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How a Female Founder Builds Real Human Connection Beyond the Swipe | Show notes for episode 149 with Marsha Goei
Endless swiping, getting ghosted, and no real dates to show for it.
Most dating apps are built to keep you engaged, not to help you meet. Which raises the question: what would a dating app look like if it actually got people on their first date?
In this episode, I sit down with Marsha Goei, one of the founders behind Breeze. Instead of optimizing for swipes and chats, Breeze is built to get people off the app and into real-life dates.
Marsha also shares what it takes to build as the only woman in a team with six male co-founders, from navigating team dynamics to growing as a person alongside the company.
And then there is the strong parallel between dating and building a company. She highlights that choosing a co-founder or investor comes with the same mix of trust, vulnerability, and hard conversations.
If you want to understand what it takes to build something deeply human in a system that rewards the opposite, hit play below to listen to the episode. Or scroll down for the key takeaways.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote from the Episode
- Patterns I’m Seeing Across Conversations
- Coming Up On Women Disrupting Tech
- What I Want to Leave You With
- About Marsha Goei
- About Breeze Social
- Listen to Episode 149 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
3 Lessons From This Conversation
Breeze didn’t try to incrementally improve what other dating apps were already doing. They challenged the assumptions behind them and made different choices from the start.
1. If you build a dating app, make sure people actually date
Marsha points out the core issue with most dating apps. They are designed around swiping and chatting, not around meeting. So people stay active in the app, but rarely go on actual dates. Breeze made a different choice. The goal is simple: get people to meet in real life. That decision shapes everything, from how matches work to how quickly you move people offline.
2. You don’t need to build a dating app to test it.
Instead of starting with code, the team tested behavior. They showed paper profiles on campus, matched people manually, and organized dates through WhatsApp and Excel. It sounds basic, but it answered the only question that mattered: will people actually show up? That proof came before any product was built.
3. Building with seven co-founders requires investments in relationships
Most teams, and investors, would see seven founders as a risk. Breeze treated it as something to manage deliberately. Monthly sessions focused on direct feedback and honest conversations were not optional. They were part of how the company operates. That structure made it possible to move fast without things breaking underneath.
These lessons show that building real human connections doesn’t stop at the product. It shapes how you test your ideas and how you build your team.
Feel free to share the episode with someone who needs to hear this.
Or scroll down for magic moments.
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 00:00 Introduction 02:20 Introduction to Marsha Goei and Breeze 05:22 The Journey to Entrepreneurship 07:58 Building Breeze: The Concept of a Dating App 11:14 Safety Features and User Commitment in Dating 14:11 Validating the Breeze Concept 17:05 From Concept to App Development 19:55 Business Model Evolution and User Experience 23:00 Design Philosophy and User-Centric Approach 25:56 Success Metrics and User Feedback 29:06 Navigating Gender Dynamics in Entrepreneurship 35:18 Building a Feedback Culture 38:24 The Shift from Family to Team 41:11 Navigating Roles and Responsibilities 45:07 The Journey of Self-Discovery 52:39 Recognizing and Overcoming Burnout 57:17 The Role of Investors in Growth 1:03:55 Empowering Female Founders through Community
3 Magic Moments In The Episode
Marsha mentions that the team even received cards from couples who had a baby after going on a first date through the app. It is, of course, the ultimate way of validating your product. And the ultimate magical moment of the episode. But her story goes deeper.
1. Building a company before you know your role
Marsha shares that she is the only one in the founding team working in a role that matches her studies. Others, including the CFO, started in completely different roles, like front-end development, despite backgrounds in fields like electrical engineering. It reflects how they started while still in university, figuring things out as they went. Roles were not predefined. They emerged based on what the company needed at the time.
2. Being willing to look a bit weird to understand the problem
At one point, Marsha says, “I think especially as young founders and early stage, you just have to get out there and not be afraid to make a fool of yourself or to bother other people trying to understand the problem.” That mindset shows up in how they approached validation. It’s a reminder that understanding a problem deeply often starts with doing things that feel uncomfortable.
3. Radical vulnerability as a foundation for founder trust
Marsha describes moments where co-founders openly share personal stories, including childhood experiences, to better understand each other’s triggers and strengths. These conversations are not occasional. They are part of how the team operates. It shows how trust at that level is not accidental, but something you build deliberately.
These moments show that building something that works in the real world starts with how you show up as a founder, not just what you build.
What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments!
Practical Takeaways for Founders
Building a product that works in the real world requires a team that can operate at a high level. In this conversation, Marsha shares what it takes to move from an early-stage “family” to a team that can actually win.
1. At some point, you need to move from “family” to performance
Marsha explains that early teams often feel like a family. Everyone supports each other and roles are fluid. But as the company grows, that model starts to break. You need to shift toward a team mindset, where expectations are clear and performance matters. Not to lose the culture, but to make sure the company can keep moving forward.
2. Structure your conversations so every voice is heard
As discussions become more intense, communication style starts to matter. Breeze introduced a simple rule: everyone gets a turn to speak without interruption. It creates space for different perspectives and prevents dominant voices from taking over. It sounds small, but it changes how decisions get made.
3. Clarity is what keeps people sane as you scale
As the team grows, ambiguity becomes a problem. Marsha highlights the importance of clearly defined roles and expectations, especially after the first 10 hires. People need to know what is expected of them and how success is measured. Without that clarity, performance drops and frustration builds.
These takeaways show that building a winning team is not about motivation alone. It is about putting the right structures in place so people can perform.
Know a founder who should hear this? Use the share button below to tell them.
The Quote from the Episode
“We want to prove that you can become big with an honest business model and a product that’s actually good for humans.” – Marsha Goei
This line captures what Breeze is trying to do differently. Not just in dating, but in how products are built. Growth does not have to come from keeping people stuck in a system. It can come from helping them move forward in real life.
That idea shows up throughout the conversation. From getting people off the app and onto real dates, to making product decisions that prioritize outcomes over engagement. It is a reminder that scale and integrity do not have to be in conflict.
Patterns I’m Seeing Across Conversations
Part of the fun in making this podcast is that you start seeing links between what guests are saying. This episode reinforced the learnings from 3 conversations I recently had.
1. Burnout is often a signal of misalignment, not just overload
Marsha shares that her burnout was not only about working too much. It came from stepping into a management role that did not fit her natural strengths as the company scaled. That insight connects directly to my conversation with Alice Pavin, where we discussed how many founders burn out when they grow into roles that move them away from what they are actually good at. It shows that burnout can be a mismatch between your role and your strengths, not just your workload.
2. Intuition is not the opposite of data. It completes it
Marsha makes it clear that product decisions are not just about metrics. User experience is often less easy to argue up front. It’s easy to mistake for something soft that needs to be tested, which can be frustrating to hear if you spend four years learning how to design products. It ties into a similar point in my conversation with Valerie Hirschhauser, where intuition in the boardroom acts as a counterbalance to an overly data-driven approach. Data shows what is happening. Intuition helps you decide what to do with it. You need both.
3. What you measure shapes what you build
Breeze measures success by whether people go on dates, not by how long they stay in the app. That decision changes how the product is designed. It took me back to episode 144, where Christine Miller shares that technology reflects the incentives and assumptions behind it, and over time shapes behavior. The metric is never neutral. It defines the outcome.
These patterns show that the way we build products, teams, and systems is rarely about one decision. It is about the assumptions we carry across contexts.
Which of these patterns do you recognize in your own work? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Coming Up On Women Disrupting Tech
What does success actually look like when you are building in healthcare, where speed is not the priority and impact is harder to measure?
In this episode, Femke Delissen shares how building Pava.ai forced her and her co-founders to rethink what success means in the first place. Not in terms of scale or headlines, but in terms of whether the technology is truly used in a way that improves care. In the clip below, she reflects on the moment where they decided there was no longer a “plan B,” and how that led to a more deliberate definition of success.
Listen to the clip and hear what that shift sounds like in practice.
And if you’re curious how that mindset shapes everything from product to market choices, subscribe to Women Disrupting Tech and dive into the full episode.
What I Want to Leave You With
This episode is the story of a classic startup: 6 guys and a woman started building a solution to a problem that they experienced themselves while still in University.
Breeze shows what happens when you design for what people actually want, not what keeps them engaged. In a market built around swiping and chatting, they chose to focus on one outcome: getting people on a real date.
It is also a story of what happens when ambition and growth create pressure on both the team and the individual. Roles change. Expectations increase. And without the right structure, people can end up in positions that do not fit them. That is where the shift from a “family” to a team matters. Clear roles, honest feedback, and boundaries that protect both performance and people.
Marsha’s story shows that building something that works in the real world is not about clever features. It is about making consistent choices about what you optimize for, and following those choices through in your product, your role, and your team.
Hit the play button or listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
About Marsha Goei
Marsha Goei is the Head of Brand and one of the six co-founders of Breeze, a dating app designed to get people off their phones and into real-life dates. She started the company while still in university, building a product based on the team’s own frustration with modern dating apps. From the beginning, the focus was clear: not more swipes or chats, but helping people actually meet.
She holds a Master’s degree in Strategic Product Design from Delft University of Technology, which shaped her approach to building products that balance user experience with real-world outcomes. Within Breeze, Marsha grew into a role that aligns closely with her strengths in product and brand, helping guide the company from early validation experiments to a venture-backed team with dozens of employees.
In addition to her role at Breeze, Marsha is also an Angel investor via the AtVenture Platform. You can connect with Marsha on LinkedIn.
About Breeze Social
Breeze is a dating app founded in the Netherlands with a clear starting point: technology should support real human connection, not replace it. The product is built around one core idea, taking online dating offline by helping people meet in real life as quickly as possible.
Instead of endless swiping or chatting, Breeze matches people and moves them directly toward a first date. The app organizes the logistics, including time and location, so users can focus on showing up rather than messaging. This shifts the goal from engagement in the app to real-world outcomes.
You can learn more about the app and the team on the website, where you can also find the links to download the app. On social media, you can find them on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. And you can discover open positions on their careers site.
Listen to Episode 149 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
How a Female Founder Builds Real Human Connection Beyond the Swipe with Marsha Goei | Ep. 149 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen to our conversation on YouTube Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event – Trek XIII – 23-30 May 2026
Trek is the program for founders and funders to learn from—and connect with—Silicon Valley, the epicenter of innovation and technological disruption.
Participating offers a unique insider perspective, lots of fun, and access to the investors behind Dutch successes like Mollie, FLYR, Weaviate, and HackerOne. Previous participants have raised funding in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, found inspiration, and made new friends.
Trek is an activity by DutchTechX, which spun out from DutchTechSF—the Dutch-American entrepreneurial community. Funded by Dutch-American founders, the initiative fosters collaboration between the U.S.
The next edition will take place from May 23–30, 2026. About five spots are still available. DM the organizer, Oliver Binkhorst, or click here for more information. FAQs are available here.
I’ve done a previous version of this program, and I can absolutely recommend that female founders who are thinking about taking their business to the US follow this program to understand the ecosystem and connect to investors and founders in the Valley.
Featured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 24 June 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
Men are expressly invited to join. In fact, send me an email if you want to be a women’s health pioneer. More info and tickets can be found here.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can find their events on the website. Joining your first event is free.
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The Startup Operator’s Playbook: Turning Founder Vision into Reality with Eliza Moore | Show notes episode 148 of Women Disrupting Tech
Most founders have a big vision. And as we found out in the previous episode, that big picture story is essential when building a startup.
But a company cannot run on vision alone. At some point, every founder has to turn that story into something real, consistent, and scalable.
That point is where operators like Eliza Moore step in. Eliza Moore is the EVP of Client Experience & Operations at Prizeout, a NY-based FinTech that operates in the customer loyalty space. Together, we explore what it actually takes to bring a founder’s vision to life.
In episode 148 of Women Disrupting Tech, we discuss
- How to translate a high-level story into concrete roadmaps, timelines, and ownership
- How to build credibility and trust through consistent follow-through and transparent communication
- When to move from generalists who figure things out to specialists who scale what works
The lessons from this episode bridge the gap between high-level vision and daily execution, and they offer a toolkit for building resilient, trust-based companies.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down for the key moments and insights from the conversation that will transform how you see cognitive decline and dignity.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
Building a high-growth startup requires more than just a disruptive idea; it demands an operational framework that can translate that vision into a repeatable reality. In this episode, Eliza Moore breaks down what it takes to close the gap between “the dream” and “the do.”
Close the vision-to-execution gap
Founders often focus on the “why” and the “what.” That is what sets direction. But direction alone is not enough. Eliza shows how operators take that vision and turn it into roadmaps, timelines, and clear ownership. This founder-operator dynamic is what allows a company to move from story to execution, and from intention to consistent delivery.
Scale comes from focus, not more activity
It is easy to think that growth comes from doing more. More features, more clients, more initiatives. Eliza challenges that assumption. She explains that scale often comes from deciding what not to do, and then following through on what remains. That discipline is what builds credibility with both your team and your customers.
Know the inflection point between generalists and specialists
In the early stages, you need people who can figure things out. Generalists who are willing to step in wherever needed. As the company grows, that changes. Eliza highlights the importance of recognizing the moment when complexity increases, and specialists are needed to scale what works. Knowing that inflection point helps you avoid both chaos and premature structure.
These lessons close the gap between vision and execution, and show what it actually takes to build something that lasts.
💬 Know a founder or operator who could benefit from Eliza’s wisdom? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, a quote and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- The episode in an Infographic
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- Patterns I’m Seeing Across Conversations
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 148 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Eliza Moore
- About Prizeout
- Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You
The episode in an Infographic
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 00:00 Introduction 02:33 Eliza Moore’s Journey to Prizeout 09:36 Understanding Prizeout’s Unique Fintech Model 13:58 The Role of Credit Unions in Financial Services 20:34 The Operator vs. Founder Dynamic 26:40 Lessons from Mentorship and Leadership 35:03 The Importance of Operators in Business 43:08 Mental Models for Success in Funding 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
Beyond the frameworks and structures, this conversation is grounded in how Eliza actually operates day to day. These moments show what leadership looks like when things are not polished, and when the work still needs to get done.
