Episode Summary:
In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Jessica shares how she found that the entrepreneur's path was one for her and why she believes disruptive ideas can change the world.
6 Key Takeaways:
About Jessica Jackley:
Jessica Jackley is an entrepreneur, investor and speaker. Over the last decade she has focused on financial inclusion, the sharing economy and social justice. She is also the founder of Alltruists and a co-founder of Untapped Capital. Jessica also co-founded Kiva, the first crowdfunding site for global microenterprises. Since 2005, Kiva has facilitated over $1.5B in loans worldwide. Jessica has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a certificate in Global Leadership and Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Bucknell University, and honorary PhDs from Centenary College and Quinnipiac University. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Reza, and their four children.
Quotes from the Episode:
Resources from the Episode:
Episode Summary:
In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, Jessica shares how she found that the entrepreneur's path was one for her and why she believes disruptive ideas can change the world.
6 Key Takeaways:
About Jessica Jackley:
Jessica Jackley is an entrepreneur, investor and speaker. Over the last decade she has focused on financial inclusion, the sharing economy and social justice. She is also the founder of Alltruists and a co-founder of Untapped Capital. Jessica also co-founded Kiva, the first crowdfunding site for global microenterprises. Since 2005, Kiva has facilitated over $1.5B in loans worldwide. Jessica has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, a certificate in Global Leadership and Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Bucknell University, and honorary PhDs from Centenary College and Quinnipiac University. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband, Reza, and their four children.
Quotes from the Episode:
Resources from the Episode:
Hey leader, and welcome to episode number 307 of the L three leadership podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith and I am your host and today's episode is brought to you by my friends at barong advisors. If you're new to the podcast, welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. And I hope that you'll enjoy our content and become a subscriber, know that you can also watch all of our episodes over on our YouTube channel as well. So subscribe there if you prefer YouTube. And if you've been listening to us for a while, thank you so much, make sure that you're subscribed. So you get all of the UpToDate content every single week. And if it's made an impact on your life, it would mean the world. To me. If you would leave us a rating and review on apple podcast or whatever app you listen to podcast through, it really does help us to grow our audience and reach more leaders, which is our whole goal here at L three leadership. And in recent episodes, I've been highlighting some of the reviews that you've left. And today I wanna highlight Brie smalls review. Bri said this. She said leadership is hard and this podcast is real, honest and challenging. It's everything that a leader needs to hear. Thank you so much for that review Brie. It fires me up and thank you in advance for all of you who are gonna go out and leave ratings and reviews. And again, that really does help us reach more leaders. So thank you in advance for that. Well, in today's episode of the podcast, you'll hear my conversation with Jessica. Jackley. I've been one need to interview Jessica for a long time. So it was an honor to finally be able to sit down and have a conversation with her. And for those who may not know, Jessica, let me just tell you a little bit about her. She's an entrepreneur investor and speaker her work over the last decade is focused on financial inclusion, the sharing economy and social justice. Currently she's the founder of altruists offering at home kid-friendly volunteer projects for families and a co-founder and general partner at untapped capital. You'll hear, share a little bit more about the story of Keva and what she learned there, her thoughts on necessary endings and what she's up to now, which is pretty awesome. So you're gonna love this episode, but before we get into it, just a few announcements. This episode of the L three leadership podcast is sponsored by barong advisors, the financial advisors at Barung advisors, educate and empower clients to make informed financial decisions. You can find out how Barung advisors can help you develop a customized financial plan for your financial future by visiting their website@barongadvisors.com. That's B a T U N G advisors.com securities and investment products and services offered through LPL I financial member, FINRA, and S I P C bear, tongue advisors, LPL financial, and L three leadership are separate entities. I also wanna thank our sponsor. He jewelers they're a jeweler owned by my friend and mentor John. He, my wife LAR, and I got our engagement and wedding rings at he jewelers. And we just had a wonderful experience. And not only do they have great jewel, but they also invest in people. In fact, every couple that comes in engaged to their store, they give them a book to help them prepare for their marriage. And we just love that. So if you're in need of a good jeweler, check out, he jewelers.com. And with all that being said, here's my conversation with Jessica Jackley and joy. Well, Hey Jessica, thank you so much for being willing to do this interview. It was fun. Just catching up with you and realizing that yes, you know, you know, my wife, since she was probably three or four, maybe even younger, uh, so great connection there. We went to the same high school and I'm really excited for this conversation. And, you know, you're most known for starting Kiva and in your book, actually's Seth go wrote this about you. I thought it was an interesting place. We could start. He said, Jessica Jackson, Jessica Jackley, didn't wait for permission to change the world. She just did it. It turns out you can too. I love that description of you. Can you just say a little bit more about that and what that means to you?
