Podcasts about svox

Timestamps: 1:01 - A family full of role models 8:23 - The doubts of an entrepreneur 18:56 - Moving back to the US 29:41 - A partnership in equality 40:41 - Working with your spouse About Bettina Hein: Bettina Hein is the co-founder and CEO at juli Health, an app for managing chronic health conditions, and an investor at the Swiss Shark Tank Höhle der Löwen. She also co-founded START Global when studying at HSG, as well as Svox and Pixability. She's married to Andreas Glödi, who is an investor at btov partners. Bettina grew up in a family full of entrepreneurs and so was never short for role models; despite this, she did not feel confident to jump straight into entrepreneurship after her university studies and ended up interning and working for a series of corporates instead. She particularly remembers her unpleasant experience at McKinsey, which she says had a cutthroat environment. During her time at HSG, she co-founded the largest student-led entrepreneurship conference in the world, START. The people she co-founded it with would go on to start btov ventures, and also put her in touch with an engineer developing text-to-speech technology - and so Svox was born. Due to the telecom bust in 2001, Svox went through a number of difficulties, having had to fire more than half of their staff and place the rest on short time work. Despite the hardships, Svox turned the tide and was eventually sold to Nuance for $25M. By this point, Bettina and her husband Andreas decided to get a mid-career masters at MIT, and it was out of MIT that Bettina built Pixability, the video advertising software company. She left Pixability after 12 years to support her husband in moving back to Switzerland. Shortly after moving back, she was invited to star on Höhle der Löwen. In 2020 Bettina co-founded juli Health, an app for managing chronic health conditions. Juli Health is geared towards US customers, since it aims to help compensate for the US healthcare system's many inefficiencies. Memorable Quotes: "No one in my family ever had a 9 to 5 job, so it was rather easy for me to envision myself becoming an entrepreneur." "Before starting my first venture, I told myself 'If this doesn't work, I can always get a job at McDonalds.'" Don't forget to give us a follow on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin accounts, so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there's no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly give-aways or founders dinners!

This week's guest is Bettina Hein, a serial tech entrepreneur and founder of SVOX a text-to-speech software, which she created right out of graduate school and sold for $125 million. Now she's founded ‘Juli' – an AI powered health app/ tech startup that helps people with chronic health conditions.Access to doctors has been more limited during Covid and so people were more inclined to take care of and monitor their own health. This meant that Bettina's healthcare app Juli had a steep uptake, as people endeavoured to stay on top of their chronic conditions.It takes a different kind of brain to be a serial tech entrepreneur and indeed Bettina was a smart, curious girl with an insatiable appetite for learning. With a family history of entrepreneursip it was no surprise that she bounced straight from of her many degrees into co-founding a tech start-up that ended up getting sold and the profits shared amongst the stake-holders. She could have lived (frugally) for the rest of her days from the proceeds but that isn't in her DNA. She created another business Pixability, an advertising software company, which she ran for ten years.But after a health crisis during her post-partum care she decided she had another business in her and she founded Juli, the tracking app for conditions such as asthma, migraine, depression, bipolar disorder and chronic pain.  The idea is that if you can track lifestyle, and internal and external stressors then you can see what your triggers are and when they are occurring. you can then decide to make changes accordingly and thereby improve the impact of your condition.Entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted but it does give you the freedom to be the driver of your own destiny, and despite the challenges along the way Bettina believes that if you have the courage to face that which you do not wish to face, and you put yourself out there with audaciousness, then you are more likely to succeed.Thanks Bettina for bringing your skill, expertise, creative thinking and entrepreneurship to the issue of human health and well-being, and for giving us the chance to monitor and potentially improve any chronic conditions we might suffer from, and for showing us that there are no limits to our ability to impact the world if we just believe in our the magnitude of our own potentialYou can find out more about Bettina's work at www.juli.co and follow her on Linkedin @bettinaheinJoin Lou on Linkedin, or sign up to her mailing list for her newsletter and a free bite-size short course on how to be a podcast guest. Follow her @brave_newgirl on Instagram and get her books Brave New Girl- How to be Fearless, FEAR LESS and her Internationally Bestselling book DARE TO SHARE on Amazon or Waterstones or Barnes & Noble. UK & US versions available.Lou is the founder of Silk Studios - the Podcast Guest Agency a podcast guest booking service https://silk-studios.co.ukMusic is licensed from Melody Loops Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/biz/fund?id=S7WVQQ2YC26RN)

