Karen Clark Cole, Co-founder & CEO of Blink UX

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge technology and the builders making it happen. I'm your host, Neil Blum, San Diego's tech ambassador and together we're going to uncover what technology San Diegans are creating with our own blend of local lifestyle. Thanks to our sponsors, Cockroach Business, longtime supporters of the San Diego startup community and also partners in Quick Pitch San Diego, a pitch competition giving out over $75,000 worth of cash prizes to local startup entrepreneurs. On October 29, Connect San Diego Venture Group Tech Los Angeles and Cox Business will present the next year's pitch competition. Join us and we'll see you there. Today we're going to bring you into a recent event that had our own Rachel Govin. Interviewing Blink UX CEO Karen Clark Cole. Karen has some advice for entrepreneurs and tech professionals alike and I hope you enjoy. While this episode runs longer than our usual ones, we wanted to bring you the full experience of a startup grand event and hope you'll join the monthly event series in person too. And with that, I turn you over to the event audio.

My name is Brent.

I'm the director of marketing for Blink. A little bit about Blink. You're going to hear lots about Karen and sort of the entrepreneurial journey that she's been on over the last 20 years. But we're a UX research and design consultancy, so we work with other firms to help make their products easier to use, more intuitive, accessible to all people. Some of our clients include Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Oculus and lots of startups too, which is part of why we're here. We are a startup in our own right. We entered a growth stage a couple of years back. When I joined Blink, we were somewhere around 60 or 70 people. We're now 150. San Diego was office number two. We're now five offices. Austin, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. So it's been a really exciting time to be at Blink and I'm really excited to welcome you all into our space, which has been recently renovated. These are two brand new usability labs where we help our clients study how well their products perform and improve them. Because there's always room for improvement. I'm gonna stop it there and welcome Luis from Startup Grind onto the stage.

How's everyone doing tonight? Yes, thank you.

Turn that down.

But I'm gonna use the right for the purpose of things that we have going on here tonight. So again, how's everyone doing tonight? Thank you. I want to thank everyone for showing up. You could be doing a lot more important things. I know it's San Diego and San Diego can be flaky, but you guys are here, so I appreciate that very much. So I know this week is co working week, so shout out to Ms. Rosapello over there, Ivy street, which is one of our supporters. So when you get a chance, you can stop by Herspace. Before I get started, I wanted to bring out a very special friend of mine. She's taking time out of her very, very busy and delightful day to be with us tonight. So introduce yourself.

Hi guys, I'm Melissa Chaligal. I own Makeshit Happen llc and I'm excited to be partnering with you on some awesome things in the future.

Let's give a shout out to Blink.

Like how amazing is this space?

And the.

So yeah, I basically help tech startups with events to elevate employee engagement. So if you guys have any needs for team builders, company culture overhauls, leadership retreats, executive coaching, blah blah, blah. I worked 15 years in HR. I look like I'm 12.

I'm not.

Yeah, I'm excited to be here and excited to learn from you guys tonight.

Thank you.

So right now I want to bring on Mr. Neil Bloom who is racist gracing us for his presence.

So please, thank you.

Hey everyone, I'm Neil Blum. I'm a serial entrepreneur and angel investor here in town and I'm also one of the co founders of Startup San Diego. And Startup San Diego is an organization that focus on building not just more entrepreneur but more companies in town. And I'm also co founder of Fresh Fruit Tech. And Fresh Fruit Tech is to the University of Seattle folks is the Geekwire of San Diego. It's the tech news aggregation and media play. We hope to help educate you on what's going on in town. And so we have a blog, an email newsletter and a podcast which we are recording tonight. We're going to do a live recording of the talkers of tech podcast of this tonight. But some of the pieces that we do on Fresh Fruit Tech are documenting the history of San Diego from a tech perspective. Where do we come from?

Where are we going?

A lot of that is around success. Companies that built up, grew, have acquired or public and grew a whole bunch of other companies out of that as well. And so we do a lot of that in our series called the SD Tech Mafia series kind of model out to the PayPal mafia. And we've done stories around mp3.com, active.com we're on part seven right now of the active.com story with two more to go at least. And the whole goal is to share kind of this common thread of what are we going to be building and.

Where are we going to keep it.

And one piece about that is this place. This place actually has a really cool history, from the days of the hive to digital telepathy to here today with Blake. And along the way we've thrown a lot of celebrations and parties and had some great talks and meetups here as well. Just up tonight. And so year two of Startup Week 2014, our opening night party was here and we actually first year didn't even have an opening party. It was 10 events and 200 best founders saying, hey, let's hang out for a little bit. Year two, we got a bit serious and said let's put on talk set, not just educate founders, but everyone that works within a startup because we all need to be growing at that same rocket ship pace. And so it's pretty cool to come back here tonight and have this next generation of company growing out of Blake. And so we're so happy to have Blake here. Karen, thanks for coming down. Without further ado, let me bring on Rachel, also from Freshman Tech who will be doing this interview.

Welcome. Thanks for joining us here.

Thank you for having me for the great intro, Neil.

Yeah, so I think first and foremost I want to hear kind of the history of Blink and your why of starting it. What problem did you see that needed to be solved and kind of how you went and started this whole 19 years ago.

Sure. So in the year 1999, I moved from Vancouver, B.C. to Seattle. Similar story to Rachel. I had, although she didn't have a truck, but I had my 77 Toyota pickup and my cat and a few belongings and we set off to America and I got a job, actually had a job before I left. This was in the time when the web was really just starting. So I was working a whole series of jobs, but I'm an art major, so I had studied fine arts in school. And then I moved into more graphic design. And at the time I got a job designing multimedia CD ROMs. So educational CD ROMs, there was training, CD ROMs, those kind of things. And then the Internet was just starting to pick up. And so then all of a sudden that's what I was designing. And what was happening though, is how you got from one place to another was becoming a real thing. And at the time, the graphic designers were really the ones doing this because it sort of fell on our plates. And I found that that's the part of the job that I love the most. So in Vancouver at the time, or in Canada in general, you couldn't have this what was soon to be called information architecture job full time. And so I knew a friend who had a web development company in Seattle, which was also fairly unusual at the time, and they had full time information architects. So I got the job and I faked my way into the job because I'd never done it as a real job. So that's totally doable. I just read the book called Rosenfeld's book, the Polar Bear Book. I memorized it the night before the interview. I had been reading it, but I really memorized it and I essentially recited it and got the job. And the fun thing about that is we have a conference now, and he was a keynote at our event last year and I got to introduce him and I got to tell the story. And it was totally awesome because he was really the beginning of it all for me. So I thanked him. So I came down here and I was working for this company and what was happening is it was a full service web development company. And at the time we were working for big software firms largely. And they had strategists, they had visual designers, they had developers, they had QA staff, they had everything to do to make software. But this new thing of information architecture was making software better because all of a sudden we were designing instead of just building. And so the whole idea, the inmates are running the asylum, I don't know if you know that book, it was very popular at the time. The whole idea that software could be much better if it was actually designed rather than just built. So this is what we were doing in this company. And these big software clients were coming, a lot of startups as well, they were coming and they just wanted this information architecture piece because they had all the rest of it. And so me and the small three or four of us at the time were being brought into all the pitches to sell the work. And what was happening is they just wanted to buy our piece and not the whole shebang. But this company was set up, they needed big jobs so they couldn't sell just this one piece. So bright light went off and I thought, well, we should just go do this one piece. And I convinced my co worker, who was actually my boss at the time, to jump ship. And that sounds easy, but it took about eight months to convince him. I had my cat and he had a wife and she was pregnant and they were starting to have a family. So he had A little more to consider than my cat only needed food. But anyway, I did. And the deal was once we got one client who would agree to hire us, we would go and we got it. And iCopyright is the name of that company. And in fact they came back and hired us about five years ago. And they didn't know that people had changed and they didn't know they were our first client. And the. And our team didn't know that either. And all of a sudden I found out about it and it was this big elaborate event when they showed up. So we did that. And so that was eight months after I had come down and started working for this company. And we had met some through a client, actually a project we were co working on an ad agency down the street that had a little bit of extra space in their office and it was right in post alley, it was super cool spot. So they subleased us space for free in exchange for them looking more digital. And so we helped them a little bit with the digital world. We thought we might share clients. We never did, but it gave us a great start. So we had right away a receptionist. We had a conference room, photocopier, bathrooms, fridge, and most importantly, we had a coil binder, which is how we did all our deliverables. So all of our decks and decks of wireframes which are 200 pages wide and some of them 11 PI 17 we coil bound with this little thing that you sort of mush the sides and you have to be very careful because if you mush too hard, it goes flat and doesn't turn. So we would often be there mushing sides on the way to the airport and have one suitcase just for deliverables. This is how we used to do it. And giant scrolls of site maps, you know, like huge. Because we figured the bigger the better and the more it could look like a blueprint, the better it was. So we tried to do that until one time I left it on the plane when I was flying to Toronto for a big client presentation. And I got off the plane and there left it there. So Kinko's to the rescue. We spent a lot of time at Kinko's in those days. So Kinko's was our friend, you know, borrowing and stealing essentially from, you know, having the ad agency help us. And when we drove to client meetings, I still had my 77 Toyota pickup, which was, I call it Kermit the Frog green by the way, and had a big dent in this passenger door. My grandpa gave it to Me, and he gave it to me like that, so it had a big space inside. And I couldn't drive very fast. It would overheat. So it wasn't used to the i5. So on the way down here, I had to stop about eight times and let it cool off. Anyway, when we drove to client meetings in the early days, we would park about a block away so no one would see us show up in this car. And, you know, we would always wear a suit. And I always wore glasses because, like you, I looked about 20 years old when I, in fact wasn't. And so I think it actually hurt my eyes because I had glasses just for reading, and I wore them all the time, so I couldn't really see in the meeting room. But as long as I looked smart, that's all that mattered. So that really helped. And I should tell you about this other quick side note. A startup product that I still haven't done. So if anyone would take this on and do it, I would love it. The name of it is Respect in a Bottle. It looks like mascara, but it's gray. And so you take it out and you brush it on and you instantly get gray hair, which I was convinced would give me instant respect and grow the company. So I didn't actually ever do that, but I would love it if somebody would. So that's how it got started. So we were just two people. Me, my co founder, and we still are very active in the company.

