Patty Vest: Welcome to Sagecast, the podcast of Pomona College. I'm Patty Vest. Mark Wood: And I'm Mark Wood. Patty Vest: In these extraordinary times, we're coming to you from our various homes as we all shelter in place. Mark Wood: This season on Sagecast, we're talking to Pomona faculty and alumni about the personal, professional and intellectual journeys that have brought them to where they are today. Patty Vest: Today, we're delighted to talk to tech entrepreneur, Shadiah Sigala, class of 2006. Who's involved with two growing venture-backed tech startups. She's the CEO, a co-founder of Kinside, and the former co-founder of HoneyBook. Mark Wood: Welcome, Shadiah. Welcome to Sagecast. Shadiah Sigala: Thank you for having me. Mark Wood: It's good to have you with us especially in these challenging times. Thanks for taking the time. How are you managing during this public health crisis? Shadiah Sigala: Ooh, gosh, I mean, that's such a loaded question for any person right now, right? One of the things that I'm observing about this time is that this is the great equalizer, and no matter what your station in life is, we're all really grounded and really anchored in our humanity right now. Honestly, my emotions, an outlook for the future change on an hour to hour basis. Sometimes I'm feeling like, this is great, and we're going to be totally fine. And other times I feel a little more nervous. But I'll tell you, what's really interesting about my situation is that I'm a mom of two kids, and in fact, I'm a single mom of two kids. And my current startup, which I know will go into my current business venture, is around solving the very real needs of working parents in childcare. Shadiah Sigala: And right now, I am literally living my very own problem, right? That I'm trying to solve in my business, as is every person in the state and around many states, and more and more around the country, and more and more around the world. Mark Wood: It's humbling, isn't it? Shadiah Sigala: It is so humbling, it is such a universal need. Childcare is essential, whether you're the executive of a company, or a frontline worker, we are all thinking, wow, our infrastructure, and our social and political and economic infrastructure is woefully lacking when it comes to childcare. And not only lacking there, but just so essential. Mark Wood: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Patty Vest: Absolutely. Shadiah, let's take you back in the Wayback Machine for a second, and talk to us a little bit about your time at Pomona. How did you find your way to Pomona College? Shadiah Sigala: My path to Pomona was certainly non traditional. So, when I arrived to Pomona, I know you can only imagine this was such a culture shock for me. I mean, I had grown up in a very Mexican American immigrant community, right? Right down the street, blue collar work. And while I was in the honors classes in my high school, upon coming to Pomona College, I realized and really struggled with actually being very under-resourced and underprepared for the academic rigor that was ahead of me. I'd never [inaudible 00:03:38] take the opportunity to credit one of my mentors at Pomona College, which is a tenured professor, April Mayes, who in my... She teaches at Pomona currently. And in my very first semester, she said, "You're not doing good enough. You are not as good as your peers. Not you are not but your work is not as good as your peers." I mean, she had a similar story she said she was a first generation. Shadiah Sigala: Actually, she went to Pomona College when she was... When she went to college and then came back to teach, and she said, "Look, I have to give it to you straight. And I'm doing this as a favor to you, because I see myself in you, and you're going to have to work double as hard to come up to par academically." And I cried, I mean, I was like, grateful and also embarrassed. I called my mom and I cried, and probably every week. Once a week, for my first semester, I would call my mom crying saying, "I can't do this, this is really hard." But I doubled down and if there's anything that I love is a good challenge. And I ended up graduating with an incredible GPA. Mark Wood: So, did you know what you wanted to do professionally when you arrived at Pomona, or did that come while you were there? Shadiah Sigala: Absolutely not. Mark Wood: Or, after? Shadiah Sigala: I mean, who knows what they want to do when they're 18. So, I actually... But I'll tell you what, I didn't know what I wanted to do professionally, but I found a passion, I found my true passion for public service and change making, and movement making. So, while I was on campus, I became really involved with sort of student on campus groups. I helped to create, in fact, one of these such groups called SOCA, the Student of Color Alliance, and today we have a SOCA lounge, I hear it still exists on campus. Mark Wood: Sure does. Shadiah Sigala: And it was a group of us, we made that happen. We went and pitched to the administration why we needed a different space, and we pitched them a budget, and we pitched them an idea. And that was just one of many instances in which I actually became involved in a very sort of public leadership kind of way. I found my inner activist, I found my inner voice, my inner love for galvanizing and leading groups to achieve a common purpose on