The Tech LowDown

Welcome to the Tech Lowdown Show where each episode we’ll be discussing opportunities in the tech space with entrepreneurs from the US & around the world I’m your host Chris Jones – Two of the hottest words in tech are Bitcoin and blockchain. I’ve been dying to do an episode on this emerging technology area as I believe it’s something that anyone with an interest in technology and the future of technology should know about. Bitcoin was created by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto and is the most valuable cryptocurrency in the world today. It is also the first application of blockchain technology. Earlier this year I went down the blockchain rabbit hole and eventually came upon today’s guest who I’ve been working with. Our guest today is Timothy Fletcher. Tim is the founder of a new cryptocurrency preparing to come to market called Chartercoin. Tim is a polymath, someone with deep knowledge across a wide range of complex subjects. He’s a computer scientist and an expert in cryptography, AI, and anti-AI among other things.Tim is currently an FSO – Facility Security Officer and Systems Administrator with over 170 completed projects across government, military and commercial projects.Tim, welcome to the show – What’s the Lowdown?– Tim, I want to start by just asking a bit about your background. Where did you go to school and what did you study?Can you to tell the audience what blockchain is and why you think there is some much buzz about it?Where did your interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain originate?Cool, so what is Chartercoin and what makes it different than Bitcoin?I’ve read where quantum computers will be able to break the encryption for Bitcoin and other currencies. Can you tell us how CharterCoin addresses this concern?There has been a lot of discussion lately in the crypto community about forks. You’ve said that CC cannot be forked. This sounds important. Can you tell us what a fork is and why CC can’t be forked like other currencies?I want to pull back from the technical side a bit and ask you this – why are cryptocurrencies gaining in popularity? I mean they’re not backed by any governments and given the ICO craze it seems like anyone can create one so what’s the benefit of these currencies?The Real Lowdown SegmentTake off your CharterCoin hat for a minute and tell me, from a neutral perspective, how does the core protocol compare with what’s out there on the market?You’ve told me about a number of your inventions – what else have you developed that you see having application in the future be it with CC or on its own?

[https://i0.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Will-Daly-300x300.jpg?resize=300%2C300]Most of us, when we think about entrepreneurship today, we envision founders who’ve built businesses from the ground up and taken them to new heights. People like Gates, Jobs or Zuckerberg often spring to mind. We watch shows like Shark Tank and envision unknown founders getting their big break by getting investment from famous founders who’ve already made it big. But in reality, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship comes in a wide range of forms. Some entrepreneurs buy established businesses, some, like today’s guest are brought in by the owners to take a business to the next level and in the process become owners themselves. – Will Daly is currently the Operating Partner at Periscope Equity and a Founding Partner at Flanner Hall Partners, both private equity investment firms investing in high growth ventures. Prior to becoming an investor Will served as Co-President, COO and CFO for Barcodes Inc, N. America’s leading provider of barcode, mobile computing and RFID technologies.– Will is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Business.– Will…Thrill, welcome to the show – What’s the Lowdown?– First, give us a quick couple of minutes on your background and how that lead you down the path towards Barcodes.– I want to do a deep dive into how private investment firms in this space operate. Can you start by giving us an overview of how firms like yours identify businesses and then go about placing executives in those businesses?– Tell us about Barcodes and exactly where the business was at the time that you got involved. What was the negotiation like and what were the key points that were important to you? What kind of stake is typical for a manager coming into a situation like this?– Did the business require additional investment when you came on board? If so, how did you get the firm to stump up the cash?– You were at Barcodes and during that time the company went through 2 exits where you and the management team stayed in place. What was that experience like and what did you learn during the 1st exit that you were able to apply during the next one?– What role did the different PE firms play while you and Dan were growing the business? Were there opportunities you were able to take advantage of or constraints that held the business back at times as a result of this structure?– How does one even get on the radar screen of PE firms to be considered for this opportunities like this?The Real Lowdown Segment– Did you have any sway or influence during the exit process or was that completely outside of your control?– How might you have run the business differently if you and Dan had full control of the business?– What mistake or mistakes did you make that stood out to you during this process?– You’re now on the other side of the fence investing in businesses and people – what are you looking for in the businesses and the people you want to run the companies?

Chris: Welcome to the ‘Tech Lowdown Show’. I’m your host Chris Jones. Today we’ve got a special treat for you as we’re getting out of the studio and talking to speakers and attendees at the ‘Tech Inclusion Conference’ held in Seattle, created by ‘Change Catalyst’ and hosted by ‘Galvanized’. The conference focuses on solutions to the diversity challenges in the tech space, jobs, funding, access opportunity and much more. This is a great opportunity to hear from some of the change makers, people working every day across the tech ecosystem to bring a bit more fairness, a bit more openness and a bit more access to under-represented groups in tech. Speakers and attendees included a dynamic diverse group racially, ethnically, physical abilities, and sexual orientation. When I talk to attendees and speakers representing entrepreneurs, recruiters, VCs and much more. Our first guest is Eric Osborne whose here in Seattle, one of the most influential group through diversity and inclusion in Tech here in Seattle. I’m here to Tech Inclusion Conference with Eric Osborne, the founder of HERE Seattle, had a number of events like this. What makes this Tech Inclusion Conference different or special? Eric: I think it’s special. The Tech Inclusion event is special mainly because it’s one of a kind; it’s something that I don’t think I’ve seen before. As you know there’s been a lot of work going on around the resident inclusion, so it’s natural to have people get together and congregate and talk about all the issues that’s going on and hopefully move the neighbour fuel when it comes to diversity and inclusion. Chris: One of the things I’ve noticed is that the faces, the people that you see here definitely at tech conference I’ve been to not just black and white and brown but also physically did handicapped, deaf,  hearing impaired, unbelievable sense of diversity here. I didn’t know that I was even here in Seattle. Eric:You know what, I mean we, ultimately before I was a co-founder here in Seattle, that’s one of the things we started in Seattle in 2014. It was specifically to bring the community of diverse people together so that we can say we are here, we are working in tech and we are you know, thriving in it so definitely plain for us so this conference is definitely going to be different from most typical tech conferences because of the diversity of the topic and I think that it’s a great start but I’m sure we are going to be seeing a lot of more things similar than this. Chris: Yeah I’m looking forward to seeing what Wayne and Melinda do with a Change Catalyst to do this Amazing stuff. Thanks for your time. Eric: All right, have a great day. Chris: Next we’re going to get a perspective from one of the top diversity recruiters in this space, Steven Matly, C.E.O. and founder of SM Diversity. We’re here to Tech Inclusion Conference and talking to Steven Matly, CEO and founder S. M. Diversity, a full service staffing recruitment agency. Steven, you get to see how companies are tackling the problem diversity from the inside. You describe for us how the best companies in terms of hiring and retention are helping to ensure the success of their diversity initiatives. Steven: Thank you, great question. So first off, some of the best companies and I’ve seen are the ones that aren’t always the ones that are being highlighted with the best place to work. You’ll be surprised that you know what P.R. and what perspectives and what news outlets and the lip service is out there. So I will first address that, but there are a lot of folks that are champing for this, advocating for this. You know some people say, wow diversity, what are you talking about? This’ been around you know since affirmative action. See well that’s the thing, the mind-set has shifted. The folks that I see that are leading the charge are the ones that shifted from compliance to competitive. And what I’m talking about is that on boarding experience. What’s your first day look like, are you being welcomed; is that not welcome at being a set of people that are taking an honest look at you know, what a higher practices are broken and they can be improved. I mean especially in the tech industry that prides itself on innovation, in