Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Victoria Guido hosts Robbie Holmes, the founder and CEO of Holmes Consulting Group. The conversation kicks off with Robbie recounting his initial foray into the tech world at a small web hosting company named A1 Terabit.net, chosen for its alphabetical advantage in the white pages. This job was a stepping stone to a more significant role at Unisys, working for the state of New York's Department of Social Services, where Robbie inadvertently ventured into civic tech and public interest technology. Robbie shares his career progression from supporting welfare systems in New York to becoming a technological liaison between the city and state, leading to a deeper involvement in open-source solutions. His journey through tech spaces includes developing websites, diving into the Drupal community, and eventually establishing his consulting business. Robbie emphasizes the serendipitous nature of his career path, influenced significantly by community involvement and networking rather than a planned trajectory. Additionally, Robbie gives insights on the impact of technology in public services and his stint with the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), where he contributed to significant projects like vets.gov. Robbie promotes the value of community engagement in shaping one's career, stressing how connections and being in the right place at the right time can lead to unexpected opportunities and career pivots. Follow Robbie Holmes on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, or GitHub. Check out his website at robbiethegeek. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Transcript: VICTORIA: 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, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Robbie Holmes, Founder and CEO of Holmes Consulting Group. Robbie, thank you for joining me. ROBBIE: I'm so happy to be here. It's great to talk to you, Victoria. VICTORIA: Yes. I have known you for a long time now, but I don't know everything about you. So, I thought I would start with the question: What was your first job that you ever had? ROBBIE: My first technical job, I ended up working for an internet web hosting company called A1 Terabit.net. And note the A1 because it came first in the white pages. It was a really small web hosting company run by a man named [SP] Maxim Avrutsky. I worked there for about six months before I submitted my resume to an online job forum. That's how old I am. And it ended up in the hands of Unisys, where I eventually worked for the state of New York. VICTORIA: Wow [laughs]. So, what a journey that you've been on to get from starting there, and what a marketing ploy back in the day with the white pages. So, tell me a little bit more about how you went from that first job to where you are today with having your own business in consulting. ROBBIE: Yeah, I wasn't even aware that I was jumping into the sort of civic tech space and public interest technology because the job I ended up with was working for New York State in the Department of Social Services. And welfare is federally funded and distributed to states and then states to localities. And New York City and New York State have a weird parasymbiotic relationship because over 50% of the welfare in New York State goes to the five boroughs in New York City. So, so much of my job was supporting the welfare system within the city, which was run by the human resources administration. So, that just led to this cascade of me, like, getting invested in supporting that, and then eventually jumping over to the other side where I worked for the City of New York. And at that point, I ended up becoming sort of a technology project manager and almost a tech liaison between the city and state. And I was out in the welfare centers, helping get the job centers up to a new application called the Paperless Office System, which was a client-server app that was a wrapper around welfare. All of that ended up leading to me finally making it to the network operation center for the City of New York, where I started replacing expensive solutions like HP OpenView with open-source solutions like Nagios and another open-source solution that provided an interface. And it really opened my eyes to the idea of open source. And I had really paid attention to a lot of open-source operating systems. So, I was kind of just a general tech nerd. And eventually, I started building websites, and that led me to the Drupal community in New York City, which was sort of this cascade that led me to communities. And I think that's sort of a through line for my entire career is I don't really think I ever had a plan. I think my entire career has been this sort of a lucky happenstance of being prepared when an opportunity arose and sometimes being in the right place because of my connections and community. VICTORIA: That's interesting about being involved with the people around you and seeing what problems are out there to solve and letting that lead you to where your interests lie. And then, following that, naturally led you to, like, this really long career and these really interesting, big projects and problems that you get to solve. ROBBIE: Yeah. And I think one interesting aspect is like, I feel I spent a lot of time worried about what I was going to do and where I was going to do it. I don't have a bachelor's degree. I don't have an advanced degree. I have a high school diploma and a couple of years in college. Well, 137 credits, not the right 125 or 124 to have a bachelor's degree. I have enough credits for a couple of minors though, definitely Greek art history, I think mathematics, maybe one more. I just never got it together and actually got my degree. But that was so interesting because it was limiting to what jobs I could find. So, I was in the tech space as an IT person and specifically doing networking. So, I was running the network operation center. I helped, like, create a whole process for how we track tickets, and how we created tickets, and how things were moved along. And, in the process, I started building websites for family and friends. And I built a website for our network operation center, so that way we could have photos to go with our diagrams of the network. So that way, when we were troubleshooting remotely, we could actually pull up images and say, "The cable that's in port six goes off to the router. I think that port is dead. Can we move it to the port two to its right, and I'll activate it?" And that made a really interesting solution for something we weren't even aware we had, which was lack of visibility. So many of the people in the fields were newer or were trying to figure it out. And some of us had really deep knowledge of what was going on in those network rooms and hubs. It led me to this solution of like, well, why don't we just start documenting it and making it easier for us to help when they're in the field? That led me to, like, the Drupal community because I started building sites in the Drupal CMS. And I went to, like, my first Drupal meetup in 2007, and there was, like, five of us around the table. That led to eventually me working for Sony Music and all these other things. But the year before I found my way to the Drupal community, I probably sent out, like, 400 resumes for jobs in the tech space, didn't really get any callbacks. And then, I met the community, and I started attending events, and then eventually, I started organizing events. And then, Sony I interviewed and talked to them a couple of times. And then, a friend of mine became the boss. And she contacted me and was like, "Hey, are you in the market?" And I was like, "I don't know. Why? What's up?" And she's like, "I became Doug." And I was like, "What?" And she was like, "I'm now replacing Doug at Sony. I'm running the team." And I was like, "Yeah, I'm happy to talk." And that was the big transition in my career from IT to sort of development and to delivery, right? Like, when it comes right down to it, is I became the manager of interactive media at Sony Music, which was really a job I landed because I was connected to the community, and running events, and getting to know everyone. VICTORIA: Yeah. And I think it's really cool that you had this exposure early on to what you called civic tech, which we'll get into a little bit, and then you went from the community into a commercial technology space and really getting into engineering with Drupal. ROBBIE: Yeah, it was an interesting transition because what they needed at Sony was sort of somebody who could ride the line between systems engineer, database administrator, and Drupal engineer, and also probably pre-DevOps DevOps person. So, I was responsible for all deployments and all tickets that came in. I was sort of both the technical arm of the help desk. When I joined, there was 24 websites on the Drupal platform, and when I left, there was over 200. And we upgraded it from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 while I was there. So, I was heavily involved in all of those updates, and all those upgrades, and all of the deployments of all the new themes, and all the changes to all these sites. So, what was great was they, I believe, if I understand it correctly, they actually created a role for me out of, like, two or three jobs because they needed a me, and they didn't have a role that existed. So, all of a sudden, they made a manager of interactive media role. And I was able to work there for two years, sort of being what I jokingly say, like, a digital janitor. I used to say that I had, like, an eight-bit key ring in a push broom. And I was always mad at your kids for trying to break my stuff. VICTORIA: [laughs] That's so good. A digital service janitor [laughs]? The connection for me between that and where I met you in the U.S. digital service space [laughs] I feel like there's a lot of parallels between that and where your career evolved later on in life. ROBBIE: Yeah. What's amazing is I did all this early work in my career in civic tech and didn't realize it was civic tech at the time. I just realized what I was doing was providing this huge impact and was value. You know, I spent a couple of years in the welfare centers, and I used to say all the time that the two hardest jobs in the welfare center are the person applying for welfare and the person deciding whether or not that person gets welfare. So, being a technologist and trying to help make that as simple as possible or easier and smooth the edges off of that process was really important. And it really taught me how important technology is to delivering service. And I really never thought about it before. And then, when I was working for Phase2 technologies, I was a director of Digital Services. And I read in a blog post, I believe that was written by Mikey Dickerson, who was the original administrator for USDS, and he talked about HealthCare.gov. And he walked in the door, and he said, "How do you know HealthCare.gov is down?" And I think there was some allusion to the fact that we were like, we turn on the television and if they're yelling at us, we know it's down. And Mikey was like, "We know how to monitor things." So, like, if you don't know Mikey Dickerson, he's the person who sort of created the web application hierarchy of needs in Google. He was an SRE. And his pyramid, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, was all over Google when I was there. I was so impressed with the idea that, like, we aren't talking about how do we solve this problem? We're talking about knowing when there's a problem. And then, if we know there's a problem, we can put some messaging around that. We can say, like, "We're aware," right? Like if the president calls the secretary, the secretary can say, "We know it's down. We're working on it," which is building up political capital. It's a really amazing process that I kept reading this blog post, and I was like, God, that's how I would approach it. And then, I was like, wow, I wonder if I could use my skills to help America, and very shortly submitted an application and was like, well, we'll see what happens. And about six months later, I walked in the door at the VA and was the eighth employee of the Digital Service team at the VA. That was a franchise team of the USDS model. VICTORIA: And can you say a little bit more about what is the U.S. Digital Service and expand upon your early experience there? ROBBIE: Yeah. So, the United States Digital Service was created after HealthCare.gov had its issues. Todd Park had convinced President Obama to reach out to get support from the private industry. And the few of the people who were there, Todd convinced to stick around and start creating a team that could support if there was this kind of issue in the future. I believe the team that was there on the ground was Mikey Dickerson, Erie Meyer, Haley Van Dyck, and Todd. And there was a few other people who came back or were very close at the beginning, including the current administrator of USDS. She has been around a long time and really helped with HealthCare.gov. It's amazing that Mina is back in government. We're very lucky to have her. But what came out of that was what if we were able to stand up a team that was here in case agencies needed support or could vet solutions before these types of problems could exist? So, USDS was what they called the startup inside the White House that was created during the 2014 administration of President Obama. The team started that year, and I joined in May of 2016. So, I would be, like, sort of the beginning of the second team of the VA U.S. Digital Service team. So, USDS supported this idea of tours of duty, where you're a schedule A employee, which meant you were a full-time government employee, but you were term-limited. You could do up to two years of duty and work, and then you could theoretically stick around and do two more years. That was how these roles were envisioned. I think there's lots of reasons why that was the case. But what's nice is it meant that you would come in with fresh eyes and would never become part of the entrenched IT ecosystem. There are people that transition from USDS into government, and I think that's a huge value prop nowadays. It's something that I don't know they were thinking about when the original United States Digital Service was stood up, but it was hugely impactful. Like, I was part of the team at the VA that helped digitize the first form on vets.gov and all the work that was done. When the VA team started, there was a team that was helping with veteran benefits, and they worked on the appeals process for veteran benefits. And I joined. And there was a team that was...eventually, it became dubbed the veteran-facing tools team. And we worked on vets.gov, which was a new front door to expose and let veterans interact with the VA digitally. And over time, all the work that went into the tools and the solutions that were built there, everything was user-researched. And all of that work eventually got brought into VA.gov in what they called a brand merger. So, we took, like, the sixth most trafficked front door of the VA and took all the modern solutioning that that was and brought it into VA.gov, the main front door. So, all of a sudden, there was an identity, a login provided on VA.gov for the first time. So big, impactful work that many people were a part of and is still ongoing today. Surprisingly, so much of this work has now fallen under OCTO, which is the Office of the CTO in the VA. And the CTO is Charles Worthington, who was a USDSer who's the epitome of a person who goes where the work is. Charles was a Presidential Innovation Fellow who helped out in the times of HealthCare.gov and, joined USDS and did anything and everything that was necessary. He interviewed engineers. He was a product person. Charles is one of the most unique technologists and civic tech people I've ever met in my life. But Charles, at the end of the Obama administration and in this transition, realized that the VA was in need of someone to fill the CTO role. So, he came over to become the interim CTO because one of the values of USDS is to go where the work is. And he realized, with the transition, that Marina Nitze, who was the CTO who was transitioning out, there was going to be a need for continuity. So, he came in to provide that continuity and eventually became the full-time CTO and has been there ever since. So, he has helped shape the vision of what the VA is working towards digitally and is now...he was just named the Chief AI Officer for the agency. Charles is a great person. He has successfully, you know, shepherded the work that was being done early by some of us into what is now becoming a sort of enterprise-wide solution, and it's really impressive. VICTORIA: I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, I think there's a perception about working for public service or for government, state or federal agencies, that they are bureaucratic, difficult to work with, very slow. And I think that the USDS was a great example of trying to really create a massive change. And there's been this ripple effect of how the government acquires products and services to support public needs, right? ROBBIE: Yeah, I would say there's a couple of arms of the government that were sort of modernization approaches, so you have the Presidential Innovation Fellows, which are the equivalent of, like, entrepreneurs and residents in government. And they run out of...I think they're out of the TTS, the Technology Transformation Service over at GSA, which is the General Services Administration. But the PIFs are this really interesting group of people that get a chance to go in and try to dig in and use their entrepreneurial mindset and approach to try to solve problems in government. And a lot of PIFS work in offices. Like, Charles' early team when he first became the CTO included a lot of Presidential Innovation Fellows. It was basically like, "Hey, the VA could use some support," and these people were available and were able to be convinced to come and do this work. And then, you have the Presidential Management Fellows, which I think is a little bit more on the administration side. And then, we have 18F and USDS. The United States Digital Service is a funded agency with an OMB. And we were created as a way to provide the government with support either by detailing people over or dropping in when there was a problem. And then, 18F is an organization that is named because the offices of GSA and TTS (Technology Transformation Service), where it's housed, are on the corner of 18th Street and F in DC. And 18F is sort of like having a technology or a digital agency for hire within the government. So, they are full-time employees of the government, sort of like USDS, except government agencies can procure the support of that 18F team, just like they would procure the support of your company. And it was a really interesting play. They are fully cost-recoupable subcomponent of TTS, which means they have to basically make back all the money that they spend, whereas USDS is different. It's congressionally funded for what it does. But they're all similar sibling organizations that are all trying to change how government works or to bring a more modern idea or parlance into the government. I used to say to people all the time that at USDS, you know, we would set a broken bone say, and then we would come back around and say, like, "Hey, does your arm hurt anymore?" The idea being like, no. Be like, "Cool, cool. Maybe you should go to the gym, and you should eat better." And that would be, like, procurement change. That would be, like, changing for the long term. So, all the work I was doing was building political capital so we could do better work in changing how procurement was done and then changing how the government delivered these things. So, what was awesome was, like, we used to have these fights at USDS about whether or not we were a culture change or we were firefighters. And I think the reality is once we're involved, culture changes happen. The bigger question is, are we going to be there for the long haul, or are we only there for a shorter period of time? And I think there are reasons why USDS teams had both plays. And I think it really is just two different plays for the same outcome. VICTORIA: Yeah, that makes sense. And to pivot a little bit, I think, you know, our audience, we have clients and listeners who are founders of products that are aimed at making these, like, public service needs, or to give some examples, like, maybe they're trying to track Congressional voting patterns or contact information for different state representatives, and they're trying to navigate this space [laughs]. So, maybe you can give some advice for founders interested in selling their products to government agencies. What can they do to make it more appealing and less painful for themselves? ROBBIE: I wouldn't consider myself a procurement expert, but at USDS, the procurement team called themselves the [SP] procurementati. And I was a secret member of the procurementati. I often was the engineer they would call to evaluate statements of work or sometimes be on technology evaluation panels. And it was fun to be a part of that. Things that most companies don't realize is government agencies will put out things like request for information or sources sought in the government space. And this is a way for industry to influence how government tries to solve problems. If you are trying to go after government work and you're only responding to an RFP, you're probably behind in your influence that you could have on the type of work. So, you'll see if a procurement seems to be, like, specifically focused on an approach, or a technology, or a framework, it's probably because some companies have come through and said, "I think this would probably solve your problem," and they gave examples. So, that's one way to be more connected to what's going on is to follow those types of requests. Another is to follow the money. My wife is this amazing woman who helped write The Data Act and get it passed through government. And The Data Act is the Data and Transparency Act. And that led to her heading over to treasury and leading up a team that built USAspending.gov. So, there is a website that tracks every dollar, with some exceptions, of the funding that comes out of Congress every year. And what's great is you can track it down to where it's spent, and how it's spent, and things like that. For education purposes, I think that is a really good thing that business and growth people can focus on is try to see and target where competitors or where solutions that you've looked at have gone in the past. It's just a good set of data for you to take a look at. The other piece is if you're creating a solution that is a delivery or a deliverable, like a SaaS solution, in order for something to be utilized in the government, it probably needs to be FedRAMP-approved, which is a process by which security approvals have been given so that government agencies have the green light to utilize your solution. So, there's tons of documentation out there about FedRAMP and the FedRAMP approval process. But that is one of those things that becomes a very big stopping point for product companies that are trying to work in the government. The easiest way to work your way through that is to read up on it a bunch, but also find an agency that was probably willing to sponsor you getting FedRAMP approval. Most companies start working with a government agency, get an exemption for them to utilize your product, and then you get to shape what that FedRAMP process looks like. You start applying for it, and then you have to have some sort of person who's helping shepherd it for you internally in the government and accepting any issues that come along in the process. So, I guess FedRAMP approval is one that's a little complicated but would be worth looking into if you were planning on delivering a product in government. VICTORIA: Right. And does that apply to state governments as well? ROBBIE: So, lots of state-related and city and locality-related governments will actually adopt federal solutions or federal paradigms. So, I think in the state of California, I think FedRAMP as one of the guiding principles for accepting work into the state of California, so it's not consistent. There's not a one-to-one that every state, or every city, or every locality will pull this in. But if you are already approved to be a federal contractor, or a federal business, or a federal product, it's probably going to be easier to make your way into the local spaces also. VICTORIA: Right. And as you said, there's plenty of resources, and tools, and everything to help you go along that journey if that's the group you're going for [laughs]. 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: tbot.io/sprint. VICTORIA: So, kind of bringing it back to you, like, you're saying you want those partnerships within the government. You want someone advocating for you or for your product or your service. Drawing that back to what you said earlier about community, like, how do you form a community with this group of people who are in the state, or federal government, or civic tech spaces? ROBBIE: Yeah, I think it's an interesting problem because so much of it feels impenetrable from the outside. Most people don't even know where to start. There are organizations out there that are pretty good community connections, an example I would give is ACT-IAC. It is a public-private partnership where people from within the government, experts in their fields, and people in the private industry who are experts in their fields will be together on community boards and engaging in panels. And so, it's a really nice way to start connecting those dots. I have no direct affiliation with ACT-IAC. But if they'd like to give me my own account, that would be great. But it is one of those organizations I've seen be successful for people trying to find their way into a community that is a little harder to find. I think, also, so much of the community engagement happens at conferences and around...so, like, if you're in the healthcare space, this last month, you've had multiple conferences that I think were really great for people to get to know one another, you know, an example is ViVE. It just happened out in LA, which is a little more on the private sector health space, but still, government agencies were there. I know that the Department of Veterans Affairs had people there and were on panels. And then, HIMSS is another conference that takes place, and that just took place down in Miami. And in Miami, HIMSS happened and a whole bunch of other social community events took place. So, I'm close with a thing called the Digital Services Coalition, which is 47 companies that all try to deliver good government based on the Digital Services Playbook that was created by USDS that lives at playbook.cio.gov and the way that they try to accomplish this work. And that organization, while they were in Miami, hosted a happy hour. So, there's a lot of connections that can be made once you start seeing the players and getting to know who's around. So, it's a little bit about trying to find your way to that first event, and I think that will really open up everything for you. Within a week or two, I was at an International Women's Day event at MetroStar, which is a really great company that I've gotten a chance to spend some time with. And then, I was at an event for the Digital Services Coalition talking about open source in government. So, there's a lot of stuff out there for you to be a part of that isn't super cost-prohibitive and also doesn't take a lot once you start to open the door. You know, once you peek around that corner and you find some people, there's a lot more to be done. VICTORIA: Yeah. And you touched on something at the end there that wants me to bring up some of the advantages you can have being a small business, a minority-owned business, or woman-owned business, or veteran-owned business, so thinking about how you can form those connections, especially if you have one of those socio and economic set-asides that you might want to consider if they're looking to work with the government as well. ROBBIE: Yeah. Those socioeconomic set-asides include small businesses, woman-owned small business. I think it's Native and Alaskan 8(a), which is historically underrepresented and service-disabled veteran-owned. So, there are also sub-communities of associations, like there's the Digital WOSB, the digital Women-Owned Small Business alliance that was founded by Jess Morris from Pluribus Digital, and a bunch of other companies in the Digital Services Coalition. I believe she's the president of the Digital WOSB right now. That is a sub-community of women-owned small businesses that are trying to connect and create a community that they can support one another. And that's just one example of the type of connection you can make through those types of socioeconomic set-asides. But once you have those official socioeconomic set-asides, it will allow you to get specific contracts engagements in the government that are not allowed or available for others. So, the government procurement process will have some amount of these specific socioeconomic set-asides that need to be hit. Like, 8% of all procurements need to go to this and 10% of all procurements need to go to this. So, I think the VA is probably one of the most effective at hitting any of the socioeconomic set-asides, specifically related to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. So, if you happen to be a person of color and you found a business and you are female presenting, right? You may have 8(a) woman-owned small business. If you also happen to be a veteran and you're service-disabled, all of those things stack. You don't just get to have one of them. And they can be really effective in helping a business get a leg up and starting out and trying to help even the playing field for those communities. VICTORIA: Yeah. What I really appreciated about my experience working with Pluribus Digital, and you, and people who had had that experience in the U.S. Digital Services, that there is this community and desire to help each other out and that you can have access to people who know how to move your product forward, get you the connections that you need to be competitive, and to go after the work. So, I love encouraging people to consider civic tech options. And maybe even say more about just how impactful some of it can be. And what kind of missions are you solving in these spaces? ROBBIE: Yeah, I often try to remind people, especially those who are heading towards or considering civic tech, there are very few places in this world that you can work on something that can impact millions of people. Sure, I was lucky enough. I have tons of privilege. I worked at a lot of wacky places that have given me the access to do the type of work that I think is impactful, but very little has the kind of impact. Like, when I was interviewed by Marina Nitze as, my last interview when I joined USDS, she sent me an email at the end of it and said like, "Everything was great. I look forward to working with you. And remember, every time you commit code into our GitHub, you'll be helping 8 million veterans." And then, she cc'd Todd Park. And Todd was the CTO of the U.S., and he responded back within a minute. Todd is one of the most busy people. It was amazing to me how fast he responded. But he was like, "Lemme tell you, as somebody who can talk on behalf of our president, our country needs you." And those kinds of things they're hard to comprehend. And then, I joined the Digital Service team at the VA. And one of the first things that I got to support was the 10-10EZ. It's the healthcare application for veterans. And before I got there, it was a hosted PDF that we were trying to replace. And the team had been working for months to try to build a new, modern solution. What it was is it was, like, less than six submissions were happening a day because it only worked in Adobe Acrobat, I think it was 6.5 and below, and Internet Explorer 8.5 and below. And if you think about the people that could submit utilizing that limited set of technologies, it was slowly becoming homeless veterans who were using library computers that had not been upgraded. So, there was a diminishing amount of value that it was providing. And then, on top of it, it was sort of lying to veterans. If the version of the Adobe Acrobat was out of date, or wrong, or too new, it would tell them to upgrade their browser. So, like, it was effectively not providing any value over time. We were able to create a new version of that and that was already well on its way when I joined, but we were able to get it out the door. And it was a React frontend using a Node backend to talk to that SOAP API endpoint. Within the first week, we went from 6 submissions a day to 60 submissions a day. It's a joke, right? We were all 10x developers. We were like, "Look at us. We're killing it." But about three years later, Matt Cutts came to a staff meeting of USDS, and he was the second administrator of the USDS. And he brought the cake that had the actual 10-10EZ form on it, and it said, "500,000." And he had checked with the analytics team, and there were over 500,000 submissions of that form, which means there are 500,000 possible veterans that now may or may not have access to healthcare benefits. Those are big problems. All of that was done by changing out one form. It opened up the world. It opened up to a group of veterans that no one else was able to do. They would have had to go into a veteran's office, and they would have had to fill it out in paper. And some veterans just don't have the ability to do that, or don't have an address, or don't have a...so, there are so many reasons why having a digital form that worked for veterans was so important. But this one form that we digitized and we helped make modern has been submitted so many times and has helped so many veterans and their families. And that's just one example. That's just one form that we helped digitize. But now the team, I mean, I'm back in the VA ecosystem. There's, like, 2,500 people in the general channel in the office of the CTO Slack organization. That's amazing. There's people there that are working all day, every day, trying to solve the same problems that I was trying to solve when I got here. And there's so much work being done to help veterans. But that's just one example, right? Like, at USDS, I know that the digital filing for the free version of your tax form, the IRS e-file Direct, just went live. That was something that USDS had been working on for a very long time behind the scenes. And that's going to impact everybody who submits their taxes. These are the kind of problems that you get to work on or the scope of some of the problems if you work in these types of organizations, and that's really powerful. It's the thing that keeps drawing me back. I'm back supporting the VA again through some contracts in my business. But it's funny, like, I was working for another agency. I was over working at DHS on an asylum project. And a friend of mine kept telling people to tell me, "Man, veterans need you. If only there was another one of you to help us over here, that would be great." And eventually, it led to me being like, well, veterans need me. I'm going to go back to the VA. And that was my second tour at USDS at the Department of Veteran Affairs. And now I'm back there again. So, it's a very impactful place to work. There's tons of value you can provide to veterans. And, to me, it's the kind of work that keeps bringing me back. I didn't realize just how much I was a, like, impact junkie until I joined USDS, and then it really came to a head. I cannot believe how much work I've gotten to be a part of that has affected and supported those who get benefits and services from the federal government. VICTORIA: [inaudible 33:47] impact junkie. That's funny. But yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. That's really interesting. Let me see if you could go back in time to when you first started in this journey; if you could give yourself any advice, what would you say? ROBBIE: Yeah, I think I spent so much time being nervous about not having my degree that I was worried it was going to hinder me forever. And it's pretty amazing the career I've been able to thread together, right? Like, you know, I've hit on a few of them already. But, like, I started with a small web hosting company, and then New York State in the Department of Social Services, then New York City in the Human Resources Administration, Sony Music, Zagat Survey, Google, Johnson & Johnson, IDT telecommunications, Phase2 technologies, where I got to work on an awful lot of problems in lots of awesome places like NBA.com, and Major League Soccer, and Bassmaster. And then, the United States Digital Service where I got to work on things supporting the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security over at ADA.gov in DOJ. I helped them out. And I worked over at USDA helping get Farmers.gov off the ground. So, everything on my left leg, tattoo-wise, is something that changed my life from my perspective. And I have a Drupal tattoo on the back of my leg. I have a DrupalCon. So, anytime somebody said "Drupal" anywhere near a USDS person, I would magically appear because they would just be like, "Oh, Robbie has that Drupal tattoo." So, I got to work on a lot of dot govs that eventually landed or were being built in Drupal. So, I got to support a lot of work. And it meant that I got to, like, float around in government and do a lot of things that others didn't get to do. When CISA stood up, which is the office of security inside of DHS, it's one of the newest sub-communities or subcomponents, they built DHS SchoolSafety.gov, which is a cross-MOU'd site. And I got to sit in and help at the beginning of that because of my Drupal background. But it was really fun to be the person who helped them work with the vendors and make sure that they understood what they were trying to accomplish and be a sort of voice of reason in the room. So, I did all of that work, and then after that, I went and worked at Pluribus Digital, where I got a chance to work side by side with you. And then, that led to other things, like, I was able to apply and become the director of Digital Services and software engineering for my local county. So, I worked for Prince William County, where I bought a house during the pandemic. And then, after that contract ended, I had already started my own business. So, that's led to me having multiple individual contracts with companies and so many people. I've gotten to work on so many different things. And I feel very lucky. If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it's just, take a breath. Everything's going to be okay. And focus on the things that matter. Focus on the things that are going to help you. Focus on community. Focus on delivering value. Everything else will work itself out. You know, I joke all the time that I'm really good at providing impact. If you can measure my life in impact and value, I would be a very rich man. If you can measure it in money, I'm doing all right, but I'm never going to be yacht Robbie, you know, but I'm going to do okay. VICTORIA: Oh my god, yacht Robbie. That's great. So, just to recap, everything's going to be okay. You never know where it's going to take you. And don't be limited by the things that you think, you know, make you not enough. Like, there's a lot of things that you can do out there. I really like that advice. ROBBIE: And I think one last piece is, like, community matters, if you are a part of communities and you do it genuinely, how much that will impact your career. I gave a talk from Drupal NYC to the White House and beyond. And I talked through my entire resume and how everything changed when I started doing community engagement. When I went to the Drupal community in New York City and how that led to Sony, and that led to Zagat, which led to me getting acquired by Google, like, these things all cascaded. And then, when I moved to the DMV, I was able to join here and continue supporting communities, which allowed me to bring people into the local civic tech community from the local DC tech community. So, so many of the best USDS engineers, and designers, and product people I was able to help influence to come to government were people I met in the community or the communities I helped support. You know, I was an early revivalist of Alexandria Code and Coffee. It was a community that was started and then wavered. And then, Sean McBeth reached out to the community and said, "Do we want to help and support getting it off the ground again?" And I immediately said, "Yes." And then, that led to my friends at BLACK CODE COLLECTIVE wanting to create a community where they could feel safe and connected and create a community of their own. And then DC Code & Coffee started. And from there, Baltimore Code & Coffee kicked off. And it's just really nice that, like, it doesn't matter where I've been. All these things keep coming back to be a part of community and help support others. And you will be surprised at how much you get back in return. I wouldn't be the person I am today in my community. I wouldn't have my career if it wasn't for the people who started and helped shepherd me when I was starting out. And I feel like I've been trying to do the same for people for a really long time. VICTORIA: I love that. That's what I say, too, when people ask me for advice on careers and how to grow. And my biggest piece is always to go out and meet people. And go to your community, like, look and see what's happening. Like, find people you like hanging out with and learning from. And just that should be the majority of your time probably if you're trying to figure out where to go with your career or even just, like, expand as a person sometimes [laughs]. Robbie, I was going to ask; you mentioned that you had bought a house in Virginia. One of my other warmup questions was going to be, what's your favorite thing to put on the grill? ROBBIE: My house in Virginia definitely gets a lot of use, especially in the spring and the fall. I'm a big fan of team no extreme when it comes to temperature. But during those time periods, my grill is often fired up. My favorite is probably to make skirt steak on the grill. I'm a huge fan of tacos, especially made out of skirt steak. I'm in all day. That's one of my favorites. I also love to smoke. I have a smoker because I'm a caricature-esque suburban dude. I'm going to live into all of the possible things I could have. But I've had a smoker for a long time, and I love making sort of poor man's burnt ends. It's one of my favorite things to make. But you got to have some time. That's the kind of thing that takes, you know, 14 hours or 16 hours, but it's really fun to take advantage of it. A quick thing I love to make is actually smoked salmon. It takes longer to brine it than it usually does to smoke it. But it is one of the nicest things I've made on my smoker, you know, fresh pesto on a piece of salmon is pretty awesome, or everything bagel. Everything with the bagel seasoning is a pretty fun way to smoke some salmon. VICTORIA: Wow, that sounds so good. I'm going to have to stop in next time I'm in Virginia and get some [laughs] and hang out. Do you have any questions for me? ROBBIE: I'm excited to see where you've gone and how you've gotten here. I think this is such a cool job for you. Knowing who you are as a person and seeing you land in a company like this is really exciting. And I think you getting to be a part of this podcast, which we were joking about earlier, is I've been listening to probably since it started. I've been a big fan for a long time. So, it's cool to be here on this podcast. But it's also cool that my friend is a part of this and gets to be a part of this legacy. I'm really excited to see where you go over time. I know my career has been changing, right? I worked in government. Before that, I did all kinds of other stuff. Nowadays I have my own business where I often joke I have sort of, like, three things I offer, which is, like, consigliere services. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Robbie on your executive team without having to pay them an executive salary? You know, another one is like, you know, strategy and mentoring, but these are all things I know you do also, which I think is cool. But I've been working on contracts where I support companies trying to figure out how they modernize, or how their CTO can be more hands-off keyboard, or how their new director of business development can be more of a technical leader and taking on their first direct reports. So, I just enjoy all those aspects, and I just think it's something that I've watched you do in the company where we worked together. And it's always fun to see what you're working on and getting a chance to catch up with you. I feel like you're one of those people that does a really great job of staying connected. Every once in a while, I'll get a random text message like, "Hey, how you doing?" It always makes me smile. I'm like, Victoria is a really good connector, and I feel like I am, but you're even better at it on the being proactive side. That's how this all came about, right? We caught up, and you were like, "Why don't you come on the podcast?" So, that's really exciting. VICTORIA: Well, thank you, Robbie. Yeah, I think that's one of the great things about community is you meet people. You're like, "Oh, you're really cool. And you're doing cool stuff all the time. Like, how can I support you in your journey [laughs]? Like, what's up?" Yeah, for me, it was hard to actually leave DC. I didn't, you know, really think about the impact of leaving behind my tech community, like, that network of people. It was pretty emotional for me, actually, especially when we finally, like, stopped doing the digital version [laughs]. And I, like, kind of gave up managing it from California, which was kind of funny anyways [laughs]. Yeah, so no, I'm grateful that we stayed in touch and that you made time to be here with us today. Is there anything else that you would like to promote? ROBBIE: You know, just to remind you, you've done a great job of transitioning into where you are today, but anybody can do that, right? Like, before I moved to the DC area, I was in New York, and I was helping to organize JavaScript events. And I started looking at the DC area before I moved down here. And I found the DC Tech Community. And I found the Node School DC GitHub organization and reached out to the person who had ownership of it and said I wanted to help and support. I looked at this the other day. I think I moved on May 8th, and then, like, May 11th, when I walked in the door, somebody was like, "Are you new?" And I was like, "Yeah, I just moved here." And they were like, "Oh, from where?" And I was like, "New York." And they were like, "Are you that guy who's been bugging Josh about running Node school events?" I was like, "Yeah." And like, they were planning an unconference at the end of the month. And they were like, "Would you like to run a Node school at that unconference?" Like, 27 days later. So, it was amazing that, like, I immediately, like, fell from the New York Community where I was super connected, but I went out of my way to try to, like, see what the community looked like before I got there. And I was lucky enough to find the right people, and immediately I joked...I think I wrote a blog post that said like, "I found my new friends. By, like, going from one community to another, gave a person who was in his 40s a chance to meet new people very quickly." And it was pretty amazing, and I felt very lucky. But I did spend a little bit of energy and capital to try to figure it out because I knew it was going to be important to me. So, I think you've done a really good job. You've helped launch and relaunch things that were going on in San Diego and becoming a part of this connection to more people. I think you and I have a very similar spirit, which is like, let's find a way to connect with humans, and we do it pretty effectively. VICTORIA: Well, thank you. That really boosts my confidence, Robbie [laughs]. Sometimes, you show up to an event you've never been to before by yourself, and it's like a deer in headlights kind of moment. Like, oh God, what have I done [laughs]? ROBBIE: Oh, and the last thing I need to mention is I also have a podcast. I have my podcast about film. It's called Geek on Film. I used to record it with my friend, Jon. He's a little busy right now. But I used to pitch it as a conversation show about the current films that were going on. Now, it's one lone geek's ramblings about what he just saw. It's a great podcast for me because it gives me an opportunity to think a little more critically about film, which is one of the things that I probably have almost enough credits to get a minor in. But I absolutely love cinema and film in general. And it's given me an opportunity to connect with a lot more people about this subject and also to scratch the itch of me being able to create something around a community and around a thing I really love. VICTORIA: That's super cool. Yeah. You're top of mind because I also like films. I'm like, what's Robbie up to? Like, what's the recommendations, you know [laughs]? Do you have a top film recommendation from the Oscars? Is that too big of a question? ROBBIE: So, the one I will say that didn't get enough spotlight shined on it was Nimona. So, I'm a huge fan of the Spider-Man movies. I think Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse are both masterpieces. But Nimona is an animated film that was picked up by Netflix, and it is amazing. I don't know that I laughed or cried or was more moved by a film last year. And I don't know that it gets enough credit for what it was. But it did get nominated for best-animated film, but I don't know that enough people paid attention to it. Like it may have gotten lost in the algorithm. So, if you get a chance, check out Nimona. It's one of those beautiful, little gems that, if you travel down its story, there's all these twists and turns. It was based on a webcomic that became a graphic novel. One of the production companies picked it up, and it wasn't going to see the light of day. And then, Netflix bought its distribution rights. There's going to be a great documentary someday about, like, Inside Nimona. But I think the movie itself is really charming and moving, and I was really impressed with it. So, that was the one that got me, like, just before the Oscars this year, where I was like, this is the little animated movie that could, in my opinion. It's so charming. VICTORIA: I will definitely have to check that out. Thank you for giving us that recommendation. ROBBIE: Totally. VICTORIA: Final question. I just wanted to see if you had anything to share about being an advisory board member for Gray and for Hutch Studio. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? ROBBIE: Yeah. So, Gray Digital was founded by a friend of mine. We met through United States Digital Service. And his organization...I had been supporting him for a while and just being behind the scenes, talking to him and talking through business-related issues. And it was really nice. He offered to make me an official advisory board member. It was a great acknowledgment, and I really felt moved. There's some great people that are supporting him and have supported him. They've done really great work. Gray is out there delivering digital services in this space. And I think I was really lucky to be a part of it and to support my friend, Randall. Hutch is different. Hutch is an organization that's kind of like if you think about it, it almost is a way to support entrepreneurs of color who are trying to make their way into the digital service delivery space. Being an advisory board member there has been really interesting because it's shaping how Hutch provides services and what their approach is to how to support these companies. But over the last year, I've convinced the person who's running it, Stephanie, with a couple of other people, to open the door up or crack the door so we could talk directly and support the individual companies. So, it's been really great to be a Hutch advisory member to help shape how Hutch is approaching things. But I've also been a part of, like, many interview processes. I've reviewed a lot of, like, [inaudible 48:01] who want to join the organization. And I've also created personal relationships with many of the people who are part of Hutch. And, you know, like, you know me personally, so you know I run a Day of the Dead party. We'll just party at my house every year. I have a huge amount of affection for Mexican culture and, in general, the approach of how to remember people who are a part of your life. So, this is, like, the perfect way for me to bring people together at my house is to say, like, "Hey, my dad was awesome. What about your family? Who are your people?" What's really nice is that has given me an opportunity to host people at my house. And I've had Hutch company owners at my house the last couple of years and the person who runs Hutch. So, it's a really great community that I look at that is trying to shape the next emergent companies that are helping deliver digital services across the government. And it's really fun to be early on in their career and help them grow. Again, it seems silly, but it's the thing I care a lot about. How do I connect with people and provide the most value that I can? And this is a way I can provide that value to companies that may also go off and provide that value. It's a little bit of an amplifier. So, I'm a huge fan of what we've been able to accomplish and being a part of it in any way, shape, or form. VICTORIA: Well, I think that's a really beautiful way to wrap it up. ROBBIE: Really glad to catch up with you and be a part of this amazing podcast. VICTORIA: Yeah, so much fun. Thank you again so much. It was great to be here with you today. 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. You can find me on thoughtbotsocial@vguido. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.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

