Où sont les femmes (en tech) ?!

Quels métiers du numérique occupent les femmes aujourd’hui ? Dans quelle proportion les retrouve-t-on, et dans quel genre de boîte ? Quelle est la distribution homme /femme selon les types de métiers, selon la taille des boîtes ?

Cette analyse est basée sur les données du sondage sur les salaires dans le numérique, lancé par Rodolphe Dutel, le fondateur de Remotive.io.

(c’est par ici pour l’analyse des salaires hommes femmes tous métiers confondus)

25% de femmes côté commerce & service clientèle

Premier constat : les femmes sont, sans trop de surprise, en minorité parmi les répondants. Elles représentent un quart des réponses au sondage de Remotive. Voici le top 3 des secteurs qu’elles occupent :

27% sont côté commerce et service à la clientèle. Parmi les métiers répertoriés on compte l’Account manager, Head of growth, Sales manager, Customer success manager… Ensuite, nous avons 16% de Chef de projets, Product owner.

Et enfin, ex-aequo 14.5% en poste de direction (CEO, Secrétaire général, Directrice générale) et également 14.5% de femmes qui occupent un poste marketing (Marketing manager, Chargée de contenu, Responsable communication… ).

Proportions homme — femme

On a trouvé une quasi parité dans les métiers de marketing, avec, en revanche, plus de profils techniques (SEO, SEA, automation) côté hommes. Ensuite, une relative parité du côté des postes RH (40% femmes, 60% hommes) mais après ça, les écarts se creusent, avec un tiers de femmes dans les catégories des gestion de projet ou produit, de ventes/soutien et opérations.

On remarque côté opérations qu’on retrouve les femmes à des postes plutôt administratifs alors que les hommes ont tendance à occuper des postes stratégiques . Si la proportion de 14,5% des femmes en poste CEO ou PDG semblait honorable, elles restent tout de même 6 fois moins nombreuses que leurs homologues masculins.

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Salaires, métier, niveau d’expérience, équilibre maison / travail, négociation, discrimination… Réponds toi aussi au sondage et consulte les réponses des autres !

EST-CE QUE TU LE VAUX BIEN ?

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Les déserts ?️

Seulement 5% des datas scientist qui ont répondu au sondage sont des femmes. À y regarder de plus près, c’est en fait une seule répondante… !

Les développeuses, quant à elles, sont à peine 7% . Même si on s’attendait à ce genre d’écart dans les métiers plus techniques, ces chiffres n’en sont pas moins déprimants.

En croisant type de métiers et taille de l’entreprise, on s’est aussi aperçu de variations assez remarquables. Par exemple, on ne retrouve aucune femme dans des postes d’opérations dans les entreprises de plus de 50 personnes.

À noter également que les femmes côté commerce et soutien sont en bonne proportion autant dans les TPE, PME et boîte de plus de 50 employés. En revanche, l’écart se creuse arrivé dans des entreprises de plus de 100 personnes, où elles sont 5 fois moins présentes que les hommes.

De la TPE à l’entreprise de plus de 100 employés, les RH restent la seule catégorie de métiers où les femmes sont en majorité (environ les 2 tiers).

La taille d’entreprise : ça compte !

Commençons par les plus petites structures (1 à 10 personnes), qui sont essentiellement des startups. La bonne nouvelle c’est qu’on retrouve pas mal de co-fondatrices et autres CEO. La mauvaise, c’est qu’elles ne représentent que 10% des co-fondateurs et autres postes de haute direction.

Pareil dans les entreprises de plus de 100 collaborateurs : on retrouve une femme en poste de haute direction pour 10 hommes à des postes similaires. Parmi les femmes qui travaillent dans les plus grosses entreprises, on retrouve même deux fois plus de développeuses que de dirigeantes… ! En revanche on retrouve une plus forte proportion de femmes gestionnaires de projets ou produits dans les petites et plus grosses structures — elles sont même plus nombreuses que les RH dans les entreprises de plus de 100 employés.

Conclusion

Pas de grosse surprise pour ce qui est des métiers des femmes dans le numérique. Au contraire, on a retrouvé certains clichés et des écarts avec des proportions parfois très importantes. L’analyse de la présence des femmes à différentes échelles d’entreprise montre que la majorité d’entre elles travaillent dans des moyennes structures (plus de 10 et moins de 100 collaborateurs). Est-ce que ce serait une prédisposition à vouloir travailler à une échelle plus humaine tout en bénéficiant d’une certaine stabilité ?