Wonderful. Well, let's talk about kind of some of the stories and decisions that got you there without your Respect and bottle, but kind of just the choices that you've had to make along the way in the last 19 years. Just maybe some of the tougher kind of crossroads that you had to make. Choices and kind of how you got there, and maybe some surprising elements that you found along the way.

Sure. It's actually sort of a hard question for me to answer because I don't recall very many times where there was a choice of an A or a B. It was mostly seeing opportunities and taking them. And so I guess the choice would be to do nothing or to grow or build an idea or carry on. I often describe the way I like to walk around or be in the world is by looking up. And so I think there's a way of being. And this is certainly how we've grown the company is by. You never know what's coming. I had no idea. When we started the company, the only goal was to keep the two of us with a job. And if that didn't work out, we would go back to that other company. And so, but you know, if we're looking up, there's things that come at you. And we could never have known what would have happened to the UX industry at that time. UX wasn't even invented then and there were no schools, not even one school that would produce a graduate specific to ux. So there were ones. Institute of Design in Chicago was a popular place. That's where my co founder Kelly went to school. So there were people sort of in that world, but nothing that was really specific UX focused. So there was no way. Imagine when we were 10 people, I thought, that's as big as we'll ever get because there's no one to hire. You know, we had one guy's got a forester degree, there's a cookie, there's archaeologists, you name it. We sort of had all different backgrounds. So Kelly was industrial design and I was art. So, you know, I guess the choices along the way are, well, we've got a, there's a big project. Are we going to hire somebody or are we going to work all night long? And so, you know, we decided early on we had enough work and we needed help and we needed people who had skill sets that they had largely developed on their own to help us meet these client needs. But it was really literally one step in front of the other. And that, that's, you know, and then there's an opportunity, let's take it. An opportunity, let's take it. And in the early days, Kelly and I took turns doing the books. And so for the first year he was the accountant. So we did all the invoicing, did all the QuickBooks, pay the taxes, wrote our checks for our paychecks and. And then we switched. So we did that for probably five years where we took turns doing the book side and then we, you know, we had to do our HR stuff, but which was very minimal, you know, figure out how do you pay benefits and all those good things. So we did all that in the background. And then in the meantime we were deciding what we would steal. We would beg, borrow and steal. So we would pick our. Of course we had IDEO documents everywhere. And Kelly worked at Elab after Institute of Design. And so we had their deliverables. So we would look at them and we would just copy them. We were like, oh, I like that footer or I like that cover page and we would just put our name in there and off we went and it really works. And so eventually you evolve there, but there's no harm in doing that. Absolutely. So, yeah, so gradually big decisions were like, get a new space, for example. That became a big deal because all of a sudden we were going to have a big overhead cost, whereas this ad agency space was quite cheap for us. And so we got an office for the first time after it was probably five years. So that was sort of a big deal. And the way my business partner and I operate is I'm sort of way out there. I have the crazy new idea, and then he's the voice of reason. And so hopefully we end up somewhere in the middle. So I would always be presenting what could possibly go wrong by getting a new space. It's beautiful. And then I would sort of show it to him and warm him up to him, and gradually we would get it. But it's been a good anchor for me over the years to have that balance. And then eventually we move to another space. Space we took over, sort of kept expanding that current space. So we had to decide do we want to take. Knock the wall down and add more space. And then eventually we moved across the street and then we moved down a floor. And I think that's about it for sure. But, you know, and then there's all kinds of decisions about opening new offices. But, you know, for me, the choices are. It's less like a hard decision for me because it's just getting to the vision. And the vision has always been the same. It just keeps getting bigger, which is to be the world's leading UX firm. And so when we were small, that meant two people. We were doing it. And now there's more opportunities. So it's just a matter of one step at a time.

Yeah, that's great. I like that you kind of have your counterpart, your yin to your yang of the practicality. Can you tell us kind of a fun story or a kind of difficult navigation that you guys had to work through? I think a lot of us, nobody kind of works solo and we all kind of have to get people on our ship and steer that way.

Yeah. I think I'm incredibly fortunate to have a business partner for 20, almost 20 years. You know, people. Oh, it's like a marriage. And it is in a way in that you have to work it out. But, you know, you don't love the person, you don't want to live with them. So it's not really like a marriage. So in that sense it's quite different. But, you know, we are just really fortunate. I'd say you Know, it goes back to the. Oh, they're gone. But it goes back to the startup grind. You know the rules there. You got to be friends. You got to be friends with who you're working with. You got to like who you with. You got to like your clients. You got to like your co workers. You got to like what you're doing. You got to love your job. And that's why we started is because we loved our jobs. And so, you know, we had that passion together, and still, you know, we have had all kinds of ups and downs, for sure. At the end of the day, you can, hopefully some of the people in the room will tell you if it's about the vision or the quality or why we're here. You will always get the same answer from me and Kelly. And it's because we have, you know, we are here for a very clear reason to help our clients, who are our friends in most cases, and they have a real exciting challenge, and we know how to solve it, and we want to help them. And so they're helping us by letting us work on their exciting venture. And, you know, we're helping them with our years of design experience and research experience. So it becomes a really, you know, it's so fun to me. And there's never an us and them, and there's never, you know, I don't even call them clients hardly. They're just, you know, cool people with great jobs and we get to work with them. It's really fun. And so Kelly and I really believe that that has always been how we operate. And so that, at the end of the day, lets us get back to the same place if we, you know, we have very different working styles, and so we can, you know, we know how to deal with it now. But in the earlier days, when there was less distinction between our roles, we were both sort of doing everything. It was harder. But now that we have really clear different roles, he focuses on innovation in the company because we're big enough to allow that to happen. So we kind of got to have startups within the company of different areas of expertise where we can really have people focused within the whole company. So that's been really fun. So, yeah, yeah, I didn't really have a funny story in there, but we'll get there. The only thing that we still say to this day that we said on the first day, which is, we get out of a pitch with a client and we'd be in the elevator and we'd just look at each other, and we'd be like staters of the obvious, which is like, have you interviewed your customers? Well, no. Well, that's a good first start. Who's your audience? Well, we, you know, I don't know, like 20 to 80 year olds, you know. Do you know why they might use your product? Well, no, but it's, it's going to be great. And so things like that, we're just sort of stating, you know, then we come away with this idea of like, well, we're going to start, we're going to do some field research, we're going to go talk to them, we're going to find out how they think, what their motivations are, how we might be able to better serve them, or if we design it intuitively, we have to know who they are and understand how they think. So all these things were sort of really exciting and great for our clients and sort of obvious to us. So anyway, we still say that for fun, but in secret, mostly in the elevator too.

