Leveraging Leadership

Inside a Startup: From Interview Process to Product Launch in Women’s Health

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 147

Share episode

Maya Ayed, Chief of Staff at Amira Health, shares her journey from big tech to startups, including hosting events to build her network. She explains Amira Health's mission to help women with menopause sleep better using a wristband and cooling pad. Maya discusses the importance of storytelling, how her team uses OKRs, and her memorable experience at CES launching their product.

Links Mentioned:


Free Resources:


Get in Touch With Emily:


Who Am I?
If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 


Time Stamps:
00:48 Maya's Journey to Chief of Staff
04:18 The Two-Week Trial Experience
08:33 Team Structure and Roles
11:30 Implementing OKRs
19:07 The Importance of Storytelling
22:49 Learning from Mistakes
25:57 Tools and Resources for Chiefs of Staff
29:56 Memorable Moments and Team Bonding

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

our guest today is Maya Ayed and she is the chief of staff for Amira Health. Maya, welcome to the show.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Thank you, Emily. I'm excited.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

I'm excited to look at all professional in your, in your fancy office there. So

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Well,

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

we'll get a view of things.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

They're forcing me. That's not my choice.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Very cool. Well, excited to talk to you today. Um, can you first start off by telling us how you got into the chief of staff role?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah, of course. It's a very funny story. It's not your typical story of how you really get into a chief of staff role, but I will share it. So, a year ago, I have made kind of the bold move to go from tech. to startups. I really wanted to work in startups. I really wanted to get experience learning how actually you build a company and kind of knew the field that I wanted to go in. I wanted to go in women's health and I wanted to learn how to actually build a company. But the bad news is that I didn't have the network or like the experience. I was, again, in big tech, I was doing marketing for them. So not really quite the experience to like go and build a company. And I was like, okay, like, what are the things that I can do to actually build that? So I started to host events in San Francisco where I brought like, um, founders building in that space together. So around panel, um, dinner and different kinds of events. And one of the panel that I hosted, I had a speaker come in and she was like the founder and CEO of this like menopause tech company. she, we grabbed coffee, like probably a month later. And I asked her this, like same questions. Like, so my goal is to actually, um, learn how to really build like company that can like, Um, impact women's health lives. Like, this is like something that I care a lot about. Like, how can I actually get into this field? And she advised me to actually go join an early stage startup and learn on the ground there. And then she was like, well, I would do this and that. And as she was talking, she realized that. would love to actually work with me and she would love to have me on the team. And she was like, well, we're only a team of engineers. We would love to have someone who, you know, really care about the customers and like, can actually bring in that, um, insights of like talking to users, making sure that they're always like, um, that their feedback is taking into account. And. The next day I come into the office in San Francisco in the Mission District at 9 a. m. And here I am doing a two week trial to see actually like is this like a good partnership? It's like, you know, it's just You know, something that we should actually pursue in the long run. And it actually ended up being the case. So that was really exciting. back to not your typical story, but I think that this is kind of the best way to actually go about finding the Chief of Staff role.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Very cool.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

my, yeah, I was talking to my friend who just asked me the same question. I just said, I think that you should, if you're looking into If you're looking into joining a company as a chief of staff, I think the first thing that you actually need to do is to if you're fit with the person that you're going to be working with. So instead of like the role in itself, it's like, you first have to go with like, is, are we a good fit to work together? And then is this a good fit for you? As like in the role, but I would argue that like as a chief of staff, you get to choose to work on whatever you want. So essentially, you know, got to make it work with the person.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