Autre chiffre intéressant : les femmes avec 9 à 12 ans d’expérience sont plus nombreuses dans les plus grandes entreprises que leurs collègues masculins. Si on regarde cette catégorie du côté startup, en revanche, les hommes ont un net avantage, ce qui laisse à croire qu’ils attendent moins longtemps avant de sauter le pas dans l’aventure entrepreneuriale.

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Cet article fait partie d’une réflexion sur l’égalité homme-femme dans le numérique. À lire aussi :

Salaires hommes-femmes dans le numérique : 5 données clés tirées de l’analyse de 700+ salaires

Salaires hommes femmes dans le numérique : 5 données clés

Que voit-on quand on compare les salaires des hommes et des femmes dans l’industrie du numérique ?

J’ai soulevé le capot du sondage lancé par Rodolphe Dutel, le fondateur de Remotive.io et mis les mains dans le cambouis (ou plutôt les tableaux croisés) pour faire parler les données fournis par plus de 700 répondants.

Première étape : Il y’a t’il des écarts significatifs côté salaires hommes femme ? Dans quelle mesure l’expérience influence les salaires ? J’ai d’abord regardé les données tous métiers du numériques confondus et identifié 5 points intéressants :

#1 La moitié des femmes juniors en dessous du salaire débutant moyen

La moitié des femmes junior ayant répondu au sondage touchent moins de 35000€/an, comparé à un tiers des leurs collègues masculins. Un quart des juniors hommes débutent d’ailleurs avec des salaires entre 41 000 et 45 000€/an, une tranche au-dessus de la plus grosse cohorte de répondantes (27% d’entre elles touchent entre 36 000 et 40 000 €/an). On remarque que l’écart des salaires hommes femmes dans le numérique a lieu dès la sortie de l’école.

#2 61% de femmes avec plus de 5 ans d’expérience estiment être sous-payées.

“Selon vous, votre salaire est-il juste ?” Années d’expérience versus expérience professionnelle, arrive t’on à l’adéquation ? Il y a peu de différences homme femme dans le numérique. Enfin, à une exception près : presque 2/3 des femmes avec 6 à 8 ans d’expérience considèrent qu’elles sont sous payées.

Ce chiffre est d’autant plus intéressant qu’il est proportionnellement inverse à ceux de leurs collègues masculins. Il est probable que derrière ce chiffre on trouve des mamans qui retournent au travail. Qu’en pensez vous ? Les témoignages ou les avis sur la question sont bienvenus !

#3 Une progression des salaires, mais jusqu’à 50% d’écarts dans les plafonds supérieurs

Lorsqu’on regarde les salaires les plus élevés, la différence est de taille — les plus hauts salaires plafonnent à 165 000€/an chez les femmes, alors qu’ils peuvent monter à 225 000€/an chez les hommes.

Quand on croise les salaires avec l’auto évaluation de leur expériences, la grille des salaires chez les répondantes semblent progresser avec le temps, même si les tranches de salaires qu’elles atteignent sont généralement en deça de leurs collègues masculins.

En revanche, chez les hommes la réparation des salaires est bien plus dispersée, notamment pour ceux qui se considèrent plus expérimentés. À y regarder de plus près, on retrouve pas mal co-fondateurs et autres aventuriers du numérique.

#4 Expérience années versus expérience perçue : les hommes 50% plus confiants

J’ai comparé les années d’expériences chez les hommes et les femmes avec l’auto-évaluation que leur demandait le sondage de Remotive.io. J’ai remarqué deux choses intéressantes :

Non seulement les hommes avec 3 à 5 ans d’expérience étaient 6 fois plus enclin que leurs collègues femmes à s’estimer experts, mais même aucune femme ne considérait avoir atteint le niveau “Senior”. Dans l’ensemble, quand on compare années d’expérience et auto-évaluation, les répondantes ont tendance à s’évaluer en deça de leurs collègues, avec des écarts variant de 25% et 60% entre les cohortes des deux sexes.

#5 Une augmentation plus rapide et importante des salaires chez les hommes

Difficile de parler salaires homme femmes dans le numérique sans regarder l’expérience. En croisant salaires et expérience auto-évaluée, on a donc trouvé deux grilles très différentes.

Ce qui saute aux yeux chez hommes, c’est une plus grande amplitude dans les tranches de salaires, et la majorité de leurs cohortes se situe généralement au dessus plutôt qu’en dessous des salaires moyens. Par exemple, quand on compare les répondants avec 6 à 8 ans d’expérience, les salaires les plus élevés plafonnent à 70K, alors que nous atteignons jusqu’à 150K côté hommes.

On retrouve d’ailleurs régulièrement des différences de salaires de 20% et plus pour des postes relativement similaires.

