Podcast appearances and mentions of larry well

Dan Brown Dan Brown has focused his design work on information architecture for the past 25 years. Along the way, he has written three books, designed a design game, and created one of the the most-used tools in the profession, the Information Architecture Lenses card deck. Dan is very thoughtful about the practice of IA and has a lot to say about how the field has evolved. We talked about: his information architecture work at EightShapes his recent podcast interview series covering his Information Architecture Lenses project and insights he had as he talked with his guests his discovery that even apparently solitary elements of IA practice always involve collaboration with other people the evolution of information architecture practice and thinking over the past 25 years and the increasing clarity around systematic thinking the relationship between information architecture and content strategy his appreciation gained in the study of physical architecture of the constraints that physical space has as a metaphor for IA work how IAs could benefit from using different metaphors - city parks instead of functional buildings, or something besides family trees ideas around his next deck of IA cards, which will be more about how we make design decisions the shift of IA practice from a "bridge" practice to a "hub" practice the movement of IA practice into the UX field the parallels between role-playing games and collaborative storytelling and UX design work Dan's bio Dan, one of the co-founders of EightShapes, specializes in information architecture, user research, and product discovery. He has worked with clients large and small to tackle complex information architecture problems. He is the author of three books on user experience. He also designed the game Surviving Design Projects and created the essential tool for IA, The Deck of Information Architecture Lenses. Connect with Dan online Twitter Video Here's the video version of our conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P82WCFQ0j2w Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 114. The practice of information architecture has evolved a lot over the past 25 years. We use different metaphors now to talk about our work, and the field has largely been incorporated into UX design. Dan Brown has looked at these changes from a number of different perspectives, most notably as the author of the "Information Architecture Lenses" card deck, a tool that has helped innumerable practitioners improve their view of their IA work. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 114 of the Content Strategy Insights podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Dan Brown. Dan is the principal and founder at Eightshapes, an agency that he founded and runs. Dan, welcome to the show. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you do there at Eightshapes. Dan: Sure, Larry. Thanks for having me on the show. I co-founded Eightshapes in 2006 with Nathan Curtis. He and I started it as a boutique UX design firm. And to this day, that's what we're doing. We do a lot of work for clients of all sizes, helping them think through complex information architecture problems. Nathan, of course, is focusing a lot on design systems these days. So that's what we're doing here at Eightshapes. Larry: Yeah. Design systems are everywhere. We have to have a whole other conversation about that. But what I wanted to talk to you about today is really focus on your core competency, which is information architecture. I always have, in fact, I have it right here, I'm holding it up for the folks who are watching the video, your information architecture lenses. I refer to them every IA project I do. They're- Dan: That makes me so happy. Larry: Yeah. Dan: That brings me so much joy. Larry: Well, and what brings me even more joy is that you just did this series of intervi...

Larry Jorgensen “The Coca-Cola Trail” People and Places in the History of Coca-Cola  Author background:   Journalist with extensive experience in print (weekly, daily and magazines), radio and television news (both writing and on-air) wire service, assignment and freelance.  Publisher/editor monthly publication.   Currently research and writing history related articles and books. Also providing media services for clients. Works from office at his home along a bayou in Louisiana. https://www.thecocacolatrail.com www.marlanasemenza.com Audio : Ariza Music Productions Transcription: Vision In Word Marlana: Larry Jorgensen is a journalist and author of the Coca Cola trail. He opened places in the history of Coca Cola. Welcome Larry.  Larry: thank you, It's a pleasure to be here and to participate in your programme. Marlana: Well, thank you, you know, brands don't get much more iconic than Coca Cola. Larry: Yeah, that's true. Marlana: So, what was the motivation for you behind doing all this research and becoming an expert in this?  Larry: Well, actually, it started out not to be a book. I freelance writing. And one of the areas I like to write about his travel. I learned that there was a Coca Cola museum of sorts in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where Coca Cola was first bottle by the way. And I thought, well, that's interesting. And then I also learned that there was one not too far away in Monroe, Louisiana, which they kind of related. So, I thought, that's a great travel feature. I'll do a feature on two Coca Cola museums. Well, by the time I got to the second one, I had met people who were relatives, you know, heirs of the original bottlers who got talking and found out that this story is all over the country. It wasn't just in Vicksburg, or in Monroe. And I was encouraged to look further. And in fact, no one has really done a book about this specific area of Coca Cola, (the little bottlers, the people who got involved, you know, made it happen). earlier books are all about corporate Coca Cola, Atlanta, Georgia, tried a lot of support the bottlers and the people that found out I was doing a book, we're just very gracious to help and provide photos from their files and exclusive interviews. It was truly a great experience to do the book. Marlana: And you know, I think that's one thing that we tend to forget sometimes, that behind any brand, there's just people and the stories of people. Larry: that's very true and coke has got such a unique story of people because, you know, you see why you go buy a bottle, or a can, or whatever, Coca Cola, but you know, Coca Cola didn't think bottling their drink was a good idea. And when Joe Beaton art in Vicksburg, first bottled it in 1896, he was selling the syrup, he had a solar phone, and he was using the syrup which would come in gallons, you don't make the drink at his phone. And he was also selling the syrup to other, he was a distributor to other solar phones. And he thought, you know, this is 1896 at Vicksburg, if I could get this to the people in the country, so they don't have to come to town, we can sell some more Coca Cola, so he decided to bottle, and he sent his first two cases to Asia Candler, who at that time owned Coca Cola and was making the syrup and Asia responded with it's okay but you know, I'm more interested in selling the syrup. And Joe got a little upset because he never sent the bottles back. But anyhow. So, it goes on for five years like this Joby Nardus bottling Coca Cola. As it turns out, there are two enterprising, here's our new entrepreneurs in Chattanooga, Tennessee, who thought, you know, Coca Cola is really a good drink, we get it at the local phones, maybe we can bottle it. So they go to Atlanta, and they talk to Mr. Candler. And they say we would like to get the exclusive rights to bottle Coca Cola. He told them that's ridiculous. He said, I'm worried the flavor will...

CHRIS NEWBOLD: Hello, Well-Being friends, welcome to The Path to Well-Being in Law Podcast, an initiative of The Institute for Well-Being in Law. I'm your co-host, Chris Newbold, Executive Vice President of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. And, boy, how exciting is it that we're actually moving into the summer months? I always feel like well-being takes a natural elevated state in the summer months. We're also coming off of a really exciting Well-Being in Law week, and I'm joined by my co-host, Bree Buchanan. Bree, I'd just love to hear your reflections on, again, a May event that's really become a foundational element in the well-being horizon, as we think about bringing people together and shining a light on well-being. What were your reflections on this year's Well-Being Week in Law? BREE BUCHANAN: Good morning. Hey, Chris. So that was just... It's such an amazing event, and it's really become a signature event for The Institute for Well-Being in Law. This is our second year to do it. We didn't necessarily have people sign up, but we were able to look at things like the analytics, the people coming to our website, all of that doubled over last year. We had so much energy and excitement around that, and many people involved. We had the actual... the whole week for the Well-Being Week in Law, every day programming. And then this year, we added the after-party, which two weeks later, we did another full week of programming around the different dimensions of well-being for the professionals in this space, the people who are tasked with law firms, with... coming up with well-being programming. That's really an area that the institute is focused on, and supporting the movement and all the people that are out there that are part of this movement. So, it was a great event. What did you think? CHRIS: Yeah, I thought was fantastic, again. One of our goals on the podcast is to build and nurture a national network of well-being advocates. I think one of the great results of the week was just, again, a mobilization an army of folks who are really interested in this particular issue. We would be remiss without recognizing one of our colleagues, Bree, Anne Bradford, and all of the work that she did to really both initiate, and has really been building some significant momentum in building this community through events like Well-Being Week in Law. BREE: Absolutely. The community and just the partnerships that she's helping us create, really valuable. CHRIS: I think the folks interested in receiving mailings and communications from the institute, I think went up to like 1,400. Again, just a testament to the number of folks who are really passionate about this issue and want to see it remain at the forefront as we look to improve the profession. So that's awesome. Let's move into our podcast today. We're, again, super excited. We've taken a little bit of a pivot. In our first 10 to 12, 15 podcasts, we really focused on some individuals in the movement. We've been moving to a little bit of a mini series format. We started with law schools, and now we're really excited to delve into the intersection of well-being and research, and research into the well-being cause. There's been, in a lot of professions, probably a lot more empirical research. We certainly are moving into that space in terms of specifically looking at lawyers, research, well-being, happiness. I know, Bree, we are super excited about our guest today, who's going to kick off our research miniseries, Larry Krieger from Florida State University. Bree, I know that you've known Larry for a lot of years, I'm going to give you the honors of introducing Larry. But we are really excited about our podcast today in the intersection of well-being and the happiness of lawyers, which is, again, something I've been really excited to get into. BREE: Right. I am delighted Larry is somebody I've looked up to and look to as such a real expert in this space ever since I started working in this area, which was 2009. So, let me just give everybody an introduction. Professor Larry Krieger is a widely-recognized expert in lawyer well-being, and particularly, I think, he's known for his study and work around What Makes Lawyers Happy? And we'll get to hear more about that. That study, in particular, was research on 6,200 lawyers, and identified the specific factors that are required for lawyer wellness and satisfaction and basically, happiness. The New York Times report article on that study was the most shared article in The Times for the following two days. So a lot of buzz about that when it came out in 2015. Larry was the founding Chair of the section on balance and legal education for the Association of American Law Schools. He was a litigator for 11 years, so he knows what it's like to be in the trenches. Part of that was Chief Trial Counsel for the Florida Controller, and he now teaches litigation skills and professionalism at the Florida State University College of Law. He is rightly-so recognized as one of the 25 teachers in the Harvard Press Book, entitled, What the Best Law Teachers Do. Finally, I got to meet Larry in person when I presented to him in 2018 at CoLAP Meritorious Service Award, which is given, really, for a lifetime distinction in the work that addresses mental health and substance abuse issues in the profession. That is a small introduction to all that Larry has done in this space. So, Larry, welcome. We're so glad you're here. I want to ask you a question of what we ask for all of our guests. We start off with asking, what brought you to the well-being movement? We have found that just about for all of our guests, and certainly for all of us who are involved in the institute, there's some sort of personal life experience, something that drives our passion for this work. So, what can you tell us about your experience? And welcome, Larry. LARRY KRIEGER: Well, first, thank you so much. It really is a pleasure and an honor to get to talk to you both, and thank you for the amazing work that you both are doing them and all the people out there. Funny story. So what brought me to it was my first wife, who... way back then, she had actually been dating Mike Love, the lead singer for the Beach Boys, when the Beach Boys learned meditation. BREE: Okay. LARRY: Remember [inaudible 00:07:27] back in the late '60s or something. So we're going back a little ways here. I've been around. So I was in law school at the time, actually, I was miserable, and we heard that this meditation teacher, Transcendental Meditation, at the time, was coming to town. And she said, "Oh, let's go." And I said [inaudible 00:07:50]. And so she dragged me in there. I thought it was the stupidest thing I ever heard. We walked out, she was glowing. Like, this is fabulous, thought [inaudible 00:07:59], brother. They wanted 35 bucks for you to learn this technique, I thought this is for the birds. So she learned it, and she changed within two weeks. She was a different person. BREE: Wow. LARRY: So I said, "Okay, I want to learn it, too." Then it took me months to get into it, because the teacher didn't come back for three months. So it was just really good luck. It transcended my own ignorance, honestly. And then I was unhappy in law school, and actually quit law school. It took me eight years to get through law school, which I love telling students when they're discouraged. BREE: Right. LARRY: I just didn't like it. The reason I didn't like it is everybody there was so unhappy. I had already been in the Air Force through the Vietnam War, and I was a little older and stuff going to law school, and I thought, everybody is so serious. Oh, my God. Nobody's got their leg shot off. BREE: Right. LARRY: I just kept quitting law school, because I just didn't like being around. It was so serious and negative. So yeah, that was on me. I've learned to have better boundaries. But that's how I got involved. Then when I finally became a lawyer, I noticed how unhappy the lawyers were. BREE: Right. LARRY: [inaudible 00:09:14]. Come on, guys. Even the super successful ones were just ramped up, tense, pushy, on edge all the time. Of course, by then I had been meditating for a while, and so I it was keeping me chilled out. I was prosecuting in West Palm. We had the sixth highest crime rate in the country at the time. So it's not like it was... I was dodging the bullets and avoiding the trenches, like you say. But just, do your job and then go home and have a nice life. So what got me involved was good luck, certainly not my own intelligence, and then just seeing what was going on in front of me. BREE: Right, right. Absolutely. CHRIS: Well, Larry, you've... Certainly, when you look back on your research and scholarship, it now goes back almost 20 years. I know that you've been thinking about it even longer than that. In some respects, you've been a disruptor in our space before it was even a thing. If you look back on some of your titles, I just I marvel at the fact that you saw so much of this so early, that even though the movement is where it is today, again, you were talking about a two decades ago. Some of your titles included Institutional Denial About the Dark Side of Law, and I think that was published in 2002. Understanding the Negative Effects of Legal Education on Law Students, again, 2002. Does Legal Education Have Undermining Effects on Law Students? 2004. What were you seeing among your students that brought you to engage in this type of research and scholarship? LARRY: Yeah, thanks. Let me just say [inaudible 00:10:55] just like me starting meditation and getting a bigger picture on life than what I had up to that point. I got lucky and got this job. I wasn't looking for a job, I had a marvelous job of chasing Ponzi schemes out of the State of Florida for the state comptroller, like Bree already mentioned. But I just got lucky and got into this job through happenstance, and it gave me time to start thinking. What I saw immediately was... I think I started this job in '91. I just passed 30 years. Yay. Had a little lunch with the dean, and it was really sweet. So it was a good ways after I had been in law school all those years, and seeing all the unhappiness there. When I got into teaching, I realized nothing has changed. Nothing. And I thought, "Okay, well, I've got some time here. I'm going to try to write about it." Actually, the first article I wrote was in '99. I'm not on tenure track, so writing all that negative stuff is a little tricky for me, but I figured, honestly, what the hell? I wouldn't mind going back to being a prosecutor or a lawyer. If they don't like me, they can just get rid of me, but I'm not going to keep my mouth shut. But the first one I wrote was in '99, and it was called What We're Not Telling Law Students - And Lawyers - That They Really Need to Know. In that article, I was just going from my experience, but I was saying we really need to research this. And then shortly after that, just, again, through happenstance, I ran into a fabulous empirical psychologist who was willing to work with me, Ken Sheldon. So, off we went. BREE: There you go. I really relate to what you're saying. I graduated from law school in 1989, and then had the opportunity, about 15 years later, to go back and lead a clinical program there, and it was the same thing. I saw students were still unhappy, stressed out, everything happened around a keg, alcohol flowed through every event. And then actually, when I got to the lawyers Assistance Program and went back to law schools talking, 10 or so years later, it was the same thing, there just hadn't been any shift. I want to talk to you a little bit. My experience with you, my first Larry Krieger encounter... When I started working at the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program in 2009, I came across your booklet that spoke to me so loudly, it was The Hidden Sources of Law School Stress, in which you openly wrote about the dark side of the law school experience, and it just rang so true for me. I was so impacted by that. Tell me what it was like during that period of time to write about these things. It's like sort of the emperor has no clothes, you were going out proclaiming. Just the same truth at the heart of the matter in the profession. How was that received? LARRY: Well, good question. That book's been a thrill for me and me. It turned out that half the law schools in the country and also in Australia and Canada, more than half of them have used the book with their students in bulk. So, that was a thrill. I'm writing a new one now. I'll explain why I decided to take a new tack. But hopefully, that'll be out at the end of the summer for fall students, if I'm lucky. The first thing I started doing before I wrote that is I started talking to clinical conferences, because I'm a clinical teacher, I teach litigation skills. And every time I would give a talk on this well-being, I never saw any other talks on it. It's so wonderful to see the movement now. When I started doing this, it was weird. But rooms would always fill up. There were so many teachers that would say, "This is so important. I wish I'd heard this when I was in law school." And I would say, "I wish I'd heard it law school." BREE: Me too. LARRY: Right. So somebody needed to start saying it. So that was really good. And then our dean of student asked me to give a talk to an early orientation group one summer here, that came pre [inaudible 00:15:49] law school, and I gave this little talk, and it really went well. What I did is I... This is where the booklet came from. I asked them, "So what are you worried about? Let's list everything you're worried about on the board, everything you're afraid of." And then we're going to shoot it all down, one at a time. So they listed it on the board, I explained why they shouldn't stress about it, and then I woke up the next morning [inaudible 00:16:14] you know that was really a lot of good things. And it all came from them, I thought I had to write this down. So I sent out a little summary to this listserv that I had started by then on humanizing legal education, and people wrote back and said, "Oh, can I use it? Can I use it? Can I use it?" And I said, "Okay, I got to put this into a publication." So I was already getting a lot of positive feedback from my community, which was the community of people who actually care about the well-being and happiness of... and sanity, really, of law students and lawyers. I've learned to focus on the people that are supportive, I just don't focus on the other people. [crosstalk 00:16:56]. BREE: Words of wisdom. CHRIS: Well, Larry, obviously, we're shifting a little bit in the podcast here to a three-part series focusing on research, and we just would really enjoy focusing now on your 2015 seminal work that really helped set the stage for the entire well-being movement. Your work, What Makes Lawyers Happy? A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success Redefine Professional Success was really at the forefront. It was a large research project that you conducted with Ken Sheldon. Tell us about the survey, what inspired you to do it, who you surveyed, just setting the stage for what you ultimately found. LARRY: Sure, Thanks, Chris. That came out so well, too. I was shocked at how well... After we publish that, I had a lot of people from different journals and the press [inaudible 00:17:54] and they asked me if there are any surprises in there. Really, the main surprise was that we were right. Everything we predicted came out, and even stronger than I would have imagined. I really encourage folks who are listening to this, take a look at this study, because there's a graph in there of the results, and you can see it in a picture. It's so striking. It's on SSRN, Social Science Research Network, ssrn.com, and it's called What Makes Lawyers Happy?. But what came out of it was that success does not make lawyers happy. That's why The New York Times had such a buzz with it. BREE: Right. LARRY: We were actually able to quantify exactly what's making lawyers happy, and we were able to show, with numbers, it's not the money, it's not the partnership, the junior partners were not any happier than the senior associates in the big firms, not even a bit. Even though they were making 70% more money, and they were partners now, nothing changed. The idea came from because we started researching law students before that, and we were in some of those journals you mentioned with the institutional denial and understanding the negative effects, all that business. I wanted to be sure that what we found in law students actually was going in the direction that the studies predicted, and that lawyers were suffering from the same exact problems. So it really took seven years to get that study done, because I had to get bar associations. Five state bar associations agreed to participate and put their bar members through this survey. I got CLE credit assigned to the lawyers- BREE: Wow. LARRY: ... who were willing do it because it was a long survey. And then one of the states backed out at the last minute, a really big one. So otherwise, we'd have had 10,000 lawyers instead of 6,000, but results would have been identical. But I think they thought it's going to be too hot politically. BREE: Right. LARRY: I think they were afraid that we were going to show what we ended up showing, which is everything that the profession thinks is important, actually isn't important, other than helping clients, and everything that the profession thinks isn't important, like spending time with your family and taking care of yourself, actually is important, and those are the things that's going to make you happy. So, it took years to get that research in but, but we pulled it off. BREE: I see it was just sort of... The findings are just bombshell findings for me. I actually printed out, and I'm looking right now at that graph, and it is so incredibly demonstrative. When you're looking at what really moves the dial on subjective well-being or happiness, are things like autonomy, relatedness, internal motivation, the intrinsic values. So those are long bars on the graph. And then you get to income, class rank, making partner, Law Review, and the bars on that graph drop by like 75% or something. It is just striking visually to see this. Can you talk just briefly a little bit about this divide between the extrinsic and intrinsic values, sort of digging into the secret of happiness? LARRY: Yeah, great point. Thanks for bringing that up. I'm actually looking at it. I did a follow-up booklet to that, Hidden Sources of Law School Stress, that extended out to lawyers too, after this study came out. I have a few of those left. I'm trying not to sell them much anymore, and I'll tell you why at the end here. But it also has that chart in it. It's called The Hidden Stresses of Law School and Law Practice, because they really are hidden stresses. They're mis-assumptions. What these bars mean, is basically, that the human connections that we make, if I could put it in a nutshell, the human connections that we make are everything for the happiness of a lawyer or a judge. They are everything. What these buyers stand for is our connection to ourself, autonomy. Really, the way we measure it is integrity or authenticity. Are you a whole person? Are you true to what you say? Do you follow your own values, or are you two-faced? The negative stereotype of lawyers would be anti-autonomy and anti-integrity. So that's the number one factor, are you well-connected with yourself? And who is, in modern society? What is ourself, even? [inaudible 00:23:00]. And then the next one's obvious, relatedness to other people. Are you closely connected with other people? Not are you around them? Not, do you tell them what to do? But do you feel a close intimate connection with them? The third one and the fourth one have to do with work, do you feel competent at your work, and are you motivated to do your work because you care about it? In other words, is- BREE: Right. LARRY: ... are you connected to it? Not just, are you doing it to pay the bills, but does it give you meaning and purpose in your life? Does it give you joy? So those are the top four, and then autonomy, support, relationship to supervisor. So those are the things. They're way up there as far as predicting well-being. If you don't have those, you're not going to be happy. BREE: Right. LARRY: These numbers are so huge. And then when you get down to made partner, like I said, it's .00. It had no effect on the lawyers, at all, being on Law Review, what all the law students get the most depressed about. .00 and for the layers, it had no effect. Income is very modest, it's .19. These others are .65. BREE: I mean, you just turned it all on its head, Larry. First, when I would see these, I would think I... I would question the validity of the study, almost, because it's so striking against what we're taught and inculcated to believe. But it's a huge set of people that you surveyed, so I'm a believer. It also resonates with me. There's what we've been told, but it resonates with me because it's my lived experience. I believe it, because that's... what I experienced is true, what you found. So, anyway. LARRY: Yeah, thanks for that. If you look at scriptures since time began, in any culture, whatever, they all say the same thing. BREE: Right. LARRY: Right? BREE: Yeah. LARRY: All the music that sells tons and all the movies that are so popular, it's all about love, not money. We actually did a factor analysis. Again, I got lucky. My brother's a math genius, PhD type neuroscience person, and when he saw these results, he said, "Oh, you should do a factor analysis." I said, "What's a factor analysis?" He said, "Well, tell Ken Sheldon. He'll know." You can see I've been led by the nose all the way through my life in this. So we did a factor analysis, [inaudible 00:25:35] in a nutshell, looks at all these top factors for well-being and what my brother said, and it turned out to be true. So those are so big and so close in numbers, that it's going to turn out that they're really saying the same thing. They're not actually five different things, they're going to be one. One thing that's more fundamental. So Sheldon, it took them five minutes when I emailed him, and he said, "Yeah, he's right. There is one thing that's accounting for most of this variability in all of them." He said, "Good luck. Now you have to figure out what it is. I'm just a psychologist, you're the lawyer, because Matthew won't tell you that." Over the years, I did, I think, figure it out, and I've already explained it to you, it's the feeling of connectedness. I tried to think, what is it that makes me feel good when I tell the truth, or when I do what I think is important to me, or when I hug someone, or when I do work that matters, or when I look at a sunset and I feel joy? What is it that they all have in common? It's feeling connected to life. More or life? So I think that's the key to everything going forward, is how do we get lawyers to think bigger, make the box bigger. Because the box we grew up with, that we assumed was going to work does not work. This research shows it so clearly with numbers. We have to get outside that box and think bigger for ourselves. CHRIS: Larry, you've obviously studied this in the context of lawyers, but I just... It's hard not to think about this and say what you've learned about lawyers is really the fact that we are human beings before we are lawyers, and if we take care of ourselves and the relationship and the connectedness... In your study, you talk about what a profile of a happy lawyer is. You could probably replace that with a profile of what a happy person is, and it's going to be equally applicable. LARRY: No question. Actually, that's how we set up the study, is we had all these hypotheses based on research on "normal people", or regular people, not lawyers. That's how we had set up our studies of law students to start with, is using self-determination theory, which had never really been tested on lawyers. That's what I meant when I said, I was just surprised how well it all bore out. These numbers are enormous. Correlations with happiness for each of these factors is like two thirds of a perfect correlation. If you have any one of those five, you're way up there already. But if you're missing any one of the five, you're really missing a lot. So, yeah. Actually, toward the end of the study itself, again, on ssrn.com, I talk about how lawyers are normal people. This is exactly what we would get with normal people. I got to say, I'm a little bit proud about this study because I don't think there's another one that quantifies it like this. This was a another bold step. Once we were getting these results, I asked Ken, I said, "Sir, is there any way we can actually measure these out, not just with P values, which is a probability?" Because they were all highly significant, so they all looked the same. But to show which ones are the strongest. He said, "Yeah, there's these Pearson correlations, these standardized correlation." So he sent me some articles to read about that. And I said, "Let's do that." That's how you actually get these numbers. Because you can't really compare... Bree, you mentioned, you can't really compare how much money you make with how close you feel to your children. They're on two different scales, one's in dollars, and one is in subjective warm and fuzzy feelings. So we were able to do those comparisons and show, for example, that earning more money is a .19 correlation with happiness, whereas having integrity, what we're always pushing lawyers about, is a .66. It's three and a half times as strong. We had to do that with the mathematical conversion into standard. So he was able to do that. Like you said, Bree, I expected to get just hammered once this study came out by people saying, this is garbage, and your methodology is garbage and this and that. Haven't had a single complaint about it, I think partly because every single thing we looked at in the study... And there's probably 50 or 60 correlations in here that people will be interested in like, what about having children? What about being married or a long term relationship? What about how many vacation days you take? What about how big a city you live in? What about the rank of your law school? We were able to compare all those, and everything came out consistently. So each of the findings confirmed each of the other findings. BREE: Right. CHRIS: Larry, first of all, you should be proud of your study. Again, I think it was more, ultimately, reaffirming than anything else, what many of us suspected. So, hey, let's take time to take a quick break. We certainly want to come back after the break and talk about implications of the study, some advice that you have, and then where you're going on the research front from here. So let's take a short break, and we'll be right back. — ADVERTISEMENT: Your law firm is worth protecting, and so is your time. ALPS has the quickest online application for legal malpractice insurance out there. Apply, see rates, and find coverage, all in about 20 minutes. Being a lawyer is hard, our new online app is easy. Apply now at applyonline.alpsnet.com. — CHRIS: Okay. Welcome back to the podcast. We have Larry Krieger here, who published a seminal study, What Makes Lawyers Happy?. Larry, I'm curious, if you had an audience of a group of big law CEOs, HR officers, based on what you've learned, what words of advice would you give to them about having and nurturing successful lawyers? Because obviously, successful lawyers are the key to a successful firm and are, I think, the foundation of, ultimately, serving society as problem solvers. What advice would you have? LARRY: It'd probably be what I'm telling you two. You're CEOs of your organization. [inaudible 00:32:42] being proud of the study. I'm really smiling here so big while I'm talking to you all, because I'm really happy that it came out the way it did. It's wonderful, because I think it's helpful for people, if they take a look at it. I've already intimated what I would want to tell people, is we have to think bigger. Look, when I went to law school, this all started for me. I guess I was somewhat instrumental in getting it going in other circles and in legal education in particular. It started for me because I came with a different perspective. I came from outside the legal perspective. I had gone to college, I'd gone into the military, I'd seen some serious life-threatening situations, and some soldiers who didn't make it that I was transporting here and there. I lived in different countries. I not only took meditation, but I actually taught meditation. So I came with an outside-the-box perspective. And then when I came to law school, I said, "Oh, this box is too small. We have to think bigger. People are not coming to law school expecting to be happy. You've got to think bigger about your life." It was like a merit badge to be so stressed and stay up and be studying and having big circles on your eyes. I don't even want to be around this. This is just bad thinking. The more powerful you are, the more you know what it takes to be happy, usually. Now, that may not be true in our political system anymore. Those people are not happy, I don't care what party you're in. But as you become more successful, you should be becoming more happy. If you're not happy, you're not successful. There are great quotes from great philosophers that happiness is the highest form of success, and that has to be true. So first of all, I would tell CEOs, and I also tell law students the same thing, the highest form of success you can have is to really be deeply, consistently happy. If something sad happens, be sad, be in touch with your feelings. Everything you're doing, you went to law school, why? To become happy. You're making money. Why? To make you happy. You got married. Why? So you'd be happy. You had children. Why? Right? You're going to retire. Why? You'll be happier. Everything is for that, but we put it aside and get lost in the details. BREE: I want to ask you about your current research, and we'll make sure we have time to talk about that. It sounds like you're doing a bit of a pivot in your focus. Tell us about that. LARRY: I think is that the research is so helpful, it will challenge people. Because they may think, "Oh, my gosh, I've spent all my time doing this, and now I need to shift." You just need to make an internal shift, keep doing what you're doing, because you're good at it, but stop thinking that winning or being the greatest is going to make you happy. Just keep doing it because you're good at it and you're competent at it, and you can help people. That will make you happy. So it's this connectedness to self, to others, and to purpose that shows up in the study as being so strong for making people happy. If you don't have it, you're simply not going to be happy. That's what these numbers mean. So once we get there and we accept that, then I started thinking, "Well, how can I really teach my litigation students? Because they're stressed out, they're trying to learn this high pressure stuff, and they're going to lose lots of cases, just like I did. And I need to get them ready for that." So I started thinking, "Well, what's the most important connection that we could have?" And it comes right from that factor analysis, it's really our connection to life. Our connection to life. When we first got this research, and then the analysis, I thought, "Well, what's the difference between me feeling well-connected to you and caring about you guys, and the difference with me making lots of money and feeling well-connected to my money?" Why isn't that so satisfying? The answer is, there's no life in it. There's no life in it. I mentioned this to my minister, my little church I go to, and he told me this great quote from Thomas Merton, that love is an intensification of life. Love is an intensification of life, a wholeness. I looked it up. And I realized, yeah, that's what's making these lawyers happy. They're connecting with their own self, which is life, they're connecting with the life of other people that they care about. So life is connecting to life and reverberating back and forth. In my slideshows, in my PowerPoints, I use an image of a power cord that's plugging in at both ends, and you see electricity going. That's our life. So the more you plug into life and connect to it, the happier you're going to be. So that's one big piece of it. I'm trying to actually get Ken to do another study with me on spirituality and religion, showing that people who feel connected to whatever they believe, might be God or a higher authority, or this or that, if they feel connected and close to it, they're happier people than if they feel a fear of it, or like it's judgmental and this and that. So far I haven't got him there, but I will. I'll keep after him. But I think there's another area of science now that's so important for lawyers, which is the old power of positive thinking from the 1950s, Norman Vincent Peale. But it's turning out to be scientifically really true. Epigenetics, neuroscience, neurobiology, biochemistry. There's a huge body of science now that when you think positively, you feel good, and when you think negatively or you have a negative belief, you feel bad. You can think of the optimism and pessimism research. Same thing. Optimist is just somebody with a mindset that everything is good, even if it sucks. "I got a flat tire. Well, that sucks, but I'll go have a cup of coffee. I got AAA. I'm lucky, I'll call AAA. I'll call and tell them I'm going to be late," and they're fine. Whereas a pessimist has the same flat tire, but has a different mindset and decides now life sucks. Not just this sucks, but life sucks, I suck, and it's never going to get better. BREE: Right. LARRY: So it's the exact same flat tire, it's the exact same client that got convicted of a DUI or got custody, whatever it is, but people frame it in different ways. The way they frame it makes about a 2,000-point difference in your biochemistry. 2,000 different chemicals in your brain and your body, depending on if you have a positive thought or a negative thought. And then that structures how you feel, how you work, how much inflammation you have, whether you're depressed, whether you age, or stay young, and whether you get the raise and the promotion or not, because people actually like being around you, and so forth. So really pushing that now, that people, we need to basically... We have two big things we need to do. First of all, we need to locate our life, and we need to connect to it. Of course, this is a lot of mindfulness and meditation stuff. But that first research shows how important it is to find life in what you're doing. If it doesn't have life, don't do it. [inaudible 00:41:01]. And then both inside and outside. And then the second thing is manage your thoughts proactively. We're so smart, but we have a tendency to think negatively. [inaudible 00:41:16] pessimistic way of thinking what can go wrong? BREE: Right. LARRY: So I'm really coming around, and I'm going to write a paper on this, it's coming pretty soon, about, first of all, work-life balance, real quick. I'll spend just a minute on each of these, because I know we're getting close on our time. Work-life balance is great. I don't think it's worked. The reason it hasn't worked is because nobody's finding life. We're saying we shouldn't be working all the time, let's have more life, but nobody really understands what life is. It's not going out on the golf course and getting aggravated. BREE: Wow. LARRY: It's not spending lots of time drinking. That's not life. It's like, you have to find your life, and then you have to express it to other people, and you have to find it in them, and let them express it to you. So it really involves going deeper inside taking care of your health, and being mindful and finding life. So I've been teaching law students and others, taking just simple meditation practices to do that. And then the second key thing is manage your thoughts proactively. The other sort of talisman we have besides work-life balance that I think is not working well is stress management. Stress management is way better than stress mismanagement, or unmanagement. But stress management, as a talisman, presumes we're going to be stressed. Why do we have to be stressed? To me, that's dumb thinking. You've got to think bigger than that. I actually just did a survey, it was just a random one, no IRB approval, but it's not going to be published, just to prove the point. I want Ken to research this with me, as well. I sampled a bunch of law students, one, two and three hours, just asking them, what did you think law school would be like? That's all. Give me one word. What did you think law school would be like before you started, and what do you think law practice will be like now? One or two words. So they had no bias [inaudible 00:43:34]. 70% of them said stress, burnout, anxiety. That's the mindset, even coming into law school. BREE: Right. LARRY: What this new research says, if that's what you expect, that is what you'll get. In other words, when you get a big assignment, now it's all about, I'm so stressed. I was telling my wife this morning, and then I'll close here, I'm going to get to talk to Bree and Chris today, and hopefully, some lawyers. I could be all stressed about this. I have so much work to do, I don't have time [inaudible 00:44:06]. Or I can say, this is a wonderful opportunity. It's going to be the same talk, either way. What you think it's going to be determines those 1,000 positive or 1,000 negative chemicals flushing through your body and your brain for the rest of the day. So we have to learn to be positive about it, and so we got to get rid of stress management. I would call it thought management, belief management. Just stop looking at the hours of stress. One other quick note. We do have a study that's going to probably be published in about six months, we're just submitting it in the next week or so, that shows that it's not actually the long hours that's making lawyers unhappy. It's not the long hours, it's the wrong work. People who like their work, they work more hours, they actually enjoy it. And the people don't like their work, when they... they're just as unhappy whether they're working long hours or not. So, we need to shift our focus on to find life inside yourself, embrace it, be grateful for it, connect to others, share your life, and think bigger, expect to be happy. Don't expect to be stressed. Because if you expect to be happy and start every day like that, you're going to be happy. Is garbage going to come up? Sure. People come to you because you're a lawyer, they have problems, if you're in that practice. Well, okay. So, let's help them with their problems as much as we can, and then let's go home happy. If we didn't fix them, it wasn't our problem, it was their problem. So we have to have that boundary there and appreciate ourselves. BREE: Larry, thank you so much. It's such a joy to hear you speak, and your point of view when you're thinking about these things. Again, going back to... really just confirms, I think, what I know and what we all know in our gut, in our heart about what makes life worth living. So thank you for that. It's a bit revolutionary, and we need you right now, we need thought leaders like you, and so I'm really excited to hear and read your studies that are coming out. I commend everybody, and I'm going to... We'll make sure that there's a link in the transcript of our podcast. But do take a look at the study, What Makes Lawyers Happy?: A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success. Again, it is really the work that kicked the current well-being movement off, and launched many other research projects that came from that. I've always thought that it is not... I think our listeners can hear that you are not ego-based, you're humble man. So there was not a lot of promotion of this study. I've really felt passionate about... In kicking off this series on research in this area, we had to start with you, because you are the Godfather of this area, Larry. So thank you so much, and we will be back in the next couple of weeks with other researchers to shed light on, what is the cutting edge thinking in this area? Chris, thank you too, for being here today, and take care everyone. We'll talk to you very soon. CHRIS: Thank you.  

Max:  Hello and welcome back to the Recruitment Hackers Podcast. I'm your host Max Armbruster, and today I'm delighted to welcome Larry Nash. Larry is Director of Talent Acquisition for Americas EY: Ernst and Young, formerly known as, what was EY called a long time ago, Larry?Larry: Well, Ernst & Young but yeah it was Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young merged a long time ago to form Ernst and Young. I think it was 1989 around that. So it's been a long time since we've been EY or Ernst and Young.Max:  Yeah it was, and then EY the acronym became the official name just a few years ago, right?Larry:  Correct.Max:  All right, great. Well, welcome Larry. Thanks for joining us today. And I'll start by asking you howyou ended up working in talent acquisition, if you can go back to your pre EY days, which you've been there for over 18 years. So, take us back to the start of your career, how did you end up in talent acquisition?Larry:  Yeah, great for at first, Max, thank you for having me on. I'm really looking forward to theconversation. So yeah prior to joining EY, I was at Arthur Andersen, another professional services firm, where I was for 13 years in a variety of human resource roles, mostly in the recruiting space or talent acquisition space. And prior to Arthur Andersen I started out at Price Waterhouse. So I have the theme in my career Max where I've spent all of my career within professional services and have just really enjoyed and love the culture, the focus on people, constant innovation and progressiveness and focus on inclusivity and diversity, so it's been over 30 years in the profession, as you said, almost 1985 and it's been a wonderful experience for me and for the last few years now I've been leading our America's, what we call actually talent attraction and talent acquisition. We used to be called recruiting, but recently we change that to talent attraction and acquisition to recognize the broadness and diversity of our roles, and the focus of not only getting candidates interested in the profession and in opportunities at EY but obviously then having an amazing process to bring them in and assess them and hopefully join the organization. So we have an excellent community of recruiters, or talent attraction and acquisition professionals across the world. And lucky to be a part of that team.Max:  You're mentioning this industry. What should we call it, management consulting? Well, professional services at large as being an industry that you feel great kinship to because, from the outside it's something that's always good to have on your resume, something like that so it's a great place to attract ambitious young talents, coming out of the best schools, and that's the main thing right from a talent acquisitions perspective, you don't have to fight too hard to get some pretty good resumes.Larry:  Yeah I think we use professional services because there's a multitude of services from consulting and tax and energy work to a whole slew of services that all the organizations in the industry offer. And yes, we do feel we have a really strong brand and part of our value proposition for candidates is an exceptional EY experience, it's yours to build right, we provide the tools the experiences, the platforms to help you grow your career as you want to grow it, whether that's working in different service lines over the course of your career, whether that's making partner, wonderful achievement or having just wonderful experiences and becoming a CEO somewhere else or CFO or Chief Development Officer or starting your own business. So we're really excited over the course of our life as an organization to build careers across industries and within our organization. And I would say though, Max, it is certainly a competitive market out there right now. A lot of organizations, not just those in our vertical, but really in all facets of industries are looking for a lot of the same talent that's technology transformation or strategy work or technology skills or tax consultants, I can go on and on about what we're looking for, but a lot of organizations are looking for that top talent. So we work really hard to differentiate ourselves, and to get to know talent, and hopefully distinguish what we can offer versus what other organizations can. Certainly on the student side we do a lot, we have a lot of programs to offer from a variety of internships, challenges and programs.Max: Let's stay on this topic Larry on the competition that's stiff, to simplify things we could say the MBAs, they end up either in consulting industry, or maybe technology is the hot one right now. So are the looming threats today, where a greater proportion of the deep thinkers, the strategics end up working in technology, and that's eating part of your talent pool.Larry:  No, I wouldn't say that I think a lot of MBAs, and we certainly hire a number of MBAs, but we also hire a lot at the undergraduate level. I think, continues to be the case as people are looking for a variety of work and I think one of the things that has become more common lately is wanting to work at an organization that aligns with your values and purpose. For us at EY it's building a better working world. And that's not just what we're doing with our people but how we help our clients build a better working world. And that could be working with an organization whose bringing a drug to market faster right, to address and be working with governments or entities to create infrastructure and programs to help the needy. So, we offer a lot, around an individual's purpose and hopefully that's aligned with our purpose of building a better working world. I do think though that individuals like you mentioned MBAs, they certainly are interested in strategy work, working for financial services organizations, technology companies. But I also think, again, that sector is really interested in aligning with their values and purpose and that is a big reason. I think that is why individuals are joining organizations or where organizations might be differentiating themselves is the purpose that aligns with that individual.Max:  And almost 19 years at EY and so you must have seen different styles of leadership and adapted to a changing market. So, can you give us a sense for how EY's EVP has evolved during that time. It sounds and I'm reading between the lines that perhaps EY is focusing a little bit more on the transformative power of it's work on the workplace, and I am still attached to the romantic notion of no the road to partnership and the hyper competitive world of consulting, where you come in and you're treated like cannon fodder, but if you rise, then you can rise fast. So that's an image that maybe is a little bit dated.Larry:  Yeah, having been at EY for 19 years I would respectfully say that's a little dated, and we've always been focused about offering the right experiences and getting the right training. So training, learning and coaching and being part of an inclusive and diverse culture, I've always been mainstays of what we offer that hasn't changed. But we also recognize that experiences and learning are building blocks to where you want to take your career. And that's why it's evolved into it's yours to build. We as an organization need to provide the tools and the experiences and the learning and the platforms and awesome technology so you could do your job well and learn. And we also provide mobility where you want to take your career, but a lot of it is on the individual, how do I want to grow my career and how do I want to develop in different ways. So you had mentioned how the leadership evolved, and obviously coming out of that pandemic over a year right, it's been a challenging experience I speak for US leadership, where I sit out of our Pittsburgh offic,Max: Go Steelers!Larry: That's right, the leadership here has just been so tremendous since, we all still were in we're locked down started back in March here in the US and the focus has always been on the safety and health and security of our people and our leadership, Kelly Greyer our US, Chairman and CEO just set a tone from the beginning that we're in this for you and we're going to get through this together. We're going to come out of the stronger and that tone was just exceptional and gave people a lot of comfort in a very unusual right and precedented time, and certainly our recruiting team, just to transition a little bit to what did we do, we had to change everything virtually overnight, and move from a lot of in person events to exclusively using virtual talent agencies from video interviews and virtual onboarding and virtual events, as we were still recruiting students from campuses to a virtual internship program where in the US we had over 3300 interns, a summer ago and we'll have an equal number this year, which we're excited about. So, the ability to pivot quickly, sometimes by choice, sometimes not by choice has been something we've certainly had to experience and leveraging more tools like social media right to engage candidates in a much more and in a much bigger way has been something that has changed and transitioned. We had our interns in fact Max, do an Instagram takeover last year and really showcase a day in the life of, and it was very authentic and real and people got to see what it was like to work at EY. So there's a lot of things we've had to do to pivot over the course of the last year, and some things that we'll continue to endure as we get back to. I don't know the terms are evolving but to what extent will our workplace be reimagined where things will be different.Max:  Yeah, and EY probably already allowed for people to spend a lot of time working from home or working remotely. And, you know, of course would have been less impacted than say traditional manufacturing business where you have to show up at the office every day, but the white collar work can be performed from anywhere.Larry:  Yeah we were able to do that, although it was a big change, certainly in our business, we're out at our client locations quite often and even there, and that stopped overnight, so our teams really had to pivot and figure out what type of tools, zoom, other tools, Microsoft Teams actually was a lifesaver for us.But tools to collaborate in a way that could accomplish the work and yeah, we were able to surely showcase and demonstrate that but, it takes a lot to change how you've done things for a long time to doing it in a new way overnight.Max:  And you're mentioning tools so I want to latch on to that and you know I'm a technologist. I'm super interested in how you were able to transition to 100% virtual hiring. Perhaps you could tell us what we know, what were some of the favorite tools or some of the technology that helped you through that transition.Larry:  Yeah, we were fortunate we've been on a number of years ago, invested in video interviewing. So on our campus side we use the yellow platform and we're able to easily switch from live interviews to video, because that has already been going on actually before the pandemic. And then we also use HireVue where we will leverage recorded video interviews and live video interviews and working with those technologies just has been seamless and allowed for just a very real experience and it didn't really impact our ability to meet and assess and compel candidates, so that so that was fortunate, and then Max actually this had started before the pandemic, but we have been on this journey to implement e-based assessments, which is a new thing in our assessment process, which gives us greater insight into a candidate's cognitive abilities and personality constructs and we rolled that out just a few months ago. So, the pandemic gave us more time to profile our high performers and one of the qualities they have that new joiners to have. And so far it's been a great experience getting that additional insight so it's another data point for us as we make determinations on whom we forward in the process. But it's fun, it's engaging, it's quick it's 12-15 minutes of games, not too long. A lot of the feedback has been, hey it's fun, it's challenging, and every participant gets an insight report, which gives them a take, they move from process or not and things that they can learn more about themselves and understand.Max:  Yeah, I've even heard of some assessment vendors that would, if they're if they're not a good fit for the employer that submitting them, would go as far as recommending alternative careers, to those who say fail the test, although some tests are impossible to fail because there's no wrong answers. It sounds like in the case of your game, you're measuring the cognitive abilities so there is a way you can fail right.Larry:  I wouldn't say there's a failure. No, I would say it's just getting an additional insight to more of your shrinks and, the important part of all this process whatever vendor you choose is, what is it that that you're looking for, and what's the right match and I do think you get better insights, I do think by having a consistent game you're helping to reduce some unconscious bias in the process, and it just adds another data point to making perhaps more informed date decisions, and not going on gut, which sometimes can happen in the assessment process.Max:  We know to love and hate our gut. I've had many people on this show, who have shared moments in their recruitment history that they've come to regret, a hiring mistake. A good chunk of them could be put in sort of in the gut basket, where you just go with your gut, and you forgot to ask all the questions,you forgot to go through the process. Larry I am going to ask you the same question, you know in your 18 years at EY, don't tell me you haven't made some recruitment mistakes. We all have.Larry:  Never.Max:  Been back to one particular thing that's done, and without giving names, could you share with me,what was the source of your mistake?Larry:  Yeah, no I mean certainly, of course, we've all made I'd not say mistakes but maybe. Yeah, I mean missteps, I know that's a nuanced word. I think for me when I look back, it's when I didn't probe enough, I really didn't get under the surface of the traits, and capability, someone was bringing in and got a little bit too enamored with this as what was stated on the resume so this had to be the truth. So, getting underneath it more is something I've been focusing, I focused on more after some of those experiences. Pardon me for that noise and interruption. So getting underneath that surface so when I didn't do that enough, then I had certainly some mistakes so you always have to take that resume, take that background and really dive underneath it to understand the worst capabilities and what they did and what they bring to the table to truly know more of what you're bringing into the organization.Max: No wishful thinking, basically. No wishful thinking. Don't assume positively. Great. Well, thinking about the last year and changing the landscape view. I'm wondering about the geographical elements and whether you know the longitude and latitude data that we get tagged on to every single individual, as to where they live or where they're going to go to work as that element has lost its weight over the last year. How's that affected the map of the town for you and your recruitment strategy? Are you now looking at North America differently than you were a year or two years ago?Larry:  Yeah, I think even before this, just the insights that we're able to get from some of the tools out there, give you a better idea of the supply and demand for skills. And that has certainly helped us focus when we see a bigger supply of talent for a particular skill set, right, in that location a little bit more than maybe we did in the past and there's certainly some shifts going on right there's some shifts in technology from the West Coast down to Austin, down to the other parts of the US. So we've always been following those trends and using the data we're getting from a variety of tools. But yeah, as we are reimagining the workplace, we are gonna, as an organization, work differently. And I mentioned earlier, we're a consulting firm or professional services organization so we spend a lot of time with our clients. And now as we listen to what our clients are thinking of doing as we come out of this, many of them, want a hybrid where we're in person but also working flexibly a little bit more than we did in the past and is something we're able to factor into where should people be hired into and where can they be and open different doors, so I wouldn't be able to tell you right now there's certain locations that we're particularly focused on but it does open up the funnel of where you can find talent and then imagine how we're working.Max:  Yeah, I'm not gonna ask you to open the books on the specifics of which state is performing better than others but would you agree with the statements that the big metropolitan areas have a little bit less veneer today than they did a couple years ago, is that a fair statement?Larry:  I think it depends on the talent you're looking for right and you've got to get a bit granular, to where that talent is so for example if I'm looking for deep financial services experiences right certain cities are going to come to mind and at a point to come to mind because that's where the talent is. Now some of that talent may be shifting elsewhere so we'll have other areas to look at but we certainly aren't going to ignore where those pockets of talent exist. I do think that there's a personal choice that's occurring for people from the pandemic of where they want to work right and that certainly that's gone on. I do think it's hard to know if that's completely permanent, Max, or that's what's happening now. But things could shift back so I think we have to pay close attention to those themes. I would say where we're headed, if we're looking at an integrated workforce being our full time staff, where does automation play a role, right in delivering work. How does the contingent workforce play a role and how does our global organization also play a role and how do we serve clients effectively. So I think all those levers are parts of our integrated workforce that are getting looked at even more closely and differently with just some of the changes that are going on in the world.Max:  And is a portion of your new workforce, coming from location undisclosed to New Mexico,Tamarindo Costa Rica or some other exotic places where people can deliver consulting services from any old place now, these days, or we're still attached to sort of more traditional models.Larry: Yeah, I'd say right now in the US those working in the US organization are our residents in the US. And I don't think that's changing in the near future but certainly something we need to pay close attention to.Max:  Who knows. Yeah, it's becoming a small world. And, well, the small world has brought us together for a nice chat. I certainly am personally thankful for the time that I've spent in management consulting because I thought it was a little bit brutal but I loved it, and I thought that it helped to shape some of my thinking and made me a little bit more demanding to myself on the thinking part. So, I think it's a great career for a lot of people who want to be a little bit more structured, and thanks for coming to share your stories, Larry, on the podcast. How do people get in touch with you if they'd like to?Larry:  Yeah, certainly you could always look me up on LinkedIn, that's probably the easiest way, Larry Nash. And I'd say with management consulting Max and I totally get everybody's going to have a different experience. But I'd leave you with this or leave those that are listening, the ability to work with, fortune 1000 companies and emerging companies and being able to see all of those over the course of a career, can truly, right, make you just a more well rounded individual as well as give you experiences that will help you over the course of a lifetime. So I certainly if anybody's interested in a career in professional services look me up on LinkedIn and Max I appreciate your time and talking with you today.Max:  Thanks, Larry. Well we'll leave you with those engaging words for EY. And thanks again for coming on the show.Larry:  My pleasure.Max:   That was Larry Nash from EYI reminding us never to waste a crisis. In the case of EY, they were able to transition a lot of the initiatives to accelerate a lot of the initiatives that they had already started around video interviewing around gamification in order to get a more automated process and to be able to consider a wider talent pool across the last year. Hope you enjoyed this interview and that you'd like to hear from more talent acquisition professionals from a variety of industries. That's what you'll get on the recruitment hackers podcast. So please subscribe and share with friends. 

1. house warming 乔迁庆祝 Danny是新来的住户，所以要开一个house warming party. House warming 乔迁庆祝这个用法很中文很像，我们乔迁新居的庆祝也叫暖房。 Danny: (To them) Hey!Rachel: Hi Danny! (Notices his box of liquor he's carrying.) Wow! Thirsty huh?Danny: Uh, actually, actually, I'm having a party at my place on Saturday, it's sort of ahouse warming kind of thing.Monica: Ohh, fun!Rachel: Ohh, great!Danny: Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.Rachel: Yeah.Danny: Okay, see ya. (Heads out.)Monica: Well, I guess we won't be warming his house.2. jazz sth up 使。。。变得活泼起来 Ross搬进了Joey和Chandler的公寓，未经二人许可就把他们的电话答录机声音给改了，且美其名曰jazz it up a little. jazz sth up 使...变得活泼起来He has tried to jazz up the old car with a spot of paint and some accessories. 他设法用少许油漆和一些零件把那辆旧汽车弄得面目一新.Ross: (entering from the bathroom) Hey roomies!Chandler: Love what you've done with the place.Ross: Oh, yeah I know, I know, it's a lot of boxes, but again I really appreciate you guys letting me stay here.Joey: Not a problem. And listen, hey! Since you're gonna be here for a while, why don't—I was thinking we uh, put your name on the answering machine.Chandler: Oh yeah!Ross: Oh, I uh, hope you don't mind, I kinda uh, jazzed it up a little. Check this out. (He plays the greeting, and We Will Rock You starts to play and Ross's voice comes over it.) We will, we will, call you back!Joey: Hey, all right!Ross: Pretty cool, huh?Joey: (To Chandler) You're fake laughing too, right?Chandler: Oh, the tears are real.3. Queen 皇后乐队 Ross在电话答录机里录了一段应答音We will we will call you back. 这段旋律用了皇后乐队Queen的著名歌曲We will rock you!4. tape over 抹掉（录像带） Ross抹掉Joey的沙滩游侠录像带录了一些虫子的节目。tape over 抹掉（录像带）这里tape是当动词用了Joey: Um-hmm! Look, I-I-I don't know how much more of this I can take! Did you know he taped over my Baywatch tape with some show about bugs! My God! What if that had been porn?Chandler: (gasps) All right look, y'know, this maybe tough but come on, this is Ross! I survived college with him!Joey: All right, I guess I can hold out a little longer. Let's have a game.Chandler: Okay.5. pick one's nose 挖鼻孔 Phoebe的卫生检察官男友不停地关停违反卫生条例的饭店，Phoebe说她知道一个hotdog vendor who picks his nose. 挖鼻孔 pick one's noseLarry: Hey, buddy! (Flashes his badge.) Are you familiar with Section 11-B of the Health Code that requires all refuse material out the back exit?Gunther: But then I'd have to go all the way around the dry cleaner place.Larry: Oh, so you're saying you'd choose convenience over health?!Phoebe: Okay, stop! Larry, okay, can't you just be Larry and not Larry the health inspector guy? Y'know I mean it was really exciting at first but now it's like, okay, so where are we gonna eat ever?Larry: Well, I suppose I could give him a warning.Phoebe: Thank you. (To Gunther, who's standing there frozen) Okay, go! Go! Go! (He runs off.) (To Larry) Now, if after dinner you still really need to bust someone, I know a hot dog vendor who picks his nose.6. go mingle 去交际 Danny说要去招呼一下朋友用了I will go mingle. Mingle本意是融入, 混合go mingle 跟一群陌生人聊天交际Danny: (returning, with a friend) Rachel, this is my friend Tom. (To Tom) This is the girl I told you about.Rachel: Oh, go on! You telling people about me?Danny: You two could really hit it off! I'm gonna go mingle.7. drop the act 少来这套 Rachel认为Danny给她介绍约会对象是在玩欲擒故纵，所以对Tommy说drop the act.drop the act 少来这套，别装了。Tom: I'm sorry?Rachel: No, it's all right, you can just drop the act Tommy. I know what's going on here. Your Danny's wingman right? You guys are best buds. Frat bros!Tom: I'm gonna go talk to uh, a friend.Rachel: Yeah, yeah, you go talk to your friend. You tell him, "Nice try."8. bro 兄弟 frat bro = fraternity brother兄弟会bro 就是 brother. Bro通常用在口语中表示哥们。Bros before hoes. 比较粗俗的一句俚语，意思是不要重色轻友。9. 棒球俚语 Rachel在本集中用到了一系列的网球和棒球术语来说她和Danny的关系比如，the ball is in his court 球在他的场地上 意思是 该他出招了（网球），lob up 挑高球 意思是吊胃口（棒球），knock out of park 打出全垒打（棒球）意思是干得漂亮10. stop talking crazy 别废话 结尾处Joey, Ross和Chandler在公寓里玩儿游戏。扮演牛仔的Joey对扮演主妇的Chandler说 stop talking crazy and make us some teaStop talking crazy. 别废话了Chandler: Well, I see you've had a very productive day. Don't you think the cowboy hat is a little much?Ross: (popping up behind Joey wearing an Indian headdress) Come on, it's fun!Chandler: All right! (He joins them in the fort and comes up putting on a bonnet.) Isn't this a woman's hat?Joey: Dude, stop talking crazy and make us some tea!

