
      GivingData
        
  


      WEGO Health
  


      University of Utah Technology & Venture Commercialization
  

Focus on the individual experience. We offer relief from whirlwind checkups and long pharmacy lines by giving people with chronic conditions the power to make better decisions. We don’t just educate, we motivate and measure personal progress with advanced technology and prescription fulfillment services for improved healthcare experiences, from diagnosis to refill and repeat.


      Alliance Health, LLC
  

About us

  Follow Dossia on Twitter @Dossia

Dossia is dedicated to improving health and healthcare in America by empowering individuals to make good health decisions and become more discerning healthcare consumers. Backed by some of the largest, most respected brands in the world - Applied Materials, BP America, Inc., Cardinal Health, Intel, Pitney Bowes, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, Abraxis BioScience and Wal-Mart - Dossia’s
founding member companies have united under the common vision of changing healthcare.

For more information, visit www.dossia.com


      Dossia
  

Medicine X is a catalyst for new ideas about the future of medicine and health care.



      Stanford University School of Medicine
  


      SXSW
  

Advised philanthropic organizations on strategic applications of new technology to advance their mission and improve their effectiveness.


About us

  Bridgeline Digital provides solutions that transform how brands interact with their customers.

Bridging the gaps between marketing, content, commerce, social & insights. Bridgeline enables marketers to deliver exceptional customer experiences. Engage prospects and build customer relationships across multiple channels – empowering you to: attract, engage, nurture & convert!

Bridgeline Digital helps customers maximize the performance of their complete digital experience – from websites and intranets to online stores and marketing campaigns. Bridgeline enables customers to maximize revenue, improve customer loyalty, enhance employee knowledge, and reduce operational costs. 

The Bridgeline Unbound Product Suite deeply integrates Web Content Management, eCommerce, eMarketing, Social Media management, and Web Analytics. The Bridgeline platform powers websites, online stores, portals and intranets for  thousands of customers that range from small and medium-sized organizations to Fortune 1000 companies. 

Bridgeline has been recognized numerous times as a leader in Content Management, Commerce and Marketing Automation and has won multiple industry awards.

Bridgeline Digital is headquartered near Boston with additional locations in Chicago, Denver, Tampa, New York & California. Bridgeline has thousands of customers ranging from mid market organizations to divisions within Fortune 1,000 companies.


      Bridgeline Digital
  

Western Washington University

Mentor Students connect students with a hiring manager in a conference call, and helps students with their job/internship search. 

Students:
1)      build professional network while at school, i.e. consider it as a prequel to Linkedin;
2)      learn how various career paths fit with their interests and skills;
3)      get guidance on how to groom themselves for their chosen career path;
4)    increase their job prospects. Students understand job expectations, deliverables, skills needed, and work culture from a hiring manager. With this understanding, students can better outline job-relevant projects and courses in a cover letter.


Hiring managers:
1)    promote job/internship opportunities across multiple universities at the same time without leaving office;
2)    save time in shortlisting, since students are rank-ordered based on cover letters and profiles;
3)    get the gratification of mentoring students and making an impact on their career;
4) can increase the application pool by engaging promising students through the system.


      MentorStudents.org
        
  

University of Dlehi

Minimal Viable Product (MVP) & Product-market fit

Conflict Resolution & Promote Healthy Work Culture

SVP, Strategy, 
      GivingData
        
  

I can tell you, it was just a curative. It was just the Buddhist path. That is where I am today. I used after college nothing. What? Maybe a year to work And then, uh, law school. I was aspiring to be an environmental lawyer and after getting accepted the law school. Molly, I have three trophies. So I went to each school and network the there's who were in the field. I was interested in which we environmental law and ask them essentially what my career pop might look like within my aspirations and long school short after doing the mental views was, uh, incredible. Concerned that my ability to become the kind of environmental lawyer I was expecting Thio be constrained by a number of things That's really the, uh, one example was about there is in a job. I mean that the sheriff of Legal Defense Fund in 5000 people applied for it. And I was just really concerned that maybe I wasn't cut out to try toe, make housekeeping bargain and have to go work in the private law firm I took. I decided Thio, I decided Thio continue working and explore other options and very speculative salute. Well, first rule job after that was helping to build an online community and a network to connect public interest lawyers in California And that waas very early in the days of building online communities. And it gives me an opportunity to really look at our technology could be used to stop their collaboration and communication and information. Terry, in a world that was very interesting to, um and eventually that became a non opportunity to work with not just public interest lawyers online but organizations working on a really broad range of social and economic justice issues. And so, essentially doing that for about a year and a half, I realized I don't want to be a lawyer now. I'd rather work in technology, try to build these kinds of platforms and tools to support organizations and individuals working in these issues. And that was the beginning of my career was essentially, I mean, ever since I have been working in technology and trying to connect these tools to issues that I really care about,

