Baat Enosh is leading Nia Growth, a fresh startup in the finance world, focused on women and investments in the markets. Before Nia, Baat served as Director of Transformation working with EY's CTO. A position which followed years in Israel, where she established and grew the Fintech giant Intuit with a local R&D center, leading with multiple roles – from Security, to Strategy & Innovation, to Site Leader and Head of Data Science. Before Israel, she spent years in Silicon Valley focusing on futuristic products at Intuit’s Innovation group, implementing Intuit’s renowned Customer Driven Innovation practices.
Prior to Intuit, Baat was busy as VP Ops at Founder Labs – an “accelerator focusing on mobile products”, as COO of Women 2.0, and as the manager of the Entrepreneurial Alliance at NCWIT. These years established Baat as a speaker and SME on the topic of diversity in tech. Additionally, she enjoyed learning firsthand Lean Startup thinking from the icons Eric Ries, Steve Blank, and Scott Cook. Prior to all that, she spent her most technical years in enterprise management software.
Outside work, Baat is raising 3 kids, enjoys skiing, competitive skydiving, indoor-wind-tunnel, and yoga. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder
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Episode Transcript
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Beth Hilbing (00:02):
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to C suite talks, apodcast that takes you inside
some of the most interestingbusinesses and industries today.
It explores career success andhow we can make a difference. We
invite you to join us on thisjourney and welcome to C suite
talks. I'm Beth Hilding, co CEOof C suite.
Dianne Gubin (00:19):
And I'm Dianne Gubin. CO CEO with Beth and this
week, we are so happy to speakwith Bob knows, Bob is the co
founder and CEO of Nia growth.
And what Bob does is she leadsnear growth a startup in the
finance world which is focusedon women and investments in the
markets. Before Nia Bob servedas the director of
transformation, working withErnst and Young's CTO, a
(00:41):
position which followed years inIsrael, where she established
and grew the FinTech giant intoit with a local r&d center
leading with multiple roles. Shewas in security strategy
innovation, a site leader andhead of data science, before
Israel bought spent years inSilicon Valley focused on
futuristic products at IntuitInnovation Group, implementing
(01:02):
into its renowned customerdriven innovation practices.
Earlier that was busy as the VPof Operations at founder labs
and accelerator focused onmobile products as the CEO of
woman 2.0 And as the manager ofthe entrepreneurial Alliance at
NC W. I T. These yearsestablished bought as the
(01:24):
speaker and a subject managementexpert on the topics of
diversity in tech. Additionally,she learned firsthand lean
startup thinking, and she spenther most technical years in
enterprise management software,outside of work, but is raising
four kids I believe three kids,four kids great and three kids.
She enjoys skiing, competitiveskydiving, indoor wind, tunnels,
(01:46):
and yoga. She holds a bachelor'sand a master's in computer
science from the University ofColorado Boulder.
Beth Hilbing (01:55):
Yay. So happy to have you today.
Dianne Gubin (01:59):
Bob, thank you for joining us today.
Baat Enosh (02:01):
Thank you for having me. But yeah, only three kids.
plenty, plenty I thought
Dianne Gubin (02:07):
you'd had set for so Okay.
Beth Hilbing (02:09):
Before we get into the questions, I have a question
for you for diversity and tech.
What did you do around thatsubject?
Baat Enosh (02:15):
Yeah, so I spent the first part of my career was in
corporate enterprise management.
And then I took about six, sevenyears off to focus on getting
more women to start startups toget into tech. So I took two
roles, one with women 2.0, whichwas focused on getting more
women to start startups and weran out of that an accelerator
called founder labs with EricRies and Steve Blank, it was a,
(02:39):
you know, a lot of doing in theearly stages before the boom of
startups were just happening.
And in parallel, I was workingwith NCWIT, which was a national
center for women. And it focusedmore actually, on the research
side of things kind ofunderstanding what kind of
research do we have aroundgender biases? And how do we
(03:00):
make it accessible for theworkplace? Okay, great.
Dianne Gubin (03:03):
That was interesting. It sounds like a
lot, you would have found out?
Baat Enosh (03:06):
Yeah, there was a lot of activity, I think going
on in those years. And I thinkwe see the fruition now in terms
of the conversation in thecorporate environment around
including diversity anddiversity thing, diverse
thinking throughout the ranksall the way top to bottom. Yeah,
you know,
Beth Hilbing (03:23):
because I am in the tech industry, and I will
tell you that there. It isgetting more diverse, but it's
still got a long way to go. Longway to go. Yeah.
Dianne Gubin (03:32):
So tell us about Nia growth. What is the growth
and and what made you decide tostart it?
Baat Enosh (03:38):
Yeah, so Nia is a very, very early stage startup
focusing on investments andwomen and getting them from zero
to one. And the idea of Niagrowth, I think, was brewing in
my head through three main lightbulbs like light bulbs, I call
it that lit up in my head. And Ithink they kind of get tied
(04:00):
together over the years. And thefirst one had to do with kind of
understanding that at the end ofthe day, real money is made both
from hard work, but also throughinvestments. I vividly remember
when I was like 23, when I wasmaking about $9 an hour, there
was a webmaster and I wasputting away, you know,
(04:23):
diligently into a 40143 b was atthat point. And I put I managed
to save about $1,000 total?
Dianne Gubin (04:32):
Yeah, that's a lot. When you make $9 an hour,
that's a lot of money.
Baat Enosh (04:37):
Yeah, it was over a chunk of years. And because it
was 96 to 99, those were theyears those $1,000 became
$10,000 really quickly because Idecided to put on the high risk.
I was 23. I was like let's dialup the risk dial on this one.
And I remember looking at thatand kind of looking at my $9 An
(04:59):
hour and saying Oh, wow, I mean,the real money is actually made
through some of theseinvestments. That being said,
timing was crazy then and a lotof things had to line up. But I
remember that being the firstkind of light bulb that went in
my head around investments. Thesecond one was that I was, you
know, investing from around thatage, I always had a management
(05:22):
note, but I was always managinga portfolio of investments. It's
a strong word portfolio, but itwas at least putting money into
the stock market, let's put itthat way. And I remember not
ever actually talking about atany of my friends. So I have
very close friends fromchildhood, we would talk about
anything, everything andanything, but not about money.