campus, right? In my sophomore year, I started a charity group where we raised funds to send back to poor people on the other side of the border. And then by my senior year, I was working with a student on this actual nonprofit, a student led nonprofit doing social services for members in the Pomona community, for homeless women and their children. And so, for me, I thought, you know what? I think I might be really good at making a difference. And so, I literally googled, Master's in make the world a better place. I didn't know what it was called. Shadiah Sigala: Mind you, never did I think, I like business, I want to make money, I'm an entrepreneur, those words could not be further from my lexicon. And in fact, I just had some preconceived notions that business is boring, and I want to do more interesting things with my life, and I want to make a big impact. So, when we get to the part of the story where I tell you about how I founded two private businesses, I'll tell you how that all connected. But certainly, I had a passion for making change happen. And so, when I literally googled, masters in how to make the world a better place, I discovered it's called a Master's in Public Policy. And so, I followed that passion, I follow that intuition. And here's where I'm going to do like a humble brag, but also really encourage the students in their youth to do this, all day long, right? For your entire life. But certainly when you're young and your naivete gives you... Or you can blame it a little bit on your naivete, but it's really just to be gutsy and be bold, and be confident. Shadiah Sigala: And I told myself, great, I want to get a Master's in Public Policy right out of college, but only if I can go to a top three program, and that's that. And if I don't get in, who cares? I'll get a job like the rest of my peers. But that's what I'm going for. And so, I applied to only the top three programs and I got in, and I ended up going to Harvard, it's in Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. And now you can imagine for me, again, having come from... We talked about [inaudible 00:08:34] high school. Most good students go to a really great UC school. Going to an elite American institution was just, first of all, hugely life changing. Going to Pomona, for me, changed my life, that truly changed the trajectory of my life. I was exposed to what's possible at the .1%. Shadiah Sigala: And then going to Harvard, forget it, I was just like, and then that. That just added a level of pedigree and polish in my budding career that I could not have imagined. And from there, I went to work for the private sector. I've been working, I suppose you could say in the private sector, for a minute now, but always, that I found a way to find a purpose and meaning and world changing ideas, even if they're small, all through the private sector and through business. Mark Wood: So, how did you move from public policy to entrepreneurship? How did you make that shift? Or is it a shift? Shadiah Sigala: It was a huge shift, and it was a mental shift. So, when I graduated at Harvard, I went to work for a Fortune 100 Corporation, in a health insurance. And I went to work... So, you might be like, "Isn't that the opposite of, you care about the world [inaudible 00:10:12]? Now, I went to work for the office of public policy. So, the bridge for me was, how can I work from within the private sector in my field and in a way that actually makes sense of, how do you build a better system, humans to live in? Shadiah Sigala: And health care, obviously, in this country is paramount to making a better world for all the humans in the country, for all the citizens. So, I worked in health care forum. So, I found that... This was just like... It was a slice, right? It was a little tiny bit of being like, "Oh, okay." There is a role even in the private sector which is a very, very generic term, but there is a role in the private sector to think about the good that we do. Shadiah Sigala: But then, I only worked there for two years, I got incredible experience. I learned the corporate ropes. I learned all about politics, right? Employee politics and hierarchy and organizational structuring. I mean, I learned incredible... It was just an incredible boot camp for me. But it was the wrong environment. It was a corporate environment. So, I'm not even saying because I thought... I mean, I think the company is a lovely company to work for. I had really great opportunities. I started to move up the chain even in my juniorness. I was being groomed by C-level executives in the company. And I had to make a really hard decision to [inaudible 00:11:55] leave. In my mind, I was like, "Do I quote, unquote throw away this incredible position I'm in? I'm literally being groomed by C-level executives at a Fortune 100 company for a really lovely 30 year career. And I was like, "I can't even think about the next 30 days because the environment for me as an inner entrepreneur was so stifling, it was so slow moving. Shadiah Sigala: So, I made the decision to quit and become self employed. And so, for me, making the bridge into business wasn't like, now I'm going to go build my own business empire. It was, can I be self reliant? Can I, on my own talents and skills that I have right now, make enough money to make a living? Right? So, that was my first mental breakthrough, which