À lire aussi : À peine 3% des data scientists : Où sont les femmes ?

orianne ledroit: on improving public service by learning from startups

“people need to understand what is happening within the digital culture and use it as inspiration.”

On my current trip I’m exploring some of the innovation trends in France and Italy. While the European Union is still economically morose, I find that the proximity of so many economic and intellectual hubs combined with the current job scarcity is paving the way for an interesting generation of resilient thinkers and doers. Amongst them, I chose to interview Orianne Ledroit who co-founded Les Voyages Apprenants, an interactive tour / workshop using design thinking and other startup-like innovative methods to inspire communities and decision makers.

(photo credit: Muhammad Muheisen, AP Photo)
1. Your full name, age and occupation

Orianne Ledroit, 30, Civic and digital hacktivist – Co-founder Les Voyages Apprenants

2. What was your dream job as a kid?

I always wanted to be a political leader because I want to promote inclusive projects and collective problem solving. Some people could say I was naive, I’d rather see myself as an open-minded optimist.

3. Where do you get your support or motivation from?

I get support from my family and my friends, and get validation from the success of my past projects. But I’m also inspired by my ideological values: to feel true to myself I need my work to align with my principles.

4. What sparked your motivation or need to start your own thing?

A simple observation : communities and political leaders both need to be introduced to the current innovation practices if we want to offer  better public services. They need to understand what is happening within the digital culture and use it as inspiration to implement a better way to produce and deliver public services. Firms and organizations also need to connect with makers, innovators, startups that are disrupting their activities and seize opportunities to improve what they have to offer. That is what we (me and co-founder Marine Ulrich) aim to do with Les Voyages Apprenants.

“I always wanted to be a political leader because I want to promote inclusive projects and collective problem solving.”

5. What were you the most excited about when you started off?

I was mostly excited about building something from scratch and challenging myself. I needed to do something on my own which would bear my mark.

6. What did you wish you knew before starting all this?

A lot of things, of course, but what comes to mind is how to clearly define the commercial value of our project. That being said, I don’t think somebody else’s advice or take on a similar venture is a valuable as getting your hands dirty and trying it out yourself.

7. Describe a day in your life as you’d like it to be in 3 years.

I would love to teach teenagers and students whatever I’ve been fortunate enough to learn since I’ve started working. I’d love to use my experience to help young people think hard about what they really want to do.

8. What would you like to know about other innovators who answer this survey?

I’d like to know why they engage in such projects and what is the deeper meaning driving their pursuits.

9. What would be the one thing you’d like your eulogy to say?

I am going to invest money in transhumanist research so that I don’t need to think about my eulogy or my own death :-)

On a more serious note, I hope people will remember me as just wanting to be happy and to work towards a society that respects people and enables them to succeed based on merit. Hopefully, by the end of my life, I will have contributed to that.

shaun abramhanson: on changing cities, 500 startups at a time.

“I think curiosity, empathy and resilience are a potent combination, so how can you encourage others to develop these attributes?”

I’d like to thank the International Startup Festival team for letting me help at this year’s amazing event, which allowed me to bring you this interview. 
photo credit: Muhammed Muheisen, AP photo

For all the talk about cities, and how the world is becoming one big connected network, the tech industry is driving a change an increasing amount of cities are trying to catch up with – for more information here’s a good read by the American Think Tank Brookings institution. It’s not everyday that I get to combine my first love – urban planning – and my current interests in the startup world. Both worlds got to happily collide at this year’s city themed StartUp Fest, a 3 day international event with the latest startups rubbing shoulders with Silicon Valley veterans. One of the amazing people I got to meet and talk with was Shaun Abramhanson.

An MIT grad with an MBA in Creative Leadership, he’s a self professed swimmer, but is rather known as an author, entrepreneur and advisor. Interested in how we better design together, he has written about crowdstorming as a way to leverage collective intelligence and blogs notably for the Huffington Post. Last year he founded Urban.Us, a network of investors, advisors and city reps that strives to support startups addressing urban challenges.
Their goal? Help close to 500 companies, with the hopes that 50 of them will have a significant impact in addressing urban challenges by 2020.

If you want to know more about Urban.us, read up on Smart City Startups 2015, next year’s two day event in Miami or check out videos from this year’s event  and some of the themes that were discussed.

I was lucky to catch him while he came to talk at the StartUp Fest, and he was kind enough to respond to my Q&A:

1. Your full name, age and occupation
Shaun Abrahamson, 40, Swimmer

2. What was your dream job as a kid?
I was always sure that I wanted to build, so architecture and engineering came up a lot.