Speaker 2:Yes. I mean, it's, um, it's funny. There are all these, I think pretty cheesy kind of, of cliche, uh, sayings that you hear around Silicon valley in particular, but in the startup world about like move fast break stuff, you know, get, get out there and basically be bold. And it sounds at first Blu, it sounds like sloppy, like just get in there, bull in a China shop, do your thing, and then like suffer the con or deal with the cop puts later. And I think there's certainly an attitude of like, you need to test and try and make something real, even in a small scrappy, rough around the edges way to really understand how the world will respond to it. And I love that piece of it. I love the spirit of it when it's, when it's that. What I, what I don't love is obviously, I mean, nobody would say this, but like the connotation of being irresponsible about grabbing some resources, getting out there and testing, um, you know, putting, putting things out that are where you haven't done your homework, you know what I'm saying? So, yeah, the permission piece in particular that Seth talks about I love and is a big part of my story because I felt like I grew up in this beautiful, wonderful, supportive community. And the rules really worked for me, like getting permission and then maxing out whatever the boundaries were that existed. Like, like doing something great within boundaries, doing something great after I had permission, that was the way I live my life for a long time. Um, I didn't feel like it held me back, but then as I got out into the real world and started my career, I realized there's really no one to give you permission to go build something, um, and, and be an entrepreneur or live and work preneur. It's a lot about, um, just deciding this is what's gonna happen next. I'm gonna go do it. And, and that's a beautiful sense. So I'm grateful for that quote. I, I love it. And it, it definitely resonates with, um, a lot of pieces and a lot of steps that I've gotten to take.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I'm, I'm just curious about your upbringing, you know, I know your brother very well as well, and, uh, you two are incredible and doing incredible things. And so I'm just curious, you know, were you always wired the way you are entrepreneurial or was that something that was curated, you talked about, you know, you ultimately found out that no one has to give you permission, but did you, did you feel freedom to go change the world by the way that you were raised by your parents or your grandparents? What did that look like?
Speaker 2:Totally. I, I guess I would say this, I never would've used the word entrepreneurial. It was an unfamiliar and kind of weird word to me. I, I, I don't think I used it ever to describe myself until after Kiva had started and other people were talking about it as, um, in a different way. And I realized, oh yeah, I guess that, I guess we did become entrepreneurs through that. That's interesting social entrepreneurs. Cool. But it wasn't a word that I liked or resonated with me because I, I connected with, I connected it with business and I thought, I mean, I was wrong, you know, spoiler, the story changed. And I, I realized I was incorrect, but in a pretty black and white way, I thought about businesses, bad businesses about taking and tricking people to give you their money and getting, you know, getting them to buy something they didn't need in the first place. I just wasn't into it. And a lot of the businesses were building or making things like that. I, that didn't matter that nobody needed more of. Um, and so I skipped over like wanting to learn anything about that. I never took a business course, nothing. And instead, you know, I studied philosophy and poetry and political science, things like that in, and, um, I wanted to ask and answer big questions and I thought if I, you know, truth lives everywhere. If I can get at it, if I can figure out what's true and real and how, you know, I, I just so believed that. And I do believe that when you are correct and, um, true and, and authentic in terms of understanding what you believe, holding onto those, even just a handful of, of tr I keep using the word truth. I'm trying to think of another one, but like those values that you hold the, the way the frameworks can guide you to be really effective in the world. If, if you, if you get those basic building blocks of how you see other people, how you see the world, what, you know, um, matters in the, the world. I think that everything stems from that, and to me, businesses, again, broad brush jokes. I'm summarizing like decades of my life, businesses were making stuff that didn't matter to me. And I saw a lot of nonprofits doing the good stuff, like actually being helpers and contributors and givers. And in so many ways, being the opposite of big, bad, evil business, the way I in categorize it, it's a long answer, but I, I, I thought entrepreneurs, oh my gosh, they're like the gang leaders. They're starting new businesses. Like, no, thank you. No, but what I did know is that I wanted to go make things happen in the world. I wanted, I wanted to move around researches and people to like fix and heal and set things. Right. And kind of nudge systems towards being more just, I, I had a lot of aspirations to do that. I honestly didn't necessarily think it would mean starting something from scratch. Not just once, but now looking back over the last 20 years, many times I was ready to jump into a great organization and like do my best and follow the rules. And like, I don't even know what I was thinking exactly. Cause it's not a, a clear path, but work my way up or something to like run an amazing nonprofit. Um, and I know this is a long answer, but I have to tell you, I had this vivid memory and I talked about it earlier this week in a different podcast recording. And so it's fresh, but I remember, so I was an intern for world vision one summer. And one of the things that I did was manage the child sponsorship program at the time, or parts of it not manage the whole darn thing, but I was like trying to push that program forward and, um, get the word out about it. So tiny role. But that was the area that I got to dabble in. And I remember I had like this file drawer down to the, anyone that's seeing this video and like looking to the bottom. Right. Cause I would open the drawer and they would be there like photographs of kids on paper, super old school, not digitized, nothing like that. And uh, I remember having this great learning so much doing what I could do to like help the kids in the drawer. And then I remember near the end of the summer world vision got a new leader and it was rich Sterns. Okay. Now I don't know offhand. I should just look this up. I should have after I said it a few days ago. I don't know if he's still there today. I think he probably is. But I remember thinking, wait, what, who's this business guy he worked at like Lenox or something. It was just, it felt to me like super unrelated, like this business, doing something that was not about relief and development. And I was like, who's this business guy coming in to run things. I don't get it. Like who, why wouldn't someone in the organization kinda like work their way up to become the next leader. And that's not what happened. And that was one of the very first moments for me where I was like, maybe business skills, entre, think like maybe there's something there. Maybe it could be used for good. Cause clearly this guy's background. Somebody