothing. And so, I knew nothing about startups. I knew nothing about anything like this. I literally had no idea. So the idea of going and sending emails to wealthy people to go have a drink with them was actually the last thing I was willing to do. And I don't think any VC fund would have met with me. I didn't even really know what that was. Like, I had no idea. So it didn't strike me as something that there was a lot of money that somebody would pour into it. That, honestly, wasn't even an option to me in my mind at that time. CHAD: How did the accelerator help you? JENI: It helped me bring on a co-founder, which I would say was invaluable. [chuckles] And I learned a lot. I mean, I'm a person who's super curious and asks lots of questions. And so there was always somebody I could ask questions to, which was great, saved me a lot of time. And I also got to be in a cohort with other founders and see how they were growing their companies. So if you've never been around that stuff before, it's super helpful, I think, to just learn what other people are doing, like what other models there are, what other teams look like. And I also realized, like, we were one of the only companies that had any revenue. I had no idea how we compared to anything else. And so I realized, oh, we're growing, and we're making money, and we're profitable. And it's really different than what a lot of other people are doing. So I knew that there was something to it also. I knew that we were really onto something. And then I will also say that fast forward a number of years, and our leader, one of the directors of our accelerator, I ended up hiring him to be our Chief Product Officer. So that was also very fortuitous [chuckles] and really an amazing story and outcome as well. CHAD: Did you end up raising money coming out of the accelerator? JENI: Nope. We soft circled around and had an opportunity to take an additional tranche from the accelerator, and we walked away from that at the time. And it was a really hard decision. Mostly because Sandy is Canadian, I don't know if that was made obvious, and I'm American. And we never envisioned wanting...like, building a remote company still in 2016 was not normal. And there was no way we were going to be in the same place. And the potential investors we were talking to, one of them in particular, was pretty adamant that we needed to be in person and have an actual office set up. And that was not negotiable for us. And so we had been doing this fine. I mean, we were fine building a company together. And our first developer was in Asia, and then our designer at the time was in another part of the United States. So I was like, why would we do that? Why would we spend money and have to buy things like a fax machine and chairs? Why would we do that? CHAD: [laughs] JENI: That doesn't make any sense. And so that was one kind of red flag for me. And then also in the accelerator, I pitched to tons of people because you're sort of pitching, but also it's kind of practice. And I don't know how much of that was actual pitching. And I don't know how many of those investors were actually considering making investments, or they were just being nice and giving you their time and feedback. But I pitched a ton, and the only people that we had soft circled were women. And I just had some negative experiences with some of the investors that we had pitched to, which that's also another podcast episode. And I was really bothered by, in particular, one conversation that I had. It was like a situation where someone said something really inappropriate to me, and I just absolutely did not want to do that. So that all factored in. CHAD: Have you ever taken any investment? JENI: Yeah. So this year, we have...because we have a situation where it makes sense to pour fuel on our...it made sense from a marketing standpoint to pour some money in. So we've just taken a small investment from angels, and we may take a little more as well. We're open-minded, I would say, right now about fundraising. I have, in the last two years, taken a lot of meetings. So I've talked to lots of firms and lots of angels and get emails every day and so take a number of those meetings. So I've just tried to be really open-minded about it. So yeah, I would say I don't have such a negative association as what I had before. But I also would say my company is in a really different position now, and fundraising means something else to us. CHAD: It sounds like you're in a little bit more control over the situation. And by working with individual angels probably, you're able to maintain that, I would guess. JENI: Yeah. And it's definitely something where I think that there are...you know, I don't think it's helpful to be closed off to fundraising because I see that there are absolutely opportunities especially to go into new markets where being bootstrapped isn't practical because of the cost to go into those markets. And so, if it's something that's heavily regulated, for example, it's not a feasible option. So allowing us to have options and actually to be able to think through those options is important to me. CHAD: So now that you've done that, what's next for Marvelous? What's the next challenge you're ready to tackle? JENI: I would say we had this tremendous growth early in the pandemic, which really kind of unearthed, not really unearthed, I mean, I knew it was there [laughs] but really publicly unearthed a lot of technical debt. And that's, I think, normal for bootstrapped companies as well who are growing slowly and up to a point that they're not anymore. And so we spent a solid 18 months, I would say. Up until the end of 2021, there was a solid 18 months of really rebuilding the platform from the ground up. And so we've done that, and now we're in growth mode. We're focusing on letting people know that we exist because I think we're quite well known in the wellness industry and in the yoga space in particular, but we're not as well known outside of that in other creator niches. And so it's about brand awareness. It's about really showing up as thought leaders in the space as well. We do a lot of writing and a lot of blogging and podcasting. And in particular, we serve women and non-binary creators in a way that I think no one else does. And so it's about disseminating the information that we have and the teachings that we have and letting people know we exist, and we're a resource for them. CHAD: Yeah. Well, like you said, you have a strong reputation, and you have those roots in the wellness space, but you've expanded beyond that. If someone's out there listening, what would make them a potential customer or an ideal customer for Marvelous? JENI: So anyone who's teaching, training, or coaching online, the software is really industry agnostic. And so we're just, again, not as well known yet in those other spaces. But especially someone who's integrating any cohort-based learning, or really heavily integrating coaching and live streaming, or group programs, or one-on-ones into an online course or a membership, for example, Marvelous is really second to none with all of that. Because again, live streaming and the integration of live teaching with on-demand content was what we started with and what we are known for. And so it's not an afterthought the way that I think a lot of online teaching platforms and edtech companies have slapped on live streaming as like, oh, now you can integrate with Zoom or whatever. And for us, we have an integration with Zoom that's not like anything else. And then we have other WebRTC-based live streaming options, and everything is very well thought out and makes it really easy for the end-user so for the students and clients to be able to use the tool, which I think our audience really cares about that it's easy for their clients. CHAD: I'd be remiss, and since this is a podcast, if I didn't mention that you and Sandy have a podcast. JENI: We sure do, yeah. Thank you so much. laughs] CHAD: It's called the And She Spoke Podcast, and where can folks find it? JENI: So obviously anywhere that they listen to podcasts, but our website for the podcast is andshe.co. So I would love it if you're interested in conversations about women in tech, female founders, women, money and power, online business resources, and training. And that's mostly what we talk about. We're doing a crypto series right now, sort of like exploring crypto and the intersection of women and crypto, so that's going to be coming out shortly as well. CHAD: Cool. If folks want to try out Marvelous or find out more or get in touch with you, where are all the places that they can do that? JENI: So our website is heymarvelous.com. And we are @heymarvelous on Instagram. That's where we hang out the most. But we're also on TikTok, and Pinterest, and Facebook, and pretty much everywhere else as well. But Instagram, I would say, is the best place. CHAD: That's great. Jeni, thanks so much for joining me and sharing your story and your advice. I'm sure people will really appreciate it. JENI: Yeah, thank you so much for your time, Chad. I appreciate you having me. CHAD: And you can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode along with a complete transcript at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Jeni Barcelos.Sponsored By:AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. Learn more and sign up at thoughtbot.com/agencyuSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Owen McGab Enaohwo is the CEO and Co-Founder of SweetProcess, a business process management software that helps management teams and employees easily document procedures, implement processes, and manage tasks. Chad talks with Owen about taking specific root issues and building software around them, overcoming resistance to the core idea of documenting processes, and the importance of having the freedom and ability to be empowered to make changes to organizational documents that outline how you do your work. SweetProcess Follow SweetProcess on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. 52 Sample Standard Operating Procedure Templates Follow Owen on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel and with me today is Owen McGab Enaohwo, the CEO and Co-Founder of SweetProcess, a business process management software that helps management teams as well as employees easily document procedures, implement processes, and manage tasks. Owen, thank you so much for joining me. OWEN: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate you inviting me as a guest on here. CHAD: I could only return the favor as I recently went on one of the podcasts that you run over at the SweetProcess. I'm happy to have you on the show. OWEN: Great, great. CHAD: Let's dive in a little bit to SweetProcess. You know, it's a tool for documenting process. And I'm curious what led you to founding SweetProcess and creating this product? OWEN: That's a great question. So what happened was SweetProcess was actually founded in, I think, the fourth quarter of 2013. And before then, I had an agency where I would provide entrepreneurs in the U.S., so small to medium-sized business owners, with back-office support, basically, people in the Philippines doing back-office support for them here in the U.S. And so people had read these books that were very popular at that time, The 4-Hour Workweek, or the World Is Flat. And then suddenly they realize that being able to hire people abroad and outsource work was not limited to only the larger companies like the telecoms and all that that would go and hire like 150 or more people in these countries working at their phone support 24/7 and all that. So these books exposed small business owners to the idea that even they themselves can do it on a smaller scale and outsource a lot of their work. And so that's what I was doing. But the issues that I ran into was that first of all; they were coming to me with this idea that the moment they hire that immediately the person will hit the ground running and start doing the work magically, not realizing that for that to happen, there needs to have been documentation in place. Because first of all, the person you're hiring is in a different country, different culture and all that. There's that that you have going against you. But then also, they're not even with you physically where you can say you can teach them by talking to them while they're next to you. So they're in a whole different location. So the more clear your instructions are in terms of having standard operating procedures in front of them, the more easier and quickly they're going to deliver the results you want, and so that was the first thing. The second thing was they were very busy wearing so many hats. They didn't have time to document these procedures that we needed to do the work for them. So we came up with this strategy where we would meet with our clients at the time online on Zoom, not Zoom; Zoom wasn't the thing at the time. It was...what was it called? Skype. CHAD: Skype. OWEN: Yeah. So we would meet with them online, and we'd have recorded sessions with them where they would walk us through what they were doing then record those conversations. And then, someone else on my team would take this conversation and document standard operating procedure step by step from what they told us. Now, on the backend, the issue we had was to do this documentation and have tools in place so that