90 Things A Woman Should Know To Survive And Thrive In The Tech Scene

Yes, even in 2020, the tech world is a mostly a man's world, so...

Yes, even in 2020, the tech world is a mostly a man's world. So how does a women in Tech make sure to "find her own"?

Here are 90 ideas from women leaders in tech who shared the main lessons they learned from their experience.

We hope you enjoy.

Define Your Goals

Less communication, more internal processes. A successful company should be able to transition from a boutique manufacturer to a very effective production line. The only way to do that is through processes, which I take to mean structured communication. In every company I worked for, there was a transition period from what I call the community phase, where everyone knows everyone, to the city stage, where interactions must transition to a professionalized transaction type behavior. Personally, I have a soft spot for Jira, as it was the first tool I implemented to make this transition possible.

Learn from failures. Expect failures, and welcome them. They are not just the best way to learn, they are the only way to learn. In business, there is no difference between constructive feedback and a distracted one, the only meaningful feedback you will have will come from failures.

The story. The story is not just part of the sales pitch. It’s what motivates people when they work through endless mundane tasks or stay up all night to fix a bug. Startups are a difficult workplace and a demanding one. Success requires inspiring not just our customers but our employees as well. A coherent and imaginative story about the company fulfills both of these requirements and focuses the company trajectory. However, don’t expect to come up with one story and stick to it; the story has to evolve. That’s part of the learning process.

Define your goals — This might seem trivial, but I’m in conversations with tens of startups every quarter, and I can assure you, most do not take the time to go through the not-so-fun process of creating a detailed targets list. Not just for sales, but for every little thing. When you have a target, people work towards it. Improvising is cute when you are three people working out of a garage, not when you are building a company. Be systematic.

Always treat your employees like it’s a business and your customers as family. -Michael Blumental of Hyro

Don’t Be Offended

Fail fast, fail forward: Don’t linger on your failures. Another great Texas saying is “looking backward is a surefire way to walk into a post.” As best you can, recognize that when it doesn’t lead to constructive progress, resenting and spending energy in the past only poisons the future. During our CEO transition, we (the three founders) realized we needed to reorganize our org chart. In short order, we gathered for discussions, called the board, and dug into our network of advisors and mentors. While it was a busy three weeks with long conversations and late nights, we’re able to facilitate a switch that set us up for success.

Don’t be offended — your baby IS probably ugly, or at least difficult to understand: professional ego or attachment to a plan can make us reluctant to change, but try to view all feedback as a growth opportunity. Since our technology is the core of the company, our first messaging strategies were extremely technical, using jargon and dense explanations of blockchain concepts. We’re proud of our devs and get excited about our technical features, but all people were taking away from our baby was gibberish. When we talked through it and received feedback, we realized we need to shift our strategy from telling people how the technology works to illustrate what it can accomplish. No one wants to hear about the birth or diaper changes; focus on showing people what your baby can do.

Noise vs. Signal processing: As a statistician, I have a deep appreciation for data points. In general, more are always better, but they shouldn’t all be weighted equally. This was a lesson we learned in the first year of our materials for pitching, sales, decks, etc. As I said above we took advantage of our friends and accelerator networks to get feedback and suggestions for our materials but fell into the trap of trying to incorporate everyone’s comments. Always listen to criticism, but only take the bits that resonate with you, your strategy, and your mission.

Stay focused on your core competency: The startup space is the business incarnation of “what if;” an arena full of shiny objects that say go bigger, do more, be a unicorn! This is, in my opinion, one of the best and most exciting things about being part of the community, but it also represents a big mistake founders can make: too much, too fast, too soon. I have big plans for Topl, I see a future industry of ImpacTech as big as FinTech and an overhaul of the relationship between business and impact. However, before we can have all the fortune 500 companies on our infrastructure, we need to continue to invest in our competency: technology. Topl is a force for good, but the impact we can generate is directly correlated to the efficacy and capacity of our tech. As we made the CEO transition in March, we also shifted our business strategy towards developing and commercializing our tech stack.