out there thinks is gonna be useful. Of course he's an incredible leader. Um, long answer, not short answer. Nope. I didn't think of myself as an entrepreneur, but I did wanna go do stuff. And I would kind of do sort of agnostic as to like how and where and what that would look like, what my title would be. But I knew I wanted to get into the mix and make, make changes that could help people for anyone listening or watching that doesn't know. Um, what Kiva is we so way back in the spring of 2004, my goodness, I was doing, uh, an internship me in my internships in east Africa. And I was with the nonprofit that gave$100 grants to farmers and, um, boaters and small kiosk owners, maybe, you know, they'd sell onions and tomatoes. And that was it during, you know, during the day, maybe it was somebody raising chickens, maybe it was a tailor or seamstres that just made clothing by hand. And that was what they did to create a livelihood for themselves. So I was there seeing what$100 could do in the life of somebody doing a micro enterprise. And it was just sort of a magical experience for me, where I got to see again and again, how that tiny amount of money with some business training. One of the other places I saw, oh, business can be helpful, um, or business thinking, right. Um, I saw how much difference it made in those people's lives. I saw how becoming entrepreneurial in their thinking and kind of owning their own path, deciding to kind of bootstrap and lift themselves out of poverty by not just doing their day to day business activities, but building these micro enterprises that could become little machines for a sustainable livelihood to flow and flow into their families. I, I, I was blown away by a few things there. One like these stories that I was hearing direct from people in Kenyan, Uganda in Tanzania, living in very rural, very socioeconomically disadvantaged environments. I heard stories of hope and yeah, there were challenges too, but like it, wasn't just a carefully crafted marketing story that I heard from many well-intentioned nonprofits that would only talk about the sadness and suffering and desperation. And Hey, please, SWOP in, in help. I was talking to equal. Obviously I was talking to people who were doing unbelievable things day to day, more than I could have done with the little bit they had and what they needed was access to fair capital. And it just, it was such a different, not just a shift in my mindset, but in my heart, my heart, it had opened up, um, in a way that it hadn't before, because truthfully I wasn't, I didn't see a possibility from my role to be much more than a donor that felt really bad. Every time I heard this sad story and then I'd go on with my day. But when I was there meeting entrepreneurs, understanding the good, bad and challenging parts of their lives, like I saw that there was an opportunity to provide not just grants, which are great and actually super helpful for people at that, um, stage to like get under the first run of the economic ladder. But after that loans made a lot of sense for so many of them, naively, I didn't know about a lot of lending organizations that existed in Kenya and Uganda tends be at the time. And I thought, especially in these rural areas where nobody seemed to be reaching with a loan product, I thought, well, what if my friends, the family, we gathered together a little bit to money and loaned to my friends in Uganda. And, and that was the beginning of Kiva. And people loaned their money, you know, 25,$50 at a time, 0% interest to lenders. And then over a few, the, the first few months again was like early oh four. It was oh four and oh five. Uh, people were paid the first seven entrepreneurs that we loaned, I don't know, three thousand-ish dollars to and 300 and$500 loan amount was repaid. And, uh, my co-founder Matt and I basically said, I think this is a thing let's do another round and another and another, and over time he was, he was totally grown. So today and from day it's been a platform where anybody with a PayPal account or a credit card can go lend 25 50 or whatever. Um, you want to loan to amazing entrepreneurs that need access to fair capital. Uh, and over time you get repaid and you get to hear and kind of follow the story of their business successes over the course of the loan and 90, gosh, I don't even know exactly the numbers. The website is always smarter than I am on this. So we can double check my, uh, stats, but it's like nine it's always hovered around like 98, 90 9% repayment rates, which is amazing. Right. I mean, wow, it's incredible. And it's, it's because the individual that are supported on the platform do not have a lot to their names. This is their chance to change their lives and they take it. And they're incredible. Um, so yeah, just to give you like a, feeling a feel for how the years unfolded. So beta round, like little pilot round of loans was 3000 bucks. We took, we actually took the word, um, beta off of the site and said, no, we've launched for real, like nothing professional official happen. We weren't even like a registered 5 0 1[inaudible] at that point, I think. And then we, spamed more friends and family and said, here's another dozen entrepreneurs that need alone. We think it's legal. Let's do it that first year. We like scrambled and had more rounds and more rounds and more rounds of loans. And that year it was 500,000 in loans. The next year it was 15 million. The next 40, the next a hundred keep is closing in on like 1.7, if it's not cross already. But 1.7 ish billion in loans, 25 bucks at a time from everyday people all around the planet who say, yeah, I think this other person who today a, has a need that needs to be filled. I think they deserve a chance and I'm gonna lend to them. And I will take on default risk and currency exchange risk. And I will take the risk. It's probably gonna work out. And a lot of people have been given those opportunities that they wouldn't have otherwise had. So it's been a magical, beautiful thing to get, to be a part of long answers, long answers today, but you can edit and count, however you
Speaker 1:Need. I love long answers. Do you, do you have a favorite story maybe of an entrepreneur who got invested in and built a business? That was incredible.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's like asking, asking, do I have a favorite? I can't say yes. I will say that one of the go-tos for me is the, the story of the person after who, my name, my book, clay water brick. So, you know, one of the earliest people that I met, um, a guy I'll call Patrick, he basically talked about like fleeing the Northern area of Uganda. When a rebel group attacked his village, he lost everything, but he and his brother got away and they kind of landed on a border town, RO um, border of Kenn, Uganda with some cousins, but they had to survive. They were welcome to sort of crash with the family, but, um, they needed to figure out how to have a livelihood and contribute. So basically I'm, I'm summarizing quite a number of months and years unfolding in Patrick's life. But basically one day he starts to dig into the earth and learns that there are clay deposits, right in this sort of yard area and the land of his cousins. Were he staying? And if he mixes the CA clay with water, it can form bricks. And so he does this again and again, and again, again, day after day, I think it's better and better to the point where he can sell the bricks for like fractions of the penny each. So he does that again, day