(05:45):
And only later in life, I kindof started asking myself, well,
why and the reason I startedasking myself is that as I was
growing up the ranks ofcorporate, I started realizing
that actually around themeetings, you know, before or
after, and it's usually aroomful of men, we would always
talk about investments, youknow, what stock went up, what
went down? And I started askingmyself, How come these
conversations don't happen in mycircles? Why are they only
(06:07):
happening in these circles? Andso that was kind of the second
light bulb. And the third one,which is actually the most
recent and kind of was the realinstigator was this
understanding that a lot of themessages that I grew up with,
you know, work hard, save, andeventually you'll retire are not
necessarily true for this newgeneration. So all of these
(06:28):
together, kind of put me intofruition with a vision of, of
understanding that everyoneshould still be able to follow
their passion to follow theirdreams yet still have a future
safety net? So that's kind ofwhat how it all came about.
Dianne Gubin (06:48):
It's very good.
Right? So you said you're takingwomen from zero to one. So
you're basically saying, youhaven't even started investing?
i This is like the rock bottomplatform to start with?
Baat Enosh (06:58):
Exactly. So we spoke to a lot of women, and heard
more, you know, we heard many,many reasons of why no one is
investing. But at the end of theday, we heard two very clear
messages. One is I don't knowwhere to start. And the reality
(07:19):
is, I want to focus on what Ilove, I want to focus on what my
passions are, I don't want tobecome a financial expert. And
the second one was around, if Iwere to invest, I'm really
worried about losing money. Sothose are the two things we're
kind of very focused on figuringout from zero to one to get
women to start that first step,
Dianne Gubin (07:39):
right? And what's the what's the age range of most
of the women that you'retargeting,
Baat Enosh (07:44):
we're looking at the I would call it mid 20s, to mid
30s, mainly, because those arethe years that a lot of women a
start their careers or startdeciding what they want to do
with their lives. And thisgeneration is, you know, on one
hand, being very encouraged tofollow their passions and the
(08:06):
other, they're starting tounderstand that the promises of
the 401k as a Social Security,the pension, all those are not
necessarily going to beavailable to them. So they're in
that position to make adecision. Do I go work in tech
on Wall Street and focus on myfinancial future? Or can I
follow my passion or I mean, forthose who Wall Street, and tech
(08:28):
is their passion? There's noproblem. But if you want to be a
yoga teacher, and if you want tobe a an artist, or an athlete,
those are the people we'retrying to reach and and talk to
them about the fact that youknow, what, if you start at the
young age, also caring aboutyour future than Yeah, follow
your passion as long as youwant. So you don't wake up
(08:50):
later. Wondering what happened?
And how come I'm worried aboutmoney right now for my future.
Beth Hilbing (08:56):
So what do you think what do you think's going
on in the world of investmenttoday? You know, there's all
these different vehicles thatare coming out, you know, with
crypto and blockchain and all ofthat, plus, you know, the I
think they're NF T's, you know,different avenues and things
that that we never paidattention to the hour work
possible for us. And how do younavigate through all that? If
(09:17):
you're young?
Baat Enosh (09:18):
Yeah. So the good news is first, like, I'll tell
you, I love the new generationand the messaging that they're
taking on and breaking down thebiases that I feel like my
generation had to not even askquestions about. So information
is available everywhere. Andit's true that in the financial
(09:39):
world, the vehicles are becomingmore and more sophisticated. I
mean, there's so many cooks inthat kitchen everyone trying to
maximize earnings, everyonetrying to make it more
complicated or find that littleniche where they can make an
additional earning, let's say,and technology has created an
even more complex world we haveyou know, algo trading We have
(10:01):
bots, making decisions forpeople. And in addition, we're
seeing the new economy grow ofweb three Oh, with, you know,
with with infrastructure for aglobal and decentralized world.
And we're seeing all this cominginto fruition in a very fast
speed and the new generationkind of having to decide where
(10:22):
do I go? What do I listen to?
What do I learn? So in a way,there is a lot of complexity.
But at the end, what we'retrying to focus on is actually
the very simple message that Ithink Warren Buffett coined
really well, which is, you know,it's not about timing, it's
about time in the market. Sowe're trying to say there are
very clear, safe vehicles outthere, that if you start early
(10:45):
and just focus on them, and, andcontinue contributing, they will
grow because they're actually,you know, they're actually
positioned to grow, right? Ifyou look at s&p 500, just as an
example, you look at it, and yousay, Oh, they created a place
that always has the top 500companies, these companies, like
(11:07):
if one of them drops and isn't agood company to invest in, then
it gets replaced. So as avehicle, it's kind of like a no
brainer, you're someone createdthis and all the index funds
that follow that are a greatplace to put your money in in a
more monotonous way. So nothoping for these high gains and
these crazy lows and not thethrill ride, but just the more
(11:31):
conservative thinking about yourfuture ride. And these are kind
of the vehicles that we'relooking at more.
Dianne Gubin (11:38):
Right. So what I'm not clear on Okay, is Nia, first
of all, you're an app, so it'sonly on the mobile phone. Is
that right?
Baat Enosh (11:44):
It's not even there yet. We're still we're still
building.
Dianne Gubin (11:48):
Okay. All right.
But as the as you evolve, so Sowill you be able to make
investments through Nia? Is thatthe point of it? Yes. So I
signed up on the back end, justbecause I wanted to watch what
you were doing.
Beth Hilbing (12:02):
Tell us kind of the mechanics or the minutia
around it. Yeah,
Dianne Gubin (12:05):
yeah, walk us through it.