Seek new and appropriate mentors as you grow: Dr. E was a stellar thesis advisor and continues to provide us excellent guidance in economic system growth. However, as we continue to accelerate our business and technology development we needed new mentors with experience and networks that could further our growth. In my (limited) experience, finding mentors that are right for the current stage involves a constantly evolving roster of advisors that challenge you. - Kim Raath of Topl

Feed Your Soul

Lead with integrity. I have staff in the US, Eastern and Western Europe, and work with investors across the globe. By honoring commitments and staying authentic to my product and messaging, I’m able to get past any cross-cultural prototypes and expectations for the “female CEO.”

Don’t just lean on the “female in a male-dominated industry” narrative. In order for your brand to be well-respected and cogent, you really have to lead with your purpose and product.

Assert yourself, and pivot only when necessary. It’s tempting in the startup world to follow the money, but in order to build a loyal customer community (we call it our #coachingcommunity), it’s important never to compromise your value proposition, even for mounds of cash.

Prioritize what’s important to you besides your business. For me, the most important thing outside of my business is my family. I’ve been married for 21 years, with daughters who are 16 and 18, so I’ve been practicing this balancing act for almost two decades. For others, the most important thing could be self love or spending time with people who energize you. Always be sure to pursue passions that feed your soul.

Be prepared to answer those, “Why You?” questions by knowing what you know and knowing what your team knows better. As a CEO, I’ve always made sure that I’m able to speak to many topics, while also surrounding myself with experts who can provide more in-depth perspectives. A leader is only as strong as their team. - Marina Borukhovich

Encourage Employees

Build a winning leadership team — You need a mix of industry experts and functional leaders that also reflects the diversity of your field, including gender, ethnicity, and across the age spectrum to ensure you are looking at issues from multiple perspectives.

Foster a culture of innovation — Make sure to encourage employees to “think outside the box” and solve problems in different ways. You always need to be disrupting yourselves or you will be disrupted otherwise.

Drive constructive accountability — Everyone needs to do their part if you want to win, so you need to set an expectation that everyone is accountable. But be clear about your accountability measures and incentivize employees in the right ways.

Deploy a “run, grow, transform” strategy and mindset — Spend time thinking about how to optimize your current business (run), seek ways to expand your work with existing clients (grow) and extend into new markets or market segments (transform). All three are critical to continued success.

Strengthen the core — A business needs to have a strong foundation of people, processes, and objectives in order to be successful. The fundamentals are not glamorous, but you can’t build for the future on a weak foundation. - Kate Cassino of Hobsons

Work With Integrity

Know your business. Know your market, your competitors, your customers, the key drivers and exactly how your product fits in this environment. Never stop evaluating your business. We conduct an annual competitive analysis in which we evaluate the published scientific and economic data for more than 100 companies who claim to be in our field. That is just the starting point. Never consider yourself an expert.

Follow the science. Businesspeople rightfully seek to control a situation, but that does not bode well in the science field. Mother nature has a way of surprising you. Innovation is essential to a biotech company, but it does not reveal itself if you have a limited view of a successful result. Instead, develop a hypothesis and understand it is just that, an educated guess. Test that hypothesis by every conceivable method until you are sure of the result. I mentioned that our science team was researching the mechanism of action by which porphyrins preferentially label cancer cells. We had a hypothesis, based on the literature, and we tested it to find we were wrong. But as we followed the science, we made a remarkable discovery that has led to novel approaches to kill cancer without harm to healthy tissue.

Focus on your team. A diverse, inclusive and welcoming work environment is key to success. As a CEO, one of my most important tasks is ensuring that our employees have the tools they need to do their best. When the company was first established, we held a team meeting and asked the type of company bioAffinity should be. Respect, support and an inviting environment was top on everyone’s list.

Work with integrity. Everyone in business at one time or another faces a decision to take the longer and more challenging road or cut corners to get a quicker and initially favorable result. There is an even greater risk in groups that are similar or in organizations where one person holds most of the power. It is not just the person, but the organization in which that person works that can drive integrity. I remember early in my career I was asked to withhold information from a client. I was very young, but I knew it was wrong. I refused. It was empowering to stand up, even if I risked my job.