Funny, I love the idea of not having the A or B choices and just looking at what's ahead of you and moving one foot in front of the other. What's been something that kind of surprised you or felt like it kind of came out of left field, whether it be moving your business forward or UX as a field. Like you said, it wasn't really a thing when you guys got started.

Yeah, there was a moment a couple of years ago when I spoke at the UW for the UW UX graduates, the women of the women who are graduating In UX at UW, there were 5,000 of them. I could hardly believe it. I thought, you know, there'd be 20. When I went there and I'm like, did I'm at the wrong place? Like what is going on here? And there were, I think they said there was a stat. There was something like 7,000 jobs available. It was outrageous so that I never would have predicted that for sure.

From hiring an archaeologist to.

I can hardly believe it. Like we, when we were 10 people, there was nobody to hire honestly. And we in the early days would consult with lots of colleges and universities and help them develop design programs so they could produce people that we could hire. And we still do that today. But they were like, whoa, what is this thing? So it's crazy. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, it is.

Positive question.

Yeah, great.

Well, I think to a build a business as founders in here would probably like to agree, but also to keep one in business for 19 years, you kind of, like you said, have to Know yourself and know your business partner. And I'm curious if you can speak a little bit about your journey to understanding how you work best. And I know we spoke a little bit before about kind of what makes you work at your primal every day and can kind of.

That's sort of my favorite topic because I love sort of the cognitive psychology. And it's sort of really. It's why I love UX is because it's just understanding human behavior. And I love to do that for myself and everyone in the company. And so the blinkers here will tell you that they have to go through cognitive psychology profiling. And we call it traits analysis. There's one called the Big five, which I love. And what it does is it maps your innate wiring from when you were born. And the purpose of it is to help you understand your strengths so the areas that you're naturally wired for. And the real goal is to prevent burnout at work. And largely people burn out because they're working in an area that they're not wired for. And so they gradually become more and more tired. So you'll find if you're doing something that's within your natural wiring, it comes easily to you and you get energy from it. So it's giving to you and you could do it all day long. And if you're doing something that is the opposite, you'll find that it's draining. You got to go home and take a nap. So those are the things that you shouldn't be doing all the time. But the trick is knowing this about yourself. Some are really obvious, like introversion and extroversion, and some are really not, like detail versus big picture and multitasking. So high focus versus broad focus. So some people have to do just sort of one thing at a time and then switch gears, which is actually me. And then other people can easily shift between many things at once and they can handle that. An important thing there is to know about yourself, to structure your own workday. So for me, I'm very big picture and I don't like detail. I can do it, I have to for my job, but I can't do it for very long and I'm very careful about when I do it. So now after knowing that, I'm like, why do I hate email? And why does it just suck the life out of me? I thought it was like that for everybody, but it's really not. It's just me and many other people. So what I do now is I may not crack my email until the end of the day. Because if my job is to be operating in the big picture and working on the vision and sort of bringing everybody there, it's really important that I don't get drained in a detail, which just sends me down a rabbit hole and it's really hard to get back out. So I try to manage that really carefully. And if I'm writing or if I've got to read a document, I really carefully plan. When I do that, I don't do it first thing in the morning. Although writing is a little bit different because that can be very big picture for me. And so it's important to know that about yourself. But then it's also great if you know that about the people you work most closely with, because then it helps you guys align. It helps, you know, oh, you know, you're doing that not because you're trying to, you know, drive me crazy. You're just different. And if we understand, then we can build everyone's strengths. And I like to talk about building strengths and outsourcing weaknesses in the company. I never want to spend money developing something in somebody that they're not naturally wired for. We want to do the opposite. So we want to have them have somebody else do that, figure out, find out who in the company is really good at detail, give it to them. And so these are part of understanding a how to be more productive, but how to have a better day, honestly, and a better life. And I know for myself I'm really high on the active, so I can't sit for very long. I have to run before work or work is difficult for me. And so it sort of really hit it home when I realized it's not just a nice to have, it's a must to have. And so Rachel and I were talking earlier about sleep. And so sleep isn't a wiring thing. Everybody needs sleep. And that's always been something I talk about a lot these days is no matter what you're doing, get eight hours sleep. Because it's actually scientifically proven that your brain doesn't work unless you get something sleep. And so, you know, for me and my job is to make decisions all day long and preferably good ones. And if I haven't had my eight hours sleep, I consider that to be negligent and that it's not good for me, it's not good for the company or anybody else around me. And there's a great article that I read, if you're a manager of other people and you didn't get your sleep, that the effect that you have on everyone else around you is so. The domino effect is so incredibly massive. So how you react to somebody based on your night's sleep can change the whole company. In some cases, depending who you are, it can change your team if you've got a design team, product team. So you have to take this really seriously as a personal responsibility. And not only that, your ideas are better, they're fresher. And I talk at blank. Look, I want everyone to go home at 5 or 6 o', clock, spend time with your friends and family to get a break in your brain, eat healthy food, get some exercise and get eight hours sleep. And that's actually your job to do that. Because I need everyone coming back in the morning, fully charged, full of great ideas, to serve our clients, to be great team members. And all of that requires good night's sleep. Yeah.

Also a huge fan of sleep. I also have a psychology background and a behavior research background as well. And my website has my five personality profiles on my About Me page because I'm like, if you want to work with me, here's what's up. But it is helpful to kind of have those constructs to get to understand people. And I'm wondering how you use that system that you've built and what did you call it? The big five. The big five. And how you've taken that and created this, what sounds like a company culture action plan and how that's helped evolve you guys to scale and grow as quickly as you guys have recently.

So how it helps us is it helps teams work better together and it helps managers manage better. And so that helps retention. Ultimately, if we know people better, we can help them grow in ways that are appropriate for their well being. We also use it in some interview processes for really high level positions that are very specific. So, for example, business development, having that. There's different types of business development and one of them is well known, it's a hunter. So this is the knocking on doors. There's a very specific kind of profile that shows you that kind of person. And so we would actually write a job description around it and we would interview around it and we would have them take the survey. And it's very clear. It sounds like it could go very wrong, but I've never seen it go wrong. It's so dead on. And we share it with them and we help them grow from it as well. So that's certainly helped as far as expanding. I mean, it's really more in the employee satisfaction. And then as a result we end up delivering better, high quality work for our clients. And then it also helps us understand our clients behaviors because if we sort of know this framework then we can say, ah, that's why they're probably doing that. And then you also take that and you add the other lens which is, you know, our clients are generally under a lot of pressure. You know, they are either in a startup where their product that we're working on is the whole company, or they're running a new division in a big company. Take Amazon for example. Lots of startups happening in there. And you know, our clients are coming to us and the work that they're doing with us is usually strategic and a big deal or they wouldn't bother hiring us. And so their jobs are often on the line. If this goes well, they may get a promotion and they often do. And if it doesn't go well, they could get fired or the company could go under. So that kind of pressure is real. And so we always talk about this with our teams too, is that, hey, be empathetic to your clients and understand, you know, who's was the dragon breathing down their neck and maybe that's causing them to act crazy one day and it's, you know, it's a real deal. And so that, that helps as well. For sure. I didn't really get to the offices, but.

