December 5, 2024 • 44 mins
At last, host Rachel Foster shares her full tech and entrepreneurship origin story with listeners.
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Imperfect Genius, the podcast that helps Black women thrive by providingtechnical advice on effectively navigating the business development journey and offering
advice to all women on building successful careers in the tech industry.
I'm your host, Rachel Foster, a tech professional, educator, and entrepreneur.
Hey, everyone.
I was planning a year-end reflection episode because I'm going to take some time off atthe end of December and for part of January.
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And it occurred to me that there have been several times in previous episodes that I'vehinted at or casually mentioned various parts of my background without going into too much
detail.
And I know, you know, there's been times when I said, I'm going to circle back on thattopic later or, I'm sure I mentioned this before, but never really went deep on any of the
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things that I mentioned.
And I often ask guests on the podcast to tell me their origin story, but I don't thinkI've ever...
fully told my origin story.
So I've decided that I'm going to dedicate this episode.
It'll be the penultimate episode.
I'll still come back with a year and reflection episode.
I decided that I'm going to tell my tech and entrepreneurship origin story.
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And I say story singular because they're intertwined.
I can't tell one without the other.
They both, you one feeds the other.
So here we go.
I know in the very first episode, welcome to Imperfect Genius with
former assistant producer Emma Bergen, that I mentioned my kindergarten story.
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And I talked about how I got kicked out of kindergarten because I was walking around, youknow, helping the other kids do their work like I was the teacher.
And we talked about me having the heart of a teacher.
But I don't know if I went into detail in terms of like sort of where that came from.
And then so I want to start there and then go forward and we'll go through my full techand entrepreneurship origin story.
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So.
It's important to note that my grandmother was a preschool teacher and my mother was anelementary school teacher.
My mother taught third grade, special ed as well as a phys ed.
And in my family, there are lots of men and very few women.
There's, I always jokingly say there's only like one female per generation in my family,which is not entirely accurate, but it feels accurate.
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so when it comes to female role models,
Those are my role models.
My mother was an elementary school teacher, my grandmother who was a preschool teacher.
So as a kid, I always wanted to be a teacher.
I was that kid that would play, you know, school with my Barbies.
And, I was just, I was just always that kid who wanted to teach because that's what I,that's what I saw.
So that's what I wanted to emulate.
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And so I guess that's what I was doing when I was in kindergarten.
And I mentioned in that, you know, previously that because I started school early, Istarted with preschool, I guess maybe when I was three.
I don't know for sure, but I think maybe when I was three.
So by the time I got to kindergarten, I'd already been in school for a couple of years andthe things that they were teaching in kindergarten already knew.
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So I was, guess I was bored in my classes and I decided I was going to go around and I wasgoing to help all the other students, which, you know, it says a lot about who I am at my
core.
It's, who I still am.
and we, joked about that in the first episode about how I'm that person had, even if youdon't ask me.
directly if I know the answer then I'm gonna I'm gonna be the person that's gonna that'sgonna give you that answer so It sort of started there.
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I always wanted to be a teacher and the other part of it is I went to my mother's schoolfor elementary school, which was not my local my neighborhood Elementary school so she she
taught but she didn't teach in our neighborhood and she got special permission for me togo to her school which was outside of the neighborhood so I didn't go to school with
my friends that I played with on a regular basis.
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I was always an introvert and was always kind shy, but I was always usually near mymother, up under my mother, like hiding behind her skirts or whatever when we're walking
through the halls and when I wasn't in class basically.
I was usually with her when I would encounter other adults and they'd, Rachel, what do youwant to be when you grow up?
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That kind of thing.
I would always say that I wanted to be a teacher.
And my mother would say, no, you don't, you do not want to be a teacher.
You do not want to be a teacher.
Like she used to just like drill it into my head and she did it for so long that Ijokingly say that I feel like she put subliminal tapes by my bed because it was like one
day I woke up and somebody said, Rachel, what do you want to be when you grow up?
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And I was like, yeah, I don't know.
Cause I can't be a teacher.
It was just kind of like, I got nothing.
You know, I've been told I can't be a teacher.
So who knows?
I don't know.
so.
I just sort of was directionless in terms of what did I want to be when I grew up and Ijust was kind of just sort of floating through school and life.
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so I was a straight A student and I also happened to be good in math and science.
And so when I was in middle school, by the way, I just had, I'm pausing because I just hada flash of when I said I was good in math and science, I had a flash of an image of me.
my, I'm going to have to put this in the show notes or, and, or, I'll definitely put it,I'll put an over the shoulder picture for the, for the video, for those of you who are in
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the community and get the video episodes, I'm going to put an over the shoulder picture ofme.
And I think it was the sixth grade.
I won third place in a science fair and I was doing, I was doing testing of,
I was testing strength and durability and absorbency and all these other things.
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And the title of the project was, Is It Worth the Wipe?
And that's a picture of me.
And I look like a grandma.
I look so terrible in middle school.
And I'm sitting in front of this board that says, Is It Worth the Wipe?
And I've got like this grandma hairstyle and these big giant glasses.
wow.
Anyway, yeah, I'm definitely going to put that as an over the shoulder picture so peoplecan see that if you get the videos.
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But sorry, I digress.
When I said math and science and then I said middle school, that image just like poppedinto my head.
But anyway, when I was in middle school, my mother bought me my first computer, Commodore64.
Now, it's important to note that I had never expressed any interest in computers.
I mean, I think I played, I don't even know.
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Okay.
This is, you guys have heard me say that I'm old.
This is going to really date me.
I, the first video game, I'm a big video game fan.
The first video game that I remember playing is Pong, which was at Atari.
you know, like the two, and I'm talking like the original, the two little paddles like,doop, doop.
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Anyway, that's the first video game I remember playing.
and I did enjoy that, but I never expressed any kind of interest in computers.
But when I was in middle school, my mother bought me a computer.
It was a Commodore 64.
And I was like, whatever.
Thank you.
I don't know.
Like I didn't care.
My brother took it and he was like programming it and he was doing all kinds of stuff withit, but I didn't care about it.
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and then when it was time for me to go to high school, my mother, she decided that I wasgoing to go to this,
There's a school in Detroit, I'm originally from Detroit.
So there's a school called Cass Technical High School and it's not, technically it is aDetroit public school, but it's a special school in that you have to apply to get in.
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It would be considered a magnet school now.
It wasn't called that back then when I went, but it would be considered a magnet schoolnow.
You have to apply to get in and you have to declare a major and all this stuff.
And so my mother filled out the application and she chose computer programming as mymajor.
And I'm just a good kid and I...
you know, do what I'm told.
So I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm studying computer program.
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Like she was like on this computer kick.
I don't know what I never had a chance to, unfortunately, my mother is now deceased.
I never had a chance to ask her why, like where that all came from.
Again, I was just a good kid.
I just did what I was told.
So that's what I studied.
so I was in high school.
I was studying computer programming.
Like my first language was like the original basic.
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then, and then I did cobalt and Fortran and some other things.
And the other thing
So I was told A, that I had to study, well, I wasn't told, but it was like your study incomputer programming.
But also I always wanted to have a job like at Blockbuster or McDonald's or whatever,because I just wanted to have my own money.
And I was always told, no, no, you just don't worry about work.
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Just do your homework.
Well, that was until I had an opportunity to intern.
They were doing these interviews at my school and for internships.
And I got an opportunity to intern at General Motors in Detroit and well, technically inWarren, Michigan.
And that was the first that I could have.
Like that was a job that I had.
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So my first job was intern at General Motors.
And most of my friends were like just like doing copies and coffee and like that kind ofthing.
Do you know what I was doing for my internship?
I was doing Fortran programming.
I was doing a crash simulation.
Like I was like, it was like a serious job.
and that was my first job ever.
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so that was, and that's, that's when it all started, unfortunately.
so yeah.
So my first job ever was doing Fortran programming at General Motors.
And, the interesting thing about that is for, don't know why I had a, I don't know why Itook communications as a class in high school, but I'm very glad that I did.
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So one of my classes in high school.
was communications and I was learning how to do public speaking and presentations andthings.
And it's a good thing that I did because at the end of that project, so I was working onthis, this craft simulation project and it was, again, this was not just like just a
little fluff piece to give to an intern.
This was real coding work.
And it was just me and my supervisor who went back to India for month at the end of theproject and was like, he left me to do this presentation to these engineers.
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So I'm, I'm having to do.
this presentation, by the way, I should mention I was 15 years old.
So I'm having to this presentation to these engineers.
And at the time, these were all just old, they were old to me.
I guess it might've been middle-aged, but you know, as a 15 year old, they were just likeold me, but like all these old white men, but again, they probably were middle-aged white
men that I'm having to do this presentation about this crash simulation program that Iwritten.
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I'm like doing a formal presentation at General Motors to engineers.
at age 15.
This was my first job.
So that's, that's sort of how, you know, my, my career started.
And I, so I went on, I got my high school degree, you know, high school diploma, whichwas, you know, with a major in computer programming.
And again, I was told you don't have a choice.
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You're going to college.
So, I, don't even know how I chose Michigan state, but you Michigan state had a good,engineering college.
So I went to Michigan state.
My major was computer science and at
at the time that I went to Michigan State, if you were a computer science major, you hadto have two minors.
And so I had one minor was general engineering and the second minor was communicationbecause I had studied communication in high school.