is, let me just make a living on my own two feet, in my own business, my own venture, in myself, whatever that is. And I didn't know what it was going to be. Shadiah Sigala: And so, one might call it a quarter-life crisis, but just a really hilarious and lovely time to have a crisis, so early on. But I'm so glad that I... I mean, I truly made a bet, I made a big bet. I quit my really well paying job, that was a direct outcome of this super prestigious academic career that I had built to that point, to become, quote, unquote, self-employed. Mark Wood: What did your parents think at that moment, by the way? Shadiah Sigala: My mom... Again, I'm already winning at life. My mom's always been incredibly proud in the fact that I had achieved so much, in the traditional achievement sense. She's proud of me no matter what, she was a little confused. But if anything, my mom always trusts my intuition, and she trusts that I know pretty much exactly what I'm doing. And I do, in my gut. I trust my gut and I'm pretty focused when I have a goal. But that's all I knew. My goal was, I'm going to become self-reliant self-sufficient in starting my own business. And I didn't know what that was, and I didn't need any more than that. Yeah. So- Patty Vest: So, what was next after? So, you- Shadiah Sigala: So, what was next is... Yeah, so, I quit my job and I moved from Hartford, Connecticut, insurance capital of the world, to Los Angeles, to be a personal chef. Patty Vest: Uh-huh (affirmative). Mark Wood: [crosstalk 00:14:42] Well, that's the obvious move. Shadiah Sigala: Well, I got [crosstalk 00:14:47] Jeez, what skills do I have as a 25 year old that are outside of my traditional career, professional experience, and I thought, well, I'm an incredible cook. And I got my first shot, for myself, [inaudible 00:15:06] basically developing a product, myself and my cooking skills, pitching it, selling it, and then operating against it. And you know what? It paid my rent. Patty Vest: Wow. Shadiah Sigala: Almost immediately, upon two months in landing in LA, I had my first gig. I mean, I got out there, that's tip number two students. You know who it was from, my first gig? Of Pomona alum, from an older one, around the 60s or 70s. But I went on LinkedIn, and I looked up every single Pomona College alum on, and I was in LA, and I reached out to most of them, or whoever I had access to. And they took pity on me, and they gave me my first gig. And I love it. By the way, I'm not ashamed of that. I'm just like, they knew. Man, they saw me and they saw what I was doing, and they gave me a chance, which then gave me... Once you get your first gig, now you can use that as leverage, oh, well, I already worked for such and such, right? Shadiah Sigala: And actually, the first gig was me catering a birthday party for 20 of their closest friends, in a very fancy part of Santa Monica. And so, one of those friends said, "Oh, why don't you come cater to me?" And one of them said, "Well, why don't you come and cook in my house?" And that's how I got started. And that is entrepreneurship people. It does not have to be sophisticated. Entrepreneurship is like a hustle and a frame of mind, and you needing to get that next dollar. Patty Vest: Right. Mark Wood: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Patty Vest: So, how long was the food business in business? Shadiah Sigala: So, I was like, "This is cool." I lasted one year. But here's what I learned in the one year. I was like, "This feels so liberating. I'm not making a ton, I'm literally just breaking even on my monthly expenses, but living in a tiny studio." And I was like, "You know what? I will take this any day over a stable salary, because I know that I can grow it. Because now, I know that the destiny is in my own hands." First of all, I didn't go homeless, I didn't die. Nothing terrible happened. I just made less money, but I'm controlling my money. And so, that for me, was like a... I don't know if we call it a drug, but it was an incredibly liberating sentiment. Shadiah Sigala: Now, it wasn't that easy, right? [inaudible 00:17:41] it wasn't easy. And within one year, or... Actually, it'd been less than one year, in the six month mark, I said to myself, when I go in on something, I want to be the very best at that thing. And so, right now for me, it's like, wait, do I grow this business into one of the top catering outfits in LA? Because that's how I think, right? I'm like, "And the next step is to become one of the top catering [crosstalk 00:18:06]." Patty Vest: The Harvard of food. Shadiah Sigala: The Harvard of food. And obviously, I knew in that case, it'll take me three to five years to build it up to that point. But I can already envision what the end goal is, and that did not feel like an appealing business for me. It didn't feel like it was intellectually, stimulating enough. And it wasn't scalable enough. It wasn't having the impact and reach that I would want to unfurl my talents into. So, I decided to stop doing that. By the way, it just coincided with me moving, I moved to San Francisco. And that's where it all clicked in. I was like, "Oh, my God, I was meant to be in San Francisco." This is the land of plenty. The land of entrepreneurism, the land of startups, the land of ultimate innovation with maximum impact. Shadiah Sigala: This is where Facebook and Google, I