Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 38: Marah Lidey & Naomi Hirabayashi, Co-Founders Shine

Transcript

Episode 38: Marah Lidey & Naomi Hirabayashi, Co-Founders Shine · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome to episode thirty eight of Hurdle, a
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: podcast talks to everyone from top CEOs to entrepreneurs about
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: how they got through tough times hurdles of sorts by
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: leaning into wellness. My name's Emilia Badi and today I'm
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: chatting with Naomi here by Ashi and mar Laidi, the
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: co founders of Shine, what they refer to as Your
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Daily I got this essentially to break it down the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: platform they've built since free daily text messages with motivational quotes,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: positive affirmations, and actions you can take to be a
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: better you. This episode's brought to you by Athletic Greens.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: You know when you reach for a green juice and
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: it tastes like you're drinking grass. Yeah, this is nothing
• 0:41
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• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Single day off right.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Athletic Greens is offering a special deal to Hurdle listeners.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It's twenty travel packs a ninety nine dollars value for
• 0:58
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• 1:00
  Speaker 2: With your first purchase.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Just head on over to Athleticgreens dot com slash hurdle
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: to claim it no code necessary Again, that's Athleticgreens dot
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: com slash hurdle. Now let's talk about Mara and Naomi,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the duo networking at the nonprofit, do something and immediately
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: became fast friends.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: And that's pretty special as adults when you find someone
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: you quick with.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Because, if you ask me, making friends later in life
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: can be a little sticky. Anyway, they were constantly leaning
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: on each other to work through everything from hard to
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: have conversations at the office to relationship issues. When they
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: realized that they could team up to make something really
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: great outside of where they were in twenty sixteen, they
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: took a leap of faith and left their jobs to
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: focus on Shine full time, raised millions of dollars in funding,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and now bring their preventative tech driven app to more
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: than two.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Million users around the world.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: If you're in New York City tomorrow night, January twenty third,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be doing a live show from we
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: work on Varick at six thirty. Exciting because we work
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: globst showcasing Hurdle and their great Reads.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: And Listens Club as podcasts of the month. So to celebrate,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down to.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Chat with Naomi and Mara, as well as past hurdler's
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Adam Callen of Jane Motorcycles and Jesse Dover of Digny Dover.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: I am really, really, really really looking forward to it.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: You can find all the details on that over at
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: hurdle dot Us. As always Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, hit me
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: up at Hurdle Podcast.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Please do me two quick quick favors when you're done
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: listening to this episode today. First, send it to a
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: friend share the hurdle love.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: And secondly, please leave a review of the pod in
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the iTunes store. It helps Hurdle on the charts and
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: overall just encourages more people to join this little community
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of hurdlers wherever they may be. Also, if you have
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: a hurdle moment to share, I just want to say hi,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: feel free to ping me Emily at hurdle dot us
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and uh.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: I think that's it with that, Let's get to hurdling today.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with the Shine co founders. I've got Mara,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Lidi and Naomi here by Ashi. I'm so excited to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: be here.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: With you guys.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having us, Emilie, thanks for coming in.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: This is only the second time that I've sat down
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: with two people at once for like a single episode.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Oh cool. Yeah, I sat.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Down with the Cikar Life founders and it was in
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: my old studio at Weework, and the booth was just
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: similar size.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: We're nice and cozy, very cozy, but it's like a
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: survival box, like it feels safe. We we spoke on
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: a panel with one of the founders' Tacara Life.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Oh they're so fantastic. Yeah, they're so great. I'm so
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: excited to be here with you guys today. I think
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: first and foremost what we need to do is give
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the hurdlers a little insight as to what Shine is.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So why don't you throw it down for me?
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Shine is your daily I got this. Our mission is
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: to make well being accessible, which means making it more representative, easier,
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: and more for to live your biggest and best life.
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: We've been around for about two and a half years
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: now and we have three million members around the world
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: that get our Shine Texts, which is a free daily
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: text that you can get to help you practice intention
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: and show up for yourself. And then we also just
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: launched an audio product called Shine Talks Awesome.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I woke up to a text this morning that said,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: It's all about your energy, not your calendar, and then
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: another one this week was the Trick to Stronger Boundaries
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen Emily. I love it when it addresses
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: me by name Emily owning your No, and I'm like, yeah, I'm.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Gonna say no, yes, yes, yes, to.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Know exactly here for no. I feel like saying no
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: is a big theme that I've like been It's part
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of the conversation that I've been having with a lot
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: of people in the last few weeks since the new
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: year started.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Well, you're reading about essentialisms. Yeah, Yeah, I'm reading Essentialism,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: which is just was a really good book to read
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: before the new year. I also just came back from
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: maternity leave, so it was the most time I've gotten
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: to kind of take a step back and just process
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: a lot of like the amazing things from last year.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: But the big thing that he talks about in the
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: book is around emotional discipline and how Noah is saying no.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: One's really about power. It's about owning your agency to
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: create your life versus just respond to it, which is
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: something we need reminders on all the time because there's
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: a lot of messages out there that tell us otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: I think also for me, I say yes a lot
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: when I don't want to let other people down, But
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: then it needs to come back full circle to me
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and how am I going to be if I say yes?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Am I going to be doing myself a service? It's cool,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Like I love serving others. I'm big on acts of service,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: but I think that's sometimes if you don't take a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: step back and realize how you feel, then you can't
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: just continue and continue and continue to give and give
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and give if you're not going to get back to yourself.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the difference.
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: We talk a lot about the difference between I can't
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: and I don't write, or I'm busy and I'm focused.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: So you know, oftentimes we feel bad for like turning
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: down a meeting invite or not being able to go
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: to an event or help people out. And having a
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: set of rules for yourself, which honestly gets back to
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: essentialism is what is actually essential for me as a
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: person and professionally and my values, and then kind of
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: setting those rules in a way that allows you to
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: very easily say like, oh, I don't do that, I
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: don't I don't go to after work events on Mondays.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: I don't work on Saturday. Having a set of rules
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  Speaker 4: for yourself, and you know I'm not busy. It's not
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: because I can't. I'm focused. Yep, whoa, I don't go
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: I don't go to events on Monday.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Maybe I should adopt that into my vocabulary.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: It's powerful. It's such a slight thing, but it's it's
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: really really powerful.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Walking into your beautiful office space today on Broadway in Nomad,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: it's bright and shining, and everyone in the office is
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: noticeably very happy. We have the best team. Everyone's super happy.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So tell me about Shine's beginnings. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So name and I met working together.