The “Fridge Test” for leaders
Eliza shares a memory from her first day at Prizeout. She saw the CEO stocking the office refrigerator himself. It caught her off guard. But over time, she came to see it differently. Not as a one-off moment, but as a signal of how leadership shows up. Being willing to step in, handle what needs to be done, and not see any task as beneath you. That is a standard she now holds herself to as well.
The power of a selective “no.”
As companies grow, the number of opportunities increases. That sounds like progress, but it can easily become a distraction. Eliza explains that a big part of her role is deciding what not to pursue. Not because the ideas are bad, but because they take focus away from what matters most. That discipline is what allows a team to move forward with clarity instead of spreading itself too thin.
Starting as a generalist
Eliza initially joined Prizeout as their Chief of Staff, where there was no clear job description. She stepped into different problems, learned as she went, and built a broad understanding of how the business works. That experience shaped how she approaches operations today. It allows her to connect different parts of the company and step in where needed as the business evolves.
These moments show that execution is not only about systems and planning. It is also about ownership, focus, and the willingness to step into whatever the situation requires.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways if you want to discover the three key ingredients of a good founder story.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
Our conversation contains heaps of takeaways that both founders and operators can apply directly in their own companies, whether you are setting direction or making it happen. I wanted to highlight three:
Know when to shift from generalists to specialists
Early on, you need people who step into whatever needs attention. People who figure things out without a clear playbook. As the company grows, that changes. You need people who are very good at specific parts of the business. The key is timing. Bring in specialists when complexity increases, not before. And help your team understand where they do their best work, so they can grow in the right direction.
Build trust by following through on your promise and through clear communication
Trust is not built through intention only. It is built through delivering on your promise. If you say you will do something, you do it. If you cannot, you communicate that early and clearly. Eliza also emphasizes being open inside the team. Honest conversations about what is working, what is not, and what needs to change. That clarity is what allows teams to move fast without losing alignment.
Use AI to think, not just to produce
AI is often used to generate outputs. Eliza uses it differently. She uses it to work through ideas and clarify her thinking. It helps her prepare for conversations and make sure she has the right context. At the same time, there is a clear boundary. When AI is used without reflection, it becomes obvious. The value comes from using it as a thinking partner, not a shortcut.
These takeaways show that strong execution is not about doing more. It is about making better decisions, building trust, and using the tools around you with intention.
🙋🏻♀️ Know a founder or operator who should hear this? Use the share button below to tell them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“Scale doesn’t always come from saying yes and doing more. It comes from deciding more clearly and sometimes actually saying no. Credibility is built through follow-through.”
Eliza Moore – EVP of Client Experience & Operations at Prizeout
Eliza captures something many founders experience as they grow. More opportunities do not automatically lead to better outcomes. What matters is deciding what truly moves the business forward, and having the discipline to focus on that.
Saying no only works when it is paired with follow-through on what you do commit to. That is how credibility and trust are built. Not through promises, but through consistency.
Patterns I’m Seeing Across Conversations
Even though each episode stands on its own, certain themes keep coming back. These are the patterns that connected most clearly to my conversation with Eliza.
Creating time to think is part of the job
In my conversation with Valerie Hirshauser, we spoke about something that rarely gets protected: time to think. Moving out of firefighting mode and stepping back to think through actions and decisions. Listening to Eliza, I see the same pattern. Strong operators do not just manage tasks. They create space to process information, connect dots, and decide what actually matters.
Invisible work is what holds everything together
Jamie Albaum described how much work happens out of sight. The tasks that are not tracked, not measured, and often not recognized. Eliza’s perspective on operations connects directly to that. When things run smoothly, you do not see the effort behind it. But that is exactly where stability, trust, and consistency come from. And that’s something that deserves recognition.
Leadership looks different depending on the structure around it
There is still a strong narrative that finance, like tech, is male-dominated. At the same time, when you look at credit unions, you often see women in leadership roles. That contrast matters. It shows that structure and incentives shape who leads. And that different role models can create different outcomes over time.
Taken together, these patterns point to something practical. Building a strong company is not only about strategy or speed. It is about how you think, what you choose to value, and the systems you create around people.
💬 What changed your thinking about working for startups? And would you join one as an operator? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
Most dating apps promise connection. Yet many people spend weeks chatting, building expectations, and still never meet. And when they do, the reality often doesn’t match what they imagined.
In this episode, I sit down with Marsha Goei, one of the founders behind Breeze, to explore how dating can feel more human again. We talk about what happens when you remove endless chatting, focus on real-life meetings, and rethink what “efficiency” should mean in a space that is deeply personal.
In the clip below, Marsha explains what actually goes wrong in most dating apps today, from ghosting to mismatched expectations, and why Breeze decided to design the process differently . It’s a simple observation, but it changes how you look at modern dating.
If this makes you rethink how we connect, subscribe to updates below to find it in your inbox on 23 April 2026 at 8:00 hours CET.
Until then, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Listen to Episode 148 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
The Startup Operator’s Playbook: Turning Founder Vision into Reality with Eliza Moore | Ep 148 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen to our conversation on YouTube About Eliza Moore
Eliza Moore is the EVP of Client Experience & Operations at Prizeout. She works at the intersection of strategy and execution, translating high-level direction into systems, processes, and clear ownership that allow the business to scale.
Her background in financial services and technology is reflected in how she approaches her role. She combines structured thinking with a practical mindset, focusing on planning, project management, and consistent follow-through. That combination allows her to support growth while maintaining operational clarity and reliability.
Alongside her operational work, Eliza places a strong emphasis on people. She focuses on building trust, developing talent, and creating an environment where individuals can do their best work. Her leadership style is collaborative and service-oriented, with a clear focus on helping both the team and the business move forward together.
You can connect with Eliza on LinkedIn.
About Prizeout
Prizeout is an advertising and financial technology company that helps put money back into people’s pockets. Through Prizeout’s technology, brand-funded offers are available to all partners, including financial institutions, gaming companies, gig economy startups, and more, giving them access to instant cash back from national and local brands when they shop with digital gift cards.
You can learn more on the website and by following Prizeout on LinkedIn. To check for open positions, visit https://jobs.lever.co/prizeout.
Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
Want to help close the funding gap? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event – Trek XIII – 23-30 May 2026
Trek is the program for founders and funders to learn from—and connect with—Silicon Valley, the epicenter of innovation and technological disruption.
Participating offers a unique insider perspective, lots of fun, and access to the investors behind Dutch successes like Mollie, FLYR, Weaviate, and HackerOne. Previous participants have raised funding in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, found inspiration, and made new friends.
Trek is an activity by DutchTechX, which spun out from DutchTechSF—the Dutch-American entrepreneurial community. Funded by Dutch-American founders, the initiative fosters collaboration between the U.S.
The next edition will take place from May 23–30, 2026. About five spots are still available. DM the organizer, Oliver Binkhorst, or click here for more information. FAQs are available here.
I’ve done a previous version of this program, and I can absolutely recommend that female founders who are thinking about taking their business to the US follow this program to understand the ecosystem and connect to investors and founders in the Valley.
Featured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 24 June 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
Men are expressly invited to join. In fact, send me an email if you want to be a women’s health pioneer. More info and tickets can be found here.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can find their events on the website. Joining your first event is free.
What I Want To Leave You With
There is a quiet tension in how we build companies. We celebrate the vision. The story. The person out front. But much of what makes a company work happens out of sight.
In my conversation with Eliza, that became very clear. She operates from a place of service. Not in the spotlight, but in making sure things actually work for the people around her. For the team. For the customers. For the business as a whole. It made me wonder how that approach evolves over time, especially in environments that often reward visibility over consistency.
At the same time, it reinforced something practical. Every founder will eventually face the moment where vision is no longer enough. Where the question shifts from “what are we building” to “how do we make this work, every day, for everyone involved.”
The companies that figure that out are not always the loudest. But often, they are the ones that last.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You
💬 Would you join a startup as an operator instead of as a founder if it meant you could stay out of the spotlight?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments.
Leave a comment
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The Anatomy of a Female Founder Story That Drives Action with Jennifer Cloer | Show notes episode 147 of Women Disrupting Tech
Imagine having a story that could change how people see your company, and not telling it.
Not because it isn’t there. But because you assume it’s not interesting enough.
In episode 147 of Women Disrupting Tech, Jennifer Cloer, founder of Story Changes Culture, explains why that assumption is often wrong. She shows how storytelling turns personal experience into something others recognize, and how that recognition shapes what people do next.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down for the key moments and insights from the conversation that will transform how you see cognitive decline and dignity.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
Storytelling is often treated as something you add later. That gap goes unnoticed. But Jennifer shows that storytelling is not separate from positioning. It is how founders shape how their company, product, and story are understood.
Stories change what feels normal
When stories like those of Ellen Pao and Susan Fowler became visible, something shifted for women in tech. Experiences that once felt isolated started to look like patterns. What people accepted as “just how it is” became something they began to question.
Jennifer points to this shift when she talks about how people connect through shared experiences. Once that connection is there, behavior that felt personal starts to feel structural.
Stories create action, not just awareness
In the Chasing Grace Project, storytelling did not stop at recognition. Women asked for raises. They left environments where they were not valued. They made decisions they had been postponing.
Jennifer is very clear about why this happens: “People don’t actually take action unless there’s an emotional connection.” That emotional connection turns a story into something people respond to. It moves them from understanding to doing.
Your perspective is the story
Many founders assume they need a more polished or impressive story. Jennifer challenges that idea directly: “No one else has your brain or your perspective.”
The strength of a story does not come from how dramatic it sounds. It comes from how clearly it reflects your lived experience and why you care about the problem you are solving.
These lessons show how storytelling shapes perception, drives action, and starts from your own perspective. That is not separate from positioning. It is how positioning works.
💬 Know a founder who has a story that matters more than they believe? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- Patterns I’m Seeing Across Conversations
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 147 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Jennifer Cloer
- About Story Changes Culture
- Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 00:00 Introduction 02:07 The Birth of Story Changes Culture 07:20 The Chasing Grace Project: Empowering Women Through Storytelling 12:13 The Importance of Storytelling in Leadership 18:51 Authenticity in Storytelling: Balancing Personal and Professional 21:13 Embracing Emotion in Storytelling 21:23 Harnessing Tension in Storytelling 22:56 Filling the Gap: Story Changes Culture Masterclass 25:39 Elements of a Compelling Story 28:42 Overcoming Skepticism in Art and Storytelling 31:26 The Role of Agency in Storytelling 32:59 Choosing the Right Perspective 35:33 Underused Storytelling Elements for Women Founders 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
There are three parts of this conversation that make the power of storytelling tangible. Jennifer shares how her own story started, how it spread, and when it led to real outcomes.
Telling stories that usually stay hidden
Jennifer traces her work back to high school, where she partnered with the drama club to produce a show about the lived experiences of teenagers that were not often talked about. It’s a simple example, but it reveals something important.
From the beginning, her focus was not on polished narratives. It was on bringing forward stories that were already there, but not being told. That instinct carries through her work today.
When stories stopped feeling individual
Jennifer describes a shift around ten years ago, when women in tech moved from seeing each other as competition to recognizing shared experiences. Stories that once felt personal started to connect.
That shift created something new. Not just awareness, but a sense of “we’re in this together.” And once that happens, the conversation changes. What felt isolated becomes something people can act on collectively.
When stories led to real decisions
In the Chasing Grace Project, storytelling did not stay on screen. Women saw their own experiences reflected and responded.
They asked for raises. They left environments where they were not valued. Jennifer describes this as the “rocket fuel” behind the project. The stories created an emotional connection, and that connection led to action.
These moments reveal a clear pattern: stories make experiences visible, connect people, and move them to act.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways if you want to discover the three key ingredients of a good founder story.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
When you listen to founders talk about their company on this podcast, you’ll often hear a polished version of the story. Clear. Rational. Well structured. That’s often the version people end up telling. It’s not where the story starts. In our conversation, Jennifer breaks that down into three things that help founders build their story.
Start with one moment that explains why you care
Your story does not need to be complex. It starts with a moment that made you pay attention to a problem. That is often enough to build from.
Don’t avoid tension in your story
Every strong story has something at stake. What happens if your problem is not solved? What frustrated you enough to start building? That tension creates connection.
Treat your perspective as an asset
Many founders think their story is not interesting. In reality, your perspective is the secret ingredient that makes your company different. No one else has your brain, your experience or your way of seeing the problem.
I’ve seen this play out in my own work as well. Women Disrupting Tech didn’t become clearer by adding more stories. It became clearer by getting more specific about the story that was already there.
If you want a place to start, try this simple exercise: Take five minutes to jot down one moment that made you care about your company’s mission. Just describe what happened and how it made you feel. This quick reflection can help you uncover the spark behind your story.
💬 Know a founder you want to benefit from these storytelling lessons? Use the share buttons below to share these takeaways with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“No one else has your brain or your perspective except for you. And so even if you’re talking or telling a story that you feel like has been told before… it hasn’t been told by you.”
Jennifer Cloer – Founder of Story Changes Culture
Jennifer simplifies storytelling in a way that responds directly to something many founders struggle with. The idea that their story needs to be original, bigger, or more impressive before it is worth telling.
Jennifer reframes that completely. The value of the story is not in the topic. It is in the perspective. Your lived experience shapes how you see the problem, why you care, and how you build.
Patterns I’m Seeing Across Conversations
Across recent conversations on Women Disrupting Tech, I’m hearing the same pattern in different contexts. Stories influence what people do next.
Stories create permission
When people hear a story that reflects their own experience, something shifts. It becomes easier to act.
You see this in Jennifer’s work with the Chasing Grace Project, where women started asking for raises or left environments where they were not valued. It links with my conversation with Melissa Solis, who encourages women to go where they’re valued or to “build their own table”.
Leadership is about what you make visible
This also connects to my conversation with Magali Elhage and Matthijs Welle. She described how hearing him introduce his boyfriend made it easier for her to open up. That was not about policy. It was about what was visible.
The same applies here. When leaders share their story, or create space for others to do so, they influence what people feel allowed to say and do.