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So I figured that was an easy thing.
And I ended up becoming, because I had the communication minor, I ended up becoming apublic speaking teaching assistant.
And so that's sort of where that public speaking background that I have.
came from.
And it was a good balance.
Like one of the reasons that they, at the time they told us the reason that if you were acomputer science major, you had to have two minors was because they wanted you to have
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something to balance out just the computers.
Cause back in the day, I mean, it's a little bit still a little bit true now, but back inthe day, anybody who was, you know, a programmer, they were conceived, they were perceived
to have like no soft skills and definitely not somebody who could talk to, you know, likeclients or anything like that.
So they were, you know, theoretically Michigan state was trying to
balance us out so that we had like some additional skills other than just programming.
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So I graduated from Michigan State and I like was not ready.
Like I did have a job.
went and worked in Ohio for Meet Data Central.
I don't think that exists anymore.
I'm trying to think who they get bought out by, but they, I think Lexis and Nexus, thedatabase system still exists.
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biggest online database systems.
And that's what I was doing.
I was doing database programming there.
But my point is I took that job post Michigan State, but I was like, I don't feel likethis is what I want to do with my life.
was like, this just doesn't feel right.
So I did that and I decided I was going to go to grad school and I had...
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My, the way that I chose my grad school was I used to visit, I had a cousin, I had friendsand a cousin who went to HBCUs in the Atlanta area.
And I just was like, you know what?
I, you know, this is fun.
I used to come visit.
used to come for spring break and stuff like that.
So was like, I'm going to move to Atlanta.
And I was like, okay, what's a good school for computers in Atlanta?
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Georgia Tech.
I'll just apply there.
Like that was my, that was the extent of my thinking of that.
But anyway.
So I applied to Georgia Tech to specialize in database systems, because that's what I hadspecialized in in undergrad and then also was working in that field.
So I got into Georgia Tech and went on to get my master's degree in computer science.
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And here's the funny thing.
As I told you, my mother was adamant, you're not going to be a teacher, you're not goingto be a teacher.
One thing I should mention before I talk about when I graduated from Georgia Tech.
is all throughout school I worked.
So when I was at Michigan State, I worked for the Michigan State School of Medicine doingdatabase programming.
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When I was at Jordan, then I told you I worked in between undergrad and grad school.
And then when I was at Georgia Tech, I worked for the CDC also doing database programs.
So like I had been working in the field from age 15.
Like, so I had been working in the field the entire time from that first job at GM onward.
So I was like, I had...
By the time I was getting my master's degree, was like, I need a brain break.
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I was like, I can't, I just can't even deal with this.
So I graduated, I got my master's degree from Georgia Tech and I took a job as a preschoolteacher.
I thought my mother's head was going to explode.
She's like, what are you doing?
I, and it wasn't even like, you can barely, I mean, it was teaching, but.
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I want to say you could almost barely even call it teaching because I was in a, I had atwo year old room and so half of those students weren't even potty trained.
So was like changing diapers.
it was like the idea that this person with two degrees in computer science is changingdiapers.
and, and by choice, like this was, this was my choice.
And my mother was just like, I don't even understand what you're doing right now.
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So, but that was just because I just like, I just needed a break because I knew it wasn't,I knew.
That wasn't for me.
And again, this is where we're going to go through the rest of my origin story.
you know, it just my point is from the very beginning, I just knew it was not a good fitfor me.
But what ended up happening was I did that job.
I don't know, was like maybe six months or something like that.
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But before I graduated from Georgia Tech, I had interviewed with there was like this bigcareer fair or whatever.
And I'd interviewed with Oracle and I graduated mid year.
I graduated in December.
And so there had been this big career fair before I graduated and I'd interviewed withOracle and they were hiring recent grads for like in like May or June, like basically
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after college.
But because I graduated early, I had that time in between I graduated and when I heardback from Oracle.
So that's the time that I was doing the preschool.
But anyway, my point is I got a job offer from Oracle.
And because databases were my specialty, was just like, okay, well, duh.
really, and plus again, you know, earning potential of a preschool teacher versus, youknow, working as a programmer for Oracle.
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Very dynamically different, right?
So once I got the job offer from Oracle, which I guess it was like that, that spring, likeMay or June or whatever, then I was like, okay, I got it.
Like I felt obligated, like I have to take this.
And so that was, that was how I went back into corporate America after, after.
getting my degrees.
And I tried to change it up a little bit, like I say, because I had specialized indatabase systems.
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And when I went to go work at Oracle, they were kind of like, at first I had to do thiswhole boot camp.
was like this 14 week boot camp.
had to go out to California and learn all of their tools.
And I also was learning all their ERP systems, all their enterprise resource planning, orbasically like all their financial applications and manufacturing applications and things
like that.
And so I was given, once I graduated from this bootcamp, I was given a choice.
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It was like, well, you can either go and I was going to be in consulting or consulting.
And they were like, you can either go and consult on our database and our tools.
So basically companies that buy our database and tools, they're going to use those tobuild their own applications, or you can consult on our financial and manufacturing
applications.
And I was like, let's see, I've never taken a business class in my life.
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I don't know the difference between a debit and a credit.
I'm going to consult on your financial applications.
Because I just wanted a challenge.
again, I just had been doing the same thing for so long, programming and database.
I knew it was not the thing for me.
So I wanted a challenge.
So I decided I would do consulting on the financial applications.
And so that's how I ended up going back into corporate America and working with Oracle fora long time.
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And I think I mentioned previously,
on the podcast, just from a diversity perspective, to cover this.
I think for the first 10 years of my career, and when I say that, I'm probably counting, Ihad to think about this when I say, I say this all the time, I say in the first 10 years
of my career, I only worked with white men.
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I'm probably counting that from when I was in college, some of my internships andwhatever, when I count the 10 years.
But again, for the first 10 years of my career, I only worked with white men.
And then,
Later it was white and South Asian men, so Indian men, but still just sort of me, onlywoman, only black woman.
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Occasionally, on very rare occasion there might've been a black man.
I honestly, can't think of any in my early career.
did, was one guy, shout out to Kelvin Sunderland.
There was one guy that I took all of my classes with in undergrad who was a black guy whowas in computer science.
But other than that, you know, again, I was always the only, I was just, you know, theonly woman, the only black woman, the only, a lot of times the only black person.
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In those first 10 years, I might've been the only person of color.
Later, again, I was working with South Asian men, so I wasn't the only person of color,but I was definitely the only black person.
you know, this is, I've talked about that at Nausium on the podcast in terms of like justthe isolation that I felt.
But it wasn't just, you so that was a part of it that, you know, why it didn't feel likeit was the right thing for me.
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But also it wasn't my passion, like education.
And also I was very creative as a kid.
I used to love doing arts and crafts and I used to sketch all the time and do drawing.
And I used to just do all these sort of creative things.
so I, like, there was no, I mean, there's a little bit of creativity when it comes toprogramming.
You know, you can get, you know, people have their own signature and things like that,but.
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That wasn't the kind of creativity that I needed and that would feed my soul.
And so it was just, I was just not feeling it.
So fast forward to, I don't even know how many years into my career, but what happenedwas, so I had lost my mom, to breast cancer.
And then about some years later, I don't know exactly, I have to do the math.
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I don't feel like doing the math right now, but let's just say five to seven years later,I lost both my grandparents, my mother's parents, and they died three months apart.
And that year that they died, I was like, you know what?
Life is just too short for me to be this miserable with what I'm doing on a day-to-daybasis.
So I like, that's when I decided that I was, I was leaving corporate America, but I didn'tknow what I was going to do.
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Like I had no idea whatsoever what I was going to do.
So I make like a pro-con list and it was kind of like what it wasn't even a pro-con list.
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It was like, what do I want to do?
What don't I want to do?
And it was like, I do want to do something with education.
I do want to do something.
I do want to use my technical skills that I've learned.
I don't want to throw that away.
But like on the do list, was, I don't want to wear a suit to work every day.
This is back in the days when people wore a suit to the office every day.
It's like, I don't want to wear a suit to, you know, to work every day.
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I don't want to have 8 a.m.
meetings.
I just had like,
All of these, I do want to do and I don't want to do.
And I took this list and I don't even know.
I mean, I guess Google is, I mean, I'm really dating myself.
I mean, I'm sure Google existed at the time, but you know, I was just, I probably Googledsome things.
I don't know, but I just did some research online trying to figure out what kind of thingfit these things that I wanted to do.
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And I found this franchise called Computer Tots and Computer Explorers.
It later was shortened to just Computer Explorers, but.
and basically what they did is they taught computer skills to kids beginning in preschool,starting at age three and up through middle school.
So it was basically ages three to 12 teaching computer classes.
And, in the beginning it's just like, you know, how to use the mouse and keyboarding andstuff, but it went up through, you know, you did, programming and game design and, and
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robotics and all that kind of stuff.
And so this was a franchise that was teaching all of these skills to kids in, in school.
And so I decided that I was going to leave corporate America.
and I was going to buy this franchise and that's what I was going to do.
And that's what I did and it was great.
I cannot tell you how much I love working for myself.
It was challenging.
I entrepreneurship, you've heard me say this before, entrepreneurship is very challenging.
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The benefit that, and again, there was the episode that I talked with Don Whalen where wetalked about the pros and cons of entrepreneurship versus starting something on your own.
The benefit that I had with that franchise was that it was a franchise.
