Grand Slam Journey
This podcast discusses various topics around - sports, business, technology, mindset, health, fitness, and tips for growth. Topics range from what sports have taught us and how we transitioned from a singular focus and pursuit of our athletic goals and dreams to the decision to end our sports careers and move into the next phase of our lives. My guests share how they found their passion and purpose, tips for maximizing potential - holistically - physically and mentally, how they transitioned from one chapter of their lives to the next, and how to drive success in sport, business, technology, and personal life.
Grand Slam Journey
46. Vanessa Jupe: CEO and Founder of Leva on turning personal struggles into a support system for new moms
Ever wonder what it takes to turn personal struggle into a groundbreaking app? Our guest for this episode, Vanessa Jupe, did just that. Vanessa is the CEO and Founder of Leva, an innovative platform designed to support new moms, and she's here to share her journey with us. From her personal struggles with breastfeeding, which sparked the idea for Leva, to her decision to forego a corporate role to focus on making a difference for new moms, Vanessa's story is one of resolute ambition and purpose.
Navigating through Vanessa's experiences, we discuss the trials and tribulations she faced as a female leader and entrepreneur. She draws a fascinating parallel between skills honed in the world of athletics and those needed in the corporate sphere. We also delve into her approach to handling the emotional rollercoaster that comes with running a business, a testament to her resilience. Vanessa is candid and open, offering a raw account of her journey in entrepreneurship.
We also open the floor to discuss broader societal issues, such as the stigma around women's health and some of the misconceptions Vanessa and her team face when scaling their mission. Join us for a powerful and enlightening conversation, a rollercoaster ride through passion, purpose, and entrepreneurship with Vanessa Jupe. This episode is not just for new moms or entrepreneurs but for anyone who has ever faced hurdles in life and is looking for inspiration on how to turn them into stepping stones.
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Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Grand Slam Journey podcast, where I, together with my guests, discuss various topics related to finding our passion and purpose, maximizing our potential sports, life after sports, and transitioning from one chapter of our lives to the next, growing our skills and leadership, and whatever we decide to put our minds into you. If you're someone who's been listening to my podcast regularly, our last episode, number 45, with Dan and I was talking about transitions, and then I admitted that the whole process of becoming a mother is probably the hardest transition she had ever gone through. Today's episode is about just that.
Klara:Vanessa Jupe is the founder and CEO of Lava. Lava is an app-based ecosystem for new moms, and Vanessa shares her personal journey of struggling with breastfeeding and the lack of support for new moms, which led her to create the platform. She also discussed the extensive research process she undertook to develop the app, using feedback from moms and professionals in the industry. Vanessa then discussed her decision to turn down a leadership role in a large company to focus on Lava and some of the challenges she has faced as a woman in leadership. Vanessa and I talked about the skills learned through athletics and how they applied that are corporate as well as the entrepreneurial world. She talks about the emotional roller coaster of running a business and the importance of regulating emotions, and we touch base on the stigma and misconceptions surrounding supporting women in the workplace and the need to change old mindsets.
Klara:Speaking about families, I have a shout out to my sister, sara, who's celebrating her birthday today. If you see her walking around London, please give her a big hug. For me, she is one of the best things that have ever happened to me. I love her dearly and even though we grew up apart, she has always a special place in my heart. I love you to the end of the universe and back. Have a beautiful day. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe, consider leaving a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify and share this episode with a friend you believe may enjoy it as well. I believe this episode specifically may resonate with many women and men for that matter, and so I'm very pleased I had the opportunity to talk to Vanessa about her business and the passion behind what she's scaling.
Klara:Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy the listen, vanessa. Thank you so much for accepting my podcast invitation. Welcome to Grand Slam Journey. How are you? I'm great. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me on. Of course, I know we talked briefly a few months back, so I'm glad both of us finally found the time to meet and talk about all you are creating. Are you based in Kansas City?
Vanessa:I am in Kansas City. I kind of spread my time between Kansas City, upstate New York and a little bit of Texas, but really Kansas City and upstate New York are my primary locations most of the time.
Klara:And a little bit of Texas. I didn't catch that last time. I just moved to Austin. Are you coming here? We should meet for coffee or drink, for sure, lovely.
Vanessa:And we have a trip here. Yeah, I have a house in San Antonio, so I get back there. It's where I'm from, so I get back there really often, and I'll probably be there in September, most likely, so that would be amazing.
Klara:Awesome. Let's definitely plan drink or lunch or coffee and all of the above that we also meet in person. Before we dive into our conversation and your journey to what you're creating now, please introduce yourself to our listeners.
Vanessa:Hi guys, my name is Vanessa Juppi. I am the proud founder of Lava, which is an app-based ecosystem to support new moms. We'll talk about that here soon. My background I was a web developer early in my career. I loved building things that people use. I loved hiding behind a keyboard and writing things in code and solving problems, but my career took me into the direction of product management all in the digital ecosystem. So I've worked for a variety of companies, from travel and entertainment to financial services, and it's been a really fun experience. I'm also an avid piker and adventure seeker, and mom and wife. So that's me in a nutshell.