people can actually have one place where they could go and find all these documents for our clients. It was either we were using enterprise-level tools that were first of all hard to use for my team talk less of the clients. So these tools were not even built for small to medium-sized businesses. Or we were basically hacking to get a bunch of free tools to achieve that purpose of documentation and having one place where people can go find stuff. So in the back of my mind, I was like, man, there has to be a better tool that does this. And so fast forward, I was invited as a guest on to Mixergy. It's another very popular podcast for tech startups. I don't know if you know of him. His name is Andrew Warner. And so, he has two versions of the podcast. The first version is the one where people go in there and talk about the biography of their business or themselves and how they were able to build a tech startup that sold for millions or whatever. And then the other version of the podcast was one that was behind a paid subscription where people come on; they're experts, come on there and talk about specific topics like very concrete-sized topics that people are paying him to learn from. So people could come on here to learn about sales, marketing. In my case, I was brought on there to teach the listeners how they can basically document procedures and processes so that you can hand over work and no longer be the bottleneck in their business. Lo and behold, my co-founder, Jervis, who is a programmer and now my co-founder and CTO for SweetProcess, listened to that course that I did for Mixergy. He reached out to me and said he has an idea he is working on similar to what I was talking about, the whole way of simplifying documentation. And he just had some questions about this idea he had in his head. And being the kind of person I am, open to conversation, I said, "Okay. Let's go ahead. Let's meet." So we had a conversation. And after our conversation, I was like, "Dude; I'm running into the same issue that you're talking about right now because we do this for our customers. We do the documentation for them. But the tools are not the way they should be. Instead of me just giving you ideas on how to do that, and then you go from here, would you be interested if we go ahead and work together and build this software together and build this as a company together?" And he was excited. He was like, "Okay, let's do it." And then I said, "Okay, instead of jumping ahead to build the software, one of the things I want to do is avoid a situation where the software ends up being hard to use and feature-bloated like the other software that we are running into right now. Why don't we spend some time having conversations with potential customers to totally understand this problem of documenting procedures and having one place where employees can go to find stuff and how employees can collaborate together to improve stuff?" So I wanted to really understand the problem by talking to people. So we spent like about a month or so. I spoke to more than 30 different people running different companies just to get the ideas of the problems they were having with this very specific topic. And we came back, we analyzed all the conversations, and we were able to put down a list of root-specific problems that people were having. Because people will suggest features of what they want, but if you drill down and ask them deeper and deeper like, "Why this?" You know, just going into the problem they have and try to get to the root why behind it, then you will end up having a situation where you find a bunch of specific things that are similar between all the different people you spoke to, but they are not saying the same features. So we took those specific root issues that we were coming across, and we were able to now go ahead and build our software based on that as opposed to launching a software where at the time with a lot of competitors has not as much features as they had. But we focused on simplicity. We focused on solving the root issues and getting rid of a lot of the complex stuff. Like, for instance, some of the software were focused on having some kind of feature and technology sets where it was focused on the business consultant or the expert person on the company who's going to come and document stuff. But we said, "No, the owners of the business don't care about that. It's really more about how does this help them. They don't care about the terminologies and all that." So we got rid of all the bloat and all the stuff and just focused on simplicity based on having these conversations that we had with the people that I spoke of earlier and also based on my own experience using these harder-to-use software. CHAD: Well, I really appreciate and commend that because it's a common pitfall. I'm a big believer in building software for yourself that you really understand and a product that you yourself are going to use. But some founders, when faced with that, they'll be like, "Well, I don't need to talk to anybody. I'm the customer. I know everything that is needed. And let's just do what I know we need to do." So to be in a position where you were able to take a step back from that and talk to some other people and make sure you were on the right track, that's really great. OWEN: And besides the fact of talking to people to help us streamline and simplify the software, another thing we did was open my eyes to the idea that this problem we're solving basically run across multiple different verticals or industries besides the industry I was in. The industry I was in was basically the outsourcing industry, trying to help people outsource their back-office support. But I realized that the problem was even people that actually want to use the software for documenting didn't really care so much about outsourcing work. It was more about employees they have internally being able to do work predictably and at the scale they wanted it, delivering results that they wanted, and hence they needed that documentation. So without having these conversations, you don't get to see these things that you didn't know going in. CHAD: Actually, that touches on one of the things I was wondering about, which is the market for your product is essentially every company in the entire world. [laughter] So, with such a huge potential market, are there things you've identified as who your ideal customers are or what kinds of customers come to SweetProcess on their own, what stage they're at, those kinds of things? OWEN: Great question. So what we've realized is from the customers who stay 24 months or more with us typically are the much larger companies that have over 20 employees based on the data we have. So what we found is the smaller companies, we encourage them to use SweetProcess because we always want people to start early in the process of documenting procedures. But what you realize is that these smaller companies...let me backtrack. So the software solves that problem of having documentation in place and collaborating together to improve these documents over time. And that's really because they are trying to make sure that from a production standpoint of delivering the results to their customers, they have all these instructions. And so their employees can carry out those tasks that they cannot automate. Those tasks that need to be done by human beings, employees can carry it out predictably. Now, that's them trying to deliver output to their customers. When a company is less than five employees or even less than ten employees, they don't have so much issues or worries with production. Their main biggest issue is how to get customers, how to get sales in the first place. So their focus initially is more on okay; let me figure out a system for sales. Let me figure out a system for marketing and all that. But on the other hand, when you already have 20 or more employees, to a large extent, you have figured out your sales pipeline, your marketing pipeline, and all that. And now you really want to make sure that the people you've hired can hit the ground running and do work predictably and deliver the results you want. So that's why it makes sense that these companies that have more employees tend to be the ones that have the need for the software, for what we do. CHAD: Who ends up often finding and championing SweetProcess within an organization? Is it typically someone in a leadership position like a CEO? OWEN: Great question. So it breaks down based on the size of the company. And now I'm giving you all the juice because my competitors are listening to this now. CHAD: [laughs] OWEN: But anyway, it is based on the size of the company. It's like if it's between 20 or let's say between 10 to 20-30 employees, most likely it's the CEO who has this pressure that, hey, I need to make sure that employees can go to one single place and find step by step instructions on how to do their work. I need to make sure the onboarding can be done faster. I need to make sure that if anybody leaves this company, we're not scrambling to figure out how work is done. So they start looking for a tool like SweetProcess. Now, beyond that, let's say 30 to maybe 100 employees, it's now like the CEO, not the CEO but the Chief Operating Officer, someone who the CEO has hired onboard as the person in charge of operations at the company. Now, once we get beyond that 100 to, let's say, 1,000 employee kind of thing, we're now looking at someone that is a level below the COO, the Chief Operating Officer, and those usually are the operations manager. So that's how it works; it's based on the size of the companies. It's either the CEO that's reaching out to us or the Chief Operating Officer or someone who's an operations manager at the larger companies looking to...and especially with the operations manager thing, it's usually they're trying to bring in SweetProcess to start in their department or whatever and then usually to scale-out besides their department to other parts of the company. CHAD: How do you reach those people? OWEN: So you mentioned something that the fact that the problem we solve cuts across the board, different verticals. It's not industry-specific. So that's a good and bad problem to have. Because if you're only selling to a specific industry, all you got to do is basically be everywhere anyone who is in that industry is at, all the podcasts, all the trades, and everything, just basically be there, and that's it. But because the software we sell cuts across different industries, it's kind of harder to do that. So what we decided to do is focus more on creating content around the problem itself so that when people are looking for how to solve their problem, they're able to find us regardless of the industry they are in. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: Do you find that there's resistance to the core idea of documenting process? OWEN: Oh yes. There's resistance in different levels. Sometimes people think it has to be, you know, robotic, and sometimes they think it has to be complicated. Then it's also "I don't have time to handle the documentation." I hope that I also get to share some cheat codes on how to actually do that on this podcast. I don't want to leave the listeners just hearing about the history of the company but also giving them in case they're in that stage in their company how to go about it. CHAD: Well, that's exactly what I was going to ask you about, so yes. OWEN: Good, good. So, first of all, if you think about it, you only need to document procedures only at a time when you're trying to document how a task that you do on a repetitive basis, recurring basis. Because if a task is a one-time thing that you're never going to do ever again, well, there's really no need to document it. So we're now left with only recurring tasks. Now, people might just want to get excited and start documenting just because it's based on a recurring task. But I say, no, hold your brakes. First of all, let's have this conversation with the employees and managers or whatever and say, "I know we've been doing this over and over again. But is this task necessary?" Because it might just be tribal knowledge thing where we've always done this, so let's keep doing it. No. But if you have that critical conversation and say, "Okay, is this very thing that we've always done, is it necessary or not?" If the answer is not necessary, okay, simply and quickly eliminate it. There's no need to start documenting how that task is done. If it's not necessarily, eliminate it. If it's a situation where you already have procedures or processes in place, and they are already existing, and you're trying to come into a software like SweetProcess, even before you start importing those documents, I want you to take a look at those documents and say, "Are these things documenting tasks that are even necessary in the first place?" And if they are not, eliminate them. So now, let's say we are at the point where you've eliminated stuff that is not necessary. The recurring task left you have no choice, but you need to do them. Now let's break those two tasks into two categories. The first category is revenue-generating tasks, basically, tasks that bring in money to the company. And the other one is, you know, they're not necessarily revenue-generating, but they're necessary and more of the operation side of things. You need to do them. They don't