disruption, we still are using out-dated, old fashion thinking behaviours, processes in ways that we attract talent, retain talent and advanced talent. And so the ones that have seen, that are in the forefront of these are the ones that one, its visible communicate visibility from top down, there’s some programs in place, there’s activities in place and the values are constantly being addressed internally, externally and the best way I could summarize all that ones. The ones that are leading are the ones that put their employees first. So if you have, if you’re a company that sells an audience, in you’re all about customer centric, well think of your customers and employees. So if you use your voice of the customer where you say hey we sold to these companies and because you’re like these come to you should buy our products, well flip that around. Hey we have these type employees or we’re seeking to get more of these types of employees and we put that in the forefront and highlight those stories in those journals and that we’re committed to getting more of that. That’s how you sell voice of the customer to attract more of the diverse population that you’re looking attract. Chris: Oh, that’s brilliant. I know one of the challenges that companies ought to have is they get folks in the door but then haven’t put in the infrastructure to support those folks, and they end up leaving. What are you seeing happening there and what can we as candidates coming into those positions do better to ensure that we have existing success once we get into those positions? Steven: Great and you know I wish I could echo a lot of the things that the panellists said today around. You know you’re hired on board for diversity inclusion like what’s next after you walk through those doors right. It’s your first day, there’s a lot of things that can be done and so you know to from an employer’s standpoint, how you retain, as you see is going to continuously refine and have humility and to understand that you, it’s not flawless. You have to if you’re seeing a higher proportion of your workforce especially women or people of color leave a certain department. So let’s say sales, you should be rallying around creating programs and investing into programs and people to investigate why is this happening, in finding a trend and do those trends you know, assessing that and then going in to find the right resources to educate and train yourself. It’s no different than like if you were hiring for salespeople and all your salespeople were missing their quotas. What is it that you could do to support them and in what areas. It doesn’t have to be a shotgun approach, it just basically takes a time for you to listen, to assess, to pivot and then provide the right resources and support and then measure those results. And I will quote the C.E.O. of Seattle Microsoft saying, look it’s not about just experts and gurus, because then you get the sense of that’s it, the expert and gurus, they’ve figured it out. No, it’s about testing your hypothesis; you see we’re still breaking ground and this is a way for you to test your hypothesis. So continue to test your hypothesis, your ideas, your thoughts and see if it’s effective or not. And every organization is different. Chris: That’s brilliant. Thank you so much. I want to find out how people can find out more about SM Diversity because you obviously know your stuff. Steven: Thank you. I’m always looking, listen to learn, to partner, to share. This is something that we at Mercer saw day in and day out. You can find us on smdiversity. com. If you type in diversity recruiting Seattle, I believe for organically the first page result as well. My name is Steven, in S.T.E.V. E.N. Matly, M. A. T. L. Y. And I’m very active on LinkedIn. Thank you. Chris: Wonderful. I’ll make sure we have that in the show notes. Some really insightful stuff from Steven Matly and I encourage you to reach out to him. Chris: Next up, one of my favorite parts of going to events like this is to be able to speak with entrepreneurs who are out there trying to make things happen themselves. Next we speak with entrepreneur Sidney James. Here with Sidney James at the Tech Inclusion Conference, thanks for talking to me Sidney. Tell me what brings you to the Tech Inclusion Conference today. Sidney: I had actually known Wayne, I’ve been known Wayne say for a couple of years, he sent me an invite and let me know the event was going on, so I came out to support him and want to find out more about what the Tech Inclusion was all about and once I got here, I got to get run over to that to start within two hours and arrange to you … Chris: So tell us, you’ve got a start-up, tell us a little bit about your start-up. Sidney:Basically, our start up is called Confer. We reduce travel expenses for small to medium size companies. So basically what we do we aggregate those small to medium businesses and give them the same parks and powers as the lower companies. Chris: Very interesting, how long did you get it started up? Sidney:I’ve been working on it for about a year and a half now so we finally got to a point where we had to  start work on the partnerships and development stages now. Chris: That’s exciting. Are you raising capital, you bootstrapping it? Sidney:We bootstrapped today. I think we might delay raising capital you know it’s kind of hard a time. Chris: Hard to turn down when it comes but delay doesn’t care, that’s exactly what you’ve heard, interesting. Right did you get invite from some sort of mentors that you talk to here? Sidney:Oh yes, I actually did. I actually made a good connection with the chief [unclear 10:27] HR consultant firm here. So there is going to be a very good contact for me in the future, I’m moving forward. Chris: Good. And lastly, what’s your background, how do you end up getting into the disc space? Sidney: I went to the University of Alabama. After I left there I went to finish the start-up Engineering program at Georgia Tech and I started my executive MBA at University of Miami, so Chris: Wonderful, so you are coded, you’re on the coding side. Sidney: I’m on the business side. I’m not on the coding side. I wish I were but I’m not. Chris: Wonderful. Do you have any Tech co-founder or you don’t have. How do you want to go about setting it up? Sidney:Yes. I do have a Tech co-founder, is by the group of [unclear 11:05] so we have a pretty solid team I would say. Chris: Wonderful, really appreciate the time, Sidney thanks. Sidney:Thank you. Chris: Next, I get a VCs perspective on the value of diversity with respect entrepreneurs and founders in creating value for investors. Heather Redman, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Flying Fish Partners shares her insights on this topic. Hello here in Tech Inclusion Conference, I’m with Heathen Redman, co-founder, managing partner, Flying Fish Partners, an early stage software technology investment firm. She’s had an incredible career, split between business and law. I wanted to ask why is it important for you to be here today? Heather: Well I’m super supportive of all the stuff that we’re doing in communities doing collectively to try to promote diversity in our ecosystem. We just need more people starting companies. Our company starts here in Seattle are really not where we should be, given the talent pool. The chamber which are I’m a member of a board of has this initiative called 100% Talent [http://www.100percenttalentseattle.com/] which I love that orientation because it’s like everybody off the bench, everybody on the plain field, let’s take it down with all the talent we have and events like this are a big part of that. Chris: And if there’s any one message that you want entrepreneur and potential entrepreneurs in the audience to take from today, what would that be? Heather:Start a company and come see us to get some dollars. Chris: I love it. I’ll be talking to you. Heather:OK. Chris: And really interesting perspective from Heather Redman there and I encourage you specially if you’re in Seattle area starter to reach out to Flying Fish Partners. Next we’ve got two more interviews to share with you today and I’m going to roll them back to back. The first is Godfried Addae, Microsoft’s representative on the Cloud Infrastructure team, and then we’ll finish up with David Harris, Start-up Advocate for the city of Seattle on the role of government plays in supporting a more inclusive ecosystem. Here at the Tech Inclusion Conference, I’m going to Godfried Addae. Godfried, why are you here today? What are you going to get in this event? Godfried: I’m here on behalf of my company. I work for Microsoft and any event that are most tack and inclusion, I’m definitely interested and would like to bring those learning back to my organisation. Chris: Wonderful, and tell us, what do you do with Microsoft and what do you aspire to do long term? Godfried: Yes, so my day job right now is a quality engineer with the quality infrastructure operations team and we’re basically a team that builds the data service that’s part of the Cloud’s shoot supply chain. I’m in Tech Cloud operation. In terms of aspirations, I’m open. You know, ten years ago, I didn’t think I’ll be here so I don’t know what I‘ll do in the next ten, but I’m in a certain space where it’s full technology and rosy hard topics, so I was somewhere in the intersection of both of those. Chris: Wonderful, I just finished up with; is there anything specifically tangible that you’re hoping to get out of this conference personally? Godfried: Yeah personally, just awareness and education. I’m always I’m learning. I like to hear other people’s perspectives and obviously diversity a little bit more than I need diversity to broadening my awareness on gender diversity as well as being inclusive to those with disabilities. Now we can be more welcoming of