So I had the franchisor organization to rely on.
from a guidance perspective for marketing and programs and things like that.
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And they were providing curriculum.
there was a lot of good to it, but there was also still a lot of challenges.
And unfortunately, I bought that franchise a couple of years before what is officiallyconsidered the Great Recession.
I'm talking about the recession that hit in like 2008, think, somewhere between 2007 and2010.
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I think it was 2008.
that the recession hit.
so I think I'd owned the business by about, I think I bought the business in, I bought itin 2000.
Well, my, my grandparents died in 2004.
So I think I bought the business in 2005.
And anyway, so in my point is I'd been running the business for a few years by the timethe recession hit.
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And unfortunately, when that happened, just all of the education dollars dried up.
So if you think about it, you know, I'm offering.
what is considered a supplemental skill, you know, like it's not, you know, so these were,offering computer classes in schools and you know, the best model of, of that some, in
some cases it was after school classes, in which case I'm selling to individuals, but mostof the time it was what we call a whole school contract, which is basically we're
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providing computer classes for the entire school and the school and or a parent foundationor whatever is paying us to be there.
And I say us, like I had teachers that I would send into these schools.
So, you know, when it comes to as you know,
we're hitting a recession and people are tightening their belts and everything.
And schools, especially, I had contracts with public schools or whatnot, like they'rehaving to cut budgets.
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Computers are, you music's going to go, computers going to, any like extracurricular likethat is going to go.
So I started, you know, those contracts started dying, drying up.
And I knew that I had to close the business and go back into corporate America.
And so I had some contracts that I had to finish up.
So like, I knew I was going to close.
But I had some contracts that I had to finish because just to honor the contract.
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So I started working sort of part-time while I was finishing up those contracts beforegoing back into corporate America.
But when I was interviewing to go back into corporate America, man, it was so frustratingbecause I was being treated like I'd been sitting at home eating bonbons for like six
years.
Cause I ran this business for like six years or so before I closed it and had to go backto corporate America.
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And.
It was, I mean, again, like recruiters and actually I won't even say employers because itmostly it was recruiters that I was talking to.
They wouldn't even put my, my resume forward for their clients.
You know, they're like needing me to prove to them that I could, you know, like that I cando the job again.
had done, I should mention I had done like Oracle.
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Again, I'd have to do the math, but I want to say like 15 to 20 years before I went to goown this business.
And so they're, but they're treating me like, you have to prove yourself.
And they make me take these out.
was, remember there was this one recruiter.
made me take this test.
It's some sort of Oracle, certification test or whatever.
And I was just so mad the whole time I'm taking the test.
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I'm just fussing and cussing and like just so mad at taking it.
And like a lot of the questions were in my opinion, subjective, cause these werequestions.
This was for Oracle ERP.
And it was talking about.
how to do implementations and especially for Oracle ERP implementations.
Like it all depends on the client and what they're trying to do.
Like there's so much flexibility in Oracle ERP setup that a lot of these questions werepresented as if there was only one, you know, black and white answer.
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And I'm like, well, the answer is it depends.
Like it depends on, you know, I'm like, what does our charter of accounts look like?
I was just like yelling at the computer screen as I'm taking this test.
And then I get the result, it took a couple of days at the time, it took a couple of daysfor the results to come back and the results come back and I placed in like the 98th
percentile.
And I was like, okay, now will you give them my resume?
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Like this was again, this was just to get a recruiter to put my resume forward for aclient.
This wasn't even just to get a job.
This was just to even be considered to send my resume over.
It was just so frustrating.
Cause like I say, they were,
And I know even in interviews, I would get the, you know, it looks like you've been awayfor a while.
You know, are you, are you sure you're going to be able to do it?
And I'm like, I've been running a business for six years.
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Do you have any idea the number of skills that are needed in order to run a business?
Like there again, they were treating me like I had just been sitting at home doing nothingand my brain had gone to mush and all that time.
it's just, it was very frustrating.
And I felt very much like, had I been a man.
And more specifically, had I been a white man, I would have been celebrated for being anentrepreneur and for running a business for six years.
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And it would have been like, congratulations.
Welcome back into the fold.
But instead I was treated like I was sitting home watching, you know, soap operas andeating bonbons.
And I was like, I was so frustrating, so frustrating.
So, you know, so that was my first business and then how I ended up back in corporateAmerica.
and then some years later I,
(28:15):
started doing corporate, cause I, I, I can't remember.
You know, I'd worked for a couple of companies and then I started doing consulting and Istarted doing corp to corp, which is to say that I was, you know, I spun up a second
business, another corporation so that I could do corp to corp.
So I could bill my time to, these corporate entities.
so basically, technically I was working for myself.
(28:38):
Officially I was working for myself, but you know,
40 hours a week or actually more than 40 hours a week, if I'm being honest, I was given mytime to these, these large companies.
so, you know, yes, technically it was a corporation.
was a business.
I was working for myself, but all of my time was being given to, or, you know, it was,being used to do this corporate consulting.
(29:00):
So, you know, it felt very much, even though I worked for myself, it felt very much likebeing back in corporate America.
so I did that for, again, another
I don't know, five, six years.
I don't remember how long.
And finally I was like, you know what?
Again, I was just like, I'm so done with this whole tech corporate thing.
I was just like, I just, I feel like there should be a whole separate podcast episodeabout corporate America in general.
(29:26):
And then more specifically tech corporate America.
But I decided, I promised myself that when I paid off my mortgage for my house, that I wasgoing to retire early.
I was like, I don't care.
Like I won't need that.
You know, once I don't have, that was like my last big bill to pay off.
And I was like, once I don't have that bill anymore, I don't need a high paying job.
(29:46):
I was like, I could go work at Walmart as a greeter.
I'm just going to be like, welcome to Walmart.
I was like, I'm just going to be done.
was just, I was just looking to leave again.
And when I finally, when I paid off my mortgage, I, at the time I was working at AT &T, Iwas doing corporate consulting.
was at AT &T and I was like, okay, yeah.
Like I gave him my nose and I.
(30:07):
I think I gave him like a one month note.
wasn't even a two week notice or whatever.
I gave him like my notice and they're like, where are you going?
I was like, I don't know.
They're like, what do you mean?
You know.
I was like, I'm just leaving.
Like I promised myself that when I paid off my mortgage that I was going to be done andI'm going to go do something else.
And they're like, you'll be back.
And I was like, no, no, I really won't.
Yeah.
I was like, I was dead serious, but I didn't really know what I was going to do next.
(30:27):
I, I, I remember contracting with a, a career consultant to sort of try to figure out whatwas next for me and things like that.
And
that was a long process and kind of came back to the teaching as always.
Everything keeps for me and keeps coming back to education and teaching.
But instead of going into like, you know, high school or middle school or anything likethat, the idea was put forth that maybe I should consider teaching at the college level.
(30:55):
And so that's when I decided to apply to teach software engineering at the college level.
And I live very close to
the third largest state university in Georgia.
think, well, at the time it was the third largest, but Kennesaw State University, I livevery close to one of their campuses.
(31:17):
And so I just, I saw that they had an opening for a software engineering professor, alecturer, a limited term contract, which is to say a two year contract.
And I was like, yeah, I'm just going to call up the, it wasn't the dean of the college,but it was the head of the department.
Cause I wanted to, like, I wasn't sure that I was a good fit.
So.
before applying, was like, I'm just gonna give this person a call.
(31:39):
I called up the director of the, or the head of the department and had like a 30 minuteconversation with her about the job.
And it was like, okay, yeah, I think I'll apply.
And then I applied and I was very fortunate.
I got the job.
And so then I was a professor of software engineering for two years.
And in the course of that, so I should mention that I never closed that second business.
(32:02):
So the business that I opened when I was doing the corporate consulting,
I never closed it.
I kept paying me the licenses and the insurance and all of that and all of the annualregistration.
I, you know, I just sort of kept it open and I was using it to do, like I had friends wholike, I need a website or I need a logo or I need help with this or that, like whatever
(32:22):
tech help.
I knew like some small business owners, who were friends or that I, you know, maybe knewbecause I patronize their shop on a regular basis or like, for example, at one point, one
of my customers was my dog trainer.
So just knew a lot of small business owners and whenever they needed technical help, Iwould help them out and would just sort of bill them for my time.
(32:43):
so the business was still open and had some amount of income that I was doing as sort of aside gig while I was still working in corporate America.
so what was the point that I was going to...
so COVID, back to, okay, so I'd finished, I'd ended my two-year contract as the professor.
(33:05):
doing the software engineering lecture.
while I was, I should mention that while I was there, I worked with Capstone.
So like these were like graduating seniors who they would have to do a project with a realcompany as sort of their final project for software engineering.
And so since I had a business, I'm like, I could be one of their, you know, one of thecompanies that they do.
(33:29):
And so I had had the students build an app for me.
I had an idea for an app and I'd had the students build a prototype for me.
And it went really well.
so I started and they won, there's a competition that they have, all the seniors have, andthey won first place for what they built and everything.
It was really great.
It was a really good prototype and shout out to those students.
(33:50):
They were really wonderful.
And so what I decided to do was I was like, maybe I'm gonna, it was still, it was a greatprototype, but it was still a prototype.
It wasn't even an MVP, a minimum viable product.
So I was like, wait, you know, it's still built by students.