Bettina Hein is the co-founder and CEO of Juli (www.juli.co), Pixability and SVOX. She is a serial tech entrepreneur and has built successful tech companies in Europe and the U.S.  She is a global leader at the World Economic Forum and a judge on the Swiss version of Shark Tank.Juli is a chronic condition management platform that was developed to help people use their healthcare data to nurse themselves back to health. Juli has a consumer-facing app that ties in data from wearables with user generated data to help patients identify triggers for their conditions, and suggests “levers” to pull that can help them ameliorate their symptoms. Currently the platform is used for asthma, depression, migraines, chronic pain, and bi-polar disorder.While most other chronic disease startups have a human component, like a call center, Juli reduces costs by using an AI-generated bot. Though Juli went live only 6 months ago, the app already has 6,000 consumers, and Bettina is launching her first clinical trial with the University College of London for consumers with asthma or depression. Bettina is an optimist, and saw the silver lining of starting a company during a pandemic in the ability to recruit the best and most diverse team to develop her technology. It also allowed her to stay at home and be with her children while running the company.  During COVID, consumers got more and more comfortable using their devices for health, which has helped accelerate Juli's adoption. We spoke about the challenges of being a female entrepreneur. Bettina fundraised twice while pregnant, and fielded questions about her commitment to her company that most men never have to deal with, even if they have kids. The second time she fundraised while pregnant, Bettina decided to use it to her advantage, and told investors that, “you get the pregnancy discount if you invest before this baby pops!” It worked!According to Bettina, there are three things that make a startup founder successful: Naivety – You have to be naïve to embark on the adventure of starting a company, because if you knew what was really ahead, you would never start in the first place. Hutzpah – Having the guts to put yourself out there. Perseverance – Strap yourself in…it's going to be a long road to success. Bettina has high hopes for the future of chronic disease management. What gets Bettina particularly excited is the ability to get all different types of data about what people are experiencing in real time, which can then be correlated to symptoms to understand what is happening with their health. Bettina believes this is ultimately going to revolutionize the way we treat patients, as we will be able to determine with greater certainty who needs what treatment and when. Finally, what do tinder, advertising, and Juli have in common? Listen to find out! Please make sure to check out Society for HealthCare Innovation - SHCI's website (http://www.SHCI.org).

Commercialization can be tricky. Try to commercialize across different business spaces and it gets a bit trickier - but it sure isn't impossible. Just ask Bettina Hein, our latest guest and “shark” from the Swiss version of Shark Tank (“Höhle der Löwen Schweiz”). She's successfully commercialized companies in the automotive and video marketing spaces, and has recently started another venture in the healthcare space - and is successful at doing it all! If commercialization is proving more difficult than you expected, then you're going to want to tune in to this episode. Come hear this multi-market and multi-country success outline some of her winning tips and strategies on how to successfully tell your story and commercialize your solution! Here are the show highlights: Applying lessons learned outside healthcare in the healthcare setting (6:41) The importance of value proving your product (13:23) Find and utilize the verticals across marketing and sales (20:13) Why you really need to use video (25:12) This is how you open the doorway to conversations (29:16) How to keep your edge while piloting your solution (39:02) Guest Bio Bettina Hein is the CEO and Founder of digital health startup juli Health. A serial software entrepreneur, she has built technology companies in both Europe and the United States including Boston based Pixability, and co-founded SVOX, a Swiss-based speech technology company which was acquired by Nuance Communications. The recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, Bettina holds two software patents, is the co-author of “Video Marketing for Dummies” and is a “shark” on the Swiss version of Shark Tank called “Höhle der Löwen Schweiz.” She also likes to “pay it forward” so, if you'd like to reach out to her, you can contact Bettina on her website at Juli.co, via email at B@Juli.co, on LinkedIn at Bettina Hein or you can book some time to speak with her at calendly.com/BettinaHein.