Yeah, foundations, Grant making foundations, of which there are about 40,000 just in in the US alone, um, tend to be very rigid organizations and have a lot of different processes. Which, um still, for many of those foundations or heavily reliant on a kind of cobbled together system of spreadsheets, Cem databases, um, some online tools and so forth, it's theirs. And it's the focus is very transactional. Um, the giving data. We have built a platform to streamline every aspect of the grant making process for foundations from tip to tail. But we've also, um, made it made a real concerted effort to ensure that there's nothing about the process that is transactional. Uh, foundations make grants to organizations or individuals based on relationships based on trust based on their ability to really forge in impact. And so the core of our system is focused on how on those relationships and on collaboration and eso, we find that our clients are able to use these tools now not only to greatly improve their efficiency, but thio essentially use it to manage their relationships, documents, funding transactions and everything else that's associated with the entire grant making process. And that translates into greater impact for them. Lower costs and a lot of time savings

So at this point, the focus for me, uh, really comes. It kind of is in three different buckets. First is looking at our business development opportunities how to create a bigger, ONDA stronger pipeline of opportunities in order to continue to grow a two pretty solid clip of your over a year. We've been growing a day around anywhere from between 80 to 120%. And we want that to Onley decrees. So s so that raises the bar in terms of how do we continue to ensure that we can grow at that rate and do it sustainably? So is this development and strategy around that? And now building out our sales team is a is a big part of my focus. Um, the second area is, um, is in the what we now call our client success team. Um, and one of the things we want to ensure is that we minimize churn where a SAS company. So our revenue is a recurring subscription revenue. Um, we worked very hard to get the business in the door. We want to ensure that we are delighting our clients and and really minimize insurance. We have an exceptional track record there. Right now, we have never yet lost the client in the three years in which we've had this platform. So, um, so now we wanna look at what do we do to ensure we could continue to build that kind of success? And we're building out our team there, and we're looking at more tactics and tools, um, in our in our platform to ensure that we're really delighting our clients in meeting their expectations. Um, And then a third area for me to focus on now is team culture. I guess. I guess I'm not the only one with a dog A t home virtues of working virtually. Um So So the 3rd 3rd aspect of the focuses around culture were a virtual company. We've been remote from day one. We've never had a brick and mortar office. Um, today we have about 20 people on our team were spread out around the country, and we recognize that, you know, our our people are clearly are in addition to our technology stack. Our people are our greatest outset, and we can't take it for granted That our team is, um is feeling satisfied in their work that they feel like they have a good work life balance, that they're being amply rewarded all of those things. So, um, as we grow our team and as we look to build an even stronger company, we need to ensure we have a really healthy, vibrant culture. And I'm now working with across every department on our in our company. Thio ensure that we're focused on culture, focused on having systems and processes in place, that where people feel like they have all the tools they need to be supported. And that's that's eating up more and more of my time. A typical week for me is, is anywhere between 50 to 60 hours. Um, but I have a lot of flexibility. So, um, you know, if I need Thio, take some time here and there for family matters, or if I want to go get some skiing in, uh, in the afternoon, I could do that and just make up for the time Later in the week