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  Speaker 4: I guess it's eight years ago now, good Jess.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: Every time, every time along the time keeps on moving forward.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: That's right. Well where are you both? Where are you both?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Marginal line.
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  Speaker 3: I'm from northern Virginia, right outside d.
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  Speaker 2: See, okay.
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  Speaker 3: And I'm from Savannah, Georgia.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Okay. And so you met.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: Interesting you asked where we're from. We often talk about
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: how we have non traditional backgrounds. And I'm doing air
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: quotes right now because we came to the city. Both
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: you know, like many people come to the city looking
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: for kind of a new beginning and a fresh start
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: and for something bigger than what we were finding. Where
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: we were from and had just great backgrounds in terms
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: of we both had the opportunity to work at startups,
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: we both worked at corporations, and then we ended up
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: finding ourselves working together at a nonprofit called dosothing dot Org.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: It was an incredible experience. We both got to manage
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: fairly large teams there be a part of the management team,
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: and more than anything out of our experience outside of,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: you know, getting to learn a hard skill set around
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: what does it look like to scale social change for
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: young people was we found each other and we found
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: this incredibly symbiotic relationships. It's like we often talk about
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: how you meet someone and you're like, I think she's
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: person Like we were able to. I mean, we work
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: wifed very quickly in terms of like when we met
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: and just really quickly understanding like this is someone who
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: gets it and who sees the world the way I
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: see it and can also help me to better see myself.
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: So what very early on happened is that we would
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: send each other invites for coffees in the morning and
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: then you know, whine after work or lunch to work
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: through the day to day stuff.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: So everything from day.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: To day management issues or going in to ask for
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: a raise or promotion and saying like, hey, can you
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: be my manager for five minutes, I'm going to say
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: these things?
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: What do you think?
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: Also, I feel kind of weird because I feel like
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: I should know how much I'm worth for this next
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: promotion or this next raise, but I don't.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Is that weird?
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: And the first and most powerful thing we did for
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: each other was we stopped that in its tracks.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: And so that's not weird. I've been there.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: Whatever it is, whether it's anxiety, whether it's working on
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: your credit score, whatever that thing is that you feel
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: alone in and isolated in, someone else has experienced it.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: It's a part of the human condition, right, So we said,
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: that's not weird, and a lot of times that it
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: was I've been there or know someone who's been there. Right,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: So immediately you get the sense of normalization and not
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: feeling alone. And the second thing we did for each other,
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: which we didn't really understand at the time, is often
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: coined as coaching, is we gave each other tactical ways
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: to move forward, like I've been there and here's what
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: I've done to deal with that. So in each other,
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: we found somebody who was both accessible and aspirational, somebody
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: that I could relate to and that sees me and
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: somebody I really wanted to be like, and I wanted
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: to mimic certain qualities, right, And I think that's very unique.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: And when we took a step back and talked about
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: what we offered each other that wasn't happening in other
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: friends workspaces and we often you know, would hear from them.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: I wish I had that.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: I wish I had a Naomi at my job who
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: was with me through the day to day highs and lows.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: And we looked at the industry. We saw that just
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: even the category, which at the time was still being
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: talked about as self help, hasn't been updated in a
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: really long time, right, So people there's still like the
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: amazing gurus like Deepak Chopra and Tony Robbins and Oprah
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: we love Oprah, just to be clear, but there wasn't
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: anything that felt accessible and on a peer to peer
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: basis that people could then make a daily habit, right,
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: something that could help you practice what we now call
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: self care versus what was typically talked about is self help,
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: which was a lot more focused on a short term
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: solution to fix yourself, whereas our generation is very much
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: leading this shift from self help to self care because
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: we're looking for ways that are preventable and habitual to
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: prevent a crisis.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: We know that in order to live our big lives,
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: and we often talk about the fact that we are
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: the most ambitious generation to date, and we also don't
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: make as much of money in these previous generations or
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: buying houses later, we're getting married later. So with that
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: kind of conundrum being this paradoxical generation, we very much
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: are realizing that we need some solution on a daily
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: basis to take care of ourselves and to really help
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: ourselves see ourselves. So we met working together, and then
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: not long after, just a few years after, we came
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: up with this idea of what if we took our
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: expertise in scaling out intimate experiences like we were doing,
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: do something with this relationship that we have that's incredibly symbiotic,
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: that's pure based and also accessible, And we launched the first.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Product, which is Shine Text there's so much to unpack
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: in that whole story. The first thing is this idea
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: of adult friendships. So you're saying that a lot of
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: people would be like, oh man, I wish I had
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: a Naomi. I think a lot of people in general
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: like one hundred percent, especially as we get older, it's
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: really hard to make friends.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: And I think it's because we put up a lot
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: of walls and.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: You really know, like I would hope, who you are
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and the kind of people that fit into that. And
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it's not every day you walk down the street and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: you find someone that feels like they fit into your puzzle.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So the fact that you two could recognize that is
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: pretty special.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: I think I often say with friendships, it's like it's
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: repeat sustainable interactions. And you know, it's really hard after
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: you get out of any kind of school setting, Is
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: that right?
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Like how do you set up time? Especially I think
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: in these bigger cities where we just honestly don't have as.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: Much space, so you're not hanging out at people's houses
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: as much, you don't have that opportunity. And so I
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: do think there is something really special about starting a
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: company with somebody that I had worked with so I
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: know what we are like to work together, but also
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: I have someone that is a very deep friend and
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: someone that we were able to relate to on this
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: in this other way. And to your point, most people don't.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: And we think access is it's something we're so passionate
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: about because we often heard not just from friends around
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: New York, but in Virginia and in Georgia and all
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: over the country, Like I just I'm struggling. I'm struggling
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: with being a parent for the first time and not
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: knowing what that looks like. I'm struggling with not feeling
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: seen at work. I'm struggling with being the only woman
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: of color on my team, Like what does that look
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: like to get support for that when you don't have
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: somebody with you a day to day basis.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Right, It's interesting because obviously you both met at do something.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: You're building a company that's super again about like human
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: connectivity and like compassion.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Did you always think that you were going to into
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: this space?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Like did you grow up surrounded by a lot of compassion,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: surrounded by certain individuals that just like propelled you to
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: do these acts of human service so to speak.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think what's interesting in that the question around
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: did we grow up around a lot of compassion is
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: that we certainly found those examples, like both of us
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: have grandmothers who really mattered a lot to us. But there,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: you know, there were moments that it was challenging, I think,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: to really see ourselves. And for me specifically, I remember
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: being in Savannah and I had moved recently from where
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I grew up in Pennsylvania, and I was getting ready
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: to go to apply for college and I'd been in
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Savannah for a few years, gone to high school there.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: It was a pretty hard time to move, going from
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: middle school to high school. You know, you're you're still.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Awkward and you're just kind of forming your crew and
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: then you have to start over.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: So that was challenging.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: And I remember just thinking about college and where I
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: was going to go, and you know, for me, I
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: needed to put myself through college, so.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Like just how I was going to go and what
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: does that look like. And I had a job in
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: high school working at a pizza shop, and I worked
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: my way up to be the manager there, the junior manager.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: It was a big deal.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: But I remember even though I had had like, you know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: moments that I had affirmed my own belief in myself,
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: like being able to do that while I was also
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: in school there. Things would still get to me if
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: somebody gave me, you know, called something out or gave
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: a specific piece of feedback about my experience. So I
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: remember I worked with someone that was asking me. I
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: was talking about how I was going to take the
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: ESAT on that weekend that Saturday, and he was like, oh,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: that's cool, Like yeah, like where are you trying to go?
