Mom, I Got This!

This is not the story of someone who was mystically born to be a successful founder. Julia Hartz, CEO and Co-Founder of Eventbrite, has never been a work-backwards kind of woman. We discuss how she has taken life head-on from her early days as a competitive dancer all the way through her current position as the CEO of Eventbrite, one of the world’s largest event platforms with 230 million total tickets in 2020. Julia’s journey truly embodies the “Mom, I Got This!” ethos as she takes successively larger and more jaw-drawing risks and pursues a constant curiosity throughout her career. Despite being the CEO of a multi-billion dollar Silicon Valley company, every anecdote and piece of wisdom that Julia shares feels relatable and attainable… especially when she talks about her childhood Barbies. This is a season finale for a reason, and you don’t want to miss it! 

Roz Cyrus is a renaissance woman. She is a writer, a computer science lecturer at Stanford, and a designer. From starting a job at the same time she started her masters degree to having a one-year-old baby a couple months before beginning her 2nd quarter teaching at Stanford, she has a talent for flirting with failure and coming out on top. Tune in to discover what it means to take smart risks to push back against the standard and find out what might happen to your dating life when you do. 

Procedures. Rules. Systems. Nariman Gathers walks us through what it was like to be a budding systems designer as a neuro-atypical person. They delve into stories from collecting post-it-notes and gel pens for crafting as a kid to feeling crushed by the weight of expected-perfection in the post-college years. Now a lecturer at Stanford’s d.school (Stanford’s design institute) and design program manager at Plaid, Nari's reflection is full of laughs and fond realizations of how they designed their twisty path to happiness. In this episode, we talk about the ‘making’ moments, ‘breaking’ moments, and everything in between. 

Two-time CEO and founder, Julia Haber was, in her own words, “very much a sassy little kid”. Em and Iz dive into Julia’s impressive career (that’s still only on its opening pages) and uncover how a creative leader comes to be, from the colors of her childhood bedroom walls to her alternative high school experience. Hearing the story of how she started and grew her first business in her freshman year of college and her current company Home From College, it’s clear that Julia is an unstoppable force, but it’s her relatable anecdotes and off-the-sleeve comments that makes this episode ring true to every 20-something listening. Tune in as they discuss how Julia turned her unconventional learning style into one of her greatest assets and reveal that being a two-time founder under thirty isn’t as easy as she makes it look. 

Em and Iz talk to Kayla Clarot, the Concept Design Leader at Specialized. Specialized designs bikes for all sorts of terrain, but with every new design, they tell a story. Kayla’s episode is full of passion and energy for her job and the stories she tells. She takes us along her journey from being a little girl sending it off jumps on her snowboard or wakeboard to her as a young adult ‘sending it’ by making tough decisions that may, or may not, pay off. This episode is full of heart and is a truly honest story of discovering one's path. Listen with us and get inspired to send it as we learn how Kayla got to where she is today! 

It’s a home run with Jensen Neff and Ellie Chen in our Season 1 finale episode! A few months out of Stanford University's Product Design bachelor's program, these ladies are off to LA with their hearts on their sleeves and their hands on their sewing machines to pursue their passions of sustainability and textiles by starting a patchwork fashion company, Oddli, formerly known as &Papaya. You might know them from their 2 million-views on Tik Tok! Jens and Ellie really are the approachable ‘cool girls’ next door, and you don’t want to miss a word they have to say. We cover it all from their portfolio and social media advice for beginner designers to starting a business with their best friends during their last semester of college. Tune in for everything you need to know to forge your own way as a young creative professional, all with a ton of laughs along the way.

We sit down with Iris Yan, currently a product manager at Brilliant Technologies, a smart home IoT startup. After earning a bachelor's in Product Design from Stanford University, she started her own consumer packing goods startup (from her dorm room!) and then went on to work at Apple for 3 years. In this episode, she gives us the inside scoop of life at one of the largest and most impressive tech companies in the world. We ask her what it’s like designing in a big firm and how you even get there. We also go back to what Iris was like in college, making a major pivot from policy and opera to design and technology. Through her curious and exploratory nature, Iris has designed a life she loves that is truly her own. 

We chat with Morgan Mahlock who is an investor at IQT, the non-profit strategic investor that supports the U.S. intelligence and national security community. We ask her why she, as a designer, loves VC? Hint-- it has to do with her eye-opening dream internship at the NFL! Morgan is also passionate about side hustles, as evident through her stories of teaching piano and modelling to help pay her way through college, going into what those jobs taught her about herself and the “real world”. Graduating from Stanford University with a BS in Product Design and MS in Management Science and Engineering, Morgan is definitely familiar with “grind culture” and provides refreshing, insightful advice on work/life balance as a young professional woman. 

What is design? How do you design a life you love?  
Designer, educator, accomplished author and all-around amazing woman Lisa Kay Solomon tells us how she made the choices that shaped her life. We learn about taking leaps of faith from quitting varsity tennis on an ivy league team and shifting to part-time bartending to moving across the country to work at a startup after turning down a prestigious consulting job. Lisa is a passionate educator, author, speaker and thought leader focused on helping leaders learn how to be more creative, flexible and resilient in the face of increasing complexity and change. Lisa teaches at Stanford’s d. School and Singularity University and coauthored the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Moments of Impact: How to Design Strategic Conversations that Accelerate Change, and, more recently, Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills and Mindset for Strategy and Innovation.

Launching this Wednesday, September 16th with Stanford sophomore co-hosts Emily Redmond and Isabel Arboleda. We're here to guide you through insightful convos with amazing ladies, asking questions like "What is design?" "What happens at the intersection of design and other  fields like business and education?" and, more generally, "How do I even begin to find what I'm truly passionate about??" We help make professional discussions approachable with unconventional realizations and fun anecdotes along the way. You're always welcome to pull up a chair with us on "Mom, I Got This!", so see you soon!