bring in revenues, per se, but you need to do them to produce whatever stuff that you've promised the customer. So people might be excited to want to jump in and start documenting the tasks that bring in revenue. But I say don't do that because if you start that and you document those tasks that bring in revenue, you're also going to be tempted to say, "Okay, let me go find employees or new employees or sales whatever to come and start doing those activities that bring in revenue that I just documented." Now you're going to get more people or more customers coming into the chaos that is already in there because there are a lot of bottlenecks. So I say focus on these bottleneck tasks first. Find the biggest bottleneck that takes the most of your time. Start from there first. And then, once you've documented how that task is done, you find the next biggest bottleneck, you document that, and you move to the next one. Before you know, you've eventually documented all the big bottlenecks in your day and the time of your manager and all that stuff. And you guys are now freeing up time to focus on these nice income-generating activities. So the next question is okay; I've figured out a big bottleneck task to focus on. How do I document it? Does it have to be an encyclopedia? The answer is no. I want you to do one thing, install that mindset of continuous improvement in your mind, install that mindset of continuous improvement in the mindset of your managers as well as your ground-level employees. Once you have that mindset in place, it basically gives you the permission to say, "Okay, we're going to start from version 1.0 today, which is going to be rudimentary and not have that much in there." But we're telling ourselves since this is continuous improvement, it's going to keep improving as we go. So the first thing you do is document what I call a minimum viable procedure, which is just a fancy way of saying a procedure that has the title of the procedure and the title of each of the steps. That's the first thing. And the best time to even do such a thing is while you're doing the task itself because at that point, it's highest and best in your memory so it's easy to just, you know, whether you're using a tool like SweetProcess or using whatever tool, that's the best time to actually document that minimum viable procedure. So title of the procedure, title of each of the steps. And that's it. What do you do next? How do you get more details filled in? First of all, I don't want you to think it's only you that will be responsible for filling in the details. It needs to be a collaborative thing. So get your employees involved, anybody who you've trained verbally on the task before on how to do it. It could be a manager or some ground-level employee who you've trained verbally on how to do the task. Say, "Okay, I just documented this procedure. Here are the steps for the procedure. You've already done the task before. Come and collaborate with me to fill out the details." So now the employee goes in there and starts step number one, starts entering the details in there. And also, let them know that the details they're going to each step doesn't have to be 100% perfect. It just needs to be enough instructions in there, be it text, be it screenshots, or whatever, that at least someone else can take these details that they've put in there and at least get started. Again, the goal is not to be 100% perfect with the end results of each procedure. At least if someone can take a procedure and get 60% of the way towards the output, that's a good place to be so because, again, we've installed that mindset of continuous improvement. Besides collaborating together to fill out the details of the document, how do you then continuously improve the document? This is the cheat code there for this one now is anytime an employee is carrying out a task, you need to make sure that they are also looking at that procedure that you guys have built together because a lot of the insight that comes around improving a document comes when they are actually doing the work; it's not from when they are documenting how the work is done. But when they are doing the work is where the aha and all these things comes to them. So let's say a document or a procedure has ten steps. Now the employee is doing the work, and the procedure is right in front of them. They are now able to say, "Okay, why do we need ten steps for this? I just found a better way. We probably just only need four steps." Now they can now take that input; hopefully, it's a proactive employee that we all want; they can take that input and pass it back to you. And that document can be improved based on that feedback. Or they might come across some new way that was not even encountered for or discussed in the document, and now that feedback can as well be passed to you so that you can improve that document based on the feedback. But you see how all these things I've talked about, if you don't have the right software in place, it might be a little bit tricky. And that's why when we built SweetProcess, we made sure that it has everything in one place where the documentation side of things and how to collaborate together with the team to document is in one place, as well as the actual aspect of getting work done, which is assigning tasks. So, for instance, in SweetProcess, you cannot assign a task to someone that is not based...every task you assign to someone must be based on an underlying procedure you've already documented. So when the employee is actually getting the work done, the instruction is right there in front of them as they are getting the work done in real-time. And if they come across any changes or anything, they can pass that back to you, the manager, who you can make changes on their behalf. Or, if they are the proactive employee, they can literally click a button to edit the underlying procedure and make the changes while giving you the management oversight. So all these insights that I've shared about how to do it regardless of whether you use SweetProcess was based on our initial finding when we had all these conversations, and we put it in together and packaged it into our software. CHAD: I'm glad that you touch on this idea of continuous improvement, one, because it's one of our core values at thoughtbot is continuous improvement. And I think it's one of the challenges that we have despite it being one of our values. We've been around for 19 years now. We have a very robust internal documentation handbook, procedures, and the way a lot of things are done. And I think it's very easy for someone to show up in that environment and even have all of the best intentions about practicing continuous improvement. But when so much is already laid out for you, it can become easy to fall into the trap of saying, "Well, the answer to everything is here, and I don't need to worry about improving it because clearly..." I don't know; it just builds up this culture of like, we've got things figured out. And it's easy to just fall into the mindset I think of just blindly following the things there and not actually looking at them critically while you do it. OWEN: Well, I think that is the wrong way to think about stuff because maybe people are thinking, oh, documenting might make the employees robotic, and maybe they don't have a say in what's going on because maybe the instruction has been passed on to them, and that's it. But the way we want people to think about this and the way we built the software is that it needs to be a collaborative thing where it's not just one person that does it. So that's why in this software and in our software, we allow even the ground-level employee who has been assigned tasks based on the underlying document they are empowered to literally go in there and click the edit button and make the changes to it, knowing that yes, the manager or the owner of the company still has management oversight to approve the changes. But then, even deeper than that, from a cultural standpoint, what other way can you have your voice heard in a company than when you have a tangible role in the actual improvement of how the work is done? Because that's what the procedures are, right? Your document procedures for how work is done. Guess who is doing the work? You. And if you have the ability to, and you are empowered to make changes to the documents that outline how you do your work, that is you literally having your voice heard. On top of that, I think documenting procedures allows you to be more creative. So imagine if you're a manager and there's a specific task you do maybe every three months, and you don't have a document for it. Now, at the time it comes when you need to do this task three months from now, you're going to have to start context switching, remembering okay, how do I do this? Spending all this time trying to figure out how to do something and then when you figure it out, now you're going to spend time doing it. But imagine if, on the other hand, you had the instructions right there in front of you. You don't have to spend one single minute remembering anything. The instructions are right there in front of you. You get started on doing the task; what does that allow you to do? First of all, it allows you to get the task done faster, but then it also frees up your mind to start asking yourself the question like, how can I make this be done better? How can I improve this stuff? How can I get rid of some of these steps? That's where the creativity comes in. And you start thinking of new and better ways to get things done. Because remember, documenting procedures is all about, okay, creating steps and instructions for how those tasks that you cannot automate that will be done by human beings are done the right way. But eventually, they get to certain points wherein parts of the task, you can figure out certain things to automate, and you get rid of the manual aspect of human beings doing it. So this is where this whole creativity comes into the whole thing of documenting. That's the way to think about it. CHAD: Yeah, that's great. One of the tools, additionally, or techniques that we use a thoughtbot too is there are times where you might have a sense that something isn't quite working right or be improved, or maybe a non-technical person is the one doing the task. And they have a sense that it could be better, but they don't necessarily have the skills to know how to automate it or something like that. To have people come together in what we call a retrospective format where you're identifying things that might be better or could be improved. You're talking about them and coming up with action items for improving them. It's is a nice forum that we have for talking about maybe the more vague feeling that someone has that something could be better and then coming up with a way to improve it as a team. Is that something that you do at SweetProcess? OWEN: Well, yeah. So we have a bunch of different tasks that we do. And every now and then, we get to a point where we asked ourselves, is there a way we can automate this so that we don't have to do…? I'll give you an example. Every time...before we automated this when someone signs up for SweetProcess, a lot of our customers come through us creating content that addresses these questions all around documenting and how do you scale the operations of your company and so on and so forth. So a lot of people come through our content. And as a result of coming through our content, they get into our email automation. We use ActiveCampaign, and they get into our email automation. And before, in the past, before we automated this when someone came in, they get into our email list, and then eventually, they sign up for a trial of our software. And then, we will get this email about it, and we will have to manually go into the tool that we use for our email automation and change their status so that they don't keep getting emails from us as if they were not trial. That became a thing where we were doing too much. And we said, you know, "Hey, let's get some engineering on this," and basically got API integration built directly with our software so that when someone signs up for trial, it looks to see is this person already in the email list as someone who's not a trial user? Yes. So let's move them in a different...tag them the right tags and put them in a different category so that now they receive a whole bunch of different emails. But the signal for us to decide that we needed to automate that stuff was doing it manually. Although we had step-by-step instructions on how to do it, it was still taking time. And so we said, "Okay, can we automate this?" And so we got to the level where we automated the stuff, and now it's not a thing that we have to even worry about or have someone do. It's just automated. CHAD: You have a degree in computer science, right? OWEN: Yes. CHAD: Do you wonder or…because I sort of have this theory about myself too because I have a degree in computer science as well. But I'm now still doing some development but in operations as well. And sort of this systemized thinking or systems thinking, do you think it comes from our technical backgrounds, your technical background? OWEN: I think you can say part of it was enhanced by this, but I've always had this mindset of when I see things like maybe if I go to a company and I see how customer service is