Hosts Will Larry and Victoria Guido are joined by Hans Kullberg, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Pathfinder Health. Pathfinder Health is an early-stage startup that provides objective insights into children's developmental health to pediatric clinics. Hans shares his journey, starting with his career on Wall Street, moving through various startup experiences, and finally, his pivotal role at Visa, which was significantly shaped by the tragic loss of his daughter, Aviva. This loss inspired him to focus on helping families get timely and accurate developmental diagnoses for their children. The episode highlights pediatricians' challenges in monitoring developmental health due to time constraints during appointments and the lack of detailed observation that these brief interactions afford. Hans explains how Pathfinder Health aims to address these challenges by enhancing the collaboration between parents and pediatricians through technology, providing detailed tracking and insights into a child's development outside of clinical visits. This includes innovative approaches like using machine learning to analyze video data of children in their natural environments, helping to pinpoint developmental milestones more accurately. Hans also discusses the broader implications of early and accurate developmental diagnosis by emphasizing the importance of using data to overcome the limitations of current medical practices. By integrating detailed developmental data into health records, Pathfinder Health hopes to transform pediatric care by being able to allow for earlier interventions for its patients. Pathfinder Health Follow Pathfinder Health on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X, or Facebook. Follow Hans Kullberg on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Transcript: WILL: 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, Will Larry. VICTORIA: And I'm your other host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Hans Kullberg, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Pathfinder Health, an early-stage pediatric developmental health tech startup focused on bringing objective insights on children's developmental health to pediatric clinics everywhere. Hans, thank you for joining us. HANS: Thank you, Will. Thank you, Victoria. It's really awesome to be here. VICTORIA: Great. Well, I met you at the San Diego Founders Hike at probably 7:30 in the morning on a Friday [laughs] a couple of weeks ago. So, tell me just a little bit more about what do you do for fun around San Diego? HANS: Yeah, I do a lot of fun. First of all, I'm a dad of four kids, so that keeps me busy, and it keeps my fun time relegated to the windows that I can do it. But I love to start morning surf right out here in Mission Beach in San Diego. I love to cook for a lot of people, house parties, and as well as hunger suppers. And then, I love playing saxophone when I can. VICTORIA: What's your favorite song to play on the saxophone? HANS: So, I'm messing around with it right now. I'm not great, but I'm learning Happy Birthday right now. VICTORIA: That's a great song, and you have a lot of birthdays to celebrate, it sounds like, over there. So, good to have that handy. HANS: Mm-hmm. Yep. VICTORIA: Well, awesome. Well, why don't you tell us a little bit more about your background and how it led to Pathfinder Health? HANS: My background is in data science and economics, and started my career actually on Wall Street, really looking at economic data, things like GDP and inflation, and macroeconomic variables like employment nonfarm payrolls. And I really tried to figure out a way to understand how to predict those at a very high degree of accuracy. That kind of led to my very first startup called, EconoCast, which was fairly successful. And that was exited back in 2013. Then I did a few other things, some startups that were successful, others that were not. But then I really wanted to kind of chop my teeth into product and really learn product from the inside out at a much bigger company. So, I joined the innovation team at Visa. I was working on Visa Acceptance Cloud, which is really kind of a point-of-sale solution in the cloud. So, if you're familiar with Apple Pay and Google Pay, it was pretty much the mirror image of that for receiving payments and accepting payments. And that really helps a lot of long-tail merchants, if you will, kind of in places like India, and Nigeria, Brazil, et cetera, that are traditionally accepting cash payments to be able to accept credit and debit payments. However, life took a turn. And while I was at Visa, my third child, Aviva, passed away. And there's, you know, a lot of backstory on that side, but she still doesn't have a diagnosis to this day. It was certainly the hardest part of my life and time of my life for my wife, my family. And I took some time off, really embraced the grieving process, but really tried to figure out what I wanted to do next. And really, that centered around a promise that I made to my daughter was to really try to get parents and families the answers that they deserve to really understand their diagnosis. So, I talked to a lot of different people in the healthcare community, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my particular background in data science and technology and building products to be able to kind of marry that with getting parents the answers that they need. And so, that's where I really came in contact with my co-founders at Pathfinder Health to really build what we believe is the most advanced way to really help pediatricians and providers understand how children are developing outside the clinic by collaborating, having parents and pediatricians really collaborate to understand the development across social, emotional, language, cognitive, and movement, all of those things that happen that require observation where pediatricians just have very little time. And we really kind of package that in a way to give them a snapshot of how they're developing relative to the peer group, to really kind of clarify a lot of these gray areas, if you will, and not take that wait-and-see approach, but rather to make that referral or diagnosis or get them on any kind of therapy that they need as soon as possible. And really, that's the diagnosis that this problem. The meta-problem that we're trying to solve is 25% of all children have some type of developmental delay, yet only 3% get diagnosed before the age of 3. And so, that's, you know, something very near and dear to my heart and something I'm working on every single day. That's how I got to where I am. WILL: Wow. I am so sorry to hear about your daughter. And I'll just be totally honest: that's one of my biggest fears as a dad. So yeah, I am so sorry to hear that about your daughter. What was that situation like? How long ago was it? And kind of not having to answer, like, where are you at with that? HANS: My daughter was born in January of 2020. Aviva lived for over ten months, and she passed away here in San Diego in November of 2020. I won't get into the background of it, but the short end of it is she never really had a diagnosis. But she had some anomalies that really created a condition called bradycardia, which is slow heart rate, only intermittently. It happened every couple of months. So, it wasn't really even a daily thing. Doctors didn't have any answers for it. We saw teams of specialists and I'm talking about cardiologists, neurologists, mitochondrial specialists, pulmonologists, every single type of specialist under the sun. But throughout six different hospitalizations and then the autopsy afterwards, they never figured out what the root cause was. And she had some signs that were different, but, you know, we live in this world where data is abundance. Generative AI is huge, right? We have all these tools and everything else, but yet when it comes to medicine, a lot of times we rely on the human knowledge of the physicians that we see. I'm not saying that they did anything wrong because they did the best they could. But what really upset me was that, you know, we go through this differential diagnosis of A, B, C, D, and this and the other, and they all strike out. You know, what's the backup plan? And that's where, you know, we should be using a lot more data at the big data level to really understand, you know, these anomalies. And maybe someone out there had something similar that she did or maybe a doctor in New York, or Boston, or Atlanta, or Miami somewhere would have known what to do. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. And really, that set me off my journey, really trying to understand that problem, in particular. There's a lot of things that kind of stand in the way from real AI being used in medicine. Of course, radiology is one exception. But when it comes down to interoperability of electronic health records as well as HIPAA, and privacy, and all the data silos they're in, Google's tried at this for a while to get to a place where you can have more precise type of data from a diagnostic perspective. Similar to the way that Facebook, and Amazon, and the Googles of the world know precisely how likely you are to click a button, I think medicine should be moving in that form and fashion. And so, yeah, that's really where I came across this journey. And the grieving process that's a whole 'nother subject as well, but I'm a very big believer in embracing that. Each of us took a year off and really just made sure that we were taking a lot of self-care and healing. And I went to therapy for the first time in my life, did a lot of writing and a lot of other therapeutic activities, including writing children's books. So, I'm a children's book author. And that's kind of what led me to finding out what I wanted to do on a day-in, day-out basis to help parents get the answers they need, knowing that, you know, mom and dad play a very big role in this, those first five years of life which, in my opinion, are the most critical and crucial and also the most precious years of your life. VICTORIA: You know, I really admire how you took such a painful moment and turned it into, how do I solve this problem for other people and really build community off of that as well? I don't have kids myself, but I have a niece and nephew who's two and four now. And I remember watching my sister-in-law try to keep track of all of the things that are happening for her child in the first year of their life, and it's not easy. And how do you identify if something has gone wrong? And I'm curious, like, what you learned from that process, or if you've learned anything about that process that's shifted your direction with Pathfinder. HANS: I mean, the biggest takeaway from my own personal experience is knowing that parents can play a very proactive role, an important role in the care for their child. And so, when you look at the pediatric visit, and, Will, you probably can relate to this, you know, for 15 minutes, you know, they're checking your eyes, ears, throat, heart, giving you your vaccines, et cetera. And there's a lot of different things they have to do to check off on their task list. But yeah, when it comes down to developmental health, we're talking about social, emotional cues, movement, cognitive, and language; it really requires observation. And they have very little time for that. Plus, you know, kids never [inaudible 08:49] themselves. There's well-child visits as well. It sort of leads to a lot of these gray areas. You know, on average, a pediatrician sees about 20 to 24 different kiddos a day, which is quite a heavy burden. They're definitely the most overworked and underpaid specialists across the whole healthcare system. But when you think about it, you know, what they do after the well-child visits is they give usually mom or dad a two-page handout of "This is..." you know, "Your child is two years old, and here's what you can do." A lot of times those handouts just, you know, get lost, and they're very not personalized. So, what we're doing we're a team of developmental-behavioral pediatricians, as well as early childhood specialist. We're talking about occupational therapists, physical therapists, child psychologists, and speech therapists. We're really combining all our interdisciplinary skills as well as machine learning experts on our team to be able to give parents the type of knowledge that's packaged in a way, on a parent level, that they really can understand how to track, monitor their child's growth and development. But also, if they're falling behind, or even if they're ahead, be able to enhance their development through daily activities that are tailored and customized to each individual's unique developmental trajectory. And so, we've come up with what's called developmental biomarkers, similar to what you know as height and weight charts, to really measure and monitor a child's progress versus peers. On the physical side, we're doing that across all of those developmental domains and being able to make those conversations, and insights, and visits with the doctor a lot more comprehensive in scope, including video-based data, where we kind of isolate the milestones. We call it smart detection, really show the parents what those milestones are happening. Parents know a lot about walking, talking, sitting, rolling over, but there's over 400 milestones that happen in the first five years of life. And so, being able to kind of understand pincer grip, you know, picking up a cheerio or looking when you call their name those are really big milestones that are very significant when it comes to determining where that child stands relative to their peers. So, yeah, that's a little how it works at a high level. WILL: Yeah. Wow. I want to go back and tell you this just so that...I try to whenever I think of something, especially positive, I just try to tell people. And so, like, your inspiration of how you dealt with your child's passing away and everything...because I think the statistics and what I've heard is most people hit a downward spiral. Most marriages don't make it. So, it's very inspiring to hear that you grieved and you worked through the process. So, I just want you to know that, like, that's super, even for me, that's super inspiring to know that that is even possible in that situation. So, I just want you to know that. HANS: Yeah. And I'm glad that you brought up that point. You're absolutely correct. I think over 50% of couples do get divorced after a death of a child. And a lot of times, it's not the event itself. Certainly, losing a child is very, very painful. But the cause of that separation is really the differences in the way that each other grieve, you know, the spouses grieve. And that's something that, honestly, you don't learn until you're going through it. And so, what we did was, just like other things in our life, we were very intentional about it and really sought out as much help and support through books. Books were fantastic, also grieving groups. There's a lot of great different grieving groups out there to really understand that, hey, you're not necessarily alone. Certainly, the pain of losing a child is definitely, in my opinion, the hardest thing that anyone can go through. But in terms of being able to empathize and even commiserate, but even to hear other people's stories, you start to learn, you know, what that journey looks like five years, ten years, 20 years down the road. But you also, you know, one of the things that I say is there's no right way to grieve at all. You can't tell someone how to grieve. But there is a wrong way to grieve. And I know that sounds like an oxymoron. But the wrong way to grieve is not doing it at all. And that's usually where we saw a lot of people kind of turn to negative addiction, or self-inflicted behaviors, or a lot of other things where they try to bottle it up, put it away, lock it in the closet and not think about it, you know, maybe bury their heads in work or any other kinds of addictions. That's something we learned very, very early on that we try to be conscientious of and try to really steer clear from. But, again, it's a very individually unique path, and I'm definitely not an expert at all, but have certainly learned, you know, tenfold what I didn't know about grief beforehand. And so, you really don't know grief until you actually go through it. In terms of being able to kind of parlay that into motivation to help others...and really, for me, that's my North star is really helping others, if that's helping detect diagnosis, or even, you know, just smiling to the person on the street, you know, that's what really gives me a lot of fulfillment. And so, in terms of that motivation, where does that come from, and how do you actually take that grief and transcend that into something productive like that? The only thing I can actually say to all the parents that are listening out there it's akin to when you hold your firstborn, especially when you become a new parent. And you have that magical feeling where you're holding that small, little infant in your arms. And you have this great burden of responsibility as well. And you start thinking to yourself, man, now it's not just my life that I'm in charge of. I'm in charge of this little human being's life, who you have to do everything for them. And so, that inspiration to be the better parent or better person that you feel as a new parent is only correlated, I would describe, to actually losing a child where that same feeling is, I would say, magnified times 3. And that's, you know, for me, I know my daughter's looking down on us, and I know that she's behind a lot of things that I'm doing, but I'm certainly inspired in a whole 'nother way apart from being just a parent. WILL: Yeah, definitely. You said something that really caught my attention. Like, it was around how when you're holding your child, like, you're responsible for your child. I have a background in sports medicine, spent four years doing it. I still have no idea a lot of medical history when it comes to a kid. I feel like majority of the items that you're supposed to be looking for or even thinking about is totally different with a kid. I don't know how to say this, but, like, the healthcare, the more that I have my kids, I'm seeing that there's different sides of healthcare. So, we moved from North Carolina. Our first pediatrician we loved. Every time we had an appointment, probably spent 30 to 40 minutes just talking us through, hanging out with our kids, asking questions. You know, they always gave us this list beforehand to say, "Hey, look out for these things. When you come in the office, we're going to ask you, 'Have you noticed it, or how are they doing with that?'" And then, we moved to South Florida, and it's been totally different. Totally different. We had to fire one pediatrician because it wasn't the same care. The pediatrician we're at now is a lot better, but it's nowhere near what North Carolina was. And so, there's a lot of times that we're questioning ourselves. It's like, what does the development of our kid look like? My oldest he had a tongue tie where he couldn't touch the top of his mouth, and we didn't know how important that was to take care of. We finally got it taken care of, but he is delayed in speech because he couldn't touch the top of his mouth. So, whenever I saw that we were going to have this podcast interview, I was just so excited because this is a huge issue. As a parent of three, this is a huge issue because you just don't know. And even when I didn't have kids, the knowledge that I had of even being a parent, yeah, I didn't know anything [laughs], and it's just learning on the go. So, everything you're doing is just speaking to me, and you are helping people. It's needed out there. So, I am so excited that you're doing it. HANS: That warms my heart. Thank you, Will, for saying that because I didn't realize that you're actually from North Carolina. I'm from North Carolina myself from a little town called Gastonia. But when it comes to, you know, developmental health, it is the biggest gray area in all of pediatrics. And we know that pediatricians just don't have the time. That's a very big burden. In addition, when it comes to specialists, we're talking about, you know, autism, for instance. You know, they have to be diagnosed through developmental-behavioral pediatricians or a child psychologist, and there's just a very big dearth of them. There's long waiting lines. It could be 12 to 18 months to actually get in front of them and get that evaluation, and then another 6 to 9 months to actually get therapy. And by that time, there's a lot of time lost, which is absolutely precious when it comes to the child. 90% of your child's brain, actually, develops by the time they're three years old. Another stat that parents actually don't know is that there's centers called Early Intervention Service Centers across the U.S. There's over 4,000. Their specific remit, their mandate is actually to go out and find children in their community, in the region, that do have developmental delay. And, you know, it's a very labor-intensive process to do that. I've actually done it here with my fourth child here in San Diego. They send out two therapists. They come in, do an evaluation, talk to the parent, see how they're doing, jot down some notes, you know, it's at least an hour of their time, driving included, but it's a very kind of manually intensive process. And what we can do is really be able to preempt that and really give parents the fidelity and advocacy to speak on behalf of their child. And I would say that's the number one thing that our parents say is they thought there was a concern. They knew there was some kind of gray area. And we know that there's a lot of stigma and denial around delays. What we're trying to do is actually lower that barrier so they have the wherewithal to actually have that conversation with their pediatrician. And simply to ask that question from a clinical-based evidence perspective, you know, that could do wonders, you know. If a kid's not speaking by the time they're two years old, if they're not saying a word, that's a big red flag. And a lot of the de facto status quo, a pediatrician will say, "Well, let's just wait till the next visit because every single child develops uniquely," which they do. But their next visit is at three years old, 12 months later. And that's time that's lost in that process. Apart from the evaluation, they can actually do at-home interventions. There are a lot of different activities and modules that we have for parents to actually be more proactive in enhancing that child's development along the way. And so, yeah, at the end of the day, we're committed to making sure parents have those tools and knowledge that's necessary. 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 Liftoff 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. VICTORIA: As a head of product, how do you approach the design for the app you're building given just how complex it is? And you said there's 400 milestones in the first 5 years to track. How do you prioritize which one to do first? [chuckles] HANS: Yeah, that's a good question. And now I get into the nitty-gritty. But there's certainly been a lot of focus, and it really starts with the users, and so that's both parents as well as pediatricians. And so, personally, I've visited, even in six months, I've visited over 70 different pediatric clinics here in Southern California as well as New York and Washington State, you know, really talking to pediatricians and really understanding what would actually help, you know, make it a lot more useful and helpful for them in their own day to day. You know, the biggest capacity constraint is really their time crunch. And so, can you get me those answers immediately? And they tell us they don't want to go to some other system. So, we've integrated directly into almost a hundred different EHRs (Electronic Health Records) across the board to the point where parents can actually just search for their pediatrician on our app and then be able to send their data directly to the pediatrician. Because when it comes down to trust, in healthcare, it's all about trust. Parents really trust the pediatrician the most at the end of the day, and so getting them on board and making sure that they're the biggest advocates for our platform will speak a lot more than just having our app in the App Store, which it is. But in terms of the parent's side, we want them to have a really great and engaging experience where they're getting a lot of joy. We could talk about this concept called burst of joy from watching their child grow and develop. And so, there's a fine line between creating too much anxiety versus giving more information. And when it comes to development [chuckles], there's a very fine line on that. But being able to kind of track those milestones on a continuous basis, not just that point in time, you know, that one time, you know, every three, six months that they're in the doctor's office, but even on a weekly basis, kind of seeing that growth that actually happens organically on a day-to-day basis is a huge part of the parent experience. Being able to kind of look and see what that is, why it's important, and oh, by the way, if the child's not doing that, here's some activities that you can do to really help them excel and get to the next level, you know, that's the type of thought process. And if you do have concerns, here's resources. We put together these 4,000 early intervention centers, where on the web, you have to go to each individual website. We basically just took all the information and just put it right there in one place where it's just a zip code lookup functionality. And so, a lot of those types of approaches is really great. I think, in the future, being able to connect directly with therapists and providers might be another step because we know that the gaps in care is really one of the most critical problem. Right now, we're trying to solve that through that parent-led approach. But even reducing that 6 to 9 months down to 1 or 2 weeks, I think, that's actually a possibility. VICTORIA: I love how you described it as what you're going for is a burst of joy and that you want to focus on having it be a joyful experience for parents. And it should be because I have also seen the anxiety part and how anxiety-inducing it can be when you're trying to keep track of all these different milestones. And, like you said, you have a handout from your doctor, or maybe you're looking up things on TikTok or Instagram [laughs]. How do you work those emotions into your design? Can you say a little bit more about that? HANS: Yeah. So, for example, after completing an activity...so, we have all these daily activities that you can do. We start the app. We've got inspired from Headspace in terms of what they ask you to do. Here's 2 or 3 things that you can do with your child. We start with an activity, and it takes nothing more than items lying around in your home. We believe in this concept of serve and return approach when it comes to that parent-child interaction. And so, you have those materials. You have the 10, 15 minutes that you have with your child. You're asking yourself, like, "What can I actually do to really stimulate development?" We want to meet them where they are. So, we have even at bath time, or on the playground, or in a car ride, or while you're doing laundry, sorting socks, right? Any place in time could actually have that really great approach. And then, after completion of the activity, we have this kind of pop-up that it's almost like an accomplishment, like, we did it as a joint team, as a joint effort, with a little celebration and kind of that approach. And then, also, when you're checking off milestones, and when you check off frequently on our app, there's little hearts that kind of come out of the button to celebrate this little...we call them smilestones, but it's a small part of that celebration that happens day in, day out. VICTORIA: I'm definitely going to say smilestones to my team next week. That's how we're going to rebrand our milestones as as well. I love it. HANS: Yeah. I don't think that's copyrighted, so go ahead. Take it away. WILL: What is your, I'll use that, smilestone for the next six months or, you know, next year? What's in the future? I saw on your website you're incorporating some AI into it. So, can you talk about that and anything else that you have coming up? HANS: Yeah. So, one of the places where we're really, you know, focusing on is really getting objective about the data. So, we want to take a lot of the subjectivity, a lot of the guesswork, a lot of the recall bias, even misinterpretation of milestones, as well as language barriers of milestones. And so, just really being able to not just have the parent kind of fill out, you know, the checklist, but also, being able to incorporate the videos component as well. And so, being able to upload any kind of video of the child at the dinner table, playing with friends in the playground, playing at home in the living room. Parents have tons of these videos, right? We're able to kind of spot and detect where those milestones are actually taking place. And so, we can isolate that three to five seconds of, here's where their child's doing the pincer grip, which is basically picking up a cheerio between your forefinger and thumb, and really being able to kind of give that validation and confirmation to the parents so they can actually say, "Oh, wow, my child actually did this new thing that I actually didn't even know about." But on top of that, being able to turn that into a highlight reel, you know, similar to like SportsCenter highlight reel. Like, you're taking all of those different clips and turn that into maybe a 60-second highlight reel of everything that happened that transpired in between the last visit. So, when you talk about going from, like, a 12-month visit to an 18-month visit, here's all the things, in 60 seconds, that the kid's been doing to give a lot more comprehensive evaluation for their pediatrician to make better decisions at the end of the day. Again, we are clinical decision support. We're not making the diagnosis ourselves. We leave that to the providers. But what we believe in our ethos is really giving all that information and packaging it up so that those decisions can be much better made at the end of the day. So, that's one use case of AI. But there's still a human element to it right now, but we want to be able to kind of transpire that to a fully autonomous computer vision, which, when you look at generative AI, understanding videos and being able to detect that when you think about all of the different angles, shapes, lighting, et cetera, it's the, I would say, the last frontier of being able to kind of get data insights out of videos itself. It's very easy to go from having a text prompt and generating a video from it. It's much harder to take a video and spitting back out what we have as milestones. So, that's one part. And the other is developmental biomarkers which is another...what we think is groundbreaking in the pediatric space. VICTORIA: Can you explain what developmental biomarker is? HANS: Yeah. So, it's a concept similar to what we know as the height and weight chart. And when I first became a parent, a lot of times you're speaking with other new parents, and you are, you know, on the playground, right? And they're saying that "Hey, my kid is on the 90th percentile in height or weight," or "Hey, they're 80th percentile on head circumference," because that's literally, like, as a new parent, like, that's the only basis you have other than their sleep habits, which, Will, I know you can probably attest to most parents track a lot. But similar to that, like, in terms of, you know, how developmental tracking is done right now, the status quo is using developmental screeners. And so, that's, again, point in time, static approach while you're in the well-child visit. But the problem with developmental screeners is it has what's called a low sensitivity and specificity in terms of really over-detecting or over-failing basically one side of the distribution. So, it's typically 40% to 50% of kids would fail a screener when, in reality it should be around 20 to 25. To really get more granular and very objective about understanding a child's developmental trend, one has to kind of be able to, we believe, understand both the right and the left side of the distribution and being able to understand, hey, is this child actually tracking ahead of the curve or behind the curve relative to everyone else? And so, we've developed an algorithm. It's fairly complex, but it uses a lot of the underlying data sets that we have to kind of give a much more high-fidelity picture of, hey, your child's in the 60th to 65th percentile. At the end of the day, we want to be able to identify delays. And so, anything below 20% or so, you know, parents should be more informed about that and looking at it on a domain-by-domain specific level. So, it's very common for a kid to be accelerated on 3 of the four domains, but maybe they're behind on speech. And so, what does the doctor do with that? If they're at 15th percentile in speech, they can then come in the clinic and say, "Hey, I see the screening results, but I also see this Pathfinder report. Let's spend the next 5 to 10 minutes actually seeing how you verbalize and how you're able to speak and express yourself." So, that's really what we're talking about when it comes to developmental biomarkers. VICTORIA: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. I think I knew what you were referring to, but I wanted to make sure [laughs], but that makes sense. So, it's like whatever the data that helps the parent identify where there might be an area that some intervention or some more time might need to be taken to help move them forward. HANS: It is on a longitudinal basis, which, if you're in healthcare, you know longitudinal trend. Really understanding what that looks like is hugely important versus point in time. And so, we're able to see it not just at the sixth month and nine month, but every day in between as well. And we believe, you know, the early results are kind of showing that we're able to even preempt what those potential red flags will look like, or a failed screening result will look like at an earlier rate as well. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. I'm curious if you have other statistics like that or some results from the first year, almost two years of data that you have now, on how people are interacting with the app. And what kind of outcomes are you getting? HANS: Yeah, as I said, you know, the biggest outcome is really being able to give parents a really highly objective look at how their children are developing, and so giving them the level of advocacy to speak on the child's behalf with clinical evidence. If you look at our testimonials, that's probably the number one thing. We have different personas for different types of moms. But there's some moms that are the Nervous Nellies, the ones that are concerned about every single cut, scrape, and bruise. There's also the Inkling Ingrids, the ones that think there might be something there, but they're not necessarily sure. But then there's also the Ambitious Amandas, these types of moms that want to put their kids in every single type of advanced activity, right? Music classes, Legos, et cetera. And then, the Brand New Brendas, the ones that are brand new to parenting and want to know, learn, explore, and track the child's development. So yeah, there's different things for different types of personas that we have. By and large, it's really giving that information in a very parent-friendly way so it's not overwhelming them with too much anxiety or, you know, going over their heads as a lot of times medical jargon does as well. VICTORIA: Wow. That's great. Thank you for sharing that. And I wonder, actually, Hans, I wanted to ask you a question about bias and about bias in AI and in health tech. And how do you approach that in Pathfinder and making sure that everyone's getting equitable health incomes and recommendations within the app? HANS: Yeah, bias and accessibility are two big topics that we think a lot about, you know, first of all, on the underlying data bias, you know, that could present itself. Right now, our app is available on App Store and Play Store. We have over 50,000 parents, you know, still small but growing in about 120 different countries, mainly English-speaking ones, because right now the app is completely in English. That's about to change. We're about to go multilingual, starting with Spanish, which is definitely the biggest request. But so, when it comes to, like, being able to compare across different groups and subsets, you know, we do believe we have a fairly heterogeneous group. Only about 50% of our users are actually here in the U.S. In terms of the actual milestones themselves, there could be, you know, some differences in cultures. Something like "Eats with a fork" is a milestone that happens, I think, around two or three years old. You know, in cultures like India, for instance, they usually eat with their hands for a lot of time. So, that would be obviously a difference. That milestone wouldn't necessarily apply as much. But then when you talk about accessibility, one of the things that we screen for in our standard screening that we do have, and I forgot to mention this earlier up front, we almost have, like, a four-legged stool, if you will, in terms of the underlying data that we capture. One is standard screeners because that is status quo. That is reimbursed on the pediatrician's side. And the biggest value prop to pediatricians to adopt our platform is, hey, we can help you get towards 100% developmental screen adherence, which right now it's only about 60 or even less than 50% across the board. So, that's a reimbursable event. So, that's layer 1. Layer 2 is parent concerns, caption that in a good, valid way, and then continuous milestone tracking. And then, finally, the videos as well. So, certainly, some parents don't submit videos for privacy reasons, which is okay. We still have all of the other 3. So, going back to social determinants of health and health equity, that's one of the things that we screen for as well, knowing that the more vulnerable populations and minorities, lower socioeconomic classes, actually do have a higher prevalence of delays. And so, we want to be able to be accessible to them as much as we can but also, raise those things to the surface when it comes to getting those answers to pediatricians. There's another big movement happening called Adverse Childhood Experiences screeners (ACEs) that really looks at, you know, how the child's been developing and what their background, their environment actually looks like. So, looking at those questions of, is that child being raised in an environment of neglect, or abuse, or a broken home, or drug addictions in the home? Those can really have an effect, not just on the early part of life, but even later in life when you talk about physical as well as mental well-being. And so, just having that awareness and that insight into how that child's been developing is really important on the background side. And so, at the end of the day, when we're talking about who actually holds the bag, if you will, in terms of this big gap that we're trying to solve, at the end of the day, it's really the government. If the child does have a delay that doesn't get addressed at an early age, doesn't get, you know, therapy, a lot of times, it leads on to run-on consequences, whether that's mental issues or maybe not being able to be self-sufficient, independent, job seeking, tax-paying, delinquencies. There's a lot of different ramifications from things that happen at a very early age. That's where we believe in partnership with Medicaid through clinics like Federal Qualified Health Centers that focus on the Medicaid population, which 38% of all kids fall under, those are ideal partners for us. It's a longer, harder slog and a long road. But we believe there's a lot that we can offer at that level as well as more ACO and value-based payer type of model. VICTORIA: Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Hans, for coming on and sharing your story with us. Do you have anything that you would like to promote? HANS: I know we didn't get a chance to speak about it, but the children's book I've written very near and dear to my heart is called Baby Aviva, Orangutan Diva. You can get that out on Amazon, anywhere. But it's A-V-I-V-A. If you're a parent and if you have a kid under the age of five, feel free to check out our app called Pathfinder Health. And Pathfinder is just one word on the App Store and Play Store. But thank you, Will, and thank you, Victoria. WILL: Thank you. It was great talking to you. And I'm going to go download the app. HANS: Absolutely. Thanks so much. And I really appreciate it. WILL: 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. You can find me on Twitter @will23larry. VICTORIA: And you can find me on X or Twitter [laughs] @victori_ousg or on Mastodon @thoughtbotsocial@vguido. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time.  AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.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

Francis Lacoste, a seasoned VPE and CTO coach, shares insights on the art of leadership in tech. He discusses the importance of psychological safety, trust, and soft skills in effective leadership roles. Francis emphasizes the role of values in engineering culture and the challenges of transitioning from technical work to strategic leadership positions. He also explores the impact of networking and meaningful conversations in the digital era.