after day after day is able to eventually buy like a small wooden brick mold. Instantly his production goes up, he can do more and higher quality stuff. He does that day after day. Then he can buy a shovel, then he can buy a trial and he can buy some more tools. And when I met him, he was a few years into his business. He had several employees, he had built a handful of different houses around the community, out of these beautiful bricks. And, you know, there's so many other pieces like details to the story that are so fun. Like at one point he was like, huh, I can drive my bricks in the sun, but I know that they're stronger. If I can bake them in a kiln, let me figure out how to do that. So he learned from a guy on a nearby village and comes back and learns how to build his self-contained kiln and fire in the belly of it and make bricks itself or even more, and just continually makes these improvements to his venture that led him to be a leader in his community and provide a livelihood, not just for himself and his family, but for others too. So things like that. I mean, imagine hearing hundreds, literally hundreds of those stories over the years, I mean, probably thousands in terms of through Kiva's platform, but it's very, very hard to hone in on anyone that's more special than the other. They're all, it's kind of the point, right. Of, um, one of the many points, I guess, of Kiva, like every story deserves to be told every story is unique and worth hearing, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And thank you so much for initially seeing a need in doing something about it. I guess I, I would be curious. What, what career advice do you have for people? You know, you talked about, you were willing to just go work at an organization and make a difference and be happy with that, but then you saw a need and thought, Hey, there may be something here. I think there's a lot of leaders listening to, to this who may feel similar, Hey, I could work the job I'm in and continue to grow and develop and, and be happy. But I also occasionally see needs that. I feel like I'm supposed to do something about, or I have a dream or what would you tell them?
Speaker 2:I don't think making an organization up from scratch is necessarily better or more effective to get the job done. I wanna be really like careful about that. I think, you know, I certainly have lived in places. Silicon valley, Los Angeles is quite entrepreneurial in its own awesome way. Everyone's sort of an S Corp doing 20 things and has like a portfolio work. And it's really fun. But I think entrepreneurship can be over glorified as this like spectacular higher path. And it's one, you can, you can work preneur within a broader, a bigger organization. You can jump in to a new organization that's, you know, only a year old and has a handful of people. And like there's so many ways and places to contribute. I think the, the way that I like to think about it is when you have a new idea and it's, and it's disruptive in some way, like it threatens the status quo, it questions the way things have been done for a long time, um, know that there might be pushback. That's not always totally rational or data based from people in existing institutions who might have already invested a lot of time and energy and heart into doing things one way. So if you have a new way in a, in a, in a, you know, I gotta get into the psychology of it, but it's very threatening, right. To somebody who's like logged 20 years doing it the way it's always been done. So for, for, since we've gone into the key example, so deeply, you know, a lot of people in the nonprofit sector, we took it to organizations. We were like, this sounds fun. Right? Do you guys wanna do it? Can we do it for you? We don't even need to get paid, but what do you think? And they were like, no, no, no, no, too risky. It's weird. I don't get it. It's not a tax deductable donation. Nobody's gonna wanna do it. And then investor types, um, like VCs, et cetera, were like, I don't, I don't understand why aren't you trying to make, if these are actually gonna be successful, like why wouldn't there be even a tiny amount of interest, the market, it air quotes for those who can't see me, the market will want that there are a number of other pushbacks too. Um, but basically if you have an idea, think carefully and try to unpack, not just why people might push back, like, I'd say, do it where you are, do it, do it with whatever resources you have around you and, and try to get it done in the most like, efficient way. Right. Um, if it requires building something new or requires experimenting off to the side, that's cool. It's totally fine. Not better or worse, but if you can do it where you are, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot more like safety, so to speak or resilience to do it within an organization and, and a lot of nonprofits, by the way, I don't know how many of your listeners work in actual nonprofit or churches, but like, those are the places I think where a lot of innovation, a lot more innovation can happen than, than does already. It's, it's a, that's a whole other thread, but, um, lemme step, lemme step back. And you asked me for career advice. If somebody wants to go do something bigger or beyond what's in front of them day to day, and the job that they're currently in, I get guess my very specific advice would be, do a pilot, right? Do a project with a start and a finish something, discreet, name, your assumptions, test those assumptions. See what proves out to be true. See what you needed to tweak that wasn't quite what you expected it would be. And then go from there. So like Kiva, it was a start and finish. It was one round of loans. So seven people, we learned X, you know, X, Y, and Z. We did a second round and we like adjusted and, um, iterated. Right. And then did another one and another one and another one. That's a lot less pressure. And it's, um, like in and of itself, you'll get something good. Done probably versus the pressure of, I need to have the next decade planned. I need to have this grand like business plan with every scenario thought out and long term sort of, um, forecasts. Well, I mean, that's fun if you, like, I like to geek out on that stuff, but like, you can also say, I wanna try this specific thing with this specific group of people over the next three months or the next six months and do like a rapid prototype, get something out there, get feedback, then keep building on what's working. So that's my best advice. Like product level, timebound limited set of assumptions and set of, you know, goals and then learn as much as you can and then see where things are. And you might find you wanna change a lot. You might find you wanna stop. Wasn't what you thought it would be. You might find you've cracked something really big, and then you can build more rounds. You know,
Speaker 1:There's so much I want to go into based on several things you, you said, um, I did wanna ask one question though. Um, going back to, you talked about just, you know, most organizations, just market, the need of people of, Hey, this person's in dire need. And if you don't, you know, support, what have you learned? You started Kiva basically, cuz you care for people, uh, and specifically the poor and you opened your Ted talk, uh, with a scripture of Jesus, heart for the poor. I'm just curious, you know, over your journey. What have you learned about the poor and, and what the Bible cause the least of these in, in your, in your career?