Totally fine. One interesting thing I learned when we were talking before this is that Blink is kind of 5050 in the gender spread of employees, which is not always found, especially in the tech startup space. And so obviously as a female founder, I can imagine that was on your radar. But I also know that you started an organization called Girls Can Do. If you can talk to us a little bit about that story and kind of how that got started and what's going on there and how we can.

Yeah, and I'll be fully honest, when, when we started Blink, it wasn't on my radar at all. And it wasn't on my radar for a really long time. And I sort of, I think about myself as having rose colored glasses and I didn't realize that I was being a woman CEO in a tech world. I didn't know that that was unusual. It seemed normal to me and I didn't know that. I didn't even realize at the time that pay equity was such a problem. I thought it happened in some places and I didn't realize that it was still so incredibly prominent in tech for sure. With all the companies around us in Seattle. I didn't realize that even having gender Equality, let alone real diversity in a workplace, was really unusual. Still, I was just operating one foot in front of the other in our own little bubble that was going great and we happened to have a pretty equal split of men and women, although not very diverse in gender or in ethnicity. Being in Seattle, largely white, and we were just carrying on and I consider that sort of luck of the draw, honestly. I think the field that we're in, research and design, it's. It's sort of pretty, I think, general, neutral and kind of the people it attracts because we didn't have a lot of developers, which tends to be more male dominated. But it became very obvious to me and now I have clear awareness about. Probably 10 years ago, I started getting more and more calls as we became bigger. What's it like to be a woman CEO in a high tech world? And I'd be like, well, it's great. Why? And they would say, well, you're the only one. I'm like, well, I know I'm not because I just had lunch with 10 others. You should call them. And so I would give them their names and I would say, you should call them. And it started happening more and more. And then so I started looking around more and more and becoming more aware and, you know, and then at the same time realizing that the pay equity problem that we have is alive and kicking right here in our own backyard. And so that became a concern of mine as well. And so there's a couple of things there. So at blink now, we are very aware of it. And we do, we hire slowly so that we can make sure we have a diverse candidate pool. We actually change job descriptions to make sure that they are attractive to women. Because what we found out there are stats that show if there's 10 requirements, a woman will think she has to have them all, whereas the man will 5. We're good to go. And so what we started doing, because when you're writing a job description, you tend to throw the kitchen sink in there, because why, if you can get it all, that's awesome, right? So put it all in there. No one's going to have it all. And yet people were taking that seriously, like, oh, I've got to have all the whole kitchen sink or I'm not going to apply. And so we changed that and right away we got more women applying. So we just took it all out. If you need five bullets, put them in there, the ones you really need, and then leave the rest. If there really are opportunities for different skill sets, leave them out. And then as far as getting more people of color, so what we found out is there's a trust factor there. And so, you know, we've got to have a few to get more and more and more. And so we started forming relationships with different groups around the city of Seattle to try to get. Build trust and get people to at least apply. And then, you know, and that's working slowly as well. So there's all kinds of tactics, but you have to also be willing to take time. So for our general manager here in San Diego, for example, we held a job open for probably two or three or four months longer than we would have to make sure we had a good many women candidates at least. And they're out there. You just gotta sometimes wait a little longer. And so, you know, back to these phone calls. So I get more and more phone calls and then, you know, in a whole separate topic, because I have, you know, I believe very strongly that you look for evidence to support your beliefs. And so if you believe that there are no women running companies, that's all you're gonna see. You're gonna see all the men and you're not gonna notice the women because you don't think they're there. If you believe suddenly that there are many women running companies or people of diversity, then all of a sudden you're going to start seeing them. It's like if I told you there's red cars everywhere, all of a sudden you're going to go outside and see them everywhere. Whereas if I had said they were yellow, you'd see all the yellow cars and you wouldn't see the others. It's a known fact. And so what I thought I got to start doing is showing these people where it exists. And let's stop talking about what's wrong and how much further we have to go and let's start talking about what's going well. So let's talk about where we have pay equity. Let's talk about where there women in leadership. Let's talk about great companies who are values driven. And then all of a sudden we're going to start seeing them everywhere because they are out there. And then everyone has a vision to move towards. And then particularly for me, girls have a vision to move towards. And I always talk about, for me, most of my mentors, they were not women and they were people I don't know. But I just said, hey, I like what they're doing. I'm going to go, I don't care what you look like. But for many people they really do need to look the same. And so we need more of that. And then I also encourage girls to just, you know, pick any old mentor, just like what they're doing and go for it. And you know, in order for them to become, you know, and I encourage them, you become the mentor, you do it. And so it's working. And so I started this nonprofit called Girls Can Do. It's an event series for girls and we target girls in underserved populations or communities in cities. And that came out, it was totally by chance. It was just like the whole company, right? It's just one foot in front of the other. I was going to have a bunch of girls in our office for one of our art events where we have in a speaker. And I actually around the same time I stopped listening to the news. I don't watch TV and I don't read the paper very often. And that gets in the way sometimes. I'm usually the last to know when there was an earthquake, but. But my mom called me from Victoria. She's like, oh my God, are you okay? And I'm like, why? I'm fine. She's like, there was a big earthquake in Seattle. And I'm like, really? I did not know. So anyway, there's problems with that, but I just can't stand other people telling me what's not possible. And so with this nonprofit, I call it, my tagline is Possibility Thinkers. And the idea is you just make up whatever you want and go do it and don't let anyone else tell you what's possible because they don't know. Sort of basic, I think. And so what I started so. And it all got started with this article. I'm a big skier and I have a friend who's. She's in all the movies. She's amazing. And they wrote this great article about her in this ski magazine. And it was talking about how great she was. She's in all these films, she's broken all the barriers. And then they had to throw in there that, you know, she still has a hard time getting in movies because it's mostly a male dominated thing. And you know, the men, they don't pay the women and they don't really want them in there. And then the women that are in there don't like each other. And it just went on and on. Then it said, then the kicker made me so mad. Said just like the corporate world, oh my God, it made me so mad. And I saw her not long after I said, what was with that? Because the whole article was lovely, except for this one paragraph. And she had no idea. She didn't talk about that. They just stuck it in there. And in fact, you know, her husband is in the movies. Her best friend, who's a woman, made her own movie. The girls are all best friends. They travel around the world educating girls, and the guys are super supportive. So she doesn't know where that came from, and it's not at all true. And so I said, oh, my God, would you be willing to come and just share the real story with girls so they know that it's cool to be a professional athlete and you do get paid, and it is really fun. And she said. And I thought, you know, she's very busy traveling around the world. She'd be like, well, I'm too busy. I can't really do that. And she said, oh, sure, that'd be great. And I said, oh, okay. So then I had to go to work. And she said, how about May I'll be back from, you know, Australia or something like that. New Zealand, where she was king. New Zealand. And so the idea is that we'd have in our office in blink, which at the time was probably about this size, and I would fill it with girls for one of our speaker events. And she'd come, and I thought that'd be super fun. And then all of a sudden I thought, oh, you know, she's quite famous. She's gonna probably fill the place. So maybe I just. This one time thing, rent a hall. And then I thought, well, if I'm gonna do that, then maybe I'll get two speakers and, you know, they'll be totally different. And then we'll invite lots of girls. So before I knew it, in four months, I had concocted this thing that was 2,000 girls at the Seattle Symphony hall with 10 speakers. And it was outrageous. And I talk a lot about this. The idea of you just have to ask, and most people shockingly say yes. It's very weird. Just like, you just wouldn't expect it. And so I found all these speakers that I thought were really cool, that nobody knew anything about, and that girls should know about these women because they're doing cool things and they have really different cool jobs. Most important, though, with all of them is they had a story of massive failure at one point or another. And I asked them to talk about the failure, to talk about the hard times and to talk about how they got there. And I wanted. Because we were, you know, I really wanted to target girls who didn't get exposure to this kind of thing on a regular basis. So the event was free. We went out and we got all kinds of ride sharing options and tried to bring in girls. And in the later events, this became the main focus. But in the first one, it was a little bit willy nilly, but. And the idea was that they would show that success is not handed on a silver platter, rarely, ever, and that you get knocked down and that's what makes you stronger. Because every time you get back up, you've learned and you can do more and you can take more and you're stronger. And so every. And I had probably a half an hour conversation twice with most of these speakers and these people who I like literally just called, you know, like the head of legal for Starbucks, who's this beautiful black woman. I thought, she's cool. And so I called and I heard she had a story where she got kicked out of law school. And so I called her and she's like, oh, sure, that'd be great. And so, and she did, and it was on a Saturday and she just came like for the whole day. And all of these women, Edgar Martinez, he's our famous baseball player in Seattle, his wife has a great story. And I called her up and she said, yeah, sure. It was so crazy. So all of these women, I just didn't know if they would show up. I said to them, look, here's what I want you to talk about. And, you know, hopefully it'll go well. They all had slides, and so we had no AV check. They showed up, they all came on time. I hadn't met two of them. Of the 10, they showed up on time. They all had beautiful decks and amazing stories and, you know, everyone was crying by the end. And so I was. Meanwhile, I had built a website, invited all these people, and this was in the night because I still was running blank. And so I did all that and I thought, great, there we go, that's done. And that was it. I was done. This is the one event that I was putting on. And then they all kind of ganged up on me. If you talk about surprises that things you didn't expect to have happen, they literally ganged up. They're like, where are we going next? That was amazing. And what I didn't know, I had no idea that these women were looking for opportunities to mentor girls because they had these great stories they wanted to share and they wanted to encourage girls and. And they had no venue for it. So this was an amazing outlet for them. And, you know, and we had the video recordings up on the website, and so it could kind of live on and they could share their story socially in social media as well. So I said, no way, I'm going to bed. And that's it. Yeah, I needed my sleep. So I absolutely broke my rule at that point and did not get much sleep. So, anyway, long story short, it was too much of a good thing to stop. And the snowball, I call it the snowflake of an idea turned into a snowball, and then before you know, it was rolling down the hill, and there was no way to stop it. So it's now. It's actually on hold right now because I'm. I need funding. Hard to believe such a great idea would be hard to get money for, but it is. So I even ended up. So the most fun of that whole thing was in this first event, I thought, wow, this Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State at the time. And I thought, wow, she'd be a great speaker. Because at this point, nothing was going. Like, I had an astronaut. I had all these people. I called. We have NASA's, a big client of ours. And I called our client. I'm like, hey, do you have anyone for me? And I thought, you know, no. Oh, yeah, try these three people. Tell them I told you to call. And so within half an hour, I had this woman who trains astronauts how to walk in space, Krista. She's like, oh, yeah, I'll do it. Girls rock. And she flew out from D.C. like, on her own dime, and she showed up. It was so weird. And so anyway, so then, you know, so then I thought, well, great, I'm gonna get. Nothing can stop me. I'm gonna get Hillary to come. And so she didn't come. However, I did talk to her senior advisor twice, and she was thinking about it. She almost came, but then something else came up that also happened three years later when I found myself in the White House in Michelle Obama's office to the side. It wasn't her real office, but it was their assistant's office as we discussed the video that she was going to record for our event in D.C. and unfortunately, it was only a month left in office, so she really couldn't come, but she really did want to come, and she recorded a nice little video. And at that point I thought, wow, who would have thought? And so it's just. It's the same as really everything in the startup world, I think you just take. You just keep asking for help. Which is our third. I loved all of our three things here. So not only do you give help, but you ask for help. And when people ask for help, you give it to them. And it's very much how it all works. And then you get great friendships. I kind of do it in the other order, actually. So it's all the same for everything.