I agree a hundred percent on the emphasis on, is this a good fit? With my principal, because you guys are going to be working very closely together. And if that's not a good relationship, then the whole thing kind of falls apart. So I'm just curious, you mentioned a two week trial run. So what were you doing in those two weeks? Was it just certain projects? Are we just shadowing, um, your principal, what types of things were happening?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Good question. So first, the reason that we do a two week trial and we still do it now when we hire people is that we want to make sure that it's really a good relationship before, you know, uh, signing up and like saying yes, also it kind of gives time for the person to get to know the business. So when I joined in. For the two week trial, the first thing that I worked and was like, okay, well, the, um, engineers are like building the product. We need to have someone who actually thinks about how we're going to bring this product to market. And so I was kind of like in the position of like, how are we going to make sure that we communicate the value of this product to our, um, women? How do we make sure we have testers? How, how do we kind of like. You know, get their feedback and incorporate it into the product. And so I did a lot of market research during the first week. I joined in and did a lot of market research. I learned also about, like, just the space, like menopause in general. Like, you're not, if you're, If you're in your twenties, you know, I mean, you're a woman, but still like, you still like, don't know about menopause. So I think I just did a lot of work around what is menopause? Like what happens? Um, I did also a lot of research how do women perceive menopause? How should we talk about it? Um, the bigger, what's the biggest problem? So a lot of like, kind of data also trying to find the data. And then the second week was like, okay, this is the plan that I will kind Proposed to the team, like the go to market plan, and then I will execute on.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Okay. So that was kind of the market research pieces and connecting what the engineers were doing. With how that connects with customers and where they're like their actual lives. Just for context to zoom out for a second. Can you give listeners just a quick overview of what Amira health does?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah, absolutely. So at Amira Health, we help women who go through menopause experiencing nighttime hot flashes actually sleep through those discomfort at night. And so the way that we do that is that we predict their hot flash with a wristband wearable that they will be wearing. And we cool them down automatically through a cooling pad, mattress pad, um, that they will be sleeping on. So the product is actually like, um, two kind of components, the wristband, the wearable that predicts, and then the, um, preemptive cooling that happens, um, through the pad.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Oh, cool. And just out of curiosity, is that like, do you wear that wristband all day or just at night, or do you need to catch the full, like 24 hour circadian rhythm or whatever?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah. Good question. You only have to wear it at night in order to, um, that cooling. Yeah. To get that cooling. So it's it's specifically for nighttime health flashes. And the reason is because we have found that sleep is the um, well, sleep is the cornerstone of like health. So that's if you don't, if you just don't have good sleep, it's very hard to operate on so many levels. This is another topic for another conversation. And what we really wanted to hone in on is how to make sure that who are like Okay. going through this, like, war, having these symptoms or actually being able to like sleep through them and having like good night of sleep. And so that's why we really focused on like nighttime hot flashes. Of course, the vision is to like provide relief in any, um, like daytime, nighttime, but in order to be really like good, we wanted to focus on this, um, area.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Yeah, very cool. Yeah. I remember early in my career, there was, um, what was she like? She was one of our VPs or something. And there was like this certain stretch of. Of her and I being in meetings and like group meetings, and she would always ask for a fan. And she would have a fan right next to her. I was like, that is the oddest thing. And then like later on, I had conversations with older colleagues who were like explaining what was happening. I was like, Oh my gosh. But just like you said, I was in my early twenties. I was, this was the furthest thing from my mind, but it's something that comes up, uh, in the daytime too, of course. So thank you for that background. Can you talk us through the structure of your team? Because you kind of serve this, this connector role. And so I want to make sure that people understand the setup of your leadership team,

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah. So as Every startups, uh, we, we are a very small team. Uh, we want to be very lean and very focused. And so the team structure is so the CEO, the CTO and the COO, and then me as a chief of staff, and then one more engineer. And so. We have, so I work with the CEO directly and, um, sometimes the CEO as well. And the CTO works with the engineer. And so there are like specific, for example, go to market I'm focused on it with the CEO. And the CEO helps with the testing side. So we actually, um, talk together to make sure that like, whatever is being tested is like things that are also like, um, thought through, um, in the go to market plan. And. Yeah, so we're a small team.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

and then you played a important role when you first got there and possibly still do, which was connecting the CEO and the message and the information to the rest of the team. So can you talk a little bit about your role as the, as the conduit or catalyst for those types of communications?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah, this is a really, um, good point. I think that when I, when I joined in, I was like, okay, like, what are my skills? What are the things that I can actually, like, um, help the team with? And something that I have found is that, like, I am, you know, The person who gets exposure to all of this different areas, right? Like no one can really go go in and to all of these meetings because it'll be a waste of time for everybody. So everyone should focus should be focused. I will like have these meetings with um leaders So like cto the coo the ceo and make sure that Um, you know, the I've set up the OKR structure. So making sure that we have those OKR like pulled in and that we go over them during our meetings. And so I will be really, really focused on, like, making sure that, um, moving, we're still on track for our goals. And I will kind of like report back to like the CEO with all of these like updates so that like when she goes and like speaks or like raises, like she knows like she has all of the insights and so this, this kind of like more on the weekly basis when it comes to like monthly we have a meeting. So monthly meeting and then quarterly meetings where we meet every quarter all together and we go over any updates, but essentially on a day to day and weekly basis, I'm kind of like having those conversations and siloed and bringing them back to, like, whoever the leader is in that area that needs, like, to be heard. Information.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Interesting. Okay. So, and just curious, how are you guys using OKRs? Do you like them? Is it working well? Are there some challenges or struggles? I'm always interested in the, kind of the strategic planning process, uh, pieces of this,