Host Victoria Guido discusses the therapeutic and community-building aspects of converting hobbies into mental health therapy with special guest Hamidah Nalwoga. Hamidah shares how attempting to learn hula hooping through expensive circus school lessons made her realize a need for a more accessible form of skill sharing. Meet Hobi—a platform where people can learn various skills not as a means of professionalization but for personal therapy and community building. Hamidah explains the challenges and insights from starting Hobi, particularly the hurdles of managing a two-sided marketplace and the importance of community support in the mental health space. While aiming to foster both skill development and mental well-being by providing affordable and engaging group sessions in arts, dance, and writing therapy, the platform also offers these sessions at minimal costs. Hamidah and Victoria also talk about the broader impacts of community-focused initiatives on mental health. With an increasing number of people facing mental health issues and lacking adequate support, platforms like Hobi are envisioned as a bridge to accessible mental health care. Sharing the value of creative expression in mental wellness, Hamidah advocates for a shift towards more community-centric and engaging therapeutic practices and highlights the potential for using innovative tech solutions to address the mental health crisis. Hobi Follow Hobi on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook. Follow Hamidah Nalwoga on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Transcript: VICTORIA:  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, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Hamidah Nalwoga, Founder of Hobi, showing you how to turn your hobbies into a form of therapy. Hamidah, thank you for joining me. HAMIDAH: Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. VICTORIA: Well, great. Well, why don't you tell me something that's going on in your world outside of work, just to intro yourself? What are your interests outside of your startup and your job? HAMIDAH: Yeah, my interests outside of, like, work and business, I would say the biggest one is digital art. I used to be really, really into it, but then I took a break, but now I'm finding it again. So yeah, I've been doing that a lot recently. Also, I'm trying to get into, like, audible books. VICTORIA: Ooh. HAMIDAH: I tried reading, but I can't stand it. So, I'm back to audible books [laughs]. VICTORIA: Oh, nice. Audible books, and you said digital art? HAMIDAH: Yeah, digital art. VICTORIA: What kind of digital art do you bank? HAMIDAH: I'm using Krita. It's a software. I use, like, a Wacom tablet and draw stuff like flowers, sunsets, stuff like that. VICTORIA: That sounds really nice. I love that. I've got a little art project myself coming up on Wednesday this week. HAMIDAH: Aw, that's nice. VICTORIA: I'm a big sister of, you know, Big Sister Little Sister. And so, me and my little sister are going to do these, like, oil paint by number kits. So, it's like a mentorship program in San Diego. So, it's a lot of fun for me and for my little, so yeah, I'm excited about that. And I love your idea of your company. So, you know, a lot of people when you tell them you have a hobby, sometimes they think about, oh, you should monetize it, and you should, like, make money off of it. But I like that your take is, oh, you should make therapy out of it. You should get emotional well-being out of your hobby. So, tell me a little bit more about, like, what led you to that idea? HAMIDAH: Originally, I wanted to learn how to hula hoop. I saw this music video, you know, and this person was, like, looking super cool, doing all these tricks, you know, like, it looked amazing to me. So, I was like, you know what? I want to be able to do that. So, that's how my journey started. I tried the YouTube videos, but it wasn't really helping me as much. I'm more of a person who learns in person, like, someone shows me what I'm doing wrong exactly. So, that's why I tried to find an in-person teacher. But I found a circus school that was charging $80 per lesson, which is just about an hour. That was, like, too expensive for me. VICTORIA: Eight dollars for a hula hoop lesson? HAMIDAH: Yeah. VICTORIA: Wow. HAMIDAH: Because they were charging, like, the rate of the circus school. Like, if you want to have any aerial lessons, hula hoop, it would all go into one thing, so it's like $80 an hour. That's why I was like, you know what? I know somebody in Boston who knows how to hula hoop enough that they could teach me how to do it. They may not be a professional hula hooper, but they can at least show me the basics. So, that's where the idea came from of trying to learn skills from your neighbor that isn't really a professional at it. VICTORIA: So, it all circles back to hula hooping. HAMIDAH: Exactly. Yeah. [laughter] VICTORIA: Well, that's awesome. It makes so much sense, right? Like, yeah, you don't necessarily need a professional circus performer to teach you how to hula hoop. There's someone who'd be willing to do it. So, yeah, so you went from that idea, and what was kind of your first step where you knew, oh, maybe I could make something out of this? How did you get there? HAMIDAH: Yeah, and I was looking around, and I couldn't find, like, a good solution to, like, this whole skill-sharing thing. The best thing I found was Skillshare, and it was, like, an online platform where you could learn, like, animation, you know, Photoshop, that type of stuff, but it didn't really cater to, like, the softcore skills, like skating, that type of stuff. So, I was like, you know what? I'm going to do this, you know, like, be like an Uber, but for skills. Yeah, and doing that was extremely difficult, like, resource-wise. And, like, in general, it was a very hard task to tackle. And when I went to startup forums, like, groups, they would tell me that, "You have to be specific. Like, this is not going to work because you have to worry about, like, the two-sided marketplace, you know? And if you add, like, different locations in that, it's going to be very, very difficult." So yeah, I tried doing that for about a year, and I was seeing some growth doing, like, a few skills, mainly like art, cooking. But after a while, I started getting burnt out, mainly because I didn't really have a huge passion for that. By trade, I'm a mental health nurse. I've been one for the past five years. So, I took a break for about a month, and I was thinking, okay, what do I enjoy doing? And if it was to fail, what would I not regret spending a lot of my hours doing? And that was mental health. So, that's where the idea came to me: to make your hobbies a form of therapy. VICTORIA: I love that. And I'm curious what else about your background helped kind of inform your ideas around the therapy side of it. HAMIDAH: I guess this kind of goes into my background. As a nurse, I worked in this emergency room and then also inpatient psych. And I was seeing a lot of patients that come back again and again. They lack a couple of things in their environment outside of, like, a psych unit, for example. On the psych unit, they have a structure. Like, you go to group art therapy, then you talk about your feelings. You have support there around you, you know. And then once they get discharged and back into the community, most people don't have this thing. That's probably why they're in the hospital in the first place, you know. And so, I was thinking, like, what if someone can have this type of structure on the outside without having to be in the hospital? I mean, some people do, but you have to have insurance, you know, it costs a lot of money. So, that's where Hobi was trying to come in to be a structure, you know, like a fun thing that's not just okay...and I'm not putting down psychotherapy at all, but sometimes people don't want to talk about their feelings all the time. You know, sometimes people want to do something fun, like, while also, like, having a mental health professional around to, like, guide them. VICTORIA: Yeah, I totally get that. Like, I had been doing some of the talk therapy, like, apps, you know, like, BetterHelp and things like that. And it was fine, but then I kind of switched to just doing the tarot deck app instead because it's more fun, and it's less, like, just deep thinking about your feelings. It's kind of, like, expressive. And I think the interesting part about your journey here and, like, what I've heard as a repeating theme so far this year on the podcast is that, like, the real answer to a lot of problems is community and having those connections between people. HAMIDAH: Yes. VICTORIA: And, like, I love that you're working on how can tech solve that, and how can you make it affordable for people to build those communities and have access to those support networks and structure? Let me recap a little bit. So, you wanted to learn how to hula hoop, and then you wanted to find someone to teach you, and then you wanted to build an app to get that skill sharing going, but you thought you maybe wanted to make it a little more specific. So, you wanted to kind of bring it in as, like, hobbies as therapy, and that's where you are today, right? HAMIDAH: Yes. It was a long journey. When you say it, it sounds like it's been a couple of months, you know, but it's actually been [laughs]...it's a span of years [laughs]. VICTORIA: So, how would you describe where you're at now in your customer discovery journey and finding your product-market fit? HAMIDAH: Yeah, right now, I would say I have found my customer, but I am in a place where I'm making income from Hobi. It's not enough to, like, be profit. Obviously, I'm still starting out because this...I pivoted about eight months ago to go to, like, the hobbies as a form of therapy niche. And I have found some customers. I have some repeating customers, people who actually enjoy this that, like, you know, "This is actually amazing. This has helped me a lot with my life," yeah. And the way I find these people is by providing community. VICTORIA: So, you found users through your existing community connections and through the group that you're running. Is that right? HAMIDAH: Yeah. VICTORIA: And so, you kind of found that, like, the traditional marketing models where you put out an ad and people click through, like, it wasn't a good enough management of expectations from, like, end to end. So, like, kind of going to the groups first and forming the connection and then being like, "We can use Hobi to facilitate this connection," worked more for you. HAMIDAH: Yes. And also, the other thing, too, that worked for me...because, like, the issue with Hobi it's a two-sided marketplace. So, I have to worry about, like, the therapists that are going to be offering these sessions, as well as the people who are going to be paying to have the sessions. So, it was very tricky to try and balance those two sides, but I did find a medium. Like, the key, if I was to take away from this, if I was to tell anybody the main thing to focus on, is to build, like, a strong relationship with...it doesn't have to be a lot of people. Start with one person and just make sure that you give them what they need, you know, like, they feel like this is something that's worth it to them. And then, from there, trying to replicate that if you can to a second person, and then a third person, like, something like that because you have to personalize it as much as you can. VICTORIA: And what were some of the unique needs of therapy providers and people who would be participating in these community groups that was surprising to you when you started this process? HAMIDAH: Was it surprising to me? I don't know if it was really surprising. When I started, I was trying to find, like, whoever needed the app the most, you know, in terms of both mentors and the student side. And I found, like, there's a lot of people out there that are trying to make money teaching what they know. I found a lot of art therapists that wanted to join Hobi, and it wasn't very difficult to do. But I guess the tricky part or, like, the surprise that I found was not just finding someone who wants to make the money but is willing to take a loss a little bit for you or, like, for that cause. I don't know if that at all answers the question. Because I was finding people that were like, "Yes, I want to make money teaching, like, art therapy to a group of people." But then when they had a class, for example, and nobody showed up, it was, like, a huge blow to them. They're like, "No, I don't want to do this." And that was when I just started with this niche. But then I was lucky enough to find a couple of art therapists that were willing to give it time and actually volunteer their time, like, one hour a month and just give, like, a free session or, yeah, stuff like that. And then, I noticed that over the months, now that mentor...well, like, those that I'm working with are actually now getting a profit. VICTORIA: That's interesting, right? Because you're providing a platform. It's not a guarantee that people are going to make money right away. And you have to have a similar kind of community mindset that you're going to need to put in the time and start showing up regularly, and not everyone's going to be a good fit for that. So, that's really interesting. Yeah, I really like that. Tell us a little bit more about it. What kind of things can you get into on the app or on the website? HAMIDAH: We offer art therapy, dance therapy, and writing therapy, or journaling, and then some cooking classes. So, those are, like, the main things I can get into. And then, for people who are new to this type of, you know, like, therapy, mental wellness, we do have a category called mental wellness skills. They can join there and learn, like, basic coping skills, emotional regulation, and stuff like that. VICTORIA: I love that. I saw all those services, and I was like, oh, this sounds really nice [laughter]. Like, maybe I should sign up. But how do people access the app? Because I know you're trying to balance making that profit and also providing services to people who can't afford it. So, how did you strike that balance? HAMIDAH: Yeah, I'll be super honest. I am still trying to get that balance, but, again, like I said, it depends on finding someone whose priorities fit your priorities. Like for example, I'm not going to go to an art therapist who has, like, ten years of experience used to, like, charging $200 a session and ask them, "Hey, could you join Hobi and take this huge pay cut for me [laughs]?" Like, that's not going to work out. The balance I found through getting the right person to work with me, because, to this person, they actually see a lot of potential, and they actually are making more than they would have without Hobi. And to the user coming to the platform, they're getting someone who is very enthusiastic about what they're doing. And it's actually helping them out a lot at a fraction of the cost of what they would get elsewhere. VICTORIA: Gotcha. Yeah. And I saw you had some different pricing points, too. You could pay just, like, per session that you wanted and join for free, or you could get, like, a regular amount of sessions per month, and things like that. Both sides of the marketplace. I love that. Ooh. So, tell me more about, like, what's the impact that you're seeing? Now that you've gotten some traction and you're starting to see people really use it, tell me more about those stories where people are saying, "You know, it makes my life so much better." HAMIDAH: I didn't really start seeing the impact, again, like, until a couple of months started rolling by because it would take some time, again, to get used to something. First, they go check it out. You know, they're like, "Oh, actually, this is kind of nice, you know." Then they go back again. They're like, "Oh, actually, maybe it's actually really good for me." Then, as they start using it over and over again, they start seeing the value of it, and that's what happened. So, a lot of the good reviews that I was getting are from users who have been using it for, like, three months now. And they like it a lot, again, because of the two main reasons. The instructors are usually very enthusiastic and are wanting to help them, and they can feel that. The other thing is, like, they get a community because it is mostly, like, group sessions. So, people have an option to do one-on-one sessions if they want with the instructors. But, usually, it's just group sessions, and the cost is the same, $5 for all the sessions. So, it's, like, very, very affordable. And people keep coming back. "I'm only paying $5. I get a group that I talk to, make some friends. I have a therapist that I can talk to, you know." It combines and adds up over a couple of months of doing it. VICTORIA: I can imagine that'd be really stabilizing for a lot of people, especially for people who maybe aren't able or can't afford to travel in person to these types of sessions. HAMIDAH: Yeah, I think it's stabilizing, and that's what I was keeping in mind when I was making the platform and talking with the mentors. I try to ask them to create, like, a structure to their sessions, not just, like, random, like, days, you know? So, like, it's usually the same day every week, you know, and the same time every week. So, you know, like, okay, every Monday, I have a support group that I go to to, like, do art journaling, and then talk about how I feel, you know, like, check-in with people, they check in with me, stuff like that. VICTORIA: That's really wonderful. And so, that's an incredible thing to be working on. So, how do you think about what success looks like for you this year or five years from now? HAMIDAH: Yeah. What does success look like? What success would look like, for me, I would say, since this is, like, a self-funded platform and right now I am bootstrapping and I'm kind of in the negative...although I have been steadily, you know, like, the app is growing. I'm very happy for that. I'm getting more users coming back over and over again. I'm getting good reviews. I'm getting new mentors joining, so it is heading in the right trajectory, but it's, like, a slow but steady growth. And I want to keep it that way because we run into some blunders sometimes. And I can't imagine having a whole bunch of people in the app and then having a blunder, you know, and how I would deal with that. But anyway, I digress. What success would look like, for me, is if I am in a profit margin, so, like, not being in the negatives but in the green. You know, I don't have to have, like, a lot of money, but as long as I'm not working in the negatives, that would be success for me. And in terms of the platform in general, success would look like, again, like steady growth, just keep going up, keep going up, and, hopefully, have less blunders along the way. Like, for example, I mean, I'm sure many founders have dealt with this, especially in tech. Like, you build this platform, you know, things were going smooth, then boom, the website crashes, you know. And it's like, people get pissed off, and it's like, "What's happening?" you know. And it's a lot of stress to deal with sometimes. But in that aspect, too, success would look like having less of that happen and having more of the good stuff happen. VICTORIA: Yeah. So, steady profits, steady performance of the application. Those are two great goals. I love it. How did you approach building the tech side of the company? And was there things from your own background that you found were helpful, or did you find people to help you with parts of it? Or how'd you do it? HAMIDAH: That was a very huge huddle for me because my background, again, is in nursing. I don't have any friends who are in tech. I went to a pharmacy college school, like a healthcare university, so they did not have any, like, developing computer science programs. When I had this idea, I was like, how the heck am I going to do this? Because I don't have any connections. You know, I didn't even have a LinkedIn. Yeah, so it was a lot of, like, searching online. I did get scammed twice trying to do this, but I was thankful that because of my job, I'm able to have a steady income. I was able to, like, eat up those losses and learn from my mistakes. And I found a development company that I worked with, and I've been working with for a while now, and they're very good. So, they have been helping me. Like, price-wise, they're great, and product-wise, they're also great. VICTORIA: Yeah, it can be really hard to navigate when you don't have experience or any connections to the community. But I appreciate you sharing that because I think it's a really common story that happens to people, and not a lot of people talk about it. HAMIDAH: Yeah. The other thing, too, that I should warn any new founders out there or people in the community as well, watch out for who you work with, you know, like, really, really do your due diligence because I learned the hard way twice. It was different times, and it was different ways that I got scammed, not the same way, but yeah, people will approach you, and they'll give you a great price point. And if you're, like, really desperate, you know, and you really don't have the money and want to see, like, the results right away, you might get sucked into it, but just always do your due diligence and try to find other options. VICTORIA: Yeah. And, you know, talk to companies like thoughtbot who won't scam you [laughter]. But yeah, no, I'm sorry to hear. And there's, you know, don't feel bad. Also, like, those companies that do that, that's what they do, and they're really good at it, and it could happen to anybody. And same with, like, mental health, and, you know, wanting more connections and struggling with it, it sounds like you could use Hobi to find connection now and find people to help you get through that. So, I really think that's important. 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. VICTORIA: [inaudible 19:28] think about, what core values drive your everyday decisions? HAMIDAH: Do things leaner. You know, like, I saw this lecture, like, The Lean Startup. Start as lean as possible and get the fundamental idea running without having to put a lot of money into it. And then, for my core values, I would say, like, integrity, doing what makes me happy, so it doesn't feel like I'm pushing, like, a heavy rock, just doing what feels like...something that just flows. VICTORIA: I like that. Yeah, I think The Lean Startup is really smart. And it is funny when people ask me about app ideas. Like it's so tempting to just want to go build something and just see if people like it. But the answer is always, like, "Well, go talk to people first [laughs] before you, like, spend a lot of time building something," which is a lot harder and scarier to do. And that is why I really appreciate you sharing that. And then, I liked your values: integrity, and, like, a self-fulfillment, self-actualizing feeling, not just, like, being repetitive loops. But yeah, no, that's really nice. And then, what are the biggest challenges in your horizon that you see? HAMIDAH: The blunders that I talked about earlier, whereby something that you didn't expect to happen happens, and something that's usually bad that you didn't expect to happen happens. That's one of the biggest challenges that I'm trying to face. Yeah, I guess, like, how do you plan for the unexpected, you know? And how do you, like, do, like, a backup plan? In case something fails, how do you handle it, you know? Stuff like that. VICTORIA: Yeah, now you're getting into, like, resilience engineering. I love it. Yeah, you're working with your development partner. Have you all talked about service-level objectives or any kind of, like, application monitoring, or anything like that? HAMIDAH: Yeah, we have, yeah. And when I do say blunders, I don't mean, like, the app is crashing every, like, day. It's in terms of...like, one example was what happened. We use this video calling software, and it's not with Hobi. It's through a different third-party video calling software. And we just added their API into our website. And one of the mentors was giving a session one day, and the camera just stopped working, and it happened, like, twice. And it's like, how do you deal with that? Because it's not even, like, the app itself. So, it's not my developers that are causing the issue. It's the third party that we worked with that's causing the issue, you know. And it's like, so I had to go and find a different third-party person to work with and hope that that doesn't happen with them. Yeah, it's just, like, stuff like that. How do you predict the unpredictable? You know, like, I guess sitting down and thinking about all the bad possible things that could happen, I don't know [chuckles]. VICTORIA: Yeah. Like, there's a balance between there are some things you could put a lot of structure and process around, and then, like, is that necessary? Like, is that the highest priority use of your time right now? Because yeah, lots of things can go wrong: APIs can break, you know, people push updates; DDoS attacks are happening more and more, ransomware attacks. There's all kinds of things that can happen that, yeah, it's pretty tough. But I think what you've done, where you've built a really strong relationship with your service providers and with your users, will help you in the long run because everyone has issues like that. Like, no app is perfect. So, if you're providing a really good service and the majority of the time it's working, then [laughs], like, you're probably fine. It's like, when do you make that choice between, like, really investing in, like, the application monitoring piece and things like what you're kind of talking? Like, it might be a major architectural change in the app that you would have to, like, invest in. So, that's something that I think about a lot is, like, how are leaders making these decisions? And, like, do you have someone to go to to, like, bounce ideas off of? I'm sure you have mentors in the startup community in Boston that you can, like, go to for advice on those things now. And I actually know that you know Jordyn through the Boston startup network area. How has that community been for you? HAMIDAH: Oh, it's been good. It was a great community. I was there in the accelerator, Prepare 4 VC. I was there from July till September, and I learned a lot from them. They left their arms open. They're like, "If you ever need to come back, you can always come back. Like, we're always here; just reach out. We can always have a meeting anytime you need one." So, it's been very great. And I really, really appreciate being a part of it. VICTORIA: That's awesome. What's the wind in your sails? What keeps you going? HAMIDAH: I don't know if I talked about this, but I remember, like, where I faced a crash at some point where I was like, this is not working [chuckles]. Because I was like, I don't know if I can do this, you know. And that's when I sat with myself, and I was like, what do you see yourself doing forever, whereby you don't care if it pans out or not? It was this, the mental health aspect. And I'm an artist. I like art, you know, I like creative expression. I like dancing, you know, like, with a hula hoop, like we talked about earlier. You know, I like that type of stuff. So, I was like, okay, how do I mix the two together? And this is where this came about making your hobbies therapy. And also, like, community, like, community building. It really all came together. And just knowing that I am building that slowly but steadily, that's what keeps me going. VICTORIA: I really love that. That's really amazing. And did we talk enough about mental health on the episode? I know we wanted to really get into it a little bit about there's a mental health crisis in the United States right now, and I'm sure in other countries as well across the board. So, maybe you wanted to say a little bit more about that and how art could be a part of it. HAMIDAH: Oh yeah, I saw this study that 1 in 5 Americans suffers from mental illness. Half of the people that have mental illness don't actually get treated, and it's for a lot of factors. And, you know, it's expensive if you don't have insurance, especially. There's no access, lack of education around it. So, it's a lot of reasons. That's where Hobi comes in, like, you know, like, it's trying to help a little bit where it can. So, in terms of, like, the financial aspect, sessions are $5. And in terms of accessibility, if you have Wi-Fi and you have a phone, you know, you can access it. And I know, like, not everybody has that, but, like, we're trying to help in that aspect. In terms of community, there's groups, support groups on Hobi based on interests. So, if you like art, you can find an art group. And I'm not going to lie; they're not huge groups, you know? I mean, it's a new concept. It's eight months since the pivot, so it's growing. But there is people in the groups, and people chat sometimes. I remember, like, somebody had posted, like, a cry for help, and somebody else actually replied them. They were actually talking together and then helping each other out. And it made me be like, okay, you know what? I should keep going with this. Like, this is why you're doing this. The aspect in art and mental health is it brings what is in your head on the outside, and that helps take the emotional weight off of you. The best way to explain this, for example, is with journaling. You have all these mini-thoughts going up in your head, you know, like your anxieties, your fears, all these things going on that you internalize, like, you know, you just keep pushing in the back of your head, and then you think about it all day. But if you take the time, for example, you sit down, and you write out how you're feeling, you know, with purpose, you know, like a gratitude journal, you, like, paint what you're feeling, like, express what you're feeling, and if you do this enough, you start to see a pattern. You stop internalizing all these things, and they become an actual thing that you can look at and analyze. So, like, that's the whole point of art and mental health. Like, it helps you bring it out of your head and onto, like, a piece of paper. VICTORIA: That's great, yeah. I think I took a psychology 101 class in college, and she's like, "If you're having circular thoughts, just, like, put them on paper, and then go to bed [laughs]." But yeah, I think that's a really beautiful way to put it. So, thank you for sharing that. Is there anything else you'd like to promote? HAMIDAH: I'm here to talk about Hobi, and so that's what I would like to promote. You can go check out the app. We have a website and an app now. Because I'm a mental health person, you know, don't forget to take care of yourself, and don't forget to be kind to yourself. And it doesn't have to be through Hobi, but try to use art as a form of mental wellness. My task to you, listener, is, try journaling, for example. Try [inaudible 27:46] your feelings. Try dancing out that stress and see if you feel a difference after. VICTORIA: What a wonderful way to end the episode. Thank you so much for coming on and telling us your story and talking about Hobi. 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 thoughtbot.social@vguido. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.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

Hosts Will Larry and Victoria Guido chat with Sanghmitra Bhardwaj, CEO and Founder of Insusty. Sanghmitra shares her journey from a small village in the foothills of the Himalayas to becoming a founder in France, driven by firsthand experiences with climate disasters and a passion for sustainable living. Insusty, a sustainability loyalty program, is a platform incentivizing individuals to adopt climate-positive actions through rewards, thereby fostering a community motivated towards environmental stewardship. The show digs into the mechanics and vision of Insusty, highlighting how the platform rewards eco-friendly actions like volunteering and donating, rather than purchases. This approach aims to bridge the gap between the desire for sustainable living and the practical challenges individuals face, such as the perceived high costs of sustainable products. Sanghmitra reveals the evolution of Insusty, including strategic pivots towards niche markets within the circular economy and the importance of transparency and impact measurement in building trust with consumers. Towards the episode's conclusion, the conversation shifts to broader implications of sustainability in technology and business. Sanghmitra expresses curiosity about future expansions of Insusty, particularly in tracking and rewarding individual daily eco-actions more effectively. She also touches upon the challenges and triumphs of being a solo female founder in the tech and sustainability sectors, underscoring the significance of community, perseverance, and innovation in driving change. Insusty Follow Insusty on LinkedIn, Instagram, or X. Follow Sanghmitra Bhardwaj on LinkedIn or X. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: WILL:  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, Will Larry. VICTORIA: And I'm your other host, Victoria Guido. With me today is Sanghmitra Bhardwaj, CEO and Founder of Insusty, a sustainability loyalty program for individuals. Sanghmitra, thank you for joining us. SANGHMITRA: Thank you so much for having me here. I'm super excited for the podcast and to discuss various topics that we are about to. And I'm sure that it's going to be a learning experience, not just for the audience, but also for me. So, thank you for this opportunity. VICTORIA: Why don't we just start off getting to know you a little bit? Tell us something exciting going on in your life, maybe outside of work. SANGHMITRA: Okay, so, well, recently, I joined a pole dancing class. I wanted to challenge myself and see if I have the core strength that I need to be strong. And I also feel that it's something that I always wanted to do to come out of my comfort zone. So, it's been fun so far. VICTORIA: I tried that, and I thought that I would naturally be good at it because I'm a rock climber. And so, I thought I'd have all the right muscle groups, but the coordination and [laughs], like, expression of it is still challenging if you've never done it before. SANGHMITRA: Yeah, definitely. And I think there are some techniques and if you don't do it right, like, you will not get it at all, those poses and, like, how you climb the pole and everything. So, I completely relate to your experience here. VICTORIA: I want to do more dance, actually, because the mind-body connection and getting into that feeling of flow is really interesting for me. And I think it's like expressing through your body, which 80% of communication is non-verbal, which is really interesting. SANGHMITRA: Yeah, that's true. Just to add to it, I wanted to also share with you that I used to do modeling back in India, and I really love expressing myself with my body. And it's been super interesting to see that. And also, when I have conversations with other people, these are the things that I observe a lot. Is it the same for you? Do you also observe other people's body language when they are talking to you and probably change some topics that you are trying to discuss? VICTORIA: Yeah, absolutely. You can tell if people are listening to what you're saying. They, like, lean in a little bit, or if they're not really wanting to relate to what you're saying, they're, like, crossing their arms in front of you. So, as someone who works in business development, I definitely pay a lot of attention [laughs] to all that stuff. But I'm curious, how did you go from being a model in India to founder and CEO where you are today? SANGHMITRA: That's something that I would love to talk about, and also, it has to do from where I come from. So, I come from a very small village in the foothills of the Himalayas. There, I witnessed climate disasters firsthand. In 2013, there were a lot of cloudbursts happening in those areas. An entire village next to my village disappeared completely without a trace. And those were some moments in my life where I really felt like we live in a world where you can be far from Europe...for example, currently, I live in France, and here, when heat wave happens, we all suffer and people talk about it. But I have seen, like, the adverse effect of what it can lead to. So, there was a part of me that always wanted to do something in terms of the impact that I create, like, with my work. So, I started doing modeling, which was something for myself as well to gain some confidence. At the same time, I worked with sustainable brands in India. I modeled for them, and then I discovered their work. I got inspired by it, and I realized that it's something that interests me a lot, and I wanted to pursue my studies in it to know more about it. So, that's when I came to France to pursue my master's in sustainable finance to discover more about this field and to see where I belong. And finally, I founded Insusty, where I could see that I could bring my inspiration from the sustainable brands that I worked with. Whether it's from the fashion or, the food industry, or the travel industry, I could see the inspiration coming from there. At the same time, I could see how we need to create mass adoption through incentivizing climate action, which was something that I explored during my studies. And I kind of went with Insusty, and that was the beginning of my founder journey. WILL: I have a question about the way you grew up, and you're saying in a village. Can you expound a little bit on that? Because you said, climate change wiped out an entire village. And so, when I saw that in the email, I was like, I don't think I've ever had a chance to actually talk to someone that lived in a village. I grew up in the United States. So, like, help paint that picture. When you say you grew up in a village, what do you mean by that? What was it like growing up in a village, and also, what do you mean by the next village got entirely wiped out? SANGHMITRA: Yeah. Living in a village it's like being a part of a tiny, well-knitted community, and it's, like, everyone knows everyone. And sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad because when people gossip, of course, it spreads like a wildfire. As well as when you need support and when you need help, this community is always there, too. So, the part of belonging to such a community and to kind of engage with people is something that I really enjoy about coming from a small village. And that's something that I oftentimes search in France, where I can be a part of such communities as well, where people inspire each other. For example, currently, I'm a part of a wonderful community of women of color founders living in Europe. It's called Founderland. And it's thanks to Founderland that I found you then I could join this podcast. So, when it comes to the small village, this is what I really really love about it is the small knitted community we have. When I say that the entire village next to my village disappeared, I mean that when there was the cloudburst in the mountain, the soil and everything drowned the entire village. So, there was a school, and we used to hear a story about the school, where the kids were told by the teachers to run because there is a cloudburst, and "We are about to die if we stay in this place." And as a student, as a kid, what do you think first? You think about packing your bags instead of running. So, the kids ended up packing their bags before they could run, and by that time, it was too late. So, this is just one of the heartbreaking stories that I'm sharing with you right now, but it had been something that really left a mark in my life. VICTORIA: I really appreciate you sharing that story because when I talk to people about climate change, I think it's really easy to get this nihilistic attitude about, well, climate change is going to kill us all in 20 years. So, why bother doing anything about it? And what I usually answer back is that climate change is already killing people. And then, it's happening in your own neighborhood, even, like, you know, I live here in San Diego, and it's always between, like, 60 and 80 degrees every single day [chuckles], but our beaches are collapsing. There are neighborhoods that are more impacted by pollution than others and are experiencing environmental impacts from that and their health, and everything like that. So, I'm curious how it all comes together with what you're doing with Insusty and how you're inspiring people to take action towards sustainability in the here and now. SANGHMITRA: Actually, I have a question for you and Will. I wanted to understand, for example, if you purchase something in terms of, for example, it's related to fashion, or it's related to food products, what is the criteria that's most important to you? And maybe probably you can tell me, like, the top three criteria that are most important for you when you buy something. And then, I would love to share how Insusty can help you buy better. VICTORIA: When I'm looking to buy things, I look for, like, price. I want it to be reasonable, but I also don't want it to be so cheap that it means it's a really poor quality. So, I want to find that balance between, like, quality and price. And I do also care about sustainability, and, like, what is the background of the company that I'm buying it from? You know, what's their reputation? What's their, like, practices? Like one example is, like, the rugs for your house. So, I like to buy rugs that are made from sustainable fabrics and dyes and that I can wash them because I have a dog. And so, that's kind of, like, what I think through when I buy things. But it's not always easy, especially with clothing, because it seems like anyone who makes clothing, there's just always this risk of it being sourced at some part in the manufacturing pipeline having to do with either child labor or really terrible sustainability practices. WILL: Yeah. I would say, for me, early on, especially when I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of money, so it was just whatever is the cheapest, whatever we could afford at that moment. It wasn't really looking into the quality, or sustainability, or any of those items. Some of the stuff I look back on that I ate often, I'm like, whoa, man, that was not the best thing. But it was the cheapest, and it was what we ate and things like that. So, now that I'm older, my wife has been talking to me about some of that stuff, and it's like, oh, I had no idea, because of the environment I grew up in, that, like, that's even affecting me. And that was kind of why I asked you about the village thing is because I feel like we can get in a bubble sometimes and not even be aware of what's happening to other people. And I think, Victoria, you said something about people not understanding climate change. It's kind of tough at times to talk about climate change when you live in...where I'm at in Florida, it's like, okay, it gets hot, and then it gets cold. And yeah, we have a hurricane every now and then, but whenever you told the story about the village, it's like, oh, wow, like, that's a different game. That's a different level. I didn't even know about that. So, I think that's kind of my journey now is I am starting to understand sustainability. I think a lot of times I still have that I grew up with nothing mindset and want to get the cheapest thing because sometimes buying sustainability is super expensive. So, that's why I'm glad that I'm talking to you, so maybe I can learn some of those things. So yeah, that's kind of been my journey with it. SANGHMITRA: That's really wonderful to get your insights because now I can tell you confidently what we do. Basically, when I talk to people, it was generally the same thing that I asked them, "What's the most important thing when you buy, like, the top three most important things?" Sustainability was definitely one of them, but cost was always there. Regardless of the background that they are from, cost was something that they all thought about. So, what we do at Insusty is that we incentivize individuals to do something good for the planet. It can be, for example, you want to volunteer at an NGO next to your place. You want to get rewarded. So, what we do is we offer you loyalty points that help you to buy from sustainable brands. So, you try these products because, oftentimes, as Will also mentioned, there is a perception, and it's also a reality, that sustainable products tend to be more expensive. So, we try to deal with that by offering a loyalty program that incentivizes climate action. And in terms of the sustainable brands, they get new customer base. They get to interact with these customers. They get to see their product and sites. What is something that the customers really like? What is something that can be improved? How can they improve in terms of their own sustainability and their impact? For example, their supply chain operations and so on. So, it's something that we provide them and help them also with insights as well as new customer base. We try to support them with that. At the same time, on an individual level, we help with the cost factor, which is one of the most important things. When we want people to change, when we want people to adopt sustainable lifestyle, we kind of need to incentivize that so that mass adoption can be possible. VICTORIA: So, I'm imagining, like, I want to know a new brand that I want to buy clothes from, like essential clothes. I could go into the app and, like, find companies that produce the thing that I want, and then I could get points and rewards for buying consistently from that brand. SANGHMITRA: So, we are not like an actual loyalty program. So, you only receive points when you do something good for the planet. You don't receive points when you purchase from brands. This is a loyalty program where we give you points when you do something good for the planet, for example, donations. For NGOs, we have volunteer programs that individuals can participate in and receive loyalty points. But in the future, we are ambitious, and we want to go far. And we think that each and every activity of an individual can be tracked in terms of sustainability, how they are segregating their waste at home, how they're managing that, and so on, and give them points for each of their eco actions. VICTORIA: Awesome. Yeah. Okay. I love that. Yeah. So, what kind of things would earn me points, like, in my home ownership here? SANGHMITRA: If you volunteer with an NGO nearby or if you would like to participate in an event, for example, if you want to donate clothes, all these eco actions can give you loyalty points for the moment. And in the future, we want to also track the actions that you do at home. You save electricity, for example. You want to walk to the office instead of taking a cab, and all these activities, so that we can kind of make the experience also for the user a bit more like a game so that they enjoy doing it at the same time they receive rewards. And they can make purchases as well with the sustainable brands on our platform. VICTORIA: I like that because I've been talking with my partner about how do we live more sustainably, or how do we, like, reduce our consumption or give back. And I think if it was gamified and we got points for it, it's more motivating because then you also see that other people are doing it as well. And so, you're part of a community that's all trying to take the same action. And that will have a bigger impact than just one individual, right? SANGHMITRA: Yes, definitely. And we do have that feature on our platform where you could see near your area who donated and who is working in a particular NGO, so based on the fact that if the individual is comfortable in sharing that. Most of the time, when someone does something good for the planet, they would love to show it to the rest of the world. So, we have seen that people love to share their experiences and their badges, saying that, okay, they donated, for example, five euros to this NGO, and so on. So, they really love that. And it feels also really good to see this community and to get inspired by it. 