those groups in our companies and organisations. Chris: Wonderful thanks for your time. I appreciate it. Godfried: Thank you. Chris: So I’m back to you for the Tech Inclusion Conference. I’m talking with David Harris, the Start-up Advocate for the City is Seattle, tell us a little bit about first what your role is with the City of Seattle and how the Tech Inclusion Conference plays into that. David:Yes, it’s good to be here, and I have two parts tomorrow. One is to hope play matchmaker for Tech startups in Seattle to nurture and grow to start a community here. The other half, my job is to help connect under-served communities with the tech industry and we help support organizations that especially work with youth, women, people of color and formally incarcerated. Chris: Great, and  can you tell us a little about the politics you’ll be speaking on, in what issues you’ll going to be speaking to on that panel? David: Yes, so I forget the exact name of the panel but basically we’re going to be talking about the role of government in policy making and creating an inclusion tech ecosystem in a city. So that’s something that is right up my alley and I’m looking forward to hear from some other folks on the panel as well in just learning but also hopefully I can share some words that would spark up inspiration or make some connections for people to go forward. Chris: Great, and lastly as an entrepreneur, when would I need to reach out to you? What kind of doors did the Startup Advocate open up for entrepreneur? David: Yeah, a lot of people come and they just have an idea, they want to know how to get started or maybe they’re looking for a technical co-founder or maybe they have traction in revenue already in their start up, and their looking for funding. And I hope this really shortened path of finding information about those things. And as I meet more and more people through Office Hours, which I usually hold at Startup Hall in the university district or we work in stuff like Union I get to meet more and more people connect more and more people, so definitely looking forward to anybody that’s thinking about creating a Startup, tech Startup in Seattle. The other kind of effort that I hope to see here in Seattle is the Tech Higher initiative. So there are lots of people that are looking for tech jobs across multiple industries and our role to cities is to help bring people to the table for those employers or accelerated training providers like the coatings, boot camps and community organizations. So we’re always looking to help place people in training and get in place in tech jobs, but we’re specially looking to place people who are from black environment and communities and also formally incarcerated. Chris: That’s wonderful. Lastly, how can someone get in touch with you? David: My email address is david.harris@seattle.gov and I help moderate the website startups seattle.com. You can go on there, find a list of resources and other events that are going on in Seattle. Chris: Wonderful, thank you. I’ll be sure to put that in a short note. I really appreciate your time. Just a few thoughts from me as we wrap up today’s episode. First, I want to thank Wayne Sutton [https://www.linkedin.com/in/waynesutton/] and Melinda Epler [https://www.linkedin.com/in/melindaepler/]. They co-founded Tech Inclusion about two and a half years ago. Wayne has been a long-time advocate for diversity in tech, he’s been featured everywhere from TechCrunch to the Wall Street Journal. Melinda speaks, mentors and writes about diversity and inclusion in tech, social entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurs and investing. I wasn’t able to get them on the show this week because they were quite busy doing a conference, but I hope to get them on the show in the near future. Please, check out changecatalyst.co [http://www.changecatalyst.co] and find out how you can get involved. Tech Inclusion conference will be coming to a number of cities this year. Please, check out techinclusion.co [http://www.techinclusion.co] for dates and locations of future events. Second, change doesn’t just happen, folks, we’ve got to make it happen. If diversity of thought, backgrounds and experiences are important to you and you’re in a tech company, then stand up and have your voice heard. Finally, thank you to the guests from today’s show. There’ll be plenty of links to the people and their organizations in the show notes. As always, if you like to show, please download all of our episodes and leave us a five star rating on iTunes. You can find show notes at techlowdownshow.com and follow me on Twitter @cjones2002 [https://twitter.com/cjones2002]. Guests on this episode in order include: Eric Osborne [https://www.linkedin.com/in/eosborne1/], Co-Founder HERE Seattle[https://i0.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Eric-Osborne.jpeg?resize=280%2C180] [https://www.facebook.com/hereseattle/] Steven Matly [https://www.linkedin.com/in/smdiversity/], CEO/Founder of SM Diversity [http://smdiversity.com/][https://i0.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Steven-Matly-300x164.jpeg?resize=300%2C164] Sidney James [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidneyjames/], President & Co-Founder Kunfer[https://i0.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Sidney-James.jpg?resize=230%2C230] [https://i0.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Heather-Redman-300x169.jpg?resize=300%2C169] [http://www.flyingfish.vc/home/] Heather Redman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/hredman/], Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Flying Fish Partners [http://www.flyingfish.vc/home/] [https://i1.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Godfried-Addae-300x225.jpeg?resize=300%2C225] Godfried Addae [https://www.linkedin.com/in/godfriedaddae/], Quality Engineer, Microsoft Cloud Infrastructure and Operations David Harris [https://www.linkedin.com/in/daviddupreeharris/], Startup Advocate, City of Seattle[https://i0.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/David-Harris-300x200.jpeg?resize=300%2C200] [http://startupseattle.com/] [https://i0.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Wayne-Sutton-300x239.jpg?resize=300%2C239]Wayne Sutton [https://twitter.com/waynesutton], Co-Founder of Change Catalyst & Tech Inclusion [https://i1.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Melinda-Epler2-300x157.jpg?resize=300%2C157]Melinda Epler [https://twitter.com/mbrianaepler], Co-Founder of Change Catalyst & Tech Inclusion

[https://i1.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Dorothee.jpeg?resize=200%2C200]Jones:Welcome to the ‘Tech Lowdown Show’ where each episode will be discussing opportunities in the tech space with entrepreneurs in the U.S. and around the world. I’m your host Chris Jones. I speak with a lot of entrepreneurs who are locked in the struggle to create something new and oftentimes we talk about how entrepreneurship is in the blood, why  to some extent I believe there’s some truth to this, it doesn’t tell the whole story. There is a path of  preparation and learning that can be paired with that natural inclination toward entrepreneurship that can help set you up for success. Today we speak with a ‘Silicon Valley’ entrepreneur who in my opinion has put in the preparation to be successful as an entrepreneur. Dorothee Gutierrez Fisher [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorotheefisher/] is co-founder and CMO of Designer Inc. [http://www.designerinc.com], a B2B sourcing in purchasing platform for the interior design industry. Her resume speaks volumes about her. She’s held marketing leadership roles with Nestle, Home Depot, Visa, and YouTube and spent some time at Formspring Bay Area Start-up before launching Designer Inc. Dorothee is a graduate of U.C. Davis and luckily for me a classmate of mine at Kellogg School of Business. Dorothy, welcome to the show; what’s the low down? Dorothee Hey Jonesy, how are you? I’m excited to be here. Jones:Wonderful, it’s awesome to have you. I’m looking forward to this conversation. Dorothee: And so am I. Jones: Good, so I want to talk about separation and the work that you put into prepare yourself for where you are today. Can you start by telling us a little bit about your background and if the desire to create a business was something, always something you have vision for yourself or did it evolve to get there? Dorothee: I think I probably evolve to get there. I started my career at ‘Power Bar’ which was the inventor of the energy bar category. When I started, really it was more like a startup so I was really starting my career in the startup environment without really knowing I was there. We had sixty employees and while during the five years I was there, we launched five different programs.  