TTS (síntesis de voz) permite leer un texto escrito, web, ebooksAndroid tiene un motor instalado por defecto, se puede configurar desde ajustes/Idioma/sALIDA de texto a vozSamsung tiene su propio TTS Ji-Soo (coreano), y Rosa en español. Es gratis. GOOGLE ASISTANT es la voz de Google, que también puedes usar en otras aplicaciones, tienes que usar una app de Milmike (https://www.milmike.com/) esta app lo que hace es habilitar el acceso a la API de Cloud TTS para que se pueda usar desde los ajustes de Android. Hay que seguir unos pasos que están en el art. de Xataka. Artículo en Xataka: https://www.xatakandroid.com/tutoriales/como-usar-voz-google-assistant-otras-apps-que-utilicen-servicios-texto-a-voz-ttsEl mayor experto que conozco es el amigo Lector de MX DF.VOICE ALOUD READER: LO LEE TODO, web, pdf, ebooks, permite guardar en mp3, funciona con los TTS Acapela, Ivona o SVOX (y puedes comprar voces)-puedes guardar artículos abiertos para que los lea luego-reconoce el idioma de un artículo-puedes configurar para enseñarle cómo se lee una palabraWD Service: permite leer notificaciones en voz alta, la uso sólo cuando estoy usando BT, lee notificaciones, hora, si estás conectado por wifi o datos, el porcentaje de batería, indica quien te llama. Es MUY configurable, muy útil cuando estoy con el BT del coche. El Pentágono enseña el futuro de la guerra: un barco sin tripulación lanza un misil SM-6https://es.gizmodo.com/el-pentagono-ensena-el-futuro-de-la-guerra-un-barco-si-1847649728

This episode's Community Champion Sponsor is Catalyst. To virtually tour Catalyst and claim your space on campus, or host an upcoming event: https://www.catalysthealthtech.com/ (CLICK HERE) --- While experiencing a chronic condition that greatly impacted her daily life, our next guest leveraged her knowledge of big data for a better cause to help herself and others around the world.      Bettina Hein, CEO of juli, joins us to discuss how she and her team are helping users manage their chronic conditions such as asthma, migraine, depression, bipolar disorder, and chronic pain.   Additionally, Bettina overviews her innovative approach of using secure data tracking and artificial intelligence that assesses a patient's current state of health to make daily actionable improvements to their condition. Join us to learn how Bettina and her company are transforming people's lives by helping others manage their chronic diseases with an AI-powered app that combines their healthcare data in one place. Let's go! Episode Highlights: Why juli was founded because of Bettina's personal experiences  Why juli is focused on being a chronic condition digital platform that applies a modern science data-centric approach directly to the patient and for the patient Bettina's plans to expand juli's library of chronic conditions and to share more health data without compromising its user's privacy The potential of technologies such as juli in aiding the youth and fellow parents        About our Guest:  Bettina Hein is a serial software entrepreneur that has built technology companies in both Europe and the United States. She is most recently the founder of digital health startup juli, her third software company. She is also the founder of Pixability, a video advertising company in Boston. Prior to Pixability, Bettina co-founded SVOX, the Swiss-based speech technology company which was acquired by Nuance Communications (NUAN) for $125 million. Bettina has received numerous awards and recognitions such as the 2018 Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year Award, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, L'Oreal NEXT Generation Award, and The Boston Business Journal's “40 Under 40 Award.” Bettina holds an MS degree from MIT, a law degree from the University of Constance, and a business degree from the University of St. Gallen. Bettina holds two software patents and is the co-author of Video Marketing for Dummies. She is also a “shark” on the Swiss version of Shark Tank called “Höhle der Löwen Schweiz.” Links Supporting This Episode: juli website: https://www.juli.co/ (CLICK HERE) Bettina Hein LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bettinahein/ (CLICK HERE) Bettina Hein Twitter page: https://twitter.com/bettinahein (CLICK HERE) Clubhouse handle: @mikebiselli Mike Biselli LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebiselli (CLICK HERE) Mike Biselli Twitter page: https://twitter.com/mikebiselli (CLICK HERE) Visit our website: https://www.passionatepioneers.com/ (CLICK HERE) Subscribe to newsletter: https://forms.gle/PLdcj7ujAGEtunsj6 (CLICK HERE) Guest nomination form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScqk_H_a79gCRsBLynkGp7JbdtFRWynTvPVV9ntOdEpExjQIQ/viewform (CLICK HERE) Support this podcast