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: And in Savannah and Georgia generally like you know, the
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: big state school, University of Georgia, everyone is. You know,
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: that's kind of like the dream to go there, if
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: you want to go to school in state.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, I think I want to
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: go to Uga.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: And I didn't think it was that word of a
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: thing to say, but he immediately laughed. He just responded
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: with a laugh, and he not that it matters. He
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: was like a year younger than me, and just the
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: level at which he just the condescension and just being.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Like, oh my, you're never gonna get into Uga. That's
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: what he said to me. Right after that. I in
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: that moment was just like I don't think I realized
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: that I did believe or didn't believe I was going
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: to get in.
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: I think I just assumed, like, this is where I
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: want to go, and I'll figure it out, because that's
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: what I had done in my life. But I had
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: this person, this very real coworker of mine, that was like,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: that's absolutely not gonna happen for you, and I just
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: it really bothered me, and it hurt obviously, and I
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: sat with it for a while, and then that weekend
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: I took my essat and I actually wrote about him
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: in my sat essay, and I wrote about the fact that,
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: you know, growing up, I didn't always have an example
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: of what I wanted to be my next step to
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: look like. And part of that does come from.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: My financial circumstances and family and all of that, but
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: that I had this this belief in myself, but it
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: wasn't unshakable, and that there were these people that you know,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: can could get me down. And what I wanted to
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: do was focus on persevering through that and proving those
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: people wrong.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: So that's what I wrote about my sat essay. I
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: got a perfect score an essay which I love.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: I thought you were like a perfect screen in the essay.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: So that would be cool, be cool, But also I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't if you paid me, I could not tell you
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: what I wrote.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: About on my SAT essay.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Well there's something it's.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Clearly whatever I wrote about like was not as well.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: I think it's really cool to talk about your ESSAYT
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: score when you're That's what I'm trying to go for here.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: But no, it really stuck with me.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: Because it was an example of a time that I
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: actually leveraged someone's feedback about who they thought I was
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: and I just like, you know, gave them a huge
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: middle finger and I.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Was like, I'm going to actually use you to get there.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he received Georgia.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, girl. So you know, take that, young man
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: wherever you are, not to know who you are.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: But I remember I actually wrote about it when we
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: first started shining for Forbes around just it's fuel to me.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: It's fuel when people don't believe in me. I've now
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: made that a habit where I adopt that and I
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: use that and it's not on a spite or you know,
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: hate or anything like that. It's just like great, I
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: love proving people wrong.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the best. What about you, man?
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: The first word was, Oh, it was, but my grandpa
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: was called you know what you're about to Well, I
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: know it because it is part of the story because
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: it didn't help me get in anywhere. So I remember
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: it and it's lack of impact.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: It was called in my grandfather's eyes, it was about
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: well I was. I was really close with my grandparents
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: and my grandfather had a stroke my high school, yeah,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: senior year, and I was very I was very close
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: with them. I like grew up with them, and they
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: walked to school and they were basically like I mean,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I have two very amazing active parents, but they were
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: also like parents. And so I wrote about him post
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: stroke tears moll I didn't get in that I didn't
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: get into school, which is my story. But yeah, the
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: immediate word that came to mind, I think in response
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: to this is actually anger, which is a word that
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: we don't talk a lot about, and I think we're
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: starting to talk about it more. But as someone that
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: you know is perceived as like kind of bubbly and
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: friendly and all those things, a really difficult relationship with
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: I think anger early on. So I was just because
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: of a lot of reasons, like just kind of was
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: going through a tough time in high school and I
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: was struggling. I went from being like a really good
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: student to not being a good student, like one point
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: nine GPA, barely going to graduate. And I was very
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: very angry at my situation, but it didn't it didn't
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: hit me until later on reflecting. Actually, there's like one
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: talk that I did that like kind of processing this
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: time in my life, just realizing how angry I was.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: I was very angry at my circumstances, angry that I
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: felt like I didn't have any control, like I was
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: just kind of succumbing to the environment, and I became
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: very resentful and that it was It's probably it's like
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: the ugliest time I think for me, like in how
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: how I treated people, it was all you know, it was.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: I was seventeen at the time, so that manifested in
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: a way that was just kind of like I don't care,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: like you know, it doesn't matter, like what is school?
