Hallie speaks with Founder and CEO, Elizabeth Orme, and Leadership Integrator, Shannon Hady, the dynamic duo behind Creatively Focused, an EdTech company designed to support special education teachers, admin, and support staff. The pair shares how their mutual respect and complementary skills have propelled their business forward, emphasizing the importance of understanding and respecting each others’ values. Elizabeth and Shannon share plenty of nuggets of wisdom, including book recommendations that have influenced their journey and a candid look into the challenges of running a woman-owned tech company. This episode is sure to inspire any and all strategic partners.

Welcome to this week's episode of the Founder in the Force Multiplier podcast, where we explore how founders and leaders work together with their right hand partners to turn ideas into action and build wildly successful businesses. Today, I'm speaking with Elizabeth Ormey and Shannon Hattie. As founder and CEO, elizabeth leads creatively focused strategic growth and vision of supporting the career, success and retention of special educators. Her background as a researcher, special education teacher and district special education director fuels her work to make sure every special educator feels their job can be a career. Creatively focused was founded in 2016 as a service organization for school districts across Minnesota. In 2021, creatively focused launched Access3, a national web-based platform providing special educators with intentional on-demand support.

Shannon has held leadership positions across visual arts, education and ed tech industries. A former special education teacher and administrator, she works outside of the classroom at Creatively focused in order to impact more educators and reduce teacher burnout. As the leadership integrator at Creatively focused, shannon is a utility player, willing to jump into any role and figure out what needs to be done for the greater good of the company. I was so thrilled to be able to speak to Elizabeth and Shannon. Their partnership is such an incredible example of what great things can happen when there's a compelling company vision, mutual respect and trust and a willingness to grow, learn and adapt along the way together. If you enjoyed this episode as much as I think you will, then be sure to let us know in all the usual places, such as leaving a review on Apple Podcast, spotify or wherever you're listening to this episode. Hi Elizabeth and Shannon, I am so excited to have you both on the podcast today. Welcome.

Thanks, allie we're happy to be here.

So cool. Thank you. It's personally a pleasure of mine because I've known Shannon for, I want to say, at least over a year, maybe even two years, and so finally I get to see the other half of this partnership and meet Elizabeth. So this is very exciting for me. But I'd love to hear from you, elizabeth. First, just to share with our listeners who might not be familiar with your company, creatively focused, can you tell us a bit about your company, why you founded it? Just give us a bit of the story of your organization.

Sure, absolutely so. Creatively focused is an educator driven technology company where we're focused on increasing the retention rate of special educators. So did I ever think I'd be running a technology company? Absolutely not. So the long story short of it is I actually started out in developmental research and psychology and my first project was working with teachers, and it was at that moment that I really kind of figured out like the teachers are who I want to work with in this.

I didn't know if I wanted to be a teacher necessarily, but I also knew, like, okay, if I get into teaching, I'm going to know more about, like what these teachers really experience, what they need for support and how I can better help them long term. Because I was just always so fascinated at, like the passion they had behind it and I will say the story probably starts way further back than that because I was also like the third grader who was doing handstands against the wall and the teacher was like putting the card underneath my head so I could learn the words or do the math facts, and I remember like how passionate and helpful that teacher was. And so then when I got into working with teachers, I was like what is it about these people, like, how do they have this level of passion? How does it sustain? What does that look like? And then I got into teaching myself and then I really didn't understand it. I was like how do they do this? Is it felt so unsustainable, especially as a special educator.

I just kind of spent some time thinking about how do we keep these people around, because I kept being surrounded by people doing such incredible work. One of those people was actually Shannon, which I'm sure we'll get to, and all I could think was what are we going to do to keep them here? And so I spent about eight years in the district and at that point I said something needs to change. Our students deserve better. Our families deserve better.

That is amazing. I love that you were involved in the on the other side of the business before you switched over to founding the solution for special education teachers. It's just amazing. So I know you alluded that to a little bit with Shannon. So tell me a bit about how you two met and you've worked together now for 12 years, right, yeah? So tell me a little bit about how you met and how you've now formed this partnership as a leadership integrator.

