Nancy Zheng [0:01]

So hi everyone. Thank you so much for coming to this founder coho meetup event. My name is Nancy, and I'm going to be your moderator for tonight, and we've got this amazing panel of amazing women with me today, and we'll get to introduce everybody, but before we get started, I want to first talk a little bit about founder COVID And then the group. So founder coho, the name actually stands for founder Coffee House, named after the Stanford coffee coho as well. But founder Cobalt is a community that is here to bring founders closer together. So as many of you are founders yourselves, you might know that the journey is really long and difficult, and so it's really important to have the community help each other out and share information, and we're all about sharing founder stories and fueling founder journeys together. And today we Oh, actually, before that as well, I just wanted to call out our amazing organizers. He and Jing, our co founder and then, as well as our amazing volunteers, as well, if you're a volunteer, if you could maybe stand up and just, you know, show yourself. Thank you so much. There. They've been cutting through since an hour ago. So they're just amazing. So of course, thank you to all of you for being with us. Right Friday. And of course, we have our amazing panel of women, founders and leaders with us today as well. And and I'm just going to get started with introducing all of them, but I want to do this in a slightly interesting way, so I'm going to do something of a two sided intro where I made that up myself this morning, a two sided intro where the first version of the intro is going to be like a LinkedIn version that you might you know, have read about them, you have looked up the event, and then I'm going to ask them to give me a different version that they would like to share. And in particular, and a lot of audience questions have asked about stories from your journey that might be really interesting to share more difficult stories or really moments that really kind of changed and impacted your career. And so I'll invite you to share one of those journeys that I'll start with myself. So I'll make myself a guinea pig, and then you guys can follow the template. So my name is Nancy, and I am the founder of AI. So we are AI company, but been at it for about almost a year now. And before that, I was an engineering director at scribe, and prior to that at Google as well. So that's my LinkedIn version, but my personal version is so I was born in China, grew up in New Zealand and Canada, and studied east coast in the US, and lived in France for a while, and now I'm here. I have two kids and two cats, and my sort of interesting story is that about two years ago, or actually no, but a little bit longer than that. Now, when I had my second child, co lead the factor. After I had my kids, I actually fell down the stairs and broke three bones in my back and was pretty much paralyzed for a year. And when that happened, you do a lot of thinking in your life. And one of the things I realized was that, you know, I could have died that day, and life was really hard. And what, what are the things you actually want to do in life, right? What are the regrets like if the other thing happened? And I realized that one of the things I wanted to do to be a founder, and I had always given myself, like, I need a dream car. I in that moment that, you know, tomorrow I never come, and you've got to go. And so I think from that point on, just studying all the gears, and it took me that many years to get so that's my like. You know, the vulnerable version of that story is the co founder and CEO of Marco Polo, which is a Series C company that built an asynchronous video messaging app that helps people stay better connected with their loved ones. And they have over 4 billion polo set and you know the features in TechCrunch and Vogue, and you know, as a CEO and Mom, it's, I think lot of mission for market school has also been really amazing as well, and just really grounded in mindfulness and and, you know, joy and purposeful work. So that's the, you know, that's her official version. But Wang attended the over COVID to share her, you know, her group. Like I said, I don't

Vlada Bortnik [6:01]

think I need to follow your story, but I'm originally from Ukraine. I came in late in May, and my journey is through, like a medical engineering art degree in college, and then I went to Microsoft, where my husband has been five years there, and maybe, like an emotional part, is that you don't have great things most people, most people think it's pretty crazy to start moving together one way or another. It started with us doing a nonprofit together while we were both like myself, and that's really what got me hooked on, seeing how an idea can become a bigger thing and together to make even bigger.

Nancy Zheng [6:47]

And you should

Vlada Bortnik [6:48]

know about me is that I have two teenage girls, so this isn't my fog Friday out and we started to be like almost always in my belly, is when we started thinking about it, and so the company officially spoke resolve it,

Nancy Zheng [7:11]

really and next up we have Jacqueline. So Jacqueline is the seasoned product leader with experience at some of the most innovative tech companies, including Atlassian, zoom, Twitch, meta and Google. And she actively mentor startups and COVID leaders Lowell weed through programs like po and first round fast track. Hand it over to you to give the

Jaclyn Zhuang [7:38]

other version as a legend. So like many other people here,

Nancy Zheng [7:41]

I'm from Singapore.

Jaclyn Zhuang [7:41]

I came to us for business school, and my intention us, I wanted to move to Hong Kong or back to Singapore to do COVID strategy for investment banking business school. You should stay for

Mariane Bekker [8:00]

two years. Let's see how things

Jaclyn Zhuang [8:19]

test that so in class, my hand and say in class, I was really very scared. Second, law schools don't work this way. You don't stand up, you don't answer things. And so, you know, my husband used to, then boy my friend, used to get kind of mad at me because he said, Stop whispering the answer to me the right answer. Just put up your hand and say it. And it really took a while of learning how to talk to my husband, because he's very good at talking and non stop, and I have to interrupt him and go into, you know, work life in meetings to learn and become a speaker. So like the me back that I just saw the me now sitting in front of everybody who I don't know with bright lights in my face. Thank

Nancy Zheng [9:02]

you. Thank you, gentlemen. And last but not least, we have Mary Ann. And Mary Ann is the Founder and Managing Partner of women's founders Bay in founders Bay, and one of the largest, most active communities of tech FEMA founders in the Bay Area. And before this, Mary Ann led engineering team, leading startup, and gone through five acquisitions and one IPO, oh,