I was like, I need to hire a full staff and actually, you know, you know, put somesecurity around this and see about maybe taking this to the market.
(34:11):
So I was sort of playing around with that.
was applying for some grants and trying to figure that out at the beginning of 2020.
And so after my contract had ended and beginning of 2020, I was sort of working on thatwhen COVID hit and when COVID hit and everything, you know, all these businesses started
closing and things were looking really tight for everybody.
I was like, you know what?
(34:32):
I don't have time to screw around.
I was like, I probably should go back to corporate America if I can.
I was like, I just panicked.
was just like, because in the whole world, we didn't know what was going to happen, right?
In early 2020.
And so I was like, man, I think I need to start.
I need to go back to corporate America and I just start looking for some stuff.
(34:53):
And I wasn't even really serious about it.
I was just kind of like, I guess I got to go back.
But I was kind of lightly looking and...
the company I ended up working for New Relic, they reached out to me.
And what happened was the hiring manager had seen my profile on LinkedIn and had thetalent acquisition team reach out to me.
(35:15):
And they called me up and said, hey, would you be interested in interviewing for thistechnical sales position?
And I was like, no.
I was like, no, thank you.
And again, this was, by this point, I think it was like,
summer of 2020, like May, June, somewhere around there at 2020 when this is when thingswere looking really bad and we really didn't know what was going to happen.
(35:37):
so the idea that anybody would be saying no to an interview I think was pretty shocking.
I don't think the talent acquisition person knew what to even do with that.
Cause I just like completely caught her off guard.
And so she was like, well, could you, would you mind talking to the hiring manager?
And I was like, yeah, I could tell him no same as I told you.
No, it's no big deal.
(36:00):
well, the hiring manager was really great when I got on the phone with him.
He, like, I was of the impression, because I have Oracle in my profile and on, youLinkedIn, a lot of times I get people, recruit, recruiters and, and, folks who reach out
to me for like DBA positions or other types of Oracle positions.
I'm like, that's not what I do, but they just see Oracle and then they, reach out to mefor.
(36:23):
those types of positions.
So I get that a lot.
So I assumed that this was something along those lines that he was mistaken about the typeof work that I did.
So that was my, going into the conversation, going into the interview, that was my thoughtprocess was, okay, I'm just going to explain to him why he's wrong.
And instead he explained to me why I was wrong, which was that he went through my entireprofile and all of my previous work experience and explained to me how my skills in each
(36:51):
one of those roles would
work really well in this technical sales position.
And I was so impressed with the fact that he took the time to do that and that he actuallyunderstood my background and my skillset that I initially, I just interviewed just as a
thank you, because I was like, well, he's done all this work.
So the least I could do was interview.
(37:11):
Like I still had no intention of taking a job because I don't consider myself asalesperson.
And again, technical sales and solutions consulting is a little different.
But it just didn't seem like the right fit for me.
spoiler alert, obviously I ended up taking the job.
So I did end up taking the job there.
Started off in technical sales, solutions consulting, and had a lot of opinions about theonboarding process.
(37:38):
And so when that hiring manager moved over to the enablement team, he was like, yeah, youhad a lot of feedback about our onboarding and our training.
You want to come over and be part of the solution?
And I was like, absolutely.
So I moved over to Enablement and I started doing customer training as well as someinternal training.
And then later moved into developer relations, which is going out to conferences and doingspeaking engagements and things like that.
(38:05):
And so that's where I was when I ended up, this was a little, well, year and a half agonow.
So summer of 2023.
I had to have surgery, so I was going to be on medical leave for, I think it was like sixor eight weeks or something like that.
And so I decided I was going to use that medical leave as what I called retirement testingor retirement training.
(38:28):
I'm like, I'm just going to pretend like this is, you know, I'm done with work forever andyou know, what am I going to do with my life?
And I was just like, I just thoroughly, first of all, thoroughly enjoyed that time.
I'm very much looking forward to retirement.
There's a lot of people that say, you'll be so bored.
you know, cause I'm like, I they're like, what are you going do in retirement?
I'm like, I
care of nothing.
And like, you'd be so bored.
No, trust me.
I figured it out.
(38:48):
I'm not going to be bored.
I'm going to be very happy in retirement.
But anyway, during that time that I was on medical leave recovering, I often say like whenI had the fever dream that would become imperfect genius, it may have actually literally
been a fever dream or it could have been the pain meds, the drugs, I don't know.
But I started thinking about
(39:09):
What did I want this business?
So again, this corporate entity that had existed for, by that point in time, what eightyears or so, like this corporate, this entity that existed all along that I never closed.
I like, what do I want that to ultimately be?
Because I want it to be the vehicle for income for me in retirement.
And I was like, what do I want that to look like?
You know, even once I am theoretically retired, I'm, you know, if this business is stillopen, what does it look like?
(39:33):
So I started thinking about.
what that might look like.
And then I started thinking about ways to expand the business.
And I was like, I know.
You know, was like, well, first of all, I need to figure out, you know, how to reach awider clientele and, know, get my brand name out there and then all this.
And I was like, I'm going to do a blog.
And let me say for a second, I don't know what possessed me to think that a blog was agood idea for a dyslexic.
(39:57):
Again, anybody who's listened to.
All of my podcast episodes, you've heard me say many times that I'm dyslexic.
So why did I think that writing a blog was a good idea for me?
I don't know.
Same with newsletter.
This is why I'm behind on newsletter.
Like writing blogs and newsletters was really hard for me.
Speaking of, going to sign up for my loose letter.
(40:18):
I'm going to be posting a job ad because I need a copywriter.
anyway, putting a pin in that.
So I was just trying to think of like these ways that I was going to expand the business.
was like, okay, I'll do a blog, I'll do a podcast, I'm going to do these online courses.
And when I was writing all these things down, I also wrote down community base.
And I had no idea what that meant at the time.
(40:40):
It was a thing that popped into my head, so I wrote it down.
I was just thinking of all, it's kind of similar to the first time I left corporateAmerica when I was writing down the do want to do and don't want to do list, the pro-con
list.
It was just like one of those things.
I was just writing out all these things that I did want it to be and didn't want it to be.
And community based was one of the things that I said I wanted it to be.
And I was like, I don't know what that means, but I'm, you know, I'm going to circle backon that.
(41:02):
And, know, there's an entire podcast episode.
I don't remember which number it was, but the episode title finding community where I talkabout sort of like what that ended up meaning for me.
know, so like even these online courses that I'm writing right now,
they are going to be cohort courses.
you it's not just going to be, I mean, you could just do plain old self-paced learning,but my plan is that there'll be community-based cohort courses so that you can learn along
(41:28):
with other students and you can share ideas and you know, there'll be live workshoppingand all those types of things.
And so I had been building this and you heard in probably the, you know, a couple ofepisodes ago where I talked about my whole trademark debacle.
So I was just dealing with a lot.
I was trying to do all of this.
I was trying to get this off the ground.
And, you know, I was trying to juggle that along with a corporate gig, but not only just acorporate gig, but a corporate gig where I was having to travel because I get told I was
(41:55):
in dev roles and developer relations.
So was having to do conferences and things like that.
So that was a lot.
That was a lot to try to juggle.
And I finally just sort of had to, you know, decide.
said, you know, as long as I am treating the business as a side gig, that's all it's evergoing to be.
You know, so it's like, if I
wanted to be this, you know, all these things that I envisioned it being long-term, thenI've got to take the time and the effort and actually try to make it into that.
(42:22):
So that's when I had to make the decision of, you know, whether or I was going tocorporate America, which is what I did decide to do last November.
so, you again, you heard in my previous episode of the whole, the trademarking thing, andI sort of like, I left my last corporate gig and I think it was November 30th of 2023.
(42:43):
My plan was to take December off and then start in January, 2024 and hit the groundrunning.
And this is what it sort of brings us sort of to real time where, when I started offthinking about this, what this episode ended up being, when I was thinking about the year
end and review, 2024 and end review, and I was gonna sort of talk about that as a podcastepisode.
(43:07):
So that sort of brings us to that point in the story.
Looking at the time, looks like this has already been almost a 45 minute episode.
So I think we'll have to do a to be continued and stop there.
then, again, I guess I'll come back to, and then what did 2024 look like in terms ofbuilding the business and sort of reflect on the year.
(43:32):
So stay tuned.
I'll come back and I'll finish the story in my year-end wrap-up episode.
And then like I said, I'm going to take a break.
the end of December and part of January and we'll be back in late January, early Februarywith new episodes.
So yeah, stay tuned and I want to say thank you for listening.
If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
(43:53):
You can call or text at 404-425-9862.
You can follow us on social media at Ask Imperfect Genius.
I'm laughing when I'm...
You know, you can subscribe to the newsletter and I promise I'm going to catch up onthose.
can subscribe to our newsletter at subscribe.imperfectgenius.com.
As I mentioned, you can subscribe there.
can get our sign up to get our show notes or just general news information.
(44:16):
As I mentioned, I am going to be putting out a job ad for a copywriter.
I'm going to list that in my newsletter first before I make that public.
So that's another reason to sign up for that newsletter.
And until next time, this is Rachel Foster reminding you that while your journey may notbe flawless, it can be phenomenal.
Welcome to Imperfect Genius, the podcast that helps Black women thrive by providingtechnical advice on effectively navigating the business development journey and offering
advice to all women on building successful careers in the tech industry.
