Lessons on Boiling the Ocean with WIC

,

When I was accepted into the WIC accelerator, we had already sold a million-dollar solution.

Once!

Our solution had high development costs and was customized for a single line of business within a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company. I was lucky, I found a visionary who understood the goals of our system based on minimal functionality use cases from other clients. He “got it” verbally and made a case for it internally. That year, He spent a large portion of budget and I earned a “Top 25 women entrepreneurs in NJ” award for the system. A year in, the company sold off that line of business and my contact moved in a different direction. Despite quick adoption by a cross functional team, the new division head preferred spreadsheets and working harder, not smarter. We achieved sales sustaining the status quo for the next two years.

Things had to change, my partner and I made a significant decision for 2020: we would walk away from our current client base to re-imagine our system. We would start from the ground up and find a way to turn clinical data into action with a multi-tenant solution that streamlines drug development for all the pharma companies. Reframing the system in this way would allow us to impact more scientific innovations that improve patient outcomes. We had enough money set aside to spend some time thinking, an absolute luxury for a bootstrapped entrepreneur.

A few days into January, I sat at my computer and I started searching.. what do we do? who could help us? I stared into the empty darkness of the internet with zero answers or even so much as a direction, I honestly didn’t know where to start. By simple chance, I came across a TED talk by this woman Chaitra Vedullapalli. Who was this woman and is she real when she talks about collective action and access for women? Here I am a woman who had sold a million-dollar solution but didn’t know how to take the next step and not quite feeling like there was much help out there, especially in pharma. Chaitra’s TED talk led me to Women in Cloud, and I noticed the annual summit was two weeks later! I did research and simmered on it for a day. It wouldn’t stop poking at me…. I just knew- absolutely knew I had to go, despite the fact I am the scientific side of the business and my male partner leads the technology. I wasn’t sure what “right” I had going to a technology summit at the corporate headquarters of Microsoft. However, my partner was supportive. Lesson 1: Never ignore your intuition! When I was (much) younger in corporate, I was on a VP track and had a boss who didn’t promote me because “I do all the right things successfully, but I can’t always explain why I do them”. I joked with him that I had women’s intuition. He told me that doesn’t fly in business, and my comment confirmed his lack of promotion (oddly my male equivalent got that promotion). Today, I am a strong believer that intuition is usually right- follow it! It stimulated a million-dollar sale and brought me to my first Women in Cloud Summit.

Lesson 2: Maximize your opportunities! The week before the summit, I planned. I took the agenda posted from the WIC summit and put a personal calendar together that maximized the day. I planned on attending individual sessions from both the business and leadership tracks- because that is what my company and I personally needed! My partner provided mini-crash courses, so I wasn’t walking into any one session completely unaware. I also reviewed the speakers list and planned who I needed to meet.

Planning ahead for the WIC summit absolutely maximized what I got out of it!  I tool an entire pad full of notes that day! Questions were answered, gaps were filled, and next generation tactics were developed for both my personal direction as a CEO and what we needed to do next for the product.

I positioned myself at tables with the people I most wanted to meet and walked away with new contacts. This was personal growth for me. I’m an introverted scientist at heart. Technology isn’t strong in my wheelhouse and meeting new people is not something that comes naturally. Despite the uphill battles being fought in my mind, I left this summit energized and excited for the business and my role in a way I haven’t been in years! I talked about it for days and let new plans form and churn in my brain.

But surely, this is one of those events that corporations support, get people excited and then back off into their own world. So, I tested my theory: I followed up on LinkedIn with new contacts and people who I heard speak at the summit. I started each note with “I heard you say XYZ at the summit and I learned XYZ.” Every – Single – Person – responded! Powerhouse women – Gavriella Schuster and Gretchen O’Hara from Microsoft, Patty Kuderer- WA State Senator and Gillian Musseig from Outlines Ventures to “name names” all replied with notes of encouragement. I was truly mystified; it is unrealistic to have such support from the industry I grew up in. Maybe this woman Chaitra is real, and this was not just a one-day of collective action. Maybe this group of women and their allies are truly different. Intuition poked at me again, but this time supported with experience-based evidence. I applied for – and was accepted into the Women in Cloud Accelerator Cohort 3.0!

On your mark, get set…. COVID! While all this momentum, excitement and planning was underway to start the WIC cohort 3.0, COVID-19 comes to America and hits the NYC and Seattle area hard! The opportunity for facetime with important, game-changing women was monumental then the news arrives that I will be part of the first digital cohort.