Mariane Bekker [9:33]

this is the official story. The unofficial story is actually, I was born in Lebanon in the middle of the brutal civil war. So I spent the first six, seven years of my life, and one night, we were with my family, and we started hearing the helicopter bombs coming closer, and then we started hearing them as the night progresses, they started hearing the bombs we put closer and closer to us. So we came downstairs with the neighbors, and then we started doing, boom, boom, boom, everywhere, everywhere. And then at that moment, we started hugging each other like I was very young, but I still remember that we sent our goodbyes to our neighbors. We're like, Okay, this is it. We're not gonna survive. And then Mom exploded in our building, but luckily, it was like two years away, so half the filming fell down. But miraculously, I don't know how we survived that night. So the next day, my mom took us and went to the Canadian Embassy, and she refused to meet. She was such a strong woman, until they gave us visas, because she said that, what is your choice if she comes back, we're dead. But then so we left. But then, because at that time, they were only giving visas to women and children, we have to leave my dad behind. So we came to Canada, a new world, and then in Canada we might be there in ghetto and in visa, a lot of women were not dedicated at that time, and then a lot of the men were left behind. So actually, we're living in an apartment with like 10 other people. But that experience really shaped my whole life, because it really showed me that when women are not empowered, when they are not independent, when they don't have education, they have a very hard time taking care of their children, but taking care of society, because all we're doing is surviving. So I dedicated the majority of my career to helping women around me. So when I went into engineering, and my last job I was representing at mind body, before we got acquired, I spent two years and a half fighting to get a team of 55% women engineers, which

Mariane Bekker [11:43]

after that experience. After that experience, what happened is that I just when we got acquired, I decided to leave and then start a company to help companies hire more women engineers. Because my philosophy is that if you put a woman at a fast world startup, her career is going to grow. We're going to get more women as tech executives that are going to mentor more women and, you know, ideally, really change the tech industry. But in that journey, I found myself being an entrepreneur, and I couldn't find any other women entrepreneur where I went to founder events. I'm like, Where are the women? I need a community behind me. So then I decided to start women founders Bay now we're one of the largest and most active communities of 10 female founders. Every week, I report on all of the events happening in the Bay Area, and the reason I report on that is so that more women fund them, and more women go through that. So that's the unusual story that you don't see on my LinkedIn. So

Nancy Zheng [12:42]

i i So I thank you so much for all of you for submitting questions in the Luma as well. And so we actually took a lot of questions. A lot of you that we saw was that a lot of you are early founders or aspiring founders. And I think we'll start off with a section focusing on, you know, thoughts and advice this for folks who might be and want to maybe just start with a open ended question of, you know, for the folks who might be an early founder, aspiring founder, What are some high level thoughts or advice, and what I have for them, well, maybe we can go one at one at a time.

Mariane Bekker [13:30]

I would say, if you're an aspiring founder, stop thinking about it. Just do it. Because I think what I realized is that, let's say you are to emphasize it, right? You're like, should I start this company? Should I not start as a company? These kind of this debate always happens in your head, so as a result, you don't really learn forever. But then if you actually start it by then you make the wrong decision, and even if it's like the worst decision that you make, but you will still learn so much from that experience, and then from those learnings, you can then make the next decision, and that kind of iterative move that, over time, will allow you to learn so much and accomplish a lot of things. So really, like Nye said, Just do it. That's it. Stop thinking about it from the

Jaclyn Zhuang [14:16]

different startups and founders that I thought there. So I think one question that comes up a lot is, How do I find product fits in? How do I know people about my product like it? And there's always the fear that, oh, because I don't have a huge research arm, how can we like go out and find people and do user testing and all that to that, I say, hey, there looked up free places around like Reddit, Facebook, groups, YouTube and people like to talk and compare quite a bit, so use those resources. Like, it's really easy to actually find the right community that I draw on the idea and get the feedback at scale pretty quickly. Like, don't let that

Vlada Bortnik [14:57]

stop you. And then the things I would add is, I think it's really important for our community. Because I think like this or another one, I think it's really important, and then the cheating answer, find something you're passionate about, and then how do you find something you're passionate about? Actually, the thing that helped me was the quote that I read literally in the front like as the hardest part of the journey for me was really figuring out what to work on. And there was this quote that I read that said, don't ask the world what it needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive? Because what the world needs is more people coming alive. And so looking for something that you will be willing to be doing that kind of gets excited do, however small it is, however you might be, chances are they can turn it into a business in some way. So just start. Just start doing it and doing it, Jing with the community,

Nancy Zheng [16:08]

and then you can find the right mark to sit up Sarah's for a long time. Now, I would love to hear from what bookings you commissioned to quit your job and go like, how long researching the idea and like, getting all the signals and feeling ready before you're like, you just make believe and do it. I

Vlada Bortnik [16:27]

wasn't a unique case, because now in this company, we actually had a previous company that we stopped what we sold and stuff working on it. And so we did that because maybe we're gonna start a company. And so it was kind of like this idea that we wanted to model to our kids what it's like to work on something that's really meaningful, and we knew to do that with this other company, and so we knew we had to make a change. And so for us, it really was a matter of, like, just courage and saying, like, we're gonna do it. And then the other thing I would say is, it definitely does, does help to have a supportive partner, somebody who, again, is part of the community building, first, for somebody who really values you on and doesn't seem to be appreciated. I kind of said this. Kind of done it

Mariane Bekker [17:19]

yet. Oh, I will talk about Founders Day, how I decided to kind of stop my first company and work on this whole time. It's really when I started having an impact and started having traction. So this is the advice for whether we must or not, and this is a very sad reality is women still receive less than 2% of the funding. That means that we have to do more with little capital that we have. So I don't necessarily suggest you leave your job to pursue your idea full time, because it's going to take you probably, like, a year, a year and a half, maybe two years, to raise that funding. So instead, you know, start working on your idea part time, once you see that you're having traction, once you see that people are willing to pay for it, then go all in on it, but make sure that when you do, you have at least a year or two of personal runways so you don't get into trouble later. Yeah, and I