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Sandy Jen Co-founder and CTO, Meebo Date: January 16, 2012 [Intro music] Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders, the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology, or NCWIT, and with me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Larry, hi. Larry Nelson: Hi. I'm so happy to be here. This is a great series. It has a tremendous impact on young women, parents, bosses, and we're very excited. Lucy: We're not going to disappoint listeners. We're going to have a great interview today with Sandy Jen, who's the co-founder and CTO, that's chief technology officer of Meebo. Meebo is a great company and we have interviewed somebody from there before, Eileen Wherry. We had just a great time talking with her so we needed to go back around and catch up with Sandy. Here's this great tag line that I've heard used with Meebo. It's "together is better." That's a great tag line because Meebo integrates all social networks and communication channels into a very simple single solution so that it makes all those different channels a whole lot easier to use. I was poking around on Tech Crunch, Larry, and found out that-- probably these numbers have gotten even higher since I did it in November-- you have 250 million Unique's a month. Wow! That's astonishing growth. Here's some other stats: now delivering 5.4 billion page views a month, up from 2.8 billion a year ago. Larry: That's a "B"? Lucy: A "B". Larry: Wow! Sandy Jen: That's a "B". [laughs] Lucy: That's a "B". Sandy leads engineering as the CTO, of course, and builds the team responsible for all these great products and solutions, organizing the technology and the innovation and thinking very creatively about how you scale Meebo's architecture. Welcome Sandy, we're really happy to have you here. Sandy: Really great to be here and thank you for calling. Lucy: So why don't you tell us a little bit, other than those astonishing growth statistics, what else is going on at Meebo? Sandy: Let's see. We launched in 2005 so we're about six years old, which I guess is a pretty long time for a startup. We still consider ourselves a startup even though we're roughly 200 people now. We started with three, so it's also been a big growth in terms of just the number of heads we have on staff. Our goal, from day one we started out as a web instant messaging client and we wanted to connect people with other people that were important to them. Back in 2005 a really cool way to do that was chatting and instant messaging. We think as the web got a lot more big and a lot more complex and people are a lot more savvy now on how they use the web. Their expectations are a lot higher on how they connect with people and generally just consume content. So now what we're doing at Meebo, six years later, is connecting people with other people, but also people with content that's important to them. It's been an interesting journey for us. We started out as a web IM client, like I said, and now we're this distributed social bar. You mentioned our growth, which we're really proud of. The growth is now primarily due to this bar that I mentioned. We're on over 8,000 sites around the Internet that you see today and we reach about half the US Internet population, which is pretty cool as well. It's a really cool technology platform to play with to bring great consumer products and experiences to everybody that can touch the bar and see the bar. That goes beyond IM. So, we're experimenting with a bunch of ideas and how to really create a cool user experience using our distribution. Just to give you guys a little bit of a teaser we expect them to come out relatively quickly, in the next month or so. So keep an eye out. Larry: Oh good. We will. Lucy: Early in 2012. We love asking questions about entrepreneurship, as everybody who listens to these now, and we're about ready to get started with that. But I wanted to read a quote from Sandy from a recent entrepreneurship panel, because I think it's going to set up how great an interview this is going to be. "You may not feel as if you are qualified or confident enough. The biggest insight in this entrepreneurial journey of mine was when I realized that someone I knew, who was not super smart,"- I love this- "who failed the same tests I did had started a company, and I realized I could do it too." I loved it. I just love that quote, so I had to start with that. So, off we go. Sandy, we love talking to technologists, and especially CTOs. Share with us how you first got into technology and you've already told us a bit about cool technologies, but any other crystal ball you've got, technologies, on the horizon? We'd love to hear them. Sandy: I was lucky enough to grow up in a household where both my parents were engineers. It wasn't like a foreign thing growing up to be surrounded by engineering concepts like computers and physics and things like that. Getting started, I started pretty early in high school. Again, I was lucky enough to go to a high school that had actually four years of computer science classes offered. Lucy: That is amazing. Sandy: Yeah. [laughs] I started programming as a freshman in high school. Obviously, it wasn't the only thing that I did. I really enjoyed art as well, and English and a bunch of other topics. After I finished high school I was lucky enough to get into Stanford, they offered a couple of choices in Integral Computer Science classes. The first of which was if you've programmed before you could take an accelerated course and squish two quarters into one. Or you could take the two- quarter class that that would introduce you to the concept. So, I was like, "Well, I've done the programming, I'll go and take the accelerated course." Little did I know that those you take that course have the reputation of just doing computer science throughout their career. So, I took that course and here we are today. [laughter] Lucy: Here you are. Sandy: Exactly. I think that he quote that you mentioned was a really, really important one for me, where, going from a suburb high school to a big university like Stanford, one of the thing that's really eye-opening is that there are a lot of smart people in this world, and when you first meet a lot of these smart people, you're like wow, I don't know if I'm really that smart. When you go through your classes, and you may have gotten straight As in high school, but you may have gotten some Bs and Cs in college, it's a little bit of a hmm, like how good am I, right? I think for a lot of women in particular, that question tends to be maybe not explicit, but it does run strongly in the actions and the behaviors that they exude. For me, the biggest light bulb moment, like you said, was seeing someone who I thought, quote, was "as dumb" as I was do something extraordinary, and that was very inspiring. In my logical computer science brain, I was like, there's not a lot of difference between me and him, what made him do that? I think that was the biggest insight for me. So fast-forward six years now, when I talk to young entrepreneurs, a lot of them are like, "Oh, I have this great idea, I want to do this thing, I need to get the time, I need to do the business plan, I need to get the technology in place," and they keep putting up these road blocks. These are self-imposed road blocks. The difference today in terms of technology is that it's so easy to get started, like you have all these Cloud services that are really free and really cheap, you have all these resources available. You could get something launched, a mobile app, in like a week. That is extraordinarily powerful for a young, very ambitious entrepreneur who has an idea. In terms of crystal ball stuff, it's really hard for me to say, but the web is where everything is going, and whether that be mobile web apps or, websites that you get transferred to mobile, like all the things that people are doing these days, there's no concept of sort of a download or an application or even something that you sort of have to buy and pay for, there's all these services and online Cloud things. All those things are very, very interesting, and they're very powerful, and they're so easy to set up that I feel like that's where you'll see a lot of young people innovate, because it's so easy. That's really exciting for me. Larry: Boy. Lucy: It is really exciting. I can remember, I asked for my first promotion at work when somebody who I thought was a stupid... [laughter] Lucy: I really appreciate that. Larry: Yeah. Well, there you have parents that are engineers going through high school and enjoying a lot of different topics; why are you an entrepreneur? Maybe the second part is, what about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Sandy: I want to go back a little bit. I went to an entrepreneurial organization at Yale called YEI, and I spoke with some of their students there, and one of them said, the interesting thing that I've found was that a lot of young people, especially young women, do entrepreneurial-type things, but they don't self-identify as an entrepreneur. They do things like, "Oh, I started a social club," or, "I started this meetup," or, "I gathered all these really cool people and they got to talk to each other, and now we do this on a regular basis," or, " Hey, I've started this event-planning thing that gets like all these really young people together." Those types of actions are actually very entrepreneurial. I would identify them as entrepreneurs, but they don't, and so they don't seek out help to take the next step. For me, I fell into entrepreneurship. I had the opportunity and I was like, "Wow. This is a really big risk." I'm generally more risk averse, and then I'm thinking, "Why the hell not?" Putting roadblocks in front of yourself like, "Oh. I'm not smart enough." "Oh, I need to do this." Or, "Oh. I didn't go to business school." Or, "Oh. I didn't do X, Y, Z." There's always excuses. I think that once I actually identified myself as an entrepreneur, and I took off with that, the most important thing that helped make me to continue to tick is that self confidence. It's the ability to think, "Oh, wow. I can really do this, and I can learn from this, and I can be respected for this, and the fact that I did this." Even if I have a team around me, the fact that you put yourself out there and were willing to take the risk to do that is amazing. Even today, six years later after we launched, I'm sometimes like, "Wow. Holy crap. I'm an entrepreneur." Or, "Oh my God. I'm the CTO." Because when you take a step back, it's like, "Wow. I was able to take a risk." Or, "I was able to put myself out there more than I would have before, and it really paid off." Even if the payoff is in monetary terms or the success of the company, the fact I overcame this self doubt, and, "Oh my God. I'm so stupid," or, "Oh. I'm not good enough." That in itself is very rewarding on a day to day basis. I think that's the thing that really makes me tick. Lucy: That's pretty interesting. The things we tell ourselves, right? I know. We had a person who we interviewed a couple of months ago, who said, her piece of advice was, I hope I get this right, "Never compare yourself on the inside to what you see on the outside of others." It's the way you feel. It's all about that same thing. Along the way, your career path so far, you've obviously had people influence you. Maybe your parents, the people at your high school. I'm still blown away by four years of computer science, by the way. Who are your role models now? The types of people who have influenced you. Any thoughts on that? Sandy: I was asked the same question at a panel a few weeks ago. My first answer was there's probably two types of people. The first, obviously, would be my parents. My mom was actually an engineer. A funny story, she actually helped me with my computer science classes in college when I had a bug. That's cool. People were like, "Wow. Your mom did that?" I'm like, "Yeah. Totally." Then, facetiously, but I really did mean it were, I called them my stupid goofy friends. Those friends are the one that I mentioned who, also sucked at physics like I did, and also failed that particular test like I did, and had trouble with that problem just like I did. They started companies, and they did it at a time when there was no money going around and the VCs were very wary of startups, given what had happened in the boom. They got funded, and they started a company. They worked really hard, and persevered, and were able to create a company that got somewhere. Them telling me that of course you can do it, like why wouldn't you do that? Or, hey, when I was feeling depressed or really unhappy with my job, because I was thinking, I'm coming out of school and I'm really happy about what I did in school, but now I'm in the working world, and I don't know what I want to do, they're like, "You should just pick something that you're passionate about and actually just go for it." Like there's no reason why you can't. Inspiration comes in many forms, and I think for me personally, the strongest was just the support to say yes, you can do it, and belief in me even when I didn't believe in myself. I think that's extremely important, I think, for anybody to have that kind of support network, because you can be successful and you can be rich, have all sorts of accomplishments in the world, but it's really lonely to celebrate them by yourself. Like to have someone else or a team or friends to celebrate with, and had said, "Oh," you know, "I believed in you from day one, and look what happened," is so much more valuable to me than anything else, so... Larry: All right, now, with all these wonderful things that you've been through, what is the toughest thing that you've experienced in your career? Sandy: Oh, man. [laughs] I probably would say hiring. When you start a company and you get all this money, people actually expect you to do something with it. [laughter] Larry: Yeah. Lucy: That's true. Sandy: You can't just have the money in the bank and be like oh, I got funded, and now it's just sitting there all nice and pretty. You have to build a team, and you're like OK, I'm 20, when I started, maybe I was like, you know, 23, and, you know, you're a 23-year-old who was a sophomore engineer for two and a half years, you've never managed anybody, you've never hired anybody, you've barely interviewed anybody at your old company, and now you have to build a top-notch tech team to support a product that you kind of hobbled together in your spare time and got funded for, and now they're giving you millions of dollars to go and make it big. You're like holy crap, what am I supposed to do with this? The toughest thing was actually figuring out how to hire, how to evaluate people, how to build a culture for the first 12 people in the company, and also getting over the fact that you're interviewing people who have been in the industry for 20 more years than you have, and they're expected to report to you, because you're the founder and you're the boss. So getting over that was huge and very challenging. I think, as you move more towards your career, like it's six years later at Meebo and I've interviewed hundreds of people now, sometimes there's still that little part of you that when you meet someone with a lot more industry experience, you're like, how do I really make you respect me? Because I may not come off as being like the big hotshot, you know, CTO kind of person. That's probably been the toughest, because evaluating other people is actually really, really hard. Lucy: Yeah. That was a very interesting answer. I don't believe we've gotten that answer to this question before. But I think it's very interesting. A plug for an organization we work, Women 2.0...writing a book on certain things like this. Like, hiring or interviewing. I chose the question, "How do you let somebody go?" Larry: Yeah. Lucy: I figured no one would answer that one. [laughter] Lucy: I figured nobody would. But I did it, I wrote it. If you were sitting here giving advice to a young person about entrepreneurship, in addition to some of the advice that we've filtered out of this interview so far around, "Don't make artificial excuses, have confidence in yourself," what are the kinds of things you would say to them? Sandy: One is, to be confident in your own idea. A lot of people have this notion that they have this really cool idea and they're like, "It's really neat, I should really act on it." Then they start to protect it. They baby it, they hide it, they keep it secret, they don't tell anybody. They hide it in the closet and they try to work on it on their own. It seems counter-intuitive but one piece of advice I would give people with ideas, with wanting to start something, is to share the idea as much as you can. Get it out there and get feedback because if you work in a vacuum you're not going to understand how to adapt quickly. I guarantee you, and I've said this many, many times to people, if you have an idea, idea's are never formed in a vacuum, and 20 other people have the same idea and they're already working on it. So, everybody has a different take on an idea, they have a different slant, they have a different perspective, they work on it in a very different way. But the more the idea is out there and the more you can iterate on it the better the idea gets. The more attuned to your audience it can be, whether that be, like I said, an ice-cream store, to a consumer Internet web company, having people give you honest feedback is so critical to creating a really big part. When I tell this to people, they're like, "Really?" I'm like, "Yes. Absolutely. Don't hide the idea." It seems really weird but it's a really good piece of advice that we got early on that helped immensely. Lucy: That's interesting too. Even if you have a good idea and you hide it. You get out there and as soon as you put it out there someone with more money, they're going to do it too, they're going to copy you. Sandy: People are always afraid of people copying them. I'm like, "It's OK." One of the early lessons we had was, if you make five or six changes to your UI, let's say I change the button shape or I move the position of a particular radio button or something like that, there were reasons why I did that. The reasons were for a number of user issues or feedback or A/B tests that we did. So, we moved the button over there. But if someone else went straight ahead and copied those pixels they don't understand why we moved that button. So, they don't get the learnings of why we did that. Without the deeper understandings of the decisions that you make a straight copy can work for a certain period of time but it won't work ultimately. That's the counterargument I give to people who say, "Oh, people will copy me." I say, "Well, generally it's the shallow copy, it's not really deep copy." Larry : Based on all the other things you've said during this interview it should be obvious, but from your perspective what characteristics do you think have given you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Sandy: Hardworking. You can have as much influence and networking and friends in high places as you can, but if you don't work hard you can't really get there. Also, I didn't have this in the beginning but I think it developed a lot, would be self-confidence, but a sense of humbleness, in a way. Being OK with your decisions and not regretting the decision that you make. But at the same time being open to learning from mistakes, learning from other people who have different opinions and put that into your own system of beliefs. But being able to take a step back and evaluate that from a very non-judgmental perspective is important as well. It's a really long answer but, basically, always listening and asking the right questions, sometimes can be much more powerful than knowing all the answers. Having that perspective as you go from venture to venture or interview to interview is really important. A lot of people that I meet, who I have issues with just working with, like, some entrepreneurs can come off really cocky. I think that's to their detriment, because they may be really smart and really brilliant but if they don't take a step back and think about, "How am I perceived by others? How can I better myself to make other people want to work with me and share knowledge?" I think they're missing that. For me, I've really, really focused on doing that well. That goes into not being just an entrepreneur but as a good manager, as a good leader of the company. I don't have to have all the answers. But as long as I can ask the right questions and get the right issues surfaced, that is extremely effective. Lucy: Really important. This thing around listening and sometimes I say it's around, even, intuitive listening, because when you're listening really well you actually hear things that people didn't say but actually imply. Larry: Yeah. Between the lines. Lucy: Between the lines. There's a lot of value and there's a lot of mischief between the lines. You mentioned, Sandy, about hardworking. Of course, then we all have things we like to do outside of work, I'll put quotes on that. You mentioned your friends and people to celebrate things with. How do you strike that balance there? Sandy: It's really important. In the beginning of Meebo, I was like, "Work, work, work. Work is awesome, Meebo is great." All I would do is work, work, work. Then at a certain point you're like, "Wow, I'm really tired." [laughter] Sandy: The tiredness may not actually come from the lack of enthusiasm or lack of passion for the idea, but you're just physically and mentally very, very tired. If you're really tired you can't be productive. One of the things that I focus really hard in Meebo is work-life balance. I rock-climb, I do yoga, I play Ultimate Frisbee, I run, and those to me are just as important as the work I do at Meebo. So, I have this thing, you work hard play hard, and they're equally important. Because if you don't play hard and balance the "work hard" part you're going to tether one way or the other. Burning out is painful. You see it in an engineer, you see it in people who work all the time. You get cranky, you get demotivated and this spiral that keeps going and feeding on itself. You want the spiral to go the other way. The happier you are and the more balanced you are, the happier, more productive you can be and the more imaginative you can be with the work that you do and you can get more ideas that way. Again, super, super important. I will kick my employees out sometimes from work early and force them on vacation if I have to to get them to have more of that balance. Lucy: It is really important. We heard of some new research, the listeners might find interesting, that there is research that shows, especially in this space, in tech space, and I'm sure it's true in any creative space, that you really can't work longer than eight hours on something without starting to make the crossover mistakes that make it unproductive. Sandy: I can do that. [laughs] Lucy: Yeah. Which is pretty interesting. Larry: Sandy, I love that thought. Yes. Sandy, with all the things you've done, the billions of page views and millions of users and everything, you've already achieved a great deal. What is next for you? Sandy: That's a good question. My personal goal for Meebo has always been, I should be able to go to any city in the world and say the word "Meebo" and people's eyes should light up and they should know exactly what I'm talking about. People are doing that with Facebook a little but they don't do that with Meebo and I'd love for that to happen. Personally, that's self-interesting too. I started out as a software engineer and then you learn how to manage, you learn how to be a leader. Now, as a CTO my role is divided now where I do a lot of internal management. So, team building and hiring and personal development of the people that work for me. But also, the external part of that. So, reaching out to other folks, going to industry events, speaking on panels. As someone who does both, you can't really do both really, really well if you're pulled in two directions. So, I've been learning to really love the external part. This interview, for example, is really fun for me. I really like going to meet young people outside and encouraging them to start their own ventures. I really like mentoring young people, I like going to these entrepreneurial conferences and inspiring young folks. I really love that part and so I'd love to see more of that in my career and my personal development. Obviously, my commitments and my heart is at Meebo. So, trying to find a good balance there is something that I'm trying to do right now, it's a personal goal of mine. To be honest, I don't know what I'll be doing in five or six years. Hopefully, Meebo will be wildly successful and we'll be looking at trillions of page views instead of billions. But once you start your own venture it's hard to go back to work with somebody else. So, either starting something else or seeing where Meebo goes, I don't know. I really don't know. Larry: Well, we're going to track you and follow you. Lucy: Thank you very much for your passion around inspiring more young people to pursue entrepreneurship, technical endeavors, young women to pursue computer science. You're an awesome role model. That's exactly what NCWIT is really trying to do. It's so important. So, thank you for that. Sandy: No worries. This is really fun. Lucy: OK. Well, great. We enjoyed talking to you. I want to remind listeners that they can find this and other interviews at w3w3.com and ncwit.org See you around, Sandy. Sandy: OK. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Sandy JenInterview Summary: Meebo’s Co-founder and CTO, Sandy Jen recently discussed gaining the self-assurance to start a new company: “You may not feel as if you are qualified or confident enough…The biggest insight in this entrepreneurial journey of mine was when I realized that someone I knew who was not super smart, who failed same tests I did, had started a company, I realized I could do that too.” Release Date: January 16, 2012Interview Subject: Sandy JenInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 24:55

Larry Osterman is a legend and one of Channel 9's favorite personalities - it's been too long since you've been on C9, Larry! Now, what would happen if C9 hero Erik Meijer interviewed Larry? Well, you'd get the latest episode of Checking In and one heck of a conversation. Oh yeah. Make yourself comfortable, grab a beer, some egg nog or whatever you like to drink, sit back, relax and enjoy this truly fascinating conversation as though you were in the room with us - classic C9.Larry's been at Microsoft for over 26 years and he's been a software developer (SDE) for almost all of this time (he dabbled in management briefly, but writing software is what he really loves to do). He's well known for his work on the Windows audio subsystem. But what else has Larry worked on over the years? How did he land at Microsoft? What's his story? We cover several topics ranging from STL to Larry's Microsoft job interview with Steve Ballmer. If you know Larry or have seen any of his other Channel 9 interviews over the years, you know that he's full of great stories and delivers them in a way that only he can. It's Larry time on C9. Thank you Larry and Erik for this conversational treat!Happy holidays from Channel 9 wherever you are and whatever, if anything, you're celebrating!

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Helen Greiner Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, iRobot Corp. Date: June 11, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Helen Greiner BIO: In the early days of iRobot Corp. (Nasdaq:IRBT), co-founder and Chairman of the Board Helen Greiner envisioned robots as the basis for an entirely new class of products that would improve life by taking on dangerous and undesirable tasks. Greiner's vision has been brought to life by products such as the iRobot Roomba® Vacuuming Robot, which has sold more than 2 million units to consumers throughout the world, and the iRobot PackBot® Tactical Mobile Robot, which is helping to save soldiers' lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Greiner's nearly 20 years in robot innovation and commercialization includes work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, where she met iRobot co-founders Colin Angle and Rodney Brooks. Before founding iRobot in 1990, Greiner founded California Cybernetics, a company focused on commercializing NASA Jet Propulsion Lab technology and performing government-sponsored research in robotics. Greiner holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in computer science, both from MIT. In 2005, she led iRobot through its initial public offering. She also guided iRobot's early strategic corporate growth initiatives by securing $35 million in venture funding to finance iRobot's expansion in the consumer and military categories. In addition, Greiner created iRobot's Government & Industrial Robots division - starting with government research funding leading to the first deployment of robots in combat in Operation Enduring Freedom. Currently, the division is shipping iRobot PackBot robots for improvised explosive device (IED) disposal in Iraq. In part because of the success of these initiatives, Greiner has helped enhance public acceptance of robots as one of today's most important emerging technology categories. Greiner was named by the Kennedy School at Harvard in conjunction with US News and World Report as one of America's Best Leaders and was recently honored with the Pioneer Award from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) in appreciation for her work in military robotics. Greiner has been honored by the World Economic Forum as both a Global Leader for Tomorrow and a Young Global Leader. In 2005 Good Housekeeping Magazine named her "Entrepreneur of the Year," and Accenture honored her as "Small Business Icon" in its Government Women Leadership Awards. In 2003, Greiner was recognized by Fortune Magazine as one of its "Top 10 Innovators of 2003" and named the Ernst and Young New England "Entrepreneur of the Year" with cofounder Colin Angle. Greiner won the prestigious "DEMO God" award at the DEMO 2000 Conference. In 1999, she was named an "Innovator for the Next Century" by Technology Review Magazine. Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I am the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. This is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous IT entrepreneurs, women who have started IT companies in a variety of different sectors, all of whom have absolutely fabulous stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. With me doing these interviews is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. How are you? Larry Nelson: Well, hello. Boy, am I happy to be here. Lucy: Why don't you tell us a little bit about w3w3 because these will be podcasts on w3w3 as well as on the NCWIT website. Larry: Well, just briefly, we started in 1998 before anybody knew what radio on the Internet was all about. And finally we learned a number of interesting lessons. We started doing podcasting a little over a year ago, so that's a big leap since then. We have been very fortunate to have a number of interviews with top‑notch heavy hitters, but after I saw the list that Lucy put together I was just absolutely stunned. Lucy: To really just get right to it, the person we are interviewing today is Helen Greiner. She is the co‑founder and chairwoman of iRobot. I have to admit up front that I am an iRobot stockholder, and Helen knows I am one of her best salespeople ‑‑ maybe not her best sales person but certainly one of her salespeople. Helen Greiner: I hope you are not just a stockholder, but I hope you are also a Roomba owner. Lucy: I am a Roomba owner. It's getting double duty now because we're doing a kitchen renovation, and we set it loose in the house at night to pick up all the dust and stuff so it's getting a workout, Helen. Helen: You'll be needing the Dirt Dog model for wash ups and construction areas. Lucy: Absolutely. Larry: We're going to have to have a link to all of these on the website. Lucy: Absolutely. We are really happy to have you here, Helen. We are really looking forward to talking to you about entrepreneurship. Larry: You know, I can't help but wonder: we have four daughters, and how did you, Helen, get really involved and interested in technology? Helen: Well, I think this is a common story in technology, but I was inspired by science fiction. I went to see "Star Wars" when I was 11 on the big screen, and I was enthralled by R2‑D2 because he was a character. He had a personality and a gender, and he was more than a machine. I was inspired to start thinking about, can you build something like that? As I was hacking on my little TSR 80 personal computer, obviously I had no idea just how complex it would be. Lucy: What are you thinking about those new mailboxes that are R2‑D2 mailboxes, Helen? Helen: I think they're pretty damn cool. Lucy: I think it's pretty cool. As a technologist you obviously look at a lot of different technologies. I am sure you have some on your radar screen that you think are particularly cool and compelling. Maybe you could share some of those with us. Helen: Well, of course, the coolest is robots because they are just on the cusp of adoption today. Other than the robots and ones that very well might feed into the robot, are large scale memories, multiple core processors, cameras on cell phones. Technologies as they go to mass market are getting cheaper and cheaper which enables them to be bringing them into other applications, like on the robots. Larry: I just want to make sure that the listeners do understand that you are talking about robots everywhere from the kitchen to Iraq. Helen: Yes. We have over two million Roombas out there in people's homes doing the floor sweeping and vacuuming. We have a floor washing robot, the Scooba, that you just leave on your floor and when you come back it's clean. We have a robot for the work shop called the Dirt Dog, and what most people don't realize is we also sell a line of robots for the military. Our Packbot model was used for the first time in cave clearing in Afghanistan and now is being used for bomb disposal over in Iraq. One of the neat new developments we have is we just put out a version of this with a bomb sniffing payload, so it can actually go out and find improvised explosive devices. Lucy: Well, I've heard you speak about the robots over in Iraq, and it's very compelling to know that we can use technology like this to really go on these types of missions instead of our young men and our young women. Helen: The robots allow a soldier to stay at a safe, standoff distance. He doesn't have to go into unnecessary danger. Lucy: Right. Helen: Our servicemen and women, you know, are exposed to a lot of danger when you send them to roadside bombs when a robot could do the job instead. We think that's really something that should be changed quickly, and it has changed very rapidly. Just two years ago they would suit up a soldier in a bomb suit and send them down range, and now you have to get permission to do that. The common operating procedure is to send a robot into the danger. Larry: That sounds like iRobot is doing everything from saving backs in kitchens to saving lives in dangerous situations. Let me see if I can migrate to the entrepreneur part of you. What is it that made you become, or why are you an entrepreneur? Helen: I was deeply interested in making robots into an industry. People have been talking about robots. They have been in science fiction for decades and decades. Yet, when I started in this field I looked around and there were very few robots that people could actually purchase and could actually use. When I was at the university at MIT the people worked on wonderful robot projects. It was really, really cool technology, but when the PhD got done or when the project ended, all of it would kind of stop and then somebody would start a new project potentially building on some of the results. But the actual robot that was built. many times progress stopped on it. Just like the computer industry, I believe it takes a company that can reinvest some of the profits back into the next generation and the next improvements on the products that really has started the industry to take off. Lucy: Well next the definition that I carry in my head of true innovation is taking research and the types of projects you are talking about, Helen, and driving them out into the consumer space and into the mass market. That is what innovation is all about. Larry: You bet. By the way, what is it about being an entrepreneur, what is it that makes you tick and turns you on as an entrepreneur? Helen: Being an entrepreneur is creating something out of nothing. You know, when you start it, it's all consuming. It takes your whole focus. It is very compelling to me. I tend to be someone who when they jump into something they jump into it with absolutely full force, and it allowed me to learn so much along the way. Everything from how to hire people, how to apply for and win a military research contract, how to raise venture capital, how to set up a management structure and, very recently, how to take a company public. Lucy: Helen, tell us, obviously, entrepreneurship makes you tick. You love to create things from nothing, and along the way as you chose this career path, who influenced you? What kind of mentors did you have? Helen: I have had a lot of advisors who I could talk to about the different stages of the business, and that's been an incredible gift. That is one of the most valuable things you can give: the benefit of your own experience. Early on I was influenced by my dad having founded a company, so entrepreneurship was part of my culture growing up. Larry: So, it's not genetic. It's part of the culture, right? Helen: I believe that. Larry: You, I'm sure, like all of us entrepreneurs ‑‑ you know, Pat and I, we have been in business together and entrepreneurs for over 30 years. There are a lot of bumps and things along the road. What would be some of the most challenging things that you have experienced? Helen: Well, iRobot has been in business for 17 years, and it's a lot different company today than when we founded it. Early on, this was a bootstrap company, credit cards filled to the max. Larry: So you made money right away? Helen: Yeah. Larry: You were profitable right away? Yeah. Lucy: Like many of us. Helen: No, we really had a bumpy beginning because in part the technology wasn't ready yet upon time. So we came up with a method to develop the technology and to develop business plans so when the opportunity was right we could capitalize on it. Lucy: So, as we shift a little bit now toward the future entrepreneurs, if you were giving advise to people about entrepreneurship, young people, about the career path you have chosen being an entrepreneur, what would you tell them? What advice would you give them? Helen: I would say, definitely do it, because it's probably one of the most rewarding career paths you can take. One of the most challenging, but one of the most rewarding. I would say very strongly, don't do it like we did it at iRobot. IRobot, we didn't do it with a business plan. We didn't start a real crisp idea of what these robots would used for. We basically started with the future of the technology and it happens to have worked for us, but it was a long haul in the early years. I think if I had it to do over again, it would be done a lot more efficiently. Larry: When did you finally get the real management team put together? Helen: In 1998 we decided to take venture capital for the first time. And that was a big decision because that's what took it from being more of a lifestyle company, somewhat of a research lab. Folks were building any kind of robot, because they were passionate about it. Some of them are quite frankly cool to a real business concern. You could almost consider the company a re‑start in 1998. It only took the first venture capital, which allowed us to invest in the management team and take it to the next level. Also to invest in our own product lines, rather than relying on government contracts coming in or strategic relationships with larger companies. Larry: Well, you have been very passionate about iRobots and you've also been very humble in terms of what you have done, what you have been through. What are some of the characteristics that maybe have been a benefit to you in becoming a successful entrepreneur? Helen: I'd say the biggest one is persistence. There will always be speed bumps along the way. And generally being able to say, OK, I might not have the solution to this problem right now, but I know that there's a way. And either by talking to people, getting advice, by brainstorming with people, by being creative, by thinking out of the box. There is always a way to get through any problem that presents itself. It's takes persistence to do that because you will get knocked quite a few times along the road. Being able to pick yourself up, dust off and say, I learned from that experience, I won't do it again. We don't look at anything at iRobot as failed. This got us to the next step and the next step was different, but they were all stepping‑stones to where we are today. And many of them were necessary. Larry: I have heard that persistence is omnipotence. Lucy: Sometime we refer to it as relentlessness. Larry: Oh, is that what that is. Lucy: Yes. I also have to say something about Helen how and just as a sidebar: Helen gives one of the best talks on robotics I have ever seen. Helen, your talk at the Grace Harper Conference was outrageously good. Helen: Oh, well I appreciate that. One of the things that I would like for folks listening to know that it is important to be able to grab the microphone and get your message across. My personal background is: I was extremely shy, terribly afraid of public speaking. You know, reports that people who would rather do anything else sometimes than get up in front of a group of people and speak. I was one of those people. It doesn't come naturally to me. But I recognized that it was important in getting the message of the company across. I really worked on how to improve and just by taking speaking opportunities I got better and better at it. Which doesn't mean I will ever be a natural just really, really want to jump out and do it. If I can do it, anybody can learn to be a better public speaker. So they can take advantage of the opportunities to get their message out that it provides. Larry: It might not be natural but you certainly are unique and passionate. Lucy: The best talk I've heard, a mix of computer science and business and humor, it's wonderful. Helen: That is very nice of you. It means a lot because I did have to work harder than people who are naturals, "Yes, I want the mike!" Lucy: One of the things that our listeners will be interested in. The entrepreneurial life is a tough life. It is a lot of work and yet it is important to bring balance between our personal lives and our professional lives. So what kinds of hints do you have to pass along? Helen: I don't think I'm a shining example of balance in my life, but I can say the philosophy I've always had is: work hard, play hard. So, when I do take off from iRobot, being able to go out snowboarding, being able to tight‑board, being able to go scuba diving. I'm just learning how to tight‑board. I have a goal to learn one new sport each year, because it's good to take up something new and to me I like doing it in the athletic arena. Lucy: Well, it sounds like fun to me. Larry: Lucy likes to go out there and jog every day after... Lucy: Well, you're right I'm not that good at it either, but I still get out there. Larry: I can't help but ask this. You know, you have had a very exciting and challenging ‑‑ and obviously with the persistence and the talent ‑‑ you really accomplished a great deal. I know you want to accomplish a great deal more with iRobot. What's next for you? Helen: Well, the challenges that iRobot faces today are different than when we were a start up company. Now we have over 350 people. In 2006 we did just about $189 million in revenues and now it's about making the organization click, to function as a team, and making sure that things work like clockwork at the organization, while still keeping that innovative flair, so you can get the next generation of products into the pipeline. Lucy: So, I have to ask, just because I love iRobot so much, what's the next great product? Can you spill the beans? Helen: I can't tell you what the next consumer robot products are, but on the military side, we have a hugely exciting robot that can run over 12 miles an hour, that can carry a soldier's pack. It's got a manipulator on it that can pick up a Howitzer shell. That thing picked me up the other day. Lucy: Oh. Larry: Wow. Helen: We're very excited to get that type of capability also into hands of our soldiers. Lucy: Wow, that's pretty exciting. Larry: Nothing like getting picked up. Boy, that's for sure. Lucy: I don't know what I would do if a robot picked me up, but I guess one of these days maybe we'll experience ‑‑ we'll get you to bring that to one of our meetings, Helen. That would be very cool. Larry: I'd love a picture of that for the website. Lucy: Yeah, thank you. OK. Larry: Helen, I want to thank you so much for joining us. We are so excited about this program. When we get to talk to people like you with your background and your experience, it makes it just that much more exciting and motivating to a number of young people. Helen: Well, I appreciate it. Lucy: Well, and we want everybody to know where they can find these podcasts. They are accessible on the NCWIT website at ww.NCWIT.org And along with the podcast, his information about entrepreneurism and how people can be more involved as entrepreneurs and also get resources on the web and also from other organizations, should they be interested. Larry: Yes, and thank you for all of the great hints and probably more than that, some really golden nuggets in there. One that's sticking out in my mind right now is the mass‑market adoption. I guess that is what we all want to charge for. Helen: It's not where we started out, but it is where we're fully focused at. Lucy: Well, thank you very much. Helen: OK, thank you. Have a good one. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Helen GreinerInterview Summary: Helen Greiner is co-founder and Chairman of the Board of iRobot Corp., maker of the Roomba® Vacuuming Robot (over 2M units sold) and the iRobot PackBot® Tactical Mobile Robot, which deactivates mines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Release Date: June 11, 2007Interview Subject: Helen GrenierInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 15:30

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Laura Fitton CEO and Co-founder, OneForty Date: April 25, 2011 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes: Interview with Laura Fitton [musical introduction] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders, the CEO of NCWIT, the National Center for Women In Information Technology. This is the next interview in a series of interviews we've had with women who have started wonderfully successful tech companies. We're always interested to catch up with our latest entrepreneur and see what she's doing. With me is Larry Nelson, W3W3.com. What's going on at W3W3, Larry? What's the news? Larry Nelson: Well, I'm trying to learn more about Twitter. Other than that, things are going good. We've got a number of business people who tune into the various shows with NCWIT. It's not only business leaders and parents, but also many young women who listen for some great ideas. Lucy: Today we're interviewing someone who is known as the Queen of Twitter, Laura Fitton. I guess that's why you said something about Twitter, isn't it? [laughter] Well, you need to get the number right in your Twitter. Larry: I was just trying to check her out there. Lucy: We're interviewing somebody who is known as the Queen of Twitter, Laura Fitton. Laura Fitton: [laughter] I think Lady Gaga deserves the crown now. Lucy: Lady Gaga! Laura: Once upon a time. Lucy: [laughter] That would be great, maybe we should try to interview Lady Gaga. Any way, Laura is the founder of oneforty.com. Oneforty.com helps people understand Twitter and the exploding ecosystem of applications and services built on it. Oneforty.com has been called the "app store" for Twitter by TechCrunch and others. It's really a place to find awesome tools that really help you use Twitter, not just in ways for yourself but also for your business and so forth. I went and looked at some of the apps there and it just shows how much I need to catch up on the world of Twitter. [laughter] Laura: It's so true. We started out the Consumer App store and quickly learned from our users that they need us to cut through all the noise and provide them with reporting, with solutions to streamline their social business. Oneforty.com is really the place where tool providers, experts, and business leaders are sharing all their advice and lessons learned regarding social business. If your business needs to be getting into social media, this is the place to start. Lucy: Well, Laura, we're really happy you're here today. Maybe you could start off quickly telling us the latest news from oneforty.com. I think it's a place that most of us really need to know about. Laura: Sure! Thank you. In the last four months, we've done a pretty significant pivot, again user-led. We offered people a little thing we called "Toolkits," which were these humble little lists. The idea was, well you're using Twitter online but you're also using it on your phone and a few other places, using a lot of different tools. People came in and said, "Well, here's how to market a car dealership," "Here's how to market a restaurant." Or, "Here's what a realtor needs to know about social media and social business." So we responded to our users like any good startup does. In the last three weeks, we have completely relaunched the site centered around four business personas. All of the directory is still there, but we're really focusing it on connecting people with what they need to streamline and scale social. Lucy: So oneforty.com three weeks ago had a relaunch? That's pretty exciting news. Like I said, the site was just great and I really enjoyed looking at it yesterday. Laura: Thank you so much. The other thing that's new is that I was just on a webinar where I gave a sneak preview of some products that we're just launching that put everything you need for social all in one place-tools, all the workflow, all the guides on what to do next. Kind of training wheels for social engagement, making it really easy. Lucy: So Laura, it's really pretty exciting times at oneforty.com. Thanks very much for telling us all about the new site launch three weeks ago. It's really a great site and we really appreciated taking a look at it earlier this week. One of the things we like to find out from our entrepreneurs is how they first got interested in technology, as well as ask them a follow-up question to that where we ask them to look into their crystal ball regarding which technologies they think are out there that will change things even more? Laura: Awesome. Well I was a kid who was really into science, so I came to technology through science. In fact, my degree is in Environmental Science and Public Policy. I always played around with consumer web technologies, but never got involved in software development or anything like that, quite up until I did the startup. So it was a very odd choice for me, because I'd never seen software built. I knew tons of people in the interactive industry who did build software. I had lots of friends who had invested in it, had worked at startups, had run startups. But I myself had never done it. My connection to startups was that I was kind of a communications consultant. I did a lot of work on helping people to present and speak more effectively. And obviously entrepreneurs are constantly on the hot-seat having to present, so I stayed very close to the startup community but never dove into it myself. Long story short, I moved to Boston in 2006 just in time to have my second kid. They're like 14 or 15 months apart. I've no business network up here and I have to restart that communications consulting firm after nearly two years out of the market. So I get into blogging. I hear about this Twitter thing. I blog how stupid this Twitter thing is, around March 2007. And then two months later, the nickel drops and I say, wait a minute. I can surround myself with successful, interesting people and still be this home-based mom of two kids under two, and yet stay motivated and inspired throughout my workday. And that is exactly what appealed to me about Twitter when Twitter finally did appeal to me. Then I got so emphatic over how so much it was changing my life and how amazing and exciting it was for me that I just ran out there with this blog post called, "Ode to Twitter" on something like August 11, 2007. I mailed it to Guy Kawasaki, who, believe me, had never heard of me. And I just started telling everyone who would listen. To my great luck, Guy Kawasaki did listen and then turned around and trumpeted to the rest of the world. So in this very short time, I went from not even really knowing what the term "web 2.0" means in March 2007 to being profiled by the author of "Naked Conversations," one of the first major books in the space, less than a year later in April 2008. The next month, Wiley is coming to me asking me to write "Twitter for Dummies." I'm relaunching my communications consulting firm as a Twitter for business consulting firm, which was a little insane to do in September 2008. It was still really early on the concept and I'm just incredibly lucky that I staked my career on Twitter and not on one of the competitors like Pounce or Plurk, most of which have dried up or disappeared. I got very excited about a technology, because it made huge personal and professional changes in my life. It's like the classic adage to follow your passion and you can't go wrong. I was still was dragged into it kicking and screaming, though. For four months after having the idea for oneforty.com, I was trying to pawn it off on somebody else. But hey, you go build the startup and I'll advise. I'm smart enough to not do a startup. I know they're kind of hell. I'm in the middle of a divorce and have two very young kids. (They were two and three at the time.) And yet I failed at quitting it. I kept trying to quit it and I kept failing at quitting. So in March 2009 I finally started it up in earnest and it's been two years now. Lucy: You know, your comments kind of lead to our second question. Larry: Boy, I'll say, is that a fact. Here you came into this thing through science. You've been through all the different types of things, you knew you wanted to give it up. But... Lucy: And she tried to not be an entrepreneur. Larry: Yeah, exactly. Laura: I tried so hard. I'd worked for a startup in my 20s and the guy was nuts. [laughter] Laura: I've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs and I love entrepreneurs. You have to be fundamentally out of touch with reality on some level to be an entrepreneur, because otherwise you would know that your idea can't possibly work. You need enough detachment from that to be able to go make it work. Which is great, but boy, it puts you into some weird places, doesn't it? Larry: Boy, I'll say so. What is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Laura: I don't know, because I never thought I was an entrepreneur until this happened. [laughter] I have mad curiosity. I love to see things for myself. One of the people who has been kind enough to mentor me is Tony Hsieh, who is the CEO of Zappos. I won't be able to remember exactly what they were, but he asked me three very simple framing questions when I was kind of whimpering and whimpering and saying that I couldn't possibly be the CEO. It was, "Do you have that natural drive and curiosity?" "Do you want to see things for yourself?" And one other thing. He said, "If you have that, you're good. Everything else, you can learn." Lucy: Zappos is a great company. I just ordered my son four birthday shirts from them. Larry: Oh, all right! [laughter] Laura: That's the [inaudible 9:00] , girl. Tony is a fantastic human being, very generous with what little time he has. Lucy: It sounds like Tony definitely supported you on your way on your career path. Do you have other role models or mentors or other people who influenced you? Laura: I was carried by this net, literally my network. When I first did my angel pitch, there were a few people I knew in the investment community who charitably dialed in to hear it and asked me leading questions to help me understand what I was missing. One of them was Christine Herron, who at the time was with First Round Capital and now is with Intel Capital. She literally had to ask me in my first angel pitch, "Laura, where's the pricing coming from?" And I didn't even know what the word "pricing" meant at that point. [laughter] I was that naive. I tried to answer it. Later another person-again, these were friends because of social networking-Dave McClure was kind enough to take the time to listen to the recording. He asked, "Do you know what Christine was trying to tell you, Laura?" I said candidly, "No." And he explained it to me. So I was carried by this huge network of cheerleaders and supporters and mentors. One of the weird, kind of, "rags-to-riches, Cinderella" aspects of all of this is, I was so completely unknown, and then a year later I was in a book by Seth Godin and I was being mentored by Seth and by Guy Kawasaki and by people whose blogs I'd been reading for a long time and looking up to. And it actually took awhile to come to terms with accepting that. Like I felt guilty. I felt like, why am I getting all this time from all these busy people, there's nothing that special about me, I'm just sort of whatever. And then the way I came to peace with how incredibly generous the world was being with all of this was just like, OK, maybe they see a chance to get something done in the world by helping me get it done. So my responsibility to pay back the debt of all this mentorship is not only to do mentoring when I finally have bandwidth to do it, but to follow through and to make sure I realize the riches I've been given and try to create something with it. So that's been incredibly powerful to keep me going. Lucy: Well, and you know this interview is part of a give back. We have had a lot of people listen to these interviews, we have a social networking campaign with Twitter right now, on this interview series, so we really thank you for being with us and giving some of that advice back. Laura: Thanks. Larry: Well you know with all of the neat things you've done, Laura, what is the toughest thing that you've ever had to do in your career? Laura: That is such a great question. I was going to say that, the days after you run into a wall, because make no illusion, you run into a wall time, time and time again when the start-up [inaudible 11:46] , you fail all the time. Investors flake, co-founders drop out, people you hired don't work out, whatever. It's constantly running into a wall. And the next moment where you have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, is really painful, it's hard. And just staying calm and.. and one lesson I've learned? Being radically nice to everybody, even if they kind of screwed you over. Because it preserves the relationship and you never know where that relationship leads in the future. That said, I'm very lucky, in that the energy just kept surging back to get through those times. I can't even take ownership of that, it was like being a lightning rod. I would give up, I would go to sleep like, "OK it didn't work, tomorrow I'll figure out something else," and I'd wake up still hell-bent on making it happen. So I was lucky. Lucy: Wow, it's great advice to be radically nice to people, even if you think they screwed you over. [laughs] I mean, it's powerful advice and I think it's advice that you might give to any young person who was thinking about being an entrepreneur. Do you have any other advice that you might tell a young person if they were on this call right now or listening to this interview? Laura: I think it's really important to not discount the most trite, childhood, what-your-mother-tells-you of all, is really be yourself. People told me that. I really struggled growing up, I was not socially well adapted, I was very emotional and kind of out of touch with my colleagues, like had a hard time in elementary school. And everyone was like, "oh just be yourself!" and I'm like "yeah, right." You know, "everybody hates me, I can't be myself." But it is so true that the more I was able to connect with "OK, that is what makes me tick, I'm just going to go with it." I mean, I never set out to think, "I'm going to rave about Twitter for a year and a half and someday it's going to be my job to do that." I just couldn't contain my excitement. So things worked out really well for me. I was very lucky. Larry: You know, with all the things that you've been through, in your childhood, preschool and everything else, what are the personal characteristics that really give you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Laura: Definitely resilience. Some of the greatest gifts that I've been given in life were times that frankly sucked. I won't trot them all out, but... a couple tough things here and there. A couple really scary things that ended really well, like a premature baby and a very minor stroke, and things like that. But those are huge gifts and I don't think people see them in the moment when they're first happening. Again, I want to fall back to the trite, "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger," but there is huge, huge, huge silver lining in every negative thing that happens to you. Even if it's just making up a story in your head like "hey, that felt really terrible but I actually just dodged a bullet, because it could have been this," and I look back at the tough times and I am so grateful for every single one of them. I'm sad for the places where something terrible happened and it made other people sad, but I'm so grateful for how much strength they gave me and how much ability to bounce back and how much calm they gave me. I would not give up a single one of them. Lucy: That's just wonderful advice. That's so true of life in general, right? Being able to learn from tough times. Laura: Yeah. Lucy: And really integrate that into how you're looking at situations. Laura: I really do just straight-up cherish some of them. Lucy: Yeah, I think personally I had some in my corporate career that ultimately led to me coming here and doing what we're doing now with MC Wit, and it's just kind of interesting when you look back and thing "gosh, if that hadn't happened I wouldn't be here." Larry: Yep. You bet. Laura: Right! Lucy: It's totally the case. Laura: You know one of the more bizarre things I did was when I was about 26 or 27 I kind of more or less adopted one of my nieces. Who was, you know, "go and live with your aunt for the fun of it," right? So she had a couple things. And my mom was so, like, almost mad at me. She thought I was crazy to do it. But it was huge, I got so much more out of that experience than I put into it. A lot of growing up, a lot of taking responsibility, a lot of learning about how radically permanent love for a child is, because she really was functionally my daughter for three years, when she was 15, 16 and 17. And I remember thinking, "oh how hard can it be?" And wow, it was really hard. You know, being a teenager is tough, and being a teenager who's had a crappy run-in up to there was tough, too. But it took me out of my shell, it made me connect to people in new ways, my career catapulted because I had to get my act together. And I just love her so much, it was just incredible, it taught me a lot. Lucy: Well and that kind of gets to our next question we were talking some about, sometimes people say "oh, you should have balance between your work and your personal life," and how do you bring balance. We've talked to people about it really being an integration, and we're just curious to get your point of view on this issue of work- life balance and how you achieve it? Laura: It's tough and I don't think I'm super good at it. Yeah, not enough. I try to be really present with my kids when I'm not working. I would really love to bike commute more often, because it's about a nine mile, very flat, ride, very easy, takes the same amount of time the train does but forces me to exercise. And I think that's really important in managing the stress. Again, in a twisted way, I'm lucky that I'm divorced, because my ex is a fantastic dad, and he and his fiance are a great family for my girls in the 50 percent of the time I don't have them. I use that 50 percent of the time I don't have them to do all the extremes like, stay up late and work, or travel, or the different things you have to do to do a start-up. And I think that it would be tough if it was an intact marriage, and I didn't have that really clear-cut line of "OK, you are not a mommy right now." Yeah, of course I call them and stuff like that. But I'm not functionally needing to be there for them. And being more present when I am there with them. Larry: My goodness, I must say that you have really done a great deal, you've achieved a lot. What's next for you? What's on the horizon? Larry: You know, I don't think you ever feel like you've achieved a lot. I always feel just like, "oh crap, what's next? Oh my god, we've got to surmount this, we've got to surmount that." It's not like our company's profitable. It's not like we have a billion users. And I think if you asked everybody along wherever they are in the entrepreneurial process, they'd probably talk a lot more about what's yet to come than about what they feel they've achieved. So there's a ton of professional development I want to do, a lot of skills I want to improve upon and learn. I have this little fantasy about joining a team in the future where I'm a relatively junior part and I can really stretch and grow and learn from others who are just the best at what they do. I still don't have very much management experience, I never had an employee before oneforty.com, and so that means it's been really tough for me and for my employees to learn how to manage on the fly, learn all about software on the fly, learn all about business on the fly. And I just feel like I have so much more growing to do. Lucy: Well we have no doubt that oneforty.com is headed towards great success. Laura: Thank you very much. Lucy: We really do thank you and wish you the best of luck. So I want to remind listeners that they can find us at w3w3.com and also mcwit.org and to tell their friends this is a great interview, and to go visit oneforty.com and learn more about how to use Twitter. I know Larry's going there! Larry: I'm going to oneforty.com . Lucy: I saw him underline "Twitter for Dummies." [laughter] Laura: It's tough, right, I can't really give out my book as a gift because it's a bit insulting, isn't it? Thank you so much for the opportunity, such a salute out to, it shouldn't matter, but to the women in technology who are my heroes. Because it is inspiring to see, you know, Padmasree Warrior as the CEO of Cisco, Kara Swisher just tearing it up in tech journalism, Katarina [inaudible 19:01] , one of the first social media founders of a company. Rash [inaudible 19:12] is running slideshare.net, Marissa Meyer who's done phenomenal things at Google. It shouldn't matter whether, you know, I'm inspired by lots of men, too, but it really does mean a lot and I'm just so grateful for all of them and their work. Lucy: Well thank you, and I know people are really going to enjoy this interview. Larry: Yeah, thank you. Laura: Thank you. Lucy: All right, bye Laura. Laura: Take care, bye bye. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Laura FittonInterview Summary: Once upon a time known as "Queen" of Twitter, Twitter's own mom-at-home to tech CEO Cinderella Story is CEO/Founder of www.oneforty.com and co-author of Twitter for Dummies. You can read her story in the Boston Globe, on Xconomy.com or watch her Mixergy interview. Release Date: April 25, 2011Interview Subject: Laura FrittonInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 20:12

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Bettina Hein Founder and CEO, Pixability Date: March 7, 2011 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes: Interview with Bettina Hein [music] Kennedy: Hi, this is Lee Kennedy, board member for the National Center for Women in Information Technology, or NCWIT. I am also CEO of Bolder Search. This is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous entrepreneurs, women who have started IT companies in a variety of sectors, all of whom just have terrific stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. With me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi Larry. Larry Nelson: Oh, hi. I am really excited to be here. Once again, this is going to be a fantastic interview with a number of high powered women who have really been examples of super entrepreneurship. Lee: Wonderful. You want to tell us just a little bit about w3w3. Larry: Well, we have been doing it for 12 years. We are an Internet‑based business radio show. We host everything and archive everything. We have over 17,000 pages on our website and they are all business interviews. We are excited about that. Lee: Wonderful. Well, today we are interviewing Bettina Hein who is the founder and CEO of Pixability. Pixability helps small and medium sized businesses increase sales by using video. Bettina is a repeat entrepreneur based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to Pixability, Bettina cofounded Swiss based SVOX AG in 2001 and led the venture‑backed speech software company to profitability. Then in 1996, Patina was the initiator of START, an organization that advances entrepreneurship among college students. She is also the founder of SheEOs, and that's a network for female CEOs and founders of growth companies. So Bettina, welcome. Bettina Hein: Thank you very much for having me. Lee: Well, we'd love to hear a little bit about Pixability before we jump into some questions we have for you. Bettina: Well, you said it correctly. We help companies and non‑profits create and promote themselves via online video. We help you create a great video by for example sending you a flip camera and you shoot the video. We spruce it up and then we have software that publishes that video all over the Internet and search engine optimizes. We are really the experts for video marketing. Lee: Wonderful. Larry: Oh I love it. Lee: We are just going to jump into things here. We'd love to hear how you first got into technology. Bettina: I've been in tech all of my career. I guess it started a little bit earlier than that. I started with computers and programming in Logo when I was in fourth grade on an Apple IIe way back when I went to college for business administration and did finance. But I was always in love with technology and would spend lots of time with all the guys in the windowless rooms with the computers. When I got out of grad school, I had offers from investment banks and consultancies and all of that. But I really wanted to be in tech. I took my fourth grade book where I had written down these Logo programs, written them out, so I took them to talk with the founders of tech companies. I became involved in SVOX my first company which is a speech technology software company based in Zurich, Switzerland and became a cofounder there. I've been in tech and an entrepreneur all of my career, basically straight out of grad school. Lee: Well, and the other question I had is what today you think is really cool, what technologies do you just love to play with? Bettina: Well, you should really play with Google Translate because that has my SVOX [indecipherable 00:03:56] and the company SVOX's technology. There is a speech technology that is pretty cool. But apart from that, the obvious thing video. There is a lot of things happening around video and into active video and video on mobile phones. That ties in with all the things that are happening in the mobile space. I really think that there are lots of things happening that are relevant for businesses in mobile and that again ties in to the social web, social media. As a geek on the side I am also really interested in things like Amazon's Mechanical Turk, because that sort of shows the human computing interface. Probably you saw what was on Jeopardy last week was IBM's Watson. I am really fascinated on how humans and AI that interface there. But that's something that's a little bit further out for commercialization, actually. Larry: With your experiences now, what is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick, and why did you become an entrepreneur. Bettina: I didn't know any better. All of my four grandparents are actually entrepreneurs. My grandmothers as well as my grandfathers were entrepreneurs in their own right, and my parents as well. They are professionals and nobody in my family ever had a nine‑to‑five job. I didn't really know what that meant. I heard that you have this career thing and you go to an office and you come back at night. But I never experienced that from home. I didn't really know what that meant. For me it didn't seem like a far reach to become an entrepreneur. Also, I love creating something from nothing. It's really so wonderful if you do it with an organization or if you do it with a company, that you have this idea in your head that you want to create something that helps fosters entrepreneurship in college students. What I did was START. Or you want to make speech technology an everyday then people use, and you have this idea and you work really, really hard. It's extremely hard, but it comes alive when you create all these jobs. My last company has over 120 people. My husband is also an entrepreneur. Together we have created over 500 jobs. I am really, really proud that I figured out by hard work how to take something and turn it into an entity that provides a livelihood for so many people. Lee: Boy, that's so cool. This question is a lead on to that. Who influenced you or supported you to take the career path you have? Do you have any role models or mentors? Bettina: Well, my family, definitely. My grandfather grew a company. He was a coal miner and when he was 15 he went into the coal mine and was under the earth. It was a really back breaking hard job. Over the years, he found ways to make money in other ways. He ended up having a wholesale Coop providing hundreds of millions of tons coal to the big energy producers, electricity producers. He was retired by then, but he would always tell me how he did that. How he used his knowledge, when he was 15, to do all of that. He would do math problems with me on this and tell me about how he negotiated across the table and that he always was really faster in his head. They couldn't pull out a calculator as fast as he could do the math, so we would work on that. Up to about five years ago, I had mostly male mentors because I haven't seen any women doing what I was doing. As a female entrepreneur in technology, in Europe there were hardly anybody to look up to. But then I moved from Zurich, Switzerland to here to Cambridge Massachusetts. I found that well there are these people I can look up to that can be a mentor. You interviewed Gail Goodman the founder of Constant Contact, or the founder of the Zipcar, Robin Chase. People like Beth Marcus who sold her fifth company. People have done this here before. I now feel like I am living in Disneyland in a way because I have so many people that support me. I am trying to give it back with SheEOs group that I created to foster more female entrepreneurship. Larry: That's terrific. By the way Lucy Sanders always likes us to ask this tough question. What is the toughest thing that you had to do in your career? Bettina: So I started my first company when I was 27. This was in 2001. So it was post dotcom boom. But there was still money around and a little bit of hype around. But that very quickly evaporated. But, we were able to raise money and we hired people and that was going pretty well. Then we just did not make any of our goals. It was terrible because I, the young person, had promised the world to all these people. We hired over 20 people. I had to fire half of them at a certain point, together with my co‑founders. That was really, really, really hard to do that. In Europe, it's also harder to fire people. You don't fire them and they leave that day. You have to keep them on for three months. You have to continue to paying their salaries so, that was really, really hard. It made me very prudent about over hiring and making sure I meet my goals before I promise people too much. Lee: Yeah, I think we've heard from a good majority of the people we have interviewed that having to lay off people or fire people is not easy. Larry: Yeah, Bettina, you're absolutely right about in Europe. My wife and I have owned a number of companies in Europe. We had some of those similar experiences. Bettina: Yeah, you have to look people in the eye for three months and say, "I failed you." Every single day they look at you while they're searching for new jobs, but they still work for you. I didn't feel so hot. Lee: If you were to think back of all the things you learned through growing businesses and having the networking, the CEO, what would you advise a young person about entrepreneurship if they were sitting with you there today? Bettina: That's one of the things I really love doing. I really love helping other people make their dreams come true. I typically tell them anybody can be an entrepreneur. I tell them that "You can do it." There are three things I tell them that they need. The first one is naivete. If you knew what was going to hit you during the course of building your company, you would not start. [laughter] Larry: You're right. Bettina: You should really, really start young and go at it. That doesn't mean to be unprepared, right? That means, you have to do your research. You have to look for a good market. But, if you knew too much, you would not be able to be an innovator. Naivete is the first thing. The second thing I tell them they need to have is chutzpah. Do you guys know what that means? Lee: Yes. Larry: Yeah, we do, but why don't you explain it to our listeners. [laughter] Bettina: Yeah. I always usually ask them. It means being audacious, putting yourself out there. You really have to own it and say, "Yes, I am convinced I can do this and I can solve your problem." Let me give you an example. When we started SVOX, we were a small company, but we had the chutzpah to go to Mercedes Benz and say, "We have the solution for your flagship product, the S Class and we want it." We didn't know at the time how we'd be able to deliver. I mean, we had a plan, but we couldn't the next day have delivered. But, they gave us an order for this, and that made the company. Chutzpah means putting yourself out there. It doesn't mean winging it. You have to do your homework and be prepared to deliver. But, you have to also say, "I know I can do this for you. Trust me on this." Then the third thing is perseverance. You have to have the willpower to see it through. Because It's hard. It's very hard and you're going to want to quit. Often. You have to see it through. But, that doesn't mean being stubborn. You do have to take cues from your environment and pivot and change your business model and evolve it. Just as I said my toughest experience was firing all those people. Well we didn't give up. We laid off all those people because we said, "OK, with the cash that we have and where we need to go, this is how we can get to growing the company." Since then, the company has grown more than 10X. But, we knew we had to see this through. If you have those three things, I think any young person can make it in an entrepreneurship. Larry: Wow. You have hit on a number of different things that you've done, and so on, but let me just see if we can narrow this down. What are personal characteristics that have given you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Bettina: Well, first of all as I said before that not know any better, the family background, definitely. Also, if you statically look at it, what makes people more inclined to be entrepreneurs, is if they have role models in their family to do that. But, just personally, I have a dogged determination to succeed, to make things happen. I think that's really the most important thing that people say to me. I feel that motivates the people that I find to work for me most is that people can serve me all kinds of punches and I will get back up, get back on the horse and just continue on. Obviously, that's my strategy and learning from those punches, but I will do that. I think my team also [indecipherable 00:14:46] the energy through hard times to keep going. Lee: With all the startups and things that you've done, how do you bring balance into your life, between personal and professional? Bettina: It all melds into one, in a way. I just don't believe in this myth that you can completely separate your personal and your professional life. I think that's just not true. I do think that you have to have some little bit of distance. I try not to work on Saturdays. That's what I try not to do. I also advocate that people take time off and I do that myself. It's very hard to do that, but being from Europe, a lot of vacation there is mandated by law. What I always try to train everybody in the company to tag team it. We're experimenting this year with a vacation policy that says you get two weeks off a year, or you get four weeks off a year, if you take two weeks at a time. You have your pick. You can either get four weeks, or two weeks. But, of you want to take off time, don't piecemeal it a day here or a day here. You have to take two weeks off. The reason for that is, that I want people to do their jobs and document them so well that other people can take over their jobs for two weeks while they're gone and they don't have to worry. I try to do that with myself. I really try not to be a bottleneck for decisions or for things that are happening in the company. For me, I think, it's very hard to do. But, I am really working hard on it. Right now, I am getting ready to have my first baby so I am really working very hard in order to be able to take four weeks off of maternity leave and trying to get everybody transferring enough responsibility so I can go do that. It's a big challenge, but I absolutely believe if you fail at that, then your company will collapse like a house of cards if you leave. That means you didn't build a good organization. Larry: Bettina, you're right on. My wife and I, who are in business together, we have five kids, so we have some empathy for what you're talking about. Bettina: I'm glad, yes. It's going to be a challenge. I know that. Larry: Besides your new baby, you've already achieved a great deal. What's next for you? Bettina: Well, I think there's lots more out there. I think I am 10 years into my apprenticeship of being an entrepreneur. I think I'm constantly learning. I do have a dream of taking a company public one of these days, like Gail did with Constant Contact. Pixability we often sell ourselves to investors as, "What Constant Contact did for email marketing we're going do for video marketing." But, maybe being public these days isn't the most attractive thing anymore, but I do want to grow a company in a substantial way and into the thousands of employees. That's my dream that's still out there. Larry: I have a feeling you're going to do it too. Lee: That is a wonderful dream. Bettina: Thank you for that confidence. Lee: We thank you for interviewing with us today. For everybody out there listening, you can find these podcasts on W3W3.com and as well at ncwit.org. Please pass it along to a friend. Thank you Bettina. We've enjoyed having you today. Bettina: Thank you very much for inviting me. Larry: Thank you. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Bettina HeinInterview Summary: Bettina Hein believes there's a recipe for successful entrepreneurship, and in this interview she shares it. Ingredients include chutzpah and persverance. Release Date: March 7, 2011Interview Subject: Bettina HeinInterviewer(s): Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 18:34

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes Lee Kennedy: Hi, this is Lee Kennedy. I'm the CEO of Bolder Search and a board member for the National Center for Women & Information Technology or NCWIT. This is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous entrepreneurs. They're women who have started IT companies in a variety of sectors, all of whom have just fabulous stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. With me today is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hey, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hey, I'm excited about this interview, certainly a person with a tremendous amount of experience. Wow, I can't wait to get into this and we know we have lot of firm executives and young people that are looking into becoming an entrepreneur and getting into the high tech arena who are listeners. So, I'm really looking forward to this interview. Lee: Super. So, today we are interviewing Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. She is a leading Internet and media executive with a touch over 18 years of leadership in working with early stage companies including Google, Amazon, Yodlee and Polyvore, which is a leading global fashion community site. So, why don't I go ahead and interview Sukhinder. We are so happy to have you today. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy: Thank you. Lee: Larry, I think we'll just jump into things. Larry: All right. I'm going to ask you a question that Lucy Sanders always likes us to ask and that is how did you first get involved in the technology business and what technologies do you think are cool today? Sukhinder: I actually first got involved in the technology business probably 13 or 14 years ago in 1997, actually, late '96, early '97. Prior to that, I had been working in New York, in London in media and that investment banking. I stayed in Merrill Lynch for several years and then I went on to market BSkyB, which is the leading satellite broadcast at that time. So, actually, kind of a technology company but more of a media company. I moved to the Bay area on fundamentally I guess on thesis that I wanted to be close to entrepreneurs and one day be an entrepreneur myself. I did not know what I wanted to do but I did know there were smart motivated people in the Bay area. I had traveled out to San Francisco to visit friends and fell in love with the Bay area. So, I took a leap of faith. I moved from London, sold everything I had in London. Bought a car for $10, 000 in LA and drove up the Coast to San Francisco and found my first job. Larry: Wow. Lee: I have to say it is not too dissimilar to my background. I moved out to the Bay area and it's kind of hard not to get into technology. Sukhinder: Absolutely. So, I did not want to be an entrepreneur. But it was that classic, I didn't have an idea. So I thought the next best thing was to put myself close to smart people, working on interesting problems and being entrepreneurs themselves, somehow that path would be a positive one. Larry: Of all the different things that you've been involved with the technology, which ones do you think are cool today? Sukhinder: There are some I had been lucky enough to be involved with and some less so that I just admire from afar a bit. Probably, two of my favorites I'll say as consumer there's something you got to see these businesses built at Google. One, I mean the technology I just to love today, are anything that you would of think as geo or location based. So, my first job at Google was helping to launch Google maps and Google logo and the idea that your location is a pretty important indicator. Where you are relative to your friends in the case of Foursquare or where you are on a map and where you are trying to get to go and having driving directions on your iPhone, forgoing the traditional, heavy-duty MAPS systems that are sitting in cars or something; lightweight but just as revolutionary. So, I love anything geo where as a user my location has something to do and some relevance to play in what I want to do next. And I think we see geo now as a layer on top of many technologies. The second thing I love is of course cloud-based applications. For me, it is actually very simple. As a consumer, the idea that I no longer have to be stuck to one PC to access my contact list, to access my emails, to access documents. I mean today we have apps of every kind based on the cloud; business apps, enterprise apps, consumer apps. But I think of Google really as introducing that concept in a pretty revolutionary way with Gmail and now of course its very standard. I just love cloud based apps because they truly make me mobile. And the last thing, it's hard not to love the iPhone, now the iPad but if you think about the iPhone as just an incredible tool but more importantly an incredible statement instead of just ability to use that hardware and software. To have a pretty revolutionary consumer design and that the integration of hardware and software still matters. And owning both, which was Apple's proprietary focus and goal. And long after people forgot about hardware, Apple believed that innovation was still possible in hardware, right? And the group did this to all by fundamentally changing the way we communicate with the iPhone. Lee: I'll have to have an offline discussion about the iPhone versus Android GP and you being a former Google employee. Sukhinder: Yes and it means like I said like the Android OS and then the non proprietary system and that is amazing being able to boot application development to many different phone and the fundamental thesis for Google creating an OS and then integrating with third party hardware and redesigning hardware. Instead of working a new age phone that showcase the power software. So, I guess my point is that long after people have forgotten about hard ware and all the software, lo and behold Apple app and hardware. Lee: I know that's the jobs. Sukhinder: Application development layer and in Droid continues on that screen stream.  Larry: Well, I just want to let you know that I have something in common with you. We moved from Copenhagen to the Bay area a number of years ago. Lee: Are you trying to warn me up Larry? OK. All that said about your background and the technologies you think are cool. Tell us why entrepreneurship turns you on? What are you an entrepreneur? Sukhinder: I think there are probably three things I just love about it. Number one is obviously the building that create an author and that is every level. Yes, you are creating a business model on a product but also to go and author your team. Who you get to work with, how you want to work, the culture you want to create. I think that there are people who love to build stuff. I happen to love to build stuff. I think authorship and creation except for some people is a drag and I think I really enjoy the process. I think the second think is I'm sort of a gratification junkie. I like to put in work and get back feedback quickly and then iterate like progress to me is best measure in those increments and that is also how I motivate myself and I think entrepreneurship is really suited to this iteration cycles, right? You get to put out something out there, see the results, see what works, see what doesn't, try it, try something else. And I think that fast cycle times really feels and considers me and probably my own kind of cycle which I work and I think that is fundamentally one of the reasons that it gives me so much excitement. So, I think authorship and the ability to create the kind of quick iteration and feedback loop in entrepreneurship those are things that resonates really, really highly with me. Larry: Sukhinder, with all the things that you done in the different organizations, it's really phenomenal. But let me ask you this, along the way, who supported you in your career path or your role model or your mentor? Sukhinder: Well, first of all, it is interesting. I don't believe in a single role model. I feel like for different parts of my career, depending on the things I have to learn, there were different mentors to me and role models along the way. First and foremost, my father. He was a doctor and loves to be a doctor. He loves running the practice like the business of running the practice. My first job was doing tax returns when I was 15 years old. My father taught me balance sheets and income statements because he was fascinated and he was thinking of different ways to optimize his business and he share the same with me. My second job was in his office as secretary but he was clearly passionate about the job he was doing. The content of his job which was medicine and also entrepreneurship and running the business. He was from very young age clears want to work for yourself. I would say more recently, I think my role models and mentors have really been at some point of time very relevant to what I have to learn to ramp sure ramp, Google and obviously very notable angel come valley. Before that was the CEO of Jungly, my first copy in the Valley that was acquired by Amazon and I had a pleasure to work with the man. And he was an investor in Yodeli, the company that I joined as a co-founder and then ultimately was also involved with Google where I joined next. From Rome, I learned great skills and I also just learned how important it is to match a great business team with a great product team and Rome as an angel has been very successful in helping to find and integrate entrepreneurs. Rome was certainly one. I think Henry Ryan, one of the founders of Jungali, first company that I joined in the Valley. He is a serial entrepreneur. He is in a company five and he has calm, stability, successful exit, diversity and experience and it turned operating CEO so when I have current issues, I call him and I think about my route in Google. Certainly my boss Kurt Estani who was the chief revenue officer at Google and he was probably employed 13 or something like that build Google's revenue from zero to 23 billion. For me, certainly, I just add what I learn, the skill associated with being a great relationship daughter and a great manager not to say I was but I think I learned from him the important of their skills and he is just the ultimate consistent builder and relationship manager. And also, someday he was able to hire greatly skilled people and let them run. Stan Standberg is now running Facebook, Armstrong is running AOL. These people are on the team and I give credit for figuring out how to hire us, mentor us, harness us and still let us run and build. So, I think the different people are the different points of my career to some of them. Lee: Sukhinder, you have been super fortunate at least from my viewpoint to have such phenomenal mentors. That is really exciting. Sukhinder: Yeah, I certainly felt privilege to get to work with these people. So, I guess my point is it is not just one mentor but there are people you learn different skills and I think at different point of my career, I feel like I had the opportunity to work with these people and certainly some of them go and instilled to them. I go for different type of advice when I think there is something they have to offer me. Lee: So, on to something a little more tough, what is the toughest thing you've had to do in your career? Sukhinder: I think of very tough business challenges, but then I think of the challenges that take their toll on you emotionally. This is often a question I ask others when I'm interviewing them, when I'm interviewing executives to join my team. I often just say, "What's the biggest career mistake you've made?" Which is another way of asking the same question. But I think the things that take the hardest emotional toll on you are not the decision or strategy vantage point perspective you called wrong, because you can two or three or four different paths in a different strategy, and maybe you chose the wrong path, but smart people can have different answers. But the ones that're really tough, honestly, are the ones that surround people, right? Awful, making a decision that someone's not a fit. I think those are the most personally taxing and tough things to do in my career. You know, at Yodelly, certainly, we went through to Boston , we had to lay off people, and it was my first time laying off people. You dissolve a relationship with people, you feel a huge amount of responsibility for people's career and career choices when you bring them into a company, I do. Lee: Yeah. Larry: Oh, sure. Sukhinder: Some of that was recession-driven, but there're other times where it's actually not a function of the recession. Often in cases outside of those extraordinary circumstances, like the Boston 2002, the Internet dark days. It's really actually just about culture set, because the people you hire are, by and large, exceptionally competent. It's whether or not they're a fit with the organization, and it's a place that allows them to thrive. When you see that for whatever reason it's not working, learning to make that decision or call quickly or expediently, expeditiously, is important. Because the cost of not doing it well or quickly is high for everyone. It's high for the organization, it's hard for the person who feels like they're, for whatever reason, not able to get it done. They're feeling frustrated. But it's very hard to bring that conversation to a head, and I've been on both sides of it, right? I've certainly had to make the call when someone wasn't a fit, so I just think that whenever you have people decisions, your own decision to move on from something, or managing someone for whom you need to negotiate whether or not they're going to move on. Those are always the most difficult decisions, because they involve people's lives and careers and you want to do them with the right amount of diligence and care and conscientiousness, but also in a way that is expeditious for everyone. So everybody can move on. Larry: All right, well let's move on, and we're going to lighten this one up a little bit. Let's pretend, right now, you are sitting at your desk or around a table. You had a young person who thinking about becoming an entrepreneur. What advice would you give them? Sukhinder: Well let's see, I think there're tons of bits of advice you can give to young entrepreneurs, and I'm sure you have, in all of these interviews you've done, many greater nuggets than what I have to offer, but...I think if there were two things, and one may be obvious but I don't know if people truly accept it. So clearly one of the key things is to iterate in very quick cycles. I think a lot of times I spent, like, perfecting the business idea in PowerPoint. But the reality is, it's not substitute for customer feedback. As quickly as possible, and as cheaply as possible. So I think before you go out and raise money or create too many PowerPoints, you want to find a quick way to test and iterate on your idea at low cost. And keep trying until you find the nugget that seems to resonate with the consumer. Particularly true in Internet business, right? We're consumer Internet businesses. We can't quite predict how the online consumer is going to react, and what they're going to love, and what they're not going to love. It's not always just rational, right? Some of the web stuff companies weren't built of rational need. They just were launched and tested and iterated on, and they found some resonance with the consumer. So that's one, and it's probably fairly obvious. I think the second one, I think a lot of people say they're self-aware. But honestly, I think as an entrepreneur, you have to become incredible self-aware, and I think that's for a couple reasons. First of all, I think self-awareness revolves around understanding what's your own trademark strength, and what do you excel at, right? And part of building a great company, obviously, is figuring out how you fit and how to do what you're great at. If you can build an entire company around it, around your trademark strength, that's amazing. But quite often, building a great company is bringing into the building and, bringing in a diverse set of experiences. Often that means self-awareness about what you're also not great at, right? Where can you attract and surround yourself with people who have other strong skills that are complementary to your own. If you really want to win, and you really want to grow a company of some scale, I think it starts with self-awareness. Playing to your own trademark strength, and then being very quick. I would say in some ways open to building a company of great, strong, diverse talent that helps complement the skills you have. But it takes both parts, right? Playing to your own strengths, but also being, being pretty clear on your weaknesses, and certainly if you want to scale a company beyond a certain size. It is about recruiting incredible talent to your vision, but with complementary skills. Lee: I have to totally agree with you on that. Larry: Mm-hmm. Lee: I'm going to follow along and ask you, what do you excel at that's made you a fabulous entrepreneur? Sukhinder: Well I think first of all, I think most people who know me would consider me high energy and intensity. I think an entrepreneur for many years, it's about being your own best evangelist, right? Not for you, but for your company's vision. I think that requires a lot of energy. Then you have to be able to do that, and have a surplus of energy, if possible, to give to your team, right? To motivate and bolster them, and let them know it's possible. Again, most entrepreneurs, there's not always a rational need for what they're doing. They're often thinking to where the market is going, right. That requires evangelism. It requires a certain energy and intensity to come to work every day, and when the market's not yet there, or investors don't believe, that you believe, and you're able to convey that belief and conviction to others, with energy. So I think that's one piece. You know, I know how to sell. I spent most of my early career in sales. My college jobs, were summer jobs, were in sales. Then when I arrived in the valley, my functional specialty, if you could call it that, was business development. Business development in every company I've ever worked at correlated with sales. It was revenue-producing. As an entrepreneur, you kind of have to sell. And so I think having core skills that are functional set in sales and being very comfortable with that, has been helpful. And then roughly, I mean, I would circle back to the self-awareness piece. I'm certainly very, very flawed. But I think over the years, being in a variety of leadership situations and having to scale through both successful and failed experiences, I have the benefit of a lot of feedback. And I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at. While I work at what I'm not good at, I try to play to my strengths and find a place where they can be accelerants, to a business or a team, and where they're not, I don't, I guess, pretend to believe that I'm going to become perfect. But I think I'm pretty clear on the areas I need to surround myself with to actually have a fully embodied and diverse team that's capable of getting it done. And so I think years and years, instead of repeated feedback on the same issues has yielded a lot of self-awareness. I think at this stage that what am I good at, and where is it that I need to bring in a strong and talented team to really create, and as I said, some things a team together can win. Larry: Well I like that. Let me throw a little curve ball at you. Now, with all that stuff that you're doing, you've mentioned everything from high-energy and intensity, how to sell, being self-aware, and everything else, how do you bring balance into your personal and professional lives? Sukhinder: Well, first of all, I guess let me start by saying I'm not a believer in balance in the typical way that people talk about it, which is just this ... I have this thesis that people imagine this perfect day, right, where you wake up at six, and you work out for an hour, and then you play with your kids. And then you have a great breakfast filled with protein and carbs, and you work perfectly from nine to six, and you come home and you feed your children and you have wonderful family time, and then you do two hours of email, and you get ... early, this is thesis of what balance looks like and I just don't believe it. I don't believe it, at least for me. I think balance has to be measured in cycles that are far longer than a day, often months and years. Because I think that to do anything well requires a certain amount of energy and focus. To be a great parent requires energy and focus and intensity. To be a great manager requires it, to be great manager requires it. To be a great entrepreneur. To be great at sports. And so, when you think about trying to do things well simultaneously, I'm a believer that kind of the best it gets is that there are going to be periods of your life which are all about work. There are going to be periods which may be all about family. And I measure balance in my life by cycles, there are cycles of time, often measured in months or years, where I know I'm going to have to give a lot of focus or priority to something. And then the best you can do in that situation, is really trying to manage very clearly expectations, which I think of as the multiple shareholders in your life, right. Your husband expects something from you. Your children expect something from you. Your team expects something from you. Inside constituencies. Boards you serve on expect something from you. And the most you can do is actually manage expectations very clearly, like hey, I'm going into a period that's going to require a lot of travel. What are we going to do about it. In the case of managing expectations, what I would say instead of negotiating with your family. There would be other times that you negotiate with work. And you say I'm about to have my third child. I'm going out on maternity leave, but I know we're trying to close a big deal. How are we going to get it done. And so, I guess I don't believe in balance, as by the standard definition. I believe instead, of cycles in your life. And managing expectations with an increasing number of constituencies as your life goes on. And hoping that when you look back on your life, as measured in months or years, maybe it was equally divided between all the things that are important to you, or at least divided between the one or two things that are important to you, in a way that you feel good about. But it's measured in a much longer cycle. And in between, you manage expectations, and you learn to live with a lot of guilt. Lee: Well, thank you for that honest answer. Suhkinder, it's clear you've achieved a lot. And we have thoroughly enjoyed hearing your answers to our questions, and last but not least, we're curious what's next for you. Sukhinder: It's a good question. I don't know. I mean, I think in the spirit of what we chatted about, which is, you want to play to your trademark strengths. For me, it's about working with great teams at high intensity and high RPMs, and feeling honestly that I could move to a place where I could make my maximum impact, and that's about finding a place where my skills are a great fit. And I think it could be pure entrepreneurship, and founding something, or it could be operating at significant scale and complexity. But where the trajectory for a company is high, and navigating it with a smart group of people is important. Both to them and to me. Lee: Well, we wish you great success in your next. Larry: Yes, and we're going to follow up on you too. Lee: So thank you so much for spending this time with us. Larry: You listeners out there, pass this interview along to others that you know would be interested, you can listen to it at w3.w3.com and ncwit.org 24/7, look at our blog, it will be in our podcast directory too. Lee: Thank you so much. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Sukhinder Singh CassidyInterview Summary: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy has worked at companies large and small in their early stages, including Google, News Corp., Amazon, Polyvore, and Yodlee. But before she got into the tech industry, she did the taxes for her father, a doctor. In this interview she gives some great advice about the energy and intensity she thinks are vital to being a successful entrepreneur, as well as the importance of knowing how to sell, and how to be self-aware. Release Date: January 30, 2011Interview Subject: Sukhinder Singh CassidyInterviewer(s): Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 22:10

