1. What were you doing before you quit your job?

Prior to quitting my job to work on Nodesmith, I was working at Tableau in Seattle on Tableau’s Developer Platform. I worked for a few years as a Product Manager, and also for a few years as an Engineer – but the whole time I was focused on building tooling and APIs for external developers.

2. When did you realize you wanted to quit your job?

I had known for my entire professional career that I was going to do a startup, it was more a question of timing. I am fortunate to be in a field where I have the privilege to try a startup and recover if it fails – that’s an incredible privilege that not everyone has, so I want to make sure to acknowledge that. Pursuing a startup had always been a dream of mine, so I knew I was going to quit my job prior to taking it 5 years earlier, I just didn’t know when that would be.

3. What initial hesitations did you have about quitting your job and how did you overcome them?

 I think my biggest hesitation revolved around the fact that I loved what I was currently doing at the time. I loved the team I worked with, the technology we were building, and the company I was at. It was scary to leave that behind for the unknown. What helped me overcome that was leaning into the knowledge that we grow most in uncomfortable situations, and I craved that growth.

4. Can you remember the day you put in your notice?  What was it like, what was going through your mind, how did your manager take it?

It was tough! It’s always hard to move on from something; I definitely felt like I was letting my team down in some capacity. But my manager was very supportive, and that made all the difference to me. While he was sad to see me leave, we worked through a good transition plan that wouldn’t leave the team in a bad spot, and he clearly prioritized me as a person rather than me as a resource. Tech companies that I really respect are ones that foster a culture where it’s not seen as a bad thing for an employee to leave to start their own company. Treating that as a positive can lead to that employee one day returning or perhaps even bringing their company back via an acquisition.

5. What are you doing now?

I worked on my startup (Nodesmith, a blockchain infrastructure as a service company) for about 2 years. We built a great product that I am proud of, raised some money, went through Techstars Seattle, and learned a lot along the way. But ultimately, we didn’t reach enough success or see enough traction to continue to raise larger amounts of capital and grow. We decided to sell the product and our IP to another company in the space and move on. That was an incredibly tough decision, but I believe it was the right decision and I’m quite happy with where I ended up. 

About a year ago, I joined a startup called Shelf Engine as the second engineer. While I remain a huge fan of decentralized technology, I believe Climate Change is a problem that we need drastically more people working on – so I felt compelled to work on what I view as a more pressing problem. At ShelfEngine, we’re working on reducing food waste through automation. I’m very thankful to remain a part of the Seattle Startup ecosystem.

6. Looking back on your experience of founding a company, what do you know that you wish you knew before? Are you happy with your decision?

There are lots of things I wish I had known when I first started Nodesmith, as there were countless mistakes I made along the way. Naturally, we did not see the amount of success I had hoped we would, and there were definitely things we could’ve done differently with hindsight. That being said, I am so thankful I made the decision to pursue a startup. I have never learned more during any period of my life, and I met some truly fantastic people along the way.

7. Any other advice you can share for others contemplating a similar path?

The main piece of advice I have is probably the most clichéd piece of startup advice out there – and that’s to talk to customers constantly and ensure you’re solving something that’s incredibly painful for them. Anyone in the startup world has heard that countless times, I probably would’ve rolled my eyes at that “advice” years ago. But that’s really the only thing that matters, and it’s not an easy feat. That didn’t become real for me until the last few years of living it and failing to build something that would be indispensable to customers.

That, and make sure you begin this journey with a co-founder who you can count on and spend tons of time with. I was quite fortunate to share this journey with an incredible co-founder, and that made all the difference in how positively I view the past few years.

1. What were you doing before you quit your job?

Prior to starting VoiceHero, I had recently graduated from my Undergraduate studies in Business. I was fortunate to join a startup program called Next 36 which accepts individuals across Canada who are looking to start companies. There, I met my Co-Founder and we pursued this journey of building something new to add value to customers. I had worked several internships across various fields in marketing, accounting, non-profit, but wanted to give this a shot due to the opportunity, and given I’d be working with a network of highly ambitious and intelligent people to start “something”.

2. What initial hesitations did you have about quitting your job and how did you overcome them?

Although I didn’t necessarily quit my job after graduating from school, I had all of the thoughts about whether I should pursue a corporate job or start a company. Next 36 and the platform seemed to land on my plate and given some of my entrepreneurial experiences that I had in my undergraduate years, I thought it would be a good opportunity to start a company. I knew regardless of the result, I would be well-off and was confident the outcome would still take me far in my career.

3. What is VoiceHero?

My company, VoiceHero, is an analytics platform to help developers understand conversational user behavior on voice applications on services like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. The inspiration came when I was playing around with an Alexa and realized there were apps called Skills which highly resembled Mobile Apps. There were opportunities for customers to make purchases and enjoy delightful experiences. I decided to pursue this opportunity and ultimately joined the Alexa Accelerator Powered by Techstars.

4. What are you doing now? How did you decide to take a corporate job after closing your startup? Will you consider launching another company in the future?

Ultimately, our team decided to sunset VoiceHero based on various challenges including personal reasons, funding, growth and many more. In April, I started a role at Amazon as a Program Manager in the Partnerships and Roadmap Planning function for internal teams at Amazon to deliver features to the Alexa Mobile App. The idea of starting a company in the future would be great and I would highly consider it at some point again. But for now, I have the flexibility to think about what really motivates me and gets me excited now that all of the pressure of starting a company is out of my mind. I can work at my own pace and do it when I am ready. I’m not great at predicting the future, but it’s likely I will start another venture.

5. Looking back on your experience of founding a company, what do you know now that you wish you knew before? Are you happy with your decision?

Knowing what I know now about starting a company, there is way more thought that goes into starting a company. I had a great opportunity (moving to Seattle and meeting mentors like Sean J), platforms (Next 36, Techstars), and investors who supported me and my approach to entrepreneurship. But looking back, I honestly did not have a clear vision and plan at any given time. I had a drive for starting “something” and knew that’s what I wanted to do, but it was way too broad and required more self-reflection which never allowed me settle on anything. I started with everything else except for the problem and that problem pivoted drastically at times causing friction within the founding team. I am very happy with the decision to move on but I know the bigger decision to start a company requires much more careful long-term planning, vision, and co-founders to “start something”.

6. Any other advice you can share for others contemplating a similar path?

Find a problem or space you care about so much you lose sleep over it and that you believe YOU are the right person to solve it. It’s hard to have that level of passion and conviction but don’t waste your time until you think you have this. Starting a company is not this “cool” thing people just do for fun, it is very difficult in every aspect (mentally, emotionally, physically). Honestly, I haven’t found it yet and most people might never feel this way about a problem.

7. How did you manage wellness and mental health during your startup? You worked your ass off during the program, how did you stay sane?

I honestly didn’t stay sane. I was hyper-focused and tried almost too hard to solve every problem and let it get the best of me. This affected the people I worked with, especially my co-founder. All of that built up intensity, and sleep deprivation adds up and when things go south, it can completely deflate the team if you don’t have the mentality to bounce back.

8. Knowing what you know now, how would you go about finding a co-founder or validating an idea?

Work with someone long enough to tell that they are the person you want to pursue this long term with – think of it like a marriage (and I believe this analogy is accurate regardless of what people think). It takes years to build trust, and you need to accept and understand each other: from how you work together, how to motivate each other, lifting each others spirits when times get tough, and more.