Baat Enosh (12:06):
So right now. So our focus is to get you from zero to
one. And we're actually still intesting phases. And what we're
testing right now are, can weoffer you very simple to invest
packages that don't require youto go and study too much,
because on one hand, there is anabundance and amazing set of
(12:26):
communities out there,especially for women to kind of
walk them through the educationphase of things, and teaching
and explaining and doing throughall these different tools. And I
love watching them all evolveand come into play. On the flip
side, there is still apopulation that is kind of
saying, you know, I don't wantto immerse myself in all of
(12:48):
this, I just want to make surethat if I choose today to follow
my passion, and, you know, 20years from now, I don't regret
that, and I have something assome sort of safety net, which
isn't offered, by the way toomany people who today don't
have, you know, corporate jobs.
So the 401, k's and all thosevehicles are not available to
large, large population of Z'smillennials who are choosing to,
(13:11):
to not pursue a corporate careerpath. And, and there's sort of
no real vehicle out there thatis simple and easy to invest
towards a safety net for them.
Dianne Gubin (13:27):
Right? So is this an investment platform, you have
$500 to start with? So are yousaying underneath here, click a
button and your $500 will gointo whatever.
Baat Enosh (13:36):
So we're gonna take them through a bit of a fun quiz
that will ask them about, youknow, a little bit about them a
little bit about their risktolerance, we call it a comfort
comfort zone. Because theconversation around risk in
itself is sometimes convoluted,let's call it and after that
(13:57):
quiz, we offer packages ofinvesting, we're going very
simple, safe. You know, it'sbonds, simple ETFs. And we're
not even starting with stocks atthe beginning, because the idea
is to really build something forthe long term that will allow
this population to, you know, todo what they love.
Dianne Gubin (14:20):
So you're making the investments. I think the
part I'm not clear on, you'remaking the investment decisions,
you've already picked out thebond funds or the EFTPS or the
whatever, right, that somebody'sgoing to depending upon what
their risk profile is. Okay,good. Got it.
Beth Hilbing (14:33):
I'm definitely gonna refer my niece to this
because I was speaking with myniece, I think she's 25 and she
just now got promoted to amanager position and is making,
you know, maybe 45 50k, youknow, and so she's, I said, Are
you investing in your 401 K andshe's sitting up I'm hardly
making any money. I'm like, Youneed to at least start something
Dianne Gubin (14:54):
you don't even notice it. That's the promise.
You know what you think it's alot of money, but you got to
just take it off the top.
Baat Enosh (14:59):
I think That's the key message to anyone who's just
starting is to just start. Andthe idea. The idea is that if
you if you go the route of Idon't know enough. And so I need
to learn, and where do I learn?
And you go into this analysisparalysis forever. And so the
just starting even at smallamounts, even if, you know, if
(15:21):
it's all you have, I think we'reshifting from a conversation in
the world of investments or justfor the for those who have
disposable income, to everyoneshould be investing even in
small amounts from a young ageso that they can secure their
future. At the end, at the endof the day, the biggest economic
(15:42):
vehicle there is,
Beth Hilbing (15:45):
yeah. Oh, exactly.
Dianne Gubin (15:46):
Right. So So you, you take this big, complicated
industry, and you're just makingit really user friendly.
Baat Enosh (15:52):
For those who don't want to start you no immersing
in the complications, there isso much to learn out there. But
at the end, you know, we followsome of the basic rules of
investing that if you just putmoney aside, invested for the
long term, you leave it in themarket,
Dianne Gubin (16:09):
it will work, right. Absolutely, absolutely.
So What differences do you seebetween men and women when it
comes to investing?
Baat Enosh (16:16):
Um, interesting question,
Dianne Gubin (16:19):
we could probably talk about this for an entire
show.
Baat Enosh (16:22):
And not to say that, that, you know, what we're
building is not going to be formen, I think there's a lot of
people who are just not relatingto the complexity that the
current financial markets haveto offer. That being said, I
think that at the end, a lot ofthe messages that we regurgitate
(16:47):
in our head have to do with whatwe heard at home. And so if we
came from a household wheremoney was evil, it's going to be
very hard for us to switch thatmindset. And if we came from a
household where only, you know,the men took care of finances,
and we saw every woman around ussaying, Oh, this is not for me
too complicated. You know, thisis something other people do for
(17:09):
me, it will be very hard for usto switch that mindset. And so
from a general perspective, Ithink women heard more of those
types of messages than men have.
And what we're trying to do isswitch that mindset. But the
biggest differences are notnecessarily I mean, we talk a
lot about risk and risktolerance. And I don't think
(17:30):
that necessarily that, you know,there's it's a very
controversial topic of, arewomen more risk averse, and I
actually don't think they are.
But I think women do want tofeel comfortable, and knowledge
more knowledgeable a little bitin areas that they're investing
(17:50):
in. And just historically, theywere exposed less to things. So
we're trying to both I mean,there's, there's the ability now
to get exposed to investmentsfrom all sorts, it's available
everywhere. And what we reallyneed to do is eliminate some of
the messaging that we heard athome heard from our society,
because, you know, the women'smovement has gone forward and
(18:14):
done many, many strides. Andsometimes we say, Okay, we're
almost there. We're free, we'reindependent, we're confident,
but at the end, if we're notfinancially free, if we're not
financially independent, thenwe're not truly independent.
Dianne Gubin (18:29):
It's the financial literacy. Yeah,
Beth Hilbing (18:32):
yeah. Yeah. It's because if, if you have that,
then you don't, you can doanything. You don't have to
worry about it. Right. You'refree to move.
Dianne Gubin (18:39):
Right. Exactly.
Exactly. So so so but before yougot involved in all this, I
mean, did you have a financialliteracy class I never did until
I became an investment banker.
And then I got so steeped in itwas like, Oh, my gosh, so I
Baat Enosh (18:52):
didn't have a class.