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: tbot.io/sprint. WILL: I think it's going to take all of us doing something to help with climate change and to make a difference. So, I like how you're incentivizing. You're making a difference. You say you get reward points. So, once I do an item or an action and I get reward points, what does that look like on the backend of it? SANGHMITRA: For the individuals they have a dashboard to track their actions. They have a dashboard to also track what they are purchasing. So, if they're purchasing food or they're purchasing more items related to fashion, they can also check that. They can check the total number of points that they have received so far, where they have used it, and so on. And at the backend, for us, we see it as the total number of transactions that are taking place, so, for example, how the loyalty point is being used. So, we have APIs that are in place between our platform and the platforms of other sustainable brands in our network. So, in our backend, we can see the transactions; for example, an individual used 100 points to get 10% off from one of the sustainable brands on our platform. And in terms of the sustainable brand side, even they have their own dashboard. They can also track how many individuals are using their points on their platform, and so on. So, they also have access to their own analytics dashboard. And through the same application, they can also provide us the payments through subscription and transaction fees. VICTORIA: Yeah, that's really interesting. And so, I understand that you've been in the journey for a little while now. And I'm curious: if you go back to when you first got started, what was surprising to you in the discovery phase and maybe caused you to pivot and change strategy? SANGHMITRA: So, one thing that I pivoted with was the type of brands that we wanted to onboard. Before, we had a very open approach; for example, we want brands that are sustainable, or if they are upcycling, or if they have, like, a particular social impact attached to it or an environmental impact attached to it. So, we were focusing on having the horizons a bit like the aspects of choosing a sustainable brand to be a partner. It was a bit broader for us. But when we talked with the people, they wanted a niche. For example, they wanted upcycle products. They wanted more brands in the circular economy domain. And that's when we realized that we need to have a niche. So, we focus on the brands that are more linked towards circular economy that are promoting the values of recycling, upcycling, and reusing the products. So, that was when we pivoted with the idea that we should not be open to all sustainable brands. However, we need to be really accurate with our approach. We need to focus on a particular niche. At the same time, we need to also make sure that we measure their impact and report it to our customers to ensure transparency on our platform. So, that became a priority more than having more and more brands on our platform. WILL: Yeah, I really...that was actually one of my questions I was going to ask you because I like how you are vetting them because I've, especially here in the States, I've seen, like, companies, like, slap 'non-GMO' or 'gluten-free.' And it's like, well, it doesn't even have wheat in it, so, like, yeah, it's gluten-free. So, it's like, it's more of a marketing thing than actually, like, helping out. So, I'm glad you're vetting that. How has that process going for you? SANGHMITRA: It's actually going really well, and we have established a five-step onboarding process. And in the first two steps, we also focus on measuring their impact. We have a self-evaluation form. We also check if they have some existing certificates. We also make sure that we have enough data about their supply chain and how they are working. And these are some of the information that we also share with our consumers, the one who would be interested to buy products from these brands, to make sure that we are transparent in our approach. There's also one more thing that we do. It's the quarterly reporting. So, every three months, we also report the individuals who are buying from sustainable brands on our platform that, okay, this brand did better this quarter because they implemented a process that, for example, is reducing a certain amount of emissions from their supply chain, or any other departments. So, these are some of the information that we also share with the individuals. VICTORIA: And what does success look like now versus six months from now or five years from now? SANGHMITRA: For the moment, success would look like for me to have more connections, more people who support our project and our initiative, and the more people joining us. In terms of the next six months, I think it would be linked to fundraising. But I wouldn't go so far at the moment because, for me, I take one day at a time. And this is something that has been super helpful for me to streamline my tasks. So, I take one day at a time, and it's working really well for me. WILL: What are some of your upcoming hurdles that you see? SANGHMITRA: When I talk about hurdles, I often see it in two parts, one being the internal hurdles and the other one being external. So, in terms of the internal hurdles, it can be something like I'm putting myself in a box that, okay, I'm a single woman founder. How can I do something good? And just doubting myself and things like that. These are some of the internal hurdles that I'm working on every day [chuckles]. I'm also talking to executive coaches to get their advice on how I can improve myself as well to overcome these internal hurdles. However, in terms of the external hurdles, these are some things that are not in my control, but I try my best to make the most of it. Currently, in terms of the external hurdles, I would say that I live in a country where I used to not even speak the language. So, initially, the hurdle that I experienced was mostly the cultural hurdle. But now it's more related to the fact that I am a single female founder, and there are perceptions around it that you need to have a co-founder. And there are a lot of different noises everywhere that doesn't allow you to grow. VICTORIA: And you're not just a founder, but you're also an author. And I wanted to ask you a little bit about your book, the Sustainability Pendulum. Can you share a little bit about what it is and why you wrote it? SANGHMITRA: So, Sustainability Pendulum is the book that I wrote last year, and I always wanted to write it. And last year, I put myself to work, and I was like, at least every day, I'm going to try and write one page, and probably by the end of the year, I can finish the book [chuckles], and that's what I did. I had to be super consistent. But I came up with Sustainability Pendulum, and it's about the stories from the past and the sustainable approaches that we had in the past, how we used to...in different religions, we have some stories written in the scriptures related to sustainable practices. And oftentimes, when we talk about sustainability today, we talk about the future. We talk about implementing different technologies and, doing a lot of innovations, and so on. However, we don't look into the past and see how efficiently things were handled when it came to sustainability in the past. And these are some of the stories from the past, from different religions, and how it transcends to today's sustainability issues and solutions. So, that's what the book is about. And why it's called the pendulum, it's because how the pendulum moves. I think it's obvious [laughs], so the pendulum's to and fro motion. It goes to the past, and it goes to the future. So, that was the whole concept behind the sustainability pendulum. WILL: That's amazing that you wrote a book, much, much respect on that. I am not an author, so...And I also know because my wife she's been talking about writing a book and the different challenges with that. So, kudos on writing a book. Would you write another one? SANGHMITRA: Actually, I would love to. I'm just looking for something that equally inspires me how it did for the last one. But I think once you come out of that space and you're consistent with writing the book or consistently working to achieve something, I think eventually it comes to you. So, I don't know what are the challenges that your wife mentions that she faced in writing the book. WILL: Like, having enough to write about, like you said, just sitting down each day writing a book. And I think publishing a book is tough. I know we've come a long ways, like, you can self-publish now instead of going through publishing companies, and just those different avenues of how many steps it takes. It's not just writing a book, sitting down and writing a book, and sharing with everyone. It's multiple steps that you have to go through. SANGHMITRA: Definitely. I couldn't agree more with you on this one. Just to add to it, how I managed to do this was also because I structured the book earlier. And in order to also publish it, I realized that I don't want to wait. And I self-published the book as soon as I found out that, okay, this is perfect, and it's ready. I need to just move forward with it. What helped me as well was the way I structured the book earlier. And then, I was like, okay, every day, this is what I'm going to work on. And it kind of helped me to get to the end of it. WILL: That's awesome. I like how you had forethought and how it made it easier for you to come up with ideas and write it. So, that's awesome. SANGHMITRA: I wish the best to your wife as well for her book. And I hope that once it's ready, you will let me know about it. WILL: Yes, I definitely will. You're talking about being a woman founder who is single. I don't want to assume. So, why is it tough for you to be a woman founder who's single? SANGHMITRA: When I say single female founder, it means that I don't have a co-founder. It's not, like, my relationship status but just [laughs] the fact that... WILL: Yes. Yes. [laughter] SANGHMITRA: Just that I am a single founder, like, then I don't have a co-founder, which oftentimes poses as a risk, especially when you talk to an investor. This is what I feel based on my experience. But I think the times are changing, and I feel that the more the project is growing, the better it is getting in terms of the people who are interested as well to be a part of Insusty as an investor or as a partner. Things have become better now than they were a few years ago. So, I can see the change. But, initially, I did used to feel low about it that, okay, I'm a single female founder, and oftentimes, it was considered as a challenge. But if you take my perspective, I think, for me personally, it possibly was also one of my biggest strengths because I could be that one person going to the meetings, and I felt that people were more open to share things. They did not feel threatened by me. And that was something that really helped me to also form connections with people. VICTORIA: I love how you connect having a small community in your village where you grew up to creating a community around yourself as a founder and having a village that supports you, and you feel comfortable around the community as well, and as part of that community. If you could go back in time and give yourself some advice when you were first getting started with Insusty, what advice would you give yourself? SANGHMITRA: Slow is good. When I say that, I mean that every time we talk about different startups and different companies, and it's always about how rapidly the startup is growing, how exponentially they are growing, and so on. But I feel that in terms of when you really want to create an impact, and you are in the green tech space as well, being slow and getting somewhere is better than going fast and then having a burnout. So, one of the things that I would tell myself when I just started would be slow is good. WILL: Even with coding and a lot of things in life, I feel like that's really good advice: slow is good. Slow down––enjoy the moment. So, I like that advice. VICTORIA: I was going to say, it sounds like a more sustainable pace for yourself also [laughs]. SANGHMITRA: Exactly. VICTORIA: Sustainability in the environment, and also in our own energy, and emotions, and motivation to get things done. So, I love that. WILL: I see what you did there [laughter]. VICTORIA: Yeah, [inaudible 30:40] all back. Do you have anything else that you'd like to promote? SANGHMITRA: I would really love to also tell people that I'm very open to communication. So, if anyone would like to reach out to me on LinkedIn, it would be really awesome, and we can get on a call as well. I have my Calendly link right on my profile, and I'm very open to communication. So, if there is someone who would like to talk to me about any of the things that interest them or probably something that they could advise me or I could learn from them, I'm more than open to do so. VICTORIA: Love that. And then, do you have any questions for me or Will? SANGHMITRA: So, in terms of the development part, I do have some questions, like, in the technical side. So, when it comes to the fact that we have to kind of calculate the eco actions of individuals in the future, we want to also see if we can calculate the daily actions that they do, for example, walking instead of taking a cab, or segregating their waste, et cetera. I wanted to know, in the future, I want to implement these features, but can we actually get a perfect product around it? Is that possible where we can track everything? WILL: Yeah. So, when you say track everything, like, I know you talked about walking and some of the different actions. Can you expound on that? SANGHMITRA: For example, instead of IoTs...because I know that some hotels they do use IoT devices to track the water consumption, and so on. However, on an individual level, how can we just track it through the smartphone or through the app that they have? Because, okay, walking can be tracked. This is actually one of the challenges I'm facing, so I want to just be open about it, and I'm very open to ideas also. If you have some ideas that I could experiment around, I would really love to. In terms of the activities like walking, waste disposal, and so on, do you think that there are some kind of features that we could implement to track these actions? One of the things that I was thinking about was we let people take a photo of how they are segregating the waste in the end, and through that, we can tell them, "Okay, this is great," and we give them the points. But how can we do it and also automate it at the same time? VICTORIA: So, one approach that I know when people work at thoughtbot on these types of issues and trying to figure out, like, what is the right feature? How are we going to implement this? Going through a product design sprint where you spend a week with a product designer and someone who can, you know, really quickly create MVPs. And you go through this process of figuring out what's the most important feature. And you're talking to users, and you're trying to...you're going through that discovery process in a short period. And we actually have a video series where we walk through every step of that process. But, like, for me personally, things that I can think of in my life that I would want to track one thing I've been trying to do more is actually electronic recycling, which in the U.S. my neighborhood is different. It's only open on, like, Thursdays and Saturdays. And I have to, like, really remember to go out there and, like, put my electronics out there. And I don't think it's very, like, well-known. So, I think that would be something interesting to, like, promote as possible. And we also have the green bins now, which are new, which allow you in California to, like, have composting. So, you have now your regular trash, your recycling, and your compost bins. So, actually, like, trying to use those and track them. Otherwise, one of the things I think about is, like, reducing the amount of plastic consumption, which includes things like, you know, when you buy toilet paper, it comes wrapped in plastic. How can I incentivize myself and my partner and even my family to, like, switch away from those types of products and get more into, you know, using towels instead of paper towels or finding alternative methods for getting those products while reducing the amount of plastic that comes with it? SANGHMITRA: That's super interesting. I'm really, really glad to have your insights as well. I do have a question for you. Have you worked with startups in the field of impact? And if so, what have been some of the ideas that you really loved to implement? VICTORIA: Yeah, actually, we had another guest on the Giant Robots podcast who I think you're connected with as well who created essentially, like, a GoFundMe but for environmental projects and in areas that, you know, a 5,000 grant to help do a beach cleanup could have a really big impact. Like funding programs and marketplace for those types of green projects in areas that are the most impacted by climate change and have the fewest resources to actually do anything about it. So, I thought that was really exciting in trying to figure out how can we use tech to solve problems for real people, and for people that don't typically get the focus or the majority of the funding, or the majority of time spent in those communities. So, that, I think, is what is really exciting: to see people come from those communities and then figure out how to build solutions to serve them. SANGHMITRA: That's really wonderful. Is there, like, a specific market where you have seen growth of such startups and companies more? The companies especially you have worked with in the past and in there in the field of impact, are they mostly from the U.S., or which are the markets they are from essentially? VICTORIA: Yeah. So, I mean, I'm from the U.S., so that's where I see the most. I'm in San Diego. So, when I go to, like, startup weeks and things like that, that's where I'm getting the majority of my exposure. I do also know that there is a Bloomberg Center focusing on excellence and data in the governments. And that's not just U.S.-based but going more global as well, so trying to teach civic leaders how they can use the data about whether it's sustainability or other issues that they're facing too, like, figure out how to prioritize their funding and in what projects they're going to invest in from there. So, I think that's really interesting. I don't know, I don't know what the answer is, but I know that there are some countries that are hoping to make the investments in sustainability and ecotourism, as opposed to allowing industry to come in and do whatever they want [laughs]. So, I don't know if that answers your question or not. SANGHMITRA: Yeah, I think it completely answers my question. Thank you for sharing that and also a bit more. WILL: There's so many things that I've learned through the podcast. So, I'm excited to see the impact it has. And I think you're doing an amazing job. VICTORIA: Thank you so much for coming on and being with us here today and sharing your story. SANGHMITRA: Thank you. WILL: 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 @will23larry. VICTORIA: And you can find me on Mastodon @thoughtbot.social@vguido. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time.  AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.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

Hosts Will Larry and Victoria Guido are joined by Zamina Karim, the CEO and Founder of Mevi, a community-driven motherhood wellness app designed to address the unique challenges of motherhood, especially in the context of the pandemic. Zamina shares her journey from experiencing postpartum anxiety and depression to founding Mevi. She discusses the lack of understanding and support for new mothers, especially during the pandemic when traditional support structures were unavailable. The conversation also touches on parenting challenges in the current era, underscoring the need for community and support. The app aims to revolutionize maternal health by fostering connections among mothers and providing support for the challenges of motherhood beyond medical visits. Zamina's approach to building Mevi is rooted in empathy, aiming to address new mothers' emotional and practical needs and fill a significant gap in current maternal health support. Zamina also talks about the broader implications of Mevi's mission, the evolving startup funding landscape, and the importance of pivoting and adapting in the entrepreneurial journey. She emphasizes the role of empathy in building inclusive experiences for parents and the potential of technology to improve maternal health outcomes. Mevi Follow Mevi on LinkedIn. Follow Zamina Karim on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript:  WILL: 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, Will Larry. VICTORIA: And I'm your other host, Victoria Guido. And with us today is Zamina Karim, CEO and Founder of Mevi, the first-ever community-driven motherhood wellness app. Zamina, thank you for joining us. ZAMINA: Thank you so much for having me. VICTORIA: Well, outside of founding Mevi, what keeps you going? What's exciting for you right now in your world? ZAMINA: Well, I have a toddler. She is two turning three, and she keeps me incredibly active and stimulated throughout the day. And I have my hands full with her throughout the day. And outside of that, I've just jumped into the business full-time. So, I'm navigating solo foundership and recognizing how different of an experience that is when you have been working in a team environment for the last 15 years or so. So, that's kind of what's been keeping me busy the last few months. WILL: You mentioned your daughter. When you became a parent, I know there's something surprising; there's plenty. But what was the most surprising thing that you went through when you became a parent? ZAMINA: Oh my gosh, there were so many things. You're totally right, Will. But I think, for me, it was a really big emphasis that I noticed on the products that I would need to have. And if I had all of those products, I would be ready and I would be well on my way, and parenting would be a breeze. And it kicked me on my butt when I realized that having the perfect car seat and the perfect stroller was not setting me up for success. And there was a lot that I didn't know and didn't realize, even though I had done so much research and had a lot of other parents in my network. I think it's one of those things that you don't truly understand until you have experienced it yourself and you are living through it. VICTORIA: So, then, what led you to start Mevi? ZAMINA: Mevi was started because my baby was born during the pandemic, and I experienced a ton of challenges during that time. I struggled with symptoms of anxiety and depression for over a year. But I didn't really need any clinical diagnosis, and so no one knew how to help me in my family. And I did not know how to help myself either. And I really felt the Western sort of pressure of having to do it all. And I was quite frankly embarrassed by the struggles that I was experiencing. And, you know, you never really go back to your old self. But once she turned one, I started to feel a little bit more balanced. And I came out of my shell, and I started speaking with other women from all over the world really. And I learned very quickly that my experience was the norm and not the exception. And that really was the inspiration to go ahead and try to solve that problem. WILL: Yeah. I remember we had my middle child at the very beginning of July 2020. And the first thing that was rough is that was whenever they were like, "If you have COVID, we may have to separate you from your child when you have birth," and it was terrifying. And they ended up not doing that. We didn't have COVID or anything. But I remember, because we have three now, and I remember thinking, like, if I was a parent of a single child, it would have to be rough because, like, the child is not playing with anyone, and you're also by yourself. So, I totally relate with what you're saying. ZAMINA: Yeah, absolutely. And then, beyond that, all of those kinds of traditional childcare centers or places where people would congregate were shut down. And up here in Canada, a lot of those places haven't really opened back up, and so there was no real bounce back to a pre-pandemic norm. A lot of families are now just navigating with this as the new normal. So, I think it's really important to recognize that parenting in 2021 and beyond is really different from what it was pre-pandemic. VICTORIA: So, you had this acute need yourself to build a community to survive [laughs]. What in your background led you to think, oh, I could start a company around this; I could build the solution for this problem? ZAMINA: Yeah, it's actually a really interesting mix of personal and more technical and career-driven. So, on a personal level, I was born in India, and my parents are from East Africa. So, that cultural element really bleeds into my perspectives and my values on life, as well as what's missing in healthcare today, so this idea of taking a prevention-focused approach or addressing root causes rather than addressing symptoms, which is a lot more common in today's kind of healthcare context. And then, on a more career-based side, my background is in consumer tech, growth marketing. And I studied psychology and human development when I was in school. So, all of these areas really came together as the perfect combination for starting Mevi because I had this hard tech background. I know how to code. I self-taught Ruby on Rails about ten years ago. And then I'd worked in this consumer space, kind of selling things for companies like Masterclass, and Uber, and Lululemon, and Aritzia. And I had this experience on the paid acquisition side as well. So, all of those things really came together for me to feel equipped to step into this journey of building Mevi. But I think no matter what technical or kind of soft skills you have, it is still a huge climb when building a company from scratch and, in particular, when you're doing it as a solo founder. WILL: Wow, that's so amazing. I love your background, and I love especially talking to founders who have a technical background and kind of seeing how their journey was. Did your technical background help you in anything, or did you code your app? ZAMINA: I did not code the app. Because I was on the tech side over a decade ago, so I was building apps about ten years ago; it's one of those muscles where it can very quickly atrophy. And things now are developing at such a rapid pace compared to when I was in the space that I'm no longer someone who would be best suited to actually code the app. I would be spending a lot of time relearning versus just delegating that to somebody else. But I do possess the ability to talk to engineers and to be able to navigate some of the architecture and the fundamentals with them and that, for me, has been a really big game changer because I'm not completely lost when chatting with technical folks. And I can kind of navigate my way around with a little bit more ease than I would be able to if I didn't have that background. VICTORIA: Yeah. I want to talk about how you're thinking about building your team for the future and filling in those gaps that you may have since you have such a well-rounded background. But first, I wanted to go back to, what stage do you feel like you are in your product life cycle? Are you still in the discovery phase or you have an MVP? What's the phase you're at right now? ZAMINA: We are getting our MVP built right now. So, I've done about a year's worth of user interviews, research, chatting with folks all over the world, and really doing my best at validating the concept, and the idea, and the problem space. And one thing I will say is that the problem space is super clear. Famtech and femtech are places where there's a lot of capital being invested, and there's a lot of incredible innovation happening. But the solution is something that I think is always going to be evolving as needs of parents evolve. But right now, I have a pretty solid idea of what the product should be in its first iteration, and that is what we'll be launching with in 2024. And we'll be testing with some select partners. WILL: I'm so excited for you. Can you explain what is Mevi? What's the problem that you're looking to solve with it? ZAMINA: We are rooted in this belief that all of the negative symptoms, the stress, the mental health disorders that are experienced by moms stem from the isolation and lack of connection that they have to their communities. So, our mission is to really revolutionize maternal health by caring for the life that happens in between doctor's visits. Really, that is where life happens. And in doing so, we want to solve for those two specific root cause factors, emotional support and social isolation, that contribute the most to postpartum disorder. So, from a practical standpoint, what Mevi is really going to do is connect moms to their personalized support networks so that they can delegate things like critical care tasks, activities of daily living, support with things at home, as well as emotional and mental health support to their support network so that they can basically show up for them in the way that they most need. VICTORIA: That's really exciting. And to play that back a bit, it's interesting from your research and from your own experience that the thing that was missing was that element of community and connection to other people. Can you tell us more about that? ZAMINA: In today's world, moms are expected to do it all, and we're kind of conditioned to that regard in every aspect of our lives. And there's a lot of support lacking for moms from a childcare perspective, from a systemic support perspective around things like maternity leave. And, ultimately, I think we're kind of given these signals that we should be able to do it alone, so we should just go ahead and do that. And I think, for that reason, a lot of women really struggle because when they do ultimately step into parenthood, particularly in a post-pandemic context, they are incredibly overwhelmed, but they're getting all of these signals that they should be able to do it. And so, then they feel incredibly isolated and really struggle with those feelings. And so, what Mevi and what I, as a person and as a founder I'm really trying to address and bring attention to is this idea that women absolutely cannot do it alone. And that over the last, you know, 10,000 years, we have raised children, and we have also raised mothers with the support of villages. And those villages look different for different people, but that's really the case across the entire planet. And so, what I really want to do is to bring attention back to the fact that it's important to build your personal village and to be able to request support from them in the ways you need. WILL: Yeah. So, I was looking at your website when I was doing some research, and the very first, I guess, banner, you can call it, with a text message in it, there's a text message that's sent to the mom, and I'm guessing it's AI-driven. It's asking, "Hey. Out of these three options, what exactly do you need help in?" Can you walk me through what that looks like? Is it AI-driven that sends the text out and it has a list of friends and family that sends the text to, or how does that work? ZAMINA: Yeah. So, first big disclaimer is that what you see on the website was actually our alpha product that we tested up here in Canada with a cohort of new moms. And that was really built to validate the problem space and to understand if a solution like this would be impactful. And that was actually not AI-driven, believe it or not. It was largely built through automation tools and a database of text messages that yours truly wrote and connected with Twilio. So, it was really kind of strung together on the back-end prototype that we used to understand if getting help on tasks like this would be beneficial. We also were sending regular kind of positive reinforcement messages, just like, you know, resources, notes, things like that, to those moms just to give them kind of a daily positive reminder. But those text messages were also being sent, yes, to their support networks that they would sign up, so their partner, perhaps their mother, their mother-in-law, their sisters, their friends, so on and so forth. And we would determine which messages would go to whom. And through that test, we realized that there was kind of a really positive response to what this was trying to achieve but that it was quite limited in its functionality because it was hard coded on the backend, and there wasn't really a lot of AI leveraged. So, we are now moving into building out an MVP, which will be a mobile app. WILL: Wow. I can definitely see how this is beneficial because we have three kids, and my oldest and my youngest share the same birthday, so three kids in three years. And it seems like, oh, why are you asking that simple question? Sometimes, the simple question is exactly what you need. "Hey, how can I help?" And given choices, that is huge just to nudge what you need help. Because, like, I love my sleep and [chuckles] with kids, you don't really get sleep sometimes. And I used to remember everything, but my youngest has been dealing with earaches probably over the last month, and I am forgetting a lot just because [chuckles] I haven't been getting sleep. So, I love what you're doing. And the purpose and the problem you're trying to solve, I think is much needed. ZAMINA: Yeah, thank you so much. That point that you made about giving options is really important because, especially when you're encountering motherhood for the first time, it's quite daunting, and you don't really know what you don't know. And so, people will say, "Oh, you know, I'm here for you. Let me know how I can help." But that in and of itself is a huge barrier because you don't really know what to ask. You don't want to infringe on them. You don't want to make it inconvenient for them. And there's also boundaries that you want to set in terms of who you want to let into your home and let into your personal space and that kind of thing. So, I think it's really important to provide a little bit of education for new mothers around what kinds of things they can typically benefit from getting support with, particularly in the home in those early days. As an example, a lot of moms feel hesitant about letting others come into their home to hold their child. They actually would prefer that others come into the home and support them with the dishes or making a meal so that they can stay close to their baby, particularly in those early days when babies are feeding around the clock, and skin-to-skin contact is really important. And so, it's really important to provide that guidance, especially to new moms, so that they can share that with their support networks. But then also sharing that information with their support network so that they don't feel insulted or they don't feel bad when their requests for support are directed in a different way. So, through Mevi, we also hope to provide that education and that guidance to everybody that's in the network so that they understand how to be helpful. Because I think at the end of the day, a lot of our friends and our families genuinely want to be there for us, but they just don't know how. And so, we're really there to be those coaches for them. 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 Liftoff 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. VICTORIA: I'm curious about...I think it's a hashtag on your LinkedIn profile for empathetic tech. Based on what you're describing, how does that relate to what you're building and how you build empathy into the technology and products? ZAMINA: I am so committed to proving that we can build great businesses that do good in the world, that support women's health outcomes but are still businesses at the end of the day and make great revenue and great profits. When I came out into the space, and I kind of said, "Okay, I'm here, and I'm building this thing," particularly because I'm solving a problem for mothers, I often got met with this question of "Well, is it a nonprofit?" And no, absolutely not. It is not a nonprofit. It is intended to be a scalable business. But I think a lot of people have a misunderstanding that if you're building something that is good for the world, that it won't generate revenue and profit. And so, from an empathetic tech standpoint, that's really something that I am kind of on a mission to prove through Mevi and through my own kind of personal endeavors. It's something that's really close to my heart. And I really, really want to put femtech on the map for that reason. And from a product standpoint, I mean, we have lots of ideas about how we can build that empathy directly into the product. But I think the biggest thing is coaching moms to be vulnerable in ways that feel accessible to them. Again, back to this idea that women are expected to do it all and moms are expected to do it all, I think if we can start to nudge moms to sharing with their closed private networks of, you know, the handpicked people that they've put into their support networks about how they're feeling, what they need help with, you know, their mood day to day, those kinds of things, we can start to build more empathy, both in the context of that particular family, but in the broader context of motherhood as a whole. WILL: Why do you think they automatically go to, "Oh, it's a nonprofit business," when you're talking about the mental health of women and anything in that category? ZAMINA: I haven't figured it out yet [laughs], but in part, it feels like it's a social endeavor. "Oh, you're here to solve your own problem." And yes, I'm here to solve my own problem, but really, this is the problem of women across Canada, and the States, parts of Europe, and in Australia, and New Zealand. And so, it's not just a small niche problem. But I think a lot of people who I've encountered, particularly in the earlier days of when I had just kind of come up on the scene, I was talking with a lot of people who didn't resonate because either they were male. They didn't have children. They weren't familiar with healthtech or femtech. And so, for them, they were like, "I don't understand this space. It must not be very big. It must not be very important," but it's quite the contrary. VICTORIA: What other challenges have you faced so far on your journey? ZAMINA: The other big one, honestly, is the fact that I'm a solo founder. For the last 15, 20 years, I have been working with people day in and day out, and, you know, whether it's in office or remotely, I had the option to kind of jam with them throughout the day on different problems. And in this particular journey, I don't really have that in the same way that I have been familiar with for, you know, my entire career. So, that has been a huge learning curve for me. And I have really recognized that the journey of entrepreneurship is just as much of a mental one as it is everything else, and finding ways to cope with the kind of emotional ups and downs as you get lots of wins. But you also get doors closed in your face. All of those things require an immense amount of grit and resilience. And when you are going at it alone, it can be a little bit harder to navigate that. But I'm slowly starting to really find my rhythm. And I've really managed to do that, I think, in large part due to an advisory board that I have built of people who are really looking to support me, who are bullish on the mission, who believe that this is a really big problem that deserves to be solved, and are helping to clear roadblocks and obstacles, both, you know, in the environment, but also for me when I get in my own head about things. And that has been really, really powerful for me is, kind of building that advisory board of people. WILL: Since we're talking about hurdles, what are some of the hurdles you see in the future? Since we talked about your past ones and your current ones, do you see any on the future—on the horizon? ZAMINA: Yeah, I mean, obviously, there's the kind of traditional ones of finding product-market fit and landing the product with that ideal customer. And so, I'm really excited about the work that's being done right now to get there. But, obviously, it's going to be a constant, you know, road of iteration and evolution on the product space. And that is one that I'm really excited about. But I think the other bigger one is just the consumer landscape right now is a tough one to be in. Capital is drying up from an investment standpoint. And I've seen a lot of founders who are farther ahead in their journey, who have incredible results, that are growing rapidly year on year, and they are struggling to raise money. And they've got traction, really, really great traction. So, at this stage, it's really important for me to find ways to self-fund and bootstrap through this period, which ultimately, I think is going to give me a competitive advantage. It's going to give every founder who's doing the same thing a competitive advantage in the long run because I believe that if you can get traction in this environment, you're truly building a really great business. But I do see that this area of capital being one that founders are really going to have to navigate for the next year or two. VICTORIA: That resonates with some stories that we've heard as well. And I'm curious to hear you talk about the discovery process a little bit more. Was there anything that you discovered early on that caused you to pivot in strategy? ZAMINA: So, I joined a pre-accelerator in San Francisco late 2023. And we built this vision of the MVP that I was really excited about. And as I was getting ready to think about actually building it out, what I realized was that in the feature set that we had built out, we were trying to do way too much. I had this vision of what Mevi could be ten years from now, and I was almost trying to build that in in an MVP. And so, one of the big pivots that I made from a product perspective was really, really dialing it back and simplifying the feature set to really what I believed and what I had heard from folks would be the most impactful for them rather than, you know, squeezing in a bunch of other things that would be kind of beneficial or a value-add in the long run. I really wanted to ensure that when we did launch and when we do launch that, people really understand what we're here to do. And then, over time, as we get more and more consumer feedback, of course, we can continue to build the product in the direction that folks are desiring. But that was an early pivot. And another one was more on the business model side, and this is one that I'm still kind of workshopping and working through with different folks. But