Speaker 2:I think what people often forget all of us often forget is that we all have the same needs. We all need the basics, food, water, shelter, we all need, we all need the same things as human beings, right? What's crazy to me and amazing is that in my life, most of the needs are met, locked like EV every day, like clockwork easily. Not that I don't do my best and work hard and try to, you know, earn a living and contribute. Not of course those things are true, but in, in general, the number of days of my life, where I have truly been hungry, the number of days in my life where I couldn't access clean water, or I didn't have enough clothes on my back to be warm and cozy or that I slept in a, you know, any, anywhere other than a really comfortable bed, right. Like I have what I, I, my needs are met. It's not that they don't exist. And I think one of the gifts of getting to work all around the world with people who live in very different ways is it helps me understand just in a universal at this broad level, like what does it mean to be a human being on this planet and what incredible gifts like layers upon layers of gifts and love and generosity have, has enabled my life. Um, it really fuels me again. It's so selfish. Like it really fuels me with gratitude and I, I use that to do my best at giving back because what else could I possibly do? I mean, it's like, it's abundance, it's abundance upon abundance. I, I have everything, everything. And a lot of us have everything. A lot of people listening have everything, everything they need. And so to really be in touch with that, gosh, it's like a joy activation tool for sure. But also it makes you realize like how I don't. Okay. I'm hesitant with my words. Cause I don't wanna say how easy it is to help, but truthfully, you know, there's so much we could do every day. When I tell to people I'll be really direct with you when I talk to people who are like, gosh, I just, I don't know, you know, which organizations are worth giving to or where do I begin? I get it. And I also think, oh my God begin anywhere fricking like the whole world is broken and needs help. Just do anything. It'll be good, like get started and then you'll learn and you'll figure it out. But, um, you know, my it's funny too, cause I haven't talked about my book that much in years and here we are talking about it twice in a sitting at least, um, the tagline evidence, clay, water brick, and then, uh, learning from entrepreneurs who, who do the most with the least, um, basically I think I misquoted my own book, but whatever it's, uh, the idea is again and again and again, the magic that I got to glimpse again, like just being, uh, on the, on the sidelines and cheering on entrepreneurs in very different circumstances than you. I I've ever probably really existed for any length of time to see what people do with so little is so empowering. So there's always a way through, there's always a way to take an next step. There's easy ways and hard ways, but there are ways, you know, and that, um, that's very life giving to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm curious as far as that as well, what role has your faith played in, in the work that you do and the work that you started?
Speaker 2:You know, I'm grateful that from a young age I have exercised the faith muscle, like the part of my heart and my soul and my brain believes in things that are unseen, that believes in things in the future that will unfold, that believes in the value of planting a seed and not necessarily being able to justify it with metrics about what happened the next day or next week. Like to think about long term to think about legacy, to think about, um, just the arc of one's lifetime, right? Like, and, and how you, how you wanna show up what you wanna contribute. I know I'm speaking in very, very broad terms, but as I, you know, there there's, this is a huge subject for me because I grew up super connected, feeling, believing so deeply that I was connected to something bigger than me. And I think that was one of the healthiest and best pieces of my life. Um, it's not just utilitarian either, obviously, right? It's not like, look how effective it is and getting things done to pray every day. But truthfully I felt mostly, usually pretty centered, pretty clear on what I thought and believed. And then as life comes at you fast, it's easier to make decisions quickly when you already know what you believe about something. Um, you've already sort of positioned yourself to screen for, I don't know, I don't wanna say good choices and bad choices, but I'm, I'm, I'm thinking about like language that I use with my own children, um, which, and you didn't ask this, but so as anyone who would Google me for two seconds might see very quickly, I am pretty vocal and celebratory perhaps about being in an interfaith marriage. I'm married to a very loud Muslim and a scholar of religions. Who's just not really in any single box. He's obsessed. I mean, he's quite obsessed with Jesus. We pray together daily. We, I believe are connected to the same God, but we have very different faith, um, journeys and different stories and rituals and metaphors and, um, you know, cultural stuff associated with each of our paths that in my experience, I'm just one person, but in my experience it's been very enriching. Cause at the end of the day, I know that I'm the boss of my connection, uh, with God, I'm the boss of my spiritual journey. I love having community and support and a partner that, that absolutely not just kind of cheers it on, but enriches that and, um, provides all these different, beautiful facets that I don't think I would've ever seen before when we have conversations about God and the nature of God and what that means in our lives. Um, so I, I think it's like wonderful. And as I talk to my kids, the thing that we've we center on, it's funny, you mentioned a Ted talk. I did a TEDx talk, uh, Stanford TEDx talk with him also in the last few years on doing interfaith family. And one of the, the ways that we think about it is we are unified in certain pieces that bring us depth and cohesiveness and like rally our family around a center, you know? And, and there are these practices and, uh, ways of like tools really. I mean, this is how we pray boys. Like, and now my daughter too, but this is how we pray. This is how we worship. This is how we do community. And we regularly go in non pandemic times. Um, and I, yeah, it's been tricky, but we regularly go to all saints in Pasadena, this beautiful really, I think like radical, beautiful, diverse, um, church community where we feel ridiculously accepted. I mean, Reza gives sermons there sometimes. Um, anyway, so that's our depth, that's our core, but we also do, we, we really make an effort to teach our kids about world religions, all different because it's, to us a way of understanding, again, like understanding what it means to be human on the planet, understanding other cultures and being literate in the world so that you can, you can get other people's perspectives and have respect and a little bit of a depth of understanding about, um, what they see, the, the words they might use. The framework works and references they're important to them. So you can actually connect with others without feeling, um, I don't know, fear or confusion or a lot of the things that can block us from just deeply diving into knowing another human being without agenda, you know,