Join Sal's Investment Syndicate List: Click to Join Bettina Hein is the founder of Pixability, one of the fastest-growing companies in Massachusetts. She was also co-founder of SVOX, a profitable Swiss startup sold to Nuance Communications for $125MM. This record may make her success seem easier to achieve than it was. Bettina Hein overcame numerous obstacles to justify the sobriquet “Fearless Founder”. Learn from her as I did. She is an exemplar of resilience, grace under fire and plain common sense. She also has much to teach us about how a startup might best raise money. Whenever I ask angel investors about a remarkable pivot by a founder, there's a good chance Bettina's name will come up. Don't miss this charming and instructive conversation with a star founder. Here are topics and quotes from the interview: Bettina Hein Bio How Bettina Hein Found Her Entrepreneurial Path in Life Bettina Hein Used to Write Computer Programs in Fourth Grade but Did Not Learn to Code in College; Why? Professors Discouraged Bettina Hein from Pursuing a Career in the Sciences “If I had to go back, I would probably get an undergraduate degree in either electrical engineering or computer science.” “I think I wanted to be an entrepreneur very early on. There's just that example that was set in my family. There's no one in my family that has had a nine to five job ever, except my brother…” Bettina Hein Founds an Entrepreneurship Initiative for Students at her University Called Start, that Leads her to Brains-to-Venture, Which Connects Her with Her co-founders in SVOX SVOX Has a $125 MM Exit to Nuance Communications Bettina Hein Starts Pixability – Looked for Co-founders But Could Not Find Any Willing Takers – How She made Being a Solo Founder Work Pixability's Storied Pivots “We help large brands and their agencies place their video advertising and optimize it on YouTube, and we've expanded to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.” How Pixability's Platform Impacts the Viewing Public “Consumers like it better, and brands get more out of it.” Sal Daher Reads an iTunes Review from HealthTech617 – Asks You to Leave a Review on iTunes Bettina Hein's Advice on Fundraising for a Startup Bettina Hein on How Things Change Once a Startup Gets Venture Funding Bettina Hein Thinks Founders Are Scared of Having a Board So They Miss out on a Lot “Many beginning entrepreneurs are scared of having a board. They fear the meddling in their business. They fear that people will force decisions on them, on the board. I have not seen that ever happen.” “For me, often times the exercise of preparing for a board meeting is almost more important than the board meeting itself because it allows me to really think through the narrative of the company.” Bettina Hein's Way of Balancing Work & Family Bettina Hein on Fundraising While Pregnant Bettina Hein on Marketing Technology's Crowded Landscape   Topics: discovering entrepreneurship, pivot, venture funding, boards, co-founders, raising money