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah, I have, it's, it's funny because the first time I actually implemented the OKR on the team, I didn't do that much like homework or like research around what are OKRs? How should they be like, what, what is the goal of an OKR in itself? What's the OKR of an OKR? It was like very much, okay. I know this is something that needs to be done. It's kind of like goals and objectives, but we'll just put them. And so I. And I did it really fast. So I just put it in an art notion and I didn't really explain to the team. I kind of assumed that the team would figure it out. Like why, like we're doing this. then I saw that it was very, very hard for the team to actually implement that, to actually like, you know, um, make them happen and make sure that we are on track for those OCRs that we have set and. I kind of backed up and like, was like, okay, like, I think there's something that's not working. I think I need to do a little bit more research and really, really understand how to implement those in a way that is actually meaningful. And so I went in and I read a bunch of articles and like documents on like, OKRs, um, where they came from, why are they a thing? And I listened to a bunch of podcasts as well. So I did my research and then I like had a meeting with the team and I was like, Hey, going to do them, but, but I want everyone to really understand why we're doing this. So I give the team examples. We did a little exercise to have them do also, uh, provide also examples of what an OKR could be and really understand. So this was a time for the team to actually ask, like, what's the difference between like a key results and objective, but what's the difference? What's the difference between like a task and a key result because the task were under key results. So there were a lot of questions that came up. And so I spend a lot of time doing that. And I want to emphasize on this just because I think that whenever you implement something in a company, like never assume that they know, it's always like, make sure that you actually explain what the goal is. I also did like, you know, a little exercise around the values to make sure that we're all aligned on the values. But before like diving in and asking like, Oh, do you think should be our company values or like, what is a value that you care about? I was like, well, do you know the importance of the value? Like, do you know why it's important? And so I went in and explained that, but so back to the OKRs, the way that I did it was like very, like simple. I was like, we have the company divided in like three sections. We have go to market. So everything that sells customer interface, um, or customer facing. The second is like tech. So everything that's product. And the third one was like testing making sure that we're testing the product, we're consumer hardware. So it's very important that we keep like testing and making sure that we're, um. Accumulating data, I went to each leader and had a meeting with them and ask them to like, what is the most important thing that should be done in the next like month and quarter? And then. work like backwards and we're like, okay, let's set up like the objective, which the objective, um, is what needs to be done in this quarter. And then the key results of like, what is the, what, what are the things that we, so if we do, so technically, if you do all of the key results. Then the objective should be like, um, achieved essentially. Otherwise that means that all of your key resources that you have said are not, um, really strong. So, um, for example, I'll give an example to get a little bit more specific here, which is we have a, an objective of selling 50 units. By Q2. Okay. What are the things that needs to be done in like, what's, what's an example of a key results? key result here would be to make sure that we're combat converting all of our testers into, um, uh, paying customers. And so we will set like a percentage, okay. Uh, convert the key result will be convert at least like 25 percent of like testers. As, um, customers and so we set the, and then you have a bunch of other key results, but like, you know, that if you don't get the key results done, there's no chance you're going to get the goal done. However, if you do all of the key results. And you still haven't achieved your goal. That means that you did your best. Or that the key results that you have set needs to be adjusted. So they're actually more realistic. So I want to like preface that like OKRs is not just like something like set in stones. It's something that you actually set and you do an exercise every like month. You actually and iterate on your process of making, of like implementing an OKR. Not only like What you put as like a key result, but also your process, like what was the thing that like actually worked well and in every startups, it's going to be different.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