Speaker 1:So good. Thank you so much for sharing that unique perspective. I love that. Um, I want to go back to your journey. So Kiva, wasn't the end of your journey, uh, professionally, you, you went on to start a company called profounder I believe is the, is the way to say it. And so yeah,
Speaker 2:You
Speaker 1:Could, and in listening to you, it sounds like the assumption was, Hey, Kiva blew up and was a huge success. And so almost kind of like the might have touched anything I touch we'll be able to do the thing. And that was not the experience. My is my understanding of profounder. Can you talk about that? And you know what, my Henry cloud wrote a book called necessary endings that I think is really, really fascinating. Um, and I would just love to hear you talk about, you know, that part of your journey and, and maybe even just a subject of necessary endings, if that strikes a chord with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's beautiful. It's a lovely question. And I've, don't think I've ever been asked it quite that way. So I I'm, I love it. Um, profounder was an attempt pre jobs act pre crowdfunding laws that exist today. And I don't wanna get into the legal ridiculousness of it, but basically today, thanks to title four of the jobs act, which if I may say so we helped draft that language was very exciting. Um, but today you can raise up two, a million from as many people as you want. You can do it on equity. You can kind of do a giant crowdfunding raise, um, I mean giant million dollars, but still it's pretty big. Uh, and that's a thing you could do today, but before it wasn't clear how to do that legally. And so profounder was an attempt to sort of allow small business America and early stage startups that may not have been as high growth or not have had an obvious liquidity event in the future to raise capital from friends, family, and people that they knew. Um, and usually almost always people did structured around revenue share versus actual equity or ownership in the company. It was tricky. It was, I mean, it was a correct idea to be honest with you. Like that was the right thing to do. It was really early. We, um, it was really early and as soon as the jobs act started to become a thing a few years into pro founders existed. So we realized, huh, what we've solved for is existing law, existing, um, restrictions. When this thing passes, it'll open up all sorts of new possibilities. What do we do in the meantime? Because there's like the day that Obama signs it into law, which we like got to go see in the rose garden, it was so fun. And the, you wait for a while for the SCC to make laws around and make rules around those laws and like really make it super specific. And long story short, we decided we weren't gonna wait it out. We weren't gonna really start from scratch and pivot around these future kind of still cloudy, uh, you know, laws, um, or not laws rules. So we decided to wind down the company. I was also notably quite pregnant with twins and we kept the company going, um, with my, my first two kiddos, we kept the company going until the twins I wanna say were three or four months, but it was clear that it was like not the right time to push forward with the thing that we had built. And it still felt too uncertain and really like not a, not a good thing to take a bunch of investor money and build something that we hoped would get it right in the future. Cuz it was just gonna be a bit of a waiting game before we could really utilize what the law made possible. So all that said, we wound down a company that I, yeah, that was very different than Kiva. And at the moment when we had offers for funding to like do this pivot and build something we hoped would work, it was professionally. I had all the justification that I thought, you know, I had a lot of justification for saying this isn't the right time. There's too much risk, too many unknowns. It's not, it's not the right moment to do this. Let's to wait and see. But personally I knew I was brand new at being a mom brand new at parenting. And I knew that if I looked back on my life and I had not shown up for my kids in the way that I no judgment to anyone, any works out any balance, but for me, I wanted to be there with my two brand new babies in a way that I felt like I couldn't promise to investors. I would throw myself into the business like I had before. Um, and I just didn't feel right to keep going. And so I felt really good. Like it was a healthy, good eyes, wide open sort of choice. But yeah, it wasn't a, certainly wasn't a keep a level success. And then since then, I don't know if I'm fast forwarding too much, but then over the last 10 years I mentioned, my twins are now 10. I've done a number of different things. And a lot of, uh, a lot of my work has been really designed around being able to parent and show up for my family in this like non-negotiable way. And so I work weird hours. I do weird combinations of like projects. I have a lot, I talked about the LA sort of portfolio approach to work, um, until the last year and a half or two, that's been what I've done more, more often than not. Um, you know, doing consulting projects, building a small consulting firm for a few years. I wrote a book I teach at USC on and off over the last decade, a course called entrepreneurial solutions to the global goals. Um, I've done a lot of different things. I, I actually worked at a neobank for a while, so I actually did have a full-time like adulting it job for the first time ever at 40 year 41 at a company that I didn't make up in my own head. So that was interesting. Um, but over the last two years, the two pieces that I'm doing now