Klara:And you also an avid runner, I know when we talked first, you mentioned you do run a lot, and I'm always curious about the upbringing of my guests, because somehow I stumbled upon an international guest list and the more I talk to people I'm always curious about their upbringing and depending where they grew up, have they discovered their passion for sport. And so I'm curious what was your upbringing like and how did you find your passion in sports and running?
Vanessa:So my upbringing was kind of traditional in some ways. My mom was primarily a stay at home mom. She worked a little bit every now and then, but she mostly focused on my sister and I. I'm a twin, so we grew up together. My sister and I did everything together, no-transcript. It was an interesting thing because we always wanted to establish this like separate identity. And one of us would want to do something like I wanted to do dance. I was so interested in dance. My sister wanted to do karate. My mom didn't have the resources financially to do all the things or the motivation to drive us across town, all over the place, and San Antonio is very spread out, yes, to do all these things. So everything we ended up doing it was always together. Even running right.
Vanessa:When we started running competitively, which was in middle school, I would run and my sister didn't want to do exactly what I did, so she had to do something slightly different. So she ended up doing hurdles Wow. And we did softball also. So I was in the field catching the balls and my sister was the goalie. You know, like we were the same score, but we were doing very different roles. So that was my upbringing. I think there was a lot of like how do you find something that you're really good at Because things are so much more enjoyable when you're good at them but also knowing at the same time that you're going to be with your twin all the time? So I was a little bit of that. And then when we got to college age, we kind of went our own separate directions and I always kept some semblance of running in my life, but at that point it was more just for stress relief or fun for exercise and not so much for competition.
Klara:That's interesting. Were you identical twins that you wanted to do a little bit of different things than the other one?
Vanessa:So I am in my 40s and at that point when a woman was pregnant, they didn't do sonograms unless you know. They thought something was really wrong. It really didn't become common until much later, and so my mom didn't know she was pregnant until I was born. The doctors were looking at her and they're like, oh my gosh, there's another baby, like you're having twins, wow. And so my sister was born 20 minutes later, and so I don't have technical detail to say we're identical, but we look pretty much the same. We were actually growing up. We were like very much the same looking. So I remember my cousin, who's like 13 years older than me. Whenever he would have his friends around, he would always say Vanessa's the one that has her hair down or whatever, and Valerie the one with the long ponytail.
Klara:So that's a. Thing.
Vanessa:Wow.
Klara:And running what distances did you run, Vanessa? What interested you in it the most, and was there a distance that you particularly enjoyed?
Vanessa:I love all of it. I started out as a sprinter, so I would always do like that, peter Dash, and I was really good at that. I was really fast. I went a lot of in my younger years, a lot of competitions around it, but then again you feel good about it because you're fast at it. So that was what made me really like running, because it was just like a natural thing that I could do and I could practice, and it was easy and it was cheap. We didn't grow up with much money so I was like, oh, I could just choose on and go outside and run. I didn't need any special equipment.
Vanessa:As I've gotten older, and especially, I would say, in my 20s, I really started to do more long distance running and I got to the point where I would run five miles almost every day. I had this five mile loop. I lived out in the country. I was just going this five mile loop, but whenever I felt the need to get out of the house and go and I'd be like it's an hour, I'm gone, it's amazing, I'm running through these fields, I'm seeing horses and cows. It was a wonderful escape. And then in my 30s I decided I should do a half marathon. So I did my first half marathon and that was really really amazing and fun. So now a days it's more, maybe a mile, maybe four miles, depending on how much time I have. I try to do at least a mile numerous times a week and then hopefully a long run at least once a week.
Klara:Nice. So I'm going to keep your mind, hopefully, off of the business world, or I feel like the exercise, at least for me, helps clarify some of the things or problems that I need to solve. So usually if I cancel them sitting in for a computer, I need to step away, go, work out, and I have the best ideation, or the idea just comes when I'm working out. I don't know if it's the same with you, but it's a great escape to keep on the side to keep our heads sane.
Vanessa:Yes, I totally agree with you. I also one of my other favorite things to do is climbing, like just bouldering, and there is nothing else in the world when you're doing that. I do it indoors, mostly because I live in Kansas City, but there's a lot of great bouldering locations here and it's just fun and you're not worrying because, I mean, I'm a worrier. I wake up at like six in the morning like, oh, I got to get up. I had these things I've got to do, like, oh, I'm going to get them done. Now it's not going to happen, even though there's time in the day, but it just feels like there's never enough time. So running and climbing are two of my favorite escapes because they keep on your mind.