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Diane Greene Founder, VMware Date: January 31, 2011 Interview with Diane Greene [introduction music] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders the CEO of the National Center for Women in Information Technology or NCWIT. With me is Leigh Kennedy, one of our fine board members as well as a serial entrepreneur herself. Hi Leigh. Leigh Kennedy: Hi Lucy, thanks for having me today. Lucy: Also Larry Nelson from W3W3. Hi Larry. Larry Nelson. I'm so happy to be here. This is a wonderful series and what we really like about it, it really helps other people. Lucy: Absolutely, we have great interviews in this series with wonderful entrepreneurs. We are now over 50 interviews in our series and I felt very excited about that. Leigh: Wow. Lucy: Today we are interviewing a person who I consider to be one of the top entrepreneurs I know, co-founder and founding CEO of VMWare, Diane Greene. VMWare is one of those companies I know many of our listeners have heard about because it introduced something really, really innovative, which was a virtualization layer between hardware and software that allows different operating systems to run on the same machine. That was pretty cool and that was one of VMWare's really innovative leads into the market, truly revolutionary. When the company went public in 2007, it was Silicon Valley's biggest IPO since Google, no small accomplishment. So we can't wait to talk to Diane. She left VMWare in 2008, but she continues to invest in companies and to advise entrepreneurs and she serves on very impressive boards, such as Intuit, MIT Corporation and more. Diane, welcome. Diane Greene: Well, thanks very much. It's always good to participate in the entrepreneurial community in any way I can. Lucy: So let's get right to the questions, Diane. We're really interested in understanding how you first got into technology. As you look at the technologies out there today, which ones do you think are especially cool? Diane: Well I've always had an orientation around science and engineering. In high school I built a model bridge with movable trusses and instrumented one of them with a strange gauge. That really launched me into what I found out was called engineering. I was also really active racing sailboats, which meant maintaining them and tuning them which was a lot of technology to keep the boat going fast in addition to racing it. So I would say I started doing things in technology in high school. Nothing like what the kids are doing today with their computers, but certainly technology. In terms of what is out there today that's really exciting, like everybody else, it's mobile connectivity, the social networking, the sensors, particularly around imaging. All these things contributing to our ability to have a digitally enhanced world is tremendously exciting. Larry: Boy, I'll say. I have a feeling that if I was going to try to recruit a relationship with you that if my company started with the letter V, like in Vermont, I would get a little bit further. Lucy: [laughs] Leigh: I didn't understand it, either. Lucy: I didn't understand it, either, that's OK. Diane: It's possible, because I'm puzzled about what you're talking about. Larry: I was just looking at VMWare, VXtreme. Diane: Oh, V, I thought you said Z. That's right, VMWare, VXtreme, completely coincidental. VMware, we were looking for a name and at the time, during the dot com bubble, every URL was taken. So we said "Let's do a placeholder." I thought "Let's just do something really descriptive as a placeholder, virtual machine software, call it VMware." So the name stuck. Lucy: Well, that's an interesting story. Larry: Yeah. Leigh: Yeah it is. Lucy: Diane, I'm going to jump into the next question. Diane: Our PR person didn't want to talk to us because they thought "What a boring name." [Leigh and Larry laugh] Leigh: I think it's a good name. Larry: Yeah, I like it. Lucy: So Diane, I'll jump in to the next question. We're always curious how people that are really into technology and science and they make the leap to be an entrepreneur, which is not always second nature to a lot of technologists. So tell us about how that happened and what it is about entrepreneurship that you love. Diane: Well I've always also been an organizer. I always have started new things. Very early on when I was actually still in high school back in 1971 I got into windsurfing. I was the only windsurfer on the East coast. I started an ice hockey team in college. So I've always, in addition to having an affinity for technology I also like to organize. I like to do things with other people. I think I'm not particularly good at working for other people if our visions aren't aligned. That kind of pushes me towards leading people and being in charge. I think it's a desire to do new things, organize new things and make new things happen. The technology background is just helpful and is why my entrepreneurship is around technology, I guess. Larry: You've done so many different things. I know you're going to have a great career ahead of you, it's just the beginning. In your career path, who was either a mentor or someone who was a role model that really influenced your future? Diane: Well I have to say my family had an enormous influence on me for better or for worse. Then I had an absolutely amazing band teacher in high school that set up a system for measuring how we were doing which made it extremely clear how to get ahead and how to become first chair and then had us all working together amazingly well as a band and as an orchestra to where our little motley crew would go on and win state championships. I had her as my band and orchestra teacher for three years, and I think she had an enormous influence on me. She could have managed a huge [laughs] corporation. She had all those fundamental principles and skills down. Then as I've gone through my career in Silicon Valley in the tech industry, I would have to say I had a mentor at Tandem Computers named Franco Putzolo, who really taught me how to take a measured approach to whatever it was I was doing and helped develop my ability to try and really take the time to always do things well. Lucy: Well, you know when we started the interview we said we get a lot of interesting answers to these questions, and that's the first time we've heard a band teacher. Diane: [laughter] I've only said this one other time, when I was being interviewed at VMware, and the absolutely amazing thing is I got emails from someone else that had been in her band and orchestra and said, "Yes, she was my mentor, too." Lucy: Well, I think that's fascinating and perfectly understandable when you think about a lot of great technologists are great musicians... Leigh: Exactly, yup. Lucy: ...and I can see where a band and orchestra, lots of life skills there. So fascinating answer. Diane, what is the toughest thing you've ever had to do in your career? Diane: Working for other people that I wasn't able to convince them of my vision. Lucy: That's hard. Diane: That really was [laughs] the most difficult thing. Leigh: Yeah, that's always tough, and I think one of the reasons a lot of entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs is they don't like working for other people, so... [laughs] [laughter] Leigh: ...that makes perfect sense. [laughs] Diane: We can have the same vision, but that's not the norm. I mean normally it's the leader that sets the vision and doesn't necessarily take the vision of...it's also formative because when you are the leader you're very sensitive to the fact that you need to [laughs] incorporate everybody else's vision or they're going to feel frustrated. Also, it's good for the company because you don't always have the right vision yourself. At least I don't. But yeah. I do think it drives a lot of entrepreneurship, is this need to work on a vision that you're really passionate about. So you're left with no [laughs] choice but to do it yourself. Leigh: Well, that brings us to our next question. We have a lot of young people and people wanting to become entrepreneurs that listen to our interviews. So if you were sitting here with a young person looking to become an entrepreneur, what advice would you give to them? Diane: If they have a vision of something, there are infinite ways to improve the world. If you really see something that really excites you, then set about doing it and do it right. Don't cut any corners. Go about it with absolute quality in every way you approach it and think it through and execute on it. Larry: Well, I'm tying right in with that. What are your personal characteristics, do you think, that have given you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Diane: I don't start something unless I can really see for myself how it can be done, how it's possible. Then once I see that, I don't think of failure as an option. There's always a way to make it successful, and I'm pretty relentless about that. I think also I really love and get energized from working with other people [laughs] when they're smarter than me, and that's not always hard. So I think those two things, that relentless "There is a way," and then just enjoying finding that way with other people really has helped me have a lot of successes as an entrepreneur. Lucy: Relentless is a word we hear a lot. Leigh: And failure not being an option. Lucy: And failure not being an option. I think that those are great personal characteristics to have. Diane, we ask one other question around how entrepreneurs...it's not so much bringing balance into your personal and professional lives, but how do you integrate them? Diane: Well, I see it as my life. I do what I care about and what I want to do, and so part of that is my family and raising my family, and part of that is going on outdoor adventures, which I don't do nearly as much as I would like to. Building things I think has been a large part of...it's of course been building companies in the tech industry. But there are fundamental principles about how I go about things that are utterly consistent across everything I do, so that integrates them pretty naturally. Leigh: Diane, you've done some just really, really interesting things that were like leading edge in many areas--sports, technology. Tell us about what you're passionate about now or what's next for you? Diane: I'm really not sure what's next. I'm working on it, and I definitely want a big project in my life. Leigh: Well, that's a great answer, too. [laughs] We don't always know, and it's good to know that you're in that spot. Lucy: Well, when you're in that spot, you can pay attention and actually look for the next big project. Larry: There you go. Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Diane, thanks very much for talking to us. We really appreciate it. I wanted to remind listeners where they can hear this interview, at W3W3.com and also NCWIT.org. Diane: Yeah, and let me just send a word of encouragement to people. I think when you want to do something, you can always do it and make a success of it. Good luck. Larry: Well, thank you for that. Lucy: Thank you, Diane. Leigh: Thanks, Diane. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Diane GreeneInterview Summary: VMware introduced a totally innovative idea: a virtualization layer between hardware and software that allowed different operating systems to run on the same machine. When the company went public in 2007, it was Silicon Valley's biggest IPO since Google. Says founder Diane Greene, "When you need to work on a passion and vision you are sometimes left with no option but to do it yourself. If you see something that really excites you, then set about doing it and doing it right." Release Date: January 31, 2011Interview Subject: Dianne GreeneInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 12:35

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Saman Dias Co-founder, AIM Computer Training Date: October 28, 2010 Larry Nelson: This is Larry Nelson with NCWIT, the National Center for Women & Information Technology. And, we are very excited about this series of interviews. We're talking with fabulous female entrepreneurs and women who have started IT companies in a variety of sectors all of whom have had fabulous stories to tell us about being an entrepreneur. With me today is Lee Kennedy who is also a serial entrepreneur and founder of Bolder Search. Welcome. Lee Kennedy: Thanks, Larry, it's great to be here. Larry: Yes, this is really excellent. I am excited. My wife and I have started 12 companies over the years. Lee: Only 12. Larry: Only 12, and we really have enjoyed these various interviews. And, today we're interviewing Saman Dias who's an award winning entrepreneur who recognized the value of enterprise scale business technical training when she founded AIM Computer Training. Now, that's the global company which was acquired in 2004. And, Saman went on to lead other successful entrepreneurial efforts in real estate and social networking. She is currently staying quite busy as, among other things, an advisor to entrepreneurs, I can't wait to hear about that, at different companies including ASEAN Incubator. We're really happy to have you here today, Saman. Saman Dias: Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. That was a fabulous introduction, thank you. I'm delighted to be here. Larry: You've got a great reputation. So, let's get into the questions. Saman, could you tell us how did you first get into technology, and as part of a carry on to that is what technologies today do you think are cool? Saman: Yes. It's kind of an interesting way that I got into technology. I'm sure this happens to many folks. But, I originally studied to becoming a doctor and I was studying for the medical college entrance exam. I'm not sure if that's familiar to the U.S. entrepreneurs, but I'm originally from Sri Lanka and that's normally the process before you get accepted to the medical school. And, I had a hard time passing my entrance exam. And, I was getting frustrated and I found that my sisters would be going to college and I would be, too, studying for the medical college exam. And, my uncle said how about computers? And, I had no idea what it meant. This was in the early 1980's. And, I said, "Sign me up." And, that's how I got into technology. Lee: That is so interesting. Well, the follow along question is that's how you got into technology, why is it that you're an entrepreneur and what is it about being an entrepreneur that you find so exciting and makes you tick? Saman: Yes, why are you an entrepreneur? I feel that you can create your own destiny. It gives you the independence. It gives you the opportunity to create wealth and be your own boss. And so, I love that. Larry: Those ideas, I think, would turn a lot of people on. Saman: And, what about entrepreneurship makes you tick I think is the follow on question you asked? Today, looking back, it makes you tick I feel like you can really make a difference. You feel like you contribute and make a difference, not only for yourself, but also to the community, to the company. And from there, taking that, you make a difference to the world because you are helping to create work, you are helping to create jobs, you're helping to create a new innovation. So, that really is huge as far as feeling that you are making a difference in a meaningful way. Lee: So true. Larry: Absolutely. Along the way you've done a number of different things. Who are some of the people who influenced or supported you, in fact, maybe a role model or mentor? Saman: You know, originally it was my father. He gave the freedom to the limit and I think he paved the path to help me to, example, come to a place like the United States and to achieve what I have achieved today. But, I was not really fortunate to have a mentor. And, that's part of the reason that I am today helping many other young women entrepreneurs to get there. I learn really on my own. But, perhaps, following other success stories such as Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar, Meg Whitman, [indecipherable 05:12] , some of those stories were inspiring to me, but constantly following other successful entrepreneurs and learning from all of those people has helped me. Lee: That's wonderful. Well, you know, we all know and have heard the story being an entrepreneur is not exactly easy. So, if you think back about your career, what was the toughest thing you had to do? Saman: I think the toughest thing getting started was taking that risk. Taking the risk of perhaps leaving a full time job that you had your comfort zone and walking away from something and then starting a business with no revenue and living off of your credit card to get you off the ground and build your revenue. And then, along the way, doing the business and running the business, one of the toughest things I had to do was sometimes walking away from a client who's either giving revenue to you or wanted to give revenue and that you felt it wasn't thing for the company. That was difficult. Lee: Yeah, I can definitely see that. And, yeah, the first point you made about the risk of leaving a secure job or employment, I think that is one of the toughest things. You've got a great job and to be an entrepreneur, like you say, you're leaving all that behind and with no money coming in and putting stuff on your credit card. Saman: Yep. And, I think many entrepreneurs can relate to that because there's a huge risk factor. And, entrepreneurs are you have to be risk takers, not just when you first started the company, but as you grow the business, every step of the way there's a risk element that you take. That is the hardest thing is take that risk and make that decision to move to the next step. Lee: Exactly. Larry: Well, with your background and experience, and if you were sitting down right now at the table or over your desk and there's a person who's talking about entrepreneurship and looking into it, what advice would you give them? Saman: I would give them follow your passion. Follow your heart. If you have a passion or an idea for any business, take that and follow your passion. But, do know and understand that when you become an entrepreneur, there is putting in hard work. And, you can continue to keep working hard and making your business successful if your passion is about what you're doing. Then, it doesn't become a chore. It doesn't become oh, I don't want to get up in the morning and go to work. You will do everything that you can possibly do to achieve that dream if you're excited about it. Lee: It's so true because if you're excited about what you're doing, it makes all the difference. Saman: Yes. And, entrepreneurship is hard. Starting a business is hard. Keeping it together is hard. There are a lot of obstacles that you have to go through, but then at the end you have tremendous reward. And, you're not going to see that reward right away. And, once you make that decision, there's no way of going back. You want to keep going forward, and you can do that if you have something that you're very excited about. Lee: I agree. Now, earlier we were talking about being an entrepreneur, there's a lot of risk involved, and other characteristics. What would you say are the personal characteristics that you have that have given you advantages as an entrepreneur? Saman: Yeah. For me personally, I'm really creative. Some of my staff used to say that Saman always sees windows and not walls. In other words, I will always find a way to get from A to Z than giving up. And, I think that has tremendously helped me to succeed that you are creative and I don't take a no for an answer. And, I'll always figure out a way to get it down or a way to make it happen or a way to hire somebody or a way to get through to a customer. So, I have been able to take advantage of that particular character that I have. Larry: Well, let me ask this question. You've done a lot, you're doing a lot and you're working with other people helping them along the way. How do you bring balance into your personal and professional lives? Saman: I bring balance by not only working and running a business, but really getting involved with activities. I love different types of competitive sports. Specifically, I play tennis and I compete. I play for the USDA tennis team. And, I'm always constantly learning a new sport. Recently, I started learning how to do stand up paddle boarding and I can barely swim. So, I'm learning how to swim and doing paddle boarding in the ocean in Hawaii. So, I constantly look for outside activities that involve either a competitive sport, as well as I do a lot of work related to giving back and helping others. And so, that also brings a balance because it allows you to give back your knowledge and share your knowledge, as well as learn from others. Lee: That's wonderful. And Saman, it's clear you've given back, you've achieved so much in your career so far. What do you think is next for you down the road? Saman: Right now that's really a good question. Next for me down the road I see myself being involved in advising start up entrepreneurs and helping them to grow their business and be really involved in that process. I've never had that opportunity. So, I'd really enjoy being able to share my knowledge either in a advisory capacity or as a board member and keeping my eyes and ears open for something creative, another business, a business idea that may come along, or perhaps to lead another company as an executive down the line. Larry: I have a feeling you're going to do a marvelous job with a bunch of companies. Saman: Yes, I love that. I love that. Larry: Well, I'm going to thank you, Saman, for joining us today. Lee Kennedy and I have enjoyed this. We always like talking to the successful entrepreneurs. Lee: Thank you so much, Saman. Saman: Thank you so much Larry: And by the way, you listeners out there, you know you can go to ncwit.org or w3w3.com and listen to this interview and other NCWIT interviews 24/7 it's on a podcast. And, pass this interview along to others that you know would be interested. Saman: I will definitely do that. Thank you so much. Lee: Thank you. Saman: Goodbye. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Saman DiasInterview Summary: Saman Dias is a person who "sees windows, not walls." She thinks her success as an entrepreneur has been due in part to an unwillingness to take no for an answer, and her ability to always find a way to get from A to Z. Release Date: October 28, 2010Interview Subject: Saman DiasInterviewer(s): Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 12:37

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Dr. Marcie Black Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Bandgap Engineering Date: August 23, 2010 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes [intro music] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and with me is Larry Nelson, w3w3.com Internet radio. Larry Nelson: Yes. Lucy: And we are very happy to be doing one in a series of interviews with women who have started IT companies and we love this series because there is so much wisdom with these entrepreneurs that everybody can benefit from. Larry: Yes, it's very exciting and we get a tremendous amount of business leaders, parents, all with different ages of people who tuned in and listen to this and we are very happy because we know that we need a lot of encouragement in this area. Lucy: Absolutely and very excited about today's interview. We are interviewing an entrepreneur who is helping the world solve our energy problems. We all know energy is a very important topic, very hot topic and the person we are interviewing today is a very impressive one. She has very impressive technical credentials with a PhD from MIT and also post doctoral work at Los Alamos laboratory. So, very, very well credentialed to take on the energy problems of the world. So, just to get right to it. We are interviewing Marcie Black who is the CTO and co-founder of Bandgap Engineering. And we are going to let her tell us a little bit about what the company does but in brief, they pioneered the development of highly tunable and inexpensive methods for nano structuring silicone and they are applying that technology to high efficiency solar cells. So, Marcie, first of all welcome and why don't you tell our listeners what this technology is all about. Marcie Black: Lucy and Larry, thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to be here. So, Bandgap Engineering is reducing the cost of solar electricity and the reason why we are doing that is there are a lot of trade-offs in producing electricity and by moving to renewable energy source, we can lessen some of those trade-offs. And solar is the only renewable energy source that has the potential of being or dominant energy supply. So, there's a couple of ways to reduce the price of solar electricity so that it is cost competitive with conventional sources. One of the ways is by reducing the cost of processing the semi conductors. But another way is increasing the efficiency of the solar cell and by increasing efficiency means that you can get more power over the same area of the solar cell. So, what Bandgap Engineering is doing is increasing the efficiency of the solar cell while keeping the cost per area constant. And that effectively will bring down the cost of electricity from solar energy making it cost competitive with other conventional energy sources. And as you mentioned the way that we are increasing the efficiency is by nano engineering silicone so that it's a better converter of energy from optical energy to electrical energy. Lucy: Wow. Larry: Yeah. Lucy: Now, see, I just write softwares. I'm pretty impressed. Larry: No small thing. Lucy: It is very important and it is a young company, isn't it Marcie? Marcie: Yeah, we are about three years old. Lucy: Awesome. So, how did you first get into technology? You obviously love technology and I think our listeners would be very curious to know how you first became interested in it and besides, the nano technology which you are using today, other technology that you see are especially important. Marcie: Yeah like many engineers. I've emerged from very early on. So, I remember when I was very young, my father who was also an engineer would take me to the basement and we'll build electronic circuits and radios and do all kind of cool, crazy stuff in the basement. But when I got older, I didn't explore. At AT&T Bell Labs and what that was I call that branch of boy scouts and we were able to go into AT&T and basically, play with other toys. So, play with their softwares, computers and play with some of their electronic stuff. And that I really developed a love for understanding how things work and using that knowledge to build something from it. I say that's my first exposure to technology. And as far as what technologies I think are cool, for me what's cool is the applications. So I get very excited when a technology comes out that has the chance of really improving the world. And I think that right now we're at a very critical point in history where there's a lot of technologies that are coming out that will help us live in balance with the world around us. And I find that very exciting. So it's not just renewable energy. But for example, I read about some technologies that can take salt water and turn it into fresh drinking water without using very much electricity to do it. And I find that very exciting. Also a lot of the work with the Smart Grid I find very interesting. So right now it costs a lot more money to produce electricity when all of your neighbors are using electricity, but it doesn't cost very much to produce it in the middle of the night when no one's using it. So a lot of the technologies out there are to help levelize that load, which is good for conventional energy sources but is also good for renewables as well. And there's also a lot of battery technology out there that I find very interesting and has the potential of being storage for the national grid. So I like looking at how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and seeing how this critical time in history is going to unfold to the point that we are burning less coal and living more in harmony with our surroundings. So I find that very exciting. Lucy: Well and we do too. We just interviewed the CTO of WiTricity, wireless electricity. And that was just fascinating. That whole area is so interesting. Larry: It sure is. Now Marcie, here you are a "nerd." You've been with some magnificent companies, from Lucent and AT&T and all, and certainly a crossover with Lucy's background also. But why are you an entrepreneur and what is it about you that makes this entrepreneur tick? Marcie: I never woke up and said, "I think I want to be an entrepreneur." For me it was more about how to best get technology into the marketplace. And so I worked in government labs, and academia, and big industry. And they all have a piece in the puzzle. But I think if you are really driven by taking an idea, and making a product out of it, and getting it into the consumers' hands, I think the fastest way to do that is in a small company. And so for me that's part of what makes me interested in being an entrepreneur. I also really enjoy in a small company the team atmosphere. And how everyone is working together to make the company move foreword and helping each other just to make it work. I find that very motivating in doing a small company. Lucy: Well we almost have to work together. Larry: Yes, you bet... Marcie: Right, right. Otherwise the company won't succeed. Lucy: Absolutely. It is true. We were just reading... I forget where it was that a lot of the smaller companies now are where real innovation is going on. The adaptation of ideas and so forth, that's where a lot of the job creation is right now as well. So it is an interesting time in start-ups. So along the way you mentioned that you had had this time with Lucent and time with Bell Labs where you could be in the labs and tinker with things. And that your father encouraged you from an early age. Who else has encouraged you in this path? Being a technologist, of taking risks, and being an entrepreneur? Marcie: That's a good question. I felt very fortunate to have had so many people really help me throughout my career at different times. So when I was young I mentioned my father introduced me to the love of science and engineering. And later on a lot of my professors really taught me how to think critically and understand technological problems. And into my Ph.D. my advisor was Professor Millie Dresselhaus, and she taught me. She's a very hard worker. She works all the time. And that taught me the value of a strong work ethic. And throughout my career there have been other people. Like now there are quite a few people including my board members and other mentors that help me on how to learn the new set of skills that you need to know when you're starting a business. So I can't really pin down one person. There's been a whole bunch of people that have been very nice to help me out throughout they years. Larry: You've done lots of very interesting things, and I would like to ask the question: What is the toughest thing that you've had to do during your career? Lucy: [laughs] There's been a lot of things that have been tough throughout my career, but I have to say the most difficult is probably starting Bandgap, because there are so many aspects that have to come together in order to make a company successful. So, when you're doing research, you have to get the technology right, and the engineering right. But, in a small company, you also have to get the IP right, and the culture right, and set up a good infrastructure in the company. There are million different things to think about, that all have to come into play in order for the company to be successful. So I find that both challenging and rewarding at the same time, but it's definitely the most challenging part of my career so far. Lucy: I have a follow up question to that. We don't really interview many cheap technology officers; we will interview founders or CEOs. So, our listeners may want to know, what is the role of a CTO in a startup company? How would you describe what you do in Bandgap? Marcie: I think it's funny because I've been talking to a lot of my other CTO founder friends, and what we've decided is that the title really doesn't mean much. It basically means you do what needs to be done to make the company successful. So, different people end up doing very different jobs with the same title. So, some people are in the labs, working side-by-side with their people, and other people are filing patents and writing grants. And other people are doing all of the above. So, I think it depends on the company and what the company needs, as well as what the CTO founder wants to do. Larry: Good point. Lucy: Great answer. I think that the role of CTO is pretty broad in a lot of companies. And I think it's really good advice hidden in what you just said: don't get hung up on the title. When you're in a startup company, everybody's there to row the boat and it doesn't really matter what they're doing, as long as the boat's moving forward. If you were talking to a young person about being an entrepreneur, what other advice would you give them? Marcie: I wouldn't advise people specifically to be an entrepreneur, even though I love it. What I'd advise them to do is, really figure out what drives them. And I think, don't take this the wrong way, but if what drives them is making money or having proceeds, it's probably not the best route for them. [laughter] But, if what drives them is, for example, bringing technology to the market and trying to make the world a better place through their technology, then I would advise them to become entrepreneurs. Once they decide to become an entrepreneur, my biggest advice is to follow your passion and do what you enjoy and what you really believe in. Because if you believe in something and you work hard at it, you're much more likely to be successful. Lucy: So, let me rephrase the question just a little bit, then, and ask you: how would you interest a young person in pursuing technology today? What would you say to them that might hook them to get that interest? Marcie: Well I did technology simply because it was fun. Lucy: Yeah. [laughter] Marcie: But then, as you know, I worked on it more, I got good at it and then it made sense for me that I stay in technology. So, I guess I would probably invite them to a lab and play in lab with them, so they could see how much fun it was. Lucy: It is a great deal of fun. I'll come! [laughter] Larry: There you go. I'm there. Lucy: I'm there. Larry: What are some of the characteristics that have given you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Marcie: That's a good one. I've noticed that all the successful entrepreneurs I know are very optimistic, and I am definitely optimistic, as well. But you can't be blindly optimistic; you have to be what I call "realistic optimist". You can't have your blinders on, but you do have to be able to see a way that the company can be successful, and arrange it so all the parts fall into place, so that task remains clear and you can move forward down that path. So I say optimism. Also persistence and work ethic are also very important and seem to be consistent among the successful entrepreneurs that I've met. Larry: Marcie, thank you very much for that. I agree 100 percent. Marcie: Are you optimistic and working hard? Larry: You got it. Lucy: Larry's an entrepreneur too. Many times over, we're both insane about entrepreneurship. So, we totally get it. Larry: Well, I only heard the word insane, but that's OK. Lucy: That's OK too. So it is hard work to be an entrepreneur and you do need to have passion and you need to be motivated, I think, truly by bringing innovation out into the world. And yet entrepreneurs do have personal lives and struggle sometimes to bring balance between the professional and the personal lives. What do you do to attend to this issue? Marcie: It's a tough one. I think what allows me to be able to do both, is that I really enjoy both my jobs. When I say both my jobs, my other job is I'm a mom. I have two wonderful children. And so I go to work and I love my job. And then I come home and I'm with my kids and I really love being their mom as well. And so, that makes it a lot easier and allows me to work many more hours because it reenergizes me. Lucy: That's exactly right, I feel. I mean I honestly think that where I saw young parents who were struggling a lot between, with this balance issue, it was when work had become tedious. Larry: Right. Lucy: And they had to give up a lot. They had to give up being with their children for a job that they didn't find fulfilling. And so this notion that you need to be in love with both of them, I think is very sage wisdom. Larry: Yes. We love all five of our children too. Marcie: Yeah. And I guess I feel fortunate that I've managed to get a job that I really love. Larry: That's great. Lucy: I somehow think that you're always going to have jobs you really love. Larry: I think so too. Lucy: I think so too. Larry: Now, you've already achieved a great deal. And I realize your company today is only three years old. But what's next for you? Marcie: I won't be happy with what I've achieved until our cells have replaced the coal plant. So, I guess the first answer to that is to build Bandgap up to the point that we're producing a significant amount of solar energy that is making an impact on our electricity production. And it's not just building a big company. I want to build a company that obviously makes money and impacts the world. But also, at the same time, I'm hoping to build a culture where people can grow professionally at the company. Where they can come and contribute, but also improve themselves as well. So when I do that, then I'll feel like I've had a successful career. And then probably the next thing that I would accomplish is traveling all over the world. Larry: Ah-ha. Lucy: Ah. Where do you want to go? Marcie: Oh. I would love to go to Africa. And like Egypt and yeah, many places actually. I very much enjoy the music of Africa and would love to go visit it. Lucy: Wow. I've never been there. Plus I know you're in Boulder, Colorado. We have a coal plant that you could replace. Larry: Yes. That's right. Lucy: And we could turn it into a shopping mall. Marcie: That would be great. Lucy: It's rather unsightly. Larry: It's not Africa here but it is Boulder, so maybe we could get you here. Lucy: We'll introduce you and maybe you could talk them out of their coal plant. That would be awesome. Larry: Yeah. Lucy: Thank you so much for talking to us Marcie. And you have a great company with a great mission and a great background. And we didn't even get into your background around your authorship and journals and patents. You're truly a technical expert in this area and I know your company's going to succeed. So, thank you so much for talking to us. Marcie: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Larry: Yes. And we're going to follow up on you, so be careful. Lucy: Oh, and you have to remind people where they're going to find this. Larry: Oh yes. You can also listen to this interview 24/7 at w3w3 dot com and the NCWIT channel. And you can download it as a podcast. We'll make sure we have it on the blog. And Marcy, thank you so much. Lucy: Thanks Marcie. Marcie: Thank you. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Marcie BlackInterview Summary: The mission statement on Bandgap Engineering's website says nearly everything you might want to know about what drives its co-founder and CTO, Marcie Black: "Our motivations are many and varied. We want to mitigate the impact of humans on climate change and ease the global political tensions caused by competition for scarce fossil fuels. As parents we are inspired to leave the world a better place for our children and their children. As entrepreneurs we love the thrill of a startup and think our technology represents a very, very good business opportunity. As scientists and engineers we are motivated to tackle difficult and very meaningful technical challenges." Release Date: August 23, 2010Interview Subject: Marcie BlackInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 18:04

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Krista Marks General Manager, Disney Online Kerpoof Studios Date: August 2, 2010 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes Lucy Sanders: Hi this is Lucy Sanders. I am the CEO of NCWIT or the National Center for Women and Information Technology. And this is one in a series of interviews that we're doing with great entrepreneurs, women who have started IT companies. And they all have great stories to tell, especially in the areas of entrepreneurship and the technology of the future. And with me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi, I am happy to be here. Lucy: What's going on with w3w3? Larry: Well we're doing all kinds of very neat things; we interview all kinds of neat people. But we really enjoy the NCWIT interviews because I'm having four daughters, and this idea of information technology in helping support women, it's just fantastic. Lucy: Well today is a real treat for us because today we're interviewing one of my absolute favorite people and entrepreneurs, Krista Marks. And she's a real blend of technical accomplishments, and social passion, and entrepreneurial spirit. You cannot spend more than five seconds with Krista without getting all kinds of really great information, and energy, and passion. And I had the privilege of interviewing her recently at Entrepreneurs Unplugged Session, and it was just a real treat. Everybody loved it. And I know our listeners are going to love the interview today. She's the co-founder of Kerpoof Studios, but before that in working in many technical areas with great technical credentials, patent-holder, et cetera. And when she started Kerpoof it was around a passion of children and innovation, and a great place to be on the Internet for learning. And apparently Disney thought that as well, and acquired Kerpoof in 2008. And Krista is now the general manager of Disney Online. And like I said at the Entrepreneurial Unplugged event she gets that little Mickey Mouse on her card, which I'm entirely jealous about. So welcome Krista. We're very excited to interview you. Krista Marks: Thank you. Thank you. It's good to be here. Lucy: Why don't you tell us a little bit of about what's going on at Disney first before we launch into the interview. Krista: Well one of the most exciting things that's going on, everything on the Create portal is done in bolder. And if you go to disney.com there's a game portal like a video portal, but there's now a Create portal. And that was the vision when Disney acquired us, that we would take an extended technology we've done around Kerpoof and really combine it with their IT, and build kind of an area on that dedicated to creativity. And we've done that. But we have a very big event that's going on now that I'm super excited and proud about which is a digital mosaic. Lucy: Oh wow. Krista: It's a large scale mosaic. There are images of Mickey. We provide the tools for kids to create drawings online. Those drawings are submitted and once moderated there incorporated into a Mosaic of Mickey that takes thousands and thousands pieces of art. In fact, we are rolling out different images of Mickey and each one is populated as a Mosaic. The whole portal is very exciting but for me this is sort of the combination of what is exciting about the web. Is this idea, the technology the technology for those not interesting to me but technology combined with the kind of things you can do in terms of being kids into this story? Be part of the story to participate and that kind of interaction is just super exciting. And to do something on that scale so its not just, "hey kids come in and draw, hey kids come in and draw and be part of something larger. Is part of a large Mosaic dedicated to Mickey?" In addition, it has been hugely successful I think were over 300,000 pieces of art created today. Lucy: Wow that is awesome. I am going to check that out four sure. In addition, its just so fascinating to you knows Krista is a real pioneer in the area of innovation for kids on line and it is very inspiring. Therefore, I am glad a company that is big as Disney is getting into that, that whole area. Krista: Serious, honestly is not it I thought it was very exciting. The reality is to have a company with number one family media company in the world really embrace bringing the kids into this story. Not just saying here is our art and here is art beautiful this is what they do well. Right, they create content saying, "you know what kids we want you to create content too, we want you to be part of that." I think its extraordinary exciting and I am really proud to be part of it. Lucy: Absolutely, one of the things that we always like to ask people and you rather go back in time a little bit. And think through here you are at Disney today but you were not always at Disney. You were interested in technology for some reason so why don't you tell us how you first got interested in technology. And as you look at the technical landscape today what technology do you think are especially important? Krista: My road is not, some ways its super smooth because I went, I graduated high school and I went to college and I studied electrical engineering. I would say it was unsmooth and it is why NCWIT is so important and that when I went to college I did not know about technology or pursuing a career in technology. Which for me it ended up being electrical engineering but obviously the number of careers one can choose in technology. For me what happened in high school is that I really gravitated in mathematics and science, problem solving. This is the areas that I like, unfortunately when I got to orientation for college I sat next to a student and I said what your major is. In addition, they said they were an electrical engineer and I said I do not know what that is, what is that? And they said oh well, I do not what that is either. But I know that if you really like math and physics, that it's really the best major to have and I said oh my gosh. Those are my two favorite things. So I really fell into it. And so I think, why NCWIT is so critical in the kinds of things they're doing, that you are doing which is so important, is that I would like no young person to start college not knowing what computer science, engineering, electrical engineering, all of the areas that on can pursue in technology, bio engineering. You know, the list goes on and on. But to be really aware of those opportunities, it may not be for everyone. But at least to be aware of them and so mindfully know what you're choosing from, when you choose a career. So anyway, again, I think I got lucky which I don't think is a good thing. But the good news is I did end up there and love technology and in fact really wanted, from that point on, to be part of designing technology. And spent a number of years, my first eleven years, designing custom electronics for high energy physics experiments. Got to work around the world, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that really solidified my love of technology. Again, I was just working on really state of the art technology and systems. Great experience, great first experience. Worked with some real giants in that field and had amazing mentors. So that's kind of how I landed in technology. In terms of technology that I think is very interesting right now. I first would say, look at the I-pad, for a number of reasons. But for me, particularly, and again I'm interested in kids and technology. And the reality is kids learn by touching things. And so the I-pad is just perfectly designed for this demographic. And I think increasingly kids will literally learn how to read and problems solve using these types of devices. You know, what's interesting is, is I'm a part of a number of groups that are always thinking, gosh, can digital media actually make a difference. We have a lot of kids that are falling behind that aren't doing well. And there's always, can it be the silver bullet. We know that kids need scaffolding and they need adults to be there to help them succeed. But can digital media, can technology actually help set them and do something about this. And I think, to me, the I-pad is the first device, first piece of technology. And actually I like to bring up I-pad because a lot of times I think young people don't even think about the I-pad, the I-phone, the computer, that those are pieces of technology that are designed by technologists, right. And that how cool to have a career that, that's the kind of stuff you create, right. And I always say engineers. Look, at the end of the day all we do, we just create stuff. We build stuff whether it be Google the website, whether it be a Ferrari car, whether it be a Boeing airplane, whether it be an I-pad, and I-touch right. Software and hardware, that's what we do, we're creators, we're builders. So that's a piece that's exciting to me. I'm a little excited, I got to go to E3 which is of course the big conference this year, has to spend a little time there. In addition, have to see Microsoft's new Kinect, which of course is new tall. To me you know I would of prior to see thing that I would said the Wii. I think the Wii is very interesting piece of technology. I think its bringing back the sense of intergenerational game play. And again technology for technology's sake is not interesting to me but technology as a means to do interesting things like intergenerational play, very exciting. That takes that to the next level where you have Kinect where your whole body becomes the controller. Right, so you jump up and down on the screen the avatar jumps up and down. This is big stuff this is exciting stuff. I will say in the world self-serving but I think what we just did with the group wall, the digital Mosaic. [inaudible 09:01] is part of the kind of technology that to me is exciting, really pushing what the web can deliver. That level of interactive that frankly up to recently I would say you really only got from desktop software. Lucy: You know I saw Kinect at the Microsoft Facility Summit; it was interesting very, very interesting technology. Larry: Wow, you know, Krista, I thought when I fist met you at First Robotics, when you and I were both judges and of course, Lucy and her husband who were very involved also. But you mentioned Lawrence Livermore National Labs; about 20 years ago, they were a client to mine. Krista: What a small world. Larry: So I wonder if we met there. Krista: Actually, I was at Lawrence Berkley National Labs, something different then Lawrence Livermore. Larry: Oh, OK. Lucy: There all related to Lawrence. Larry: Is that the case. Krista: Actually there not, interesting a little aside the Lawrence was connected with Lawrence Berkley. In fact, his family has fought a long time to have his name removed from Lawrence Livermore. Because he really did high-energy research. He did not do bomb testing or development so a little aside. Lucy: That is interesting. Larry: It is and in fact when I think back there were very few women at all at Lawrence Livermore, very few. Anyhow you know here you are you got this techie background, you like solving problems in math and physics and all. Why you are an entrepreneur and what is about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Krista: You know I have not really thought about this it is a good question and the more I thought about it. I have been asked this before and one of the simplest reasons and I do not think probably unusual is my father was entrepreneur. I think there's always been a piece of me I really admire him and admire what he has accomplished. I think its something always in the back of my head that is a big dream. I also think, honestly I think it is in the water in the United States. I think we're born and bred on the idea that you can strike it on your own. You can really start your own company. It is an extraordinary thing about this country that makes me excited to be here. I think there's not that you cannot be an entrepreneur in other countries but its very favorable here. We have a very nurturing environment being an entrepreneur. But first of all, my father, I think some other things happened that were critical. I think the reason a lot of people aren't entrepreneurs is not that they don't want to be, but because it's too scary. You have a good job. You're getting good pay. Why would you leave that for something that, frankly, that most people fail. You go to making no money and very unsure. A different level of stress. Because now, really, the buck stops with you in a very real genuine way. And I think because of all that, most people don't make the leap. I had two pivotal events. And I think it's an interesting thing to share because it really validates how I think having mentors or people that believe in you can impact you. I met a very famous entrepreneur, Jerry Fiddler. He's actually the cofounder of Wind River. A company that he grew literally from his garage to a billion dollar company. And I was on a ski trip with mutual friends and he was there. And it was all week. And we were skiing together. And during the course of the week he got to know me. And by the end of the week he said, "I think you would be an amazing entrepreneur. And not only that, I think you would be an amazing CEO and entrepreneur." And I think that someone who you kind of look up to, validates you, and says that, it has a huge impact. And so, at that point, I knew I was going to do it. It was a matter of finding the right group to do it with. It's not true for everyone, but for me, it was really important to do it with cofounders. And I was at Xilinx for the time, and three other people who were at Xilinx, three other engineers, we all had had a lot of success at Xilinx. A very wonderful company Xilinx. And I got to lead some products that really made a difference to their bottom line and their company. And I felt like, wow, I think I can do this. I think I have some good instincts. One of the things I learned when I left Lawrence Berkeley Lab and went to industry, and went to Xilinx that I didn't know about myself was how competitive I was. And I was working on products. And this raging competitor came out of me. When we would lose design wins, I would be so angry. And I would say to the sales people, "What do you mean we've lost?" And they would say, "Well, Krista, you're products are only one of many pieces that factor into a win." And I would say, "What are you talking about? My products should be so good it should determine the win. I want to talk to your customers." And I would go to the customers. And I would say, "What could we have done? Could we have done anything?" And in fact, there were things. They said, if you did 120 of this bus, and you did dynamical lining. You know what? We would have given it to you. Well, we went back and we did those things. And in fact, [inaudible 13:40] at our customer and led to the success. But what I learned is that it's obvious. It's not like a lot of people don't know. But was listening to customers. How powerful that can be. Truly viewing what they want and the kind of success you can have from that. So I think that combined with obviously having seen a father that ended up having role model sort of confirm that they think I could be good at it. With sort of already having some product success within the company and feeling my instincts are good. I think this is something I could do. I think all of that came together to make me able to take that leap. That's a scary leap. I don't think anyone who takes that first leap to become an entrepreneur and start a company from scratch. I always see it as jumping off a cliff. In fact, the other three cofounders, I always said, "We're going jump off this cliff together, and here's what I know. If we hold hands, don't let go, ever. We'll succeed. If we hold hand and don't ever let go, we'll succeed." And I use that metaphor a lot actually. Even when we sold the business, I said that, "Look. You guys, we got to hold hands here. We're holding hands. We're stronger as a four than we are individually." I think that's true. Lucy: That's really awesome advice. And I want to point out Jerry Fiddler's encouragement as being something really important, especially to many women to start companies. That he saw a great skill and he encouraged it. And here we have Krista today, having done a lot of great technology, and a successful entrepreneur. I had cause to be in a room with him once. When he found out I was from Boulder, he came up and said, "Do you know Krista Marks? She's just fabulous. Do you know about Kerpoof?" Larry: Whoa! Wonderful. Lucy: So, he's definitely your fan. Krista: Well that's funny because I actually... at that ski trip, I said Jerry when I become an entrepreneur this means you have to be an advisor. That's what you're signing up for right? I had locked him in right then. Lucy: Oh, that's great. Krista: He was an advisor to Kerpoof. Lucy: So see, I think we know what makes Krista tick about entrepreneurship. It's great. So, along the way Krista you have obviously done some tough things in your career. Why don't you tell the listeners one thing that's especially tough that you've had to do? Krista: I'll answer that in two ways. The short answer is becoming an entrepreneur. By far. Just that single decision to leave the security of a good job. I was doing very well in the context of where I was, and take that risk. Career wise, that was the most radical thing I've ever had to do. I think there are two other things. I think if you become a manager, which I did when I went to Xilinx, I took on a manager role. So, I was managing a group of engineers in Silicon Valley and then eventually also in Boulder that were developing technology. And I think when you become a manger, one of the hardest things in any career, in my opinion, is the first time you have to let someone go. The first time you have to fire someone. That was so hard that I really questioned whether I wanted to be in a leadership role anymore. It really was that difficult. I think it's always a hard thing. I think the first one was the most traumatic for me. It really was very hard and yet really critical in that role. I mean I say if you can't take on that [inaudible 16:55] role, you shouldn't be in that role because the reality is as best as we try to vet people when we hire them, we don't always do a perfect job. So that was very difficult for me. I think the other thing that was tough for me, in terms of it took sort of a ton of brain power is we lead first, we're entrepreneurs. And we initially launched Kerpoof in January of 2007. And we actually didn't have a lot of traffic. And I think we and the founders really had a tough, very tough decision about, do we keep going or do we do something else. You have to understand that was such a radical thing to do. We, all our hardware engineers and software engineers, the software engineers developing for hardware. Really pretty much a high tech classic background and we're coming to not only developing for children, a consumer web space. I mean, we really could not have in many ways, left our domain more completely. And everyone we talked to just thought we were insane, everyone just though we had lost our marbles. You know, why were we doing it? Xilinx is the leader in a product called a field programmable gate array and why are you doing some of that gate array, are you crazy. And we were following our heart, which I think is critical but with that comes more risk, right? You don't know, you don't know. You don't have the context of this. There's risk with that, so. And then combine with when you launch the product. And of course we thought we launch it in and everyone and their mother would use it and that didn't happen. So, we decided to stick with it and at that point, really I think did some true market research. There are two types of market research. One is you find what you want to hear and that feels good. And one is you really, you've got to get the answer. You dig deep. You're looking hard for the answers. And when we did that we really learned some stuff. We made some fairly modest tweaks to Kerpoof. And at that point really started watching it grow, watching the traffic grow. And it's interesting, a lot of the time it's true for entrepreneurs. They often, too quickly throw everything away and completely do something different, when often a small course correction can have a big impact. So that was very, I don't know if that's what you're looking for but I think that's for me personally was a pretty tough decision. Larry: Well speaking of tough decisions and giving good advice, how about if you were sitting down right now and across the desk from you was a young person considering entrepreneurship. What advice would you give them? Krista: That's so funny because my nephew is [inaudible 19:20] is interested in becoming an entrepreneur, so I just did this. I just had a delightful meeting with him over coffee. And that's what he's asking me, right. What was my advice? So I'll tell you the truth because I just did this and that's what I just said. The first thing I said is, "Get a co-founder." One of the things and I talked to a fair number of people and they have a good idea and they're kind of on their own. And I think there's a lot of value, I actually think there's a lot of value and in fact there is research to back up that diminishing return on number of founders doesn't go down until after five. Sort of shocking. If there's a lot of assumptions around the five, I think the five have to be... you offer diversity to their offering different skill sets. But literally and figure the five founders. So one of the things I say because I think it was so critical to me in my success was having co-founders. It's at least one other person. Once a very practical thing, if you can't convince one other person to jump off that cliff with you, how good of an idea is it? [laughter] Lucy: That's a very good point? Larry: Yeah. Krista: Right? That's one [inaudible 20:22] of a idea. But it is such a scary thing. And I say it feels a lot scarier than it is. I think the interesting thing about being an entrepreneur, I was impressed. What was the big deal and the other side is that it's such a big deal. But at the time those decisions feel so big and just having at least one other person hold hands. So the first thing I said to him was he needs to find a co-founder and the good news for him is he has. The other is I actually think the number one indicators for success as an entrepreneur has nothing to do with talent and little to do with good idea. I truly believe that and this is kind of a radical thing to say, it has to do with being tenacious. You need to want it, you need to have the drive, you're going to be there and if it's not right, you're going to make it right. Like I said, I said to my co-founders, "As long as we hold hands. Look, we may be really slow, it may take us 10 years before we have success but we will get to success. That's a given, we're going to get to success. I don't know how long that will take but we're going to get there." So I naturally had the tenacity and the drive and I think you got to have that. If you don't have that it's too hard. You'll just give up because it's too hard. And it's too much of an emotional roller-coaster. Look, most of the time you're looking for people to say yes. Whether it be you're trying to sell something to someone or an investor and the majority of the time you get a no, right? No, no, no, no and then it maybe turns into a no. So it's tough, it's really tough. So if you didn't have that drive and tenacity because you're following your heart, you have a passion. Do you have like, "You're going to work on this day and night, night and day until it's right because you just have to. It's just in your blood, you got to do it." You got to have that. If you don't have that then I sort of think good luck because this is not an easy thing, I think, to succeed. So you have to have kind of had that drive and passion. I think it says the obvious but one of the things I go back to the co-founder. I think it's a very interesting relationship with the co-founder. I almost liken it to a marriage though it's not a marriage but it's literally subjected to that much stress. And so you really, ideally the people that you co-found with you know pretty well, you really trust them, you're really comfortable with them. Because I think if you're not, if the trust isn't there, if that relationship isn't there, I find it hard to believe it would hold up to the kind of stress that is typical for a new entrepreneur. There's exceptions to these. I'm very much shaped by my own experience, so certainly take it with a grain of salt. The two core things in terms of once you decide to be an entrepreneur that I think have shaped me and I believe in, is build value first. One of the things that served us really well is, I felt like if we built value, we would succeed. Instead of focusing on, can we make a million billion dollars? Can we be bought by Disney? Instead of focusing on anything that might be a success scenario, just focusing on building value. So, look, we build this digital drawing tool for online for kids, let's build it really well. Let's make it great! I don't know that that will come with success, but I know that if we keep building value, we'll get there. The correlate of that is to follow your heart. I also think being an entrepreneur is really hard, so even when people are saying, "You are nuts! What do you know about kids? What do you know about the consumer's space?" If that's where your heart is... It's so hard, right? It can't be a means to an end. You have to enjoy the process. And we did. We would develop things for kids, they'd bring kids to the site, they would play with them. We may have been, in the early days, really kind of struggling, but that brought so much joy. Right? Building value, seeing [inaudible 23:56] kid liking it, feeling like, hey, we're on to something! I think part of that was really this fight. To a person, everyone's advice that we were crazy... We really did follow our hearts. Lucy: Yes you did. We had the pleasure of working with Kerpoof a little bit, and it was a great deal of fun. So, Krista, this advice is wonderful advice, and from it you can derive certain personal characteristics about Krista. For example, passion, and competitiveness, and tenacity. But also listening, valuing what the end customer, in this case kids - what do they need? Truly listening to those requirements. What other personal characteristics do you have that you think have given you advantages as an entrepreneur? Krista: Besides tenacity, which I think is a big one - drive, tenacity - I think... To me, this so overwrites everything, but it's very easy. Think of it as audience. Because it's particularly true for technologists, I just think we love technology. We just do, and so it's very easy to get caught up in the technology and forget the customer. It just doesn't matter how cool whatever you're widget is if no one else cares about it. Really identifying who your audience is, who your customer is. I really think focusing, and then being able to listen to your customer. I think sort of that's in general a characteristic of a good entrepreneur. They genuinely want to build things that people are going to use. That maybe isn't as true for a business to business. But I would say even in the business to business kind of entrepreneur at the end of the day the corporate clients that you're going to have or the business clients you're going to have. What do they want? What are their pain-points? What are they struggling with? I just recently talked to a really neat entrepreneur, but I felt like they had 10 ideas. I mean they were all good, but it was hard for me to feel they could all do well at once. I really, my advice to them, personally was just take one, focus on it, do it extremely well, and then grow that, expand that. I think there are a lot of ideas. So one of the characteristics of entrepreneurs that is very valuable is being able to narrow and focus in a very clear way. And sort of to know that focus should become bigger and when it should become narrower. That's a really critical skill. Larry: With everything that you do Krista, and I know you're busy well about 48 hours a day, how do you bring balance into your personal and professional lives? Krista: It's such a [inaudible 26] question for me, because I feel like it doesn't apply as well to entrepreneurs. And the reason is, I think typically when people talk about work life balance, there's very much this notion that work is something that you do because you need to see a paycheck. And so you want to just to turn it off, and not worry about it, and go. And I think when you follow your heart and you're doing what you're passionate about you realize it's 24/7, but it's a different kind of 24/7. And it doesn't mean it's not tiring, it doesn't mean it's not going to cost to your family and friends, certainly. And this is [inaudible 27:02] somewhat true. First becoming an entrepreneur, and even now being part of Disney I don't see as much of my family and friends. But in part that's because I love what I do. I want to do it. I love what I do. But that thing said, we did feel like they were diminishing returns and not being somewhat careful of burnout. And when we became a company we all agreed that we'd take one day off a week. We didn't always honor that. But I think we have the notion of trying to do that, of really trying it one day a week, which was typically Sunday. That know you're coming to the office. That we'd spend time with our friends and family, we'd rejuvenate, go hiking in the mountains, whatever. And certainly that helped. But, again, it is a finer line I think when what you're doing, particularly in entrepreneur it does become all consuming. It's funny one made the analogy. And I thought it was such a good analogy that in many ways being an entrepreneur, starting a company is much like having a child. And if you ever meet a new parent they're obsessed with their child. They want to show you pictures of the child, they want to talk about their child. They're really not interested in anything else in the world, right? There could be earthquakes, and there could be things going on, and they're just oblivious, right? And, that's their first year bubble of new child. And, entrepreneurs are a lot like that. I said - I always joked, you know, that - that the only family they spend a lot to time with - In the first couple of years of my being an entrepreneur, of starting Kerpoof, were people who were into Kerpoof. If you were into Kerpoof, then we could have a good conversation. If you didn't want to have a Kerpoof, I didn't really have much more I wanted to talk about. So, there is sort of a - And, there is an all consumingness that may not happen to everyone. It certainly happens to some entrepreneurs. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. You know, I think it's part of doing something extraordinary. It's part of succeeding. I think to answer your question really in the most succinct way, I don' think I do bring a lot of balance to my life. But, I am trying to do a little better and not because I - to do it for it's sake, but because actually I do think that your relationships with your family and your friends are very important to the whole of your life. And, if you neglect it too long, obviously that's at a cost. So, not to say that I don't think those things need to be considered and nourished. And, I think I have neglected them, for sure. And, I am - I making up now for that. Lucy: Well, I learned how to speak Kerpoof. Larry: Yeah. You did. You did. Krista: You did. You did. And, we got to talk. Lucy: I learned how to speak Kerpoof. And, listeners should also know that Krista is very generous with her time in the community with First Robotics, and certainly with NCWIT, and other groups. So, we definitely appreciate that as well. So... So Krista, the last question - You've achieved a lot. You know, you - I'm sure - have things that you want to accomplish in the future. Why don't you tell us a bit about what's next for you. Krista: You know what? One thing that... I don't know. I feel ostensibly believe life is extremely long. I think people say life is short and they're just wrong. I think it's long. I think we have the ability at least in the United States for - Many people have the ability to do many things in the course of their life if they're interested. So, I'm 43 now. So, I believe as many things as I've done to date, I've will, at least if not more, just have found it wiser to do as many more. So, I think life is very long. I also don't tend to be a long-term planner. I never have. I think it's kind of hog wash - much more interested in today and - and short term. So, for me what I know for sure is I feel very passionately about making sure...I really would love to see Disney stay in Boulder. I would love that - how ever long that takes. And, that could take a decade. But, I would love to see Disney remain in Boulder as a presence in Boulder. I think it's an extraordinary company. And, I think they have a real need for the kind of talent... we have in Boulder-technical talents - and also in Dimmer, actually inside Colorado. People don't realize the creative talent. But it is the fifth state in the top five in terms of the number of creative people that are here - artists and creatives - and so that combination of creatives and technologists. I actually hate that word "creative" because I think engineers are creative. But anyways, that's still the term that's used. Creatives - so animators and artists and the kind of amazing engineering talent and technical talent that we have here. That combined is very special. So it's not just an act to have Disney here. I think Disney can actually flourish here. I think we can continue to add something important to what they're trying to achieve with digital media. So that's one goal. Also, and I think this is happening but I really believe that we are changing the face of the Internet in some meaningful way for kids. I think that historically the large companies that frankly own the kids audience. The reality is kids go to very few sites. Nick.com, Disney.com obviously are the two big ones. Then there are a number of other players. Club Penguin certainly is one. But there are only a small number of sites. So what you want is for those sites to offer engaging entertainment but also offer participation, interactivity, and the ability to design because one of the things that's unique to the computer that's not true for a mobile device at least today, and it's certainly not true for a TV, is you can't design. So the computer is this unique platform. I think that, not those mobile platforms won't also be this, but those platforms you actually can participate, right? So to me this large piece of having a place and do that kind of dedicated creativity is a step towards we just move in a direction that nobody would think of doing otherwise. If you create something for kids, you just wouldn't imagine not offering some level of genuine engagement, some level of genuine participation, if it is computer-Internet based. That would just be an obvious step. I don't think we're there yet, but I think we're moving there. One of our competitors - actually it was interesting - I just noticed launched a very modest, but albeit a little center dedicated to creativity on their site, a site you wouldn't anticipate that from. I just thought that was so exciting, right? To me, you know you're leading when people are following. If you're leading in a place that's interesting for kids, then that's very exciting to me. I guess to me that's what's next. Lucy: We vote for that, and we vote for Disney in Boulder. Larry: Yeah, you bet you! Lucy: Absolutely. Well, thank you, Krista. This was very interesting as always. We really appreciate it and want to remind listeners to look for this interview at W3W3.com and also NCWIT.org. Krista: Oh, and thank you, Larry and Lucy. It's really my pleasure to be here. Larry: It's great, and of course we're going to have to follow up on you again. Lucy: Thank you, Krista. Krista: Thank you. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Krista MarksInterview Summary: "When I went to college, I didn't even know about technology or pursuing a career in technology," says Krista. "Fortunately when I got to orientation for college, I sat next to a student who said she was going to major in electrical engineering. 'What is that?' I said. And she said, 'I know that if you really like math and physics, it's the best major to have. I said, 'Oh my god, those are my two favorite things! I would like every student to be aware of the available opportunities when they're choosing a career. I did end up there and loved technology. In fact, from that point on I really wanted to be involved in designing technology. I spent the first eleven years designing custom electronics, and got to work around the world." Release Date: August 2, 2010Interview Subject: Krista MarksInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 33:56