happening or how they produce things, I've always been fascinated with how things move around within the different parts of a company to end up with the outcome that I'm trying to achieve. Like, people might be having fun watching music videos, but I don't mind sitting down and watching a manufacturing plant like a video showing how they...because I've always been fascinated with how things come together to make the output. And so then you throw in the computer science degree there, and that also enhances that thinking. So I think from my own standpoint, it was just me personally always wanting to know the ingredients that you put together to make something happen. I'm always fascinated by stuff like that. So I'm always thinking systems-wise. CHAD: That's great. If folks want to get in touch with you or try out SweetProcess, where are the different places that they can do that? OWEN: So obviously, they can go to sweetprocess.com. And you'll be welcome to try out a free 14-day trial of the software. But one of the things I want to leave with you as a gift is I've shared with you how to go about documenting procedures. But you might also want to have templates in front of you so that you're not starting from a blank screen. You have a bunch of… What I'm offering is about 52 standard operating procedure templates that you can download right after this interview. You can go to sweetprocess.com/giantrobots, and you'll be able to download it. And that's sweet like candy, process like process, forward slash giant robots just like the name of this podcast or sweetprocess.com/giantrobots. And you'll be able to get a PDF that contains 52 standard operating procedures, and from there, you can tweak it and build upon the templates. CHAD: That's awesome. I'll make sure that we link that in the notes, which will be right in people's podcast player too. OWEN: Thanks for having me on the call. I really appreciate it. CHAD: Yeah, if folks want to get in touch with you, where are the places where they might do that? OWEN: owen@sweetprocess.com, very easy. CHAD: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. You can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Sponsored By:AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. 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Matt Danna is the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Its mission is to modernize the technology while improving the daily lives of professionals and the clients they serve. Chad talks with Matt about discovering a problem and then making the jump to working on it, overcoming hurdles in terms of continued growth, and deciding to invest in building their own hardware by creating Boulevard Duo: a point of sale credit card reader. Boulevard Boulevard Duo Follow Boulevard on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Follow Matt on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Matt Danna, the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Matt, thank you so much for joining me. MATT: Thanks so much for having me, Chad. Great to be here. CHAD: One of the things that I was interested in learning about Boulevard is it's a large product that does a lot for salons and spas. And so, I'm interested in talking with you about the process of getting to where you are today. But why don't we get started by giving folks an overview of everything that Boulevard does for salons and spas? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So Boulevard offers what we think is the first and really only business management platform that's really focused around the client experience. We work with businesses that help all of us look and feel our best. And it's a really special industry to be powering where there's a really close sense of that human touch and that human element. We try to use technology to help automate and relieve the day-to-day operations as much as we can for these businesses so that they can focus on providing that world-class client experience and deepening relationships with their clients. CHAD: And tactically, that's online booking, scheduling, payments, schedule management, all that kind of stuff that goes into running. MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So it goes all the way from, like you said, scheduling to we are a fully integrated payments solution to even have time clock kind of commission reporting. And so it really goes from managing everything front of house all the way through back of house. And happy to share more about how we ended up building such a wide and deep product because it's definitely an interesting story. CHAD: So you were not in the salon industry prior to Boulevard, is that right? MATT: That's correct. CHAD: So, how did you end up getting brought into this industry? MATT: So the founding story...so my background is in software engineering, but I ended up turning much more into a designer over time. So I've been naturally drawn to building technology for creative individuals. And so, at my last startup, which was called Fullscreen, it was a startup here in LA. We were helping YouTube creators make better content online, helping them monetize on YouTube, understand their audience. And this was in the days where YouTubers couldn't monetize directly. They needed to go through a network. And so, we created this proprietary technology offering that really helped them understand how to build their audience and further monetize. So the original founding story was that I met my co-founder of Boulevard at Fullscreen. His name is Sean Stavropoulos. And I was the VP of Product. He was the VP of Engineering. And the kind of inception moment was that there was this week where Sean's hair was a complete disaster. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And as a great colleague, I was making fun of him [laughs] and telling him like, "Dude, you need to go get a haircut." And he said to me that he kept forgetting to call his salon during the day to make an appointment, and at night when he remembered to do those types of things, the salon is obviously closed. And we were just thinking how much friction there was as a client of these businesses in the booking process and that we didn't understand why you had to do basically so much work in order to be a client. It just was incongruent with what was going on in other industries and kind of restaurants and everything going through this digital transformation. Our hypothesis was that they must still be on pen and paper; they haven't adopted technology yet, and that's why you need to call to make an appointment. And we started thinking a lot about this problem and started obsessing over it. [laughs] And there was a weekend that we were hanging out, and we ended up walking into a few different salons and spas in a neighborhood that we were hanging out. And we did a bunch of research and asked them a lot of questions. We said we were UCLA students working on a research project. CHAD: [laughs] MATT: Which was a pretty smart move because everyone loves talking to students, and we weren't trying to sell them anything. We were trying to learn more. And so, a good research tip is just to state you're always a student. And we ended up learning. And we were super surprised that they were all using technology. All the technology that these businesses were using were also capable of online booking. And so we were like, "Okay, none of this makes sense. Like, you're making your customers call you, but you have these capabilities." We were like, "Do you need help embedding it into your website? Like, why don't you use online booking" And their answer would be, "We absolutely cannot use online booking, no way," which made us even more curious. And so what we ended up learning was that self-care businesses, you know, salons, spas, nail salons, you name it, they're generally running on pretty thin profit margins like in the 5% to 10% neighborhood because their labor costs are so high relative to their sales. And the other important piece that we learned was that the front desk has outsized control over the revenue that the business makes simply by how they place appointments on the calendar. And so when you call to make an appointment, they're looking up to see if you have a client file, to see if you've been there before, what services did you get? Who were they with? How long exactly did they take? They're also looking to see when they could fit you in. And they're doing double booking, triple booking whenever possible so that staff can be with multiple clients at once and double up. And then they're also making sure there are no gaps between appointments. And so they're doing basically this yield optimization, schedule optimization on the fly. And none of that was taken into account if customers self-booked using any of the solutions available on the market. And so we thought that seems like a straight-up technology problem to solve that these businesses needed an online booking solution so customers can have that convenience and self-booking whenever they want. But it also needs to take into account some of that business logic that the front desk follows so that they don't get gaps in the day and have a really sub-optimal and inefficient calendar. And so that's where we thought we could provide some particular value that would be unique in the industry. And that was what we focused our MVP on, was that very thing, having an intelligent scheduling solution. CHAD: It seems like it's a pretty big leap for the director of product and director of engineering at a startup to discover a problem like this and then actually make the jump to working on it [laughs] and making it real. Was there something in particular that happened? Why did you do that? [laughs] MATT: Yeah, I mean, we had a, you know, being executives at the startup and really loving the team, loving what we were doing, our mission. But I think one of the motivators and catalysts was when we were doing this field research. And we ended up going out to a couple of hundred businesses over the course of several weekends to learn even more about this problem area. But one of the things that was so evident and clear was that all of the technology in the market that these customers, these businesses were using, they were negative NPS scores. They were like, "Oh, we use, you know, X, Y, or Z solution, and we really don't like it. It's so hard to use." You would see the red in their eyes when they would talk about this technology." And we're like, "There's something very powerful here." And we weren't exactly sure at the time was it legacy technology not keeping up with modern needs of these businesses and the growing expectations from end consumers, or was it user error problems? And we had come to the conclusion that it was really a lack of innovation in the market from existing vendors. And that got us particularly excited, and we formed a lot of conviction, so much conviction that we made the leap to start working on this. So we transitioned out of our full-time executive day jobs, and we ended up doing a little bit of consulting work while we were doing a lot of product discovery. So for about six months, we were doing three days a week on Boulevard and a couple of days a week on consulting. So it was a nice little part-time way to keep paying the bills but also then be able to spend a significant amount of our brain space thinking about this opportunity and what problems we wanted to solve. CHAD: So maybe I'm just off base here. And I'm not trying to get you to say that something was wrong at Fullscreen. But it strikes me there needed to be something going on, in my mind, maybe I'm off base, for you to even before deciding to make that leap, though, to spend your weekends going to salons and doing interviews. MATT: Yeah, I think this is how most companies are started is by founders who are trying to solve a problem that they're exposed to. So everyone is always trying to build companies that are solutions for problems that they have. And we just, I think, got excited by this problem. And my background being in building technology for the creative individuals, like, I got really, really excited. And Sean took some convincing that this was worth it and that this could be a thing. CHAD: Was it an aspiration for you to find something that you could use to found your own company? MATT: No, no. CHAD: And then why were you doing it? [laughs] MATT: I think it felt like the right thing to do. I never considered myself an entrepreneur, and I really still don't. I think of myself as a builder, and I love building things. And this was in a way for us to think about, like, oh, let's build a company and turn this into a massive business. We saw that there was a particular pain point that was experienced from both consumers and businesses and that we could provide something special. It felt like it was something that only we saw, which I think made it feel even more compelling to work on. And so we didn't know if we were crazy at first. We always had this question of like, why hasn't anyone figured this out? This seems so obvious. I still don't know why we're the only ones that have any type of kind of logic on top of the schedule in that sense. But we saw it as a unique opportunity to build something really special and provide a lot of value to consumers and businesses. CHAD: Well, that's super interesting. So once you decided and you started