Ep. 166 - Launching a tech company

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the You Are Techie podcast,
episode number 166.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to the You Are Techie podcast, where it's
all about growing in yourtouchiness so you can find the
tech job of your dreams.
And now your host technologylearning coach Ellen Tomi.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hey moms, are you trying to break into tech?
Are you wondering what skillsyou really need to get hired and
how those skills can be worth$45an hour instead of the$25 an
hour you thought when you firststarted thinking about going
back to work?
If so, then the Your Techiemembership is for you.
Our combination of courses,coaching and community come with

(00:49):
the mentor support you need tokeep moving forward in your tech
career.
It's like no other membershipprogram available.
We have the exact skillsemployers are looking for you
learn how to maximize yourincome with portfolio ready
skills that hiring managers areseeking.
Not to mention the steps you canskip so you don't find yourself
down that endless tech learningrabbit hole.

(01:10):
Join me as I walk you step bystep through the getting hired
process and tech [e-mail].
That's Y O U A R E T E C Hy.com.
I can't wait to see you in ourmembership.
Welcome to the show.
We are talking about how tofound a tech company and this is

(01:30):
a special episode because I'mactually letting you in on a
speech that I gave to the Womenin tech group out of the Atlanta
Tech Village And the speech iscalled Your Techie, how to Found
a Tech Company When You're aNon-Technical Founder.
And the idea was given to me, Imean obviously comes out of your
Dicky, but also Catherine O'Dayof Atlanta Venture Partners had

(01:52):
the idea that more women need tohear this message.
And so a big thanks to HiltonThompson who runs the Women in
Tech program at ATV for invitingme to speak in March in Women's
History Month.
So I felt very honored to dothat and it was on March 8th,
international Women's HistoryDay.
So that was super fun.
And my girls were there.
It was very cool.
My older two, not Gwenny cuz youknow, she'd just come running

(02:14):
up.
But I really just had a blasttalking about one of my favorite
topics.
And I just want you to note howmany similarities the getting
hired process and the founding atech company when you're a
non-technical founder, how manysimilarities there are to the
mindset, to the stages and thephases.
It's just very aligned and wesee a lot of the same

(02:36):
challenges.
And so I thought this lettingyou in on this speech would be
really helpful and em empoweringto you and to my students who
are so excited to start theirown ventures.
I hope this gives you that pushthat you need and the next steps
forward.
Enjoy

Speaker 3 (02:53):
.
Uh, it's nice to meet you guys.
My name is Hilton Thompson.
I am head of events at a startupcalled Xenia, but I've formally
Penn events here at Atlanta TechVillage.
When I left this role, I saidI'm keeping women tech.
I can't let her go.
So I am, um, just holding on toyou guys forever.
Um, we're so glad y'all arehere.
Raise your hand if you've beento a Women in Tech meetup

(03:15):
before.
Yay.
Welcome back.
How many of y'all is this new?
Yay.
So many new faces too.
I love it.
Welcome Ron.
Applause for getting out of thehouse.
That's kind of hard.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Woo.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Okay.
I know it's hard for me.
I'm like, do I have to line upmy hair washing schedule with an
event?
So obviously I did not today.
Um, but I'm so glad y'all arehere.
We started this thing in 2017 asa way for women to just come
together if we can't do anybetter if we're doing it on our
own.
So it's better when you havepeople behind you.
So get to know the people atyour table.

(03:48):
Connect intentionally.
See how they need support.
That's my favorite thing to ask.
How can I support you at the endof these things so we can walk
away on each other's teams, buty'all don't wanna listen to me
talk.
That's not why you're here.
Y'all here to listen to Ellen.
Ellen is so fun.
Katherine oday, who's sittingback there introduced us and I'm
like, your energy is my newfavorite thing.

(04:09):
So y'all are in for a treat.
She brought trampoline.
So the energy, might you noticethe room?
I have no idea what that meansand I shouldn't afford a dress
if I knew that was.
Um, but y'all have a ton of funand I'm gonna bring up Ellen.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
All right.
Um, first I just really wannathank Hilton, um, for number one
inviting me but also just forbringing women together on a
regular basis to talk abouttech.
Can we get a quick round ofapplause for Hilton Thompson?
And then quick shout out toCatherine.
She did not just introduce us.

(04:47):
She actually had the idea forthis talk.
And um, I wanna say it's unique,but actually other people have
also approached me about thisconcept.
So I know we need it.
I know I hear this all the time.
We are gonna talk about why youare techie and why you are the
perfect person to start a techcompany even if you don't feel

(05:10):
that techie.
And so I'm gonna walk youthrough that.
We're also gonna talk about whybelieving you are techie will
help you be a successful founderregardless of the industry that
you're in.
So what I mean by that is whatyou don't wanna do is walk into
your tech company and say, okay,I am the expert in this field

(05:32):
and I'm gonna find someone whoknows about tech and they're
gonna do the tech stuff and I'mnot techy.
And so that doesn't mean thatyou have to write all the code.
There is a wide range betweenunderstanding and believing that
you are techie and executing onall the code.
There's a whole wide gamut andI'm gonna help you understand

(05:55):
not just why you are techy andwhy you're the perfect person to
start a tech company, but I'mgonna arm you with the
information that you need sothat you can make the smart
techy decisions as you move,move forward growing your tech
company.
Now I understand that not all ofyou are planning or have started
a tech company today yet.

(06:18):
But the thing is that it reallyis important for you to believe
and understand that yourexpertise is something that can
be made into a tech company, canbe a revenue stream for your
business, can be um, if you'rein technology that you encourage
other women to be in, um, tostart a company or to add, add a

(06:40):
side hustle.
And so by believing andunderstanding these concepts,
you're gonna be armed with theinformation that you need
instead of some of these, um,mental hurdles that are, are not
actually true or not actuallyimpactful in your career.
So what I'm gonna do is show youhow to make the ultimate shift
from struggling to believeyou're capable of being an

(07:01):
expert in technology tostreamline your decision process
so you can launch the techproduct of your dreams.
That's what we're gonna talkabout.
So, um, I'm Ellen Toey and Idon't know why people think my
personal life is reallyinteresting.
So I am a mother of five.
We jumped on trampolines athome.
A couple of my daughters arehere with me today,, so

(07:23):
they can tell you.
Yeah, they're literally arefive.
So the four of them, um, are upthere.
This is Reagan's number one andmjs number three, but I try not
to number them two boys.
And then we strategically planan eight year gap, um, before we
had Gwen, which I'm sure makes alot of sense.
So, and she's a little olderthere, so, um, oh, I did the

(07:44):
whole thing with the mic.
People will say, um, you know,who will go on this journey with
you?
So that's a picture of myhusband Kevin.
Yeah, he's still standing andwe're both, we're both founders.
We've been married, um, 21years.
I had to think for a minute.
We've been together 25.
We both grew up in Detroit,Michigan, but most recently we
lived in North Carolina and weonly moved to Atlanta about nine

(08:06):
months ago.
And I can tell you that we arefinding Atlanta to be a
fantastic home for us.
Little bit about my professionallife because this will help you
understand why I'm a person whocan give you the information
that you need.
Um, cuz there are a lot ofvoices out there.
There, there's a lot of, um,information to parse through in

(08:29):
technology.
And so my undergrad is actuallyin computer science.
So I started my career as adeveloper at Accenture and then
I worked as a teacher, um, atthe high school level as um, a
teacher in technology andengineering.
So ap, computer science, thingslike that.
And later, uh, I'm kind ofskipping ahead through some
things, but later I also workedas a designer and then I have a

(08:52):
community and a podcast with thesame name.
You are techie.
So I've been talking about thisconcept for a while that helps
moms and women gain the skillsand confidence to get hired in
tech.
So I really like to promote, um,all the learning that's involved
in technology and we'll talk alittle bit about the techie
mindset next, but it is verypervasive in women to think that

(09:14):
there's something tech is justnot really for us.
And I wanna be so bold as to saythat's actually not an option
anymore.
Any career that you have, anycompany that you start, you are
going to need a certain amountof te knowledge.
And so I don't really care ifyou majored in math or science,
it's not really important.
Understanding the technologyintegration in your life is

(09:37):
gonna really empower you and be,um, important.
So, um, I am now the managingdirector of Fugitive Lab.
So we focus on shipping andlaunching products and I'm gonna
talk a lot about that todaybecause when you wanna start a
tech company, one of the mostimportant things is to actually
get your product out into theworld.
And I can tell you as you'retalking to a lot of founders and

(10:00):
potential founders, that is noeasy task, okay?
Wanting to have something outinto the world thinking that you
can put something out into theworld.
These are great starting points,but actually putting it out into
the world, shipping andlaunching takes a very specific
focus and it takes a lot oftouchiness.