Not telling your story has consequences
There is also a pattern in what happens when stories are not told.
If founders hold back because they think their story is not interesting, others miss the chance to recognize themselves in it. That absence keeps experiences in isolation, which slows down change.
These patterns show that storytelling is not just about marketing or communication. It influences what people recognize as normal, what feels acceptable to say, and what becomes possible to imagine.
💬 What changed your thinking about your own story? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
What if growth doesn’t come from doing more, but from deciding what to do and what not?
In episode 148, I sit down with Eliza Moore, EVP of Operations at PrizeOut, to explore what it takes to turn vision into execution. We talk about focus, follow-through, and how operators build the systems that allow companies to scale without losing trust or clarity.
In this clip, Eliza explains why saying “no” is often more important than saying “yes,” and how credibility is built through consistent follow-through and clear communication. It’s a simple idea, but one that changes how you think about growth and trust inside a company.
Click play to listen. If you want to hear how this plays out in practice, subscribe to updates below to find it in your inbox on 16 April 2026 at 8:00 hours CET.
Until then, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Listen to Episode 147 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
The Anatomy of a Female Founder Story That Drives Action with Jennifer Cloer | Ep 147 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen to our conversation on YouTube About Jennifer Cloer
Jennifer Cloer is the founder of Story Changes Culture, where she works with founders and leaders to shape how their work is understood through storytelling. Her focus is simple. Stories are not an add-on. They influence what people see, believe, and decide to do next.
She is also the creator of the Chasing Grace Project, a docuseries that brought real workplace experiences of women in tech into the open. The project showed how stories can make patterns visible and help people recognize their own situation in what they see and hear.
Before this, Jennifer was part of the founding team at the Linux Foundation, where she built and scaled the communications function from the ground up. Today, she combines that experience with her own work to help organizations turn lived experience into stories that connect and lead to action.
You can connect with Jennifer Cloer on LinkedIn and via her personal website.
About Story Changes Culture
Story Changes Culture is a storytelling platform and advisory practice that helps founders and organizations use narrative as part of how they build, not just how they communicate. The work focuses on clarity, lived experience, and the role stories play in shaping decisions.
Through advisory and workshops, Story Changes Culture supports leaders in developing stories that people can recognize themselves in. The goal is not polished messaging, but stories that create connection and make it easier for others to understand why something matters.
One of the core programs is the Story Changes Culture Masterclass, a five-week live workshop where participants work in small groups to develop their story. The focus is on turning personal experience into a clear narrative that helps others see, understand, and respond.
To learn more, visit The Story Changes Culture website, follow them on LinkedIn and Instagram or subscribe to their newsletter on Substack.
Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
Want to help close the funding gap? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event – Trek XIII – 23-30 May 2026
Trek is the program for founders and funders to learn from—and connect with—Silicon Valley, the epicenter of innovation and technological disruption.
Participating offers a unique insider perspective, lots of fun, and access to the investors behind Dutch successes like Mollie, FLYR, Weaviate, and HackerOne. Previous participants have raised funding in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, found inspiration, and made new friends.
Trek is an activity by DutchTechX, which spun out from DutchTechSF—the Dutch-American entrepreneurial community. Funded by Dutch-American founders, the initiative fosters collaboration between the U.S.
The next edition will take place from May 23–30, 2026. About five spots are still available. DM the organizer, Oliver Binkhorst, or click here for more information. FAQs are available here.
I’ve done a previous version of this program, and I can absolutely recommend that female founders who are thinking about taking their business to the US follow this program to understand the ecosystem and connect to investors and founders in the Valley.
Featured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 24 June 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
Men are expressly invited to join. In fact, send me an email if you want to be a women’s health pioneer. More info and tickets can be found here.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can find their events on the website. Joining your first event is free.
What I Want To Leave You With
Founders are often told to focus on product, traction, and metrics. Those things matter. At the same time, how your story is understood shapes how those signals are interpreted.
That’s where storytelling becomes relevant beyond marketing. It influences who gets attention and who gets support.
When you look at storytelling this way, it becomes a crucial tool in building better solutions. Not just for founders, but also for the people deciding what gets funded.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You
💬 Would you be interested in connecting with other female founders to share and refine our stories together?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments.
Leave a comment
-
How a Female Founder Transforms Brain Injury Rehab with AI and VR with Faviola Dadis | Show notes episode 146
Up to 40% of people with an acquired brain injury never complete their rehabilitation.
Not because they don’t want to get better, but because the process is long, repetitive, and often disconnected from how they actually live their lives.
In this episode of Women Disrupting Tech, I speak with Faviola Dadis, founder of BrainBoostXR, about how AI and VR can change that. Not just by improving treatment, but by restoring something people lose early in recovery: dignity.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down for the key moments and insights from the conversation that will transform how you see cognitive decline and dignity.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
When almost half of the people with an acquired brain injury do not complete the rehabilitation program, health outcomes suffer. In our conversation, Faviola and I spent quite a bit of time unpacking why people drop out. It turns out, the problem isn’t just medical. It’s human.
1. The real problem is dignity
After a stroke or concussion, simple things feel harder, which often leads to frustration and self-doubt. That loss of control is what impacts dignity, even more than the injury itself. It also makes it harder to stay engaged with long, slow, repetitive rehab programs. If you don’t feel like yourself anymore, it’s difficult to keep showing up. The good news is that rehabilitation can still create new neural pathways, even years after the injury.
2. Recovery only works when it includes the human side
Cognitive training on its own is not enough. Recovery also depends on how people feel, how connected they are, and whether they find meaning in what they’re doing. Faviola points out that many patients are told how to live with their condition, rather than how to make the most out of their lives. And she explains how turning rehabilitation into something that feels more like a game improves outcomes. Because when something is engaging, people are more likely to stick with it.
3. Personalization changes everything
What makes BrainBoostXR different is the level of personalization that is powered by AI. By working with digital twins, or virtual representations of patients, clinicians can simulate different scenarios and adjust treatment based on real data like reaction time or gaze. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, each person gets a program that adapts to their needs. That increases both effectiveness and motivation.
What binds these lessons is that better outcomes don’t come from more treatment, but from treatment people actually want to continue.
💬 Know a founder who should hear this perspective? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 146 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Faviola Dadis
- About BrainBoostXR
- Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 00:00 Introduction 02:55 Journey to BrainBoostXR 08:36 Understanding Acquired Brain Injury 14:39 The Role of Gamification in Rehabilitation 20:32 The Importance of Dignity in Recovery 26:21 Innovations in AI and Digital Twins 32:44 The Power of AI in Personalization 36:08 Ethics and Bias in AI Development 45:12 Commercializing BrainBoostXR 57:39 Defining Success in Cognitive Care 1:03:30 The Gender Funding Gap 1:05:11 Investor Expectations and Early-Stage Challenges 1:09:25 The Founder-Investor Relationship 1:14:55 Personal Health and Entrepreneurship 1:21:31 Building an AI Funding Coach 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
Because Faviola has a neurological condition herself, she has a unique way of making the impact of brain injury feel real. Not in theory, but in how people experience their lives day to day. Here are three moments from our conversation where this stands out.
1. Her “Neuroscience Barbie” persona
Faviola embraces her identity as both a researcher and an entrepreneur through her handle @NeuroscienceBarbie. It’s more than a name. It’s a way to make complex science accessible and relatable. By doing that, she bridges two worlds that are often kept apart, and shows that expertise and approachability can go together.
2. Becoming a superhero instead of a patient
When we talk about how her being a patient benefits her as an entrepreneur, she shares this story of a fellow patient who was worried about how his daughter would see him after his injury. Instead of focusing on what he had lost, Faviola helped him to reframe it to become a superhero in her eyes. It is a beautiful reminder that even a brain injury can enable you to inspire and support others.
3. “Loneliness erodes dignity long before cognitive decline will set in.”
Faviola explains that the impact of brain injury is not just cognitive. People often become isolated, and that isolation affects how they see themselves. BrainBoostXR addresses this directly with an AI companion that supports patients outside clinical sessions and helps reduce that sense of isolation. This underscores her point that recovery is also about staying connected and feeling part of the world.
Together, these moments show that recovery is not just about what people can do, but how they see themselves and how connected they feel to others.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways if you want to discover what Faviola took away from building NeuroReality.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
After exiting her first company, NeuroReality, Faviola co-founded BrainBoostXR. This time, the technology had caught up with her vision. In an earlier episode, we learned about the importance of experience as a founder. As a repeat founder, Faviola shares these three valuable and specific lessons to help other founders.
1. The 3 C’s of a healthy founder-investor relationship.
Faviola compares the relationship with investors to a marriage. It only works when there is real alignment. She summarizes this as three C’s: communication, compromise, and compatibility. You need open dialogue, a shared way of evaluating progress, and the ability to adjust when things change. Without that, misalignment shows up quickly.
2. Pay attention to early signals.
Some of the strongest signals show up early. Who gets the time, how conversations are handled, and whether there is mutual respect. These moments may seem small, but they often reflect how the relationship will evolve. If something feels off in the beginning, it usually doesn’t improve later.
3. Don’t accept every check or term sheet.
Not every investment is a good one. A term sheet can look attractive on the surface, while creating pressure or loss of control later on. Faviola’s experience shows how important it is to look beyond the money and understand what kind of relationship you are entering into.
In the end, the pattern to spot is that choosing the right investors on the right terms is as important as building the right product.
💬 Know a founder you want to benefit from these lessons? Use the share buttons below to share these takeaways with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“Loneliness erodes diginity far before cognitive decline will set in.”
Faviola Dadis – CEO and co-founder of BrainBoostXR
It’s a simple observation that captures the human side of this conversation better than anything else.
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
One of the wonders of the human brain is its ability to rebuild and rewire itself after being damaged. Similarly, it gives us the ability to reframe the beliefs we hold. Here are three moments in my conversation with Faviola that did just that.
Founders need truth, not reassurance
Many people, myself included, believe founders need confidence when raising funding. The conversation with Faviola taught me that it is also about clarity. Honest signals early on, even when they are uncomfortable. Because the wrong questions, endless due diligence, or unclear expectations are signals of what working together could look like.
We may not be as far along as we think
There is a moment where Faviola shares how she was treated by investors, being kept waiting even when time was allocated. I assumed we had moved past that kind of behavior. Hearing that it still happens forced me to question how much progress we have really made.
What you see as a limitation can become an advantage
Faviola talks about her own condition and how she chose to work with it instead of against it. Not as something to hide, but as something that gives her a different perspective. That is not an easy shift to make. But it is a powerful one, especially for founders who feel they do not fit the standard mold.
In the end, this conversation changed how I think about what helps founders move forward, not just support, but clarity, perspective, and the ability to reframe their situation.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to Faviola? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
Imagine having a story that could change how people see your company, and not telling it.
Not because it isn’t there. But because you assume it’s not interesting enough.
In episode 147 of Women Disrupting Tech, Jennifer Cloer, founder of Story Changes Culture, explains why that assumption is often wrong. She shows how storytelling turns personal experience into something others recognize, and how that recognition shapes what people do next.
In this clip, she describes how sharing the right stories is a truly transformative experience for women and why it is necessary for women to share their stories.
Hit play to hear Jennifer Cloer describe why storytelling is something female founders should do. Want to hear the rest of this episode? When you’re subscribed, you’ll find it in your inbox on 9 April 2026 at 8:00 hours CET.
Until then, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Listen to Episode 146 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
How a Female Founder Restores Dignity for Brain Injury Patients with Faviola Dadis | Ep. 146 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen to our conversation on YouTube About Faviola Dadis
Faviola Dadis is a founder, researcher, and educator working at the intersection of neuroscience, technology, and patient care. With a multicultural background and experience living in nine countries, she brings a global perspective to how innovation can solve complex healthcare challenges. Her work is driven by a clear belief: technology should bridge the gap between research and real-world impact.
She first founded NeuroReality, a medtech company focused on virtual reality-based cognitive rehabilitation. There, she developed Koji’s Quest, a gamified software platform that has supported thousands of patients across a wide range of conditions, including brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. In that capacity, she was a guest on episode 4.
Today, she is the co-founder of BrainboostXR, where she builds intelligent, immersive tools to support cognitive health. By combining VR, AI, and personalized data, the platform helps people regain independence through simulated everyday activities that adapt to their needs. The focus is not just on cognitive function, but on restoring autonomy, confidence, and social connection.
You can connect with Faviola on LinkedIn and on Instagram. And you can listen to our earlier conversation on this podcast in episode 4.
About BrainBoostXR
BrainBoostXR is a digital health company focused on redefining how we support brain health and cognitive recovery. At its core, the company combines artificial intelligence, immersive virtual reality, and digital twin technology to create personalized, adaptive experiences that go beyond traditional rehabilitation.
The mission is not only to improve cognitive function, but to restore independence, reduce loneliness, and return a sense of dignity to people living with brain injury, neurological conditions, or age-related decline. BrainBoostXR approaches recovery as something that happens both clinically and socially, recognizing that connection and engagement are essential to long-term outcomes.
Through immersive, game-based environments, users practice everyday activities such as navigating public spaces, socializing, or managing daily tasks. These experiences are continuously adapted using real-time data and AI, creating a personalized feedback loop that supports both patients and clinicians with more responsive and precise interventions.
By bringing together neuroscience, gaming, and data-driven technology, BrainBoostXR aims to move healthcare from static, one-size-fits-all treatment toward dynamic, individualized care. The broader goal is to help people not just recover function, but rebuild confidence, autonomy, and participation in daily life.
You can learn more about BrainBoostXR on the website and by following them on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
Want to help close the funding gap? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event – Trek XIII – 23-30 May 2026
Trek is the program for founders and funders to learn from—and connect with—Silicon Valley, the epicenter of innovation and technological disruption.
Participating offers a unique insider perspective, lots of fun, and access to the investors behind Dutch successes like Mollie, FLYR, Weaviate, and HackerOne. Previous participants have raised funding in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, found inspiration, and made new friends.
Trek is an activity by DutchTechX, which spun out from DutchTechSF—the Dutch-American entrepreneurial community. Funded by Dutch-American founders, the initiative fosters collaboration between the U.S.