working on Boulevard, how did you decide what to focus on first? And how did you set your market for what the first version was going to be or a target for what the first version was going to be? MATT: So, we focused on the businesses that had a front desk. So those are generally the ones that really struggled with getting the most out of every minute possible in the day. And so we focused on what were typically mid to upper market single locations to start, and we got introduced to a salon owner through a mutual friend. They were based in New York, and it was just a two-person salon. And so, we built our MVP to be able to support their day-to-day functions. And they were using some other system, so we kind of had to get to a place where there was general feature parity to support them. So we built up the features that we needed, and then we launched them, transitioned them off their previous solution. And then we did all this in person and then hung out with them for about a week or two after to babysit the system, make sure there weren't problems. We were iterating in real-time. Sean and I were releasing code. And from there, we got an intro to our second customer through another mutual friend. CHAD: How long did it take you from when you started to when it was live in that first salon? MATT: It took about nine months. CHAD: And were you self-funding that based on the consulting that you mentioned? MATT: Yeah, self-funding. And then, after we launched with the first business, Sean and I actually both liquidated our 401Ks. And we didn't have the time to continue to consult. So we bootstrapped the company and put our life savings into it once we had traction from our first couple of customers. And that's when we started to hire our first employees to help us continue to accelerate development and that kind of thing. CHAD: So again, liquidating your 401k is a pretty big step. MATT: Yep. CHAD: Did you try to do external fundraising before doing that? MATT: No. At that point, not yet. We wanted to really validate the concept on our own dime. And then, when we had paying customers and a decent customer base, we did a friends and family round. And then, once we achieved a certain milestone, we joined an accelerator, which is based in Los Angeles called Luma Launch. And we were part of that accelerator for about six months. And then we raised our series seed following that. We went from liquidating our savings, living like college students, ramen noodle budget-type to once we felt good about the value we were providing, had the case studies and the customer feedback, and had a pretty awesome MVP to show to investors; that's when we decided to fundraise. CHAD: How nervous were the two of you? MATT: Very nervous. [laughter] I mean, it's one of those both of us come from really, really humble families, and there was no safety net. And so we were all in. And I think often from when there's a lot of constraints; you have to find creativity. We were all in. We were working all the time on this, really gave it everything we had. And in hindsight, it was a good decision. But it could have easily been a terrible decision. [laughs] CHAD: I mean, this is one of the things with founding stories is we talk to the people who are successful. [laughs] So, would you recommend this path to other people? MATT: I think if it's something where you could see providing unique value to the world and that you have lots of validation from real people, not just your friends but from prospective customers...it was when we were talking to real businesses where they would say, "This is something we would use and pay for." And so, after hearing that dozens and dozens of times, that matched with the negative NPS scores with their current solutions. That's where we were like, "This can be something pretty special." So I wouldn't recommend building in isolation and making that leap of faith without really doing your diligence on the opportunity. But yeah, I think everyone, at some point, if they have an idea or a problem they want to solve, should give it a go. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: That first customer that you were building the replacement for, were you charging them? MATT: No, we were not. CHAD: Are they paying now? MATT: They are, they are, very little. CHAD: Okay. [chuckles] MATT: They're a small business and have been staying super successful. And so, in the earliest days, the learnings and feedback matter a lot more than revenue, and so you optimize for that as opposed to the economics. And so for us going and working on location at these businesses and they're paying us essentially in the learnings and teachings of helping us understand and absorb ourselves in this industry, and working as front desk and doing the jobs that all these professionals have to do. And so that's where we were able to build and get to a place where our product is really, really authentic. And it was from that first direct observation. CHAD: I've worked on products before where they're currently being done by people. They might have technology solutions in place, and they feel like there's no technology that will do this; we need to have a person being the one to do it. Because like you said, there's something special about a person doing it. And so sometimes those businesses, when they have a solution, even if they've properly solved it, there's a lot of resistance from customers who are very skeptical that the technology is going to be able to do it the right way. Have you encountered that? MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How do you combat that? MATT: We iterated on, essentially, the objections. So the first objection was that "People can't book online because it's going to mess up my day." And so we created this what we call precision scheduling, where it does the optimization on the calendar. And then the next issue was that we started seeing some no-shows coming because I think there's this mental analog of if you miss an OpenTable reservation not as big of a deal. But in our industry that we're serving, if you miss a two-hour appointment, that professional is out a significant amount of their income for the week. And so that's where we actually started dipping our toes in payments, and we started requiring a credit card at the time of booking just to authorize the card and to hold the appointment. And so that objection of no shows we solved there. There was a lot of concern of like, "Hey, our customers are not going to know the right thing to book." And we have learned that customers actually are very savvy and that the clients deserve more credit than the professionals are giving them that if a woman gets a balayage, she knows it's a balayage. And so, usually, the way that we overcame that objection was we'd work with them and have best practices on menu design. But that they also then, when they're giving a service that they discuss what they actually did in that service so that the customer knows what to book next time if they want the same thing. And so that was kind of the pattern is like, build something, learn, iterate, and do it on location with these businesses so that we could see it firsthand in an unbiased way. And so that's really how we were able to build such a product with this amount of scale and overcome some of those initial objections. CHAD: Is it easier now that you have 2000-plus customers, some social capital out there? They can ask other people, "Is this working for you?" Is that easier now? MATT: Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the ways...we didn't have a sales team for a long time in our company, and we were actually under the radar. We were stealth, didn't announce anything about ourselves for the first three or four years. And so we were just very much focused on product development and building something that was incredible. And then we were really fed off of referrals and that word of mouth. So it's I think when you get a product that people love, they're going to tell their friends about it. And for us, that really helped accelerate our growth. CHAD: So yeah, so this was all taking place in what year? MATT: So we transitioned out of our last company and started doing part-time work in summer of 2015. And then, we officially launched our first customer in spring of 2016. CHAD: Cool. And I think that that is, you know, you didn't get to 2,000 customers overnight, right? You've been at this for a while. MATT: Yeah, the barrier to entry is very high in the market, and VCs called our type of opportunity a brownfield opportunity where there are a lot of legacy solutions in the market. And we compete with some companies that were actually started before I was born. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And so they've had many decades to build functionality into their platform that we need to get to some level of feature parity with in order to seamlessly transition them off of their previous solution to our platform. And it did take a significant upfront investment with product in order to get to be able to pay the price of admission and to be able to actually compete in the market. CHAD: So one of the things I'm curious about is, do you have a sense of what does the overall market looks like? I feel like there are probably lots of salons, spas, haircutting places. There are a lot of them all over the world. MATT: There are, yeah. So we believe that there are about 500,000 self-care businesses in the United States. CHAD: Just in the United States. MATT: Yeah, just in the United States. And the employee base in the labor market is about two to two and a half million professionals across all those businesses. CHAD: So, where do you think the hurdles in terms of continued growth are for you? MATT: So one of the areas that we focus on is...so all of these self-care businesses are about 90% similar in how they operate. And so we started in the hair salon vertical and then have expanded into many adjacent verticals over the course of the past few years. We really tried to make sure that we had really, really strong product-market fit in the hair salons, which is the biggest self-care market, and before we expanded into, say, nail salons. When expanding into adjacent verticals, there's some functionality that is unique to those verticals. And so, for example, one of our recent verticals that we expanded into is med spas. And the way that med spas charge for their services is generally based on the products that are used, and so if you buy 100 units of Botox, they charge a per-unit fee. And so that was something that was pretty unique to the medspa market that doesn't exist in other self-care markets. And so vertical expansion is a vector of growth for us and then segment expansion. So we started with the single location, very small businesses. And then we have worked our way up to enterprise where we're powering chains and franchises of hundreds of locations. And then the other aspects kind of the third vector of growth is the different product sets and functionality that we are releasing to our customers. So continuing to develop the platform but also look at different opportunities where we can provide outsized value by developing it ourselves. CHAD: So we could literally talk all day, and I could talk to you about scaling and product and everything. But one thing I'm interested in before we wrap up is I think it's really special to found a company with a designer, a product person, and an engineer. And I can tell even just by looking at the site and the product that you very highly value design and creating a product that people love to use. MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How does that lead you to creating Duo, which is a point of sale card reader? MATT: One of the things that we saw in the market was this real importance in service design so what information is showing when to the users of our technology. So there's that aspect of what's the overall experience? Then there's the product design; how easy is it to use? And how quickly can new employees, new front desk staff, how quickly can they get ramped up and start using the system? Do they need two weeks of training? And for us, we try to make it as intuitive and as familiar as possible. And then we look to see how else can we extend design? And one of the complaints that we always received from customers was that hardware options were always pretty ugly, that all of them look dated like the kind of hardware that you use at a supermarket. And they wanted something that was more sleek and that they weren't ashamed to have on their countertop for checkout. And so that's where we decided to invest in building our own hardware. And that was particularly exciting for us. So it's been really, really well-received from our customers. And it was a really fun project to work on. Getting into the hardware space is always challenging. But as a designer, it was super cool to build something that became physical for the first time in my life. CHAD: Does the logic that led to you creating Duo eventually lead you to creating an entire hardware point of sale system? MATT: We're assessing all opportunities. There's this interesting moment happening in the payments space where like Apple, you know, announced that I think they're piloting now that you won't need hardware in order to accept credit card payments on the iPhone. CHAD: You'll just