I'm your host, Rachel Foster, a tech professional, educator, and entrepreneur.
Hey, everyone.
I was planning a year-end reflection episode because I'm going to take some time off atthe end of December and for part of January.
(00:38):
And it occurred to me that there have been several times in previous episodes that I'vehinted at or casually mentioned various parts of my background without going into too much
detail.
And I know, you know, there's been times when I said, I'm going to circle back on thattopic later or, I'm sure I mentioned this before, but never really went deep on any of the
(00:58):
things that I mentioned.
And I often ask guests on the podcast to tell me their origin story, but I don't thinkI've ever...
fully told my origin story.
So I've decided that I'm going to dedicate this episode.
It'll be the penultimate episode.
I'll still come back with a year and reflection episode.
I decided that I'm going to tell my tech and entrepreneurship origin story.
(01:20):
And I say story singular because they're intertwined.
I can't tell one without the other.
They both, you one feeds the other.
So here we go.
I know in the very first episode, welcome to Imperfect Genius with
former assistant producer Emma Bergen, that I mentioned my kindergarten story.
(01:41):
And I talked about how I got kicked out of kindergarten because I was walking around, youknow, helping the other kids do their work like I was the teacher.
And we talked about me having the heart of a teacher.
But I don't know if I went into detail in terms of like sort of where that came from.
And then so I want to start there and then go forward and we'll go through my full techand entrepreneurship origin story.
(02:02):
So.
It's important to note that my grandmother was a preschool teacher and my mother was anelementary school teacher.
My mother taught third grade, special ed as well as a phys ed.
And in my family, there are lots of men and very few women.
There's, I always jokingly say there's only like one female per generation in my family,which is not entirely accurate, but it feels accurate.
(02:28):
so when it comes to female role models,
Those are my role models.
My mother was an elementary school teacher, my grandmother who was a preschool teacher.
So as a kid, I always wanted to be a teacher.
I was that kid that would play, you know, school with my Barbies.
And, I was just, I was just always that kid who wanted to teach because that's what I,that's what I saw.
So that's what I wanted to emulate.
(02:49):
And so I guess that's what I was doing when I was in kindergarten.
And I mentioned in that, you know, previously that because I started school early, Istarted with preschool, I guess maybe when I was three.
I don't know for sure, but I think maybe when I was three.
So by the time I got to kindergarten, I'd already been in school for a couple of years andthe things that they were teaching in kindergarten already knew.
(03:11):
So I was, guess I was bored in my classes and I decided I was going to go around and I wasgoing to help all the other students, which, you know, it says a lot about who I am at my
core.
It's, who I still am.
and we, joked about that in the first episode about how I'm that person had, even if youdon't ask me.
directly if I know the answer then I'm gonna I'm gonna be the person that's gonna that'sgonna give you that answer so It sort of started there.
(03:36):
I always wanted to be a teacher and the other part of it is I went to my mother's schoolfor elementary school, which was not my local my neighborhood Elementary school so she she
taught but she didn't teach in our neighborhood and she got special permission for me togo to her school which was outside of the neighborhood so I didn't go to school with
my friends that I played with on a regular basis.
(03:59):
I was always an introvert and was always kind shy, but I was always usually near mymother, up under my mother, like hiding behind her skirts or whatever when we're walking
through the halls and when I wasn't in class basically.
I was usually with her when I would encounter other adults and they'd, Rachel, what do youwant to be when you grow up?
(04:19):
That kind of thing.
I would always say that I wanted to be a teacher.
And my mother would say, no, you don't, you do not want to be a teacher.
You do not want to be a teacher.
Like she used to just like drill it into my head and she did it for so long that Ijokingly say that I feel like she put subliminal tapes by my bed because it was like one
day I woke up and somebody said, Rachel, what do you want to be when you grow up?
(04:42):
And I was like, yeah, I don't know.
Cause I can't be a teacher.
It was just kind of like, I got nothing.
You know, I've been told I can't be a teacher.
So who knows?
I don't know.
so.
I just sort of was directionless in terms of what did I want to be when I grew up and Ijust was kind of just sort of floating through school and life.
(05:03):
so I was a straight A student and I also happened to be good in math and science.
And so when I was in middle school, by the way, I just had, I'm pausing because I just hada flash of when I said I was good in math and science, I had a flash of an image of me.
my, I'm going to have to put this in the show notes or, and, or, I'll definitely put it,I'll put an over the shoulder picture for the, for the video, for those of you who are in
(05:31):
the community and get the video episodes, I'm going to put an over the shoulder picture ofme.
And I think it was the sixth grade.
I won third place in a science fair and I was doing, I was doing testing of,
I was testing strength and durability and absorbency and all these other things.
(05:54):
And the title of the project was, Is It Worth the Wipe?
And that's a picture of me.
And I look like a grandma.
I look so terrible in middle school.
And I'm sitting in front of this board that says, Is It Worth the Wipe?
And I've got like this grandma hairstyle and these big giant glasses.
wow.
Anyway, yeah, I'm definitely going to put that as an over the shoulder picture so peoplecan see that if you get the videos.
(06:19):
But sorry, I digress.
When I said math and science and then I said middle school, that image just like poppedinto my head.
But anyway, when I was in middle school, my mother bought me my first computer, Commodore64.
Now, it's important to note that I had never expressed any interest in computers.
I mean, I think I played, I don't even know.
(06:41):
Okay.
This is, you guys have heard me say that I'm old.
This is going to really date me.
I, the first video game, I'm a big video game fan.
The first video game that I remember playing is Pong, which was at Atari.
you know, like the two, and I'm talking like the original, the two little paddles like,doop, doop.
(07:02):
Anyway, that's the first video game I remember playing.
and I did enjoy that, but I never expressed any kind of interest in computers.
But when I was in middle school, my mother bought me a computer.
It was a Commodore 64.
And I was like, whatever.
Thank you.
I don't know.
Like I didn't care.
My brother took it and he was like programming it and he was doing all kinds of stuff withit, but I didn't care about it.
(07:23):
and then when it was time for me to go to high school, my mother, she decided that I wasgoing to go to this,
There's a school in Detroit, I'm originally from Detroit.
So there's a school called Cass Technical High School and it's not, technically it is aDetroit public school, but it's a special school in that you have to apply to get in.
(07:44):
It would be considered a magnet school now.
It wasn't called that back then when I went, but it would be considered a magnet schoolnow.
You have to apply to get in and you have to declare a major and all this stuff.
And so my mother filled out the application and she chose computer programming as mymajor.
And I'm just a good kid and I...
you know, do what I'm told.
So I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm studying computer program.
(08:04):
Like she was like on this computer kick.
I don't know what I never had a chance to, unfortunately, my mother is now deceased.
I never had a chance to ask her why, like where that all came from.
Again, I was just a good kid.
I just did what I was told.
So that's what I studied.
so I was in high school.
I was studying computer programming.
Like my first language was like the original basic.
(08:25):
then, and then I did cobalt and Fortran and some other things.
And the other thing
So I was told A, that I had to study, well, I wasn't told, but it was like your study incomputer programming.
But also I always wanted to have a job like at Blockbuster or McDonald's or whatever,because I just wanted to have my own money.
And I was always told, no, no, you just don't worry about work.
(08:47):
Just do your homework.
Well, that was until I had an opportunity to intern.
They were doing these interviews at my school and for internships.
And I got an opportunity to intern at General Motors in Detroit and well, technically inWarren, Michigan.
And that was the first that I could have.
Like that was a job that I had.
(09:08):
So my first job was intern at General Motors.
And most of my friends were like just like doing copies and coffee and like that kind ofthing.
Do you know what I was doing for my internship?
I was doing Fortran programming.
I was doing a crash simulation.
Like I was like, it was like a serious job.
and that was my first job ever.
(09:29):
so that was, and that's, that's when it all started, unfortunately.
so yeah.
So my first job ever was doing Fortran programming at General Motors.
And, the interesting thing about that is for, don't know why I had a, I don't know why Itook communications as a class in high school, but I'm very glad that I did.
(09:53):
So one of my classes in high school.
was communications and I was learning how to do public speaking and presentations andthings.
And it's a good thing that I did because at the end of that project, so I was working onthis, this craft simulation project and it was, again, this was not just like just a
little fluff piece to give to an intern.
This was real coding work.
And it was just me and my supervisor who went back to India for month at the end of theproject and was like, he left me to do this presentation to these engineers.
(10:22):
So I'm, I'm having to do.
this presentation, by the way, I should mention I was 15 years old.
So I'm having to this presentation to these engineers.
And at the time, these were all just old, they were old to me.
I guess it might've been middle-aged, but you know, as a 15 year old, they were just likeold me, but like all these old white men, but again, they probably were middle-aged white
men that I'm having to do this presentation about this crash simulation program that Iwritten.
(10:47):
I'm like doing a formal presentation at General Motors to engineers.
at age 15.
This was my first job.
So that's, that's sort of how, you know, my, my career started.
And I, so I went on, I got my high school degree, you know, high school diploma, whichwas, you know, with a major in computer programming.
And again, I was told you don't have a choice.
(11:08):
You're going to college.
So, I, don't even know how I chose Michigan state, but you Michigan state had a good,engineering college.
So I went to Michigan state.
My major was computer science and at
at the time that I went to Michigan State, if you were a computer science major, you hadto have two minors.