But I did have messaging athome. I remember my grandparents
were, you know, my grandmother,who was not even educated. And I
remember she couldn't even shedidn't have a driver's license,
even a homemaker. But they theyowned this small electrical
store of small, you know,electrical gadgets, not even
gadgets like this flips in theswitches. And my grandpa worked
(19:15):
really, really hard there. Andmy grandma would go there as
well in the morning, but then atlunchtime, when I would visit
she would take me around to hertours of banks, because back
then you'd buy stocks throughcoming to the bank, right? It
wasn't available. Online, therewas no online. And I remember
the messaging at home of likegrandpa works really hard at the
(19:37):
store, but the one who reallymakes the money is grandma. So I
didn't have a financial literacyclass, per se, but I got that
message. And I remember that'swhy combined with the previous
story, I started investing at ayoung age because I kind of
understood that you know, if youreally want to grow your money,
you just have to do it. And Iwas very conservative. At the
(19:59):
beginning, and today, I'm a lotmore aggressive, I would call it
and the biggest change, I thinkthat I see now with how I treat
my daughter. She's 12. And shesaid the other day, not the
other day, she keeps saying itevery day like that she wants to
be a capoeira teacher. So sheloves capoeira. It's kind of
like this martial arts dance,okay. And a couple years ago,
(20:20):
like I would say, No, you're notbecause there's like no money in
there. There's no future inthat. And today, after doing all
my research and kind ofunderstanding where the world is
going, I tell her, you know whatyou want to be Capoeira teacher.
Yeah, go for it. But let's gohand in hand and learn how to
invest. And always make surethat you create some passive
(20:40):
income from a young age, becauseyou're gonna have to have a lot
of passive income later in life.
Dianne Gubin (20:48):
That's great.
Back, did you have financialliteracy training as you were
growing up?
Beth Hilbing (20:52):
No, no, my mother was horrible. No, my mother was
horrible. She always workedhard. But she spent everything
she had, you know, she had fivedaughters. We go shopping all
the time, you know, all thisstuff. They were always like,
you know, just paying theirbills paper thin now. She was
lucky my father passed for so hehad a pension and all that
(21:13):
stuff, right. So that alltransferred to her. She didn't
have anything on her own. Butanyway, so it's interesting. I
think what worries youngerpeople, too, is the cost of
health care, and the cost ofnursing homes and all of that,
and they see the transition,they see the transition of
wealth going to elderly care,and so forth. And they're like,
(21:34):
Well, how am I supposed to dealwith that? Right. So I don't
know, there's a lot, a lot.
Dianne Gubin (21:40):
I don't know that I think that's, I think that's
on our radar. I don't even thinkthat's on our kids radar.
Beth Hilbing (21:45):
No, I hear it all the time. Do you?
Dianne Gubin (21:47):
Okay. Okay.
Baat Enosh (21:48):
I think the first thing the first I agree with you
that the older generations areseeing the healthcare situation,
how, you know, I moved fromIsrael. So it was a big move.
And it's my I have to admit,it's my biggest fear living in
the US is the system, the healthcare system, just being in a
health care system, where youcan all of a sudden, just go,
(22:10):
you know, down, and you neverknow where it can come from and
go bankrupt. And the stories arehorrible, regardless of your
financial status, right. So Ithink that I agree that it's
maybe more for the oldergeneration, for the younger
generation, I think they'restarting very quickly to
understand that, you know, thatmessage that we got, like, work
(22:31):
hard, save, you know, 65retires, or Wii is going to be
in your backyard, and you'regoing to start driving. It's not
waiting for them. And you seethese movements of you see the
fire movement. So it's if i r e,which is financial independence,
retire early, and you see thesepeople are saying, Well, if 65
is not really an importantnumber, then who says 65? Why
(22:52):
not? 45? Why not? 55? Why notsave hard and invest hard when
I'm young, so that I can, I wasabout to say retire, but I don't
think they look at it asretirement, I become financially
free in my 40s and my 50searlier. And financially free
doesn't mean you're sitting on abeach having a margarita, it
(23:15):
just means you have passiveincome coming in. That can
offset your need to sell yourtime for money
Beth Hilbing (23:22):
for work. Or if you could decide you want to go
learn and get a learn how to bea master pizza maker in Italy
for a month, you can go do that,where we never would do that.
It's freedom, freedom andchoices. We freedom choices.
Yeah, we would never do that.
Hey, so I want to kind of switchgears because you know, we're
coming in kind of to the end ofthis, but I want to know, what
do you do in an indoor windtunnel?
Dianne Gubin (23:46):
That's a good question.
Baat Enosh (23:49):
favorite topic ever.
Thank you. So, so in 98, so I'vebeen skydiving since I was 21.
Until I met my husband. It was abig part of my life. When I was
younger, I competed, did amazingthings. It was a huge
contributor to my life. And in98 they actually started with
(24:10):
the first wind tunnel. It'sbasically a room back then it
was 12 feet today. I think theaverage are probably 14 to 16
feet in diameter. But there'salso now I'm blanking. There's
one in Dubai, which is like 60feet or something crazy,
ginormous. Don't quote me on thenumber. And you basically you
you can either practice what youwould do in the air so it's a
(24:35):
simulator for what you would doin the air when you compete in
skydiving, but it actually hasbecome its own sport. So you see
people now that participate inthe wind tunnel and have nothing
to do with skydiving so you canthere's many disciplines head
down on your belly. Basicallyfly.
Beth Hilbing (24:54):
Oh, okay. All right. Oh, that's cool.
Dianne Gubin (24:55):
Did you land on a mattress I hope and then when
tunnel airs your coat Is itpadded?
Baat Enosh (25:01):
There's no mattresses? No, it's, it's
imagine a room. The bottom is anet and you just when you jump
into it, you're just floating onthe air. Okay, that's cool.
Highly recommend it.
Beth Hilbing (25:11):
Yeah, we should definitely do that
Dianne Gubin (25:14):
risk taker, a high risk taker.
Beth Hilbing (25:16):
Well, we want to thank you so much for joining us
today. And we truly appreciatethat. Yes. Thank you.
Baat Enosh (25:24):
Thank you guys for having me.
Dianne Gubin (25:25):
We want to thank Bob he knows co founder and CEO
of Nia growth. Let's see
Beth Hilbing (25:29):
you and so for the listeners go out and check out
Nia growth. And then we want tothank our sponsors Google. RSM,
a lead accounting firm and thatlarge law firm nationwide global
would have Sawyer employeebenefit, and amplify
professional services, executivesearch and IT consulting. So
(25:51):
thank you for listening today.