Nancy Zheng [18:16]

think that was a great segue into the next question as well. And so I think a lot of folks in the group asked about bootstrapping. And so specifically, you know when you are bootstrapping, especially when you know funding is hard to come by. Your face like, how would you access resources that other VC back companies might already have? You know when you're bootstrapping. And kind of related to that is like, how much should you kind of DIY in Tribuna versus, you know, hiring professional help when, when you're bootstrapping, especially for things like legal and

Mariane Bekker [18:58]

manage your your how much time when you have right? I would say, try to do a lot of the things that you can do yourself, of course, like legal and only goal, luckily, now you have chatgpt that you can ask a lot of questions, probably, you know, pretty, fairly good advice. But I would say what I recommend is just really keeping track of how much money you're spending, how much money you're receiving. But for all the companies that I will focus on is trying to make revenue as soon as possible, right, even if it's like having 10 paying customers, even if it's having like $10 a month from one customer, just try to think about like starting getting Revenue in as soon as possible. The things that I would outsource, if I were you, was is, for example, oh, another thing I wouldn't try to outsource marketing, okay, right now you have the greatest tool at your disposition for go to market, which is social media. And social media requires absolutely $0 so start building your following. Start like writing about things that you love. I think Vlada gave really great advice, right, which is, if you're pursuing this, that means you love it. So find other people that you love it, and start sharing what you love about that idea. You're going to find your niche. You're going to find an audience. And all of that, the cost of acquisition because they're your audience is going to be zero. So, yeah, bootstrap by, you know, building a following for your marketing. And then just make sure to bootstrap everything going out and everything going in when it comes to house flow. The things I

Vlada Bortnik [20:35]

would add is, when we started on the poll, we were spreading our second kid. We had our first kid already around, and we budgeted, exactly how much money we needed to pay the bills. And then we consulted just enough to pay the bills. And then there were some So just as we were thinking of like, kind of set up structure, like we could do. And then the other thing is, I totally agree, in terms of keep a job of your expenses and starting to get revenue as soon as possible, because also they're a sign of hard market, and people are willing to pay for it. So don't be afraid to ask. I think that's another thing that people could hear a woman being nervous asking for people to pay for their products. And another thing another thing is, part of being a community is there's a lot of research. So something like engineering, they can review your code. It can be an idea you might be really good at social media, there's a lot of cross referencing and cross sharing resources that you can do through art community.

Nancy Zheng [21:42]

Cool, so for folks who are fundraising, I guess what? I think. Mary Ann, you shared a little bit about the state of funding, especially for women Congress, any any kind of observations about the latest trends and any fundraising advice you might have for this group,

Mariane Bekker [22:04]

all right, latest coming trends, so I'm going to have a raise funding. Sometimes it's 3,000,003 ideas. Sometimes it's 1 million post idea. But I think they all have one thing in common, is that they started building a network of VCs around them very early on. So one of the things that I suggest if you want to fundraise is to not go to the market without a network and say that you're fundraising, because this is going to be very hard for you to get funding. And then the longer you take to fundraise, the longer you become unfundable, because then VCs are hearing about it that, hey guys, fundraising on are hearing about it that hey, why haven't they fundraised in a year and a half? So one of the things that I do recommend is now, don't say that you're fundraising. Start going to different types of events. Meet VCs. And every time you need a VC, get a CRM. So get an Excel sheet. Put who that VC is, who you you know, when you chatted with them, connect with them on LinkedIn, populated with at least 100 to 150 VCs. Once you have that list, once you have a connection, a warm intro to these VCs. Then what I saw they did is they said, Okay, well now we're ready to fundraise. We're opening around. Then they started reaching out to VCs who had the most likelihood of funding them. They got the first term sheet, and then within these few weeks, they went to that term sheet and they created FOMO, among other VCs, and that's how they Wang the round. So it's a very kind of, you know, ABC process, but this way you make sure to, you know, create those. You make sure to close your round. It's not impossible, and then you can do it. And another thing also, if you don't have that big network of VC, or if you're still building it, focus on building caption. And if you're building like B to B apps, for example, let's say that you need money to build your app, right? But what you can do is you can get letter of intent from different companies, and that just is enough to show you see that you have some traction. People are willing to pay for it.

Vlada Bortnik [24:10]

Everything you said. And the only, the only thing I would add, is that what you are pitching is like, don't just think about that one thing you're building or paint a good picture. What is it? What's the industry you're changing? Why is it important to not just the bonus or just the Wang that you're building? But again, dream,

Mariane Bekker [24:30]

and I think I see women do that a lot, is that they're very conservative. They're like, Oh, yeah, I think realistically, I can reach like 20,000,004 years. I'm like, that's 20 million. To tell them how you're going to reach 100 million and how you're going to be the next billion dollar company. Men do that all the time. So even though you think, oh, you know what, it's not possible, no, believe that it's possible and that you can do it and sell them the dream. Don't be humble. I think, moving

Nancy Zheng [24:59]

on. Want to talk about product market fit, this elusive product market fit. And yes, tips on product market fit in general. And maybe I'll start with you. Jacqueline, yeah, I

Jaclyn Zhuang [25:15]

think it depends on whether you're on consumer focus or the price focus. Consumer focus. I think the other side tomorrow, market fit people want to use like, what you're building, your app, your piece of software, and then they find that delightful. Because for consumers, the first part is like just grabbing the attention, maybe the usage is there. And after that, you can think about monetization with enterprise is a different piece. Though. With enterprise, I think you want to see the initial revenue off the bat, and then with that, also I want to highlight the difference between the buyer and the user. I've spoken to a mentor, a couple of founders, where they had pre fraction revenue of either buy, and then something happened, and they discovered that no one's using and when they want. News companies tend to not spend for very long time, because they also want to see people, you know, see the investment in apps and software coming to fruition. When you think about the enterprise side, definitely, you want to see the buy in happening, but keep a close eye on the usage as well.