Keep your shareholders informed. Our company’s shareholders are our bosses and we treat them as such. They have invested in our work and I take that very personally. We are a private company, but we issue quarterly updates. Everyone has my cell phone number. Honestly, I always enjoy speaking to our shareholders. - Maria Zannes of bioAffinity Technologies

Power of Perseverance

There are two things that come to mind: the first is that you can never under-estimate the power of perseverance — it’s probably the one trait that has served me best throughout my career.

The second is that all challenges can be turned into opportunities: roll up your sleeves, bring together a task force, and approach a problem from different angles. - Farrell Rodd of Mars Incorporated

Set Goals

1. Trust your instincts and be ready to act at the “right time.” We had been working on the Den launch for months. Years, if you count the time we came up with the idea, to when we actually went live as a company. We were really plugging along when March 14 rolled around and lockdown in the US began.

All of the sudden, we were stuck at home with our toddler while I was in the throes of first-trimester pregnancy with our second, both juggling our full-time jobs and side hustle with Den. For a minute there, life felt almost impossible. We felt trapped inside, scared, uncertain of whether or not we would ever feel the total freedom and reckless abandon of communing with nature and other outdoor enthusiasts again. A lightbulb went off and we realized that if we were feeling this way, so was everyone else we aimed to serve with Den. The economy was tanking, layoffs were rampant, but NOW was our time to launch. It was hard. Like I said, a lot was going on at home and we didn’t have a ton of time to dedicate towards taking advantage of this “perfect” launch moment. Mike and I sat at our dining room table late into the nights after our day jobs were over and our kid was asleep powering away on Den. We knew a COVID launch was risky, but it just felt so right. To make a long story short, we trusted our gut on that instinct and we took advantage of what felt like the right timing to launch our company. By the end of month one we had crossed our revenue goal for Q1 of 2021. By month two? It had doubled.

2. Know what you’re good at and offload the rest. It’s a skill in itself to know what you’re not good at, and to be able to delegate that. This might speak more to founders and leadership at small companies, but it’s really easy for us to want to do it all. Generally speaking, at least for me, I tend to feel this way because I want it done “right,” and I only trust myself.

But is the head of customer experience necessarily the best person to design a brand, or develop a robust advertising strategy? While these things, in theory, could all fit into the umbrella of marketing, it doesn’t mean I can’t delegate those projects to someone who is just plain better than me at design or CPC.

Being able to know your strengths, and to get help from people that are more expert than you in other areas is something lots of leaders struggle with.

If you can figure out how to let go of some of the control and let others thrive, your company will be more successful.

3. Know that no one cares as much as you do, and that’s ok! As the founder of a startup or a senior level stakeholder at any sized company, you have to be honest with yourself in the sense that most other people working for you won’t obsess over business outcomes to the same extent that you will. Psychologically speaking, it makes sense. Excuse my extremes here, but if someone has everything on the line to gain or lose (AKA, you), the outcome is more important to them than someone who gets a paycheck no matter what.

The thing is, this is ok! It can drive you nuts when you send an email on Friday at 4:57pm because you want an answer before the weekend, but let’s be real. The people working for you aren’t checking that email until Monday.

We all need balance in life, maybe take a page out of their playbook and relax because it can wait!

4. Set goals that you know you can easily accomplish. Anyone who has worked freelance knows the best way to keep clients happy is to underpromise and overdeliver. But guess what? This also works on YOU! There’s something to be said for positive thinking and momentum.