a challenge. Key challenge for us right now on the business development side in particular is, is how Thio really shift to being more of a product lead company and a product lead sale cycle. Um, that's a really interesting opportunity for a SAS companies to figure out. How do you, um, spend less on marketing traditional marketing and mawr on getting a client to really understand? Um, your capabilities get their hands on the platform and have an opportunity to see for themselves why they would want to buy, you know, become a subscriber, right? Invest in this platform. It's, um it's It's not easy for every fast cos certainly for us to have a freemium model S o. You know which a lot of company a lot of South companies, of course, do that that gets somebody connected to the platform. They start working with tools, and they're they're either on board or they're not that That's right, eso A challenge for us is if we in the absence of a Freemium model, how do we give a client the opportunity to get their hands on the platform and let let the tool set and the user experience persuade them that this is a great place for them to invest. And so we're working on that. But that that's certainly one, um, we're overcoming it. Hopefully, by creating a proof of concept model where if we've sufficiently qualified a client or I should say a prospect, then we can build out, uh, a framework like a sandbox where they would have, um, you know, 30 to 60 days to test the product as a proof of concept with the understanding that if a the end of that time frame they are interested in in proceeding um, then we will move directly into a contract. We won't do an RFP. We won't. You know, we won't have to expand the cell cycle. Will basically say you've seen for yourself how this works. Now, let's actually get you into a contract. Um, and you know so another. Another challenge is, um, is, of course not surprisingly, a scale. Um, the company is currently, you know, in a zone early stage company. We have now roughly 55 clients. But as I mentioned our market, our addressable, or total addressable market, is probably in the neighborhood of 10,000 foundations, possibly even bigger. Right? So, um, that really begs a question for us, which is, um, in the absence of a freemium model, right where we could just say, Hey, come and check it out. Um, how do we How do we ensure that that we can really build substantial market share quickly without compromising quality without undermining that client delight? Um, quotient. I'm talking about our goal and and so we're basically trying to figure out how toe how what that scale looks like for us. And, um, you know, there's a lot of planning that's going into that right now to understand, with our current capacity, how maney clients can we add, What will it take? The on board? How can we ensure support? And so one thing we're shifting to right now, just a quick example of overcoming a challenge is that we are building out a knowledge base so that when we have clients, for example, who need to learn how to use certain tools or are looking to better understand how to configure their workflow or some part of the platform that we can send them to our knowledge base, they can access videos or materials and take more of a self service approach so that they're relying far less on our team and they have in the past.

So, um so here's the caveat. I wasn't a part of the company when we were defining the M v. P. So I'm drawing upon the the origin story that has been shared with me among the founders of the company. Um, it z interesting evolution, because the earlier incarnation of giving data was a technology consulting firm of small one that was that was helping grant making foundations. You basically build some tools to address fundamental shortcomings in their legacy grants management system, Um, which there were many. So, for example, one of the big problems with their legacy systems was really, really mediocre tools or, in some cases, non existent tools to do data visualization. Um, to see how they're spending was trending, um, across different program areas for, for example, how much are we spending today on our environmental programs versus our early childhood education programs versus our health care programs? Um, and so there are a lot of limitations, and this firm was helping to build some solutions to address to them. And basically, over time, the, um, the number of tools that the consulting firm had been building. We're actually essentially in totality, becoming a replacement for a grant management system. So, uh, there. So we had that we had the early very, uh, beneficial opportunity. Literally partner with several foundations as clients Have them help us shape what a nem VP might look like. In other words, given are given their needs, the problems they were trying to address. Here's how you giving data or this other company can start to address those. And at that point, we recognized it from testing early iterative kind of, you know, agile development that that we were solving their problems, and in in a period of time, they basically we recognize that there was an opportunity to actually build product, right? Um, there was more robust than the legacy systems that were on the market and, frankly, among the market leaders, and we've freakin that approach. That methodology is kind of baked into our DNA. Now, where, um, with many. What we do is we collect user stories from our clients where they identify what the pain points are and the problems they're trying to solve. We use those groom. We use those stories to inform our product roadmap. And we, um, we will do some prototyping and some grooming. Ah, lot of sprint planning, and then we'll roll them out to the clients that helped us to find the problem and get that to validate that what we have built an M V P. Is solving the problem. And then, you know, it's it's rarely a yes, no, it's more like, yeah, you solve some not others, and we basically refined from their feedback.