Yes, so my background was actually in. I was a photographer and I went into education and I started at a school, actually in Hawaii. I started working with kids and I was like, oh my gosh, I love this, I love being with kids and seeing them grow and change and the impact. So when I moved back to Minnesota, I applied at a school where Elizabeth had just started working and interviewed there as a to be a paraprofessional and Elizabeth hired me.

So it was so fun because this was like I think we were only a month and a half into the school year right when you started and I was six or eight weeks in my first year of being a special education teacher and I already was burned out and Shannon came in and actually got to work as a one-to-one paraprofessional with one of the students. That was probably the most challenging on the case law that I had. That really stretched me to be like do I know what I'm doing? I need more help. How?

do I do this.

And in came Shannon and from there it was like we had an instant connection because we had this moment of like this is all new and this is really challenging and how are we going to do it together. And that turned into this like amazing cycle where I went from special ed teacher to special ed coordinator. She became a teacher, I went to a director, she became the coordinator. I started creatively focused. She worked a little bit longer at the district and then ultimately came and worked her creatively focused. So we've always been in this like kind of scenario of founder and force multiplier without knowing, probably until a couple of years ago, that that's truly what we were doing.

Yeah, that is so cool. How long did you work at the school together, where you were both actually teaching, before you moved? I'm just curious what that looked like.

Five, was it five years?

Yeah, Okay before you moved over to creatively focused. Yeah, so cool. And, shannon, I know you've maybe had I believe you've had a couple of different roles that creatively focused but all kind of in that force multiplier role. So as when we've talked about this many times, the force multiplier role can look very different for different organizations. And I love that your title is leadership integrator, so can you tell us a little bit about how that title came about and what your day to day looks like? What do you spend the majority of your time on in that role?

Sure, yeah. So I started as an executive assistant and being a startup. I had a lot of different roles and we even originally thought that I would do a little bit more within the school building, but we quickly found discovered that the executive assistant role was really needed and was really important. So we really focused on that. We did a book study on your book, hallie, that you co-wrote the founder and force multiplier and that was really helpful to give us some of like the language and skills to this relationship and even like the term thinking of it as a force multiplier was really helpful to me to know that that was like overarching, like highest level. That's what I was doing was I was taking what Elizabeth was doing and her vision and she's doing these big, amazing things that no one has ever done before, and I am just there to enhance it, to make it to be her second arm, to like move it forward so that she can kind of be in more places at the same time.

So moving into the leadership integrator role is I've been in this role for a year now just over a year and I'm on the leadership team. I still wear a lot of different hats and the role is always evolving and for me, like wearing a lot of hats, is a good thing, because I love to learn and I love to try new things, and I also know that I have Elizabeth has my back and she'll help me and support me in doing these different roles, and that we don't know everything we're discovering and involving and it's a good feeling. So some of the things I do is I will do some like PR things for Elizabeth. I will do some social media marketing. I do some HR and onboarding and some of that back end work of supporting employees and making sure that we're compliant in different ways.

I will do kind of whatever Elizabeth needs done. So we use that like one to ten principle, where she'll come to me with something that's like have this idea, it's out of two, please bring it to an eight or a nine, and then I know I bring it back to her. She makes those improvements and then it moves forward. Yeah, and so then I'll do like special projects and culture things is a big focus of mine. We had a change happen in the company so we did a lot of reworking our values and making sure that those values are actually used in our company and that they're important and on the forefront of where we're at and what we're doing.

So cool. Yeah, I mean, as you both know, the role can. The role can just vary so much, but much like the role of a founder does like you do have to wear a lot of different hats and you just take on different parts of the role based off of your strengths. So I think that's really cool and, elizabeth, similar. I'd love to know where you're spending your time these days as the founder. Like, where are you spending the majority of your time right now?