And that video is on their website still of Michelle Obama, so you should probably go watch is. And actually I was asked recently to share a nugget of advice for young girls in some tech, some conference like that as well. And my advice was you don't get what you don't ask for. And it's something I've lived the last couple years. And it's remarkable what people will say yes to and what doors open when you just say, here's where I want to go, who can help me get there? And.

And there's another one like that if you don't get the answer that you want and not when you're asking for help, but if something's in your way, you just walk around it rather than. You don't have to break down any barriers. Forget the ceiling, all that stuff, just walk around it. It's way easier next door.

Great. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that. I want to make sure we have time for questions from the audience. So thank you and yeah, definitely. So if. Do we want to pass a microphone around for questions?

Yes, we're going to do that.

Hi, Karen. Chris.

Blink has grown really fast in the last year and a half, two years. So I'm curious, what's the genesis of that and what keeps you up at night? Well, if we're going to be the world's leading UX firm, we got to grow. But really it's. For me, I love the idea of reaching our potential. And the trouble is the industry just keeps getting bigger and bigger, Bigger. So our potential needs to be bigger and bigger to go with it is kind of part of it. But then specifically in the last couple of years, we made a concerted effort to really grow more intentionally. We've made a few acquisitions because I am determined to kick McKinsey out of the room. What's happening is our big, big clients, they want us to come and do the UX work, but these other guys are in there and it's easier. And unless we can handle the amount of volume to make it really worthwhile to open a vendor headcount or a vendor company count, they can't make it happen. And so, you know, it's not very glamorous sounding, but the truth is, if we can do more work for them, they will give it to us, and they want us to take it. They want us to do it. We're seeing it more and more. So USAA is getting around there. Some of our other big clients are making it happen. And even in the government, human and health services, we're getting in there slowly, but they really are like, look, I just want you in there instead of them. But we have to be able to do more work. And so in order to do more work, we need more people. And really, in order to do more work, we need closer relationships with these clients. And so we need to be closer to them. And so that's the reason to have offices in multiple cities, so we can get to them more quickly. Because right now, for. We were just in Seattle, we fly around all the time, and that's sort of how we do it. You go to a couple of meetings in person, a lot of work remotely, meetings flying. But when we want to see them every day and add more impact, we need to be closer. And so a drive is better or, you know, a shorter flight. So. So that's the main reason, is to just be able to continue to do the great work. And also, I don't want anyone else to get it. And so if everyone else is trying to be the biggest and best UX firm, I'm like, forget that it's us. So I'm a little bit competitive like that. So. Hi, how are you? Thank you for sharing. So, I'm Allie. Nice to meet you here. Thank you for this time. And I get to see you again this week, so I'm excited. So kind of segue off of what Chris said. But first of all, for those in the room, can you share the story? Why the name Blink? That's part A. Sure. Part B is I will go to wherever you need because my segue is, of course, there's a whole east coast that needs Blink, and I know you know that. And so the segue question would be, how soon are you opening possibly Blink offices where there are major cities that are major tech hubs where Blink is needed? Sure, as soon as we can. So we're in Boston, and the goal now is to grow that office. And then once we've done that, then, you know, there's New York and D.C. and Atlanta and all those fun places. You know, I would love to see us in all major cities. You have to do it carefully, though. I mean, it's. It's still. It's hard to grow offices as Some of our people here will tell you it's because we're consultants, we get paid by the hour. And so our clients pay us to do work. And so we can't hire too far ahead of the curve or it's really expensive for us. It goes right to the bottom line. And our margins are actually really thin because we have really highly educated, incredibly smart people and they cost a lot of money. And so, you know, it's just a matter of we charge for our time and our time, you know, hopefully we're charging high rates to cover the high salaries. And so when we go into a new market, we have to be really careful as to how we do that, which is actually, actually why we were. You know, we've used the acquisition strategies because you essentially get the people who are busy, they come with work, and so it makes it lower risk because they come with billable hours already because we get the clients with them. There are other risks and challenges with that, for sure. There's, you know, the cultural integration, there's systems integration. It's very expensive to buy companies. And so there's pros and cons to all of it. But if we're in the business of having smart people stay busy, it's a great way to do it. So that's coming in. The name is. Well, there's a couple things. So when Kelly and I were sitting next to each other at the company where we worked at before we left, we would have a game and it would be. We'd come up with all these. And this is in the dot com, full on, like Black Panda and Red Panther. Like these were names that were really common or, you know, Grasshopper running down the street. Like that could be a company name. And so they were so bad at the time. So we would come up with all these crazy names. And then if it stuck, if we liked it then, and we still liked it an hour later, it would be Name of the Hour. And if you liked it by the end of the day, it would be Name of the Day. And then might be. And Blink ended up being Name of the Week. And so it won because we still liked it after each day. But the meaning is, the idea is that this is also the time when we weren't shipping software with a manual anymore. And so you would download it from the web or it would be a web based app. And so there were no instructions. And so if you didn't. And they could close the browser and go away. And so if you didn't have their attention in the Blink of an eye, you're over, you know, it's done. And so this is why user experience became so important, is you had to be intuitive and enjoyable and all those things. So the name was that. And then there's also a fun HTML tag which I believe still exists, that you put in blink in the code and it makes your letter flash, which is a super bad usability crime. So we thought that was really funny.