Hear from Bettina Hein, a US and Europe based software entrepreneur. She is most recently the founder of digital health startup juli, her third software company. She is also the founder of Pixability, a video advertising company in Boston. Prior to Pixability, Bettina co-founded SVOX, the Swiss-based speech technology company which was acquired by Nuance Communications (NUAN) for $125 million. Bettina has received numerous awards and recognitions such as the 2018 Immigrant Entrepreneur of the Year Award, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, L'Oreal NEXT Generation Award, and The Boston Business Journal's “40 Under 40 Award.” Bettina holds an MS degree from MIT, a law degree from the University of Constance, and a business degree from the University of St. Gallen. Bettina holds two software patents and is the co-author of Video Marketing for Dummies. She is also a “shark” on the Swiss version of Shark Tank called “Höhle der Löwen Schweiz.” In this episode, Ali and Weilyn speak with Bettina about her experiences as a lifelong learner and serial entrepreneur. Learn more about Bettina and her enterprises here: bettina@bettinahein.com https://www.juli.co/ If you also enjoyed the podcast, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave a short review for us! Follow the Entrepre女ers Network: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theentreprenuersnetwork/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-entreprenuers-network/about/ Podcast produced and presented to you by Bailey Cherry and Stefanie Lee.

In dieser Episode des Human Elevation Podcast sprechen wir mit Bettina Hein darüber, wie Frauen in der Führungsebene die Welt verändern. Bettina Hein ist Gründerin mehrerer Unternehmen, darunter Svox und Pixability. Hein ist auch bekannt als Jurorin und Investorin der Schweizer Ausgabe der TV-Sendung Die Höhle der Löwen. ► Bettinas Facebook-Seite: ► Schau gerne bei ihren Unternehmen vorbei: Svox: Pixability: Wenn dir diese Episode gefallen hat, lass uns gerne eine Bewertung da. ► Willst du dich von innerer Unruhe und schmerzhaften Selbstzweifeln lösen, um so wahre Freiheit zu erfahren und endlich im Leben anzukommen? Dann buche dir jetzt ein kostenloses Klarheitsgespräch bei mir und meinem Team:

Bettina Hein 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, MA. Prior to Pixability Bettina co-founded Swiss-based SVOX AG in 2001. SVOX was sold to Nuance Communications (NUAN) for $125 million. In 1996, Bettina was the initiator of START, an organization that advances entrepreneurship among college students. In 2000 START received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Bettina is also the founder of the SheEOs, a network for female CEOs and founders of growth companies. Bettina holds a Masters of Science degree from MIT where she was a Sloan Fellow, a law degree from the University of Constance and a degree in business administration from the University of St. Gallen. Bettina is a frequent speaker on the topics of video marketing and entrepreneurship.

Bettina Hein is a serial technology entrepreneur now remaking what we know of the web into a decentralized 3.0 version where we own and control our own data. CEO and founder of HelloYellow, SVOX and Pixability, Bettina talks about what it takes for women to play bigger to launch moonshots and why, just like in childbirth, it helps not to know or understand all the challenges before you take the leap.

Bettina Hein is a serial technology entrepreneur now remaking what we know of the web into a decentralized 3.0 version where we own and control our own data. CEO and founder of HelloYellow, SVOX and Pixability, Bettina talks about what it takes for women to play bigger to launch moonshots and why, just like in childbirth, it helps not to know or understand all the challenges before you take the leap.

Bettina Hein is a serial technology entrepreneur now remaking what we know of the web into its newer version, a decentralized 3.0 version where we own and control our own data. CEO and founder of HelloYellow, and SVOX and Pixability before, Bettina talks about what it takes for women to play bigger to launch moonshots and why, just like in childbirth, it helps not to know or understand all the challenges before you take the leap.

Bettina Hein is onto her third game-changing business – remaking what we know of the web into its newer version, a decentralized 3.0 version where we own and control our own data. CEO and founder of HelloYellow, and SVOX and Pixability before, Bettina shares her excitement at the promise of blockchain technologies allowing us to secure and validate our online identities in this brave new world. We also talk fundraising, how to overcome venture capital resistance to funding female founders, and balancing innovation with young kids.