“Friends have always been great sources of encouragement through the ups and downs of startupland”

3. Where do you get your support or motivation from?
My family. And I have a great group of friends from living in different places and attending school on 3 continents :)

Family is most interesting because having kids really forced me to think about what the world will be like for them. Friends have always been great sources of encouragement through the ups and downs of startupland.

4. What sparked your motivation or need to start your own thing?
I’ve never thought about doing my own thing. It sort of materialized out of thinking about different approaches to reaching a goal. I’ve become used to moving quickly and testing ideas and failing a lot. Most existing organizations didn’t have room for this kind of behaviour, though that’s been changing. After working in startups for more than 15 years, its harder to see how to fit into a larger organization.

“Is there a way to test 5,000 high potential ideas? And if a small percent succeed, can we change the viability of cities?”

5. What were you the most excited about when you started off?
For urban.us its always been about the potential impact. Is there a way to test 5,000 high potential ideas? And if a small percent succeed, can we change the viability of cities? My sense is that we need to rethink our entire social and economic system if we dont figure this out. So I am excited about having a tiny role in helping bringing this change about.

6. What did you wish you knew before starting all this?
Oh, lots of things! It takes time and money to learn, but it’s a difficult question because would I have known some things, maybe I wouldn’t have started :)

7. Describe a day in your life as you’d like it to be in 3 years.
I love what I do now. I think I’d do it for free. I think there are always going to be less fun or inspiring or interesting parts to a day, but getting to work with founders who are solving complex, hard problems is perhaps the best way to spend a day. The only downside is the constant struggle to make enough time to do great work and spend quality time with family. I dont know that I will ever get this balance right.

8. What would you like to know about other innovators who answer this survey?
I love to know what motivates people and how they find ways to be great at work and at home.

9. What would be the one thing you’d like your eulogy to say?
If you have read this far, you are quite curious. This is fantastic news. You are also probably empathetic. This excellent too. And you also waded through some other not so good material, so you are resilient. Wonderful. I think curiosity, empathy and resilience are a potent combination, so how can you encourage others to develop these attributes?

saffron cassaday, on cross-generation connections

Last week a friend and I were talking about how technology transformed the way we communicate, we work, we entertain ourselves and how this is affects our social life and relationships. We both belong to the Y Generation, maybe the last one to remember what was life and working without email, or waiting for a letter to arrive or for a film to develop. We’re also the first generation to have shown our parents how to use Skype, and we might have set up their AOL Account. We reflected on the fact that while we’re tech-savvy, we are more aware of the growing disconnect than millennials tend to be. However, we agreed, we too had become more estranged from elder generations than our parents were at our age.

And yet, not long after this conversation, I stumbled upon Saffron Cassaday’s CyberSeniors, a Gen-Y filmmaker who documented her Millennial sisters’ initiative to pair teens with seniors and help them go online. This documentary is a comforting proof that we can still perceive technology as a means and not an end to real life experience. Saffron was nice enough to respond to my questions, so here goes:

1. Age, name & occupation

Saffron Cassaday, 27, Filmmaker

2. What was your dream job as a kid?

A painter, or a singer. I changed my mind a lot, but was always wanted to do something artsy.

3. Where do you get your support or motivation from?

I have an incredibly supportive family. My parents are both entrepreneurs who always went after their dreams and encouraged me to do the same.

 “I started my career as an actor but I hated waiting around for auditions, so I taught myself to edit so I could produce my own video shorts”

4. What sparked your motivation or need to make your own film?

I started my career as an actor but I hated waiting around for auditions, so I taught myself to edit so I could produce my own video shorts. That led to me working as a freelance video editor, which eventually led to me directing and editing a feature length documentary. I’m glad I took charge of my career by trying something new, otherwise I may have never discovered how much more I love filmmaking than I ever liked acting!

5. What were you the most afraid of when you started off?

It was really scary trying something new.  Being my first film, I constantly felt like I didn’t know what I was doing.  My two younger sisters started the Cyber-Seniors program when they were in high school and I immediately thought this would be such a great topic for a documentary film:  senior citizens who have never used a computer, being taught how to use the Internet by teenaged volunteers.  The comedic and heartwarming moments were there from the get go, and we found really great characters, both young and old.  But my fear was that I wouldn’t be able to turn the footage into a film with a story-arc.  We had over 120 hours of footage by the end and it was all a little overwhelming.  But the fact that I really believed in the subject matter gave me the confidence to keep working at it.

6. What were you the most excited about when you started off?

Getting the seniors online and seeing their eyes light up each time they learned something new.  Like the first time one 93-year-old woman Skyped with her great-granddaughter and tears welled up in her eyes.  You could just see that this was the best part of her day, being able to connect with family meant the world to her.  It was very exciting to know I was part of something that was making a difference.