Vanessa:With running, I feel like I'm sorry if I'm going off too much of a tangent on this, but with running I feel like you can solve problems and it's very much a mental game. With running is so much more in your head how far you can go, how fast you can go. Physical ability plays a part, but it's such a smaller part than what's happening in your head and what you're telling yourself. So to me it's almost like meditation, where you're training your brain for what you can actually achieve. And climbing is much more of like. It's a fun distraction and you don't think about anything else and it's a true escape. So it's like a beautiful blend to have both.
Klara:Yeah, it seems like you have a nice balance of two things you actually enjoy and seems like you draw one or the other depending what you need. That's great. So tell us a little bit about your journey to what you're creating now, and I don't know if you want to share your personal story. If you're open to sharing I know we talked about it and I thought it was very powerful and probably many women who may listen to this podcast may probably relate and resonate and the men who listen hopefully learn something new about perhaps some of the challenges and see how they can best support their women they may have in their lives.
Vanessa:Yeah, absolutely, it's my pleasure. It was definitely a story that I used to not like talking about because it was embarrassing, but now I find that it's actually really empowering and it resonates with so many people to your point and men to that end like they're like oh my gosh, my wife went through that exact thing, you know. So I, um, I've always been quite type A. You know, I'm going to set a goal, I'm going to achieve that goal, probably also why I like running. It's like, okay, I'm going to do these miles of it, run three miles, okay, whatever. Um, but I was very much that way in my corporate life. You know, I want to get to this level. I want to have this span of control, this amount of influence. I want to achieve these things. I want this big Harriot Deishu school. You know we're going to get to like 100 million revenue, we're going to get to 500 million revenue, whatever it was like. We're going to achieve those things. And I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was like a clear thing you could set up and then you figure out the path and you get there. I ignorantly thought that it would be a very similar thing.
Vanessa:When I entered motherhood. I had these very clear goals around what would happen and I just thought I would make them happen. You know, I did all the prep that you're supposed to do. I read birthing books. I read what to expect books. I met with experts right, I had a doula and a midwife and they guided me through what that process would look like. They recommended books for me to read, and so I thought I was really well prepared for the arrival of my baby. My pregnancy was what you'd expect. It was great, of course, like there was nausea and all of those things, but it was great. And then my birth was wonderful. I didn't have any traumatic story. Thankfully, I would have had my baby at home. He latched within the first few minutes of giving birth. We were skin to skin for the whole night.
Vanessa:It was really wonderful when our midwife came to our house three days after his birth to do a normal checkup and see if everything was okay and what she told us was that he wasn't gaining enough weight. So when babies are born, they lose a little bit of weight, but the goal is for them to quickly gain that weight back so that they're at their birth weight again not too long afterward. And he hadn't gotten back to his birth weight. So of course I mentioned I was a warrior. So then I was like, oh my gosh, well, that's scary, I hope he's got to gain weight. And they were like, are you breastfeeding him around the clock? And I said, yes, I am, and I go. Okay, well, make sure he's awake, make sure he's nursing. Well, okay, okay. So I fast forward. Like at the end of the first week of his life, we go in this time for her to weigh him and check everything out. Still, he's not gaining enough weight. And you could just tell she was worried. So when your medical professional is worried, that's a really scary moment. As a mom, and especially as a mom, you're thinking, oh my gosh, my only job right now is to keep this baby alive, and breastfeeding is supposed to come naturally. Why is it not working? Why is he not gaining weight?
Vanessa:And at the same time, at this point, I had started to experience pain in my breasts and I didn't know what was going on or why it was hurting so bad. Over a little bit more time, I ended up feeling like stabbing, like if someone was taking a needle, like several needles in this. Stabbing them in your breast is what it felt like and it didn't go away, like you would nurse and they would just stay with you forever for hours. So we saw lactation consultant. She did a way feedway, which means she weighs the baby, you nurse the baby, she weighs the baby again to see how well the baby is transferring milk. And he wasn't transferring enough milk and so she said, okay, well, you really need to start pumping. So nurse your baby, then pump, then feed your baby what you've pumped, and so the entire process would be an hour. So your breasts are like constantly being stimulated either by the baby's mouth or the pump, and it's painful, so painful and, like I mentioned being a corporate executive woman and running and climbing and like these things hurt, but nothing that hurt like that. It was the most insane pain.
Vanessa:And she said oh, he has a tongue tie and a lip tie. You should really go to a dentist and have it revised. Which means they cut the baby's mouth with a laser and then they do all these exercises to try to get the baby's mouth to work right. And so I was like a big debate should we do it, should we not? We don't want to harm our baby. He's perfect. I'm like, okay, well, if this is going to make breastfeeding work, then we should definitely do it. So we finally did it and it did not help. Nothing we did helped and it was like all of these different things that they're like we'll try this, try this. You might have thrush, which is like an infection in your breast of yeast, and so we got treated for that. It didn't help.