The next edition will take place from May 23–30, 2026. About five spots are still available. DM the organizer, Oliver Binkhorst, or click here for more information. FAQs are available here.
I’ve done a previous version of this program, and I can absolutely recommend that female founders who are thinking about taking their business to the US follow this program to understand the ecosystem and connect to investors and founders in the Valley.
Featured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 24 June 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
Men are expressly invited to join. In fact, send me an email if you want to be a women’s health pioneer. More info and tickets can be found here.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can find their events on the website. Joining your first event is free.
What I Want To Leave You With
If there is one thing I took from this conversation, it is how much impact we can have in small, everyday moments.
Faviola explains that loneliness affects how people see themselves, even before cognitive decline becomes visible. That means recovery is not just something that happens in clinics. It also happens in how we show up for each other. A conversation, a walk, or simply taking the time to include someone can make a real difference.
We often think of brain injury as something distant. Something that happens to other people. But the moment where we joked about crossing the street while looking at our phones is a reminder of how fragile some of these abilities actually are. And how easily they can change.
So if you know someone who feels isolated, reach out. Not because you can fix anything, but because connection matters more than we often realize.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You
💬 What do you think about using gaming in rehabilitation?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Leave a comment
-
Scaling Your Startup Without Losing Its Soul with Relinde Boerman | Show notes episode 145
“Time to hire is not a metric that I’m looking at a lot.”
In a startup ecosystem that optimizes for speed, it’s not what you expect to hear from a lead recruiter. But in episode 145 of Women Disrupting Tech, Relinde Boerman, Lead Recruiter at Polarsteps, reveals what it takes to grow a team without diluting the culture that made the company successful in the first place.
Three hiring lessons from our conversation:
• Hiring for values does not reduce diversity.
• Brilliant individuals should never weaken the team.
• Hiring slowly can actually protect culture.ng things wrong. The goal is to invite listeners to rethink how we see and use technology.Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down for the key moments and insights from the conversation that will help you change your perspective on hiring.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
Culture is often described as the soul of a company. When a startup begins to scale, that soul can come under pressure as new people join. So how can you preserve the culture while growing? That’s the central question in this conversation. Relinde shares three lessons from the hiring process that support PolarSteps’ culture.
Hiring for values does not reduce diversity
Some founders worry that focusing on values will create a homogeneous team. At Polarsteps, the opposite happens. Shared values create the foundation that allows people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences to collaborate effectively. Values alignment does not limit diversity. It allows diverse teams to work at a high level.
Talent density matters more than individual brilliance
Polarsteps looks for people who raise the bar for the entire team. That also means that even highly talented candidates will not be hired if they would weaken the collective dynamic. Talent density is not about stacking impressive résumés. It is about building a team where every new hire strengthens how the group works together.
Hiring slowly can protect culture
In many startups, speed becomes the dominant recruiting metric. Polarsteps deliberately resists that pressure. Relinde made it clear that they do not optimize for time-to-hire. Taking the time to find the right person protects the culture far better than rushing a decision that introduces the wrong signal into the team.
Together, these lessons reveal something important. Culture does not survive growth by accident. It survives because leaders make deliberate hiring decisions that reinforce the values they want the company to live by.
💬 Know a founder who should hear this perspective? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 145 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Relinde Boerman
- About Polarsteps
- Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You 🤔
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 00:00 Introduction 02:02 Relinde’s Journey to Polarsteps 04:47 The Growth of Polarsteps 07:20 Maintaining Company Culture During Rapid Growth 10:23 The Importance of Values in Recruitment 12:54 Hiring for Culture Fit 15:38 Assessing Cultural Drift 17:54 Defining Company Values 20:05 Embedding Values in the Hiring Process 22:15 Curiosity as a Cultural Element 25:12 Balancing Clarity and Ambiguity in a Fast-Paced Environment 27:58 The Role of Leadership in Culture 30:14 High Impact, Talent Density, and Values 33:10 Navigating Commercial Pressures in Hiring 35:43 Addressing Hiring Mistakes 38:15 The Day at the Office: A Unique Hiring Approach 40:59 Onboarding and Settling In 43:42 Fostering Belonging in a Hybrid Setup 46:51 Career Growth and Internal Mobility 49:23 Hiring a New CEO 52:19 Advice for Female Founders 55:15 Closing Thoughts and Resources 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
It’s easy to talk about hiring philosophy, but what really matters is how it is implemented in day-to-day hiring decisions. In this conversation, three stories show how Polarsteps applies its standards in practice.
The recruiter who was rejected
Relinde’s journey at Polarsteps starts as a candidate who does not get the job. Three years later, she applies again and is hired. The story says something about her persistence, but it also shows how selective Polarsteps is when deciding who joins the team.
A day at the office
One of the most memorable steps in the recruitment process is the ‘Day at the Office.’ Instead of only answering interview questions, candidates spend a full day actually working with the team. It’s a chance to go beyond talk and see how someone really fits in and collaborates when the pressure is off.
The CEO search as moment of truth
Relinde also shares the story of the search for the company’s new CEO, Clare Jones. The search takes so long that it becomes a running joke inside the company. But the team refuses to settle and continues the search until they find the right match. The story perfectly illustrates how serious Polarsteps is about hiring quality, even when the process takes longer than expected.
These stories reveal a consistent pattern. Polarsteps protects its culture through the hiring decisions it makes as the company grows, regardless of the role.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways if you want to learn more about Polarsteps’ hiring practices.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
It’s easy for hiring conversations to stay on the surface. This one doesn’t. Relinde and I dive deep into how PolarSteps translates its values into how hiring (and onboarding) are done. PolarSteps invested early in a strong People and Culture Team. And Relinde shares three practical learnings that any founder could use.
Prioritise talent density over headcount
Scaling a startup often creates pressure to hire quickly. Polarsteps resists that instinct. The focus is not on how many people join the company, but on the impact each new hire brings to the team. A smaller team with strong contributors creates far more momentum than a rapidly expanding team filled with average performers.
Translate values into real interview questions
Values only matter when they influence decisions. At Polarsteps, that means turning big ideas into down-to-earth interview questions. Instead of asking candidates whether they agree with the company’s values, interviewers dig into real stories and situations to see how people actually behave and whether they’ll make the team stronger.
Create a structured onboarding program
Hiring doesn’t end with a signed contract. Especially when you’ve put so much effort into hiring the right resource, it’s important to make sure that new employees land smoothly. Relinde shares how PolarSteps does this through a 30-60-90 day plan, to set clear expectations and provide evaluation milestones for new hires.
These practices helped Polarsteps scale the team from 20 to 100 while preserving the culture. They show that culture is reinforced through deliberate hiring, thoughtful onboarding, and the discipline to prioritise the right people over rapid expansion.
💬 Know a founder who is building a team right now? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“Time-to-hire is not a metric that I’m looking at a lot”
Relinde Boerman – Lead recruiter at Polarsteps
Her statement may sound simple, but it captures the philosophy behind how Polarsteps builds its team. Hiring decisions focus on long-term alignment with the team and the culture the company wants to protect as it scales.
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
Throughout our conversation, Relinde explains how Polarsteps makes concrete decisions while the company grows. A few of those choices challenge my assumptions about how startups should build teams during periods of rapid change.
Using slow periods in business to recalibrate
When the travel world hit pause during the pandemic, Polarsteps didn’t just wait things out. They used the downtime to really think about what kind of team they wanted to build. That reflection turned into a set of values that still shape every hiring choice and day-to-day decision, even as the company keeps growing.
Hiring “overqualified” people for first-of-kind roles
When a company creates a function for the first time, the instinct is often to hire someone who simply fits the current scope. Polarsteps sometimes hires people who are technically overqualified. These individuals set up the function properly from the start and later build the team around them as the company scales.
Curiosity is a functional requirement for scaling
In a fast-growing company, processes rarely stay stable for long. Systems evolve, roles change, and new problems appear constantly. Relinde explains that people who enjoy that environment tend to be curious rather than anxious. Curiosity becomes a practical requirement for anyone working in a company that is still building how it operates.
These ideas reveal a consistent pattern. Polarsteps treats hiring as long-term company building. Quiet moments are used to reflect, first hires are chosen to shape the future of the function, and curiosity is treated as a requirement rather than a nice-to-have. That discipline allows the company to grow while protecting the culture that made it successful in the first place.
Conversations like this remind me that technology is never just about features. It is also about the systems we create and the roles people are expected to play within them.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to this episode? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
50% of people with an acquired brain injury never complete their rehabilitation. This impacts not only their lives, but also the economy.
In episode 146, Faviola Dadis returns to the show to explain why that is and how her new venture, BrainBoostXR, is helping to solve this problem.
We talk about dignity in healthcare, the role of AI and VR in improving outcomes, and what it really takes to design solutions that work for people in real life.
In this clip, Faviola shares how she initially hid her condition, and how that perspective later became a strength in her work as a founder, researcher, and clinician.
Listen to the clip by hitting the play button. And if you want to hear how that perspective translates into building better healthcare solutions, subscribe to Women Disrupting Tech to find the episode in your inbox on 2 April 2026 at 8:00 hours CET.
Until then, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Listen to Episode 145 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
Scaling Your Startup Without Losing Its Soul with Relinde Boerman | Ep. 145 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen to our conversation on YouTube About Relinde Boerman
Relinde Boerman is Lead Recruiter at Polarsteps, the fast-growing Amsterdam travel tech company behind the popular travel tracking app used by millions of travelers worldwide. Over the past few years, she has built and professionalized the company’s recruitment function as Polarsteps scaled its team and global reach.
Relinde approaches recruitment as a strategic lever for culture and long-term team quality rather than simply a process for filling open roles. One example is Polarsteps’ distinctive “Day at the Office” hiring step, where candidates spend a full day working alongside the team. This allows both sides to experience the collaboration style, expectations, and culture firsthand before a hiring decision is made.
Her work has helped create a hiring process that emphasizes values alignment, talent density, and strong onboarding. The result is a recruitment approach that strengthens both the team and the company culture, reflected in Polarsteps’ exceptionally high Glassdoor rating of 4.9 out of 5.
You can connect with Relinde on LinkedIn.
About Polarsteps
Polarsteps is an Amsterdam-based travel technology company that builds an all-in-one app to help people plan, track, and relive their journeys. Founded in 2015 by a group of passionate travelers and technologists, the company set out to solve a simple problem: how to capture travel experiences in a way that is both effortless and beautiful.
Today, millions of travelers around the world use Polarsteps to plan trips, automatically track their routes on an interactive map, and document their adventures with photos, notes, and stories. The app then transforms these travel memories into shareable digital journeys and even physical “Travel Books” that preserve the experience in a tangible format.
Beyond the product itself, Polarsteps has built a reputation for thoughtful product design and a strong company culture. The team approaches growth deliberately, focusing on talent density, curiosity, and values-driven hiring. As discussed in the episode, that philosophy shapes every stage of the employee journey, from recruitment and onboarding to leadership communication, helping the company scale its team while preserving the culture that attracted millions of travelers to the platform in the first place.
You can learn more about Polarsteps on the website and by following them on Instagram. And if you want to explore if Polarsteps is your place to work, check out the career page.
BTW, Apple recently named Polarsteps one of its most-loved travel apps on the App Store. Download the app via the link on the Polarsteps website.
Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
Want to help close the funding gap? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event – Trek XIII – 23-30 May 2026
Trek is the program for founders and funders to learn from—and connect with—Silicon Valley, the epicenter of innovation and technological disruption.
Participating offers a unique insider perspective, lots of fun, and access to the investors behind Dutch successes like Mollie, FLYR, Weaviate, and HackerOne. Previous participants have raised funding in both the U.S. and the Netherlands, found inspiration, and made new friends.
Trek is an activity by DutchTechX, which spun out from DutchTechSF—the Dutch-American entrepreneurial community. Funded by Dutch-American founders, the initiative fosters collaboration between the U.S.
The next edition will take place from May 23–30, 2026. About five spots are still available. DM the organizer, Oliver Binkhorst, or click here for more information. FAQs are available here
Featured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 24 June 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
Men are expressly invited to join. In fact, send me an email if you want to be a women’s health pioneer. More info and tickets can be found here.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can find their events on the website. Joining your first event is free, and the next one is on 25 March.
What I Want To Leave You With
When startups talk about hiring, the conversation often turns to speed. Open roles need to be filled, teams need capacity, and growth creates pressure to move quickly. Relinde offers a different perspective. Hiring is not a race to fill seats. It is one of the most powerful ways a company shapes its future.
Throughout this conversation, one idea becomes clear. Culture is not preserved through slogans or internal presentations. It is preserved through the decisions companies make when they choose who joins the team. Polarsteps shows what that looks like in practice: staying selective, hiring people who strengthen the group, and investing in the systems that help new hires succeed.
That approach requires patience. It also requires clarity about the kind of company you want to build. When those two things are in place, hiring stops being a reactive process and becomes a deliberate way to protect what makes the organisation work.
If you want to hear how Relinde and the Polarsteps team approach hiring while scaling the company, listen to the full conversation with Relinde Boerman on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 What will you do differently in your hiring after listening to Relinde?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Leave a comment
-
How Power and Design Shape the Technology We Use With Dr. Christine Miller | Show notes episode 144
Most founders believe that technology is neutral. It’s a tool that does not know the difference between right and wrong.
But what if the culture, the beliefs of the creators, and their intentions shape their impact?
In episode 144, Dr. Christine Miller argues that many modern technological tools, including AI, are not primarily designed to perform a function. They are designed for a transaction. And, your data, your prompts, and your ideas become part of the exchange.
Our conversation explores:
- How power and design shape the tools we work with,
- How brands have become the modern versions of totems,
- How this combination creates systems that are difficult to change or leave.
This episode zooms out from the usual product and startup discussions to look at technology as a societal system. The goal is not to say the tech industry has been doing things wrong. The goal is to invite listeners to rethink how we see and use technology.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down to learn how technology shapes society as much as society shapes technology.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
Christine Miller is the co-author of the book Tools, Totems and Totalities. In this episode, we use her framework to explore how culture, design, and power structures shape the technology that influences our future. Her framework describes three layers that explain how technologies evolve from simple products into systems that shape behavior: tools, totems, and totalities.