7. What did you wish you knew before starting all this?

That nothing happens quickly, and there’s no straight path. Even though I knew it was unlikely, part of me truly believed I would land a great acting gig right out of school and become successful overnight! I’m still no where close to reaching my end goal, but now I understand that it’s the journey that makes it all worthwhile! I am thoroughly enjoying the journey.

 “I’m still no where close to reaching my end goal, but now I understand that it’s the journey that makes it all worthwhile”

8. Tell us what is was like to start from where you did

As for making a film with modest means, in some ways I think it’s more fun! While I was in the middle of the editing process and kind of losing my mind, I had an experienced filmmaker much older than me tell me he was envious of the position I was in.  He was used to working on bigger productions where he had several “higher-ups” breathing down his neck, voicing their opinions.  He said it felt like he was just a cog in a machine, doing a job for hire.  Whereas when you work on a smaller production, you have much more control to make the film you want to make.  There are positives and negatives to both sides, but I took what he said to heart and decided to focus on the positives and have fun with it.

9. What would you like to know about other innovators who answer this survey?

How many hours a day do they dedicate to their work. 

Follow @cyberseniors as it plays across North America

Learn more about the program, and how to get involved

Check out some of the videos made by the Cyber Seniors

kasha vande, on perseverance and change from the ground up.

My husband and I took three months off to go see the world. This trip took us to Pondicherry, an ex-French colony which offers tourists a break from the particularly intense Indian experience. This small city is known as a vibrant cultural hub which focuses on the arts and preservation of its colonial architecture. Our first stop there was at Kasha Ki Aasha, a rooftop coffee shop selling local fair trade stuff on the ground floor. The space was designed with a blend of Indian & Californian styles, and operated by all local female staff, an oddity in Southern India. I ended up chatting with the owner, Kasha, a US born architect turned entrepreneur who set up shop & home here in this little piece of France turned Indian. Turns out she was also running PondyART, a collection of photography shows in an abandoned distillery by the shore.

Here’s my interview with her, but you can also learn more about PondyART, and how you can help. You can find some pictures of the space here, and more information about the exhibition itself here. All the art you see is by Olya Morvan, a (needless to say) very talented Franco-Ukrainian photographer.

“I realize now that the movement is there, we need to make it happen in other cities so everybody gets to do these shows.”

1. Age, name & occupation

Kasha Elizabeth Vandee, 44, Owner of Kasha ki Aasha & Founder of Pondy ART

2. What was your dream job as a kid?

Surgeon or vet. My father had been ill and I thought I should do something about that. I was also terribly attached to animals. I ended up doing a year as a pre-med but dropped out to pursue architecture – my dad himself was an architect!

3. Where do you get your support or motivation from?

Really, these shows bring two things. First, the photographers don’t often get the opportunity to see their work on the wall, and never in this format. I also get motivation from seeing kids run across the beach to watch and look up every single picture.

The shows are meant to provoke without being aggressive about it, to get people thinking about India as it is today. We once had a show about the environment, this one by an Indian photographer. A visitor, who assumed I was the artist, made comments about the fact that images taken by foreigners were always ugly. When told that the photographer was Tamil, he was still offended that somebody would show something ugly like that. My response is that if a picture makes you angry, it’s touching you, and something at home might change.

All the people involved in this project love India, and that’s why we want to show what is happening right now. Some of the subjects don’t display the right directions, but hopefully these photos will help initiate the change, from the ground up. These shows are about trying to reach out to people in a different, more personal way.

“I was told that locals would not understand my project, would not know how to behave and have no taste. And that made me angry.”

4. What sparked your motivation or need to start your own thing?

Originally I was trying to do an open night, and have all the boutiques open and showcase art. I wanted it to be a public event and wanted everybody to open their doors but I was told that locals would not understand, would not know how to behave and had no taste. And that made me angry. I was doing a lot with a local photojournalist who felt that he had a chance to carry a message for these challenged communities but he didn’t have a medium for that. We came up with the idea of putting his work up on the wall so that everybody could see it.

I realize now that the movement is there, we need to make it happen in other cities so everybody gets to do these shows, with these pictures at this scale. A lot of the photographers shown are young and new, we need to showcase new talent. One of the photographers even said that after seeing his work in such big formats, he wouldn’t want to see his pictures in a traditional gallery format anymore.

“This is new in India, but when something catches here it goes very fast.”