Vanessa:I saw so many lactation consultants and I was so frustrated because, like, a lactation consultant is someone that takes like a series of classes and then they practice and then they see you, but they're not a doctor. You know, they don't have their PhD in this, so clearly there must be a doctor out there that specializes in human lactation and can help me. And there really isn't. There really isn't much of it. It's not a medical specialization, is what I found.
Vanessa:So, as you can likely tell, I became very obsessed with this situation in my life and I did a lot of research to try to figure out like where are the experts and who can I go to? The last person I saw was an OBGYN, because that's where the care for the woman stops once they have the baby. You go to your OBGYN, baby's born, you're on your own. Baby goes to the pediatrician. There should be somebody for mom. There really isn't.
Vanessa:I went to an OBGYN and I was like listen, I know this is probably not what you deal with. I'm having a lot of issues with breastfeeding. What should I do? And she's like, well, I'm about to go into surgery to deliver a baby. Aka like why are you asking me these questions? It's not that important. And she said you should be happy. We're living in a time where you can give your baby formula and they won't die. And I was like she's right. Logically, that makes sense. Emotionally and as this person trying to figure out what the heck's going on and not having a definitive answer, it's still not acceptable.
Vanessa:So I went to get my master's degree when my baby was a year old and it was UT Austin so where you're living now and it was a program at McCombs Business School that's focused on innovation and taking research that exists in the academic world and translating that into a business concept. And so when I got to my first semester, we were assigned to different cohorts and I talked to my group that first day and I was like hey guys, we have to pick three ideas to work on in this first semester. You might think this is uncomfortable or weird, but if you're open to it, I'd really like to work on something around breastfeeding because I've struggled so much with it and somehow, by the grace of the universe and the good luck, I was assigned to a group with two other women and two men and the program was like 70 plus percent male. So how I ended up with a group of two other women I don't know, but they were like yes, yes, let's do that. So we actually got to work on something and I won't go into all the details of it because it's not totally relevant. But what I will say is, in the discovery phase of this project, I put together a survey all around breastfeeding and how women feel about knowing if they can or can't breastfeed successfully.
Vanessa:They want that, and I published it on a Friday night right before I went to bed, on a baby mom forum and by the time I got in bed I had already gotten 30 responses and I was like, oh, that's weird. It was in half an hour, right yeah. And by the end of a three day weekend I had almost 900 people take this survey, which never happens. People don't give you that much market validation fast. Usually you have to kind of go beg for it. And there was just so much feedback around how bad these moms felt about breastfeeding, how guilty they felt, how ashamed they were of themselves and their bodies, and how they felt they were not able to do this very basic thing that, as a woman, you feel you should be able to do. And I was like, oh, I'm not the only one that feels that way. There is so much validation.
Vanessa:So, all of that aside, I had just accepted a job within that year to move to Kansas City to be a vice president at H&R Block and lead this massive enterprise initiative around do-it-yourself tax, and it was like a very big job and I was like it's fascinating. I'm so obsessed with this. Women deserve better, but I have a great career and I'm not looking to lose that or leave it behind. And then in 2020, we all got this fun experience called COVID and we all went into lockdown and we were all stuck at home and within three months of us going into lockdown, three of my friends got pregnant. Surprise me, right, like you're with your partner I guess that's a thing and at that moment I was like, oh my God, I can't imagine having to go through what I went through being stuck at home and not having support. And so that was the moment I was like I've got to do something. I don't know exactly what it is, but I've got to do something. And so that's when I started exploring and researching and talking to people about what Leva could become. And so Leva I'll stop talking here in a second, but quickly.
Vanessa:Leva is now an ecosystem to support new moms, so we support the basics around tracking breastfeeding, bottle feeding, pumping and diaper tracking, as well as baby's growth and their milestones. If they're on track with their milestones awesome, we celebrate it. If they're not, then we have a lot of information to help you understand what you can be doing differently. We also have hundreds of articles. We've researched lots of questions moms have and we talk to moms all the time. So we have a lot of articles that answer those questions that moms are facing in that moment, two o'clock in the morning, when they're waking up and having to feed their baby and they're alone like we've got you covered.
Vanessa:And then we also have over 100 mindfulness meditations in the app so you can get yourself into a better headspace. All of that was created with working women in mind working moms. And then we also have on-demand videos so moms can watch classes around mom guilt and how do you do work, life balance, baby's latch, prenatal yoga, postpartum yoga all of those things. It's a pretty robust library and we're adding to it every single week, so it's pretty exciting.
Vanessa:And then we also have the ability for a mom to connect with a specialist in the app. So if you need help with breastfeeding, mental health, career coaching because a lot of women when they go back to, feel like they're imposters and they don't belong anymore, so having a plan about going back to work is really important Physical fitness and sleep. So those are the five different specialists that we can connect a mom to in the moment where she needs that help. So that's what we've built now and I'll stop talking because I feel like I've been talking for a long time, but that's what where love came from. And then we've built it into this really robust system that does a lot more than just help with breastfeeding. It really helps the mom holistically with that postpartum journey that she's on.