Bettina Hein is the founder of Pixability, one of the fastest-growing companies in Massachusetts. She was also co-founder of SVOX, a profitable Swiss startup sold to Nuance Communications for $125MM. This record may make her success seem easier to achieve than it was. Bettina Hein overcame numerous obstacles to justify the sobriquet “Fearless Founder”. Learn from her as I did. She is an exemplar of resilience, grace under fire and plain common sense. She also has much to teach us about how a startup might best raise money. Whenever I ask angel investors about a remarkable pivot by a founder, there’s a good chance Bettina’s name will come up. Don’t miss this charming and instructive conversation with a star founder. Here are topics and quotes from the interview: Bettina Hein Bio How Bettina Hein Found Her Entrepreneurial Path in Life Bettina Hein Used to Write Computer Programs in Fourth Grade but Did Not Learn to Code in College; Why? Professors Discouraged Bettina Hein from Pursuing a Career in the Sciences “If I had to go back, I would probably get an undergraduate degree in either electrical engineering or computer science.” “I think I wanted to be an entrepreneur very early on. There's just that example that was set in my family. There's no one in my family that has had a nine to five job ever, except my brother…” Bettina Hein Founds an Entrepreneurship Initiative for Students at her University Called Start, that Leads her to Brains-to-Venture, Which Connects Her with Her co-founders in SVOX SVOX Has a $125 MM Exit to Nuance Communications Bettina Hein Starts Pixability – Looked for Co-founders But Could Not Find Any Willing Takers – How She made Being a Solo Founder Work Pixability’s Storied Pivots “We help large brands and their agencies place their video advertising and optimize it on YouTube, and we've expanded to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.” How Pixability’s Platform Impacts the Viewing Public “Consumers like it better, and brands get more out of it.” Sal Daher Reads an iTunes Review from HealthTech617 – Asks You to Leave a Review on iTunes Bettina Hein’s Advice on Fundraising for a Startup Bettina Hein on How Things Change Once a Startup Gets Venture Funding Bettina Hein Thinks Founders Are Scared of Having a Board So They Miss out on a Lot “Many beginning entrepreneurs are scared of having a board. They fear the meddling in their business. They fear that people will force decisions on them, on the board. I have not seen that ever happen.” “For me, often times the exercise of preparing for a board meeting is almost more important than the board meeting itself because it allows me to really think through the narrative of the company.” Bettina Hein’s Way of Balancing Work & Family Bettina Hein on Fundraising While Pregnant Bettina Hein on Marketing Technology’s Crowded Landscape

In today’s episode, I interview Bettina Hein, founder & CEO of Pixability, a software platform that helps brands and their agencies place video advertising on platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Bettina’s first company, SVOX, which worked on text to speech, was sold to Nuance and that technology can be found on mobile phones and cars today. Bettina was born in Berlin, attended college in Switzerland, and moved to Cambridge to become a Sloan Fellow at MIT. It was then that Bettina started Pixability at the Cambridge Innovation Center after identifying the major shift underway in the video industry.   In this episode, Bettina shares amongst other things:                 Pixability’s shift from a B2C company to B2B                 The sea change happening in the consumption of media                 Why online advertising is still undervalued                 The three big mistakes that most advertisers make                 How Bettina sees video advertising changing over the next five to ten years                 The three things you need to be a successful entrepreneur                 How she manages a company with multiple offices around the world Links from this episode:                 Clayton Christensen                 Vimeo                 metacafé                 Dailymotion                 Snapchat                 Amazon Instant Video                 SNOW                 WeChat                 Pinterest                 WhatsApp                 Tinder                 Twitch                 DataXu                 nToggle                 Adelphic                 nanigans                 Hulu                 Netflix                 Slack                 Google Hangouts                 Trattoria Il Panino                 Mama Maria                 InsightSquared                 Buildium                 Localytics                 Happie                 Thinking Fast and Slow                 The Power of Habit                 Crime and Punishment                 The Green Brothers                 Casey Neistat                 CaseyNeistat.video                 Kid President                 SoulPancake                 Pixability on Twitter                 Pixability on Facebook                 Pixability on Youtube                 She-E-Os   If you liked this episode: Follow the podcast on Twitter Subscribe on iTunes or your podcast app and write a review Get in touch with feedback, ideas, or to say hi: nic {AT} startupbostonpodcast [DOT] com

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