Latest / Low to Grow / Erika Brodnock MBE: KinHub and her Entrepreneurship Story

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Erika Brodnock MBE: KinHub and her Entrepreneurship Story · Low to Grow

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Would you rather have an MBA or an MBE?
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Because it's. Welcome to Low to Grow, the
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Technology founder who's entrepreneurship journey brand
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parallel to a mental health awakening.
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Today on Lotus Bro we have Erica Rodnock, MB.
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She is a multi award-winning entrepreneur, philanthropist and
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Angel investor. She also holds an MBA and is a
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Royal Society entrepreneur and residents at King's College
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London as well as being a Leadership Fellow at the
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University of Exeter and APHD candidate in the Inclusion
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Initiative at the London School of Economics.
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Now Erica is the Co founder of King Hub which is a work life
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intelligence platform that's helping organizations to boost
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productivity, performance and retention through AI powered
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coaching and support. She is also a non Executive
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director at for Diverse TVC and also the Good Play Guide
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alongside being a trustee for the Black Funding Network, an
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investment committee member for the Residence Community Fund and
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also serves on the advisory boards for the APPG for
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Entrepreneurship and also at the Oxford Bricks Business School.
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Erica, that is a host of responsibilities.
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I am so delighted that you made the time in your day to join
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Relationship to Grow. Podcast welcome.
1:56
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
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I was saying before that you've had some incredible guests so
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far, so I'm completely honoured to be included alongside such in
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fantastic entrepreneurs. Thank you for being so humble,
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and you are one of those incredible guests that I'm
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delighted to have on my podcast. Erica, before we start, who do
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you think will benefit the most from our conversation today?
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I think early stage founders that are just embarking on a
2:27
journey of entrepreneurship, as well as those who have been on
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the journey for quite some time and are thinking about the fact
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that whenever they read a success story, it feels like
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things are happening faster than is actually materialising for
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them in reality. I think both sets of people
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should hopefully benefit from hearing what it is that I have
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to say. Erica, I know we first met at
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AI, think it was a fintech networking event in the City of
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London a few years ago. Unless they ran into each other
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a Royal Society. You have a wealth of incredible
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experience in business and also in mentoring as well.
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Where did your journey start? My journey started a long while
3:14
ago. I've always been somebody that
3:16
was has been interested in solving problems.
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So even before I became an entrepreneur, when I worked, I
3:22
was interested in understanding 6 Sigma and lean and principles
3:28
that meant that actually you were able to process,
3:31
reengineer, understand what was going wrong in a process, pick
3:35
it apart and then pull it all together again with improvements
3:39
built in. And so that spirit of problem
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solving has kind of been there since the very beginning of my
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career and stayed with me right the way through.
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I do it everywhere to be honest with you.
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I bought my first property when I was 19 and it was an absolute
3:54
dump and I was able to re engineer and fix it up and then
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sell that. I've kind of been doing this for
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as long as I can remember and I guess I've really learned from
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hacking my own life. I'm a mum.
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I was a single mum for most of my children's child rearing
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years and that meant that I was consistently needing to find
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ways to do things that meant that we were able to achieve
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more than we should have been able to achieve as a family.
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That kind of came from the background that I came from and
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found myself in the circumstances that I was in at
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the time. And I'm delighted to say that
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I've been able to do so successfully both in work, in my
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personal life, and then as an entrepreneur.
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I'm constantly trying to solve problems that I've had then that
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other people have had and looking at innovative ways of
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solving those problems. Actually, the background that
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I've had as a single mom and defying odds of coming from
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Stratton Vale to to try to escape the statistical
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trajectory that was predestined for someone like me has put me
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in good stead to be an entrepreneur and to to solve
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problems in ways that probably haven't been thought of by very
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many people. I love that.
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Erica, what was your childhood like growing up?
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It was an interesting childhood and I tried to give my children
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the same that my mother gave me and my mum fostered in me a love
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for reading. I love to read.
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I make everything a competition. Even with myself though, I went
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on a holiday recently and I was reading a book and I finished
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one book in about 2 1/2 days. And then I set myself the
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challenge that I needed to finish the next book in two
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days. And then I was like, this isn't
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pleasure anymore, you've ruined it myself.
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We used to sit and have dinner and my mum used to kind of say,
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well, you've got this on your plate and it took that to make
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it. And if we had two more people at
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the table, how many more ingredients would we need to be
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able to feed them? She was constantly giving me
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problems to solve. And I see that in my children as
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well because we are constantly doing things like that, which I
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really value as an individual. Now, what that meant was that by
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the time I went to school, I was ahead of my time.
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And by the time I went to secondary school, I was moved up
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a year. So I was hanging out with the
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older children and doing work that was kind of a little bit
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more advanced than it should have been.
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I just kept learning and I've always stayed learning.
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I didn't grow up on a council estate or what have you, but I
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did grow up in an area called Stratton Vale, so it's not the
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most affluent of areas. However, my mum and dad had
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purchased a property and we I sort of grew up on a house on a
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road, but went to state school as opposed to public school and
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then didn't go to university when, when I was 18.