Yeah, shannon and I always kind of laugh because it feels like a very, very much like a quarterly shift right, like quarter is absolutely year to year changes, like to the point where both Shannon and I will almost look at like what are our own job descriptions and we kind of revisit that. Then each quarter we start to see certain things kind of like pick up or like pull off, and a lot of that has to do with, just like, the growth of the company and like all of a sudden we have a little thing we haven't needed before and so Shannon kind of fits into that spot. Until then we can elevate and be able to have her delegated to someone else. But right now the majority of my time is really being the face of the company right and being able to tell the story, being able to really focus on the sales side. We're in a very founder led sales driven mode at. The exciting part now is we will have a sales team for the first time ever. So a lot of my time is spent it's more on the thought leadership side now, which truly is my really like passionate area.

I love being able to talk about the things that I've seen, that I know that I wonder about. I go off on like rants all the time, that Shannon happens to hear all of them and then she converts that into like what, if we use it this way, right? And so I think just having that one thing Shannon mentioned was that kind of focus on values, and actually underneath everything she said was the reason she's in that leadership integrator role and the reason that she's so imperative to our leadership team and doing all those different activities like PR, social outreach. She's the person who, like, submits presentations for me left and right, right. She can do that because she's so grounded in our values and the reason she's so grounded in is because she created them, right.

So yeah it has evolved like. One of her core projects was to focus on what is it that we're actually doing here? What is the culture that we're describing when, when we're saying things are really important, or, as we've seen things go up and down, what are the things that we really needed to lean on? And because she's been there through that whole experience, she was able to really kind of like condense that all into those values and then she can work from that.

So there are times that she, better than I, knows how to really like root everything in the values and where we always want to make sure that she's able to like remind us of where we are and what we do.

Yeah oh that's amazing. That's awesome. So obviously you've worked together in many different avenues over the years, but what do you think really, maybe there's one thing that really makes your partnership work so well?

We have talked a lot about this and I will say the word and then Shannon can describe it. Okay, cool. So we have gone through so many words like what? Like, what is it? Is it trust? And we're like well, but like trust takes time, right, and there are times in every like relationship with people that you work with people in your personal life where trust kind of goes like in this kind of rhythm, right, but underneath all of it is just respect. And Shannon, for me, I mean everybody knows on our team, everyone's like Shannon's Elizabeth person, elizabeth person, right, like I had a major national conference this year, and everyone's like Shannon's going with you Like, yeah, provides that balance to me. But that all is because underneath everything is just a massive layer of respect for you are as professionals, as who we are, as women, who we are, as moms, who we are, as all the different kind of identities that we hold. So, shannon, I'll let you talk a little bit more or two about just what you've seen in that or what you feel about it.

Yes, absolutely so. I have the most respect for Elizabeth as a person, as a leader, as a parent and, as I said, like that, she's doing these amazing big things that no one else has ever done and from day one, she has made it clear to me that she has respected me as a human, as an employee, as as a leader, and in so many different ways, and I do think it it comes through and it is this overarching theme in our relationship and it's been really beneficial.

One thing I thought of, too, shannon, was just the fact that, like some people might call it boundary setting, but both like Shannon has the like highest level of respect, honestly, for anyone around her.

Like she is just one of those people that she is always going to put the human first right, and so I think the thing that I've appreciated the most in our relationship, too, is that there's never any judgments, and and I can rely on Shannon to to support me in a decision that maybe feels uncomfortable for me to be making. Like I was thinking about a there was a moment in time about a year ago where I was like Mondays don't work for me. Like now, right now, I love Mondays and but it just changes right, and Monday mornings, for some reason, we're just like, because of all the different circumstances, we're not working well for me, and I just said I think I need to not be in the office on Mondays and I think we need to adjust my entire schedule. And Shannon was like we're going to do this and we're going to do this and we're going to start meeting on Fridays, and like figured all that out without any judgment, but also was quick to say like okay, but if we're doing this, I'm going to need this.

And so it's that like respect for the fact that we might have the personal things happening but we also need to attend to the professional things. Or we might have the professional things happening and we need to be reminded of the personal things, like that's what I think Shannon really elevates for both of us.