1. Tools: The product
The first layer is the tool itself. Traditionally, tools were designed to perform a clear function. Many modern digital “tools” work differently. Instead of being designed purely for functionality, many are built around a transaction. When you use an AI system or a platform, you are not just using a tool. You are participating in an exchange where your prompts, data, and ideas become part of the system that powers the technology.
2. Totems: The identity around the tool
The second layer is what Christine calls the totem. Totems are the brands, symbols, and identities that form around technologies. Platforms and devices are rarely just products. They often represent belonging, status, or a worldview. In that sense, technology brands function much like totems in traditional cultures. They signal who we are and what we believe in.
3. Totalities: The system that shapes behavior
The final layer is the totality. This is the system that emerges when tools and totems combine. At this stage, technology is no longer just something we use. It becomes part of a structure that shapes how people behave and the roles they are expected to play within a system. For founders, this is particularly relevant because, in many ways, entrepreneurship is about challenging totalities and creating alternatives.
Together, tools, totems, and totalities explain how technologies move from useful products to systems that influence how we live and work.
💬 Know a founder who is trying to change a broken system? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 144 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Dr. Christine Miller
- About Tools, Totems, and Totalities
- Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You 🤔
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 00:00 Introduction 05:34 Exploring Hegemony in Technology 08:28 The Nature of Technology and Trust 11:18 The Concept of Neutrality in Technology 14:17 Understanding Tools, Totems, and Totalities 17:03 The Impact of Totalities on Technology 19:53 Women Founders and Systemic Challenges 22:59 Alternatives in Technology: Blue Sky 25:54 Profitability and Societal Progress 34:38 Measuring Societal Benefit and Design Value 37:52 Identity-Shaping Technology and Brand Influence 41:12 Addiction to Technology and Design Principles 44:59 Conviviality and Sustainable Technology 48:48 The Challenge of Perspective in Corporate Culture 52:07 Building Support Networks for Founders 55:45 Designing for Creativity and Imagination 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
Frameworks help us understand systems. But it is often the stories and examples that make those systems visible. During the conversation with Christine Miller, several moments stand out because they show how the ideas of tools, totems, and totalities play out in the real world.
1. Why changing systems requires allies
At one point in the conversation, we talk about how women can change systems that were historically not designed with them in mind. Christine shares the example of Jane Austen. Austen was an extraordinary writer, but breaking into the literary world of her time likely required support from men who already had access to the system.
The parallel with the tech ecosystem is hard to miss. Systems rarely change from the outside alone. Allies inside the system often play an important role in opening doors and creating space for change.
2. Bluesky versus X: how designs impact users
Another moment that made the framework tangible is the comparison between Bluesky and X. Both platforms experiment with technology, but the intent behind those experiments is different. Where X experiments are often aimed at optimizing outcomes for the platform itself, Bluesky allows people to experiment with how the network works.
This example shows how design decisions shape power. The architecture of a platform can either reinforce existing systems or create space for new ones.
3. From excitement to disillusionment
Christine also describes something many of us will recognize from using AI. At first, there is excitement and curiosity. A new tool feels powerful and full of possibilities. But the more you use it, the more you start to question how it works and whose interests it ultimately serves.
These moments illustrate why conversations about technology should not only focus on products, but also on the systems those products create.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways if you want to build a solution that positively impacts the world we live in.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
The ideas in this conversation may sound philosophical, but they have very practical implications for founders. If technology evolves from tools to systems, then the choices founders make about design, incentives, and user relationships matter more than they might realize.
1. Build tools people can work with, not systems they depend on
Many modern platforms are designed to keep users inside the system. Retention and recurring engagement are often seen as signs of success. But Christine’s framework invites founders to think differently. A good tool should give people agency over the outcome and empower them to do their work better, not make them dependent.
2. Encourage critical thinking about your product
AI tools in particular create the illusion of authority. When a system produces an answer quickly and confidently, it is easy for users to assume that the output is correct. Founders should design products that encourage people to think critically about what the tool produces. Technology should support human judgment, not replace it.
3. Changing systems starts with small interventions
Many founders set out to build the next big solution. But Christine suggests that systems rarely change through a single breakthrough. More often, change happens through a series of small interventions that gradually reshape how people interact with technology. Instead of trying to replace an entire system, founders can start by creating tools that give people tools more control inside it.
Building technology is never just about shipping a product. It is about shaping the systems people will live and work with.
💬 Know a founder who is building the next generation of technology? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“What we’re calling tools are really designed for some sort of transaction rather than for function.”
Dr. Christine Miller – Professor of Design Management at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia
This observation captures one of the central ideas of the conversation. Many technologies we describe as “tools” no longer simply help us perform a task. Instead, they create transactions where our data, behavior, and ideas become part of the system itself. The question she raises is simple but powerful: if our tools are built around transactions rather than functions, who ultimately benefits from the exchange?
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
This conversation changed how I think about the systems around technology. It made me acutely aware that everything we build is shaped through our lens. And that means that, even more than before, having people from different backgrounds look at what I’m building is important when I want to create something that serves humanity, not just a few. Here’s what else I reflected on.
1. You do not need to be a technical expert to understand technology
Christine approaches technology from an anthropological perspective. She even describes herself as an “OK user of technology.” That distance from the technical details creates a different kind of insight. Instead of focusing on how technology works, she looks at how people interact with it and how it shapes society.
2. VCs might be more risk-averse than we’d like to think
Another moment made me rethink how we talk about risk. During a discussion about investing in long-term problems like women’s health, I argued that venture capital is comfortable with risk if the upside is large enough. Christine suggested the real issue may not be risk itself, but measurement. Systems prefer investments that are easy to quantify and justify. That made me realize that many systemic problems remain unsolved. Not because they are too risky, but because they are harder to measure.
3. The tension between tools and systems
One idea stayed with me as I think about building technology myself. Investors often reward products that keep users inside the system. But her framework raises a difficult question: what if the best tools are the ones that help people move forward without becoming dependent on them?
Conversations like this remind me that technology is never just about features. It is also about the systems we create and the roles people are expected to play within them.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to this episode? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
Most startups try to hire faster as they grow. Polarsteps makes a different choice.
In the next episode, I sit down with Relinde Boerman, Lead Recruiter at Polarsteps, to unpack what it really takes to scale a team without losing what made the company work in the first place. We talk about hiring for values without limiting diversity, why talent density matters more than individual brilliance, and how Polarsteps treats hiring as a long-term decision rather than a race to fill roles.
In the clip below, Relinde explains why time-to-hire is not a metric they optimize for, even though the pressure to move fast is always there. It’s a short moment, but it captures the mindset behind how Polarsteps approaches hiring and what they choose to prioritize instead.
Click play to hear why ‘time-to-hire’ is not a KPI that Relinde looks at regularly. If you’re building a team and want to protect your culture while you grow, this is one to listen to. If you’re subscribed, you’ll find it in your inbox on 26 March at 8 am CET.
Until then, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Want to be the first to hear when new episodes drop? Leave your email below.
Listen to Episode 144 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
How Power and Design Shape the Technology We Use With Dr. Christine Miller | Ep. 144 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen to our conversation on YouTube About Dr. Christine Miller
Dr. Christine Miller is Professor of Design Management at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia. She is a design educator, researcher, and practitioner working at the intersection of anthropology, design, and business.
Her research focuses on socio-technical systems and the ways social and cultural dynamics shape the design, adoption, and use of technology. Through an interdisciplinary approach that combines anthropology, management studies, and design, she studies how organizations and teams develop new products, processes, and technologies, and how knowledge flows within collaborative innovation networks.
Before joining SCAD, Christine taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Her work continues to explore how technology design interacts with culture, ethics, and organizational systems.
You can connect with Christine via email or on LinkedIn.
About Tools, Totems, and Totalities
Tools, Totems, and Totalities: The Modern Construction of Hegemonic Technology (Springer, 2025) by Allen W. Batteau and Christine Z. Miller explores why technological innovations often fail to live up to the expectations placed on them. Drawing on anthropology, design, and engineering perspectives, the book examines how cultural values, social structures, and historical developments shape the way societies imagine and use technology.
The authors introduce a framework that looks at technology through three lenses: tools, the practical functions technologies perform; totems, the identities and meanings people attach to them; and totalities, the large-scale systems that coordinate and influence society. Through historical examples and contemporary cases, the book shows how technological systems are deeply connected to culture, power, and institutional dynamics.
By combining sociotechnical analysis with cultural insight, Tools, Totems, and Totalities offers a critical perspective on why societies place such high hopes on technological solutions and why those solutions often fall short.
You can buy the book on Amazon and anywhere else where books are sold.
Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
Want to help close the funding gap? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 24 June 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
Men are expressly invited to join. In fact, send me an email if you want to be a women’s health pioneer. More info and tickets can be found here.
Diverse Leaders in Tech Events
If you like being in the know about what is happening in the DEI space, Diverse Leaders in Tech is the place to be.
Every last Thursday of the month, they have monthly in-person meetups for tech people, HR leaders and supporters of diversity to exchange insights, tackle challenges, and take action. It’s a vibrant, safe space where diversity is celebrated.
You can find their events on the website. Joining your first event is free, and the next one is on 25 March.
What I Want To Leave You With
One of the things I appreciated about this conversation with Christine Miller is that it zooms out from the usual startup and product discussions. We often talk about technology as if it were neutral. A tool that simply does what we ask it to do. But as Christine explains through the framework of tools, totems, and totalities, technology is never just a product. It is also shaped by the culture, incentives, and power structures of the people who design it.
That realization changes how I look at founders. When you build technology, you are not just shipping features. You are shaping the systems people will live and work with. That responsibility is easy to overlook in the rush to launch products and grow companies, but conversations like this remind me why it matters.
You can listen to the full conversation with Christine Miller on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 Did this episode change the way you design or use technologies like AI?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Leave a comment
-
How a Female Founder Tackles Invisible Labor and Startup Burnout with Jamie Albaum | Show notes episode 143
Many founders believe burnout happens because people work too hard. Or because startups move fast. Or because resources are tight.
But what if burnout starts earlier? In something quieter. In the work no one sees.
In Episode 143, I spoke with Jamie Albaum about how invisible labor builds up inside mission-driven teams. What begins as dedication can turn into overload when effort goes unrecognized.
Jamie and I explore why understanding how people actually spend their time is essential for preventing burnout, why invisible labor is often distributed unevenly, and how timekeeping can be a tool that protects your people rather than controlling them.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down to go deeper.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
This conversation is about building through instability. But underneath that, it reveals something deeper. Resilience is rarely one big heroic act. It is a series of small, deliberate design choices.
1. Diversification is resilience in disguise
When the pandemic hit, many enterprise clients froze budgets. Smaller companies did not. Some even leaned in. Oryna also built relationships in different markets, from platform-driven acquisition in the US to relationship-based partnerships in Israel. She did not depend on one geography, one client type, or one channel.
Diversification is not only about revenue. It is about reducing single points of failure.
2. Anxiety can become structured preparation
At one point, Oryna describes how anxious people sometimes feel calmer during catastrophe. The worst-case scenario they have been rehearsing finally happens. Instead of spiraling, they move to execution.
Her method is simple. Act as if a difficult situation already happened. Write down what you would do. Revisit it from time to time. This is similar to the pre-mortem exercise described by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. It turns vague fear into defined action.
3. Once you see opportunity, you don’t step back
At one point, Oryna reflects on what happens when women move into tech roles during crisis. Once you see what is possible, you cannot unsee it. Once you have built, led, shipped, and earned, you do not return to the same mental frame.
This episode is not about timekeeping software. It is about leadership blind spots. Jamie’s light-bulb moment came when she and her co-founders helped a customer uncover the real reason behind high burnout and attrition. It led them to co-found Kello Time. Here’s what she learned along the way.
1. Burnout starts in the invisible work.
When leaders don’t see where time really goes, effort accumulates without recognition. Operational tasks, emotional labor, and support work quietly expand until overload feels normal. Burnout rarely appears out of nowhere. It grows in the gap between the assumed and the actual workload.
2. Invisible labor is not gender neutral.
Jamie shares a pattern they see in the data: women often carry more operational and care-related work, while men log more project-based work. Project work is easier to measure and reward. Care work keeps teams functioning but often goes unrecognized. When that imbalance is ignored, structural bias becomes embedded in performance and promotion decisions.
3. Time visibility legitimizes rest.
Here’s something counterintuitive that Jamie learned along the way: when the real workload becomes visible and trusted, people take the time off they actually need. Not because they are less committed, but because their effort has been acknowledged. And when rest is legitimized, teams retain institutional knowledge, protect innovation, and build something that lasts.
These lessons teach us that when you make invisible work visible, you don’t just prevent burnout. You build a more equitable and sustainable organization.
💬 If you know a founder who could benefit from these lessons, use the buttons below to share the episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 143 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Jamie Albaum
- About Kello Time
- Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You 🤔
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 02:10 The Birth of Kello Time: Addressing Burnout in Organizations 05:03 Understanding the Importance of Timekeeping 07:55 Cultural Implications of Invisible Labor 10:54 The Impact of Burnout on Employee Engagement 13:49 Identifying Patterns of Burnout Across Organizations 16:55 The Role of Data in Shaping Workplace Culture 19:51 Kello Time’s Unique Approach to Timekeeping 22:45 The Gender Dynamics of Invisible Labor 25:35 Kello Time’s Functionality and Benefits 28:27 Strategic Resource Management with Kello Time 31:19 Building Trust and Avoiding Micromanagement 34:25 Cultural Shifts and Employee Wellbeing 37:33 Recognizing Signs of Employee Disengagement 40:24 The Importance of Open Communication 43:22 Encouraging Time Off for Better Productivity 46:31 Implementing Sabbatical Policies for Employee Retention 49:35 Advice for Founders on Managing Workloads 52:16 The Invisible Labor of Fundraising 55:14 Practicing Public Speaking as a Founder 58:17 Connecting with Jamie and Kello Time 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
Invisible work does not just live inside teams. It lives in founders, leadership, and in the expectations we carry. These moments expand what it means to lead sustainably as a woman building something ambitious.