5. Your background is in architecture, and here you are putting together these shows. Tell us more about it. I have a photographer who gives me lots of ideas. I don’t have much experience in curating but this has been a wonderful experience, thanks to the input. I use this certain lack of formal education to my advantage and instead break with conventions, making the show feel more like a museum or a conversation than a gallery.

I had been wanting to work with some artists for quite some time and I really like the association with arts but I don’t feel like I’m a creator myself. The chance of helping somebody to get their work up, people whose work I believe deserves to be noticed, makes me feel really good. PondyART is actually getting more publicity than expected, and after this set of exhibitions, which I hope I can pull off, I really hope I can take this nation wide.

Putting the shows together comes with its own challenges, some of our content can be heavy, and we are not immune to censorship, so I sometimes have to tread carefully, which can make you nervous, notably when the subjects tackle religion.

6. What did you wish you knew before starting all this?

That it would take a hell of a lot of money. People love your project, but don’t want to give money. The government has been giving me a budget but I can’t always foresee how I am going to pay for the whole thing. My business has brought some support, but I never really know what lays ahead. Somehow though, it always ends up working out!

For me this is the hardest thing. It seems to me that if you give something to the community that I would get something back. There are over a million people living in Pondicherry, and if they each gave me 1 rupee I could run this show for at least a couple of years.

“Things in India don’t happen regularly. One of the biggest business owners in Pondicherry looked at me before my 10th show and said “Look Kasha, you can’t do this alone” – and yet here I am!”

7. Describe a day in your life as you’d like it to be in 3 years.

I’ve never really been able to think about more than tomorrow. I’ve spent a lot of time testing ground with the local businesses and restaurants. I’m definitely going to be approaching other cities, talk to locals and chase down those opportunities as best as I can. I want to try to use old empty spaces like this distillery or take it to the streets, depending on the neighborhood.

My network of photographers is expanding very rapidly, I think I could do something very special in every city. This kind of stuff is done commonly in NYC and other western cities. This is new in India, but when something catches here it goes very fast. I just have to get there first.

8. If somebody would walk into this space, see the work, and want to help, what should s/he do? 

Come see me. Part of the challenge is that the production side is a one woman show. I run the website, the blog, the facebook, I also do the fundraising part. I tried crowdfunding, but that requires an enormous amount of work. I had to find a site that allows for a campaign like this running in India, successfully, with minimal charges, and then produce the videos  and promote the whole campaign. I’ve been told this is usually takes 3 to 5 hours a day. I’m already putting most of my time in getting the shows up and running.

I don’t have a business of NGO form for this project yet because I didn’t know where this project was going. Now it’s taking off and expanding, I need to create a structure and figure out where I’m going in order to receive more funds. We have approached a lot of people but we’re still waiting on responses. I haven’t  been very aggressive about fundraising because I wanted to prove I could do this on a regular basis. Things in India don’t happen regularly. Now it’s the 11th show, I’m here, still standing. One of the biggest business owners in Pondicherry looked at me before my 10th show and was still saying “Look Kasha, you can’t do this alone” – and yet here I am!

9. What would be the one thing you’d like your eulogy to say? 

That I was honest, straight-forward and that I had no hidden motives.

  Another interview about PondyART

At the end of the day, regardless of how much I get paid at my job, it has to be creative.

As a friend, Caterina personifies one of the things I love about Montreal – a “latin” anglo who speaks the languages of French and Arts. A West Island girl with an eye for nice things and an appetite for novelty, Caterina recently transitioned from the retail industry to the app/start up world by founding Breather,  along with her equally ridiculously talented friend Julien Smith. Breather will allow people like you and me to unlock carefully crafted creative living rooms and working spaces anywhere in the world through our smartphones. Oh, and it raised $1.5 million seed funding within its first year and just won the 2013 Canadian Innovation Exchange Award. Caterina is also the Creative Director for the SWAP Team, a North-American non-profit social enterprise that organizes clothing swaps for charity.

Here’s her take on my questions she was kind enough to answer over a Sunday tea on Park Avenue.

1. Age, name & occupation

Caterina Rizzi Co-Founder, 34, Head of Product & Experience at Breather

2. What was your dream job as a kid?

I am an only child, my mother kept everything, and early drawings showed I was doing colour theory without even knowing it as a kid, and for a brief time I wanted to be a vet too. I used to write bio profiles for myself, like the ones you’d read on the back of a book. Dream jobs varied, but it was always artistic. When I started working I said “I  make things pretty” and now I say “I curate things”. It was never a decision, I was born like this. I was able to explore all this thanks to my mother’s support.

Half of the people tell us “this is the dumbest idea I’ve heard” and they come back a week later saying we had the best idea ever.