mean, you can only imagine. We all know what Silicon Valley is today. I was there as some of the biggest brands today like Airbnb and Uber and Facebook, were really starting to gain their traction. And so, I was totally inspired and I said to myself, "Well, when in Rome, you do as the Romans do." So, when in San Francisco, you co-found a tech startup. Mark Wood: So, how do you go about developing the sort of base of knowledge and... It's not experience, experience comes with doing it, I guess. But how do you prepare to do your own startup? I think, to a lot of people, it's just a very daunting proposition. Shadiah Sigala: It is, and it did not happen overnight. And there was so much trial and fail... Trial... What is the expression? Mark Wood: Trial and error. Patty Vest: Trial and error. Shadiah Sigala: Trial and error. So, it's very easy to tell my story in a way that glosses over all of the dips into the valleys, so I just look like, fantastic, but the chart is up and to the right. In startup land, we always say, up and to the right, just show investors up and to the right, it's growing. And the arc of my life and my career is certainly up and to the right, but man, there are some months of darkness. Mark Wood: Well, it does make the story much more interesting. Shadiah Sigala: And a couple of years honestly. So, okay, let me tell you the real truth, between the catering and co-founding HoneyBook, was about two years. So, I skipped some... See how easy it was for me to skip the personal part [inaudible 00:20:54] I mean, I got engaged, I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. Charlotte was a wash, it was for one year. And I got really depressed, I was like, "What I'm I doing with my life?" Right? Yeah, absolutely. Shadiah Sigala: And it got to the point where I really was... Oh gosh, yes, every 20 something year old needs to hear this, who hears this, I was weighing, do I continue down this... Now it feels like fun employment and less like an intentional break for my career to start something new, because I just cannot click into something new, like when I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina and left the catering business fine. And should I just say, "Shot, good try, just go back to public policy. Get a prestigious job at a prestigious think tank, make money, build a great career. You still love that work, I still loved public policy." Shadiah Sigala: And I was weighing that and I would go through weeks where I'd be like, "Yeah, forget the whole entrepreneurship thing." And I would just be sending resumes and taking interviews with policy think tanks in DC. And mostly, I was desperate. I was desperate to, first of all, have money, because who wants to not have my money? But I was desperate to be doing something and to be fulfilling my sense of purpose, and using my talents. I was also desperate to not lose time in my career. And I was so close to getting a job in a DC policy think tank, so close. And then I didn't. And it was devastating for a week, right? And that was a signal to me, I was like, "Well, I wasn't devastated for too long. I was kind of relieved." Then when I moved to San Francisco, I said, "Okay, let's try again. Let's try to find..." So, I immediately moved to San Francisco. I was just like, "Shadiah, you need to get your shit together. Get a job, and then try again later for entrepreneurship." Shadiah Sigala: And I applied again. And here's the thing, I was getting all the interviews, right? It's not hard. It's not hard. I always tell everyone, the worst thing that could happen is you just don't get a job. And I was a front, I was a top runner for this incredible job at Teach For America at the leadership level, and I didn't get it. And this time... So, by the way, this is four months into San Francisco. This is one year and a half out of my catering employment. Shadiah Sigala: So, this time, when I didn't get it, I was devastated for all of 10 minutes. And that's how I knew, I just was like... So, then I said, "No, Shad, you get your shit together and stop pretending, and stop trying to get a job. Go do what you're meant to be doing." And my gut was so strong that I had to do a tech startup. So, there you go, it was not... Okay, and then, how did I do it? Was a whole nother thing. Mark Wood: I mean, how did you come up with the idea behind it? I mean, the idea is the first thing, right? Shadiah Sigala: Sort of, because you have 10 ideas, you have 100 ideas, and they always say, "Ideas are cheap, execution is everything." I have 10 amazing ideas, but did I do any of them? No. So, who cares? Nobody wants to hear about it. Well, I thought of that. The person says, "Oh, I thought about Airbnb." Who cares? So, why are you telling anyone. Mark Wood: You didn't do it. Shadiah Sigala: It's nothing. You did, okay, so did I? So, I'll tell you what, for me, it was a process. And by the way, I have to acknowledge how kind of silly it sounds to say like, "I just want to do a tech startup." Because a tech startup means nothing and it means 100 different things. What does that mean? And that is also very sort of naive, right? Shadiah Sigala: But thank God for naivete because I was like, "Well, I don't know, but I'm going to go figure out what a tech startup is. It looks fun. It looks cool from the outside. I think I'm the right stuff because I'm super entrepreneurial, I'm