I think that.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

long, but it's,

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

that was a beautiful. I love that example. And I'm, I think it's an important distinction you had at the end, which is sometimes you meet and say, how are we doing on our key results? Like, how are we tracking to our objective? And that is an important type of meeting. But another type of meeting is, let's zoom out and look at the strategy and process itself. Like, is the thing we've set up, Working like we intended and I think especially at smaller companies who are implementing OKRs or another methodology for the first time, they're going to have to do that refining and fine tuning and checking the process itself. And so, I mean, for the example you gave, if, if you didn't have any, Previous benchmark data, you might say 25 percent is kind of our best guess. We think that'll get us to our objective and you track that. But then you're also saying, is that getting us to where we want to go? And if not, then tweak that. So you're actually measuring or you're providing the inputs that will get you to your outcome. So I really like that distinction between kind of, kind of working. Tactically toward meeting the key result and objective and also looking high level strategic at the process itself.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah, totally. You never get it right the first time when you, when you just like start to like implement OKRs, like it's very hard. It's like you have to make sure that the team knows like how to be realistic, what to make sure that like, and get to know themselves, like what can they actually get, get done in like, you know, three months. Yeah,

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Yeah. How to be realistic. That could be a whole other podcast and conversation because that can be tough. That can be tough depending on personalities. I've seen people promise like the sky and the moon and it's like, are you really going to be able to do that in the next three weeks? And then I have people being so conservative where it's like, I don't. I don't want to have any fear of not meeting or exceeding my goal. So I'm going to make it so tiny. So I think that's, uh, another good point as well. You had mentioned this role. You've learned a lot about the intangible skill sets and kind of, there's like the hard skills and empirical things that you need to. Maybe accumulate on a resume, so to speak, but there's also these just business acumen and experience in these different interactions with customers and investors and colleagues and things like that. So I'm wondering what have you found in terms of intangible skills that you've picked up in your chief of staff role?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah. I have a lot of thoughts around that, but I would say the number one is I have found how storytelling is. I hate to say it because I feel like there's so many podcasts that speak about this, but it's really, really important. It is so crucial. For your business to actually know how to speak to customers, to investors, to your employees. And you basically need to be selling like the mission you need to be selling the product. And so at every. you actually need to be really good at storytelling and people were really, really resonated with stories. They really resonated with emotions. So you really have to get good at explaining the mission and why we're doing this. And that is really focusing on like helping our women actually like feel their best. Um, so I would say that was a big thing. I did a lot of work. Um, the founder that I worked with, Lohan was just, at storytelling. She was amazing. And I learned that from her. Um, and funny enough, we, we went to a conference together and we were out there also pitching to doctors to tell them about like, you know, what other options exist for these women. And what I have found is that at that time we were working on an AI health coach and you know, AI doctors, the word AI just doesn't like, You know, fit really well with doctors, you have to really like say it in a way that they can actually be inclined to listen to you. So you can't be like, because if you say like AI, they'll be like, Oh, like replacing or in a very like, like negative way. So I, and I, and so I went and like was pitching to one of the doctor and like, I had, I kind of had like this like negative feedback. With them and like, they answered in a way that was just like, you know, very unfortunate. And then Lohan went in and like, she spoke with the same doctors and she did them like amazing job, like really talking about like the company. And I was like, just like struck and I was like, wow, like, this is incredible. Like, she's so good. And so that was like very early in our, really in our like, um, time working together. And I, and I looked at her, I was like, well, and I want to learn like what you just did. Like, this is so amazing. Obviously I came in and knew nothing about startups. I was like, this is something that's so important. You need to really get people to listen to you in the first place. And so the best way to do that is storytelling. So that's kind of like, like the number one, um, thing that I would say was important. I think that. Making sure I think that's something that you kind of alluded to is like as a chief of staff, or you want to make sure that people are happy. You always want to make sure that people are like enjoying what they're doing, and they're always like motivating. So it's a lot of people skills, which is perfect for me because I'm really good with people, even, even, even though the example I just mentioned, but I think you just like get really good and you just learn and you. Yeah, I think, I think learning, um, talking to your colleagues, your teammates, but also like talking to people external, I think it's like, it's similar, but it's not the same. It's there's massive difference.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Yeah. And I mean, as chief of staff, especially in a small company, I mean, you are speaking to so many different people and constituents. You have your internal team members and maybe the media and doctors and then investors and things like this. So have you seen since the time when you identified, Oh my gosh, storytelling can be really powerful and a message given one way. Can be kind of medium effective and then present it another way. Oh my gosh. It opens up a whole conversation dialogue. So since that moment, and you've intentionally worked on that, are you to the point where you're like, yes, I have seen progress, I've kind of grown this skillset and it's benefiting me and the company in a whole bunch of different ways.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah, totally. I think that's something that helped me actually get to the point. improve is constantly speaking to women who would be potential customers and asking them the right questions. And I read the mom tests, um, someone in our team, like mentioned to me to read it. And it was just like amazing because I just had all of these questions and I would ask them. And it's so funny because I would pitch them as like, yeah, you're going to have like, you know, this AI, um, AI friend. And they were like, AI friend does just not land