Lesson 3: Be Flexible and Reset the Course! While I was disappointed for the change to a digital accelerator, I certainly understood and agreed with the format given the state of the world. I’m still a scientist first, and after attending an international call of virologists around the world, I was thankful for the decision. We likely have more time to work within the accelerator and connect more frequently. When the contacts became weekly, this is when the value of the accelerator set in. Highlighting and solving problems as a team eventually became more natural. If we hadn’t been flexible, it is unlikely the accelerator would have even got off the ground by the summer. Resetting the course was an entirely different challenge. WIC itself had to take a live course and make it digital, which seemed like it hardly took any time, but I am sure it took much effort. Our business had to reset a course too. Our system focuses on emerging diseases, which are scientifically complicated, have a multitude of new therapies-in-development, and affect large patient populations with significant unmet medical needs. Before the accelerator, there were ten different diseases that qualified for this category and we were considering for our launch on Azure. However, we quickly reset the course to focus on COVID-19 as the first emerging disease within our solution, The Scientific Data Engine (SDE). To help with this pandemic, we need answers, therapies vaccines etc. Our system expedites development of these scientific innovations. We had to reset our course without doubt.

Lesson 4: Go Through the Steps of the Accelerator! As entrepreneurs, we are naturally geared to go-go-go and make it happen. Immediately, I followed my own lesson to be flexible and reset the course of our focus to be on COVID, so surely Microsoft will understand that our solution can help solve the problem and save lives during this awful pandemic…. Someone must want to talk to me, before the accelerator even starts-so let me reach out to some of those contacts I made earlier. Somewhat laughable now, but one of the earlier accelerator meetings Chaitra asked us not to reach out, that we are better collectively and if we try to do this alone, we will fail. Not only did this fail, which was at first frustrating, but I am now glad it failed- rephrased I had the opportunity to learn and fine-tune my business to be more enterprise ready.  Had I “sprang” earlier, I really think my business would have been set on a backwards course. The remaining lessons in this blog are hopefully part of the fine-tuning that not only makes our company enterprise ready- but also forward facing and more importantly, “sticky!”

Lesson 5: Challenge Your Current Knowledge Base with A New Lens: I’ve had a vision for a while that patient care could be optimized if everyone in healthcare just worked together. Instead, we have these silos with individual agendas which works but never excels. For more than a while, I have wanted to find a way to make my vision come to life. One of the first exercises we had to accomplish in the accelerator was to develop our business model. Ok, easy-peasy, I have one already! But when I tried to fit it into the homework sheet, it wouldn’t fit! It was wrong- terribly wrong! I spent weeks on this. I played with a couple of key changes to make my vision come to life. I worked hard. Then it came, my “in the shower” moment (you know those times when you aren’t thinking about the problem but the answer just appears) except I was at the end of online yoga class meditating in Savasana (corpse pose) my mind was empty and there it was- the hidden revenue model that meets the needs and unifies the critical stakeholders responsible for developing, implementing and guiding patient treatment. If you told me that I was going to spend the first few weeks of the accelerator working on a business model, I likely wouldn’t have joined- you know, because I had one. But seeing how it didn’t fit into an enterprise ready model allowed me to challenge what I thought I knew with a new lens.

Lesson 5: Learn How to Properly Boil the Ocean: Some of these “lessons” are actually best practices I’ve used prior to WIC and hope they hold some value for others reading this. Boiling the ocean however is a blatant and hard lesson I am learning at WIC. I owe this phrase to my mentor Chaitra. The first time she said “stop trying to boil the ocean” to me, I hesitated but didn’t really think much about it. C’mon, she didn’t mean me- I can handle A LOT. The second time I heard Chaitra say it to another cohort member, I thought to myself “yeah she is trying to do too much at once, it won’t stick” BUT…..The third time it was said to me I stopped in my tracks and I got it. She wasn’t telling me I couldn’t handle it, she was politely telling me that I was trying to implement a 5-year business plan in 6 months, and it won’t stick like that. Yes, I can handle a lot, but moving my business forward isn’t about what I can do- it’s about how much the world can take. My solution plus this amazing business model inspired during the accelerator requires changing the status quo and shaking up the way “things are done” in healthcare. Change often brings resistance and it will simple take time for it to be “sticky”- even if the solution is obviously needed right now! No change of this magnitude happened overnight. I need to break down my solution into manageable pots of water that together comprise the entire ocean and serve it over time in manageable components that foster real change. If I don’t, my solution will never work… or it will work but it won’t stick (which is what I now believe happened a few years ago)! Being sticky is like boiling the ocean, it is impossible, but boiling the water one pot at a time is the way lifechanging solutions come to life. I’m halfway thru the accelerator at this point in time…this is the biggest lesson I’ve learned and the biggest challenge I am working to address!