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: What are grades?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: What does that mean? Like it was just very seemingly
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: rebellious but actually not productive. So what that resulted in
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: is I applied to one school I didn't get in,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: and I didn't have a backup plan, but I ended
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: up staying home and had what would later on become
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: probably the most like just the most insightful year of
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: my life. So I stayed home, I worked full time,
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: not full time. I worked, I guess part time with
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: school full time. Went to nearby community college. And community
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: college will always be the biggest advocate for because you
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: have a lot of people from different situations and a
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: lot of people that are getting to pursue their college
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: degree for the first time at a different stage in life.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: And so it one gave me a deeper appreciation of
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: just education and the blessing of education. And two, I
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: moved out of my house, which was causing a lot
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: of the stress, and moved in with my grandmother, who
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: had just lost her husband, and we were incredibly close,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: and that ended up being like the last couple of
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: years of her life, and so we got to bunk
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: up together. My first year in college was a lot
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: of me hanging out with my grandmother and driving her
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: to chemo and going to McDonald's after because she like
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: French fries after chemo, and she was very unapologetic about it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: She said, your body needs when the needs, and I
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: got dropped off I didn't have a car, so I
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: got dropped off at community College by my grandmother, which
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: was also very humbling. So basically like anger to humility
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: to then accountability and action. So I in that time
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: realized that I had, Yes, there was reasons why maybe
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: it wasn't able to like thrive in the same way
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: I had imagined I wanted to. But I also had
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: a lot of ability to do something about and make
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: a change, And so I applied to James Madison, where
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I really wanted to go. All my friends were there,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: it was a great state school. I got rejected, so
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: I transferred to another school where I got in Radford
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: and had a good time there, but just felt like
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Jamie was really where I wanted to be. I applied again,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: and before it actually got accepted, I signed a legally
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: binding lease because I was eighteen years old and I
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: had told like my parents or anyone that I was
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: gonna move and just was like, I'm going to actually
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: go to JAMU. I didn't get in again, and so
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: I got witlisted, but I had to go back to
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: community college because I was going to be living in
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: this other area because I had signed the lease and
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: ended up getting my associate's degree at Blue Ridge Community College,
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: which is a fantastic community college in the Shanandoah Valley,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: and ended up trans back into JMU after finally getting accepted,
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: forcing myself into the school through the Associates guaranteed Admissions
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: program with a minimum GPA, and I graduated in five years,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: so four colleges in five years, honors, and really found
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: myself there because I felt like it was at the
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: time was this very like not linear path and it
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: wasn't the tritional college experience whatever that's supposed to be,
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: but I had actually earned it. It was such a
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: feeling of merit and that momentum from seeing what I
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: could do when I just processed, like the control that
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: I had in the situation is a big reason what
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: led me to New York and stuff that we tapped into,
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: I think when we when we went full time.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: It's so interesting what you said about this idea that
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I was just so angry at my circumstance. It takes
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of time and wisdom to get to a
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: point where you realize that being angry at the circumstance
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: isn't going to move you forward.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Yes, I have a very specific memory my dad taking
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: My dad's a very cool dad. He's not like the
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: dad that's gonna put a lot of pressure on you
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: and be like, yeah, it's a cool I'm not a
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: regular dad.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And this was when I was just I was just struggling.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: I was just not I was like, I don't care.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: I just don't care. I don't care about anything, doesn't
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: matter whatever, very mature, and he was like, you can't
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: fight the world, Like you're only going to get so far.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: You can't fight the world. And it was the first time.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: My dad's always been very like we have a great
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: relationship with our with our dads and cheer us on
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: and think very highly of us. I remember him being
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: very disappointed, Like I could see it in his eyes,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: just being like, what are you doing that? That was
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: a turning point, I think for me, just seeing kind
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: of the disappointment.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: So what did life look like before you decided that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: you want to start your own company? Like, obviously you're
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: both working at Do Something, but what else? What else
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: can we highlight here?
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: So what was happening before we started Shine is we
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: were at Do Something and we both had done well.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: We had senior positions, you know, in this company that
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: we really loved. We were in relationships, and we were
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: just having that kind of energy of being young in
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: New York and feeling like anything as possible. The single
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: biggest difference between where we are now and where we
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: were then is this idea of is that me, like,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: could I start something? We both in conversations that we
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: would have with each other, had that kind of feeling
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: in your gut where you're like, I think there's something
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: really powerful here. I have this specific point of view
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: on the world. I'm picking up on certain conversations and
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: picking up on what's happening socially and culturally, and I
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: want to do something about that. I want to really
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: impact that. But when you looked at a lot of
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: positions of power or examples of entrepreneurs that were out there,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: something that mar and I connected on instantly was not
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: necessarily seeing ourselves in those versions, maybe like what the
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: people looked like or personality or communication style. And it
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: took a while for us to get to this point
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: through really like leaning on each each other and just
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: doing it and taking this massive risk to over time,
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: really see ourselves. Mara and I Buy All Accounts were
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: very successful I mean, we had these I was a CMO.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: She was director of mobile product and messaging at the
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: biggest organization for young people in social change in the world.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: We were living in New York, we were doing big,
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: ambitious things, and there's still more that we wanted to do.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: And that's what we talk about a lot like for
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: our community. Everyone's really ambitious and there's still stuff that
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: we're working towards. Like we can accept and honor where
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: we are, but there's more that we're working towards, but
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: we do need examples of what it can look like.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: That's that's wider than it is right now.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: And I think also it's like this idea that whether
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: you're young in New York and you feel that way,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: or your bill gates and you still feel that way,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: like there's just something inside of you when you want
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: something more, and it does just because you've reached one
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: goal or hit one target, that doesn't mean that you're
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: not allowed or entitled or capable for reaching for the
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: next thing, right, you know, And I.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Think that that can be the hardest part, and a
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: lot of people don't talk about it from a representative
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: point of view, and that that actually taking the step.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: It is so scary when you don't have a fallback,
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: like we didn't have savings, we had debt. And I
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: just remember so much of my validation had come from
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: accolades and working really hard in school, working really hard
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: in work, you know, to Naomi's point, we had kind
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: of on paper so many great things happening for us.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: But I don't think what I realized for myself.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: Was that that that's the validation that I wasn't giving myself.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: I was seeking it by how much money I made,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: or what people said about me, what feedback I got, promotions,
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: all of that, as opposed to being able to say like, no,
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: you're pretty great and here's why. And I think that
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: the catalyst of what happened for us to start Shine
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: was very much going through that process of validating ourselves.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: So there was a good few months where we had
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: we just did Shine as a side hustle and validated
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: the initial product of Shine text.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Got all this incredible feedback.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: And you know, it was just a really beautiful moment.
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: And in that moment, we could have just gone heads
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: down and been like, we know, we're going to stay
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: at this company and this will be a fun side
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: project and then we'll close it out. But we had
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: a conversation with each other where we were like, we look,
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: this is this feels like it's bigger than us, and
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: it feels like it's a disservice to many potentially other
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: people if we don't go full force on this. And
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: it was I think very emotionally and mentally challenging to
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: be able to go from from where we were to.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Like looking at each other and be like, I can't
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I could quit my job. And part of like I
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: can't quit my job is like, sure, I can't.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Not only do I not have the like fallback, but
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: it's a limiting belief in that if we.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Did and something bad happened, I wouldn't be okay, right.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: Which is true for a lot of people. It's certainly
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: a privilege to be able to, you know, have be
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: able bodied and be able to you know, if we
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: needed to like waitress or consult and have the network
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: that we have, Like, there's certainly an element of privilege
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: that comes to this entire conversation. However, I don't think
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: we realize for ourselves that that limiting belief of like
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: I can, and I don't think we can was coming
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: from a sense of like I don't trust myself and
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: I don't believe in myself and a lot of times,
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: and this is something INDIAI actually talks about a lot.