1. The Data-Driven and Human-Centered Team
Right at the beginning of our conversation, Jamie describes her team this way with intention. The data makes invisible effort visible. The human-centered lens determines whether that visibility becomes care or control. You do not have to choose between performance and care. Leadership can hold both.
2. “If the powers that be needed to take a day off…” (approx. 41:30)
Rest is not a perk or a weakness. It’s a rhythm built into creation itself. And when loyalty is structurally recognized and time off is normalized, sustainability stops depending on individual endurance. It becomes part of how a company is designed.
3. “Public speaking does not come naturally to me.” (approx. 54:00)
Jamie shares this when we talk about the invisible work in fundraising. What looks like effortless confidence is usually preparation no one sees. For female founders stepping into investor rooms and onto public stages, hearing this is liberating. You don’t have to be born ready; confidence grows with practice, and true preparation is what gives you power.
Together, these moments show that leadership is built through preparation, sustained through rest, and strengthened when data is used to protect people rather than pressure them.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways you can apply as a female founder to build a healthier business.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
Invisible labor affects more than team morale and performance. It shapes margins, retention, and long-term stability. Therefore, sustainable founders design systems that prevent burnout from surfacing. These are three structural choices that protect both people and performance.
1. Watch for early signals of overload.
As we’ve seen in other episodes, burnout rarely arrives without warning. Communication slows down. Innovation drops. Performance conversations become more frequent. Hiring gets harder because your reputation precedes you. Sustainable founders treat these as system signals, not personal shortcomings, and adjust before attrition becomes the headline.
2. Use timekeeping data to inform pricing decisions.
When you know how long work actually takes, you stop relying on instinct to quote new projects. That clarity protects your margins and ensures you are not quietly subsidizing clients with invisible labor. Sustainable companies price from evidence, not optimism.
3. Build recognition into your company’s structure.
Loyalty should not depend on individual resilience alone. Sabbaticals, formal rest policies, and long-tenure recognition turn appreciation into architecture. When rest and retention are designed into the company, sustainability becomes predictable rather than aspirational.
The common thread is simple: what you choose to measure and recognize shapes what your company becomes.
💬 Know a founder who could use some help identifying where their time is going? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“If the powers that be even needed to take a day off from creating the world, then we should be able to take some time off from our jobs as well.”
Jamie Albaum- Co-founder and President of Kello Time
This line reframes rest as something necessary, even when the mission feels urgent. If creation itself requires rhythm and rest, so do founders.
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
At the start of this conversation, I was skeptical. Timekeeping felt like something outdated, even slightly oppressive. By the end, I realized I had underestimated what visibility can actually do.
1. Timekeeping isn’t micromanagement.
I’ve experienced time tracking as a bureaucratic chore. In my early corporate years, it felt like something you postponed and quietly resented. So when Jamie described logging hours as a way to see and value invisible labor, I had to pause. I had framed it as control. She framed it as recognition.
2. Timekeeping means people feel allowed to take time off
I know that taking rest helps people perform better. But I was surprised to learn that tracking workload leads to people taking more time off. Especially in startups, urgency and putting in long hours are often worn like a badge of honor. But everyone needs to recharge eventually.
3. Gendered labor patterns show up clearly in the data.
I’ve heard about invisible labor for years now. What surprised me was how clearly it appears once you measure it. Jamie shares that women log more operational and care-related work, even within projects, and that men log more project-based work. And I don’t need to tell you which of these leads to better chances of promotion. Having data turns a cultural observation into something measurable and, therefore, addressable.
Together, these reflections made me rethink how visibility, rest, and equity intersect inside growing companies.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to this episode? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
What if technology is not just a tool, but a system that shapes how we behave, what choices we have, and even who holds power?
Those are the questions that Dr. Chris Miller and I cover in next week’s episode of Women Disrupting Tech. We unpack her framework of tools, totems and totalities to understand why technology sometimes promises freedom but ends up creating systems that are hard to escape. It is a slightly more philosophical conversation than usual, but one that connects directly to how founders design products and how societies adopt technology.
In the teaser from the episode, Christine explains how our understanding of tools has changed. A traditional tool, like a hammer or digging stick, is designed for a clear function. But many modern digital tools raise a different question: are they really designed to help us accomplish tasks, or are they designed around transactions where our data becomes part of the exchange?
Click play to hear Chris Miller explain how our understanding of tools has changed. If you like conversations that challenge how we think about technology, startups and power, you will enjoy this one. Episode 144 drops on 19 March 2026 at 8am CET.
Until then, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Want to be the first to hear when new episodes drop? Leave your email below.
Listen to Episode 143 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
How a Female Founder Tackles Invisible Labor and Startup Burnout with Jamie Albaum | Ep. 143 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Watch our conversation on YouTube About Jamie Albaum
Jamie Albaum is the co-founder and President of Kello Time. She co-founded Kello Time because she and her cofounders believe leaders can use real workload visibility to protect their people and run healthier organizations.
Before launching Kello Time, she advised clients across sectors on operations, business development, turnaround work, and U.S. government partnerships as Managing Director of LaCire, LLC, where she helped startups and small teams establish efficient and equitable systems that support long-term success.
You can connect with Jamie via LinkedIn.
About Kello Time
Kello Time is a web-based workforce and time management platform designed to make invisible work visible. It lets individuals and teams log hours in simple weekly or monthly intervals, and helps leaders plan capacity, understand project effort, and prepare for staffing needs months in advance — including vacations and sabbaticals. Built to be stand-alone and easy to implement alongside existing tools, Kello pairs project planning with integrated timekeeping so organizations can better track how work actually happens, protect their people, and make more informed decisions about workload and profitability.
You can learn more about Kello Time on the website and by following Kello on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Amplify The Voices of Women Disrupting Tech and Close The Funding Gap
Want to help close the funding gap? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event: She Talks Money – 17 March 2026
Are you looking for an event about money where you leave feeling energized, connected and confident?
On 17 March 2026, Women Disrupting Tech is partnering up with Yoana Leusin and Tiffany Aude of impowr and Equals to host ‘She Talks Money’, an informal, fun-to-attend event about money, careers and investing.
What to expect:
- Panel discussion with experts who remember what it’s like to be a beginner
- Interactive table rotations where you can deep dive into the topics YOU care about
- A room full of women who get it, because we’re all figuring this out together
No question is too simple. No topic is off-limits. Just clarity, community, and coffee.
📅 March 17, 2026
⏰ 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM
📍 Equals Amsterdam
🎟️ More information and tickets on Luma starting at €20.What I Want To Leave You With
At the start of the episode, I remember thinking how totally unsexy this story is. Hearing the story about the spreadsheets stitched together did not help. But by the end, I realized that visibility is not about control, but about care and the possibility to run a better business.
As founders, we want to build companies that last. To do this, we have to pay attention to the work that does not show up in revenue dashboards or pitch decks. Invisible labor shapes culture, profitability, and retention, whether we track it or not. The question is whether we choose to see it.
You can listen to our entire conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 How do you think tracking time can help you build a better company?
👇 Share your routine in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Leave a comment
-
How a Female Founder Builds a Tech Startup During War in Ukraine with Oryna Starkina | Show notes episode 142
If you’ve watched Game of Thrones, you know the line: “Winter is coming.” In the North, that meant survival, preparation and endurance. And the House of Stark learning to withstand what others could not.
In episode 142 of Women Disrupting Tech, winter came to Ukraine in the form of war. And Oryna Starkina found herself building a tech startup while everything around her was shifting. The name is a coincidence. The resilience is not.
Oryna founded StarkSoft during the pandemic, structured it as a fully remote company, and then had to keep it running when infrastructure was attacked, and uncertainty became daily reality. What emerged is more than a story about crisis.
It is a story about diversification, clients, and markets. Thinking patterns. Even emotional regulation. And about what happens once someone sees an opportunity in the middle of instability. Because once you see it, you rarely go back to how you were before.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down to explore the lessons behind building through winter.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
This conversation is about building through instability. But underneath that, it reveals something deeper. Resilience is rarely one big heroic act. It is a series of small, deliberate design choices.
1. Diversification is resilience in disguise
When the pandemic hit, many enterprise clients froze budgets. Smaller companies did not. Some even leaned in. Oryna also built relationships in different markets, from platform-driven acquisition in the US to relationship-based partnerships in Israel. She did not depend on one geography, one client type, or one channel.
Diversification is not only about revenue. It is about reducing single points of failure.
2. Anxiety can become structured preparation
At one point, Oryna describes how anxious people sometimes feel calmer during catastrophe. The worst-case scenario they have been rehearsing finally happens. Instead of spiraling, they move to execution.
Her method is simple. Act as if a difficult situation already happened. Write down what you would do. Revisit it from time to time. This is similar to the pre-mortem exercise described by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. It turns vague fear into defined action.
3. Once you see opportunity, you don’t step back
At one point, Oryna reflects on what happens when women move into tech roles during crisis. Once you see what is possible, you cannot unsee it. Once you have built, led, shipped, and earned, you do not return to the same mental frame.
This is not only a personal insight. It is visible at system level. While the war created a shortage of engineers, the Ukrainian government did not only look for temporary substitutes. It invested in educating more women into IT. Over time, that expands the workforce structurally.
Winter tests systems. It also reveals what was already there. In Oryna’s case, diversification, preparation, and self-awareness were not reactions. They were already foundations.
💬 If this seems relevant to someone you know, share the episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 142 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Oryna Starkina
- About StarkSoft
- Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You 🤔
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 02:05 Navigating Crisis: The Birth of Starksoft 04:49 Building a Resilient Business Model 07:56 Client Relationships and Support During Turbulence 10:29 Overcoming Personal Challenges: Anxiety and Imposter Syndrome 13:26 Networking and Attracting Clients 16:16 The Role of Routine in Managing Anxiety 18:58 Mindfulness and Focus Through Physical Activity 22:01 Leveraging Overthinking for Business Success 24:52 Coping with Uncertainty in a War Zone 30:49 Impact of War on Workforce Dynamics 35:09 Women in Tech: Rising Opportunities 39:52 Long-Term Changes in Female Entrepreneurship 41:55 Lessons from Uncertainty: Insights for Founders 44:16 Preparing for the Unknown: Practical Strategies 48:43 Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Realizations and Growth 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
Before we started recording, we discussed what to do in case of an air raid or other alarm. Fortunately, we did not need to follow the plan (the only intermission coming from my cat), but having to take this precaution made her situation tangible. And it shaped the tone of the entire conversation. Here are three moments I want to highlight.
1. “For anxious people, this is when we feel more calm.”
When Oryna explains that anxious people sometimes feel calmer during a catastrophe, it reframes anxiety completely. Before the war, the scenarios lived in her head. When the crisis finally happened, the uncertainty narrowed. The mind moved from imagining to responding.
There was no triumph in her voice, just recognition. The worst had arrived. And with it, focus.
2. The companies that stayed
Winter also reveals who stands with you. During the pandemic, many enterprise accounts froze budgets immediately. Smaller companies did not. Some kept going. Some even supported.
It changed how I think about safety. Scale does not always equal stability. In moments of instability, relationships show their weight.
3. “When a woman sees the opportunity, she won’t unsee it.”
And then there was this line. Simple. Quiet. Steady.
War pushed more women into tech roles. But what struck me was not urgency. It was certainty. Once someone has built, led, and earned in a new field, their frame changes. The opportunity is no longer theoretical.
In Game of Thrones, winter separates the prepared from the unprepared. It reveals character. It forces movement. What it cannot do is erase what someone has already seen.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways you can apply as a female founder to build a more resilient business.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
Winter has a way of revealing how something was built. The way Oryna talks about preparation makes clear that building resilience comes from thinking ahead and building accordingly. Her story contains three ways you can prepare.
1. Contain overthinking before it paralyzes you
Oryna admits she tends to overthink. When left unchecked, it can spiral and paralyze you.
Her solution is simple. Choose a few realistic scenarios. Act as if they already happened. Write down what you would do. Revisit it from time to time.
This is similar to the pre-mortem approach described by Daniel Kahneman. You simulate failure in advance, so when something shifts, you move to execution instead of panic.
In that way, preparation becomes a way to calm the mind.
2. Diversify before you feel forced to
Oryna built her company so there is no single point of failure that could take it down. She diversified clients, markets, and acquisition channels.
The start of COVID taught her not to rely only on enterprise contracts. Instead, she built relationships with SMEs in different regions and used both her network and online networks like Upwork to attract business. When one layer froze, another held.
It shows that diversification is less about growth and more about stability.
3. Use AI to explore. Use engineers to scale.
Towards the end, we speak about vibe coding and tools that allow founders to prototype quickly. Oryna believes these tools are perfect for exploring your product yourself. To test flows and understand and improve your own logic.
But when it is time to scale, invest in proper engineering. Because AI lowers the barrier to exploration. It does not replace architecture.
Preparation reduces panic. Diversification reduces fragility. Exploration reduces hesitation. None of it is dramatic. All of it compounds.
💬 Know a founder who could use some help thinking about resilience? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
There was one line that captured the long-term shift beneath the crisis.
“When a woman finally looks and sees the opportunity, she won’t unsee it later.”
Oryna Starkina – CEO and founder of StarkSoft
This is not about optimism, but about exposure. Once someone has built, led, and earned in a new field, their internal frame changes. The opportunity is no longer theoretical. And once your identity expands, shrinking back becomes harder.
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
Preparing for winter is one thing. Seeing how someone else builds through it is another. This episode made me look differently at stability, markets, and long-term change.
1. Enterprise is not automatically safer than SMEs
In the startup ecosystem, enterprise is often seen as the ultimate validation. Bigger contracts. Bigger logos. Supposedly more predictable revenue.
As Oryna explains, during COVID many enterprise accounts froze immediately. Smaller companies did not. Most stayed with Oryna and StarkSoft. Some even supported.