Usability crime, that's great.

Real quick, what cities are you in?

We're in Austin, Boston, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

That sounds like very strategic to me. Anyone else?

So your polar bear story at the beginning.

Yeah. You have three.

Amazing.

I know, Isn't it great? There's actually more than that. There's six in the front too. They're everywhere. And I have one in my office in Seattle. We love them. No, it's not. It's because I found this fabulous artist here in town and we have this thing, well, that, you know, so this is what everyone should do. So when you have a company, that's that, that's not what you thought you ever wanted. Like, I always thought I was going to open an art gallery or, you know, be an artist or do all the those kind of things. And so. But here I am over here. And then when we opened our third office in Seattle, there was this big. We finished, got to do a big build out and there's this big empty wall, concrete wall by the entrance. And I'm like, oh my God, there it is. There's the art gallery. And so at that moment, that's when it all hatched. I'm like, I'm gonna have an art gallery. And so we invited, you know, so then I just called up all my artist friends and said, hey, do you want to hang your work? It's free for everybody. If you sell it, keep it. We'll do an opening for you. There'll be wine and cheese and we'll. You come and you give your talk and it'll be fabulous. And then I thought it's a great way for us to get art. Every couple of months that would change. So we did that in Seattle. And then when we moved into our next space, we actually built the space around the gallery. And then so the big plan when we came down here was to do the same thing. And we're going to do it in all of our offices. So the big debut show is local artists here. Johnny Lane and I saw his art in Her Wood, the restaurant in town in the Italian district. Literally. Yeah, And I just fell in love with it. And so I said, you know, as usual, I'm like, ask the waiter. I'm like, hey, who's the artist? And can I meet him? And they were like, well, yes, actually. He happens to be in the restaurant. And so that night he had a studio upstairs. So he went, gave us a tour and it was so fabulous. And so now he's hanging in here. So it's really good. And he made that painting in the entrance just for us. Yeah. So he likes the Andy Warhol themes where he's got multiple. They're screen prints, so each one is unique, but they're on the same print, so you get the numbers in them. So yeah. Yeah. But I never thought about that for the polar bear. That's really good. Yeah, no wonder I love it.

Hi, I'm Chelsea. My company, we do a voluntary book club every Friday morning.

I was just wondering if you had a recommendation just kind of related to.

That big five that you were talking about.

I can just think of a couple of people who I would love to know more about how to work better with that. What's your company?

We're a recruiting company.

Oh, cool. Oh, yeah. Good for you guys. Well, let me tell you, I wish our chief culture officer would hurry up and write her book and then you could have her book. I don't. I would. I would love to ask her and then I'll let you know because she would have lots of great recommendations. I can't think of one off the top of my head that's specific for that, but I'm sure there are many. And she has lots of great content too, on her former website, which might be a good place to point you to get started. Yeah. What advice do you have for those of us that are barely going into the tech world? For those of us who are going, you know, we're beginners and we're barely dipping our feet into the industry.

What advice would you have for us?

Well, get your eight hours sleep for starters. It's really important because then you'll be smarter than everybody else because everyone else thinks it's cool to not sleep. So you'll be the smartest one there. So I always talk about pay equity. So when you are interviewing for a job and tell this to everybody you know, please. And I tell this to all high school students and I make them promises to tell one of their friends. When you're in a job interview, ask them if they have pay equity and if the answer is unclear or they don't know, then you should get up and leave and make a big point of it and tell everyone you know. And the only way it's going to change, and this is really important because if you're doing the job of somebody else and you're all sitting here doing the same thing, it's hard for me to even imagine that it's not just obvious we should get paid the same. I mean, you look at sports right now, the U.S. soccer team, it's just sort of hard to comprehend. It's so weird. And so the only way it's really going to change is if the job market changes and people can't hire. So if Facebook can't hire because they won't come and work for them anymore because they're not paying equally, and I'm not targeting them specifically, I think they're not too bad. But then they'll have to change. And so it's not going to take a law that's going to do anything. It's going to be not being able to hire because they need to hire. So I think. And you look at recruiting as well. I mean, it's a really important thing. Like that should just be part of an interview question and let the new employees drive change. So that, I mean, it's not really good advice for you, but that's really what I hope you do. Get your sleep and ask for equal pay. Hi, my name is Jennifer and I have a question.

You said the big five test.

Yeah. Is that public or is there any.

Way anybody can take that?

Yeah, it's not really. So it's the, it's the big five personality traits is what it's called. If you look it up, you'll see the organization that, that, that runs it. And again, maybe somehow we'll figure out how to get a link out to everyone. It. You have to hire them because it's complicated how to interpret the results so they don't let you get the results unless you're with someone who's certified that can talk you through it. And so, but I bet you on their website, and I can't remember the name of it, that you could just, you know, you would buy the consulting time with the taking the test. But it's so great. I really highly recommend it. No, no. This far, this is the most current thinking in psychology. And the others. Well, if I were Linda, she would say they're fake. But our chief of culture, she's a cognitive psychologist and so she knows all about it. But I, so I'll get, I'll get you guys in touch. But there really isn't a better one. And it's Psygenics, I think, is the company that runs the data. Yeah, sorry, it's not more helpful.

You'd mentioned that there were some organizations that you were working with to potentially up the number of employees of color at the company. What are the examples of some of those organizations?

Oh, no. I knew you would say that. Do you know who, Christina? It's Todd Bennett. Todd Bennett in Seattle heads up a group that we have worked the most with. Oh, thank you. What is it here? Ah. Sarah, where are you? Oh, Sarah, from the top, there's. God, it's called here H E R E. Right, Sarah? Yeah. Are there others in Seattle that Christina works with?

That's the main one.

Okay. And I would say, does anyone know others that are here that we should be talking to in San Diego? Girls in tech. Great. Awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah, it's a good question.

Hi there, Karen. Thank you for coming. Dr. Francisco Fuentes. So, you know, you mentioned, like, most tech companies, I think, suffer from racial and ethnic diversity, not just gender diversity. And so I was just wondering what. And you mentioned you had, like a chief culture officer. Just kind of wondering what all of you at Blink are doing to kind of help move the needle on that one. And now that you're in California, you know, where Latinos are the ethnic majority.