I was able to work in every discipline of marketing, from new product development, advertising and promotions, and it was just fascinating to see what we took, what it was like to take a contact on people and launch into the marketplace. At the same time though, being living in San Francisco, the tech market was exploding in my backyard. This was during the era when Netscape I.P.O. and so many industries were being disrupted by the Internet space and I wanted to be a part of it. I was completely inspired and fascinated. And so from there you know what, I went to Kellogg in order to really prepare myself. I focused on Finance, Strategy Marketing and I wanted to build all my skill sets so I could really enter this marketplace with everything I needed to succeed. I interned at E-bay that summer between the two years, but by the time we graduated unfortunately, [Unclear 03:14] returning my calls saying we’d love to hire you but I just lost my job so I’m still good luck. So you know from there I looked you know, to see what other skills that I can acquire along the way. As I keep looking for those opportunities and enterprise in Tech, I did a stint in General Management at the Home Depot. I did Loyalty Marketing and Marking Strategy at Visa, and then finally in 2006, 2007, I had the opportunity to join You Tube and I jumped on it, and then that led me to form Spring and then now my latest venture, Designer. Jones:That’s awesome, so you were the first marketing person at You Tube after they were acquired by Google. What was that like and what did you learn from that experience? Dorothee: It was amazing; everything was a new use case. There was no precedent set. So you were creating a foundation for all. You know when you were asking yourself questions like you know, for consumer product marketing program can we really put a user on the red carpet and interview top levelstars, Hollywood stars, or you know we’ve got a premium content partner who wants to put their Constantine Huge. How do we even think about launching that now? There was just so much white space to figure out, so I was really lucky in the sense that I was able to establish the foundation for partner marketing, develop the brand strategy and foundation. I did product marketing for some really cool products and new features and I mean it was it was a trailblazing experience and it was really exciting. You know I think what I learned there is that you know while it’s exciting to create something so new and to help figure out that white space, it’s also you know, very daunting and you know there’s a phrase in Silicon Valley that, you know, ‘failure is welcome; you want to fail, and fail fast and thus learn through your mistakes quickly’ but you know you yourself never want to be that person who makes that mistake. Jones:Somewhere else, not definitely here. Dorothee: All learned in the board but you know what I learned the most in that incredibly fast paced environment was ‘you’re never going to have perfect information’. You’re never going to have all the resources you need, all the data you want and you can’t get caught up in the analysis. You’ve got to move forward with imperfect information and to really get comfortable of initiating projects and moving forward execution. Jones:That makes a lot of sense. You then made the jump from big corporate, and moved over to Formspring, a fairly well funded start up in the valley at a time. That would have been a big change for you. What were you looking to get out of that experience? Dorothee: Yeah well, when I joined Google or the You Tube team of Google, it was really new. Again, like I said, there was a lot of new ideas, new departments that we work, that we are establishing and figuring out. And it was thrilling it was absolutely thrilling to be in that space but after several years, I started to feel like a big company, and I wanted to go back to that sort of environment where I could have more of an impact. When I joined Formspring, it had an immense following. It was actually the fastest growing social media network in Internet history. Many people think it was Pinterest but it was actually Formspring. In the first forty five days I had a million users, in the first eighteen months, I had twenty five million users. I know what about social network, amazing right. As they were trying to maintain that grows, and it was an exciting challenge that I wanted to work on. Jones:Interesting, so during that time at Formspring, what did you see? I mean for like when it’s growing that fast and then it went out of business, it closed up shop not long after you left, so what were you seeing at that time? It was either giving you an inkling that things weren’t going to keep going or that you were going wow this is amazing and I should be here. Dorothee: Right I think, I mean what I learned with warm spring is, easy come easy go. We had huge surge in users; a lot of them were young users, and they were, their very fickle and they’re hard, they’re capricious and they move to the next shiny thing when it that comes about. And so I think you know when you’re, as you are growing your user base and building a community, you really want to be thoughtful about how you build that community and how you maintain that. I think is meant so that the next new thing isn’t so attractive that you know you have the need that you have on your platform is what keeps people there. Jones:Interesting, indeed you have any inkling at the time when you were preparing to leave that things were going to be slowing down for those guys or was it like you say Easy come easy go, that they happened superfast. Dorothee: No, I mean, I think it plateaued and then we were able to grow it some more but  what was pretty frustrating is that because it had such a huge success early on, when we were looking to get our Series B, investors couldn’t ignore that early. And so if you had just cut that tale from the early years and you looked at the stage that we were at where we were growing, we had great engagement. That would have been a success story of itself in a runnable idea, but you know investors couldn’t ignore the huge success that it had early on and it looked like a slow growing company at the time which it wasn’t, and so I think when you know when I saw that it was, we were going to have a hard time raising that series B. is when I started to consider other options and that’s when Heather and I connected. Jones:Got it, yes so at that time you begin the search; if you think about your own business, what was that thought process like for you and how do you know you were ready? Dorothee: Yeah I mean, I was always inspired by one of the founders. I was able to work with Chad Hurley, You Tube did have a tech background. It was a designer paper a little bit he started with a simple and profound idea. He built this huge company one of the most impactful companies in internet history and same with I had a creating such a you know fast pace going company with Warm Springs. I was surrounded by really inspiring people and inspired by the creativity and innovation tag. I didn’t have my own specific idea at the time but I was ready to jump on a really interesting idea, and that’s when an old friend of mine and also You Tube colleague, Heather Gillette [https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-gillette-7687451/], she was eight employees You Tube and we worked there together while I was there too. She reached out, she had this really unique concept for our initial business called Nous Decor, it was an interior design site for consumers and she was in the process of her friends and family round, financing round and she needed help with her pitch Texas. She reached out to me and you know if there’s anything that I learned that Google was like knowing how to make presentations and put decks together over and over again, so I helped her on that and as soon as I saw the concept I fell in love with what she was doing and I wanted to work on it with her, so that’s how we paired up and that’s how I jumped in the purse you know in the start of base. Jones:Interesting so would you consider yourself to be a techie; do you code, what’s that role, how do you define the role that you play in the tech ecosystem? Dorothee: Yeah, I don’t code I definitely appreciate and respect the engineers who can build beautiful products. What I bring is an understanding of a marketplace, whether it’s from a business perspective, a B2B side or a consumer perspective, I really understand the mindset of the decision maker and how to build a community around that. So that’s what I bring to the table with my marketing experience and applying that it to technology and technical products. Jones:Yeah, I often have a lot of discussions with folks who don’t understand where the marketing folks can apply the skills in a technical environment and because it’s oftentimes techies that are building or starting these businesses and they don’t necessarily have the business or the marketing background to be able to apply and understand how their technology applies to a consumer. So the role you play is a valuable one. I often tell people I don’t code but I speak a bit of it. In essence saying hey, I can translate what it is that you’re building into something that people can understand and use so as to where  I often pitch it. OK, so you started Designer Inc with the launch of Nous Decor and then you evolve the business from there. Tell us about the businesses and what led you into the interior design world which you touched on a bit and which is very different from the one in which you were coming from. Dorothee: Yeah, so my background is in Marketing and the last ten years has been in tech. I didn’t have experience in interior design but I always love beautiful things. I always had a shelter pub that design magazine in my bag or on vacation or my car, my coffee table at home. I love beautiful things. The original business was for Nous Decor where anyone can now get the design help they needed at affordable flat fee and that really appealed to me on a consumer perspective. We had heard so many horror stories in the industry about online design services that serve more as a marketplace of matching a junior designer where the clients and how those projects went wrong, you know. Junior designers were making some very basic mistakes for the client and when we were going to be in the space, we wanted to make sure that not only were all our designs free of those really basic errors but absolutely beautiful; they had to be stunning. So we wanted to work with an in-house team and we had a cohesive design process which was created by our chief designer Mark Cutler [https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/852053/]. A little bit about him, he’s a famous designer, actually out of Los Angeles. He’s been designing for thirty