And so I had one minor was general engineering and the second minor was communicationbecause I had studied communication in high school.
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So I figured that was an easy thing.
And I ended up becoming, because I had the communication minor, I ended up becoming apublic speaking teaching assistant.
And so that's sort of where that public speaking background that I have.
came from.
And it was a good balance.
Like one of the reasons that they, at the time they told us the reason that if you were acomputer science major, you had to have two minors was because they wanted you to have
(12:00):
something to balance out just the computers.
Cause back in the day, I mean, it's a little bit still a little bit true now, but back inthe day, anybody who was, you know, a programmer, they were conceived, they were perceived
to have like no soft skills and definitely not somebody who could talk to, you know, likeclients or anything like that.
So they were, you know, theoretically Michigan state was trying to
balance us out so that we had like some additional skills other than just programming.
(12:24):
So I graduated from Michigan State and I like was not ready.
Like I did have a job.
went and worked in Ohio for Meet Data Central.
I don't think that exists anymore.
I'm trying to think who they get bought out by, but they, I think Lexis and Nexus, thedatabase system still exists.
(12:46):
biggest online database systems.
And that's what I was doing.
I was doing database programming there.
But my point is I took that job post Michigan State, but I was like, I don't feel likethis is what I want to do with my life.
was like, this just doesn't feel right.
So I did that and I decided I was going to go to grad school and I had...
(13:11):
My, the way that I chose my grad school was I used to visit, I had a cousin, I had friendsand a cousin who went to HBCUs in the Atlanta area.
And I just was like, you know what?
I, you know, this is fun.
I used to come visit.
used to come for spring break and stuff like that.
So was like, I'm going to move to Atlanta.
And I was like, okay, what's a good school for computers in Atlanta?
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Georgia Tech.
I'll just apply there.
Like that was my, that was the extent of my thinking of that.
But anyway.
So I applied to Georgia Tech to specialize in database systems, because that's what I hadspecialized in in undergrad and then also was working in that field.
So I got into Georgia Tech and went on to get my master's degree in computer science.
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And here's the funny thing.
As I told you, my mother was adamant, you're not going to be a teacher, you're not goingto be a teacher.
One thing I should mention before I talk about when I graduated from Georgia Tech.
is all throughout school I worked.
So when I was at Michigan State, I worked for the Michigan State School of Medicine doingdatabase programming.
(14:16):
When I was at Jordan, then I told you I worked in between undergrad and grad school.
And then when I was at Georgia Tech, I worked for the CDC also doing database programs.
So like I had been working in the field from age 15.
Like, so I had been working in the field the entire time from that first job at GM onward.
So I was like, I had...
By the time I was getting my master's degree, was like, I need a brain break.
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I was like, I can't, I just can't even deal with this.
So I graduated, I got my master's degree from Georgia Tech and I took a job as a preschoolteacher.
I thought my mother's head was going to explode.
She's like, what are you doing?
I, and it wasn't even like, you can barely, I mean, it was teaching, but.
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I want to say you could almost barely even call it teaching because I was in a, I had atwo year old room and so half of those students weren't even potty trained.
So was like changing diapers.
it was like the idea that this person with two degrees in computer science is changingdiapers.
and, and by choice, like this was, this was my choice.
And my mother was just like, I don't even understand what you're doing right now.
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So, but that was just because I just like, I just needed a break because I knew it wasn't,I knew.
That wasn't for me.
And again, this is where we're going to go through the rest of my origin story.
you know, it just my point is from the very beginning, I just knew it was not a good fitfor me.
But what ended up happening was I did that job.
I don't know, was like maybe six months or something like that.
(15:44):
But before I graduated from Georgia Tech, I had interviewed with there was like this bigcareer fair or whatever.
And I'd interviewed with Oracle and I graduated mid year.
I graduated in December.
And so there had been this big career fair before I graduated and I'd interviewed withOracle and they were hiring recent grads for like in like May or June, like basically
(16:07):
after college.
But because I graduated early, I had that time in between I graduated and when I heardback from Oracle.
So that's the time that I was doing the preschool.
But anyway, my point is I got a job offer from Oracle.
And because databases were my specialty, was just like, okay, well, duh.
really, and plus again, you know, earning potential of a preschool teacher versus, youknow, working as a programmer for Oracle.
(16:34):
Very dynamically different, right?
So once I got the job offer from Oracle, which I guess it was like that, that spring, likeMay or June or whatever, then I was like, okay, I got it.
Like I felt obligated, like I have to take this.
And so that was, that was how I went back into corporate America after, after.
getting my degrees.
And I tried to change it up a little bit, like I say, because I had specialized indatabase systems.
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And when I went to go work at Oracle, they were kind of like, at first I had to do thiswhole boot camp.
was like this 14 week boot camp.
had to go out to California and learn all of their tools.
And I also was learning all their ERP systems, all their enterprise resource planning, orbasically like all their financial applications and manufacturing applications and things
like that.
And so I was given, once I graduated from this bootcamp, I was given a choice.
(17:26):
It was like, well, you can either go and I was going to be in consulting or consulting.
And they were like, you can either go and consult on our database and our tools.
So basically companies that buy our database and tools, they're going to use those tobuild their own applications, or you can consult on our financial and manufacturing
applications.
And I was like, let's see, I've never taken a business class in my life.
(17:48):
I don't know the difference between a debit and a credit.
I'm going to consult on your financial applications.
Because I just wanted a challenge.
again, I just had been doing the same thing for so long, programming and database.
I knew it was not the thing for me.
So I wanted a challenge.
So I decided I would do consulting on the financial applications.
And so that's how I ended up going back into corporate America and working with Oracle fora long time.
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And I think I mentioned previously,
on the podcast, just from a diversity perspective, to cover this.
I think for the first 10 years of my career, and when I say that, I'm probably counting, Ihad to think about this when I say, I say this all the time, I say in the first 10 years
of my career, I only worked with white men.
(18:38):
I'm probably counting that from when I was in college, some of my internships andwhatever, when I count the 10 years.
But again, for the first 10 years of my career, I only worked with white men.
And then,
Later it was white and South Asian men, so Indian men, but still just sort of me, onlywoman, only black woman.
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Occasionally, on very rare occasion there might've been a black man.
I honestly, can't think of any in my early career.
did, was one guy, shout out to Kelvin Sunderland.
There was one guy that I took all of my classes with in undergrad who was a black guy whowas in computer science.
But other than that, you know, again, I was always the only, I was just, you know, theonly woman, the only black woman, the only, a lot of times the only black person.
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In those first 10 years, I might've been the only person of color.
Later, again, I was working with South Asian men, so I wasn't the only person of color,but I was definitely the only black person.
you know, this is, I've talked about that at Nausium on the podcast in terms of like justthe isolation that I felt.
But it wasn't just, you so that was a part of it that, you know, why it didn't feel likeit was the right thing for me.
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But also it wasn't my passion, like education.
And also I was very creative as a kid.
I used to love doing arts and crafts and I used to sketch all the time and do drawing.
And I used to just do all these sort of creative things.
so I, like, there was no, I mean, there's a little bit of creativity when it comes toprogramming.
You know, you can get, you know, people have their own signature and things like that,but.
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That wasn't the kind of creativity that I needed and that would feed my soul.
And so it was just, I was just not feeling it.
So fast forward to, I don't even know how many years into my career, but what happenedwas, so I had lost my mom, to breast cancer.
And then about some years later, I don't know exactly, I have to do the math.
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I don't feel like doing the math right now, but let's just say five to seven years later,I lost both my grandparents, my mother's parents, and they died three months apart.
And that year that they died, I was like, you know what?
Life is just too short for me to be this miserable with what I'm doing on a day-to-daybasis.
So I like, that's when I decided that I was, I was leaving corporate America, but I didn'tknow what I was going to do.
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Like I had no idea whatsoever what I was going to do.
So I make like a pro-con list and it was kind of like what it wasn't even a pro-con list.
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It was like, what do I want to do?
What don't I want to do?
And it was like, I do want to do something with education.
I do want to do something.
I do want to use my technical skills that I've learned.
I don't want to throw that away.
But like on the do list, was, I don't want to wear a suit to work every day.
This is back in the days when people wore a suit to the office every day.
It's like, I don't want to wear a suit to, you know, to work every day.
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I don't want to have 8 a.m.
meetings.
I just had like,
All of these, I do want to do and I don't want to do.
And I took this list and I don't even know.
I mean, I guess Google is, I mean, I'm really dating myself.
I mean, I'm sure Google existed at the time, but you know, I was just, I probably Googledsome things.
I don't know, but I just did some research online trying to figure out what kind of thingfit these things that I wanted to do.
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And I found this franchise called Computer Tots and Computer Explorers.
It later was shortened to just Computer Explorers, but.
and basically what they did is they taught computer skills to kids beginning in preschool,starting at age three and up through middle school.
So it was basically ages three to 12 teaching computer classes.
And, in the beginning it's just like, you know, how to use the mouse and keyboarding andstuff, but it went up through, you know, you did, programming and game design and, and
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robotics and all that kind of stuff.
And so this was a franchise that was teaching all of these skills to kids in, in school.
And so I decided that I was going to leave corporate America.
and I was going to buy this franchise and that's what I was going to do.
And that's what I did and it was great.
I cannot tell you how much I love working for myself.
It was challenging.
I entrepreneurship, you've heard me say this before, entrepreneurship is very challenging.