And hit the subscribe button. OnApple Spotify. Everywhere you
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(26:17):
these amazing women. And viathank you so much again.
Baat Enosh (26:22):
Thank you guys.
Thanks for having me.
Dianne Gubin (26:24):
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you listeners.
Hello, everyone.
Welcome to C suite talks, apodcast that takes you inside
some of the most interestingbusinesses and industries today.
It explores career success andhow we can make a difference. We
invite you to join us on thisjourney and welcome to C suite
talks. I'm Beth Hilding, co CEOof C suite.
Dianne Gubin (00:19):
And I'm Dianne Gubin. CO CEO with Beth and this
week, we are so happy to speakwith Bob knows, Bob is the co
founder and CEO of Nia growth.
And what Bob does is she leadsnear growth a startup in the
finance world which is focusedon women and investments in the
markets. Before Nia Bob servedas the director of
transformation, working withErnst and Young's CTO, a
(00:41):
position which followed years inIsrael, where she established
and grew the FinTech giant intoit with a local r&d center
leading with multiple roles. Shewas in security strategy
innovation, a site leader andhead of data science, before
Israel bought spent years inSilicon Valley focused on
futuristic products at IntuitInnovation Group, implementing
(01:02):
into its renowned customerdriven innovation practices.
Earlier that was busy as the VPof Operations at founder labs
and accelerator focused onmobile products as the CEO of
woman 2.0 And as the manager ofthe entrepreneurial Alliance at
NC W. I T. These yearsestablished bought as the
(01:24):
speaker and a subject managementexpert on the topics of
diversity in tech. Additionally,she learned firsthand lean
startup thinking, and she spenther most technical years in
enterprise management software,outside of work, but is raising
four kids I believe three kids,four kids great and three kids.
She enjoys skiing, competitiveskydiving, indoor wind, tunnels,
(01:46):
and yoga. She holds a bachelor'sand a master's in computer
science from the University ofColorado Boulder.
Beth Hilbing (01:55):
Yay. So happy to have you today.
Dianne Gubin (01:59):
Bob, thank you for joining us today.
Baat Enosh (02:01):
Thank you for having me. But yeah, only three kids.
plenty, plenty I thought
Dianne Gubin (02:07):
you'd had set for so Okay.
Beth Hilbing (02:09):
Before we get into the questions, I have a question
for you for diversity and tech.
What did you do around thatsubject?
Baat Enosh (02:15):
Yeah, so I spent the first part of my career was in
corporate enterprise management.
And then I took about six, sevenyears off to focus on getting
more women to start startups toget into tech. So I took two
roles, one with women 2.0, whichwas focused on getting more
women to start startups and weran out of that an accelerator
called founder labs with EricRies and Steve Blank, it was a,
(02:39):
you know, a lot of doing in theearly stages before the boom of
startups were just happening.
And in parallel, I was workingwith NCWIT, which was a national
center for women. And it focusedmore actually, on the research
side of things kind ofunderstanding what kind of
research do we have aroundgender biases? And how do we
(03:00):
make it accessible for theworkplace? Okay, great.
Dianne Gubin (03:03):
That was interesting. It sounds like a
lot, you would have found out?
Baat Enosh (03:06):
Yeah, there was a lot of activity, I think going
on in those years. And I thinkwe see the fruition now in terms
of the conversation in thecorporate environment around
including diversity anddiversity thing, diverse
thinking throughout the ranksall the way top to bottom. Yeah,
you know,
Beth Hilbing (03:23):
because I am in the tech industry, and I will
tell you that there. It isgetting more diverse, but it's
still got a long way to go. Longway to go. Yeah.
Dianne Gubin (03:32):
So tell us about Nia growth. What is the growth
and and what made you decide tostart it?
Baat Enosh (03:38):
Yeah, so Nia is a very, very early stage startup
focusing on investments andwomen and getting them from zero
to one. And the idea of Niagrowth, I think, was brewing in
my head through three main lightbulbs like light bulbs, I call
it that lit up in my head. And Ithink they kind of get tied
(04:00):
together over the years. And thefirst one had to do with kind of
understanding that at the end ofthe day, real money is made both
from hard work, but also throughinvestments. I vividly remember
when I was like 23, when I wasmaking about $9 an hour, there
was a webmaster and I wasputting away, you know,
(04:23):
diligently into a 40143 b was atthat point. And I put I managed
to save about $1,000 total?
Dianne Gubin (04:32):
Yeah, that's a lot. When you make $9 an hour,
that's a lot of money.
Baat Enosh (04:37):
Yeah, it was over a chunk of years. And because it
was 96 to 99, those were theyears those $1,000 became
$10,000 really quickly because Idecided to put on the high risk.
I was 23. I was like let's dialup the risk dial on this one.
And I remember looking at thatand kind of looking at my $9 An
(04:59):
hour and saying Oh, wow, I mean,the real money is actually made
through some of theseinvestments. That being said,
timing was crazy then and a lotof things had to line up. But I
remember that being the firstkind of light bulb that went in
my head around investments. Thesecond one was that I was, you
know, investing from around thatage, I always had a management
(05:22):
note, but I was always managinga portfolio of investments. It's
a strong word portfolio, but itwas at least putting money into
the stock market, let's put itthat way. And I remember not
ever actually talking about atany of my friends. So I have
very close friends fromchildhood, we would talk about
anything, everything andanything, but not about money.
(05:45):
And only later in life, I kindof started asking myself, well,
why and the reason I startedasking myself is that as I was
growing up the ranks ofcorporate, I started realizing
that actually around themeetings, you know, before or
after, and it's usually aroomful of men, we would always
talk about investments, youknow, what stock went up, what
went down? And I started askingmyself, How come these
conversations don't happen in mycircles? Why are they only
(06:07):
happening in these circles? Andso that was kind of the second
light bulb. And the third one,which is actually the most
recent and kind of was the realinstigator was this
understanding that a lot of themessages that I grew up with,
you know, work hard, save, andeventually you'll retire are not
necessarily true for this newgeneration. So all of these
(06:28):
together, kind of put me intofruition with a vision of, of
understanding that everyoneshould still be able to follow
their passion to follow theirdreams yet still have a future
safety net? So that's kind ofwhat how it all came about.