(10:21):
So let's talk about that, thetechy mindset, okay?
I am more than aware that theinterwebs are a flutter with
lots of mindset talk.
Okay?
I know, I know all about if youjust have the right mindset,
right?
Well, what I'm gonna talk to youabout today is much more than
the mindset, but this ispermission to play.
So if you come into starting atech company thinking, just like

(10:45):
I was talking about before, andyou think, okay, I'm the expert
in, um, health, I'm the expertin finance, I'm the expert in,
um, whatever name, name yourindustry, and then I just need a
technical co-founder, or I needthat someone to do that tech
thing for me.
That's the place where you getinto trouble.

(11:05):
It's not that you won't needhelp as a founder, you will need
help, but you are w going towant to associate yourself as
being techy even if you are thenon-technical co-founder.
And so the techie mindset isreally about three things.
And I've kind of seen a lot ofthis in and out and I can tell

(11:29):
you this is my definition frommy own experience, but I can
tell you it's pretty consistentthroughout.
So if you, you need to firstbelieve that you are techie.
And that's really tricky becauseyou might be thinking, I don't
have a lot of evidence to showthat.
So then the second thing youneed to do is to take action
around that touchiness andthat's the next thing that I'm

(11:50):
gonna talk about.
So you say, well how do I takeaction around that?
I write a line, line of code.
No, that's not necessarily true.
Okay, I'm gonna go into Figmaand start doing my designs.
Maybe, maybe that's one thingyou need to do, but there are
lots of ways you can do it, butyou need to take action on that
belief that now we're movingalong, uh, along the techie
mindset line here.

(12:11):
The third thing you need to do,and this is obviously the
hardest part, is that you needto, you're going to come up
against what we call in techroadblocks, okay?
On the agile, on the and agile,um, software development, we
call them roadblocks,challenges, hurdles, whatever.
As you come up against thoseroadblocks, you need to go

(12:32):
revert back to I am techie.
So your brain might be temptedto say things like, I don't know
how to do this, so I'm stuck.
There's nowhere, there's someoneelse has to know the answer.
But in fact, overcoming thathurdle through your own learning
is the key.
And essentially you might comeup against the same hurdle again

(12:55):
and again, but if you learn whatyou did right and what you did
wrong, that's what's going to befoundational in getting you over
that roadblock.
So we'll talk a little bit moreabout that.
But the techie mindset is, Ijust wanna say one more time, it
is possible for all of you, evenif you were an English major,

(13:16):
that's okay.
You still get to be techy.
I say so and no one can tell methat you are.
So it's important to reallybelieve that and move through
with action on that.
All right?
So just take a minute, even ifyou're not starting a company
yet, just take a minute, maybeeven close your eyes.
Can you imagine what it would belike for you to contribute

(13:38):
meaningfully, maybe evenpowerfully to your family's bank
account by breathing life intoyour product vision?
Just take a minute that ispossible for all of you here
today.
And I want you to think aboutwhat that would mean for you,
for the world, for your family.

(14:00):
It's really important for you tothink that you are someone who
can bring a product into theworld.
So how can I be a non-technicalfounder without apologizing?
And I find this slide reallyfunny because I just told you,
you are techy, so you're notallowed to say you're
non-technical.
And it's very hard to live mylife around a lot of women.

(14:23):
I mean, when I'm here it'sgreat, but all the time people
are like, I'm not really thattechy.
Ooh.
I'm like, I think you said it infront of the wrong person.
So now I gotta give you alecture while you are techy.
But the non-technical co-founderdoesn't mean you're not techy,
it just means that you'rebringing an expertise outside of
the technology, um, platform,right?
And technology is solving a lotof problems in the world.

(14:44):
So the first thing I wanna tellyou is that in your own career,
in your own, um, professional orpersonal life, there is a
problem that you haveencountered.
I can, I can bet on that there'ssomething that bugs you, that
comes back to you that youthink, you know what?

(15:05):
I really don't like the way thisis done in the world.
I really think that I have aunique take on it.
And so to be clear, mostsoftware has already been built,
most software has already beenbuilt.
You're not gonna come up with acompletely different idea.
That's not really the point.
The point is that you have aunique perspective on that idea
that it's going to touchpeople's eyes and be maybe more,

(15:29):
um, maybe it'll feel morecomfortable to them.
Maybe it'll feel more like theway they view the world.
So it's really about the uniqueperspective that you have.
So when you come into that, andagain, without apologizing, you
are going to want to have a, acertain amount of technical
knowledge around it.

(15:50):
Now, um, I'm gonna talk laterabout some very specific
technical things, but thereality is that the specific
problem that you're solving isgoing to be, you are going to be
the expert of that.
And the reason is not because noone's ever thought of it before,
but because no one's everthought of it the way that you
have.

(16:11):
And as you start a company,you're gonna be fixating on how
to solve that problem in a waythat really no one else is
thinking about it.
And so you become the expert inthe approach that you have.
And that approach is going tobecome what we call product
vision.
So that's why I say that I'mvery confident that you are

(16:33):
techie and that you can be anon-technical co-founder without
apology because you're going toknow the answer to your own
problem.
And make no mistake, tech isabout getting specific.
Okay?
The other way that you are goingto be a non-technical co-founder
without apologizing is I justwanna give you a few examples

(16:54):
because I love tech.
I have a lot of energy aroundit.
I think it is super fun andinteresting, but no one ever
said it was easy, okay?
No one ever said, Hey, if youreally want an easy life, go
start a tech company.
I know you're gonna love it.
No, but you are going to make animpact and you are going to um,
make I think 1 billion, right?

(17:14):
Catherine it's 1 billion.
So, or more than a billion ormore multi-billion dollar could
be a multi-billion dollar, likethree or four or 10, 10 billion.
So this is important, and I knowthat sounds crazy, but let's
face it.
I mean one of the reasons thatwe start a tech company is to
have an impact on the world, butit's also to impact a lot of
people.
And so when you have amulti-billion dollar company,

(17:37):
you are impacting a lot ofpeople.
And I think that this is one ofthe things that we don't talk
enough about is that you are,um, when you have a technology
in the world, the scalability isinfinite, I guess.
I don't know.
We'll see if we can find the endof the internet.
But the the whole point is thatyou're going to have a large
impact and you're going to makebe making a lot of money, but

(17:59):
you are going to work for thatand it's going to be tricky.
And so one of the problems thatI see happen and oftentimes with
women is that they don't knowthe answer.
They're not exactly sure whatthat's gonna look like.
And I can tell you from startingmore tech projects than I can
count, you don't know what itlooks like at the beginning
ever.
You don't ever know.
You don't know what the path isgonna look like.

(18:21):
So I just wanna tell you a fewfounder horror stories just to
kind of make you feel better,.
And so here are a couple offounder horror stories, but
they're not horror stories.
They're actually beautifulstories that help you to
understand that, that this isjust the way that it is.
I've known founders who havehired six different tech teams
before they actually launchedtheir product into the world.