Klara:Well, and I love your story, vanessa. I actually wouldn't make it any shorter. I think you have gone through Obviously a very difficult journey that many people can probably relate to. I haven't personally had kids. I have fear about having babies, thank you. I do any crazy physical things. I can jump off of a plane, but having a kid and going through all of that childbirth, including raising a responsible human being, is just another thing that I haven't had personally the courage to do. But I obviously have many girlfriends that have kids and I totally resonate, through my conversations with them, everything that you had described. I just wanted to state what I probably didn't catch from our last conversation. It seems like you've been working on this for actually quite a short period of time. When did you start, vanessa? Was it one and a half years or, oh yeah, when?
Vanessa:we started doing research, it was COVID, like 2020. We built the first website because that's something easy. You can do it on your own right. We built our first website in January 2021, and then built our app and launched it this January. That's our domain name. When we bought, it was levatappcom, even though we didn't have an app, because we're like, well, one day we're going to have an amazing app that helps a lot of people.
Vanessa:We launched that in January 2021, and we started partnering with businesses to offer this as a benefit. We started in the spring. We launched the app in January 2023. Literally, we launched the app this year and then, march of this year, we started partnering with businesses to offer our services as a benefit to employees, but we also are direct to consumer in the app stores. So when that's meeting, help and support, it's available to you. Please download it. There is a lot of great content and you can use it for free for a very long time. There is eventually a subscription that you'll see, but it's a lot of content in there that you'll have access to for free for quite a while.
Klara:Yes, I actually downloaded it and I'm impressed by all the content and what you have consolidated to where it's really a holistic app or platform for supporting moms. So how did you go through all of that research and even consolidated all of these from meditation, need physical health and physical fitness tips, because recovery after the birth is just another thing. Getting back to your fitness level, confidence, obviously what you had described and a lot of moms especially even more so, perhaps from the other countries that have longer motherhood, where you can actually stay with the kid for one or two years. I think that is sometimes even more difficult for them after that time to come back to work, because they feel like they have missed a whole year or two of their career and then they have to sort of catch up from where they were before. So I know that's a challenge, but how did you reach out to all of these other people and attracted this community of supporting mothers on this journey?
Vanessa:Well, thank you for checking out the app and everything you said. I really appreciate it. I feel like you were really hearing what I was saying and that's like very heartwarming. So the research part started with my friends that were going through pregnancy. I have a friend named Tio Hi Tio, if you're listening and I said, hey, I want to know every single Google query that you're doing, everything you're looking at, every wondering, send me everything. And I went stinkingly because my kid at this point in time was three years old. I went back in my search history when I was a brand new mom and I extracted every query I also did, and that was crazy. And then I categorized it into like week one we were searching for this. Week two, we were searching for this week three. So I have, like week by week, what everyone was looking for, what me and this other lady were looking for, and so I used all of that. I'm a product manager by the trade, by the way, so that's a welcoming point.
Vanessa:I used all of that to create a pretty robust survey to ask moms what they wanted, and I put it all in fall tricks like here are the different topics on health, finance, fitness. And then I did a survey with 350-ish moms that had babies from like day one through six months, because that's kind of the early target, and I used all of that data to prioritize what was the most appealing feature and really segment it out. Like, okay, so 60 plus percent of women are interested in this topic and their affinity for the concept is this, and like maybe 20 percent of moms are interested in this topic. So the topic all moms are interested in is like positive reinforcement, positive thinking, encouragement. They're all interested in that. The affinity for the topic may be like 70 percent, so in general they're like 70 percent. They like the concept of what love is and this is the before we ever had love. This is just the research. But it's like if love were this, and then let's say, like 20 percent were interested in this, like career support, career coaching, like your life back right, and then maybe 20 percent were interested in that, but like the affinity was 90 percent. So then we're like, okay, we took all of that.
Vanessa:And then we started talking to like product strategists, design strategists, et cetera. Like, okay, here's the research we've done, here's where we think we should start. And then everyone's like, well, maybe you should actually do this too. Maybe you should actually. So we took all of that feedback from here's what moms are saying and here's what professionals in the industry are saying and we started testing on our website what's actually working, what are people reading? What services are they buying? Are they buying meditations, are they buying career coaching, are they buying lactation support? And so once we started to see, that is when we went and then designed what the app could be. So it was a lot of trial and error, a lot of testing and learning, and we're still testing and learning. But that's how that started and I feel like I may not have answered your entire question because I got really wrapped up until you all the research.