It made me rethink the assumption that scale equals safety. What if stability is not only about size but also about diversification and decision speed? In a crisis, human relationships tend to move faster than corporate policy.
2. Markets are emotional environments
The way Oryna described working with US clients through platforms and Israeli clients through personal relationships made something click. Markets are not only economic spaces. They are cultural systems.
Platform-driven acquisition behaves differently from recommendation-based networks. In moments of crisis, shared context and trust matter more than efficiency. That nuance changed how I think about cross-border partnerships.
3. Structural change can start during a crisis
What stood out to me is how Ukraine uses education as a strategy to get more women into IT, instead of just filling temporary gaps. That is long-term thinking in unstable times.
If more women gain skills, experience, and income in tech now, it becomes harder to reverse that shift later. Crises can expose weakness. They can also accelerate capacity building.
This episode reinforced something I believe deeply: resilience is rarely loud. It is built quietly, layer by layer.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to this episode? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
When you hear “employee time tracking,” you probably think: boring. Like, not something startups would be involved in.
Well, next week, Kellotime co-founder and President Jamie Albaum joins the podcast to talk about the importance of time tracking for mission-driven organizations (startups included). You’ll learn all about invisible labor, and its impact on burnout, retention, and sustainable growth.
In this clip, Jamie shares something that might raise eyebrows: when teams understand their real workload, they actually take more time off.
Hit play to hear Jamie explain how time tracking leads to people taking more time off. Want to understand how that works? Episode 143 drops on 12 March 2026 at 8am CET.
And until the next episode, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Want to be the first to hear when new episodes drop? Leave your email below.
Listen to Episode 142 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
How a Female Founder Builds a Tech Startup During War in Ukraine with Oryna Starkina | Ep. 142 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Watch our conversation on YouTube About Oryna Starkina
Oryna Starkina is the founder of StarkSoft, a software development company she launched in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. StarkSoft builds custom mobile apps and provides IT consulting for clients across the US, Israel, and Europe, often in long-term partnerships.
Structured as a fully remote company from day one, StarkSoft proved durable when war disrupted infrastructure in Ukraine. Oryna continued serving international clients while navigating power outages and uncertainty.
Her leadership blends practical risk management with self-awareness. She speaks openly about overthinking, preparation, and emotional regulation as tools to build stability under pressure.
You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
About StarkSoft
StarkSoft is a software development company founded in 2020 during the pandemic. From the start, it was built as a fully remote organization, serving clients across multiple international markets.
The company specializes in mobile application development for Android and iOS, cross-platform solutions, and IT consulting. More than 20 mobile projects have been delivered, with many client partnerships lasting over four years. The focus is on quality and clarity, managing projects from concept to release in a structured and reliable way.
StarkSoft’s mission is to unlock the full potential of mobile technology for businesses, helping them grow, operate more efficiently, and build sustainably.
Learn more on the website or by following StarkSoft on LinkedIn.
Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
Want to help make the funding gap go away by the end of 2032? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event: Women in IT Gala 2026 – 6 March 2026
Want to celebrate International Women’s Day in a special way? Join a gala night filled with joy, strength and real connection for every woman in IT. The Women in IT Gala is for anyone who identifies as a woman and is hosted by She Unfolds.
📆 Date: 6 March 2026
🕖 Time: 20:00 – 24:00
📍 Location: Castle Woerden
🎟️ More information and tickets on EventbriteFeatured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 10 March 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
📅 March 10, 2026
🕠 17:30–20:30
📍 Equals Amsterdam
🎟️ Tickets on Luma.Men are expressly invited to join. Because women’s health deserves space for real dialogue and shared learning.
Featured Event: She Talks Money – 17 March 2026
Are you looking for an event about money where you leave feeling energized, connected and confident?
On 17 March 2026, Women Disrupting Tech is partnering up with Yoana Leusin and Tiffany Aude of impowr and Equals to host ‘She Talks Money’, an informal, fun-to-attend event about money, careers and investing.
What to expect:
- Panel discussion with experts who remember what it’s like to be a beginner
- Interactive table rotations where you can deep dive into the topics YOU care about
- A room full of women who get it, because we’re all figuring this out together
No question is too simple. No topic is off-limits. Just clarity, community, and coffee.
📅 March 17, 2026
⏰ 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM
📍 Equals Amsterdam
🎟️ More information and tickets on Luma starting at €20.What I Want To Leave You With
Winter is not always as dramatic as the war in Ukraine. Sometimes it arrives quietly as budgets freeze, markets shift, or plans stall.
What winter does is reveal structure. It shows you where you built for growth and where you built for durability. It shows you who stands with you. And it shows you what you are capable of once the worst has already happened.
The lesson I take from this conversation is simple. Build in a way that assumes winter will come. Diversify. Prepare. Know yourself. Because when the temperature drops, you want foundations, not improvisation.
You can listen to our entire conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 How do you prepare without overthinking?
👇 Share your routine in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Leave a comment
-
How Heart-Centered Leadership Helps Female Founders Prevent Burnout with Alice Pavin | Show notes episode 141
What if burnout isn’t about working too hard, but working against yourself?
In this episode, I sit down with Alice Pavin to explore a different layer of performance. Not pitch deck tactics or funding strategy, but the inner operating system of the founder. We talk about the power of silence, how to regulate your nervous system, and what happens when you learn to listen to the body’s whisper instead of overriding it with hustle.
At the heart of the conversation is a simple truth: the mind is an incredible tool, but it should not choose your destination in business or in life. The heart tells you where to go. The mind helps you get there.
This episode expands the founder toolkit beyond optimization and into alignment. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down for three lessons from our conversation.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
If alignment is a precondition for sustainable performance, then the real work starts before the strategy. In this episode, Alice shares three lessons that invite you to build from that place.
1. Burnout Is Often Misalignment in Disguise
When everything looks right on paper yet something feels off, that’s not weakness. It’s information. Ignoring that signal for too long can lead you to build something efficient that slowly drains you. Burnout is not always about workload. Sometimes it is about working against yourself.
2. The Heart, Not the Mind, Is Your Real Co-Pilot
Alice sees the mind as an incredible tool. It structures, plans, and optimizes. But it should not choose the destination. Direction comes from what feels true and alive. Execution follows. When these roles are clear, leadership becomes steadier and more intentional.
3. Silence Improves Decision Quality
Silence is not a luxury. It is infrastructure. Whether it is energetic silence in a remote place or a deliberate pause in your week, space allows the nervous system to settle. And when the noise drops, the whisper becomes easier to hear.
Together, these lessons suggest that high performance is not about pushing harder. It is about building from alignment and then using your tools wisely.
💬 If this feels relevant to someone in your world, share the episode with them.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these lessons to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 141 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Alice Pavin
- Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You 🤔
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 02:00 Introduction to Wellbeing and Entrepreneurship 03:12 The Whisper of the Body 05:02 Spiritual CV and Inner Balance 08:32 The Power of Silence 14:12 Mind vs. Heart: Finding Balance 18:29 Signs of Imbalance and Body Communication 21:28 Practicing Heart-Centered Living 28:59 Morning Routines for Flow State 30:37 Breathwork for Heart Connection 32:26 Heart-Centered Visualization Exercise 42:23 Understanding Microdosing and Its Benefits 50:14 Microdosing Protocols and Practices 58:58 Integrating Microdosing with Personal Development 1:03:52 Empowering Female Founders in Investment Conversations 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
At the start of our conversation, Alice talks about the energetic silence she experienced in Sweden. With that, she introduces something many founders rarely experience: space without stimulation. Not just physical quiet, but a nervous system that is no longer reacting. In that state, she could hear her own whisper more clearly. That moment sets the tone for the three moments that follow.
1. Attention Changes Your State
Around 23 minutes into our conversation, the focus shifts from thinking to sensing. It reminds us that attention influences physiology. When you slow down and direct awareness inward, your body responds. For founders, that means decision quality is directly connected to nervous system state.
2. The HeartMath Visualization (from 31:08 to 35:17 minutes)
In this four-minute guided visualization inspired by the HeartMath Institute, the distinction between heart and mind becomes practical. It shows that the heart does not reject ambition, but softens urgency. For founders, this is a reminder that clarity does not always come from more analysis. Sometimes it comes from pausing before acting.
3. The Whisper Returns at the End
The episode closes where it began: the whisper. The quiet internal signal that something is aligned or slightly off. It is easy to ignore when traction, revenue, and investor expectations take center stage. Over time, ignoring that signal can lead to burnout. Listening to it can prevent drift.
These three moments show that alignment is not abstract. It is trainable. It shapes leadership, negotiation, and performance in ways that spreadsheets alone cannot capture.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways you can apply as a female founder or as an ambitious woman in tech.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
If alignment shapes performance, then it needs to show up in your daily behavior. And so, one of the most practical parts of our conversation is when Alice describes her morning routine. Not as a productivity hack, but as a way to begin the day intentionally instead of reactively. It sets the stage for these takeaways:
1. Build Silence Into Your Calendar
Alice went to Sweden to experience energetic silence, but she stresses that all silence could start with as little as ten intentional minutes without stimulation in the early morning. No input, no Slack, no scrolling. When the nervous system settles, you think differently. Make space a recurring meeting, not a luxury.
2. Do a Battery Check Before Big Decisions
Before an investor call, a hiring decision, or a strategic pivot, pause and ask: Am I energized or drained by this direction? Energy is data. Repeated patterns of depletion often signal misalignment. Track it. Notice it. Use it.
3. Let the Heart Set Direction. Let the Mind Execute.
When facing a decision, ask two different questions. First: Does this feel aligned? Second: how do I execute well? Mixing those questions creates confusion. Separating them creates clarity.
These practices are simple, but far from superficial. They help you build from alignment instead of urgency.
💬 Know a founder who could use one or more of these intentional practices? Share this episode with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“The mind is an amazing tool. But it’s made to help you get where you want to go. The heart is the one that tells you where to go.”
Alice Pavin
For founders, this distinction changes how decisions are made. It separates ambition from anxiety. It allows you to build boldly without drifting away from yourself.
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
I did not expect this episode to influence how I think about FundingCoach. It did. The guided visualization helped me find an answer to the question of why learning to code takes more time than I would like. But there were more insights. Here are three:
1. State Influences Strategy
I have spent years focusing on better arguments, sharper positioning, and stronger decks. This conversation reminded me that preparation also includes your internal state. It shapes the way you show up in a conversation, the calm or urgency in your voice, the energy you bring into a room. And with that, it influences the outcome more than I had previously acknowledged.
2. Microdosing as a Tool
This was the part that made me uncomfortable at first. I’m not a fan of performance-enhancing substances, other than coffee and tea, and I have always associated performance with discipline and structure. Alice introduced the possibility that for some, microdosing can be a complementary tool to help the mind access flow more easily and shorten the struggle phase.
3. My funding tool should consider founder state too
If I am building a funding coach that only evaluates slides and language, I am missing something. Founders do not just need better arguments. They need awareness of when something feels aligned and when it does not. That insight felt expansive. The implementation is still unclear. But the direction feels right.
This episode expanded my definition of preparation. Not by replacing structure, but by adding depth to it.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to this episode? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
Next week, Oryna Starkina takes us back to founder territory and into a different kind of resilience.
We explore what happens when the worst-case scenario you’ve been rehearsing in your head actually unfolds. Oryna Starkina shares how building a tech company during the pandemic became unexpected preparation for running a business in a country at war.
From distributed teams and cross-border clients to morning routines and pole dancing as mental reset, this conversation reframes what resilience really looks like in practice.
At one point, she makes an observation that shifts the entire perspective: for anxious people, catastrophe can bring a strange kind of calm. When you have already imagined every worst-case scenario, and one finally happens, your mind stops spinning. You move from “what if” to “what now.”
Click play to hear Oryna explain why anxious founders may be more prepared than they think. If you’ve ever wondered whether overthinking can become an advantage, or how to build something stable in unstable times, this episode might expand how you see crisis and opportunity.
Oryna’s episode is coming up next on Women Disrupting Tech. If you want to hear it when it drops on 5 March 2026 at 8 am CET, subscribe by leaving your email below.
And until the next episode, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Listen to Episode 141 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
How Heart-Centered Leadership Helps Female Founders Prevent Burnout with Alice Pavin | Ep. 141 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Watch our conversation on YouTube About Alice Pavin
Alice Pavin is a certified Vinyasa yoga teacher and life and business coach who works at the intersection of performance, self-awareness, and regenerative systems. She supports purpose-driven entrepreneurs in building aligned and sustainable businesses, and she has previously led the Women in Ventures initiative at WorldStartup.
Alice grew up in Sweden, has lived across Europe, and is now based in the Netherlands. She believes that reconnecting with ourselves, each other, and nature is essential to building businesses that truly last.
For the women relating to the topics in this episode, she has developed a guide that helps you go deeper inwards and understand their path to wellbeing and success. You can download it here.
You can reach her via her website and Instagram, or by connecting with her on LinkedIn.
Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
Want to help make the funding gap go away by the end of 2032? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event: Women in IT Gala 2026 – 6 March 2026
Want to celebrate International Women’s Day in a special way? Join a gala night filled with joy, strength and real connection for every woman in IT. The Women in IT Gala is for anyone who identifies as a woman and is hosted by She Unfolds.
📆 Date: 6 March 2026
🕖 Time: 20:00 – 24:00
📍 Location: Castle Woerden
🎟️ More information and tickets on EventbriteFeatured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 10 March 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
📅 March 10, 2026
🕠 17:30–20:30
📍 Equals Amsterdam
🎟️ Tickets on Luma.Men are expressly invited to join. Because women’s health deserves space for real dialogue and shared learning.
Featured Event: She Talks Money – 17 March 2026
Are you looking for an event about money where you leave feeling energized, connected and confident?
On 17 March 2026, Women Disrupting Tech is partnering up with Yoana Leusin and Tiffany Aude of impowr and Equals to host ‘She Talks Money’, an informal, fun-to-attend event about money, careers and investing.
What to expect:
- Panel discussion with experts who remember what it’s like to be a beginner
- Interactive table rotations where you can deep dive into the topics YOU care about
- A room full of women who get it, because we’re all figuring this out together
No question is too simple. No topic is off-limits. Just clarity, community, and coffee.