that again, I crank out what I need to during day regular work hours, like usually around nine to three. And then I get up at 5, 5 30 most days and I get in some time, then I take a handful of nights a week and work after the kids go to bed. I don't feel like it's, um, I wouldn't call myself at all like a workaholic. I just, I'm so grateful for the flexibility to both be present from like three to seven and in the mornings on weekdays with my family. And I kinda can't imagine doing it any other way. So you asked me way back about profounder and what with that was about and the necessary ending there. And I feel, I feel proud of it. I feel proud of what we did. I talked before too about testing assumptions. We had some assumptions, we tested those out. We learned a ton, our investors with us learned. And then when it was time to say, okay, this is, this is how the world has changed. And here's what we believe is gonna next. Right? Step. It feels more like a rational, non like egocentric sort of move versus a failure. There there's a lot of forgive me, but there's a lot of testosterone sort of like, go, go, go, go, go, keep moving. Building at all costs in sort of the old school traditional, you know, um, Silicon valley mindset. Again, it's not fair. It's not correct. It's not what actual Silicon valley is to me, but there's a, there's a vibe there there's there there's, there are communities that think that way. And um, we definitely had people that I think would've preferred, uh, that we keep going and would've thought that we should have kept going at all costs, but I, I wasn't of that mindset. And I'm really glad that we stepped back reassessed and decided to wind it down when we did.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Jessica I'm, I'm curious, you know, I think the work that you did created a platform for you more than at least my sense is more than you seeking out a platform. Um, I dunno that doesn't seem like that to you. We live in a world where everyone wants a platform, you know, everything that you're talking about that you get to do. We live in a culture where everyone wants to do that. Everyone wants to write a book. They love to lecture at a, uh, a university. You know, you've gotten to connect with some of the, the most I profile entrepreneurs in the country or in the world for that matter. I'm just curious. What have you learned about having a platform? Is it, is everything that's cracked up to be? Do you enjoy it? Do you hate it? Talk to talk to leaders today that are striving to have what you have.
Speaker 2:I probably should, like if I gave myself career advice 10 years ago, today probably should work on that, like work on the platform and make a, more of an effort to grow it or to utilize it. It doesn't feel that way. To me it's felt like these very, um, it's, it's felt very organic like relationships. I know that. I, I mean, look, I, I see it. I have had incredible opportunities. Keva has busted doors open for me. And then, and then I went back around maybe Stanford that blew open doors for me there again and again, I've had these advantages and I am grateful for them in terms of platform. I I've never had goals around that. I've never had, I need to get to X number of followers or something. And I, I probably don't take advantage of it as, as I should, but I, I think I have a bit of a wherever this comes from in my psychology, like I have a fear of, um, I wanna do the thing itself, you know what I mean? Like I, I got, I got away with, and that's what it feels like to me. I was so freaking lucky to get, to do lectures for a decade and have that be the majority of my income, what like that to me. So it's so fun, but I, I didn't make a big attempt to build it into a brand or to utilize, like to build out the platform where I just sort of did the jobs in front of me. Um, and I, I don't know, maybe there's something to that. Maybe not, maybe it's a total lost set of opportunities, but my goal is to do the thing itself to build successful machines for good in the world. And there's a lot of noise out there. I don't wanna add to the noise. I wanna say things that I need to say and that matter, but I'm not looking to crank out content for the sake of cranking out content. I'm not looking to tweet eight times a day so that I have some sort of, I don't know, I just, not my thing. So probably an unsophisticated dis winning answer, but that's, that's how I think about it. I mean, I will, I will say this one little other piece. Um, I do look back at, at my career thus far and it feels weirdly natural, but I, I, so, and, and I feel comfortably, I feel comfortable and sort of Uber connected in the world in a way that whether it's true or not. I mean, I don't, who knows everybody, nobody knows everybody, but I feel like I know such a wonderful community of people that I, I, I can reach out to almost anybody. Um, again like this in includes cold calls and stuff, which I'm doing lately for my new business, but, uh, I don't know where that came from, but I don't know how much of it is actually true or not, but I feel really comfortable. Like we are all connected. There's a way to find the person that you need and that you want to get insight from or wisdom from, or partner with. There's always a way to do that and to, to find your ways, just a matter of asking. And, um, maybe you have to make four asks in a row down the line, but you can find the people that you need, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Uh, in the, in the few minutes that we have left, anything else you wanna talk to leaders about today, maybe your new venture or anything else you'd leave us with?