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: A lot of times, we're not just afraid of failure,
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: but we're afraid of success. We're afraid of what happens
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: if it works.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: And like the unknown, right, Like wouldn't you say that
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of the time success is something in circumstantial
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: for sure, but that you don't know what's going to happen.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think whether we like it or not, Like,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: we grow up with a certain level of authority, right
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: we have we go to school, and then we go
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: to work, and we have a boss, and we have teachers,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: and we have parents, and we often resent that authority.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: But what we're existing in is this concept of extreme accountability.
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: You know, if you can get Tomorrow's point, we're very
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: lucky to be able, very privileged to be able to
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: raise the rounds that we have and been able to
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: build out this company. If it fails, it's on us.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Like that is extreme accountability. If you put yourself out there,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: you know, in the early stages and say hey, I'm
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: gonna quit my job. We hadn't fundraised yet, we didn't
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: have any experience in fundraising. If this fails, it's on us.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: And a lot of life is you know, an ability
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: to kind of blame other authority figures if something doesn't
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: work out, if you're not getting that chance at work,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: or like if you didn't get that opportunity. So there's
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: a level of extreme accountability that comes with risk that
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: is terrifying, and we idealize it, but when you're often
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: faced with it's it's holding up the mirror in a
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: way that I mean, we never have before.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I also think that to an extent social media that
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: can be a good thing about it, because whenever I
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: have a crazy goal, the second that I tell somebody
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: else about it, or I tell like ten thousand people
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: about it, and I'm like, well, shit, you better get
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: ready to put your.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Girl pampa on, it's time to move.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: It's like when I mean totally different scenario, but going
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: from bi weekly to weekly with hurdle, it was like, okay,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: well this is just like completely changing the game because
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: now whereas you had like fourteen days to figure your
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: shit out every week every two weeks, now you don't
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: have that kind of time, and you need to keep
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: meeting people and getting out there and talking and just doing.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: But if you don't put yourself, if you don't put
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: yourself out there, then you'll never know what could be.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: Right, I think, yeah, absolutely. And what's interesting about this
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: concept of success, and this is very much in line
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: with this new campaign that we launched called Hustle and Hard,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: which is reflective of not just the Shine community but
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: also our generation, is that we have to choose, and
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: this particular happens for more marginalized communities. I think women
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: and women of color, and you know, people coming from
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: different maybe socioeconomic situations, but feeling like if I actually
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: get what I want, if I get the success, if
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I get to become the founder of a company that
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: I love and have built, I won't be able to
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: have the other stuff, you know, I won't be able
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: to also take care of myself. And while the concept
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: of having it all is problematic and misleading, what we
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: like an updated version of that is you can hustle
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: with heart, which is which is the concept that we
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: abide by and really believe in, which is all around
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: going after your big, ambitious goals. But doing it with
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: self compassion and not feeling like to you know what
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: mar was saying earlier, this older kind of concept of
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: just kind of toxic masculinity that has led entrepreneurship for
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: a long time, which is like you can sleep when
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: you're dead and like go bigger, go home, and like
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: there's no time. But now all these kind of like
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: this is it doesn't always resonate with with our generation.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: We want to work incredibly hard and also make sure
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: that we're taking care of ourselves along the way, because
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: that's ultimately what will keep us in the game.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: You're also talking about like this idea of like wanting
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: to have it all but being scared to have it all,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and that it's like you want to be the founder
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of a company, but you also want to, like I
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: like you want to you also want to identify with
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: where you come from and can you make everybody happy
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: if I'm like at work all the time, but then
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I need to be home and do this thing with
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: my family, and then I also need to be supporting
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: all my friends and then also like having a skincare routine.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: God, Like what do I know?
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Like I just I think it's a lot we put
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: But I would argue that we are the people that
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: put the most pressure on ourselves, right like your idea
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to your whole conversation that you were having with each other,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: but definitely also internally, can we leave this job?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think it's pressure we put on ourselves.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: In terms of ambition, I think there's still a lot
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: of pressure, particularly on women. You know, we're only two
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: generations away from the nineteen fifties housewife around being the
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: head of the household. That may be for your specific situation,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: being the emotional caretaker, being ambitious but not too ambitious,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: you know, all of there's a lot of labels that
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: we have been forced to wear. And I like in
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: being a woman now to when you get more responsibility work,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: but you don't get a promotion or a salary increase,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Like we still are kind of expected to do a
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: like fulfill a lot of those roles. But at the
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: same time, and that's where you can have it all
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: is misleading and not Also maybe I don't want what
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: having it all means that might be a family, and
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: I don't actually want a family. We're redefining that right
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: now in this current environment, and that's why It's been
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: really an honor to be able to reflect that nuance
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: and that evolution and that self reflection every single day
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: through our products with our community.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Quick break from today's episode to give my sponsor, Athletic
• 34:00
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• 34:02
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• 34:05
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• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Let's get back to it.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I'm back here sitting with Naomi and my they are
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the co founders of shot. Okay, so give me a
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: timeline of when you're still at do something.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was twenty fourteen, we watched the prototype, twenty fifteen,
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: when we watched a prototype in August.
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we launched the prototype in twenty fifteen and at
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: the end of the year, and then a few months
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: later gave our notice. We gave three months notice astres Yeah,
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: a trivestor of notice.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: I'm just like.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's very nice of you, but I kind
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: of feel like sometimes what happens and why two weeks
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: is a good amount of time typically speaking, is like
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: they want you to help so you don't mess up
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and leave them empty handed.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: But then you're also kind of one foot out the door.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: So three months with one foot out the door.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: We will it is a long time. Kind of generally
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: very nice of it. Yeah, it generally wouldn't say that's
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: the best practice. I think for us, we were both
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: being respectful and thoughtful about, you know, projects that we
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: had in teams that we led, and also we raised
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: around a funding on the side and actual needed that
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: time to be able to do that.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we didn't know that that was a weird thing,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: which I'm glad that we didn't know before because it was,
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, blessed to be nice pitches in at
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: atm banks, like over the phone, like pulling up our.