So it's the early users were some of those clients, right who were very instrumental in helping us kind of defined the solution set. And they were. It was kind of a mix of some smaller and midsize foundations and fortunately, one very large foundation. So to just give you some perspective there, when I say a small to mid size foundation, I'm talking about, uh, endowment, um, or assets in the range of 25 to $50 million for a small foundation, um, anywhere from 50 million to 200 million or more as a midsize foundation. And there's a large foundation. We're really talking about a billion dollars, right? So I mean, these air, these they're not, you know, like small companies. Right there, There, there. That doesn't mean they have big staff or they're not. It's not. It's not to say that they're investing a lot in technology, but they have substantial assets to work with. So, um, it allowed us to work with, uh, sort of a mix of foundations with a different with different needs, right, Some being fairly simple, some being more complex. And we had the benefit, as we still do today. of hiring people in our company with deep domain expertise. So, in other words, people who worked with foundations, people who understand who speak the language to understand the pain points and, of course, very importantly, people who have relationships within that within our target market. So, um, so they those people, most of whom are still with us today, um, they understand how to communicate the value proposition of our capabilities. They also are very good at, um continuing toe learn from our clients or others in the foundation community to understand their pain points and then help us translate those pain points into solutions. Um, and having initially been able to solve problems and really delight, are early adopters. They started talking to their peers in the community about giving data and helping us get a lot of word of mouth traction, which, frankly, has continued to be one of our greatest assets. From a marketing standpoint, is it's a very small community. I mean, it's a tight knit community, so people talk ah, lot to one another. They want to know about the systems they're using, and we, for example, there is a in front in the foundation world, as is the case in other sectors. There is a organization specifically, um, uh, intended to help grants managers connect with one another right to it's a professional network appear network. So those people are constantly talking to one another, um, online course that have their own platform for sharing information. So they're all talking behind the scenes about how they're using their tools. What's working, what's not. Do they like working with the team at this company? Are they smart? Are they responsive? Are they, um, innovative, etcetera. So we've really been able to do ah lot through that kind of word of mouth. Almost really viral kinds of, of marketing. Um, and we continue to benefit from that, but we're trying to really now, you know, build on that with testimonials and, uh, you know, kind of strengthening. Um, all of the great. I mean, taking all of these great, uh, testimonials and amplify them and get them out there to the broader community

you know, it's a very good question because one of the things that we're finding is that by virtue of being a remote company and having relationships that are essentially built over zoom, right, um, there's a lot of nuance in a relationship that doesn't doesn't always translate right sometimes, Um, you know, of course, through email, through slack exchanges or even sometimes even on a zoom call, you can sort of sense that maybe there's some tension or some frustration, right? But it's not the same as being in an office with someone where there's ah lot of interaction and you can go on, grab lunch or grab a cup of coffee or a beer after work and build trust that way and very personal, um, you know, one on one basis, and that's a big challenge for any virtual company. We we know, of course, that since the pandemic hit that a lot of companies now we're talking about the challenges, their face right, not being together in same space and how those relationships have changed. But, um so so one of the things that I've been very, um, strong in advocating since joining the company is the whole Contin ocean of of radical candor, Um, and ensuring that we've created a space in which people feel very comfortable, um, coming forward as as colleagues or or potentially with managers talking to their team, and vice versa. Um, in the spirit of radical candor, not in order Thio throw people under the bus or point fingers, but to flag issues or concerns or points of frustration, um, in the moment or is close to the moment as possible so that there aren't things that just fester. So eso an example of that is I mean, I was in a meeting recently with, with with somebody on my team who I felt didn't necessarily come to the meeting is prepared, as I thought she might, And, um and therefore I didn't feel like the meeting was a Z, effective as it could have been. And I think she actually agreed with that. And so, you know, instead of sending her an email about that or just, you know, brushing it under the rug, we set up zoom call shortly thereafter, and I said, I just want, you know, I just want to provide you with some feedback on that meeting and make sure that you recognize that Perhaps some of the tension that you are feeling the not meeting was from people feeling like this was not time really well spent that, you know, it wasn't as well structured and organized as it could have been, and we felt like we were kind of spinning wheels. So I really feel like building a culture where radical candor is something that's not feared but is embraced is really, really important. That's one thing. Another is in the absence of being able to grab lunch or a beer after work. Um, we're now having more regular, um, eventually happy hours, a virtual happy hours. And we're trying to create just a routine around that Not not that everybody has to attend, but just to say, Hey, can we all come together? You know, in the afternoon, once a month and pretty much just kind of shoot, um shit and talk about what we're You know, what we're doing in our lives that, you know, even potentially talk about how cooped up we feel because we're kind of locked down or in quarantine and whatever it is, I mean, you know, we have one coming up in a in a couple of weeks. And my proposal was Let's just talk about our nearest resolutions and how they're going are, um you know, so basically, get the team together, don't talk about work, find a really fun or topic to talk or to to talk about or just keep it open ended. But make sure that you're moderating it. Not don't just leave it completely. Um uh, right, uh, up to dance. Yeah, that's right. And so it is building Ah, different kind of camaraderie among the team where we can, you know, kind of get a feel for who people are. Especially now is we're building our team, You know, people just really need that chance And so, you know, and it starts in a group, and then it kind of sometimes can be a one on one shot or vice versa. But it's just a really important way. Thio continue to build a stronger culture. And the last thing I mentioned is that when I came in, I realized that we had no baseline data to tell us how well we were doing in terms of building team satisfaction. Um and ensuring that people felt a good work life balance. So we did anonymous survey a few months ago to just collect that information and to make sure people felt totally comfortable saying how they felt, what? Where were the tension points for them. So we now have baseline data that allow us trying to take the temperature of our team. And it gave us insight into the things that we need to focus on in 2021 and we're going Teoh, we are focusing on those things we've we have. You know, we have an okay. Our framework, objective and key results of our objectives this year is to build and strengthen our culture with very clear key results tied to these benchmarks. Now, um, we have and to see if we're able to move the needle. So I'm really optimistic that with the right focus and not being cavalier, a tall we will be able to make some real headway in terms of strengthening the culture