Dianne Gubin (06:48):
It's very good.
Right? So you said you're takingwomen from zero to one. So
you're basically saying, youhaven't even started investing?
i This is like the rock bottomplatform to start with?
Baat Enosh (06:58):
Exactly. So we spoke to a lot of women, and heard
more, you know, we heard many,many reasons of why no one is
investing. But at the end of theday, we heard two very clear
messages. One is I don't knowwhere to start. And the reality
(07:19):
is, I want to focus on what Ilove, I want to focus on what my
passions are, I don't want tobecome a financial expert. And
the second one was around, if Iwere to invest, I'm really
worried about losing money. Sothose are the two things we're
kind of very focused on figuringout from zero to one to get
women to start that first step,
Dianne Gubin (07:39):
right? And what's the what's the age range of most
of the women that you'retargeting,
Baat Enosh (07:44):
we're looking at the I would call it mid 20s, to mid
30s, mainly, because those arethe years that a lot of women a
start their careers or startdeciding what they want to do
with their lives. And thisgeneration is, you know, on one
hand, being very encouraged tofollow their passions and the
(08:06):
other, they're starting tounderstand that the promises of
the 401k as a Social Security,the pension, all those are not
necessarily going to beavailable to them. So they're in
that position to make adecision. Do I go work in tech
on Wall Street and focus on myfinancial future? Or can I
follow my passion or I mean, forthose who Wall Street, and tech
(08:28):
is their passion? There's noproblem. But if you want to be a
yoga teacher, and if you want tobe a an artist, or an athlete,
those are the people we'retrying to reach and and talk to
them about the fact that youknow, what, if you start at the
young age, also caring aboutyour future than Yeah, follow
your passion as long as youwant. So you don't wake up
(08:50):
later. Wondering what happened?
And how come I'm worried aboutmoney right now for my future.
Beth Hilbing (08:56):
So what do you think what do you think's going
on in the world of investmenttoday? You know, there's all
these different vehicles thatare coming out, you know, with
crypto and blockchain and all ofthat, plus, you know, the I
think they're NF T's, you know,different avenues and things
that that we never paidattention to the hour work
possible for us. And how do younavigate through all that? If
(09:17):
you're young?
Baat Enosh (09:18):
Yeah. So the good news is first, like, I'll tell
you, I love the new generationand the messaging that they're
taking on and breaking down thebiases that I feel like my
generation had to not even askquestions about. So information
is available everywhere. Andit's true that in the financial
(09:39):
world, the vehicles are becomingmore and more sophisticated. I
mean, there's so many cooks inthat kitchen everyone trying to
maximize earnings, everyonetrying to make it more
complicated or find that littleniche where they can make an
additional earning, let's say,and technology has created an
even more complex world we haveyou know, algo trading We have
(10:01):
bots, making decisions forpeople. And in addition, we're
seeing the new economy grow ofweb three Oh, with, you know,
with with infrastructure for aglobal and decentralized world.
And we're seeing all this cominginto fruition in a very fast
speed and the new generationkind of having to decide where
(10:22):
do I go? What do I listen to?
What do I learn? So in a way,there is a lot of complexity.
But at the end, what we'retrying to focus on is actually
the very simple message that Ithink Warren Buffett coined
really well, which is, you know,it's not about timing, it's
about time in the market. Sowe're trying to say there are
very clear, safe vehicles outthere, that if you start early
(10:45):
and just focus on them, and, andcontinue contributing, they will
grow because they're actually,you know, they're actually
positioned to grow, right? Ifyou look at s&p 500, just as an
example, you look at it, and yousay, Oh, they created a place
that always has the top 500companies, these companies, like
(11:07):
if one of them drops and isn't agood company to invest in, then
it gets replaced. So as avehicle, it's kind of like a no
brainer, you're someone createdthis and all the index funds
that follow that are a greatplace to put your money in in a
more monotonous way. So nothoping for these high gains and
these crazy lows and not thethrill ride, but just the more
(11:31):
conservative thinking about yourfuture ride. And these are kind
of the vehicles that we'relooking at more.
Dianne Gubin (11:38):
Right. So what I'm not clear on Okay, is Nia, first
of all, you're an app, so it'sonly on the mobile phone. Is
that right?
Baat Enosh (11:44):
It's not even there yet. We're still we're still
building.
Dianne Gubin (11:48):
Okay. All right.
But as the as you evolve, so Sowill you be able to make
investments through Nia? Is thatthe point of it? Yes. So I
signed up on the back end, justbecause I wanted to watch what
you were doing.
Beth Hilbing (12:02):
Tell us kind of the mechanics or the minutia
around it. Yeah,
Dianne Gubin (12:05):
yeah, walk us through it.
Baat Enosh (12:06):
So right now. So our focus is to get you from zero to
one. And we're actually still intesting phases. And what we're
testing right now are, can weoffer you very simple to invest
packages that don't require youto go and study too much,
because on one hand, there is anabundance and amazing set of
(12:26):
communities out there,especially for women to kind of
walk them through the educationphase of things, and teaching
and explaining and doing throughall these different tools. And I
love watching them all evolveand come into play. On the flip
side, there is still apopulation that is kind of
saying, you know, I don't wantto immerse myself in all of
(12:48):
this, I just want to make surethat if I choose today to follow
my passion, and, you know, 20years from now, I don't regret
that, and I have something assome sort of safety net, which
isn't offered, by the way toomany people who today don't
have, you know, corporate jobs.
So the 401, k's and all thosevehicles are not available to
large, large population of Z'smillennials who are choosing to,
(13:11):
to not pursue a corporate careerpath. And, and there's sort of
no real vehicle out there thatis simple and easy to invest
towards a safety net for them.