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

I don't want to AI friend

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

you, I'm telling you right now to just don't say it. I'm like, okay, noted. So I think that you just learn by like doing a lot of mistakes and you want to make the mistakes like quick and you want to iterate it quick. So you want to make sure you're always like. Moving, but you're also learning. It's not like you're moving, you're moving, but not realizing you're doing the same mistake like twice. Um, so I I'd say that the best way for me, it was just constantly speaking to like women and menopause coach and going to these conferences and really being out there and understand what is the language that they're using themselves to speak about this product, right. Or like this, even like menopause, like. You know, something very, something very simple. I'm saying menopause, menopause is just one day after 12 months of not having your period. So basically what we should be using is perimenopause or postmenopause, um, or premenopause, but essentially like. You know, there's so many things like when you, when you get really deep into a, an industry or an industry, not industry, but like, um, in, in the space and, um, around this time of life, you understand that there are so many different, um, iterations of how to speak about it.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

and I think we're storytelling and using the audiences or customers own language comes into play it like the marketing. It's like you might know what someone needs to solve their problem. Like, I mean, what's a good, like weight loss, right? So it's like weight loss, you, you eat cleaner and you exercise or move around more like that's like, everyone knows that. But translating. The message to where your customers are and what they are saying to themselves, like what their problem is to themselves, finding that out and then literally speaking their own language. And maybe you open, you know, you open that door by speaking their own language, they step in and then you show them another door to get out, which is your solution. So meeting them where they're at and figuring out, all right, What are they saying to themselves or what are they saying to their friends or family about this perceived problem and then matching that I'm speaking your language I get you and then bringing them in and then showing you Hey, I have a solution that actually does this so sometimes there's a little a little bit of a strategy in there, but for sharing that. What, um, What resources or tools would you suggest for chiefs of staff, whether that's how to stay organized or whether that's how to develop skills like communication and storytelling. Are there any go to things that, um, that you've used and have seen be successful?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah, definitely. I have so many. Um, so I use one called ambient. us. So if you look it up, it's called ambient. us. It's an AI assistant, essentially for a chief of staff. Um, and it's amazing. It's like, I, there's so many AI reporters out there nowadays. Like sometimes you'll go to a meeting and You'll actually just be surrounded with more AI note takers than like humans. And sometimes you'll just have the AI, not even the human with it. So it's a very interesting space, but I would definitely, um, recommend this, um, AI assistant that I've been using. Basically it's a, um, kind of like a recording. So it comes into the meeting, it takes node. And like, obviously you can like let them in or let them out if you don't want them in the meeting, but they would come in and, um, they would send you like a summary. And so you have this dashboard with all of the summary from your meetings, and then you can actually make them into action items. And my favorite part of it is like, you have this like. It's, it's, uh, structured in like an Einstein matrix. So basically you can pull in the action items that are an urgent and important and like take off the ones that are not. And so you can play around with it. And it's, it just has been fabulous. Um, and. Yeah, I, I, someone who attends a lot of meetings and need to take notes, this has been just so helpful because I can actually focus on like what people are saying and be able to reply back instead of like just being focused on like, taking notes, which I think nowadays we don't need to do that anymore. Um, a second one would be notion. I am a big fan of notion. I think that when it comes to storing, um, data and like having databases, it's just fabulous. You have everything just in one place. You don't have to go to many different spots. Um, and yeah, it's just been amazing. I actually, um, moved the entire company to notion. I was like, guys, we got to move all to notion. I'll organize it for you, but let's do it. It's It's so much better. And then you can color code it and then so many fun things.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Has that been adopted by everyone else?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Yeah. Yeah.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Yeah.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