the skills and and the skills certainly depend on the nature of the work, right? So, for example, I mean, we've got a pretty good engineering team at this point. Those skills are very different than the skills were looking for on the client success team or on our sales team. But, uh, I will say that across the board one of the things we are really trying to look for is a self motivation and self direction because again, as a virtual company, um, there's a lot of we don't have visibility into how people are spending their time, Um, day to day to day. Are you know Are they at their desk? Are they you know, Are they putting in, you know, 40 or 50 hour week? We can, of course, see to what they're hitting goals and that kind of thing, right? But at the same time, we really want to ensure that among the skill sets that people have the confidence and the discipline to be very, um, you know, self directed in terms of how they allocate their time, day to day, and feel like if they get stuck on something that they are very good at problem solving that their communicative, that they're proactive. They're not just kind of waiting, um, for a problem to be solved, they roll up their sleeves, They they make sure that they take concrete steps. So, you know, some people are frankly reluctant to do that. They don't feel confident they don't know who to go to. So we're you know, those were some of the sort of softer skills that we look for in someone way. Definitely. Among other skills we really look at, how strong is someone as a communicator? And that kind of relates to that last point, right? Are they? Are they Are they really good at framing questions? Are they brief? Are they Are they long winded? Are they to the point, or are they meandering? I mean, these are things that we look for because, um, efficiency is important, and we necessary. We really want to ensure that, you know, people are very disciplined and how they approached their work and their interactions with other people on the team. And, of course, their interactions with our clients and prospective clients. Um, so those air, you know, and again, the questions. Of course. very considerably. But we based on the on the position that we're hiring for, um, one of the things way we do like to understand is in terms of the questions that we ask is, um, first of all, what are their expectations for this job, right? In other words, I don't mean, you know, that that may include things like salary, of course and compensation. But beyond that, it's like, really understanding. What do you hope this job is going to do for you day to day? But in the long term, giving your career aspirations because we do want to understand is this a good fit for them and for us, right. Get those expectations clear up front. Another question that we like to ask is, um what is it that are, or how does this position, of course, tie into or relate to your aspirations? Are they hoping to move into a leadership position? Um, or senior role? How you know, do they expect us to ultimately give them, you know, a chance Thio grow into or, you know, expand even into other areas of the company? Etcetera? I mean, really understanding a zoo. Much as we can, um, what their aspirations are. Because there again, there may be a big disconnect. We have, for example, people who are definitely aspiring to be senior leaders of the team within a certain period of time. And we don't wanna hire something on under a false expectation, you know? So, um, that kind of alignment is really is really critical. Um, and, uh, and then the last thing is, we really try to probe a little bit, uh, to get a better sense of telling, you know, Not just how how how prepared are they in this for this job? What do they do when they're not working? What are their, uh, their hobbies? What are their interests? Um, you know what? What, What keeps them excited? How do they, um, you know, how are they engaged in other things around, you know, education or learning or creativity. Things just give us a little more insight into their personality beyond the work environment,