Mariane Bekker [26:18]

All right. Well, this is great advice. I think the thing that I can add is, I think the way that you find product market fit is through the iterative process called Agile methodology, use like the MVP building. So when you want to figure out how you find product market fit, but how you build a product, I would say, always start with thinking about like one feature that can can solve a very specific problem and then just build that one feature. And even though it's not the product that you envision, what you can do with that one feature is that you can release it to a small subset of customers. You can start asking them questions, and you can send them surveys on what they like and what they don't like, and with that feedback, you can then go and iterate on that product and on that feature. Then you build the next feature, and you release it, and you get feedback, and then you build this next feature. And this creates, really, this like cycle where you are not taking so long, and you're going into a quarter and building your own thing, but while you are building your final product market fit just by going to your customer and asking that question, and then that engineering team anywhere from seven to over 100 and even with 100 engineering team, we did the same thing. Started with this one feature. We released it, we got the feedback, and then we continued building it over time to really like make the product better. Just

Vlada Bortnik [27:39]

to give an example of what both of you guys are saying on the consumer side with Marco Polo ball. Consumer version, the first version of dad who did was actually called Joya, and was a way to create a video portable. Do you guys remember, rather than they had wallets or pictures, we're trying to create that for kids and videos. And so I had different music together classes that I just like, hand filled the app for that family, and had to lose it, and then I collected feedback and the surveys. And then from that, we realized like, that's not enough. They want to be able to send videos to their family members. So then we did the next version. And then at some point, we created this other app where, again, people were sending videos. And then we realized, like, Oh no, people are actually turning the camera and talking to each other. And that was the beginning of the fall. It's all user research session in peace. And in our company, we talk a lot about making contact with reality, because you can be you guys will talk about being in your head a lot. There's a lot of interesting things that happen here, but that's not reality. The reality is actually what happens when you give the product to the person and start using it. And doesn't have to be political. Prototyping can be totally banded together. Start getting, like, real data on how

Nancy Zheng [28:54]

powerful it is, just following on to that love, like, how long did it take you to reach for field power market?

Vlada Bortnik [29:02]

So we officially incorporated a company, dozen 12, iterated nine different times, 16. That's Marco Polo. And Marco Polo started 2016 so from 2012 doesn't 16 four years.

Nancy Zheng [29:20]

Wow. Thank you. I think another good category from the audience is work life balance. How do you how do you prioritize between family commitments and kids in work?

Mariane Bekker [29:39]

All right, so I'm a single mom kid. That's another thing that you won't see from Huntington, and there's no work like that. However I put it, I'm either always working or with my kids. I literally went to pick them up, drop them, fed them, and came here and I'm gonna go back and do the same thing and start all over again. The reality of it is like moms are superheroes, right? But the key thing that I try to do, just to keep my mental health is maybe, you know, one night, every, you know, two weeks, I try to just turn off the phones, turn on anything. You just do an activity that that I love, and that kind

Jaclyn Zhuang [30:21]

of is insane. Don't people feel well, don't they don't angle of life balance? And give you, like, interesting examples, like for my husband, worldwide, balance means he has to shut his up down by 6pm otherwise he goes crazy the next day. Like doing a work day is pretty intense, very focused. 6pm has been off, but for me, it was different. I was always managing global teams, like local team members, and like Australia, New Zealand and India and Poland, and with that being the situation, awake during the day, their day starts like how after the evening. And so for me, what life balance needs in the evenings being able to, like, drive my kids, because I have two kids, two different genders and different activities, so my husband split up, driving the assigned kid to the activity and do calls out there, and like, grabbing dinner here and there. But it worked for me. And at the end of the day, you know, I can still shut down, get stuff done during the day and get all the errands done. So I think different people, again, definitely find what works for you.

Vlada Bortnik [31:20]

I would like to say that I don't believe more like comments. And for me, it's about being consciously unbalanced, because that's, I think that's the best that I could do. So for me, it's really about figuring out one of things are non emotional, one of things are really important to me, and then setting up life around it. Also, for me, part of the reason I started is because I wanted more than something that I should about. It didn't feel like work. I love company. And so it's really a matter of like, what are the buckets in your life that really pour? So, for example, we almost always have family. This is pretty unusual for us to have family members today. That's something that, for me was like, non negotiable. There's also, like, real close to my mom, my parents are like, there's always a phone call every day, you know? So there's just, like, what? There are certain things that put in place. There's not negotiable. And oftentimes they go with Calendar, but everything else kind of goes in as as needed. Sometimes, like my husband and Bucha was like, different plants water, different plants is needed. Sometimes the plant needs a warm water, but you just make sure they're all

Nancy Zheng [32:29]

just add one thing. I think my superpower is outsourcing the house stuff, I think especially very important, and actually takes time to figure out, you know, the cleaners, like, babysitters, Grandma, you do everything, but yeah, like, ask for help.

Vlada Bortnik [32:47]

I think that's really I think I just want to say, I'm so glad you said that. I think that's really important advice. And I know for me, like, I grew up an immigrant, it's really hard. It was really popular clean the house and I followed my husband for a really long time. And I think it's a mistake. I think if you can afford, like, if you can create a budget, like, maybe you don't eat as much, or maybe not special gift, I don't know what it is for you, but it's so important to help. Ask for help, and maybe you can stay with a friend, but getting help around like these logistical, household things, I think is really important.

Mariane Bekker [33:24]

I think you're very good point about aspirin health. And this is a story that happened to me. So a few weeks ago, I was organizing a web three counter, right? And web three is very male dominated, and there's not a lot of parents there, but last minute, all of my babysitting options went through the door, and I found myself not having babysitting. I was organizing this. So what am I going to do? So I brought my four year old and my eight year old with me at the at the dinner, and then the web three founders, like the typical web three founder, they started. I asked them for help. I'm like, Listen, guys, like, I need to eat, I'm very tired. Help me out. And they started playing what it is, they started helping me. So just ask for help. I think the community here is so willing to be open and to help out, and you'll find a lot of people around you being able to help communities. People

Vlada Bortnik [34:19]

underestimate how much. How did it feel? There's like research, Stanford research, that says that people underestimate how good it feels to help somebody else. And so because we think we're going to be a burden, or I think I'm going to be a burden, I want to put them into that community asking, and I forget how it feels when I get to help somebody like I get to hear and help people. So yeah, ask for help.