(18:41):
I've known founders who have um,spent four years and$400,000 on
a product that doesn't work.
And you might say ouch.
Well that one didn't focus verymuch on learning, okay?
You have to learn from yourmistakes.
I've known founders who havepaid co-founders to go away
because they needed to startfrom scratch and to really build

(19:02):
something even better.
We got, we got some smiles inthe audience, okay?
So if you think that you'regonna get it right the first
time, I hope that you do.
But if you do not, that is not areason to stop.
Okay?
So I talked a little bit aboutthis, but essentially you are

(19:22):
the expert in the problem thatyou are solving.
And even today, if you're, ifit's just like a little baby
seed, that's okay.
That problem, you are going tobe fixating that in a way that
no one else is.
And so that is a very powerfulthing.
I just wanna pause for a minutecuz I took out a slide that I

(19:44):
still kind of like, but I reallywanted to keep it shorter.
.
And essentially you're going toget a lot of advice, gonna be a
lot of people out there tellingyou why you're wrong and why you
just don't quite get it oryou're not thinking about it the
right way or mm, that's cute,okay?
Or you're adorable.
I don't know.
I get that one.
I don't agree, but you know,anyway, so the point is that you

(20:07):
believing that you are theexpert and then spending time on
that and then overcoming hurdlesthat you didn't think you could
overcome help you to be a bettertechnical, even if a
non-technical, a better techfounder.
And the reason is because techis about being specific.
That's why it's so hard becausethere's so much out there and

(20:28):
it's so general and there's somany right answers, but you have
to know the right answer foryour own product.
And in case anyone hasn't toldyou this, I'm here to tell you
that your product needs to beout in the world.
You deserve to put your productout in the world.

(20:50):
You don't need anyone else'spermission.
It is absolutely possible foryou to put that out into the
world regardless of youreducation, where you come from,
how much money you have, howmuch money you were raised with,
none of those are factors.
It is important.
And I actually beg you to putmore products out into the

(21:13):
world.
I don't think it's quitepossible to explain the impact
that you can have when youdesign something from your
perspective.
But I can tell you that it'sgonna impact our children,
especially our girls.
So let's get techie, okay, whoare your customers?
If you didn't think that wasgonna be the next slide after,

(21:33):
let's get techie, don't worryabout it.
I'm gonna explain exactly what Imean by that.
So I talked about how tech isbeing specific.
You need to know who yourcustomers are to start, I don't
know why I always use Facebook.
I hate Facebook, but I have alot of Facebook stories.
So Facebook, okay, he startedwith um, college students, that

(21:53):
is who his customers were.
That is not who his customersare today, I would say his
customers now are like our moms,our aunts, right?
And they share the pictures ofit, right?
That's exactly.
So, but who are your customersto start with?
Your customers down the future?
That's everybody in the wholewide world.
That's how we get to billions ofdollars.
But when you start, who are yourcustomers?
What is their pain?

(22:14):
Okay, this one I spend way moretime on what is their
pain than you, uh, than youwould like to know.
Okay?
But anyway, so who are this wayI do this.
Who are your customers and whatis their pain?
And what is the intersection ofthat?
And then remembering that whatis their pain in terms of the
problem that you're solving?
Which might sound obvious, butit's not because the pain can be

(22:35):
adjacent or get bigger very,very quickly.
And so you need to have thisnarrow focus.
Why Ellen?
Why do I have to have thisnarrow focus?
I'm gonna run a billion dollarcompany.
Going back to what I saidbefore, because you actually
have to ship and launch aproduct in order.
This is kind of a cyclicalthing.
You gotta launch the product inorder to scale.

(22:55):
And so making sure that youactually launch means you have
to know who a subset of yourcustomers are, what their pain
is, and then the solution thatyou are going to solve, the
unique perspective that you aregoing to solve that pain with.
So you want a brief descriptionof this, but you want it to be
descriptive, okay?

(23:17):
And so when you have yoursolution, what you're really
doing is creating your productvision.
So this is where you can be asinvolved in the technology
development.
Let's see, this is superinvolved or you can be high
level, but your product visionis still there because you are

(23:38):
describing the unique way thatyou approach this problem.
And then you're also gonna wannaknow how you make money.
Yes, money is fun and great andI hope, I really believe all of
you should be very, verywealthy.
Um, and that's fantastic.
But knowing how you will makemoney is also part of your

(24:00):
product vision.
That's also how you're going toknow the right specifics, the
hypothetical right specificsthat you're going to launch with
and then learn from and theniterate on.
So unless you are growing anengagement platform where you
just want as many users aspossible and then you're gonna
run ads to them in order for youto keep going as a founder, and

(24:21):
in order for Catherine to giveyou a lot of money, which I know
she wants to give to all of you,you're going to have to earn
revenue from the people thatyour customers that you're
serving.
And how are you going to earnthat revenue by giving them
something of value that theywanna pay you for.
But I wanna say this again, I'mnot talking about marketing
here.
I'm talking about product visionand understanding what

(24:44):
components and features of yourproduct people are most willing
to pay for.
And my friends, I'm here to tellyou, you're probably gonna be
wrong the first time you dothis.
It's really hard to get itright, but you know how you get
it right?
You launch, you see what theylike, and then you get
information and then you iterateon that.

(25:05):
So that's an importantcomponent, but you're going to
wanna know how you think, howyou think you're going to make
money, what your customers aregoing to actually pay you for,
because that's what you're gonnawanna have in your mvp, your
minimum viable product, thething that you actually ship and
launch.
You wanna know what keycomponents you're gonna be paid

(25:25):
for.
Okay?
So this is, this is one of my,this is my feature signature.
I might have to like trademarkthis or something.
I don't want you to go down thetech building rabbit hole,
that's what this is.
Stay out of the tech buildingrabbit hole.
How do you do that?
Let me remind you, you know whoyour customers are, you know
what their pain is, you knowwhat the problem you're trying

(25:46):
to solve and you know how you'retrying to make money ish.
And then you ship and launch andthen you learn.
And so the tech building rabbitholes when someone's like, Hey,
how about if you build it likethis?
I think you should build it likethat.
I just wanna add one morefeature that is what is going to
prevent you from being thesuccessful founder that you can
be.
Now that is all tech.

(26:07):
I understand it maybe doesn'tfeel like tech except for the
little ones and zeros around therabbit, but it is because before
you talk about that stuff, theother questions don't really
matter.
You can't just say what's thebest way to build a tech
company?
Guess what?
Lots of right answers.
There are lots of right answersin that.

(26:30):
Okay?
I can say I like it my way andand you can say you like it your
way and we can both be right?
So if you say to me, whattechnology do I use to build my
SaaS company, I am going toaddress that even though there
are lots of great answers, and Idon't know if this has occurred
to anybody, I mean just maybe,but, I get this one every

(26:52):
other day.
How much is this gonna cost me?
How much is it gonna cost me?
It's not free ladies, it's notfree.
I know, but the factors, sohere's the answer.
Depends, you're welcome verymuch, right?
But I'm gonna walk you throughwhat it depends on because a
lot, a lot of the things that wejust talked about are going to

(27:12):
impact it, but the better youdefine your product, the less
money you can spend.
What, how cool is that?
So if you're like, Ellen, how doI actually build the technology?
What's the best way to do it?
Well, here are a few differentways that I've seen people do
it, right?
You can do a no code solution.

(27:34):
I work at a custom developmentshop and I'm here to tell you
that's a viable option.
You can build a no codesolution, launch into the
world's your MVP and generaterevenue and have your, have your
, um, you know, your, yourproduct market fit identified,
and then you can build a customsolution.
But do understand that you willrespend that money.

(27:55):
And I'm not saying that that'sgood or bad.
There's, there's at a, there'sreally a lot of ways to go about
this.
And if you wanna make sure it'sproduct market, that's great.
It's still time and energy to doa no code solution.
And you're probably still gonnapay someone to do it.
You might have a low codesolution.
You might know a collegestudent.
My nephew just graduated from,um, undergrad.

(28:18):
He's, he's got a degree incomputer engineering.
It's fantastic.
I actually had an impact on him.
It's so great.
If only you're a woman.
No, just kidding.
But anyway, so you might know afriend who's learning to code.
I mean, I'll be honest, that onescares me a little bit.
But ma I mean they might know,they might, you might have a
friend who's like, Hey, I'mlearning this and you guys wanna
go through it together.
I've heard of, I've heard ofgreat stories with that.