years. His clientele boasts Hollywood A Listers International Royalty Silicon Valley. Exactly, that’s actually how we got to meet him was through mutual friends slash clients and Silicon Valley. So we designed this; he helped us design this cohesive design process with an in-house design team so that we could create consistent beautiful designs and you know we succeeded in that last summer. Actually the Wall Street Journal mystery shopped us, they shopped our service and two other competitors in the online design space and we came out as the winner. They actually referred to us as the dream team so it was a huge celebration for us. But with that you know, with an in-house design team, the constraints that we had is that we had limited headcount and it forced us to scale in other ways. We had to work quickly and we had to work in a way that we had maximized profitability, so we build those tools to help us do just that. We built our own search engine with Trade Only Products. Trade Only Products, our furniture in the core products that you have to be a designer or a reseller in order to have access to them and the margins are much better, thirty to fifty percent. And we were now able to source very quickly rather than go offline book to book or jump from one design site to another which was incredibly laborious. When you’re designing, this part of the process sourcing and purchasing is the most labor intensive and time intensive part of the process. With our own tool, we were able to cut our sourcing time in half and our product margins tripled and when we realize that we’re like wait a second, we’re solving a much bigger pain point in the industry and there’s a huge opportunity by the way. The first sixty billion of furniture is actually sourced and purchased through interior designers every year. This was a much bigger opportunity for us and that’s how Designer Inc was born. Jones:So early on you guys launched there and raised a fair amount of angel capital. What was that process like and how did that spring what you got? Dorothee: Yeah, I mean raising capital is so interesting. I think it’s hard when you’re working in a space that the valley doesn’t really understand interior design and it’s in the marketplace, more so for women, it’s not the easiest to understand. I think when you’re talking with traditional VCs we had a lot of luck with Angel investors who are seasoned in the valley and saw this opportunity for us to believe in what we were building. So we were really lucky early on to get that capital and build out Nous Decor [https://www.nousdecor.com/] with that. Jones:Interesting so what about being an entrepreneur, especially being a female entrepreneur in the valley. Did your previous experiences prepare you well for and what has surprised you? Dorothee: Well, I think you know being a female entrepreneur, I think what comes naturally to women is, we’re very community oriented and we build relationships quite easily and that’s something that’s really important in the design industry. It’s especially on the professional side, it really relies heavily on strong relationships. I think that comes naturally to us fortunately, and you know, also being very resourceful, I think it helps us to build out the ecosystem to understand every player in the ecosystem and not forget any detail that could. Impact the community that we’re trying to build. I’ve also heard that women tend to build not just products but companies, also thinking about the greater whole; so I think that’s really helped us in the early years of building Nous Décor and now Designer Inc. Jones: It’s so exciting and what advice would you have for entrepreneurs especially women or men who are well established in their careers like yourself if they’re considering making the jump into their own venture. Dorothee: Yeah I mean, I think there’s no time like the present. You have an idea and you are passionate about it, you should go for it. It’s the most rewarding endeavor you’ll ever have. But it takes more than just a great idea, you have to commit to the execution, and what many don’t know is you know, to build a really successful company it doesn’t happen in a year or two. You know for some of the most successful start-ups, it’s a five to seven year marathon. And so you really have to put in the hard work and have the persistence and the vision to not get bogged down when you’re going through rough patches. Jones:Can you maybe talk us through your mentality or what your thought process was as you were going through one of those rough patches or one of those times of uncertainty early on in the business? Dorothee: I mean you have to I think really think about what you’re building; does it make sense what you’re building? You have the highs in startup life are so high and the lows are really low and you have to see them as that. And you know, one of the best pieces of advice that I got was from Maynard Web. He’s the CEO E-Bay chairman Yahoo and he gave me a piece of advice ones that really stuck with me which is you have to know your Richter scale. So you know, if you look at the Richter scale, it’s always moving up and down, up and down, and you need to know that if it’s down, is it down because it’s nine thirteen on a Tuesday morning. It’s typically down at that time, or is it down because something really horrible has happened. And so when you really understand your traffic patterns, the seasonality of your business, you can appreciate or know this is a slow period for us because this is the seasonality whether it’s design or whether it’s tech, we’re supposed to be in a slow. If you’re out of that to talk with other entrepreneurs and talk with your partners and understand that you’re in this for the long haul. This is a five, seven in your marathon and you have to persist. Jones:I love it, persist. What if I want to move into the real lowdown segment of the show and we’re going to dig a little bit further underneath the hood. I know you guys, Designers Inc. are raising capital right now for the second time. What is different about this raise than the first time and how you go about doing it? Dorothee: Yeah, we are doing it very differently this time. Designer Inc is in the business side of the interior design industry and we feel it’s a huge opportunity and the people who understand how big this opportunity is are the industry strategics, the insiders of the industry and designers themselves. And so with this raise, we’re actually, we structured around where designers can actually participate in the financing. We just launched with We Funder, a crowdsourcing fund raising platform, a campaign where designers and other strategics can invest. We were inspired to do this because last fall, we were a high point richer market which is a bi annual furniture show that happens in North Carolina we were demoing the platform and we were getting feedback from designers like oh my God this platform is amazing, where have you been my whole career now. I can do my job so much more easily. But also they were also saying if only I could invest in your company and at the time we didn’t know about the opportunities that companies like we find are present where we can actually have around through them and allow an interior designer who’s really passion about doing investment and be part of the success of our company. And this is actually what makes us unique and different, that we’re seeing this as a strategic opportunity for us. We really want to build on loyalty and create advantage of our product by making our own users owners of the company and we think that then they’ll truly invest in the success of our company. And community is incredibly important to us; you can’t build it overnight and we think this is going to help really solidify the community windows and is a big part of our growth strategy. Jones:And are you pairing that with traditional VC fund raising as well or are you focusing specifically just on the WE funder? Dorothee:No, we will explore other traditional ways, but we think that this is a very clever way of building advantages and having the industry welcome technology into this space. The interior design spaces, we were the last sectors to embrace technology.  They’re very afraid of it and this allows us to enter the space in a very friendly way, really think through the ecosystem allow the ecosystem to be a part of what we’re building and with that we will create a successful company. Jones:Got it, I like that; it’s definitely very clever. So you mentioned how you and your co-founder came together while you were at You Tube. Were there any rough patches early on as you guys were figuring each other out and figuring out your role that you were going to play within the company? Dorothee: Yeah well I actually know Heather since our twenty’s; we knew we had a mutual close friends, we knew each other and we were friends in our twenty’s. We worked together in our thirty’s and thankfully I knew her really well by the time we were working on Nous Décor so in fact knowing who she was made it easier to make that jump of not just working in a startup but actually helping to found and create a startup ourselves’ She’s incredibly smart and she’s probably the most hard working person I’ve ever met and I thought if I’m going to take this risk, if I’m going to hedge myself anyway and it’s I’m going to partner with someone like Heather. So I think knowing her really well you know made an easy decision, very risky decision was made that much easier and you know we didn’t really have many rough patches and because of our past relationship or continue the relationship, it was easy to talk through. Jones:That’s great and talk to us about the personal impact of you being an entrepreneur on you and your family since you started the business. Dorothee: Oh it’s for sure impacts and