Klara:Yeah, I think you did it perfectly. I guess what I'm still impressed by and I sort of connected to your drive, I guess, to sports and what you already mentioned like being a type A, and it seems like when you put energy into something, you just work until you achieve it and you continue to focus to solve that problem. And obviously this problem is something that, through your journey, you're very passionate about and wanted to help others so they don't go through the same struggle. So I can totally hear and feel the effort that you had put in. But I'm still very impressed how you've been able to clearly articulate and organize the app and the support that women may need when they're going through the pregnancy and then the journey, obviously after the baby is born. And I want to read a segment. I was checking out your blog and some of the articles that really resonated with me and I want to tie it to also one of your comments that you've actually mentioned.
Klara:You've been really high achiever. Your whole life. You've been a corporate leader in many large organizations and had a large responsibility and had a very interesting leadership offer to join a company and despite of that, you actually had the courage to say no to that and dive into this journey, and so I'll just read this short excerpt here that really resonated. I've worked hard to have a successful career, climbing the corporate ladder one rank at a time. I've worked with many leaders at broken numerous barriers. As a female leader, I've helped executive positions, leading large teams, managing multimillion dollars budget and driving positive business results. I've run long distance races, spending hours laying down the miles and icing my knees. I've done hard things, but I didn't think that there was much out there harder than what I had already done, and to breastfeed him proved me wrong, and so I found these few sentences were so powerful. What led you to that decision? Is that really just that strong feeling behind your struggle that helped you say no to this amazing leadership opportunity? What was the decision process like at that moment, vanessa?
Vanessa:Well, it's a great question and it's almost like life throws things at you to kind of test or resolve. Maybe the opportunity was here in Kansas City and it's a large company. It was ahead of product role. They were establishing this function that they didn't have, so a lot of things that were really appealing about it. Why I decided not to do it was because I felt like when else in my life am I gonna have an opportunity? We had just gotten ready to launch our app. It was about to go into the stores, we were doing beta testing with users. When else am I gonna have the chance like I have right now to really focus on this and get it off the ground? I should give myself at least a year to really fully focus on the app and getting it up and going and reassess January of next year January 24, it'll be live for a year. Let me reassess how things are going then, and I don't think going back to corporate America is the answer. I think right now I have to focus on this.
Vanessa:So that was it. I mean it was more like I can't keep kicking the can if I'm gonna make this a successful thing and it has to have my attention. It was a really crazy moment, though I will tell you that, Like calling the recruiter, I had been working without the company and saying I'm actually not gonna continue with this process, I'm gonna focus on my startup. And she was so sweet. She said I'm really disappointed that I'm so impressed. She says a lot of people want to do something like that they wanna start their own business, but they don't usually do it. And she said the fact that you're actually doing it to me is exciting and I think you're gonna be successful. So it's like, oh, that was like such a nice. It was a nice interaction.
Klara:I love that, and what I'm hearing is that you really had this strong calling and an instinct in your gut that this is the right time for you to focus on this and solve that problem, and that you actually listen to it and honored it.
Klara:Instead of sometimes I feel like we have this drive, or more of these. Are the societal standards right? Keep climbing the ladder something you've known, you've done and I'm certain you were gonna be successful if you took that role. But you actually decided to create a different experience and put your full effort into lava. On that note, how do you find it now being the founder and CEO of lava versus being a leader in large corporate organization leading $400 million businesses and large cross-functional teams? What are the differences? And I guess, to tie on connecting it to your athletic experience, how similar or different is that athletic drive and the skills you have learned, how you apply them in your corporate world, versus now being the founder and the CEO of lava? I wonder if they're more closely related to what you're doing now versus the corporate function.
Vanessa:You know it's interesting because my sports not a team sport, so maybe that says something about me. I don't know. I love working with people and I love teams, but I think it applies to both. So with running, like you run I mean I've fallen down quite a lot you fall down, you get a skin knee, you skin your hands, you get up and you keep going. Right, you don't like, oh, I fell yesterday so I'm not gonna run today. No, that's not how it works. Right, you get up and you keep going.
Vanessa:I think any sort of space in life where you're learning and working for any company or creating your own company is no different. Like there are days where you like, oh, everything's clicking and I'm doing great, and there are days where you're gonna fall down and you're gonna skin your knee and your hands and you're gonna have to keep going. And it is like that in both arenas. In corporate, a lot of the falling down in my mind is with other people, especially like I worked for Direct TV. It was an awesome experience. I worked my ass off and especially because I was in the New York office, we were like 12 hour days. It was crazy, but it was very like you could be type A as a woman. You could say what was on your mind, you could be very direct and it was fine.