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Julia Hartz Co-Founder & President, Eventbrite Date: July 12, 2010 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes [music] Lee Kennedy: Hi this is Lee Kennedy, board member for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. And we're here today as a part of a series of interviews that we're doing with extremely interesting entrepreneurs. These are women who have started IT companies in just a complete variety of sectors, and they all have just very cool stories to tell us. Today with me is Larry Nelson. And Larry is from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi, I really am happy to be on this show. And by the way there are so many parents and so many managers and leaders that listen to this show. So that's why we're tapping into all these great entrepreneurs and leaders. Lee: Great. And we also have Lucy Sanders who is the CEO for NCWIT. Thanks for joining us Lucy. Lucy Sanders: Hi Lee. Very happy to be here. And I wanted to mention that very often our entrepreneurs that we interview for this series are showing up more and more on the top 10. To watch the top 10 there, the most in this region, so the women we're interviewing are just top five entrepreneurs. Larry: You bet. Lee: Cool. Just to get right to it today we're interviewing Julia Hartz. And Julia is the co-founder and President of EventBrite. And EventBrite is the leading provider of online event management and ticketing services. Is just a really cool company, and Julia has brought the creative and energy of the entertainment business. She was at MTV formerly. Lucy: Oh wow.  Lee: Welcome Julia. Thanks for coming here today. We're looking forward to talking with you about entrepreneurship. Julia Hartz: Thank you. I'm really honored to be here. Lee: Wonderful. So can you tell us a little bit about what's going on at EventBrite lately? Julia: Oh goodness, a whole lot. Well, we were originally founded in 2006 by my husband and I and our third co-founder Renaud Visage, our CTO. And since that we bootstrapped the company. We were just three people for two years, very product focused. But I'm happy to report that we are now nearing 60 employees. So it's quite a different company today than it was even back in 2008. On the topic side we're just really focused on making life simpler for the organizers, and delighting our customers through innovations of simple tools they can use to publish event pages, promote their events to a wider audience, and sell out their events. So sell more tickets to their events. And we're also now looking at our relationship with ticket buyers. Now that we've helped event holders host over 200, 000 events, obviously that there is a larger accumulation of attendees that are now coming back to EventBrite to find out about more events that they want to attend. So that's a current feature trend that we're seeing. Lee: Well you know NCWIT runs events, so we could well be one of your future customers. Julia: [laughs] I'll give you the sales pitch. Lee: All right. [laughs] Julia: On a different time maybe. [laughs] Lee: Yeah. I would love to hear more. We find that running events can be very time consuming. So it sounds like EventBrite is on to something. So Julia, the first question is about technology. And first of all, how you became interested in technology? And also really interesting technologies that might you see on the horizon that would interest our listeners. Julia: All right. So my career as you said it before began in television. I was a development executive at MTV, and I worked the first season and the first movie of a little project called Jackass. Sorry, I'm not sure if I can say that on radio. And then I went on to FX Networks, and I worked on shows like Nip/Tuck, The Shield, and Rescue Me. So my career there was really high in creativity, and it was definitely pushing me up a little as they were in cable television, and the projects they worked on. But it was very well in technological innovation. So we found it very hard to break the traditional distribution mold as well as the traditional advertising mold for that matter. So my last year at FX I spent a lot of time on product placement, which was sort of a thankless job, trying to make sure that the label of the beer can was pointed in the right direction at all times in a scene. I started to get the inkling that there was something out there that would make me feel fulfilled, and I was lucky enough to meet Kevin about two years before I left television. I was able to see him start a company from inception. I was sold. Two years later I was ready to leave my traditional career and take the leap. So that's how I first got into technology. I felt like it would be something I would feel, I wanted to be ahead of the curve instead of trying to chasing trends, which I felt like we were doing in television at the time that I was working at MTV and FX. Technologies that I think are cool? Kevin is an avid angel investor and adviser. By virtue of that we were really lucky to be involved in a lot of different companies and see a lot of great trends come out of those companies, and very bright people. I always say that what I feel like is cool right now for me personally is not exactly original. But it is in the way of communication and information dissemination and I'll give you an example of how that applies to me and why I think it's cool. We were recently on a trip and our trip itinerary was shared with our family and anybody else who needed no know where we were through TripIt. We were not in touch with our family during the trip so I posted mobile photos of our two-year-old on Facebook so that my mom would know how she was doing at all times. In our company we share information through Yammer and we also share expenses through Blippy. Then, on the social side oftentimes, I'm checking in through Yelp to let people know where I am in case they're in the same area. We live in the city so it's not so large. So that idea that I can instantly broadcast and disseminate information easily and with no friction is really huge for me today being an entrepreneur and a mom. Larry: Well, entrepreneur and a mom, and you got this "techie" background, why are you an entrepreneur? Also tying in with that, what is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Julia: I'm an entrepreneur because I believe that I can change an industry. I also love helping to build something that people want and that's extremely valuable. I feel day-to-day glee in making a difference, in working on projects that are both very large scale and very small scale. I also feel like being an entrepreneur, for me, I feel like I'm part owner in a movement. So I think if I were to sum it up, being an entrepreneur and being a parent, I feel equally about both. [laughs] So EventBrite is very much our baby and there is just something inherently satisfying about working on something that you feel such ownership and passion about. That's what entrepreneurship means to me. That's what excites me about it. Lucy: That's great. So Julia, who would you say influenced you or was a role model or mentor along the way to get into being an entrepreneur? Julia: The reason why I took the leap and didn't hesitate was because of Kevin. Entrepreneurship comes like second nature to Kevin, and he had founded two companies before that. So I really believed that everything would be OK [laughs] and that somehow, someway we would succeed. So for him there was just no question that he wanted to always be an entrepreneur and it was almost like, "Why not? Why not come work for free with me and see what we can do and how we can change the world?" So really he's the one that influenced me first and foremost. Our families really support us along the way. They're very unconditional about everything we do. As far as role models go, we have mentors in Michael and Xochi Birch who are a married couple who founded a few companies. But most notably and recently Bebo, they founded together. They gave us some great advice in the beginning, which was divide and conquer. As a married couple if you're working together never work on the same thing at the same time. Not only is that sort of a recipe for disaster if you're behind the same spreadsheet in trying to share them out, but also you get from point A to point B two times as faster, even maybe faster, because you have complementary skills. And that very much applies to Kevin and I. We divide and conquer in everything we do. At this point in the game we work on very different aspects of the business, and actually get to catch up at the end of the day. And ask each other how each others day went. And my parents are role models because just everything that they've done they've done with a lot of grace. And finally, two-year-old daughter Emma is a huge role model to both of us. Because I think, for me it's because she never backs down from wanting to know why. She doesn't settle for an answer that she can't completely believe. She can definitely be a role model for us in many different aspects. Lucy: Well, I certainly think parenting has taught me up. That's for sure. She probably got a double dose of entrepreneurship. We'll have to see what she ends up starting. Lee: Or determination. Lucy: Or determination for sure. So Julia along the way you've been encouraged, you started a company, you've worked in entertainment, you've had a great career so far. What's the toughest thing in your professional career you've ever had to do? Julia: The only thing that I dread and the toughest part of this gig is coming to the realization that a team member is not a right fit, and having to let them go. And for us it's been, we haven't had to let go many people, and that's great. But it's really hard when you're building a team, because you feel like this is your family. And for me, I feel like each person on our team is like an athlete. I have to keep them like well-feed and you know hydrated, and well, and out of the tabloids. [laughs] I want to take care of everyone who works at EventBrite. And to have to part ways with somebody is by far the toughest part of this gig. Secondly, I think making decisions that I feel like are going to maybe not sit well with our customers. And our interests have been extremely aligned with our customers since the inception of EventBrite. And we really built EventBrite through having a dialogue with our customers and understanding event organizers' pain-points, and how can we alleviate them through technology. But making decisions like pricing changes it's totally agonizing. And we have a story where we went from a freemium service to offering a free service and paid service, to just a completely paid service. And we fretted over it for months. And when we finally reached the decision and pulled that cord, not only did we not see the turn that we had expected, but we saw our conversion go up. Because people who were coming to the site going to have to make that decision over or whether not to sign for the free or paid service. So these kinds of decisions are really tough for us. And I feel like one thing we could have done better is not fret so much over it, and believe in our product, and our ability to delight our customers. Larry: That's great advice. So one of the things we wonder about and always ask and that is if you were sitting down right now with a person who's considering becoming an entrepreneur or just starting to be an entrepreneur what advice would you give them? Julia: I think that if you're going to do it you have to jump in. I mean I feel like when I visualized the leap that I took from a corporate secure job to running EventBrite and working on this project, I envisioned myself jumping in with my eyes closed, head first and all hands and feet in. I mean I don't think that it's possible to have success without completely committing yourself. So whether that is committing yourself completely mentally, or if it's mentally, logistically and financially you really have to put all your skin in the game to actually have a chance. Most start-ups don't' succeed and I think that it's for obviously a variety of reasons. But first and foremost, if you're going to choose entrepreneurship, you have to commit in every fiber of your body. Lee: The word devotion comes to mind. Lucy: Yeah. Julia: It takes a lot of devotion. You can't have one put in and one put out. It doesn't work very well. Lee: So, on the same note what it takes to be an entrepreneur, there's certain personal characteristic that everyone thinks of that makes us entrepreneur successful. What would you say are your personal characteristics that have given you the advantage as an entrepreneur? Julia: So, me personally, I feel like I have a very strong willingness to pitch in. Now, that we are 60 people and our roles as founder, I feel like at this point I do not get in the way of greatness. We hire very, very smart, capable, talented people and we need to let them have their freedom to really change this industry. But on the flip side, I am always willing to pitch in and help so whether that be any sort of mundane task. It is not mundane to me because it contributes towards the success of the EventBrite, of my baby. So, that willingness to pitch in is key. I also have an ability to be objective. So, because of my first start up, I'm not very dated and everything is very new. I try to just come about it and to have a fresh perspective and being very objective about everything that is happening and not ever feeling like we have to be status quo. We are actually trying to disrupt an industry, the ticketing industry, and so to look at it from a fresh perspective is an advantage in many different aspects of running a start up. And, finally I feel like I'm a 110 percent committed. I mean I feel extreme honors over EventBrite in a way of like I really care about it and I care about everybody who works on changing the world with us. And so, commitment and then accountability really being accountable for the bad things and the good things. I think that makes a big difference. Lucy: Julia, you've mentioned that you travel and you mentioned your family and you mentioned your devotion to EventBrite. So, we're curious. We always ask this question. How do successful entrepreneurs bring balance into both their personal and their professional lives? Julia: Right. So, first of all you have to prioritize and you have to perhaps write it down on a white board. What is most important to you and then write everything up. I mean we talk a lot about [inaudible 15:15] optimization here and I kind of feel the same way about balancing your life. For us, it is an interesting talent because EventBrite is very much our first baby and we have and I who is a part of this process. So, instead of dividing them into two things, we feel like we are in it together. Sort of cliché to say but it is very true. It takes a village and for me personally, I have to find my vortex of happiness so that for me is being a great mom and being a great entrepreneur. I have to be confident enough to ask for and receive help from our village of family and friends. And I have to prioritize. And so, I have to note that if push come to shove, what would I do in each scenario and how do that emergency sort of exit plan. That is also very applicable to working with your spouse. And so, I feel like for us, our family and our friends and our daughter, they are in it with us and so they feel invested and understand what's going on as well. Larry: Well, you have already achieved a great deal. You are doing a lot. You are young. You are building a family. What's next for you? Julia: My goal for EventBrite is to grow the service and to the only place you would ever go to buy a ticket for any event you would ever attend. And then secondly, I want to have more kids. Lucy: There you go. Julia: It gets a little bit harder to scale for some reason I don't know. I look at it and I'm like, I am pretty sure one plus one doesn't equal to so we'll see. [laughs] Larry: Well, I've got five kids and my wife and I are in business together so it works. Lucy: I have three. Julia: I need to sit down and pick your brain. Lee: Well, thank you so much Julia for talking to us. We really appreciate it. I want to remind our listeners where they can find this interview. w3w3.com and NCWIT.org and please do pass this along to other people who would be interested in listening to it. Thanks very much Julia. Julia: Thanks so much for having me.  Larry: Thanks, Julia. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Julia HartzInterview Summary: Julia is a reformed Television Network Executive and comes to Eventbrite by way of FX Networks and MTV. "I'm an entrepreneur because I think I can change an industry. I also love helping to build something that people want. Being an entrepreneur, for me, I feel like I'm part owner in a movement and there is just something inherently satisfying about working on something you feel such ownership and passion about." Release Date: July 12, 2010Interview Subject: Julia HartzInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 17:20

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Margaret Burd Founder, President, & CEO, Magpie, Inc. Date: June 1, 2010 Entrepreneurial Heroes Interview with Margaret Burd [intro music] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Woman and Information Technology, or NCWIT. Larry Nelson from w3w3.com is here today. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi. Yes, I'm really anxious for this interview. Lucy: Well, this is one of a series of interviews that we do with women who have started IT companies. Many of them are serial entrepreneurs in all different types of IT sectors. We ask them for their advice on being entrepreneurs and the pathways that they've taken to be successful. It's a great series. We've had a lot of interest in it. We have another great entrepreneur with us today, a good friend of ours and, I must say with great pride, a successful Colorado entrepreneur, Margaret Burd. Hi, Margaret. Margaret Burd: Hi. Thanks for having me. Lucy: Oh, our pleasure. Margaret is the founder and president and CEO of Magpie. They are a software company. They provide software services and development in the space of smart energy and telecommunications, which is where I know them from the very best. Lately, they've had even more exciting things going on, if you can imagine that, than smart energy. I mean, that's pretty exciting. But, also, there's a new spin-off trial called Magpie Health Care, which is doing some very cool work in giving hospital providers the kind of phone-based tools they need to locate either specialists or others very easily. And, they don't have to wait on the line. I'm sure I'm not doing it justice, but it's a new venture for Magpie. So, Margaret, tell us a bit about Magpie, either Magpie One or Magpie Two. [laughs] Larry: Yeah. Margaret: Well, Magpie One, Magpie Telecom as we used to call it. But, we've branched so far into other industries that we just say Magpie now. Magpie, we bought it in 2001. Which was a difficult year to start a business, with 9/11 happening two months after we started, and then telecom crashing. But, we survived all that. We have about between 50 and 60 people now doing software for a whole variety of companies. In the last year and a half, we went out and explored the whole smart energy, smart grid space. And, have found that there's a very huge market there, especially now with all the stimulus money that we could tap, with very much the same skills that we have from our telecom experience. That experience is very high-end: Bell Labs, educated people. What we learned about creating reliable, scalable and all viable networks of AT&T we can apply now to the smart grid. When you pick up the phone, you want to get dial tone. When you flip on the switch, you want your lights to come on. So, it's very similar to the ways you have to think about developing these networks. Then, as Lucy said, about two and a half years ago, we got the idea to go into health care. I started wandering around hospitals personally, and we ended up getting an idea for a product there. Lucy did a really good job explaining what that does. We help caregivers find other caregivers in really efficient ways. Because that is a product-based business, we have spun that into its own little company. And, I chair the board for that company. Lucy: So, see? She's not idle. Larry: No, it doesn't sound... Margaret: [laughs] We are pretty busy here. Lucy: Yeah. Larry: Well, that's fantastic. Margaret: But, that's really fun. You want your services business to be really busy. Lucy: Absolutely. Larry: Yeah. Well, so, you've got 60 people now. I think when I interviewed Wendy Bohling you had about 12. Margaret: [laughs] That could be true. We probably had a few more than that when you interviewed her. But, yeah, we started out. There were 10 partners, and eight of those partners are still here in our office in Westminster. We also have a little office in Durango whether the partner has eight or so people at any one time. So, we've been on a growth spurt here with this smart grid energy space. And, really constant growth this year. We've hired seven or eight people in the last couple of months. Larry: Well, Margaret, you're involved with so many different things. Of course, now I see the Bell Labs connection here with you and Lucy. But, how did you first get into technology. And, what technologies today do you think are really cool? Margaret: Well, actually, I probably come to technology in a weird way. Because my first career, I was teaching math and science and coaching lots of different sports in public schools in Missouri. I had done that for about nine years. In '83, I was still making $15,000 a year. I was pretty bored with that whole teaching thing, too. So, I started looking around for what I wanted to do next. And, it just so happened that the University of Kansas let you get into their computer science master's program if you had a math degree. I applied, and they accepted, and ended up with my master's in computer science. Right out of school, I got an offer from Bell Labs and ended up in Denver. And, that's how I got into technology. Larry: Wow. Margaret: It was kind of a whim. I showed a little aptitude when I got to KU. So, it all... It was an amazing turn of events in my life, I can just say that. And, probably just because. It's one of those things that just happens. In terms of cool, my guys, if they were on the phone, they would be talking about a bunch of cool technologies that they love. But, you know, to me it's more about figuring out where to go next in verticals and what technologies we can apply. So, I think less about them being cool, actually. But, every day when I pull out my iPhone, I think that's cool. I'm still thinking the iPhone is cool. So, I'm probably not the best person to talk to about cool. But, the cool part about the iPhone is that all these people all over the world can wake up in the morning. And, in their pajamas, create an application that somebody else somewhere else in the world is going to use via that device. And, then, I could go off to the other. In torrent, we use a lot of open source software. And, we contribute to open source. I think that's another one of those places where we have involved community in the creation of really cool things. So, that I think is really cool. Lucy: Well, it is pretty fascinating. When you think back 30 years what we were doing with computer science. And, now, you think that, in fact, you can create this application and it just goes everywhere in the world. It is amazing, and I think it still deserves some awe. [laughs] Larry: Yeah. Margaret: Well, I am awed almost every day by something there, yeah. Lucy: I think that, that deserves some awe. Margaret: Yeah. Lucy: So, Margaret, I certainly knew you when we were both at Bell Labs. Then you took off and you became an entrepreneur. Why did you do that? Margaret: Well, that was pretty much because Luce had told me... Luce and I had ended up in a department of about 70 people. And, I had another 30 at Nice, France. And, we were really cooking along and having a great time building cool mobile Internet applications. This is in 2000 so that was well before those were cool. And doing some applications for AT&T. But we'd also--we'd spent a lot of time getting our department to really develop software in innovative ways and in different team ways, than had been used in the past. And we could actually show that we were improving our productivity all the time and actually had measures for productivity. We were really cooking along and everybody really liked each other, it was like this love fest in my department. I mean, we really cared about each other. And so, then Lucent told me that I should lay everybody off. And so I did, and fired myself. And we had always joked in my department, that if things got too bad, we would start our own company. And, well, things were pretty bad when you have to lay everybody off. So, ten of us out of that started Magpie. And so, I kind of just wandered into being an entrepreneur, as well. But it's been tremendously great. So things happen. Larry: Wow, that's... Margaret: You probably listen to this and think that everything just happens to me. Lucy: Oh, no. No, no. [laughter] Margaret: But it is kind of... When you get into certain situations, things happen and you can react to them and go forth and do great things, or you can not. So I really think the founders at Magpie chose a path that is pretty cool. Larry: Well, Margaret, along the way, did you have a mentor, did you have other people who served maybe as role models? In fact, who influenced and supported you in your career path? Margaret: Oh man, there's been so many. Well, one even--well, Lucy. When I look at you leaving there and starting this really great foundation and going out and raising the money you needed to do that. And to do something that is totally needed in the world, that's really inspiring to me, and it has been inspiring to me. So, I'll just say that. I learned specific things from a whole bunch of different people. I had this--which Lucy knows well--Sally Werner was my boss for some time at Lucent. And there, she really taught me about how to manage people and how to do that in a way that is just really cool. And so, I learned a ton by working for her. There was another VP there, that I learned how you celebrate success. And how you not only do that, but how you communicate with large groups of people that work for you. So it's a totally important thing, especially when you're an entrepreneur, I might add. I learned about organization development from a consultant, Susan Carabello, who's consulted with me through most of my career, actually; and learned what you have to do to create organizations that really work. And I learned about sales and marketing from another really good friend of mine, Robin Wright. And I still call her and ask her for her advice on paths that we may be taking here at Magpie, and she consults with us. And then, I think... But the most important thing to being an entrepreneur I actually learned from my mom and my grandmother. And they worked really hard and they never gave up. And I think, those are the two things, that to be a great entrepreneur, you have to get. Larry: Wonderful. Lucy: Absolutely. I think it leads to another question around the personal characteristics, you know, that you have as an entrepreneur. Because you have worked hard and you've never given up, and you also have looked at opportunities to really take them where they could go. You know, and that's a very observant thing for people to do, to be that thoughtful about what life puts right in front of you right where you can take it. So what other words would you use to describe yourself as an entrepreneur? Margaret: I'm very optimistic. And, you know, as I've talked to a lot of other entrepreneurs, I think often they are really an optimistic person. So I don't think I'm rare in that regard, at all, and I think you have to be. And that helps you see those things also. And it also can be a real detriment. You know, you have your rosy glasses on all the time and don't know how to actually look at a new idea or look at a new plan, or whatever. So I'm not saying... But you have to kind of think you can do things. You know what I mean? And that's that optimism. I think for me, especially in the services business, but probably true for lots of small businesses, it seems to be a good entrepreneur, you really have to like people. And you have to like helping people and you have to enjoy going out and meeting people. And just walking up and introducing yourself to someone. There's something about just enjoying being around new people and talking to them about what they've got going on, and I really like that. Probably most important in this business too, though, has been you have to... I think I'm good and I'm pretty creative in my problem solving abilities. I don't mind solving problems. A problem is a problem, it's just a thing to be solved today. And I think I'm creative in how I can do that. Not that other people aren't just as creative, but I think it adds a skill for being... When you are an entrepreneur, you're going to be hit with all these issues, all the time. And so, figuring out how to do them in a way that you can afford, in a way that's maybe going to work and, you know, so forth, is pretty important. And then, I think lastly, I really like to start things. That initial forming of the idea and storming through understanding what you're going to do. I really like that part of the whole process. So... Larry: Well, you know, one of the things we have to ask is that, if you were sitting down right now at a table with a person who was going to become an entrepreneur, what advice would you give them? Margaret: Well, first of all, I'd say it's really hard so you really have to want it. It's really risky and most small businesses fail, so you really have to want it. [laughter] And it's going to take a lot of work. But if you really want it, it's so worth doing. And I'd tell them to go find a mentor, someone that they can sit with. And sometimes you have to pay for that and sometimes you can get that for free. So, early on, I always got that for free. But there's also groups out there, CEO groups, that can really be helpful. And I've been a member of Renaissance Executive Forums, one of those groups, for a long time now. And, totally helpful, because you get to bounce your ideas and problems and everything else off a bunch of people that all have those same problems. So, I think you need that. And then, I think really think about how you're going to interface with your partners, if you're going to have partners in your business. And know that that relationship all changes as you go through the different stages of your company and have that legally set up so that you can make changes that make sense in easy ways, that just recognize that people change. Larry: That's a great list. Lucy: It certainly is a great list. And I have to say that Margaret was being modest when she was talking about her personal characteristics. I mean, Margaret is really a great leader of technologists. We rarely talk about that on this interview series. But because your tech companies, obviously... Our founders and CEO's are leading engineers, a lot of them, and that's a special skill set. Margaret: Well, thank you for saying that. I think--well, I love engineers, first of all. But they are an interesting sort that--you know--that you have to figure out how to lead along. So, thank you for saying that. Lucy: Yeah, it's always been an interesting thing. Larry writes books and maybe one day he can write a book about leading engineers. Larry: Oh. Margaret: That would be a great idea. Lucy: I think that would be a great book, wouldn't it? Margaret: Yeah, I think there's several million people that could use one. Lucy: So, you've given us probably one story about a tough part in your career that ended up where you fired yourself and started Magpie. What's another tough thing you've had to do in your career? Margaret: It's been all kinds of places at Magpie, where you get to spots where all your management team, in my case at the time they were partners, and were in these difficult situations where you have to really--maybe an example would be you have to spend a bunch of money. And it's really hard at the time, because you don't have the money to spend. But if you're going to move to the next step, you have to like go get that money, somewhere. And in our case, we were bootstrapping everything. I was taking the profits of their business to go off and do these new things, like the energy practice. That was--you know, people think, "Oh, you go start a new energy practice." But we spent a whole person's time, for over a year, figuring out how to approach that market and what software was required in that market, and actually having conversations with companies in that market. So, you know, it's a big investment for a small company to do things like that. And I think that the hard times had been in convincing your partners, for example, that that's a great thing to do. So, they've been mostly around that. Other hard times, I have trouble even really thinking about them, Lucy. Because they're not... I don't think about them as hard times. I think about--oh, yeah, that was a problem time. Last year, for example: 2009 was... I'm so glad we're through it. Lucy: Yeah, I know. Margaret: Everything was hard. Everything we were bidding on was--there were, you know, five companies bidding against us. And there wasn't very much to bid on and it was really hard. And we ended up having a flat year which was not very--that was great. In fact, I say that last year was the new great. But it's so much different now, this year. So, I mean, that was really a hard year, but it's just another problem in business that you kind of work through. I don't have lots of examples where I think, "Oh, that was something I really figured out how to work through and I should tell people." Lucy: Yeah. Margaret: There all kind of just--it's day to day problems. You know what I mean? Larry: Yeah. Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. Margaret: So I don't have great examples there. Larry: Well, that's--you know, starting a company in 2001, "Hi-Tech", and then, living through 2009, you're doing fantastic. Lucy: 2009 was just an angry year. Larry: Yeah, really. Lucy: I mean, it was just an angry year. It was just one of those years, that it was time to be over. Larry: Yeah. Margaret: Oh, it was just icky the whole time. Lucy: Yeah, I know. Margaret: And '02, that was really a difficult year. But, you know, when you're starting a business, I mean, you have expectations about when you're going to finally get some customers. But, beyond that, you know it's going to be hard. And so, what we learned out of that--and we always learn something out of our hard times, by the way--we learned how to do cash-flow management in great detail. And last year, I think we learned that in times like that, you have to hone your sales processes to really go after the small set of customers that are out there. And we did that. And now, in this year, we are cooking along with really great new processes and with new sales people, that really understand how to do that and with sales, there's lots of really good things that happen out of those hard times, if you make it through them. Lucy: Absolutely. Larry: Wow. You know, with all the things that you're doing, and you're expanding into new silos, and everything that you're doing in your career, how do you bring balance into your personal and your professional lives? Margaret: Balance is an interesting word. Well, I have a wonderful life partner that I love to vacation and see the world with and enjoy theater with, and exercise with, and so forth. So, I make time for those things. And I really like to go to the beach, so I go. And this may sound counter-intuitive, but I do a lot of non-profit work. So I'm on several non-profit boards and I raise a lot of money for those causes. And that is a lot of extra work, but then it also brings balance, because you're out actually giving back to people that really need your help. So that always feels really good, even though it makes me stay up way too late. Lucy: Yeah. Margaret: And then, I really like to ride my bicycle. And so, I make time, at least on the weekends, to do some longer rides. And I put my iTunes in my ears, and I've pretty much got balance then I would say. Larry: Well, just so you don't swim and bike. Lucy: Especially on your bike. Larry: Yeah, right. Lucy: You'd better have balance on your bike. Larry: Yeah, yeah. Margaret: Yeah, yeah. Oh, good point! Lucy: Yeah. If no other time, you need to balance on your bike. Margaret: That's right. Lucy: So Margaret, tell us what's next for you. You've done a lot, you've accomplished a lot, you've got some exciting new applications that you're working on and at least two companies. What's next? Margaret: Well, obviously, or maybe it's not obvious, but I really want to see where I can take those Magpie companies in the next probably two, three, four years. And I think in the health care business, we are on the edge of real greatness in terms of the application we're providing and what it's looking like in the markets. So I really want to stay around, at least as chair of that board, and see where we can take that. And then, in the services business, this energy thing is really important to the whole world, so it feels like I want to stay around and do that for a while, too. And then, after that though, I think--I've got this vision of doing a lot of work for non-profits, but also being able at that time to fund them, in ways that are greater than what I can do now. So I want to do that. And then, there's a whole bunch of South Pacific islands and beaches that I haven't... Lucy: Yeah, no. They sure beat the... Margaret: ...hung around. So I want to do that, too. Lucy: They sure beat the beach in Colorado, don't they? Larry: Yeah, yeah. Margaret: Yeah, yeah. Colorado's a great place. But without the beach, I have to... Lucy: There's no... Margaret: ...vacation other places. Lucy: There's no beach. Margaret: Yeah. Lucy: Yeah. Larry: Yeah, just don't ride your bike while you're swimming. OK? Margaret: [laughs] Well, you know, on all those islands a bike is pretty good transportation. Really. Larry: Yeah. Margaret: Yeah. But that's what I've got in mind, pretty much to follow on with some more and greater non-profit work. Lucy: Well, you know, that's very--you are very philanthropic and a very giving person and just a wonderful member of our community here in Colorado. So, we really want to thank you for talking to us. We've enjoyed chatting with you. And I want to remind listeners where they can find this podcast: you can find it at w3w3.com, Internet radio. Larry: You betcha! Lucy: And also, ncwit.org. Thank you, Margaret! Margaret: Oh, I appreciate the time and really enjoyed chatting with you guys. Larry: Alright. Lucy: Thank you. Larry: Same here, we'll see you soon! Lucy: See you soon! Margaret: See you! Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Margaret BurdInterview Summary: Margaret Burd was working at Lucent in 2000 when the tech bubble burst, and she was forced to lay off herself and her entire department. Since she and her team members were "really cookin' along" at the time, doing high-quality, innovative work, she decided she'd just start a company and hire them back. Release Date: June 1, 2010Interview Subject: Margaret BurdInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 21:12

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Pooja Nath CEO, Piazzza Date: May 17, 2010 [music] Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders, the CEO of the National Center for Women & Information Technology or NCWIT. We've got another great interview today with women who have started IT companies, and this is a really interesting one. This is a woman who studied computer science, worked in tech companies, is getting her MBA in Stanford, and also by the way, on the side is starting a company. It's called Piazzza and her name is Pooja Nath. We're very excited to have her here. I should mention she's getting her MBA at Stanford, so not unlike other entrepreneurs who have come before, who we know about. Piazzza is all about group learning. It is really interesting to go look at the site. Having a college student myself, I know that often he is studying by himself or he doesn't have the answers to questions, and I must also say he also procrastinates and could really use something like Piazzza, which helps you get answers to questions from your fellow students and from your professor all through a form of social networking. So, welcome, Pooja. We're very glad that you're here. Pooja Nath: Thank you. I'm very excited to be here with you. That was a very kind introduction. It makes me really happy when I hear other people explain the problem I am trying to solve, because when I hear them explain it so well in their own terms, I know I am solving a simple problem that is very prevalent. I try and explain to people what I am doing. It's like, "Well, students have problems when they're studying for assignments or exams, and they have specific questions that have a lot of context." Search engines can't help much, because there is knowledge out there that is too general. Discussion forums usually can't help, because there is so much lost and so much back-and-forth in trying to explain the context. The way I see it is your classmates or your teachers are best bet to get fast and efficient help, and yet today, so many students when they're struggling are trying to call their few friends they know, or trying to email their few friends they know. There is nothing connecting them to try and get them help when they need it with the largest set of most relevant people, that's their entire class. Lucy: I think that is absolutely right. Larry Nelson: Yeah. Lucy: You have to go to YouTube listeners, and look at the YouTube video on Piazzza. It's very cute, because it calls many of these students, who just like my son, "elite procrastinators." [laughter] Lucy: I know. It was just absolutely perfect. Maybe just before we get into our set of questions around entrepreneurship, tell us a little bit about where Piazzza is these days, and how you came up with the name, and what's going on with the company. Pooja: Sure. I was sitting in a finance class at GSB when I was brainstorming on the names, and I asked a student next to me, "What's a term that explains this idea of bringing people together in a common place?" He said, "Piazza." Lucy: [laughs] Oh, that's very good. Pooja: Plural of piazza was a great idea, except I don't like the sound of piazze. [laughs] Lucy: Yeah. Exactly. Pooja: And since then, coming up with that name 'pizza' just really stuck with me. When I go back to my undergrad days when everybody would be sitting together in the same lab, mostly because they were not in a financial position to own their own laptops or computers, the amount of help people got in there, and the ways in which they learned off of each other was just so beautiful. That was my fruition was to come up with a term that had the same meaning in my mind, which is everyone is in the same spot physically, except I'm trying to now do that online. My inspiration was I was one of the very few female students in computer science in India, not only just computer science students, but IIT, which is the top engineering school of India has very few women overall, so there are about 420 boys. In my class there were about 20 girls, and in computer science there were three girls. So, I would be all alone on the sidelines, too shy to ask any guy for help, and I just wished I had something that would connect me through all my classmates in a way that even myself being the shy student or girl that I was back then, I would still have a way to tap-in to their collective knowledge. Lucy: Well, I think that is wonderful, and the product looks great. Are you launched yet, or are you still in a private sort of beta, or what is the state of the software? Pooja: We're private beta right now, but this fall, we're planning to launch openly to Stanford Campus. Because of our team being quite small at the moment, we're taking a very controlled birth approach. The biggest reason for that is I want to make sure I have a very personal connection with all of my users. I'm afraid that if we were to launch too aggressively or too openly, I would lose that somehow down the line. Last summer was when I built the first prototype myself, and then launched to a single class at University of Maryland, College Park, where I did my Master's Degree. I was a professor in computer science. When that started to go quite positively, we launched to more classes at Stanford, and University of Maryland, and Santa Clara, this January, and that went even better. So, the spring quarter, we had a number of classes at Stanford, both undergrad and grad level; MBA, Computer Science, Engineering. The usage on this site continues to grow rapidly, and a lot of that is through feedback, and talking with students and faculty at Stanford, understanding their needs and then watching how you actually use the platform we've given to them, and iterating quite rapidly. Lucy: It's exciting. Larry: Yeah. It really is exciting. Wow! I wish I had known about Piazzza a number of years ago, but anyhow... Pooja: [laughs] Larry: You have a background in computer science. So, let me kind of ask a two-part question here. How did you first get involved into technology, and kind of bridge that from the past to what do you think in the future is cool technology today? Pooja: How did I get into technology? Well, my dad is a physicist, and so he generally from a very young age, always would be having us observe things from a very scientific perspective, and have us appreciate technology out there in the world, how it is affecting us in our daily life. My brother is an electrical engineer. So, I guess being surrounded by them, I had this excitement around technology, and studying engineering myself. I come from a pretty small town in India, where no girl had gotten into IIT before me. Somehow just being surrounded by my family in the way that I was, was very motivational for me to start thinking about engineering and particularly, computer science. Coming to your next question, what technologies, and how do I see that today. I love that technology lets us do things in more simple and simple ways. Just to give an example, I remember last summer when I had an idea, and I wanted to act on it. I had a very hardcore of engineering background, in the sense I only used to code CC++ server technology, and stuff like that, and Oracle, and Cosmix, Facebook. It is all back, and stuff. In the summer I said, "OK. I want to build a web app, what can I do?" And I learned more about various technologies out there to build web apps. I realized instantly that Ruby and PHP, and all these other platforms that are out there, they enable us to build a web app in 10 days. I got my first prototype in mid-July, when I only started learning it in June. I'm very impressed at how everything is moving towards making our own life easier, so that we can innovate faster. Lucy: And do your homework faster! Pooja: [laughs] Lucy: That is absolutely the case. So, you are getting your MBA at Stanford. You mentioned you got your Master's at Maryland, and you're also starting a company and really growing organically, and so on and so forth. What made you make that leap from that big company kind of environment into being an entrepreneur?  Pooja: So, I never really consciously realized I was making a leap into being an entrepreneur. [laughter] Lucy: That's probably why you're a great entrepreneur. Pooja: I still way say, though, that I had joined a pretty small startup after Oracle, which was a search engine, building a search engine at the time called Cosmix, and then Facebook, which was very startupish. I still think it is. But again, coming to my motivation to build Piazzza, I never thought, "Oh, I'm about to be a CEO" or "I'm about to be a founder." I realized there is a very prevalent problem, and after having been through a couple discussions around genders and workplaces, and women support groups, I realized that many students, even in the US, are in the shoes that I am, which is they don't feel like they have the support group they needed. All I thought of last January, the second quarter of Stanford Business School, is there has to be something that connects these students in a better and more effective way to all of their classmates and teachers. Step-by-step, and I don't know, I like to think of it as a baby step at a time, I started working toward a solution that I wished I had in my own undergrad that could have increased my learning in computer science for the four years that I was there at a wonderful engineering institute in India. Larry: Well, with everything that you've been through and are continuing to do, were there people along the way that maybe had a major influence on you and, let's say, maybe even was a mentor for you? Pooja: I think in different phases of my life I've had different people influence me in different ways and different mentors. Definitely my parents, my brother and his family have been very supportive in whatever decisions I've made. Choosing to do CS as a woman, for example. Or, jumping from the security of a large company to a startup. And, even deciding to say, guys, I'm doing my own start-up over the summer. I'm not going to have a paid internship between my first and second year. I'm going to work on this whatever hours of the day that I think I'm most effective at. [laughter] Pooja: But, their support. And, a lot of my classmates at the GSB, they understood entrepreneurship. They understood what it meant to try something. I got of support from them in very implicit ways. Then, coming to, I would say, models of leadership, there have been a few people I've really been inspired by. I was fortunate to work very closely and observe how Mark Zuckerberg runs and leads Facebook. He was an immense source of inspiration for me, watching his innate styles and how the company would function in its own powerful and effective way. Today, I've got a few mentors who have helped me these past two years as Piazzza has evolved. Mostly some of the top leaders at Palantir. They've been there. I've had questions. I don't know what to do. Some of them have been through leading a company, growing a company, and they're there to answer my questions. They pose questions in the right way that have me think in the right way. It's not they want to tell me or they have to handhold me. But, they have me thinking in the right way, which has been very helpful for me. Lucy: That's great to have that kind of advice from people around you. It really does make a big difference in terms of doing things right. And, often, as entrepreneurs tough things happen, too. You see along the way something's been particularly difficult. So far on your journey, what has been the toughest thing you've had to do so far? Pooja: When I look back at everything that's got me to where I am today, I would say the toughest thing was being confident in who I was while I was preparing as a female for the IIT entrance exam. 200,000 people get that exam each year in India. I think the number's even increased. And, 2,000 people get selected. And, of that, I'm sitting knowing that maybe 50 to 100 women get selected. But, that mindset that I had which is I'm not going to look around me and how other women see this. I'm going to say there are 2,000 people who are selected, and I have to be one of them. Getting into IIT, the four years struggling and often feeling alone trying to understand assignments and projects, were very, very tough. But, they shaped me to a point where today when I'm on this journey where many people say being an entrepreneur is lonely and scary, I honestly don't think it is that bad. Being in Silicon Valley, I think I have a lot of support. Lucy: That's an interesting observation. I'd like to add something from NCWIT's perspective about this. We hear this a lot from our high school girls who are interested in computer science. They're the only girl in the class. They're the only girl in the school. This feeling of being alone. We've started something around a K-12 award for high school girls. We're going to put a social networking site together for them just to keep them connected. They're from all over the country. Just to give them that sense that they are not alone. I think your point is brilliant which is once you've learned that you can survive alone, that's a good skill. [laughter] Lucy: I think that's great. Larry: That's a fact. Well, that's kind of a lead-in to this next question. Right now, if you were sitting down right across the table with another person, a young person, who is maybe going to have an entrepreneurial leaning, what advice would you give to them? Pooja: I think the biggest advice, I think I remember Derrick Bolton, the Director of Admissions at the MBA program at Stanford, said this once that really inspired me, is believe in yourself because we believe in you and that is beautiful. Today I am able to do my own startup because I believe in myself and I'm content that I can achieve, and I would tell them the same thing. I'd tell them believe in yourself and if there is something that you are truly passionate about, go out there and start it. Don't plan for the day when you will, just jump in and it's going to be hard, it's going to be scary and it will be fun and amazing and fulfilling in a way if I just think, I don't know personally, I feel nothing else could have given this sense of fulfillment. Lucy: Well and we have talked to you just for a short period of time here but I think our listeners were all ready now that there are certain words that describe you, as entrepreneur. One is passionate, a lovely description about why people would want to be entrepreneurial and, also, confident and certainly persistent in trying to achieve your goals. What other personal characteristics that you have that would make you a successful entrepreneur? Pooja: In my view, I would say I am optimistic. I don't know if everyone views that as a characteristic that's good for an entrepreneur. But I'm very optimistic and I don't easily get discouraged. I think I have already mentioned this but from my town, when no girl had gotten in, I don't use that dampen my spirits to apply or even the quality with which I put an effort to apply to get the IIT exams. Here in Silicon Valley, the same thing. I know there aren't that many female entrepreneurs. I wish there were. But that doesn't discourage me. I know that I will get a lot of support and when people see a brilliant product, they will support in many ways that I will need to move forward. Larry: Well, you are doing all kinds of things, building a company, gaining an MBA. Lucy: Going to Stanford. Oh my goodness, frightening right there. Larry: Yeah, how do you bring balance into your personal and your professional lives? Pooja: I don't know that I see when doing on my business and school and with my friends as clear lines between any of them, and I think a reason could be that I love all of them. There are times that I realize that I need or I want to spend more time just on my personal friend and it could be a trip somewhere with my friends. I will do that. And sometimes I realize that it is very crucial for Piazzza that a release is coming up and that I will forget about all social activities out of which people must be thinking, "Wow. Really?" But I do give up a lot of social activities and just immerse myself into building the right products for the students and professors I like. I know I hear other people have to find a balance on a daily level that's not something I do and perhaps it's because I love everything that I do so much that I try to figure out what's the right balance I should balance over a certain time period and make sure that I am balancing them all to a level so I'm not giving too much time to any one part of my life. Lucy: Well, so you are doing a lot and I know we ask our entrepreneurs their next steps. So we already know the next step for you is to get that MBA. We know you are going to launch Piazzza, hopefully this fall, or whenever it's time. What other things are coming down the road for you that you can share with our listeners? Pooja: I still see myself as a long way to go and achieving my mission that I have for Piazzza. I want to see this in every class, worldwide, and at the first step before that, nationwide. I really think students and professors will get so much value out of this platform that I am just on step zero. It's gone to some classes as a private beta at Standford. It's going to go to more classes at Stanford but, really, I hope to achieve seeing this help every single student so that no student four years out of graduation will have to say something like, "I wished I had something like that." Lucy: Well, I think it's a great vision. Larry: Yes, I do too. Lucy: And we wish you the very best of luck with that and thank you very much for talking to us. Pooja: Thank you. Lucy: And I would like to remind listeners, if they can find this podcast on w3w3.com and also NCWIT.org. Larry: You betcha. And we'll have a link to Piazzza, too. Lucy: Oh, Good. Larry: Why not. Lucy: Why not, let's do it. [laughter] Pooja: Perfect. Lucy: Alright. Thank you so much. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Pooja Nath SankarInterview Summary: Having been one herself, Pooja Nath understands the problems of students studying for assignments or exams. They have specific questions with a lot of context that search engines can't address because the returns are too many and too general. So Pooja built a prototype for Piazzza, an online forum in which students can share knowledge. Release Date: May 17, 2010Interview Subject: Pooja NathInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 17:14

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with ML Mackey CEO and Co-founder, Beacon Interactive Systems Date: May 10, 2010 Entrepreneurial Heroes Interview with ML Mackey [music] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology, or NCWIT. With me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi, I'm happy to be here. Lucy: Absolutely. We have this great interview series with women who have started IT companies, many of them multiple companies, across all different sectors. Today, I'm really excited because our interview is going to be with a woman who has worked in both the private and the public sector. I don't really think we've talked to anybody who has worked with the government in the same way that our guest has worked with. So, today, we're talking to ML Mackey who is the CEO and Co-founder of Beacon Interactive Systems. I was really interested in Beacon because it does the workflow kind of things. If you look at their history with private industry, things around customer service and email management and great companies that they've worked with like IBM and MetLife and others. ML, then, that company into working in the government sector working on the performance of its workforce. So, the DOD. And, I'm thinking, oh, that's something taxpayers should really dig, you know? [laughs] Larry: [laughs] Lucy: Performance management of the federal sector. So, welcome ML. We're glad you could join us. ML Mackey: Thanks. Thanks for having me. Lucy: So, first of all, why don't you just give us a little bit of an update on what Beacon's up to. ML: Well, we're a 16-year-old company. We provide software to our customers that helps them get their work done easier and easier, regardless of what that work is. Like you said, we did private sector. And, now, we're doing the public sector. It's a fascinating place to be right now in the federal sector, and specifically in the DOD, where we work. It is kind of a bold statement, but we say to some of our friends we're trying to help the federal government perform more efficiently. [laughs] Lucy: [laughs] Well, I shouldn't laugh, I mean... ML: How's that for a book? Larry: Please. Lucy: [laughs] I was going to say, please! Larry: It has to work. Lucy: Yeah, please do. [laughs] Please do. ML: Let's hope we're successful. And, a very small piece of that, I must say. But, it's kind of fun. Right now we are mainly selling to the Department of Defense. We sell primarily to the U.S. Navy. We have two products that we sell to them. One is in the equipment maintenance space, and it's called TURBOWORK. It's all about helping the maintainers perform equipment maintenance more efficiently and effectively. The second product we have stemmed out of that work. It's a collaborative program management software called T3, the Technology Transition Tool. It's used by the Navy to better manage their portfolio of R&D investments. Lucy: Well, you're absolutely right. There's so much going on in the public sector these days, especially with technology. I was just reading about it. There's an 80-billion-dollar-a-year budget... Larry: [laughs] Lucy: ...in the federal government for technology spent, which is just an amazing amount of money. So, I'm glad you're working to make sure it's spent more efficiently. Larry: We want you to succeed. ML: [laughs] Lucy: Yeah, absolutely. So, ML, why don't you tell our listeners a bit about how you first got into technology and where you see some of the hot technologies today. ML: You know, I thought about this question a little bit beforehand. And, I thought what would I tell them? I wanted to say something very philosophical and profound and deep. And, I'll tell you what, I got into technology because I really wanted to make money. [laughs] Lucy: That's a good reason. Larry: Yeah. Yeah. ML: I was pretty sure that teaching ballet, which I loved doing, wasn't going to be the lifestyle that I wanted to live. So, I said I think I'd like to be able to be independent. So, I applied for a scholarship in electrical engineering because they gave the most electrical engineering scholarships out. I'm already convinced I knew what electrical engineering was when I applied for it. Turned out I got the scholarship. It also turned out quite luckily for me that I really enjoyed what I was learning about. Engineering is a fascinating profession. Understanding what makes things work and how to understand science and figure out how to apply it to real-world needs is a fun and exciting place to be. So, I stumbled upon the place that I needed to be and was happy to be there. Larry: That's great. ML: I got into technology. Larry: I like that. I like that. ML: I like to think it was more purposeful. It was just someone watching out for me, you know? So, that worked out really well. Did a lot of hardware design, some software design. Got into running a business, very much an engineering kind of approach to how we run a business and how we started it. The technologies that I think are cool right now. I think software is a fascinating area to be in. And, I think the convergence of information from both physical resources as well as people is fascinating. I think there's a lot of work to being done with sensors that we've only tapped the beginning usefulness and productivity from that I just think is fascinating. And, I think understanding that in terms of how it integrates with the real world and how people work and interface with that information is really what drives our company. Larry: Well, that's fantastic. ML, having the public sector background, I have to ask what is it about being an entrepreneur that drew you there? And, what makes you tick? ML: I think the reason that I'm an entrepreneur, and I would say the same thing for my partner. The reason we started a business is we said we like to do things. We like to make things happen. We like to create things. We like to be around creative and smart people. And, we like to make an impact with what we're doing. I think we also wanted to make money, too. [laughter] ML: So, it seemed like starting a company was a great combination for all of these things. I think what makes me tick now about being an entrepreneur is the adrenalin, is the challenge, is the opportunity, is the creativity. It's the great people I get to work with at my company. It's the interesting customers that we get to work with. It's never dull. It's always something interesting and new. And, the ability to help guide that and stay true to finding interesting things and doing meaningful work is a real driver. Lucy: Along the way on your entrepreneurial journey, oftentimes we find people have been influenced by others. Sometimes we call them mentors. Or, sometimes we call them role models. Or, sometimes they're co-founders or what have you. What can you tell our listeners about the particular people that influenced you? ML: Well, I can tell you I'm blessed and totally lucky to have found a brilliant mentor for me in the last, I'd say, eight or nine years who worked with me. A tremendously smart, intelligent woman who was interested in sharing what she knew and helping me grow into being a better businesswoman. That was a real benefit, and I hope that every young woman can find someone like I found in Ruth. So, that was a benefit. I found her just by working together and us clicking and finding our way to each other. It's turned into a very nice personal relationship as well. I have to say that I'm not sure that I had women role models until that point. There was occasionally someone that I saw here, occasionally someone that I saw there. I think what helped me specifically was that there wasn't a preconceived set of notions or ideas about how business works or what it takes to be a business person. I know my partner, he practiced his signature from the time he was five years old because he knew he was going to be a businessman like his dad. So, I think he had a role model that he would aspire to. I think I just naturally gravitated to this profession. But, anything that we the community can do to put role models out for our kids is a great thing. It's interesting to be able to see the kinds of experiences that you could have. The kinds of choices that you can make in defining what your career will be. Lucy: I have two sons, and they've been practicing their signatures like their father. And, you can't read any of them anyway. Larry: [laughs] Very good. Lucy: Yeah, they look like little squiggly lines to me. ML: My daughter said to me, "Mommy, I think Daddy" -- my husband is my business partner -- "I think Daddy only has one letter when he does his signature. The rest is just a line." Lucy: [laughs] ML: I said oh, he practiced that, honey. [laughter] Lucy: I know, it's true. And, just as an offhand remark, it seems like I've often wanted to do some research on this issue of signatures, but that's for another day. Larry: Yeah, really. ML: There's a whole science to that actually. Lucy: Yeah, to be sure. Larry: I have four daughters, and half of them are... Lucy: Do they practice their signatures? Larry: I don't know if they did. I think so because two of them it's very readable and looks really gorgeous. The other ones are messy like mine. So, oh well. Lucy: Oh, well. Larry: Now, with all the things you've been through, ML, and the successes and everything else, what is the toughest thing that you've ever had to do in your career? ML: Some people might look at my career and say the toughest thing I had to do was quit my very interesting, well-payed job in order to start the company. Or, you may look at signing leases or some of the difficult things of stepping into a new space and finding a new market. But, I have to tell you, by far the most... All those things were fun, by the way, and interesting and exciting. The thing that stands out among all of our experiences as the most challenging was surviving the economic downturn in the software industry in the 2000 to 2001 time frame. That was just a terrible, traumatic and very difficult time to get through that, I have to say, I'm very pleased we are on the other side of. And, I'm going to find some wood quickly to knock on. That was difficult for a variety of reasons. I think primarily the reason that was so difficult for an entrepreneur like myself is that there was so much that was out of my control. It was so drastically bad, and there was such a long period where we weren't able to feel successful. In hindsight, there were many things that we were doing that were wildly successful and allowed us to maintain, and then to grow, the value of our company again and grow the IP and grow the team back up. But, that was a really difficult time. Having said that, I think every business is going to go through something difficult. So, now I know we've been through it and know some of the steps and some of the things I'd do again if we were in a difficult spot and some of the things that I wouldn't do again. [laughs] Net-net it's all positive. But, that was by far the most challenging experience we had. Lucy: In fact, those tough times, they give you sort of a second kind of intuition, and in terms of looking to the future, too. You might spot things sooner. That was a tough time... Larry: Yeah, it was. Lucy: ...early 2000. That was tough. Larry: We felt the pain, too. ML: We bootstrapped our company. We started in a little rent-controlled apartment on Beacon Street in Coolidge Corner Brookline here in Massachusetts. So, we never lived large when we started. We knew how to bootstrap and we knew how to be lean. And, it still was just a really difficult time. But, you get through something like that, and you appreciate what you have moving forward. Every customer is good news. Every contract is good news. And, they're especially sweet now for us. Lucy: Exactly. And, I think that's great advice for any entrepreneur to hear. ML, I know you mentioned you do work in STEM education. You're very interested in issues related to science, technology, engineering and math. So, as it relates to entrepreneurship, if you were sitting here with a young person and giving them advice about being an entrepreneur, what would you tell them? ML: There are two things that I would say are the most important things to tell someone who's thinking about starting their own business. The first is be true to yourself. Be true to what you like to do. [laughs] I can remember, I was graduating from school and I thought oh, I'm an electrical engineer. This is great. I'm going to do electrical engineering. I don't have to figure something out. Then I got closer to graduating and I went, oh my God! What does an electrical engineer do? [laughter] ML: [laughs] And, I talked to a friend of mine who was wildly successful, founded a few companies down in California and just really doing fantastic. I said hey, Andy, how do you get a job? Both my parents were public school teachers. He said, well, you find what you like to do and then you do that. And I was like, come on. Seriously, how do you get a job? [laughs] That's not really going to help me. In hindsight, it was one of the best pieces of advice that I've gotten in my career. And, one that I would highly recommend for anyone thinking of doing something in entrepreneurship. Or, even just as they're plotting their own individual career path. And, that is find what you like to do and what drives you. For example, I like technology. I really like knowing how things work and making new things. I also like people. I'm the kind of person that likes to go to a party full of new people and understand who's there, get to know them, see how they know each other. I like going into customers and understanding how they get their work done. So, we build collaborative software. It's technology about how people work together. My partner likes technology and he also likes business and clarity in business and really making the right value happen from your business. So, our collaborative software systems are not social networking systems. They're collaborative software systems that help you get your work done. So that, one, you can get it done more efficiently, and two, you know what's going on in your organization. So, we stayed true to what our core values are and what our expertise is while we shifted markets from private sector to the public sector. Which was precipitated by the 2002, 2001 downturn in the industry, as I talked about. We stayed true to what our core expertise was. And, we found a way to understand where the federal money would go to small businesses and how to do research and how to get connected into our Department of Defense customers. There were quite a few solicitations of them, but we stayed true to what our expertise was and what we'd be able to accomplish. And, it's become very successful in the process. Lucy: I think that's great. ML: Stay true to what you do. Lucy: Exactly. And that's great advice. It kind of leads me to a follow-up question around just some words you might use to describe yourself. What characteristics do you believe make you a successful entrepreneur? ML: So I'm going to give you the main word and then I'm going to track back to one other thing. Because I've done a disservice to anyone listening. The second and possibly most important that you have to learn as an entrepreneur that I would tell a young person is learn to sell. Learn how to sell. Learn how to sell. Learn how to sell. Don't say, I have a good quality, I have a good product, I can run a company. All of that doesn't matter if you can't sell your product to a customer. So I wanted to close off that last piece and make sure there are two things. One, stay true to yourself. And two, learn how to sell. And the word that I would give you to this question that you just asked me about what are the characteristics of a successful entrepreneur or what has been successful for me is tenacity. You've got to be persistent. You got to choose your path. You got to say this is what I want to accomplish and I'm going to just stay to it. I'm going to approach it from different vectors if I can't accomplish the direction I'm going in. But you've got to be tenacious. Larry: Well you've got a couple of children. You're growing a business. You're doing all kinds of really neat things. How do you ML, bring balance to your personal and professional lives? ML: You know that's an interesting question. So I'll sort of answer it in two different ways. One, I was given an award by an organization up here and I was speaking to all of the entrepreneurial characteristics, and I said to the group, and I said of all these characteristics I've told you about being entrepreneurial, by far the most entrepreneurial venture that my partner, and I have done is parent our two small children. So family life pulls us...I want to use the word balance, but I don't know that balance is the word that really fits. So the second part of my answer to your question it's more about work-life integration. And balance implies cordoning off. And one place I do work and one place I do home and one place I do, oh, God forbid, a hobby. Someday maybe I'll get to that. Larry: [laughs] ML: Part of that, it's more about how you integrate all the facets of who you are so they flow and overlap well with each other. So, my children know the office space but they don't spend too much time here. My kids' friends know that we have a company and understand that sometimes when we've made a sale, oh, good, we just sold to the navy. We just sold software to every ship in the navy. And my kids driving home from school, and their friends went, oh, that's so cool. So that's about an integration without a line that's tough and hard between the two spaces. But it's a continuous balancing act, I should use the word of that integration. Lucy: Well we hear that from a number of successful entrepreneurs. That in fact integration is a better word than balance. I personally believe it is as well. Having raised two kids and being a corporate executive is exactly the same thing. There's no hard line in the sand. I think that's important. ML: You know what I think is fascinating around companies as well is they are starting to understand that in terms of flex time and hours, and commitments, and how you deliver upon your professional commitments as well. Which I just think is a fascinating new area and we'll see some changes in the next five to 10 years. Lucy: I think so too, and we're seeing some data with our work here at NCWIT, around these issues being really important to men and women. That they have the ability to have this kind of work and personal life integration if you will. An certainly in the technology space, one would like to hope that it would be possible. For sure. Maybe using some ML software. Larry: What an idea. What an idea. Lucy: [laughs] What an idea. So ML, you've really achieve a lot. What's next for you? What can you tell our listeners? What do you see coming down the road? ML: More of the same. The spinning out other companies. Going in different directions. It's just fun seeing the products you've created. They sort of take on a life of their own. So then its how do you leverage them that momentum and how do you grow that into something interesting. Growing our team is on our future. That's really quite interesting as well too. It's great to come to work everyday and have a group that's interested in what they're doing and engaged and energetic about what they're accomplishing. So I think just more of the same. Lucy: I have sort of an off the cuff question just to end in. ML: Oh, God. Lucy: Of course. Just to kind of end the interview with. Like if you were giving advice since you are one of our very few interviews about working with the public sector to other entrepreneurs that might want to become involved with the public sector, what would that be? ML: The best advice I could give anyone looking to get involved in the public sector that has not been in the public sector is to have a healthy respect for how different the business is. We completely revamped how we operate our business, how we mange our business, how you engage your customers. I would suggest that...what was the number you gave at the beginning of the interview on federal technologies? Lucy: Eighty billion. Eighty billion dollars a year in IT spent. ML: Yeah, and people look at that number and go oh wow, all I have to do is get a piece of that. There are stunning roadblocks to knowing how to work with the federal government. And just as simple as, which is not simple at all, of how do you get under contract? So, you have a solution, you have a perspective buyer, you have funds available. How do they even get that to you? So there are a lot of roadblocks there, none obvious. Having said that, there's a tremendous opportunity to be innovative and to leverage commercial sector expertise in innovative ways for what has been a very traditional business area. I'm speaking specifically in the software now. There's a lot of opportunity there to really drive value and do something important there. So I would say to anyone, the advice I would give is absolutely look into it. It's a tremendous capability. There's a lot of R&D as well as straight product sales that are possible with the federal government. But just have a real healthy respect for that it is not what you've known in the private sector. And to pay attention to characteristics and different business models. Lucy: That's great advice. Larry: It is. Lucy: I think our listeners will appreciate that. I know we've seen it from the non profit side, working with the government is very different than our work with corporations for example. Very, very different. ML: Find some of just non intuitive. Lucy: Yep. Totally. Really, thank you for your time. We really do appreciate it. And I wanted to remind listeners where they can find this interview. At w3w3.com. And also ncwit.org. Larry: Perfect. Lucy: Alright. Thank you, ML. Larry: ML, thank you so much. ML: Thank you. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: ML MackeyInterview Summary: Explaining why she became an entrepreneur, ML Mackey says, "My partner and I like to do things, we like to make things happen, we like create things and be around smart creative people and we want to make an impact with what we are doing. It seemed like starting a company was a great combination for all these things." Release Date: May 10, 2010Interview Subject: ML MackeyInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 20:05