Dianne Gubin (13:27):
Right? So is this an investment platform, you have
$500 to start with? So are yousaying underneath here, click a
button and your $500 will gointo whatever.
Baat Enosh (13:36):
So we're gonna take them through a bit of a fun quiz
that will ask them about, youknow, a little bit about them a
little bit about their risktolerance, we call it a comfort
comfort zone. Because theconversation around risk in
itself is sometimes convoluted,let's call it and after that
(13:57):
quiz, we offer packages ofinvesting, we're going very
simple, safe. You know, it'sbonds, simple ETFs. And we're
not even starting with stocks atthe beginning, because the idea
is to really build something forthe long term that will allow
this population to, you know, todo what they love.
Dianne Gubin (14:20):
So you're making the investments. I think the
part I'm not clear on, you'remaking the investment decisions,
you've already picked out thebond funds or the EFTPS or the
whatever, right, that somebody'sgoing to depending upon what
their risk profile is. Okay,good. Got it.
Beth Hilbing (14:33):
I'm definitely gonna refer my niece to this
because I was speaking with myniece, I think she's 25 and she
just now got promoted to amanager position and is making,
you know, maybe 45 50k, youknow, and so she's, I said, Are
you investing in your 401 K andshe's sitting up I'm hardly
making any money. I'm like, Youneed to at least start something
Dianne Gubin (14:54):
you don't even notice it. That's the promise.
You know what you think it's alot of money, but you got to
just take it off the top.
Baat Enosh (14:59):
I think That's the key message to anyone who's just
starting is to just start. Andthe idea. The idea is that if
you if you go the route of Idon't know enough. And so I need
to learn, and where do I learn?
And you go into this analysisparalysis forever. And so the
just starting even at smallamounts, even if, you know, if
(15:21):
it's all you have, I think we'reshifting from a conversation in
the world of investments or justfor the for those who have
disposable income, to everyoneshould be investing even in
small amounts from a young ageso that they can secure their
future. At the end, at the endof the day, the biggest economic
(15:42):
vehicle there is,
Beth Hilbing (15:45):
yeah. Oh, exactly.
Dianne Gubin (15:46):
Right. So So you, you take this big, complicated
industry, and you're just makingit really user friendly.
Baat Enosh (15:52):
For those who don't want to start you no immersing
in the complications, there isso much to learn out there. But
at the end, you know, we followsome of the basic rules of
investing that if you just putmoney aside, invested for the
long term, you leave it in themarket,
Dianne Gubin (16:09):
it will work, right. Absolutely, absolutely.
So What differences do you seebetween men and women when it
comes to investing?
Baat Enosh (16:16):
Um, interesting question,
Dianne Gubin (16:19):
we could probably talk about this for an entire
show.
Baat Enosh (16:22):
And not to say that, that, you know, what we're
building is not going to be formen, I think there's a lot of
people who are just not relatingto the complexity that the
current financial markets haveto offer. That being said, I
think that at the end, a lot ofthe messages that we regurgitate
(16:47):
in our head have to do with whatwe heard at home. And so if we
came from a household wheremoney was evil, it's going to be
very hard for us to switch thatmindset. And if we came from a
household where only, you know,the men took care of finances,
and we saw every woman around ussaying, Oh, this is not for me
too complicated. You know, thisis something other people do for
(17:09):
me, it will be very hard for usto switch that mindset. And so
from a general perspective, Ithink women heard more of those
types of messages than men have.
And what we're trying to do isswitch that mindset. But the
biggest differences are notnecessarily I mean, we talk a
lot about risk and risktolerance. And I don't think
(17:30):
that necessarily that, you know,there's it's a very
controversial topic of, arewomen more risk averse, and I
actually don't think they are.
But I think women do want tofeel comfortable, and knowledge
more knowledgeable a little bitin areas that they're investing
(17:50):
in. And just historically, theywere exposed less to things. So
we're trying to both I mean,there's, there's the ability now
to get exposed to investmentsfrom all sorts, it's available
everywhere. And what we reallyneed to do is eliminate some of
the messaging that we heard athome heard from our society,
because, you know, the women'smovement has gone forward and
(18:14):
done many, many strides. Andsometimes we say, Okay, we're
almost there. We're free, we'reindependent, we're confident,
but at the end, if we're notfinancially free, if we're not
financially independent, thenwe're not truly independent.
Dianne Gubin (18:29):
It's the financial literacy. Yeah,
Beth Hilbing (18:32):
yeah. Yeah. It's because if, if you have that,
then you don't, you can doanything. You don't have to
worry about it. Right. You'refree to move.
Dianne Gubin (18:39):
Right. Exactly.
Exactly. So so so but before yougot involved in all this, I
mean, did you have a financialliteracy class I never did until
I became an investment banker.
And then I got so steeped in itwas like, Oh, my gosh, so I
Baat Enosh (18:52):
didn't have a class.
But I did have messaging athome. I remember my grandparents
were, you know, my grandmother,who was not even educated. And I
remember she couldn't even shedidn't have a driver's license,
even a homemaker. But they theyowned this small electrical
store of small, you know,electrical gadgets, not even
gadgets like this flips in theswitches. And my grandpa worked
(19:15):
really, really hard there. Andmy grandma would go there as
well in the morning, but then atlunchtime, when I would visit
she would take me around to hertours of banks, because back
then you'd buy stocks throughcoming to the bank, right? It
wasn't available. Online, therewas no online. And I remember
the messaging at home of likegrandpa works really hard at the
(19:37):
store, but the one who reallymakes the money is grandma. So I
didn't have a financial literacyclass, per se, but I got that
message. And I remember that'swhy combined with the previous
story, I started investing at ayoung age because I kind of
understood that you know, if youreally want to grow your money,
you just have to do it. And Iwas very conservative. At the
(19:59):
beginning, and today, I'm a lotmore aggressive, I would call it
and the biggest change, I thinkthat I see now with how I treat
my daughter. She's 12. And shesaid the other day, not the
other day, she keeps saying itevery day like that she wants to
be a capoeira teacher. So sheloves capoeira. It's kind of
like this martial arts dance,okay. And a couple years ago,
(20:20):
like I would say, No, you're notbecause there's like no money in
there. There's no future inthat. And today, after doing all
my research and kind ofunderstanding where the world is
going, I tell her, you know whatyou want to be Capoeira teacher.