be able to do it right against an iPad. MATT: Exactly. So I think there's a real question as to what is the...and I'm sure this is something that folks like Square are thinking about, that have really best in class hardware is like what does the future of hardware look for fintech companies? And is it just going to fold into the actual devices, or will you continue to need standalone readers? That's something that we're constantly thinking about and keeping smart on the latest developments in that. But our expertise and what we love is building incredible software. Hardware was that area that we saw that we could provide unique value, but our goal is to always be a software company. You generally don't make much money off of the hardware piece in this business. CHAD: Now, how personally involved were you in the hardware project? MATT: I was very involved, potentially too involved. [laughs] CHAD: As a founder, when new projects come up like this that maybe you're interested in, how do you either hold yourself back or not hold yourself back from being involved in them? MATT: I think when the company is venturing into new territory, entirely new like uncharted waters, that's when it's valuable for me or any founder to get really, really smart on what's the opportunity, what's the risks, all that kind of stuff. In this case, my experience working at our initial customers for the first couple of years of our business was really, really impactful. And so our Duo captures...and the reason why it's called Duo is because it's a countertop, but also you can take the top off, and you can do an in chair checkout. So you could bring it over to the customer, and they can check out right while they're in the chair as an express checkout. And so those types of things I learned while being on location working at these businesses. And so I was providing a lot of the guidance and conceptualizing how we could think about what the hardware offering would be that would be unique to us, and collaborated with our head of design and then an industrial designer to get the proof of concept there. CHAD: And you said, "Potentially too involved," so why did you say that? [laughs] MATT: I think as a founder, you are always trying to figure out what altitude are you flying at. And there are some things that you will need to dive in and be very hands-on. And then there are other times just to guide and support and coach. And I think for this because it was a new project, I was particularly excited to be able to get into hardware because that was a first for me that I was involved in all aspects of it. But it was a lot of fun. CHAD: Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us. I really appreciate it. I'm sure the listeners do too. If folks want to find out more about Boulevard, about joining the team, about becoming a customer, or just to get in touch with you, where are all the different places that they can do that? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. I think the best place is just on our website. We are hiring across all levels and all functions, especially on the product design and engineering side. And so our website is joinblvd.com, J-O-I-N-B-L-V-D.com. There's the about page, and it links out to my LinkedIn. So if anyone wants to connect and get acquainted, that's probably the easiest way to do it. CHAD: Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining me. I really appreciate it. MATT: Yeah, thanks so much. This was a pleasure. CHAD: You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with links for everything that Matt just mentioned and including a complete transcript of the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Matt Danna.Sponsored By:AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. Learn more and sign up at thoughtbot.com/agencyuSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Monique Idlett is the Founder of Reign Ventures, a seed-stage investment firm, and previously the Co-Founder and CEO of Mosley Brands and Mosley Music Group, home to a multiplatinum roster of artists. Chad talks with Monique about how the music industry is like the startup venture capital industry, understanding that representation matters, having a data-forward approach, and appearing on the TV show Undercover Billionaire, where entrepreneurs are given 90-days and nothing but 100 dollars to go undercover and build a thriving million-dollar business for a small town in the US. Reign Ventures Follow Reign Ventures on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Follow Monique on Twitter or LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Monique Idlett, the Founder of Reign Ventures, a seed-stage investment firm, and previously the Co-Founder and CEO of Mosley Brands and Mosley Music Group, home to a multiplatinum roster of artists. Monique, thank you so much for joining me. Now, you left Mosley Music Group about three years ago to focus exclusively on Reign Ventures. How is the music industry like the startup venture capital industry? MONIQUE: There is no difference in the way I see a pipeline of amazing talented founders. We're truly looking for those exceptional founders that we can help develop, put up that bumper system. The end product in the music industry was the music we were consuming, the experiences through the live art form. And in the startup world, that end product is the success and the ability to scale a real solution that this company has solved with amazing, talented people. So to me, it was a nice, easy transition, and it made sense. CHAD: Are there ways in which it's different? MONIQUE: Oh my goodness, yes, lots of ways that it's different. The difference is that music is an art form. For me, music is the universal language. I believe that I've traveled the world. And I've been to places where there were language barriers, but when a song, a popular song, came on, the language barrier was gone. In the startup world, there may be several people trying to create and penetrate a problem area in a vertical or a category. And we may not have the ability in the startup world to have several of the same sounding things from a business model. They may not all work. And so you're dealing with the emotional capacity on the music side. And on the tech side of things you're truly dealing with, can you really solve this problem? We're solving problems, not just emotional connections from the music industry perspective. And also, it's a lot slower moving. We have a project in the music industry, and it may have a cycle. And now it's an even shorter cycle with technology. You may be able to create an entire project in just a couple of weeks. In the startup world, in the business side of things, you may not see the development for two to three years. So the patience is definitely...I've had to apply a lot more patience and understanding of being able to scale a business versus just a project-driven entity. So it's a little different, but the end result is all the same. Creating real great solutions for real problems, whether it's through an art form or whether it's through a business model, is all similar to me. CHAD: So, do you have a particular investment strategy or focus at Reign? MONIQUE: We do. Erica and I currently we are the largest two female Black-owned VC fund. So one of the things that we felt ten and a half years ago when we started investing together is investing has just been done...venture has been done wrong. There's a reason why less than 3% of funding collectively was...still to this day; it's about 3.2. But over ten years ago, when we started, only less than 3% of funding from VC was going to women, all women, and Black and Brown founders. And so literally, we were like, the problem is that we're not having enough investment or a lens on women and people of color. And we want to do it the way it should have always been done: investing inclusively. We are proud to say that we invest in all founders, all exceptional founders. And yes, we have a lens on women and people of color because they've been under-capitalized and under-resourced and under-everything. And so the reality is that we want to set the tone of how it should always look and the world is inclusive. Diversity is not an issue; the equity and inclusion side is an issue. And we want to keep being that example. CHAD: That's great. Do you feel like, or in your experience, have you found that these founders were already out there and they just were being passed over? Or were the problems so systemic that they weren't even getting the opportunity to even be out there? MONIQUE: I think there are always exceptional people out there; that's number one. And I think it's a two-prong problem: yes, the pipeline, the access. So there's the lack of access for these types of founders that has absolutely been an issue, the lack of resources, the lack of access. But the other side of it is that they have just been overlooked and not allowed into the rooms. There are exceptional people in this world that don't only look like one type of person. And the reality is that we have access to them. And so yes, both of those are an issue, okay. But the reality is that we have exceptional founders of all types of people. There are amazing people in this world. When you sit behind a computer, and you run an algorithm, and you only go to only your network of what looks like you and comfortable, then you are what we call missing out on a ton of opportunity. So Erica and I are founder-friendly. We go where the founders are. CHAD: I've come to learn and understand representation really matters. Being able to see yourself is really important. And it's something that because I look like what I look like, I had the privilege to not realize how important that is because there are so many people in power that look like me. I can imagine it's super refreshing to a lot of the founders that you work with to be talking with you and sitting across the table from you and seeing that and talking to someone that understands them. MONIQUE: Yes. I think that having someone to relate to on all levels, personal, professional is a very important concept. And I remember starting my career at USA Today; not only was I different in age because most of my colleagues were 40-plus, and I was in my young 20s, they were mostly male and definitely particularly only Caucasian. I was the first African American executive on the marketing and sales side. And I remember feeling very isolated and very lost and not knowing who I could turn to that would understand some of the things I was actually going through. And so yes, founders, it eases the founder's mind when they can talk to me and know that hey, I didn't always look like this from this perspective. I grew up in income-based housing in New Jersey. I understand where you come from. Yes, I understand what it's like to be a Black woman; I am one. But also the other side of it is that when we have founders who are Caucasian male. We like to have conversations of inclusion from the ground up with them. "Did you think about this consumer base? Do you know that you might have to message different?" These are things and conversations that people are not having if you're only talking to one type of person. And so, I think that what Reign Ventures is doing is allowing for comfortable conversation and then execution. CHAD: That's great. You started with a $25 million fund in Reign, and you're well beyond that now, right? MONIQUE: Yes, yes. So our current fund is a $50 million fund, and then our next fund will be...we're going for the stars and trying to raise $100 million. CHAD: Wow. I've talked to a few people who are either interested in starting VC or who have done it before. And what do you use to judge how much or how large of a fund you'll be building? MONIQUE: So we like to think of what we want the outcome to be. And so, the long-term goal of Reign Ventures is to have a billion-dollar under asset management. That has not been done by two Black females before. And so we understand if we do that, if we look at the long-term goal, if we do that and count backwards, here's what it will take to get to that billion dollars under asset management. So yes, the size of the fund will have to increase. But we also know that that means we're creating amazing companies and supporting amazing founders with Reign Ventures. And so we look at the size as our ability to have a larger stake and the ability to have follow-on capital for all of the companies that are doing amazing. I would tell anyone who is looking to start a venture fund that Erica and I (Erica is my business partner.) she and I started and wrote our thesis over ten years ago. And we actually deployed our personal capital for the first nine years so that we could create a data room and so that we could understand what it meant and felt like to have skin in the game so that we can learn truly where we sat well with a thesis. And it ended up being we do really well with consumer tech and SaaS, you know, B2B SaaS software. And so, I would say that it's not an easy journey to start a venture fund. Truly understand what you want your thesis to be. Truly understand that you're going to hear the word No way more than you will hear the word Yes. This is someone else's investment. This is accountability. And try it and understand it before you just start raising money. CHAD: You sort of alluded to this earlier; you