(28:40):
Okay, you might find an offshoreteam, you might have a a tech
co-founder, or you might have anoutsource onshore team.
Those are just, it's not everysingle option to you.
But if you're like, where do Ieven start?
It's a pretty good list.
And remember the slide we justtalked about?

(29:01):
How much is it gonna cost me?
I think you can see this isgoing to vary greatly how much
this costs you the difference inthis.
And hopefully, hopefully yourtechnical co-founder's the most
expensive.
That's what you want.
You want your technicalco-founder that you give equity
to be the most expensive optionon that.
That means you've been reallysuccessful and you don't really
care.

(29:22):
But it really depends becausewhat you're, what you wanna do
is, if I haven't mentioned it 12times yet, is ship an MVP and
get information out there.
Um, so how quickly you get itright is important.
And this also means how few ofiterations you go through.
So, um, you can say, I wanna bepatient and take my time and

(29:45):
make all the right decisions.
But one of the things that Ithink why I'm drawn to tech is
that, um, it's not surgery.
I'm not a doctor.
If I make a mistake, you're notdying.
And my husband and I will saythat a lot of times we have a
rough day.
It's like, well, you know,nobody died.
We didn't kill anyone.
So if you are like in a fieldwhere it's highly volatile and

(30:06):
people can die, if you make amistakes, you make a mistake,
you need to realize that's notwhat tech is.
Actually the biggest problem isnot taking action.
It's actually a veryaction-oriented thing.
And you want to, you wanna getit right quickly.
And, and so the most importantthing is to make a decision and
move forward.
All right?

(30:26):
So this is a fun one.
Um, I wanna share with you thatone of the biggest reasons I see
women either not found or notscale their tech companies is
because they failed to do thisone thing.
And I was at lunch last weektalking with a friend.
She's in marketing, it's veryeasy for us to say, right?
Um, but the reason is they don'tinvest in themselves or their

(30:49):
products.
And when I say that to you, Iwanna emphasize how painful I
know this can be.
And so let me share a story withyou.
It also has to do with Facebook.
Again, I don't know why.
So when I first started runningads for my company, I had to, I
started by spending$10 a day onFacebook ads.

(31:11):
And that$10, I can like, feel itright here in my stomach.
Like that was so uncomfortableto spend that$10 a day.
It was one of the hardest thingsI had to do.
And you might be thinking it'sjust$10, Ellen, but it was
really hard because I was justsending it, giving it to Mark
Zuckerberg.
I didn't know what he was gonnado with it, right?
And what I learned is that as Iwent through and I iterated and

(31:34):
I made my ads better, and then Iran my company and I, and I
understood my, my customersmore, and I, I got some learning
and, and made my ads evenbetter.
And then I felt really goodabout what I was doing and that
I was gonna bring the rightpeople in.
I found that spending thousandsof dollars was not really a

(31:55):
problem for me.
And so what I can tell you isthat if it's hard for you to
invest in yourself or in yourproduct, start start somewhere
and start elevating.
But I will tell you thatsometimes trying to save a
little bit of money is a lot ofheadache.
And it might just be worth it tospend a little bit more.

(32:15):
It's an investment in your time,in your time is worth it.
I tend to see women and if thisis not true for you, awesome,
awesome.
But most of the women, meincluded, we like to just work
harder.
We just think that workingharder, we'll just do more.
We'll just add more.
But that actually slows youdown.
And remember what I said, it canfeel like a lot of money, but

(32:38):
the quicker you go go, that'sactually how you're gonna save
money.
Okay?
Well, what if you don't know?
What if you don't know what yourads are gonna do?
I assure you I had no idea if myads were any good.
I did not know they weren't.
I can tell you no, they were notgood, but the last ones were
good, right?
But you don't know what to do,right?
I I, Ellen you say collegestudent or technical co-founder,

(32:59):
I don't even know if any ofthese are gonna work for me.
I understand that.
And this is where I go back to,we're not, it's not surgery,
we're not doctors.
We need to make a decision.
You need to make a decision andbe willing to be wrong.
You will probably be wrong.
And then this is the other pieceabout investing in yourself is
that you want to be willing, youneed to be willing to spend

(33:21):
money to learn.
And my husband actually gave mea great tip.
He's like, but they might buy acourse because I've been telling
him for years that women justbuy course.
They buy another course.
So buy another course and hey, Ibought some courses.
There's nothing wrong with it.
But really you should only buy acourse if you know that it's
addressing the specific productissue that you have.

(33:41):
And as soon as you get into theweeds, at a certain point,
you'll be too detailed to do it.
And so I want you to be willingto learn from experience, learn
from experience, just like I didwith my Facebook Edge.
You have to spend money andlearn what people pay you for,
what they give you money for.
That's what they care about.

(34:02):
All right?
And then, um, this is soimportant.
Oh my gosh.
Learn to ask better and betterquestions.
So I'm actually gonna help youwith that.
I'm gonna give you a foundationfor questions to ask.
But, but it's just the startingpoint.
Then you're gonna, again, withyour product, you're gonna learn
what is a better and betterquestion to ask.
Because a, but start askingbecause as a beginner, there's

(34:24):
nothing you need more thaniterations.
You need iterations on what?
Everything.
Customer discovery, buildingyour prototype, building your
product.
You need iterations.
And when you are not sure whatto do, when it feels
overwhelming or confusing, justdo the one next right thing.
Don't worry about the piece ofadvice from someone.

(34:45):
Just do the one next right thingthat is going to move your
product closer into getting an vMVP out into the world.
All right, let's get specific Iwould need, I need a quick drink
here.
So when we talk about tech and Italk about how you are getting
really specific and becoming anexpert on your own product, now

(35:08):
we need to get specific aboutthe tech.
And again, knowing that thereare a lot of right answers, let
me give you some specificquestions that you can ask as
you go through this process.
Literally, you can ask thesequestions as you're deciding
who's gonna build yourtechnology, how involved you're

(35:29):
going to be.
Here's a, here's a verytechnical question.
What architecture should myproduct have?
And again, it's not, not that I,Ellen am here to say this is the
architecture that your productshould have, but you should talk
about that.
And you should know and youshould understand why it's
important for your product.
Even though it might not be ashelpful for someone else's.

(35:51):
Um, you should know whichhosting service is best for your
product.
A lot of them can work.
We, we view, we use AWS and, and, and Google Cloud and, and
it's, there are a lot of rightanswers, but sometimes the right
answer might be okay, my techpartner knows this one really
well and they know how to makeit efficient.

(36:11):
Okay, what does my prototypelook like?
And who is going to design it?
So this is an important piece.
I talked about this earlier.
How when you know who yourcustomers are and what the pain
is and your unique perspectivefor solving it, your product
vision is in your mvp, yourproduct vision is in it, but the
prototype.
So you might wanna design yourown prototype.
Figma is a great tool for that.

(36:33):
But you might also wanna paysomeone if you do design your
own prototype, I do recommend atleast getting a little bit of
assistance on um, UX design orproduct design.
I'm a little bit biased here cuzof my background, but it's also,
it's a little bit helpful tohave that.
But you can design the wholething.
So knowing where you wanna fallon that spectrum in terms of how

(36:53):
it much input you wanna give,that's great.
But remember that your productvision will be in that
regardless.
All right, last question on thisslide and then I got another
one.
Do I trust my development team?
If you are feeling like you,whoever that is, you may say
that's just one person.
That's okay.
If you are feeling like there isa problem, like something is

(37:15):
just not there, you might betempted to think you're not
technical, you don't get it,there's something wrong.
No, it needs, it's a trustfactor.
It's not a knowledge factor.
Moving on to the next question.
Do I trust my development team?
Did you catch that?
Not a typo.
It's the most important thing.

(37:35):
And if there's a problem asyou're building your mvp, I want
you to think about that andthink about why you don't trust
them.
What's going on?
What other information do youneed?
And it doesn't mean they'relying to you, it just means
there's gotta be a good fit tomove you forward.
Okay, here's a great one.
Here's a great one.
Can my code be easily maintainedafter I built it?