Nancy Zheng [34:45]

I'm super important. Yeah, and I think Jacqueline, you actually had a really interesting story about asking for help as well. Yeah, just made sure. I'm sure the story. But I think asking for help like

Jaclyn Zhuang [34:56]

secret underrated superpowers, because somehow other. I don't feel bad about asking people for help. I think everybody likes to help. And I realize I don't know everything in the world. So whether it's work or it's like family stuff or work, I never feel you know, as insecure or unsure if something comes up, because I'm very sure someone has the answer, just to ask somewhere, and then, even for kids stuff themselves, like these two ladies like, hit the nail on the head. We have no family around, and sometimes it's hard for us to outsource or find things last minute. So my neighbors are the one that depend a lot, must not make their kids off to soccer. And what I realized is the worst is they can say no, and most of the time they do say yes, and they don't really think much about it, because it's just like, just like, Okay, grab a kid, grab my kid, and let's go. So I would say, I meet a lot of people who are afraid to ask for help. I would say, don't be afraid. And that's almost two years ago. Then you can always ask for help again, anonymously. I like to talk about all the social media so you can ask for help there. Just ask information about what we're trying to get through your whole day of things you don't know, trying to save us cool. I think,

Nancy Zheng [36:15]

moving into the next section, I think there's a lot of questions about building a personal brand and network. And I think even before you get started, how do you before you, you know, start founding a company, like, how could you even start, you know, building your personal brand in today, right? And so, yeah, any, any tips you would give around a building permit, and especially for women, I think, like, what makes us different, or what are some of our strengths that we can leverage to, you know, stand out and build that narrative as well. I think I always thought with what you mentioned, which is, like, talk about what you're passionate about, like, what do you like doing? What are you interested in? And start from there. Because once you have that interest, it's easy to start talking to others about it, or inquiring from others, but how they relate to it. And then you can move on to that from there. I know people talk about, like, writing articles on LinkedIn and building up your social media presence. I think, like, that's the next step to it. I see it as the next step. First step is really just finding out what you're passionate about, moving to talking to people about it. I

Mariane Bekker [37:34]

definitely agree with that on what you're passionate about. And then the next step is find your goal. Why are you building that personal brand? Are you building your personal brand so with that, you can build an audience for your startup? Are you building your personal brand because you want to be an influencer? Are you building your personal brand because you want to find a job, right? Once you have your goal, the next step would be to find, according to that goal, who are the people or what is the audience that will help you achieve that goal? Right? If it's, for example, you want to build your personal brand because you want to work on your healthcare startup, right? Then your astp is probably, maybe, let's say doctors. Okay, let's just say an example. Then what you start doing is you start like looking at, okay, well, where do these software? Where does your customer profile? Are they on LinkedIn? Are they on Twitter? Are they on Tiktok? And let's say they are on multiple channels. Find what you like, right? Let's say you'd love to do videos, and you love recording videos, and probably you want to use like Tiktok or YouTube. Let's say you love writing, long form writing that is LinkedIn. Let's say you hate writing and you love taking pictures and Instagram. So find the social media that you will not behave your life doing, and then find what your ICP really care about, right? If you think that I did when I started my kind of personal branding journey is I looked at who are the top five influencers right in tech, but what are they writing about? Who are they? Who? Who are their followers? And start interacting with them, and their followers is are going to notice and then slowly, over time, you're going to start building technology that way. And another thing that was a game changer for me is that I ab tested every single thing that I did. What that means if you try out different types of content, and you see the response of that content, once you see something is resonating, then you take that and then you continue, you know, refining it and iterating to really find product market fit. There's no different building your personal brand is no different than building a product. So think about it more as like, this is your product. This is like, probably the most powerful thing you'll have right as an audience is your personal brand. And iterate over it until you find product market fit. And so you find your audience, and your people

Jaclyn Zhuang [40:02]

just go gonna add something to that. I think the testing piece is really important. Like, what I do is one step with progress. When I'm thinking about, like, what to do. Like, here's what I'm thinking about, and I'll ask them this kind of what background they have. But I'll just ask, like, how does this resonate? What do you think? And again, to the point that lots of people want to help, when people hear about it, they'll either have a point of view, or they start thinking about, Oh, who do I know that could help? And that's where I get a lot of introductions of people who can

Nancy Zheng [40:40]

help me along the way as well. I think we're on the last question, which is, what networks or communities have you found to be helpful for you in

Vlada Bortnik [40:54]

your so for me, I think it's a few hours. One is, does your children do develop? Has anybody heard about it before you before? It's a really wonderful program. It's a one year program, and it started by and Carol, I came around, but she was the professor of petrovision school, and it's a class that's the probe is all about connection, and we create personal growth, and it's really a wonderful way, because you're surrounded it's only for founders. They also have executive retreats, but we hear a little problem is for founders, and it's really a great way to get support both your personal career. And then I'm also part of the DC back mom's group that financially supportive for moms and they can become moms. And it just makes me want to talk about kids and partners. And what does that mean, woman in that I did not know about your community, but now I do, so we'll see. And I'm also part of YPO, the young president's organization, and my chapter in particular is mostly founders, and to move my committee within that chapter to basically cover top versus anything related personally and really been tribal support for

Jaclyn Zhuang [42:25]

for me, it's a company alumni networks. So there's a really good text Google Network on this, lots of networking and health. There is a executive movement in product group on Facebook and all of that, like a small subset of this, like a personal two weeks, we're on WhatsApp together, and we're really holding each other up through the thick sentence of anything from funding a business to like, just driving your career and then managing the teenagers you have in the house at the same

Mariane Bekker [43:00]

time. All right, are you ready for my shameless plug? Well, it's women Founders Day. So we built this community, really for one purpose, and that's to empower women founders to grow their startup. So we are extremely active. We have a community of 500 women, 500 amazing startup founders, and then we come together. You know, every week, every month, really support each other. If you are interested in applying or joining, you can go to women Founders day.com/apply, and I would love to have you for the men here. I also want Founders Day. That's what we think was like. We have 32,000 founders and VCs in our network. Every week, I report on all the events happening, and I give like workshops for founders. And then you can subscribe to the newsletter. It's newsletter.foundersbay.com so join our community. We're here for you. This is the only reason we exist, is that we want you to find support. We want you to find a group that believes in you and that will be there with you through things.