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Beth Marcus Former Founder and CTO, Zeemote Date: January 22, 2010 Entrepreneurial Heroes Interview with Beth Marcus [music] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders, I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women in Information Technology or NC WIT, and this is another in our podcast series with women who have started IT companies, very successful women I might add... Larry Nelson: Boy, I'll say. Lucy: ...that have started IT companies. With me Larry Nelson from W3W3.com. Hi Larry. Larry: Hi, I'm really happy to be here. This is going to be an exciting interview. Lucy: Well, and these interviews have been very well received at W3W3. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that. Larry: Well we host a special channel, "Heroes for NC WIT, " and we get a tremendous amount of traffic from, everything from small business owners to C level, high level executives from enterprise size companies and it's very interesting and the thing that we like about it so much it's really helping support a push for more young girls to get into IT. Lucy: Well, very good. Well, you know this interview is going to be no exception to our great interview series. Today we're talking with Beth Marcus, who is the CEO, the founding CEO of Playsmart, a new venture for her, she's a serial entrepreneur. She's founded a number of companies including Exos which she sold to Microsoft on the middle of nineteen nineties. And she is, I think easily one of the most technical people we've spoken to in this interview series with a history at MIT, and a PhD and patents and very, very impressive technical entrepreneur. Welcome Beth. Beth Marcus: Thank you. Lovely to be here chatting with you. Lucy: Well we are really interested first to find out a little bit about Playsmart, your new venture. And we understand it is really geared towards having safe environments for children on the Internet. Can you tell us more about it? Beth: Sure. It's a complete media solution for kids, ages one to eight. It allows them to be entertained, educated, connected to other family members around the world and allows the parents to control what's happening with the kids' interaction with those environments and make it totally safe. No commercials are passed to the kids. Once they get into the Playsmart system which can run on any PC or netbook they can't get out of it accidentally or otherwise and they can't get to any content or interaction that their parents don't pre-approve. Lucy: That's pretty interesting. Larry: Boy I'll say. I've got seven grandchildren, I'm happy to hear that. Beth: In fact, one of the features that some of our investors are interested in is Skyping to grandchildren that you can do through Playsmart. All you do is click on a picture of your grandparent and it makes the call for you. Lucy: Oh, that is really cool, you know. My mother's on Skype too and you know she, I mean I actually think the other end could use some help with that, you know? Larry: Yes, I agree. Beth: Yeah. Lucy: I mean she loves Skype. Beth: My daughter is how I got involved in this. I do a lot of advising of other start up CEO's and I thought I was going to be taking a break from being a CEO and just help a bunch of other people, and an entrepreneur came to me and said, you know, "Let me show you what I've got, " and it was for kids and I have a five year old. So I said, "Susie, let's play with this thing, " and she said, "Oh, this is so cool." You know and her interaction with it is what convinced me to get involved with the company and become a CEO. Lucy: You know, we've had a couple of people we've interviewed whose children have helped them form the idea for their next venture or at least encouraged them to get involved. That's really interesting. So Beth give our listeners a sense of how you first got into technology. I mean you have a very extensive technical background as I mentioned before. What first interested you in technology? Beth: A million years ago when I was in school I liked science and math and I played around with computers. And I'm probably going to give away my age, but wrote programs in Basic that ran on paper tape into a terminal. Lucy: I did that too. So don't feel bad. Beth: And then, I ended up going to MIT because they had a lot of interesting science and math. And what got me into more core technology was freshman year at MIT they have a seminar series that you do, typically in January and I took aluminum bicycle frame building because I loved bikes and I thought that would be cool. I had never seen a machine shop, I didn't know what welding was. I had never done any of the stuff and through that seminar I got fascinated by making stuff and ended up being in mechanical engineering. Lucy: Well and we noticed you were judge for First Robotics which I think further extend... Beth: Ten years, which is a lot of fun. Lucy: Yeah, you're love of making things. Larry and I both judge as well with First, so it's a great program. So what technologies do you look out there today across the technical space? What technologies do you find really cool and interesting today? Beth: Of course the last company I was in was the mobile space so I think the evolution of mobile devices into computers that you carry around with you is very interesting. I mean, when I started Zeemote in 2005, when I said, "These are the computers you're going to carry with you 24/7" the potential investors looked at me like I was from Mars. Larry: Yeah. Beth: And now people do. Lucy: They certainly do and in fact the number of people are looking at mobile devices as a real tool to help third world developing countries as well. Larry: Awesome. Beth: Well, they don't have land lines. Lucy: Exactly. Beth: And even though we have them, a lot of people don't use them anymore. Larry: Yeah, let me kind of switch gears here for a second. Two part related questions. One is, why are you an entrepreneur? And what is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Beth: Well, I think it's a challenge. The first company I started, I remember we had built some high end controllers, exoskeleton controllers for robots in space for NASA and other people. And I got this idea that we ought to be able to take this technology and make it into a consumer product. And I was giving a talk at a Virtual Reality Conference and somebody from a not to be named defunct computer company said, "Well if you can't spend two hundred and fifty thousand dollars on a reality engine you shouldn't be doing VR." And I said, "We're going to do it on PC's and we're going to make a hundred dollar joystick and everyone's going to use them but they're not going to know that it's VR." And that sort of a challenge where somebody says, "Oh you can't do that." [laughter] Or even sometimes why would somebody want that. And then you put it in front of them and they go, "Oh wow. That makes my life easier"or "That makes my health better." You know. That exciting to me. Lucy: It's a very incredibly important point I think, you know, maybe I'll just digress a moment and say that you know there's always this tug of war in any corporation big or small between the business side and the technical side and often I think the business side can't necessarily see the power of technology until a technologist puts it in front of him. And... Beth: That's why I advise all the companies that I get involved with to get those prototypes built as quickly as possible with as little money as possible and get it into the hands of the end users. Because there's where you're going to find out are you smoking something and convincing yourself there's a market or does somebody really care about this. Lucy: Absolutely. Beth: And you learn so much that most entrepreneurs will tell you that the thing that they thought they were starting their company on is not the one they made money on. And it's the ones who iterate and spend time with the consumer whether they're a consumer or a corporate customer or whatever kind of customer, the ones that spend the time and listen to the customer are the ones that figure it out and succeed. Lucy: That is a really important point and I think, looking forward, we may have to ask you again a month from now but you know we do a Toolbox series as well and I think that it would be great to hear your advice for entrepreneurs because that advice around prototyping is excellent. Beth: I was going to be writing a book this year. Lucy: [laughs] Now you are running a company. Beth: Company...My God. I spent some time on it this summer capturing things like that and interviewing other entrepreneurs and then I said, "OK, I got to put this aside until I do this center and I'll come back again." Lucy: I think it will be fabulous because of your technical background. I'm sure you'd have some really valuable insights there. Beth: And I am a published poet. So... Right in the way that is intelligible to the rest of the world. Larry: So now there is a third interview. Lucy: A third... [laughs] Larry: A poetry. Lucy: Yeah. You are really digging yourself into a hole. So, along the lines of entrepreneurship, we found that many entrepreneurs can point to a particular person or a group of people who influence them or help them along their way as an entrepreneur. Who are your role models and how do they influence you? Beth: I think the first person who got me the sort of excitement at making stuff work was this professor in MIT Woody Flowers who was involved in the First Robotics Company. Lucy: Absolutely, I have seen him. I have never met him. Beth: But he was an early mentor of mine and I became a judge for this mechanical engineering design contest while I was still a student. And then that's sort of got me excited about the excitement of innovating and trying new things and testing your ideas. And then when I went to start my first company, I joined the MIT enterprise forum and there were a number of people there who I had no idea even what a business plan was. And I was going to write one to raise money. So I listened to other people talk about their businesses and I got some of those people to help me write my first business plan. And then later on, a man named Don Spero started a company called Fusion Systems down in the DC area that successfully flowed against the Japanese and the patent area. Kind of taught me about intellectual property and the value of it and also mentored me generally because of his long experience in running companies. And then when I was running Exos and I realized that I was out of my debts from a management point of view. I hired a guy named [indecipherable 10:03] to come in and run my company. And he became a mentor of mine and he is still to this day a friend. So all along the way, I think the lesson for an entrepreneur is to talk to anybody you can everywhere about what you are doing and try and connect with them because you never know when you are going to stand next to the person who is going to get you a deal like I did when I was in a party in MIT. And I stand next to Bob Metcalf who introduced me to the Logitech guys that told me what product to build for an Exos to get an exit. Or whether I am going to hire somebody who turns out to be my mentor and teach me about business that leaves the exit in the company. Larry: Wow. Beth, let me ask this question. First of all, you just mentioned about you are going to write a book this year but now you are running a company instead. It took me three years to write a book that I just had published called Mastering Change. So I just want to let you know that you can do that too. Beth: Yeah but I have a five year old and a puppy. Larry: Yeah, I got you. [laughs] Beth: So I said my daughter is most important, my business is second most important and the rest will just have to wait. Larry: There you go. I agree with that. Lucy: Although I could throw little barb in here and say Larry is a five year old but... [Larry clears his throat] Go ahead Larry I was... Beth: Anything about relationship in any of that. So? Lucy: [laughs] Larry: I have been married for 40 years. What are you going to do? Beth: Adolescence. I am not married so... If any of your listeners want to apply for the job, I take resumes. Larry: We make a little commission on this... Lucy: Yeah... [mumbles] Larry: Yeah. Speaking of all that stuff, what is the toughest thing that you ever had to do in your career? Beth: I think the first time I had to fire people was probably the worst moment because at Exos we started out as a medical company and we grew to a million and a half in revenues selling orthopedic rehab devices using our technology. And we realized we probably sold all the units that whatever be sold because we were teaching people how to turn on the computer not have a measure motions and force in patients. They didn't care about that. They use a plastic protractor and so we figured that out and we had to restart the company, went from 32 people down to about eight in one day. Lucy: That's tough. Beth: And I believe that I had helped outplace...anybody who wanted to be outplaced in great jobs elsewhere, and I am friends with some of the people who left the company at that point for years. And some of my hired again into other companies. I feel good about it. I remember at the end I closed my door and I just cried because these were my friends. Lucy: We hear that a lot from entrepreneurs. I think that is a very tough thing to...not just let people go but it is theirs loss and also downsizing the company and restarting it. That is all tough stuff. Beth: Yeah. Perhaps to tell you that I learned in that experience that if I had done it sooner, everybody would have been happier. Both the people who did not fit the business we are getting into and the investors and everybody would have done better. So, my advice to entrepreneurs is don't be afraid to hire but don't be afraid to fire the person who is the wrong person for the job. You are not doing them or you any favors by keeping them around if they are not working. Larry: Yeah. Lucy: It is the truth. We have learned that lesson unfortunately in the Telecom downsizing. Well that's great advice and it gets us to our next question about advice for young people about entrepreneurship and you have given us some perils already. And I wander around online and I found some presentation you made about naming your company. What I found was pretty interesting. Beth: That is a new one. [laughs] I give that to an MIT class because I am still on the faculty there. So occasionally faculty members will call me up and ask me to come, give lecture to their class and the senior mechanical engineering design class didn't have a clue how to name their product. So I came and I gave a lecture. Lucy: That's good. I can't wait for your book. And so, what kind of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs that you haven't already told us? Beth: I think the most important thing that I talk to any entrepreneur that I coached from day one is why are you doing this? What are your personal goals? What are your financial goals? How does that fit with your family? And if you evaluate that first and write it down and keep it in front of you and then say, is what I am doing today serving my goals, the company's goals and my family's goals? And when those things start to not match, that is when you get into trouble. And if you don't bother to figure it out first, then you don't have a road map because I made this mistake. I ran a company called Glow Dog which was a failure. It was a failure because we were just about break even and about a million plus in revenue and our Christmas shipments were on the water on 911. We had just grown to the size where we need to manufacture in China instead of the United States in order to compete and they were in the container on the ocean and they could not get in the United States so there was no Christmas. And we had to sell the assets and fold the company because I didn't feel like there was going to be a return on investment if I brought in more capital. But what I didn't think about when I started that company was what was the right size for this business and did that kind of a business match what I personally wanted to do? It was just interesting. People loved the product. They were reflective coating for people and pets. And you walking your dog at night, you don't get run over, right? Well, it turned out our customers were fashion stores in Tokyo who liked the logo I designed. I didn't even know it was reflective and it was a 33% margin business in an industry that is not very protectable and that I had no expertise in. What was I doing, doing this business? So, I raised a bunch of money to make a big play, before I realized that this really was a brand company, not a technology company. I raised the right amount of money for a technology company to get launched, but it turned out technology didn't matter, and to make a brand like Tommy Hilfiger or Ralph Lauren, you need tens of millions of dollars. Lucy: Absolutely. Beth: ... and you need expertise, which I didn't have. So, if I had understood my own personal goals and what kind of a work environment I wanted, and what the end game looked like at the beginning, I probably wouldn't have made those mistakes. Because Glow Dog could have been a very profitable, between $2 and $10 million dollar clothing company and pet product company, if that was its goal. It wouldn't have raised as much money. It wouldn't have spent as much money, and it might still be around today. Larry: You obviously didn't know all your life that you were going to become an entrepreneur and since we're... Beth: I thought I was going to be an academic. Larry: There you go, see... Lucy: Well, you're that too, so there you go. Larry: A little change. Beth: So, I'm an academic. I play at academia. [laughter] Beth: I actually have on one occasion taken money from MIT to teach a class, and I realized that it was not for me. Because along with taking the money, comes a lot of faculty meetings and policies and procedures, and entrepreneurs don't really love those things. What's good about a company that's under 25 people is you don't need a huge amount of that stuff to be successful. Larry: Right. Beth: Some people are really good at structure and organization and detail, and that's not me. Larry: Not you, no. Well, then, what were the characteristics that made you really become a successful entrepreneur? We want to reach out this way, because we have many young people and employers and parents, who want to know what secrets they should look at when it comes to entrepreneurism. Beth: Certainly, like anything else it can be taught, and it can be learned over time. So, if you want to be an entrepreneur and you don't really understand what it is, go get a job or an internship with an entrepreneurial firm and get to know that person who started the company and watch them. Do it a couple of times. You'll learn whether it suits you or not. But in terms of what I think gives me an advantage; first of all, unbridled optimism to the point of stupidity at times. [laughter] Larry: I love it! Beth: You know, "You can't do that! You can't do that!" "Sure I can! Sure I can!" You know there is a limit, you beat your head against the wall a few times and you walk away, but hammering on and being tenacious at getting your objective. If it doesn't happen the way you think, you think of a second way. If it doesn't happen that way, you think of a third way. Maybe you don't end up accomplishing what you set out to do, but in the course of trying to accomplish it, you figure out where the real value is. So, it's a combination of being tenacious, and also being aware and being willing to change, and willing to take advantage of what God, the world, whatever, has presented to you in terms of opportunity. So, if you're trying to build widget A, and nobody wants widget A, but in order to make widget A, you had to make a fixture. And it turns out loads of people want that fixture, well go sell a fixture. Don't keep trying to sell a widget that nobody wants. Lucy: Exactly. I like that, 'unbridled optimism on the verge of stupidity.' I am just going to have to remember that one. Larry: I was looking in a mirror when you said that, yes. Beth: Also, you have to be able to learn from everybody around you. Lucy: That's totally right. Beth: Willing to talk about what you do in a pleasant way, not obnoxious, but to anyone who will listen. Because you never know where you're going to learn something, or who's going to have, "Gee. I know the guy who started that company that you want to have buy your company" or "Gee. I had a company like that, and we made this mistake" and so you can learn to avoid that mistake. Lucy: Absolutely. Beth: Or somebody you want to hire. And don't be afraid to hire people who know a lot more than you do. Lucy: Totally. Beth: It's a matter of risk right. If you're an investor, and I've done some investing as well, you look at what's the total risk package for this business. And anything, absolutely anything you can do to reduce the risk is a good thing. And so the more experience you have that's relative to the business you're in, even if you don't know it yourself or understand it. It's going to reduce that risk. Lucy: Well and that's great advice I think. It's all pointing towards another interview I think Larry. Beth: You could have me talking for days. Lucy: I know. No, no ...I've got all kinds of plans for you know now. So you've already mentioned to us that you are a published poet and we know you're a judge for many years with First Robotics. What else are you doing to bring balance into your professional and personal lives? Beth: Well, I mean it's a struggle. I mean I'm a single mom, so there is no such thing as balance in my life. But, I do things like, I've got a calendar I just printed out this morning because I wasn't sticking to my exercise routine. And just like my daughter gets stars for reading books and she turns it in at school every month. I'm going to have her help me put stars on my calendar for my exercise. Lucy: Oh, that's nice. Beth: And I have family dinner night, where I cut off work early usually on Fridays, so that I can cook a meal. And we can sit down and eat together because it doesn't happen that often. And when I was growing up that was something that was somewhat absent and I wanted my daughter to have that, and I wanted me to have that too. Because, there is this idea that, when I was in the beginning of my entrepreneurial career, I obsessed about the business 24/7 and drove myself nuts. You know, I hardly slept, and that's not the best way to be productive. As I've gotten older, I work smarter. And so I do everything that I can do to make every minute of my time incredibly effective. If I'm having a bad day and I'm not productive. I'm not going to hammer my head against the computer or the telephone, which is where most of my work happens. I'll go and do something nice for myself for an hour. You know, call a friend, go have a coffee, or do an errand I need for my home. Go do some food shopping and come back. And then I'm refreshed and renewed. I listen to books on tape at night as I'm falling asleep so that I can't think about business at night. I love novels and I love fiction. So that for me blocks out my ability to think business. Lucy: That's a great idea. Larry: Yeah, it really is, wow. You know Beth, you have achieved so much in so many different ways. Going back to your first company that you ended up selling to Microsoft and all the other Wins and that challenges along the way. You've achieved a lot what's up for you next? Beth: I would like to have a huge exit in Playsmart. So if anybody is listening who wants to buy a company like that, that's the goal. To build this to where there is enormous excitement about the product and many, many families are using it. And then get a bigger company with huge resources behind it. And then I'll be happy to step back, finish my book and invest and advise in others. Lucy: Wow, and we would love to see you write that book. Larry: Boy, I'll say. Lucy: That would be I mean great, great advice here and we thank you for taking time to talk to us. I want to remind those who are listening to this interview that they can find it at W3W3.com. Larry: That's right and we'll have it up also on our blog as well as our podcast directory so you can download it 24/7. Lucy: Well, I'm pleased to pass it... Beth: And if there are there any moms of kids interested in Playsmart. That's at Playsmart send me an email, I'll make sure you find out about a product when it's out this summer. Lucy: Absolutely, and we'll have that as well in the bio up on the site. So everybody can find it when they come to download the podcast. Very good, well thank you very much. Larry: Thank you. [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Beth MarcusInterview Summary: Beth Marcus has been Founder and CEO of several successful startups, most notably EXOS, Inc., which was venture-backed and sold to Microsoft in 1996. Since then she has been involved in 14 start-ups in a variety of fields as a founder, investor, or advisor. Release Date: January 22, 2010Interview Subject: Beth MarcusInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 24:00

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Ellen Siminoff President and CEO, Shmoop University Date: June 1, 2009 Ellen Siminoff: Shmoop University Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, or NCWIT, and this is one of a continuing series of interviews that we're doing with really just outstanding women who have started IT companies. With me is Larry Nelson from W3W3.com. Hi, Larry and welcome. Larry Nelson: I am so happy to be here. This is going to be a very interesting interview. As we get into it Ellen is going to see that there's some similarities between us. Lucy: Well, that's a pretty scary thought. Larry: Yeah, it is; isn't it? Lucy: Ellen, run. Today we are interviewing Ellen Siminoff, and she is the President and CEO of Shmoop University. Now, this site is something that our listeners really must go and see. They have a great mission. Shmoop is an education Website, and their goal is to make everyone lovers of literature, history and poetry. I went there last night and started looking around, and I really like the idea of their Book Club where they review books and even have questions for teachers to use with books, and I thought it was really fascinating that people creating their content, master's degree students and Ph.D. students, really looking for great original and creative content to help students and teachers. I found a little humor on the site as well, so it really cracked me up. Shmoop guarantees better grades. There was an asterisk next to it, and it said: "not an actual guarantee." Anyway, welcome, Ellen, we're really happy to have you for this interview. Ellen Siminoff: Thanks for the great review of this site. That was great. Lucy: Well, we're really happy to have you and before we get into the entrepreneur questions, I really wanted to know how you came up with the name, "Shmoop," and what's going on with the company. Ellen: Well, I started the company with my husband. Shmoop is a Yiddish term for trying to move something forward a little bit. So, my husband's grandmother always used to say to him, "Shmoop this, shmoop that" so we're trying to move education and learning forward a little bit. Larry: Shmoop, I love it. Lucy: I love it. Down in Louisiana we used to say we were carrying somebody from here to there, even though you're actually driving them. Now, we can say we shmoop around. Larry: I'm for shmooping. Lucy: I'm for shmooping. Well so, Ellen, how did you first get into technology? You are using technology in the delivery of your company, obviously, and so our listeners would really like to know what you're looking at as particularly interesting technologies today. Ellen: I got into technology because I was really interested in media, and media became very important to technology. I started a different company with my husband many, many years ago. It was about 18 years ago, and we were distributing television programming in eastern Europe and that made me love the media industry. Then I went to the Los Angeles Times, and I started running their online Classifieds. This was really early. It was like 1994 when the Internet, and if you remember Prodigy and CompuServe and AOL were all fighting it out. I started realizing that technology could be used to deliver media in a really interesting way. Larry: Wow, that's terrific. Remember, I warned you up front that there's something that we have in common. First of all, on your Website there's so many things I like about your Website, but I am also, like you, a lover of chocolate. Ellen: All right. Larry: I'm a cheese head. I used to live in Wisconsin. Ellen: All right. Larry: And I still struggle with golf, so I think that's enough similarities, right? Ellen: Those are great similarities, but have you been shot? Larry: No, but I almost shot my dad when we were hunting once. Lucy: Have you been shot? I'm sure there's more to that story. Larry: It's on the Website. Lucy: Oh, I better go look at that part of it. Well so, Ellen, I was sitting here thinking about technology today. Do you see any particular technologies on the horizon that you think are pretty interesting? Ellen: I'm a big lover of the Kindle. I think the approach Amazon and, obviously, some others in that space have taken about taking a text book and providing a much easier way for students to get their information. I think it's fabulous. I think, first of all, we don't need to have orthopedic problems from carrying around back packs loaded with books, and second, text books are really expensive. They has to be a less expensive way to deliver the same amount of material, so I'm really excited about that one. Larry: Yeah, I am, too. Now that they've got the new, big one, I like that even more. Ellen: As I get older, the bigger print would be fine. Lucy: I see them on planes more and more now. Ellen: Yes, I actually always bring mine every time I travel because, why lug a book around? Larry: Right, you bet. Well, I get the part about technology and all, but why are you an entrepreneur, and what is it about you that makes the entrepreneur part of you tick? Ellen: Well, I think entrepreneurs are people who would be just dreadful employees... because it's chosen for us. For me, I have always sort of gone with smaller companies that I like the people and the idea. When I started Yahoo, we were just a handful of folks, and we thought we were changing the world. Hopefully, we did to some extent. I started up Fischer Frontier which subsequently became the largest search engine marketing firm when it was just a couple of guys with a really neat math algorithm. Shmoop, my husband and I came up with in our back yard. So, for me it's about the idea and the people and the excitement of creating it. The other benefit of being an entrepreneur is you have very little bureaucracy. When a decision needs to be made, you sort of look around at your four or five key people and you resolve it quickly, and that's exciting for me. Lucy: So, along your path you're a serial entrepreneur and you've had a lot of success along your path, who has influenced or supported you? Who are your role models? Ellen: Well, if it hasn't become clear, my husband has been really supportive which I think is great. We've worked together a number of times, and he's pushed me more than I probably would have pushed myself. I have phenomenal parents who basically told me dream big and we're your number one fans, whatever you want to do. So, they've been great, and I've had some terrific teachers along the way. Back to the Wisconsin thing, I had a great eighth grade teacher at Mapledale Elementary School who told me, "You might be pretty smart. Think about what you might want to do in life". I was in eighth grade, and I still remember that conversation. Lucy: Isn't it amazing that you do? That kind of influence on young people by teachers, it really sticks. Ellen: It's amazing. We actually have a page on Shmoop, a teachers' page, that we literally went to the Ph.D.s and Masters I alluded to before and all of us here at the office have said, "So which teacher influenced you the most?" We wound up with this great list of our favorite teachers and how they impacted our lives. And I think that every person who's reasonably successful can identify one of the teachers who made a big difference to them. Larry: Oh, that's fantastic. You know, you mentioned you and your husband. My wife and I, we've started 12 different companies over the years, and it's an extra little plus that as an entrepreneur you can do that. Ellen: That's great. That's inspirational. We have a few more to go. Larry: Well, OK. I'm just a kid, but... Ellen, what is the toughest thing that you have ever had to do in your career? Ellen: Oh, I think the toughest thing anyone has to do is ask someone to leave a company when that person is doing a good job, but they're somehow... morals or conduct or behavior goes against what you want your company to do. I think any CEO or hiring person will tell you, that's the hardest call you ever have to make. Lucy: And, in fact, I think we've done about 50 of these interviews, and that comes up over and over and over again, I think, along with having to leave a company you don't want to leave. Ellen: Yeah, transitions are very hard. I think transitions in life are very hard, and transitions in companies are very hard. The reality is, there's a certain number of years when you're productive to a company, and even if you're doing a good job, you reach a certain comfort level, and sometimes it makes sense to bring in some fresh blood. Lucy: I think that's right, if for no other reason that your network's been tapped out, or something else, that other people can bring in new thinking. So, this gets us into our next question. I think this notion that transitions are hard is really insightful. What other things would you tell a young person or anybody about entrepreneurship, and what kinds of advice would give them? Ellen: I think there's two things I would tell someone. The first is a practical thing, which is, do something you love, and do it with people you love or like, and all good things will come from that. I can't tell you the number of people who turn down great opportunities because their friends told them it was a bad idea, or it didn't fit in the sort of boxes that they had been taught in business school about how to evaluate an idea, or someone told them the business is going to be bad. So, you've got to, a lot of times, go with your instincts, and go with the businesses that make sense to you, and that you doing it, and with people you like, and then I would bet the percentages are in your favor. The second idea I would have for someone is a little less practical, but more of a gut instinct thing, and that is, don't worry so much. I think if you work hard, and you get a little bit lucky, and your timing is good, you will find good opportunities. If I had known how much fun I would have had doing different things, I wouldn't have worried so much along the way. Larry: Wow. Lucy: Is there a Yiddish word for, "Don't worry so much?" Ellen: No, I don't know that one, but I'll have to call my dad. Lucy: I think it could lead to a new company name. Ellen: I always think of, hakuna matata, right? Lucy: Yes, that's right. Exactly. But, I think you're right. Ellen: It's not Yiddish, but it should be. Larry: You got it. Lucy: It probably should be. Larry: Well, I've got to ask another question here that pertains to everything we've talked about so far, but we're now looking at you. What are some personal characteristics that make you a successful entrepreneur? Ellen: I think it's relentlessness, right? I think anybody's who's willing to face in the Internet world zero wages, zero revenue, you know, and a blank sheet of paper, I think yes, you have to have a certain passion, and relentlessness, and drive, and be internally focused, that you don't need someone every day telling you, "This is a great idea. You're going to do great." You've got to just have it from within and be laser-focused on executing. Lucy: I'm just writing this down. I mean, I think the laser focus is exactly right, and the relentlessness, you know, we've heard before, as well. Some people have said even, "stubborn," or... Ellen: I don't know that I would necessarily always write stubborn, because there's a fine line between being crazy and being brilliant. Lucy: That's true. Ellen: Most of the people will tell you that their original idea was not always their final idea, so you need to have a balance of having great conviction in what your doing, but being flexible with what the environment is telling you. Lucy: So, you had a very successful career starting companies, and obviously when you start a company, I'm sure you put everything into it, and give it your all, and people often want to know, well, how then do you balance that with a personal life, if, in fact, balance really exists? Ellen: Oh, I believe in balance. I think you set limits. I think that working smart is a lot better than working every hour of every day. I think being efficient matters. I've seen people take so much time to do something, where that could be done a lot quicker, and I sometimes think when you have more things to do, you're more focused about the things you have to get done. In terms of balance, you just have to. Nobody goes to their grave saying, "I wish I would have worked harder." Lucy: Absolutely. Ellen: I have a great family. I run half-marathons. I have deadly, struggling golf game, and I think the Spectaculars are the most fun, coolest organization on earth. So, you've got to get out there and do other thing, and I think you have a better approach to work when you do. Larry: That's some excellent advice. Gaining balance, or whatever that is, is one of the most difficult thing for new entrepreneurs, but they've got to somehow, as time goes along, really build that balance into their life. Ellen: Oh, you're so right. And you've gone on with your life, so it's especially... I do know couples where one of them doesn't like to come home and talk about work or the other doesn't. We just incorporate it in our lives. Lucy: There's an integration process there, I think. Ellen: Yeah. But at the same point, there are points, you know, my husband... you know, sometimes people are amazed that they'll say something to Dave, and he'll say, "Well, I don't know about this, that's in Ellen's area." And they think that all we do 100 percent of the time is only talk our business stuff, and there are sometimes many days we don't even discuss anything "businessy." Lucy: Well, that's so healthy, and also, you find things that way. Sometimes you find things when you just open up like that, that relate to the business that you never would have seen if you were just working all the time. So, that's very powerful. So, Ellen, you've achieved a lot, and we like to find out from the people we interview what's next for you. You obviously have a new company and so you'll probably be putting a lot of time into that, but anything else you'd like to share, either what's next for you, or what's next for Shmoop? Ellen: Well, I think for Shmoop, I think we've done a really good job on lit., and history and poetry. We're going to do more in civics and get some of the math and sciences up there, because I think it's really important to be able to read, write, and do arithmetic. So, we've got to add the third stool. Lucy: Well, we'd really like to talk about computing. Ellen: Oh, wow, that would be great! Lucy: Well, thank you so much. I just love your site. Larry: I love your site, and I just want to say this one thing. Lucy referred to this, but she buried it a little bit. Right off of your Website, one headline there that really caught my attention said, "Shmoop wants to make you a better lover." Lucy: Of literature. Larry: Well, then, in parenths. Lucy: Oh. Larry: "Of literature, history, poetry, and writing. I'm just getting in the complete line." Lucy: Oh, OK. Ellen: Well, you know, if you just become a better lover, that'd be OK, too, but we'd like you to like lit., history, and poetry. Larry: Oh, a fellow cheese head for sure. Thank you so much, Ellen, for joining us today. Ellen: My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Larry: And by the way, you listeners out there, make sure you pass this interview on to others that you know would be interested, and they can find the entire thing, and download it at any time at ncwit.org, as well as w3w3.com. Thank you for joining us. Lucy: Thank you. Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Ellen SiminoffInterview Summary: Entrepreneurs are "people who would be just dreadful employees", says Ellen Siminoff. For those who go the entrepreneurship route, however, the appeal is in "the idea and the people and the excitement of creating something." Release Date: June 1, 2009Interview Subject: Ellen SiminoffInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 15:42

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Elisa Camahort Page Co-founder, BlogHer Date: June 1, 2009 Elisa Camahort Page: BlogHer [intro music] Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders, from the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. This is one of a continuing series of interviews we are doing with women who have started IT companies. We've had a great, great interview series with some very influential, distinguished and successful women, and were very happy to get all of you bloggers listening to this are going to be very happy with the interview we're doing today. It's with Elisa Camahort Page. With me is Larry Nelson, from W3W3.com. Hi, Larry! Larry Nelson: Hi! Well, it's a pleasure to be here, and especially Elisa, I just want you to know, I have four daughters. So, we're really interested in this interview. Elisa Camahort Page: Oh! Excellent, Larry. Lucy: Are they bloggers? Larry: Yeah, you betcha! Lucy: Are you a blogger? Larry: Yes. Lucy: A beginning blogger. He's turning red, everybody. Larry: Well, for three years, and I'm still bad at it. Lucy: [laughs] Well, we're very happy to have you here, Elisa. Elisa is the co-founder and CEO of BlogHer. I did a little research on how BlogHer started, and I believe it's a fairly young company, like 2005. You had your first conference in Santa Clara. Is that right? Elisa: Yeah. We had our first conference in July of 2005. So, we're having our fifth annual event this July in Chicago. Lucy: Wow! That's a pretty fast growth on your part. I know that BlogHer is really turning into the leading community and media network for women who blog. You reach over 14 million women each month, either through your conference, or the web, or through a new publishing network that you have. Why don't you say a bit about that publishing network? Elisa: Oh, absolutely. That's right, we did get started with the conference in 2005. After that conference, we really got three primary people to feedback. The first was, "Oh, more conferences please, " because there is something about that in real life connection that happens. The second was about, "How can we sort of find each other everyday?" And hence we launched BlogHer.com in January of 2006, which is really the hub of our entire network. But then, we also had a segment of our community was saying, "Isn't there a better business model? We've been trying some sites, either AdSense and other networks and other kinds of advertising solutions, but we're really getting pennies for the traffic that we're building, for the communities that we're building." So, that's what really motivated us to start the blog for publishing network, which we did in the middle of 2006. We started with just a small, little group of about 35 mommy bloggers, just to test the concept. When that was successful, we expanded. Over the last almost three years now, we now have almost 2, 500 women of all kinds of blogging topics in our network. They reach over 14 million unique visitors a month. Lucy: That's quite a network. Larry: I'm impressed, yes. Lucy: Yeah. That's quite a network! What are the hot topics these days on some of those blogs? Elisa: Well, what's interesting to us is that one of our earliest decisions that we didn't want to sell only women's interest, either on BlogHer.com or on the network and say, "Oh! We only care about parenting," or "We only care about food, " or "Beauty" or on the other hand, but women who care about politics and means and technology, only care about those things. Actually, we're quite multifaceted creatures. We care about all of those topics on the same day. So, we have always on BlogHer.com featured the full range of subject matters that can be covered in the photosphere, and our network has everybody, from every stripe of the photosphere also in it. What's interesting is how certain things bleed through every vertical. So, for instance the economy. It doesn't matter if you're a food blogger, a parenting blogger, a technology blogger, a political blogger, you're probably talking about the economy right now. Last year, it didn't matter if you were a food blogger, or a parenting blogger, or a technology blogger or a political blogger, you were talking about the election. So, there are common themes that people care about across all different areas of focus. By featuring all of those diverse places, we really get to see that full picture of what people are saying about those topics. Lucy: Well, I went there yesterday to get my fill on "American Idol." [laughter] Elisa: Oh! That's my guilty pleasure. Lucy: Well, me too. I'm sure we could take up the whole tape talking about our favorite singers, but I like Adam Lambert. Elisa: Of course! Lucy: Of course! Elisa: He should win, that's clear. Lucy: He should win. Well, this is probably a good time to get into questions for the interview. Our first one centers around technology. Our listeners always like to hear from the people we interview about the technology they think is really cool, that's going to change the way we communicate, or the way we work, or the way we play. So, what technologies do you see that are out there? Elisa: Well, I originally don't come from a technology background. I have no engineering degree. I really came into it quite late, in the high tech back in '97, when it was very boom times for Silicon Valley. What I discovered is that I had actually an aptitude for understanding technology, and then translating it to different audiences, whether they were engineering audiences, or consumer audiences, or business audiences. So, today that's still a big part of what I do, which is explain why technologies are cool to people who may not already get it, like blogging, like Twittering, like my iPhone. What I see today, what humans are doing right now with technology is they are building ways to connect and converse. In your life, most of the people I know are finding it more and more difficult to keep in touch with people face-to-face, that our lives are so busy. We're so time impoverished, there's so many things that seem to conspire against us being able to do as much in real life as we used to. People used to think that technology was an isolating factor, and it was taking us away from people, but I think what we've done is used technology to connect with people online for a lot of our time, instead of in meet space. So, I think I would debate anyone who says that technology isolates us. We've seen amazing examples of how it brings us together, and how it creates communicates across boundaries that used to be pretty drawn in the sand, social economic boundaries, geographic boundaries. A lot of those boundaries get knocked down by this kind of totally distributed communications channel of the Internet. I see that we are developing more and more ways to keep in touch, to communicate with one another. People ask me why I like Twitter. To me, Twitter is poetic almost, the way you get these little snapshots of people's lives. The way you see who they are, beyond even the thoughts and sort of planning and structure that goes into a blog post. I use Twitter often just to mention the music I like, or something I saw that made me stop and think. It's so quick and easy to get a little thought out there that really reveals who I am in a way that a blog post would take too much time, and I might not ever get around to it for something that seems so small. Yet those little small things are what completely differentiate us, and make us each such unique individuals. It's actually applications like Twitter that enable us to show that unique individuality to the world. So, I think it's a beautiful thing. Lucy: Well, and I think that really shows to the listeners. That's one of the most eloquent, impassioned descriptions of social media that I have ever heard. [laughs] Larry: Yes, me too. Me too. Lucy: I think that was just beautiful. Elisa: Oh, thank you. You know I do a presentation that blogging is about love. Lucy: Oh, that's nice. Elisa: It's about, we find, we love what we can do with this technology and we find all forms of love out there in our communities. Most people do it for love and passion. Even people who make money on it. At the core it's because they're writing about something they love. Lucy: I really love that. Larry: Yes, yes I did too. Lucy: I think that's great. You mentioned that you came into technology a little late, transitioned into it and you found that you loved explaining technology to people. Why are you an entrepreneur? We know I think why you love technology and you like to explain it to people based on your last answer but why are you an entrepreneur? What is it about that that makes you tick? Elisa: Well, to be honest I'm an entrepreneur because of serendipity and then passion. I wasn't planning. My plan, one of my earliest role models was my mother who went back to work in the 70's when I was in junior high. She was very much corporate oriented and climbed up the ladder, went from some part time person at a company to being their first female vice president. I really found myself following in that path. I planned to climb the corporate ladder but then I luckily got the opportunity to try working on my own. What I discovered was that I loved not having anyone in "management" to blame for the bad decisions. At least now if there's a bad decision, I was part of it and I can be part of fixing it. I really loved that accountability all the way to the top of the chain. I also say that wherever you work, you're going to bang your head against the wall about some things. When you're an entrepreneur, you get to bang all the different sides of your head. It's not the same thing over and over and over. It's constantly refreshing. There are constantly new things to challenge you and new things really to bring you joy in what you accomplish. There's just this sense of control, and accountability and ownership that after you've done that climb up the corporate ladder for a while and you realize how much is happening above you that you don't have that control, or really the accountability, or the ownership. It's pretty fulfilling to put yourself in that position. Larry: Well, Elisa you mentioned that your mother had an influence upon you. Along the way are there other people maybe who either been role models for you or maybe even mentored you? Elisa: Absolutely. I had a couple of early, great mentors when I decided to go into high tech. I had been in a completely different industry doing marketing but many other things in small companies. I really started at the bottom in tech, in the marketing department. I was just a junior level person. My boss, who was the vice president of the marketing department, he really, he also liked what I had to say. He liked how I thought. He included me in a lot high level calls and meetings just to observe really. Just to be a part of it and see what went on. Afterwards he wanted to ask me my take as someone with an objective view. He really gave me the opportunity from a business point of view to learn a lot quickly. Then at the same time, there was director of product management in that same department who was my technical mentor. He didn't dismiss me because I didn't have an engineering degree. He really taught me our company's technology. He wanted me to write about it. He just thought, maybe she'll write better if she actually understands it. He didn't assume, as a lot of people sometimes do with marketing people, that oh they're not going to really get it. I'm just going to get them bullet points and they'll put in the flowery language but I'll have to do all the really techy stuff. Lucy: [laughs] Elisa: He wasn't like that at all. He was like, if I spend a little bit of time, I think this person can pick it up. He was the one who really started giving more and more technical things to do and really showed me that I had an aptitude for that. From there, I had to take that and do something with it. I had to go and put myself out there for more technical jobs even though I didn't have that educational background. I'm the one who said, "I'm going to go for product manager job anyway. I'm going to go to lead this product management team anyway because I understand this stuff and I have all these other skills". It was those two mentors who very early on, really gave me the chance to learn and we're open to letting me learn. They were both men and this is a very male dominated company. I give both a lot of credit for that. Lucy: Well, and your story speaks to the important role of encouragement. To those of us who are in the business of encouraging more young women to pursue computing and technical fields. Encouragement is a huge thing. Elisa: Yes. Lucy: Just huge. On the flip side of encouragement, [laughs] and positive role models... Larry: Yes. Lucy: There also comes a time in entrepreneurial careers when something, you have to do something really hard, really tough. Why don't you tell our listeners what's the toughest thing you've ever had to do. Elisa: There are two things that I think are tough. One is tough because of what it does to somebody else and one is tough because of what you're doing to yourself. The first is that it's tough to let someone go whether it's for cause or whether it's a layoff and not for cause. It is hard to sit in a room and tell someone you are putting an end to their livelihood. It's a huge responsibility. I don't want to be someone who gets cavalier about that. I have found that over the kind of conversations afterwards, I go in the ladies room and put a little cold water on my face because it's a tremendous responsibility and it's tremendously difficult. That's not to say I would never be one of those people who said, "Oh it's harder for me. It's as hard on me as it is for you". That's bullshit because they're the one losing their job so I'm not going there but it is hard. You feel bad about it, whatever the reason. The other thing is it's tough but usually worthwhile to be the contrarian if it's something you really believe in. On a couple of occasion I have felt like I had to speak up and disagree. Sometimes this is in a room when I was the only woman, when I was the only without an engineering degree, when I was the only one; in some cases where I was the only one who wasn't already a vice president or C level person. I thought I was standing up for the customer instead of just trying to ignore that fact and move forward with blinders on. I think those early experiences really matter a lot now because Blogger is such a community focused company and we still have to think about the customer. The community member and what they think and feel first and foremost. That is what's still serves me and my company today is having that perspective. You can have that perspective even if you're at a B to B company, even if you're way back on the chain from the end consumer. Your customer is still really first and foremost I think. Larry: Wow, I'll say. You know that's a great lead in to my next question and that is on w3w3.com we've been getting overwhelmed almost by the amount of requests and listening to anything that has to do with entrepreneurship. Of course in these tough economic times, there seems to be quite a few people either out of work or whatever that are looking to become entrepreneurs. If you were sitting down right now with a young person who wanted to start their business, become an entrepreneur what advice would you give them? Elisa: Well the first piece of advice I would give anyone is take the risk. Many people never take the risk because of fear. That they allow that fear to be nameless and undefined. What I actually say is, "Think about it right now. What's the actual worst thing that could happen if this fails"? Most of us have safety nets and options that we don't fully credit ourselves with having. So in my case, I certainly had... I was living with someone who helped share expenses. I had savings. I had a home-equity line of credit. I had a lot of resources to draw on. But let's just say, "What could have been the worst that could have happened if both my business and my relationship had failed miserably at the same time?" It would not have been awesome to move back in with my mother at the age of 40, but it wouldn't have been the end of the world, either. That was a safety net I had, right? And we manned this business until we got our first round of funding. I really was... I had spent all my savings. I had taken out money on my line of credit. I had some credit card debt that didn't exist before. I really worked it to the last dollar I was willing to work it, and then we got our funding, and so that made us able to continue. But even if that had all failed and had not come through, I think it would have been worth it, and the very worst-case scenario for me wasn't as bad, once I thought it through, as my imagination was making it when I didn't really look into the details. So, I always tell people to ask themselves, "Now, honestly, really, what's the worst thing that could happen if you try this and it fails?" Lucy: That's great advice. Larry: That certainly is. Elisa: And I think most people think it through, and they imagine ending up on the streets, and I think there are some people who have different circumstances, where maybe their risk is higher, but a lot times people who don't really have... they're in their twenties. They don't really have a huge amount o'clock risk, and they have a lifetime to recover if it doesn't go well. So, go for it. You might as well act as though you're going to live until forever, and have all the time in the world to rebuild if you're in your 20s, for god's sake. Lucy: Absolutely. And I think some people worry what others are going to think about them if they fail, and that is just an ego thing. Larry: Yes, I'll say it is. Elisa: And I think that actually people are way more impressed with entrepreneurs than they even have to be, and I'm surprised how even in the early days, people were just like, "Wow. You're doing your own thing, and you're doing this, and you're doing that. Wow." I think actually people will be way more, if they care about you, you know... I think people are way more impressed that you tried something, even if it ends up failing, than if you don't. Lucy: That's the truth. So, along the lines of this question, listeners are always interested in knowing about personal attributes, or personal characteristics that you believe make you a great entrepreneur. Elisa: I have this rather checkered past career-wise. I think this is probably my fourth career. The advantage of that as opposed to someone who goes to school for something, gets a job, and then stays in that career, I don't feel like my identity is actually... who I am is not what I do. I developed this confidence that I could jump to a new career and pick it up, and do what I needed to do, and do pretty well. And it's not because I was some great student. I was actually an underachiever. But that also... even back then, I never equated my identity with the grades I got, or the salary I made, or the job title I had. So, I think that bred in me this confidence of being willing to take that risk, being willing to ask questions even if they made me look stupid, but usually, you know what? They didn't make me look really stupid. They made me look really smart. So, I think all of that goes into this... you need some chutzspah, I think, to be an entrepreneur. You need to believe in yourself. You need to believe in your judgment, and you need to not get tied up in what other people think, because you're going to get a lot of "no's" to get to your "yes, " and that's especially true if you start going for funding. Not everyone is going to want to put money into your great idea, not because they think it's a good or bad idea, but because it's just not going to fit their portfolio. So, you have to have something separate from what other people identify you as, and what other people think, that makes you believe in yourself and what you're doing. Larry: You know, you mentioned, "Who I am is not what I do." With the busy, busy, schedule, and everything that you're doing, how do you bring balance into your personal and professional lives? Elisa: Well, OK, let's be honest. I've co-founded a start-up in Silicon Valley, and we are still working to hit milestones and goals that will really propel us to a state of permanent success, not just quarter-by-quarter success. I don't think balance is a realistic part of the equation right now. I think I would be lying if I said, "I balance my personal and professional lives." I work all the time. You know, it's not like I never... my birthday was last week, so I went to the city for the weekend with my husband, and you know, we had a great time, and I really didn't get on the computer that much. So, I'm not saying I never get to do anything personal, but I really make no concerted effort to have balance, and maybe that's not [laughs]... Larry: [laughs] Elisa: Maybe a lot of people won't think that's the most encouraging answer, but this is Silicon Valley. I think that's the way it is. Lucy: And well, we find to... we ask this question of all the people we interview, and there's a wide variety of answers, but many are saying that they are completely unbalanced. In fact, I was laughing to myself when you said it was your birthday, and you took the day off. Elisa: [laughs] Lucy: I tried really hard. I tried really hard. My birthday was April 4th, and I was going to take the day off. I'm the CEO of a non-profit, right? Of course, I worked the whole day. Larry: Yes, of course. Elisa: And it is different. I though I was working really hard when I was running a team at a company, and I did work really, really hard, but it's nothing compared to when it's your own, and you could basically, work all the time. And for a lot of us who are entrepreneurs, you're doing this because you hope it's going to pay off in a way that will buy you some kind of freedom and flexibility later. But a lot of entrepreneurs I know, they go on to the next...they want to do the next thing. So, there's a certain, I think, consistency of no one who probably starts a company and is putting themselves through this is... no one is probably someone who otherwise would be sitting on a lounge chair eating bon bons. I mean, they're all pretty motivated people. [laughs] Lucy: Yes, that's true. Well, Elisa, you've really achieved a lot, and we appreciate you talking to us, but we'd also like to know, maybe as the last question, what do you see in the future? What's next for you? Elisa: Well, that's funny question, because as far as I'm concerned, there are just miles to go before I sleep with BlogHer being all consuming, and we have all this opportunity for growth and expansion, and we're figuring out the best way to take advantage of those opportunities. And I think that... and my two partners Lisa Stone, and Jory des Jardin... I think we're all pretty much the same way right now, which is that, we're not thinking too hard what's beyond, because we need to make this really happen, and it may take a year, or two years, three years, four years. And also, might I also say, that we all agree that we now made for ourselves the best jobs we have ever had. So, it's not like we wouldn't want to keep doing this forever. We get to do something we're really passionate about. We're a very mission-based organization, and we get to work with a lot of other really smart people, so I really... what's next for me is to make all the promise really come to fruition. If I can do that, then I'll think about what might happen after that. But we're not there yet. We have miles to go. Lucy: Well, and you are in a great job. It's at a crossroads of lots of interesting topics, so you certainly have made quite a great job for yourself. Elisa: Yes, we love it. Lucy: It's wonderful. Well, thank you very much for spending time with us. Elisa: Oh, you're welcome. My pleasure. Lucy: And thank you, Larry. People can find the podcasts W3W3.com., and also ncwit.org. Larry: You betcha. We'll follow up with you, too. Lucy: All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Hope you to meet at May 11. Elisa: You absolutely will. Lucy: All right. [music] Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Elisa Camahort PageInterview Summary: "Women are quite multi-faceted creatures", says Elisa Camahort Page -- women are interested in technology, the economy, parenthood, politics, and much, much more. That's why the BlogHer network comprises 2,500 women writing about a broad range of "verticals", attracting more than 14 million unique visitors per month. Release Date: June 1, 2009Interview Subject: Elisa CamahortInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 23:52

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Lisa Rau Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Confluence Date: April 27, 2009 Lisa Rau: Confluence Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders, the CEO for the National Center for Women in Information Technology, or NCWIT. Today we're interviewing Lisa Rau, the CEO of Confluence Corp., as part of our NCWIT series "The Entrepreneurial Toolbox," and Lisa's going to talk to us today about everything you want to know about working with non-profits. We thought it would be especially interesting for this series to take advantage of Lisa's extensive experience working with non-profits and how they use technology and how it applies to social entrepreneurship. So, welcome, Lisa! Lisa Rau: Thank you! I'm glad to be here. Lucy: And with me today is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hello, I'm happy to be here. This is going to be an exciting interview for us because while our Internet radio show is strictly business, we do integrate various things where we help support non-profits and do interviews and provide links and so on, and so I can't wait to talk to Lisa. Lucy: Well, Lisa is a real role model in computer science. She has a Ph.D. in computer science and undergraduate degrees in EE and also has been in the IT industry for over 20 years. And she has extensive experience, as I mentioned, working with non-profits and I recently had the experience to chat with Lisa about this. So, very excited to talk to you about the non-profit space! Lisa: Great! Lucy: So, Lisa, tell us a bit about Confluence. What do you do? Lisa: Well, our mission is to provide information technology support and focus, of course, on the non-profit sector, and that's a wide variety of different kinds of things that's really based on what the non-profits have been asking us to do. Lucy: How did you come to focus on non-profits? What led you into that type of business? Lisa: Well, that's a good question. Many years ago, I had met a friend and a colleague who told me about his work providing technical support to non-profits and he was describing the wonderful people and the organizations and their mission that he interacted with and how rewarding he found the work was, and so when I next found myself in between jobs, a bunch of things all came together and that's where we came up with the name "Confluence." It was a "no time like the present" kind of thing and wanting to work for myself as an entrepreneur after 15, 20 years of working for someone else, wanting to create something of value, and then I had one of my close friends and colleagues, Jeff Sullivan, agree to come on board with me. We just jumped in. Larry: That's interesting. You've got to be certainly following your heart with a bunch of passion at that same time. Lisa: Absolutely. Well, of course we did our due diligence to make sure that there was a sound business model and that there really was a need for what we were thinking of offering, but since we couldn't be the do-gooders, we thought the next best thing was to help the do-gooders do better. Larry: Well, you know, they say there's quite a movement, almost a groundswell, of people really wanting to give back to the community. Of course, they've got to make a living and everything. So, for our listeners out there, could you explain the difference between working for a non-profit versus a for-profit? Lisa: Well, it ended up being different than I expected it would be coming from the for-profit world as I did. Of course, the non-profits are really focussed on their mission, and my experience has been that they tend to be less able or interested in investing in technology. I've been doing this for over eight years now. Most non-profits are really small, also. I think 90% are under a million dollars in revenue, so the majority of these organizations are just very small, so their use of technology is more limited and they also tend to have less in-house expertise. And they don't have, for example, a CTO, so they're going to turn to other outside organizations like ours for strategic support. And tech support providers in the for-profit world, there's a role for a CTO, but we as providers to non-profits have to be more versatile and strategic to provide a wide range of advice to them. Lucy: I have a follow up question to that. I also now run into more people now who are doing what I would consider non-profit work in a for-profit business model. So, do you see much of that, Lisa, sort of like "doing well by doing good for others." Do you see that type of business model very often? Lisa: Well, there's two types of business models that I've seen, and one is the classic, more social entrepreneurship where the idea is to use the profits for social benefit, or to leverage profits made in a for-profit business for philanthropy as in the Google Foundation and the Gates Foundation and so on. But I see a real role for traditional for-profit firms to support the non-profit sector. It's a very hard business because they don't have a lot of money and they are so small, but it does allow you to both come up with a sustainable business model, because that is a requirement for for-profit businesses, which I think is a better way to address the technology needs than having non-profit technology providers that may not have to provide a sustainable service. Lucy: Listeners to our podcast series will remember that we interviewed two non-profits, Witness and Kiva and their founders, and were really excited about their use of technology in a non-profit delivery. In Witness's case, it's the use of video to expose social atrocities around the world, and Kiva is microfinance. So, Lisa, where do you see the most innovative use of IT in the non-profit space? Lisa: Well, I think those are both really good examples of innovative use of technology, but from a bang-for-the-buck perspective, I think that what those systems really do is just get into more of the cultural mainstream and raise awareness for social causes and the potential for technology to assist with social causes, rather than the bottom line amount of money, for example, that's going to go through Kiva, or the real change that's going to happen just one by one. So, I think that the opportunity for social change is much more to create an environment as part of our culture that non-profits and social-oriented ventures are worth supporting and whether it's Green or whatever your passion may be. We have seen some other innovative uses, the Kiva and Witness that you cite are certainly very well-known ones. We've done a bunch of really fun things, like one of my favorites is for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. We created a little application where you send a nugget through on a Google Maps kind of integration across 50 states and whoever gets their little chicken nugget across the 50 states wins, which was kind of a fun use of technology. Lucy: Cute. That's cool. Larry: Right. Have you ever done anything with Ashoka? Lisa: I have interacted with Ashoka. I haven't worked for them. Our company hasn't worked for them. I know a number of people who work there, actually one of my clients is from Samaritan Inns went over there to work for them. They're wonderful leaders. Larry: Yeah. All right, now what are some of the challenges, Lisa, that non-profits should be looking out for as it relates to IT? Lisa: Well, the main one is that a lot of people offer non-profits free or a low-cost donations. Sometimes the organizations think that because it's free they should try to use the technology, and it's very much a buyer beware. The other challenge is just that they don't really have as much internal expert advise, the smaller organizations, in selecting the right technical approach or managing technical projects. So, because these are often outside the organization's expertise they can be risky. We see a lot of overpaying, simply due to a lack of technical expertise or a lack of real experienced managing technology projects. So, I think a little bit of real expertise can go a very long way, and would be a good investment for organizations trying to think strategically. Lucy: So, the biggest mistake a non-profit can make in IT is? Lisa: Well, I think probably not spending enough, being "penny wise and pound foolish," I'd think, the most common mistake. I don't know if that counts as biggest. The biggest in terms of dollars is probably choosing the wrong software system. Lucy: Probably worse is having some money and spending it poorly. Lisa: Exactly. That's a lot of that "penny wise and pound foolish" mentality. I also think not understanding the strategic importance of technology, and how with the right investments you can save money for your mission just fearing technology and not trying. Lucy: Absolutely, the case. Well, now you've worked with lots of non-profits, and now I want you to put yourself in the seat of somebody starting a non-profit. What would you do first? Lisa: Well, the first thing I'd do would be really look around to see who was doing what else. I've noticed independent of our technology focus that there's just a lot of duplication out there. A lot of people startup non-profits because they want to do something that they love, and they don't really care if someone else is already doing that. So, it's a fairly inefficient delivery system. So, I would want to make sure that my non-profit was addressing a real gap in service and dealing with real needs. I would also want to outreach to other partners, and really try to work collaboratively with the other members of the environment. Larry: Boy! Lisa, this has been a great interview, and it's really a pleasure. Since you're the expert, what is the question or so that we haven't asked that we should have asked? Lisa: Well, certainly starting a business is very, very scary. I think it was the best decision I ever made. I certainly have never regretted choosing to do something with the potential for meaning. It's been extremely gratifying from that perspective, but very scary. Even though the non-profits are a very difficult business to work for, because again they are small, it's incredibly rewarding to see what they're doing, and being a part of the wonderful works that they're doing. Lucy: So tell us, in closing, where is Confluence heading? What's the future for you? Lisa: Well, we're still growing, which is good news in this economic downturn. We're always looking for good people. We've been forming a lot more partnerships this year with other for-profit companies to provide complimentary services. The main thing from a technology end that we've been doing recently is we've been implementing a bunch of new Websites, a lot of focus on the social networking, what's the so-called web 2.0 technology? That's been a big part of what we've been doing recently. Of course, just as any business grows, we've been changing and we're looking at internal reorganization. It doesn't sound too sexy, but that's the reality of businesses as they grow. They have to change. Lucy: So, say a bit about the social networking and how non-profits can and should take advantage of that new channel. Lisa: Well, it's another one of those kind of buyer beware areas, because there is so much buzz. A lot of what we do is just explain to our clients what that really means and what their options are. A lot of them want to dive right in and have a lot of little widgets on their Website to interact with their audience, but there's no one there to monitor that or to feed it to make it a vibrant community. So, it ends up kind of a detraction. So, we're very much interested in ensuring that what gets deployed is appropriate for the environment and not a field of dreams. We have seen a lot of movement towards that. It's been a little slower, but non-profits are all about building community outreach, advocacy, education. These are all things that social networking can be very instrumental in. Larry: So, if I understood you right, it's better to have one or two widgets that you can really work with, rather than the whole group of 7-10? Lisa: Absolutely. I've even seen organizations try to start small with just say a blog, and they're not able to keep that up, because they don't realize that the technology is the easy part. It's the organizational part, where someone actually has to write the blog, and post it, and review comments, and so on, that has to be on there to keep it fresh and worthwhile. Lucy: Well, that's really true for us at NCWIT. We find that we have lots of distribution channels, and keeping the content supplied to those channels is really quite tough. It's more than a full-time job. Lisa: That's exactly what I'm talking about, and building things smartly so that they're not overrun with spam, and not insecure, and so on. Lucy: Well, so maybe in closing, let me ask this; so I'm the CEO of a non-profit, and in advising me, where would you tell me to start in technology? What would be the first thing to look at or the second thing to look at? What kinds of things do you often say to people like me, as it relates to this example? Lisa: Well, I'm a very big fan of a process that we do, not just self-serving there, but it's a strategic technology assessment that comes in and interviews all of the stakeholders and inventories all of the assets. That process can give the organization a complete understanding of where the opportunities are, so they that can then prioritize them and come up with a specific plan for the next couple of years. That really helps a new organization to get started. Lucy: That sounds like a good process. Larry: Yeah. It sure does. By the way, starting in March 2001, it's kind of like starting in March 2009, economic wise. Lisa: Exactly. Lucy: Oh, starting over. Yeah. I got it. It took my brain a little while, but I did finally get that. Well, Lisa thanks very much. It was great talking to you. Lisa: Thank you. It was wonderful! Larry: It was a pleasure. Once again, Lucy, I don't know how you and your team line up all these magnificent people, but NCWIT.org, you've got some wonderful connections and interviews, but lots of information. I must say that it's a pleasure for w3w3.com to host, and also to have a special channel for all of these interviews where you can tune-in 24/7. Make sure you tell your friends about it, and by the way, Tweet about it if you would like. Lisa: Tweet about it, only if Lisa says it's OK. Man 1: Is it OK, Lisa? Lisa: Sure. Larry: All right. Lucy: OK. Thank you very much, Lisa. Lisa: OK. Thank you both. Lucy: That was great. We really do appreciate it, and I'll be in touch. Larry: All Right. Lisa: OK. Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Lisa RauInterview Summary: Lisa Rau wanted to create something rewarding, something of her own, something of value when she created Confluence. As she discusses here, entrepreneurship is scary but incredibly satisfying: "with the risks come the rewards." Release Date: April 27, 2009Interview Subject: Lisa RauInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 15:53

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Carol Realini CEO and Founder, Obopay Date: April 7, 2009 Carol Realini: Obopay [intro] Lucy Sanders: Hi, this is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO for the National Center for Women and Information Technology, or NCWIT, and this is one in a series of interviews with fantastic entrepreneurs, women who have started IT companies. With me is Larry Nelson, w3w3.com. Larry, how are you? Larry Nelson: Absolutely magnificent, kind of jittery a little bit. We just launched our Internet TV show, so things are going good. Lucy: And the name of the Internet TV show is... Larry: "Colorado Rising." Lucy: So everybody, be careful, he's after you for not just audio interviews now but live TV as well. Larry: You bet. Lucy: With us today we have Carol Realini. She's the founder and CEO of Obopay, and before that a very distinguished career in a number of high tech companies including Cordiant. Obopay is the first truly comprehensive mobile payment service in the United States, and it's really cool. You go on the website and you can basically send money to your kids. If you're kids, you can get money. I'm trying to figure out how to get my parents to do this for me even now. Larry: Yeah, I've got five kids. I appreciate that. Lucy: [laughs] And we're really happy to talk to Carol. Welcome, Carol. Carol Realini: Thank you. Happy to talk to you guys. Lucy: Oh, great. Why don't you tell us a bit about Obopay. It's a great company and it has a wonderful value proposition. Carol: Absolutely. First, I just want to say I assume you are all in Colorado today. And I'm a longtime San Francisco-born Californian, born and raised here. But I spent five years living outside of California and that was living in Colorado, and I love Colorado. Lucy: Well any time you want to come visit us. [laughter] Larry: That's a deal. Carol: Absolutely. Lucy: That's a deal. Carol: I love Colorado. So let me just give you a little background on myself, and then I'll talk about the founding of Obopay and what we do and a little bit about the company. I am a four-time entrepreneur, so this is my fourth company from the ground up. Lucy: Wow. Carol: First one, I wasn't the founder but I was a very early employee at Legato, which became a very large storage management software company which was bought by EMC. That company went public and then was bought. The next company, I was the founder of a consulting company that focused in the early '90s on helping people migrate to distributed computing. And this was when big companies around the world were trying to figure out how to leverage the client server and PC technology that was emerging. And then the next company was Cordiant Software, and I founded that and raised the venture capital for that company and was the CEO until just before the company went public. And it went public in 2000 and is still a public company. And then I retired from that and thought I wasn't ever going to work again. I'd had a fantastic career in technology, really started in the mid-'70s when it was really about mainframe. And I retired thinking I would never work again, and actually moved to Colorado and ended up getting involved in some nonprofits which were focused on fostering entrepreneurship in developing countries around the world. As a result of that, I was traveling in places I would have never normally traveled, places in rural Africa, rural Latin America, and was quite taken in 2002 with the number of mobile phones that I would see in very far away places where there was no electricity, no clean water. You would find that there was a growing number of people that had mobile phones. And this is the year 2002 when there was about a billion phones on the planet. And since my last three companies had really focused on financial service software primarily, and I had spent a lot of my time in the financial services industry building software from the biggest financial service companies in the world, I ended up starting to think about, well if there are mobile phones in all these places, maybe we could use those mobile phones to start delivering financial services to everybody with a mobile phone. It was a real simple idea, but it was exciting for me to think about the possibility that someday most people would have mobile phones, and those mobile phones could then bring convenience and access to banking like we've never seen before. So that idea got under my skin and by 2004, late 2004, early 2005, I funded some research where we went around the world and looked at some of the very early implementations of mobile payments and mobile banking. And once the research report was done, the way I think about it and this is the way it happened, when I started the research report, my career was behind me. When I finished the research report, my career was in front of me. Lucy: That's great. Larry: Yeah. Carol: Yeah. And I decided I just had to come back to work and use all my experience as an entrepreneur and technologist to build a company to deliver mobile payments and mobile banking to every mobile phone. So that was 2005, and I've worked almost every day since I made that decision. And I'm sitting in my office in Redwood City where I spend a lot of my time now. And the company is about 150 people now. And we are operating the service in the US and India, and we're in the planning stages to rolling it out in Africa and in Europe. And we get a call almost everyday from different parts of the world saying when can Obopay think about coming to this country or that country. Lucy: How did you choose the name for the company, Carol? Carol: The big idea is everybody with a mobile phone will get access to payment services and banking services through their mobile phone. And if you think about that, it's such a big idea because if you look at traditional banking, it serves let's say a billion and a half people on the planet, whereas already there are over four billion mobile phones. And so you can imagine that the people that have bank accounts and have mobile phones can benefit from it. But there are also a lot of people that don't get access to banking that will now have it because they have a mobile phone and there's a ways for these services to be offered to those people. In addition, people are still using a lot of cash, right, and sometimes checks. And my belief is that mobile payments and mobile banking will eliminate cash from use. And it's such a big idea if you think about it. About $7 trillion of transactions a year are done in cash still today. And I believe that in the future we won't be using cash, we'll be doing electronic transactions between mobile phones. For that reason, when we looked to name the company we said, wow do we relate to this big idea that someday this will replace cash? And we found that obol, O-B-O-L, is a greek coin that has been obsolete maybe a thousand years. And so we took an obsolete coin as a concept that we put in our company name. Lucy: That's fascinating, and the story of the company is interesting as well. And I would love to follow up with you because I think that the people here at the Atlas Institute at the University of Colorado - Boulder, they're starting an ITC4D program here. So they would probably be interested in having you speak. So that's really interesting. And you've been a technologist for a long time and our first question centers around that. How did you first get into technology? And as a technologist, what are the technologies you see as being especially interesting today? Carol: I first got into technology in the mid-'70s. I was a mathematician and I was teaching math at a local university, and found the computer science department and decided in my spare time to get a computer science advanced degree. It was a natural transition for me. I was doing math because I was good at it and I loved it but it wasn't my passion. But once I got involved in computers I got very passionate about computers and specifically software. So that's how I got into technology. And you know in the mid-'70s, Silicon Valley was a very small community, so a lot of my professors worked at IBM or Hewlett Packard. Once I started taking classes from these folks it was just very easy to understand what was going on in the industry and I very quickly opted in. And matter of fact, I ended up leaving my teaching position and starting work six months before I finished my degree. Larry: Oh, good. Well you've had a chance to work for others and the nonprofit experience you had, why are you an entrepreneur and what is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Carol: I started my career as a typical software engineer and ended up starting to get into management. And I was quite successful in management positions. Something happened to me about six years into my career. I thought when I was working for this big company that my aspiration was to be an executive at a company like that, but I got involved in a project almost by accident. It was an entrepreneurial project within a big company, and it changed me. The company I worked for, which was a hardware company - it's called Amdol - decided they wanted to do a commercial product based on UNIX. Because UNIX was just an internal AT&T Bell Labs technology, and I negotiated the first commercial license for UNIX. And we ended up building the operating system and then providing it as a high-end version of UNIX out into the marketplace. And this all happened very quickly, it was very entrepreneurial, they were a handful of people in a big company and we built a whole business around this new operating system that we built. It was amazing. People would tell us "You'll never get this done," that nobody would ever buy it. And so I got involved in that and I saw about 15 people. We moved a mountain just by saying we we're going to do this. And I had that experience and I said, wow, I really love doing this and I'm good at it. I got a taste of it from that and then, once the project got mature and was mainstreamed, I decided that I couldn't go back into the mainstream, I had to go be an entrepreneur. I left and then I went to work at a company that was just about to go public, which was a database company - I think of that as my transition job. And then I got a phone call about 18 months after that, where somebody asked me to do a company from the ground. So that's how I got into it. I think that I had it in my blood, in my desire. I'm not sure if I would have been an entrepreneur if I hadn't had the early experience of how powerful it is. Also, I managed my career even before I left this big company, I had experience in marketing and sales. When you're an entrepreneur, you have to wear a lot of hats. You especially have to wear a sales hat. You have to go out and get the initial customers, you have to go out and get the initial founders or employees to work with you, you have to get the original investors. That is a sales job. And so somehow I've been able to over the years be quite successful at evangelizing new ideas and bringing on employees and customers and venture capital. And that's been something that I'm just good at and I love to do. Lucy: Well you know those are all UNIX projects. I'm from Bell Labs and we were probably one of your Amdol customers. [laughs] Those were fun times for sure, and it does sound like you have entrepreneurship in your blood. In terms of who influenced you, can you look back - you had an experience that influenced you at Amdol, and another experience at the database company - were there particular people or mentors along the way that influenced you? Carol: Yeah, I think there were. I was aware of what some other people were doing, so I think I was inspired by some of these early entrepreneurs. Famous ones, like Bill Gates and Judy Estrin. Or fhe less famous ones, just people I knew in Silicon Valley - I was inspired by those people. So I think, one thing that happened to me when I ended up becoming an entrepreneur -- if you had met me before I took my first CEO job, you would have said "Well, this woman..." Lone Ranger, I used to call myself. I would take on projects and I would do them, and I would have people working for me, but I didn't need any help. That was my attitude. When I started my first company that was venture-backed, for some reason I decided that I needed to change my style. I said, you know, I need help, because I've never done this before. And raising venture capital seems really hard, building a company from the ground up. I've kind of been involved in it in kind of different ways, but this seemed a really big task. So I decided to change my style and ask for help. I'd been around for a long time so I knew a lot of people, but I had actually never asked anyone for help, never in my entire career. And so when I wrote my first business plan for Cordiant, which is where I first raised venture capital, I sent the business plan to 50 people I knew, who had either raised venture capital or would know how to do it. And what was so interesting about that is that I've never asked for help before, and people were so honored that I had reached out to them for help, I got this wave of help from all these really great CEOs or venture capitalists. And that was the reason I'm here today. It was actually because I figured out that it wasn't just about me doing something. Being an entrepreneur and having a big idea, you need a lot of help. So when I reached out to these people, a lot of those folks became mentors to me and became advisers to me. And I remember, when I was raising my first round of funding, I said, look, if I'm successful at this -- and I thought this is the hardest thing I've ever done, If I'm successful, I'm going to help other people do this. You know, over the years, I've turned around and done the same thing for other folks and helped other people who were trying to raise venture capital or start companies. And something I really like to do is give back, because it was so important to me to have those experienced people help me. Larry: Wow. Carol, you know you have a number of happy, successful stories, but I'd like to ask another kind of question. If you were to pick the one, single time - I'm sure you had challenges along the way - but one, single toughest decision that you had to make in your career. Carol: Business decisions? Larry: Yeah, business-related. Carol: I'll tell you, there's a lot of tough decisions you make every day. I mean, when you're an entrepreneur, it's important to figure out what you can't do, or what you shouldn't do right now. I think one thing is, at big companies you might have the luxury to do most of the things you think are the right things to do. But in a small company, an emerging company, a new company, you have to choose every day what is it I have to do now, and what is it I can afford to do right now? And you have to make that decision every day, and people come to you and they lobby, or customers come to you. And you just have to be good at prioritizing and saying no. And that is a tough decision, but I can't point out one time I said no. It's just that every day, you have to learn to say no. Larry: OK. Carol: Hire this person, go after this opportunity. So that's sort of the tougher part, the tough decisions I make. Probably some of the more challenging business decisions were really around timing of expansion. Larry: Ah. Carol: So if you think about it, Cordiant wouldn't be where it is today if it hadn't made a decision to, very early on in the company's evolution, to expand into Europe. So they made a decision while they were in the US market for six months, they decided to go to Europe. And that was a tough decision to make because it was an expensive decision. But it turned out to be a very good decision. Hard to execute on, but a really important strategic move. Obopay has made that same decision. From the beginning, we decided that, to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish, which is deliver financial services to every mobile phone, we had to be willing to build a service that could work in places like the US, as well as India. And the only way to really know that is to build it from the beginning with that in mind, and then go to those markets and prove that it worked in both markets. That was a very tough decision to make because it's a very expensive decision, and it requires the ability to execute on two different markets. Lucy: You've given us a lot of pointers that would be helpful to people who are considering being entrepreneurs. For example, you said it became important to you to ask for help. I think you said, "Get to like sales," you know, and, "Learn how to prioritize and learn to say no." And I think the story about expansion into Europe is an indicator as well of taking educated risks and getting out there and really growing the company. What other advice would you give a young person who's considering being an entrepreneur? Carol: I think you can't learn to be an entrepreneur in a classroom. So I think you have to be willing to take jobs that help you build skills and experience so that you're able to be an entrepreneur and be good at it. You know, some people come out of school, like I was reading about the founder of Facebook, I mean, phenomenal story. He's 24 years old and he founded Facebook. I mean, that's incredible, but a lot of entrepreneurs don't get there that way. They end up having jobs that give them good skills and experience that prepare them to be an entrepreneur. So unless you're like the Facebook founder, I suggest you think about, "OK. What's the next job I could take in the company I'm at or in a different company that will help me get skills and experience I need to be an entrepreneur." So for example, let's say you're not good at strategic stuff, which is like what you need to be good at to raise venture capital, what you need to be good at to go out and get your first set of business partners in your business. If that's true and you're not good at it, you should get a job in an opportunity where you figure out how to be good at that, where you're tested, where you're trained, where you have to do it, because that's going to help you build the competency that you need and better prepare you to be an entrepreneur. I want to say one other thing about that. I knew in my heart I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I remember one time I tried to get a sales job at a company. I won't mention which company, but I tried to get a job being a sales person, because I kind of knew I needed to be better at this. And I remember the person I went to who liked me a lot, said, "Oh, well, you're a girl. Nobody's going to buy a million dollar product from you." [laughter] Lucy: I'm sorry. Larry: Yeah. Carol: But, you know, at the time that was their point of view. But I remember thinking, "You know what, that is not going to stop me. That's this person." Lucy: Absolutely. Carol: And, you know, it may have been conventional wisdom that a girl couldn't do this job, but it didn't faze me at all, and I said, "Oh, OK. That's your opinion. I better go find my sales opportunity someplace else." And I think you have to have that in your DNA to be an entrepreneur. You have to be the kind of person that has the kind of vision and direction and drive that when some obstacle gets in front of you, it's not that it's not real, but you figure out how to manage beyond that obstacle. Lucy: Absolutely, being relentless. Larry: Relentless. Lucy: We've heard that a lot, relentless, persistent. Carol: Yeah. Larry: Yeah. Lucy: Yeah, resourceful. Carol: The other thing I was going to say about building the expertise to be an entrepreneur, I have two other things to say about that. You can never be everything. You can't be all things to all people. There's some things that maybe the perfect entrepreneur would do that I'm not good at. So you also need to understand where your limitations are and surround yourself with a team that collectively has the skills to pull off the business. So you're not going to ever be all things to all people. There are some things you have to be able to do, like raise venture capital, but there are some other things your team may be able to do for you, and you don't have to do it yourself. The other thing that I would say, and one thing I like to say to the people who want to be entrepreneurs and go out and raise money, especially raising money. I said, "If you think about being entrepreneurs, don't think about success being raising money." Because let's imagine you're going to be successful raising money. Success is when you get the money and you've got the company, that you're successful with the company. You have to think less about sort of the, "Oh, I can get a VC to fund me," and more, "I can get the capital I need to build the company I need to build, " and it's a different mindset. And you have to have the mindset of, I not only have to be able to raise the venture capital, I have to be the kind of leader that once I have it I can build the company. So you kind of raise the bar for yourself and what you think you have to be able to do to build the company. You have to raise capital, and you have to make that capital turn it into a successful business. Larry: Carol, with all the things that you're doing and you're at the office right now, how do you bring balance to your life, both personally and professionally? Carol: I don't think I have a balanced life. [laughter] Lucy: Yeah, we're heard that before too. Yeah. Carol: But I don't know, you know, I think about that I have three children, and I love them and they're all successful. They're grown. They're in their twenties. I love them. I don't see them as much as I want to, don't spend as much time with them as I would like. I have a husband who I've been married to for almost 30 years. I love the outdoors. I'm very athletic. But the fact is when I'm doing this I would say that I don't have the kind of balance that would be the perfect balance, and I just accept that. That's the job. The job is to have a little bit of struggle with balance, because the job is going to be really, really demanding, and I've accepted that. I had five years off, six years off where I was able to spend as much time as I wanted with my kids and my husband. And I biked and hiked and skied 60 days a year. That was fabulous too, but, you know, there's nothing like building a company from the ground up. Lucy: And that's the case, and we've heard that from some of our other interviewees as well, that it's more of an integrative thing. You know, that you have all these interests and you integrate them, but it's not like every day is balanced. Larry: Right. Lucy: That's really interesting. So, Carol, you've done so much. You're a global visionary. You give back. I wanted to mention to listeners as well that Carol was on the board at the Anita Borg Institute, which is one of the co-founding organizations of NCWIT, really focused on women and innovation and computing. And you mentioned earlier that it's important for you to give back. So across the board you've done some pretty phenomenal things. What's next for you? Carol: No, I am very passionate about entrepreneurship, so wherever possible I support entrepreneurs, either through my own time or through donating to organizations that support entrepreneurs. I'm passionate about education. There are places in the world where children don't get access to free education, places like Uganda or a lot of places I go in the world. And so my husband and I both donate a lot to programs that get the kids that are left out of the education system access to education. So we do that and that's something we do on an ongoing basis. You know, I'm kind of doing Obopay full-time. It's interesting. I was on boards when I started Obopay, and I got off all of them. And I did that because I just felt like for an early stage company I didn't have the luxury of having time to be a good board member for them, but I think for the next couple years, I'm pretty much full-time doing this. But I don't have a lot of bandwidth to do other things right now. When this period is over for me, I don't know what's next for me and I'm not worried about it, because I love so many things. I have so many hobbies, so many interests, I'm not worried about what comes next. I'm not a worrier anyway. I'm just dedicated to doing this now, and I know when I'm doing this that they'll be something else great for me to do. Larry: Well, I couldn't agree more, yeah. Carol: Oh, that's another word for entrepreneurship, fearless. Larry: There we go. Carol: There you go. Larry: Well, Carol, I want to thank you for joining us today. Carol: Oh, you're welcome. Larry: And we'll put your link up in the website. That's Obopay.com, but we'll put it up on NCWIT's website. That's ncwit.org, and also at w3w3.com. And by the way, I want to say this to the listeners. Pass this interview along to others that you know would learn from it and would enjoy an interview on this kind of a topic. Thank you much, Carol. Lucy: Thanks, Carol. Carol: Thanks, bye. Lucy: All right. Thanks everybody. [music] Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Carol RealiniInterview Summary: Carol Realini is an imaginative pioneer whose foresight and business acumen have changed the landscape of technology, and whose global vision is providing hope and a future for people in developing countries. Release Date: April 7, 2009Interview Subject: Carol RealiniInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 24:49