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And so it's not the traditional sort of background of an
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entrepreneur that we tend to to sort of see because usually they
7:22
will have gone to university and then dropped out.
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That's so interesting and I love how you mentioned your love of
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books. So for me, reading as well.
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So I'm an only child and I think my mother and my parents taught
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me to entertain myself by reading and luckily I loved it.
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I remember reading these Nancy Drew series when we were
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studying in the Singapore and I would just devour it.
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Yes, yeah. Absolutely can relate your
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passion to that as well. Yeah, Nancy Drew, all the books
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by Judy Blume, all of the Enoch lighting books I used to love.
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I used to like literally consume them growing up and now I will.
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I kind of tend to read business books a little bit more, but
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still like to read for pleasure as well.
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No, that's good. I'm glad you're giving yourself
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the space and do part. Erica, you mentioned that you
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bought your first house at 19 and that you didn't go to
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university. How did your working life start?
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So my working life started at Job Centre plus I went and was
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employed as a casual member of staff on a three month contract
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and I went into Brixton S Job Centre which was in Streatham
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Hill and and incorrectly named in my opinion.
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But I worked there and I was on a three month contract and I
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knew that I wanted to turn that three month contract into
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something more long term. When I first asked at the Job
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Center we used to have queues out the door of people coming to
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sign on. I set about trying to solve that
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problem. In the three months I was there,
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I looked at understanding how many people we had signing on,
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how many people we had working on the desk, what their brakes
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were, etcetera, and came up with a system that I went to the
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heads of fortnightly job search review with around giving people
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times appointments where actually on a 15 minute block we
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would be able to see X number of people.
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It was quick maths and if each person did their job as they
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were supposed to, we would be able to kind of make sure that
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we eradicated the queues and people weren't coming over and
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screaming because of the fact that they'd been waiting 2 hours
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to sign on at some points of the day.
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And then other people just being completely delighted with the
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fact that they come in and go straight back out the door
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because they come at specific times where it's really quiet.
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And so just spreading the load of people that were coming in
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through the doors in that way meant that actually staff were
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getting less abuse and people were happier with the service
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that they were receiving. And so I turned a three month
10:00
contract into permanent position and then managed to get a
10:05
promotion and became the team leader for that team because
10:08
they knew I could run it since it was my system that they were
10:12
using to schedule people that were that were coming in to sign
10:16
on. And so I was one of the youngest
10:18
managers that Jobcentre Plus had had.
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And, and I think that actually the experiences that I had there
10:25
were phenomenal because they didn't didn't matter that I was
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young. It didn't matter that I was
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female. It didn't matter I was black.
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It mattered that I was capable and for as long as I was capable
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I was able to kind of keep going and keep moving through the
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chain. I went from doing that to go
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into a bigger job centre and running a team there and then on
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to working at district office where I was part of a
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performance improvement team that looked at Lambeth,
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Southwark and Wandsworth and started to implement performance
10:58
improvement across the three districts.
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And that was when I went and started to do like my 6 Sigma
11:05
training and my project management training and all of
11:07
that kind of good stuff. And so it was a fantastic place
11:11
to work and it was one of those true experiences where actually
11:16
I was never limited. I didn't even, I guess realize I
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suppose to a degree that I could be treated differently because
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of any of my characteristics because I just never was.
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So I stayed working there probably for about 8:00 or so
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years and then started to work in local authorities after that.
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But it was a fantastic foundation for having a role
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that meant that I was just able to excel and fly and as a result
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of earning, did what my mum thought was a sensible thing to
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do and invested in a property. I love that, and it sounds like
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you did have quite a special opportunity in terms of the
11:56
environment of your colleagues who are able to see you for what
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you are able to do and achieve, rather than a judge based on
12:03
appearances and other types of sexual factors or cultural
12:06
factors. That's ingrained.
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I love that. I'm curious then, when did that
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realization of how you could have been treated differently
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actually come into your awareness?
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That's a really interesting question.
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But definitely since working in the tech industry, because I
12:23
came into tech full of beans and thinking that I was going to be
12:27
able to change the world because that's who I am.
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And if there's a problem that I think needs solving, up until
12:35
the point at which I encountered the tech industry, I was always
12:40
able to have an idea, implement that idea, and then see
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fantastic results. And then those results would be
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celebrated, rewarded appropriately, and, and then I
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would go on and do the same thing again.
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And then I built Charisma Kids in in 2012 and it felt after a
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while that it didn't really matter what I did or how good
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the product was or how many children, parents, etcetera were
13:14
saying this is phenomenal. Or how many deals we got to have
13:19
it pre loaded onto devices or how much revenue we were able to
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make. Just didn't ever feel good
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enough. Or any of the VCs that I was
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encountering at the time. There was always come back when
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or there was, oh, but you know, what about blah, blah, blah.
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That feels like it could be a risk.
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And I'm like, well, I've actually do risk that because
13:43
we're making revenue already or I've done this or I've done
13:47
that. And I'm the type of person where
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you say to me, something's wrong.
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I might give you a bit of a rebuttal there and then, but I'm
13:54
going to go away and fix that if you see where I'm coming from.
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So by the next time that you see me, that thing that was a
14:03
problem will be no longer a problem because this is how I
14:07
roll. I would fix the thing and then
14:10
go back and then they would find another thing or say, but
14:15
actually we decided that we're not going to invest because of
14:18
XYZ and P And I was, I was just, I suppose, flummoxed to a degree
14:25
because I was like, it feels as though I've tried to contort
14:29
myself into lots of different shapes.
14:31
You know, sometimes I will say that you're a square peg in a
14:35
round hole. And so I tried to make myself as
14:38
round as possible, but actually it just still wasn't a good fit.
14:44
I didn't never really understand why I wasn't a good fit.
14:49
And so that led me to starting to look at the data to
14:54
understand whether other people that looked like me also weren't
14:59
a good fit. And that was when I was able to
15:01
really say, actually, I don't think this is a me problem.
15:05
I think this is an industry problem.
15:09
Here's some data that says that the industry actually needs to
15:13
change. Interesting.
15:17
You mentioned trying to raise VC funding with Charisma Kids,
15:19
which was the first company that you had built, which is Tech
15:22
Focus. What stage of maturity was the
15:25
company at when you started reaching out and having those
15:28
conversations with VCs? Yeah.
15:30
So I tried to raise multiple times along the journey.
15:34
So there are a number of data points here.
15:37
The first thing that I did was we built an MVP and then with
15:42
that MVP, I went on to Dragons Den and I was turned down on
15:47
Dragons Den and then subsequently accepted into Wire
15:52
Unlimited. And so there was lots and lots
15:55
of pitching. And I understand that, you know,
15:58
you're, you're not going to kind of get a yes every, every time.
16:01
And so collecting nose is one of the things that I've been very
16:05
good at over the years. And I kind of say, right,
16:08
actually, when someone says no, rather than taking it
16:11
personally, just understand that, you know, by the laws of
16:14
probability, you're getting closer to a yes with each no.
16:18
And look at it like that and just keep going.
16:21
Dories just ringing in my head story the little blue fish in
16:25
Finding Nemo says just keep swimming, just keep swimming and
16:28
that and I regularly do that in my mind, just say that actually
16:33
you just keep going even in the face of adversity because
16:37
eventually you kind of have to get to, you know, if you if you
16:42
were thinking about a dice, you would have to roll A6 at some
16:45
point. And so that's the attitude that
16:48
I had when I first came into the tech industry because it's it's
16:54
one that had worked for me in every other area before I went
16:59
into Wire Unlimited. We spent about nine months
17:03
refining the project, building it into an actual business.
17:06
We recruited a couple of people and we were able to sign a deal
17:11
with KD Interactive that saw us pre loaded to 1.8 million
17:16
children's devices. And at that point when compared
17:20
to the vast majority of the other startups that were in my
17:25
cohort and probably the cohort before, we were outperforming.
17:29
We had done that deal at 14 pence per preload and then we'd
17:36
done another deal with Telefonica that was one euro
17:41
cent per preload on their We Share tablets, which didn't end
17:45
up coming to fruition because of the fact that we couldn't raise
17:49
and that would have taken us into Spain and into Latin
17:54
America as well. But that deal was on the table
17:58
and then there was one signed with KD Interactive that we were
18:02
going to go live with. As I say, when compared to my
18:06
peers, we should have 100% been able to raise.
18:11
We were able to raise, but we raised what was CIS back in
18:16
those days and we raised around about 280,000 lbs and beyond
18:22
SCIS, we just couldn't go unfortunately.
18:26
So when there was any risk associated with investors money,
18:30
that felt like real risk and it was just no after no, after no
18:35
after no after no. And there was no 6.
18:40
The laws of probability just weren't kind of changing until
18:45
one day an organization that was specifically set up to invest in
18:51
female founders came along and said that they wanted to do a
18:55
deal. Which was great because then
18:57
what I was able to do was find some match funding for that
19:01
investment. Angels have always been my and
19:04
so angels are fantastic. But then as we got to a point
19:10
where we were about to close, the fund manager suggested that
19:15
the the founders of the company would never invest 50% of their
19:20
shares and that they would always be retained by the
19:23
company, which I just felt was completely unfair and something
19:29
that I'd never heard of ever. They'd invested in sort of nine
19:33
other female LED companies, none of whom were black females.
19:38
And I, I wondered why I was being treated differently to the
19:43
others because I contacted them and said did you have this
19:46
clause inserted 3 days before close?
19:49
And the answer was unanimously no.
19:52
In the end, I walked away from that deal and we decided that
19:56
Charisma Kids would become more of a lifestyle company that just
20:00
service the existing deals and customers that we had.
20:03
But we weren't. Going to be trying to grow
20:06
anymore and that was I think my first heartbreak in the tech
20:12
industry. And it was the point at which I
20:15
realized that all founders are not created equal.
20:19
And there are going to be pitfalls, I suppose, that are
20:24
levied at you based on who you are as opposed to what your
20:27
business is able to achieve. And yeah, that was, that was
20:32
tough. And I've done a lot of work
20:34
since in terms of therapy to kind of look at that and look at
20:38
my belief systems, because obviously it's not so enabling
20:42
to believe that you can't achieve something based on who
20:45
you are. And I never held those beliefs
20:48
before I sort of entered the tech industry.
20:50
So I am doing quite a bit of work even till now to try and
20:55
adjust that. But the data is the data.
20:58
And actually, this isn't just my experience, it's the experience.
21:03
So I'm Juris Erica, when you hit that wall with charisma kids and
21:10
you've realized I'm going to call an ugly truth of the
21:13
industry, did you ever then find yourself almost self limiting
21:18
yourself? Think that to a degree, the
21:22
answer to that has to be yes. I don't really try to pitch to
21:28
VCs unless someone has given a warm introduction or I know them
21:33
personally because we've been on a few panels together or what
21:36
have you is because they have a kind of aversion to going
21:41
through that process. But then it's interesting
21:45
because I don't know which is the chicken and which is the egg
21:48
because I've been through the process a couple of times since
21:51
then and the same sort of thing happens whereby we've either
21:55
been offered a really low valuation or something or
21:59
another happens where the deal isn't right.
22:02
And can't go ahead. And so I need to adjust the way
22:08
that I kind of show up in that scenario and the beliefs that I
22:12
hold around VCs and me in order for anything else to ever be
22:18
possibly true, if you see what I mean, anything.
22:21
There's definitely some work to do on my side.
22:24
And that's why I'm doing that work now, because I genuinely
22:28
believe that what I'm doing at the moment should be successful
22:33
and has the capability of becoming a Unicorn.
22:36
I've not seen that happen without some sort of VC
22:39
involvement. So the two things are going to
22:42
have to find their way together at some point.
22:46
OK, understood. Earlier you mentioned this is
22:49
something that you've been working through in therapy.
22:52
Did you start therapy whilst you're running Charisma kids?
22:56
After Charisma Kids, I started therapy.
23:00
I've had a coach during Charisma Kids I've I'm trying to remember
23:05
a time that I haven't had a coach.
23:07
Actually, I think that coaching for me is definitely one of the
23:11
mainstays of why I am who I am today.
23:15
I highly recommend it to everyone.
23:17
Listening get a coach is the best thing that you will ever
23:20
do. It just allows you to kind of
23:22
think through the scenarios that you experience and and to kind
23:25
of, I guess rationalize or compartmentalize or do whatever
23:31
it is that you need to do to get from point A to point B and
23:34
other founder Having that release and that support is just
23:38
second to none. So I definitely had a coach.
23:41
I think after Charisma Kids I also had a therapist and now I
23:45
have both. How did you meet your coach and
23:49
your therapist? I'm a coach myself.
23:52
I belong to lots of coaching communities.
23:55
As a coach, I will swap sessions with people and so I've been
24:00
doing that for probably about the last 18 years or so.
24:04
Moving on to finding a therapist.
24:07
I asked for recommendations for from people in the coaching
24:12
community around who they were work with and who they recommend
24:16
and then found someone through word of mouth.
24:20
I'm just quite curious because for myself and I saw a lot of my
24:23
peers, so young professionals in my 20s and 30s, it's definitely
24:27
more common to see entrepreneurs working with coaches than young
24:31
professionals in traditional corporate jobs.
24:32
But maybe it's because they are in a large corporate structure,
24:35
so there's almost mentors and coaches available through that
24:38
organization. I'm quite curious to learn from
24:40
you. When you were trying to choose a
24:42
coach or trying to choose a therapist to work with, how did
24:46
you know that they are someone that you wanted to work with?
24:49
What are some of the key factors that you would try to ask them
24:52
about or to find out about? I think that you have to look at
24:55
congruence and how you resonate with the person that you're
25:00
speaking with. You know that sometimes you go
25:03
into conversations and you have a conversation with someone and
25:07
you just hit it off. You and I experienced that at
25:10
that finance event and I've remembered you ever since.
25:14
And every time I see you, I'm just like.
25:17
Likewise. And it's one of those situations
25:21
where I think you should feel that way about your coach.
25:24
You should be happy to see them with your seeing them once a
25:27
week, or once every two weeks, or even if it's once a month.
25:31
There should be a sense of joy around conversing with this
25:37
person and even with accepting hard truths because sometimes
25:43
they're going to have to hold off a mirror to you and say,
25:46
actually, these are the circumstances and this is what
25:50
I'm hearing from you and you need to be able to accept that.
25:54
But I think if you've got a foundation of actually, this
25:57
person means me well and we have a good relationship, then it's
26:02
much easier to take those hard truths if you see where I'm
26:06
coming from, especially if, you know, I'm occasionally a little
26:11
bit oversensitive or I might get the wrong end of the stick, but
26:14
I'm right so far with that wrong end of the stick that actually I
26:18
just need Wheeling back. And so having somebody that you
26:21
trust enough to be able to tell you those things so that you can
26:25
accept them and, or any challenges that come up, I think
26:29
is really important. I think that we always know the
26:34
answers in terms of these sorts of things.
26:37
You will have a sense of this, someone that I can get on with,
26:41
that I can gel with. And that's right for me.
26:44
Just with physical feelings in your body, does it feel sticky?
26:49
Does it feel naughty in your tummy?
26:53
If you see what I mean? And, and if things feel like
26:56
that, they often aren't right. We don't tend to listen to those
27:00
things in the early phases. We look back on them and say, I
27:04
kind of knew this from the beginning, but actually when it
27:08
comes to coaching, you need to think about all of those things
27:12
and tuning to the subtle signals that you're getting from your
27:17
body and your energy around the person that you're going to be
27:21
working with. And I think it's even more so
27:24
for therapy because actually what you want to be able to do
27:28
is build trust and rapport really, really quickly with
27:32
someone that's going to be a therapist for you, surely.
27:36
Because the faster you do that, the faster you're able to truly
27:40
open up to them, tell them everything that they need to
27:44
know so that you're able to kind of move through the scenario and
27:48
beyond it. And so I've been incredibly
27:51
lucky. The coach that I work with is,
27:54
is phenomenal. I actually remember introducing
27:58
her to Wyra and she became the coach for the entirety of the
28:03
cohort as a result of that introduction.
28:06
And so I've been with her for many, many, many years,
28:11
recommend her to Co founders, friends, whoever, just because
28:16
she is incredible. And then she also sits on the
28:20
Kinhub platform now as one of the coaches on there.
28:23
And then my therapist again, I've kind of built a
28:27
relationship with since probably 2016.
28:30
And so now whatever happened, I can just kind of go there and
28:35
and say what it is and as ugly as it may be or whatever, we're
28:42
able to kind of process and work through it.
28:45
It sounds like 2 very beautiful relationships, actually.
28:48
Yeah, Really happy that you were able to find that for yourself
28:50
because I think, and sometimes finding the right person can be
28:53
difficult and it can almost deter people if the first few
28:57
that they work with don't have that, I guess, chemistry or
29:00
therapeutic alliance. But I'm glad that you're able to
29:02
find ones that work for you. Hub is related to coaching.
29:06
How did that come about? It's definitely one of the
29:10
problems that I've needed to solve throughout my life, and
29:13
finding a coach helps me to become who I am today.
29:17
I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again, I
29:21
think that the power of coaching is unparalleled in terms of
29:26
helping people to achieve what can sometimes be described as
29:31
the unachievable and certainly to help them to achieve the kind
29:35
of day-to-day progress that they want to see.
29:38
And so I think that from my perspective where I'm from, very
29:43
few people get access to coaching.
29:46
Most people would be able able to access counselling if
29:50
anything, and they would do so and be limited to six sessions,
29:55
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And so being able to access a
29:59
coach when you come from backgrounds that aren't
30:02
necessarily exposed to coaching for me is one of the most
30:07
important things that I could possibly do as a human being is
30:11
provide that access because that gives people the power to
30:16
transcend their current circumstances, whatever those
30:19
circumstances are. So people who are affluent, an
30:22
elite, you can still kind of move forward.
30:25
But actually people who have historically been left behind
30:29
also now have a shot at potentially moving forward
30:33
because they're able to access the tools that are often
30:36
reserved for people that don't look like me.
30:39
And so democratizing access to coaching has been, I suppose,
30:44
one of the biggest drivers of building King Hub and building
30:49
it in a way that coaches are augmented by AI so that actually
30:53
we can spread to that access and we can ensure that anybody who
30:58
wants coaching is able to afford to receive it.
31:03
And so to that end, the way that Kinhub has been set up is that
31:08
if an organization pays for three of their employees to
31:11
access coaching, we will provide that coaching free of charge via
31:15
charities to people from low income backgrounds that couldn't
31:18
otherwise afford it. So that actually it's not just
31:22
democratized through a workplace in an organization, but actually
31:27
it's spreading further out and it's really reaching people who
31:31
need coaching but but can't otherwise get hold of it.
31:36
I love that. So it's almost like the Toms
31:38
shoes model, you know, the buy one give one.
31:40
I love that, but taken into coaching and amplified using
31:43
technology. Quite curious to understand how
31:45
AI is being used in Kenhub to augment other coaches that you
31:49
have there. So we've trained some agents
31:53
essentially we've got Q&A models that mean that we are able to
31:58
answer questions. We've developed that now so that
32:02
Charlie's also able to ask questions.
32:04
We know and understand that actually in a coaching session,
32:09
if you're able to ask five key questions, you can usually get
32:14
to the nub of what's going on for someone and help them to
32:18
gain the insights and realizations that they need to
32:21
be able to move forward. So we've been training Charlie
32:24
to start to once identify the types of questions that will
32:28
enable you and me or me, Erica, to kind of get from point A to B
32:34
in a session and either make those suggestions to the coaches
32:39
that are on the platform or if the individual is having a chat
32:42
with Charlie on the platform themselves, then asking those
32:46
questions directly. That's one aspect of it.
32:49
The other is that we've built models that help to identify the
32:54
sentiment and emotion of an individual using things like for
32:59
language that they use, the speeds and pressure of their
33:02
typing. And then there are a few other
33:04
bits that we're building into that now so that we can start to
33:07
see how someone is feeling, how they're reacting emotionally,
33:12
and then the type of response that they need as a result of
33:15
that. And then beyond that,
33:17
understanding the personality of an individual, the types of
33:21
things that they like are, are they an avid reader?
33:24
Do they prefer to consume things by a video?
33:28
Are they more auditory? Do they want to hear things more
33:31
than they want to see things? And then really starting to
33:35
understand how we can personalize the experience that
33:39
someone will have based on their needs and preferences.
33:44
I love that how it's split into 3 levels, having a tool for the
33:49
users to interact with, having a tool to analyze the users based
33:51
on the data that they have. And when I was so getting the
33:54
typing pressure. I love that it's, it sounds like
33:56
something that I've I've read about recently called digital
33:59
phenotyping. Whereas you look at people's
34:02
digital history and work out what their emotional health is
34:06
like at the moment. I'm quite curious.
34:08
I'm from the Chinese heritage family and in our culture, no
34:12
one talks about mental health. So for me, over the course of my
34:15
startup journey, I've had to really just do a lot of research
34:19
and reading myself to understand what that is, and then kind of
34:22
almost find community groups that basically communicate
34:25
mental health to people of Chinese heritage.
34:28
And I think there's quite a big stigma and there's like
34:31
preconceived ideas from different people of what therapy
34:34
is. And I wonder for the groups that
34:37
you're normally working with and maybe for yourself when you
34:39
first started coaching, if you have not grown up in an
34:42
environment where people around you or your parents or your
34:44
sisters or your brothers are getting coaches, Was it
34:47
something that you were hesitant about or was it something that
34:50
you embraced? Fully from the start.
34:52
I think for me, I was diagnosed as having a mental health issue
34:59
and that's what started my coaching journey.
35:02
And so I came to this because I needed to and it was a case of I
35:08
was a little bit like, actually there must be another way.
35:12
There must be mechanisms for me to not have to take a medication
35:17
everyday for the rest of my life.
35:20
And I, I, I've got to be able to fix this.
35:24
At that point, the stigma and the family dynamics around it
35:30
didn't matter so much because if I didn't do something, I was
35:36
going to be affected by the stigma anyway, if you see what I
35:39
mean. And so for me, it was a little
35:42
bit like I'm faced with this issue.
35:45
I either try to fix the issue and solve the problem and then
35:49
go on to live the best life that I can, or I take the diagnosis,
35:55
swallow that whole and live the life that's kind of expected of
35:59
me as a result of that diagnosis, if that makes sense.
36:02
And so I chose to go down the route of how do I go on a
36:06
journey to healing myself? And, and then I and sort of came
36:12
across all sorts of different types of therapies and alternate
36:17
modalities such as emotional freedom techniques, which is
36:21
tapping on the Meridian points of the body.
36:24
And I did acupuncture and, and hypnotherapy.
36:27
And then over time, as I started to kind of go on that journey
36:32
and feel better about myself, I then turned around and started
36:37
to train as somebody that could help others to go on that
36:41
journey as well and then qualified myself as a coach.
36:47
By the time I got to a point of I need to heal, I didn't care
36:51
what anyone else thought. Makes sense.
36:54
I think that makes absolute sense.
36:56
And then just going back to another point that you
36:57
mentioned, there's the AI AI agent called Charlie in Kinhub
37:01
that your users can speak to. How well was that received when
37:05
it was first introduced? I mean, did people have any
37:08
reservations about speaking to an AI rather than a human coach?
37:13
So that's a really interesting question.
37:15
So in the early phases, actually the biggest blockers that we had
37:19
to be an adopted by organizations where people say
37:23
and we don't think our people are going to want to speak to an
37:25
AI. And then we went live in our
37:27
first organization and we had a slew of people that will only
37:32
speak to the AI and will never be a secession with the coaches.
37:36
I think that people who have the same or similar school of
37:40
thought as you just described, my family doesn't accept this.
37:45
I'm a man, I'm supposed to be strong.
37:48
Mental health doesn't affect me. I'm not supposed to succumb to
37:52
mental health issues. You go into speaking to a human
37:56
therapist and you kind of have to admit that maybe something
38:00
isn't quite right or even a coach.
38:02
And if you've got a specific problem around an individual in
38:07
your family or something along those lines, actually all you
38:11
need to do is ask a chat bot a question and not and have a
38:15
little chat with the chat bot. That's quite an easy entry
38:20
point. You also don't need any of the
38:22
ears and graces as a mum. I have five children and
38:27
recently one of them went off to a festival and said that she
38:31
would check in with me every day and then didn't check in every
38:35
day. So by day three she stopped
38:38
checking in and was saving her battery is the excuse that I got
38:42
when she finally got home halfway through day three.
38:45
Day four, I could go on to Charlie and be like, this child
38:49
is driving me insane, I'm not sure it's there.
38:52
And then Charlie gives me suggestions about what it is
38:55
that I can do to help myself to calm down, how I can have a chat
38:59
with her when she comes back without losing my temper.
39:02
Now I can do that and just get the answer really quickly.
39:06
If I had spoken to a human, what I would need to do is say I
39:10
really love my daughter and this and that.
39:13
And you kind of have to go through a lot of fluff so that
39:16
people still understand that you're a caring parent or a
39:20
caring husband or a whatever. Rather than just being able to
39:24
kind of get to the crux of the matter and get the answer and
39:28
the support that you need to be able to move on.
39:31
Lots of people appreciate Charlie for the fact that you're
39:36
not a human. I don't have to give you airs
39:39
and graces. I don't have to make it all
39:42
fluffy and warm and make it feel like you know it.
39:47
We're skipping through meadows. I can just say this child is
39:51
driving me nuts. What do I do?
39:53
And I think that the freedom that comes with that has meant
39:57
that people who ordinarily wouldn't have therapy or
40:01
coaching. And would bottle things up until
40:05
they kind of reached fever pitch.
40:08
Are now saying I can just ask Charlie.
40:12
It's almost like having those earlier release points, which
40:15
then prevents apart from bubbling over.
40:17
Erica, I'm going to ask you a question.
40:18
I want you to answer with the first thing that comes to your
40:20
mind. Would you rather have an MBA or
40:25
an MBE? MBA.
40:31
OK, why? Because it's knowledge.
40:35
The MBE is amazing and I'm super grateful to have been
40:39
acknowledged, but I don't think that anything surpasses
40:42
knowledge and understanding in this world.
40:45
I love that. And just for anyone who isn't
40:48
aware already, Erica does also have an MBE so you get to put 6
40:52
lessons. Of you, I've got both exact.
40:56
So I was just quite curious to learn about some of your work
40:58
with the Inclusion initiative because I know that's something
41:01
that you've been super involved. With I've been really lucky to
41:05
have been able to kind of do my PhD here at the LSE.
41:08
I'm actually sitting in the LSE right now.
41:11
I work alongside Grace Lauden, who runs the Inclusion
41:15
initiative. We were able to do some work
41:18
that looked at the inclusivity in the City of London.
41:24
And the piece of work that I've been heavily involved in is
41:28
around why black women are the least likely to feature in the
41:32
top percentile of earners. And that work was really
41:36
important to me for two reasons. One, because as a black woman
41:41
myself, understanding the reasons behind sometimes up to a
41:46
40% pay gap is really important. But then too, I've kind of
41:52
mentioned to you before the importance of Angel investors in
41:56
my journey as an entrepreneur And understanding how to
42:01
influence and impact the ability for people who look like me to
42:06
earn more, say that they have more disposable income and can
42:10
potential actually become Angel investors is really, really
42:13
important. Because I think that often Black
42:16
entrepreneurs and Black founders don't have that first layer of
42:21
capital that comes from friends, family and falls.
42:24
And so the the more that we're able to kind of produce people
42:29
who are able to earn to their full potential or create
42:33
environments in which people are able to earn to their full
42:37
potential, the more chance we have of those people going on to
42:41
then invest in in stocks, shares, startups and all sorts
42:46
of other things besides. So I'm hoping that actually the
42:50
work that we they're doing around making workplaces a
42:53
little bit more fair and equitable, both with Kinhub and
42:57
through the inclusion initiative will generate lots more
43:01
disposable income from people who can become Angel investors.
43:07
I love that. And Erica, just going back to an
43:09
early point as well. In the future, how do you see AI
43:13
agents who can do portions of coaching fitting alongside human
43:17
coaches? So this is an exciting question
43:21
for me and one that I love, so thank you for asking it.
43:24
I think that all the coaches should be augmented.
43:28
There are so many things as a coach that you don't really want
43:31
to do in terms of the admin and making sure that people do the
43:37
kind of in between session home play.
43:40
I've started to call it home play when I was coaching
43:42
actively, because when you call it homework, people immediately
43:46
have an aversion to it from the bit where people need to explain
43:52
themselves over and over again each time they speak to a
43:56
different coach to establish fit.
43:58
As we were speaking about this at the beginning of this
44:01
conversation, we can eradicate all of that bit by allowing the
44:06
use of technology to store information and to prompt and to
44:10
provide snippets so that actually any human coach that's
44:16
coming into the equation is aware of what's going on,
44:20
understands this kind of mood and states that a person's in in
44:24
that given moment and what it is that they need so that they're
44:28
able to effectually and effectively meet the needs of
44:34
the individual that's before them.
44:36
We can do a few things here. We can take away some of the
44:40
unnecessary admin. We can make the process smoother
44:45
and easier. We can ensure that people are
44:47
able to find congruence and active fit with coaches without
44:53
having to explain themselves a million times and be put off the
44:57
process because of that. And we can turn around and
45:00
ensure that someone is able to get from point A to point B with
45:05
all of the support that they need, not just the support that
45:08
they're able to get in that 30 or 60 minute session and they're
45:12
online, but actually between times as well.
45:17
Makes sense. I love the vision that you have
45:19
for the future and it's also a way of enabling coaches to be
45:22
able to operate and deliver at the best for their client and to
45:25
show up there as well. Absolutely.
45:27
And the fact of the matter is, is that I'm a firm believer that
45:31
everybody in the world should have coaching and should have
45:34
access to coaching, but there aren't enough coaches for that
45:37
to be possible. So augmenting a service like
45:40
this means that what you're able to do is turn around and enable
45:45
coaches to see more people because the time that they're
45:48
spending with the person is the the time that they're required
45:53
to spend with them, rather than doing all of the fluff around
45:56
it. Before we always say chatting
45:58
about your experiences and running multiple companies while
46:02
also studying alongside and USA mentioned to me the importance
46:06
of taking breaks. If you had to give a piece of
46:08
advice to someone who's just starting out in their career or
46:11
starting out on that first startup, what would you tell
46:14
them? I would absolutely say that the
46:17
day is split into 3/8 hour segments and it's really
46:21
important to understand that that has been done for a reason.
46:25
I've been very guilty of kind of saying that I will work through
46:32
all three of those segments and not find adequate time for rest
46:37
and to play. You'll have heard from when I
46:40
was saying I was, I'm now reading for pleasure again and
46:43
starting to do some of the things that I need to do in
46:47
order to take care of myself. That's happened as a result of
46:51
me becoming quite unwell and not listening to the, the kind of
46:58
signs that were there that said that I needed to take a break
47:02
and that I needed to price prioritize rest, and that I
47:05
needed to probably say no more. And so actually understanding
47:11
the power of no as well as to collect yeses is, is really,
47:16
really important. Embracing that you can say no
47:20
and still be forward, and you can say no politely and you can
47:25
say no with compassion and with respect and with love.
47:29
And it not necessarily impact you negatively going forward,
47:35
but just impact you positively because you've taken time to
47:39
prioritize yourself. And so I think that that's super
47:42
important. I think getting enough sleep is
47:45
something that is really, really important.
47:49
And we as startup founders are often told that what you do as a
47:53
startup founder is you go hard in the beginning and you're
47:57
supposed to go hard in the beginning because actually there
48:00
will come a point at which all of that hard work starts to pay
48:03
off and you no longer have to work as hard.
48:06
I think that if you come from one of the non traditional
48:10
groups, I won't say disadvantaged because I believe
48:13
that we are advantage, But if you come from a non traditional
48:17
background, you may have to realize that your journey will
48:23
be slightly different to the status quo.
48:26
And so if it's different to the status quo and it might take
48:29
longer or it might involve going across a different path or
48:35
jumping over a hurdle or two, etcetera, there's going to be
48:39
stamina required. I've been running Kinhub now for
48:43
the last five years. It's taken me five years to get
48:47
where I don't know, some of my peers may have gotten in three.
48:51
Understanding that and then trying to ensure that you pace
48:56
yourself because the way that you're going to pace yourself
48:59
for a Sprint is completely different to the way that you'll
49:02
pace yourself for American. Really trying to understand
49:05
where you are, who you are in the journey and what that might
49:09
look like in the long term and then pacing yourself accordingly
49:13
is going to to be really, really important to to make sure that
49:18
you're there for the long term and that you don't burn yourself
49:21
out or become unwell in the process.
49:24
The scene entrepreneurship of building a company or you know,
49:27
building a career in general, it's a marathon and not a
49:30
Sprint. What you said earlier about
49:32
being able to say no, but you know, reframing it.
49:35
So it's more of choosing with intention when to say yes, and
49:38
then also choosing with intention when to say no and
49:40
just making peace with that for yourself.
49:43
I feel like I'm definitely guilty of saying yes to more
49:45
things than I probably should, but it's something that I've
49:47
just had to learn through, you know, crashing over the past few
49:51
years. But I think it's just something
49:52
that sounds so obvious, but it can be really hard to do when
49:55
you're trying to build a business.
49:56
So I'm really glad that you raised it as a reminder to
49:59
everyone there. Erica, I've really loved our
50:01
conversation. I'm going to end by asking you
50:03
our podcast staple, which is what is one thing that you
50:07
believe will allow more people to have better mental health?
50:12
Can have no, I think, or at least access to coaching.
50:19
I think if if everyone had to coach, we would have much, much
50:24
better mental health globally. So anyone who's interested,
50:28
please have a look and find out what Erica and King Hubbard
50:31
doing. So Erica, it's been such a
50:32
pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for your time
50:34
today. Thank you.
50:36
It's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you and I'm
50:39
looking forward to seeing this come out.
50:43
That's a wrap for today's episode of the Low to Grow
50:45
podcast. If it resonated with you, leave
50:48
a review and hit follow to help more people to find important
50:52
conversations. Keep growing and see you next
50:55
time.