a hustler, and I make shit happen." So then I said, "Okay." So, then I [inaudible 00:25:19] started to take ideas. But also, it wasn't just about the idea, it was about going out and meeting people. So, I said, "All right, first, let me know what..." When I say, tech startup, what does that mean? Shadiah Sigala: By the way, technology is hardware, its software, its internet, it's consumer, it's enterprise, it's all the different things that I had no clue about. So, I went out and I... Again, back to LinkedIn, I reached out to every Pomona or Claremont College alum that lived in San Francisco and worked at a tech company. Shadiah Sigala: And I reached out to every Harvard person that worked at a tech company, and I said, "Hey, I'm really interested in learning about your job." Or, "Hey, I love the tech startup world. I want to learn about what business development is. Hey, I want to learn about what product management is, and what is consumer tech?" Because they're like, "I'm in a consumer company." And I'd be like, "What is that?" Which were very embarrassing questions to ask, but you know what? [inaudible 00:26:17] Who cares? I felt like, you create these safe spaces people love to give their advice. People love to be important enough to give advice. Shadiah Sigala: So, I asked all the silly questions, and then as I got more and more confident, and I started then to develop a stronger idea, which was, I had just gone through my own... I had planned a wedding, and I was paying all of my wedding vendors with checks and cash. And I was like, "Can you please just take PayPal." And they were like, "Does not compute." And I was like, "This is weird." And then, I was like, "Well, can I [inaudible 00:26:51] sign your contract." And they were like, "No, I'll mail you the contract and mail it back." And I'm like, "Where do you buy stamps?" This is already 2012, the internet already exists. It's not like the 90s. I was just like, "I don't even know how to mail the thing anymore [crosstalk 00:27:06]." Shadiah Sigala: So, that was the impetus for me to start to think, okay... So, that was the impetus for how I started to ID what HoneyBook might look like. And at the same time, because I was meeting so many people and founders, as I started to share, I think there's something to work with here, and my intention is to be at the founding level of tech startup. They said, "Ah." And they started to connect me with friends, the friends of friends, "Well, they're just doing something, they might be doing something interesting. Oh, this one knows about wedding. Oh, this one knows about [inaudible 00:27:38]. And that path, I think within three to four months of really, really, really intentional building out that network and building out my foundation, I met my co-founders. Patty Vest: Wow. Shadiah Sigala: I met my three co-founders who became my co-founders of HoneyBook. Patty Vest: Wow. Shadiah Sigala: And they were working on something similar, right? And if I hadn't been telling people, I think that this is the space with all these wedding vendors, [inaudible 00:28:10] If I hadn't said that and stated my intention, I would like to be at the founding, wherever, and I actually think that this is a space that I'd like to do something by myself or with someone else, they would never said, "I actually know these three Israelis [inaudible 00:28:25]." And I met them and it was instant chemistry, and we joined forces, and that was the beginning of HoneyBook. And today, HoneyBook has raised over $80 million in venture capital. It powers over 50,000 small business owners. And it is a growth company. Patty Vest: As we were planning our wedding in 2017, God bless HoneyBook, so, yeah. Shadiah Sigala: [crosstalk 00:28:56] Oh my gosh, you see every time- Patty Vest: And it's funny because I- Shadiah Sigala: Oh my God. Patty Vest: Before when we were doing the research for this, I was like, "Oh, she co-founded HoneyBook, God bless her." So- Shadiah Sigala: Oh my god. Literally, I'm having a fangirl-moment. I don't think there will ever be a moment where I don't meet... I meet someone in the wild, [inaudible 00:29:18] a real person whom I touched. Patty Vest: Really? Ah, no. Shadiah Sigala: Like I touched you. You used my [crosstalk 00:29:23]. Patty Vest: And I'll say that we had vendors who didn't work together- Shadiah Sigala: That's so gratifying. Patty Vest: And they all used HoneyBook. Shadiah Sigala: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Patty Vest: So, that's the power of HoneyBook. Shadiah Sigala: I absolutely... No, it is the power of HoneyBook and I would say HoneyBook is a very long term company, but it is... So, it's six years, six and a half years in. This is the first act, because the second act of HoneyBook is when you decide, all these vendors wouldn't [inaudible 00:29:55] necessarily work with each other but they're all using it. The next act of HoneyBook now it's everyone's connected. It's a huge network. Patty Vest: So, thank you. Shadiah Sigala: Yeah [crosstalk 00:30:04]. You're welcome. Patty Vest: Of course. Shadiah Sigala: Thank you for sharing that. Patty Vest: And related to that, what was one of your proudest moments at HoneyBook? Shadiah Sigala: I mean, you're asking me to choose my favorite baby? Patty Vest: Yes. Shadiah Sigala: Or what? I wouldn't say it's a moment. It's a doing. It's a