um, one of the early career accomplishments that I I feel good about that now. Dates dates back quite quite a few decades. Um, it was essentially, you know, long before the World Wide Web existed and even frankly, before America Online and some of the very early entrance into the online space, Um, we were faced with a challenge to essentially figure out how to create a new online community that would be easy to use because we were dealing with, as I mentioned, that were that target market at that time was public interest lawyers who frankly, were completely tapped out. And we knew we're not going to, um, uh, use a system that wasn't easy to use, which was a very big challenge back in that day. And so, um, one of our successes was partnering with Apple Computer and using Apple's internal network. At the time it was called Apple Link, which actually creates which. So we had a graphical user interface for you, for for doing everything online that we needed to do. And everything was, you know, icons like folders and that kind of thing. The upshot being that we focused on user experience and recognize that that would be a critical factor for our success. And we were able to forge a partnership as a non profit organization with Apple Computer. And not only did we get to tap into Apple Link, but we also got them to grant numerous computers to the organizations that we were working with in order to build the network eso. Over a period of about three years, Apple gave us a ZA nonprofit organization, about 250 computers and access to their Apple Inc system so that we could build this network as a proof of concept and and then figure out how we would build it from there. So, um, that was very successful. It was a smart move that we were able to orchestrate, and over the course of about six years we went from 250 organizations to 5000 and built the largest network in the country at that time, focused on not just public interest law but as I said on on social and economic justice issues. So we were connecting organizations. We were connecting food banks and, um uh, anti poverty organizations and legal services offices, organizations focused on low income housing on affordable housing development and healthcare. Etcetera. It was a very broad, um, focus over time. And it was, ah, very successful initiative, not only in terms of connecting other organizations, but we were as a non profit organization, actually successful in generating, um, several million dollars of revenue earned revenue Just sustain the sustained the operation. We still need to grant making dollars to support us. But we had a very successful business model, so that was that was a key one. Very exciting. And, um, one other quick one I can I can share with you is ah, on the company that I was with prior to joining giving data, his company called We go health and we go health, which is a network of people who are dealing with mostly complex and chronic health conditions. But they are influencers and advocates in those, you know, in health care. So they're very trusted among other people who deal with those conditions. And we we go. Health has has a network of tens of thousands of these individuals who are, uh, you know, who are blogging. They are extremely active and social media. They have their own YouTube channels. I mean, these air hyper connected, hyper engaged people. Um and, um, essentially, when I came in as the chief strategy officer for we go health, I, uh, essentially proposed and ultimately built on on demand platform where health care companies, um, pharmaceutical companies, life sciences companies and others, um could essentially go to our platform and asked to be, um, basically requests to get consulting, paid consulting or support from our network of patient leaders. Eso it? It was basically like, you know, essentially is like up work for health care onda for patient advocates. So we created a non demand platform. We went from a concept to AH M V P in six months, and within a year we actually had pain users, and that was a very on and gratifying project.