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: Lucy Sanders: Hi everybody. This is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO for National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. And this is one series of interviews we are doing with women who have started with IT companies and with me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi. Am I happy to be here. Lucy: Tell us more about w3w3. Larry: W3w3, we've been doing this for ten years. Radio shows, we have been doing a wonderful series here with Lucy here at NCWIT. We audio archives. We are all business. We tend to have focuses and this particularly one obviously is women entrepreneur which is fabulous. Lucy: Well, thank you Larry. We are happy that you are hosting our interviews. Today, we are going to interview a pioneer in blogging and very excited to have Mena Trott with us. She's the cofounder and president of Six Apart and she is responsible for such products as movable type and type pad. Welcome Mena. Mena Trott: Hi, thank you. Thank you for having me. Lucy: It's really exciting to interview you. As everybody listening knows, the blogging in the world is huge and only getting bigger and more important. So why don't you tell us a bit about Six Apart and we're also curious to know where the name came from. Mena: OK, Let me preface] this thing. I'm overextended personally because I have a daughter in October 2007 and so I don't do that many interviews anymore and so I'm rusty please forgive me. Six Apart is the company behind the name of our products we founded it in July 2002 officially even though it came out in 2001. And the name, really comes from the fact that my husband and I who was my co-founder, our birthdays are six days apart. It was supposed to be a name that we didn't think most people would ever ask why it was called that. But as the company's became so popular we have to explain it quite a bit. But it's pretty silly. Lucy. Well, I think it is a great name. Congratulations on the new baby, by the way. Mena: Thank you. Yeah, she's 18 months old. She's not really new but I'm enjoying my son at home. I choose to not go back to work immediately. I wanted to really embrace the baby for years. Lucy: Well, 18 months seems to Larry and I quite young. We have children out of the house. Larry: I have grandchildren. Lucy: OK. No, I think that's just fabulous. Congratulations on that. Mena: And I'm sure how fast he grows. Lucy: It does grow very, very quickly. Six Apart is a great company. The blogging craze is a wonderfully progressive space. Tell us a few things about how you first got into technology and where you see blogging going today. Mena: OK. We really became interested in the web and it was the web when we were in college, really late years of high school through college. We both graduated in 1999 and so we had experienced to see, observe what was going on. We played around and create our own personal pages. I started to blog in April of 2001 so, right around this time, nine years ago or eight years ago. My love of technology has been very connected to my love of social communication and the way we were interacting in the web. In the early days, we were involved, we were very involved in message boards, and news board, in all boards sort of thing that were the precursors of what we are using now. So my interest in the technology seems like the board interacting. Blogging was the next behavior based on what people were doing. It was more about thinking and blogging on line but also have ownership of the blog that you are creating. That was very different from what we were doing in the message boards where we may have thoughts that you would have posted now on your blog but were all mixed together. It was something definitely I knew on the site . This is your voice and the people visiting it will get for example I have a background in design so I did the designing in all of the products and then have the background in computer engineering and that was our first sort of foray into workers at smaller company and that's where got our background. Larry: Well, that was quite an interesting lead but I have five children. Also, our blog was w3w3.blogs.com, I bet you are familiar with that one. All right, so how do you take the sleep and what is it about being an entrepreneur that got you in there and what makes you tick today? Mena: The Interesting thing about when we started. We started this all around late 2001 right around after September 11 so it's not worth it. I was only trying to get insights of people but it was so the end of the boom. It was times very similar to know. It was less opportunity even thought the economy was not bad in all sectors, it was more the technology. And so Lee and I we were so confident because a lot of companies at that time were closed. We had some money saved in the bank and said hey, "let's do this for a couple of months focusing on that and see where it goes." I think the economy went with it because nobody in our peer had jobs, let me just clarify that. So it wasn't as much as a risk as maybe doing it at the height of the boom. So we thought we could do it because we were able to. We had such low cost in terms of company. We paid for rent in our apartment and we paid or basic for us and shelter and all those things. We didn't have employee, we didn't have cost, we were using software that was downloadable, so we didn't do anything like hook or services or selling the product that was actually, something you could hold. So the costs of getting into this were incredibly low and it just seem crazy to to give it a try. Lucy: I think that's a valuable lesson for the economy that we have today. Larry: You bet, we'll highlight that. Lucy: It's the truth when things cant go much worse, take a risk. Mena: Oh, yeah and I think we've seen up and down during the years. During the second bubble when you see all these Web 2.0 companies coming out. It was all about making something big and glorious and not worrying about where blogging's coming from which is very similar to the bubbles that we experienced in those early years pre-1999 and post... 1997-1998. And it is a really augment to get that I'm going to create something and not worry about where the money comes from. We are just going to get funding, over and over if we do and I don't think that it's ever healthy and I don't think that how our company is being made. We've always wanted to have business models and do something that could be sustained. That's, I think, why we're able to be successful even in these hard times. It's not nice right now. I don't like seeing companies suffer, but it's also good to see people realizing that we do have to be sustained. We should be able to sustain our company. Everyone should be able to enter the space, but, at the same time, they should be more responsible than perhaps they have in the past. Lucy: Well, that's a great observation. It's easy to see why you're a successful entrepreneur. Larry: Yeah. Lucy: Along the way, I'm sure you must have had mentors, or people who have influenced you, in issues concerning entrepreneurship. Tell us a bit about them. Mena: Yeah, I think it goes back to what I just said. The examples that we had were people who created sustainable, long lasting, businesses. Not necessarily things that were just flashy. It's hard to think of names off the top of my head, but I think we almost could look back to people that we have known that have had brick and mortar stores or people that have had clear businesses. You look at something like Amazon where it was very clear where his money was coming from, what kind of business it was. Maybe that's less true now, but at the time, it was very straightforward. People that were passionate about their businesses. That was always our sort of mentor. Or at least the people that inspired us. It was those people that you could tell loved what they were doing and were doing it because they felt their product or their service really filled a need. And really that's who we looked up to. Names, I'm drawing a blank, but you get the idea of the mentality behind that sort of person. Larry: Mm-hmm. Lucy: Absolutely. Larry: Boy, I'll say. With all the successes and the real neat things that you've done and accomplished individually, and with your team, with your husband of course, what is the toughest thing you ever had to do in your career? Mena: The toughest? Larry: Yeah. Mena: I think the toughest, probably, there were a couple things. The first clear example would be taking our first round of funding, which we took from a small Japanese investor. To make leap from saying we are just going to be these two people who are going to do this product because of love and if we can make some money, that's good. If we don't make some money, it's OK. We can get jobs. Since then, saying not only does our company need to succeed for our benefit, but we need to make other people money. And we just can't quit, if we're tired. So the toughest thing has always been really jumping into that next step. You can only imagine, your return for a company, it's vastly different from when it's just an LLC between a husband and a wife and a corporation with outside investors. So doing that, you have to say, "I'm going to be serious about this. I'm going to make this succeed and we're in it for the long haul." Our company is almost nine years old or eight years old. That's a really long time to be in something. I think we realized it the morning we released Movable Type for the very first time that we were going to stick it out. That's a huge investment of your life. We were fairly young. I guess we were about 23 when we first started Movable Type and Six Apart and to say this is something that we are going to be doing for the next 10 years? I think we were probably, "Woo hoo." If we knew that, we would have been a little more trepidations. Every step after that you know that you are going to be in it for the long haul and that's always tough. Taking that first round of funding. Hiring our first employee. All of the sort of things that we had to do to get to the next level. Lucy: Those were interesting observations and they would form great advice for anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur. So what I've written down so far would be, "Know your business model. Be passionate. Be in it for the long haul. Look up to companies that have sustainable approaches." What other advice would you give, particularly to young people, who want to be entrepreneurs? Mena: I think a good piece of advice is always to be open to other people's ideas. It's something that has definitely come with age for us. That you think you know more things when you're younger than definitely when your older, even if you know more things when you're older. Even though we're still relatively young, you do have to be able to see that experience is one of the great things that people can give you, as advice, as well as participating. Now, it's an interesting time for me, because I'm not involved in the day to day. Ben, my husband, is at work for me, but he's also young. He's doing his job as CEO and he still puts in long start-up hours. I'm at home with our daughter, not necessarily trying to be involved through my husband, but being involved through other people. Because I want to separate the husband, wife, co-founder relationship. It's a big step for me to be at home instead of at work, because I have always been the sort of person that needs to be involved and to be making the decisions or be very instrumental in the decisions. So, stepping away and saying, "I trust these people, " having my husband there makes it easier. You have to trust the people who are in place and our CEO, Chris Alden. I trust him and I trust our VPs and our corporate development person, and all these sorts of people, as well as the day to day employees who create the product. I think an entrepreneur has to be able to say "I have these ideas. There's something about me that makes me special." To be able to create a company and to run a company, but, at the same time, if you're not willing to trust people and put people in place who you think are talented and are exceptional, then I don't think you're going to get as far as you possibly can. You see a lot of times when founders refuse to, not just step down but, just step back. It's not really an issue of not being CEO anymore, it's the issue of just being a team player. That's a problem that I think we see and that's one I think we've been able to comes to terms with as not being an issue. Lucy: And experience does teach you that. It is related to being able receive feedback, in some ways. Larry: Mm-hmm. Lucy: I think, over the years, I've come to learn, perhaps the hard way, that feedback is actually a gift. It's nothing to fight. It's something to embrace. Mena: Yeah. A big thing is also, I think, being able to share your victories. It's something that I think has come with age with me too, and being comfortable in my own skin is that you want your entire team to succeed. You don't have to be the individual player who succeeds. You'll see that the healthier the company, the more people are out there being lauded, applauded for what they're doing. Lucy: I want to return to a theme we've had in this interview so far, and that's the balance of personal and work pursuits. Interestingly enough, this morning I had to answer a question for an Ask a BC blog about being a woman and a mother and an entrepreneur. I might want to rephrase this question. We normally ask it slightly differently. What is it like to integrate being at home with your daughter and also having career pursuits? You mentioned that you're going to stay home a while. And you're really experimenting with integrating personal and business lives. I'm curious how you do that and what you see ahead. Mena: Yeah, it's a very difficult thing. It's hard because we don't want to say that it's impossible for a woman to have a career and a family. Or at least it's impossible for a woman to have a career and be the child-rearer, at least at home during the day. But it really is quite hard. You're going to cause one thing to suffer on either side. If you're putting in the hours that you feel as an entrepreneur are necessary for your company, your child isn't going to have the attention from you personally that you may want. And at the other side, if you're giving your child your hours the company's not going to get it. That's very clear. Personally, I've made the decision to be at home because of the things that I said, that babyhood and childhood go so quickly, that I should be here for her. I've thought about, do I want to take a day off of being a stay at home mom and get a nanny to watch her, and it's something that I think, as she gets older I can see doing a day a week. But with my personality, and I think it's why the company Six Apart got to where it is, is I like throwing myself into something completely. I can't just half and half it. The mentality for me has to be, what am I doing? This is my full time commitment. That said, I'm even able to do any simple work right now, because what we do is so decentralized. It's about the Internet. It's about the web. I can do a conversation with you right now while talking through Skype, rather than have to meet in person because we live in an amazing time. I think because of that, being a stay at home mom, I'm at home 24 hours a day with my daughter, but I still feel very connected to people at work. I feel connected because we have an intranet that I'm able to access. I feel connected because I read people's blogs, because I can see the news. I feel like I know what's going on. I'm lucky because of the industry I'm in. If someone's in a different position, say a lawyer who decides to stay at home, she's not going to have, necessarily, that connection. She's not going to be able to see her work happen just on the web. I've been very fortunate. I think people in my space probably have more opportunities than in more traditional jobs. But like I said, I feel like I have to put myself into something fully. I am now starting, actually starting this week, trying to do some work in Penelope's down time. Ben puts her to sleep at night, so then I can do some stuff at night. But at the same time, it's not startup hours for me. Larry: Mena, that really sounds like a fascinating plan that is about to unravel. Lucy: The very important points here...Sometimes when people think about work and personal balance they think it has to be 50/50 all day, every day, forever. Whereas, I think Mena's getting to a point where maybe for these two years I'm doing this. And then I may mix it up differently the next year, or I might mix it up in some other way as we go down the path here. Mena: It's like a startup or a company you begin. You don't know what's going to be going on in the next couple months. So you always have to be able to adapt to the new situation. Lucy: So being an entrepreneur teaches you how to be a mom! Larry: There we go! Lucy: If anything could teach you to be a mom, right? Mena: It is very similar. Larry: I just want you to know, Mena, that things do change. My wife and I, we've been in business together for 37 years and we've got five kids. We've done it. Lucy: It's really been wonderful talking to you and I just wanted to ask you if you had any other observation about entrepreneurship or Six Apart that you wanted to share with out listeners. Mina: There are so many things to say. I think for people listening, especially women, the advice is, it's going to be hard. It's going to be something that isn't all glorious. You put in hours and it's very emotional. Like we just said, the same things could be said about motherhood or about parenting. But the rewards, even if you're not wildly successful, the rewards are that you learn, and that you're able to grow and you're able to do what you do better the next time. And I think that Six Apart is doing really well. I'm amazed. I never thought, nine years ago, that I'd be able to just take off to have my child and it would be a company still. We were so much tied to it. Part of learning to be able to say this is my baby. I can just use that metaphor both ways. This is my baby. Plus the baby learns and the baby's going to grow. To be able to accept that and to understand that you're able to do something after that. It may be bigger and better. Larry: Well, Mina I want to thank you for joining us today. Mina: Thank you! Larry: There's some super, super advice here. Mina: I'm very glad to be able to get back into the swing of things. Larry: Well, see Lucy. We helped her to get back into that swing, at least into the start of the swing. Lucy: We'll help you any time, Mina! Larry: You betcha! And so all of our listeners out there know, you can download this as a podcast 24/7 at w3w3.com and ncwit.org. Is that correct? Lucy: That's correct! Larry: You bet. Pass this interview along to others that you feel would really be interested in hearing it because they can listen to it 24/7 also. Lucy Sanders, it's always great joining you. Thank you much. Lucy: Thank you Larry, and thank you Mina. Mina: Thank you. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Mena TrottInterview Summary: When Mena and Ben Trott started Six Apart in 2001, starting an Internet-based business in a stagnant, post-9/11, post-Internet-bubble economy seemed like a big gamble. But their success can be credited to some fundamental entrepreneurial tenets: Know your business model. Be passionate. Aspire to sustainability. Be open to new ideas. Release Date: March 1, 2009Interview Subject: Mena TrottInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 22:03

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Lena West CEO, xynoMedia Technology Date: November 17, 2008 Lena West: xynoMedia Lee Kennedy: Hi, this is Lee Kennedy, board member for National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and co-founder of Tricalyx. And this is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous entrepreneurs, women who have started IT companies and a variety of sectors. All of whom have great stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. And with me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi, I'm glad here to be today because the topic that we are discussing is something of high interest for us. w3w3.com, we are an Internet based radio show. We started in 1998 and we really like to look into all of the new areas. And I have a feeling that Lena will really take us into that direction. Lee: We'll great and just to get right to it, we are interviewing Lena West. Lena is the CEO and chief strategist of xynoMedia technology. It is a New York based firm that helps high growth company leverage the power of social media, blogs, podcasts and online communities. She is a real expert in social networking, very active blogger and she is involved in NCWIT entrepreneurial lines and regularly gives back to society. So welcome Lena. Lena West: Thank you so much. Good to be here. Lee: Great. Well, Lena, why don't you take a few minutes and tell us a little bit about xynoMedia. Lena: As you mentioned, we are a social media strategy and development company. And I will favor that fancy terminology for. We hoped companies to just try to make sense of everything that they are hearing about social media and really take it down or not and relate it to the brand and to their company and figure out what is the best way to actually use the tool to meet our business and marketing objective and we take it a step further, we don't just provide the strategy. Once the client determines that "Hey, that's brought them on to podcasts" or "it is better to launch an online community and start a vicinity network." We actually build those plans and tools, so we build online community, so we build blinded blogs. That in essence is what we do. Larry: Well, I tell you what, I'm really curious. I know there are all kinds of cool things out there, soft ware wise, and technology wise. How did you first and when did you first get into technology? Lena: [laughs] Oh boy, this is... Look, it's a cool story that almost involved me getting tossed out of my parents' house, actually [laughs]. You wouldn't know to look at that lovely head shot of me that I was in college when I decided that college just wasn't going to work for me; this is after my parents paid the tuition for the year [laughs]. And I left college and I went to work. I was in a pre law program in school and I actually left college and my parents just part of it, and I went to work at a law firm and that just added insult to the wound. But while I was at the law firm, this was pre Windows days and I know that all the paralegals and secretaries would come to me and they would always ask me to help them find their lost file, because I was the only one who could ever remember the dot.form in the dot command. And I said to myself at that time that this is really a good skill and I was too young to really know what to do with it. But I knew that this technology thing, I am good at it. And to make it shorter, I ended up working as secretary at IBM because I figured I'd rather be a secretary in IBM rather than working in law. Because being in IBM will get me closer to technology and one day something went wrong with my computer and they sent out a technician and it was a woman and I asked her "Hey, how did you get this job?" and she told me "Well, you got to know this, and you got to know that." So I went to this company and I registered to be a consultant and, you know, made a couple of... I was very generous with my experience and took some creative license with experience on my application. One thing led to another, and I started doing technical support. And then I realized there was more money to be made being a consultant. And once I became a consultant, I realized there was more money to be made in the long term being a business owner. And here we have it. Lee: Well, that is a great story. Lena: Yeah, but when I left college, my parents were really not happy. [laughs] Lee: Yeah, I can imagine. Well, you know, you are not the only successful entrepreneur though that's left college. You have got Bill Gates and Michael Dell, that, you are following in their footsteps. Lena: Hey! Lee: So Lena, tell us, it was clear that you liked technology, but why are you an entrepreneur, and what is it about being an entrepreneur that makes you tick? Lena: The reason that I am an entrepreneur, I would say, is bit of a sad story. My grandmother, when I was in that first year of college... my grandmother, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and she ultimately ended up losing her battle to that that same year that she was diagnosed. My mother is a retired medical professional. And I saw, even how working in the medical field, she couldn't get the time off that she needed to go and visit my grandmother. My grandparents lived in another state. I mean, it was just hard for her to go visit. My mother really struggled with that and, I think, till this day, she had some bad feelings about that. And, she just couldn't spend as much time as she liked because she had a full time job. And even at the age of 18, first year in college, I said to myself... I said, you know, "I am going to build the kind of life and the kind of business where I don't have to worry about whether I am going to work or whether I am going to tend to my family's needs. I am never going to ever have to make that choice. The choice is always going to be up to me, not up to some someone else." And that's really why I became an entrepreneur. Because, I figured, if my family ever needed me, I wanted to be able to pack up my business and go. And that's what I did. Larry: Fantastic. Well, now, here we have almost a lawyer to a techie, and I would guess along the way there has been many people who have a big influence on you, and maybe, even mentored you. Who would be somebody that really was the turning point in your career path? Lena: You know, I would have to say that it was before my career even got started. Although, you know, don't get me wrong, there have been many, many, many women that have just really taken me under their wing and have given me advice - Adrian Lopez, Karen Wilson; I mean you name it. But I would have to say it was... I think it was maybe my ninth grade teacher, social studies teacher, a woman named Barbra Deller. I will never forget. I was always very smart, very intelligent; always did well. I noticed that when I went to my first year in high school, which where I come from it was ninth grade, I noticed that I had really started to take my intelligence for granted, and I started to act out in order to be cool. As a result my grades started to suffer. And I remember Miss Deller pulling me aside one day after class, and she said, "You know, Lena..." She says, "Its OK for you to be smart. Being smart is cool too." And I really thought about that. That impacted me. And so I said, "Yeah, being smart is cool." And I think that was the turning point. I think had she not said that to me...maybe someone would have taken the time to rein me in and say, "Hey, you are too smart to be acting a little nutty like this." But it was then that I thought about, "Wow, you know, I am going to blow up my whole high school deal here because I want to be cool with my friends." Lee: Boy, it's so great to hear stories like that, that teachers have made such an impact on your life. Lena: Oh, yeah. I mean, every time I look back on my life, I think... it was Dr. Phil that says: "You have seven critical decisions in your life." And I think that was one of them, to listen to her and recognize that, "Hey, I am smart. I aced all these tests. I am really good at school, and I don't want to mess that up for myself." Lee: So when we take a look at all the things you have done in your career, what would you look back and say was probably the toughest thing you had to do? Lena: Wow, that's a good question - the toughest thing that I had to do? Probably, I would have to say was take my company and really go full time with it. I ran this company part time for many number of years before I went full time with the company. And it was really hard to take that leap of faith and get out there and say to the world, "I am going to probably eat a lot of Ramen noodles. I am probably not going to be able afford to do a lot of things. But this is my vision and this is what I want." And those were tough times and those were lean times. I mean, I remember them well. Not fondly, but well. Lee: And that's good for people, for our listeners, to hear that because so many people that are just starting their careers or just starting to open up a new business... you know, you hear so many success stories, but a lot of people that have made it had to put in a lot of hard hours and, it didn't come quickly or easily. Lena: It's not easy, because ultimately everything rides on you. And if you are not... I have always had the spirit where I am just like, "Whatever it takes, let's make it happen". And if that's not who you are, then being an entrepreneur may not be for you. There are tough times. I mean there are choices between: Do I pay the electric pay or do I pay my car insurance, so that I can go meet clients. It's really tough. But those tough times, they build character. I know that's cheesy and cliche, but they do. And they make you grateful for the good times that come. If you are doing the work that you love and you are following your heart, and you are passionate about what you do... I mean I would get up every single day and talk to people about social media in the streets for free. Lee: Wow! Larry: Wow. Boy, that's a great segue into our next question here. Right now, if you are sitting face-to-face with someone who said, "I want to be an entrepreneur" what advise would you give them? Lena: Understand that it's not just about the service that you are providing. There is a distinct and huge chasm between understanding the service that you provide and being able to do that task really, really well, or understanding your product and understanding your product really, really well and running a business. Two totally different things. You have to be able to run a business. Lee: That is great advice. Because in the end, if you don't run the business well, it doesn't matter how good your product is. Lena: Well, the business runs... you get behind on your paperwork. Set up your systems, you know, find a good bookkeeper; find a good accountant; find a good lawyer, and really understand the business side of business. Lee: So Lena, probably the toughest question we have, because just being an entrepreneur is all encompassing, it's a 7x24x365 job. How do you bring balance in your personal life and professional life? Lena: You know it's so funny; it's really hard to do that, especially because I work in social media. And I am very, very clear. There is a very clear line for me between my home life and my professional life. And I was just telling someone, I was on a conference call earlier, and I said there are probably eight people in the world who know where I live. And that's on purpose. Because I do want to have a line. And it's difficult when your business is to be social. But, it's a matter of setting priorities. It's a matter of understanding that if you are not well, nothing happens. If you are not happy, the business doesn't move. It's a matter of understanding your own personal energy. I mean, I will give a quick forward example: I am really an introvert. And if you were to meet me, you would say "Wow, she's friendly, she's personable," people seem to like her and people tell me I'm friendly. Lee: Oh get out of here! Lena: But I am really an introvert. I don't' get my energy from spending time with other people. I get my energy from being at home. And when I first learned that, I realized, oh OK, being in groups I like it. But it's a source of stress for who I really am. So I make sure I build in alone time. And I take four vacations a year. Larry: that's fantastic. Lee: I like your schedule. And Larry and I were just saying we are both introverts. So we get it. We both can be outgoing and sociable, but I get drained with too many social activities. Lena: And I take a silent retreat once a year. Every year for my birthday. Lee: Wow. Larry: A Silent retreat. Lena: I am working up my way to two weeks. Wish me luck. Larry: Fantastic. Now I have to say Lena, I know you are heavy in a social media, or should I have said xynoMedia. But nonetheless, let me ask this question, what's next? What are you going to go after in this next round? Lee: What's next for me personally is that I am writing a book. And I would say what's next for the company is we are at the tail end of probably a two and a half year process of rebranding the company. So we are going to be launching a new brand soon. It's going to be very, very exciting. It's something that we've waited a long time for. My team has been absolutely very patient. And we are looking forward to taking the next decade with a new outlook and a fresh perspective. Larry: That's fantastic. And I'm just finished a book also. We are in the final editing stage, hopefully. And it's called "Mastering Change." And that has taken me more than two years, so you mentioned the time frame for your rebranding. Lena: Yeah, I think one of the things that you have to understand as an entrepreneur is that things are going to take the time that they take. Aside from you being complacent, it does you no good to try to rush the schedule. I mean I wanted to rush this rebrand. I really wanted to get it done. And I kept talking about and talking about it. And eventually I got tired hearing myself talk about it so I didn't even mention it anymore it. It was just; it became just a source of stress. And things just take their time. And as long as - my friend said this to me, this is so fabulous and I live by this-as long as you make a measurable amount of progress in a reasonable amount of time, that's it. Larry: Very good. Lee: Thank you Lena. Lena: Get off the treadmill of trying to push and get things done and beat the competition. Things take as long as they are supposed to take. Lee: They do. Larry: That's right. Lee: Well Lena thank you so much for interviewing with us today. We've enjoyed it. Larry: I think this is fantastic. And by the way, this interview will be available not only in the form of a podcast but also go to ncwitt.org or w3w3.com. Listen 24/7 and please pass this interview along to others that you think would be interested. Lena: Great, thanks I appreciate the interview. [music] Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Lena WestInterview Summary: From blogging to Facebook, Lena West, CEO of xynoMedia, helps hi-growth companies make sense of everything they're hearing about social media and the best ways to use these online outlets to their advantage. Release Date: November 17, 2008Interview Subject: Lena WestInterviewer(s): Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 17:11

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Lee Kennedy CEO and Co-Founder, Tricalyx, Inc. Date: September 17, 2008 Lee Kennedy: TriCalyx [music] Larry Nelson: This is Larry Nelson with w3w3.com, Colorado's voice of the technology community. We link people's organization to unique and valuable resources. And we are at a very valuable resource today. We're here at the National Center for Woman and Information Technology, NCWIT, and of course we've got the boss here, Lucy Sanders. Lucy Sanders: Hi, Larry. Welcome. Larry: And you've got a very special interesting guest. Lucy: That's right. Lee Kennedy, welcome. Lee Kennedy: Thank you. Lucy: CEO of TriCalyx and serial entrepreneur at that, but here's what we like also about Lee, she's also on the NCWIT Board of Directors and gives that a lot of her personal time and woman in IT entrepreneurship, so extremely excited to be interviewing you today. Larry: And I'm sure everybody knows, Lucy you are the CEO of NCWIT. Lucy: I guess that's right. On any given day. Larry: On any given day. Lucy: On any given day. Larry: You've got a great team here too. Wonderful board and the things that you do are just absolutely phenomenal. I'm just happy to be a tiny part of it. Lee: Me too. Lucy: Well, thank you. Larry: Lee, just give us a little overview about what your company does and what it is. Lee: TriCalyx is a company that helps people grow their business online on the web. So we do everything from software development, building people web applications, online marketing, search engine optimization, anything to help them grow their business. Larry: Search engine optimization is becoming more and more popular. Is that something you feel is just an extra add-on or is it pretty essential? Lee: I think it's part of your basic marketing. If your product and your company can't be found on the web, you're at a real disadvantage from your competition. Lucy: What do you think about some of the social networking software? How are you seeing that working into how people want to grow their business on the web? Lee: That's a great question, Lucy, because a lot of companies are trying to figure out how they can grow their business doing advertising or being present on social networks. And it's still in that early phase where there's not a clear path on how to do that. Lucy: Well, it's a popular topic for sure. Larry: That's for sure. Lee: It is popular because there's millions and millions of people that spend time on Facebook and all the other social networks, but for the most part, most of those people are there to talk to their friends, and not look at advertisements. Larry: Now, Lee, you've got a very interesting background. You've been CIO for WebRoot Software. I know you've done a bunch of work with Brad Feld and some of his troops. What made you then really want to become an entrepreneur? Lee: Yeah, it really starts back as early as being an early girl. My dad was an insurance agent and I remember going around the neighborhood selling these little first-aid kits that he had. [laughter] Lee: I can't even remember why I was doing it, but I just loved getting out and starting businesses. I would even go to the local Salvation Army and bargain with them with their prices for things. Lucy: Get out of here! [laughter] Lee: I'm not kidding you. Lucy: So, it sounds like the sales part of this was intriguing. The marketing piece? Lee: I've always loved the sales and marketing and then my background is technology, which I loved because I just found it where there was always so many puzzles to solve. Lucy: It sounds like your parents had something to do with indirectly with starting you on this entrepreneurial path. Who else has influenced you? Lee: Well, I don't know if it was -- who influenced me to be an entrepreneurial, but my sister was definitely a bit influence on my life. She's 12-and-a-half years older and has always been the most fabulous person I've ever known, just can do anything, is smart, never let's anything daunt her on her path. Larry: Now would you consider her a role model or a mentor? Lee: She was a role model because I always saw her go after whatever she wanted and achieve it. Lucy: You were at WebRoot in the early days. What did you learn there as an entrepreneurial? Because that's been a success story. Lee: Yeah, I've been at a number of other successful startups before WebRoot, so I felt like a learned a lot at those companies, but the thing that was probably the most interesting at WebRoot was, when I came into WebRoot we were a small 20-person company, just a few million in revenue. But the market of spyware and anti-spyware was just about to boom, and I think all the experience I had told me it was like, "This market was hot and we have to go for it." And so, once I was hired, they had me build an enterprise division, it was our number one goal to get that product out there, to get the reseller base, to get the customers as fast as possible, because we knew that first-to-market was going to be the winner and that's what we were. We were able to capture that market right when it exploded. Larry: With all those experiences, let me ask this: what's probably the toughest thing that you've had to do in your career? Lee: That question, as you know, I've been on the other side of these interviews. Lucy: Selling first aid kits? Lee: Yeah! [laughter] Lee: That was tough. I didn't like that. There's a lot of things that were tough. A lot of the people we've interviewed talked about having to let people go or fire them, and that's definitely a hard one. Nobody likes to be fired and it's a terrible thing to fire people, but there's been a few other things that we really, really hard. I think cold calling is the worst thing on earth to have to do. And I had to do that in some of my early sales job. The other thing that was really, really tough was leaving a phenomenal job that paid well and had a great reputation and going and being nothing and starting my own business. Because you're in a position of power and security and then to just start something from scratch takes a lot of courage, and that was a tough thing to do. Lucy: What about cold calling did you find hard? Lee: There's a lot of things: rejection, the hanging up of the phone on the other end. But I guess it was the monotony. For me, it was just over and over, picking up the phone and expecting something different to happen, when most of the 99% of people didn't want to hear from you. Lucy: It's a bit like nonprofit fund-raising. [laughter] Lee: There we go! You keep hoping the answer will change. Lucy: No, somebody told me once and I carried this in my heart that a "no" is a just a first step to "yes." Lee: Yeah! Lucy: And they don't really mean "no" until they've told you "no" three times. Lee: Yeah. Lucy: And so, that's one of the things I've really had to remember. So, Lee, after all these different experiences, and you're sitting here with somebody who's considering being and entrepreneur, what kind of advice would you give them? Lee: You know, throughout my career, some of the best experiences I've had were working -- one of the companies was called Net Dynamics, and we sold that company to Sun Micro, and I have to say some of my best experiences came from that company, and it was working with some of the most talented people I've ever worked with. They were all smart and energetic and aggressive. In one year, I probably learned more than 10 years than at some of the other companies, because we were just doing everything right and learning from each other and making changes. What I suggest is, if you can get out of college, try to work with the brightest company, the smartest people, and get great mentors because they can all help you learn a lot quicker. Lucy: Don't you find that you're in that kind of situation where you're working on a great team, that you often don't know at that moment that that is a fabulous team? Sometimes you have to stop and be grateful for that because you get 10 years, 20 years down the road and realize, "That was really -- we had it all together there." Lee: I knew. I knew they wore, because I had been at a number of companies. I was, oh gosh, in my early 30s then, and I knew. I have never worked with such a great team, whereas in some companies you'll have some bright people but you'll have some people who are really slow and it's hard to get things done. It was just a great learning experience. Larry: Brad Feld -- who's quite a supporter of NCWIT also -- I interviewed him a few weeks ago and he pointed out with his team, the team he has over there at the Foundry Group and these are people he wants to work with the rest of his life. And so I think that's quite an extraordinary thing. Lucy: That's high praise! Larry: Boy, I'll say. Lee: Yeah. Larry: Isn't that the truth. Lucy: Maybe he'll hire me! [laughter] Larry: Me too! Lee: Maybe for life! [laughter] Lucy: For life! Larry: You're going to make another switch? No. You mentioned earlier, that you are got this marketing piece and you're also a techie, it sounds like kind of an interesting balance. Are those the characteristics that make you a strong entrepreneur? Lee: I think it helps a lot being in the field I am because in starting TriCalyx, I was fortunate in that I helped start a lot of businesses and knew all the marketing and knew how to get out and do the sales. But also having the technical experience, it's great because you can really talk from a first person perspective. It gives you more credibility with the people you're meeting with. Lucy: I'll add in another one for you because you mentioned it earlier, but I thought it was important enough to perhaps return to it, and that's this notion of reinventing yourself. You said it was hard, but you've been quite successful in doing it over and over and over again, which leads me to think of two things. One is, just because it's hard it means you shouldn't and can't do it, and that the reinvention process is so necessary for learning. It's really important to start over and not always to be so entrenched. Lee: That is such a good point, Lucy, because out of all the experiences, I think I value the learning piece the most. And probably in the position I am in now, I am learning more than I've learned in years, and I love it. I get up every morning so excited and it can be something as silly as in an application I learned how to do something on the technical back end. With my partners, they're laughing because I'm excited about learning about HTML and learning a bit of PHP. And they're like, "Oh, you really are a nerd!" Larry: In the past interviews with L, L and L - that's Lucy, Lee and Larry - the subject came up about how do you bring balance to your personal and professional lives. And of course the three of us have heard a wide range of replies. What's yours? Lee: I'd have to say having an ex-husband that is phenomenal as a dad. He's really helped me to having a career, because having three kids, that would of been impossible if I had a traditional husband that worked lots of hours and expected the woman to pick up the slack. And it's been just the reverse. He's really been a fabulous dad and helped out when I was working long hours. Stressful... Larry: We haven't heard that one before. Lucy: No, but I would say that would make a big difference! Larry: Yes, exactly. Lucy: That's for sure. So, you've achieved a lot with lots of companies, lots of learning. What's next for you? Can you see past TriCalyx or are you still in there writing code and having fun? Lee: No, we already have a plan. We want to keep TriCalyx, the aspect of TriCalyx being a service business but we also want to have an off-shoot business that is a software company, that has a service on the web. So we've been writing some code and bouncing some different applications about and hopefully we'll launch that later this year. Larry: Wow, well, we'll have to interview her again. Lucy: Again. Well because you're Lee, I want to ask you one final question that we don't usually ask people. Lee: I feel special. Lucy: Yeah. You give back a lot of your time to worthwhile causes here in the state of Colorado, and perhaps you can just spend a minute and say why that's important. We have found that entrepreneurial community is quite generous, here locally with their time and in this space. Perhaps a word or two about giving back? Lee: Yeah, my career was mostly in Silicon Valley up until seven years ago. I moved here to Boulder and one of the things that was so, so refreshing about moving here is about the spirit of giving back. I was amazed at how many people introduced me to other people and would spend hours of their time in trying to get me networked into the area. It just made me feel like, "Gosh, what a wonderful environment to raise and live with my kids" So, I wanted to do more of the same. The other thing is, being a woman in technology, earlier in my career and through college, there weren't a lot of other women. I was in engineering and I've always felt like it would have been so nice to have women to talk to, to have as a mentor. So I've made it a real point ever since I got out of college to be a mentor and to help with other women who are coming up the technology route and hope I can help them make decisions or give them advice on the way. Larry: Great advice, wow. Spread the wealth. Lee: Yeah. Lucy: Well, thank you for that too. And thanks for spending your time with us. You know, it was past due that we interviewed you, so this was really fun. Larry: It was fun turning the table. I love that part. Lee: Yeah. Larry: Well, this is Larry Nelson with w3Ww3.com, here at NCWIT, that's the National Center for... Lucy: The National Center for Women and Information Technology. Larry: Exactly right. Lucy: You can just say NCWIT, and that's just fine. Larry: NCWIT.org. Lee: And you can find these podcasts at www.NCWIT.org and www.w3w3.com. Larry: That's right. And download it as a podcast and you can also post on the blog if you'd like. Lee: There you go! Larry: Thank you, guys. [music] Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Lee KennedyInterview Summary: Lee's got some great advice for getting kids interested in IT and entrepreneurship. In fact, you might want your kids to listen to this interview. Release Date: September 17, 2008Interview Subject: Lee KennedyInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 14:19

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Jean Kovacs Senior former Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategic Alliances, Sterling Commerce. Currently, she serves as a Partner at Hillsven and Chair of the HBS Alumni Angels. Date: August 19, 2008 Jean Kovacs: Sterling Commerce [music] Lee Kennedy: Hi. This is Lee Kennedy and I'm on the board of NCWIT, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, and I'm also a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Tricalyx. I'm here today with NCWIT and we're doing a series of interviews that we're having with just fabulous women who have started IT companies in a variety of sectors all who have wonderful stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. Today with me I have Lucy Sanders and Lucy is the CEO of NCWIT, the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Hi, Lucy. Lucy Sanders: Hello. Lee: I also have Larry Nelson who's from w3w3.com. Hi Larry. How are you? Larry Nelson: Hello. I'm a serial entrepreneur, too. So, I love this series. Lee: Well, great. Larry, also tell us a little bit about W3W3. Larry: Well, we're an Internet based radio show, and we host and archive everything. We've been doing it actually since 1998, but we have hundreds of shows that we do a podcast with also. But, we love to focus in the high tech arena. Lee: Great. OK and just to get down to it, today we're interviewing Jean Kovacs. Hello, Jean. Jean Kovacs: Hello. How are you? Lee: Just great. We're happy to have you here today. Jean is the former CEO of Comergent Technologies and she also had a number of senior positions at Sterling and other companies along the way. And Jean has a wonderful background and we're excited to have her here today. Jean, before we start in, did you want to just tell us a bit about Comergent? Jean: Comergent was started in 1998. We focused on e-commerce for the enterprise. So, we sold software to enterprises who wanted to sell over the Internet. So, our customers were companies such as Cisco, Best Buy, JCPenney. We had a lot of bio medical companies selling devices over the Internet. So really, any large enterprise that wanted to sell their products or sell their services over the web. Lee: Great. So, why don't we go ahead and jump into some of the questions we had for you. Looking at your background, you've worked with a number of different technologies. What are you thinking are some of the really cool technologies today? Jean: I think the whole area of social networking is extremely exciting. I think the potential there is really untapped. I see more and more people using it, and I see more and more enterprises and people in business using it. So, I think that's an area that we should all be looking at. I also think anything around mobile devices. When you travel, especially outside the US and you just see how people, basically, live on their cellphones. I think there are going to be a lot of applications and ideas around that; how you make the cellphone be the center of the person's universe. Many of these people don't have PCs at home or people, you hear now, don't even have land lines. So, anything that runs on a mobile device, I think, is also a very interesting area. Lee: Well, and mobility is a topic that we've been hearing a lot about in this interview series. It really is quite a hot industry sector, for sure. So, tell me a bit more about the technologies and social networking that you're thinking about. What strikes you as being the most adventuresome there? Jean: I look at it and say there's a lot of adventuresome ideas out there. But, being someone who's built a couple of companies -- took one public and sold one -- I look at how do you take an adventuresome idea and monetize it. So, I think that's the big question mark. How do you run these as businesses and make money so you're impacting people's lives? I think a lot of the Web 2.0 technologies that are being used are very exciting and you see just last week or the week before, they announced that Facebook users exceeded MySpace and sites like Linked In and you're seeing these become now more and more used in people's daily lives. I used to get two or three Linked In requests a day. Suddenly, over the last week or two, I'm getting Facebook requests. And so, I think you'll see it's not just young people. It's people that are starting to use this in their daily lives. Lee: I think social networking is really an interesting area as well and we see young people using that quite a bit. You mentioned that you've built a couple companies, you've taken some public. So, you've seen a lot as an entrepreneur. What we'd like to ask you is why are you an entrepreneur? Jean: Wow. That's a great question. The first company that I started, which was back in 1990, in a way I almost fell into it. I was with a company. We were looking at selling through the channel. It was a Unix software company and there weren't any Unix channels. And I remember going to some venture capitalist friends of mine and saying, "Is anyone doing this?" And the VCs would say to me, "No. But, tell me more." So, I started thinking about it more and putting together a business plan. Literally, at one point, a very dear friend of mine said, "We are very interested in this. But, you're not going to fund it unless you have a male partner, preferably one with gray hair." Now, this is back in 1990. So, it was a long time ago. Things are very different now. And so, I went out and found someone who was interested in started a company, and we got excited together about it and we went out and raised money. But, it was - I never set out and said, "Ooo. I'm an entrepreneur. Let me go find an idea." I was in a company that needed something in the market that wasn't there. I think that's a really big difference. I think it's a good thing to think about. I've seen too many people think they're entrepreneurs and they go off trying to find something. And I think look for the idea first and then look into yourself and say, "Am I the person that can turn this idea into a reality? And can I deal with the good times and the bad?" It's not all about being the guy that's made $2 billion. There's a lot of ups and downs. So, you really need to have that tenaciousness to get it done. Larry: I like that. Find a need and fill it. Jean, let me ask this. You've been with huge companies. You've been part of buy outs and you've venture capitalists and everything. Along the way, who are some people or a person in particular maybe that has really had a major influence with you? Jean: Larry, that's a great question and I can't think of anyone. It's interesting. In many ways, I learned more from bad managers than I did from great managers. Lucy: That is so true. Jean: And don't worry, I'm not going to say any of those names on the air. When you have a bad manager, you drive home at night and you think about what happened, what you would do differently, how you would never do that to your team and you process it. I don't think when we have a great manager, you drive home thinking about, "Oh, wow." You probably intuit it, but you don't analyze it as much. And so, in many ways, I think it was the managers that weren't so great that I learned a lot more from and just made mental notes from. Lee: That is so important. We haven't had that observation made yet on this interview series and that is so important because it's important to almost take an anthropological mindset with some of these things and think about a bad manager maybe certainly is a bad manager and perhaps a thorn in your side. But also, somebody that can teach you what not to do. Jean: I know. It's a funny thing. But, it really does work. So, all you bad mangers out there, keep managing away. Lee: Yes and we're just going to be studying you. Jean: Well, and it's a little bit similar to learning from your failures and mistakes from somebody else's failures. Lee: That's right. Well, that's very sage advice. Lucy: Well, I guess, sort of along that line one of the questions for you is in your career you've done a lot of really interesting things. What would you say is the toughest thing you've had to do? Jean: Clearly, we started Comergent in 1998 and developed the product. Cisco was our first customer. We raised an amazing amount of money in 2000, more than we ever thought was possible and then, we hit the downturn. Now, the good news is that we never went crazy with the money, but we did come to a point in time where we needed to restructure the company. That was the hardest thing we ever had to do. We decided to do it differently. We met with the people that we were going to let go. We told them what was happening. We also met with the people who weren't going to be letting go and said, "Hey, the guys in the next room are your co-workers. They're your friends. We're not going to do this, march them to their desks and let them collect their things and sort of skulk on out. They're going to take whatever time they need, take them to lunch and do whatever you need to help them. Nothing has changed except we need to economize a bit, and we're going to try to hire them back as soon as we can. And, you know, we hired back probably 70 or 80 percent. We didn't let go that many, less than 20, but we hired back most of them over the next year. So, we all learned as a company, but it was a very tough thing because at any small company you develop relationships. Lee: In this series of interviews I think laying off people has been the number one challenge for everyone. It's nice how you did it in a real human way. Jean: Yeah, because you know it's no fault of anyone. The person that gets let go, it's not because they're the weakest or they did something wrong. Often, it's the dynamics of the business and where you decide to reduce head counts. And so, it just drives me crazy when I see companies go through that, and they march the people through the office and stand there while they clean out their desks. We really said, hey, these are our co-workers. We're going to treat them with respect, today, tomorrow and we're going to do our best to grow the business and bring them back in. And everyone that we could bring back in we did. Lucy: That is so important. I'm sure we all know of people who were let go in the way that you mentioned. That is very dehumanizing, and so not only is the person out looking for a new job but they often have a crisis of confidence. Jean: Right. Lee: And it can really be a horrible thing for the culture and the morale of the people that are left, and that's why some companies have such a hard time starting back up again because people are feeling like, oh when is it going to be me? Jean: Right. We were very open through everything, so it's not like it was a surprise and a big ax came down and we took probably 15 percent of the company out, and that was enough and like I said, I mean, it was a good lesson for all of us. Fortunately, a lot of people-where we know of one company in our space that did like seven or eight. Everyone was waiting for the next one, the next one, the next one. Lucy: And I think, one thing that I'm taking from this as well, in those hard times you do learn a lot, and you learn a lot about dealing with people. If you were sitting here with young people and giving them other advice about entrepreneurship, what advice would you give them. And Larry and Lee, I believe it's right. You're the chair of the board of Build. Is that correct? Jean: Yes, it's non-profit. Lucy: Non-profit that really focuses on underserved kids and getting them interested in entrepreneurship. We're especially eager to hear your answer about this. Jean: I think part of what makes a great entrepreneur is positive energy and tenaciousness. There's very few companies, you know, I'd say probably less than one percent, where you just hit the ground running and everything works and the market was ready and you never have an up or a down. You never had a day where you thought you were going to close a sale on and you didn't, or the product you thought would be ready to ship wasn't, or you were going to get X number of users and you didn't. So, part of it is just his tenaciousness and saying, "OK, what have we learned? How do we keep going?" It's the most important part. And how do you keep your team focused and feeling good about it? Lucy: That's really true. Those are definitely qualities that you have to have because I've never seen any startup that didn't go through times where you had to be tenacious. Jean: Right, and that makes you better. I mean in a weird way it polishes your ideas, and it hardens the team, and fine tunes thing. During the bubble, we did see quite a few companies that just had an idea and through something on the web, and went public. Very few of them had the type idea -- we used to say it's the three P's, the P2P -- pass way to profitability, as opposed to B2B and B2C. All of a sudden the market dropped out, and they didn't have the technology, or the customer base, or the market need really understood. So it was a lot tougher on the company in some ways I believe. Lucy: Definitely. One of the other things that we've seen and heard from many of the entrepreneurs we've talked to is that building a company can take your heart and soul, and lots of hours. How have you found you've been able to balance into your personal life as well as your professional life? Jean: I don't have. [laughter] Lucy: I love that honest answer! I've heard that from people. Jean: It's very tough. It is 7/24, and I think the only way to do is to have a spouse who is understanding, and who is as committed as you are, and to have some kind of a support infrastructure, whether it's relatives or nannies or neighbors, or something, because when you're doing the start up it's 7/24. Often the biggest breakthroughs you have are 11:00 at night or 8:00 at night, when you're still there and someone walks into your office. You start talking, and suddenly something pops or the weekend. So it really isn't for someone who goes, "Oh, yeah. I want to have this balance." I've never been able to find it myself. Lucy: We've often spoken about it as also being integration. A balance often indicates that things are done in equal proportions, but finding a way to integrate the various aspects of your life becomes important when you are in those 7/24 situations. Jean: I actually like the term 'integration' a lot more than balance, because you're right. Balance sort of suggests that you're going to be there for every kids birthday, and every school play, and every time you want to, and it's just not going to work out. Lucy: It's not. Yet I also think that kids also value seeing what you do at work, and learning from what you're dong. So, there are big lessons there as well. Jean: You know what? I think daughters especially. I want my girls to see that I go out and work. We talk about business things at home. I think it's healthy for them. Lucy: Yeah. So, see my sons when they were little would go in the lab with me. We'd be testing the multimedia communication exchange at Bell Labs. One of my sons designed a logo for it on the whiteboard, while he was bored. [laughs] But it was fun, and they still remember it. Jean: Yeah. Lucy: So, Jean, you've really achieved a lot. We're very curious to know what's next for you. Jean: I think you know that I left. I sold Comergent to Sterling Commerce, which is a division of AT&T. I stayed there a year-and-a-half to do the integration. I just recently left. Right now, I've been asked to be on a couple of boards and advisory boards, and I've been meeting with a couple. In fact, this afternoon I'm meeting with some entrepreneurs who have an idea. In the fall, I'll probably start talking to a few venture capitalists, and maybe work with companies in their portfolio. So, no startup again. I've done a couple, but I think I want to work with a bunch of different companies. Lucy: A diverse portfolio. Larry: Wow! Well, we're going to do a follow-up on this one, for sure. Jean: Well, it's fun because I'm seeing a lot of different ideas and learning a tremendous amount. It's really exciting to me to see what's happening out there, especially, as I said, in the mobile space and the special networking space. Lucy: Well, Jean, thank you for talking with us today. I'm sure our listeners are going to glean a lot of good advice and information. Larry: I'm going to vote for "learning from bad managers." Lucy: Me, too. Larry is writing a book. I think that this should be a chapter in your book, Larry. It's not too late, is it? Larry: It's called "Mastering Change" and I think that would really fit. Lucy: Learning from the black hat manager. Jean: Great! Lucy: So for listeners out there, you can find our other podcasts at W3W3.com, as well as NCWIT.org. Larry: Alright. Thank you much! Jean: Thank you so much. Lucy: Thank you, Jean. Thank you so much. [music] Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Jean KovacsInterview Summary: Jean Kovacs is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Strategic Alliances for Sterling Commerce, responsible for driving global strategic alliances, including the AT&T strategic relationship, and all corporate marketing and communications. Release Date: August 19, 2008Interview Subject: Jean KovacsInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 17:30

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Audrey MacLean Co-Founder & VP, Network Equipment Technologies; Co-founder & CEO, Adaptive Date: July 30, 2008 Audrey MacLean: Network Equipment Technologies Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, or NCWIT, and this is one of a series of interviews that we're doing with IT entrepreneurs, people who have fabulous advice about starting companies. With me, I have Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi. I'm happy to be here, of course. Lucy: Why don't you tell us a bit about w3w3. Larry: We're an Internet based all business radio show. Our focus is high tech, which is why we are here. Lucy: Well, wonderful. Also, Lee Kennedy, an NCWIT director and a serial entrepreneur and also co founder of Tricalyx. Hi, Lee. Lee Kennedy: Hi. Thanks for having me today. Lucy: Welcome. Today, we're really fortunate to have Audrey MacLean as our interviewee and I can't say enough about her by way of introduction. Audrey, you have such a reputation for helping entrepreneurs for mentoring them. I know you're going to have a lot of great advice for our listeners today. But, you have such a great track record. You're a founder of the Network Equipment Technologies and also Adaptive. And, you're an independent investor and also a consulting associate professor at Stanford University where you deal with ethic entrepreneurship. So, there's a lot to say and I think we just want to jump right into the interview. So, welcome. Audrey MacLean: Thank you. Happy to be here. Lucy: We like to start our interview series with a question about technology and really pick your brain about the up and coming technologies. And somebody, such as yourself, you work with a lot of entrepreneurs so you see a lot. I'm very curious to know what you think are the emerging technologies and how they're going to shape the landscape. Audrey: Well, as you mentioned, in terms of my own personal background, I cut my teeth in the industry in the networking field; in ET, Adaptive and a lot of other companies that I've participated in the growth of. So, as a network bigot, if you will, I continue to believe that some of the most exciting innovation we're going to see across, at least the next decade or two, has everything to do with the Internet and mobile technologies. Having said that, I think there's going to be a lot happening on the clean tech and the med tech front as well that is going to change lives. Lucy: Well, and I happen to be a network bigot myself. Lee: Yes, you are. Lucy: So, we really like that answer. Say a bit about clean tech if you will. What are you seeing there? Audrey: I see a broad spectrum of applications emerging, literally, every quarter over at Stanford. There's the obvious big things with the big entrenched utilities and the search for alternative sources of energy. But, there's all kinds of little opportunities as well that I think you would find just as amazing. We've had companies that are building LED lanterns for applications in India. I think that the clean tech front is one of the most exciting places that I'm seeing my students have interesting new innovations in. Lucy: Wow. Larry: That really is a hot topic here, excuse the expression. Lee: Oh, stop. Larry: OK. I'd better stop. Lee: Well, Colorado is really into some of these things as well. Lucy: So Audrey, it's clear from looking at your background that you've been an entrepreneur and worked with entrepreneurs for years. What is it about entrepreneurship that you love? Audrey: Everything. I assume you wanted a more complete response to that. First of all, I tell my students all the time, it is an extreme sport. I've been on the faculty of Stanford engineering school now since '94 and I've made sure that my students understand that it is not for everyone. It is one of the most demanding feats that anyone can undertake. So, it's to be - proceed with caution. Let's put it that way. But, in terms of what attracts me to entrepreneurship, and I have to say to begin with, that I'm sort of an accidental entrepreneur. I didn't set out thinking, "oh, I want to be an entrepreneur." In fact, people didn't talk about it much when I began. It's just that I had been working for 10 years at a company called Time Net in the packet switching field and came upon an opportunity that was so compelling that I had to quit my job and go do it. I think that's at the heart of what makes me tick as an entrepreneur. It's that you want to solve problems that need to be solved and when you do, you want to turn them into reality. It's that process that's exciting and it's that process that got me excited as an entrepreneur. And it's that same process that keeps me excited about working with a new generation of entrepreneurs to help them realize their dreams. The fact is that to be an entrepreneur, you have to be able to see things the way they could be versus the way they are and you have to believe that if you can see it, you can make it happen and then you have to inspire others to want to do it with you because it always takes a team. So for me, personally, I'm always in search of how things can be improved and I love the process of creating something out of nothing. And truthfully, I'm happiest when I'm collaborating with others to materialize real results and I never give up. So for me, entrepreneurship is a natural habitat. But, I'm not sure that that's true for everyone. Larry: You just mentioned the word "inspired." Along the way, who might be somebody that had a major impact in your direction, maybe had been a mentor to you, a special adviser? Audrey: Again, you have to consider the time frame in which my career began. I didn't really have a specific mentor. I was certainly influenced by lots of entrepreneurs early on in Silicon Valley particularly those that cared as passionately about the corporate culture they were creating as they did about the product innovations that they were bringing to market. There were - I don't know; Bob Noyce, Ken Oshman, Jimmy Treybig - people like that that were inspirations to me. But, my primary source of encouragement and support was my husband, Mike. Lucy: Well, and we know that spouses play a large role in the success of an entrepreneur for sure. Larry: That's a fact. Lucy: And that's a fact. And that's a fact. So, you mentioned building corporate culture which I found very interesting along with the products or the services and that being an important byproduct of entrepreneurship. Often, good corporate cultures will help you weather the bad times, weather the hard decisions. Maybe you could share with our listeners what the toughest thing you've ever had to do in your career was. Audrey: On an umbrella level, by far the toughest thing that I've had to do in my career is keep my family life and my role as an entrepreneurial CEO in balance. I obviously was totally committed and completely professionally driven. But, when I look back on my career and I look at N.E.T., and Adaptive, and Peace, and Pure, and all the companies we've built and all the jobs we've created and all the market value achieved, the truth for me is that when I look back at my life, those things are in the top ten. But, the top three are still my husband, our kids and our family. So, I think that the overall balance is the most important thing. In terms of specifics, career things, I think the merger of Adaptive into N.E.T. was a very challenging transition in that Adaptive had built a very exciting corporate culture where the entire team was very bonded and the extended families of the employees themselves were very connected to the company. We had done that consciously in many ways and it was to support employees in a start up who have to put forward such enormous efforts. We wanted their families to be participants. For example, we gave New Baby stock to anybody whose spouse or themselves gave birth to a child while we were growing the company. Things like that and obvious activities at the company brought families in and engaged them directly. So when we were ultimately merging Adaptive into N.E.T., there was going to be a huge cultural change as Adaptive that had 150 people and had won back to back product of the year awards and everybody was totally on the same page in terms of goals and directions and culture. Suddenly they had to merge into a much larger entity and make that transition. I think that was probably one of the more challenging points in my personal career. But again, I think that the way you get through those things is by being completely clear on the objectives and completely direct and open with your employees. And ultimately, I think that reality drives a situation like that and you simply help people navigate it. Interviewer: Well you mentioned corporate culture as a way to help employees bring balance to their lives. This is something we don't often hear from the people we interview. We hear, you know, many wonderful things around hobbies or personal things that they do. I'd like to just follow up about a few other things that Adaptive may have done in this area in addition to the New Baby stock because this is such an important issue and we just keep seeing the same corporate cultures over and over again. Audrey: You know, it's taken a lot of different forms in a lot of different companies. But, I think first off you have to celebrate successes. That could be bringing in a vat of ice cream on a software build or it could be a massive party to celebrate a first customer shift. But, you need to celebrate successes. But on a daily basis, you need to do things as well. So for example, one of the things we did at Adaptive was if you were there in the evening, you had two corporate accounts from local restaurants that you could call up and order dinner. In practice, what ended up happening was someone would start walking around and seeing who was still working and say, oh, you like the garlic eggplant, and you like this, and order up a pile of food. People would end up in conference rooms all over the company eating dinner together and talking about what they were working on. Not surprisingly, they would end up solving different problems. "Oh, I didn't realize you were doing that. We've already done this piece." So, this bonding and this nurturing where you're saying, hey, if you're still working and it's time to eat a meal, we're going to make sure you get it as opposed to having to leave and drive somewhere and spend your time and money doing it. So, those sorts of things if you look at companies like Google today, they've taken it to the next step where they've got a cafeteria where employees at any point can go down and get a nutritious meal at breakfast, or at lunch, or at dinner. The idea simply is that if your employees are working that hard, you want to make sure that they're being nourished, as well as nurtured. So, I jokingly say feed them. Literally, feed them. So, those sorts of things are important. But then, it's also the little practical ways in which it infiltrates the culture. I remember one time my C.F.O. at Adaptive came into my office with a look of worry on his face and said, "I've got a problem." And, I said, "what's that?" He said, "Well, you and I have that 3:00 meeting in 20 minutes and I just got a call from the nanny saying her car broke down and she can't go pick up Tyler, his son, at preschool." And I said, "who else is in the meeting?" And he said, "just you and me". I said, "OK, so it's not a problem. We'll get in the car. I'll drive. You go over the material with me. We'll pick up Tyler, bring him to the nanny, and we'll be back in time for our next meeting. And, he looked at me and said, "I never would have thought of that." It's that type of thing. It's giving people the permission to think about what needs to be done that will make their life support the incredible task you're trying to undertake with a startup company. Lucy: I love it. It's the practical advise. So many companies will feed their employees if they're working late, but it's those little things like picking up the kid from school because the nanny's car broke down. Larry: Yeah. Audrey: Exactly. Lucy: So, Audrey it's clear you've had all kinds of successes, and I'm sure there's some failures along the way, but everything from building companies, merging companies, culture. If you were sitting here with a young person, what tidbits would you pull from your background to just give them the pearls of wisdom? Audrey: Well, it's interesting that you refer to it as "pearls of wisdom," because I obviously have been on the teaching faculty now since 1994. So, I frequently get asked for advice, and I frequently respond by saying, "I don't necessarily want to dole out advice, but I'm happy to share some used wisdom." Lucy: That's great. Audrey: I think that one of the pieces of used wisdom, apart from what we talked about earlier which is, "This is an extreme sport, and it's not for everyone." But if it is for you, and you really are going to go for it, one of the important things to realize is you can't do it alone. You need to create a team. One of the most important decisions you'll make are who to trust. It's extremely important that you choose your partners and your advisors wisely. So, I think that that's probably one of the most valuable pieces of used wisdom or advice that I can leave people with, which is that you need to put the team together. You need to be sure that the label of integrity and commitment is there across the board, and then you need to strap on the ski boots and get your knees forward in these boots. Larry: You've already achieved a great deal. You have lots of interests from clean tech, to just a variety of different topics that you're involved with. What do you see on the horizon next for you? Audrey: As you know, I got off the court and onto the coaching bench over a decade ago now, but I can tell you there are more exciting things happening right now that I'm involved with then at any other point in my career. The number of young entrepreneurs that I'm working with right now, and the potential for innovation that will help change the way we will live on this planet is greater today, then it was certainly at the beginning of the last century. I have tremendous faith in the future that this new generation of entrepreneurs can create. I will do exactly what I have done, which is to continue to work in support of the realization of their dreams. I don't give up, so I expect to be doing this for a long time to come. Larry: Well, they say, "Persistence is omnipotent." Audrey: Well, certainly tenacity is a fundamental tenant of any entrepreneurial endeavor. Lucy: Well, it's very heartening to know that you're out there coaching these young entrepreneurs. I can't imagine a better coach, a better person to pass along their wisdom. It's really inspirational. I know that Kristin McDonald was just, "Oh! One of my advisors is Audrey." I'm sure that she's one of many, who really depend on your experiences. So, I know that they would all be sitting here saying, "Thank you, Audrey." Audrey: Well, like I said it takes a team, so I'm happy to be on their team. Lucy: Well, thanks so much for sitting down with us for a few minutes and talking about entrepreneurship. We really do appreciate it. We want to remind listeners where they can find these interviews. They can find them at w3w3.com, and also at NCWIT.org. So, thank you Audrey. We really appreciate it. Larry: Thank you very much. Lucy: I want to say that I have now learned a new phrase that "Entrepreneurism is an extreme sport." Woman 1: Don't you love it? It's so appropriate. Lucy: I love it. So, thank you for that too. Audrey: You're welcome, and thank you for keeping and spreading the word. Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Audrey MacLeanInterview Summary: Audrey MacLean has a unique track record for entrepreneurial success as a founder, CEO, seed investor, and board member. Release Date: July 30, 2008Interview Subject: Audrey MacLeanInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 18:35