Vanessa:Other places I've been a leader and especially moving into executive breaks at companies that are in mid America have been very different, and so that has been challenging, because you're dealing with people especially, well, men and women that are not used to women having an opinion and that you have to like couch the way you say things and it's mean in the ass. So I hate that because I'm like no, here's the data, here's what we need to do, here's the process. Like can't we all agree that there's other things we need to do? And it's like well, no, I don't see it that way. It's like why don't you see it that way? Look at the numbers. Like clearly, that's what it's saying. So I feel like in corporate America, there's so much from a resource perspective that you can take and do. Like I did a regression analysis for the company I was working at that I will not name, although if you're listening you know who you are and it was like okay, well, what drives our revenue? Like, what's the number one thing? It's not engineering, although we probably need to be investing in engineering in a different way and structure things in a different way.
Vanessa:So many opinions, but when we look at it, there are years we've spent a lot of money on marketing. That's actually led us to acquire a lot of new users. There are years we've particularly marketed our product in a certain way. That has led to a lot of new users. Okay, well, that's not rocket science. So clearly, then, we need to provide more dollars for marketing, and it needs to be specific to this product line that we're really trying to grow.
Vanessa:When you do that, though, people are like, oh well, you're telling me how to do my job. It's like, no, I'm just giving you data. I'm supporting you. Please go take money from our budget and go do these things right. I'm empowering you, but people hear that and they feel threatened. This is not the point of your podcast, I understand, but there is so much two men that is threatening from women, you know, and I have not yet cracked the nut on exactly how to have a conversation or share data or share insights in a way that does not make a man feel threatened. So maybe one day, if you have a podcast specifically on that, please tell me. I will listen to it. It would be amazing.
Klara:I would love that. Vanessa and I have many strong female friends. Maybe we can do just a round table and how to solve that. Because one of my go-to sentences probably many people will resonate I would say strong women threaten the male dominated hierarchy. Yes, and so really understanding the politics and corporations, especially in hierarchies that are very male dominated.
Klara:I did a podcast with the author of the book the Power for All and I was like I should have read this book 15, 20 years ago. I mean it's still very helpful, I think. For anyone that book is fantastic, but I think especially for minority in a hierarchy, you need to be really able to map out the organization and know who you can say what, because if you don't or misread some of the things it can be very detrimental to your career progress. So I can 100% resonate with what you're saying and I appreciate you sharing that perspective and so the skills you have learned from your athletic journey to now being the founder and a CEO.
Klara:I actually do find that a lot of athletes or I don't know if I have statistical sample, I'm just taken from the sample of my podcast of my guests I do feel like as athletes and high achievers we tend to sometimes struggle in the corporate world for exact the same reasons, and so it almost seems like it's more natural for us to be a driver and apply those skills and being able to create your own journey and having autonomy. And we know we're going to sometimes make great things, sometimes we break things and make mistakes, but we have this inborn accountability because you understand the effort that it takes and sometimes you have a bad day, you run a bad time, but other days you have a good day if you continue to work your progress, and so I think a lot of that skill that we have learned through our athletics apply a bit more to the individual project and company journey. So, being the founder and a CEO do you find it more applicable? I guess I'm priming the question for you in some ways. It's interesting.
Vanessa:I think the resilience piece is still very much the same, but it's in a different way. Right? It's not like, oh gosh, how are humans going to react to what I'm saying? You know I'm generally a nice person. I care very much about the people that I work with and that are on my team, so that I really haven't had much of a problem with Like. I don't make people go home and cry. Very often it's happened, but it's very rare.
Vanessa:So, from that perspective, having your own business and having people that you work with in your own business is very different, because you get to set the tone. So the politics are different. You have to develop this sense of tell me what's on your mind, tell me everything. Don't worry about hurting my feelings. Like again, I've been doing this in a different way in corporate America for a long time. I have a thick skin. It might hurt, but I'm okay with it. I would rather you tell me right and I will be open with you. So that's very different.
Vanessa:But what I would say is, like, where the resilience piece comes in, applying to running, is that you're going to have these that are amazing, like when we launch our app. That was an amazing moment. But then life goes on right. And then you're like, oh well, how do we get people to be aware of this? Like, oh my gosh, somebody subscribed, like the first subscriber Yay, a couple months later they stopped subscribing why? And so it's like that huge roller coaster, like I thought we're going to win this client deal. We didn't. Or we won our first client deal, yay. It's like the roller coaster of emotions. It's so much bigger. I guess the piece of knowledge is so much bigger as a CEO and it being your company and your baby, than it was in corporate, and I was very attached to all of my corporate jobs and the success there. So, like I did not expect it to be that different, but from that perspective it is very different.
Vanessa:And so I actually started running a lot more since I started working on Leva full time, because that helps me a ton with my emotional. The ability to regulate my emotions, making sure I'm actually making time for running and for meditation, even if it's just like a few minutes before I go to bed, has been incredibly critical in my mental health. And then one other thing which isn't like what you asked for, but I feel like it applies. You know the frustration around like, oh, did I have a good day running. What was my time Like? Why was it so hard for me to run today when just a few days ago it was so good? I didn't realize until the last several years how much our hormone cycle as women applies to our ability. You probably already know this because you know you're, like serious professional athlete, but it's only recently that I've been like I should understand this and it allows me to accept myself so much better when I have a bad day and also, like I know, I get emotional and moody at certain points in my life.