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Computers and Google docs, and it was a lot of
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: just like just time management for sure, and learning how
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: to run our product as well as the fundraising process
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: as well as you know, be fully there when we're
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: there at our jobs. But generally that that's when really
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: things kicked off, was you know. Of course, we could
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: have started Shine and not raise VC funding. I don't
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: recommend it for everyone, but I think for us, we
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: knew the scale at which.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: We wanted to have an impact and what we wanted
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: that to look like.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: So we very intentionally went after VC funding not knowing
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: much at all and had incredible support from some advisors
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: that we tapped really early on. But from there we
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: raised our first round of funding and use that funding
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: to really uh take the product and find what's called
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: product market fit. So that's me when you that means
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: when you have a product that selves a very specific
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: need for a very specific market at the right time,
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: and they could be solving that need in other ways.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: They could be hacking it. Like we heard a lot
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: of people would create these Instagram accounts of like positive
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: quotes for themselves and they would log out of their
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: own Instagram so they could have a place in the
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: morning to like start the day on a good foot
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: to you know, just compiling different routines their class pass
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: and then they would vision board after and you know,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: the things that we do to take care of ourselves
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: and how that ranged was very much happening then, and
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: that's essentially what you want is you want to be
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: able to solve that problem in a new way, in
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: a more efficient way for people at the right time.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: So we grew the team to four in.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: Our first year, which is really exciting, went to a
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: wee work and I'll never forget that first day when
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: we actually took a couple of fridays off during that
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: three month spam and one of the fridays we used
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: to look for office space, which was really really cool
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: because there is something about side hustling that is just
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: so invigorating and incredible, and it still doesn't quite feel
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: real necessarily unless you give yourself some sense of like,
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: you know, just making this feel validated, right, whether that's
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: like you know, Instagram subscribers or just feedback that like
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: really hits you. But for us, I think what the
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: day it really hit us was when you know, you
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: got off the train and I was waiting there with
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: coffee by the way work, like, holy crap, we're about
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: to look at our first potentially our office space.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: And you had your you were still your other job
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: at the time.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: We were, but we had we'd given them notice. Yeah, yeah, wow,
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: it was. It was.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: It was a really cool time because you actually we
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: felt this like growth. You know, there's it's a particular
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: experience to be able to feel such rapid growth in
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: a finite amount of time in terms of how uncomfortable
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: we were because we were doing something that we It
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: was this interesting mix of it felt it couldn't feel
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: more authentic, like, oh, this is what I've I've always
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: been like building towards us, I just didn't know it,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: and finding each other, the conversations that we would have,
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: the things that pained us about things that we would
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: see happening in the world, all of this was kind
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: of building to Shine and then oh.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: My gosh, what is this.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: This is so new and different and like like just
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: vastly you know, different than a day to day job
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: where someone else is in charge of making sure everything
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: lights get kept on and all this. So it's just
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: a ton of growth and uncomfortability in a very short
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: amount of time that we will always be grateful for
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: and we become a different company at every stage. But
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: there's nothing like that those first few months of Asmara
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: said being like, wait, this is happening, This is happening.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: No, I totally hear you, So what are you building
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: at that time?
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: At that time, it was one product that we were offering,
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: which was the prototype, which we still offer. It's the
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: free product of Shine Text. So every single morning, just
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: like you were talking about at the beginning of this,
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: you get a daily message from Shine that helps you
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: notice and really accept how you're feeling, and it feels
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: like a friend instead of a brand.
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: And that text can lead you to additional content that's
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: on your.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Website exactly exactly. So we at that time it was
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: just over SMS, and then also we have the same
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: experience on Facebook Messenger and so for the first year
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: that was the product and we had raised seed round
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: God had for employees.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: And how did you know at the time that you
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: needed to raise money to do this?
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: I think it very much depends on what you're doing
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: if you need to raise or not. And I think
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: this is a lot of times there's a lot of
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: privilege in these conversations because folks talk about it as
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: if like it's a really easy to raise We see
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: here everybody should do it, and we think, again, you
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: should be really discerning about whether you need to or not.
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: In our case, there was just some hard costs that
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: we needed to cover from the cost of text messaging
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: and thinking about the roadmap that we wanted to build out,
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: and also again to the scale that we were looking
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: to grow, so we knew we weren't interested necessarily in
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: creating a smaller media business, although I think that's really
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: valuable and I think we could have a totally different
• 41:03
  Speaker 4: life and that would be really beautiful. But for us,
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: we were more interested in what does this look like
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: at scale? We would rather build something that is really lightweight,
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: that is simple, and that changes the lives and days
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: of millions of people. Then to maybe go deeper into
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: doing something like consulting or coaching or kind of more
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: one on one experiences, and none of those experiences are invalid,
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: but that's really what we were looking to do. So
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: that to us said, you know, we need to think
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: about what outside capital looks like. We heard about the
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: solusive friends and family round concept and we asked, like
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: what does that mean, and and angel rounds, and like
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: what does it actually look like to raise funding? And
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: for us, it just made sense to go straight institutional
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: from the get go, which essentially means going from instead
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: of raising an angel round or friends and family around,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: going straight to the VC firms.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: And we were incredibly lucky in many ways, and that
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: of course, we worked hard and did a ton of pitches.