(22:53):
The benefit that, and again, there was the episode that I talked with Don Whalen where wetalked about the pros and cons of entrepreneurship versus starting something on your own.
The benefit that I had with that franchise was that it was a franchise.
So I had the franchisor organization to rely on.
from a guidance perspective for marketing and programs and things like that.
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And they were providing curriculum.
there was a lot of good to it, but there was also still a lot of challenges.
And unfortunately, I bought that franchise a couple of years before what is officiallyconsidered the Great Recession.
I'm talking about the recession that hit in like 2008, think, somewhere between 2007 and2010.
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I think it was 2008.
that the recession hit.
so I think I'd owned the business by about, I think I bought the business in, I bought itin 2000.
Well, my, my grandparents died in 2004.
So I think I bought the business in 2005.
And anyway, so in my point is I'd been running the business for a few years by the timethe recession hit.
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And unfortunately, when that happened, just all of the education dollars dried up.
So if you think about it, you know, I'm offering.
what is considered a supplemental skill, you know, like it's not, you know, so these were,offering computer classes in schools and you know, the best model of, of that some, in
some cases it was after school classes, in which case I'm selling to individuals, but mostof the time it was what we call a whole school contract, which is basically we're
(24:24):
providing computer classes for the entire school and the school and or a parent foundationor whatever is paying us to be there.
And I say us, like I had teachers that I would send into these schools.
So, you know, when it comes to as you know,
we're hitting a recession and people are tightening their belts and everything.
And schools, especially, I had contracts with public schools or whatnot, like they'rehaving to cut budgets.
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Computers are, you music's going to go, computers going to, any like extracurricular likethat is going to go.
So I started, you know, those contracts started dying, drying up.
And I knew that I had to close the business and go back into corporate America.
And so I had some contracts that I had to finish up.
So like, I knew I was going to close.
But I had some contracts that I had to finish because just to honor the contract.
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So I started working sort of part-time while I was finishing up those contracts beforegoing back into corporate America.
But when I was interviewing to go back into corporate America, man, it was so frustratingbecause I was being treated like I'd been sitting at home eating bonbons for like six
years.
Cause I ran this business for like six years or so before I closed it and had to go backto corporate America.
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And.
It was, I mean, again, like recruiters and actually I won't even say employers because itmostly it was recruiters that I was talking to.
They wouldn't even put my, my resume forward for their clients.
You know, they're like needing me to prove to them that I could, you know, like that I cando the job again.
had done, I should mention I had done like Oracle.
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Again, I'd have to do the math, but I want to say like 15 to 20 years before I went to goown this business.
And so they're, but they're treating me like, you have to prove yourself.
And they make me take these out.
was, remember there was this one recruiter.
made me take this test.
It's some sort of Oracle, certification test or whatever.
And I was just so mad the whole time I'm taking the test.
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I'm just fussing and cussing and like just so mad at taking it.
And like a lot of the questions were in my opinion, subjective, cause these werequestions.
This was for Oracle ERP.
And it was talking about.
how to do implementations and especially for Oracle ERP implementations.
Like it all depends on the client and what they're trying to do.
Like there's so much flexibility in Oracle ERP setup that a lot of these questions werepresented as if there was only one, you know, black and white answer.
(26:43):
And I'm like, well, the answer is it depends.
Like it depends on, you know, I'm like, what does our charter of accounts look like?
I was just like yelling at the computer screen as I'm taking this test.
And then I get the result, it took a couple of days at the time, it took a couple of daysfor the results to come back and the results come back and I placed in like the 98th
percentile.
And I was like, okay, now will you give them my resume?
(27:03):
Like this was again, this was just to get a recruiter to put my resume forward for aclient.
This wasn't even just to get a job.
This was just to even be considered to send my resume over.
It was just so frustrating.
Cause like I say, they were,
And I know even in interviews, I would get the, you know, it looks like you've been awayfor a while.
You know, are you, are you sure you're going to be able to do it?
And I'm like, I've been running a business for six years.
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Do you have any idea the number of skills that are needed in order to run a business?
Like there again, they were treating me like I had just been sitting at home doing nothingand my brain had gone to mush and all that time.
it's just, it was very frustrating.
And I felt very much like, had I been a man.
And more specifically, had I been a white man, I would have been celebrated for being anentrepreneur and for running a business for six years.
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And it would have been like, congratulations.
Welcome back into the fold.
But instead I was treated like I was sitting home watching, you know, soap operas andeating bonbons.
And I was like, I was so frustrating, so frustrating.
So, you know, so that was my first business and then how I ended up back in corporateAmerica.
and then some years later I,
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started doing corporate, cause I, I, I can't remember.
You know, I'd worked for a couple of companies and then I started doing consulting and Istarted doing corp to corp, which is to say that I was, you know, I spun up a second
business, another corporation so that I could do corp to corp.
So I could bill my time to, these corporate entities.
so basically, technically I was working for myself.
(28:38):
Officially I was working for myself, but you know,
40 hours a week or actually more than 40 hours a week, if I'm being honest, I was given mytime to these, these large companies.
so, you know, yes, technically it was a corporation.
was a business.
I was working for myself, but all of my time was being given to, or, you know, it was,being used to do this corporate consulting.
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So, you know, it felt very much, even though I worked for myself, it felt very much likebeing back in corporate America.
so I did that for, again, another
I don't know, five, six years.
I don't remember how long.
And finally I was like, you know what?
Again, I was just like, I'm so done with this whole tech corporate thing.
I was just like, I just, I feel like there should be a whole separate podcast episodeabout corporate America in general.
(29:26):
And then more specifically tech corporate America.
But I decided, I promised myself that when I paid off my mortgage for my house, that I wasgoing to retire early.
I was like, I don't care.
Like I won't need that.
You know, once I don't have, that was like my last big bill to pay off.
And I was like, once I don't have that bill anymore, I don't need a high paying job.
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I was like, I could go work at Walmart as a greeter.
I'm just going to be like, welcome to Walmart.
I was like, I'm just going to be done.
was just, I was just looking to leave again.
And when I finally, when I paid off my mortgage, I, at the time I was working at AT &T, Iwas doing corporate consulting.
was at AT &T and I was like, okay, yeah.
Like I gave him my nose and I.
(30:07):
I think I gave him like a one month note.
wasn't even a two week notice or whatever.
I gave him like my notice and they're like, where are you going?
I was like, I don't know.
They're like, what do you mean?
You know.
I was like, I'm just leaving.
Like I promised myself that when I paid off my mortgage that I was going to be done andI'm going to go do something else.
And they're like, you'll be back.
And I was like, no, no, I really won't.
Yeah.
I was like, I was dead serious, but I didn't really know what I was going to do next.
(30:27):
I, I, I remember contracting with a, a career consultant to sort of try to figure out whatwas next for me and things like that.
And
that was a long process and kind of came back to the teaching as always.
Everything keeps for me and keeps coming back to education and teaching.
But instead of going into like, you know, high school or middle school or anything likethat, the idea was put forth that maybe I should consider teaching at the college level.
(30:55):
And so that's when I decided to apply to teach software engineering at the college level.
And I live very close to
the third largest state university in Georgia.
think, well, at the time it was the third largest, but Kennesaw State University, I livevery close to one of their campuses.
(31:17):
And so I just, I saw that they had an opening for a software engineering professor, alecturer, a limited term contract, which is to say a two year contract.
And I was like, yeah, I'm just going to call up the, it wasn't the dean of the college,but it was the head of the department.
Cause I wanted to, like, I wasn't sure that I was a good fit.
So.
before applying, was like, I'm just gonna give this person a call.
(31:39):
I called up the director of the, or the head of the department and had like a 30 minuteconversation with her about the job.
And it was like, okay, yeah, I think I'll apply.
And then I applied and I was very fortunate.
I got the job.
And so then I was a professor of software engineering for two years.
And in the course of that, so I should mention that I never closed that second business.
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So the business that I opened when I was doing the corporate consulting,
I never closed it.
I kept paying me the licenses and the insurance and all of that and all of the annualregistration.
I, you know, I just sort of kept it open and I was using it to do, like I had friends wholike, I need a website or I need a logo or I need help with this or that, like whatever
(32:22):
tech help.
I knew like some small business owners, who were friends or that I, you know, maybe knewbecause I patronize their shop on a regular basis or like, for example, at one point, one
of my customers was my dog trainer.
So just knew a lot of small business owners and whenever they needed technical help, Iwould help them out and would just sort of bill them for my time.
(32:43):
so the business was still open and had some amount of income that I was doing as sort of aside gig while I was still working in corporate America.
so what was the point that I was going to...
so COVID, back to, okay, so I'd finished, I'd ended my two-year contract as the professor.
(33:05):
doing the software engineering lecture.
while I was, I should mention that while I was there, I worked with Capstone.
So like these were like graduating seniors who they would have to do a project with a realcompany as sort of their final project for software engineering.
And so since I had a business, I'm like, I could be one of their, you know, one of thecompanies that they do.
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And so I had had the students build an app for me.
I had an idea for an app and I'd had the students build a prototype for me.
And it went really well.
so I started and they won, there's a competition that they have, all the seniors have, andthey won first place for what they built and everything.
It was really great.
It was a really good prototype and shout out to those students.
(33:50):
They were really wonderful.