3. Where do you get your support or motivation from?

Half of the people tell us “this is the dumbest idea I’ve heard” and they come back a week later saying we had the best idea ever. Part of the excitement for me with Breather is that I just really wanted to work with Julien (co-founder) because we work so well together. Everybody at Breather has +10 years of experience, and while part of my work is similar to a retail launching operation which I what I used to do, everything else about Breather is new for me, making it that much more interesting.

4. What sparked your motivation or need to start your own thing?

I’ve been told for years that I should have my own company, but I didn’t want to . All I really want to do is paint or prototype but I have this leader personality that I can’t hide from. So I embraced  it – I never planned to own a company – it’s been a year and I’m still surprised.

At my previous jobs, I would look at the wasted potential, see untapped areas of improvement, and I would feel limited. At the end of the day, regardless of how much I get paid, it has to be creative.

This is also what got me involved in SWAP Team as creative director for the past 19 months. Everybody wants to be there and works real hard, all on a non-profit basis – it’s a great cause and that’s what boosts me. Money has never influenced me and it has never dictated my choices. I need uncharted territories, to figure it out for myself, I need to try something new. And as for Breather, we have an amazing team and it makes going to work really enjoyable.

5. What were you the most excited about when you started off?

I loved the idea of creating something from scratch – I LOVE prototyping, researching, traveling, taking things in, building mood boards.

Now I also get excited about creating and making. I love making something so it is exactly what I need – I create experiences, not just copy an idea or an object and hope that it will translate into the expected simulation. Breather is about inspiring and creating the right space, you need it to be truthful.

6. What did you wish you knew before starting all this?

We made a lot of good choices – maybe we were lucky, but you still need to pace your energy, a little at a time. Julien changed the concept 2 months in and I told him “do you realize we’ve changed everything and we barely started?” – but he was definitely right. Now we have to slow down, pat ourselves on the back, especially now that we have a team we want to keep engaged. We keep thinking we haven’t done anything so we need to stop and smell the roses to take it in and acknowledge how things are going.

Now we have to slow down, pat ourselves on the back, especially now that we have a team we want to keep engaged. 

7. Describe a day in your life as you’d like it to be in 3 years.

I’ve actually written this out – I read this book about changing your life the way you want it to be, the author asking you to write down your ideal day. For me, it would be one third of the day working on a thing i’m passionate about, the 2nd third about revenue making and the 3rd one about cooking and reading. I’m not a couch potato, on the contrary I’m quite active, even if I won the lottery I’d still keep busy and help people, you need to keep you mind sharp aaaand I need a lot of stimulation!

8. What would you like to know about other innovators who answer this survey?

I would like to know what their process is – where do they get their inspiration, how did you get to that ? How did the great idea came about? I read about Steve Wozniak in the book “Quiet: the power of introverts” and how he would arrive early at work to work on his idea and transform it into something real.

9. What would be the one thing you’d like your eulogy to say? 

I would like to hear people say that I was kind to others, that I liked to help people. I hope I’m accurately portrayed – that they remember the good things about me. You want to be remembered well, hopefully my family and the people I know will have some good memories and that I did indeed have a positive impact on them.

Breather just celebrated their one year anniversary, the launch of their app and their new Mil-End office space, complete with Caterina’s prototyping room. 

Spring 2014 update on this post:

Caterina has just finished opening up a space in New York City. Read more about Breather in Elle Decor and Refinery 29 which just voted Breather as a Top 10 NYC Apps.

caterina rizzi, on app launching and creativity

alistair croll, mover and shaker extraordinaire

“ there’s simply so much to do, see, taste and try that any day spent not discovering or debating something feels like squandering.”

Last month I was at a Montreal Girl Geeks for a presentation on open data by Lisa Green, major Creative Commons contributor and current Director of LA-based Common Crawl. After that, some of us went out for drinks to continue the conversations started during the Q&A session. IT  and marketing people, open data champions, keen observers, we had interesting conversations on all sorts of topics related to their backgrounds, but each person I spoke with told me that I HAD to read up on or meet Alistair Croll.

After a couple of misspellings and some basic googling, I quickly found out why. Entrepreneur, author, consultant, blogger, event planner, critical thinker, it looked like he was the kind of guy who thought outside the box, celebrated it, and even got the box people to listen to him.

So I had to see for myself I could get to know him better. By the time I read his somewhat intimidating bio I was pretty sure my email inviting him to respond to my little survey would be swimming somewhere in his inbox, drowned in between internship resumes and  Linkedin connection requests.