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Kristin Asleson McDonnell CEO, LimeLife Date: July 15, 2008 Kristin McDonnell: LimeLife [music] Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders, the CEO of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, or NCWIT. Today we have another interview in our series of interviews with IT entrepreneurs, people who have started just fabulous companies, organizations that use computing information technology. With me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hello. I'm happy to be here. Lucy: W3W3 is an Internet radio station. Larry: That's right. Lucy: And these interviews can be found at the W3W3 site as well as at the NCWIT site. Also with me is Lee Kennedy a director of NCWIT, a serial entrepreneur herself and a co-founder of TriCalyx. So welcome, Lee. Lee Kennedy: Thanks. Thanks for having me today. Lucy: Well, and today we have Kristin McDonnell here, CEO of LimeLife, for our interview. In looking at your company, Kristin, it's just such a great company. I think one of the tag lines I saw , "It delivers fun right through your mobile device." Kristin McDonnell: Right. Lucy: And it's fabulous and I know our listeners are going to be very interested in it because it's one of the companies maybe, perhaps the only company, that is developing content exclusively focused on the women's market. So, starting with gaming - OK, Look, you guys. I have a favorite game. Games like "Girls Night Out Solitaire," "Girls Night Out Blackjack." However, my personal favorite is "Law and Order." Ding! Ding! So, Kristin, welcome. We're really happy to have you here. Why don't you tell us just a bit about LimeLife? Kristin: Sure. So, LimeLife is a digital media company focused on the female market. We're focused primarily on females between the ages of about 18 and 34. Although we do know that there are younger teens and women that are more my age group, in their 40s, that are also our customers. We create experiences. Right now what you see on our website is primarily for the mobile platform. So mobile games, lifestyle tools like "People Magazine" on the phone. They leave text messages like horoscope, love tips, beauty tips and also wallpapers working with fashion brands to bring their imagery to mobile wallpapers. What we're launching this summer of 2008 is a web and mobile community for women that is a lifestyle community around shopping, fashion, music, and our tag line for that community is: "Everything I like wherever I am." It allows women to discover, collect, share items of interest, items of inspiration with each other as well as giving them a mechanism to have everything they like wherever they are, whether they're on their mobile phone or on their web-connected PC. So we're very excited about that launch that is coming up very shortly. Lucy: Wow. It sounds really exciting. Kristin: Yeah. Lucy: The mobile market is such an emerging market, such an exciting space, and that gets us to our first question, which is a technology question. Obviously mobility is a cool technology for you, lots of potential there. Are there other things surrounding mobility that you think are the hot technologies of today? Kristin: Sure. The things that I'm very excited about in terms of mobile -- and I think that the iPhone has started to show some of this capability -- is that it really is a connected computer that is with you all day long that can really give you access to your favorite websites, your favorite content, as well as to other people. Also, with the camera phone capabilities improving with each iteration, the ability to really take high quality photos and video with your phone and then to share it with your network is something that we're very focused on. And then as you layer on location-based services as those evolve, where the phone can really understand where are you in relationship to the people who are important to you, or the places that are important to you, or to places or people that the knowledge of the community think might be important to you. And so it's really going to become an amazing device in terms of its capability -- in terms of how we think about it - to make women's lives much easier and much more fun and much more connected in a way that the PC simply cannot and in a way that today's more rudimentary phones simply cannot. Other web technologies that that we see that are very interesting as well, that we do believe are going to migrate to the phone as well, are around creativity and self expression and really giving people capabilities of doing things far more interesting than, let's say, just making lists of photos or lists of things that are of interest, but really to create collages or match ups of content so that you can really self-express why that content is important to you as opposed to just having it in more of a list format. So those are the things I'm very excited about. And then the advertising technologies and capabilities that come as part of that are very interesting as well. Such that, can we provide advertising messages at a point on women's phones where the women really want that ad message or they really want that coupon and it really becomes a very powerful and meaningful dialogue between the consumer and the advertiser, as opposed to the advertiser potentially coming into their lives when the consumer is not welcoming that kind of message. Lucy: Well, it really is interesting when I think about the younger generation. And then we dinosaurs here in the room I'm speaking of. Larry: She looked at me mostly. Lee: Speak for yourself. Lucy: But I look at my teenage daughters and how they use their phone. It's amazing. We were somewhere where we needed my 16-year-old's social security number and she didn't have it memorized. But, "Hold on, mom. I've got it right here in my phone." I'm thinking, "I don't put my social security number in my phone." But everything is in her phone and all of her interactions are with her phone. Lee: Well, and this notion of providing advertising when people want it, I think is spot on. Lucy: That's the key. Lee: Because I don't mind advertising, especially if it gives me something helpful for what I'm doing. Lucy: If it's relevant to what you're doing, it can be really helpful. So, Kristin, that segues us back to the beginning of your career and education. What was it about being an entrepreneur or why were you interested in becoming an entrepreneur? And then now, what is it that you love about it? Kristin: When I think back to what was I doing in junior high or high school that might have indicated that I had this entrepreneurial bent, because one of my first jobs out of college was to join two guys from Arthur Anderson to start a company. So that entrepreneurial bent started very early in my career. And I always gravitated towards organizations that combined creativity and business and I, typically, was the business part of that creative effort. So whether it was the school newspaper or the school yearbook or the plays at school, I just loved being around creative people where we were building something, creating something, and where I took a role, typically, is more of the financial business arm of it, or the ad sales person for the school newspaper or whatever it may be. I just loved being around those creative people. And then in high school, it wasn't until I took the SATs that I realized that I was pretty good in math. I don't know how that - somehow, my teachers didn't tell me that or I just didn't realize it and it was only when I realized, "Hey, I'm better than most people in math," after the SATs that I then went to college and enrolled in the school of engineering and took my first computer science class as a freshman. And that computer science class really introduced me to one of my core loves, which is computer programming. I don't do it anymore, but building models in Excel and things like that, that same logic and building something out of nothing just really excites me. So it was through that, those computer programming classes that I took throughout my college career -- actually, I was just two credits shy of having a computer science degree from Northwestern -- that I really wanted to do something around computer science. So that first entrepreneurial company that I started with the two other gentlemen was to do systems consulting to corporate America just as the PC was starting to enter into the IT environment. Most of the environment thus far has been mainframe-oriented and the PC was just starting to come in, and we'd bring in PCs to act as clients to those mainframes. So that was my first startup. I've been a part of six startups now and I just found that I love building something out of nothing, whether it's a team, or a financial model or a consumer software experience, that I just love that process of building. Larry: Well, along the way, I can't help but wonder with all the different people you've met, the companies you've been involved with, and your success track is really super, have there been any particular role models or mentors along the way? Kristin: Well, my parents have been huge role models and mentors to me from a very early age. Both of my parents have been presidents and CEOs of organizations, both business as well as nonprofits. So that was a very early role model for me going back to when I was three, four, or five years old. And so I was able to see what does it mean to be the CEO or a president of an organization? How do you act around your team? What types of challenges do you have? I remember my mom having to, unfortunately, let somebody go at one point and, as a 10-year-old, we were counseling her on what do you say and how do you make this happen. So they just gave us a lot of great first-hand experiences where we'd be there with them at work, or at the company party, or whatever it may be, where we understood what does it mean to be a leader of a team. And then the entrepreneurs that I've worked for, the CEOs of the companies that I've worked for, have been huge role models for me. Audrey MacLean, who introduced me to all of you guys, has been a successful CEO many times and has been a great adviser to me. And then just also looking at successful media companies in this instance and just understanding what were the various steps that they took at various points in time and how did they shape their strategy as new opportunities evolved. So I'm a sponge for advice and guidance and mentorship, and I just love to hear other people's experiences. There's really a wide variety of people that I draw upon. But it's really my parents that I owe the biggest debt of gratitude to instill in that at a very early age. Lucy: And you mentioned that your mom had faced something that you remember around letting people go as being something quite difficult, and we've heard that in this series of interviews from a number of people, that that is a hard thing to do. What's the toughest thing that you've ever faced in your career and how did you handle it? Kristin: I would say layoffs are probably the most difficult thing. I've had to downsize companies significantly. It's very difficult to have a team that you've had such great experiences with in building a company and then, unfortunately, you have to let them go. So that's definitely extremely difficult. I think that one of my metrics for my own experience and success and just performance is whether people leave feeling good about the experience that they have. And thankfully, I do feel like that is something that even as they're departing unfortunately as part of a layoff that they have said, "This was a great experience for me. Thank you so much." I've actually hired people back after layoffs. But we found,hey, the company's growing again. We need to hire somebody back. And it's just been a really satisfactory experience for me to be able to hire people back and to have them want to rejoin even though they've been through this experience of having been part of a downsizing. So I think that those are very difficult experiences. I think that early on, entrepreneurs face a lot of difficulty, sometimes convincing investors of your vision. That just takes a lot of work and you have to almost think of yourself as a salesperson, where you're anticipating that you're going to get nine "no's" for every one "yes, and that you just want to get through those no's as quickly as possible so you can get to that one yes. So those can be difficult times. I think, especially for people if they can't hear a "no" easily. And I think that, as an entrepreneur, you just need to let it wash off you and to almost make you feel more powerful and more committed to your goals when you do hear those no's and just saying I'm going to show that person someday that they should've invested in our company. So, that's just another difficult thing that entrepreneurs face, especially in the early days of just getting started. Lucy: That in itself is some really great advice for people that are new entrepreneurs and don't realize how many no's you do get along the way. I'd be really curious with all the experience you have over the years, if you were sitting here with some young people that were starting their business, what kind of advice would you give them? What are some pearls of wisdom? Kristin: Sure. I would tell them to focus on something that really excites them, and they should anticipate that they're going to be working at this company and on this idea for seven-plus years. That they should not think of this as something that is going to take 18 months and is suddenly going to be purchased by some huge company. That it really should be something that every day they'll feel excited about working on it. You know when I look back at the six startups that I have been with, four of them have had various liquidity events, either IPOs or being acquired. And when I trace like how long did it really take for those companies to really achieve the vision of what it ultimately could be become, it took between seven and 10 years for that ultimate outcome to actually occur. That's why I think you just have to be really excited about it because it is every day [laughs] for a long period of time. And once they kind of gravitate toward that idea, then to just realizes that it is just every day pushing the ball forward, and that the more that they can create a list every day of those things that only they can do that will create major value for the company and really focus on accomplishing those things and trying to delegate or delay those things that they feel like, "OK, well it would be nice if I could get this thing done but it not going to create a huge value for the company," or, "This is a fun little exercise for me but there are five other people in the company that could do it." Try to deligate those things and really just focus on like what are the major value builders that only I can do today and today, and to get those done as quickly as possible so that the company really catapults forward as opposed to inches forward. Larry: Kristin, you know with all the different things that you are involved with, I have to guess that you probably put in some pretty long hours or maybe some weekends or evenings. How do you bring balance to your personal and professional lives? Lucy: Considering you have three kids, right? Kristin: Yes, yes, I do. I think that what I start with is what really rejuvenates me? What are those things that really feed my soul, and eliminate all the other things that don't truly rejuvenate me. And what are those things that really are critical? Again, I do this in my personal life, what are those things that only I can do? And try to delicate as much of the other things like cleaning the house, to other people. [laughter] Lucy: [sarcastically] My personal favorite. Kristin: Yeah, it actually drains my soul, the cleaning part. The things that I feel like only I can do, only I can be a mom to my kids, only I can be a wife to be husband, only I can be a daughter to my parents. So really focusing in on those very few things, because you're not going to have much time to do something else, and trying to do those things as well as you can with the very limited time that you have. So the one thing that my husband and I try to do as much as possible is to have dinner as a family alone together at least a couple or a few times a week, where there aren't any other people or friends involved and that we're all there together. We just really talk about what happened in your day, what was fun, what was not so fun, so that we are really communicating as a family because we do have so few hours together every day. And just doing those things, trying to play with my kids, trying to interact with my husband. He and I are just kind of passing in the night because he is also very busy with his career. Again, I think just focusing on what's truly emotionally fulfilling. My one hobby is gardening so I try to get in like 10 minutes a day of planting something or pruning something, just so that I can feel like I am doing something other than just working. Lucy: You know, I'm a gardener. [laughs] Kristin: Oh, really? Lee: Me too. Lucy: So, you're talking to some gardeners here. Kristin: Excellent. Lucy: We're right on the same page. I have to say, it's quite heartening, your parents are such role models to you and you're carrying on that tradition. I know your children will look at you as a role model as well because of the values that you hold and the great advice that you have given us on this interview today, so we really appreciate that. You've told us a lot about working on things that excite you, combining creativity and business. You're in a very exciting area. Mobility has got to be one of the most exciting technical areas that there is. In fact, I watched a YouTube session with you talking about the mobility market at Stanford. Kristin: What do you know? Lucy: Yeah, I thought it was quite good and would recommend that to listeners who want to know more about mobility and LimeLife. I thought it was wonderful. Kristin: Great. Lucy: We have one final question. You've done a lot and you're doing a lot, what is next for you? What is next after LimeLife, do you have a vision of that or what? [laughter] Kristin: I don't. Just keep building LimeLife and build it into a really great digital media company and continue to build a great team that's running it day-to-day. Some day hopefully, I think I always would like to be involved with it, but if it does reach a point where I don't have to be as involved with it day-to-day, it would be either starting something new again or helping other entrepreneurs start their vision and get it going. I do feel like I've seen everything from the highest of highs, of taking a startup public, to the lowest of lows, shutting down companies. I feel like I've seen quite a range of things that can happen in an entrepreneur environment. I think that when I'm older and grayer that it would be very satisfying to help other entrepreneurs realize their visions and realize their dreams and impart some of what I have learned to them. Lucy: We have just one final request for you too. One of the things that NCWIT works on is the image of computing, and when you were talking about be a programmer and loving to do that, we may be back in touch for a few quotes from you. Larry: You betcha. Kristin: OK. [laughs] Lucy: So thank you very much. We really did enjoy talking to you. Lee: Thanks, Kristin. Kristin: Thank you. Larry: And one last thing, Kristin, I want you to know that you are already in the process of helping other entrepreneurs, because we spread this out and we have parents, we have also young girls who listen to these interviews. I think your story is very compelling. Kristin: Oh, that's terrific, thank you. Lucy: Yeah, thanks a lot and just to remind listeners they can find these interviews at w3w3.com and ncwit.org. Thanks, you guys. Lee: Thanks. Kristin: Thank you. Take care. Larry: Bye-bye. [music] Transcription by CastingWords Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Kristin Asleson McDonnellInterview Summary: When Kristin McDonnell and the LimeLife team thought about what they wanted our cell phones to be able to do for us, more fun and more help were at the top of the list: more games and downloadable content like recipes, horoscopes, and lifestyle tips; less blood, bullets, and galactic aliens. Release Date: July 15, 2008Interview Subject: Kristin Asleson McDonnellInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 20:45

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Margaret Wallace Co-founder and CEO, Playmatics. Date: November 27, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Margaret Wallace BIO: Margaret Wallace is the Co-Founder and CEO of Playmatics. And former CEO of RebelMonkey a New York-based game development studio focusing on casual games. Before Rebel Monkey, Margaret co-founded and was CEO of Skunk Studios. Prior to the establishment of Skunk Studios, Ms. Wallace produced and designed games at Shockwave.com, including Shockwave Tetris, and contributed to Mattel's Planet Hot Wheels. She also created CD-ROM and online content for Mindscape Entertainment (then also encompassing SSI & RedOrb Games) and at a start-up called PF Magic, makers of the "virtual pets" game series, Dogz and Catz, a brand currently published by Ubisoft. Ms. Wallace was recently named in Next Generation as one of the Game Industry's 100 Most Influential Women of 2006. She serves on the Steering Committee for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Casual Games Special Interest Group. Ms. Wallace was a Co-Editor of the 2006 IGDA Casual Games White Paper and a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS). Ms. Wallace holds a B.S. in Communication from Boston University and an M.A. in Communication from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. Lucy Sanders: Hi, everybody. This is Lucy Sanders and I am the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. This is one in a series of podcast interviews that we are doing with women who have started IT companies. They have given us some fabulous stories and wonderful advice along the way. This is another one today with Margaret Wallace. With me are Lee Kennedy, Tricalyx Co‑founder and also Director of NCWIT. Welcome, Lee. Lee Kennedy: Thanks, Lucy. It is great to be here. Lucy: And also Larry Nelson of w3w3 Internet radio and king of technology in Colorado, the voice of technology in Colorado. Larry, welcome. Larry Nelson: Thank you. I'll settle for Lord Nelson. Lucy: Lord Nelson. Absolutely. So, Larry, why don't you say a bit about w3w3. Larry: Well, we're a web‑based Internet radio show. We started in '96 and in 1998 I predicted the Internet would die. But, anyhow we got past all of that, and in the meantime we host many wonderful business shows. We're all business. We have a high tech bent, and I have to tell you this series that we've started here so far with NCWIT has been absolutely extraordinary. We get great feedback from business leaders, business owners as well as even young people who are listening. Lucy: Well, they are going to love the interview we have today with Margaret Wallace who is the Co‑founder and CEO of Rebel Monkey. I have to tell you I just love the name of this company. When you go to Margaret's site and you read things like this: We're about fun times for all, so stay tuned for exciting announcements. I thought that was just wonderful. Before Rebel Monkey Margaret was Co‑founder and CEO of Skunk Studios in San Francisco. So tell us a bit about your new company, Rebel Monkey. It was just launched this year in the casual gaming space. Margaret Wallace: My pleasure, and hi to everyone. It is a pleasure to be here. I'll give you some background on Rebel Monkey. We are, as you said, a casual game development house. That means we focus on video games that are for the rest of us, the people who don't have eight hours a day to spend learning how to use our controllers or don't feel like hooking up a Playstation or an Xbox although casual games do appear on those platforms. We make games that hopefully will reach the widest audience possible. At least, initially, casual games are distributed on the Internet, but you'll find them, as I mentioned, on mobile phones and other causal platforms. Rebel Monkey is a company that has been around since the beginning of 2007 so we're a brand new company. I have co‑founded Rebel Monkey with a gentleman named Nick Fortugno, and Nick is probably best known as being the lead designer on the blockbuster mega hit, Diner Dash. Diner Dash is a really fun, downloadable game which focuses on the life and times of a women named Flo. She is the heroine in the game, and you play the game to build her restaurant empire. For some reason that game just ignited the imagination of casual game players everywhere, so Nick Fortugno has really enjoyed a lot of attention and success because of that title. I met him about five or six years ago, and we just realized we had a lot in common in terms of our vision for the casual game market and for video games in general. That's how Rebel Monkey was formed. Rebel Monkey is located in the center of Manhattan. We are located in the neighborhood of Chelsea in Manhattan, and we are still pretty small. We are still under about 10 people, and we are hiring, by the way. Lucy: Let's go. I'm ready to move to New York. Margaret: Yeah. Yeah. It's been really fun and, as you said, our focus is on casual games. Right now, the casual game market is typically defined as being predominantly female, predominantly women in their 30s and 40s and 50s although men and college students and kids and people of all ages do play casual games. It's just a matter of how you categorize them. Lucy: With that kind of customer dynamics, do you do anything different with the game designs or how does that feed into what you do? Margaret: Making a casual game is very different from making regular console or hard core games. The audience of casual games isn't going to have many hours to spend learning how to play their title, and so with that in mind everything that you need to show a player in terms of how to play has to happen within the first 30 seconds of trying the game. Also, the kinds of controls you use in casual games have to be a lot simpler than if you think of a Playstation controller that has all of these different buttons and shoulder buttons and X and A. With a casual game you are pretty much relegated, at least for the PC, to your left mouse button, and so it really gives the designer a lot of structure for what they can do in terms of designing the game. Some people might think it is limiting, but actually I think it lets you focus on what kind of entertainment experience you can give to the audience and giving them the best entertainment experience possible. What else is different about casual games? The themes of casual games are much different than what you would find in what people think of as your typical video game. We expect when we make a casual game that not only are adult women going to play and adult men but their children and their grandchildren and their nieces and their nephews. Really, when you are designing a casual game you have to keep the broadest audience in mind possible. That means you wouldn't really want a lot of blood, guts and gore or a lot of excessive violence, any kind of theme that might be considered a little too adult might veer into the R‑rated territory. Those kinds of things really have not shown themselves to be successful within the casual game marketplace. I love making casual games because the duration of casual game play is much shorter and quicker bursts of entertainment. The themes that you focus on are really just kind of fun and unique and not simply relegated to dungeons and dragons and wizards and stuff like that. The themes are very acceptable, very much in tune with what's happening in pop culture, and I really enjoy the fact that I can make video games that a grandmother could play with her grandchildren and feel OK about it. Lucy: And that's really important, I think, that the casual gaming space is not just entrepreneurial but very high tech which gets us to our first question around technology and how you first got into technology, Margaret. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Margaret: Sure thing. It's a really good question. I grew up in a household where my father was always bringing little gadgets home to play with them. When video cameras first came out he was one of the first people that anyone knew who had a video camera, so I think my interest in technology started from when I was a child. Then, when I went to college I was a communication major, and I studied the social and passive mass media on culture. So, I was a communication/anthropology kind of major. When I was undergrad I studied the attack of new technology on society and how people use technology and to what end. Specifically, technology in everyday life was something that always fascinated me. So this is going to completely date me but when I was undergraduate, for example, I helped conduct primary research as a research assistant for a book called "The Social and Cultural Aspects of VCR Use". That was a hot topic way back when, studying the VCR and VHS. And I also wrote an undergraduate thesis on how people were using ATM machines. I went to college as an undergrad in the 80s, and ATM machines were relatively new back then. It was this new thing around, in terms of how people access their money. Instead of going to a human teller they would use an ATM machine and I just found that endlessly fascinating. I think from that point on I always was interested in how technology gets integrated into everyday life and how that transforms personal and also social experiences. Lucy: Well, you know, I think Larry still uses his Betamax. Don't you, Larry? Larry: Well, I guess it's a seven 1/2 inch floppy disc. Lucy: OK. So, Margaret, you have to tell us how you decided to be an entrepreneur and why you like it so much. Margaret: You know that's a really great question. And I was speaking recently to a group of MBA students about this very topic. I think that fundamentally when you as a person have a passion that is just bubbling up inside you; that you just can't contain your enthusiasm and you just feel that you have this incredible calling to pursue something, I think that is a sign ‑ the beginnings of where at least my entrepreneurial ship came from. As I mentioned, I started in games industry about 10 years ago, back in the day just as the dot com boom was growing. I started at a little company called PF Magic. PF Magic made the first ever virtual pets, Dogz and Catz. Later a product called Oddballz. And for some strange slips of fate I ended up working for this start‑up called Pet Magic. I think that was the first time I saw how a start‑up environment worked and how much fun it is to just put your heart and soul into something you really believe in. Back then at PF Magic, when we worked on those virtual pets, we really believed in them. We loved those little critters that lived on your desktop. We would have knock‑down, drag‑out arguments on the big questions of life. You know, should they live or die? Should they be allowed to breathe? I was just like, this is where I belong. This is the world I want to be. Software development really just, it's just a whole ‑‑ it gives you everything at your disposal. Whereas people who make film, for example, they have to assemble a cast. They have to find a scriptwriter. You need that to a certain extent when you're doing software. At least in my eyes it was more achievable ‑ the forum for which I could see my inventions and my creative aspirations take life. Subsequently after Pet Magic, I had an opportunity to work at a few other start‑ups. I was at a company called Shockwave.com, in its early days. Just being on the West Coast in the Bay area in the middle of the dot com boom, seeing things work really well, seeing things fail just miserably. Just being part of that and being part of the excitement of having a passion and seeing it to fruition, and living and breathing it every day and every night. It's so much more fulfilling as a personal choice and as a way to live my life than almost anything I had ever done before. I guess, to kind of circle back to the beginning of your question, what inspired me to take the entrepreneurial route? I would say, it was that burning passion, part of me might be an inventor. I really love coming up with inventions and seeing them implemented from start to finish. Larry: Over the years with all the different things that you have done, I'm sure there have been many people that have been important to you, that have made a big deal of difference, have been the mentor and so on. If you were to pick out one person, and I know that's tough, but it you could pick out one person who was your most important mentor, a turning point in your life, who would that be? Margaret: Oh, that's a great question. I keep saying that, but you guys are asking really thought‑provoking questions and really difficult questions. So thanks a lot, Larry. To pick one person... OK, off the top of my head, I would go back to my teachers. And if I had to pick one teacher I would say it was a professor I had as an undergraduate in college. Her name was Julia Dobrow, and she, at the time, was a professor at Boston University. And for some reason, I don't know why, sheer luck perhaps, she really kind of took me under her wing. Now at the time, I was interested in being an academic. I was going to teach media culture in society. That was my thing. New technology was a focus. She basically had me help her conduct research for her book, so I just got to learn so much about communication, intercultural communication, because she dealt with themes of that. She also dealt with themes of the impact of new technology. I just think that she opened my world in terms of, I don't want to say taking myself seriously because I always took myself seriously, but I think she helped give me focus. I think she helped give shape to my aspirations. And I really do have to credit her with giving me that extra shot I needed to focus like a laser beam, as another person in my life used to say. Lucy: But you can't mention, because Larry said you can only mention one. Margaret: Exactly. Note my self control. Lucy: Yeah, very admirable. Well, teachers are really, really important. A very important influence and it sounds like this one, in particular, was for you. Along the way, in addition to having mentors and people who have influenced you, you have probably also had some tough choices to make. Some things I think you may have mentioned earlier, companies that either wildly succeeded or failed miserably. What is the toughest thing you have had to do in your career so far, Margaret? Margaret: OK, can I give you two answers for that? Larry: Well... Margaret: Or just one? Lucy: Yes, of course you can give us two. Margaret: OK, I think the toughest thing that I had to learn in my career was to develop patience. I grew up on the East Coast, where people will say what they think without really thinking. I believe early on, when I started in the industry, if I felt impatience about how quickly we might have been progressing on a project or if I saw one of the start‑ups I was a part of, maybe going down a path that maybe didn't seem to make sense. Look, eighty percent of your audience does this, why are we focusing on the twenty percent that don't really care. You know, those types of questions. I think when I started off, in video games in particular, I was this brash and brazen twenty‑something year old. I would not mince words. And so I would just say, well it's so obvious we should do this and this. I have learned the art, I think, of patience and diplomacy, in the sense of everybody needs to be heard. That's what makes a strong team. At the end of the day, the strong leaders are the ones that can guide the team or make the decisions at the end of the day. But really everyone's opinion is valid, which I always believed, but just my impatience. Do we have to go through this? Do we have to go over this? Time's wasting. I've kind of cooled my jets a little bit on that front. It's been very beneficial. And then closely related to that, or somewhat related to that in terms of it being tough, is just knowing when you need to cut your losses. If there is ever a path that you take in your career, or a project that you take on, or business decision you make. Every business decision counts. Even the smallest ones in six months to a year's time can come back to haunt you for better or for worse. So there are times you want to make the best decisions, but there are times you are not going to make the best decision. And really coming to terms with that as soon as possible and acting on cutting your losses or rectifying something that may not be going as you planned, as soon as you can, rather than letting something fester, which I think can be death to any start‑up. There's no room for festering. So there goes that impatience again. [laughs] Lucy: It's clear you've learned a lot, being in a number of start‑ups over the years. I'm sure you can give some good advice to people that are just thinking about getting into a start‑up or being an entrepreneur. So if you were sitting here with a young group of people, what would you advise them? Margaret: In terms of giving advice to younger people, who are interested in either beginning their own startup or joining a startup, it really depends on who that person is, what they are looking for and whether they are starting something from scratch or joining something that is already happening. I think that if you know that you are an entrepreneur early on and my route to being an entrepreneur was a lot more circuitous than that I think then the best thing to do is first of all try to get out there and meet as many people as you possibly can. There is no one in the industry that you are interested in who isn't worth talking to, at least, once. And it's just amazing. I'm sure you guys have had this experience, too. You will meet somebody randomly at a conference or on a project, and two years down the line you run into them. Three years down the line you see that person again. Ten years down the lines you still see that person. You both have done different things in your lives, but the people you meet along the way will be the people you encounter over and over. So, I think the most important thing is get out there and meet people. Talk to people. Be a good listener and specifically for women I would say women who feel they have that entrepreneurial spirit need to ‑ I don't mean to stereotype but ‑ evangelize themselves and not be shy about putting themselves out there because you are only going to get noticed insofar as you speak up. In a lot of ways ‑ be a good listener if you are planning to join a startup and you are at the very beginning of your career. Find out all you can about them before you work with them. You don't want to spend two or three years of your life working for something that has no future. Really just try to take every opportunity and really think about what's good for you. Don't feel compelled to act on an opportunity because you are worried another opportunity won't come your way. Ask questions and learn everything you can. I think that's what I did starting out as an entrepreneur with these different startups, and I just absorbed the culture and I learned everything I could by hook and by crook and maybe even despite myself. At the end of the day that all kind of meshed together, and I draw from those experiences on a daily basis. I can say that for sure in running this company and my past company. Larry: Well, networking or whatever we want to call it, is really critical. That is a fact. One of the things I can't help but think about is here you have gone through all of these different things. You've got this new company now called Rebel Monkey. How do you bring about balance to your personal and your professional lives? Margaret: The balance thing, I would say that I give you a lot of entrepreneurs who don't bring that balance into their lives. And I would admit for me I go through phases where I will keep in mind that it's good to take a breather because when you own your own company the work just never ends. You could work at five o'clock in the morning. You could work at two o'clock in the afternoon. There is always something to do. And there is always something to think about and there is always something to address or fix or pay attention to. When I am at my best in terms of keeping that balance because really if an entrepreneur becomes too myopic and too entrenched in their company and they don't get out and they don't see the world and they don't talk to people and they don't go to the movies, they are not going to be very good at running their business because they are just going to be a mess. So, when I am really treating myself well and my business well at the same time, I am doing things like I'll go to the gym; I'll go to yoga. I have a lot of friends who are around me that I can draw on for support. I have other fellow entrepreneurs who are at different stages of their own startup experience that I can hang out with and commiserate with. One thing I have had to learn not to do is ‑ and I'm not very good at it ‑ I try not to turn on the computer and check my email at two o'clock in the morning. I was doing just that this morning, so I didn't really succeed this time. But, it's always a matter of just remembering that the world isn't going to end if I take a four hour break or I take a Saturday and I go on a road trip, for example, or I go to a spa. I love going to spas! Lucy: Yeah that spa thing! I really liked what you have to say there around treating yourself well and things going better for the business when you can. In fact, it's been a theme of these interviews that people seldom have balance every day. It's more of an integration. It's more of a phase type of thing as well. Larry: We're actually going to take a train to a spa right after this interview. Lucy: We are! We're going to the spa? Good! That is my kind of interview where we go to the spa. I also thought that some of your remarks that every business decision counts, even the little ones. If you think about it that way, it's only obvious that you're going to make some mistakes. I thought that that was especially good wisdom. So, Margaret, this really leads us to our last question around your future. You've accomplished a lot so far, a lot of wisdom, a lot of great casual games and critters. Virtual critters that have personalities. And don't tell us if you've killed them off or not we don't want to know. What's next for you? You've already achieved a lot. Why don't you tell us what's down the road a bit for you? Margaret: Well, what is next for me and for Rebel Monkey? My heart and soul is basically poured to rebel monkey right now and I have so much enthusiasm for what we're going to be accomplishing as a company. Again, the work environment here is just a great work environment. The people we have hired ‑ we had some bumps along the way because this is a brand new studio ‑ the people are great. So I want to keep the environment and the culture here at Rebel Monkey as positive as it seems to have always been so far. I have a great business partner, Nick Fortuno. Not that we don't challenge each other, it not that we don't disagree at times but our competencies complement each other so well and our vision for Casual Games is so much in sync. I want to maintain that. We're going to be coming out with some brand new titles at the end of the year. Everything that Rebel Monkey makes, just by the way that sets us apart a little more than your average video game developer. We own everything we make. We don't do any work for hire. We don't do any contract work. We don't work with the larger brands because we don't own them. So the brands that we work with are our babies, for lack of a better word, our pets. As a company, we've made our mark in downloadable games for a specific audience and I think we're going to be looking to expand our audience to other age groups because they're out there. They're already playing Casual Games and I don't think there's enough content that's been made to serve them. So we're going to be completely expanding our presence with these newer audiences and exploring other kinds of business models that are out there in addition to the try before you buy model which is what you see with downloadable games. If you like it, you pay 20 bucks to own it forever. I think there is a lot of exciting stuff that I see happening in Asia and Korea around multiplayer gaming. That's pretty exciting. So I think that if Rebel Monkey came up with an impromptu tagline it would be 'Evolution of casual games.' I really think that's where my co‑founder, Nick, and I really want to put our focus. We want to evolve casual games to the next level. We want to expand the audience and we want to make some blockbuster brands for people to enjoy with their families and with their friends. Larry: Lucy and Lee, you two really pulled together some fantastic heroes for the National Centre for Women and Information Technology Series. This is just fantastic! Lucy: It's wonderful. Margaret it has been fantastic. It's been really interesting to hear I didn't know as much about casual games as I thought I knew. So now I know a lot more. It's been really interesting! Lee: I'm ready to go download some and play them. Lucy: Me too! Larry: Well take a train and get there! Margaret, I want to thank you so much for joining us today. And by the way, listeners out there pass this interview along to others that you think would be interested because they can download it as a podcast at w3w3.com. And of course it's hosted at www.ncweb.org. That's it. Tune in and thank you for joining us. Lee: Thank you Margaret. Lucy: Thank you Margaret. Margaret: Thank you everybody! Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Margaret WallaceInterview Summary: Margaret Wallace grew up in a "gadget" household, and as an undergraduate she studied the intersection of technology and culture. Release Date: November 27, 2007Interview Subject: Margaret WallaceInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 25:10

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Bambi Francisco Co-founder and CEO, Vator.tv Date: October 26, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Bambi Francisco BIO: Bambi Francisco is a co-founder and CEO of Vator.tv, the professional network for launching ideas and innovation. Vator.tv is a web platform for anyone, across all industries, at any stage, to share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video. People use Vator.tv to get their ideas or needs discovered or to find, discover and connect with others in networks of interest. Bambi is a veteran editor, columnist, and correspondent, covering the technology and Internet industries for 15 years. Her newsletters reached 400,000 subscribers interested in her thoughts on Internet trends and investing across public and private companies. She's appeared on Fox News, CNBC, and CBS as a commentator on the Internet. She was also the morning business anchor for KPIX, the CBS San Francisco affiliate. She was a founding producer at CNNfn, where she created business programming including programs on new ideas and innovation. She was named to the "blue-chip" financial reporting all-star team in 2000 by The Journal of Financial Reporters, the business news industry's leading organization. She was also named the top 10 most influential journalists on the Web by Adweek. She blogs at http://www.bambi.blogs.com/. Larry Nelson: This is Larry Nelson for w3w3.com, the community source for unique and valuable resources. We're here today with NCWIT, the National Center for Women and Information Technology. And I must say this is one of the most exciting series that we've been involved with. We have with us Lee Kennedy. She's the co‑founder of Tricalyx. And she's also on the board of directors of NCWIT. This is really an exciting series, so pay attention. Lee Kennedy: Thanks Larry, it's good to be here. Larry: Lee has been doing a wonderful job connecting with a number of people. And, of course, we're also lucky enough to have with us Lucy Sanders, who is the Director and co‑founder of NCWIT. So, welcome. Lucy Sanders: Thank you. Larry: And our special guest today is Bambi Francisco. She is the CEO of Vator.TV. Bambi, welcome to the show. Bambi Francisco: Thanks for having me, Larry. Larry: We are very excited about this. We've all been around your website and seen some fascinating things, as well as some people that we know from earlier times. Bambi: Yes, and it's been really fun watching the site grow. We launched June 6th, and we have over 1,000 innovators and hundreds of new ideas popping up every month. So it's exciting to see that there's just a lot of innovation happening. Not just here in Silicon Valley, because of course there's always tons of innovation happening here, but around the world. So we're seeing a lot of new ideas. Lucy: I think that the genesis for Vator.TV is pretty interesting, and dates back to your days as a columnist and a correspondence for "MarketWatch". Why don't you give us an insight as to how you came up with the idea for Vator.TV? Bambi: At "MarketWatch", I was a columnist and correspondent for publicly traded companies, mostly publicly traded companies. And I had focused on Internet companies, mostly Google and Yahoo!, the big companies. And what I've always tried to bring to my audience of public investors was what was innovating, and who were the innovators. And those were the leading Internet companies. But I started looking at a lot of the emerging companies, because they seem to be really innovating around the fringes. And they were the ones who would come up with disruptive technologies, which would inevitably change the landscape for a lot of these public companies. So I started writing a lot about startups. And before I knew it, I had people pitching me, from the public company sector, to the private company sector. And I just really didn't have enough bandwidth to learn about all of them, and write about all them. And so I created a utility for me, which was basically a repository, a place where the companies pitching me could create their pitches and videos. And what I wanted to do was at least showcase them. If I didn't have enough time to learn about them, I wanted other people to at least learn about them, in the event that they found them to be interesting. And I used it to rediscover new ideas. And also to just give exposure to the other ideas that I would invariably overlook. And so I created this little tiny platform and showed it to a friend of mine, Peter Teals, who said, "Wow, I think I could use this for investing as well." Because, again, I was trying to find the top companies to write about and he thought maybe we could use this utility as a way to vet companies that he would invest in. And so that's sort of the early days of Vator.TV, which at that point was called MyElevatorPitch.TV for lack of a better name at the time. Lucy: Well, Vator, I read, is short for "innovator" and "elevator". Bambi: Exactly, it was for "Elevator Pitch" initially, and pretty soon we realized (my partner and I‑‑Roland Vogl also helped found the company) and the two of us brainstormed on this idea. And he said, "We also stand for innovator." And I said, "Yeah, well, we are looking for innovators to give their elevator pitch." And so "Vator" sort of was a shared, obviously, part of both those words. And so we thought, well, we couldn't really stay with MyElevatorPitch.TV. So we shortened it to Vator.TV. Lee: I think the names of companies are just so interesting. Remember Mebo? Where they came up with that name? In the California Pizza Kitchen? So we want to know where did you get the name Vator. Were you in the California Pizza Kitchen? Bambi: Yes, well, Vator came from MyElevatorPitch.TV. And again it was just too long, and we wanted to shorten it. So Vator, actually, was taken by another company, a Finnish speedboat company. And so we thought, well, you know it's in Finland and so there was really no copyright problems there. So we just took the name Vator. And we actually now are named as Vator, Inc. We have the name here in the US. Lee: Well, so from columnist and correspondent to CEO and co‑founder of a high tech company, how did you decide to get into technology? And what technologies do you see on the horizon as being particularly important? Bambi: Well, I got into technology as a producer as CNN FM. And I started following a lot of initial public offerings. I launched and created a show called capital ideas, which was to look at new emerging companies that were at least ready to go public. So they weren't conceptual ideas. These were companies that were already in the pipeline to go public. And in ‘96, there were a number of companies we know today, including Yahoo!, Lycos, Excite. They were going public. And in ‘97, Amazon went public. So I really started following Internet companies around that time. So that was more than a decade ago. As far as technologies I think that are cool, I do have an I‑Phone. I think that's kind of cool. And we use Skype at work. I think widgets, the new widgets that are proliferating on the web where you can have your own personal store wherever you are, or where you could just create your own marketing and research materials through a widget. I like those widgets, any type of services or products with a widget component. I love Artifice. I think that's been a great technology. I do like the new services that enable people to create and share their content. And especially in my area, the video uploading companies. And Vator, of course, allows you to do that. But, of course you know the YouTubes, and a number of others and two dozen others, that really let people kind of mash up whether it's their video or audio or websites, and really create something special, and just share it with the world. Those get me really excited. Lee: There is. There is such neat technology on the web. It seems like every day there's a new widget that comes out. Bambi: The other kind of new services out there that I think are really interesting that I have started seeing on the horizon are really the ones that try to aggravate the influencers. Lucy: Hmm. Bambi: You know we've seen it 10 years ago where you had all this information and you had the early pioneers organizing the information and directories, then Google coming on about seven years ago and really helping you to just search or whatever it is that you want. Now with billions and billions of pages I think there is all this crop ‑ and probably in the last two years ‑ of companies that are really trying to mine the data for or mine all the content or helping people make decisions about which movie they should watch or which products they should buy. For instance, Aggregate Knowledge is a great company that does that where it aggregates behavior and offers up a recommendation or recommended item. Wise is another company that goes out and aggregates all of these consumers' opinions and reviews and comes up with a rating system that shows you which item may be best for you. So there are a number of companies that are really just trying to help you make a better decision and aggregate all that information, which I think is fairly new. Lucy: Bambi, talking about all these startups and entrepreneurs and innovation and elevator pitches and IPOs, early in your career you were covering all this. What made you decide to make the leap to become an entrepreneur yourself? We would love to hear what it is about being an entrepreneur that makes you tick. Bambi: As I said earlier in the interview with regards to how this came to be, I really created a utility for myself. I realized that it was turning into something that was of value to others, namely my initial investors. So that's the reason why I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and leave journalism and start focusing on building a product. Now that I have left, in the last six months one of the things that really makes me happy with my site is really hearing anecdotes from the users ‑ I don't call them customers ‑ when they either make a connection, whether they found an investor, whether they have gotten some exposure through Vader. So I guess you could say it is happy customers that really make me excited that I'm creating a product that's useful. So for myself, I think it's the opportunity to be creative and also to build a better mousetrap or a nice alternative to the way we innovate today. That really is just bringing people together and having their ideas showcased and either inspiring or motivating others to innovate, or helping the innovators on the site really connect with other people who can either partner with them or be employed by them or help distribute their products, or even be a source of funding for them. Larry: Let me ask you a two‑part question here Bambi. Were there some people along the way that helped support career path? And as you got into things, did you acquire or have any mentors? Bambi: I guess when I think about mentors, I definitely think about the people who really helped in the formation of my career as a journalist. That's really what I have been for the greater part of my professional career. So I'll start with my former boss at CNN. That's Lou Dobbs, because I worked there for six years at CNN. He really inspired me to really look hard at news and really be somewhat critical and really how to spot news or even how to create news. At CNN I also learned how to write. So it was really through a lot of his guidance and just his news judgment and how he delivered the news. I worked really closely with him. So I think he is one. Then I worked at MarketWatch for eight years. So I would say Larry Kramer, who was the founder of MarketWatch ‑ he also hired me after a three hour dinner. Then him, as well as Tom Calandra and David Callaway, Tom Calandra and Dave being both executive editors at MarketWatch. They really supported me and they really encouraged me to go out there and be very innovative when it came to how you package news. At the time that I started at MarketWatch in 2000, a lot of this convergence of news, whether it is radio, television, print and online was all coming together. They really encouraged me to try to use all those mediums and package them in a way that somebody could read my story, watch me deliver the story, hear me on radio and see it in print. They gave me a lot of freedom to be creative. So they gave me guidance, but they also gave me a lot of freedom. So I would say those really are my bosses. Unfortunately there are no women as far as mentors, but they were just the ones who just kind of shaped me. I guess one last person as far as a mentor would be Peter [Teal]. He is my early investor and he is also a great friend. One of the reasons I like Peter is because I like his management style. He is really fair, really generous. As is, by the way my boss Larry Kramer. He allows people to do what they do best. Actually back to Peter ‑ Peter is also very generous with money. So in terms of the capital formation of the company, Peter definitely guided me in terms of what's best for all my employees and me and investors. He's just a good manager. So I look to him a lot. Lucy: Well, sometimes when people talk about mentors, the rule of thumb is they can't be your boss. But I totally disagree with that. I think that your story is another piece of evidence of that. I think bosses can be just great mentors. They are certainly in a position where they can help you in your career and tell you and encourage you around things you are doing well, but also help you through some of the challenges that you have. That gets us to our next question, the toughest thing that you have ever had to do in your career. Bambi: I think the toughest thing that I had to do in my career was back in April, when I had to break away from my roots as a journalist and leave a really comfortable and well established job and leave the people and my mentors, who were at the time David Callaway and focus on something that really was still a concept. So breaking away from a company that I had been with for eight years is tough. I think it's tough for many entrepreneurs with whom I have spoken when I have asked them. Oh, you know, they started it when they were working as an employee. I think that everybody finds it really, really tough to take the leap. So I would say that, at least at this point in my career, that was the biggest and toughest decision so far. Lucy: That's surely understandable. Lucy: Yes, it's definitely tough leaving something that you're really good at and comfortable. And doing something brand new with lots of risk. Bambi: You know, I do have some female role models who I feel have really shaped my character, my professional character. Maybe they've not formed my career, but they've shaped who I want to be. Lucy: And who would they be? Bambi: Well, as a writer, I've always looked up to Peggy Newman. She's this conservative columnist. She'd worked for the "Wall Street Journal". She was also a former Reagan speechwriter. I like her because she's very insightful and thoughtful. But she's not snarky. And she really just offers very constructive criticism. And she's a bit maternal in her writing. But I like her gentleness. And she's also a great writer. And a couple of other people who I think are great writers that are able to take very esoteric messages, distill them down, and really reach out, and have an influence on a lot of people ‑ and one would be C.S. Lewis. And he's an author and Oxford scholar. I've always loved his books. He writes children's books, and he writes other books as well. But he has a great way with words. And Milton Freedman who is an economist I've written about, saying that he's an economic entrepreneur, because I think he's really a very much independent thinker. But if you read his stuff, and if you've ever interviewed him, he can take esoteric topics and really help you understand them. And so I think that's a gift. And then one last person, and I'm sure a lot of people will actually mention her (or these two), Madonna and The Rolling Stones. And one of the reasons why I like them is because they really know how to reinvent themselves and make themselves relevant. Lee: That's a really good point. Larry: That's interesting. Lucy: Well, so if we switch gears, we've just been talking about people that have influenced you or have given you advice along the way. What advice would you give if you had some young people sitting here? What advice about entrepreneurship and what might help them along the way? Bambi: I'd say one: do something that you truly love and build a really useful product. And the rewards will follow. I'd also say to trust your instincts, or trust your gut. And typically you end up finding yourself in among advisors and just people along the way. And everyone has their opinion. And I think this is mostly like a Steve Jobs thing. He definitely trusts his instinct. And so sometimes you can get really lost, because you're trying to form a consensus. But at the end of the day, it also loses everybody else. And you really need to provide direction. So I think trusting your instinct is a good one. Think along the lines of Andy Grove's, "be paranoid". I would say, "Don't leave any stone unturned." And that means, if there is something out there, I would definitely try to uncover what it is. If you feel like that they might be competitor, try to get as much information as you can. And maybe try to work with them. Or, actually, really try to work with them. And then, finally, I would say that I've learned a lot as an entrepreneur, and I think this is what I've spotted in other entrepreneurs as well, who do a good job leading, is that in order to lead, you really have to serve. And so I like to be able to do everything that I ask all my team members to do. And at the very least, is to be able to show them how to do it. So, it's to delegate it. But I think it's also good to be able to do everything that you ask other people to do. Larry: Well, it's certainly sounds like you do a lot in your 36‑hour day. So I have to ask the question, how do you bring balance to your personal and your professional lives? Bambi: Can I get back to you on that? No. Lucy: Still working on that, huh? Larry: We've got a class on procrastination. Bambi: I've perfected bringing imbalance to my personal and professional lives. No. I am still working on that. This is all pretty new to me. But I say the one thing that I try to do is really stay healthy; because one thing that I've realized is that you need energy. You need energy to sit down with each one of your team members, and go out there and share your story, and do your work. So if I don't try to eat well, or try to get my run in, or bike ride in, or do some things that keeps me healthy then I'm not a service to anybody in my personal or my professional life. Lee: And that's really important that personal health and taking time to take care of yourself. That's a theme we've heard, I think, through a lot of these interviews as being something very important to people who are very busy and passionate about what they're doing. We always want to ask people what what's next for them in these interviews, and I think that we know in some ways what's next for you. You've got a brand new company. You're going to put a lot of love and time into making that company successful. But what is next for you? What are your hopes and dreams for Vator.TV? Where do you see it going? Bambi: Well, I want to make some entrepreneurs successful. So I'm going to see this through over the next several years to make sure that we create the tools to enable them to connect with one another. And hopefully make it easier for them to really build upon their ideas and collaborate around their ideas online. I would hope that we could make connections that I'm already seeing with people who are from around the world (about 40 percent of our pitches for our innovators are from outside the US). And many from the Midwest and all these places that just don't have the access to investors or financial advisors or anyone who really knows what the value of an idea is. And so I hope to make those connections, or help people make those connections. And I hope to get a lot of female entrepreneurs out there. Lee: Yea! Bambi: Yeah, and hopefully they'll make themselves known by going onto Vator, and putting their pitch up, and contacting me or other people at Vator, so that we can help them and work with them. The nice thing is that people do connect with me once they are on the site. And it's really fun learning some of the obstacles that they go through, and how to help them. For instance, I think naturally we attract a lot of new media companies. And so we're, in the next month or so, launching another contest. And this one is going to be highlighting new media companies. And so that's one way that I hope to help them get some exposure. Lee: I think that Vator.TV is a great concept. And it's going to give people a way to make their ideas visible who heretofore really haven't had a platform or known how to do it. I did want to tell you I spent some time in your FAQ section on the site. And maybe this is a great way to end the interview, because I thought that the FAQ section was some of the best advice for entrepreneurs that I had seen. So, for example, a question like this: "What makes a compelling idea, or business, or productive video pitch for Vator.TV?" That's a great FAQ, right, for Vator.TV, isn't it? No more than three minutes, be original, demonstrate your value proposition, make it fun and entertaining, explain the market size, tell us what keeps you up at night, and I guess some of the best advice I've heard yet for entrepreneurs. Larry: Excellent. I love it. Lee: So, Bambi thanks very much for spending time with us. We really appreciate it, and wish you the best of luck with your new endeavor. We'll be paying close attention to you, and wish very much for your success. Bambi: Thank you so much for having me. Lee: And I want to remind listeners where they can find these podcasts. They can find them at w3w3.com and also NCWIT.org. So thanks very much everybody! Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Bambi FranciscoInterview Summary: As a journalist, Bambi Francisco has always loved being at the intersection of innovation, information, technology, and media. Release Date: October 26, 2007Interview Subject: Bambi FranciscoInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 22:05

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Jeanette Symons Founder and CEO, Industrious Kid Date: October 19, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Jeanette Symons BIO: Jeanette Symons was the founder, Chief Executive Officer of Industrious Kid, and mother of two. Prior to founding Industrious Kid, Ms. Symons co-founded Zhone Technologies, a telecommunications company that builds "last mile" access solutions, where she served as the company's Chief Technology Officer and Vice President, Engineering. Prior to Zhone, Ms. Symons was Chief Technical Officer and Executive Vice President of Ascend Communications, Inc, which Ms. Symons co-founded, from January 1989 until June 1999 when the company was purchased by Lucent Technologies. In addition, Ms. Symons was a software engineer at Hayes Microcomputer, a modem manufacturer, where she developed and managed its ISDN program. Ms. Symons holds a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles. We are deeply saddened by Jeanette's tragic death in a small plane crash on Friday, February 1, 2008. She was a true technology pioneer and we hope her life will continue to inspire others. Lee Kennedy: Hi, this is Lee Kennedy, a board member for the National Center for Women and Information Technology or NCWIT. This is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous entrepreneurs, women who have started IT companies in a variety of sectors and all of whom have just great stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. With me I have Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi. Boy, it's really great to be here today. Lee: So tell us a little bit about w3w3.com. Larry: Well, we are a web‑based Internet radio show. We really started in '96 with full time in '98. This has been probably the most exciting series that we have had, so many neat entrepreneurs going through all different types of things. I have a feeling that Jeanette is going to have a great story today, too. Lee: Great. And we also have with us Lucy Sanders who is the CEO for NCWIT. Hi, Lucy. Lucy Sanders: Hello. How are you? Lee: Great. So, why don't we go ahead and just get right to it. Today we are interviewing Jeanette Symons. Jeanette is the Co‑founder and CEO of Industrious Kid. Hi, Jeanette. Jeanette Symons: Hi. Thanks for having me today. Lee: Sure. So, Jeanette, why don't you start off and tell us a little bit about Industrious Kid? Jeanette: Industrious Kid was actually started to develop web sites for kids. What happened was a couple of years ago my daughter, who is seven, actually came home and said, "Mom, I want to make a MySpace profile." Needless to say, I panicked and ended up setting up a server where they had my kids and the neighbors had their own social network in my closet, literally. We went from there to actually creating a social network for kids where they could have the same safety on the Internet that we actually provided in the closet at the time. Lucy: Wow. I'd say that's one special kid that gets to come home and tell mom what kind of company to start next. Jeanette: It's gone to their heads a little bit. Lucy: That's pretty special. Lee: And also imbee.com; that's your social networking site? Jeanette: That's correct. The social networking site itself is imbee.com, and Industrious Kid is the name of the company. Lee: OK. And I see imbee.com won a Web 2.0 award this year. Jeanette: Absolutely. It's exciting. We are really making these strides and have kids interact with each other and learn to use the Internet in a positive way. We are really enjoying it. This is a company that we started because we wanted to, because it was fun and it's really been exciting all the way along. Lee: Great. Lucy: Well, so now maybe you all think I'm a kid and sometimes I am a kid at heart, but I went over to imbee.com, started playing around, making a baseball card, doing the things that I wanted to do. As a technologist I had to wonder about the technology that you are employing on that site. It is very sophisticated. Jeanette: Well, thanks. It is interesting. I have been building the infrastructure for the Internet for over 20 years now and really hadn't done anything in the way of card sense since the very early days. It's fun. We actually built on open source. We built on Drupal which you can actually go to, download and have a social networking site up in a matter of days. From there we've just added more and more kid centered features to it. It's fun and it's very incremental and dynamic. Lucy: It is a lot of fun. On that note and getting to the first question around technology, as a technologist what technologies do you see on the horizon as being particularly important? Jeanette: I think the biggest thing that's driven us for at least for about 20 years if not longer and then I think will for at least the next 20 years if not longer ‑ it's all about communication. It's what's changing the most and what's driving the most. We talk about the simple evolutions of the telephone and the way we are using them, but what's so amazing to me when I watch is how differently the next generation communicates than we do, even electronically. As adults, we tend to communicate via electronic mail, via personal or group communications that are relatively structured. When I look at the next generation, they're not patient enough for email; they look at me like I'm crazy to waste my time sending them an email message they may not look at till tonight. They want a text message or an instant message. If they want to say something to a group of friends, that just post it on their profile. So the way in which we communicate is changing over time and changing generation to generation. And that's what's really neat. I don't know where it'll be another five or 10 years from now, but it is fun to watch. Lucy: That's really interesting when you think about it, because it's just a cross‑generational difference in the way people are communicating. Larry: That's right. One of the things that we're also curious about ‑ we have a number of young people that are listening to the shows, sometimes their parents tell them about it, because it's so interesting hearing how people like you, an entrepreneur, does what you do. But we kind of wanted to know: why did you become an entrepreneur, and what is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Jeanette: Well, I think the why is because, a long time ago, when I was relatively young, I thought I could do it better. I didn't want to work for someone else. I thought I could do it better. My ideas were better. I could do something better. I think, after a lot of hard work and a lot of years as an entrepreneur, I realize that it's not that easy to do a better job. I really learned how hard it is to do better than average. But it's really fun trying. What do I really love, and why do I keep doing it ‑ this is my third company, and I doubt it's my last ‑ is because there's no greater feeling than creating something from nothing. And that's the products you create. It's watching the people grow. It's creating value within the company. You're really, as an entrepreneur, making something from nothing in so many different ways, and I think that's what makes it really exciting. Lucy: So, Jeanette, that kind of brings us to the next question. When you think about getting into technology and the career path you took, who influenced you, or who were your role models or mentors? Jeanette: I think I got started in technology, really, because I got offered a job writing software that paid $1,000 a month, which was more than I could get with anything else as a student. I had no idea how to do it. I didn't try to get into technology. It was just a lot of money for me at the time. Lucy: That's great. Jeanette: It wasn't a big plan. I always loved math. I always loved science. I had no idea about computers and technology at that point in time. So I really got into it then. And I think it's no different than the excitement of starting a company. As an engineer, it's that sense of creating. It's that sense that you made something that you can put your name on that you can be proud of. And it really is one project at a time ‑ one company, one project, one thing at a time ‑ where you really get to create something. And I think that's what really hooked me, once I got started. Lucy: Were there any role models or mentors along the way? Jeanette: I think one of the most frustrating things, for me, is that I kept looking for a role model and looking for a mentor and looking for someone, especially as I started to become more successful, and I really struggled with it. I was younger than many of the other people starting companies at the time. There were very few women involved in starting companies at the time and having had been successful at it. And I really spent a long time being really frustrated that there weren't people that I thought I could go and emulate. It took me, actually, quite a while to kind of accept that, "Hey, it doesn't matter. You're not going to copy anybody. Get on with life and do what's fun." But it took me a long time to accept that I had to do what I wanted to do and not worry about copying somebody or emulating somebody. Lucy: I think that's a great answer. And I want to also kind of link it back to something you said a minute ago around that it's often very hard to do something better, to have that great entrepreneurial idea and push it across the finish line, and along the way, there are challenges to overcome. And so we'd really like to know the toughest thing that you've ever done in your career, and why it was so hard. Jeanette: I think, unfortunately, that's the easiest answer...The hardest thing to ever do in building a company, in any way, is to lay people off. As with grown companies, even really successful companies, there's a time you've got to lay people off because of the business cycle or whatever. And no matter what the circumstances is, that, I think, is one of the hardest things to do. The second hardest thing: while I started three companies, one of them, I'd say, I walked away from before I was done. The company still was in a growing and struggling phase, and I felt it was time to move on and walk away from the company. And I think that was probably, emotionally, one of the hardest things I've ever done. Larry: I must say, that's probably one of the most common mistakes that many founding people do is they keep on long after they should have left. That's really a strength on your part. Jeanette: Well, thank you. It didn't feel like it at the time. Larry: I bet not. Lucy: That is a hard judgment, though. When is it time to leave? Larry: Mmhmm. It is. Jeanette: Exactly. And we always want to be the one. It's so tempting, especially when you start something, to feel like you need to be the one to finish it, that you need to almost be the hero that makes it successful. Accepting that you're not is just so tough. It's one of those very lonely decisions. Larry: I think you're wonderful. I'm proud you. Now, speaking of that type of thing, if you were, right now, sitting down with a young potential entrepreneur, what kind of advice would you give them about entrepreneurship? Jeanette: I think the real answer ‑ and it's easy to say, it's harder to do. And that is that you've really got to follow what you believe. You can learn from others. You can listen to others. You're going to get a lot of advice, a lot of suggestions, people telling you to do things, how you're doing them, telling you to do differently. But at the end of the day, you've got to do exactly what you believe in. And you won't succeed in creating something great and something that you're really proud of unless you stick to what you know are your core values. And there are so many people that want to push you in different directions, want to change the company, change the product, and change the financing. You've got to really stick with what you know and you believe. Lucy: That's really good advice. Larry: Yeah. Lucy: Sort of along that note, earlier in the interview, you said that you thought you could do things better and you liked creating and building things. So, when you think about getting through all the tough times, what personal characteristics do you think have given you the advantages as an entrepreneur? Jeanette: I think one of the most important things to really get to success is that you've got to have a willingness to fail. You've got to accept that, you know what? Everything you do isn't going to be perfect. You're going to make mistakes. You've got to be able to say, "Oops, I made a mistake" and move forward. You've got to be willing to let little things fail, big things fail, and all sorts of things, in the big picture, to get to success. If you're not willing to take the risk that you're willing to fall through on, you're not going to ever get the big win. So you've got to really be willing to kind of accept that this time might not be it, but there will be a time that will be. Lucy: And do you have examples that happened in your career when there was failure that happened and you guys learned a ton, maybe one of those moments; that was a big turning point in the company? Jeanette: Now, there's so many that it's hard to pick one out. But I think one of the things that we've done a couple of times is we've built the product, we've stood behind it, we've been proud of it, and then realized that, oops, it's not the way people want it. And being willing to do that, and then stop and say, "You know what? We're going to do the right thing going forward." We've lost investors in those decisions a couple of times. They used to say they've regretted it each time... Lucy: I love that. Larry: Yeah. Jeanette: I mean, I remember, 20 years ago, when we changed our company from being a digital telephony company to deciding to build infrastructure for this weird thing called the Internet, we fought tooth and nail. Nobody, none of our investors wanted to back it. They thought it was silly. How would this Internet thing work? There was so much more revenue if you stuck to traditional things. We lost supporters along the way. We're pleased to say those supporters are eating their words. The Internet grew. We had to take a big risk ‑ that now, of course, seems obvious, in hindsight, but at the time, didn't‑‑to say, "We're going to drop what we're doing. We'll see the growth. We're going to take a risk and build something new and different." Larry: Yeah. I'm sitting here kind of groaning because, internally, Pat and I, we had a terrestrial radio show, "Business Talk, " and I made, in 1996, the prediction that the Internet was a fad and would go away soon. So I wish I had known you. Jeanette: You were right. You just have to wait about another 100 years. You have to be patient, Larry. Larry: Yeah. Lucy: Your timing was wrong. Larry: Yeah, timing... Lee: You're still right. Lucy: Yeah, you're still right. Larry: Now, you're a mother of two. You fly in your own Lear jet, from time to time, to conferences and so on. And then, of course, the other thing is that, between your children, your family, and your growing business, how do you bring about kind of the balance to all of this? Jeanette: The answer to that is kids take care of it for me. Larry: Whoa! Jeanette: I was told before I had kids that I was not at all good at balance and I was workaholic that didn't do enough different things. I don't think that's true, but my friends all think it's true. It's just so great and so much fun to do things with my kids, that they keep me home on the weekends. They keep me doing things and being outside and being active. So for me, my kids are my solution, and it's just a lot of fun. Lucy: Well, we've got a nice little airport here by Boulder. You could come see us. Jeanette: I could. I do have that advantage. People go, "Oh, so you just love to fly." And I've got to say, I do. It's one of the most just relaxing things there are. But what it really is ‑ and people make fun of me - is if you go into my airplane, it looks a lot more like a minivan, stacked with stickers and snacks and books and activities and such in the back. The beauty of flying a plane is that it gives me and my family incredible freedom. So I can be in any city in the country in a meeting on Friday morning and home playing with my kids Friday night. Lucy: It's an important thing to balance. Larry: You got it. Wow. Jeanette: We got it. So everybody needs a plane. Lucy: I believe that you're our first pilot that we have interviewed. Well, you have started three companies. You've said that you doubt this one is your last. So, why don't you tell us what you see in the future? What's next for you? Give us some top‑secret stuff. Jeanette: Oh, gosh. You know what? I don't know. I will tell you that, for a very long time, I worried so much about, "OK, now that I'm successful, what am I supposed to do?" Almost like there has to be a road map: "Build successful company, go do blank." And I worried so much that I was doing the right thing next. It's amazing how stressful that became. There has to be an answer. Where do I find the answer? And I finally got it licked. I do what I enjoy. I love building the company I'm building. I love where I'm at today. I have no idea what's next. I have no idea whether we'll be building this company for another five years, another 10 years, another 20 years. I don't know what's next. But I know it'll be interesting, it'll be fun, and if not, then it won't last long and we'll move on. Lucy: That's a great answer. Larry: Yeah, I'll say. Hat's off to Imbee and Lear jets. Lucy: Well, thank you very much, Jeanette. We really appreciated talking to you. Lee: Thanks so much. Jeanette: Thank you. Larry: Thank you. This was great. And by the way, you listeners out there, make sure you pass this interview along, because they can listen to it 24/7, download it as a podcast, and what else could we ask? Lucy: Well, we should remind everybody what site to go to for the podcast. You can get them at w3w3.com or at ncwit.org. Larry: There you go. Thanks, Jeanette. Lucy: Thank you, Jeanette. Jeanette: Thank you. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Jeanette SymonsInterview Summary: NOTE: We are deeply saddened by Jeanette's tragic death in a small plane crash on Friday, February 1, 2008. She was a true technology pioneer and we hope her life will continue to inspire others. For Jeanette Symons, motherhood proved to be good for business. Her kids helped her come up with the idea for her award-winning social networking site, imbee.com. Release Date: October 19, 2007Interview Subject: Jeanette SymonsInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 17:16