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I wanna talk about my new venture. Okay. So I have a fund, which is the, which is amazing. It's called untapped capital. We invest in seed proceed state entrepreneurs, who we believe we can like catalyze their growth, whether that's adding to their network or giving them guidance on getting more, um, tech enabled or whatever else it is. But it's often a matter of, in the spirit of the topic we just covered of connecting them with the people and then the resources that they need to get the next level. So that's great. And I love it. I also, the majority of my work days and my waking hours is spent on altruists. So two LS, a L L T R U I S T s.com altruists is, uh, we're an organization that makes volunteer projects in a box. And we do them. We make, we make projects that are kid friendly, kid centered. So you can do them with your family at any time, anywhere sort of from the comfort of your living room. So again, anyone who's not watching, you're missing, you're missing stuff, but this one, so in December, so we, we tackle a big issue every month. And for example, in December, we worked with charity water. This is the box for the charity water experience. And the box, the box is so cool. It always becomes something. This is like a little model of a, a water table and then the pump and the well that comes from it. But basically every box has learning materials, an actual volunteer project, like an impact project. Oftentimes you make or personalize or contribute to something and then send it off in the world. But many times to also just do something to make, to do better at home, right? So we've had, um, we've had boxes where to, to fight homelessness and support people who are unhoused and soon to be soon to be housed, actually we work with an amazing nonprofit called news story and kids make key chains that are mail to Mexico so that our pro partner organization can hand'em out to families about to move into the brand new homes that they build for them. Again, first key on the key chain our kids have made, and then we did, uh, one on saving the pollinators. So you make a little B hotel out of the box. There's one mix water. Of course, there's one on food insecurity. Um, kids color in a reusable grocery bag. I have that here actually in my messy office, but, um, the color and reusable grocery bag and send it to our partners in Nashville, the store it's, um, it's a beautiful nonprofit, that's a food pantry styled as a grocery store that's that was launched by Brad Paisley, Kimberly Williams, Paisley. They're awesome. And we're so proud to be associated with them. And there's other boxes on, you know, energy, poverty and solar lights, uh, there's boxes. There's, there's one shipping in a few days on, um, shelter, pets. It's very sweet and light and friendly like kids make dog toys and cat toys for animals and animal shelters. There's one coming up on helping migratory were so psyched. It's with, um, international bird rescue and kids basically like, uh, what's the word? I don't have a verb for this, or like an adjective, like not bird proof, but they put window clings on windows where birds could smash into them and they make a little bird feeder and make little binoculars to be bird Watchers. It's super sweet. Anyway, altruists the like actual, um, experiences you get to do something good with your kids, not just do another stem project in a box, which they're great, but not just do another craft in a box or like learn a new recipe or whatever you get to do something and contribute back out, um, into the world. And the big again, if there are entrepreneur types, listening to this, the big vision is, you know, it's a, it's a really unmanaged sort of 300 billion industry in the us where again, think about this as an economy, it's crazy 300 billion. It what 300 billion every year is given away in terms of time, talent expertise by people who get an again, air quotes, nothing in return. They get meaning they get this knowledge. They're connected with something bigger than themselves, but it's not a well managed interaction. I mean, there's all kinds of like incredibly developed donor grooming strategies that a lot of nonprofits have, but volunteers often just sort of fall under that bucket a little bit, or they get left by the wayside. Who's paying attention to creating fantastic, beautiful catalytic experiences for volunteers that ideally will then unlock much more, you know, inspiration and, um, via bridge to deeper involvement. So that's my vision work with the many, many, many would be volunteers, especially families. It's really hard to get outta the house as you. And I know with little kids, how can you activate families where they are at home while the baby naps and someone else has a snack and the other, you know what I mean? How do you do that? I think this is a way I hope it's a way. Um, and that's our, that's our vision.
Speaker 1:Love it. Well, I will sign up. Do I just go to alts.com? I, I would love to do this in my yes.
Speaker 2:Altruists.com. Please sign up and you can get a subscription. You can do like send a box every month or you can get one box. There's a deep discount. If you do three boxes or more so you can get a little bundle. Um, but it's, I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of it. And I feel like I'm deeply in love again with adventure, kind of for the, for the first time since Kiva. So it's, um, it's my passion and I'm, I'm really excited to share it with anybody out there. Who's listening. So thank you for checking it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We'll include links to all of that and everything that we discussed in the show notes. Thank you for the conversation. And more importantly, thank you for changing the world, not just through the organization, but by investing in your kids, by alts and everything else that you're sending your hand to, uh, just make such an impact daily. And, uh, it's just been a joy to watch you from afar, uh, throughout your journey and I'll continue to do so to us. Thanks again. Thank
Speaker 2:You, Doug. It's such a pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Hey leader. Thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Jessica. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I, I did. You can find ways to connect with her and links to everything that we discussed in the show notes@lthreeleadership.org slash 3 0 7. And as always leader, I wanna challenge you that if you wanna 10 X your growth this year, then you need to either launch or join an L three leadership mastermind group. Mastermind groups have been the greatest source of growth in my life over the last five years. And if you're unfamiliar with what they are, they're just simply groups of six to 12 leaders that meet together for at least one year on a consistent basis in order to help each other grow, go after their goals together, hold each other accountable and to do life together. So if you're interested in learning more about masterminds, go to L three leadership.org/masterminds, and as always leader, I like to end with a quote and I'll quote, Brian Houston, who said this recently, he said, you learn out people in the tough times than you ever will in the good times something to remember leaders. Well, Hey, I hope this episode encouraged, you know that Lauren and I love you. We believe in you and leader. Please keep leading. Don't quit. The world needs your leadership.