Right.

And in San Diego, where Latinos are one out of three and most of them tend to be segregated south of 94 or way up north, you know, but most people who work in tech tend to live in the middle where it's least racially and ethnically diverse according to the census. So I'm just kind of wondering if there are any kind of strategies or initiatives at play within Blake to see to sort of hire more diverse candidates.

Certainly we need to look at the local markets more carefully because they really are different, as you just illustrated. So as far as we've got. So where our HR team is just expanded. So we actually have capacity now to be looking at our markets differently instead of. Because honestly, up until recently, it's just one strategy. And so we have, you know, okay, so form relationships in the local communities, take out all the requirements, but that's really it. And so now I'm looking forward to having a bigger team so we can actually get specific for the different markets. And now, actually, just within the last several weeks, we have general managers in each of our office. So Nickel here in San Diego and Katie in San Francisco and we have one in Seattle now. And part of their job is to make sure that we are, you know, a diverse. Diverse in our community, diverse in the company, diverse in that location, specific to that location's opportunities really. And I think, you know, if, you know, understanding where the people live, who we want to reach is a big part of it. So it's really interesting and I'm really excited that we are going to be able to start exploring that as we fill this office with great people. So, you know that I wish I had a better strategy for you, but all I can say is it's coming and we're really aware of it.

I have something to add to that.

Oh, here's some stats. Brett's good with stats. Brent says, oh yeah, A good start.

Is hiring a design director from City Heights, San Diego.

Born next to me.

Definitely keeping that in mind.

Holder and stuff. San Diego here. Hi, my name is Steve.

Back here.

Hi.

You mentioned hiring slow, so that's the.

Highest on the gas.

The big five. Thinking from an HR perspective, I'm assuming was once Blink was a more mature company. Thinking back to your early startup days, if you could have implemented something there where it was just the two of you, you and your co founder, what kind of sort of HR practices or if you could hire flow at that time, even though you're in that rapid growth place, how would you approach that? That's a good question. But the truth is back then it wasn't a matter of the pace we were hiring. It's more just like we would take anybody who could do the job. So it was sort of a grab bag at the time and there was no strategy at all. So now when I talk about hiring slowly. So we are, we want, we're trying to go very quickly, but taking our time is more what I mean. So it's not intentionally having a slow hiring process, but it's taking the time we need to get the applicant pool that we want. So instead of just saying like, oh well, of the applicants we got, you know, they were, this is the diversity we got. So that's what it is instead saying, hey, we're going to let it out there for longer and we're going to, you know, go to, you know, South San Diego or we're going to target in different areas now that we have more intelligence around it so that we can get a bigger candidate pool. And so, you know, in that way, because I believe that the smart people that we want to hire out there, we just have to get in front of them, and they have to trust us and want to apply, too. So that's part of it. So it's, you know. Yeah, we gotta, you know, have Jorge stand up and say, hey, you're not alone. And, you know, to try to, you know, it's a bit of a flywheel. So we're just trying to get that momentum going for sure. Hi, over here. Hi, my name is Shan. Can you speak a little bit about your first fundraising round? What did that look like? And maybe some of your risk, some of the challenges that you overcame. Well, we never raised any money, and I actually just finished trying and, oh, my God, it just about killed me. So I have a lot of gray hair. You just can't tell because of my mascara. Now I use blood on mascara. So, yeah, we never raised money. Being in the services business, we didn't really need to because we were just consulting. We had to buy computers. There were some rough rides, for sure when we had no money. I remember one client was supposed to pay and they didn't, and I had to go to the airport for a research tour, literally all around Europe, and I had no money, and I had to borrow money from my dad. It was terrible. So, yeah, so we never did that. You know, in my nonprofit, I've tried to raise, and again, you know, I raised a bunch of little bits here and there, but we have never gone through any real VC funding. But just recently, we tried to raise money through family office investment, and in the end, we couldn't find the right fit, so we stopped. And that was a long year, actually. So, yeah, sorry, I don't have any advice, but I wouldn't mean. My biggest advice is bootstrap it as long as you can, and then eventually you'll make it, because at the end that, you know, 1%, 5%, 10% really adds up. Yeah. Hi, Karen. My name is Diego, and I just have a question around the same inclusion.

Diversity, racial, cultural, inclusion.

Have you seen the clients that blink, work with, works with, take a similar.

Approach in how they're designing and building their products?

Have you seen them take that into account as well? Because, I mean, yeah, you're doing it internally, but how does that translate to these big companies? Are they doing it? Will they be doing it? Can you speak a little bit? Yeah, it's a great question. I think so. Which is a big reason why we're in San Diego. So research is a huge part of our business, as you know, and clients want us to test here because there's such a great Diversity in people. And so it's really, you know, representative of the whole country right here in San Diego. So it's greater access for us when we're recruiting people for our clients. And so they really want to be here for that reason. They want to have good representation. And also, I think there's going to be a big opportunity for us on the design side here to know that, you know, we're designing within this kind of environment, it's different. So, yeah, I think they have to, you know, honestly, you know, there's all kinds of reasons why they have to. It's just a good idea. Yeah.

So how do you see technology affecting.

Behavior and thus design so. Well, Sorry, you got more. I can expand on that if you need more because like, machine learning and other aspects of this. So, for example, online gigging. So services are actually changing diversity. So how do you see some of these things being designed going forward? What I was going to say is in our design, we try to have the technology be invisible. And so if our work is well done in the design side, if we really understand the behaviors of the people that we're designing for, we know who they are, then whatever is the technology can. Can be invisible. And in the background, and certainly with voice, is a great example of the accessibility that, you know, there's some cool things to it. But then if you look at, we designed a digital shower for Moen, and it sounds sort of crazy and fun and frivolous, but at the same time, when you realize the opportunities in healthcare for people with disabilities and, you know, seniors and, you know, kids, it's outrageous. It's. It's so amazing, the advances now. And that's just one tiny little example. So I think technology is really making a huge difference in allowing the world to be more accessible. And so I don't know how it's going to do that in terms of race and gender, honestly, but I know in terms of just general letting people live their lives more easily, more meaningful, that's what I'm really excited about. We see that a lot. Yeah. Hello. Hi. You seem to start out very like one foot in front of the other, but now you're looking to take over the world, so. Well, no, I always wanted to do that, but I thought it was smaller. What went into wanting to scale up.

Because it's not a lifestyle business anymore.