Nancy Zheng [44:07]

All right. Thank you so much for bearing with all my questions. Now I'm going to open it up to the audience. If you have any questions for this

Vlada Bortnik [44:15]

group, would love to

Vlada Bortnik [44:41]

to tell your past 30 year

Mariane Bekker [45:01]

Old yourself when I was I don't 32 years old, and honestly, I didn't think that I was ever going to be okay again. But, you know, I'm okay now. I'm thriving and finally, happy most of the time. So things are going to work out for you no matter what. Yeah, I think for me,

Jaclyn Zhuang [45:24]

it's a scientific authority. I was about to get a parent. It's not even about kids, and very afraid that that would stop my career and just be real. I have it. So do I need to do like, my grades and things are going to work out for me. I one

Nancy Zheng [45:44]

thing I see this boundary journey. And sometimes, if you think about it as a free MBA, it kind of helps. Where you're getting a lot of learning, it's free. Sometimes you wouldn't give you money. And so what the learning you get is real, real life, practical experience, if you think of it that way, you just do it. There's no requirement for

Vlada Bortnik [46:22]

them. That, and we want to in and out. I think our route a and I found really helpful. So do you have anything about say again? Oh, great. Yeah, that's really great. And you

Mariane Bekker [47:01]

And then, how did you overcome it? I mean,

Vlada Bortnik [47:06]

the outcome can be learned something, but how do you overcome that hardest period of time throughout that journey? I'm

Mariane Bekker [47:11]

asking is, I'm also just

Mariane Bekker [47:19]

is waiting for me. So I really was a year in, and that was I started like, right, when all of you know, my new life started a year again. I was probably working like, 100 hours a week. I was like, as a single mom, and then something very small happens, like, maybe one of my clients sent me an angry email. At that point, I really went into, like, freezer flight mode. I froze. I couldn't move anymore. I couldn't make decisions. I didn't want to work on the company. I really burned out. And then it took me, like, months to recover from that. But I think what I realized is that your when you are building a startup, is so important. And actually a lot of the companies that fail Do not fail because they don't find product market fit. They fail because the startup founder burns out. So make sure to really prioritize your mental health, to build that community around you, so that you have people to talk to, because things are always there's always things that are going to go bad, right? It's inevitable when you're building a startup, but make sure that when things do, you have people you can reach out to, and then you're not your way out. Yeah. So really

Jaclyn Zhuang [48:50]

not founded any company, but then quite a few Sub Zero to One Minute data companies. In that situation, you're working a lot. So I had who which didn't get a lot, which is sold things differently, and yet you're brought together because you've been asked to build up this new idea. And the key part of me to get through that was just finding other people in the room, in a company that backed me up, that supported in

Vlada Bortnik [49:29]

the company that backed me up, that supported me, that trusted me. I think the hardest task to do the marketing for me was making a decision to start a company and then idea. But I think when I think about what is actually the hardest about the journey, I think it's your it is your month. Is your mindset, which is why I think it's so important to make something really passionate about, because that passion is going to get you through the ups and downs. And other thing is also with the mindset, like with my first I really had this mentality on, like I need to sacrifice myself to prove that I earned this investment. And I need to set an example for every company. So I work seven days a week, like, you know, 1012, hour days. Like, I just, like, totally work all time, pay myself, non market rates, like, all these things I did, and it was such a bad mindset. Like, the mindset is, I'm doing this because I love doing this. I deserve this thing. They get to be they get to invest in my idea, my vision, benefit from the financial eventually. And that does not mean you have to sacrifice yourself. It does not mean that the office to go or your physical helps to go. So taking care of like your Family, your health. Don't sacrifice those things. Of months, turn on some music, find a friend to do it and get through it together

Nancy Zheng [51:25]

I think the hardest part was actually, you know, breaking up with my co founder and starting the company now, because I think people don't talk about that enough until we co founded breakup and breakups. And oftentimes it's really emotional and really embarrassing. And at the time too, it was like, you know, I gave myself some timeline, yeah, at least get the co founder, you know, his funding, etc. And I actually reached my timeline for that? What I had originally set out, and it felt like I had nothing. And so this moment, I'm like, Ah, you know, do I just quit? And and then I said, let me do my job one of those times. And so I think I spent a few months, like three, three or so on soul searching, and I actually ended up to completely kind of pivot my direction, and it was really scary, but then I actually ended up meeting my co founder now, and I think that just changed everything. And so I think sometimes you think you give yourself a timeline, but when you're in it, right? There's no timeline, right? I mean, except for your financial timeline. But if you don't give up, you always get more shots. I

Vlada Bortnik [53:44]

coming from

Mariane Bekker [56:54]

agree with that we need more women in deep tech, but we did do a breakfast, I think a month ago, called Women in AI women in tech, and we sold out of the breakfast five times. So there are women out there. We are trying to paint that by bringing more like Industry Focus. But one of the partnership that I did, and I'm so excited about that, is for women who are looking for, you know, tech advice, right? It's very, very hard to right now go and find a co founder that as passionate as you, but I made a deal with this company called the agenda. And they are, they build basically an LLM, but they offer their kind of deep tech AI expertise to all of the people in my community for less than 10k you can basically build your AI product or deep tech products. So if you are interested, come talk with me, and hopefully you know these types of partnerships are going to benefit the community who are looking for margins, like deep