this idea of going direct to consumer versus actually going to other companies and other businesses who serve this population of new mothers and actually selling the product to them, and then having them use it in their different contexts as they serve their clients. And so, we've kind of pivoted our business model from B2C to B2B2C, which, even in doing so over the last month, has really, really gotten a lot of very positive signals that that is kind of the right approach to be making in the short term. And then, of course, you know, again, once we launch and we get that consumer feedback, we will continue to explore and expand other business models. But early on, I was just trying to do a lot. And in both of those pivots, I found some focus, and I'm really, really excited by that. WILL: That's awesome. I love how you said pivoting. I think that's probably the core to having a successful business, knowing when to pivot, knowing when not to. What does success look like for you in, like, the next six months, you know, five years, especially when...I know you have a launch coming up. You're talking about raising capital. You kind of pivot on your business plans a little. What does it look like to be successful in that timeframe? ZAMINA: In the next few months, success is really just going to be doing what we say we're going to do and putting an app out into the market and having it really be tested with some hand-picked partners who are also innovating in the maternal health space. I really believe in aligning with people who believe deeply in solving this problem. And I think that's just the low-hanging fruit as well from a business standpoint. And so, over the next six months, that's really what I'll be prioritizing. And then, over the next, gosh, five, seven years, I really want it to be a full suite of features and tools that moms can leverage through a mobile platform. I really want it to be kind of, like, the Flo app [chuckles] for mothering, a household name that is doled out, you know, from OBGYNs who are saying, "Oh, hey, you should check this out now that you're pregnant," used by doula practices or midwife institutes, circulated among friends as the must-have app to have on your phone when you find out that you're pregnant. Obviously, that is a really, really lofty goal. But I do believe that there is a pretty big gap in this market, and I'm excited to try to fill it. VICTORIA: How do you balance having ambitious goals against also needing to maintain your life and your life as a parent? ZAMINA: I have a really incredible support system. My husband is an entrepreneur as well. And really, my career over the last ten years allowed him to pursue his entrepreneurial dreams, and he's absolutely killing it. And so, he kind of said to me, "Hey, it's your turn. I really want to give you the space to try this thing out and see where it can go. I really believe in it." I have him kind of in my corner every day, cheering me on and giving me a lot of space to learn and, grow and pivot from time to time. But I also think that he's really great from a financial standpoint and helping me kind of navigate, you know, these goals and understanding kind of the revenue potential of the business and those kinds of things. And so, I have a really great balance of, you know, me being kind of pie in the sky, head in the clouds, really, really aspirational about what I'm building. And he does two things really great. He kind of brings me back to earth sometimes, but he also has a really, really great financial acumen that he lends to the business. And so, he's really kind of my champion and has allowed me to pursue this. WILL: I'm so glad that you have a supportive partner. That could be a make-it or break-it a lot of times. It's just someone in your corner that you can trust and know that they have your back. I think that's just huge. ZAMINA: Yeah, absolutely. I'm super lucky. WILL: What motivates you? What makes you...because being an entrepreneur is not easy. It's a lot of long hours, a lot of sleepless nights at times. So, what motivates you to want to be an entrepreneur? ZAMINA: I really want to leave the world in a better place than I found it. I spent a lot of time in my career, particularly on the marketing side, selling people things. And some of those things were great, and some of those things were absolutely things that they did not need. And I think once I became a parent, my perspective on life really shifted. And I realized that I wanted to spend my time doing something that I could be proud of but that would also, you know, do good in the world. I'm fueled by this idea that I'm building in a space that has kind of been underserved for decades and, that I'm solving a real-world tangible problem, and that I have a lot of people who have provided some incredible guidance, feedback, support along the way, who are validating the journey that we're on. And so, all of those things kind of, you know, fuel me in that way. And then, I think from a practical standpoint, just being able to build and design my life in the way that, you know, excites me, being able to spend time with my family, to have that flexibility. You know, in these early days, I don't have a lot of that because I'm spending a lot of time in the business, but I'm excited by the opportunity that it will present in the long run. VICTORIA: That's really exciting. And it reminds me just about what are your core values, and what values drive your everyday decisions? ZAMINA: I think it's really the one around the desire to leave the world in a better place. Again, when my daughter was born, I just saw things in a really different way. You know, I think I had been largely ignorant to a lot of that and not to the fault of my own. I think it's just one of those things that you don't really understand until you become a parent. You see how difficult it is to obtain childcare. You see how predatory it can be when it comes to consumption around toys, and products, and nutrition. And there's just a lot of things that become apparent to you that you don't really realize. And so, anything that I do and anyone that I align myself with is really centered around this idea and this desire to leave the world in a better place than I found it. WILL: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I wish there were so many more resources out there because it's a hard thing to do. So, I really am glad that you're doing this. And it kind of leads into my next question. Do you have any advice for building an inclusive experience for parents? ZAMINA: If you spend any time on social media, you will see that people are very quick to dole out advice and to have comments on how other people choose to do things in their families, particularly in the context of, you know, female and motherhood-based content creators. And, honestly, the biggest thing that's missing when those kinds of things happen is empathy. A lot of the times, we feel maybe a little bit insecure, or we feel worried that decisions that we're making are not good, or we feel worried about being judged. And so, maybe we shift that onto other people. We project that onto other people. And what I've just seen come up time and time again is if everyone could just see the fact that everyone's struggle is very unique to their individual context. You never know what other families might be dealing with. You don't understand, you know, what difficulties they might be having at work, what difficulties they might be having with childcare, what their financial situation is. And all of that informs their decision-making, and everyone's just doing the best that they can. You know, when it comes to how we engage with other parents on social media, how we engage with other parents in real life, at work, in products, it's really just about trying to bridge the gap through empathy. And that's obviously way, way easier said than done. But I think it's really important because sometimes we just need that window to get the glance into other people's lives to really understand, oh, I should maybe, you know, keep that particular opinion to myself or maybe not be so judgmental in this particular context? And so, yeah, I think that's the biggest piece of advice that I have just for anyone that is navigating life in any context with a parent. VICTORIA: That's really helpful. Thank you. And it's, like, leading with empathy again, right? ZAMINA: Absolutely. Yeah [laughs]. The commonality here is absolutely leading with empathy. VICTORIA: Well, wonderful. I've really enjoyed our conversation so far. Is there anything else that you would like to promote? ZAMINA: Two quick things. Like I said, we are getting ready to launch in the middle of the year, so I'm really excited for that. And if anyone listening is excited by the mission, you can sign up for our waitlist at getmevi.com. Again, disclaimer, the website is a little bit out of date. It needs some work. But the wait list is very much active and works just fine. So, it'd be great to capture your intention there. And then, you can also follow us on Instagram @getmevi. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And also, do you have any questions for me or Will? ZAMINA: Gosh, yeah, I mean, I would love to understand kind of what patterns are you seeing in terms of what founders are building right now? Have you noticed kind of any underlying trends that you think would be valuable to share? VICTORIA: Well, I can talk about my experience connecting to the San Diego community, startup and founders community. So, it is interesting. I think what you mentioned earlier about trying to bootstrap as much as you can and do it yourself as much as you can. I've seen founders show an interest in learning more about low-code tools and using those to prove out their MVP and prove out their concept and go from there. There's always shifts in the investment, right? So, people, I think, are even more going to fall into their similar patterns for what they choose to invest in and take less risks. It's trending upward again, and we're starting to see some signs of investment picking up again. You know, being in San Diego is an interesting place because we're right next to Tijuana, and you can be in Mexico in 30 minutes from my house or 45, depending on traffic. And there's just a lot of opportunity to do all different types of startups around here: biotech startups and startups that help you predict if breast cancer is going to come back. And there's also just all kinds of interesting things going on with actual physical products as well and treating products as more of a startup-type model. So, that's what I see going around here. But, Will, what do you think? WILL: Yeah, I was actually thinking about probably the last two or three podcast episodes that I recorded, it was around parenting and motherhood. So, I think that's a good thing because, like you said, it's an underserved area, but it's amazing to see what that community is doing. And I think it's going to be so good, especially in the next couple of years. After talking to those founders and even yourself, the pandemic, I think, encouraged a lot of that growth in that area. So, I think we're going to see a lot of growth in that area, and I'm excited about it. ZAMINA: Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with both of those things. And I think the no-code one is one in particular that will fuel a lot of innovation, not only in this industry but across tech as a whole. I'm seeing some really, really great advancements happening and making it a lot easier for solo non-technical founders or just non-technical people in general to prototype things very, very quickly. VICTORIA: Absolutely. And then, the tools to build products that are really compliant and mature and ready for healthtech and FinTech. There's also so much more out there available to give people the resources they need to do it right. So, it's really interesting. And yeah, I think, like you said, with COVID, too, the acceptance of virtual healthcare and the need for virtual communities, and that's not gone away [laughs]. There are still some people who won't want to re-engage in-person events and community building, so... ZAMINA: Yeah, this is kind of the new normal for us, and we've got to figure out how do we maintain our well-being and how do we maintain different types of social connectivity in this world that is becoming increasingly interpersonally independent? So, I think even AI and, you know, the Apple Vision Pro has really sparked conversations around what's going to happen to in-person interaction if everyone is wearing these massive devices on their faces? And I think, at this point, we can only imagine. But I do think it's a very practical and real thing that we should be solving for today and not just be waiting until we're all wearing these massive devices to recognize that we need to solve for that connectivity between all of us. VICTORIA: Have you tried out a Vision Pro yet? ZAMINA: I have not. Have you? VICTORIA: No, I haven't tried it. And I haven't ever talked to anyone who is using it. So, I'm curious. One of these days. ZAMINA: I've met a few people, or I know a few people who have tried it, mixed reviews. Obviously, the cost is a big prohibitive factor at the moment. But I think that there's the novelty around the device, which makes it really exciting right now. But I don't really see, like, in my life any practical use cases. You know, even if it was cheaper, if it was the product that it is today and the price was even half of what it is, I still don't really understand how I would benefit from it, but I'm definitely curious to see where it goes. VICTORIA: Yeah. Like, I want the ability to, like, have a big screen without having a physical screen, but I don't want to wear goggles. ZAMINA: Totally. VICTORIA: I also get nauseous. Like, I actually tried to do a virtual hangout during COVID, and I got some 3D, whatever, virtual glasses. And I got so [chuckles] nauseous so fast. I was like, this isn't...why does anyone enjoy this? And apparently, that's something that happens to women more than men because of hormones. ZAMINA: Oh, that is so interesting. I did not know that. VICTORIA: But I really enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you again so much for joining us. WILL: I'm so excited for your launch and your product. I think it's going to make a huge impact in that area. And I just can't wait to see where it goes. And thank you for building it and stepping out and taking that leap to do it. ZAMINA: Oh yeah. Thank you both so much. It was a really great conversation, and yeah, I'm excited to get launched and excited to stay in touch and see what we do from here. VICTORIA: Yeah, we'll have to bring you back in a year and see how things have progressed. ZAMINA: Yeah. Let's do it. Let's pencil that in [laughs]. WILL: 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. You can find me on Twitter @will23larry. VICTORIA: And you can find me @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.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

Host Will Larry is joined by Priyanka Mahajan, the founder of Ammi, a startup dedicated to supporting new and expectant parents with expertise, support, and community. The conversation highlights the challenges of parenting, the absence of a universal parenting manual, and how Ammi seeks to provide a personalized co-pilot for parents navigating the early stages of parenthood. Priyanka shares her journey from a career in strategy consulting and corporate roles across different countries to founding Ammi, driven by personal experiences and the desire to make a meaningful impact on parents' lives. Priyanka discusses the core challenges she faced as a parent, such as dealing with the loss of control, the transition to motherhood, and the importance of acknowledging and navigating the mental and emotional shifts that come with it. She introduces the concept of "matrescence," likening it to adolescence, as a significant, yet underdiscussed, transition into parenthood. Priyanka's personal struggles with anxiety and the impact on her parenting led to the realization of the need for support and resources for parents, particularly in the areas of mental health and emotional well-being. Ammi's mission is to fill the gaps in the current parenting support ecosystem by providing accessible expert advice and resources. Priyanka emphasizes the importance of mental health, the creation of a supportive community, and the development of a digital platform tailored to modern parents' needs. Finally, she outlines the challenges and opportunities ahead, including fundraising, product development, and establishing trust with parents. Ammi Follow Ammi on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. Follow Priyanka Mahajan on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript: WILL: 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, Will Larry. And with me today is Priyanka Mahajan, Founder of Ammi, a startup that provides expertise, support, and community to new and expectant parents. Priyanka, thank you for joining me today. PRIYANKA: Will, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. WILL: Yeah. I'm so excited to talk to you about parenting. Anytime I get to talk about parenting, I light up, so I can't wait to talk to you about it, pick your brain, and just hear any advice you have for me. PRIYANKA: [laughs] That's great. It's always nice to talk to people who get the challenges, so very happy to dive into it. WILL: Yeah, definitely. Me and my wife we always talk about we wish kids came with a manual because you just don't know what you're going to get. Out of my three kids, they're all not even close to being similar in any way. PRIYANKA: No, that's totally right. You know, this manual that most people or most parents wish for after their kids are born doesn't quite exist. And it's also deeply personal, and that's exactly what you mentioned about your kids being different. But each parenting experience and, you know, giving birth is different. Each birth is different. Your body is different. So, all of that is quite deeply personal. And that's essentially what we want to do with Ammi is be able to provide this co-pilot to expectant and new parents to guide and help them through that early phase. WILL: Yeah, oh, I can't wait. Before we dive in too deep, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, your background, and kind of how you got to this place? PRIYANKA: So, first thing, I suppose, is I am Indian. I was born and raised in India, and I've lived in about four countries, including the U.S., and now live in London. I started my career in the strategy consulting area and then moved into internal strategy roles for telecoms and tech industry. And I had my children through that period of working for big corporates and essentially, you know, was busy climbing the corporate ladder or moved into different roles. I have headed teams in marketing, in commercial, in other areas like operations. And eventually ended up being a director of strategy for the EMEA region for this large American telecoms company. And it was then that COVID struck and essentially that's basically where there were big, large life events, which I'm happy to get into later. But essentially, I resigned from my role and decided to focus on more meaningful ventures. So, here I am [laughs]. WILL: Yeah. So, were there any challenges having a career and having children? There were challenges. PRIYANKA: That's right. WILL: What were some of the challenges that you faced? PRIYANKA: I had my kids really close together. I had a very difficult birth the first time around. I had a very easy pregnancy but a difficult birth. And especially for parents and, you know, women who are mothers, who are giving birth and previously have had this illusion of control, and, you know, being organized and in control and being on top of everything to suddenly not having anything in your control because that's what kids are like. And not having that acknowledged and, you know, you still expect to do everything in a certain way, and you want to sort of do everything right. And that's just not how parenting is. There's no one right way, and it's okay to make mistakes, but also, equally, it's important to not know that you're failing. And I think that was a challenge that I had equally. You know, I went back into work part-time. And here in the UK, I had a fairly generous maternity leave policy, which was great. But also, having to sort of think about putting my career on a bit of a back burner while my kids took priority was a transition. And just making that transition mentally, emotionally, physically in your life and making space for this new world is quite challenging as, you know, you're sort of grieving the life you had. But you're also embracing what's here and being surprised by it and figuring out who you are. And that the term, actually, is known as matrescence, right? So, it's this process as we have adolescence. It's becoming a parent. It's, you know, its own transition. And I don't think that's been talked about enough, certainly not when I had my kids. So, I wasn't actually aware that that's what I was going through. I just kept thinking that I'm failing. And I think those memories and that experience was deeply embedded in my sort of process. And I went on to, you know, sort of do other things and go back into my career. And I never really dealt with the emotions that I felt at that stage of my early parenting journey. And it really all came to light sort of when Ammi was born and hatched in the incubator that I did after I resigned from my corporate role at ZINC, where, you know, the focus was on children and young people's mental health. And in that, I sort of, like, started to research the space and go like, where do you actually start with children and young people? And you start with the parents at that very early stage. So, that's sort of, like, what led me to almost kind of revisit my own experiences in that phase and think, you know, there was something there. And if we had probably done things differently, maybe the outcomes might have been different for our family, the way that we did things or the way that we dealt with each other in those early years. Because the other thing I learned as well while I was doing my research in that space, which I didn't know at the time when I had my kids, is that children have their emotional development take place pretty much by the time from zero to three years of age. So, it's a very significant period of sort of secure attachment, as we call it, and things. So, that's, again, a lot of concepts that I wasn't familiar with, and I wish that I was kinder to myself. And that's basically what I want to do for the community that I'm supporting through Ammi. WILL: That is such a good point because my oldest son he has a lot of tendecies that are like mine. So, we're a lot alike, and I find that mental health aspect of that, like, how can I help him the most? How can I help him to where he doesn't have the same failures I have? Like, it's not easy being a parent because it's like, do I step in? Do I not? Do I let him fail? Do I not let him fail? So, like, and like you said, I think parenting is probably one of the most lonely things you can go through at times, depending on who's around you, if you have family around you, friends that have children, or not. So, I'm so glad that you said that you're diving into that mental health aspect also. PRIYANKA: Yeah, that's a key pillar of what we do and what we're building essentially at Ammi. So, the mental health aspect is one that isn't really talked about, and there's a lot of stigma and shame associated with that, in that early stage especially. And the figures itself are astounding, you know, in the UK itself, it's 1 in 3 mothers experience perinatal mental health issues. In the U.S., I think it's 1 in 5. And 1 in 10 dads experience mental health issues. And there is a certain shame in addressing that. You're meant to be happy, and you're meant to be blessed. And which is true, you are blessed, and, you know, there are moments of happiness. But this is a massive transition that you're going through. And it's an interesting word you used as well: lonely. So, in our research and interviews with the countless scores of, you know, tens of moms that we have interviewed, the most common word was isolation. It's exactly that. Like, it can feel like a very isolating experience without the village or the community that kids were meant to be raised under and parents were meant to be supported through that. But that is no longer the case in the way that we live today. And that's where there's an opportunity to provide that to parents in a way that works with our modern lives as well. So, for example, what we're doing at Ammi with the mental health particularly is we have developed an evidence-based solution based on acceptance and commitment therapy, which is essentially an incredible sort of modality of therapy that addresses life changes in particular. It helps you figure out your values and your parenting values and helps you set goals and actions in line with those values. So, you feel like you have meaning even though your life is changing, and it still feels significant. And now, of course, you're in charge of a child. So, how do you ensure that you're not losing yourself but equally you're bringing your own values to your parenting? I just found it fascinating. And we're doing this in a digital way. We're doing this in a way that works for the modern parent. So, it's bite-sized. It's on your phone. You can interact with it in the middle of the night when you're feeding the baby, or you're, you know, sort of up at the odd hours of the morning with your child. That's essentially, like, what we're doing with that particular mental health piece. WILL: That is so good because I think even you said the values, like, I think we forget about that easily. And that is everything we do, like, the way we talk to our kids, the way we're raising them, the way we discipline them, what school they're going to. But I think so many times we run out of mental headspace to even talk about those things and to write them down. So, oh, that's so good that you go through that, and you help them discover what their values are because I think sometimes, as parents, you can lose that. Even if you had the values before you had kids, it's easy to lose those values and to remember why you're doing it. PRIYANKA: That's right. And, you know, in some cases, you know, you forget, and you don't even know really what your values might be, right? Like, you're just kind of doing things because you think you should. And should is a dangerous word as well because it's sort of, how do you uncover what it is that you really want to do as well? And what's authentic to you as an individual and as a parent? So, for example, I'll give you one, like, structure, right? Like, I, as a parent, can get so hung up on structure as a value. I forget about connection. And, actually, if I had to, like, sort of rank these, you know, connection would be higher on my list, personally. And it's like, why am I not acting on that? And so, what values essentially do is give you this compass in terms of, like, deciding what course of action to take and how you prioritize things. And, equally, it's also important to note that, you know, values do shift and change. So, we say in this world that it's imagine that you're looking at a globe, and a globe sort of, like, spins. And there may be some values that are topical now, but others that come to fore. So, you've got to, like, hold them lightly as well and acknowledge that they do shift. And all of this may seem sort of a bit indulgent to talk and think about, but, actually, it's really relevant in your day-to-day and also in the way that you live, you work, you parent. It's all very relevant. And I think it's important to bring light to that in the parenting context as well. WILL: That's really, really good. So, I wanted to kind of dive deeper into those pillars you're talking about. I know you said mental health was one. What are some of the other pillars that you cover? PRIYANKA: You know, the other thing that I've lived through and I've discovered in my, you know, research with my community and with my parents is it's one thing to sort of work on yourself, right? But if the system around you is a bit broken, it's not all in your control. So, what we want to do as well is, like, fill some of those gaps that currently exist in the system. So, for example, you know, here in the UK, since COVID especially, and for a few years before then, you know, we rely on the public healthcare system. And there have been significant challenges with funding there, which means that a lot of the support that was available to birthing parents, to birthing people are just not available anymore. There's no continuity of care, the kind of support you could expect in terms of checks and, you know, seeing the same person, for example, seeing the same midwife. That just doesn't exist anymore. So, what you end up having is a lot of parents who are trying to do their best, but essentially scrambling around looking for solutions, whether that's, like, for sleep, or breastfeeding, or nutrition and taking care of their baby. And that is what essentially results in those feelings of failure. So, what we want to do at Ammi is actually provide that practical expertise as well in the most accessible way. For example, here you could go private. You could see these experts privately, but that's really expensive. And there's nothing really available in the middle, I mean, apart from, like, the free Instagram reels and things. So, what we want to do is be able to provide, again, convenient formats where you can directly access these experts. And what I mean by that is, and what we already do here at Ammi, is we run online workshops with these experts, and these are currently actually free for parents to join. So, we rope in experts who are equally passionate about this. So, they could be experts in pediatrics, or they could be experts in physical and maternal health and wellness, but also infant health and wellness. And they run these sessions for us, and parents can join and essentially interacting live. It happens usually after bedtime, so when parents can attend. And that's one format. What we also want to build within our digital solution is a way for parents to access these experts on chat, text messaging, as well as book appointments with them, but, like, they may be shorter form appointments, so they're not as expensive. And it's virtual, which, again, cuts out the cost of actually having to see the expert in an office or in a space that is charged, so that helps with some of the cost. Equally, it helps to have experts who can do this on their downtime on chat format. So, that also helps with the cost. So, we're trying to experiment with these different formats that also work from a parent standpoint of convenience. So, you're not taking time off work to see these experts. So, you're not doing that in, like, daytime hours or when your baby's sleeping. So, it's really about convenience and accessibility. WILL: That sounds really good. I like the access to the people that know what they're talking about, especially late at night and things like that. That sounds so amazing because there's so many times that, like, I remember whenever, Cruz, he's my oldest, he just wasn't feeding with Katie. And we were like, we don't know why. And the first couple of weeks, I think we went into a doctor's office, like, three or four times just to make sure that he got back up to his birth weight. And it was scary. It was like, are we doing anything wrong? Like, what do we have to do to get him to this place and stuff like that? So, I think sometimes it's just like, "Hey, you're doing the right thing." Like we had one pediatrician...we moved from North Carolina to Florida, and we kind of miss our old pediatrician. Because when we walked in, she was just like, "Hey, he's healthy. I could tell he's healthy, and you're doing all the things right." It was almost like a weight lifted off our backs just to hear like, "Hey. You're doing okay." So, that's good to hear that you're providing that to parents and stuff. You say you're based in London. PRIYANKA: Right. WILL: And I'm just being honest; I have no idea what the medical situation looks like there. Can you explain what that looks like? Because I know what it looks like in the U.S. But I don't want to be naive and say, "Oh, it's the same." What does it look like when you say someone can't have access to a private provider? PRIYANKA: So, it's not that they can't have access. So, historically, in a lot of countries in Europe and here in the UK, we have what is called the National Healthcare System or the NHS. And, essentially, what that means is that your healthcare is covered by the state, which is incredible, actually that, you know, you don't really need to spend on private insurance or private healthcare. So, for most parents, including myself, I gave birth both times through the NHS. What that means is that, you know, you sort of, like, you get into the system. You go to your GP. You don't actually get a pediatrician, which is also something that I wasn't used to in India, but there's no pediatricians. And they have a system that you go through. So, you know, you get assigned a hospital, or you can choose a hospital that's local, but generally, you get assigned to a hospital. And you sort of give birth there under their condition. So, there's not a lot of agency and that, I guess, is the key word because you are under the healthcare system. And essentially, that is the majority. The overwhelming majority of people give birth that way in the UK. I think 12% of the UK has private insurance cover. But equally, even if you have private insurance cover, which means that you can choose your medical care or you can, you know, sort of reimburse, get reimbursed, and things, a lot of them don't actually cover giving birth because it's not a medical condition. So, you have to pay for that privately, and it does cost quite a significant sum of money if you want to go private. And there's just a few hospitals, actually, in London. There's not that many hospitals outside of London that do this either. So, it's not a very accessible option for most people because it's expensive, and there just aren't enough places that do that. So, in terms of that continuity of care, you have your GP, but, you know, the GP, essentially, has 10 minutes per appointment. So, you don't get a lot of time with your healthcare provider. And equally, when you have your midwife appointments to the NHS now, you don't see the same person, so, you know, through your scan. So, it's generally someone different. You might get lucky and see the same person. So, it's quite intimidating, I have to say, you know, you don't know really, like, what you can, cannot ask for. It's not very clear what your rights are, even though, you know, they do try their best. But because of the funding shortages now and the way that the system is going, people really are struggling to access care to the level. I mean, even, you know, the midwives are leaving the NHS. There's 29 out of 30 midwives leave the NHS after two years of training, which is shocking given, you know, the investment that they make in time. So, it is getting pretty dire, and people's birth stories are just getting quite horrific. And it's become commonplace. It's not unusual anymore, where it used to be quite unusual. You know, there's this perfect storm building right now here in the UK of people who are struggling to get the care they need. And paternity services, in particular, are also suffering quite a lot. And there's this dearth of services, right? And people are starting, like, there are a lot of, like, sort of, like, now smaller companies coming up, trying to, like, fill in this gap through employee benefits, which is one of the routes that we plan to take to market as well. But also, birth coaches is, you have the birthing coaches and doulas. And this is a very small market here in the UK, but it's growing in, like, triple digits year on year. So, it's really interesting to see the private world is stepping up or is trying to step up to the challenges of what the public system isn't able to do anymore. Does that help, or [chuckles] does it sort of give you some context? WILL: Yes, that helps tremendously because here, where I'm at, it's mostly employee benefits, and it's more private. We still have so many issues because I was thinking what you're doing. I was like, oh, that's so helpful, even with what we're dealing with, but it sounds like even next level. Like, I can't imagine taking my kid to the doctor and seeing a different doctor every single time because sometimes that's part of the helpfulness is they're like, "Oh, we know your kid. We know what they're going through. And, actually, I probably treated them the last time they were in here, so I kind of know." Because even if you have notes, it's tough to understand exactly what you saw. Yeah, I could see the benefits of what you're doing. So, that's amazing. PRIYANKA: Yeah, that's right. And equally, like, with the employee benefits now, this is one of the benefits. The top five benefits that employees want from their employers is more family support and more time around that. And we're also seeing in terms of, you know, employee retention, right? And keeping the gender pay gap at the minimum. It's about retaining also your, you know, female employees, especially mothers who tend to leave the workforce after having children, even here in the UK. I know it's actually a lot worse in the U.S., is my understanding. But even here in the UK where you do get more benefits in terms of maternity leave, it's still the cost of childcare. And there are so many other issues about just not having that support system that completely sort of overwhelm the families for one of them to have to drop their career, which is unfortunate. So, I think there is definitely a play here for employers to step up here in the UK and in Europe to this challenge of retaining their employees through benefits such as this. Mid-Roll Ad: As life moves online, bricks-and-mortar businesses are having to adapt to survive. With over 18 years of experience building reliable web products and services, thoughtbot is the technology partner you can trust. We provide the technical expertise to enable your business to adapt and thrive in a changing environment. We start by understanding what’s important to your customers to help you transition to intuitive digital services your customers will trust. We take the time to understand what makes your business great and work fast yet thoroughly to build, test, and validate ideas, helping you discover new customers. Take your business online with design‑driven digital acceleration. Find out more at tbot.io/acceleration or click the link in the show notes for this episode. WILL: What are some other ideas that you have? What does success look like in the next six months, five years for you? Where are y'all going? PRIYANKA: Well, in the next six months, I think it's really about getting the product to market, like, getting our MVP and product out there. You know, we're doing things in a very scrappy way at the moment. I am, for all practical purposes, a solo founder, and I've been bootstrapping. What we have developed, you know, with my fractional team of clinicians and my CTO is we have a really high-spec figma prototype of what our solution would look like. We have our content ready and the mental health, the evidence-based mental health program ready. It's now about getting that on a platform, and that is going to require some funding. So, I'm in the process of fundraising. So, ideally, in six months, we would have raised enough money to get that MVP out and to get this product in the hands of our customers, our customers being potentially employers. But also, you know, within the Ammi community, I've also been building a community as I've been running these online sessions and creating that side of content as well on the practical expertise side. And we've got about 500-plus parents around London who have attended our workshops, and most of them are part of this community. And, you know, they're the ones that we've sort of tapped on for our testing. For also the content that we developed, we handed it over to them and, you know, we ran a trial and with some great results. So, that's basically the kind of work that we've done so far over the last year. And, really, in the next six months, it's about getting the product out, raising some money, and, yeah, hopefully, being revenue-generating. So [laughs], it's a lot to look forward to, a lot to do. WILL: It sounds like that's that next heel, the next step, so...and it sounds fun. You help parents with their core values. What are some of the core values that you use and that you have that you make decisions through every day? PRIYANKA: It's about authenticity. That's the guiding principle. It's about being authentic to our mission, being authentic to what the customer wants, you know, first and foremost, and authentic to what my vision for Ammi is, which is to be that co-pilot in those early years. And how that sort of helps me is even when I look at funding, and I look at the type of funding or who we, you know, want money from, I know that, you know, sort of, we can't really dictate that at this point. But I really don't want there to be a risk of mission drift from what we're trying to do here. I've lived that life before where I've done things to just sort of tick the boxes. And I do genuinely think that there is a commercial opportunity here as well within the mission that we're trying to achieve because, you know, from employers to parents themselves, they're spending money on this now, and, you know, the tide is turning. So, for me, authenticity is number one. And, generally, like, you know, when I am faced with any decisions, whether that's a product-based decision, I'm like, right, like, what's more important to our community? What do they really want? So, it's all about going back there and seeing, like, what is going to give them most value? It's about understanding when we look at the development or getting team members on board, it's, you know, who believes in the mission? So, that generally is what guides me in my day-to-day decision-making process. WILL: Yeah, I really like that because I feel like, especially with social media, there's a lack of authenticity sometimes. Sometimes, I feel like society wants you to be this superhero as parents. And sometimes it's like, I think I have some of my best moments with my kids and some of my worst times with my kids. Just, like, I think sometimes just being honest about this is where you're at as a parent. You're doing okay. Maybe you need to tweak this, this, and this, but I think that's a good thing to go by. So, I really like that you said that. PRIYANKA: Well, there's lots of ways to make money. Entrepreneurship that might be one of the things you do to make money, right? But it's not the easiest way. You know, I gave up my corporate career for a good reason, and I want to remember that. It was to sort of achieve big things but being authentic. So, that's really, like, where we are at. WILL: I love it. Love it. I usually ask this question around careers, but I'm going to ask it for parenting. So, if you can go back in time and give yourself advice on your parenting, what advice would you give? PRIYANKA: I would just say chill out [laughs]. You know, I think I was so hard on myself, right? So, for example, like, you know, when my son was born, my firstborn, I was so hell-bent on breastfeeding and, like, every bottle I had to give him a bottle day three because, you know, like you, like, my son as well he lost a lot of his weight, and we got worried. And he wasn't feeding. I didn't have a supply. So, it was so hard, and I felt like I failed. Every time he didn't sleep through the night, it felt like I failed. So, I sort of took responsibility for all of it. Like, you know, this is, you know, that I'm failing this next project. But I wish I could just, you know, sort of go back and be like, this is all part of the journey. And this is a, you know, sort of a small person that you're trying to raise, and they have different rhythms, and it doesn't go by the book. So, those are some of the things I would tell myself is just to be kinder. And, you know, actually, that's another thing that we do at Ammi is, like, just that self-compassion in our program about, like, just being easy on yourself for those years. I had to sort of come back and, you know, as you said, bounce back. And, again, all of that there's just incredible amounts of pressure on parents. Yeah, I think I would just tell myself to be kinder and be patient through all of that and things will work out. WILL: I appreciate you saying that because I needed to hear that, to be honest with you. [laughter] Yeah. Just, I think, my kids are 4, 3, and almost 2, so, like, 22 months. So, "It's going to be okay, and chill out" is really good advice for me to hear at this time. So, I appreciate you saying that. PRIYANKA: Yeah. And it will be, you know, I mean, I know it's hard. Like, it's as they say, the days are, you know, long, and the years are short. But when you're in it and when you haven't slept in a week [laughs], it can feel like it's just dragging on forever [laughter]. And that's one of the hardest challenges, right? Sleep deprivation. So, sleep workshops are the most popular, as you would expect. You know, we get sleep experts to come in and talk about it. And, generally, you know, what's really interesting is, like, through a lot of these workshops, what they all end up really saying is that everything is normal [laughs]. So, it's not like one sort of thing is normal. And just having an expert say that to you and say that to our parents who join these calls is just incredibly relieving for them that they're not, you know, in some race and competition to see whose kid has slept through the night or, like, what's, you know, what I'm doing wrong, whose kid is eating the most variety of fruit and veg, you know, that's not what it's about. It's all normal. And they just go away and sleep well that night, right? Like, after a workshop because they're like, this is great. I'm doing it okay [laughter]. WILL: Well, once again, that's good to hear because, like, last night, I think I got five hours of sleep because of my son. PRIYANKA: Ooh. WILL: Thank you for saying even that because, like, you question yourself a lot. Like, I know I do. I question myself a lot. Am I doing the right thing? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? So yeah, that's really good to hear. PRIYANKA: Yeah, it's a common ailment that [laughs], you know, sort of goes around the parents of our generation, I think. WILL: Yes, definitely. What are some of the biggest hurdles you see coming up? PRIYANKA: As a startup, there's hurdles every day. You know, there's things sort of that we're...challenges that we're facing, but really in, you know, in the current climate, I think it's about securing the right kind of funding and the amount of funding we think we need in order to get the product developed and go to market. That is a big hurdle. I have, you know, sort of some plan B set up in terms of how we could, you know, sort of test our solution in other ways and in scrappier ways. And we're kind of working on that alongside it. But it's a difficult environment for startups right now, as you might have been aware. And especially with healthcare and wellness, in particular, it's been pretty hard over the last couple of years. The problem hasn't gone away, you know, so mental health and, you know, sort of wellness was a thing two, three years ago. And then, you know, it's all shifted to climate and sort of climate tech, which is great because that is also a problem, but equally, we haven't fixed any of this yet. And there are, I think, opportunities to do things in this area that might be missed if the funding doesn't come along. So, funding is definitely one thing. Yeah, in terms of hurdles, if we do get the funding, it's about making sure that we get the right team together. As I said, I'm a solo founder, so that in itself is a hurdle every day as I try to sort of juggle the bootstrapping and the endless to-do list that I have with Ammi. So, I'd say, yeah, I think those are really the big things that I'm focusing on. WILL: Yeah, I love that. And yeah, I agree. Funding is probably, yeah, that's a big hurdle. And as a parent, it's much needed just to hear those things. So, I hope it all works out and it goes well. PRIYANKA: Yeah, no, thank you. And sort of showing that it's a need, but also, it's a commercial opportunity, right? Like, parents now in the UK, the spending that parents do in that first couple of years that their baby is born has skyrocketed. And more and more, you know, as we see, like, parents coming into sort of this journey now, are aware of the impact that poor sort of mental state can have on their children. It's not like how it was when I gave birth. Like, I think a lot of parents now are well aware, and they want to sort of be fit, not just physically, but also mentally for this journey. So, there's a lot of trends that are in our favor. So, you know, when it comes to things like spending on services rather than goods, you know, that's going up, the awareness around mental health. Unfortunately, the incidence of poor mental health is also going up. And so, people are coming into this, and there are multiple challenges, you know, that contribute to that as well. And the risk factors, unfortunately, is another thing. So, for example, a lot more parents are getting into parenting after having a difficult fertility journey or having experienced loss or, you know, neonatal ICU moments. So, all of that is really stressful to deal with. And then, you know, then have this child to sort of look after when you're barely healing yourself. So, I think people are recognizing the need for this, certainly, the parents are. It's about making sure that investors see that now as well as a commercial opportunity. WILL: Yeah, I really like that. Yeah, I totally agree with that. What motivated you to start your company? Like, was it just the experience that you went through when you were raising your kids, or was there a certain thing that motivated you? Because, like you said, entrepreneurship is not easy at all. So, what motivated you to want to start your company? PRIYANKA: You know, as I mentioned, I was, you know, sort of on that sort of corporate ladder for many years. And while I was, you know, even doing that, I think there was a certain restlessness inside of me. Am I living my most authentic life? Like, is this how I want to spend my days? You know, and I have a family now. Is this what I want to be doing when I'm not at home? And that was sort of bothering me. And then, you know, 2020 happened, right? And I'm a statistic of the great resignation, but, like, it really was triggered by some significant life events. So, very, very early, like, almost before any of the lockdowns and start of the pandemic, in February 2020, my husband got really sick with COVID and was on a ventilator for ten days. They didn't even know really what COVID was at the time. He was one of the first, like, maybe 20, 30 patients in London in hospital. And yeah, we almost lost him. So, that was big. And, you know, at the time, I was dealing with a high-pressure job and very young kids at home, you know, sort of at the end of my sort of mental space as well. And I took some time off and just decided then, like, I think I need to sort of pivot now. I need to, you know, life is too short. So, I resigned from my role a few months in and decided to focus on more meaningful ventures. And that's when I stumbled upon ZINC venture capital. So, ZINC venture capital is an incubator accelerator program here in the UK. And they invest in mission-based businesses, and their '21, '22 cohort was actually, as I said earlier, you know, on children and young people's mental health. And within that, you know, while I was researching it, I think it just brought up these memories of being, like, in that early phase of parenting. And I started meeting a lot of moms who were in that phase and just realizing that these are, you know, capable women who are at their most vulnerable physically and emotionally at this time, and they're being let down. You know, these families are being let down by the system, by the environment that we live in, and, essentially, feeling like they're failing. And I recognized that in my own experiences. I had a lot of anxiety, as I, you know, sort of mentioned with my firstborn. And I think that did impact. And, to date, we're sort of probably dealing with the impact of the way that we were as parents, you know, with him. And I just wish I had done things differently or I knew different. And that's really, like, what has motivated me. And I see, you know, these moms, like, looking for solutions and these dads as well, like, sort of more aware of these issues, but they don't have the support. So, that's really, like, where Ammi was born was, you know, during my time there. And it was also a process of, like, finding my own personal mission, you know. And I feel deeply motivated by this, by solving the problem really. I'm not so married to the solutions. It really, for me, is about the problem and making sure that we get the right solution in people's hands. WILL: Yeah, I really like that. I think 2020 was rough for everyone. I think it was really, really rough. It was rough for me. Like you said, it was rough for you. But I'm hoping that we're going to start seeing...because someone was telling me about trends that happen. Like, we usually go through a really rough time, but then that's usually when we get creative solutions afterwards. And so, I'm hoping that's what we're seeing, you know, with your company and many others, which is those creative solutions from 2020. All that that happened I'm hoping that we're starting to see more and more creative solutions. So, I'm so glad that you're starting this and that you stepped out and that you're doing this because I think it's going to benefit a lot of people. PRIYANKA: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. It's good to hear as well [laughs]. WILL: Yeah, definitely. So, clearly, there's a need for your solution. So, what are you hearing from the investor side, and what does that look like? PRIYANKA: It's interesting. With things that have to do with wellness or sort of parenting, and, you know, as we now call it, like, femtech, there seems to be this perception that it's a crowded space. I can see why people say that, you know, maybe there is this sort of influx of, you know, your Instagram feed full of, like, momfluencers or messages that are coming across on parenting and things. But if you really ask parents if they feel supported and they have access to what they need, they're still struggling. And they're still finding it difficult because every parent's journey is a little different, and they need that direct access. That's still quite hard to get. Like, you could do your research, but equally, that takes up time. So, I think what we're doing differently at Ammi and what we're really doing here is to make that access to experts as easy, convenient, and affordable as possible, and I think there's definitely a space and market for that. Making that access sort of affordable and easy but equally, like, having that support, having the coaching support and continuity of care, which doesn't exist anymore, and not a lot of people are doing that yet. There are a few startups that are sort of entering the space. In the U.S. I think, actually, there's been more proof of this concept working with the incredible work that Maven Clinic has done, for example. But in the UK, it's still pretty niche, and in Europe. So, I think there's a potential for a big player to come in and take up that space. And that's what I'd like investors to know is that: the commercial opportunity is not to be understated here in terms of what that is. There's, you know, 600,000 new parents in the UK every year. And if you think about it, if even 10% of those are spending what is the average on the baby's first few years of life, which is anywhere between 8,000 to 15,000 in that year, a percentage of that does go to services. That already is a huge annual market that one could be looking at entering, sorting, and de-fragmentizing or...well, that's not the word but organizing because it is a very, very fragmented space. And there is opportunity to make that a lot easier for parents. That's kind of the message I'd like to get out there. WILL: As a parent, I'm glad you said that because one thing I keep hearing you saying is experts, experts. I like that your platform has experts, and I can trust their info. Because I get some info from social media, but sometimes I'm like, can I trust this information? Is it real? Is it AI? Whatever it is. So, I like yours that it's like, we've added these solutions, and they're experts. So, that's, yeah, I can see how that's so beneficial. PRIYANKA: Right. And that is what most parents tell us is: trust is such a big factor. Parenting is, like, one of the biggest things that you'll do in your life, you know, and trust is essential because you don't just want to be trying things at random or, you know, sort of sometimes you do that, but it's not ideal. And most parents will pay for that, too, you know, they will pay to talk to an expert. They will pay for that. They might not pay for the free information that comes in their way. And this is why, like, content is one part of a strategy, but it's not core to it. It really is about creating those personalized journeys. And maybe this is another conversation as well for next time, but it really is about, like, scaling that. And that's really interesting in how we plan to do that as well. How do you scale personalized solutions? And I think that could be really interesting. WILL: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I could definitely see if you could figure that out, wow, it opens up so many avenues for you. So, that's amazing. So, with your solutions, how have you validated that this is what your users want and this is what they need so that they're successful? PRIYANKA: We've been doing a process of validation right from the beginning. You know, I've run ideation sessions—co-creation sessions. I've done maybe 20-plus interviews with mums and run surveys with over a hundred parents to really understand what it is they need. So, we developed, like, the version one of our prototype based on the top problems that parents told us they were having, the kind of ways in which they wanted to access help. So that's where, you know, sort of the creative ideas around text chat and workshops and ways to make it more accessible came about, even things like having all of that on your phone because most parents will be on their phone in those early years and not so much on desktop. So, that was another thing that informed all of that. So, we did two rounds of testing, and then we did another third round as well to ensure that we were, like, tweaking our prototype to really make it exciting for parents. And once we developed our mental health or sort of a mental health coaching platform, we also ran that on a two-week trial with a bunch of Ammi sort of community members. And the results were, like, really reassuring and almost overwhelming to some extent with, you know, some moms saying that, you know, doing some of those exercises help them sleep at night. And some others said, "Oh, wow, these sections really speak to me on values and goal setting." Some others said that "You know, it really helped me provide that moment of calm and stop my ruminating thoughts." And all of this is really encouraging to hear from people directly as they've used your content and your platform. So, that's sort of, like, the validation we've been through. And I think it's always going to be a process. You know, even when we come out with version 1, we're going to learn what people are interacting with most. And, you know, I'm really interested to see how they react and their behaviors around the text chat particularly. So yeah, it's one of the best parts about building something is that interaction with your users and community. Like I said, it's 500-plus moms who are part of this community now and who've been informing the solution at every step of the way. WILL: I love that you took that step to validate it. Priyanka, thank you for joining me today. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on Twitter @will23larry. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.Sponsored By:thoughtbot: As life moves online, bricks-and-mortar businesses are having to adapt to survive. With over 18 years of experience building reliable web products and services, thoughtbot is the technology partner you can trust. We provide the technical expertise to enable your business to adapt and thrive in a changing environment. We start by understanding what’s important to your customers to help you transition to intuitive digital services your customers will trust. We take the time to understand what makes your business great and work fast yet thoroughly to build, test, and validate ideas, helping you discover new customers. Take your business online with design‑driven digital acceleration. Find out more at: url tbot.io/acceleration or click the link in the show notes for this episode.Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

In this episode, host Victoria Guido interviews Chris Pallatroni, creator of The Standard, a platform dedicated to sharing self-care stories. Chris shares how his interests in gardening and mental wellness fueled the inception of The Standard, which was initially intended to be a landscaping venture. He delves into the hurdles faced while developing the platform, highlighting the struggle for product-market fit and the critical role of integrating technology with human connection to enable meaningful support and interactions. Chris underscores storytelling's pivotal role in enhancing mental health, advocating for the sharing of personal triumphs over adversity to motivate and assist others facing similar challenges. He envisions The Standard as a vast collection of genuine, relatable self-care narratives aimed at reducing the feeling of isolation among individuals. Through inviting users to share their experiences, Chris seeks to leverage human connections to cultivate a community supportive of mental health and personal development. The Standard Follow The Standard on LinkedIn, YouTube, or Instagram. Follow Chris Pallatroni on LinkedIn. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript:  VICTORIA: 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, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Chris Pallatroni, Founder of The Standard, a storytelling platform where people share stories about self-care. Chris, thank you for joining me. CHRIS: Yeah. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure. VICTORIA: Wonderful. So, before we dive into all about The Standard, why don't you just tell me a little bit about what's going on in your world outside of work? Anything fun? Anything exciting? CHRIS: Yeah. Well, first of all, I've got two boys, so for anybody that's listening that has kids, I mean, let's be honest, your life is completely chaotic. So, I've got two boys, one's almost 12, one's almost 10, so all boy, all the time. That's just another way of saying our house is really loud, and there's just tons of stuff happening, sports, whatnot. I also have a wife, a beautiful wife. She's my better half. I've been with her for 24 years. So, between that, I got three cats, not that they take a lot of energy, but there's just a lot of love in our household. So, that's sort of, like, the family side of things. And then I'm an avid gardener. I'm really big into mental health and wellness, which, as we start to talk about The Standard, will become really evident. So, I'm all about just doing the things that you need to do to take care of yourself, so lots of running, lots of working out, lots of just being in nature. I know you're a surfer, so, I mean, let's be honest, water is amazing. So yeah, anything I can do to, like, duck out into nature and spend time with my family. Honestly, there's just not enough time in the day. VICTORIA: What is growing in your garden that you're the most proud of? CHRIS: You don't want to get me started on gardening. So, before I started The Standard, honestly, I thought I was going to be a landscaper, and the name of The Standard actually was going to be applied to a landscaping company. So, I am a professional landscaper. I took all the classes: soil, science, irrigation. I got the degree in design and maintenance. I have a tiny, little property, but I have about 700 plants on my property. So, I know everything on the roses, and grass, and camellias. I mean, I'm that guy that, like, likes to see...nature is just amazing, first of all. And it also has very therapeutic qualities when we start to talk about mental health and well-being, birdsong, water, greenery, sunsets, sunrises. I'm also developing a piece of land. We have a house we're building, and it's three acres. So, I'm in the process of building out, like, what I'm going to just describe as the most amazing garden anybody's ever seen. I really take a lot of pride in gardening. I'm very disciplined and very specific on how things grow. And so, I've got a property that's about an acre and a half I'm planting, which will probably have, like, 20,000 plants on it when it's all said and done. VICTORIA: So, you have 700 plants now, and you plan to have 20,000, so you don't want to choose favorites. There's nothing...you got to, like, spread the love around. CHRIS: God, it's like saying, which child do you love more? I mean, right now on my property the ones that currently stand out is I've got a couple of these Eden Rose bushes that I've trained to climb up. I've got three of them. The one in the front of my house is about 20 feet tall at this point. So, I've trained it to grow up the entire side of my house. In full bloom, it will have about 300 roses on it in full bloom. And so, an Eden Rose has about a 220 petal count. So, it's a very dense rose. They are a pain in the butt to prune, but they're pretty spectacular in full bloom. VICTORIA: That sounds really beautiful. And I hope you send me some pictures [laughs] after the show. Send them to me in an email because I want to see...I love growing, but I do not have a green thumb. I usually try to pick what is most likely to survive [laughs]. CHRIS: That's my wife's strategy. She's like, what can I not kill? And, surprisingly, even with, like, cactuses, she still finds a way to kill some of them, so...[laughs] VICTORIA: Some people have it, some people don't. I do agree on the therapeutic side. And I'm curious, too, having this background, how did you go from landscape and this interest in growing things to starting businesses? CHRIS: Yeah, you know, the landscaping actually picked up at a much later stage. So, if I rewind my entrepreneurial journey, it started in 2004. I got mixed up with some guys as I was finishing up my degree in economics and finance. I was like, look, I don't have, like, a 4.9 GPA, so I'll probably need some sort of internship that starts to separate me. Anyways, got mixed up with some guys that were running a franchise painting company, took part in that, really loved the idea of seeing something grow. Did really well on that internship. You really ran, like, a mini-painting division of this larger company, so knocking on doors, producing painting jobs, so forth, and so on. At the end of that, which was a really intense about a year internship, they said, "Hey, we're going to build this marketing company. Do you want in?" And I was like, "Let's do it." And so, what I really wanted...and that was, like, my first major let's start a business. And I loved the idea of taking something from an idea to...the idea was, could we sell it for a hundred million dollars? So, the money was attributed to it, but I wanted to see something grow. And so, we went at it for, like, 15 years. We did end up selling, not at a hundred. We sold it for, like, 70 million. But we did really well. It was a bootstrapped company. We built this massive national marketing company. It's sort of like match.com for contracting. You can take a consumer that's interested in remodeling their house and connect them to a local contractor. And we built that all from, like, a bedroom with plyboard and literally rotary phones all the way to a national brand that's...I think we became the second largest in the space. It's still the company I still work for. As I build this other business, I'm still working at that. We're pushing 250 million now. But the concept of building something and selling it I thought was really intriguing. Landscaping was just a hobby that came in much later in my life. Thought that was going to be my next venture. I decided to pivot after getting all of the education, mainly because I wanted to build something that had application for everybody. And what I started to realize in landscaping is the average consumer doesn't have $50,000 to dump on their backyard. And what I didn't want to do is work for rich people and wineries. I really wanted to build a magical, little space for the average person. But I also started to realize most people don't have that type of income, which then pivoted me to The Standard, which I thought had more universal application. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. So, I love that because there's, like, a common phrase you hear about tech where every company is also a tech company now. So, it's really interesting to hear and, like, to hear about you think about growth and how it applies to businesses and that care that you put into it as well. CHRIS: Yeah. I mean, I think everything is tech-related in a lot of different ways. I don't know, I think at least with The Standard, like, there's such a human element, and I still need to figure out so much about it. But as tech-driven as we get, we're still a social species. We still want human connection. And maybe at one point far off in the future, like, a robot can replace some of that, but the human connection, the human story, the ability to feel connected and not isolated or alone has very profound impacts on people's mental health and well-being. And so, as much as I still have to figure out, I try not to over-index on too much tech and try to keep things very authentic and organic. Because I think when you do that right and you can do the matching of a consumer that's interested in a specific story with someone that has gone through that experience who can share that story, that connection is very profound. So, I do think it is a blend of tech, but I try not to dive too deep into the tech side of things. VICTORIA: Right. It's more that you need technology as a tool to solve the problems of the people that you're trying to work for or trying to, like, provide services for. So, it sounds like, to recap a little bit, you were part of growing this company. You were able to build it and sell it for 70 million. And then, you decided to, like, keep doing it. You're like, that was fun. Let's do another one [laughs]. CHRIS: Well, I mean, in all honesty, I think some of the challenges become when you're starting a company, which is incredibly invigorating. But if you're starting a company in an area that you don't have expertise...so, although I know a lot about mental health and wellness, I've read hundreds of books. I interviewed lots of people. I hired you guys to do some market research for me. So, I'm not naive, but I've never built a platform that does what I'm trying to do. And in all my research, I haven't exactly even seen a platform that does exactly what I do. So, it's hard to have that perfect measuring stick. And so, you know, what I've realized along the journey is it's really easy to spend money, and it's really hard to find product-market fit. And so, what I've chosen to do, and maybe it takes a little bit longer to get there, is rather than, like, go all in, quit my day job, and really just financially stress the crap out of myself and my wife, I still have a day job. I get paid exceptionally well. I'm very senior in my company. It's not overly stressful, but it also pays the bills. And so, I think one of the things I've learned about being an entrepreneur is you've got to enjoy the journey. And so, I do enjoy what I still do, and it serves a very valuable purpose. And it gives me still the freedom to play around with The Standard, to still do the things that I want to do. Sure, I can't burn as many hours on it, but at the same time, if I quit this job, my runway would highly compress, and maybe that's good for some people, but there's still just so much I have to figure out. So, I need the runway. VICTORIA: I can relate to that, and I think that's a really common story for people who have a great idea, and they need the time and space to find the right product-market fit to move forward and then make the big investment with your time and all the, like, other financial investments you would need. So, maybe to go back to the beginning a little bit, what led you to think of starting The Standard in the first place? CHRIS: So, I'll try to say this as succinctly as possible. Life is really hard for a lot of people, you know, and you can dice it up in a lot of different ways, whether we're talking about, like, you know, global events that happen, be it war, be it COVID, you know, anything on a very large level. But even on an individual level, like, we lose people. People are dealing with weight issues, how to eat healthy, stress. There's a lot. When we start to think about the concept of mental health and well-being, it is overwhelming. And I'm built for discipline. I've always been that way. I'm incredibly disciplined as a person. Some things may feel like they come a little easier to me, but I also look at like, oh my God, I got to worry about like, how do I sleep right? And how do I eat right? And then, how do I exercise? And then you got to be grateful for stuff, and then have social friends, and then be with your family. Like, I mean, adulting is tough; let's just be honest. And so, a lot of the concept behind The Standard was I have the freedom to explore a lot of this stuff. I've had the luxury to read hundreds of books and, meet so many people, and really invest a lot as to educating myself about these various topics that I think are important. I also have the luxury to deploy a lot of these strategies in my personal life, and it's a privilege to be able to do that. And a lot of people don't have that. They're struggling. They're working multiple jobs. They don't have a lot of time in the day. Maybe they're commuting. They don't have the luxury to take care of themselves. And that's just the Western world. Do you want to, like, dive into the Global South or start to look at, like, Ukraine or stuff like that? Like, there's just people, like, literally just trying to make it through the day, let alone be grateful about something or eat healthy. And so, I started to realize, like, God, if I think this is even remotely challenging, what does somebody else feel about their mental health and well-being? And so, that was sort of the jump off of, like, it is tough to maintain your sanity. It is tough to do all of those things. Is there a way that I can make that process easier for people? And so, that just led to a rabbit hole that started about six months before COVID hit, so late 2019. I spent a lot of time researching. I read several hundred books on habit formation and neuroscience and all these different topics. And, I mean, to the point where I was reading every morning, typing notes of these books, mind mapping this out, looking for the connection of all these topics. And what I was trying to figure out is what is the least amount of information somebody needs to know to have the most profound effect on their life? And what I came to as a conclusion was most people will not read a book or listen to a podcast. Some will, but the average person won't. They don't have the time, the desire. But everybody's got a problem they're trying to solve, whatever that problem may be, and if you could take somebody that has a problem and you could find a way to connect them to somebody who had that problem but is a little farther down the road. So, let's pick something pretty simple, like weight loss. I've interviewed a lot of people on my podcast this year that have lost 100 pounds, which is a really big number. And even if it's not a hundred pounds, you want to lose 20 pounds. The point being is that weight is a big issue for a lot of people. It affects their self-esteem, their body image. There's a number of things that, like, impact that. But if you could connect somebody who's really struggling to lose weight with somebody who has lost that weight and could share their story, how they felt, the habits they've deployed, and most importantly, they could talk about that experience, what would happen is the person that's been through that issue, if you will, would use a set of language that would be very specific and would resonate with the person that hasn't overcome the challenge yet. And this is what's so unique about it is: I don't know what that particular challenge is like. I've never had that particular issue. I won't know the language to use. But if you've ever talked to somebody who has lost a significant amount of weight, they will use words, and they will give examples that only somebody who's struggling with it would resonate with. I remember doing an interview, and a lady was like, "God, you know," she's like, "I was so overweight. I would be very thoughtful of getting on the ground because I wasn't sure if I could get back up. Or I'd be very thoughtful of the chair I sat on in case it broke." I mean, these are the things I'm like, unless you're overweight, you don't think about that. And so, my idea was like, could I take somebody who's overcome some of these problems, get them to share some of those self-care stories that they used to solve whatever that problem was, and then create a mechanism in which somebody who was struggling with, in this case, weight loss, that they could type in, "How do you deal with weight loss?" and they could connect to other people that have developed the habits and the mindsets that helped them through that? And weight loss is just an example, but you could pick anything from racism to depression to domestic violence and so forth and so on. The caveat there is you need a mechanism to connect the person that's overcome the challenge with the person that's still going through it. So, you got to get a lot of people on the other side of the tunnel to share their story and to know that they're doing it maybe not to monetize it but to do it for the benefit of other people who were like them at one point. VICTORIA: Yeah, if I can try to summarize what you meant when you said, like, what's the least amount of information to have the most profound realization on how to impact your life? It sounds like what you discovered was that it's human connection to other humans who have had the same experience and survived it and overcome those challenges. CHRIS: Yeah, without a doubt, because I think when you're struggling with an issue, you tend to think you're alone. You tend to think the way you're thinking about your addiction to something, or your weight loss, or your body image; you tend to think, oh, this is just me. And what motivates somebody who's in that mindset is to hear somebody else who can use a certain set of language that helps them realize, wow, I'm not alone. There is other people that have gone through this particular issue. And what that does is it starts to open up the door, open up their mind in a way of, wow, change can happen. Now, you can't copy other people's habits. It doesn't exactly work that way. But what it can do is at least give you a starting place to say, "Here's somebody who I feel is like me in some ways, and they've made it to the other side. Here's some of the habits, and the mindsets, routines that they specifically have that have helped them get through this. Maybe I can try some of those on, at least as a starting place, and then I can modify them as time..." So, it really starts with the mindset and the clarity of I'm not alone and maybe there is some hope. And I think that's a really big thing when you're talking about some of these very large issues that people run into on a day-to-day basis. MID-ROLL AD: Are your engineers spending too much time on DevOps and maintenance issues when you need them on new features? We know maintaining your own servers can be costly and that it’s easy for spending creep to sneak in when your team isn’t looking. By delegating server management, maintenance, and security to thoughtbot and our network of service partners, you can get 24x7 support from our team of experts, all for less than the cost of one in-house engineer. Save time and money with our DevOps and Maintenance service. Find out more at: tbot.io/devops. VICTORIA: So, what lessons did you learn from your previous experience in starting a business are you taking into what you're doing now with The Standard? CHRIS: Oh my God, so many lessons. Well, I mean, here's the brutal reality is: I've chosen to go in an industry that doesn't exactly have carryover effects. I was in marketing, dealing with homeowners and contractors, and now I'm diving into mental health. So, I, unfortunately, don't get to, like, flex my black book and, you know, voilà myself into, like, success here. I've also chosen to go from marketing and generating leads to now I'm trying to build a platform, which apparently is one of the hardest things you could possibly do. But here's one that I really do take away, and it's probably not in the way that you actually intended that I would answer, but here's the biggest lesson I've taken away. When I built the first company, Jason Polka was our CEO, and Gabe Luna...it was three of us that really started it. So much of that entire journey...especially after the first five years of building the infrastructure, and you started to move out of the basement, and you had a corporate office, and, you know, you felt a little bit more legit. You started generating 10, 20 million dollars a year in revenue. I'd say from year, like, five through the time we sold it, I just wanted to sell the company. So much of the conversation became around, when is this going to happen? And it was always a grind. I mean, building a company is just tough. I mean, maybe some people, it works out, and everything's great, but it's really tough. A lot of businesses don't succeed, and we were very lucky that we did. But so much of it was me just trying to check off that final box of, like, I just want them to say, "We did it." It wasn't even really the payout. It was, just, I want to know that we were capable of doing it. And what happened is there was so much of that ten years where I wasn't enjoying the journey. I mean, don't get me wrong, like, I love the people I worked with, some great friendships. But it was so much of like, how do we fast forward this a little bit? And so, once the day happened that it was sold, and especially as I started to embark on this other side, I said, look, I'm now in my, like, early 40s. Like, that can't happen again. I mean, maybe I never sell the next company. Maybe I'm working on this for a decade or two decades. I need to enjoy the journey. Like, my kids are young once. Like, I've got this wife. I've got this life. Like, selling a company is great, but it is not the defining thing of your life. Like, you still need to live your life. And so, the big lesson I took away from it is how do I enjoy the journey as I go through this process? And I'll be honest, that is a big mind f, if you will, like, it's not an easy thing to do because as entrepreneurs, you're very much like, well, what metrics, and what's the next milestone? And dah, dah, dah, dah. And, like, dude, it's brutal. So, I'm really trying to, like, enjoy the process, even if the process is a struggle. VICTORIA: What are your top strategies for enjoying the process or making it fun? CHRIS: Well, one, take care of your mental health and your well-being [laughs], whatever that is for you. I do a lot of weekly planning. And so, when I do my weekly planning, it literally will come down to I look at my schedule, and I make sure I get my runs in there. I get my gardening in there. I get my time at my kids' events, my time with my wife. I get my workouts. I make sure I eat healthy. I do everything that I can to take as good of care of Chris as I possibly can. You know, a cliché is to say, but you can't pour from an empty cup. So, if you want to give your best to your company, your family, your friends, your community, whatever, like, you really do need to prioritize yourself. Self-care is not selfish. So, that's the number one thing I do. I'd say the other thing, too, is how do you deal with anxiety? How do you deal with this constant...and anxiety is one of the most pronounced mental health issues on our planet. 