No. Yeah. No, it's also not. You know, we made the most money when we were two people, four people, actually. Most profitable times. So consider that when you grow your company, part of it is just me. I'm ambitious, I'm sort of off the scale and vision and big ideas and so I kind of feel like, why not? It's fun, I love it. Every day it's a new day and it's a big challenge. There are a few days when I feel like I need a break and usually what I do is I take a break. So I like to take a lot of vacations. They don't even need to be very long for me. You know, like if I get two or three or four days really off, that's a lot, you know, just to reset my brain and I make sure that I have, that I'm balanced in my life. So I have a 10 year old daughter. When I get home from work, my phone is in my bag and it doesn't come out. I don't work at night and I exercise every day and I try to get my eight hours sleep. Those are the things that, that regenerate me. And then, you know, when I feel like I don't want to do this anymore, I do all those things and the next day, let's go, I'm back at it. So part of it is just my wiring, but I see this huge opportunity and you know, big motivator for me is, you know, if we can have a great company that's, that's values driven, that cares about our employees and so people can come to work every day and they can feel like they know what their job is, they have the tools to accomplish their job, they're taken care of and therefore they can be productive. So this all leads. We have a cultural framework which has six parts to it and one of them is clarity. And the idea there is you have clarity in what's expected of you and then the other is feedback. So we're constantly giving one to one feedback in the moment of more of this, less of that. And I'm really clear in my leadership that I will say I expect XYZ and I'll make it very clear what the expectation is and what, what all the parameters are around that. So if we apply that to the whole company though, when we started growing quickly about 10 years ago, we had this great culture and we couldn't really define it. It was just something great because we had a bunch of smart people who would come together and we were all passionate about the work we were doing. And that in itself created this great, thriving little 20 person company. And as we started getting bigger and then we also started getting different roles in the company. So not Everybody was a researcher or designer, so we weren't necessarily all thinking alike anymore. And so then all of a sudden, it became clear to me that we had to, like, how are we going to protect this great culture? That it's really hard. It's just buzzing. You can feel it, but you don't know how to describe it. So this is when I started working with Linda, our chief culture officer. She was a consultant at the time, and she helped me define the culture. So in order to nurture it and grow it, we had to first put words around it. So we had to be able to define it. And then we had to figure out, okay, what causes people to be happy. Because, you know, for me, it was totally selfish. I wanted to go to work every day and love my job. And in order for that to happen, the people around me have to love their jobs. So I'm like, how do we do that and be able to scale that? So what we did is we put. She knew from her research how to, like, what causes people to thrive. And it's things like clarity. I knew what I was supposed to do, and I did it. Great. That's a big part of it. You go to work in a lot of places, the jobs are so vague. You don't know what you were supposed to do. So it's kind of hard to get it done if you don't really know. You just hope the day goes well and you get out of there. So what we try to do is be really clear about roles. We give feedback. The standards are clear, which is excellence. So I expect everyone to come into work every day and bust their ass and then get out. And so it's no lazy flazy. Like, everyone's very hard working and we care about what we're doing, and the quality is really important. And so that standard, people like being around that. And if they don't, it's a bad fit. So that helps with the, you know, the thriving work. But then. And so that sort of carries on. And so we had this. We started developing this cultural framework so that we could hire for it, we could fire for it, we could know how to manage towards it. And we knew what all these factors were. And so I often talk about great culture is not the beer in the fridge. That's the outcome. And so in order to get great culture, it's clarity, it's standards, it's, you know, all these things that cause people to thrive, then this is sort of leading to, why grow? So for me, if we have, let's say 50 people in an office and they all had a great day and they go home feeling happy, well, they're going to be better neighbors, they're going to be better family members, they're going to be better friends. And so then that starts getting your 10 time effect. And so when I think of like, okay, so for our whole company, if we can have 150 thriving people that go home and have a 10 times effect, wow, that's pretty cool. We can make a lot of difference in the world. And then, so then I think, wow, if we had offices all over the world and we had, you know, all these people who were happy, it's pretty altruistic. But I think, why not? You know, if we. But it takes a lot of work and it's. And it's really hard to be disciplined, to stick to it, you know, in particular as we get bigger and, you know, you don't know everybody anymore necessarily like some people do. But, you know, we have to make sure that everyone in the company is standing up for this level of standard and quality, and they're not. And you see it now. So it's not me that goes around saying this person's a good fit or not, it's the team members. So that's a long winded answer for why grow? Yeah. Thanks.

Hi, Karen.

Hi over there. So, like, Brent's got off.

I'm a junior level designer and I've been in San Diego in the job market for the last couple of months. And I noticed a lot of people in the room who, you know, are Ali's mentees actually happen to be the same spot as me. San Diego, no doubt isn't growing as quickly as, say, the Bay Area, San Francisco when it comes to the design scene. So, you know, the easy solution for a lot of people when they see most of the positions that are pulled that happen to be mid level or senior level is just we'll move to the Bay Area. But for those of us that want to stay in the area, what are some of the proactive things you think junior level people like us can do to nurture that environment so that eventually when we're in our 30s and 40s, we can have a community to help others who are, you know, experiencing things that we're experiencing now, which is finding it difficult to find entry level positions, essentially.

So are you just to understand. So you're finding it that there aren't enough jobs here? Is that the problem? Yeah, it's just like 80 to 85%.

Of the companies are posting Only in mid level and senior level jobs.

Okay.

And a lot of times, even if.

We feel like we have the skill sets necessary to do the job, it's just the numbers of years of experience that we're lacking, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of things in there, but for one, just hang around here for a while because we'll be hiring like crazy. Part of it is to be able to hire junior people who need more mentorship. You need to have enough senior people who can mentor them. And so we. I'm excited now that we're a big enough company that we can really do that, because my favorite people, hands down, are junior people. You know, lots of energy, great ideas, new ways of thinking, and new tools. So my main advice is, you know, the idea of out of sight, out of mind. It's really true. So I would encourage you and your friends to just hang around places that are design centric. And then you get to know people and you get to know people. That's how you get the great jobs. It's not by applying, it's knowing people. And so the more that all of you junior people can know more people. And there's plenty of opportunities in San Diego. I mean, brand hosts, half them, they're going on here all the time. So just hang out. I would encourage you to do that. And then just wait because it's coming. You know, there's so many great programs. What did you say? 23 college, 23 colleges in San Diego, and five of them have design programs. So it's coming, you know, companies, it's way more affordable to do business here. So for us to have our San Francisco office, I do not want to grow that, you know, that's there strategically to be with the clients that are there. But that's a rough place to do business. It's so expensive. And also it's really hard to keep people because they're, you know, they're lured away by five times more salary, like crazy business. So, you know, I would. I'm way more excited about being down here in a place where there's sort of people who are here because they love the city and they love the culture and the environment, and that's. That's what makes a great place to work, too. So just. Just FaceTime wherever you can. That's what I would encourage. Yeah. Also, our interns never go away. You know, like, they come and then they never leave. Yeah.

I just want to add something to what you're saying. And so a lot of people, they probably don't want to hear this, but I'm gonna say it anyway. You can't work for free. That's very.

Exactly. Get what you pay for.

Yeah. But in terms of getting to develop relationships with people within the space. And so it's a very unpopular move. But if you, let's say here, you talk to Brent and you say, hey, if I come by two days a week for two hours or something and just learn how you guys do things. And I'm just hypothetically saying, but if you, you know, do this at different companies that are here, then you're developing a relationship and also they're learning how you work and vice versa. And so eventually, sooner or later, you know, when a situation or opportunity presents itself, you're. You're right there. So always put yourself in a position to win. It's not necessarily about winning, but putting yourself in a position to win.

And, you know, it goes back to number one or number three, whichever it was friendships, right. Get, you know, like people have them. Like, you be top of mind. So when, you know, it happens for me all the time, you know, with our clients, oh, you call them up and they're like, oh, my God, perfect timing. It's always like that. So just, you know, call them, check in, go for coffee, just pop in. I was walking by. Or go to every event you possibly can, you know, and hopefully I'm not a big fan of working for free, but hanging out for free. Absolutely. Especially in places where they're friendly and nice. But I would also say you mentioned that you didn't have the skills because you're junior level. But don't even think like that. There's no. Just because you maybe don't have the years doesn't mean you don't have the ideas. And you probably have a lot better new skills that are needed because software is constantly changing. So think about it differently. I would encourage you to do that. And then all of a sudden, you'll find yourself applying probably for jobs that you never would have because you looked at that list of requirements and there were a number years in there. But just say, you know, forget that and come up with a big idea.

Yeah, Real, real quick. Who is entry level designers in here?

Real quick.

U exposed. Come on, don't be ashamed.

Come on.

I know you guys are in here. Okay, so come, come see me after. We're, we're going to learn the art of hustling right now, so don't try.

And, you know, related to that too is what we were talking about. Is never be afraid to ask somebody. You know, Like, I say yes all the time and people like, really? You're gonna do that? I'm like, why wouldn't I? Of course. It's super fun. So, yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Karen. Appreciate it.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and Tech podcast with Neil Blum. Thanks again to Cox Biz for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. This has been a partnership with the San Diego Venture Group and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation's SD Life Changing Campaign. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter at neilbloom and on LinkedIn.

Sam.