To my surprise however I actually got a response, and a very insightful one at that! Ladies and gentlemen, I am very proud to present you my first survey response, by Alistair Croll. If you’d like to know a little more about him the man, take your pick:

For those who think Facebook makes only educated guesses as to what your sponsored feed content should sport, please take a minute to read his post here.

For those of you who are well versed in Analytics and the need for game changing strategies, you’ll find plenty here.

And for those who’d like to know about the inspiration behind the man, I’ll let you read on :)

1. Your full name, age and occupation

Alistair Croll;  43. I’m an author, analyst, entrepreneur, and event organizer.

 

2. What was your dream job as a kid?

I didn’t have one, really. But I loved writing code and watching others use it; I was running a BBS (a precursor to web forums) on my Apple //e computer at 13, and the feedback loops—I’d change something, users would change how they interacted—was fascinating.

 

3. Where do you get your support or motivation from?

My wife is an incredible force in my life, though she’d be the first to deny it. I’m also lucky enough to have a circle of friends and mentors I’ve worked with over the years who point me at interesting things. My biggest motivation is curiosity; we’re here for seventy or so years, and there’s simply so much to do, see, taste and try that any day spent not discovering or debating something feels like squandering.

 

“It’s easy to say, “don’t build something nobody needs.” But people didn’t know they needed a Walkman, or a Dodge Caravan.”

 

4. What sparked your motivation or need to start your own thing?

In the late nineties, my longtime friend and co-conspirator Eric Packman bugged me to launch something (which became Networkshop, an analyst firm.) Then another friend, Thanos Moschopoulos, prodded us into turning it into a managed service provider (MSP) called Coradiant. And Ian Rae cajoled us into turning what Coradiant was doing into an appliance called TrueSight. So what sparked me was other people.

These days, I’m more focused on what the world will be like in ten years. Paul Graham said that founders see the world as it will be and then build what’s missing. That’s the hard part—seeing what’s missing, and how people will use it. It’s simple to look at an iPhone or an Android today and say, “of course that’s how we take pictures, make calls, and manage our calendar.” It wasn’t so obvious ten years ago.

 

5. What were you the most excited about when you started off?

Any new venture has that “first day of school” feeling of clean binders and fresh pens. It’s easy to get swayed by that, and there’s certainly something cathartic about a clean slate. But if you’re starting something you know about, you spend a lot of time trying to separate your own cognitive biases from what the market really needs.

What excites me the most is when I’m talking to people and I start to see patterns emerge. My Lean Analytics co-author Ben Yoskovitz and I are busy working on a workshop about Lean Analytics for Intrapreneurs. The first couple of phone calls with innovators at big companies were interesting—but by the sixth or seventh, I started seeing the “red threads” that tied them all together.

That feeling of the market or problem revealing itself to you if you’re willing to dig, to be various, is thrilling.

“ I’d like to know I added more value to humanity than I took. Not sure what the metric for that is.”

 

6. What did you wish you knew before starting all this?

Well, in Coradiant’s case, the answer is obvious: I’d have built TrueSight first, without the MSP business that got us there. That drained a lot of funding, patience, and energy from us. I have a general aversion to businesses that require humans to deliver services these days; Marc Andreesen says software is eating the world, and I think he’s right.

The big lesson, though, is balance. It’s easy to say, “don’t build something nobody needs.” But people didn’t know they needed a Walkman, or a Dodge Caravan. Those products tested horribly, but met a need people had. It’s tempting to be a nay-sayer, and only build things the world needs today. It’s also uninspiring. On the other hand, it’s reckless to build something on faith—but most great startups began there.

Ultimately, I learned that balancing data-driven tactics and a ruthless honesty with a big vision and a leap of faith is incredibly hard to do well.

 

7. Describe a day in your life as you’d like it to be in 3 years.

That depends. If I’m building something new, which I may well be, I’d like to be talking to customers and diving deep into the minutiae of a product release, and fielding plaintive emails from people I’ve never met begging to try my new product.

On the other hand, if I’m still writing, running conferences, and trying to predict where humanity will intersect with technology, then I’d like to be drinking decent wine with smart people late at night.

Either way, I hope it will include a decent amount of time helping my daughter to find the same skeptical curiosity and awestruck enthusiasm with which I see the world.

8. What would you like to know about other innovators who answer this survey?

I think there is a critical metric or number in every startup that became the most important number in the company. I’d like to know what that was, and how they knew they’d found the mystical “product-market fit” when the market just pulls the product out of you.

 

9. What would be the one thing you’d like your eulogy to say?

That I finally finished something.

Seriously, though: Tim O’Reilly has a great statement about adding more value to a system than you take away. I’d like to know I added more value to humanity than I took. Not sure what the metric for that is.