📅 March 17, 2026
⏰ 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM
📍 Equals Amsterdam
🎟️ More information and tickets on Luma (early bird tickets available until 4 March 2026).What I Want To Leave You With
This episode does not offer quick fixes. It asks a different question: what if performance depends as much on your state as on your strategy?
For some founders, exploring practices that regulate the nervous system can include unconventional tools. If you are considering microdosing, read the research first and form your own view. You can find peer-reviewed studies on the NIH and Nature websites. Note that neither this episode nor the studies are an endorsement. They’re an invitation to think more broadly about how your state of mind influences performance.
Above all, this episode is an invitation to slow down long enough to notice the signals you already have. Your instincts and energy patterns are not noise. They are information.
If this episode gave you something to think about, I’d love to hear how it landed for you. Drop a comment below or share it with someone who could use a moment of stillness this week.
You can listen to our entire conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 Do you have a morning routine? And what does it look like?
👇 Share your routine in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Leave a comment
-
How a FemTech Pioneer Is Fixing Women’s Health Infrastructure with Ida Tin | Show notes episode 140
“Why has there been so little innovation in family planning methods since the pill came out?” Ida Tin’s question exposes an uncomfortable pattern in how we approach women’s health: we fix an urgent problem, then move on.
In my conversation with the woman who coined the term FemTech, we unpack what that stagnation has cost us, and what it would take to move forward.
We explore three themes:
- The missing data set in women’s health and why continuous hormonal data could change prevention.
- Why women’s health should be treated as infrastructure, not a niche category.
- How capital allocation and investor behavior shape what gets built and what does not.
Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. Or scroll down to explore why women’s health might be the most overlooked piece of infrastructure in our economy.
3 Lessons From This Conversation
“There’s one data set that is really missing in women’s health, which is having continuous data on women’s hormones.” With that sentence, Ida Tin moves from frustration to diagnosis. If we rely on occasional snapshots instead of continuous patterns, prevention will always lag behind crisis. The real gap is not attention, but infrastructure.
1. The data gap is holding back prevention.
Without continuous hormonal data, women’s health is treated as episodic instead of cyclical. That means delayed diagnoses, misinterpretation of symptoms, and reactive care instead of preventive design.
2. Women’s health is infrastructure, not a niche.
When women spend a larger share of their lives in poor health, that affects families, companies, and economies. Health is not a side topic. It determines how much energy flows into society and how much leaks out.
3. Founders cannot scale without conviction capital.
The problem is not a lack of founders. It is a lack of capital that follows them beyond the early stage. Without investors willing to follow through, promising companies stall before they can scale.
These lessons point to a simple shift: women’s health will not improve through isolated products. It requires better data, conviction capital across stages, and infrastructure built for the long term.
💬 If this reframing challenges how you think about health, data, or capital, share the episode with someone who should hear it.
Or scroll down for magical moments, practical takeaways, and my own observations on the conversation that bring these ideas to life.
- 3 Lessons From This Conversation
- Highlights and timestamps
- 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
- Practical Takeaways for Founders
- The Quote From The Episode
- 3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
- Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
- Listen to Episode 140 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
- About Ida Tin
- About Femtech Assembly
- Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
- Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
- What I Want To Leave You With
- A Question for You 🤔
Highlights and timestamps
Time Highlight 02:00 The Journey to Femtech 04:56 Clue: Revolutionizing Women’s Health 07:56 The Importance of Men’s Understanding in Women’s Health 10:22 The Need for Hormonal Data 11:17 Challenges in Hormonal Monitoring 14:20 The Societal Impact of Women’s Health 17:22 Women’s Health as Societal Infrastructure 20:04 Investing in Women’s Health 23:15 The Future of Gender-Informed Healthcare 26:23 Europe’s Opportunity in Women’s Health 28:39 The Interconnection of Health and Environment 29:24 Innovations in Health Monitoring 31:07 Understanding Hormonal Health 31:55 Transformations in Women’s Health 33:55 The Importance of Data in Women’s Health 34:25 The Femtech Assembly: A Movement for Change 37:49 Building a Cohesive Femtech Community 40:28 Data Privacy in Femtech 45:24 Reframing Women’s Health as an Opportunity 52:56 Advice for Female Founders in Health Tech 3 Magic Moments In The Episode
Where do I start? Getting to speak to Ida was magical in itself. And the episode is full of moments where her passion for women’s health comes to life. The moments below are the ones that give this episode its emotional and intellectual weight.
1. Coining the term “Femtech.”
Ida recalls how she coined the term years ago because there was no clear container for companies building in women’s health. The space was without a name and easy to ignore. Naming it created visibility and a category investors could recognize, and founders could rally around.
2. Femtech Assembly as an open-source movement.
Instead of building another closed organization or fund, Ida chose to create FemTech Assembly as a movement people can contribute to. It reflects her belief that this is bigger than one company or one exit. It is about building shared infrastructure, not guarding territory.
3. “There is nothing you can invest in that gives a better return than women’s health.”
It is a bold statement. Yet when you consider the cost of poor health, lost productivity, and delayed prevention, it becomes a serious investment thesis rather than a slogan.
Together, these moments reframe women’s health from an overlooked category to a foundational system shaping economies and talent.
💬 What was your favorite moment from the episode? Let me know in the comments.
Or keep scrolling for practical takeaways you can apply as a founder or women’s health leader.
Practical Takeaways for Founders
This episode is not only about systems and capital. As a former founder, Ida shares practical guidance for women building in women’s health and beyond. Here are three of Ida’s best tips.
1. Own your lived expertise in the room.
When you enter an investment meeting, remember that you often understand the market in ways investors do not. Especially in women’s health, lived experience is domain insight. Come prepared with clear market data up front so investors understand the scale. Do not let your category be dismissed as a niche.
2. Recognize that fundraising is a social dance.
Deals are not decided on numbers alone. Communication style, perceived confidence, who introduced you, and how familiar you feel with the investor all shape the outcome. Understanding this dynamic does not make it unfair. It makes you more strategic.
3. Keep an imaginary empty chair at the table.
Ida describes having an “empty chair” in board meetings that represents a user. If you cannot clearly explain your business model and data practices to that person, you should question them. Ethical data design is not a compliance checkbox. It is a long-term trust strategy.
These takeaways reinforce a broader point: building in women’s health requires conviction, preparation, and responsibility.
💬 If you are building in this space, this conversation is worth your time. And if you know a founder navigating rooms where this market is still misunderstood, share this episode with them.
Or scroll down to discover an inspiring quote and learn about my own takeaways.
The Quote From The Episode
“There is nothing you can invest in that gives a better return than women’s health.”
Ida Tin – Co-founder of Clue and founder of the Femtech Assembly
It is a bold claim. Yet today, only around 2 percent of venture capital goes to women’s health. That gap is not just a funding imbalance. It is a misallocation of capital at scale. And an economic lever hiding in plain sight.
3 Things That Changed The Way I Think
This conversation did not just add information. It shifted how I look at systems that most of us take for granted.
1. Complexity as an advantage for women.
Ida’s comparison between women’s biology and planetary systems stayed with me. Hormones move in cycles. Systems interact. Feedback loops matter. If women live with this kind of complexity every day, it raises an interesting question about who is naturally equipped to design solutions for interconnected global challenges.
2. Prevention Does Not Fit the Current Business Model.
The more we talked about continuous hormone data, the clearer it became that our health system is built around treating problems once they become urgent. Prevention requires long time horizons, patient capital, and incentives that reward keeping people healthy. That is not how most healthcare business models are structured today.
3. We still dose hormones as if everyone is the same.
Perhaps the most striking realization was this: we routinely prescribe hormonal medications in standardized dosages because we lack granular data. Without continuous measurement, personalization remains limited. That is not just a medical constraint. It is an infrastructure gap.
These reflections reinforce a simple idea: if the data layer is missing, everything built on top of it will remain blunt and reactive.
💬 What changed your thinking as you listened to this episode? I would love to hear from you in the comments.
Leave a comment
Coming up on Women Disrupting Tech
Next week, Alice Pavin takes us into a different layer of performance.
We explore what happens when everything looks right on paper, yet something feels off. Alice Pavin shares how learning to listen to the body’s “whisper” changed the way she makes business decisions, designs her work, and defines success. From energetic silence in Sweden to morning routines that regulate the nervous system, from flow states to the role of microdosing as a complementary tool, this conversation expands what leadership can look like from the inside out.
At one point, she makes a distinction that reframes the entire discussion: the mind is an incredible tool, but it was never meant to choose the destination. The heart decides where to go. The mind helps you get there.
Click play to hear Alice make the distinction between mind and heart in decision-making. If you’ve ever wondered whether high performance has to come at the cost of alignment, this episode might shift how you think about building.
Alice’s episode is coming up next on Women Disrupting Tech. If you want to hear it when it drops on 26 February at 8 am CET, subscribe by leaving your email below.
And until the next episode, as always, keep being awesome.
Dirkjan
Listen to Episode 140 on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube
How a FemTech Pioneer Is Fixing Women's Health Infrastructure with Ida Tin | Ep. 140 – Women Disrupting Tech
Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on YouTube (audio only) About Ida Tin
Ida Tin is the co-founder and former CEO of Clue, one of the world’s leading women’s health apps with over ten million users worldwide. She coined the term FemTech in 2016 and is the founder of Femtech Assembly, a global think tank advocating investment in women’s health as a driver of economic growth and planetary well-being.
Ida has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Forbes, Der Spiegel, and Le Figaro. She has spoken at conferences including TechCrunch Disrupt, LeWeb, Slush, and the Forbes Most Powerful Women Summit. She is also a TEDx speaker and has received several awards for her entrepreneurial work.
She graduated from The KaosPilots, a social entrepreneurship program in Denmark, and now lives in Berlin with her two children.
You can connect with Ida on LinkedIn.
About Femtech Assembly
Femtech Assembly is a global think tank founded by Ida Tin. Its mission is to establish investment in women’s health as an indisputable path to economic growth and planetary well-being.
Rather than functioning as a traditional organization, Femtech Assembly operates as a movement and intellectual platform. It brings together founders, investors, researchers, and policymakers who believe women’s health should be treated as foundational infrastructure rather than a niche market.
Through research, public advocacy, and ecosystem building, FemTech Assembly works to close the data, funding, and knowledge gaps that have historically limited innovation in women’s health.
Learn more about Femtech Assembly by following them on Substack.
Other ways to amplify the voices of Women Disrupting Tech
Want to help make the funding gap go away by the end of 2032? Here’s how you can help:
Follow the Women Disrupting Tech Podcast
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Every follow brings these stories to more people.
Give the show a rating or review on Spotify or Apple.
It only takes a moment, but it tells others this podcast is worth listening to. And helps the voices of my guests carry further.
Share the episodes that move you.
Send this episode to a friend, a colleague, or someone who needs to hear it. Every share helps to build a more inclusive tech future and supports my guests in getting the stage they deserve.
Events that Women Disrupting Tech Must-Attend
Some great events take place this spring. Below are three that you definitely want to check out. For a full overview of all events, including links to buy tickets, please check the events page.
Featured Event: Women in IT Gala 2026 – 6 March 2026
Want to celebrate International Women’s Day in a special way? Join a gala night filled with joy, strength and real connection for every woman in IT. The Women in IT Gala is for anyone who identifies as a woman and is hosted by She Unfolds.
📆 Date: 6 March 2026
🕖 Time: 20:00 – 24:00
📍 Location: Castle Woerden
🎟️ More information and tickets on EventbriteFeatured Event: Understanding Women’s Health – 10 March 2026
Learn how hormone cycles or perimenopause impact your life, and discover more about conditions like PCOS or Endometriosis at the quarterly Understanding Women’s Health Events hosted by Kasia Pokrop.
Women’s health is a topic near and dear to my heart. Which is why I’m happy to support and attend the events that 3mbrace Health organizes at Equals every quarter.
📅 March 10, 2026
🕠 17:30–20:30
📍 Equals Amsterdam
🎟️ Tickets on Luma.
Men are expressly invited to join. Because women’s health deserves space for real dialogue and shared learning.
Featured Event: She Talks Money
Are you looking for an event about money where you leave feeling energized, connected and confident?
On 17 March 2026, Women Disrupting Tech is partnering up with Yoana Leusin and Tiffany Aude of impowr and Equals to host ‘She Talks Money’, an informal, fun-to-attend event about money, careers and investing.
What to expect:
- Panel discussion with experts who remember what it’s like to be a beginner
- Interactive table rotations where you can deep dive into the topics YOU care about
- A room full of women who get it, because we’re all figuring this out together
No question is too simple. No topic is off-limits. Just clarity, community, and coffee.
- 📅 March 17, 2026
- ⏰ 9:30 AM – 12:30 PM
- 📍 Equals Amsterdam
- 🎟️ More information and tickets on Luma (early bird tickets available until 4 March 2026).
What I Want To Leave You With
This episode is an invitation to think bigger. Women’s health is not a niche category. It is foundational to how we design our economies, capital systems, and future.
First, her own transition. Ida moved from co-founding Clue to launching the FemTech Assembly. From building a product to building a movement. That shift signals that this is bigger than one app or one exit. It is about creating a global container for an industry that was previously overlooked.
Second, the move from curing to preventing. Continuous hormone monitoring is not only a technical ambition. It represents a shift in mindset. From reacting to illness once it becomes urgent to understanding patterns early enough to act differently. Prevention requires infrastructure, patience, and aligned incentives.
Third, the idea that societies should be designed according to the principles that sustain life. Ida describes women as the fabric and glue of society. When women are healthy, families, companies, and economies function differently. The goal is not survival. It is thriving.
You can listen to our entire conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
A Question for You 🤔
💬 What do you think about Ida’s position that women’s health should be treated as infrastructure for our society?
👇 Share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s keep this conversation going and discover new truths.
Leave a comment
Women Disrupting Tech | The Podcast
The Podcast Closing the Funding Gap for Women in Tech.
Women Disrupting Tech | The Podcast 
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