350 million people deal with this annually. It's easy to start to think about the future and to fill in the gap with the worst-case scenario, to get anxiety of, like, oh my God, I didn't do this, or I shouldn't be doing that. And so, learning to just take a deep breath, do the best job you can. Let your intuition carry you, and not be so judgmental when it doesn't turn out the way you want it. Like, I wish I had much more success at this stage of the business than I do. But I'm still making forward progress, and I'm enjoying the process, and I'm learning stuff. And could I be faster? Yeah, probably. So, I try not to over-index on what I'm not doing, and I try to just take the best next step possible and just trust it will all work out but be okay if it didn't. That's easier said than done sometimes, especially if you've never had success. I think part of it is the fact that I've been successful in selling a company. I mean, in a lot of ways, like, hey, I know I could. Maybe I can do it again. Maybe I can't. And I'm okay either way that that pans out. VICTORIA: I think that part about being okay if it doesn't is so important. And tying that together to what you mentioned earlier about being financially stable enough to invest in what you want to invest in, like, it's a really big, important thing for founders. And I think if you're constantly worried about how am I going to pay myself? How am I going to pay my bills? You're not really going to be focused on building the best product, or actually solving the problem, or being willing to pivot in a way you need to to create something that is going to last and be really impactful for people. I think that's really interesting. In climbing, there's some...it teaches me that because I have some projects that probably I might never complete them [laughs]. They're really hard. The people who actually create videos of themselves climbing it are, like, six feet tall, and I'm never going to be six feet tall, but I just try to enjoy the hike up to the climb. I enjoy going up to this little boulder and just, like, touching it and feeling it. So, I'm curious if you could say more about how are you thinking The Standard will solve that problem and, like, create that connection for you and, like, solve your anxieties as, like, a founder about, is this company working well enough? Do you connect people in that same way as well? CHRIS: There's a famous quote that says, "It takes seven years to become an overnight success." I mean, maybe in some ways, it even takes longer, depending on what you're trying to build here. And, I don't know, success is somewhat arbitrary. You know, like, I remember when I got the call that we sold our first company, which was the moment I was waiting for, I remember getting the call. I was driving home. "Hey, we did this. Here's your payout." I did not feel any more successful in that moment. Like, it wasn't like that checked off the box. I'm like, well, there I go. I'm super successful now. It was like, now what? You know, my kids didn't, like, hug me and be like, "Oh, successful dad sold companies," you know, it wasn't. It was like, you know, life continued. And it was just such a powerful reminder of so much of the significance that we put on things is like, it's us. Like, I don't want to say nobody else cares because, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs are trying to build products that, you know, change the world, make a meaningful difference to people's lives. And we do put a disproportionate burden on ourselves of, like, God, if I don't do this, maybe it just doesn't get done. I think, for me, when I'm building The Standard, I try to, one, I always try to think of like, enjoy the journey. Am I doing things that I enjoy doing? So, we started a podcast last year. I mean, The Standard, like, so just a quick on timeframe, I mean, I spent a year building it. So, I did all this research for about two years, including hiring you guys. I got to the place where I'm like, okay, I think I got a concept, not product-market fit. I just got a concept, and I want to start to build that out into reality. Hired a designer, really great designer. Found him, you know, cold-called him, got him involved. Took us six months to build literally, like, a wireframe of like, it could look like this. And then I was like, okay, great. Now I'm going to go sell that to a VC and, like, convince him to give me millions of dollars. And I was like, and then I quickly realized, like, you absolutely have nothing at the moment, Chris. Like, there's nothing here. There's, like, you think you got something, like, you've got nothing. Like, there's no users. I mean, you got literally nothing here. And I was like, okay, great, so nobody's going to give me any money for this. Where do I go from here? And then I was like, well, I need to build something to see how people interact with it. So, then I decided to go through a no-code platform when I spent ten months teaching myself how to build something using no-code. So, I used bubble.io, which was a really great product. Now, that was a big mind cluster right there because I'm not a coder. I'm sort of the visionary of a product. That's, like, I'm not the technical expertise. But I didn't have a CTO. So, I was like, I need to solve for this problem. So, I taught myself how to use this. That was incredibly painful but incredibly rewarding because I know how to build something. So, then I built this, and then we beta test the launch, but now I'm like, okay, [inaudible 24:46] I built this, but I don't even know if it's a product-market fit. I don't even know if I built the right thing yet. Now, I got to see people who will interact with it. And then I was like, well, then how do you even get this thing to be exposed to the world? Like, it is just every step along the way; there's some mountain that seems insurmountable. You find a way to get to the peak, and then you realize there's a larger mountain that's [laughs] right behind it. And so, then it led down to, like, how do I get people to be aware of what I built? Played around with that for six months. And then, I was like, I got to start a podcast, like, now I'll interview people. And so, it's just a constant iteration of, like, toying around with some stuff. And look, there's plenty of things I do that I'm like, that clearly fails. And I think the question I ask myself a lot with the things that don't work is, did you give them enough time to be successful? Did you go about them in the right way and then decide to pivot? And, like, you won't always know all the answers to that. So, I think the point in giving sort of that timeline right there is it's a constant evolution, and you just do the best job you can and be okay with how the sort of the cards fall. VICTORIA: Yeah. And if you fail or it doesn't work how you expect it, it's like, well, did I learn something? And did I have fun doing it? [laughs] CHRIS: And if you take care of yourself along the way and you haven't sacrificed your own mental health and your well-being, your relationships with your kids, your partner, whoever it is, then at least you, like, if you fail, you're not like, and now I'm 30 pounds overweight. I'm miserable. My mental health is suffering. Like, you've got to balance that out. And so, I think that's going back to enjoying the journey as like, don't lose sight of the things that are really important. Building a company, yes, important, and for some people, it is really important. But at the end of the day, your health, your sanity are the most important things that you have. And so, I see all too often that a lot of entrepreneurs and just people in general are willing to literally kick that to the curb to chase some prestige, some recognition, some financial gain. And look, man, like, you know, there's plenty of rich people out there that are completely miserable, that are unhappy. I always think of Steve Jobs a lot. He had really lot of good...he did a commencement speech at Stanford when he was diagnosed with cancer. And, I mean, this is one of the most successful business people on our planet. Apple is the most successful company today at three trillion dollars or so market cap. And here's the visionary of the company. And when he was diagnosed with cancer, all he wanted was more time. It wasn't like, oh, I need more time to build another product. It's like the dude just wanted to be around longer. It didn't matter how many billions of dollars he had or products. Those were things that sort of fell to the wayside. It was all about his health. So, point being is like, just over-indexing on success and not really looking at what is success; success is your mental health, your well-being. That is real success. VICTORIA: Yeah. Wow. I can relate to that, too. I had, like, at a very young age, decided, oh, I'm going to be, like, an IT project manager. And then I got my PMP certification and I was like, oh, well, what do I do now? [laughs] What's the next thing? And it's just like, keep going and going and going. So, enjoy the moment, you know, love the journey, and prioritize that above those things. And that includes, like, learning, learning all these different parts of, like, how to build a business and how to build product. It reminds me of a journey that we hear where you could have a great idea and you're like, oh, I need to design it, and then I need to build it. And then, like, a year later, you're like, wow, I haven't talked to any users yet [laughs]. It's like, I don't actually know anything about what people want. And that's a really difficult thing to do. And it's a very emotional journey as well to go out and talk to people and try to ask questions in a way that doesn't give you false positives or false negatives and being able to leave your ego to the side and actually connect with people and hear about their problems. So, how has that been for you? Has there been anything in your discovery process that has surprised you and caused you to pivot in direction? CHRIS: And although you didn't ask the question in this way, a recommendation I would have for a lot of people and, you know, if you read The Lean Startup, it's a good book. It's one worth reading. I read a lot of product books and stuff. I would say, like, imagine you have no money. How will you test your concept? Like, so, like, I came into building this with some capital behind me, my own capital. And it's just easy to spend money, and not that I was naive to think spending money you do need to invest in some things, but I wish I had a lot less money than I did coming into it because I would have spent a lot less money. And I think you don't need a tremendous amount of money to start to get that user feedback that you're suggesting. I think there's some very organic ways that you could do it. And you really got to imagine, like, you have nothing. Like, how will you test this with $100? I was listening to a podcast episode the other day on the founder of Boston Dynamics. He was being interviewed, and it was a really cool one. Boston Dynamics is one of the leading robotic companies out there. And this guy had, you know, started the company 30 years ago, and he was walking through some of his early days. And he's like, he was talking about building the pogo stick robot and how he only had, like, I think it was, like, it was either a hundred or a thousand dollars to, like, build this robot, or maybe it was 3,000. It was a really, really low amount. And he basically was trying to build a robot that, like, jumped up and down on, like, a benign budget himself. It was a complete failure, but he learned some things through it. But he had enough success in that that when he then pitched that concept to the next person, I think it was, like, some congressional person, they gave him, like, a $250,000 budget, which was, like, back in 1980. But the point being is like, he had so little to start with, but he was still able to get some success. Versus if he had had 250,000, I don't know that he would have figured it out at that moment. He would have spent a lot more money. And so, I think for entrepreneurs that are starting something out, you're so right: the product-market fit is huge. It's hard not to get false positives. It's hard not to just hear what you want to hear. And so, what I've learned is that, like, there's a difference between what people say and what people do. And what you need to be doing is paying attention to what people actually do, not what people say. I interviewed lots of coaches across the planet. I'd share this idea. And, I mean, I had a phenomenal, like, 90% of them were like, "Chris, this is amazing." They would share some of their personal videos with me. And I'm like, wow, God, like, everybody thinks this is a great idea. And then, I started to realize like, it's probably because I'm decently looking. I can talk to people well. Like, there's a little bit of a me factor. I was like, well, what happens when I take me out of the equation? Will still 90% of people still think it's a good idea? And the answer was like, no. It completely changes. If I'm not there to navigate or provide the narrative, which, as entrepreneurs and founders, we're typically the storyteller, but if you remove me and I just show you it, you'll be like, "Ah, it's cool." But, I don't have enough of the expertise in product design and the sticky factor. I haven't found the right combination for somebody just to interact with and be like, "This is pretty sweet. I want to use it." So, going back to your original question, is like, you need to do more of that, and you need to learn how to do that stuff. I am still like you at surfing. I'm a novice at this. Like, I'm out there trying, but I am crashing all the time. And I am constantly trying to get back up and figure out how can I do this better and not provide an illusion that I'm getting it right, really paying attention to what do users actually like and not like? I am far from figuring that out. I'm still dedicated to doing it, but by no means have I hit a home run here. VICTORIA: What keeps you motivated? What keeps you going and trying to solve that question? CHRIS: You know, it goes back to an original statement I made with you is like, life is so hard for so many people. I jokingly will tell people, I said this a lot when I was interviewing coaches, is like, look, I'm very aware of my privilege. I'm a white, male who lives in Northern California in the U.S. I was born in the '80s. Like, I did not grow up with, like, this insurmountable, you know, adversity that I had to overcome. Like, there's a lot that was easier for me to obtain in my life. And look, I work really hard. I am incredibly focused. I put in a lot of work. I'm very focused in that way. But I also just recognize, like, it might have been different if I was born somewhere else, if I looked a different way, if I didn't have access to the resources that I did. And so, my point with that statement is that I am a massive believer that whatever excess currencies you have, time, capital, energy, whatever it is, it is our obligation to help as many people on this planet in whatever way we think we can help them. There are 800 million people on our planet that don't have clean drinking water, which is mind-boggling to me, considering the age we live in. I mean, we take it for granted you turn on the faucet and water comes out. That is a luxury that we have in living in the United States and in the Western Hemisphere. I mean, when you think about 800 million, that's almost 1 out of 8 people that don't have clean drinking water. And that's just drinking water, let alone access to vaccines or whatever you may choose. And so, the point that I'm making is that for those of us that have excess of anything, and maybe it's just time, or maybe it is you have a lot of money, we should be doing the best job we can to help other people in the ways that we think would help them. For me, I'm focused on mental health and well-being. For somebody else, that might be providing good food, or medicine, or whatever it may be, and that's okay. We just need more people contributing to, hopefully, you know, lift as many people up to the point that we all have good lives. That's what keeps me going is the fact that, like, I don't take for granted for one second how easy my life is. VICTORIA: I love that. And I like that you're trying to build technology that helps people and isn't just trying to, like, make the most money you can, or try to, like [laughs], flip it around or just share something that, you know, is really personal to you and, like, really is meaningful to you. So, I really appreciate you sharing that with me. What does success look like six months from now or even five years from now? CHRIS: Look, success for me is pretty much what I've stated this whole episode is, like, I'm taking good care of myself. I'm very present in my life with my wife, my kids, my friends doing things that make Chris happy. That's what success looks like. Now, clearly, we're here talking about The Standard and growing, and so I'd love to see more progress being made. I'd love to see more users on the platform. I'd like to be learning and figuring out, how do I help people share their story in a way that empowers them to share that story? How do I get people to want to share their story that don't feel like they have to be paid to do so? You know, what I find so interesting when I talk to so many people and, you know, I ran 45 episodes of our podcast this year. So, I talked to a lot of people that have gone through some adversity, and they'll all say the same thing, "Dude, I will help anybody that is going through what I've..." Like, nobody wants to see somebody struggle, especially when you know how hard adversity is, whatever that may be for you. You don't want to see other people struggle because you know how painful that is. I want to see people who are willing to quote, unquote, "give back" and say, "Look, if I can share a few things about how I've navigated my adversity, whatever that adversity is, because it will benefit other people going through this, I don't need to be paid for that. I just want to share it because it's sort of the right thing to do. It's sort of a pay it forward." I think in today's age, like, in the creator economy, like, everybody's like, "Well, I'm not going to help out unless I get paid." And, like, look, that might be a very privileged statement that I'm making, that I have the luxury. But when I build The Standard, right or wrong, and some people would argue, "This is, like, the dumbest business model ever, Chris," is like, I don't think about monetization. Like, I'm not like, how do I get paid on this? Is it ads? Do I charge people? Like, I'm just trying to build something that I think actually will help people, and I'm trying to do it for the right reason. So, it's people before profit. But, at one point, there has to be money involved to some extent. But I don't put the money part first. I put the people. How do I get that right? So, my hope would be, in 5, 3 years, whatever the time would be, is that more people buy into the message and they're like, look, if all it takes is me to spend 20, 30 minutes to create a couple of videos on my habits and share a little bit of my story, and there's a way to memorialize some of the things that I've learned for the benefit of other people going through it, that's great. That's a drop in the bucket of my time. That if enough people started to do that, it would send a signal to a wider swatch of our community, or people, or species that it's okay to share some of the things that make you who you are. And if you did that, it lets somebody else do that. And if you get enough people doing that, you build a phenomenal habit bank, if you will, of just stories that other people can leverage for their own benefit. That would be success from my perspective. I try not to attach a certain amount of users. It's really just like, can I start to convince more and more people that you probably already have some information that would be really valuable to other people? I'm just trying to organize it in a way that someone can find it, but I need people to share their story because the platform is not about me. Although I'm on it, it's not about Chris Pallatroni. It's about you. I mean, I'm sure you've gone through things in your life that you've learned, and you've navigated that. If you could share that in a way that was authentic and easily organized, other people would hear your story and be like, God damn, that's me too. I'm just trying to get more people to do that. That would be success in my mind. VICTORIA: Well, it reminds me of a program I'm involved with. You might have heard of Big Sister, Little Sister, or Big Brother, Little Brother. It's a mentorship program. So, you have a one-on-one relationship with someone who's...like, the little sister I have really reminds me of myself when I was that age, like, you know, early high school awkwardness, trying to figure out how to navigate friendships and family life and getting a lot of pressure on, like, what are you going to do with your career? Even though you're still, like, really young. So, it's interesting to think about how could you scale that and, like, have more content, like, take some of the little bits of conversations we have and, like, share that with other people who are going through the same thing. CHRIS: Yeah, it's exactly that. And there's lots of stuff out there. I mean, you think of, like, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous like, in a lot of ways, that is it. Or people that have gone through school shootings, like, they find a lot of comfort in talking to other people that have navigated that. Like, there is no topic that does not touch mental health and well-being. Like, there's none. Like, I mean, I've read them all. And so, it's just about taking people...and this is the beauty of it, like, sure, there are experts out there, Mel Robbins, Tony Robbins, you know, they've read. Their whole life is about self-development and empowerment. But if you take an average person somewhere in the world and maybe they have read notebooks on self-development or any of that, and you just start to dissect their experience as a human, what I know to be true is that they'll say, "I went through this," whatever this may be. And if you start to unravel the, how'd you cope with it? What did you learn? What habits did you develop? What mindsets did you develop? There is profound wisdom. It may not be textbook. They may not understand the science behind it, but what they will share is something that is very real and that it's said in a very authentic way. And the words they use are incredibly powerful that if you could just capture that in a very authentic way and store it, and most importantly, find a way to organize it so it's easy for somebody to find, that's what this is about. And so, there's lots of this that exist out there. There's just no central mechanism that tries to tie this all together. And so, that's sort of what I'm attempting to do. VICTORIA: That's really cool. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story and talking about what you've been building. Is there anything else that you would like to promote? CHRIS: No, not at all. I mean, I would just say, like, if anybody's interested, like, the platform that we have is thestandardapp.com. It's not an app; that's just the URL for it. Or you can find us on pretty much any social channel. It's just The Standard. We do run a podcast, which is The Standard Podcast, where we interview a lot of the coaches. But any one of those things will give you a really good idea of what we're trying to do. And if you feel like you've got something of value, we'd always love for more people to come on and just share their story in a way that's authentic to them. And that's really what we're about. VICTORIA: Awesome. Thank you so much. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with 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 X @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.Sponsored By:thoughtbot: Are your engineers spending too much time on DevOps and maintenance issues when you need them on new features? We know maintaining your own servers can be costly and that it’s easy for spending creep to sneak in when your team isn’t looking. 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Hosts Victoria Guido and Will Larry are joined by Trent Walton, CEO of Luro. Trent shares his journey into the design world, from his early fascination with typography and logos to co-founding Paravel. This agency later evolved into creating Luro, a no-code solution for building design systems and tracking their adoption across products. Trent emphasizes the importance of understanding the materials one works with in design and development and stresses the need for a holistic approach to product building. This approach blurs the lines between disciplines, encouraging a generalist mindset over specialization. Luro, as a product, stemmed from the realization that existing design systems often fell short in adoption and application, leading to a search for a more integrated and comprehensive solution. Trent outlines the functionality and vision behind Luro, explaining how it serves not just designers and developers but entire organizations by fostering better collaboration, documentation, and understanding of design decisions. Luro aims to streamline the creation and maintenance of design systems, making them more accessible and manageable, even for teams facing resource constraints. By incorporating performance, accessibility metrics, and the ability to track component adoption and integration, Luro provides a platform for continuous improvement and alignment with organizational goals. Luro Follow Luro on LinkedIn, YouTube, Discord, or Instagram. Follow Trent Walton on LinkedIn. Visit his website at trentwalton.com. Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript:  VICTORIA: 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, Victoria Guido. WILL: And I'm your other host, Will Larry. And with me today is Trent Walton, CEO of Luro. Luro is a no-code solution to build your design system and track adoption across your entire product. Trent, thank you for joining me. TRENT: Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. WILL: Yeah, I can't wait to dive into Luro and get to know more about the product. But before we go into that, tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you're based out of Texas. TRENT: Yeah, I grew up, lived here my whole life. I'm in Austin with the other co-founders, Dave and Reagan. Been a designer probably all my life, always been interested in, like, typography and fonts. When I was little, I used to buy badges for cars from swap meets and take them home, not because I needed, like, I had a car I was building and had any interest in, like, sandblasting or building an engine. I just liked the typography, and the design of the icons, and the logos, and all that kind of thing. And so, now it's evolved into me just being, like, a type aficionado and a graphic design aficionado, and then that evolved into, especially when I discovered the web in the early 2000s, building and designing websites with Dave and Reagan, who I mentioned. And so, we had an agency called Paravel early on and had a lot of time putting into practice kind of that design and development and building for the web. VICTORIA: So, your first interest in design came from, is it a car engine? Is that what I heard? TRENT: Well, yeah, my father is a mechanical engineer, and so is my brother. And they work on cars, have classic, like, old Mustangs and Cobras and things that they build in their spare time. And I have no interest in that kind of work [laughs] but grew up in that environment. And, you know, pre-internet growing up in the '80s, one of the things that really got me was the aesthetic and the design around those kinds of muscle cars, so, like, old Shelby or Cobra or Mustang Ford ads, just, I really got into that. So, I'd buy, like, car manuals for a few bucks, or if there's a Mustang Cobra and there's a cool, like, chrome snake logo with a condensed uppercase typeface or some sort of lettering that says, you know, "Shelby Cobra." And that's when I realized [laughs] where my interests lie. You know, engines are cool. They sound cool. Fast cars are cool. But I was just totally, you know, enamored with the typography and the design aspect that surrounded those things, and then it just kind of evolved from there. Anything else I could get my hooks into, I picked up on. VICTORIA: I love that because when I talk to people about design, for folks who don't have a background in it, they kind of think, oh, design, that's logos. You know, I'm redesigning my house right now. My husband is like, "Oh, it's picking the tiles and the colors. We can do that." And I'm like, "No, like, design, there's a lot more to it. Design is everywhere." Like, you can find design inspiration from car manuals [laughs], it's so funny that you bought those, or from random logo design and actually, like, really good design. If it's something that's designed well, you probably don't even notice it. You just flow and use the space or use the app as you're intended to. TRENT: Yeah. And I also think that getting inspiration or starting ideas out from anywhere but the medium you're working in might be a nice little trick to bring some, like, naïve, fresh perspective to things. So, I try to go back to that stuff as much as possible. I have heaps of manuals I've bought off of eBay in recent years, yeah, things you wouldn't think you'd find on, like, you know, whatever, a graphic designer's bookcase, just anything to sort of break the monotony or break my own little lenses of what a website should look like, or what a logo or a brand should look like, how to step outside of that a little bit. But it's funny because it really does go back to that initial sense of wonder I experienced at those really just, you know, we're talking, like, in a gross, swampy field in Texas with, like, funnel cakes being served at every corner, like, not the most slick, rad graphic designy vibe, but that's where it all started for me. So, I go back there as often as I can [laughs]. VICTORIA: So, how do you talk to founders or people who are thinking about building products? How do you talk to them about design and give them a where to get started approach? TRENT: I don't know that I ever specifically talk about design or even maybe, like, engineering or about performance. I talk about all those things, accessibility, et cetera. I try to blur those lines as much as possible. It's maybe an idyllic thing that I've had for years. But going back to the agency days, I'll call them the agency days, but up until, like, you know, 2015, '16, Dave, Reagan, and I ran an agency called Paravel. And by nature, the three of us are some sort of a hybrid between a designer, maybe, like, a front-end developer. You know, Dave's more of an engineer now. But we've all been very careful to make sure that we're generalists, which I don't know that that, like, career-wise that, might pay off long term, but I cannot work on the web any other way or talk about the web any other way. I've always felt like, I mean, there was the old, which we don't have to get into, gosh, but the debate on should designers code? But I think the essence of that is really, like, should we be familiar with the materials we're working on? So, anytime I start to talk about designing for the web or designing a product, you want to make sure everyone has a clear understanding of the environment that they're working with. So, is it, you know, a website? And is performance important? And is our site that we're redesigning is it performant now? Is it fast or slow? Or am I a designer who only cares, and this is a thing that I have to fight inside of myself all the time? So, I'm not trash-talking anybody, but, like, do I want to load a bunch of fonts and cool images, and is that my KPI is how interesting and engaging the visuals are? Which is a great one to have, but it also, you know, while you're talking about design, you have to consider all of these other things that can define quality for an experience. Maybe those other things don't matter as much from one person to the next. But the more they are in front of me, the more they evolve the way I perceive what I work on. And so, I try to never really isolate any kind of aspect into maybe, like, a stage or a sprint that we're doing as a team. It's just sort of this holistic kind of hippie vibey way to look at sites, but I want to make sure that it's always, like, we're always starting from a very, very broad place that involves every aspect, and all team members and stuff like that. VICTORIA: Well, I love that because I try to think about that in the same way from the other end, like, on the operations perspective when you're talking about site performance. And, you know, like, is the site responding fast enough? And it comes back to the question of, like, well, what is the experience, expectations of the user? And what's important to get done on the site? [laughs] And having those conversations, like, early on and integrating all these different teams from the design and development and operation side to have that conversation so everyone knows what is the goal of the site and what is the important aspects of the user experience that the system needs to be able to support? So, I also like that you said that it's like, well, should you be familiar with the materials that you're using? [laughs] Thought that that was really cool. Like, I'm actually...my husband and I are renovating our home. And I'm talking about why we should invest in design [laughs], and part of it's because there's things to know about the materials. Like, if you're choosing a floor for your house, like, the designers will know, like, what's the durable ones? What's the ones that are going to fit your need, and your cost, and your budget? And so, like, they don't necessarily need to be a person who's going to lay the floors [laughs], but they need to know what to expect out of what you decide to use. TRENT: Yeah, it's, like, all of these constraints. And so, being familiar with the real-world implications of the decisions we make, you know, inform that. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's pretty similar, too. It's like, well, you need this floor because it's more durable in this climate or whatever, same thing for, you know, the websites that we build. It's all contingent upon the outcomes that, hopefully, we can mutually agree on. You know, there's kind of a general sense of, like, performance is important, and accessibility is paramount and extremely important. But then there's some nuance to that as you get into some smaller decisions. So, having these kinds of discussions early on and frequently and almost...the way I like to think about it is rather than, like, a check-in where we say, "Okay, this is it," but having a place where we can all look to check in and find information and share information that's maybe not so fast. One thing I like to think about is things get lost in chats and maybe even tickets, so as you're closing tickets and opening tickets. There's a bug. I solved it. It's gone. Can you send me this logo? Can we tweak this? These micro changes they open and close very, very quickly. And so, there's this firehose that happens. And so, I find that having a place separate from that for discussing these things and remembering these things, and referencing these things while we are in our code editors or inside of our Figma or any kind of design tool that we use to sort of cross-reference and simmer on things as we think about the decisions that we have to make, as opposed to just knocking them out super quick, always being mindful of those constraints. And again, yeah, the [chuckles] materials we're working with, whether it's just, you know, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript or whatever, but all of those things. It's good to be mindful of that. WILL: I know you said that you've been in design for a while, and so I love just picking the brain of someone who's been into it a while and see how far we've come from, especially just the 2000s. So, in your opinion, with design, how do you feel about where we've come since the beginning of tech to where we're at now and, also, I guess, where we're going with the design? TRENT: Yeah. So, I guess I can really just frame...this is going to help me remember just framing [laughs] where we were. I started off on Homestead, which is sort of like GeoCities. I was in college. I graduated, and I think it was 2001, maybe 2000, anyways. And it was mainly just taking images...I didn't even have Photoshop at this point. And you realize you could, like, tile a background for a build your own website. Homestead was one of those kinds of deals. And I thought that was very interesting. So, I had this cheap digital camera. It took a lot of cords to figure out how to, like, port that onto this old, crappy Hewlett Packard computer that was, like, a hand-me-down. Fast forward a couple of years, I had graduated, did not study design, so I'm all kind of self-taught or just taught by the web, the peers, the information that has been shared and been influenced by. But Dreamweaver was out, and Macromedia was huge, and I loved Fireworks. And so, Dave Rupert, I paid him $80 to teach me HTML [laughs], and so we've been together ever since. This is right out of college. And so, the tools that we used there were pretty rudimentary, but Fireworks was rad. Like, it was kind of web-based. It felt like it made more sense. I love Photoshop, and that's kind of, like, a primary graphic design tool that I still use to this day. But early on, it just felt like everything was so harshly limited. So, if you had any kind of idea that you wanted to execute that you could just draw on a piece of paper, mock it up in Photoshop, the amount of work that you had to do to get that to happen was either extremely high, or it was just impossible. And then, if it was impossible, I bet you can guess what we did. We went to Flash, and we made, like, a crappy video of a web page that was not accessible and really hard to use. I was heavy into Flash for, like, two or three years until kind of, as I had been warned by Dave that, you know, HTML and CSS are going to be the way the web works. But when I came back to that, there was this wonderful time where it felt like we were charting out every single...it was just new territory. It's like we had come to this other planet or this other world, and everything that needed to be done, we had to figure out how, like, getting web fonts onto pages, rounding borders. I mean, getting that done aside from slicing images in Fireworks felt like this new monumental discovery that changed the lives of many. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but in my world, it felt like that. And so, early on, you can look back on it and go, gosh, everything was a pain in the ass, like, living with all of these limitations. But for me, I do look back at it like that, but I also look back on it as this wonderful time where we were building the web that we're working on now. So, all these things that make designing easier and quicker come with some sort of a, you know, an evolution of your perception, and [inaudible 13:14] fond memories of work along the way. For me, it's sort of I've just always sort of been around working on the web and watching design evolve, and every little step maybe feels like a tiny one or a large one. But these days, it just seems like, oh, this is exactly how it should have [laughs] always been, like, convenient grids and convenient box shadow and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's been nice to sort of grow up only being a web designer. Like, I mean, I've done graphic design. I've done brochures and, print design, and logo design for sure. But, I have always been anchored to and centered around web design and thinking about things in the context of how they will be applied to the web first and foremost. 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. VICTORIA: So, what was the turning point for you that led you to found Luro? How did it all get started? TRENT: With Paravel, the agency days, we had a lot of fun. I think, for us, our big agency spike was when responsive web design came out. Ethan coined the term. There was a lot of people on the web, you know, a lot of agencies or a lot of teams, a lot of companies that needed to pivot into that. And so, we found this great working relationship with companies where we would come in and sort of had a little bit more practice just because we got in early learning kind of how to do that well, I think. And it was a sort of we're going to redesign a page, a homepage perhaps, or, like, a marketing page. You'll do that project; three to six months go by. And then the next thing turns into, well, we have this giant network of e-commerce stores. We have this giant network of pages with, like, download centers and support documents. And now, we need to make everything responsive, and it can be anything. We need to make everything accessible. We need to make everything performant. We need to update the brand on everything. And I don't think we're alone in this. I think this is the beginning of the greater design system discussion as it applies to the web. Obviously, design systems predate the web; design systems pre-date, like, 2012 or '13 or whenever we got into it. But projects started to migrate from, "Hey, can you design this really amazing, responsive marketing page," to "We have a system, and we need you to solve these problems." We love working on those problems. I still do to this day. But the reason why we switched from kind of being a, you know, individual contributor-type agency consultant type roles to building a SaaS product was because we were realizing that things got complicated...is a very, like, boring way to say it. But to get a little deeper, it was, we would see things not ship. So, like, our morale went down. The teams that we were working with morale kind of went down. And as I was digging into why things weren't shipping...and when I mean ship, I think, like, pages would ship, of course. Like, here's a page. It just needs to be built, somebody decided, or a new feature needs to be built. Of course, those went out. But the idea of, is our design system or the system that we're designing launched? Is it applied? Is it fully adopted? Is it partially adopted? It never felt like the amount of traction that we were promising or that we were being asked for. And I don't mean we, as in just the three of us, but the entire team or the entire organization who, in many cases, all were bought into the idea of design systems. So, what we found was, when things got real, and we had to give up things, and we had to work on things and prioritize things, it became much more difficult to work in that capacity, probably partially because of the cross-discipline nature of those things. So, as opposed to what I consider maybe a miserable way to work in many cases, is the classic; here's my Photoshop comp. And I have a red line document JPEG that I will give you, whatever engineer I'm working with, or it's myself, and I'm just giving myself a red line document, but you're just going through and trying to make those things match. And that is sort of not fun for the team because now we're just sort of chiseling each other and sort of, like, going through and critiquing our work over and over versus really kind of in the spirit of prototyping and inventing together. I find that products are diminished when you do that. So, as you try to get into this design system part, it requires a lot more insight into what everyone around us is doing, kind of, as I was saying at the beginning, how to have this cross-discipline view of what we are actually working on. And that view is what we thought, and we still believe in many cases, is absolutely missing. So, you can spin up a design system. And Luro is not the only design system tool. Of course, you can spin up your own. And what I mean by that is, like...I'm maybe going to answer, like, three questions in one. Maybe you haven't even asked them yet. But just to kind of frame this, if you ask anyone what a design system is, it might be a different answer. It might be these are my Figma components that I've created and I've shared out, and there's a public link. You know, an engineer might say, "Well, it's the GitHub repo of components that I'm actually using." So, the design is helpful as documentation. But the design system is the code, or the design system is the actual...or the actual components that are live that users see, which I would argue probably is the most accurate, just because we're talking about user experience impacting whatever business objectives we may have. So, those components need to make their way into live sites or products. So, finding out what that answer is, what's the source of truth? What is our design system? What are our components? What are our standards? You have to have multiple sources for that, just because there's multiple people with multiple opinions and multiple measures of success involved in those. And all of those opinions and measures of success, I would say, are valid. So, accounting for those and kind of crossing the streams, if you will, in one sort of central UI, we believed was crucial enough that we should jump out of the agency days and into a product-building scenario. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. So, you saw this pattern in the delivery of your work as an agency that made you want to build a solution to create better outcomes for a potentially exponential number of clients, right? [chuckles] TRENT: Yeah, hopefully. I think that working on how you work together as a team is vitally important, and if you can find the right environment, then the actual product will benefit. I mean, and I'm not even just thinking about these maybe soft things like, oh yeah, if engineers and designers can work together, the typography will be a little bit better, and the site will feel a little bit more cohesive, and it'll be maybe a little bit easier to digest. I believe that. But I also believe that there are people in organizations doing research, financial analysis, customer analysis, A/B testing, you know, all sorts of work that contributes to the decisions that we make about our sites and products that sort of just gets lost in the shuffle, in the firehose of the day to day. So, having something that takes not only a, I guess, what you could classify as the what for a design system, it could be the design of a component. Maybe it's actually even, too, as well, the code that makes up that component. But then there's this giant why. Why does the button look the way that it does? Why does a card have a border around it? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? These things maybe they come up during meetings. Maybe there's something that, as a designer or an engineer, I found maybe on the company's shared OneDrive or somebody mentioned in passing. Those things are vitally important, and they need to be, again, back to the morale and perception evolving; they need to be accessible to everyone. But it's a needle-in-a haystack situation. It's funny. We would consult. And one of my favorite stories is we were building this prototype. We were hired to build a prototype for a startup in Austin. They were on a big, open floor-plan office with the glass meeting rooms. And we were showing off our prototype, and we just felt really clever and witty about the way we were going to solve this and the pages that we were going to build. And who is a friend now, a person named Angela walks by, and she's like, "What are you working on?" And we told her what it was. And she says, "Oh, wow, you know, six months before you started contracting with the startup, we did this all, and we've user-tested it. Everybody's been reorged, and nobody remembers. But I have this PowerPoint I can send you, and it will show you the results. Some of these things you're doing are probably going to be great. The other things you should absolutely not be repeating these mistakes." And I thought about how likely it was that she walked by and happened to see that through the window and happened to look on the sharp television on the wall. And it's probably not very likely, and as we become, you know, we're remote and working remote the likelihood of those things happening maybe goes down. The idea of building a product that increases the likelihood or almost makes it seamless that you can find information relevant to what you were working on, even if you're new to that project or you haven't worked on it for a long time, is very, very key. So, within Luro, you can build a design system. You can add your styles. You can add your components, configure your tokens, and do all that, but you can also integrate those things that I was mentioning: prototyping, research, and testing. We also do an accessibility and performance through Lighthouse and give you metrics there. All of those things are associated to the pages that your site is comprised of. They're associated to the components that you use to build everything. So, we're sort of crossing the streams here. So, if you're going into imagine a button component and you're like, okay, the border-radius is four pixels. The type size is 16 pixels, and here's how you code it. We're putting in an actual button. The class is dot btn. That's all great. It's helping us build the button. But if you are asked by leadership or anyone, "Why did you decide this?" Or "What is the impact of design?" Or "What is the impact of the product team on our bottom line? How are you moving the needle? How are you helping us as an organization achieve?" The answer isn't, "Well, we made the border four pixels just like the design [chuckles] said." That's great. Good job. But I think having all of this information associated with design and associated with engineering not only makes us more informed as contributors to teams but it helps us to articulate the value of what we do on the daily in a much more broad organizational sense. So, you can say, "Well, we user-tested this, and we realized that if we took out these form elements from a signup flow, we get more signups by having fewer steps. And so we removed a step. We user-tested it before and after, and signups went up 30%." That's a much cooler answer than, "Well, our design system helps us be consistent," even though we know that that is vitally important, and it makes our app or our site feel much more cohesive, and it contributes to that sign up metric or a sales metric just as much. But having this data and associating it with a component so it's not something that you have to sort of...I guess it almost sounds subjective if you bring it up and say, "Well, we're moving faster, and we're selling more stuff." That's not great. But if you can link and say, "Well, here's a PowerPoint before," or "Here's a summary of a user test before and after. Here's real numbers," it helps you to portray yourself as the designer or engineer or product team member who thinks very deeply about these things, and it helps you to accurately portray yourself in that way. So, I went on a real tangent, but actually just there, I think I just was describing sort of the nuts and bolts of why we built Luro to not only be a design system tool but, like, what we kind of also call a product development tool, a product development system. So, it's extending the idea of design systems to the practice of building a product with an entire organization. WILL: That's really, really cool, and you did a great job explaining it. I'm excited to see it and see where it's going. I felt like a lot of what you were saying was the why you're doing stuff, why you chose, you know, X, Y, Z. Is that where the analytics and the tracking portion of Luro comes into play? TRENT: Yeah. I think that one thing we heard a lot from agencies or even just teams within an organization that are working on design systems is back to that articulating the value of maybe a design system or articulating the value of the work that we do as designers or product builders and similar to we've done a user test and these are the results, and sales or signups, or whatever the case may be, have improved. I think one of the key metrics for a design system is, is the component adopted? There are other ones, and people will mention those, things like, is it helping a team be quicker? So, if there's a design system team, and then there's multiple product teams within an organization, and they all want to work together, and they want to be able to take the components that they need and build their ideas quicker, prototype quicker, that's a great metric as well. But one that we find vitally important is, are the components live to users? And so, being able to track that has a lot of value. One, obviously, is that communicating that to the greater organization, saying, "You know, we've spun up a design system team. The card component is on 49% of pages. The button is on 100% of pages." And then if you're trying to be more tactical about how to improve the product or even just track down, you know, which components or which pages or which experiences aren't, I guess, consistent with the design system, you can say, well, "There's 49%, and there's 51% of pages that may or may not have the card component." And so, you can go find outdated components if you're trying to phase new ones in, and all of those sorts of things as well. So, the metrics are sort of great from a thematic sense, saying, this is the value that our design system is, you know, affording us as a business and the users are experiencing while they're using our app or our site. But then, also, you can drill down into these metrics and see, okay, the button is appearing here. I can click into pages and see views where it's being used on the page level and see, is it being used properly? Those kinds of things. You can track legacy components as well, so, for example, if we've rebranded the site that we all work on together and our old button was, like, dot button and the new button is dot BTN or however we would want to class those things. And you can use classes. You can use data attributes, all those kinds of things. But I would say we can track legacy along that. So, if your goal is to completely adopt the new design system across the entire network and products within six months or whatever the case may be, you know, month over month, week over week, you can check our, you know, line graphs and see, hopefully, the legacy occurrences of that going down over time. So, if, like, the button is being used less and less and then the dot BTN is being used more and more, you can see those sort of swap places. And so, what we have found is talking about things in sort of an objective or fuzzy way, saying, well, we're trying to ship this, and we're doing these inventories, and we're going through all the pages. And we're clicking around trying to find old things, or we're redesigning pages. But it's very, very difficult. This is just an instant quantification of where our components are manifesting in the product. So, what we do is, with Luro, you can give us...whether it's behind an authentication layer or not, we crawl web pages, first and foremost. So, you can give us a site. And this is all optional. You can spin out a design system without this. But we crawl the site, and then we will go ahead and do performance and accessibility scores for there. So, that's one way to itemize work, where you can just say, well, as an agency, we're going to work with this company, and we want to show them, like, the starting point and expose weak points on where we might be paying a lot of attention to. In the design or engineering phase, we need to improve the speed here. We have accessibility violations we need to think about, all that kind of stuff. And then, once you crawl those, you can add your design system, and then you can cross-reference those, and I kind of mentioned that. You can use CSS classes to do that. And so, you'd enter in dot BTN for button. We've already crawled your pages. And so, we can tell you every time that that class appears inside of any page inside of the network. So, it's this very, like, two-minute way to get a wealth of information that's shared and communicated with...the entire organization will benefit. Like I said, like, leadership they can get a sense of how the design system is being used and adopted, but also, the active teams working on things so that they can go find outliers and work on replacing those. VICTORIA: It's been over a year in your journey with Luro. What challenges do you see on the horizon? TRENT: I still think it is an adoption challenge. I think that, you know, one thing that we found is that a lot of teams, and this is going back to our agency days, but I sort of sort of still see this happening now is that building the design system, you know, let me separate these two things. I think designing components and building the design system in the sense of picking styles, and choosing fonts, and iterating upon something like a search box or, a footer, or a modal that's a lot of work. That's just design and product design and product development in general. But the act of, you know, creating the design system, maybe it's the documentation site, or however, we're communicating these standards across the organization. That part, to me, it's always kind of taken too much time and effort. And to be really candid, the amount of budget that's being allocated for those tasks is less. So, we're having a lot of users who are saying, "Well, I wasn't in charge of a design system. We had a team for that. We don't anymore. And now I'm responsible for it," or "The team's been combined, and I'm working on, like, three things at once." And so, something that's very, very crucial to us at Luro is to help with the struggle of spinning up a design system. For us, I fully believe that there are design systems that can be fully custom available to the public and need to have, you know, every page and view needs to be unique unto itself. But for Luro, the starting place that we get you with, you know, you can link in your Storybook. You can link in Figma components. You can add components manually and all those sorts of things. Where we can get you in a few minutes is really close. And then, if you started to fold in, you know, the idea of performance, accessibility, and then all of the other insights that you can then integrate, so if you're doing A/B testing or user testing and doing research, and you want to make sure that that's all involved inside of your design system, then it becomes a really attractive option. So, I think that decreasing the time it takes to get started and to spin up a design system is the number one thing we see people struggling with and the number one thing we want to bring. I kind of like to compare it to services like Netlify. Like, I remember I used to have to set up servers to demo things for clients, and it would take an hour, and I don't know what I'm doing. And I would break stuff, and they would have to help me fix it. So, then I'm bothering him. And then, now I'm just, you know, will either link to a CodePen or drag and drop a deployed URL from something like Netlify. And it's this amazing, almost like it feels like deploying is just as difficult as, like, sketching something out on a napkin. We want spinning up a design system to kind of feel that way so it's not so precious. You're not worried about...it is just easy to get started. And so, we're kind of integrating all these other tools that you use to make that easier and quicker because if you do have other things that you're working on and you need to move beyond that so that you can focus on prototyping, or designing, and building the actual components, you can do that. And you have that option as opposed to having to be mired in some of these other details. VICTORIA: It seems like change management and integrating change into larger organizations is always the biggest challenge [laughs], even for great innovations. And I'm curious: what types of people or groups have you found are quick to adopt this new method and really the right group for you to center your message on? TRENT: Yeah, it is...I was joking, I think, maybe before the podcast started, but it's, like, very ambitious because it's easy, I think, to say, "This tool is for designers. And if you're a designer, you can integrate your Figma, and then you'll have your components published to your team so that they can use them." And that's absolutely true. Like, if you're a designer, Luro is for you. If you're an engineer and you have just received components, and you need a way to document that and show your coded version alongside the design version and be able to collaborate with people in that sense, it is absolutely for you as well. So, you can see how it's almost like you almost have to frame Luro for individuals across the organization. So, it's one of those deals where...and we've kind of experimented with this with the marketing. And the way we've discussed it, we talked to lots of, you know, leadership, heads of product, CMOs, even CTOs, things like that. And so, it's like, if you're trying to get your entire organization to work better, to ship, you know, more effectively, then Luro is the tool for that as well because we're getting into knowledge retention via uploading. Like, my favorite story there is if you're an A/B tester, probably, and this is what we've experienced, is you run these tests. A lot of time and effort goes into building the prototypes for the test, whether that's you or an engineering team that's doing those things. This is one of the things we used to do as an agency. We would be brought on to prototype something totally new. We would test that alongside the existing experience. And an A/B tester, we'd work with them, and they would create, like, a PowerPoint or something that would explain the pros and cons and what should happen next and summarize the test. And that would live on that person's hard drive, whether it's on their computer or, like, a Dropbox or a OneDrive account. And no one ever thought about it ever again. You would just move on to the next test. But the amount of money spent on us to build the prototype and the amount of money spent on the SaaS to spin up the, like, A/B testing environment and all of these things, and then the time spent on the A/B tester to analyze the results and generate a PowerPoint it's not nothing. And so, one of the things that we find pretty appealing for leadership within Luro is the idea of integrating all of these tools and all this work that you do in mapping them to components so that when you pull up, for example, a button component, you'll see all the user tests that have been added over any period of time. So, if you were a new hire and you're trying to onboard, you can go interview everybody in the organization and ask them about the history of a button or a card component or the history of a sign-up page. But then, also, in a self-service way, you can just click into Luro, click a button, click a card, click to the sign-up page, any of those things, and find all that stuff I was mentioning earlier, whether it's a test, or research, or prototyping, or any kind of documents that have been written. These aren't the arguments that Dave or I might have around the actual border-radius value. Those are small things that probably should be lost in the firehose. But if we have learned an outline button with a stroke is performing way better than a solid-filled button or vice versa, that's important information that doesn't need to disappear in six weeks. So, that's the other kind of metric there is explaining kind of the holistic version, telling the holistic story of Luro to those types. And so, yeah, navigating that and trying to get, like, buy-in on a broad level is kind of what we're working on these days now. WILL: Sweet. So, I actually really like how it's almost like version control. You can see the history of what you've been working on. And I really like that because so many times...you're correct. When I go to Figma or anything, I'm like, why are we doing it this way? Oh, we made these decisions. Maybe in comments, you can kind of do it, but I think maybe that's the only place you can see the version control. So, I like that feature. Like you said, you can see the history of why you did something like that. TRENT: Yeah. And think about that, so if I am a front-end engineer and I receive a design and everyone thinks that, why are we doing it this way? I would hate to code something...I can do it. It's my job. But if I don't understand why, my feeling about work and maybe the quality of my work goes down, you know what I mean? I guess what I'm trying to say is, like, feeling like you understand, and you're lockstep with the entire team, and you understand what the goal is...what are we trying to do? What are we trying to achieve? Like, what have we reviewed that has made us believe this? And if you don't have that information, or if I don't have that information, like, there's some traction within the team, whether it's actual momentum forward and the amount of tickets that are being closed, or just the spirit of what we're doing, that the product is going to be diminished. These are all these little things that add up, up, up, up, up over time. So, being able to show this information to be able to access this information kind of passively. So, for example, if you got VS Code open and Luro open and you can see here's the user test from six weeks ago that shows us why we went with option B, you'll say, "Okay, cool. Even better." You know, you can review those things way before you get things handed to you. You know, it's much more kind of this utopian vision of an open, collaborative deal. And the way I would say that is it's, you know, we all kind of hand things off. So, of course, like, there's some version, even if it's like a micro waterfall that happens on a daily basis. We're all doing that. Like, somebody needs to be done with something to hand it off to something else, so we're not all up in each other's space all the time. But one thing that we like about Luro, whether we use Teams, or Slack, or whatever, it's not a real-time thing where I have to say, "Stop, look what I'm doing [laughs]. Come over here and look because I need you to know this." You can get notifications from Luro, but it's not something that is a context-switching demand type of a situation. So, the idea is if you're like, I'm wondering what's going on. I know this is coming up. I'd like to review. Or I could let you know and tell you, and just on your own time, you can go see this. So, separate from, like, the firehose of tickets and chats, you can see the actual product evolving and some of these, like, key milestone decisions on your own time and review them. And if they've happened before you even started on the project, then you can do that as well. WILL: I think that's probably where the breakdown between developers and designers that collab that's where it probably breaks down, whenever you're trying to get your tickets out as a developer. And then there's a change while you're working on it, and it's a complicated change, but you're still responsible for trying to get that ticket out in time. So, I think, like, what you're saying, you can get it beforehand. So, it sounds like, to me, Luro would be a huge help because you have to have developers and designers working together; if you don't, you're just in trouble in general. But anything that can help the relationship between the two I think, is amazing, and that's what I'm hearing whenever you're talking about Luro. It helps. It benefits that relationship. TRENT: Yeah, that even makes me think a little bit about the ongoing collaboration aspect. So, it's like, if something is shipped...or maybe let's go the agency scenario here. You've launched a site. You've launched a product. How do we know how it's performing? Of course, you'll have everybody...they're going to have analytics, and we'll be talking about that. And are signups up or down? But Luro will run tests. It'll continue to run component analytics. So, you can sense whether, like, somebody is changing a component. Or, you know, is the fully adopted design system not being utilized or being utilized less or more over time? But then, also, we're running, again, performance and accessibility metrics. So, we've seen it where we've shipped a product for a client. You know, we've had Luro running. We've sort of used that as our hub to collaborate over time. And then we'll notice that there's a giant performance spike and that, like, the page speed has gone way down. And we itemize issues and can point you to exactly the page that it's happening on and give you some insight into that. Of course, you could go through after you've worked with the client and run Lighthouse on every single page in your own time for fun, but that's not reality or fun. So, you'll get this information. And so, you almost...before we were telling people who were using Luro, we were kind of using it ourselves just to help ourselves do a better job. About a month into a project, we were able to email a customer, a former client, and say, "Hey, site's looking great. Amazing to see this. There's a 3-megabyte, 50-pixel avatar. Someone uploaded a giant image. It displays as 50 pixels. But somebody must have uploaded the full one to your homepage, and your page speed score tanked." They're like, "Oh, wow, they must [laughs] be monitoring us and checking in on us every day." We love them dearly, but we were not doing that. We were using Luro off to the side. So, there is this other aspect of just sort of monitoring and making sure things stay, you know, as they were or better once we ship things and move forward to the next. VICTORIA: That's really interesting. And I'm excited to explore more on my own about Luro. As we're coming towards the end of our time today, I wanted to give you one last chance to shout out anything else that you would like to promote today. TRENT: Oh, that's it [laughs], luroapp.com, you know, that's the main thing. Check out component analytics. We have a YouTube channel, and I would say that's probably the easiest, a lot of effort, even though the videos maybe I'd give myself an A-minus or a solid A, not an A-plus on video production. I'm trying to get better. But explaining just, like, how to set things up. There's, like, a one-minute, like, what is all this? So, if you want to see all the things that I've been trying to describe, hopefully well on the podcast [chuckles], you can see that really well. So, I'd say Luro App and then the YouTube channel. We've got, like, five, six videos or so that really kind of help get you into maybe what your use case would be and to show you how easily things are set up. VICTORIA: Great. Thank you so much for joining us today, Trent, and for sharing about your story and about the product that you've been building. TRENT: Yeah. Thank you for having me. This has been great fun. VICTORIA: 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 @victori_ousg. WILL: And you can find me on Twitter @will23larry. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.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

Hosts Will and Victoria sit down with Charlotte Holt, the Founder and Creator of The Fashion Library. Based in London, The Fashion Library is a contemporary wardrobe rental resource tailored for stylists. Charlotte opens up about her diverse background, spanning various countries, and shares the transformative journey that led her from being a stylist to establishing her own venture. Charlotte sheds light on the formidable challenges stylists encounter, from the environmental repercussions of fashion production to the financial constraints of traditional shopping methods. She articulates how The Fashion Library is poised to confront these obstacles head-on by offering a platform that enables stylists to rent clothing, fostering sustainability while saving valuable resources like time and money. Delving into the realm of technology, Charlotte underscores its pivotal role in streamlining operations and catalyzing a paradigm shift towards a more sustainable fashion industry. She outlines her ambitious vision for The Fashion Library's future, encompassing the archive, broadening the user base, and creating a robust marketplace and working platform. The Fashion Library Follow The Fashion Library on LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram. Follow Charlotte Holt on LinkedIn. Visit her website at charlotteholt.co.uk Follow thoughtbot on X or LinkedIn. Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots! Transcript:  WILL: 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, Will Larry. VICTORIA: And I'm your other host, Victoria Guido. And with us today is Charlotte Holt, Founder and Creator of The Fashion Library, London's newest contemporary wardrobe rental resource for stylists. Charlotte, thank you for joining me. CHARLOTTE: Thank you for having me. I never ever thought I would be talking on a podcast. VICTORIA: You never thought that? Why? What did you think would happen? [laughs] CHARLOTTE: As in, like, I never thought I would be on a podcast, me personally. So, like, this is a new experience for me. VICTORIA: Wonderful. Well, I know you're speaking with us today, and just to warm us up a little bit, I'm curious: what other languages could you be speaking to us in? What's your...I heard you learn multiple. CHARLOTTE: So, I actually went to school in the south of France when I was younger. And for the last couple of years, I've been living in Mexico, so I've been trying to learn Spanish. I am pretty proficient in French and getting there in Spanish. VICTORIA: Very cool. I live in San Diego, and I've also been learning Spanish for a long time and love to practice sometimes, so... What about you, Will? Do you speak any other languages? WILL: I used to speak Spanish, but it's so hard when you don't live in that culture to keep it up. Because I've been to, like, Peru a couple of times and some other South American places, but I always pick it up when I go back in there and kind of get the feel for it, but it's kind of hard. I need to pick it back up. But Spanish is the one that I feel the most comfortable in outside of English. VICTORIA: Right. We're a bilingual nation. And so, I love that opportunity to get to meet other people and speak in other languages and practice that. So, Charlotte, coming back to your journey, it sounds like you've lived in all these interesting places. Why don't you tell us just a little bit more about your background? CHARLOTTE: I am from Scotland originally. I know I don't sound like it. And then I went to school in the South of France for two years, like, to finish high school. Then I ended up back in the UK, living in London for 12, 14 years. And then, just as COVID was happening, I was actually supposed to kind of relocate or start working more in the U.S., and I actually ended up in Mexico [chuckles], of all places, and that's where I stayed for two years. I was living the good life. I had a pretty good COVID experience. I was at the beach every day surfing, so I can't complain about that. And then I've been living in the U.S. on the West Coast in Los Angeles before I decided to set up my new business, which has brought me back to London. VICTORIA: Wow, full circle. Well, what beach were you surfing on in Mexico, or did you go to a bunch of different ones? CHARLOTTE: I've been to a bunch, but I was living in Sayulita. I've still got a place there that I keep because I love to be in the ocean. It's one of my favorite things to do. Surfing is definitely a good lifestyle choice of mine. VICTORIA: There's not much surfing in London now, so your desire to start your new company must be really powerful [chuckles], very strong. CHARLOTTE: Yeah, I actually have questioned myself, especially over the last few months when it's been full, mid-winter here: cold, dark, raining. Like, what am I doing? Why did I give up my kind of dream life working between LA and Mexico, being able to surf, you know, at least two, three, four times a month to come back here to do this? But the bigger picture is, hopefully, I will be able to go and surf wherever I like after I've built this business. So, that's kind of the end goal for me. VICTORIA: Yeah. Tell me more about what led you to start your own business. CHARLOTTE: I have been working as a stylist for the last 12-plus years. And then, obviously, my work took me to the U.S. A friend of mine gave me his little black book contacts of where I should go and places I should use in LA. And I walked into a rental house there that was for industry only and got a lightbulb moment. I was like, oh my God, why is this not happening back in London? And it kind of didn't make sense to me because the productions back in the UK are, well, they seem more sustainable. Everyone's hitting their kind of green quotas and targets. So, it just made sense to me, but not just from, like, the sustainability point of renting clothes, but also having an industry-only place that you can go to and basically prep most of your job in one go. So, it was, like, saving time on the start of the job but also on the end, which is the return side, which people don't always realize. Everyone's like, "Oh, it's so glamorous working in fashion and styling." But we are bag ladies. I will often have minimum six, eight cases with me, rails and rails, racks and racks of clothes. I'm always the first one there. I'm the last one there because we're packing away. It's lots of steaming, just lots of stuff. So, to me, it just made perfect sense to recreate the same thing in London. But then I started getting into it a little bit more and started looking at tech and how that can transform what we're doing, too. WILL: Before we get too deep into The Fashion Library, I want to, one, explain what a stylist does because, like I said, I am not fashion-forward or friendly. So, tell me kind of what that looks like to do. And also, how did you become a stylist? Was it a dream of yours always, or what did that look like? CHARLOTTE: I just love clothes. So, I actually was going to be a lawyer, and I went to school to study law [chuckles], and I ended up being a stylist. So, there's different kind of realms and levels of a stylist. You can be a personal stylist where you work in the consumer realm, helping people dress themselves. Then, you have your editorial stylists who create beautiful imagery for magazines. Then there's the commercial stylists who work on advertising, film, TV production. Then you've got your celebrity stylists. There's different kind of layers within being a stylist. I actually work across a broad range of that. I do editorials, so magazines. I've worked with some talent, music videos, TV commercials, short films, stills, and advertising campaigns. And what I really love is how different every job is. It's never the same. You're never with the same crew of people. Every job is different. Sometimes, you might be on set for just one day. Sometimes, you're on set for a week. There's weeks and weeks of prep that goes into the job. There's also a lot of work on the backend doing returns, and budgeting, and reconciling everything. You literally have to love clothes. WILL: Where did your love for clothes come from? CHARLOTTE: [chuckles] That's a good question. I always thought it was my mum, but, actually, it was definitely my dad. I look at pictures of him from the '70s, '80s. He's got some wild outfits on. And I've got some of his pieces. I've got this floral jacket that we all used to get dressed up in when we were younger because it's the most outrageous piece. I have it now. It's actually amazing. I actually had it on the other week with just a little black vest and some jeans. And because it's such a statement piece, it looks super cool, but it's classic '60s. So yeah, definitely from my dad. He had a wild penchant for clothes. VICTORIA: I loved how you brought up, in the beginning, that the role of a stylist is often portrayed as being very glamorous and being very just so fun and creative and how the reality of it is that it's more carrying bags around, and picking up at the end of the day, and getting the clothes ready, and how tedious that can be. And you discovered technology could take some of that tedious out of the process and allow stylists to focus their time on the creative aspects. CHARLOTTE: Yeah. So, originally, my plan with The Fashion Library was just to kind of replicate what was happening in the U.S. with the rental house models and just bring it here. And I have a friend who I met surfing in Mexico. He's in his 50s, very successful tech entrepreneur. And I wanted to run my business past him just to kind of get some outsider knowledge but someone who's been there and done it. And he actually said to me, he was like, "This is great, but you should really, like, start to look at tech and how that is going to really transform businesses in the future." And he flicked that switch on, and that was it. Then, I think a couple of weeks later, I started sending him all my brain dumps about tech and what I was thinking in my mind. And he actually turned around and said to me, "If you can see it in your mind, you can build it." So, I started to look at my pain points as a stylist. And I work differently in every city because you have to adapt. Like, in LA, I'm often out and about compared to London, where I work a lot online. So, I started to look at, like, the pain points of everywhere and what would really be beneficial. It always kind of dialed back to that question of, what would help me as a stylist? So, that's how I've built the business, by looking at that aspect and what's helpful, what's not. WILL: Yeah, I like that view because I totally agree. Tech is in pretty much everything. It's all about, how can you see it to help you with your pain points? So, that's amazing that you sat back; you saw the pain points, and it helped you create what you're doing. So, that's really, really amazing. Can you tell me more about The Fashion Library? What does that look like? What did you create? What was your pain points? CHARLOTTE: We launched in mid-July last year with a physical showroom of around 500 pieces, which was just my archive. And then I'd built out a very rough and ready Shopify to kind of replicate what was going on in the physical realm but in the virtual realm. I hadn't shot all those pieces, so it was maybe only 200 pieces online. And then, within two weeks, I'd managed to grow the archive to well over a thousand pieces, and then I was like, ugh, I need to get all this shot now. And it's me doing all of this. I'm working with a friend who's a photographer. And I style all the pieces on a ghost mannequin. I've already thought about some techie idea in my head about how to get around that in the future. I don't know if it's possible, but I can see it in my mind. We can build it. So, I just wanted them both to kind of work in the physical and virtual realm, but then, obviously, always going back to John's advice from Mexico that, you know, really start to look more into the tech. And the tech's definitely taken over. We haven't built any yet. We are currently about to start raising because we want to build a fully functional marketplace that's industry-only. There's going to be a phase three, which will be a whole working platform that will streamline the working process from start to finish with lots of clever little things thrown in. And I don't want to give too much away on this because it is just in my mind right now. Obviously, it's on paper, too, but I've just been looking at what else is going on in the fashion realm, in the fashion tech realm, and there's lots of exciting things. There was a stylist who reached out to me just before Christmas. She's actually an avatar stylist. So, I was really interested to speak to her. They're currently creating avatars from humans. So, soon, everyone's going to be able to have their own avatar if they want. But there's some really, really interesting and innovative stuff happening within the tech space, and there's definitely exciting things. And I can see a lot of scope in the future for The Fashion Library in terms of how we build the tech and adapt and how we kind of disrupt the industry, not just here in the UK, but globally. VICTORIA: Thank you for sharing all of that. I think that's so interesting. And I also really love that you made the connection from surfing that got you excited about tech and excited about all these possibilities that you're describing. I'm just imagining, like, a little side conversation while you're paddling around out in the ocean [laughs]. But I don't know if that's how it really happened. 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: tbot.io/sprint. VICTORIA: What's your method for engaging with the industry on this issue and building your customer discovery process? CHARLOTTE: Obviously, it's something I'm really passionate about. I knew that there would be others out there, too. We've been hunting for the stylists currently, so LinkedIn, this platform called The Dots here, Instagram, obviously, and then also connecting, like, higher up the food chain with production companies, ad agencies, really kind of targeting it from the top bottom down. And then, the last couple of months, we've been focused on finding some founding members who are busy working commercial stylists who love the idea of sustainability and rental and want to be early adopters and users of The Fashion Library. We've had great feedback from them. So, having that feedback from people and it being positive is like a driving force behind what we're trying to create and creating. VICTORIA: Has there been anything surprising in your conversations that has caused you to maybe pivot in your strategy? CHARLOTTE: I mean, definitely, when I first took the idea to my surfing friend in Mexico, he really made me pivot from bricks and mortar into tech. I was always going to build out a tech platform, but it was literally just going to be online rental, just because of how I like to work in the UK. I think talking to him that really opened my eyes. And then, also, kind of going off and launching really then understanding what he'd said to me. Because I think after I launched, I realized that actually the bricks and mortar is nice, and it's really nice to have that space and the showroom as a showcase, but it's not where I want to be. I'm really excited and really focused to get the tech going. It's really exciting. And if we can create what I'm envisaging, I think it's going to be so useful. VICTORIA: Yeah. And I love that you're really focused on a specific group and creating something for the industry that you're in. Can you share any other specific problems or challenges that a stylist may have with a wardrobe rental app versus a person like me who's just trying to, like, rent a dress for the weekend or something? CHARLOTTE: Yeah. Well, that's the thing. I mean, rental is trending as a whole globally. So, there are a lot of consumer-facing rental apps and businesses out there. But the thing about stylists is it's quite a lonely career. Yes, you have your assistants, but until you're on set or with your clients, you're pretty much on your own. And I think after COVID, there was that real push for community. And also, as stylists, we tend to sit on big archives that we've collected from jobs, or we've had custom pieces made that actually never went to set or got used. And we don't want to get rid of them because they're special to us, but at the same time, they're just kind of sitting there gathering dust. So, being able to put those out to your peers and know that they're, like, going to go onto an advertising job or a TV commercial, or, I don't know, a short film, or a feature film, or on talent is kind of exciting because they're almost getting repurposed for what they were originally purposed for. And also, being able to make money from your dormant archive that's kind of a cool thing; it's a first. And knowing that it's not in the customer consumer realm, so you don't really have to worry too much about your amazing couture dress that you had for this artist and it was never worn going to a wedding and getting trashed. WILL: I think I understand kind of what the flow is. So, for example, if tomorrow I want to become a stylist, before The Fashion Library, would I have to own all my pieces to even get into the space? CHARLOTTE: It really depends what kind of realm you're working in. Obviously, if you're working on editorial and with celebrities, you tend to get pieces from brands because they give you pieces or loan you pieces for publicity, so it's kind of a two-way deal. However, when you're working on film, TV, commercials, advertising, you get given production budgets, like, wardrobe budgets. So, the current way that we work is we go out and shop, and we shop a lot. And we also fuel the fast fashion monster because a lot of the time, we have minimal budgets. We have this store in the UK, and it's called Primark. It's very, very, like, cheap and not good for the environment, and there's also ASOS as well. There's all this kind of online fast fashion places. And it's, like, you get the budget, and they want Prada, or they want designer and luxury. However, you've only got the budget to afford Primark or ASOS. And, actually, what a lot of people don't realize is that stylists spend a lot. Say they get given a £2,000 or $2,000 budget; they will spend £6,000 or $6,000, and what isn't used, they then return. But because they're buying into the fast fashion brands, a lot of the time, once they do those returns, especially the online stores, it goes back, and it's actually landfilled or incinerated because the price point for them to repackage it is so minimal that it's actually cheaper for them to just get rid of it. So, we are actually really adding to the problem of fashion being a massive pollutant globally. WILL: I didn't even catch that part, but yeah, that sounds amazing that not only, you know, if you said, "I had a budget for this movie or whatever. Can I get more pieces?" Because I'm looking at your website right now, and it looks cheaper to rent them than if I was buying them outright. So, I have more choices, but also, I'm saving the world. That sounds, yeah, that's a win, win, win. CHARLOTTE: Yeah, that's so right. One of our slogans is, 'Saves time, money, and the planet.' VICTORIA: It sounds like a core value that drives your everyday decisions. Are there any other values that help guide you as a founder as you're building your business? CHARLOTTE: Just the positive feedback from everyone in the industry, whether that's from the producers, production companies, stylists, just everyone getting it because it is such a simple idea. So, it's just having that recognition and just knowing that what you've envisaged and you're creating is valued. That's a huge driving factor for me. VICTORIA: And what does success Look like in six months or in five years from now? CHARLOTTE: I think in six months, it will be to have a business that is growing and really living up to its foundations of helping stylists, making their lives easier, saving time, money, and the planet, growing the archive to double what it is currently. So, it's currently around 2,000 pieces. It'd be great to have 4,000-plus in the next six months. Continue to grow our user base, and just expand on that, and grow the connections that we're already creating within the industry with our affiliations with the green sustainability companies. There's some exciting things happening. I don't want to talk about them just because until they're, like, done, I'm always a bit like, oh, I don't know if I should put that out there yet. But yeah, generally, just, like, expanding and building the business and also completing the first raise and starting to build and develop the tech. That's something I'm really ready and excited to do. It's scary, but it's also super exciting. WILL: Yeah. I can't wait to see what comes out of it because it seems like you can go so many directions with this. Because, like you were saying, like, brick and mortar versus tech and, like, that means you can reach anywhere that you can ship products to, instead of having to come to one location. Even nowadays, like, Amazon does a little bit of it, but like, when you're trying to buy furniture or something, you can put it in the room and see how it sits there and stuff. So, it's so many things because I know, like, fashion, the one thing I do know about fashion is how it looks on the person, so, like, you know, seeing how it looks on that person through technology. I'm so excited because I can see so many directions you can go with it. CHARLOTTE: Will, you are right on the money there. I'm not going to say too much more, but yeah, you're definitely getting my vision a little bit. There's so much scope for it, too. And also, I mean, what you've kind of touched on is what I've envisaged. But, again, it's also, like, just keeping focused and keeping on that path for now because there's also so many different avenues further down that you can go into, too. Like, the potential and possibility with this is endless. VICTORIA: What advice do you have for other founders out there who are building products in the fashion industry? CHARLOTTE: That it's okay to make mistakes. You've actually just got to start. That's one of the things. You know, I worked on this for almost a year and a half before I brought it live. And I think I wanted to be as ready as possible. And knowing that it's okay to not have all the answers and, also, being able to learn really quickly and ask for help from people that you trust, and that age-old saying of trust your gut. If something with someone doesn't feel right, it's probably not, so just trusting that. And also, just being able to pivot. You can't be so focused and rigid with what you're trying to create because it's going to, I mean, mine's changed so much from what I initially envisaged to where I'm at now, and it's going to keep changing. And that's okay because it needs to be adaptable in order to succeed and survive, I think. And also, you're going to get a lot of people who are going to promise so much. At the end of the day, no one's going to work on it as hard as you are, and that's okay. But don't trust everyone who says they're going to do X, Y, Z for you because, usually, they're not. And they're always the ones that fall at the first hurdle. WILL: One thing I love about doing this podcast is listening to entrepreneurs and their mindset and how they got to the place to even, like you said, start something. I feel like that's one of the biggest hurdles is just starting something. I want to understand more about your mindset. What is your wind in your sails? What motivates you? CHARLOTTE: I got this idea. I've always had ideas but just generally just spoken about them and never really took them to fruition, whereas with this one, I was adamant I was going to do it. I actually ended up having my heart and soul ripped out of me and was, like, rock bottom, and this was already after I'd had this idea about this. And it was that need to, like, just heal and grow that I really just threw my all into it and was like, you know what? I'm going to try this. Like, I just suddenly found my path, and I just got so focused and determined on building this, so I haven't looked back yet. Trusting your idea, knowing that it's okay to, like, make mistakes from time to time. But just being a little bit naïve, I've definitely learned a lot. But yeah, just having that determination and discipline to just keep going. Even when people who've promised you the world, like, ghost you or disappear on you, if it's your baby and it's your vision and you believe in it, you can make it happen. VICTORIA: Thank you. That's really wonderful advice, and I think will really resonate with our listeners. Do you have anything else that you'd like to promote today? CHARLOTTE: Yeah, so anyone involved in film, TV, and advertising production, or any stylists and costume designers, follow us on Instagram. Join our mailing list via our website, even if you're not London and UK-based, because we've got some really big, big things coming over the next 12 months. So, I know we're only London and the UK at the moment, but the vision is global. So, join us on our mission. VICTORIA: That's so exciting. Thank you so much for coming on to the show and sharing your story with us. CHARLOTTE: Thank you for having me. VICTORIA: You're welcome. 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 @victori_ousg. WILL: And me on Twitter @will23larry. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.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. 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