(37:56):
So after I build it?
So you might, someone might say,oh, you gotta have elixir.
The performance is really fast,it's super slick.
That's the programming languageto use.
And then you can't find anelixir developer for less than
$500 an hour.
All right?
So know who's gonna maintain itdown the road, build, build for
the future.
And then again, how involved doI wanna be in that process?
I talked a little bit about thatwith the prototype, but you

(38:18):
might wanna learn how to code.
I have known founders who havelearned how to code in order to
build their technology.
That's, that's something thatboot camps do.
They, they train that that's avalid option.
That's a valid option, but it'snot the only option.
Okay, this one I think is really, um, helpful.
Have I gotten several specificquotes on my tech product?

(38:39):
Not opinions.
Not opinions.
If someone just says, you reallyshould use this, no, you really
should use that.
And they're not willing to spendthe time to understand your
product and the way that you'regonna bring it out into the
world and your uniqueperspective and to say, this is
how much, this is how much it'sgonna cost you.
This is the input that we'rewilling to give.
If they aren't willing to dothat, they're just not a voice

(39:01):
you should listen to becausethey're just throwing something
out there.
They don't know enough aboutyour product.
I'm sure they're not illintended, but it's important for
you to parse that out.
That alone will give you so muchinformation and really help you
with it.
So I wanna get really specificpeople are saying, you might be
thinking, okay, but like whatdoes it really look like to

(39:23):
build a SaaS product?
A SaaS technology?
So I'm gonna give you oneexample and this is what we do
at Fugitive for most newproducts.
But not all, not all just, justmost there are exceptions.
And again, there are lots ofother ways to do this that can
work really well for you.
But this is one way.

(39:43):
So we tend to use aws, not ahundred percent, but a lot.
We know some features that ourcustom architecture can, how we
can save money on it.
Um, people will say AWS is soexpensive, you know, cuz you
have to spend money.
It's like Facebook ads.
You really just have to know thestrategy.
And Google Ads, everybody adds.
You have to know the strategy toknow how to reduce costs.
We use MongoDB, no JS React,which is a JavaScript library

(40:08):
and an html, CSS and js.
And so if you, if you go outthis and you show this to
someone, I, you'd only have toshow like 10 technical people.
And somebody would be like,Mongo doesn't scale.
Mongo does not scale.
They're liars.
They're liars.
Well, the thing is, you have toknow how to use it and it does
scale.
We have had clients on it for 6,7, 8 years and only if you have

(40:32):
certain other requirementsoutside of, uh, and, and there
are millions of users on that,on that technology.
So there are only if you haveother requirements for your
product that you wouldn't useMongo.
So this is important to know,this is why I say people are
gonna have a lot of opinionsabout it.

(40:52):
Only talk, only listen to thosewho are willing to spend time
and understand your product andyour product needs.
All right?
So lots of right answers.
I've said that a hundred times.
But where you feel uneasy whenyou ask a question and you
haven't quite gotten theinformation that you want,
that's where I want you to digin.
That's why I say you are techy.

(41:14):
You have to believe that youhave enough technical knowledge
to ask and answer the questions.
And if there's something thatdoesn't feel right to you, I am,
I guarantee you, I guarantee youthere's a problem.
Maybe you haven't communicatedsomething effectively, maybe
your team hasn't understood it.
Maybe they don't have theskills.
But if you feel, feel uneasyabout something, it's not

(41:35):
because you need to go home andlearn how to code over the
weekend.
Just dig in where you feeluneasy, that is gonna guide you
really far in this process.
And then remember back to this,your product needs to be out in
the world.
So I um, I used to talk to, I'veheard this a lot of times where
women will tell me I'm nottechnical, I don't even know how

(41:57):
to use the remote.
Um, and that I've heard itmultiple times.
And I can tell you my son knowshow to use the remote better
than I do.
I think better than mydaughters.
He uses it more than we do.
So there's no gift there.
There's no skill.
And also maybe it was justdesigned for the way that he
thinks.
So in your life, in youreveryday life, not even talking

(42:20):
about founding or being in techwhen you use something and it
doesn't work the way that youthink it should work, I wanna
really encourage you to thinkmaybe it just wasn't designed
for me instead of I'm not goodat this.
And then if I could be so boldis to ask you to share this
message because there are a lotof women who are not in this

(42:41):
room today who think that allthe time, I'm just not really
that good at this.
Instead of, it wasn't designedfor me.
And this is why I think it's soimportant for you to put your
products out into the world sothat fewer and fewer people
think it wasn't designed for me.
Now we all know about thefunding shortage.
This is an issue.

(43:01):
This is a 2021 stat, 2.4% oftotal invested venture capital
startup in the US goes to solowomen founded.
Not the entire problem, but partof the problem is we don't have
enough women founding companies.
So if you came here today andyou're like, I'm a woman in
tech, this sounds reallyinteresting, but I'm not really
gonna start a company.
I wanna challenge you.

(43:22):
I wanna challenge you that maybeit's your turn, maybe it's your
time to step up and start acompany.
Maybe it's exactly the righttime for you to build your tech
company for you to grow to abillion dollars and ask
Catherine today for some moneyto fund it.
being techy is reallyjust about problem solving, deep

(43:46):
thinking for sure.
Empathy, project management.
These are all things you'redoing anyway.
And I know you know a lot ofwomen out there who are doing
that.
That's what it means to betechie.
So in summary, I know I'vetalked about a lot of things
today.
believing in yourself, atech stack, all sorts of things.

(44:07):
But this is your playbook.
If you're like, I'm ready Ellen,you have convinced me because
you, I have never met a personwho gets so excited about
technology as you do.
Then I wanna tell you, this isyour playbook.
This is how to get started.
So before you even go get aquote, before you talk to a
developer, remember to believeyou are techie and my friends,

(44:28):
if you share that message withother people, it's pretty funny.
You hold yourself accountable,right?
You're like, I can't say that.
I can't say I'm not techie causeI'm telling all these other
people.
So you are techie and share thatand then remember that you're
the expert.
Nobody's fixating on yourproblem with your unique
solution the way you are.
They're not.
You are the expert.

(44:48):
Know your customers, do yourcustomer research, know them,
know their pain.
Believe that you can solve aproblem that they have and
define it from your uniqueperspective.
And once you've done that, yourplaybook is trust your
development team.
So start building thoserelationships early.
It's kind of like a VCrelationship.
You wanna really know them.

(45:09):
You really wanna deeplyunderstand that there's a
communication.
Technology is a lot aboutcommunication and then decide
how involved you wanna be.
But believing you are techiesfirst and deciding from that
perspective.
If you wanna pay people moremoney to do more of the work so
you can focus on your business,that's a great strategy.

(45:32):
It's not the only strategy, butit's a viable strategy.
Just know that your productvision is communicated and
defined well.
And then, um, remember myfriends, you've gotta build an
mvp.
So quick tip on this.
Confine, constrain define youare going, as you go through
this process, you're gonna wannado everything.
You're gonna wanna have so manythings in it.

(45:53):
I like to just say keep a Googledoc, a version one or version
2.0 and just write down, justtype out save the features that
are not for today that are gonnaprevent you from launching.
They will come out into theworld and launch with an mvp.
You're gonna make a decision ifit doesn't hurt, if you haven't

(46:13):
cut out some things like I cutout some slides I wanted, if it
doesn't hurt a little bit, youhaven't trimmed enough.
And then remember to build aproduct that's maintainable that
other people, you can findpeople to maintain it.
You can find people who cancontinue to scale and grow your
technology and finally evaluatemultiple valid options.
Someone who has spent time withyou to understand you, your

(46:34):
perspective, your uniqueapproach, and has taken the time
to give you a quote on whateffort we'll take from them to
give you what you want.
So remember, what does a techfounder look like?
She looks like you.
Thank you so much.
You are techie.
So let's do some questions.