creation. It's what it all adds up to. HoneyBook is known, is pretty much famous for its incredible employee culture. And regardless of what you build or what the product is, there's people who are working in your organization, people who choose to work for you. And in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley where every company is really cool and every company is killing it, crushing it, you could really... People have their pick litter. And for us, having developed truly a culture that is incredibly compassionate, incredibly people focused, has made this a very sustainable company, and folks who work for HoneyBook work there for a long time. And they say, "This is the best company I've ever worked-" Patty Vest: How big is HoneyBook now? Shadiah Sigala: HoneyBook is about 100 employees. Mark Wood: Speaking about that, you've also authored studies about gender pay gap, sexual harassment in the workplace, or in the freelance economy. Why do you feel... I mean, how did you get involved in that? And why do you feel so passionate about it? Shadiah Sigala: So, you just mentioned my activist and public policy resurgence inside of HoneyBook, right? So there's a perfect example of how we doing this private sector endeavor, this business endeavor, can fulfill both aspects that are very compelling to me on my day-to-day, and feeling like I work with a purpose in the long run. One is, it's fun, exciting, challenging. There's the functional aspect of building a business, incredibly challenging, and becoming and growing as a leader and an executive and managing so many people, and it's incredibly challenging. And then, in fulfilling, that's fulfilling, so the challenge. Shadiah Sigala: But the other part that's fulfilling for me is knowing that we are making change and we're making systematic change. I always want to be working on something that I feel is actually making a change systematically. And for us, for me, the study that you just mentioned, we realized that we had this incredibly powerful platform that is HoneyBook, that had been for years collecting a lot of data around the [inaudible 00:33:09] I don't know if we call... Around the pay and wages of all these freelancers. Because HoneyBook is at the core of payment processor. HoneyBook sees every dollar that a photographer or a web developer or creative freelancer is making, we see every dollar, we process it. Shadiah Sigala: And so we said, "How can we use all this data that we've amassed for good?" And so we thought, hey, there's this big conversation around the gender pay gap in the corporate and organized workplace, let's see if that same trend bears in the freelance space, or in the small business space where there's a lot less data. It's really hard to get that data, right? For folks running their own small business. Shadiah Sigala: And so, we were able to do that and actually... So, when we actually harnessed the power of our data, we were able to discover that the gender pay gap is in fact deeper in the freelance space, or in the space where women and men run their own business. Mark Wood: Yeah, well- Shadiah Sigala: Which is incredibly alarming, because you might think, hey, but you get to set your own rates, you're running your own business. But we actually found that without... Or the hypothesis is that at least, the corporate space with the more organized professional space, has some kind of rails, some kind of compensation rails, where the gender pay gap is not as deep as when people have to choose their own price. And we also found that there... We didn't find there's a strong linkage to women as mothers and caretakers, and paying a motherhood penalty, which is that they make less money because people perceive them to be less available or less committed, when in fact the brain research and the profit research indicates the opposite. When organizations work with a diverse cast of characters including women, mothers, people of color, that organization, that company has a higher profit margin. Patty Vest: Shadiah. Mark Wood: Yeah. Patty Vest: Oh, yeah, go ahead. Shadiah Sigala: So, that was the catapult. Yeah, no, that [inaudible 00:35:22] That for me, was a pivotal moment. You might say like, "Okay, so, why..." I don't know, let me ask the question for you, "Why did you then go to [inaudible 00:35:30] Kinside when you were involved in this incredibly [crosstalk 00:35:31]?" Mark Wood: That was our next question. Shadiah Sigala: And the reason is, it wasn't a push out, it was a pull. I was being pulled, because I went... First of all, that was [inaudible 00:35:46] the pivotal moment where I was like... I got in touch with this surge of energy where I was like, "I'd like me to create something new." But more specifically, I became a mother. And going from being a non-parent to a parent, I have to say is the most violent transition that any human being can have in their identity and in their day-to-day. Mark Wood: I've never heard it called violent but I've heard it all called lots of other things. Shadiah Sigala: [crosstalk 00:36:17]. I feel like this is violent transition from not a parent to, holy crap, I am responsible, in charge of this little human being that I cannot give back. Mark Wood: And it happens overnight, right? I mean it happens in a- Shadiah Sigala: Overnight, from one minute to the next. Mark Wood: ... an eye