And so what I decided to do was I was like, maybe I'm gonna, it was still, it was a greatprototype, but it was still a prototype.
It wasn't even an MVP, a minimum viable product.
So I was like, wait, you know, it's still built by students.
I was like, I need to hire a full staff and actually, you know, you know, put somesecurity around this and see about maybe taking this to the market.
(34:11):
So I was sort of playing around with that.
was applying for some grants and trying to figure that out at the beginning of 2020.
And so after my contract had ended and beginning of 2020, I was sort of working on thatwhen COVID hit and when COVID hit and everything, you know, all these businesses started
closing and things were looking really tight for everybody.
I was like, you know what?
(34:32):
I don't have time to screw around.
I was like, I probably should go back to corporate America if I can.
I was like, I just panicked.
was just like, because in the whole world, we didn't know what was going to happen, right?
In early 2020.
And so I was like, man, I think I need to start.
I need to go back to corporate America and I just start looking for some stuff.
(34:53):
And I wasn't even really serious about it.
I was just kind of like, I guess I got to go back.
But I was kind of lightly looking and...
the company I ended up working for New Relic, they reached out to me.
And what happened was the hiring manager had seen my profile on LinkedIn and had thetalent acquisition team reach out to me.
(35:15):
And they called me up and said, hey, would you be interested in interviewing for thistechnical sales position?
And I was like, no.
I was like, no, thank you.
And again, this was, by this point, I think it was like,
summer of 2020, like May, June, somewhere around there at 2020 when this is when thingswere looking really bad and we really didn't know what was going to happen.
(35:37):
so the idea that anybody would be saying no to an interview I think was pretty shocking.
I don't think the talent acquisition person knew what to even do with that.
Cause I just like completely caught her off guard.
And so she was like, well, could you, would you mind talking to the hiring manager?
And I was like, yeah, I could tell him no same as I told you.
No, it's no big deal.
(36:00):
well, the hiring manager was really great when I got on the phone with him.
He, like, I was of the impression, because I have Oracle in my profile and on, youLinkedIn, a lot of times I get people, recruit, recruiters and, and, folks who reach out
to me for like DBA positions or other types of Oracle positions.
I'm like, that's not what I do, but they just see Oracle and then they, reach out to mefor.
(36:23):
those types of positions.
So I get that a lot.
So I assumed that this was something along those lines that he was mistaken about the typeof work that I did.
So that was my, going into the conversation, going into the interview, that was my thoughtprocess was, okay, I'm just going to explain to him why he's wrong.
And instead he explained to me why I was wrong, which was that he went through my entireprofile and all of my previous work experience and explained to me how my skills in each
(36:51):
one of those roles would
work really well in this technical sales position.
And I was so impressed with the fact that he took the time to do that and that he actuallyunderstood my background and my skillset that I initially, I just interviewed just as a
thank you, because I was like, well, he's done all this work.
So the least I could do was interview.
(37:11):
Like I still had no intention of taking a job because I don't consider myself asalesperson.
And again, technical sales and solutions consulting is a little different.
But it just didn't seem like the right fit for me.
spoiler alert, obviously I ended up taking the job.
So I did end up taking the job there.
Started off in technical sales, solutions consulting, and had a lot of opinions about theonboarding process.
(37:38):
And so when that hiring manager moved over to the enablement team, he was like, yeah, youhad a lot of feedback about our onboarding and our training.
You want to come over and be part of the solution?
And I was like, absolutely.
So I moved over to Enablement and I started doing customer training as well as someinternal training.
And then later moved into developer relations, which is going out to conferences and doingspeaking engagements and things like that.
(38:05):
And so that's where I was when I ended up, this was a little, well, year and a half agonow.
So summer of 2023.
I had to have surgery, so I was going to be on medical leave for, I think it was like sixor eight weeks or something like that.
And so I decided I was going to use that medical leave as what I called retirement testingor retirement training.
(38:28):
I'm like, I'm just going to pretend like this is, you know, I'm done with work forever andyou know, what am I going to do with my life?
And I was just like, I just thoroughly, first of all, thoroughly enjoyed that time.
I'm very much looking forward to retirement.
There's a lot of people that say, you'll be so bored.
you know, cause I'm like, I they're like, what are you going do in retirement?
I'm like, I
care of nothing.
And like, you'd be so bored.
No, trust me.
I figured it out.
(38:48):
I'm not going to be bored.
I'm going to be very happy in retirement.
But anyway, during that time that I was on medical leave recovering, I often say like whenI had the fever dream that would become imperfect genius, it may have actually literally
been a fever dream or it could have been the pain meds, the drugs, I don't know.
But I started thinking about
(39:09):
What did I want this business?
So again, this corporate entity that had existed for, by that point in time, what eightyears or so, like this corporate, this entity that existed all along that I never closed.
I like, what do I want that to ultimately be?
Because I want it to be the vehicle for income for me in retirement.
And I was like, what do I want that to look like?
You know, even once I am theoretically retired, I'm, you know, if this business is stillopen, what does it look like?
(39:33):
So I started thinking about.
what that might look like.
And then I started thinking about ways to expand the business.
And I was like, I know.
You know, was like, well, first of all, I need to figure out, you know, how to reach awider clientele and, know, get my brand name out there and then all this.
And I was like, I'm going to do a blog.
And let me say for a second, I don't know what possessed me to think that a blog was agood idea for a dyslexic.
(39:57):
Again, anybody who's listened to.
All of my podcast episodes, you've heard me say many times that I'm dyslexic.
So why did I think that writing a blog was a good idea for me?
I don't know.
Same with newsletter.
This is why I'm behind on newsletter.
Like writing blogs and newsletters was really hard for me.
Speaking of, going to sign up for my loose letter.
(40:18):
I'm going to be posting a job ad because I need a copywriter.
anyway, putting a pin in that.
So I was just trying to think of like these ways that I was going to expand the business.
was like, okay, I'll do a blog, I'll do a podcast, I'm going to do these online courses.
And when I was writing all these things down, I also wrote down community base.
And I had no idea what that meant at the time.
(40:40):
It was a thing that popped into my head, so I wrote it down.
I was just thinking of all, it's kind of similar to the first time I left corporateAmerica when I was writing down the do want to do and don't want to do list, the pro-con
list.
It was just like one of those things.
I was just writing out all these things that I did want it to be and didn't want it to be.
And community based was one of the things that I said I wanted it to be.
And I was like, I don't know what that means, but I'm, you know, I'm going to circle backon that.
(41:02):
And, know, there's an entire podcast episode.
I don't remember which number it was, but the episode title finding community where I talkabout sort of like what that ended up meaning for me.
know, so like even these online courses that I'm writing right now,
they are going to be cohort courses.
you it's not just going to be, I mean, you could just do plain old self-paced learning,but my plan is that there'll be community-based cohort courses so that you can learn along
(41:28):
with other students and you can share ideas and you know, there'll be live workshoppingand all those types of things.
And so I had been building this and you heard in probably the, you know, a couple ofepisodes ago where I talked about my whole trademark debacle.
So I was just dealing with a lot.
I was trying to do all of this.
I was trying to get this off the ground.
And, you know, I was trying to juggle that along with a corporate gig, but not only just acorporate gig, but a corporate gig where I was having to travel because I get told I was
(41:55):
in dev roles and developer relations.
So was having to do conferences and things like that.
So that was a lot.
That was a lot to try to juggle.
And I finally just sort of had to, you know, decide.
said, you know, as long as I am treating the business as a side gig, that's all it's evergoing to be.
You know, so it's like, if I
wanted to be this, you know, all these things that I envisioned it being long-term, thenI've got to take the time and the effort and actually try to make it into that.
(42:22):
So that's when I had to make the decision of, you know, whether or I was going tocorporate America, which is what I did decide to do last November.
so, you again, you heard in my previous episode of the whole, the trademarking thing, andI sort of like, I left my last corporate gig and I think it was November 30th of 2023.
(42:43):
My plan was to take December off and then start in January, 2024 and hit the groundrunning.
And this is what it sort of brings us sort of to real time where, when I started offthinking about this, what this episode ended up being, when I was thinking about the year
end and review, 2024 and end review, and I was gonna sort of talk about that as a podcastepisode.
(43:07):
So that sort of brings us to that point in the story.
Looking at the time, looks like this has already been almost a 45 minute episode.
So I think we'll have to do a to be continued and stop there.
then, again, I guess I'll come back to, and then what did 2024 look like in terms ofbuilding the business and sort of reflect on the year.
(43:32):
So stay tuned.
I'll come back and I'll finish the story in my year-end wrap-up episode.
And then like I said, I'm going to take a break.
the end of December and part of January and we'll be back in late January, early Februarywith new episodes.
So yeah, stay tuned and I want to say thank you for listening.
If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
(43:53):
You can call or text at 404-425-9862.
You can follow us on social media at Ask Imperfect Genius.
I'm laughing when I'm...
You know, you can subscribe to the newsletter and I promise I'm going to catch up onthose.
can subscribe to our newsletter at subscribe.imperfectgenius.com.
As I mentioned, you can subscribe there.
can get our sign up to get our show notes or just general news information.
(44:16):
As I mentioned, I am going to be putting out a job ad for a copywriter.
I'm going to list that in my newsletter first before I make that public.
So that's another reason to sign up for that newsletter.
And until next time, this is Rachel Foster reminding you that while your journey may notbe flawless, it can be phenomenal.
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