(46:55):
And my daughters here are goingto throw or bring you a shirt
depending on your athleticability.
And uh, we do a lot of footballat my house so it um, I would
love to take some questions fromyou and it's totally fine with
me.
If they're very specific I'll domy very best to answer them.
Yes, I just need a quick drinkof water cause I

Speaker 5 (47:16):
Question.
Uh, thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Um, my question is, if you dohave a desire to level up your
technical expertise, what aresome courses or some, uh, some
curriculum that we could reviewor,

Speaker 4 (47:29):
Yeah, so I mean that's gonna be a hard question
cuz I have curriculum on it.
So it's, it's hard for me torecommend someone else's.
But, um, first know the problemyou are trying to solve because
you will learn so much more ifyou instead of theoretically
learn tech, actually do the techon the thing you're trying to

(47:49):
solve.
Does that make sense?
So, um, even in my courses, theway that I walk it through it is
that you pick a projectregardless of if you're founding
a company or just learning askill in development or in, um,
UX design.
It's, it's just important thatyou start with that and then
applying things to that projectis a much better way to learn.
Because otherwise if you say,okay, I'm gonna learn, um, Ruby

(48:14):
on Rails, okay, let me just golearn it.
No, it's never ending.
And so the way to know if youhave the right tech skills is
not if you know every line ofcode that's out there, which,
um, I've found a lot of womenwanna do.
But instead it's have I createdsomething in the world?
Um, and that's actually how I, Ilearned Ruby on Rails.
So, um, I start, I, when I wasstaying at home with my kids, I

(48:36):
founded a company and I didn'tknow how to, I was, I was a
developer, but I didn't knowRuby on Rails and I just did it
with this one project in mind.
It's so much better becauseotherwise what you end up with
is a, is a tic-tac toe event.
So yeah.
Um, I will say Khan Academy isfantastic.
Khan Academy.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
Hi, how are you Helen,

Speaker 4 (49:00):
You just wanna us shirt don't you, Karen
ask

Speaker 3 (49:03):
You, um, I just wanna ask you, I saw the word, um,
that your founder of techycompany Yeah.
I just wanna know if you help oradvise founders what do you do?
How you can help?

Speaker 4 (49:20):
Yeah,

Speaker 3 (49:20):
This Yeah.
Audience.
I know you do because you helpme a lot,.
So I just, I wanna ask you what,uh, do you can do to help others
Yeah.
What your services

Speaker 4 (49:32):
Are, right?
So, so your techie is, um, Ihave a, a membership where you
can learn skills of UX designand development.
So that's, that's what that is.
And, um, with, and so that's anonline presence and I'm, I'm
happy to, you know, share thatwith you and you guys can, you
can go there, you can listen tothe podcast, you are techie with
Ellen Tomi.
It's very motivational.
Um, I think the next one I'mcoming out is stop yelling at

(49:54):
your husband.
So if that's interesting to you,um, because I talk a lot about,
I didn't really go into all thetechy mindset, but it's, it's a
really a big passion of minethat not enough women quite
understand exactly how to be,um, technical.
And it's really all aboutspecifics and that's why I talk
a lot about that.
So with Fugitive, if you reallyare interested in building a

(50:16):
tech product in the world, I'malso happy you can, you can send
me an email.
I'll also, I'll be happy to do afree product strategy session
with you on your product.
And so, um, I'm happy to, to dothat and to help you move
forward and to understand, um,you know, where you are in that
process and what you should bethinking about around your

(50:36):
specific problem.
And so that's another way I'llanswer that.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:44):
Um, thanks for your presentation.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
You're welcome by

Speaker 3 (50:46):
The way.
Um, my question is, what aresome of the barriers of
launching a web MVP versus a anapp of like m mvp?

Speaker 4 (50:56):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Um, that's a great question.
So the barriers are, it's a lotabout skill.
So, um, app development is justa little bit more nuanced and,
and quite honest, a little bittrickier.

(51:17):
Um, but in terms of the actualimplementa, I have so many
thoughts on this, I'm like, I'mnot exactly sure how to tell
you.
Okay.
So I will tell you my opinionthat having one code base is not
really that important and infact can slow you down.
So, so the barriers for for itare understanding who your

(51:38):
audience is first and what'sgonna be a better way to launch.
And then of course, you know theplatforms, right?
So you do kind of need, you haveto, you have to be in the, in
the IO store and the, and theGoogle Play store.
And so that's a challenge.
But in terms of like technology,what is harder?
It's, it's really a, a littlebit of one-to-one based on
skill.
And I think the bigger trick isthat you wanna, you want an MVP

(52:01):
that you can launch and get outinto the world with a, uh, with
a focus on where the customersare gonna find you.
One full code base is notnecessary, but you don't have to
write two full code bases, ifthat makes sense.
It's really foundationallyyou're gonna be looking at a
similar thing and you also aregonna have a similar but not

(52:23):
exactly the same, um, UXpresence.
So I do think that depending onyour money, your financial, um,
experience and your financialinvestment that you can make, it
can make sense to launch both.
It doesn't have to be one or theother.
It just kind of depends on howyou wanna go out into the world.
And, you know, some, someproducts are really only at base

(52:44):
, it's only gonna work that way.
Um, but you are going to excludecertain people.
I would say that's gonna be abarrier if your solution is all
inclusive and you have to, youhave to pick one, sometimes you
have to do that.
It, it is a very, it is aknowledge and money decision
basically.
Um, anything is possible intechnology.

(53:04):
And so that's a great question.
I can't wait to hear what youridea is.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
Thank you.
Um, my question is for somebodyto start to enter into like tech
company.
So you mentioned about investingon yourself and spending money
on yourself in terms of yourlearning and experiences.
Um, I think one struggle that Ihave is personally is just
validating the idea that youhave.

(53:32):
Cause you don't have one ideaand you have multiple

Speaker 4 (53:34):
Ideas.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
But when you're beginning, you are kind of
scared to invest that money inyourself.
So how do you overcome withlike, on that specific struggle
that you face in terms of justvalidating thousands of factors
you have in Richmond is actuallygoing

Speaker 4 (53:49):
?
Well, if you have thousands,that could take a while.
But, um, I will say, I, I, Iwill go a little bit back into
making a decision.
So, um, this is very common andI would say that you are just at
a stage where you're kind ofexamining how you wanna show up
in the world.
And so you are going to, you'regoing to wanna do customer

(54:12):
research and that's pretty muchwhat everyone's gonna tell you
is kind of the starting point.
And you can do things like, Hey,I'm gonna have a freebie and if
you sign up for my list, I'llsee if there's some interest
there.
Um, but you do have to pick one.
And so it's when you invest inyourself and you develop your
relationship with yourself.
I will tell you, I thinkjournaling, it's one of the

(54:33):
things I teach a lot.
Journaling is so important.
Um, my coach Deb told me thatlike, I don't know, a long time
ago, like eight years ago, I'llnever forget, I called her and I
was like, just going on and onand on and on.
And she's just so brilliant.
And she's like, Ellen, you areso smart.
You know what I think you shoulddo?
And I mean, I sounded like amoron on the phone, I'm telling
you.
And she's like, you should writethis down and just journal about

(54:58):
your feelings.
I mean, Deb is the best, I can'teven tell you.
And she coached, she's coachedsome of the, some of the best
founders I know.
So journaling about what youcare about and what you believe
and what you think is, is rightin the world is a really
important part of that.
And once you feel like you canmake a decision to run a test,
run a test for six weeks, whatdo, what information can you get

(55:20):
in six weeks that is going to bea very important part of your
strategy to, um, do customerdiscovery.
And just one quick plug on that,I think customer discovery is
best on when you write thequestions and other people ask
them, you can be one of thepeople, but if you are the only
person, you are going to bebiased in your own way of doing
it.

(55:40):
And so definitely a friends willdo it if you have siblings, I
have an extra one if you needone.
Uh, my kids have extra ones, butyou know, you ask people to help
you and get that information andthen if it's a pain point, you
people won't wanna stop talkingabout it.
That's kind of when you know youstruck a cord.
Does that help?

(56:01):
Cool.
Are we outta shirts?
We have one more.
Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Excuse me.
Mm-hmm.
Um, I'm electronic engineer andI want to build a product that

Speaker 4 (56:14):
Do it.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
?
Yeah.
The course.
I'm a student at Georgia.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
Nice.
Great.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
And I want ask you question, is it harder to build
a product than you wanna investyour customers to bring it out
to your, um, retailers?