What I mean is, if you set goals that you know you’ll be able to easily reach, it keeps your momentum going, and if you exceed those goals, that’s even better. I don’t really mean KPIs here when I say goals. What I do mean are personal goals, relevant to your business of course. I’ll give you an example. As [essentially] solopreneurs, my husband and I needed to accomplish a lot every day while we created business success for Den. Between working full time for other tech companies, parenting a toddler in quarantine, and so much more, some days felt impossible. We had to figure out a way to keep a positive mindset if we wanted our business to succeed. So, we implemented a daily goal of accomplishing three things that we knew we could do for the company. Some days they were as big as finalizing pitch decks for huge hospitality groups or as small as answering at least one customer support ticket. As long as we accomplished our three things, the day was a success and it gave us momentum towards the following morning.

5. Don’t take investment right away. When you’ve got a good idea, and have proven product market fit, those golden carrots seem to appear out of thin air. Three words for you. Don’t do it! At least not right away. It’s really easy to get swept up in an opportunity that feels like a shorter path towards success, and outside investment fits right smack in the middle of that. If you’re struggling to meet your revenue goals for the quarter, and an investor comes along and offers you 10 times the amount you need, it seems like a no brainer, right? Wrong. Success doesn’t come overnight. That’s natural. That’s normal. That’s ok! You have way more to gain if you take the approach of slowly growing, and smartly reinvesting your gains back into the company. Mike and I completely bootstrapped our company, and have only grown as fast as our revenue numbers allowed. Yes, sometimes that means things go a little slower, but every single dollar that comes into Den goes directly back into our business, or into our savings account. If you’re like us, and ultimately want to work for yourself, this is the way to go. No investor meetings, no pulling your hair out to “hit those numbers” faster than you’re able, no threat of your company being taken away from you. - Lizzie Kardon of Den

Have Fun

Transparency — I don’t think you can create something impactful and sustainable without trust. Trust between you and communities, partners, and members. If there is a benchmark in your industry, go for that transparency benchmark, or beyond! KAB is platinum rated on Charity Navigator, a benchmark in the nonprofit community, and that helps us communicate our financial and program transparency. We are also transparent with the fact that we work with brands that are aligned to our core values. To me, long-term impact is rooted in transparency.

Mission — Always make sure that everything you do relates back to the mission statement. Focus is so important to create the impact you’ve set out to make. Whenever we’re brainstorming new campaigns or creating new partnerships, we always go back to our mission statement and ask ourselves, “will this further the mission we have committed to fulfilling?” That keeps us in integrity to those we have set out to help.

Impact — We design impact measurements from our programs to report back to donors how far their donations have gone is also another form of transparency. All the little things we do on the daily are summarized each year into the impact we’ve made so we can share with staff, donors, and members of our community. I believe to keep momentum going, people need to see that their efforts are making an impact.

Real Life Solutions — When I realized the environmental factors of breast cancer, it sparked the need for a program with real-time solutions that weren’t too overwhelming. When we’re fighting large systemic issues, it’s important that people feel empowered in their daily life. Our Non Toxic Revolution program was our solution for that, where we give our community practical ways to lower their risk for breast cancer.

Have Fun — This work is hard and very emotional, so you have to have fun to be able to take care of yourself and stay healthy. We wouldn’t have made it 20 years if we couldn’t pair this important work with joy in our communities. And a bonus, people are attracted to other people who are having fun, so it calls more people into the cause and the mission. - Shaney Jo Darden of ‘Keep a Breast Foundation’

Be Patient

1- Focus on the customer’s problem, not your solution. Having the most phenomenal product or service will not make your company successful. If you can, speak to the problem that the customer is trying to solve. Convey that you understand the customer’s problem then show them how your product or service can solve that problem. For example, in an initial sales meeting with a potential client, you should start your presentation focused on the customer’s problem that you can solve. Beginning with the problem makes potential clients more eager to listen to your solution.

2- Establish your credibility early. To be taken seriously in any business endeavor, you must first establish your credibility to get future clients’ attention. There are many ways to develop your credibility, like using customer testimonials, highlighting sales, showing years of experience, demonstrating expertise, show scholarship through teaching, using peer recommendations, etc. For example, start-ups and well-established companies should always have statistics and accomplishments to share with potential customers to show they can handle their needs.

3- Find your niche. Companies must be able to understand their competition and discover how they can differentiate themselves. Many companies with great ideas fail when they cannot convey why customers choose their company over other competitors. Make sure that you can answer what makes your company unique to succeed. For example, when a potential client is evaluating your company, they need to understand why they should select you over a competitor. It is your job to make it clear why your business or service will fit their business needs.

4 — Be patient. It takes a long time to become an overnight success. Many successful entrepreneurs have taken years to develop ideas into successful businesses. For example, many people do no see the entrepreneur’s late nights or time away from social activities to build a business and a brand. Still, these small steps will get you far later, so your success will be assured because you were prepared when opportunities present themselves.

5- Learn how to accept NO gracefully. Not every business or sales contact will say YES to doing business with you. In fact, most will say NO. Be prepared to handle a NO gracefully and move to the next potential, YES. Although rejection is painful, the ability to move forward makes all the difference if you want to be a successful entrepreneur. - Debbie Reynolds

Work To Deliver

People — In my experience, the people are what really make a company successful or not. One of my first priorities when joining Ellucian was to assess and make changes to my leadership team in order to execute against our strategy. We have a great mix of deep higher ed experience, technology experts and a shared commitment to our customers.

Culture — A tech company needs a hybrid culture that reflects both technology and the market you serve and unifies employees around a common goal. For us, we’ve developed a people-first culture with attributes of both a higher ED culture and that of a tech company. This combination strikes a balance that will help us to reimagine the future of education with our customers.

Customer first mindset — I believe to be successful there needs to be commitment across the organization so that no matter what a person’s role is, all are contributing to creating a “customer for life” experience.

Innovation — Silicon Valley taught me about the power of innovation to “change the world,” a mantra I heard often from my mentor and then Cisco CEO John Chambers. We’re working to deliver the next generation of innovation for colleges and universities, and we are committed to partnering with our customers to reimagine the future of higher ed. - Laura Ipsen of Ellucian

Communicate The “Why”

Be authentic and humble as you approach every decision, meeting, presentation, and 1:1 conversation. Trust and respect are more important than having all the answers, and being true with yourself and your people is the best way to gain the advantages of both. Your leaders hold the keys to unlock solutions, though it often requires willing collaboration and debate to unearth them. Having the respect and trust of a diverse, skilled leadership team results in their willingness to help you with the toughest questions and the thorniest challenges.

Hold yourself to the values and standards you’d like to see in your teams. I don’t know a CEO that isn’t stretched for time, and, in the race to meet deadlines, it can be tempting to abandon little details that matter — character-reflecting details in the way you follow-up on requests, show up on time, prepare for a meeting, or communicate by email, to name a few. Approach each interaction with the integrity you expect from others, and, when you make mistakes, own them. While most days seem like a constant stream of demands for your direction, thoughts, or decisions, each individual employee may see only that one single interaction with you, and it matters. Honesty and character are not on a sliding scale, once tarnished, they are unlikely to be fully recovered.

Communicate the “why” at all levels of the organizations, not only with your direct reports. Give context about your thought process and decisions, beyond simply the final message. Being transparent with your team builds trust and loyalty as employees experience being admitted to, and co-conspirators of, company direction.

Employ rigorous measurement, hold teams accountable to the results, make the results visible (good and bad)… don’t focus on the activity. Ensure everyone has what they need to be successful. Especially in a tech start-up, the temptation is huge to try to build your technology to be all things to all people. When your resources are constrained, the bigger decision is not what to do; but rather, what not to do. If you don’t obsess over the tangible measures, such as ARR growth, customer usage, or release dates, you could find yourself and your teams overly busy but not achieving results.

Find value in your work-life balance. We all know how important it is to have interests that refuel you outside of the office. In order to get more out of time away from your laptop, spend mindful time recognizing both what empties you out (for me — tough decisions, Covid-19, working from home, the daily news, pitching investors, managing expenses and cash) and then what fills you back up (for me — mentoring younger employees, closing a big deal, laughter, time with family, exercise, 7–8 hours of sleep). Be purposeful in trying to balance your calendar, avoiding too much of what empties you out, and choosing to focus free time on the specific activities that fill you back up. - Susan Cook of Zaloni

Environmental Awareness

1) Product: Our strategic imperative is “Invented for life.” We want our products to fascinate as well as to improve quality of life. We also strive to use synergy effects and benefit from existing Bosch technologies in our development processes.

2) Sustainability & Environmental Awareness: We are motivated by the desire to develop products that help conserve natural resources. For us, that means thinking ahead, focusing firmly on the future of generations to come, and consistently pursuing sustainability as a company. Cities in the 21st century are facing major challenges: The world population is growing, resources are dwindling, the climate is changing. Solutions are needed. Electromobility can make a significant contribution to sustainable urban development and an urban environment worth living in.

3) Business Model (CANVAS): Follow the concept of a lean startup journey, constantly integrate customer feedback and iterative design to ensure a product portfolio with high UX & user centricity. The business model Canvas has allowed us to create a very visual overview of our idea’s hypotheses which summarizes how value can be created for both our company as well as our customers. Canvas has stimulated us to think about all essential elements of our business and how they are and can be connected — key partners, key activities, key resources, value propositions, customer relationships, channels, customer segments, cost structure and revenue streams. Start with the user, prototype and iterate, fail early and learn fast!

4) Digital Business: Create an IoT ecosystem! We needed to onboard digital talent, we are constantly in the process of digitalizing existing ecosystems (e. g. lifetime digital bike experience, B2C user subscriptions, B2B2C offers) and building cross-divisional innovation platforms

5) 3rd party co-operations and partnerships: Focus on your core competencies, keep focus and establish co-operations in areas outside your expertise.

We did not have any access to bike dealers, our logistic infrastructure has been developed to ship high delivery volumes to a limited quantity of customers, but not to provide single spare parts to thousands of bike dealers. Our market entry strategy includes the cooperation with a service partner, a company which is very well connected within the bike industry and is experienced to serve the needs of the bike retailer network. - Claudia Wasko of Bosch eBike Systems

No Shortcuts

Don’t ever build a company for sale; build a company to drive value for customers.

It’s never too early to establish operational excellence. Start the right way, and you’ll end up saving a lot of money along the way and be much more successful when you need to scale.

Don’t take shortcuts and be ready with your product before you introduce yourself. You only have one shot when you want to enter the market with your company, so you have to be ready on all fronts. It’s very hard to go back to the market when you’re just trying to establish yourself and say “Sorry, I made mistakes the first time and now I’m back.”

Don’t underestimate the value of go-to-market strategy — many times it’s worth much more than the product itself. It’s most important to understand how you’re going to provide a valuable service to the customer that will make them want to stay with you.

Keep your financial model top of mind — how you want to run the company and what you want to be when you grow one. Make sure that the metrics that are critical to the success of the company are established and tracked early. Otherwise, it’s very hard to go backwards later to reestablish them and figure out where you fit.- Marina Aslanyan of SmartLinx

Game plan

1.Perfection is not your friend. Technology is hard. We must be agile, and we must move quickly to compete. Take informed risks (and this from a cybersecurity expert!)

2. Everything depends on culture, and culture depends on people. Figure out how to evaluate and attract the best people. Leverage the team’s talent (they have great business ideas too!). Create growth opportunities for everyone

3. Get out of your team’s way. Your company is not about you. Your job is to get your team what they need to succeed.

4. Develop and maintain a strong vision. A unique vision will require range. Address ignorance head-on, especially your own

5. Stick to the vision. Repetitively communicate the vision. Maintain a game plan for achieving the vision. Minimize distractions from this execution - Justine Bone of MedSec

It will take time

1. It will take time. It doesn’t happen overnight. We founded Onēva in 2014 and are just now thinking about monetization.

2. You are going to get told no a lot. You’ll ask, “Will you give me a million dollars?” You will hear, “No.”

3. You won’t have all the answers. You aren’t in school any more. As things go better you make faster decisions with less information. You never have all the answers. For me, it is about connecting my heart with my stomach with my brain. And having trusted advisors on the team that can have answers and experience when I don’t. For example, recently my existing investors, led by Chris Yeh, just renegotiated their contact terms with me. I didn’t have the answers with that and had to depend on the village. I was lucky to have Chris available to do that.

4. When it rains, it pours. If it is raining and pouring you know you have a shot at being a unicorn for real.

5. Have a background in technology. At 17, I started working at AT&Ts engineering dept. The reason I was able to build the tech was that I had the pleasure of working as an engineer and coding back in 1983. I came into tech as PCs were hitting the market. I got grounded in systems, telecom and spent years at Bank of America and Wells Fargo. By 25, I had an MBA and pretty good tech background. There is nothing like being prepared with academic and tech experience. - Anita Darden Gardyne of Onēva

We are who we are

When I first started my career, the leader of my organization said something I’ll never forget in response to a question like this. His answer was that the 5 most important things in the success of a company are 1. the people, 2. the people 3. the people 4. the people and 5. the people. I think he was right. Nothing is more important to success than surrounding yourself with great people because they will bring all the other critical ingredients: smarts (always hire people smarter than yourself and who make up for your weaknesses), passion (why spend the majority of your waking hours working on something that you aren’t passionate about?), innovative ideas (this is one of the many reasons why diversity matters — because innovation comes from a diversity of ideas — not ‘group think’. I remember a world-renowned tech mentor of mine telling me that if two people in an organization always agree — one of them is unnecessary), and culture of teamwork (I don’t believe that we are two different people — the person at work and the person at home. We are who we are — some people may just hide it better than others. But I believe that all boats rise and companies soar when people bring their whole selves to work and treat team members like their lives (or at least livelihoods) depend on it. One thing women in tech have to learn is how to be great teammates without being deferential. It is not about singing kumbaya and letting your teammates take all the credit — but it IS about realizing that we win together and we lose together. - Judith Spitz of ‘Break Through Tech’

Be short and sweet

Define your ideal target audience/market: age, region, gender and other diversity categories. That definition will allow you to effectively promote your business. I’ve seen businesses that hope to appeal to everyone end up appealing to no one.

Articulate your mission and the WHY for your business: What is the problem that you aim to address? Try saying your WHY out loud and get feedback from friends and colleagues on its effectiveness.

Assemble a team that shares and is passionate about your WHY and be clear about how their role relates to the WHY. If it’s not clear, don’t be surprised that their work misses the mark. Understand that the lack of communication is on your part, not theirs.

Be short and sweet! Define your work in 1–3 short sentences that express your expertise and uniqueness. Attention spans today are only seconds long.

Have a business plan that not only articulates your mission, but designates goals and objectives, assigns tasks, and defines benchmarks for success. Without a plan, it’s easy to lose your way and spend valuable time on unessentials. - Deborah Levine of the American Diversity Report

Why?

Know what problem you are solving. For industries like healthcare, there’s plenty of opportunity for improvement. Understand where you are uniquely adding value to the ecosystem and focus on doing that really really well.

Hire curious people who want to build and grow something with you. In entrepreneurship, you don’t know where the journey is going to take you, so it’s important to ensure you have the right people on the bus with you. If your team is committed to the mission and journey, they will be willing to help the business grow and adapt as needed.

Listen to your end users. It’s easy to do all the talking when you are in sales mode, but you will get a lot more out of listening — even with prospects who don’t buy your product. Always ask the ‘why’ and really listen to the answer.

Understand the difference between “nice to have” and “must have” products. A clinician might think a particular data visualization is beautiful, but if using the product doesn’t tie back to a core, measurable improvement and business objective, then you probably won’t make it into next year’s budget.

Remember we are all people with our own stories and many shared challenges. 2020 has certainly reminded us of this. Treat your people, your partners and your clients with respect, patience and empathy. - Dr. Lucienne Marie Ide of Rimidi

Number 90 - Tilted zero