Yeah, go for it. But let's gohand in hand and learn how to
invest. And always make surethat you create some passive
(20:40):
income from a young age, becauseyou're gonna have to have a lot
of passive income later in life.
Dianne Gubin (20:48):
That's great.
Back, did you have financialliteracy training as you were
growing up?
Beth Hilbing (20:52):
No, no, my mother was horrible. No, my mother was
horrible. She always workedhard. But she spent everything
she had, you know, she had fivedaughters. We go shopping all
the time, you know, all thisstuff. They were always like,
you know, just paying theirbills paper thin now. She was
lucky my father passed for so hehad a pension and all that
(21:13):
stuff, right. So that alltransferred to her. She didn't
have anything on her own. Butanyway, so it's interesting. I
think what worries youngerpeople, too, is the cost of
health care, and the cost ofnursing homes and all of that,
and they see the transition,they see the transition of
wealth going to elderly care,and so forth. And they're like,
(21:34):
Well, how am I supposed to dealwith that? Right. So I don't
know, there's a lot, a lot.
Dianne Gubin (21:40):
I don't know that I think that's, I think that's
on our radar. I don't even thinkthat's on our kids radar.
Beth Hilbing (21:45):
No, I hear it all the time. Do you?
Dianne Gubin (21:47):
Okay. Okay.
Baat Enosh (21:48):
I think the first thing the first I agree with you
that the older generations areseeing the healthcare situation,
how, you know, I moved fromIsrael. So it was a big move.
And it's my I have to admit,it's my biggest fear living in
the US is the system, the healthcare system, just being in a
health care system, where youcan all of a sudden, just go,
(22:10):
you know, down, and you neverknow where it can come from and
go bankrupt. And the stories arehorrible, regardless of your
financial status, right. So Ithink that I agree that it's
maybe more for the oldergeneration, for the younger
generation, I think they'restarting very quickly to
understand that, you know, thatmessage that we got, like, work
(22:31):
hard, save, you know, 65retires, or Wii is going to be
in your backyard, and you'regoing to start driving. It's not
waiting for them. And you seethese movements of you see the
fire movement. So it's if i r e,which is financial independence,
retire early, and you see thesepeople are saying, Well, if 65
is not really an importantnumber, then who says 65? Why
(22:52):
not? 45? Why not? 55? Why notsave hard and invest hard when
I'm young, so that I can, I wasabout to say retire, but I don't
think they look at it asretirement, I become financially
free in my 40s and my 50searlier. And financially free
doesn't mean you're sitting on abeach having a margarita, it
(23:15):
just means you have passiveincome coming in. That can
offset your need to sell yourtime for money
Beth Hilbing (23:22):
for work. Or if you could decide you want to go
learn and get a learn how to bea master pizza maker in Italy
for a month, you can go do that,where we never would do that.
It's freedom, freedom andchoices. We freedom choices.
Yeah, we would never do that.
Hey, so I want to kind of switchgears because you know, we're
coming in kind of to the end ofthis, but I want to know, what
do you do in an indoor windtunnel?
Dianne Gubin (23:46):
That's a good question.
Baat Enosh (23:49):
favorite topic ever.
Thank you. So, so in 98, so I'vebeen skydiving since I was 21.
Until I met my husband. It was abig part of my life. When I was
younger, I competed, did amazingthings. It was a huge
contributor to my life. And in98 they actually started with
(24:10):
the first wind tunnel. It'sbasically a room back then it
was 12 feet today. I think theaverage are probably 14 to 16
feet in diameter. But there'salso now I'm blanking. There's
one in Dubai, which is like 60feet or something crazy,
ginormous. Don't quote me on thenumber. And you basically you
you can either practice what youwould do in the air so it's a
(24:35):
simulator for what you would doin the air when you compete in
skydiving, but it actually hasbecome its own sport. So you see
people now that participate inthe wind tunnel and have nothing
to do with skydiving so you canthere's many disciplines head
down on your belly. Basicallyfly.
Beth Hilbing (24:54):
Oh, okay. All right. Oh, that's cool.
Dianne Gubin (24:55):
Did you land on a mattress I hope and then when
tunnel airs your coat Is itpadded?
Baat Enosh (25:01):
There's no mattresses? No, it's, it's
imagine a room. The bottom is anet and you just when you jump
into it, you're just floating onthe air. Okay, that's cool.
Highly recommend it.
Beth Hilbing (25:11):
Yeah, we should definitely do that
Dianne Gubin (25:14):
risk taker, a high risk taker.
Beth Hilbing (25:16):
Well, we want to thank you so much for joining us
today. And we truly appreciatethat. Yes. Thank you.
Baat Enosh (25:24):
Thank you guys for having me.
Dianne Gubin (25:25):
We want to thank Bob he knows co founder and CEO
of Nia growth. Let's see
Beth Hilbing (25:29):
you and so for the listeners go out and check out
Nia growth. And then we want tothank our sponsors Google. RSM,
a lead accounting firm and thatlarge law firm nationwide global
would have Sawyer employeebenefit, and amplify
professional services, executivesearch and IT consulting. So
(25:51):
thank you for listening today.
And hit the subscribe button. OnApple Spotify. Everywhere you
find your podcast, leave us areview of five stars, of course.
And then follow us up on socialmedia. Tell your friends about
us. You tell your friends aboutus. LinkedIn, Twitter,
Instagram, we love hearing fromyou. Check out our website
www.cswet.org. com, get active,come to the events and meet
(26:17):
these amazing women. And viathank you so much again.
Baat Enosh (26:22):
Thank you guys.
Thanks for having me.
Dianne Gubin (26:24):
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you listeners.
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