blink. Yes. Suddenly, you are responsible for this other life. It's like, you look at the people around you, and you say, "They're really going to let me take this child home? They don't know how ignorant I am?" Shadiah Sigala: Oh, my gosh. Patty Vest: Exactly. Shadiah Sigala: And you know what? I always add, I always share that I also had postpartum depression. And I feel very responsible in sharing that because no one talked to me about it. So, maybe that's the violent thing. So, what is this? I was like, "What?" Literally so shocked. It was so shocking, it was so surprising. I was immediately in a different headspace. I was not doing well emotionally with this new identity literally, the same day as I gave birth. And it can happen very quickly, it can happen all the time, but we just don't have that in the mainstream conversation. We all talk about parenthood as like, "Oh, you're a mother, it's your greatest joy." End of story. When in fact... And by the way, it is. Mark Wood: It is, but it's much more complicated. Shadiah Sigala: It is both the greatest joy- Patty Vest: And challenging, so challenging. Shadiah Sigala: And the greatest burden. Mark Wood: Yeah. Shadiah Sigala: In talking about... And that conversation needs to be more nuanced and more complex. So, that's my contribution to that. Thank you very much. Anyhow, so I became a mother not only once, but then I had a second baby during my time at HoneyBook. And having that perspective, I had to come back to the company as a founder and say, "Hey, we need to look at our paid family leave policies, we need to look at the way that our organization is supportive of parents, whether they're mothers, fathers." By the way, we already had parents in the organization who had kids already, but we had never had a pregnancy, an employee pregnant go through that. And talk about having empathy like an executive champion, right? To have that empathy to care about a problem in your company. Shadiah Sigala: Because before then, I didn't think that much about what the parents day-to-day experiences were like. And then, when I had my baby, I was like, "Well, that's hard." Literally, right? The moment... So, one is bringing the baby home. We had a really great four to six month leave policy. But then, the moment when you have to come back, you literally have to drop your baby in someone's arms. Who's that person? Mark Wood: Well, and- Shadiah Sigala: Who? Mark Wood: In the United States, of course, we're one of the few countries where extended families usually are thousands of miles away. Patty Vest: Yeah. Shadiah Sigala: Exactly. Absolutely, we didn't have an extended family system and lived in San Francisco where were living at the time. And so, we have to outsource care, we have to outsource the village. And so, for me, I mean, my first hand experience from going back into, like I said, this award winning people culture company, we did our very, very best to be as supportive as possible. By the way, we had great systems. We are well ahead of the curve in terms of video conferencing, having flexible and unlimited paid time off, having really great paid leave policies, even supporting parents in their maternity and paternity time in their early days by giving them extra perks during that time. Shadiah Sigala: And then, I said, "Great, I checked everything. Now, I just needed to handle childcare." Because I know that really, childcare for all of my employees, for me and my employees, is the single most stressful component of being a working parent at HoneyBook, childcare. Logistically, financially, emotionally, childcare is the single most difficult issue for a person that has a family and works. It's just... You can't separate the two. Mark Wood: And we're seeing that in spades today with the coronavirus. Shadiah Sigala: I mean, we're all living it. I don't know how old your kids are. Mark Wood: Well, mine are all grown. I only had one. But I have a grandson who's four that I get to see through the window basically now, and through the internet. Patty Vest: Mine are one, so I'm in that- Shadiah Sigala: Do you have two? Patty Vest: I have twin boys. Shadiah Sigala: Oh my gosh, God bless your heart. Patty Vest: So, that's why I keep nodding, and nodding, and nodding. Shadiah Sigala: Yeah, no, I could tell, I was like, "She's a mom. He's a dad. They get it. They see me." So, when I went out to market basically, just said, "Okay, I'm going to go purchase an employee benefit that is meaningful in helping my parents and their childcare burden." I could not find one. And that was for me, the moment, that was the aha moment, and I thought, I have to work on this problem. This is a policy problem. This is a societal problem. This is an economic problem. It's a business problem. Employers, we know that nearly one in every two women will leave their jobs within the first [inaudible 00:41:57] years of having a new baby. Shadiah Sigala: As an employer, like me, I hire and I spend a lot of money recruiting people and training them and [inaudible 00:42:06] them up, for me to think about losing a single person is incredibly painful, right? As an employer. So, I was like, "There's a real need here." So, that was the impetus for launching Kinside, I said, "We have to solve this problem." And mind you, I didn't have a solution. I didn't know what... That's the thing, when you are... Someone