we were working real hard and you do have this rushed past, right rough patches where you’re you know really consider like how did I make the right choice especially I’m a working mom and I have two boys where every decision you make is not just for yourself, it’s for your family as well. But I think with that comes the reward of building something you’re really passionate about and I feel like I’m reaching for the American dream and it’s so invigorating it’s so thrilling and for my ten year old son to see this and to see it grow from you know the concept to a site, to a business, it’s an inspiring for him. In fact when we went to the Kellogg reunion just this past month, he took in business  plan course for children there. One thing you know he now says well, this is actually possible, so I think that’s the benefit. You know, the impact it has on your family, they do see that you know the impossible is may be possible. Jones:That’s great you got to here in the back of my neck stand in. Wonderful, so I’m inspired. Let’s close with this, tell me how do you manage that inevitable stress that comes from being an entrepreneur; what do you do to relieve that? Dorothee: Well I mean I try to take really good care of myself. It’s incredibly stressful and I think if your mind and body isn’t distance shape you can tolerate a lot more stress than if you’re not taking care of yourself. So personally, I try to eat very clean, exercise, meditate to help manage that chaos when it does hit; you’re prepared for it and you can navigate those waters as best as you can. I should also say I outsource a lot when you’re so incredibly busy. In the Bay Area, you have access to a lot of really cool services; grocery delivery is super healthy meal service is a lot of things get pilots in the Bay Area first so we have a lot of resources that I take advantage of. And I think also talking to fellow entrepreneurs and seeing you sharing your war stories and realizing you know it is a marathon and there’s a reason why we set out to do this and I think having that long term perspective really helps with the stresses well. Jones:I’m literally inspired and jump off a racing go diving. Thank you so much, this has been so much fun. Please tell our listeners how they can find out more about you and more about Designer Inc. Dorothee: Yeah well, Designer Inc is just designerinc.com [http://www.designerinc.com]. You can check it out and if you want to be part of the fun raise you can go to wefund.com/designer and can learn more about the company and invest if you’re so inspired to as well. Jones:That’s awesome. Folks please download all of our episodes and leave us a five star rating on i Tunes. You can find show notes at techlowdownshow.com and follow me on twitter @ cJones 2002.

[https://i1.wp.com/techlowdownshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Cynthia-Tee-300x262.jpg?resize=300%2C262]Chris: Welcome to the ‘tech lowdown show’.  Each episode will be discussing opportunities in the tech space of entrepreneurs from the U.S. and around the world. I’m your host Chris Jones. Our guest today is literally changing the face of the tech world. The statistics on women in the tech industry are staggeringly dismal for such a large industry. Less than twenty percent of software developers in the U.S. are women. African-American, Asian and the Latina women combined represent just eight percent of the computing workforce. Also just zero point four percent (0.4%) of high school girls choose Computer Science as a Major. I can go on and on with dismal stats highlighting the problem but today we’ve got a tech industry veteran who not only knows the numbers but is also doing something to change it. Cynthia Tee [https://www.linkedin.com/in/cynthiatee/] is the executive director of Ada Developers Academy [https://adadevelopersacademy.org/], a free training program for women and non-binary people who want to become software developers. Cynthia is an MIT grad who spent twenty years at Microsoft working on everything from the Windows Appstore to tablet P.C.’s. Now she’s beginning her third year leading Ada Developers Academy which is graduated over one hundred fifty students and has a ninety seven percent placement rate for its alumni. How’s that for making real change. Cynthia It’s a pleasure to have you on the show, what’s the low down. Cynthia: Hi Chris, it’s honouring and a pleasure to be on this show as well, and I am. Chris: Wonderful, I’m excited to get into this. I want to start; you graduated with a master’s degree in Computer Science from MIT at a time when there were even fewer women in tech. What drew you to Computer Science at that time and what was your early experience like in the tech space. Cynthia: You know I had parents who really encouraged me to get into science, math and actually Computer Programming. My father bought me a computer at a very young age and so I got some exposure there. And I was really fortunate to have parents to really encourage me to enter this field and so you know, I grew up in the Philippines in Asia, and so it was my parents were educated in the United States and I also aspired to go to university in United States. And they really encouraged me to pursue Computer Sciences as a major. So that’s how I chose it and I’m at it. Chris: That’s interesting and what was it like for you in the early days? Were you the only one in the classes? What was that experience like? Cynthia: Well, they were like carnivals essentially  who majored in Computer Science out of a class of over a thousand. So it was quite, we were quite a minority and we all knew each other and we were able to work together and it definitely felt very different and intimidating at times. I definitely experienced that in as much as I had a little bit of exposure. I would walk into a classroom and everybody else seemed to know a lot more than I did and I played around with technology a lot more. But I just kept on going and eventually got an internship and ended up at Microsoft. Yeah it’s been good always since, so. Chris: Wonderful, I know I read an article where you mentioned that you were, when you started at Microsoft, your managers , your managers,  managers right up to Bill Gates were all women. What was that experience like and I read that you said you didn’t realize it wasn’t normal at the time. Cynthia: Yeah you know I certainly went to the university where there are very few women and I went to Microsoft and it was just very pleasant. It was great to be; it was a it was a division that was charged with creating software for of the home use and at that time you know it was all about PCs and all of that stuff, and so it was a long time ago. And this division was really led by women and my entire management chain and even their peers, a lot of them were women, and so I thought it was a great place to be. I didn’t choose the group because of that expressly, but I was definitely implicitly much more drawn to their attitude, their culture, and their mission. And I’m really glad because I think it would have been very tough for me to stay in this field had I not had a lot of those old models around me, early in my career. Chris: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know there are a lot of articles and statistics attesting to the challenges faced by women in tech companies. Can you tell us some of the real challenges that you experienced, that you saw taking place during your time? Cynthia: Yes I think as somebody who is under represented, you know you always feel like you have to work three times harder than everybody else and show up three times more than everybody else. And so there’s always a constant pressure of having to prove yourself and I think that gets reinforced by everybody around you certainly, even culturally brought up not to raise my voice for example or push back on anything and that was a really hard thing for me to try to do in this environment where when you’re surrounded by a lot of men and even if the leaders were women. I think they definitely built a more inclusive culture, but in our day to day, a lot of the software developers around me were still men. And it was challenging sometimes to get your ideas heard or to feel like you felt you have a constant pressure of having to behave like them in order to be heard, and that really takes its toll and can sometimes be very frustrating. Chris: Yeah I’ve heard a lot of women who have gotten into the tech space, particularly on the software side end up leaving as a result of those types of pressures. They’re kind of the below the surface pressure that doesn’t really add up or at least it’s not immediately apparent. But then over years it ends up pushing people out of their work space. Cynthia: Yes, I think it takes a lot of; you know the advice that was given to me by one of my mentors as well, you have to figure out a way to integrate. And when to integrate is to be like the others around you, and I think I’ve seen quite a few of my peers and even some of my mentors who lose themselves a little bit because of that;  which is really sad to see it really takes its toll on you over time. So the advice I was given to me was well, you better integrate and then when you get into a position of power, when you can influence things, then you can bring back some of yourself to really create an inclusive environment and that’s what I did. That is actually not the same advice that I would give to people today; I think you have to have a better balance than that, otherwise you’re just perpetuating the same culture. I mean I understand why I had to do it and why many of my mentors had to do that but it really is tough. You start to realise after a while that you really inevitably supported propagating the same behaviour that you are trying to fight. Chris: Yes, I’ve heard that; I’ve spoken to folks