said increasing the size of the fund is going to allow you to make bigger investments and follow-on investments. So do you also see you investing in more companies? MONIQUE: So we like to have a 20 to 25 cap strategy per fund. And what we do is we take 25% of the capital for the earliest investment, and then we save 75% of it for the follow-on round so that we maintain our equity stake. Because we're founder-friendly, so we always want to be in that board room. We always want to roll up our sleeves with the founders and so maintaining whichever early equity we have, which is usually the way the fund is structured, between around 10%. It allows us to not just do more companies; it actually allows us to really double down on the portfolio itself and make sure that we're staying and growing with the founders. CHAD: How involved are you? Are you personally involved? Do you split the portfolio up, and each person takes a few? Or how do you typically do it? MONIQUE: We truly, truly do take my 25-plus years in the music industry. We take that very bumper system approach of we're here to help develop the raw talent and, on the tech side of things, the actual founding team and the evolution of the company. And so I usually take the board seats. Erica, she comes from finance, and she's been doing finance banking for over 25 years. She's been doing early-stage investing for 16 of those years. And so, she helps with the finance cap strategies. How do we get you from your seed stage to your A in 12 months? How do we get you from your A to your B? So she's very, very involved with the financial models and running several of those and working with the founders on who's on your cap table? Okay, so intentionally and strategically, who's missing from your cap table? Let's work on that. And then I'm always the one working on taking the board seat. I'm the one working with the vision, the strategy. I'm an operator, so I have a most extensive network. And so I'm the one aligning them with our resources, our network. And you know, yeah, we're very, very involved. And I think that when you're dealing with seed-stage because that's the stage we're in, it's the riskiest. We try to de-risk the company, the founder, the founding team as much as possible. So we are as involved as the founder wants us to be. We do not make founders feel guilty for not having the largest team. We're like, "Okay, what do you need? Let's get you that." And that's where we like to play. We don't see ourselves going into anything past the seed stage. CHAD: Is there a limit to how many companies that you're able to personally work with? And how do you scale, Monique? MONIQUE: So the cool thing about our fund is that all of the companies are intentional. Half of our companies are consumer tech. So they mostly need pretty much the same type of things, even if they're in different verticals. The other half is SaaS. And so the reality is that they're in different stages. They're growing at different stages. And we, first and foremost, create a founder community that supports each other. That's number one. Then we have an LP community that supports not just Erica and I but our founder community. So we look at investing as from a holistic community. We drive community, and that is the way that we're able to actually still have a sustainable business model with Erica and I. And we have a team. We don't do anything by ourselves. We have an entire team dedicated to the growth of our portfolio companies. CHAD: Speaking of that team, what does that team look like now in terms of the different roles on it? And how big is it? MONIQUE: So currently, right now, we have about four full-time. And then, we have a couple of interns who work on the data science side. And then we also have in-house from just Monique from my particular business model side; we have an HR. We have financial operators, and then we have contractors and partners. And so, at the end of the day, there isn't anything that our founders need that we can't source for them internally or externally. CHAD: Who was the first person you brought onto the Reign team, and why? MONIQUE: Her name is Naya, and she actually has worked for me on my foundation side for a few years. She's was an engineering student at University of Miami. And once she graduated, she was now getting her Master's in Data Science. And we felt like being able to report properly on our founders, the companies that were applying that we actually could not invest in but were investable, we'd like to keep track of that. And so, we felt like having someone who could really handle the data side of Reign Ventures was one of the more important hires. And then, we also hired a full-time social media person who handles the content. We have a monthly podcast called The Series A. They oversee that so all communications on our portfolio companies and Reign Ventures as a whole. So those were the first two hires. And we're currently prepping to hire for the summer a full-time associate that will be out of the New York office. We have offices here in Miami, across from the University of Miami, and then we have offices in New York. CHAD: That's cool. The data aspect of that is super interesting to me because I think that I talk to a lot of people, and a modern VC firm is certainly doing that. But there are still ones out there that don't have that data-forward approach that it sounds like you do. MONIQUE: Well, we need to make sense of all of this. So we need to make sense of the idea of how many founders are applying? What is the demographic makeup of them? Who is this founder? Where are they coming from? What markets are they coming from? Because we do invest just only in the United States. And we pretty much invest in all markets here. We'd like to keep that data. And most importantly, we are over-communicators with our LPs. So we're sending them monthly updates. Carta is updated every, you know, they have access to that. So we'd like for them to understand what our day is looking like. How are we spending our time? What type of founders are coming to us? Hey, you all don't necessarily have access to these founders, here's why we do. And so all of this information is important. You have to make sense of who your audience is. And for us, our audience are the founders. 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That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: You mentioned that you invest in people in some ways as much or more than you do the idea that they have and really work with them. How far along will people typically be with their product when you start working with them and investing in them? MONIQUE: The way that the investment cycle is, you know, your family and friends, then your angels, and then sometimes even your super angels will come in after that. Then you have your pre-seed, which is usually where you're testing product-market fit, et cetera. And then we step in at the seed stage, which is founder market fit, you know, product-market fit, a billion-dollar addressable market. You understand your operational strategy, where you're going to raise less than 50 million, and if you're not, you have that strategy of why? And definitely more than just an idea at that point. Now you just need to raise this round, to hire on more team, and then scale. So for us, that's how our due diligence works. And if you make it through that due diligence, then it becomes about who is this founding team? Will they be able to deal with adversity? Because you're going to have it. Are they coachable? What is their leadership style? Is it an inclusive environment? You can't be creating an equity company, and then all the team looks the same. So these are the things that we're looking at. What is your personality type? We like to spend time with our founders. How will you deal with the stress because the stress will come. Is your mindset the glass is half full or is it half empty? All of these things are important at the seed stage because it's not the growth stage where it's automatic it's happening. The seed stage boils down to can you deal with adversity? CHAD: I imagine you reject a lot of people. MONIQUE: Ooh, I would say that we use a different term. We are not dream killers. CHAD: Okay. [chuckles] MONIQUE: Here's what we say: we have an open-door policy with founders. We allow founders, even the ones that are not ready for investment or that we've actually had to pass on investment. And the thing is that we can only do 20 companies. That is where we'd like to sit, 20 companies per fund. And if for some reason, it's not a company that we invest in, we still give them access to our resources. We still give them access to our network. We still will spend…I mean, every Friday is our Founder Friday, and it fills up very quickly. Erica and I get on with founders who are not in our portfolio because just because they weren't a good fit for Reign Ventures or it was something that we could not do, maybe it did not fit the fund's structure; we also try to align them with investors that might fit them more properly. And so I don't feel like we reject; we just redirect. CHAD: So given that then, I imagine that you are often pretty open with the companies that you're not able to invest in the reasons why and hopefully, it helps them. MONIQUE: Oh, absolutely. We get founders all the time that say, "Listen, this was the best thing. Prior to coming to you all, we weren't able to raise $1. You didn't invest in us, but you taught us how to be investable, and now we've raised money." That's what we want to hear. None of us win if there's really a great company with a great solution that can really have some traction if they never get up and running. CHAD: That's great. And maybe you get the opportunity to invest in them later, right? MONIQUE: Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. There are a couple of companies that that has happened. And one of them is now back in our due diligence and probably will make it through. CHAD: Yeah. Are there any companies in your portfolio that you particularly want to give a shout-out to? MONIQUE: Oh, we love all of our portfolio companies. CHAD: [laughs] MONIQUE: You know, Sharebite, Dormify, SoLo Funds. SoLo Funds is one of my favorite companies from the perspective of dealing and disrupting predatory lending. As a person who grew up in a neighborhood that liquor stores and cash checking were like every other block, if not on the same block, we truly do know the long-term effect it has on those communities, right? The underserved communities get so taken advantage of. If you don't have $200 and then you go to a predatory lender, and you're paying them $2,000, how do you ever advance? And so SoLo Funds really, really the only Black-owned B Corp in the United States. CHAD: That's awesome. MONIQUE: This narrative is so important, Chad. CHAD: Yeah. And, you know, not only is it important from a social perspective, but that is a huge business. It's a huge market opportunity for the right company with the right values to come in and be able to have a significant business, too, right? MONIQUE: Listen, they're making the whole ecosystem better. For the lenders, listen; they feel good. They're having a positive social impact. And oh, by the way, I'm getting a return. For the borrowers, they are getting financial literacy. They are getting higher social credit scores, which is then impacting their personal credit score. I mean, listen, by the way, when this company was created, over 76% of Americans, if they were hit with a $200 bill, they were not going to be able to pay it. So this is not just about one type of community. This is about the American concept. CHAD: So when you work with a company like that, were they a B Corp when you started working with them? MONIQUE: No. True story, I was literally personally the second investor in and then the third before there was ever even...So Rodney Williams is the Co-Founder of SoLo Funds. And I'm on his board for LISNR. We were one of the first investors in LISNR, which is the data over audio company. And he shared this idea with me, and I loved it because we all come from a neighborhood where we know and we were the ones who quote, unquote, "were doing better" in our families. So we were always getting the daily calls like, "Oh, my car broke down. Oh, this." And when he said this to me, I'm like, "Oh my goodness, this makes so much sense. I'm in." And see, this is where investing in people comes to play. Rodney had proved his ability as a founder with LISNR. So the trust was there, the relationship was there. Travis comes from banking, super, super intellectual, really quality guy, and not only is he the co-founder, but he's the CEO. And he's doing an amazing job. So no, it was not a B Corp; it is now one. And they will be the largest neobank for this community. And so growing and seeing the cycle of it is what, for me, personally, is what makes me happy. All of our companies in our fund have a social impact perspective. CHAD: Had you been involved in a B Corp before? It's something that I'm really interested in, but I have not been directly involved in one before. And I'm actually really interested in it for thoughtbot too. MONIQUE: No, I had not. No. CHAD: Is it difficult? [laughs] MONIQUE: So was it difficult for them? Absolutely. But they made it through. They made it through. And I think that we now have two men who