Speaker 4 (56:34):
So do you mean is it hard to invest in a physical
product than a tech product?
Ask, ask me again.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Like a tech, that technology, um, is it harder to
build a product that you wantedto bring out your customers to
sell it to your retail, to yourtechnology?

Speaker 4 (56:55):
So you wanna sell the product through technology Yeah.
And through and to, toretailers.
Yeah.
So is it harder than what, thanwhat than, than if it's not a
physical product or if you'reusing the tech.
If the technology is theproduct,

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Technology is the product,

Speaker 4 (57:14):
Is it harder?
I mean, I'm gonna say yesbecause I don't have experience
in the physical product.
And so, but if that is yourexperience and that is your,
there are, so there areadditional technical
complexities when you havephysical hardware and then
you're doing technology with it.
I would say that's true.
So it can be a little bit moreexpensive, but so what if it's

(57:36):
harder?
It says no, it's not a reasonnot to bring it.
And it sounds like that's whatyou're interested in and what
you're passionate about.
Um, but selling it throughtechnology, that part of what
you described doesn't soundharder.
To me.
That sounds like a really smartidea and a great way to reach
people.
Cool.
Thank you so much.
Oh good.
Great.

(57:56):
Yes.
Hi.
Hi.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
Whoa, that was loud.
Hi, um, Helen.
Thank you.
This was amazing.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
.
Oh good.
Uh,

Speaker 3 (58:02):
I have a question on the learning piece.
So a question like whatarchitecture should I use for my
product?
Yeah.
As you're, you know, you'reGoogling and researching,
how many hours, like, I'm justcurious how many hours, if
you're a founder and you'retrying to figure that out, how
many hours should you expect forthat to take?
Is that like a 10 hour projector a 40 hour project, or a four

(58:25):
hour project?

Speaker 4 (58:28):
I have so many thoughts on architecture.
It that, that it's a little bithard.
So I mean, you shouldn't do thaton your own if you're not, if
you haven't written code, youshouldn't be designing your
architecture.
And I also have this thing wherepeople will show me that their
development team, she has thisnice little diagram of how their
architecture is set up.
And then I kind of laugh cuzthat's how I started at
Accenture when I was like 22.

(58:49):
They'd have me build thesearchitectures and there'd be a
little database here and there'dbe a little database here,
whatever.
And the thing is thatarchitecture is complicated
because it's, it's a vision ofhow your product should, um,
function at its most basiclevel.
And so not everything can be apicture.
And so I would actually say thatif your expertise, if you're a

(59:12):
non-technical, we call themdomain experts, you're a domain
expert in your world, I wouldnot, you are not going to be
able to just Google and figureout your architecture.
You're gonna wanna talk to anexpert who has actually built
architecture before for this isthe key for a product that is
similar to yours in some way.

(59:33):
So if you have hardwarecomponents in your product,
you're gonna want someone who'sworked with hardware and
software connectivity together.
If you have a product that is aFinTech and it's gotta work with
a lot of different paymentprocessing, you, you, you wanna,
you wanna talk to someone who'sdone that type of work before.

(59:54):
Because at its fundamentallevel, I didn't go into this,
but that's why people spend somuch on hosting is because the
architecture isn't streamlined.
And there's, I mean you can likeresearch it and you can be like,
oh, containers and Kubernetesand Oh yeah.
And that honestly, like how thecode is put into those is what
matters.
How the algorithms are designed,um, how the OB objects are

(01:00:17):
designed.
And so that's just a verylayered approach.
And so I really would encourageyou yes, to look to Google the
words you don't know and to askyour developers.
But I would really encourage youto understand and talk to pe
bring people into your purviewwho have done something.
Just try to look at what thesimilarities, like what's hard
about your product.
Find someone who's donesomething hard, similarly hard

(01:00:40):
in that way.
Oh great.
Hello.
Hi.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Um, thank you.
Um, I have a question aboutnetworking.
Um, I just started at school andI'm a slight introvert.
Don't really like talking topeople.

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
I'm here

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
Though.
Okay.
Thank you for coming.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Um, yes.
So it's like I have, like yousaid, a thousand ideas in my
head and when I think ofsomething, I always keep it to
myself.
I don't tell nobody until likescome true.
So one of my professors said,you know that networking is very
important when it comes.
I you Yeah.
So I give it to myself.
Yeah.
I don't tell nobody anythinguntil it comes true.

(01:01:20):
Yeah.
Um, when you started, did younetwork before or did you
network after and say, Hey guys,we gotta come to me, come check
me out.
Or, you know, before like, hey,I'm thinking about starting, you
know, so I'm scared of doingthat again.
Only when it comes true is whenI'm like, okay, you guys come
shop with me.
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:01:38):
Okay.
Thank you for sharing that andfor being an introvert, I'm
married to an introvert and sowe have a lot of discussions
like this.
So the first thing I would sayis don't do what I do.
I'll teach you to do what youshould do.
Okay?
So I'm an extrovert.
This brings me energy.
I love hanging with people.
I can talk all night after this.
Like if I go to an event atnight and then I come home, my

(01:01:58):
introvert husband's like, areyou done yet?
Like, I am jazzed baby.
I am jazzed.
So it's just not a problem forme.
But that doesn't mean thatnetworking isn't available to
you.
What is available to you is toshow up as your authentic self.
And so what I don't want you todo is to try to be like me cuz
it'll drain you of energy.
Instead, what I want you to dois to, so you, you've actually

(01:02:21):
asked me a few differentquestions in this.
Um, and it's brilliant.
You want to do your customerresearch so that you understand
that the thing that you'reworking on, and when you do
customer research, you're askingabout pain.
You're not asking about howsomeone else would solve the
problem that you're gonna be anexpert on.
And so when you do your customerresearch, you are going to feel,

(01:02:44):
you are going to have a knowinginside of you that there is a
real problem that can be solvedin this world.
And that piece is importantbecause what I don't want you to
do is to go onto the world andsay, do you think I should do
this?
Do you think I should do that?
They'll crush you becauseeveryone will have an idea on
that.
So first you wanna do that, sois customer research networking

(01:03:05):
a little bit, but you get totalk about what you like, you're
asking people and if they don'twanna talk to you because they
don't think it's a problem,there are two things.
Either it's not really a problemor there's someone else you
should be talking to.
So that's the first thing Iwould say to you is to, to start
to build that piece of it sothat you can go into networking
events, um, with a knowing, witha confidence that you feel good

(01:03:28):
about your problem.
And you don't have to share itwith people who maybe will kind
of, um, not be supportive of it.
And there's some evidence ofthat.
I, I, I've read a book, it'scalled, um, hell Yes or No by
Derek Silvers.
Derek Silvers, sorry, severs.
He was on Tim Ferris.
He also came on my podcast justso you know.
So, uh, I um, I think it'sfantastic.
And he's like, you keep that in,you keep that inside.

(01:03:51):
You don't share it with theworld until you're ready.
But there's a balance there,right?
So the next thing that I wouldsay to you is, so what I, um, I
actually teach networking skillsand I don't call it networking,
I call it building yourcommunity.
And um, ATV does a great job ofbuilding community and not
everybody does not.
It's not really that easy tobuild a community.

(01:04:11):
It's actually kind ofchallenging.
So what I wanna encourage you todo is build your community of
people that are gonna supportyou through that.
And your community doesn't haveto be my community.
We can just have differentcommunities.
I mean, you can be a mine.
I'm totally cool with thatbecause if you're a founder,
you're definitely my people.
But my point is that you wannabuild it in a way that works for
you.
And so while I don't think, um,that advice is bad that your

(01:04:34):
professor gave you, I do thinkthat the nuance is hard.
You wanna get around people andyou're in a good place here
where people are gonna supportyour idea even if they don't get
it.
And so I will tell you that ifyou tell someone and they don't
get it and they wanna help you,help you, I would run the other
direction.
And I would understand thatthere's nothing wrong with you

(01:04:54):
and all of us who've kind ofgone through this.
We've had those experiencesmaybe once a week, I'd say
usually once a week.
But I talk to so many greatpeople, I try not to worry about
those people who just don'tquite get it.
It's okay.
They're just not, they're justnot your community.
Do you know what I'm saying?
So I would, I would do it thatway.
And then the final thing frombeing married to an introvert
for 21 years is I would say do alot of one-on one-on-ones.