about that and that is a real difficult challenge spoken to both women as well as minorities about that. How do you find your place without losing yourself within this environment where you are the other and you’re trying to make a spot for yourself. Cynthia: Yeah Chris: Ada is doing some amazing work with great results. Tell us a little bit about Ada and about the selection criteria for the program. I know many students are making a massive career transition, so how do you ensure that you’re selecting students who can handle both the rigors of the training and also be prepared for success after the training is completed. Cynthia: Yeah, It’s about a year learning, it’s about an eleven months training program. It has six months in the classroom attached to a five month internship with a software company in Seattle and then basically our students graduate eleven months and the way, we get a lot of applicants which really tells me that there’s a ton of interest. In our last admission cycle, we had over four hundred seventy people applied actually from across the country. And it’s tuitions free, it focuses on women and non-binary people. It is a yearlong; it has an internship and it’s very mission based as a non-profit. All these things are really what draw a lot of our applicants to us. We look at a couple of things; we look at the technical potential that people have and the problem solving potential. Our online application also looks at the ability to problem solve, and if you make it to the second phase of our application, we actually give our applicants a set of videos to learn some programming basics and then ask them to write a simple program based on that. And then we also have the other side of our application process which really speaks to a person’s goals and motivation, why they want to become a software developer, their sense of self-awareness and ability to collaborate because a lot of what we teach is how you can teach yourself new skills and new technologies. These things change all the time and as a software engineering, the fact is that we really want to find people who are very self-aware, are able to push through when they make mistakes, not be themselves too much over the head about it and also work with other people. You know we build software, you know with people, it is a really hard selection process. I would say that every time I go through it, I select a group of very capable people, but I’m sure there’s another forty eight capable people when they’re at a four hundred and seventy applicants. It’s just that we don’t have space for everybody and so we actually have a large percentage of our student population apply again and there’s no shame in that. And so in any given quarter we have anywhere up to eight, ten, maybe sometimes even twelve people who applied more than once, twice, three times before they get in. And you know they’ve  kept going in terms of their learning and their growth, and so since we have these application windows open twice a year and more frequently now than we did when we originally open, it’s not too long a time to wait to jump onto the next cycle. Chris: Right and you mentioned you get applications from across the country. What’s your typical mix between local Seattlites and folks from elsewhere? Cynthia: We typically have about a third of our cohort, up to a third of our cohort come from out of Seattle. They’re basically rooted to take the program. Most of them stay in Seattle actually, at least after they graduated maybe a year or two, but some of them do go elsewhere after they graduate. Chris: That’s amazing, so folks are literally picking up their lives and coming in saying get me on in the  training, let’s see where it takes us. Cynthia: And speaks to their grit right in terms of how much they want this career change, and that’s really what we look for, we ask a lot of our questions is you know, how much are you willing to put into really make this career transition because it’s a hard one. It’s a really intense one, yeah. Chris: What are typically the beliefs or stereotypes about software engineering that have kept women out of this field traditionally? Cynthia: I think it has a reputation for being very homogeneous essentially. Whenever people think about software engineers, they think about very typical aggressive type A white male engineers who are all about doing the work, being loud and aggressive, thinking that the only way to have fun is their way of having fun and not really thinking about other people. And not that there’s a lot of bad intention behind that but I think when you propagate building a team of the same type of people, you basically build a culture and a way of doing things, even a way of socializing that is really optimized for that set of people. And so I think that does make other under-represented people, not just women but under-represented minorities overall feel really left out, feel like they’re their skills and what they bring to the table isn’t really being heard or valued. And so I definitely experience that. I feel like I’ve had to you know, there have been a lot of my male peers who are a lot louder, a lot more aggressive, who ask for jobs and will get them over me just because I don’t push harder. You know, I tend to not be as aggressive or self-promoting as other people, so I think it’s definitely one of those things where it’s not only the entry but the retention and the promotion of under-represented people that is a problem. Chris: Now I know you guys place your students into internships and into jobs particular with a lot of local companies. What are the changes that you’ve seen at local companies there that are enabling these opportunities now come about for women. Cynthia: I think that the tech industry in general has come a long way especially over the past couple of years, and recognizing that things really do need to change, I think there’s a lot more awareness now that people need to get things differently. In Seattle specifically, a lot of our sponsor companies do support Ada because they understand that you need to start looking at how you hire differently, you need to start looking at towered very differently. And so if you just rely on our pipeline of university students, you’re not going to really make that much of the dept, because in as much as some of the universities like Harvey Mudd for example are making huge progress in terms of the diversity, there is not enough graduates every year and there’s not enough progression every year. So I think people are realizing you have to hire different talent and the fact that you know our adult population, fifty percent of them are women like that something that you can barely find Palin over there right now. And I think that’s really what it is trying to prove is that there’s a full pool of talent over there right now, and investing in your, and developing that talent and getting it ready is really not a long time to wait to diversify. So I really heartened by that, I think the hardest transition actually for a lot of companies to make is OK well we can open the pipeline and we’re willing to consider this, how do we then turn our own culture so that those people will stay and those people feel like they can grow and those people feel like they can have a great career here. And in as much as a lot of people have very good intentions, I think it’s hard to translate that intention to breaking specific habits that have happened like in terms of how you do performance reviews or in terms of how you do promotions, in terms of how you pick people for leadership positions for example. Those are really hard things to change over time, but I’m hopeful that a lot of the tech companies we have in Seattle are talking about it as it’s a star, they are temporary aware of it and a couple of them actually have demonstrated that they’re making good progress there. Chris: That’s awesome. I want you to touch on entrepreneurship a bit. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to you by one of your Ada graduates, Yordanos – she’s a bit of a special case because she decided not to immediately take a corporate job and to try to build her own business. What impact do you see Ada having on female entrepreneurs in the future? Cynthia: I believe that a lot of our Ada graduates have so many skills outside of software development and I think if any entrepreneur will probably say that building a software is probably the easy part from being an entrepreneur or being an entrepreneur is really a lot about your vision, how you develop the idea, how you iterate on it, how you sell it, how you pitch it; what’s its vision, how you make money  of it, all these things which I think from an Ada graduate’s perspective because they have so much life experience doing other things. That level of experience is actually already there and they are a lot more quick to adapt and really use a lot of these their skill sets in addition to be technically proficient enough to build whatever section they want. So I think it’s a great combination. I think it’s really inspiring. I think that it just goes to show that you really don’t have to be you know invested in this four year college degree to be an entrepreneur. A couple of my graduates don’t even have a college degree to be honest and they’re very successful just simply because they have the life experience and the grit to do these things. And I also think they bring a very more diverse perspective into what makes a successful product because they really come from very different background than most people. That I guess suffer today is built for people with non-traditional backgrounds as well, so I think they might easily adapt to that, bringing that perspective to table. Chris: Yes, I agree with you completely. You’ve mentioned twice the term ‘grit’. And it’s one of my