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Selina Tobaccowala Senior VP of Product and Technology, Ticketmaster Europe Date: July 30, 2007 Lee Kennedy: Hi, this is Lee Kennedy and I am on the Board of Directors for the National Center of Women and Information Technology or NCWIT and this is part of a series of interviews that we are having with fabulous entrepreneurs. Women who have started IT companies in a variety of sectors all of whom have just fabulous stories to tell us about being entrepreneurs. With me is Larry Nelson from W3W3.com. Hi Larry, How are you.? Larry Nelson: I'm fantastic, and I'm real excited. Again this is another wonderful interview you guys have lined up. That's super. And W3W3.com we're a web‑based Internet radio show. We podcast and blog and everything else, and this is right up our alley. Lee: Great, and just to get right with it we are interviewing Selina Tobaccowala. Selina has a really interesting background. Selina was a Stanford grad and right out of school started Evite, which I think everybody in the universe knows about, and if you've ever been invited to a party or an event. She is currently working at Ticketmaster. So Selina why don't you start and tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to be in technology and an entrepreneur. Selina Tobaccowala: Thank you Lee and Larry. From my standpoint from entrepreneur and how I got into technology, it's very much being surrounded by technology my whole life. My father was in computers as well and started doing the initial punch card programming in the 70s and eventually got into management and so forth. And then going on to Standford where you are surrounded by technology everywhere. I mean, I graduated in 1998 and in that time frame there was Yahoo, Excite, and Apple. Everything was around us and everything was started by Stanford entrepreneurs. So being in computer science at Standford there was just so much opportunity to go and do something in technology, which was very exciting. Lee: Great. Larry: I can't help but ask this. You've kind of led into it already. Just for a little clarity, you were one of the co founders of Evite. Selina: Yes. Larry: And that is how you ended up where you're at now. Because I kind of went and checked you out online. You've got a very interesting product that you're working on there at Ticketmaster. I can't wait to see where you're going to be going next. [laughter] Larry: How did you first, you mentioned your father. I can remember punch cards. I was doing some work at a University back in Wisconsin. I dropped the basket, oh boy. What was that transition in terms of what you think is really cool today going on in technology? Selina: In terms of technology today, some of the stuff I find cool possibly being in Ticketmaster and being surrounded by music is all the conversions in devices especially around music. So just looking at the iPod and what it's been able to do, and some of the products surrounding that from iTunes to iLike is something that actually Ticketmaster has invested in. And it's just a great convergence of taking new music, all the new web technologies as far as taking consumer data, and being able to help you discover new music. But it's all really from a standpoint; those are some of the things that I find really interesting in today's pace. And it is really tying together all the devices if you look at Google Maps tying into the GPS on your phone so you always know where you are, and driving those things together. I just feel like right now we're in another interesting time where the hardware has been able to catch up with what people can do from the software perspective. And being on the software side, obviously I find that very exciting. Lee: So it sounds like you really love being on the leading edge of technology and integrating all the latest and greatest devices. When you think about your role as an entrepreneur, what is it that makes you enjoy being an entrepreneur? What about being an entrepreneur really makes you tick? Selina: I think the key for me, based on my personality. I like to really dig in and solve problems and looking out there in terms of business opportunities and then using technology or consumer problems that people actually have and then using technology to take advantage of them. When you look at everything in my history, it's all about consumer products and making it easier, using the web to make your life easier in an off line way. So whether that's sending invitations so you don't have to try and coordinate thirty people via phone and email to actually organize an event, and actually make that event happen. Or having people very easily get to a live show and at a fair price. From my perspective it's really about taking technology to make the consumer life easier, and I like that. And there is so many opportunities as technologies get better, consumers always have problems. Larry: Yeah it is. Let me ask this. Kind of going back in history because we're trying to get a feel of what really makes an entrepreneur and how this all comes about, one of the things that we've noticed that you and others have mentioned is people that are mentors to you, roll models. Who would somebody like that be in your life? Selina: I think I already mentioned a little bit, but definitely my father. He and my mom came over to the U.S. probably with not that many resources or opportunities that I had. And my dad started doing basic computer technology and in the end was managing quite a bit at EAS and then jumped into a startup, then did two startups after that. And watching, he jumped into a start up actually a year before I did at Evite and watching that and saying, I think I can do that too, and then encouraging me to do so. And graduating from Standford and seeing people take jobs at general consulting firms and saying don't worry about it. Take a risk, now's the time. To me that was really important to have that around. And again, just through silicon valley there are so many different mentors around, and people encouraging you to just try and jump into businesses and take a risk, and that it's OK to fail. Which I think is one of the key things about being an entrepreneur is that you're going to try things that are not going to work, whether it's a product that you're going to put out there. We had four products before we launched Evite and we tried a product and it didn't work. We built a new product and it didn't work, and it's a matter of testing what consumers respond to, then putting something out on the market that actually works. And I think that the U.S. And Silicon Valley specifically completely encourages that. Lee: It's really cool that your dad was one of your key mentors in life. I have to say that some of the other women that we interviewed talk about how their father was either an entrepreneur or technical or an engineer and how that played a big influence in their life. Selina: I think that if you're surrounded by it. One of the things I think is great about the National Center for Women is if you're surrounded by it and get involved in it early, you really have the likelihood to see the value in technology and bring it out there whether for consumers or businesses. Lee: So thinking about everything you've done in the last ten years or more. Starting a new company from scratch and now doing amazing things where you're at. What do you think is the toughest thing that you've had to do in your career? Selina: One of the things as an entrepreneur is that you're not always going to succeed in the way you want to succeed. And that's part of taking the risk and that's part of the excitement but at the same time it's not going to work out. Evite we did a lot of things right and we sold our product and people still use it. But we did hit the downturn in the 2001 time frame, and we had to downsize. That's something as a leader is really hard, because you put your time, and investment, and people, and they give their time and ideas and thoughts back to you and to the organization. And that always is one of the toughest things is that you know, fundamentally, if your business doesn't succeed to the degree, sometimes you need to let go parts of the team, and that's always going to be the toughest thing in any business. Larry: Yes. I have to tell our listeners, off‑line, just before we started, I asked Selina, "How come I only got three Evites this week?" And I said, "Was it a slow week?" She said, "Well, either that, or you have to get more friends." [laughs] Selina: [laughs] Larry: So anyhow, Selina, if you were sitting in front, right now, of a young person who was contemplating whether or not they wanted to become an entrepreneur, what advice would you give them? Selina: I mean, from my standpoint, as cheesy as it sounds, definitely go for it. [laughs] Larry: [laughs] Selina: But definitely, after that, it's really what I was saying a little bit before, which is you need to take risks. From my standpoint, it's prototype something as quickly in the marketplace as you can, see what's working, see what's not working; especially when you look at new technologies and web technologies. You can track everything. You can test everything. So you can get stats, see results, and then tweak, tweak, tweak. So it's very easy to sort of weed out stuff that's not working, try new things, and get it working and build a sustainable product. So, in terms of, again, that's more based on web technologies. It's harder to do if you're talking about hardware or physical goods. But the principle; being of prototype, get it out, market test it, and then keep building; is still the right thing. Larry: Great advice. Lucy Sanders: Well, Selina, one of the questions that we're always eager to ask is, with all the amazing things you've done, when you think about yourself, what personal characteristics do you think have given you any advantages as an entrepreneur? Selina: I actually would ask somebody else. [laughs] But I would say that, from my perspective, one of the keys is, actually, I'm not a very patient person. And although that might not be seen as a general advantage, it is sort of an impatience with the status quo, with what's out there, and being able to be curious and question and say, "Why are things working this way? How are things working?" So we constantly try to think about how to make it better: "How can I improve on what's there?" Whether that's in a small way, from a product perspective or a feature perspective, to actually say, "Is there a full business opportunity here?" It is probably, for me, the largest thing, from a personal characteristic standpoint. But I don't think there's anything that different in terms of besides the willingness to be able to take a risk. Lucy: Mm‑hmm. Great. Larry: Well put. Well put. I must say, being a serial entrepreneur myself, I can relate to that. Here's kind of a tricky thing. You're a hard worker. You love what you do. And of course, that's the good side. Well, you're a hard worker, and you like to do what do you do. How do you bring about the personal and professional balance in your life? Selina: [laughs] Larry: [laughs] Selina: A bad question when I'm at work at 7:15 at night. [laughs] [laughter] Selina: No. I'd say there's a couple of things, which is, even doing Evite, and we've been working intense hours‑‑every Friday, at least, Friday evening and Saturday, spending time with friends and being able to say, "I'm going to take out X time, and no matter what else is going on, spend time with other people." Because it does actually reinvigorate you, give you new ideas. And then another thing, for me, is I absolutely love to travel. And so it's really saying that taking, even if it's just one week out every year, but it is taking that time and actually going and seeing someplace new, because, again, I feel like really taking some time out to just go do that. And it does bring on new ideas, you do relax to a different degree, and your mind sort of refreshes. And I think that that's very important. And I'd say the last thing is I love to read, and every night, before I go to bed. It's like it takes your mind to a different space and does give that relaxation that you need. Lucy: Gosh, I think that's the best advice I've heard yet from anybody on how they get balanced. Yeah. Larry: Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Lucy: Because being an entrepreneur requires so much creativity, because you're always faced with new challenges... Selina: Yeah. And the thing is, if you don't get away from the day‑to‑day ever‑‑I live in London now, and one of the things is, no matter what else, I walk to work every morning. And it takes me about 35, 40 minutes, but it's like I'm walking through a park, and it's like it lets you actually think through everything. Even if it's just an hour here or there, taking the time out to refresh yourself, because you end up actually thinking through things more clearly and being more productive. Larry: You brought up London, and I have to ask this. Here we are, sitting in Boulder, Colorado... Selina: [laughs] Larry: Sunny skies, 80 degrees, gorgeous outside... Lucy: You rubbing it in, Larry? Larry: Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Selina: [laughs] Larry: And I know it's evening there now, but what was it like earlier today in London? Selina: Well, actually, today was absolutely beautiful. [laughs] Lucy: We caught you on a good day! Larry: Oh, wow. What a setup! What a setup! Selina: Yes, it was. The summer months are generally just beautiful here. And as I said, I walk through the park with wildflowers... Lucy: Oh. Selina: And I was in Germany for work yesterday, so it's very easy to see new places. [laughs] Lucy: Well, the last question we have for you is‑‑you've already achieved so much at such a young age. What's next for you? Selina: As Larry said, the whole serial entrepreneur. One of the things, Evite got bought by the parent company, IAC. And I've been doing, to a certain degree, startups within IAC‑‑started a group at Ticketmaster first, then went on and started an online organization for Entertainment.com, and now came to Ticketmaster and doing European products and technology. But I think the next thing for me is I will get back that itch to do a startup from scratch, [laughs] and coming up that idea and finding the next thing. And for me, I love what I'm doing now. We're doing great things in terms of new products and launching it through the different European marketplaces. But I'd say, after Ticketmaster, it's definitely jumping back into a small organization. Larry: Oh, we just have to ask this. With your experience, and now your worldwide travels and involvement and all, what do you see, technology‑wise, that's coming down the pike that's going to make a big, sweeping difference to all of us? Selina: Oh, wow. That's a tough one. [laughs] But again, I don't see any single technology. And I think that that's the way I think. I don't see that, all of a sudden, everything's going to migrate to mobile phones, or there's going to be any single device or any single technology that's going to sort of change everything completely. I mean, there's a few of those that come up occasionally, like, obviously, adding search to the web changed it dramatically. But I do see that what you have today is finally, as I was saying before, the ability to suddenly drive everything to the web, from, rightly, with software applications that used to could only sit on your computer. I think, all of a sudden, you can be connected from everywhere, and you can get to everything from everywhere. And I think that just changes the mindset in terms of continually and always being able to access your information and, to a certain degree now, other people being able to access your information. And it changes the whole how anonymous you can be within an everyday life, and everybody's more connected and the web connects people, and so I do feel that more and more technologies are taking advantage of that. But it will change how people interact. Lucy: Yeah. There's definitely some exciting things. Larry: Are we going to follow up on this, Selina, or not? We can tell you're going to have a super, super career, and we definitely will follow you. Selina: Well, thank you. Thank you for taking your time as well. Lucy: Well, Selina, thank you so much. It's been wonderful learning more about you today. Remember, these podcasts will be on www.ncwit.org, as well as www.w3w3.com. Larry: That's it. Selina: Great. Lucy: Thanks, and pass these on to a friend. Selina: Thank you so much. Larry: See you soon. Lucy: Bye‑bye. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Selina TobaccowalaInterview Summary: When Selina Tobaccowala co-founded a little web company called Evite as a junior at Stanford, she was one of just 18 women majoring in computer science. Release Date: July 30, 2007Interview Subject: Selina TobaccowalaInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Lee KennedyDuration: 16:05

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Eileen Gittins Founder, President, and CEO, Blurb, Inc. Date: July 10, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Eileen Gittins BIO: Throughout her career, Eileen Gittins has been at the intersection of the Internet, consumer and enterprise software, imaging systems, search, and digital photography. A passionate advocate for enabling technologies that offer new ways to do valuable things, Eileen is now democratizing publishing for the rest of us with her new company, as Founder and Exec Chairman of Blurb, a software and services company that passionately believes in the power of books: making, reading, sharing and selling them. Eileen is also the Co-Founder and CEO Bossygrl. Eileen has served as CEO of several pre-IPO venture-backed companies in Silicon Valley, including Personify, an e-commerce data mining and analytics company; and Verb, a context-based search engine company. Each was acquired by Accrue and Attenza, respectively. At Qbiquity, a viral marketing platform company, Eileen served as Board Chairman and interim CEO, where she was instrumental in negotiating the merger of Qbiquity into Collabrys. As a CEO, she has raised over $40M in venture capital throughout her career. Most recently, Eileen served as interim executive management at Viant, a San Francisco-based investment-banking firm in the technology and media sectors. Eileen has also served in executive positions at Wall Data; Pivotal Corp, an Eastman Kodak spinout; and Kodak's Business Imaging Systems. Previously, Gittins was vice president and general manager at Salsa Products, a division of Wall Data, where she created a 100-person department and launched 17 product lines. She was also co-founder and vice president of marketing at Pivotal Corporation and held various sales, marketing and management positions with Eastman Kodak's Business Imaging Systems Division. Gittins completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State University and graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in art (photography/digital imaging emphasis). She has also completed the Stanford Executive Management Program. Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology, and this is another interview in a series of interviews that we're having with fabulous women IT entrepreneurs, women who have started just the most amazing companies. With me is Larry Nelson and Pat Nelson from w3w3.com. And today, we're interviewing Eileen Gittins, the founder, president, and CEO of Blurb. Hi, Eileen. Welcome. Eileen Gittins: Thank you for having me. Lucy: And Larry, welcome. Why don't you say a few words about w3w3.com, since this podcast will be hosted on your site as well as the NCWIT site. Larry Nelson: Well, I'll tell you what, it's really a pleasure. Lucy, you and your team have lined up some magnificent IT entrepreneur heroes, I guess would be the right way to put it. It's our pleasure on w3w3.com because we are just an all‑business, primarily high‑tech business radio show, where we archive anything. So we'll have this up for a long time at w3w3.com. Thanks. Lucy: Well, Eileen, welcome. We're really happy to have you here and to get your thoughts on entrepreneurism. And before we start, I'd like to hear a little bit more about Blurb. It's a fascinating company, a print‑on‑demand book business. But it's ever so much more than that. Really, investigate your website, it seems like it's a community site. It's a site for people who like to create books and read books and share. So, why don't you just tell us a little bit about Blurb? It's a company that you've said was possibly your most fun company. Eileen: Well, I think you're doing a great job. You're right. Blurb is more about a community. So we are a creative publishing service that enables anyone to create a book, market that book, distribute that book, and perhaps even profit from that book via our service at blurb.com. So there are three components to the service. The first is free software. It's called Blurb BookSmart. It's purpose‑built to enable folks like us, who may not be book designers, to focus on our content. So it's a drag‑and‑drop kind of metaphor. There are hundreds and hundreds of page layouts and themes, backgrounds, borders, custom illustrations ‑‑ a whole grab bag of cool stuff that you can do to really make your book look professionally published. We've hired book designers ‑‑ not just graphic designers, but actual book designers out of the industry ‑‑ to help build out all of the page layouts and themes for this application. So then you can import your photos, your blog, your cookbook, your recipes, your story, your poetry, whatever your expertise is, into these page layouts. And when you're ready to rock and roll, you hit the preview button, you take a look at it, and if it looks great, you then upload the book file to blurb.com, and you get your book back in about seven to 10 business days. Larry: Wow. Eileen: You can order just one copy, or we're delighted if you'd like to place an order for tens or even hundreds. Prices start, for a seven by seven book in a soft‑cover edition, at $12.95, for a 40‑page color book. I will tell you that, for your listeners who may on occasion have to run down to Kinko's or your favorite color copy shop, you can barely print four or five pages for that price, let alone a 40‑page, beautifully produced book for that amount of money. We have four book sizes at the moment: so the 7X7, 8X10, 10X8 ‑‑ so that's landscape or portrait ‑‑ and then a big book, which is our 13X11‑inch book. And all of these are supported with templates and themes. Once you get your book back, then the very cool thing about Blurb is you automatically get a free bookstore. And you can keep that private, meaning only you can buy a copy of your book. Or you can share it with friends and family. You can send a link out, so it's still a private bookstore, but shared with people that you know. That's particularly useful if, say, you're doing a family book, maybe a baby book or a wedding book or something, and frankly, you like to not be in the post office business or the bank business, meaning you'd just as soon not have to collect money and ship books to everybody, and you'd much rather them be able to come and look at the book themselves and decide for themselves if they want to purchase a copy. And then, finally ‑‑ and this may be of great interest to your listeners because I think this is really turbo‑charging our business right now ‑‑ one of the challenges for people who are interested to make money on their books is, in the traditional book publishing and distribution process, there's a lot of people who need to get paid in that food chain. And so what Blurb has done is said, "You know what? If you make your book using Blurb, you can market it for free in the bookstore." You can put your blurb about the book up. You can have a free book preview. You can now bookmark it and send that out to a number of different locations, like del.icio.us and Digg it, and say, "This is a really cool book." You can have Blurb badges, which are little widgets that you can put on your blog or your website that promote your book, and when people click on them, it takes them automatically to your book in the bookstore. And then, here's the cool part: you can set your own price for the book, and you keep 100%, the uplift. Lucy: Wow. Eileen: Yeah. And then, finally ‑‑ very finally ‑‑ you mentioned community. You will be seeing from Blurb in the near future all kinds of very cool new community features to enable people to share ideas and share tips and tricks and to help each other, as well as a profile so that you can kind of get a feel for who are the people that you're talking to. All kinds of very cool new community features coming up from Blurb. Larry: Well, Lucy, I've got to get going because I'm going to go home and finish my book. Lucy: Larry is an author. This is definitely one of his favorite interviews. He just loves it. I mean, lots of really cool features. And the other thing I liked: you have some great vocabulary. I'm an observer of words. And so, Blurberati? Eileen: Yes. Lucy: Blurbarians. Eileen: Yes, the Blurbarians. Lucy: Blurbarians. Yeah. Eileen: Blurbarians, the Blurberati. And of course, we've made Slurpers, and Slurpers are tools that will enable an end‑user to get their content in there. So, for instance, if any of your listeners might have their photos on Flickr, we've built a Flickr Slurper. What's so cool about that is, as you may know, when you typically post photos on a photo community, they're down‑sampled for screen resolution ‑‑ usually 72 DPI, which is not so great for book printing. So what the Slurper does is we have written to a commercial API from Flickr, so we're able to grab the high‑res version for you automatically, bring that into your little workspace in the application, so that then, when you drag and drop those images into the book, they're the resolution that you need to print, big and beautifully. Lucy: Fascinating. We could probably talk for Blurb for the whole interview. But I suppose we should start the interview. Larry: Yeah. I've been hearing all this. A question that Lucy generally gets to ask, I can't help but wonder, how did you first get into technology? And by the way, is there anything cool out there that you feel is out in the marketplace today? Eileen: Yeah. How did I first get into technology was actually through photography. Larry: Ooh. Eileen: So I'm a photographer. And I worked for Kodak for many years. I have a degree in photography, I used to teach photography, and I've been a custom printer, blah blah blah. And what's so fascinating about photography ‑‑ and I'm talking traditional photography, film‑based, darkroom‑based photography ‑‑ is that it's really the intersection of art and craft and technology. I mean, understanding shutter speeds and apertures and understanding chemistry and understanding the process of silver halide and what happens with a developer and with fixture and reciprocity failure and all those things that are the more technical aspects of photography are what made me appreciate that I am actually one of those people who lives at that intersection between the creative mind and the technical. And so I'm consistently drawn to things that give me that opportunity to marry those two things together. And when you think about software ‑‑ in particular, applications software that consumers and end users and normal people use, not big, enterprise‑class, back‑end kind of things ‑‑ that is exactly that, right? That is, how can we apply technology to enable mere mortals to either get things done more efficiently than they could before, get things done at all that they couldn't do before, or in the case of Blurb, some of both, right? I mean, for the very first time ever, really ‑‑ I mean, think about it, ever ‑‑ could I make a book that looks like a book that you'd buy at Borders for $20, and it's four‑color and laid out and designed and beautiful. When I think about the application of technology to enable people to unleash their passions, to do more with less and to just enjoy life is really what gets me out of bed in the morning. Lucy: And I think that you've partially answered our next question. You are a serial entrepreneur. And certainly, as the founder and CEO of Blurb, you continue to be entrepreneurial. What is it about entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Why are you an entrepreneur? Eileen: Because I'm a builder. I like the creation aspect. I mean, there's nothing that gets me more excited than seeing an opportunity that's not yet there, [laughs] and where I can see it, I can see a market, I can see a convergence. I see patterns. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs train themselves this way. I know I didn't wake up one day and just all of a sudden saw patterns. Over the course of many years, I think I've trained myself to look at those convergences. And sometimes you just see patterns emerging, and you see gaps in the marketplace, and you just think, "Wow. That's big. That's really interesting. That's a problem that I'm having, or that other people are having, and I need to go and figure out why hasn't it already been solved." And then, once I've figured that out, then it becomes about the economics, right? Because there's two parts to it. It's not enough to have a great idea. It's important to have a great idea for which there is a business need and a business application and a market that you can efficiently reach, with economics behind it that are going to enable everyone to have a nice payday as a result of investing your energy. And so I just love solving puzzles. I mean, I just really am one of those people who likes to look at what's not there yet that should be. Lucy: I think it's great to compare entrepreneurship with being a builder. Larry: [laughs] Yeah. Lucy: I think that's a really nice analogy. And on your path as an entrepreneur, I'm sure you had role models or mentors. Who influenced you the most, or what influenced you the most, on your career path in entrepreneurship? Eileen: Can I go back to your last comment before I answer that one, the builder comment? Lucy: Sure. Eileen: By the way, I'm married to one... Lucy: Oh. Larry: [laughs] Eileen: Who actually is a builder. And we talk, in software and in the IT world, of course, about things like architecture all the time, and blueprints and project schedules and all that... Lucy: That's right. Eileen: And I find that the analogy is maybe more perfect than any other single one I can think of. What we are doing and what other entrepreneurs in the IT world do is they imagine the building that's not there yet, right? And what should it be? And what's its function? And who should it house? And then how does it grow over time? And does it need to have additions? And does it need to be architected in a way that it will support a third story, even though that's not there yet? So all of that level of abstraction, the technical level of the engineering, and then coupled with the aesthetic beauty, which one hopes results from the actual building that's built, is very analogous, I think, to software development, and, in fact, to Blurb itself. So yeah, I think I am a builder. And I'm also married to a traditional builder. All right. So then, the follow‑on question was about mentors and who influenced me along the way? Lucy: Right. Eileen: Well, there are two things. One is I was in college, and I was working my way through school, and I had a night and weekend job at a big, fancy department store out here in San Francisco. And I was selling men's designer clothes or some such thing. They paid me well on Sundays, right? Yeah. I mean, I worked my way through school and didn't pay off the last student loan till I was 30. That was my opportunity. I had to put myself through school. So here I am, working at this store. And they had a management training program, which is, for any person who works at the store who's getting a college degree, they invited you to interview for a job, basically, as a management trainee for the company. Well, I will tell you that I really didn't want to go into retail. That wasn't really my aspiration. But hey, I was just delighted that somebody wanted to interview me and that somebody might potentially want to give me like a real job that I went down to the big hiring office in San Francisco and ended up interviewing. And I will tell you that the net result was I was not hired, because I was not considered management material. And I will tell you that I am one of those people ‑‑ and I think there are many people who are entrepreneurs who are like this, who are naturally competitive. The minute someone told me that I was not management material was the day that I decided that I was going to be the CEO of a company. Lucy: [laughs] "I'll show you!" [laughs] Larry: There you go. Lucy: Yeah. Eileen: I mean, seriously. So that was the first thing that happened. And then, on the positive side, my very first manager at Kodak was a wonderful woman ‑‑ actually a woman, which was interesting at the time ‑‑ and she was the person who taught me the most about the value of team and the value of people in building not only a great life but a great career. And I came in thinking I was God's gift to Eastman Kodak Company. And in the nicest possible way, she reminded me that I was brand new, and that there were a lot of people around who knew a lot more than me, and that I would be wise to be a bit of a student, right? And I took that very seriously. And to this day, I remember her often. In fact, there was recently an article written about Blurb, a really nice piece in "USA Today." And I got an email from her. And I haven't talked to her in years. And I got an email from her, and I felt like I was back at the student level again. Larry: That's fantastic. Let me ask you this question, Eileen. You've had so many neat little successes ‑‑ little and big successes ‑‑ along the road. What was something along the way that was a challenge that you were not able to overcome and you were forced to learn to live with? Eileen: So, wonderful question, because I think you do learn the most from your failures. Gosh, there have been many failures. In fact, I will tell you that life in a startup is a series of them. We talk now about "fail fast" as a new mantra for building our business, and our whole goal is to get things up and expose them to real people, and identify the ones that fail quickly and reinvest in the ones that succeed quickly. And so, just as a mantra, I think, at some weird level, it is all about failure and learning from that. On a personal level, a couple companies ago, I had a board that, frankly, I learned the lesson of "choose your board members very well." Larry: [laughs] Eileen: Now, you don't always have the leverage to do that. As a first‑time CEO, sometimes you inherit VCs and you inherit a board and you just inherit things. But what I learned from that experience is, if you don't have shared values with your board ‑‑ and I mean both on a personal level, frankly, and on a company level; what is the company trying to achieve ‑‑ then, at the end of the day, frankly, the board holds the tickets, right? You don't. And at the end of the day, they can make other decisions. And in the life of startups that are VC‑financed, even though you may think it's your company, in order to get that financing, you've had to give up ownership of the company, so it's not your company anymore. You may put in the insane hours each week and feel like it's your company, but literally, it's not your company. So there was an occasion where, in a past company, there were a number of companies that wanted to buy us ‑‑ big companies, big money ‑‑ and I was advocating that the market was shifting and that we should take one of those offers. And we, frankly, had a board ‑‑ and understandably, at the time. This was big IPO‑fever time, back in the day. And they really thought we should hold out for an IPO. Then, of course, it very quickly became I was the person who was in favor of selling and so needed to move on and find somebody else who really believed in the company and believed in the IPO. So there I was, no longer running my own company. Very tough lesson to learn. Lucy: It is a tough lesson to learn. Eileen: Yeah. But you know what? I did learn and I have great respect, now, for the fact that investors invest in companies and they invest in momentum and they invest in people. At any given time you really do serve at their pleasure to some extent. Don't think that your vote counts the most, because it doesn't. So you have to really choose people with whom you have great trust and great rapport. They have confidence in you and you in them. Then it's like any marriage, you need great partners. Lucy: Well, and that's terrific advice. I'm wondering if you have any other advice if you were in a room talking to a young person thinking about entrepreneurship, being an entrepreneur. What other advice would you give them? Eileen: And I do this all the time, as a matter of fact. I serve as an advisor to a lot of early stage companies. The number one thing is, "Do something you're passionate about." Life is too short to do something that is just for money for just for job or just for ego. Do something you really love. If you love it, it's funny how we all tend to be good at the things we really love to do. So there's a happy convergence there. Find something you love and figure out how are you going to make a business or how are you going to make money from doing the thing that exists that you already love to do. Larry: Boy, this is a great segue right into my next question. That is, if you were to take all the different characteristics, both on a personal and a professional and if you were to select one characteristic about yourself that makes you successful, what would that characteristic be? Eileen: I think I'm a good judge of people. Because at the end of the day, team is everything in an early stage company. I will argue in a later stage company, too. In particular in an early stage company where they may only be one or two people in a given discipline. Boy, they better be the right one or two! Because you don't have 40 you got two, right? [laughter] Eileen: I think being able to judge people well, to be a good judge of character. To be able to motivate people, recruit people and identify good people, just have a good sixth sense about that. I think that's probably my strongest suit. Lucy: We've heard the theme of really emphasizing team before on this series. Certainly being a good judge of people is absolutely mandatory to building a good team. Larry: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Is that a fact? Lucy: Absolutely. I just love, by the way as an aside, personal characteristics. I love that phrase "happy convergence." I just have to tell you, too, I think you have a great way of putting words together. Eileen: [laughs] Well, maybe I'm in the right business then. Lucy: Yeah, I think you have a great way of putting words together. I want to shift a little bit to your personal life and how you bring balance between your personal life and your professional life. You're obviously very busy in both spheres. Eileen: Yeah. The first thing is I'm really fortunate to be married to a wonderful man who is my best friend. Who keeps it real, as they say. [laughs] He reminds me I am not the boss of him. Lucy: [laughs] I know one time my son said that to me. "You are not the boss of me!" Eileen: "You are not the boss of me." You know what? Everybody needs that in their lives. I go around here and, of course, I am the boss of people, right? So you need somebody in your life, and hopefully somebody in your close immediate family who reminds you that, "That's your professional life and now you're home." Lucy: [laughs] That's right. Eileen: "And that's not how the rules are played here," in the kindest and most loving way. I think that a big part of it is that I have that balance with my husband who plays that role for me. The other things though are, a couple. One is, I do think it's really important, especially when you're founding a company. It can be all consuming. I suffer from this as much as the next person. You just have to find a moment where you do something completely different. For me right now, when I was younger I used to swim competitively. We could have a whole conversation about that and team building and being sports minded and all that. But I was a serious swimmer, I was one of those insane people who swam two hours in the morning and two hour every night and was a nationally ranked swimmer. Then life intervenes and you get involved in other things and pretty soon you realize, you're not in shape anymore. You're not physically fit. You're not, hopefully, totally overweight or anything, but you're just not fit anymore. So a few months ago I just decided it's about making a decision to become fit because you can always find the excuse. I don't care if you're a CEO or a full‑time mom or even just somebody who you'd think would have all the time in the world. It's not about time. It's about making the decision. So I went back into a pretty rigorous physical fitness regime a few months ago. It's time that I know that I'm doing something good for my long‑term health, my well being. I feel better, I look better, I sleep better, my stress levels are better, everything is better! Right? Larry: I [inaudible] better. Eileen: It's just, you've got to make a decision about doing something that's not work. That is improving balance in your life. For me, that's been it since last October. Larry: Wow, I tell you, that is a wonderful answer. I was guessing ahead of time since your husband is a builder and you're a builder. I thought maybe the way you did this balance was probably building a Lego library or something. [laughter] Larry: Nonetheless, you've accomplished a great deal. You've got a lot that you're going to be doing with Blurb, but outside of Blurb what is next for you? Eileen: Boy it's hard to think outside of Blurb when you're in it like this. Probably another one. I am not going to be one of those people who, even if I financially did really well, that would mean I'd be going and hanging out on the beach. That's just not me. Something else will capture my attention and I'll go do it. I'll tell you a couple of areas that are interesting to me. One is education in this country. I'm very interested in how some of the things that I've learned along the way, maybe even some of the technologies like Blurb and others can really inspire and motivate young people to want to learn in different ways. In an earlier life I thought maybe I'd be a teacher. But again that doesn't have the leverage that I want and I think I've accrued some knowledge along the way that can be better leveraged. So very interested in education and how I may be able to apply myself to help move that needle. Lucy: Well that would be wonderful. At NCWIT we care a great deal about K‑12 education and computing technologies. It's rather circular. You can use information technologies to improve education about computing maybe. [laughs] Larry: There's an idea. Lucy: There's an idea. Eileen: Yeah. No. It's really true. In fact I'll tell you, even with Blurb we've made a point of going and meeting with schools. I went back to my high school. Met the now principal who was a teacher when I was there who remembered me, God forbid. I'm going to be teaching a class there in September on publishing. Lucy: Wow! You'll have to do another interview and find out how that goes. Eileen: Yeah! Larry: At she won't have to study for it. Lucy: Eileen's return to school. Fabulous! Eileen: Eileen's return to the principal's office. Lucy Sanders: No! Don't you dare go to the principal's office. Eileen, we really appreciate you taking time today to talk with us about yourself and your career and also about Blurb. It's been really, really interesting. I want to remind listeners where they can find this podcast. They can find it at www.ncwit.org and w3w3.com. Pass it along to a friend. Again, Eileen, thanks a lot! It was really, really interesting. Eileen: Listen, my pleasure. I'm honored to have been invited. So thanks again. Lucy: Thank you. Larry: We'll call on you soon. Eileen: Cheers! Lucy: Cheers! [music] Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Eileen GittinsInterview Summary: Eileen Gittins wanted to create a beautifully designed and produced photo essay book, something that looked like a book you'd buy at the bookstore, but she only needed 40 copies. This turned out to be remarkably painful, expensive, and time-consuming, and she thought that was just wrong. So she founded Blurb. Release Date: July 10, 2007Interview Subject: Eileen GittinsInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry Nelson, Pat NelsonDuration: 25:00

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Sangita Verma Founder and CEO, TAG Networks Date: July 3, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Sangita Verma BIO: Sangita Verma leveraged 13 years of executive experience in the videogame industry to found the world’s preeminent interactive games-on-demand network in May 2003 -- TAG Television. Providing a full service, turnkey solution, TAG Networks provides the nation’s first massively deployable games channel for cable and IPTV television. TAG TV lets players enjoy the timeless appeal of popular and brand-name games including Tetris®, Battleship®, Risk®, Barney™, and Thomas the Tank Engine™, as well as popular online games including Bejeweled™, Diner Dash™, and Bookworm™, and Texas Hold 'Em Poker. In her role as CEO, Ms. Verma has secured $20 in funding from private equity investors, established exclusive content agreements with leading game suppliers and global brands, and filed eight patents covering key proprietary technologies for delivering interactive content for cable and IPTV. A strategic planner, veteran marketer, and business visionary, she taps skills gleaned from a varied yet focused career to lead TAG Networks' management team of seasoned game, licensing, video-on-demand, interactive television, technology and consumer entertainment product specialists. Prior to founding TAG Networks, Ms. Verma worked with Midway Games, starting with the company in 2000 as director of worldwide syndication. Previously, she had her own online marketing company, Craig New Media, working with Panasonic and Psygnosis (a Sony Company) among others. Before that she was group marketing director for Panasonic Interactive Media Co. Her videogame career started at Data East Corp., where she managed the U.S. marketing activities and then moved on to establish and manage Data East’s European office. Sangita Verma is a member of the Entrepreneurs Foundation's CEO Council and was voted one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women In Cable Technology by CableWorld magazine in 2006. She is also a member of the Women in Cable and Telecommunications (WICT) "Tech It Out" mentoring programming which encourages girls to consider technical career paths. She is a graduate of UC Davis, having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. Ms. Verma lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two sons. Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders. I'm the CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology, and this is another interview in a series of interviews with IT entrepreneurial women. And today, we're talking to the CEO and founder of TAG Networks, Sangita Verma. Hi, Sangita. How are you? Sangita Verma: Hi, Lucy. I'm great. Thanks for having me on your show. Lucy: Wonderful. With me today is Larry Nelson, from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi. I'm happy to be here, as you know. This is exciting. Lucy: Well, why don't you tell us a bit about w3w3.com, since these podcasts will be hosted on your site as well as the NCWIT site. Larry: Well, the short story is that we're an online business radio show. We started in '98, and we archive everything with pictures and audio, blogs, and podcasts. So that's us. Lucy: That's pretty exciting. Well, and we are excited to have you here today, Sangita. You have an awesome company. And I have to tell you, it must be every computer scientist's dream to work with a company that is so involved with gaming. And in fact, just to throw a little factoid in here, they did a survey recently of young men and women who decided they want to go into information technology, and in fact, many of them want to go in because of gaming. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about TAG Networks? It's a very exciting, on‑demand network for games. Sangita: Thanks, Lucy. You're right. Games are a lot of fun. They really are. I think that when it comes to technology, there's so many aspects that are very interesting, but I've never found anything as pure fun as the games part is. But, what we're doing at TAG Networks is we're creating the first games‑on‑demand television network. And so, as a consumer, you turn on your TV and you tune to a channel, just like you would HBO or MTV or BBC. The difference is that you can start playing games right there with your remote control that's already in your hand. The types of games that we offer are considered casual games, so we're not competing against consoles like Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. I think, our games experience is more similar to what you would find on the Internet, at sites like Pogo or MSN Zone or AOL Games. So, it's puzzle games, card games, kids' games ‑ things like that. Lucy: It's a great concept, and I'm sure it's going to be extremely popular. And these are exciting times for you. I hear your company just raised a Series B on funding, and you're doing a scale‑up of your technology. Sangita: Yes. This is actually a very exciting time for us. When I describe it to people, I like to think that this is 1981 and we're MTV. We feel like we're just sort of right on the verge of taking off, and in a huge way. The trials that we've had at market with our cable operator partners so far have been phenomenal. It truly shows that consumers love games. They want to play games. They want to play them on a big screen. And if you make it easy right there for them, it's staggering the number of hours that they play and how frequently they play. So, we're very excited about that. And we're very excited that we've created some proprietary, amazing technology that is enabling us to be able to go to what I consider the next generation of TV networks. Lucy: Well, and maybe one more sort of incidental before we get into the interview. I have to say that NCWIT is having a reception pretty soon at the football stadium at the University of Colorado, and we have access to the JumboTron. Sangita: Oh, yeah. Lucy: And so, maybe, we could put a few games up there. It's on an IP network. It might all work. Sangita: That would be great. It's so funny you mentioned that, because when you think about one of the really popular things at a baseball game, as silly as it is, it's the little dot race game. Lucy: It surely is. Everybody loves it at the CU football games. Sangita: Right. Exactly. And so, there's a very, very simple application of a game, yet everyone loves it. I think, it just goes back to showing how people love games. Lucy: Well, and that gets us, maybe, into the interview, in terms of asking some questions about technology. I know TAG Networks has a lot of interesting technology that you have to use to deploy this type of game‑on‑demand network. But, other technologies that you see out there, Sangita, what are you seeing on the horizon that you think is especially cool? Sangita: I think that just the whole social networking phenomenon is very cool, and the technologies that are enabled by that. I think that it'll become even more interesting when it is tied across platforms and across devices. Right now, social networking is very big on the Internet, but it's growing on other platforms. For example, I had just read ‑ in fact, yesterday ‑ that Microsoft has the largest social network connected to the TV, via their Xbox Live service. And I think that as you start seeing these devices connecting people, and it's not limited anymore to a platform or device, that's where it becomes even more exciting. Larry: By the way, could we back up? I've just got one interesting question. How did you first get into technology? And then, tie that in with why are you an entrepreneur? Sangita: Oh, OK. Well, it's funny, because I don't think of myself as getting into technology. So, I kind of fell into the games industry. I was doing investor relations when I first got out of college. And I did that for a couple of years and decided that I wanted to do something that was a little more creative and a little more fun, and at a variety of different places, found a games company that sounded like a lot of fun. I didn't know anything about games at the time. This was back, gosh, 16, 17 years ago now. Nintendo was considered a kids' toy, was just taking off at that point. I started working for this games company called Data East and just fell in love with the industry. And I've watched how I think technology has progressed just amazingly across just about everything. I mean, the rate of acceleration of invention is incredible. But, in the games world, you really saw it, because you would see these eight‑bit games back in 1990, to what they're doing now on the Xbox 360. And that's all technology. That's all enabling entertainment. And so, as I got more into the games industry, I really started getting more into the technology that enables you to have a better games experience, to have a better consumer experience. So, it's funny, because I think when people think about technology, or certainly when most young women think about technology, which is where I was at that age, it didn't sound that fun. It didn't sound that glamorous. It sounded kind of nerdy. You had to know math. I think, all the aspects of technology that people really were harping on weren't necessarily the really fun things that technology can be, which is creating amazing user experiences and entertainment and platforms to be able to enable people to do the things that they want to do. And that's the part that hooked me and really got me into the technology aspect, as opposed to "I want to be a technologist." Larry: What about that leap to becoming an entrepreneur? Sangita: Oh. Gosh. You know? I don't know. I think, I just have always been one. It wasn't a conscious effort. It was just, I had an idea, I didn't see anyone doing it the way that I thought it should be done, and I just said, "You know what? I'm just going to do it." And I did it. There really was not a lot of thought. There wasn't a lot of pros and cons listed. It was just the thing to do. And I did it. Lucy: That's wonderful. I mean, I'm sitting here listening to your description of why you like technology, thinking that we need to have you come to our NCWIT meetings and carry that message, because that's exactly what we're up to is really trying to convey that sense of energy and passion and what makes technology so much fun. S Sangita: Yeah. And I was thinking about this, in preparation of us talking. When people think about becoming a doctor, for example, they just think about becoming a doctor and saving lives and what other aspects of it is it that really turns them on. They don't think about, "Oh, I've got to know physics. I've got to go to medical school for this." They don't think about all the little details that get involved in it. They just have the vision of what they want to be. And I think that, with technology in particular, we kind of miss that because, at least when I was in school, the dwelling was always on, "Well, you've got to do this. You've got to do this kind of math. This is what you've got to like to do." And the vision of what you can truly create wasn't ever shown as an end goal. Lucy: That's right. And I think that that's a really important message to get out there. So, Larry was asking a little bit about being an entrepreneur and what makes you tick in terms of being an entrepreneur. Who was it that influenced you along the way? Who, perhaps, is your greatest role model? Who's helped you along in this career path? Sangita: I think, it's a combination of things. I think, one, I've been very fortunate to work with just some fantastic people throughout my career. But, probably, the bigger driver was, when I started working with the games company back in 1990, they had a fantastic management team on board. I was 25 at the time, and I was excited that I would be able to learn from these people that were really good at what they did. Well, the company went through a series of changes, and, within a year, the whole management team was gone. And the next thing I knew, I was running all of North American marketing. Larry: [laughs] Lucy: [laughs] I'm not laughing because they were gone. It's just one of those moments in life, you know? Sangita: Yeah. I know. I joined the company in order to learn from these people, and then they disappeared, and I learned. It was trial by fire. It truly was. "You're in charge of North America. Now, go." And so, in hindsight, I think, maybe, that helped really instill my entrepreneurial spirit even more, because I didn't have a choice. I just had to learn. I had to do it. And it was very exciting. And of course, you make mistakes as you go, but you learn from them. And I think everything that I did up until I started TAG Networks kind of led to a culmination of where I am with TAG Networks and why we think we're going to be really successful. Larry: Let me ask this. It sounds like you've had an exciting and very fun career all this time. You've accomplished a great deal; you're on the road to accomplishing even more. What is something that maybe you've had to put up with a little that maybe you didn't get to overcome, you had to learn to live with, along the way? Sangita: Oh, that's a great question. I think, the only thing that I can say ‑ I'm kind of living it right now, frankly ‑ is you can only control what you can control, and everything else you just have to kind of roll with. That's a tough lesson. And it's tough for, I think, probably any entrepreneur, but it certainly is for me, because an old boss once called me I'm a steamroller. I just go and I get things done. And so, when you get stopped by things out of your control, it's difficult. Certainly, TAG Networks, our distributors are cable operators like Comcast and Time Warner, and IPTV companies like Verizon and AT&T. And anyone who has worked with those operators knows that they have their own timelines, and they're not necessarily your timelines. And so, I think that has been a challenge. It's just learning to become more patient. And that's hard to do. And it's really hard to do given the environment that TAG Networks is located in. We are literally across the street from Google. And so, we're right here in the midst of the Silicon Valley, where things happen so quickly, and it's hard to be working with industries where their speed is not the same as what is around you. Lucy: I hate it when I can't control things. Don't you? [laughter] Larry: Put your hand down now. Put your hand down. [laughter] Sangita: I'm getting better about it. But, it is hard. I mean, that's probably one of my hardest... Lucy: I think, it's hard, too. Hate it. I think that that's great advice, to sort of sit back sometimes and be patient and see which way things are going to kind of land, right? And I think, you probably have some other really great advice, that if you were giving advice to a young person today about entrepreneurship, what other things would you say to them? Sangita: Probably, the biggest thing ‑ and maybe it's a cliché ‑ is really, you need to be passionate about what you're doing. If you believe in your idea, then follow it. And then, the second part of that is, keep following it. Don't let people talk you out of it. Because it is amazing to me how many people either don't understand your vision, don't believe in your vision, or just don't think it'll work. They will get in the way. And if you let them talk you out of it, it's a mistake, because I find that when things are right, they all fall together in just the most interesting ways that you could not have planned for. Larry: Sangita, let me ask this. This is no time to be humble. I want you just to be straightforward about this. What characteristics do you have that make you a successful entrepreneur? Sangita: Oh, this is actually really easy for me to answer. I am tenacious. I do not give up. Larry: [laughs] Sangita: I don't take no for an answer. Frankly, I'm just a pain in the ass. [laughter] Lucy: We're kind of laughing because, in this series of interviews, this characteristic shows up over and over, maybe, slightly differently said ‑ relentless, persistent. I think, you said "steamroller." Larry: I think we ought to have an award called the "pain in the..." You know what I mean. [laughter] Sangita: It makes sense to me that that would be a strong characteristic of an entrepreneur, just given the obstacles that you run into. If you just gave up, you wouldn't get anywhere. And so, I think, it's the people that are willing to stick it out. And when I say stick it out, of course, you may need to make course correction, and you may decide an idea that you had wasn't quite right and it needs to be refined here or there. But, if you believe in a vision and keep going, and don't let things get in the way and deter you, at the end of the day I think you'll be successful. Lucy: I think, that's well said. And being an entrepreneur is just so much work, and you do have to be relentless and take risks and get out there. And yet, we recognize, too, that people have personal lives. They have causes they believe in. They do things with families and friends. So, we were just wondering, in your particular case, how do you personally bring balance into your professional and personal life? Sangita: That is probably the ultimate question. I went to a Women in Cable conference in New York, a couple of months ago now, and it was really refreshing for me because up on the stage were some very high‑powered women in cable speaking: Gerry Laybourne, who is, I believe, the chairman of Oxygen, and a few others. And the one comment that they made, which I think resonated with everyone, including myself, is, "There's no such thing as balance. You just can't do it, so don't even try." And I think, that's right. I think, you need to pick what is important, and you just can't do everything. So, for me personally, at this stage of my life, it's a business. It's TAG Network, and it's my family. I've got two little boys. I'm married. I've got a husband and two little boys, who are four and nine. And so, my life really is my family and my work. And what I've had to sacrifice are things like having a clean house and getting together with friends as much as I used to ‑ I don't do that anymore. And that's OK. I mean, I know that that'll change. It's just sort of a stage that I'm in at right now. And I think that when women try and do everything, where they try and have the cleanest house and the best‑behaved children and run a company and throw parties like Martha Stewart, that's where you get into trouble, because you just can't do it. It's crazy to try. Lucy: I don't want you coming over and seeing my house. [laughs] It doesn't look very good either. Sangita: Trust me. Then, I'll feel right at home. Lucy: [laughs] It doesn't look very good either. Larry: That wasn't a slip of the tongue when you said "trouble" and "Martha Stewart" in the same sentence, was it? Lucy: I don't think Martha gets to come over to our house either. Sangita: But, it's a matter of figuring out what the priorities are and realizing that something's got to give, and being comfortable with just saying, "OK. Let's let that part go for now. I'll come back to it when I can." Larry: Now, I'm going to put you on the spot. Sangita: OK. Larry: All right. You've already achieved a great deal. Thank you for sharing your personal, and professional, aspects of your life this past number of years. And I'd like to ask, what's next for you, above and beyond TAG Networks? Sangita: Gosh. That's a great question. Again, I am so focused, again, just on TAG and my family that I rarely poke my head up to see what else is going on. I do know one of the things that is important to me ‑ and as well to my husband, to us, I think, as a family ‑ is figuring out: how do we give back to the community? We've been so lucky that the next stage, that hopefully TAG is very successful and we'll sell it for millions of dollars and we'll have some time on our hands. What can we do then, to give back to the community? And so, we've got some ideas of different things that we'd like to do. So, I think, perhaps taking some time off to do, for lack of a better word, social venture work, or enabling other people to get to where they want to be, would be fantastic. Larry: Oh. A person after your own heart. Lucy: A person after my own heart. Well, thank you very much, Sangita. This has really been interesting. I think, you're very inspirational, and I know our listeners will get a lot out of hearing your advice and some of your experiences. And I just want to remind everybody to share this podcast with a friend. And I'd like to remind listeners where you can find these podcasts. You can find them at www.ncwit.org, as well as w3w3.com. And don't forget to share this podcast with a friend. Thanks very much, Sangita. Sangita: Thank you. Larry: Thank you. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Sangita VermaInterview Summary: Sangita Verma saw a void in the marketplace: games on TV, piped directly through your cable line. Release Date: July 3, 2007Interview Subject: Sangita VermaInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 17:17

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Elaine Wherry Co-founder, meebo.com Date: June 19, 2007 NCWIT Interview with Elaine Wherry BIO: Elaine Wherry is co-founder of meebo.com and responsible for meebo's product development. meebo provides free web-based instant messaging to all of the major network services and records approximately 1.5 million logons per day. Elaine grew up on a goat farm in southwest Missouri and then migrated west to California where she majored in Symbolic Systems at Stanford University. After graduating, she became the Manager of the Usability & Design team at Synaptics and joined forces with Seth Sternberg and Sandy Jen in 2005 to co-found meebo.com. Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders. And I'm the CEO of The National Center for Women in Information Technology. And this is part of a series that we're doing with just outstanding women IT entrepreneurs. Today we are talking to Elaine Wherry, the co‑founder of Meebo.com. Larry Nelson is here with me from w3w3.com. And Larry why don't you say a minute or two about w3w3. Larry Nelson: Well, just quick I have to congratulate you and your team for gathering together some of the top female entrepreneurs in all of America. And it's our honor at w3w3.com just to participate. We're an online Internet radio show. We archive everything. And we just like to share it with the rest of the folks. Lucy: So, Elaine, I have to ask you this question before we get started with the interview. Meebo, what's it mean? Does it mean anything? It's a very cool website by the way. I've been on there looking around. And I just love the fact that you can do all types of instant messaging from the site. And that it's got community around it and people talking to each other. But then I got very curious to if Meebo meant anything. Elaine Wherry: Yes. That's an excellent question. Actually, the name Meebo came about two years prior to our launch in 2005. And so Seth, Sandy and I were at California Pizza Kitchen. And we had been tinkering away on our weeknights and our free weekend just building different types of projects which eventually led to Meebo.com. But around then we realized that we really needed to put a name to our project. And so we sat down and we were looking for two syllable names. We were looking for something that didn't have any higher meaning. And then I had a preference for things that started with M. And one of our greatest limitations was what names were available. So Meebo was available. And our second choice, if it hadn't been Meebo, was Chiba. C‑H‑I‑B‑A. But Meebo was the one that stuck and that we ended up going with. Lucy: So, now Chiba's very cool. I hope you reserved that domain name as well. Elaine: It was already taken. Lucy: Well, Meebo is great. I loved it... Larry: Me too. Lucy: And I noticed that you've got some good vocabulary going there. Meebo me? Meebo.me? Elaine: There's Meebo.com which allows anybody from anywhere, as long as they have a computer terminal, to be able to get web based instant messaging with all of the major networking protocol at anytime. And then Meebo Me allows you to extend that experience beyond just the Meebo.com website. So, you can take a small snippet of embed code and put that on your website or on your blog. And what we've seen is that allows you to be able to communicate with any people who are visiting your site at that time. And so we've seen a lot of people take their Meebo Me and put it... Small businesses love it because then they can see who's visiting their site. And for instance real estate agents, they really like to know, “Hey is there anything I can help you out with?” We've seen librarians really pick it up. And then we actually use it on our jobs page at Meebo.com. So we like to just have an opportunity to just introduce ourselves and give a little bit more information about the job descriptions on our site. Lucy: That's what you need for w3w3.com. Elaine: Radio stations love it. Lucy: Larry. Larry: Well, you're going to have to check us out and let's work out a deal. Lucy: We really could. Well, I think it's a great company. You guys are on a roll. You just had a Series B of Funding. And so congratulations on a great start. Elaine: Oh, thank you so much. Lucy: I think it's also very cool when Walter Mossberg mentions you in the Wall Street Journal. Larry: That's a fact. Elaine: It's a good day. Lucy: That was a good day. Well in talking about the technology, I know you guys are using a lot of cool technology with Ajax and other things. You know that kind of gets us into our first question. How you first got interested in technology and what technologies you think are really cool today. Elaine: Okay. That's a great question. I think personally I think I would probably be considered kind of a late bloomer. I did not get into computer science or into really a scientific field until I entered college. And I think my freshman year I had a calculus course. And I had to buy a graphing calculator. And so when I was on the plane coming back home I found myself trying to program a graphing calculator to do a simple tic‑tac‑toe program and I just couldn't let it go. And I was trying to figure out how to do it. I remember pinging one my friends and asking them how do you try to do randomness? And they're response was, forget the graphing calculator. You really just need to take an introductory computer science course. And I said OK, that's good advice. So winter quarter I enrolled in my first computer science course at Stanford and it went from there. Larry: Wow. Lucy: Wow. And so as you look out in the technology space today. I love technology. I'm quite knowledgeous myself. And I just think there's so many cool things. What things are you seeing that really catch your eye today? Elaine: Yeah. Absolutely. It's an exciting time. I think that one of the things that's happening right now is you see this movement of taking a typical what used to be download applications and all of that, even things like Photoshop‑like applications, are all moving to the web. That was the idea behind Meebo as well. Was how do you take that instant messaging, typically something that's reserved for a client and move that to a browser experience? I think the other thing that's exciting right now is you're seeing a lot of applications revolve around the community experience. And so if you look at things like Wikipedia and a look at Craig's list. All of these products and these experiences, they don't try to define the user experience. They try and put in enough hooks and enough places where the community can contribute to basically evolve their own product. And I think that's incredibly exciting. And I think the third thing that makes this an exciting time to be an entrepreneur is just that the barrier to creating new technology and the cost of just having servers and that. The initial setup it's definitely reduced. And so this is just an exciting time to be able to do prototype. To be able to kind of get out there and look at the open source community and see what tools are already available. Lucy: Absolutely. And I have to say as a side on this. I'm on commission. I'm with the National Academies looking at the IT ecosystem and how it's changing. And all the things you mention are incredibly important trends in the way technology is getting created. Elaine: Absolutely. Larry: You know, I wonder Elaine, if there are many more young women and young girls that are looking into IT and really looking at getting involved. But then you went on to be an entrepreneur. So what is it that drew you to that? Elaine: You know it probably goes back to that late bloomer technology experience that I was talking about when I first came into school. I really hadn't worked that much with computers before. And I think my mother still has her trusty word processor that she prefers much more to her computer that's sitting in a corner. And so when I was approaching computer science for the first time, I was really approaching it with completely fresh eyes. And I remember seeing things that, how to turn on a computer even seemed foreign to me or how to do simple things, like being able to do cut and copy operations right. And there was also this entire jargon around it. And there was just this expectation that you already knew how things worked. And so for me what was really exciting was trying to figure out, after I had gotten over the initial learning curve and deep into C and CQuest Plus coding, was trying to figure out how to make computers and how to make applications be easier for people who were not as familiar with computers. So I think it's probably having been on both sides of being both an office computer science person and also having more experience with it, and just trying to figure out how to create a compelling user experience. Lucy: Moving on in terms of your career and the influences on you in terms of this career path. It sounds like the graphing calculator certainly had a major impact on your journey down the computer science career path. But from a human perspective, you know, who influenced you? Who were your role models? Elaine: Yeah. That's an excellent question. I think that it probably isn't just one single person. I think it really comes down to, for me personally; it comes down to the entrepreneurial spirit that I found within Stanford University. They do a fantastic job in their computer science and their symbolic systems program of exposing students to fellow entrepreneurs in the area and making you feel like everything is possible. Larry: Well, that's fantastic. I bet you've been through quite a few things. But let me just point this out. My wife Pat and I have been married for over 35 years. And we've been in business together all of that time. One of the toughest experiences I had was migrating from my slide rule that my dad gave me to finally getting on to a computer. What is the toughest thing that you had to try to do in developing your career? Elaine: That's a good question. I think people would expect me to say that the toughest thing in my career was probably deciding to leave my previous employer Synaptics, before we had a completely working product. Before we had an audience, before we had investments. But I actually think that my toughest point in my career probably came when I was 18. And when I was 18 I had a full music scholarship at a local university. And I was en route to become, to pursue music, specifically the violin. And so, about two weeks before I was supposed to enter fall quarter, I had this realization that I wasn't entirely sure if that was really what I wanted to do. I had worked very, very hard in high school; and I told my father that I wanted to take a year off. And that was really difficult, because all of my peers were going to the same university. There was definitely a certain path that I was expected to go down. And, just kind of taking a moment to reflect, I realized hey, I'm not entirely sure what I want to be right now. And even though this is the path that is available to me, I really want to spend some more time thinking about that. So I spent a year doing volunteer work, practicing, applying to different conservatories and also applying to different schools, and just getting out into the world and seeing what things were like outside of the experience before I went into university. Lucy: To me, it sounds like an incredible amount of courage. Too often, people don't put their foot on the brake for just a moment and really consider where they're headed and what they're doing. And hats off to you. I think that it probably won't be the last time you do it in your career. Larry: That's right. Elaine: Absolutely. And I have to give credit to my father, who took me seriously that late evening when I came to him and asked if I could do that. Lucy: I think that's great, and I think it just gives you so much more information about which way to head. And speaking of that, we have a lot of people today who asked us about entrepreneurship and if it's a good path for them. What kind of advice would you give them from where you're sitting now, since you're going down the road with entrepreneurship and Meebo? What kinds of things would you say to them? Elaine: I think the first thing would be, it's really hard to be an entrepreneur by yourself. And so I think the first thing that was really important to me was finding good team members, people that you can work beside, when you initially set up on the project. And it's much easier to be able to set deadlines and hold each other accountable if you have another team member besides you. Sammy and Seth are the two best co‑founders that I could ever imagine. And it's just been absolutely fantastic being able to build Meebo beside them. And I think the second thing, after you've found the team members, would be to have built the product and then focus on the business plan second. Just because I think that, often times when you are thinking about the business plan first, you don't necessarily realize all of the value that your product could hold. And it's more important just to get the product out and get it in front of people and get that feedback so you understand how it's going to be used before you start focusing too much on the business aspect of it. And I think the third thing is, after you have a product and it's something that you've initially shown and you have some early adoption, the third thing, once you have the beginning of a business, is to put excellent hiring practices into place. And just to really focus on that early on. Lucy: I have to tell you I'm pumping my fist in the air because, as a computer scientist myself, I totally subscribe to that. I totally subscribe to that. The best products we ever built were the ones where, will I offend listeners if I say where the market plan was kind of done later? Larry: That's good, yeah. Lucy: And they were early prototype. You get them out in front of people. You get the reaction, and you push the technology. Elaine: Exactly. When we initially launched Meebo.com, we really didn't know how many people had similar problems that we did. It all started from Sandy saying that she was having a difficult time being able to do instant messaging from her home and from the library and when she went to visit her friends. And so we initially launched it. And we thought that the initial audience would be people in Internet cafs. And we were wrong. It turned out to be people in the office environment. Lucy: That's right. And all of a sudden you go, whoa! Larry: Whoa‑ho! Lucy: Even better. And in fact, one of my friends today was telling me he uses Meebo and he says, but the IT guys can't catch it! Larry: That's really good. Elaine: Yeah. Actually, it's beginning to reverse itself. Originally, it was something that people would use in order to be able to get around their IT. But now we're finding that a lot of IT people are realizing that it doesn't require download. It doesn't have the viruses associated with it. And so a lot of IT people are now beginning to promote Meebo within their organizations, which is fantastic. Larry: And they should. Lucy: And they should. Larry: And, by the way, I think it's so fantastic that you've got a great team, and the fact that you really honor and respect and appreciate them. That's even better. But I want to go back to you for a second. What would be your one, or two or whatever, personal characteristics that really has given you the advantage of being an entrepreneur? Elaine: I think resourcefulness, just because you have to think about problems from different areas. When you're being an entrepreneur, it probably means that you're solving problems that other people haven't done before. So it's not as easy as plugging your question into Google or into Yahoo! And seeing if anybody has an answer. It's something that you really just have to be able to figure out and kind of really be able to break down problems and think through everything. And I think the second thing kind of is along the same lines, which is perseverance and just not hiring out. And really liking problems and really maintain a passion all the way through. And the third thing is just the respect for teams, just because being able to work beside two other people has been a fantastic experience. And it's really important just to always make sure that the communication is good. Always make sure that you really value what the other people are contributing as well. Lucy: I would probably add one characteristic that I know you have, because it just shows up so much, is passion. Elaine: Oh. Yeah. Lucy: I mean it's just all over everything you're saying and it's so much fun. In terms of you switching a little bit to you balancing your work life and personal life, what kinds of things do you do to bring balance to your days? Elaine: I have to be honest. I really think that probably I'm the worst person of the three of us to ask about the balance between my personal and my professional life. Just because I really enjoy working on Meebo and that's something that definitely extends into my personal life as well. And I think that what does add balance is having a lot of friends in the same space. So, having a lot of people who are doing startups and contributing to startups, who have similar hours, who know where to get all of the pizza places at 11 P.M. on University Street. Just being able to surround yourself with people who are like‑minded really helps. Lucy: Well, and I think the other thing that's really helping, and I think you said it, is what you're working on at Meebo is so well integrated with your passion that that in itself helps bring balance. Elaine: Absolutely. I think that's really true. Lucy: I think it is, too. And actually, I'm a fan of the word integration, as well, in this space. Elaine: Uh‑huh. Larry: She's a really fan of integration. Lucy: Yeah, I'm a real fan of integration. In fact, I've written a blog or two about that. Larry: Isn't that the truth? Elaine: I think it's telling that our original office was my apartment. And so I still have all of the screens and still have the original setup there. So it's just something that's extended into my personal space as well. Lucy: But we also know that you play the violin. Elaine: I do play the violin. I enjoy reading. I enjoy biking. I do a lot of things on the weekends, just to make sure that I have a little bit of contrast to sitting and programming and leading the team. Lucy: Well, and you've also promised to come out here to Colorado to see us and climb Longs Peak. Elaine: That's right, that's right. Larry: There you go. Elaine: Yeah, I did Longs Peak twice when I was in high school, so Colorado is a favorite place of mine. Larry: That's wonderful. Lucy: OK, so we'll count all those things as balance. Larry: That sounds balanced to me. Lucy: The balance to me. Larry: You know, Elaine, at a young age, you have really accomplished a great deal. And I know you are really in the process, knee‑deep, into moving Meebo to a next level and the next level. But, in addition to that, what's next for you? Elaine: That's a good question. I think my first priority...I'm not going to promise. I don't have all the answers. So I think that right now, my immediate focus is just doing whatever I possibly can to make Meebo as successful as it can be. And I think my secondary focus is just making sure that I meet as many excellent, excellent team members and people that I want to work on, work with, so that if there ever is a project beyond Meebo, that I'd be able to continue on there as well. So I think it's really just about meeting other people and surrounding myself with good team players. Lucy: Well, I have no doubt that Meebo is going to be extremely successful. Elaine: Thank you. Lucy: And that you'll go on to lots and lots of extremely cool, fun things. Elaine: Thank you so much. Larry: Well that's a fact. I couldn't agree more. And Lucy was just getting excited hearing the things you were saying. And this is the type of thing that we have to share with many other people, the young people, with their parents. How about them? Lucy: Us old people. Larry: Why did you look at me? Lucy: Haha, sorry. Larry: Well, and by the way, her answer also gave us a very good excuse for calling her back down the road and following up on that. Lucy: Absolutely. So thank you very much, Elaine. This has been really, really fun. And I just wanted to remind listeners where this is hosted. This podcast will be hosted on the NCWIT website, www.ncwit.org, and also on w3w3.com. Larry: You betcha. Lucy: So thanks very much. We really appreciate it. Elaine: Thank you so much. Larry: Thanks Elaine. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Elaine WherryInterview Summary: Elaine Wherry is co-founder of meebo.com, which provides free, web-based instant messaging to all of the major network services. Release Date: June 19, 2007Interview Subject: Elaine WherryInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 16:42