a lot of hard work in order to do so. I had to like do notion office hours. So.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Yeah. But I mean, once you get everyone into like one system of record that everyone is using, it's so much, so much cleaner. So that's, that's great.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

just so much cleaner. Like I love Google drive. I think it's also, you can make it into a very clean way, but I think there's no way to connecting like directly different docs, like for example, you can connect one docs, but then you have to like go into, and it's like just a bunch of tabs. The good thing about notion is like, it's not in like, I mean, you can have it as tabs, but essentially like a dashboard and then you can navigate it in a way that's a little bit more smooth.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Very cool. Okay, so, uh, Ambient, and we did have Lawrence Coburn on, who founded Ambient, so he, uh, he is a friend of the show, and then Notion is a popular one. Yeah!

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

to babysit his daughter.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

No way! What?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

This is

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Okay.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

I used to be a student in, um, San Francisco. Um, I, like, did a lot of mini jobs and I babysat Lauren's daughter. Yeah,

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

is crazy.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

and I'm a big fan of like, his product. Not because it's my friend, because it's actually so good.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Lawrence, you should be, you should be giving Maya a free subscription for all the babysitting. Um, very cool. Very cool. Um, last question here. What is your favorite part or memorable moment from being chief of staff?

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Why'd you put me on the spot like that? I have so many. Okay. My memorable, I think the, like that I really look up, um, as a, as a beautiful memory was when we went to CES, so the consumer electronics showcase, and we exhibited a booth there and we launched the product there. So there was a lot of work that went into, CES. And I remember it was like the last day of CES and we were all like having dinner together and. I think like the few hours before we just got like our first few sales and we just got super excited and that was like, just the best way to wrap up. Like this intense days, CES is so intense we were just having like dinner together and like going around and saying like, what has worked and what didn't work, but like, I really felt like we were, you know, we were on this mission together and I think there's no greater feeling than actually feeling, um, Like you just, you have a team that you can like, um, this experience with, cause it's like, it's a ride, right? It's a roller coaster, I would say. And it's, it's, you have ups and downs, but it's all about like making sure. always, um, you're always enjoying the ride and not like. Yes. You want to get to the destination, but the journey should be essentially like a very core, um, part of, um, your success.

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

I love that story. Yes. And when you, yeah, so, um, I'm going to share this story. So a long time ago when I worked for a company, uh, called G2, we had our annual risk summit and it was in London. It was like our biggest event of the year by far, like hundreds of people came in from all over the world and our team worked so hard behind the scenes to put that thing together. And I remember our Marketing director at the time. Um, Cassandra was just like, she was like working like literally like 16, 18 hour days. And at the end of that risk summit, everything had gone well and all the events and catering and lights and speakers and everything. And she and I were so exhausted. We were sitting there and there was this one tower of cream puffs that we had had for one of our like buffets and it was left over and we just both looked at it. And we were like, are we going to do this? And we just ate a whole bunch of cream puffs off the tower. And usually like Cass and I were pretty like health conscious. But like, at that point we were like, we're done. We have been up for like, you know, 72 hours straight. We're just going to scarf down these cream puffs. But it was like moments like that. And then other team members came to join us. And we were just like, this is, we're a team. We did it. We did our risk summit. But that story just reminded me of sitting there being like, this is my 12th cream puff and I don't care.

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

That's so funny. I mean, yeah, you do feel, I would argue you would feel closer to your team when you actually go through the pain, the painful moments, like together and you, you know, get out of it, like, and you're, you're still like, you know, alive and you're like, wow, like we did that together. And like, You know, and that's why we did it. I

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

Yeah,

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

think that's what life should be about. Like you do things with people, you, yeah, you can tell I'm a very people person. I love

emily-sander_1_06-13-2024_090456:

totally. And it's like, like you said, it's those, it's those moments. It's like those memorable, like we did something, we accomplished something. It was a team effort. And, um, yeah, so, so cream puffs and people will, we'll leave it on that. But Maya, thank you so much for coming on. It's been great speaking with you. And I think people will learn a lot from this conversation in terms of. You know, storytelling and, okay. Ours and strategic planning and also, how to, how to message things to different audiences. So

maya--she-her-_1_06-13-2024_120455:

Thank you so much, Emily, for having me.