favourite terms as an entrepreneur and as an athlete. Can you speak to what exactly that is and how important that is for students coming out of Ada. Cynthia: Yeah I think ‘grit’ is this notion that if you ever encounter any difficult situation where you’re actually not successful or don’t feel very ready, don’t feel successful or are not doing something right, that you have the determination to pick yourself up and keep at it. Programming and of itself nobody gets right the first time. I don’t know the developer who gets or could read the first time maybe the tenth time. They try and so really just getting used to that it takes grit, but above and beyond that, making sure that that doesn’t get to too much in the end and you know bring yourself confidence down. I think that impossible syndrome is very common among all of us, I mean I still hear it today and you have to find tactics to pick yourself up from that and deal with it. And you surround yourself with people that help pick it up or you find your own method of picking yourself up from those moments they will happen over and over again. And I’m not saying you have to get rid of those moments, it’s impossible but you have to find your toolbox of how to deal with those moments, get yourself to keep going to spike those moments, and get yourself to not question yourself too much along the way. Chris: I hear you there. How is Ada supporting graduates after they move on to their jobs. Cynthia: We have let’s see, our core oldest graduates are now about three years in and you know we have everybody from that to some people who just graduated a few months ago. And so we’re always here to help people find a transition to their next job. Not all my graduates need that help for sure, but you know when they come asking for white jobs or references you know, we either put them into the job cycle that we’re already handling for graduates or we exercise our  network and connections to find them new roles. I’d like to do more in the future outside of job transition and placement.  I’d like to expand Ada to help people not only find their next transition but have continued educational opportunities that help develop them and maybe some sort of more structured mentoring or leadership training. I notice that there’s a lot of work in the industry in general going into pipeline. There is some amount of work going into developing entrepreneurship. There’s some amount of, you know there are organizations that focus on once you become a more senior manager but there’s very little in between. So when the people there who are jumping to the in the industryfor their first couple of years, I think would you know, I would love to put a lot more in place there to continue their sense of community and growth. Chris: It makes a lot of sense and folks who are listening, that might be in there. You can stick your hand up and help. I’m sure there is always need for mentors. Cynthia: Yeah there’s always a need for mentors, volunteers and a whole lot of activities. We do it Ada to help prepare our students and a lot of these mentorships do last over, way past graduation. Chris: Wonderful, I want to move into what I like to call the real low down segment of the show and here we’re trying to get but need to service a little bit, try understanding you a bit more of some of the challenges that you’re facing. You’re not just changing the face of tech, you’re trying changing lives at Ada. Are you able to share with us a student’s story that was particularly poignant to you?  You don’t have to share names or anything just interested in and how you have an impact on you know a particular person’s life. Cynthia: Yes there are quite a few. I will pick one in particular and maybe I can pick two if I can slip at two. I interviewed a student who basically came from [Unclear 22:37]. And so I interviewed her over Skype and I had no idea actually what her background and history was. She basically started at Ada and in her first week when I met her one on one, really thank me for creating, and my staff for creating such a supportive environment. She said you know, I was really scared to death when I interviewed because I didn’t think I would get in and I have been homeless for a while. I have lived below the poverty line and all I could do for a large part of my life was to just think about what I needed to do to put food on the table. And so just this is a huge opportunity for me. This is a huge thing, to be in an environment where other[Unclear 23:16] twenty three other people who are so nurturing and caring and the staff is a huge night and day difference for me because the lifewhich I live before was just so day to day how to put food on the table, what am I going to do to earn that money to get there and I was just really surprised. First of all, I could not even tell any of that when I was talking to her, interviewing her. I thought she said I thought I screwed up the interview and I said No, you did great. I thought you didn’t; she didn’t even tell me any of this which is fine but just I could just tell by the way she answered my question, she had a lot of that determination to succeed and turn her life around. So she’s graduated and she is no longer in Seattle but is a wonderfully strong. It’s been hard for years. It’s  been a hard transition but just as she is a software engineer somewhere else in the country as a really great software company and I’m just really happy for her. But its stories like this, I have a student who’s about to graduate, actually who is Dhaka dream child and I actually did not even realize that when she started but again was never able to avail a college degree because it was always too expensive.  Never had health care coverage and she’s brilliant and you know she went through Ada at a time where we had the elections which is terrifying, actually do have more than one adopted child is part of the Ada community and it was just terrifying to have to go through that. And you know we worked with her to help her realizing oh here are some of her options and it turns out they’re actually very few options. But you know I’m happy to say that two companies loves her, would love to give her a job and I think she’s just well on her way, as she puts it, she’s on her way to having health coverage for the first time. You know and having all these things that many of us in this country often take for granted. But it’s things like this where I actually realize like this is really the main impact that you’re making. And not only is to impact the diversity of the industry, but really changing and this a great equity work accessibility to this career that you’re giving so many people who are underprivileged. There’s just no way these people would have found themselves to even a college degree path. These pathways that Ada creates are really the thing that really inspires my staff and myself. Chris: It’s absolutely captivating stories. Finally what does the future look like for Ada and for you in particular? Cynthia: For Ada, I would definitely you know, we just expanded over the last year to serving ninety six to [Unclear 26:24] and I’d love to see us continue doing that well and really proving this model through to where we can actually place all our students. We always strive for one hundred percent. You know we have a fairly high placement rate but none of us are really satisfied till all our graduates get something and we consistently help our graduates even after they graduate there’s always a handful that don’t actually find something until a month or two or a few months out. And we keep going with that. I would love to as I said build out a program for our alumni but not only our alumni but anybody underrepresented in Seattle. There’s quite a few other underrepresented minorities that enter tech another way not through Ada and I would love to provide a community for that and I would love to provide continued education learning opportunities for that. I think it is very strong in two things, one is community and one is teaching side like to carry that out to who helping retention. I  think our engineers stay in the industry. And as, I mean I think that I never could have told you a couple of years ago that this is what I would be doing. Honestly I thought I would still be building products as a technical program manager but I really love this. I really love me, I’m making a bigger difference now than I was when I was building Windows. I would rather impact one hundred people’s lives very deeply every year than you know the millions of people around the world that I you know, I built a piece of user interface for. And just to me, that has more meaning, really addressing a societal disadvantage here and you’re really addressing equity and for me that is I will use you know every better credibility that I have got in the industry over time in order to g ain more equity for people. Chris: Wonderful, Cynthia, this is an absolutely fascinating, please tell listeners how they can find out more about you in Ada Developers Academy. Cynthia: You can harp on our website ‘adadevelopersacademy.org. Ada also on, @AdaAcademy [https://twitter.com/adaacademy]. I am  on Twitter @cynthiatada [https://twitter.com/cynthiatada]. And we are also on Facebook and Linked In and so we have a great following, you can also follow a lot of our students there are very active on social media and on Twitter to find out more about the program. All our students and alumni are always happy to talk to people about that, but that’s the best way to keep in touch with us. Chris: Wonderful.  I’ll have links to Ada in the show notes. If you liked the show, please download all the episodes and leave us a 5 star rating on iTunes! You can find show notes at techlowdownshow.com and follow me on Twitter at cjones2002 [https://twitter.com/cjones2002].