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: You get hundreds of and it's really hard.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: But one of the ways in which we left out
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: early on was one of our first meetings was with
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: somebody that just got it immediately. Her name is Victoria Song,
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: and she was just this incredible woman who had already
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: just been thinking about what it was like to invest
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: in the qualitative self, knowing that the quantitative self has
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: gotten so much attention, she'd already been looking for something
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: in this space and well where every other pitch she
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: spent maybe an hour trying to get somebody to see
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: the world is the way you see it.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: It took us five.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: Minutes and she was like, I'm in, I'm interested. So
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: that really helped unlock the door for us and understand
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: what it looks like.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: To get in the space.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: You also like throw out a woman's name, which was
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: not what I expected you to say.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: It's not a coincidence, right, it doesn't mean that we
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: have incredible investors. Our Series A was led by Daniel
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: Galatti of Comcast, who was one of the first conversations
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: that we had early on, and similarly he really got
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: it as women, as female founders and women of color.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: I think it is an extra special experience where you
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: don't have to educate as well as pitch. And obviously
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: with Victoria being a woman, there were certain things that
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: we were while Shine is for anyone can use it,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: like obviously we're both millennial women, and so that was
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: our primary target and where we've resonated the most, and
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: so as a millennial woman, the stuff that we were
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: talking about, she was like, yes, yes, yes, because it
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: wasn't it wasn't a conversation of oh, actually, let me
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: go talk to my wife or I'll check out with
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: my daughter about that, which can happen a lot when you're,
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: you know, fundraising because of the lack of representation. So
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: it was no accident that Victoria played the role that
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: she did, given who she was.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Totally, and you just brought something up which we haven't
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: We've kind of glazed over, but we haven't talked about
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: it yet. It's that both of you being women of color,
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: how has that impacted growing your business? So, I mean,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many challenges that you can face,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: regardless of in the office or out of the office,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: but I'd love for you to talk a little bit
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: about how.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: That's kind of impacted your experience with Shine. Yeah.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: I think it's impacted our business incredibly positively.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: In that not only is our team incredibly representative of
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: the world outside of our office and outside of even
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: New York, but our membership is so most of our
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: members are women. We over index for women of color significantly,
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: and particularly black women, and we over index for people
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: who identify on the LGBTQ spectrum. So generally, I think
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: being another has attracted others and has attracted just a
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: really great representation of the world in terms of our team,
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: in terms of our membership, and I think, I mean,
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: I talk about this all the time, but it is
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: it does often feel at the very beginning of a journey,
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: or before your journey starts and whatever it is you're
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: trying to pursue, that you not having the typical path
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: in our example, going to business school, understanding anything about
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: venture capital or building a business, you know, at the
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: very beginning you kind of think like, this is going
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: to be my achilles seel, this is going to be
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: what holds me back because I don't have the same
• 45:01
  Speaker 4: xyz that these other people have in this industry. And
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: we've found that the polar opposite is true and it
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: couldn't be more wrong, and that it is our unique
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: capabilities and our unique way that we've come to this
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: journey and our unique perspective on the world that's been
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: shaped by our own non traditional backgrounds that has made
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: us more resilient and has made us the people that
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: we are that we couldn't be anyone else starting this
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: specific company. Is it hard in terms of what does
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: it look like to fundraise when you're not really pitching
• 45:32
  Speaker 4: anybody that looks like you, absolutely, and I think there
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: are there's a lot of implicit bias that happens in
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: this industry that you can't quantify, but that you certainly feel.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: On the founder side, I'd say generally.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: We have had a good experience in the venture capital
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: community and just the startup community generally, but we certainly
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: have felt moments where you know, it would be nice
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: to feel included in more representation and seeing more people
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: that look like us, because there's certainly our moments that
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: we know that we may be held back because of that.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: But it hasn't. It hasn't been. It's been something that's
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: made us stronger.
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: I think over time, we and we talk a lot
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: about yeah, it really, it really is. I think resilience
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: has been such a theme of our journey and also
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: our community's journey, and we talk about how a lot
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: of people start companies with this concept of I was
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: just waiting for the right idea. I always knew I
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: was going to start something which is which is exciting,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: and there's so many amazing companies that I've spun out
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: of that. But that's one journey of entrepreneurship. The other
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: journey is this is what I've experienced. This is what
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: hurts when it doesn't feel like there's a clear answer
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: solution that the world has yet provided. And this is
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: a role that I can play in that and that
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: creates a much more empathetic leadership, a wider lens on
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: what everyday people are kind of going through. And for us,
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: certainly as a company that is all around making well
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: being more accessible perience. Is really why we've been as
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: successful as we have because it's it's always we've always
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: stayed close to the ground like this is this is
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: a company that we built because we wish we would
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: have had this and if we had had it earlier,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: what would that have meant for us? And for how
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: we were talking to ourselves every day and what we were
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: kind of like gunning for.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: What kind of advice would you offer to someone who
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: recognizes that maybe they're not being their biggest type man,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: like they're not really all about the positive self talk,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: They're not speaking to themselves in a way that really
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: feels progressive. It's more of just a downer.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: Well, this is this is advice that people talk about
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: a lot. It might not be like completely new, but
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: I think it's the best advice is to talk to
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: yourself like a friend, like we are so good at
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: beating ourselves up and seeing I mean, we're actually wired
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: for it. It's it's part of survival where we have to
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: look for risk and look for the negative to survive.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: So it's part of our DNA, But how it's manifested
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: into present day is often sad because we're spending so
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: much time worrying that did I say the right thing?
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Or Oh, they're so stupid, I can't believe I did
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: that to You're always letting people down, or these narratives
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: that are just completely overwhelming our day that when we
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: look back, you know, a day later, five days later,
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: ten years later, when you look at those moments, it
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: was never as bad. Often often sometimes it may be,
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: but typically the way that you were talking to yourself
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: in that moment was so unjustified. And then on the
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: flip side, the way that we look at other people
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: and the way that we elevate our friends and people
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: that we adore and our team members comes like with
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: so much benefit of the doubt, like absolute benefit of
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: the doubt, but we very rarely do that to ourselves.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: It's a practice that is a daily practice. It's not
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: this like finite Okay, I did it, and this is
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: now how I talk to myself. At least for me,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: it's a daily practice and some days I'm better at
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: it than others. And truly, what has helped, and this
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: was a big part of our origin story, was having
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: a person that helps you see yourself, helps reflect that
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: that lens that is outside of yourself to say, well,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: this is actually how I see you. That that cuts
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: off those conversations.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: We mentioned team members, So how many team members does
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Shine have now we're fifteen fifteen team members. And what
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: was it like for you when you finally did pull
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: the trigger on your first office space, because I mean
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: a lot has happened since then for sure.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean was it a we work?
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Of course, our very first office space was a
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: we work and we actually stayed in we work. We
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: went to we scaled through four different offices and we
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: work and we really appreciated the team there. The culture
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: kind of seeps into your own culture in a really
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: beautiful way. In that, particularly when you're a small team
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: and you're convincing people to come work for you, you.
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: Don't have a ton, you know, to show them we
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: didn't have a brick and mortar office of our own,
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: and so being able to walk them by.
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: Like the snack bar and the coffee and you know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: Renee and barista like just you know, it very much
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: created this warm environment that was really helpful. And then
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: we we ended up getting to a place where we
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: needed to find our own brick and mortar space, and
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: that I think was still one of the scariest decisions
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: for us because it was we hadn't thought about it
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: at the time until it came time to sign the lease,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: but it was the biggest long term commitment we'd ever
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: made for the company. Yeah, you're signing in New York,
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: it's anywhere from a five to ten year lease. We
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: left out on a three year lease, but it's still
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: a significant commitment, a significant amount of money that you're
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: projecting out into the future. And every at every step
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: where you do have to make a commitment to yourself,
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: it really does just reaffirm self belief. And I think
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: to your point of being that inner critic and how
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: do you stop yourself in those moments is first and
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: foremost like recognizing that that's a human thing, And so
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: what often happens is we like the critic then spirals
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: and says, you know, we say like, oh, we don't
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: deserve our first office, like we're too early, we shouldn't
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: have that. And then you go, why are you thinking?
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Like what's wrong with you? You know, other founders probably
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: don't think like that.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: Spiral, Yeah, you're like, I'm not supposed to be this way, right.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: So I think it very much relates in that every
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: step at which you can give yourself validation, that will happen.
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: You may question yourself, you may doubt yourself, and that
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: is normal. That is a part of the human experience.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: And maybe you.
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: Have a lot of confidence that you don't question yourself, great,
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: but most people do. And when you do, I think
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: it's just checking yourself, whether you have somebody else, whether
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: you're using shine, but just generally just checking yourself and
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: saying like it's okay for me to doubt this, and
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: let me investigate why am.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: I doubting this? Like what does that mean? But it
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily mean that you're weird or that there's anything.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Wrong with you. You're dishing out inspiration to a lot
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: of people, a lot of the time through your product.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Who are the people that inspire you?
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: We both talk a lot about our grandmothers. We both
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: had just really just incredible strong women in our lives
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: at a very young age who gave us so many
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: great qualities, and particularly I think the qualities that separately
• 51:57
  Speaker 4: in our lives that we valued growing up and what
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: we identif with when we met each other was this
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: idea of somebody who can be direct and strong and
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: a force, but can also be compassionate and kind and warm.
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: And I think growing up with an example of what
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: that looks like and always striving towards that, and then
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: you know, being a different work environment and maybe not
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: necessarily always seeing that at the top, but certainly seeing
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: it and many many different types of people has always
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: kind of inspired us to want to become those leaders
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: and create those examples.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Grandma great same. Yeah.
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we both had really amazing grandmothers. Yeah, and it's
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: it's interesting to think about how strong they were to
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: us and the generation that they were part of, and
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: how much harder it was to stand out and be
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: independent in the environment that they were, you know, surviving in. Yeah,
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: I have a tattoo from my grandma she probably hates
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: that I have a tattoo of a quote from her.
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: She'd be like, what, but it's pretty as this pretty does,
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: which is like you're only as beautiful as your actions.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: And she would say that to us like all the time,
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: and it's it's really simple. But now there's so much
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: more conversation about, you know, everything around what it means
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: to like the experience of being a woman and identifying
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: with like the physical you know, objectification of women, all
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: these very very like kind of deep layered elements. But
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: it was cool to be so young and actually, you know,
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: just hear her talk about like beauty isn't about It's
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: not about like doesn't matter how beautiful you are, it's
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: what are you doing? Like what's your character? Thing is
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: like beautiful from the inside.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Totally totally.
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: I've got to ask what makes the two of you
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: different that actually strengthens the two of you as co founders.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: I think there's there's a healthy amount of things, Like
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: when we first started, there's so much obviously that we
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: talk about and then we know is really similar.
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: But we do have a lot of things that make
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: us different.
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: And when one of them being I'm a little bit
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: more introverted me means a little bit more extroverted, although.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: We both we both need that downtime, especially in this lifestyle.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: I think I am somebody who doesn't necessarily outwardly express
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: love in a very like obvious way.
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: And you know, while we have shared values, I think
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: how we express ourselves and our energy and where we
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: get that from is very different.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: And that it's been really cool because we've been able
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: to just find balance in that.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: Like we were incredible, incredible partners and I mean, Naomi
• 54:27
  Speaker 4: is one of the most brilliant people I've ever worked with,
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: and is also so expressive in a way that has
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: locked partnerships and VC funding and also gotten great hires
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: and elevates our culture. And I think just like being
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: able to sometimes like be inward when when she can
• 54:46
  Speaker 4: be more outward and vice versa, it just has a
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: lot us to have a really nice balance.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I agree. I think Mara has taught me
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: so much around thoughtfulness. Like I tend to get I
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: just get like excited, quickly respond and it's there's there's
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: prose to that that are that are fine. But Mara
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: is so thoughtful and she's so able to take the
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: step back and kind of like bottom line things and
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: see where there's like risk and opportunity. And she's incredibly strategic.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: And there's so much around, I think, particularly women, feeling
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: pressured to always like answer and please and respond. And
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: she's taught me a lot around just the power of
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: like taking taking a moment to like process things and
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: not having to like just jump into for the sake
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: of jumping in. And the result is she as a
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: leader sees things and questions things that I would have
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: totally missed. And it's that level of thoughtfulness and strategic
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: thinking that that I've learned just a ton from and
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: you know, makes the company what it is. I love you.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: I'm just sitting in on this the three of us
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: in this booth and.
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: Setting, and it's like really sweet.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: It's fine, that's fine, Okay, we're winding down.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: The final question I ask on every episode of Hurdle
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: is if you have the opportunity right now to offer
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: yourself a piece of advice, perhaps when you're both at
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: do something and you're really busy all the time, you're
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: working constantly, you're wondering, how do I level up? How
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: do I get a raise? Am I doing the right thing.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Should I start this company? What kind of advice would
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: you offer yourself at that time?
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: Looking back on it now.
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: I would definitely tell myself to know my power, and
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: that a lot of times we feel that someone else
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: has to give us power, or that our version of
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: power has to be reflected in other people, and we
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: can point to it and be like, that's me, I
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: should just be like them.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: But your experience, who you are, your struggles, your triumphs,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: your weird path has made you who you are, and
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: there is so much power in that, if nothing else,
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: to be able to share that so that other people
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: can relate to it. But clearly there's a lot of
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: else as well. I love that.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: What about you?
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: My advice would be, you know you should try this
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: like you like you kind of know. There's there's a
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: lot of times in life when most of the time
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: we actually know the answer. We know that we want
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: to do something. We know we want to let go
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: of something, we want to leave a relationship, or we
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: want to try something new or whatever it may be.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: Like our gut is so strong for a reason. The
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: number one reason we often don't do it, maybe other
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: than circumstances is fear. It's just fear of the unknown,
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: fear of it working out, or just fear of not
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: being good at not being able to do it. And
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: we knew, we knew that we wanted to do this,
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: and so just kind of like listening to that intuition
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: and and you know, taking the risk and just saying like, yeah,
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: you already know that this is something you want to do.
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: Thanks guys, You guys are the best. Thanks so much
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: for sitting down with me.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: Having family.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Oh man, please take a moment to leave a quick
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: review by clicking a line with the description to this episode.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Do it right now. We all face multiple hurdles in life.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I want to hear about yours. Reach out to me
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: at Emily at Hurdle dot us. Connect with the podcast
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at Hurdle Podcast. Ladies, Where do
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: they find Shine?
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Where do they find you?
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: Text?
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: Head to www dot Shine text dot com and check
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: us out. You can also download Shine in the App
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: Store or on Google Play.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, what about you, guys? You on social media?
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's you know, it's over nice.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I am at Emily a body Another hurdle conquered.
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time.