Vlada Bortnik [58:21]

by yourself first, or comment that very guest artist,

Mariane Bekker [58:27]

a lot of people try to, you know, really focus on finding a co founder, but the reality of it is finding someone who's as passionate as you are about the problem you're solving. But not only that, not only are they as passionate, they're in the same time stage as you and three you work really well together. It's super hard. So if you can't find a kind of like a co founder, don't find a co founder right now, you have the tool, especially with AI to really be productive, to make your whatever you need happen on your own. And then you can always hire like founding either engineers or founding people that you can give them equity to work with you, but they're not necessarily the same as like technical co founder. And another thing, if you're specifically looking for like engineers. Go where the engineer live. Okay, go where they are. So that means go, start going to hack and start going to Dad events, and you're going to meet so many of them, and a lot of them, especially nowadays, do not are, you know, in true jobs. So it's a great time to go and try to convince them to work for you. But they don't need to be your co founder. You can just give them, like the foundation, your title. I

Nancy Zheng [59:36]

think the other thing I want to add here is actually the risk tolerance matching is really important, because that is something I didn't think about. But if you have different conviction levels, from like, a financial perspective, or from how much runway you have, it doesn't work very well, because if you inevitably have to pivot a few times, how many pivots can they endure? And I think the hardest part is, if you try to do pivots together, and then, you know, why don't you quit? Well, that's like huge reset, right? And so I think just the pure things together, long enough to have something is this is really important, as important as compliments feels that.

Vlada Bortnik [1:00:26]

I agree with that. I mean, I have a co founder of my husband, so I'm in the situation, but we did have a company increased something with stay aligned with somebody else. It's really, it really is like another marriage, which is why we decided to not do that again and just stay married together. And it really is like we bonded to stay in touch with them. It was like regular course teachers all the time. And the thing is, like, people often say that, you know, being a CEO is a lonely job, and so you want to co founders lonely. But the reality is, like, it's, it's a lonely job no matter what, because and it's important to listen community around you. He was the CEO of our company. First we switched roles, and I remember when he was CEO, and he was telling me how hard it is and how lonely he feels. And I was like, whatever man I am, the pressure I feel like you're talking about like this. I stopped fighting, and then we switched. And I was like, oh, like, it's true, like the student position is really different, and for your co founders, it's not going to feel the same pressure too. And so if you're doing it to release someone some pressure, like, don't think that there's the reason. I think there's better reasons than

Nancy Zheng [1:03:30]

raising and messaging. Well, I'm not reading either, but I was maybe before for my previous company. And I think a lot of lessons learned there was that it's like hiring your boss to some extent, right? And you really want to listen to their listen to a book you before you hire them, and you're going to get out, you're probably going to be doing meetings with them quite frequently. And what I realized is that little bit like, it's a little bit like dating in some sense, where in the beginning everything is great, and like, it's like, oh yeah, everyone loves pasta, you know, so great, so helpful. But I think then it's when the Bucha is shove right, and then the other side comes out. And so I actually find that when you're not raising and actually getting to know people at a deeper level and to see, like, because everyone's like, cool, I want to help. How can I help? You know, I think, before you're committed, everyone wants to help, but few people actually help. Right? Like, how many people actually go and make customer chose you, or, like, go and show the co founder, or whatever it is, right? Like, and you actually quickly realize the difference between people who are like, you know, there's a group of people, I think, who are there to, like, have you as their meeting notes that they're gonna present to the team later, and then, just like, do market research on you, right? And it's very hard to distinguish that from actual creative investors who really put in the work and then help you out. And so I think it's actually having time when you're not readying to build those relationships and learn a little bit about who they are is very important, but it's hard. It takes a lot of time as well. And I think the other thing is, nowadays, everyone's scraping LinkedIn right. So I think when I left right, I got, like, over 100 inbound LinkedIn request, and I was so flattered. I'm like, oh, you know, I'm so great, awesome,

Nancy Zheng [1:05:31]

know, over time, I realized, like, hey, you know, not necessarily a great thing, right? If you just went and talked to all of them and then, like, two weeks later, your idea changes, or something like, that's not, that's not a great thing. So I think, I think it's just understanding what the nature of the relationship is, and trying to build, like, real human connection before taking any more money, right? And I think, and I think even then, I think I've heard a lot of stories about crazy stuff that happens, you know, when the parachutes are on the table or afterwards, right? So I think building that big time before, super important. And I think, and then nowadays, there's so much about, like, run the process, you know, like, talk to 100 people in two weeks. And then, like, you know, like, wish the term sheets, I feel like the precept to that is you have to at least like them a little bit, right? If it's not just about the baby, the best term sheet, it's like, yeah, do you want, do you want to work with this person for the next X number of years? Agree with you

Vlada Bortnik [1:06:40]

around building up the network. We were really, like, we were very strategic in who we want to be on our board, and so we sort of targeted people ahead of time and started sharing our ideas, and kind of got them excited, because for us, we're very much focused during opening our purposes against how people feel close. And so it was a more impressed that the board was going to be represented with that. And so we we interviewed them as much as they were interested in us. And then the other thing on the front when you do, if you are in a position like I would definitely reference check. So talk to other founders who had that investor on your board and ask a question about, what was I doing? Because, like you said, it's easy to say, I'm going to call them up. Every investor I know says I want to be the first poem on for you what they spoke about, and then find out from the founders, were they actually the first person they called when things went up, you know, so cross reference the information from

Mariane Bekker [1:07:43]

There's a lot of tips out there, so I'm going to go on all of them, but one advice that I give for our founders who are fundraising is to start like this, maybe quarterly newsletter. But even let's see you talk to investors and they're not interested, it's a No. And No is always, can always be turned into maybe just not right now. So it's very newsletter, but all the investors there that you've been talking about, and then just send them updates and exciting updates, and you never know, maybe one update will get there by and that they're going To turn into a industrial and