To be continued………….

About the Author – Donna Conroy

Donna founded SciMar ONE in 2003 with the objective of translating complicated Science to the healthcare Market. Under her leadership throughout the years, multiple challenged pharmaceutical products were transformed into viable and profitable therapies in competitive markets.  Donna’s long-term vision is to replace patient & caregiver fears and confusion with improved industry wide education for informed healthcare decision-making. Today, SciMar strives to disrupt the healthcare industry by unifying stakeholders thru a platform that standardizes medical knowledge with AI supporting this critical transformation in the patient experience. Donna believes that travel brings empathy and understanding to everyday life and enjoys trips with her husband and four children. Personal enjoyment is found in daily yoga, stand-up paddleboarding, skiing, and food and wine (science experiments one can eat)!

/by

Navigating Market Opportunities in the Midst of COVID-19

[This is an excerpt from Giovanna Mingarelli’s keynote address during the Women in Cloud #CloudInnovateHERxDigital Pitch Challenge on May 1, 2020]

Today, due to COVID-19, we are faced with a situation like never before where society’s basic structure has been dismantled. As an entrepreneur and a business leader, this was not something I had expected to face, but here we are. 

I am a Canadian business owner living in the United States and an advisor to Women in Cloud. I love Women in Cloud, its an incredible organisation which focuses on building better, safer and more inclusive communities. We need to be physically isolated but socially connected and organisations like Women in Cloud allow us to do just that.

We have all been experiencing COVID-19 in many different ways. If we look at current data from Export Development Canada: more than 3 Million people have been affected, 75 percent of the airline industry is shut down, 50 percent of GDP in the US and Western Europe including Canada is in free fall, in the first quarter of the year. These statistics are unprecedented and also globally representative.

And yet, organisations like Women in  Cloud are striving to bring us together and conduct virtual events like the #CloudInnovateHERxDigital Pitch Challenge, to help build new businesses. We’re now faced with the incredible opportunity to build bridges between yesterday and tomorrow, where things are going to change drastically.  

Many are now starting to talk about COVID-19 recovery, including: the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, to name a few, who expect recovery to start mid-2020 somewhere around June.  This is positive, considering countries are also lifting lockdown orders in a few areas. 

However, our businesses stand affected. Business hours have decreased, many of them have shut down and mass unemployment is looming over us. Suffice to say that we and our businesses have been collectively impacted.

Most business planning for the year has become redundant. Two of the things that has happened as a result of this, especially in the technology sector is:

  1. There is a need for aggressive innovation and 
  2. Supply chains that are essentially broken down, need to be rebuilt or pivoted. 

Let me tell you my story. I started off the year strong with multiple launch events at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. We hosted a launch event for the international youth empowerment organization, Global Dignity’s new Dignity in the Workplace initiative. This is an organization which I have Chaired in Canada for the last eight years and for which I’m on the board of directors globally.

Co-Founder of the Maverick Collective, Kate Roberts, and I also made an announcement for Women in Cloud’s $1 Billion Public Policy Economic Access Campaign called: The 21 days of Economic Access, which would move on to be shared 600,000 times on social media, despite it being launched in the first week of COVID-19 shutdown. I was feeling great and my company was looking at very healthy revenue for the first quarter. 

Shortly after, in mid-February, COVID-19 was the talk of the town. Business started to look and feel very shifty. And within a week the contracts that we had been relying on for the first quarter started to freeze.

Suddenly, everybody around me had the same thought: what is going on?

This was true for other business owners, entrepreneurs, charities, non-profits etc., where collectively we were experiencing similar issues but there was no clear direction or understanding of what to do. Within a couple of weeks, 100 percent of our contracts froze and everyone around us was affected.

Here are some of the key trends I observed in the business sector, to this effect:

  • Contract freezing
  • Investment stalling
  • Cash flow uncertainty 

These trends were experienced by most in my networks. A variety of US and Canadian relief loans were announced by our respective governments, but we know that sometimes government programs can take time to kick-in effect. Of course, they require that we qualify and get approved. In the meantime, people had businesses to run and when cash freezes, that can paralyze operations. 