Well, you know, the first life lesson for me was one I alluded to when we started this conversation, because I really I I I was just convinced I was going to be an environmental lawyer. That's what I wanted to dio when I was in high school. All throughout college, I studied environmental studies in college. I that that was the path I was on. And eso the first lesson for me in that was, um I had there was a disconnect for me in terms of what I was envisioning And what, in the end, I felt was ultimately, really possible. Um, and, uh, I was just trying to be very practical because, frankly, I was about literally I was about a month away from starting law school. And of course, at the end of that I would have had about $200,000 of debt, and I needed to be really confident that that was the, you know, once I was actually there, I needed to be confident that that was the right move from me for all the right reasons. And, um when I so going through that process of interviewing law professors and a couple of people on the admission side and sharing with them what my aspirations were, um, was extremely informative because they disabused me. Um, not that it didn't, um, you know, admire my aspirations. They just wanted me to have a realistic understanding of what it was going to take in order for me to achieve my goals. And it just left me asking the question. Um, uh, um, I ready to go down this path Or do I actually have more questions? I need to answer for myself before I do that. And, um, so that kind of inquiry and so searching basically got me to hit the pause button. And it's not that at that point said, I'm definitely not doing this. I just decided to keep work and keep asking the questions. And that's what led me to discover that. Wait, Maybe there's another path from me here that will be equally, if not more satisfying to me in terms of my values, right. But it also gives me a different, you know, set of career choices. And, um, that was incredible. I've never looked back, having opened the door to working in technology and the intersection between technology and social change, etcetera. It's been amazingly gratifying career, and I'm so glad that I took the time to do that. Um, you know, uh, and I would say that, um, you know, in terms of I mean, I, you know, in terms of facing adversity, I would say probably the most difficult for somebody who has, of course, been very privileged on a number of levels throughout my career. Um, I, um I've only been, uh, laid off once due to company. That was I was with a company that was acquired. And, um, I was working out of out of Salt Lake City where I am now. It was a Boston based company, and they basically were pivoting and wanted people who were in focused in financial services, mostly basically in the New York corridor. So I decided not to renew my contract. And it came as a surprise to me because the CEO himself had always said to me I would always have a job there unless I chose not to. So, um, it was a surprise, and I had never dealt with a layoff before, and I recognized that I needed to, you know, move quickly to both have economics, you know, income and economic security, but also figure out what my next career move was going to be. And I'm so I basically, in the near term, I started my own consulting business and very quickly created a website hung out a shingle. Um, it was called new philanthropy Media and, um, started to focus locally on and just built a client base in a book of business in my backyard by virtue of essentially convincing number of organizations that I could give them the expertise they needed to help them, you know, build their technology systems and capabilities and I So I just basically spun up very quickly a consulting practice so I could continue to earn income. And it turned out within a year one of my clients offered me a job, and it was a really great offer and a great opportunity, and I took it. And, um, that was my opportunity to jump into the digital health world. And that's where I spent you know, the last 12 years of my career before giving data

How did you get to where you are today? What is your story? What incidents and experiences shaped your career path?

What is the elevator pitch of your startup? What problem does it solve? How were your customers solving their pain point before your startup?

What responsibilities and decisions does one handle in a job like yours? What are the top three priorities? What are weekly work hours like?

What are major challenges and pain points in a job like yours? What approaches are effective in overcoming them? Discussing examples will help students learn better.

How did you set the scope for your minimal viable product? How did you get to product-market fit? How did your product evolve over time? 

Who were your early users? What marketing channels, approaches, and marketing tools did you use to contact users? What worked and what didn't?

What changes did (or would) you attempt in customer targeting, acquisition process, and marketing tools in the later growth phase? Why?

What changes would you attempt in customer targeting, acquisition process, and marketing tools in the later growth phase? Why?

How'd you hire, incentivize, and track the progress of your sales and marketing team including agencies and part-time workers to scale user base?

How do you manage conflicts within and across teams? How do you promote trust, openness and a healthy work culture? Sharing stories will greatly help.

What skills and qualities do you look for while hiring? What kind of questions do you typically ask from candidates? 

Can you discuss career accomplishment(s) that you feel good about? Please discuss the problem context, your solution, and the impact you made.

What responsibilities and decisions did you handle? What were the top three priorities and pain points? What strategies were effective in dealing with challenges?

What college programs did you attend and what were their best parts? How did each of your college programs prepare you for your career?

What three life lessons have you learned over your career? If any, please also discuss your experiences facing adversity, or trying something unusual.

What starting job would you recommend to students who hope to grow professionally like you? Could you suggest a project that may help students stand out in the interview process for this starting job?