(01:05:16):
Because big groups are going todrain you.
Save it for when it's reallyimportant.
Save it for when it's reallyimportant, and instead talk to
people one-on-one.
And you'll start to learnwhether those people are in your
community or not in yourcommunity.
I hope that was helpful.
I love it.
Okay, do Hi, two more.
What's up Lisa?
I love it.

(01:05:36):
Hi.
Hi.
Hi.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
Hi.
Good everyone.
Um, my question is, as a femaleceo, female founder, yeah.
How important do you consider itto be vulnerable?

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
Oh, to

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
Ask for help.
Cause you wanna be confident,you need to know also how to ask
for help.
That's part one.
Part two, the resources youwould recommend, uh, for
technical, if you're anon-technical founder, would you
recommend also Fiber?
Would you recommend Upwork, etcetera.
But right.
the first question.
I would love your talk.

Speaker 4 (01:06:09):
You know, um, okay, so vulnerability.
I, it's so funny.
I'm actually reading Brene BrownBorn, uh, what is it?
Born to Lead.
I don't know how, I haven't readher before.
Like, I've been quoting her foryears and I'm like, maybe you
should read her book.
So anyway, a actually we had itcuz my husband read it, but the
point is I'm reading it.
So she talks a lot aboutvulnerability.
Um, my husband actually worksfor Pat Lynch.

(01:06:30):
He has written a lot of books.
He's written Five Dysfunctionsof a Team, and they talk a lot
about vulnerability.
I think vulnerability, um, youknow, that's a really, like the
workforce should thank women forthat.
Like that.
We definitely bring that pieceto it.
Um, being vulnerable to ask forhelp is, I would just say
something that I, I'm workingon.

(01:06:50):
I'm like right there with youthat we think we can do it all.
And, um, but we can't.
And it's super important thatnot only being vulnerable about
what we, um, what we need helpwith, with the level of help
that we need, right?
So I got Megan, she's filming mehere, and she's like, what
speakers do you kinda look upto?

(01:07:11):
And I was like, I wanna give yousomeone who's maybe more
moderate, but it's Tony Robbinsand Mel Robbins and I'm going
Big baby.
You know, like, so, so I mean, Idon't have to say that that's my
vulnerable space is that I wantsomething big, right?
And so being vulnerable about bebelieving that, you know,
Catherine, one of the reasons Imet Catherine O.

(01:07:33):
Day, I saw a clip on her andshe's like, I think we need to
have 10 women unicorns.
And I defined that as 1 billion.
I'm like, I wanna talk to thatlady.
Absolutely.
And so the the thing is likebeing vulnerable about wanting
to, to make it big and thatthat's serious.
So when someone tells me like,I'm gonna build a hundred
million dollar company, I'mgonna build a billion dollar

(01:07:53):
company, um, take thatseriously.
Like I just got chills thatlike, you can do that.
You, you, you are doing that.
So like, I mean, I totally,that's important to, to not only
be vulnerable with what we needhelp with, but the level of help
to make it big.
Um, you know, fiber and Upwork.
I mean that's, that's trickybecause one of the things that I
do is I have a lot of trust inmy developers and I know that

(01:08:14):
people have built companiesaround finding the right work.
Like, lemme put it to you thisway.
There's good and bad on Fiberand Upwork.
It's not like it, it's knowingyour specific problem and can
they solve it?
There's good and bad.
It's not really like theplatform is inherently going to
serve you up the right thing.

(01:08:35):
And so even that piece, you needtechnical knowledge.
And so that's where trustingyour development team, trusting
people in technology, buildingthose relationships and learning
, um, that's gonna be animportant component and that's
part of the vulnerability too.
More questions.
Okay.
These are great you guys.
I love it.
Hi Heather.
Really

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
Awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:08:55):
Yeah.
Oh good.
I'm glad.
I'm glad.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
So cool.
So I have a question.
Some of my questions areanswered.
Thank you everyone.
.
Um, and then I had a couple ofthoughts.
So I, I did it for five years.
Yeah.
Um, I went into it knowingnothing.
Um, and I, by the end, I hadmultiple certifications,
Microsoft and, and plus a pluscertification.

Speaker 4 (01:09:17):
Awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
But, um, I don't do that anymore.
However, I was just talkingrecently, uh, over ice cream
with a woman in Florida who gother doctorate in computer
science around women andtechnology, and she's 80, she
just turned 80.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
Stop it.
I love her.
I love it.
I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Yeah.
And so we were talking about,you know, women in tech and I
worked actually, like rightthere in the building is, uh,
capital City Plaza, and I was anIT person for a company called
Works.
Um, and it, which was a killerwebsite back in the day for
tech, for looking up like techstuff.
Um, and so I learned everything,but one of the biggest things

(01:09:56):
that, that, so it's helped meall throughout my career, right?
Everything I do.
But yeah, one of the biggesttakeaways from that is, you
know, before that I would, Iwould just get intimidated by
the remote control, which by theway, quick note, generally it's
the input

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
, I love it.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
Just press input and get to the right

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
Input.
Hundred percent.
A hundred percent endorsement.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
Um, but, but so the, the, it's, it's, it is
about getting specific mm-hmm.
, right?
Like you're saying, right.
Is, and so with tech, um,instead of looking at a column
saying, I can't do that, it'sabout saying, okay, I'm not
gonna just say, okay, I'm afraidof this.
This is not, I don't, this isnot me.

(01:10:42):
I can't do this.
Yeah.
Because I did that at first andthen I was like, no, I, I'm the
IT person here.
I gotta fix this.
Right?
So it's about saying, okay, wellwhat's the problem?
Like, so you're simple problemsolving, what's the problem?
Identify what the problem is.
Okay, well what, when did theproblem start?
Like, what's changed?
Mm-hmm.
, what changedcauses problem.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
So it's getting really specificand stepping back and looking at

(01:11:05):
it kind of holistically.
And, and the, the biggest partof it is saying like, I can do
this.
Like I can fix this.
Mm-hmm.
.
Um, so at that, that, that kindof resonated with your get
specific message, right?
Because it's, I think dualpurpose.
Yeah.
It can be super, you know, highlevel when you're concepting.
Right.
And then granularly problemsolving, like day-to-day problem

(01:11:28):
solving, jumping through thehoops for sure.
Um, anyway, and my question isaround market research, so,
okay.
Um, I think there's, you know,there's so many resources when
it comes

Speaker 4 (01:11:39):
To market resources

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
Or market

Speaker 4 (01:11:41):
Research.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:42):
Do you have a

Speaker 4 (01:11:43):
Recommendation?
I do.
Okay, cool.
I'm worried I'm gonna say hername wrong.
So she's a Canadian, I'm fromDetroit, so I, and my husband
has Canadian relatives.
I feel like I'm Canadian.
I love Canadians.
Canadian students are so nice.
They're so much nicer than us.
So anyway, um, her name isCaitlin.
I think it's Bourge, like B O UR G O I N, something like that.

(01:12:03):
And, and so she, um, but I canget that to you if you want.
Uh, I sh I think I paid like$80for her, um, like her question
list and her course, even thoughI, um, have done my own market
research.
And so that's an example ofsomething where I felt really
good paying for money to see howI could level up in my customer

(01:12:24):
discovery and in my marketresearch.
I think it's really good to, um,have a lot of, and she was a
founder, so I always, you know,I don't know.
I love the founders.
I guess I'm want everyone to bea founder.
There's just so many things youlearn about yourself and about
life.
So that's the one I wouldrecommend.
And I can make sure to get youher name on that.
Um, but definitely she, shewould be the resource that I
like.
How about, cool.

Speaker 3 (01:12:44):
Yay.
Yay.

Speaker 4 (01:12:49):
Thank you.
Hey,

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you
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