said, "Fall in love with the problem, not the solution." Though, here's a problem. And going through the entrepreneurial journey is from idea to actual product, out to market, even a rinky-dink minimum viable product takes a lot of evolution. Shadiah Sigala: For me, that evolution was fairly short because I moved really, really quickly, generally, as a person, but also because... And I actually would go back, Patricia, to your other question, which is like, what's your... The proudest from HoneyBook? I would say, I'm not proud, but I'm incredibly grateful that I had this first experience scaling up a company very rapidly, so that I could do that, again, a concise and double speed. And so, in the last two years, we've only been around... Not even two years, we've raised under $5 million in venture capital. Patty Vest: Wow. Shadiah Sigala: Well, why did we raise money? It's not just like we raise money. It's because we've had incredible results, incredible traction, and we work with thousands of employers today. So, this idea that there was something missing, proven, there's a market for this. Patty Vest: So, how does Kinside work? Somebody who doesn't know about Kinside, how does Kinside work? Shadiah Sigala: Great question. So, Kinside is the place where parents come to access high quality, vetted, licensed childcare. Now, this is not just any parent, this exists only as an employee benefit. So, we partner with companies or employers who say, "Hey, I really want to... I'm choosing to invest in my current employees." They purchase Kinside. And in turn, those employees have access to a huge database and network of daycare and preschool providers that we, Kinside, have negotiated, pre-negotiated rates, tuition, discounts, and reserved availabilities on their behalf, right? Shadiah Sigala: So, think about it as... The user experience is like the Airbnb for childcare, in a very simple way. Now, I need it here, I need it to be home base, I want it in this budget. And that's not it. That's not everything, you can book a tour, enroll on Kinside, and get access, as I said, to thousands of exclusive tuition rates that we've negotiate on your behalf, as well as reserved spots that we've negotiated on your house. Patty Vest: And the availability, I think it's also- Shadiah Sigala: So, it's membership. Patty Vest: ... so huge. Because- Shadiah Sigala: It's the availability. It doesn't help, if you have 10 daycares near your area, and you have no clue who's available, who will take your kid who's a four month old, who has spot for two twins? [crosstalk 00:45:19]. Patty Vest: It almost seems like even if you tour daycares, when you're pregnant, there's still no chance or guarantee. Shadiah Sigala: That's exactly right. So, we liken it to, think about a time before OpenTable, and you had to look at the yellow pages, and then call 10 restaurants to find who has a reservation available, then you sign up for it. So, we essentially, have basically, developed the grid that identifies all of the home based and center based daycares in America. Then we tap into them with software and find out, where are the availabilities? What is the cost? We create all the information transparency, so that you, as a consumer, as a parent, you come in and you get exactly what you need. If you need care today or three months from now, we know exactly when that care is available. Mark Wood: Shadiah, you've talked several times about your networking with Pomona grads in various places and how they helped you get going in your business work. I happen to know you also stayed pretty close to some of your old friends at Pomona. Can you talk a little bit about that network and how important that has been for you? Shadiah Sigala: I developed the closest relationships of my life at Pomona. I think a lot of people do in their college, right? In their college years. But my group of friends from Pomona... So, I have a lot of friends, and then I have a core group of friends. And my core group of friends are... So, they're like... We're such an eclectic mix. In fact, when we were in college at Pomona, we didn't even hang out all the time together, we all had... Some were in sports, and so, they had their sports friends. And it's like, who do you have lunch with? [inaudible 00:47:19] or whatever, it's like, we didn't even have lunch together. We were not even in the same sort of day-to-day groups. Shadiah Sigala: But our friendships were formed over study abroad experiences and internship experiences and traveling the world together experiences. And to this day, we have a WhatsApp group, there's five of us. By the way, this is kind of sad, but it's like, make a lot of friends in college because it's the last time you can make friends, because it's really hard to make friends afterward. There are five of us and we talk on WhatsApp all day long. And then, I would say that there's maybe another group of 10 outside of those who I keep very close relationships with as well. Mark Wood: So, on that note, we're going to have to wrap this up. We've been talking with, Shadiah Sigala, class of '06, co-founder of Kinside. Thanks, Shadiah. Shadiah Sigala: It's my pleasure. Thank you. Patty Vest: Thank you, Shadiah. That was great. And to all who stuck with us this far, thanks for listening to Sagecast, the podcast of Pomona College. Stay safe, and until next time.