In the midst of it, the most important thing to do was to not panic. Everyone else was experiencing similar conditions to us, including our contractors and vendors, suppliers.

We were able to successfully navigate through the difficult social business uncertainty by: 

  • Giving people the benefit of the doubt (i.e. not “locking in” on outstanding debts, giving flexibility to overdue invoices, etc.)
  • Supporting and taking care of others (checking in on employees, vendors contractors – asking, how can I help you?)
  • Continuing to give, even when it was very hard to do 

The second important step was to aggressively pivot the business sales pipeline. We pivoted to temporarily only focusing on our executive and corporate branding offering. We focused our sales efforts on what our clients and their networks were able and open to purchasing in the moment.  

As a business, it was important to hold off on lofty goals and to focus on the core services that would bring in cash to sustain business operations. 

Since our pivot, we are now looking at double the projected revenue than we had previously for our first quarter! 

Ultimately, with the outbreak of the pandemic, we went from all of our contracts freezing, to building a new sales pipeline, aggressively seeking new contracts and successfully navigating a very difficult time. 

As we continue to navigate through COVID-19 and all of its socio-economic implications, I recommend focusing on the following: 

  1. Take care of everyone around you
  2. Give people the benefit of the doubt
  3. Be focused, and pivot if needed, to bring in cash 
  4. Sell what you can – as best as you can
  5. If you need to, apply for emergency loans and secure the cash for what is essential to keep operations going

I believe the most sane and noble thing we can do to survive this pandemic is to help each other. This is my most practical advice. Moving forward, I would encourage everyone to stay positive, be strategic and to join the Women in Cloud community.

About Giovanna Mingarelli:


Giovanna Mingarelli is the Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of M&C Consulting, Inc. and MC2 Inc., both founded in Ottawa, Canada. Her reach extends from Arviat, Nunavut in Northern Canada to the White House in Washington D.C. and beyond to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings in Davos, Switzerland and Dalian, China. She is Advisor to Women in Cloud and on the Board of Directors of the youth empowerment organization, Global Dignity. She lives in between Seattle, Washington and Ottawa, Ontario. Visit: www.giovannamingarelli.com for more.  

/by

Announcing #CloudExecConnect: A Highly Curated, Two-Day Cloud Business Builder Event

, , , ,

Women in Cloud’s #CloudExecConnect is here to brighten your summer! #CloudExecConnect solves a specific need within the community to stimulate cross-pollination and bi-directional conversation that can make a meaningful difference in whether or not these businesses are able to succeed.

The two-day event is a curated virtual experience which will let you connect with industry leaders from Microsoft and tech giants. The #CloudExecConnect consists of two different events #CloudEnterpriseConnect and #FemaleCloudFoundersBrunch.

#CloudEnterpriseConnect will take place on 20 July, 2020. It is a four-hour event with meetings with tech buyers and providers together with a high likelihood to book real business with each other through pre-arranged face-to-face meetings via a digital platform. 

Our speakers for this event are: 

#CloudEnterpriseConnect is a perfect opportunity for entrepreneurs to meet and connect with procurement officers, executives, collaborators and industry leaders. Since this is a highly curated event, it is an invite-only experience, so please apply here and await your invitations.

The second event, #FemaleCloudFoundersBrunch is a mid-day event on 21 July, 2020. This virtual brunch is created to help create access for female tech entrepreneurs. The two-hour session will host a power panel on the topic, “Accessing Customers with Digital Marketing Excellence.” This brunch is hosting speakers like: 

At #CloudExecConnect is a great opportunity to connect, engage and grow your knowledge and scale your business with the right people supporting you along the way. We are so excited to bring this opportunity to our community through #CloudExecConnect. We are also thankful to our sponsors Microsoft, M12 – Microsoft’s Venture Fund, Meylah, AppFusions, Qumulo, Founders Live, Alley, Ideagen, EQUALS, New Tech, The Meeting Pool, CSS, Black Girl Venture, Microsoft Alumni Network, WIT Network, Unreasonable, UN Women, and Dell’s Women Entrepreneur Network for their constant support to our efforts. Click here to learn how you can partner with us on #CloudExecConnect!


For more information on #CloudExecConnect, visit www.womenincloud.com/cloudexecconnect  

/by

The Intersection of Humanity and Technology

The beauty of the Women in Cloud Economic Access Campaign is, everyone does their part to create a culture of inclusion that allows every person access to the resources needed to make their vision a reality. This allows for collective action and growth of everybody involved in the ecosystem while making a measurable impact. 

I found out about Women in Cloud about a week before the Women in Cloud Summit 2020 and decided to attend it because I sensed a focused, powerful energy in the leadership team. My experience at the summit compels me to act now in this 21 Days of Action, a part of the Economic Access Campaign. As a co-founder and CEO of a start-up, I know first hand the challenges that come with creating/building a business from an idea, a passion and vision for the future. Our company is still in the initial stages of growth with no monetary resources to spare, but we sure have the experience and tools gathered through those experiences to help other entrepreneurs embarking this journey.

Through my involvement, I want entrepreneurs and leaders to realise the resources needed to see their dreams become realities and I want their teams to feel excited about their contributions to the bigger mission. I want people to feel supported, inspired to go big and be celebrated for their successes.

My only goal to achieve is to promote, true and inspired action. This was the key take away I had from the Women in Cloud Summit and I aspire to inspire others in a similar manner. 

I will support any woman leader on her road to success. And personally, I truly believe that people truly do care and are ready to take action!

So come join me and the Women in Cloud to help create an economic impact in this world through the Women in Cloud Economic Access Campaign! 

About the Author

Laura L. Ciel MA, PsyD is an expert in leadership, human performance, emotional and energetic intelligence, resilience, organizational and individual health and morale, transformation and turning life’s challenges into opportunities. In addition to her BA in Economics from UCLA, her Masters and Doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University, and Leadership Training with CTI, she has more than 25 years experience teaching, training, interviewing, writing and guiding individuals and teams in a variety of industries from nonprofits supporting films to global relief, banking, finance, start-ups, hospital teams including palliative care, legal firms, film industry, and various lifestyle leaders and companies.

She knows that every challenge offers an opportunity and her desire to serve the world has not dimmed since she first felt inspired to help others around the globe when she was a little girl. She is passionate about honoring the uniqueness of every person. To bring light and play into her life, you might find her swimming in the ocean, hiking in the mountains, laughing with her family, practicing her French or Spanish, adventuring around the world or dancing to hip hop.

https://www.nineqco.com/

/by

Drum Roll! #CloudInnovateHERxDigital Pitch Challenge Winner: B’zT

, , , ,

Women in Cloud, is pleased to announce B’zT as the winner for the #CloudInnovateHERxDigital Pitch Challenge. This pitch challenge was designed to showcase enterprise solutions developed by women tech entrepreneurs. 

Women in Cloud is a community-led economic development initiative taking action to accelerate massive societal impact at an unprecedented pace. We are going to generate over $1B in net new global economic access for women entrepreneurs by 2030 through partnerships with corporations, community leaders, and policymakers. 

About B’zT

By wearing B’zT clothing, parents and teachers can be alerted via smartphone when their children wander beyond a pre-set distance (25-30 Feet) in crowded places such as shopping malls, theme parks, large parties and picnics. It is especially beneficial for teachers who have special needs children that are prone to running away unexpectedly.

Women in Cloud’s programs are designed to help female tech entrepreneurs to win enterprise opportunities, get access to cloud credits, get access to subject-matter experts & executives, a global network with the ultimate goal of creating economic growth and job opportunities that are aligned with the UN goals.

This experience was supported by industry leaders like The event is supported by Microsoft, International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners, M12 – Microsoft’s Venture Fund, EQUALS Global Partnership, Founders LIVE, Verbinden, Alley, New Tech Northwest, AirMeet, Speaker Engage, Headstart Network, and Meylah, who are also core contributors to creating access to enterprise business opportunities to more female tech entrepreneurs. We received many inspiring and innovative solution nominations.  Solutions were evaluated for originality, market feasibility, and use of Cloud and AI solutions. 

Although #CloudInnovateHERxDigital Pitch Challenge has concluded, the voting People’s Choice Award will remain open until 8 May, 2020. So please look at the line-up and tell us what solution you think needs to grab the spotlight.

Please join us on our other exciting campaign, #NominateAnEntrepreneur, where female technology entrepreneurs are celebrated on our network. Also, sign our Pledge by committing to create Economic Access for female technology entrepreneurs in your space. We would like to thank everybody for participating and supporting our mission. For more information about Women in Cloud and the join the Cloud Accelerator.

/by