Klara:I love the apps now tracking. I was like, why wasn't this invented earlier? Because it tells you oh, your period is coming up in three days. I was like, oh, that's why I'm crying, because I'm emotional. Yeah, totally.
Vanessa:Yes, I went for like what would have been a run normally a run like two days ago. I'm about to start my period, it's going to be like the next day or two and I was like you know what? I don't have the energy. I ran a little bit. I'm like I'm so exhausted. It's like this is what's happening with your body right now and it's okay. We're going to walk fast and we're going to be really okay with what's happening right now, and so I'm just trying to apply that grace in my life in every way.
Klara:I love that. Yeah, thank you for mentioning that, vanessa, and it's so important, and I think it gets into getting to know your body and a little bit of our physical and emotional maturity, I think in both ways, that being okay with where you at during that day. I remember it was way harder to do that 10 years ago than I'm able to do that now much better. One of the things I'm actually curious how much stigma is there still in this arena? You're so good in talking about this. I have to admit, even before our podcast, I was still a bit nervous. I was like I'm not really sure if this is a topic that I'm even brave enough for. And so, as you go around and talk to women and to large corporations for that matter, about this problem and how to support their employees, female employees how do you navigate those conversations and what are perhaps some of the myths or misconceptions you run into the most?
Vanessa:I feel like things are much better than they used to be, but there's still a long way to go to your point. We have a couple of sales folks that we just onboarded. One of them is quite senior in her career. She's done this a long time with health systems, and when I was talking to her about our product and how she was going to talk about it, she was like well, tell me your founder story, tell me your pitch. I'm like okay. So I went through everything and she said I probably went and mentioned boobs, like you kind of have to. It's like such a big part of what we're doing and she's amazing. So no plums there, but that is true, like she's like well, if I tell this to men, that's not how they think about breasts and I'm like they're going to have to change. You know what I mean? They have to change, they have to change.
Vanessa:So, yeah, there is some of that, and I think we've definitely talked to some men not to be rude, but some men that are in HR leadership positions, and they're like well, why would we want to support women? Wow, a family is bigger than just women. I'm like, yeah, but women are the ones that are killing themselves. They're the ones that are dying when they give babies. They're the ones that are leaving the workforce. That's why you need to support women. So there are some companies we're not going to be able to work with because they're not ready, they're not mentally aware and they're not emotionally aware. But there are so many other companies where the reception has been so positive for a variety of reasons. The first partner we sold to that's a male CEO and he's like I know we need to support our parents better. I don't know what that looks like. Help me learn. That's what we need to hear.
Vanessa:And then some of the women. There's a lot of women that lead HR teams, so they've been there. You know they're like when I had my baby 20 years ago, I had no support. I wish I'd had support. Or even like this person's coming back from maternity leave.
Vanessa:I've had several conversations with women like that.
Vanessa:I actually suffered from oversupply and the status and all this. I wish I'd had help, because we get to talk to so many different people. There are men that are aware and open and conscious, and then there are women that have like yes, I've been there, but I've also talked to women that are like well, I had to decide a micro, so they'll just have to decide. If work is important, baby is important, I'm like, or we could support them in that decision and we can encourage them to like, find balance and be able to come back to work and be able to contribute and live the life they want to live. So there are a lot of old mindsets that are out there. You're not going to be able to change them all, so we're just trying to slowly drip information and help people feel comfortable with the subject matter and really go towards the organizations that have already come to that awareness and awakening and support their employees and hopefully that'll be the companies that will grow and that'll be what's changing our society for the better.
Klara:Yes, I also would want to voice. Maybe the mindset should be how do best support, as you mentioned, parents, because if the man is even at work and the wife is struggling with it or the partner like, it impacts productivity and the whole family Right. So usually problems like this is not just one or the other, it's pretty much the couples going through it together, and so that obviously impacts a whole bunch of things outside of their personal lives. So I agree Any call to action, maybe just to close off with and where should people find you If they want to learn about Lava app or perhaps get it for their employees and our cures to explore it for their corporations?
Vanessa:Well, I want to say first of all, thank you so much. You have such fabulous questions and I'm personally humbled and honored and delighted to be able to chat with you and I really appreciate you having me on your podcast. I'm a big fan. So Lava you can find us at wwwlevaappcom. We're very active on Instagram at Lava app and LinkedIn Lava app, so we're pretty much Lava app everywhere. So please feel free to connect with us there and if you are interested in us as a solution to support your parents, you can definitely reach us there. We have contact information all over the place, so thank you so much.
Klara:Thank you so much, Vanessa, for your time and I look forward to staying in touch and meeting you for coffee in a month or so.
Vanessa:If you enjoyed this episode.
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