Mariane Bekker [1:08:54]

a mutated entrepreneurial journey, and how did you honestly, I feel like I'm taking away every day, right, just by continually building my company. Because, like, what is the alternative, right? If you are not building a company, that means you have a stable nine to five job. You always have revenue coming in, right? But when you're building your company, especially at the early stage, you never know when your next paycheck is going to come from, right? You never know if you're going to be able to fundraise more and later on. So every day, being an entrepreneur is a risk. And a lot of people say, Okay, everybody can be an entrepreneur. No, if you are not able to weather that risk, if you're not able to go through extreme highs and extreme low, then maybe an entrepreneur is not good for you. But I think it all it comes back to what everybody is saying, if you have something that you're so passionate about, that you believe in your fort and make the impact. For me, I'm taking that risk every day because I truly believe that now is the time for the tech industry to change and to be more diverse. And I truly believe that it's time for a woman to shine, right? So this passion of mine is stronger than this, you know, this scariness that I feel, I'll continue being an entrepreneur. So if you have something that you're so passionate about and that you know you really want to make an impact in the world, or make an impact for people around you, then it's going to kind of counter impact that feeling of scared of what's gonna

Nancy Zheng [1:10:36]

happen next. Yeah. And I think one part is really understanding your finances. I think before I quit, I was so much here, like, oh, you know, fair is so expensive. And, you know, I could probably always survive, like, six months and, and I think it was just this. I didn't even look at the numbers. I was like, I just assumed that, you know, I need a lot of money. And I think once I kind of spreadsheet and, like, really looked at, you know, and I asked my husband, like, you know, please don't quit your job and please give me some money. But I think, like, when you actually, like, project the numbers, you actually, at least for me, I realized, like, oh, you know, we have enough space. And like, okay, maybe I have to, like, sell all my stock and do something. But I think, you know, I think I was in an okay spot financially. I think it's very different. But I know I've met other founders who are, like, literally living paycheck to paycheck. And I'm like, you know that that's like, way too I couldn't do that, right? But I think, I think for me, once I saw the numbers, for me, like it was okay, I think that's one part of actually, do you really know how much runway you have? I think the other part is, I think this feeling of, like, is my idea good enough? Like, am I you know, how long is it going to take me to get to PMF. And I just think, like, Airbus doesn't taste longer than you think, right? But I think to me, that's why I think, to me the this is a free MBA, like, if you think about it as education, somehow you're more willing to do it and pay a lot of money to do it. So when it's, you know, free MBA, suddenly it's more terrifying. So I think the thinking about reframing education helped me, like, lessen the bar, I think as a way more terrifying as well.

Jaclyn Zhuang [1:13:30]

people you can work with to try and get your idea out. Or I was listening to the founder rat and how you know the technical background, you can just start using, and then you're getting something coated up. And for areas that represent can't do they for mom people, so you can go higher development just to fix and tweak the pieces. So I think there are lots of different ways you can

Vlada Bortnik [1:13:48]

you can test out your idea of stability, if that's

Vlada Bortnik [1:13:55]

with First Voice. Good thing, I would add is there's a few experiences that you've encouraged. One is, so I was Microsoft for five years, and then we tried starting a company, and then moving to those Obama was just depleted. Depleting, and often I was like, I can't do this anymore. I need to get a job. And so math Microsoft and I got higher salary. And that was even really the data point for me, that actually I can almost always go back to a job, a corporate job, and chance now get paid more than I did last time. So I think like having that experience, giving courage to like, Okay, I have some sort of safety. I think he has the markets. Maybe I won't get the perfect job, but I think I'll be looking for the job. And then the second thing that happened was, when I came to us, I had the money, and so surviving that. And then again, when we started the company, like seeing that, I ended up with my husband. Really manage our budget and live pretty cheaply. Also give you the courage that I don't need that much actually to make it. So if there is a gap, and I think, you know, they give us longer, like I will be okay. So financials that you go back to the job, and we don't think that that's helpful for me, university is surrounding myself who are also willing to take the risk? Because, like, I lived in Kansas for a while, but I first moved from Uganda within Kansas, and I think starting companies somewhere where there is a mentality, so for me, being aware, because the and so again, it's going to get there with other jobs. You know, it's going to be a better job. So being surrounded with people and seeing that whatever you do is actually is another way to take place.

Vlada Bortnik [1:16:18]

Yeah, my pros have been a really amazing recruiting so there is no requirements to get in. So if you're early stages, it's probably not quite good yet. But the thing that I love about it is, at least in my chapter, it's mostly people who are founders, and so I was really looking for a community, basically having a family at the same time starting a family same time start our company, meant that that's that was my life. I didn't I really had very little time for anything else, and then I really wanted to find a way to have friendships and have community. And great if you can see time efficiency is something I look forward to marriage and prompting experiences, but also in my friendships and so white panel was something that was recommended to me, and I actually was turning it away for a long time because there is a cost associated with it, and I thought I wasn't gonna have time for it. You know, I need to stay focused on the family and the company. And finally, this person then listen to joy. And the thing that I came in from here literally get access to a global network of other found owners and other people who are running companies and having the same kind of pressure and stress points as you do. And so within my chapter, that group is specifically that you know founders, some many tech founders. And then every month we meet my small my small group needs for three to four hours to discuss with our spouses, our kids, our family, like our parents and so on. Or it could be like financial crisis or pandemic, or a war starting, or like new presidency, whether you score taxes, you know. So it's really interesting conversations. And the power Bucha is really that is vulnerable conversations. It's really like we actually interview people for authenticity, to see how deep they're willing to go in conversations. And all the conversations are confidential. There's a lot of it's a very strict policy. And then there's also fun events. So we did like an ABC event. So there's like these, like, serious monthly things that you yourself think throughout the year. A lot of like behind the scenes type things