are great human beings who happen to be Black men, but they are just great human beings who went through the process and can now help educate and share that experience with other people that look like them and are trying to do the same thing as them, create great companies with a great social impact to just have a better world. CHAD: From an investor perspective, when your portfolio companies want to embark on something like becoming a B Corp, which, you know, some investors might look at and say, "That might be a distraction from what you need to do now," how do you look at those things? MONIQUE: I mean, listen, if you want to become a B Corp, you actually are trying to have more of an impact, and I wish more companies were. When we actually are only focusing on the dollar side, the stakeholders of the dollar side, how are we truly making sure that we're impacting the world in a positive way? There's a lot of conflict usually. So we encourage that type of behavior; we encourage founders to think beyond their dollar sign and their stakeholders' dollar sign. The good thing is that they had an amazing team supporting them. They had an amazing A series lead investor, ACME, that really drove it with them. And so they did this. We didn't do this. They did it. This was their mission, and they did it. CHAD: That's great. And it's definitely something that's on my list to dig into more, like I said, for thoughtbot as well. So was it 2021 that you were on Undercover Billionaire? Was it last year? MONIQUE: Oh my goodness. CHAD: Or was it the end of 2020? MONIQUE: So it was the end of 2020, yes. [laughs] Tacoma, Washington. CHAD: Yeah. So for folks who don't know, Undercover Billionaire is a TV show where you give up all of your resources, and you're planted in a city, and you start a business from scratch. And you have what? Ninety days to bring it to a million-dollar business? MONIQUE: Yes. So technically, the premise of the show is you literally get a new identity. And you do not know where you're being dropped literally until you're dropped there. And so, I had no idea I would be dropped into Tacoma, Washington. And one, they give you $100, literally, a phone with no contacts in it, and a used vehicle, and you have 90 days to turn that into a million-dollar valuation. CHAD: It must have been a wild experience. MONIQUE: I have to tell you, the emotional connection that has to happen and then also by the way you're lying to everyone, it was a very intense thing. And most of the time, 99% of time, you're running on adrenaline. And to be completely honest, when I first got there, you're focused on the goal. The goal is can you make this valuation? The goal is I can't be the example that didn't make it right. Then when you get there, it becomes less and less about the goal. You actually get to a point where you don't even care if you make the goal. You care about the community that you've been dropped into. And you just want to see them win, and you want to see them become better. And Tacoma, Washington, everything from the mayor, down to now to one T'wina Nobles, who is now the Senator, the youngest senator in the state of Washington, these amazing people were a part of my journey. So it became all about, wow, at the end of that experience, that last show, and I look at the room of all those people, it was the most inclusive experience naturally. That's what the win was for me personally. And I also got to learn about myself. But I will tell you that it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in life outside of having children and raising them to be healthy adults. [laughter] CHAD: Not only to build the business, you mean, but that experience of -- MONIQUE: Just the entire experience. CHAD: I watched the episode where you told everybody who you really were. MONIQUE: Yes. CHAD: And I could see that it had really affected you. MONIQUE: I was lying to people every single day. And these people were so amazing. They donated their time, their resources, their ability to me because that company could not happen without them and without the community. And so, what we all walked away with was a shared experience of how powerful community actually is. And that even when you don't know how to figure something out, if you use your voice, someone will actually help you and you end up all helping each other. For me, that's what was so beautiful about the experience. CHAD: I imagine it's pretty intense. How quickly did you force yourself to settle on the business you were actually going to build? MONIQUE: It's so interesting because I have been asked like, "Did you create the concept before you went?" And I said, "Actually, no," literally, I went into it with a blank mind of wherever I end up, I want to see what they need, and we'll create a business model around that. So I think it was like day four of being in Tacoma. And I was in an area that was a food desert for the most part. And I'm like, listen, I'm talking to people, and they're like, "Oh yeah, we have to order juice shots. They have to get shipped. Or we get the ones that are, you know, sitting in the grocery store, and that's not a lot of options." And I'm like, wow, this is a problem. And I'm like, let's reimagine the ice cream truck. Everyone would like to think that the wealth gap...that if you make money, you care about your health, if you don't make money, you don't care about your health, actually, no. [laughs] I grew up in a natural home, and we lived in income-based housing growing up. And so the reality is that everyone wants to be healthy. People need more access to healthier options at an affordable rate, and people will buy it. So the question was, oh, Monique, you can't sell juice shots for $5. Yes, we can. You think a community just because they're underserved won't pay for their health? They absolutely will if you give them the option to. We always sold out in the communities that they said would never sell. CHAD: So up against a ticking clock, what did you do to sort of validate the idea and really run with it, or did you just know? MONIQUE: No, you don't just know, right? CHAD: Yeah. [chuckles] MONIQUE: You're literally working on adrenaline. Listen, there was nothing normal. We all know this as business owners; there's nothing normal about this concept. You can't create a successful business in 90 days. So you're literally in overdrive: no sleep, multitasking, doing all types of things. Here was the thing; first of all, I talked to the community. I asked them what did they need? What were they missing? If they had access to something, would they utilize it? That was number one. Number two was testing it. So I started making samples. And I went out to the community again and started testing it. Three was of the test that did good; let's run with that and package that up. And you have to understand, Chad, it was the height of the pandemic. Everything was shut down. You know, I live in Florida, so we weren't like that. But going to Tacoma, Washington, nothing was open. So I had to think, how do I get to people because they're not coming and cannot come to a brick and mortar? So the only thing that was pretty much open was the farmers' market. So that's what I did. I'm like, let's get to the farmers market. And also, let's see how we become mobile, oh, the ice cream truck treats. Let's teach people that healthy treats are actually what they crave. CHAD: I think even though it was accelerated, intense, the things you're talking about doing in terms of validating the idea, actually talking to customers, testing things out, those are things I think people want to do in any situation. MONIQUE: It is absolutely true. We talk to founders all the time, and it's the I, I, I. And we tell them, "Well, have you talked to your customer?" Sometimes we're so close to our ideas because we hold them, and we're trying to solve a problem maybe that we experience. That's step one. But step two is, is it something that other people want and need? So you definitely have to go out there and do market research. CHAD: Are there other things that you counsel founders on doing? Particularly with the seed stage, you know, on the verge of significant growth and scaling, what are some things that are maybe common plays or common pitfalls of companies at that stage? MONIQUE: So some of the things that we see, especially with solo founders, is them having this idea that only they can do everything and not understanding that you actually have to have a founding team. And that does require you to give some equity. We see founders wanting to hold on to everything. And then it becomes do you want 100% of something that's very restricted, or do you want to share it and make it something really special and a part of a billion-dollar concept? So that's one. Two would be founders in need happen to take money without understanding that it is a debt that even if it's fundraising and you're raising institutional capital, these are your investors. These are your partners. And is it a good partnership? We have seen a lot of founders in contractual and legal documents because they went and took money from the wrong type of investor. We see that -- CHAD: And they did that because they were desperate at the time? MONIQUE: They were desperate. They were desperate. They were desperate and for just really crazy, contractual things. They don't have attorneys look at the paperwork. We see a lot of these mistakes. And so we tell founders you have to have a step back from your business. You have to look at all types of options. Have you applied for grants and particular grants in areas of the problem that you're solving? Have you tried for Small Business Association grants? Have you tried to get a credit line versus an investor who's now going to have equity? These are all the things. And if you do need investors, don't take all the same types of investors. If every investor in your cap table is a bean counter and the numbers aren't playing out well for them, what type of board meeting is that going to be? So make sure you have an operator who's on your board. Make sure you have a financial person, investor on your board. You have to be very strategic and intentional. And if you're in a desperate moment, I can guarantee that is not when you want to take the money that you actually need to do a deeper dive and step back from the company to really see what the company needs. CHAD: Monique, I feel like that's great advice. The level of experience and passion that you have for the work is obvious in listening to you. It makes me want to work with you. [laughs] MONIQUE: Oh, thank you, Chad. Yes, I'm very impressed with what you have built. And I'm very impressed with you understanding the ability to give access to information to your audience. Here's the thing, we are products of an environment of capitalism. And there's nothing wrong with capitalism, but it just needs to be a lot more conscious. And it needs to have a much better impact for all. The problem with from our childhood age of education is we've been taught that there's only one, there can only be one winner. There's only one first place. We have to take that mindset back and really step into the power and the power that we truly have, which is abundance. There's enough for us all. We just have to give that power back to it. And the reality is that we all need each other, and we all need to build together. And people just need access to information. Most founders tell us, "I was embarrassed to ask that. I was made to feel like I was supposed to know this, so I just went ahead and pretended like I knew it." It's okay that we don't know everything. In fact, I like to sit in that space of student and say, "You know what? I like to be in the room that I actually don't know anything because then that means I'm learning, and it's okay. We better keep learning." One of my favorite quotes is, "We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." And Maya Angelou wrote that, and she understood the human spirit needs to understand that no matter what career path we're on, Founder, CEO, employee, employer, no matter what that is, it is a constant evolution of self. And sometimes we'll feel like a butterfly, and sometimes we will have to be in that learning and growth and uncomfortable stage. But the beauty of uncomfort means you're growing, and we have to make more people feel comfortable with that. CHAD: That's beautiful. Monique, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with all of us. MONIQUE: No, thank you, Chad, for having me. CHAD: If folks want to get in touch with you or find out more about Reign, where are all the different places that they can do that? MONIQUE: So if they want to contact me, they can email me at monique@reignvc.com, which is R-E-I-G-N-V-C.com. We're on LinkedIn; we're on Twitter; we're on Instagram. And if they want to learn more about Reign VC, they could just go to reignvc.com. And if they have any questions, they can submit it, and we'll get back to them. CHAD: Wonderful. And you can subscribe to the show and find notes and a full transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm, and you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.Special Guest: Monique Idlett.Sponsored By:AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. Learn more and sign up at thoughtbot.com/agencyuSupport Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots