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SheCanCode's Spilling The T
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
Switching gears and building a tech startup
Join us on Spilling the T as we dive into the inspiring journey of Kathleen Chan, founder and CEO of Calico, a pioneering AI-powered sourcing platform transforming the supply chain landscape. Kathleen's path to leadership was anything but conventional. Starting with a successful direct-to-consumer jewellery brand, she encountered the complexities of overseas manufacturing first-hand. This experience ignited her passion for revolutionizing how products are made and scaled, leading her to launch Calico.
Backed by Serena Ventures, Kathleen stands out in the male-dominated realm of supply chain tech. In our episode, she shares her transition from fashion entrepreneur to operational tech CEO, revealing the challenges and triumphs along the way. Kathleen opens up about breaking through gender biases, navigating the fundraising landscape, and even confronting the "mansplaining" of her own industry.
Tune in to hear Kathleen's insights on why she chose to tackle overlooked challenges in supply chain technology, the lessons learned from restarting after her first venture, and her advice for women aspiring to break into complex, male-dominated industries like manufacturing and supply chain management. Don't miss her candid reflections on managing the isolation of solo entrepreneurship and empowering others to forge their own paths in business.
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Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in Again. I am Kayla Batesman, the Managing Director, Community and Partnerships at she Came Code, and today we are discussing from jewellery to generative AI. I've got the wonderful Kathleen Chan, founder and CEO of Calico, with me today. Kathleen's path to leadership was anything but conventional. Starting with a successful direct-to-consumer jewellery brand, she encountered the complexities of overseas manufacturing firsthand, and this ignited her passion for revolutionizing how products are made and scaled, which led her to launch Palico. So she's here today to share a little bit about her journey and share her expertise with us. Welcome, catherine. Thank you so much for taking the time out to come and chat with us. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. You have an amazing journey to share and I'm really interested to see your routine and what inspired you to launch Calico. But can we get started with a bit of background about you to set the scene please?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm Kathleen, founder and CEO of Calico. Normally people kind of jump into the career, so I'll kind of give you the chart of that. I started my career off at Microsoft, left very quickly because I got a bit of the itch to start building from the ground up and chose to do it in the world of D2C and consumer to begin with to begin with, and along the way I founded a couple brands and exited them, but really kind of got that front row seat of how challenging it is to get things manufactured. It's wildly archaic and it's very, very manual, but it is the underbelly of everything we wear and own and touch in many cases, and so that was super interesting to me and kind of led me to start Calico many years later. So that's me in a little bit of a nutshell, but we can definitely dig in onto any part of that that sounds interesting to you.
Speaker 1:Amazing. The first part that's interesting to me is how did you end up at Microsoft? What did you study? What type of young person were you? Did you like tech, not like tech? And it was like how on earth am I now working at Microsoft?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean definitely always had that affinity for tech and just what the latest innovation was.
Speaker 2:And so along the way, I studied at the University of Toronto, got a kind of common old marketing degree in business and found my way, um at microsoft and so at at that time, windows if you remember, windows 8, um, and kind of like windows phone era of uh, of microsoft, um, I was, I was part of that team to kind of help, you know, the adoption to the developer and consumer communities, so that I was part of that era and so which I think now in retrospect kind of dates me, but that's, that's neither here nor there, but you know, that's along the way.
Speaker 2:I really kind of enjoyed the exposure to what it meant to be part of a company that was not only innovative but also incredibly structured in how it thinks about execution, and so, you know, kind of got that firsthand like it was. It was kind of the greatest training in the world for, for, for what I do in a little bit today. Kind of taught me the ropes of what, what it means to to operate in this, in this tech sphere for a little bit, and kind of gave me the opportunity to meet some of the greatest people. Like they're incredibly smart there Folks are very interesting not to work with but also trying to learn about their backgrounds and see how they landed at Microsoft. So I don't know, it's a bit of a word old story, but it's just. You know, found my way through like applying effectively.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, and I love that. For some people they're. They're like when they're younger that I know exactly what I want to do and I take computer science and I knew I wanted to land a tech company and I knew what I wanted to do. But so many people don't have that thought and still find their way in um and, like you said, the experience that you must have got there led you to your next role and then you know the way that you think about business and your other experience as well outside of that. Suddenly it's like the stars align and you think well, I didn't really plan that, but all the experience that I got from accidentally falling into tech and the experience of working at a big company, that must have been quite a baptism of fire going into a large company like Microsoft.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%. I love that you brought up that sometimes people know exactly what they want. I did not. I was not like the type of person at eight years old that knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had aspects like concepts of a plan. In many cases, I had notions of what I thought my career could look like. I always kind of gravitated towards roles or things that allowed me the freedom to learn, explore, innovate and just try things that were maybe not tried before, and so at one point I also wanted to be a lawyer. It was a very interesting path to kind of get to where I am here, but it was never, um, you know, I structured like I, at eight years old, wanted to go and like work here. It was more actually, in retrospect, quite varied of a journey yeah, yeah, and you know what?
Speaker 1:it doesn't matter how varied that journey, what it looks like, as long as it gets you to where you want to be eventually. Yeah, and that's the great thing about working in tech. So you started out. You started with a successful jewelry brand, but what made you pivot from fashion to building a tech platform for sourcing and manufacturing? Was there something along the way that kind of made you think I'm going to switch gears a bit?
Speaker 2:100%. I'll be super candid in that I was probably not the best D2C founder, and the reason for that is not because we couldn't execute super well or we didn't have great products, it was just deep down. I was never deeply interested on what the products looked like and how it got to market. I cared very deeply, however, about how we made our products, who made our products, and that, like I mentioned earlier, that underbelly of like making sure that you know things are manufactured at the right time, right place, like from where, ensuring it got from point A to point B that was me. That was what kind of kept me up at night with an Excel sheet phoning our manufacturers. They probably got very annoyed with me, but in general, I did the twice over and I realized that, well, I may have a knack for the front end of the business.
Speaker 2:I really care deeply about how supply chains worked and optimizing that for not only our businesses but others, and so you do it twice over and you kind of the same with third time's, a charm a little bit, where you're like, oh, I probably should be doing this and so really kind of reconciled that with myself for Calico, and that's really where you know, putting the things I care deeply about, the problem space that I care deeply about, front and center, rather than just, you know, have it be masked by other ways to solve the problem. So basically did it twice over, realized I probably should be solving this problem front and center and that's really kind of how Calico kind of came to be. It was more of a, uh, internal reckoning of you know, maybe, instead of a third brand, just go solve the thing you wanted to solve in the first place yeah, I suppose as well.
Speaker 1:It's that the visibility of those types of roles I'm assuming you had like, um, almost like the stereotype of, oh, this is the job I should be doing. So you started with the direct-to-consumer part, thinking, well, if I'm going to do that, this is what it looks like. And then, as you got into it, you actually thought then you start to decipher what you're really good at. But I'm assuming a lot of those types of roles. They're not really visible to people unless you work in that, which is just such a problem we have in tech. It's like please make your roles visible, because more people can then go. Actually, I could be really good at that. I don't have to be the front end coder that everyone thinks I have to be. There's all these other roles as well. But what would you must have just suddenly gone. Actually, actually there is a role here that suits me and it's not what I thought it was.
Speaker 2:Oh, I think you put it perfectly. I've never actually even thought about it that way until just now. But, yeah, 100%. Like you know, when I built the business I was very deeply interested in the mechanics of how things got made Less. So you know the design, the marketing, but I just kind of assume that's how it looked like. Um, I didn't have the exposure to what it meant to be a supply chain leader run like, run that side of the business. So for me, coming and solving that problem did very much look like building a brand from the ground up, um, and so I think that's actually a really really good um way to look at it, because I I, yeah, I had no idea it existed.
Speaker 1:Had I known, maybe I would have gone taking a different path, but uh, yeah, this was, this was the way I did because I had no other answer yes, yeah, and sometimes you, I suppose you can take a shorter route, but perhaps you wouldn't have come with the experience that you can with taking the route that that you did yeah, I feel it's kind of funny.
Speaker 2:I always kind of like I could have gone here a little faster. You know I could have been here just a touch sooner than I have right away, and you always kind of do that when you look at that in retrospect but, yeah, but maybe along the way, you know, I think I earned the stripes that I probably wouldn't have had I taken a bit of a shortcut, if anything.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly a shortcut, if anything, yes, exactly. Um, and I want to talk to you a bit about shutting down your first company and what did that teach you and how did that experience shape the way that you approached building chemical?
Speaker 2:so the first few business were entirely bootstrapped in the sense that we didn't raise a single venture like dollar in any means.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, we built it from basically our own profit, right, and that's what funneled the business, and so not only not so much shutting it down, but more running it in that manner gave me a ton of um insight into what it really means to, like one, make a dollar right.
Speaker 2:Um, like earn, earn revenue for what it looks like, and how do you run an efficient business?
Speaker 2:Uh, on that, because there isn't a limitless bank account that we could have pulled from we, yeah, you know, we grew it based on both savings but also what we earn from the business, and I think that teaches you, um, quite a, it's quite a, it's a reality check right, because in, because in tech, in many cases, we see these massive fun rounds like in in the, in like eight, nine, 10 digit range, and you're like, wow, that's a, that's a really interesting way to build a business right, whereas if you, if you look at it from another lens, most businesses don't aren't venture backed and you know it, they have to make a profit in order to flip, and so that's really what I kind of took to my early avenues of building Calico.
Speaker 2:That was more of a reframe or reshock of my system than even just shutting the thing down, because it was more like, oh, this is a very different way of building building a business yes and again with that, with that experience of just experiencing that and what you took from it and took into um alico and you know, all of those um things shape you.
Speaker 1:we have had conversations on here before with founders of businesses and it is not for the faint-hearted is usually what we come to a conclusion with and that just being a founder of a business and an entrepreneur in general, you get all those lovely posts on LinkedIn and Instagram and they're like, oh, a year ago I was doing this and look at me now and you don't see the part in between either and all the things that you have to learn along the way and the challenges. And the more that people are open and honest about that and actually how you go up and down with businesses and how you get through things, just the more realistic it is for people as well that when they do want to do something like that and they have it in them and the strength and resilience that's needed to be a founder of a business that they know there are other people that are all feeling that way and it's not, oh, that person on instagram. Look at them, how wonderful they are I think that's yeah.
Speaker 2:I think the lovely linkedin posts are always a snap, a tiny sliver, a small snapshot of what the reality of building um business actually looks like. It is not for the faint of heart. It's grueling, it's making payroll, it's ensuring you hire the right teams and parting with team members that maybe don't fit, it's pivoting when it's unpopular, it's delivering bad news. I'm naming all the bad stuff. There's obviously great things when things go well, but, yeah, in between those LinkedIn posts, that's very much what happens. And then all while ensuring that you have something that people want. The ultimate goal, I think, of any business in general is to deliver to the needs of their customers, and so, in the know, in the middle of operating it, you have to keep finding that product market fit, that ability to scale, and that's where Onesait is leading into ever-changing. And so, no, it's not for the faint of heart, absolutely not. It's. If you love stability and you love, like, an ongoing paycheck and your nights off, like it is not the career path, um, but it is incredibly rewarding, because I think one thing about working at I get to building calico from the ground. We're incredibly mission driven. Right, we have, you know, there are many stakeholders, but the single stakeholder we serve is our customers. Um and again, they're ensuring that they get their right product at the right time at the right price from the right place, and so that's our North Star.
Speaker 2:In many cases and allowing seeing a team that you've built from the ground up all align around that Not only not like your own vision, but a single North Star is actually super, super rewarding. But you know, a single single north star is actually super, super rewarding. So, yes, there's a lot of, there's a lot of pull your hair out, cry in a corner. Uh, just, you know moments where you doubt yourself and everything around you, but we're also like incredibly rewarding moments where you're you realize why you're doing it and why you're um sacrificing a lot, and it's just it's making sure that those are aligned to reality. It's not the a lot and it's just it's making sure that those are aligned to reality. It's not the linkedin post, it's not, you know, incredible press, it's, it's just it's delivering what your customer wants and that's like that's rewarding to us.
Speaker 1:So, yes, exactly, and the team that works with you as well. We spoke about that on this podcast before, about the team that comes into a startup. They, they're very unique people that want to work at a startup because it is like you said, you're that person that wants, like, a regular paycheck and wants to know they, their job is secure and all of that, but the startup is not for you. However, if you're somebody that just wants to learn really fast, you get so much responsibility thrown at you which you wouldn't at a bigger company because there's no one here to do it. So you have to learn and you do it and it's so rewarding when it is working and you get. You get that opportunity within a startup to do that and to really grow your career fast with somebody and, like you said, to be part of that mission-driven business and it is extremely rewarding to be a part of. But it can be extremely challenging along the way and it takes a certain we say, certain crazy person to want to be part of a startup. Oh, 100%.
Speaker 2:I also. I look at kind of the early successful employees at Calico, and you know folks that are still with us today that you know they took a chance. Yes, you described all the things that I had to do as a founder, but it's also important to the folks that joined us on day one and the folks that joined us on day 100. We weren't a proven entity at that point, and so for them to also kind of take that leap of faith also makes them very special human beings, not only from, like you know, a roll up your sleeve and you know I'm ready to kind of do the work mentality, but the appetite for risk is also there.
Speaker 2:Right, it's really cool to see and it's definitely, yes, there may not be, you know, folks that like want that nine to five, but there are folks that like really kind of helped Calico to where they are today. Like I would, I did not build this alone and and so, yes, like maybe the founder, maybe the CEO, but like the reality of this is, I had a great team behind me to ensure that we got here as well. And those are the people that I also want to celebrate because they took the leap of faith with me and they are also, in many cases, founders of this in many ways. So, yeah, it's just like I think that early employees of startups like you're up to your employee number like 35, even right, those are risk takers and those are people that like are also super, super interesting because they chose to.
Speaker 1:They could do anything else with their time yeah, and they challenge you, that's the thing and you're like, yeah here we go like I, you know I can't promise.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know it's nine to five and we're going to. You know, we're going to ensure benefits happen, maybe day 60, day one. But like we, you know, this is a rocket ship and they, they kind of, they kind of joined us and kind of eyes wide open kind of in many ways, if you think about it, but also just willing to take that shot. And so I think if you're looking and considering, you know, being an early employee at a startup, the reality, looking and considering, you know, being an early employee at a startup, the reality is, you know you also have to believe in the mission as well and what you're building, because it's going to keep you up at night, I promise.
Speaker 1:Yes, in a good way. In a good way, exactly, exactly, and the supply chain. So, to be honest, it's not exactly the sexiest space when you talk about it. So why did you choose to tackle this problem and what makes it so ripe for disruption right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you're right. I had a slide in there in my earliest pitch. My supply chains aren't sexy. They're just not, and it's really interesting because they are very much what powers the economy today. But we don't really think about it until if you think about it, covid was the first time I think everyone rallied around the global community really realized, oh, I can't get toilet paper. That's a genuine problem. It really started to affect the end consumer and then I saw that with the first round of tariffs in 2018. I saw it before that as well, where people were like oh, there's tariffs now to work the manufacturer with China, and so along the way.
Speaker 2:I think supply chain hasn't been always super sexy, but it was the underbelly of how the economy runs. And along the way, in the last maybe five, maybe more than that, if you think about it, um, because covid feels both or like not too long ago, but also very long ago, yeah, uh. And if you think about that, right, that started to come bubble up to the surface even more, because it started really affecting the end consumer a lot more than they realized. Uh, it was working swimmingly up until that point, in some cases right, and so it stopped. It wasn't necessarily the sexiest thing, but it became a bigger and bigger problem that people realized, and so I wouldn't say I was gravitated towards supply chains. I thought it was the sexiest thing in the world. We, we did it before it was popular.
Speaker 2:But I I think it's a very massive problem to solve, because I like problems that deeply impact a larger market space. And so you know for this, if we solve this problem and when we solve this problem right, we will have impacted how goods get manufactured across an entire category, so down to the things you wear, the things you buy, the things you see, and so having that impact is actually really interesting. But that problem is such a meaty problem to solve. But I think that was what I was mostly drawn to, right? How do you solve hard problems and how do you solve it in a way that actually brings value and impact to a category of people today that maybe are underserved, right, and so that's that for me, was what I kind of, you know, put against my value system as to why I wanted to solve it.
Speaker 2:Less so on, like the, the sexy space, which is kind of funny because it's not. It's not super sexy but given like the current trade tariff wars I don't know, I don't want to describe it anymore. Um, it has become like deeply interesting for a lot of folks because, yes, you know it's, it's, it's an interesting time. So, um, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:It is so interesting at the moment as well, and and also with the way that you describe it as well, as kind of like what people, how people describe the tech industry as a whole, like it from the outside it's not seen as the sexiest place with the sexiest jobs. It's a lot of the jobs are seen as quite dry. When I talk to people that work in data, they're like oh, people think I've got a really boring job because I work in data and actually when you talk to them, they say things like what you just said to me is problem solving and I make an impact. So when actually they apply that data in the way that they do, they actually make a huge impact on somebody. But it sounds really dry and boring, but you just said that actually I just solve problems, make impact. It's the same thing yeah, 100, I think.
Speaker 2:like I think what's unique about it is that it was a problem space that I had deep experience in. I had faced firsthand. It powered and brought problems to my first and second businesses. It's something that was very crucial to ensuring that we grew or didn't, and so that was also an aspect of what made it super. The stakes are high, no-transcript, and that's what drives us forward. Um, it just so happens, it happens to be less sexy up until maybe april 2nd, and it became slightly more interesting everyone was like, wow, I really want to know how that's affecting everyone 100.
Speaker 2:I mean, look, look the reality, like, like you know, we it's been a roller coaster for the last um two months. Is that where's it? We're doing 13? Yeah, it's been the last, like, yeah, it's been a roller coaster and so, um, it is greatly impacting a lot of business today and that's really where today it's sexy, but yeah, it's really, it's really problem solving. It's why we chose, it's why I chose to tackle it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm curiosity did you have any kind of um role models or anyone along the way that you you saw in those sorts of jobs and you were like, ah, actually like I could be doing what that person is doing? Is there anyone that really stood out for you along the way?
Speaker 2:oh, it's a good question and I'll answer it in a sense where, like, how I, how I contextualize like role models for me, it's less of like I want to be a mirror copy of this person, but more like there's traits, there's things that I really want and do, really like you know, love about that, and and it's less of like folks in the public sphere, but more people that I interact with that I have deep, deep, not only affinity for but appreciation of how they carry themselves. It's everywhere, from you know our earliest like my, my, my team members, my leadership team, people that go through the ranks with me. It's folks that are close advisors, even customers in some cases. I'm just like, wow, I really Watching some of the COOs or customers that we have the fortunate ability to work closely with. I'm just like I deeply I love their journey. I deeply admire how they built their businesses and how they, how they run their operations, and so I learned from that.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's kind of how I, I absorb um best, I I look at people around me and like try to take the best of what I can see, and I'd like to surround myself with just really intelligent people, and so that's, that's a portion of it, um, but less of just like. Here's an idol and this is an individual that you know that we put on a pedestal, but it's more. It's more like folks around me that I'm like, oh, I could deeply learn from, and I I like being the least smartest person in the room sometimes where I'm just like I can sit here and absorb yes, from everybody else.
Speaker 1:You're right. I've taken parts from like different bosses in the past. You'll take some bits and one other bits and you think it's not until you start moving into leadership and you're like that's why that person was, was like that and doing that, and you then suddenly take something from them years later that you didn't, maybe didn't realize, you even admired at the time. Right?
Speaker 2:exactly, and I think that's that's exactly it, right.
Speaker 2:And and so it's taking it from contemporaries or folks that you've had the fortunate ability to spend a little bit of time with, you're like, oh, I could be doing this way or I could be building it this way, or this is an idea. I've been brought up and I think that's also part of this journey here where I didn't have a very long career with your traditional managers and directors and the like and very quickly moved into building our own businesses, and so when you bootstrap your own business, you don't have a manager, you don't have a director. You are your own leader in that case. And so really I was forced early on to learn from the people around me and the people I could see and, just in smaller snippets, to really absorb and kind of, you know, ensure that I'm I am the manager, that or I'm the director, I'm the leader of the CEO that you know folks want to work with, and so that's kind of how I was forced to learn, and so that's how I still do today.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, I didn't. I didn't have, you know, I had great managers and directors at Microsoft, but that, you know, that was early on in my career. So I had to learn a different a little. I had to learn how to learn differently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and hire the right people to to do the things that you can't do and just and learn to delegate and learn from them.
Speaker 2:Oh, a hundred percent. I think the smartest people I have are the folks on our team, right, like they, like I learn from them every day and it's you know, sometimes I'm like oh, I didn't think of it that way. And that's actually the greatest moment, when you've realized that you have hired properly for your weaknesses, because I think that's also a very interesting pitfall in the early days of startups, where you're just like I will do everything myself and I can do it, and the reality is you can't right do it, and the reality is you can't right and you know you have.
Speaker 1:You have to kind of have like a very come to jesus moment with yourself to to realize this is our entire for them and so, um, because you don't even know what you're missing either at that point, until someone comes in and says, hey, like actually this is what you should be doing, like I.
Speaker 2:I have no idea we were missing that, because I don't know oh, it's a portion of that and you know, having like advisors, investors, kind of shine, that like mirror to you, that's super important. But also really having the conversation with yourself and be like you know I could be spending my time on, you know, design or marketing or whatever, but the reality is like I'm not the greatest at it and so you know I should be hiring for it. Or like realizing realizing you as a founder when you're in the driver's seat, what your actual weaknesses are, because that's sometimes hard to admit and being able to bring the right people in the room for that. That's a wrecking that has to have happening early, because I've seen leaders and founders think about being able to do it all and that's not the reality of yeah, not healthy, not helpful there, yeah, um, and what about uh fundraising?
Speaker 1:so, um, you have um experience as well, uh bias in fundraising. So can you share a moment that really crystallized how different the experience can be for women founders?
Speaker 2:that's a really good question. I'll say this, like I'll. I'll say this first like we, we have been so fortunate to have some of the best people on our cap table that I not only am grateful to work with every day, but that they, you know, don't see this bias. So I will asterisk that, like, they're excellent people in the space as well, um, and you know, we've been fortunate enough to to been exposed to them and work with them. But along the way, I would say that, of course, like the bias does exist and, um, I would say that I didn't necessarily realize how deep that bias was until I actually started fundraising. Um, it, yeah, I'm, I just kind of like, oh, we're all equal, it's, it's no, uh, that's.
Speaker 2:And I think, like you know, there's that gender, um, there's that gender piece, and you know, they, everyone has that story of I don't know being like being asked certain questions or being put in a box when you're not, and so, 100%, I've had that kind of phase to when we were fundraising, and that's never fun, especially in a crucial time when you're looking for the right partners for your business. But it gave me also the other flip side of it is like, do I want to be working with a person like this for the next five, seven years of our business, and you know if this is the best that they can present in the beginning. Um, you know off question, an assumption or like, and it's not uncommon to see that but I think the most important thing is realizing that, um, that's again not who you are like, we're like, I don't lead with hi, I'm kathleen and I'm the female founder of caligate, it's it. You know, that's not a, that's not a thing I do. And you know, realizing that that's, yes, you have a gender, but that's not really. Um, you know you're here to build a business and, regardless of what your gender is, um, it doesn't really it, it shouldn't really affect how you operate the business, and so, um, yeah, where are you that funding?
Speaker 1:I spoke to a lady. She's an angel investor and she said to me I have worked with people where I have helped them find a male co-founder because they were really struggling to find fundraising. So once we found them a male co-founder, they got the funding they wanted and she said everything was fine. But she said I have experienced that where women do struggle sometimes to get the funding that they want and they have to go off and look for some support.
Speaker 2:Well, look here, like that's that's super interesting because, like, I'm a solo female powder and I have, you know, the now I have a fantastic team behind me to support. But I, you know, that was that was funny that you brought that up and it's kind of like a regressed memory here. But, yeah, it is much harder to raise as a female founder, it's harder to raise as a solo female founder as well. And the idea that you can bring on a male co-founder to do that, sure, you can raise the money, but is that really kind of if you kind of take that apart for two seconds like yeah, you know, like a strange concept to just bring on a male co-founder simply because you needed to fundraise, right, I? So I, I encourage, like most folks when they're faced with this decision is, like you know you could do that and yes, maybe you band-aid the problem right now, but that's not solving.
Speaker 2:Like a co-founder is a very, very important decision for the business itself. You shouldn't. You know money will come, like you will find money. But like, co-founders are, like in many cases, kind of forever right and to do that for the full purpose of, um, just raising around or going that way is a shame, right, and it is something that you know I hope doesn't always happen, but maybe the reality is it's more common than you know I think about.
Speaker 2:But I encourage female founders specifically, or even solo female founders in this case, to just like think about, you know, if you weren't going to get the money on your own right and the only way you're going to get the money is with a male counterpart, do you want that money?
Speaker 2:Like is that, you know? Is that smart money in the business? Is that a partner you want? Is that someone that, like you know, really will back you when the days are not up and to the right? And that's super important to think about, in my opinion. So I'm sure it definitely happens and I'm sure decisions, like you know, female founders are faced with a really challenging decision, but I encourage them to really just look at it now from a little bit of a different lens of, like you are building something that's valuable and, you know, maybe not everyone sees it today, but they will and so you don't want to be making decisions that are, like you know, kind of cut off your nose to spite your face, type of like short-term decisions that may actually impact the dynamics of how, the trajectory of where the business goes.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, but 100% like I, it's definitely something I've heard. It's something that doesn't sit well with me, but it is not, you know, hard to change it from this side of the game. I think it has to be kind of a uh, you know, community-led thing and and they're great folks like you also trying right onto it, so that's that's my stone box, and you made it as a solo founder.
Speaker 1:So, as a solo female founder, you make it so as a solo founder, though. So as a solo female founder, you make it so as a solo founder, though. How have you managed the isolation and the pressure of building something from scratch, and what keeps you grounded?
Speaker 2:Good question. So this is very much a difficult journey and I think this is also why my slight previous soapbox of, like co-founders are more than the gender, they're people you lean on when times get really, really rough, because these are the folks that, like, they see you day and day out, they're on the journey with you and so that's why that went, you know, very important decision. But, yeah, when you're solo you don't really have that um, and so the way I kind of I don't know if this was the right way to solve it, but I definitely optimized early on to surround myself with people that I could trust, and it's everyone from friends, it's family, but also like early advisors, early investors, people that, like I knew I could call up, like there's this like concept where one of our investors had was like the midnight text right, and it's like not that kind of a day, it's more like a like a pad, like if things go awry, who do you call um? And I've I knew that early on that, because it didn't have that typical co-founder relationship I would have a lot, I would need a lot of folks to lean on um for different parts of that isolation, that pressure, that like panicked, you know, moments in building the business. And so I just kind of did that.
Speaker 2:I slowly kind of just found a little trusted circle that I could go to and, you know, I could trust that they were not investing or like, not like focused on just Kathleen and the founder and CEO, but like Kathleen as a person, right, and that to me is super valuable. And they keep me very grounded because the reality is it's like you're still building, right, like yes, calico is where it is today, but we're still building and there's still a lot to do. And so, yeah, I turn to those folks. What I don't like. I de facto like pseudo co-founders in many ways, but they are, they're a small circle and they encourage other solo founders to find your, your small circle yes, I love that and and you're so right places as well, like she can code.
Speaker 1:We try and encourage people to find a little community of people that can really help. You know, when you have those tough times and those tough questions, and people that you can reach out to that are perhaps just not even invested in your company, that can kind of give an outside view on things when you really need it, um can really help. So you're just feeling like you're not on your own and other people are also got the same worries and concerns as you along the way. Um, but finding people that you can really trust, um and in a circle to help you, um. I love the fact that you said you're still building as well.
Speaker 1:I've heard that before about building, not running. It's something that I lean on a lot and I think that some companies there's a big difference between building a company and running a company and eventually you will get there and you'll be finding other ways to how we can run the company better. But when you're still in building mode, it is a completely different ball game and it takes a completely different team and a completely different mindset, and that even you know where you are at calico. You're still in there. You know what we're still building like. We're still going to do that and we're still moving forward oh, I think.
Speaker 2:I think the best companies are always in building mode, right, like you, you're always building, you never you. You shouldn't ever stop building. But you're right, there is a clear difference when, like, I run this company versus I I'm building it and you know that's like, that's part of being, you know, not only the founder, but part of the startup in the early days. This is a piece of you in many cases and you're building, you're in building mode, and some of the best companies are still building today, right, so that's kind of the mindset we have. But, yeah, it is a good call out on that one.
Speaker 1:Well, we are almost out of time. I wanted to ask you quickly we always ask people on the end of this do you have any advice for anybody else that is coming in? They're coming in, they're falling into the tech industry, they have a plan to go into the tech industry, or you know somebody who's thinking of starting a business. Is there any advice that you wish somebody had told you before you started this?
Speaker 2:process? Good question. Probably I should have taken a lot of advice, uh, faster no, I'm kidding, uh, no, I think I think along the way, there's always, um, there's always that little bit of doubt whether you are, you know, good enough ready for it, like, you know, can you do it? All the kind of fun stuff, uh that keeps you up at night or prevents you from from making that very fun decision, and it's obviously that symptom of that like imposter syndrome, um, and you know, I think to to take that leap, you kind of just have to shut off that voice in many cases. And so, um, one, you know, this is kind of a very simple, like dumb piece of advice, but like what's the worst thing, the worst they can? Someone wants that to be. Like the worst that they can do is just say no and that's it Right, like that's brilliant, simple advice, but yeah, yeah, like that's it, like there's like nothing else is going to happen if they say no.
Speaker 2:And like what does that mean? Right, like is that, you know? Is that the end of it? Or is that like cool? They say no, then just keep trying again. So there's a that's. I took that advice, but there's also like that is what also keeps me like going right, the worst thing you can say is no and that's totally okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it keeps you moving, it's all fine.
Speaker 2:Just gotta keep doing it, I think think analysis, paralysis is, is uh is a really, really big um thing and it does kind of cripple, uh cripple a lot of people and in in that way. So it just well just keep going like there's first thing happens. You know that's I love that.
Speaker 1:It's brilliant advice to end on, because we are already out of time. I could keep picking your brains about being a founder and starting a business and running a business and everything that comes with it, but we are already out of time. So thank you so much, kathleen, for joining us today. It's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you.
Speaker 2:Likewise Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you and for everybody listening, as always. Thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