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. Is there any advice that you would give to founders and or force multipliers about how to build this lasting partnership? Is it about, is it working on, building respect, or is there? Is there something else too?

Right. Yeah, I think it is just valuing each other as humans and as seeing that your work is valued and that you're working on this big thing and that it's having impact. So I think when we look at the greater good of what we're trying to accomplish, that respect just comes out. It also is I keep using the word evolving, but it is always evolving and our roles as my role changes and our company changes, we just kind of keep that touchpoint and that touchstone really of having that respect and communicating our needs and knowing that our lives have been flow and there are times that we things are happening with our families and that's going to be important for us, but that is respected as a human being that's doing this work. It's not just we're not robots, we don't come to work with no baggage, but we're able to be who we need to be in the world and be there for each other.

I think there's this layer too of just. I don't know that there is ever a deliberate conversation around this, but Shannon and I both have similar flows we are okay with and I think this is a critical part for a force multiplier to know when working with the founder.

A founder's brain is never going to stop, ever. And I think I just said in an article recently an idea for me can happen while I'm sitting in front of my computer. It can happen while I'm watching my daughter at gymnastics. It can happen while I'm playing monster trucks. Like it can happen while I'm blowing up the pool outside for the kids. It's like it can happen at any time, and it can be late night on a Saturday, or it can be like middle of the day on a Wednesday.

And I never shy away from sharing something with Shannon that I think is going to like create action or is going to lead to some work to be done. So I always check myself on, like do I really need to share this now or can I wait until Monday? But there are times where I'm like Nope, I do, I have to get this part out, because it's if I don't get it out, it's going to stop my brain from going to the next thing it needs to go to. And so there are the occasional weekend texts. And then there are other weekends where it's like we don't hear from each other and Shannon will go on a vacation, or all going on a vacation. We won't talk for days, right, but it's just mutual. We've become okay with knowing that, like the work doesn't totally stop ever with where we're at, and I think if I had a person in this role who was like I'm done at this time, there's no way that this would work in this way.

No, absolutely, and I think that that's true for the majority of founders, I would say. And then? And being able to find that other to your point, that partner who understands that, respects that, actually also thrives on that to a certain degree and isn't building up resentment or keeping score of how many times I've got I got a text on a weekend it is really important to make sure that you do use that flow, that your work, the way you work, is at least compatible, if not identical.

Yeah, absolutely. The energy has to just like go in the same way, right, and I feel like you're splitting, it's like something's probably not working well.

Yeah, I know you mentioned respect as kind of that, that cornerstone, keystone for the relationship. How can you maybe give me some examples of how you worked on developing that respect, or did it just come over time?

Just so like I think about really tangible things like and we still hear this, and actually this is probably it's something that both Shannon and I now hear frequently from our employees, which is really nice for us because we've seen it work over time, and so then we start to see certain ways of us working together, that kind of trickle down, and that's again where some of our values for a company came from too. But I like the example of like I used to when I was a school administrator. I used to go to someone and say like hey, you have, you have three days left this year to take off and you only have a month of school left. When are you taking your days Right? And and I think, like from a leadership end, that's what I always strive to do is to say like, if I know, everybody is better when everybody is feeling like their own form of balance. And I would go to like Shannon and say like, hey, you've had a really hard week, like we had a ton of meetings this week or whatever might have happened. Do you want to take some time next week? So, instead of like relying on everybody to kind of act for themselves, like being able to do that for her.

Or to say, like she mentioned this, if there's family stuff going on, like providing the position up front instead of waiting for somebody to ask, and I think the exact same for me. Like, hey, one day, one day last summer, she was like what if we did our meeting at a pool on Wednesday? And just like that, like get that she knew it was far beyond wanting to go to a pool. It was like she knew I needed to get out of the space and I needed to to kind of recalibrate right, and so she provided the suggestion. And I think doing things like that, where you're not fearful of like someone, someone like trying to think that they're trying to do something to you or like assuming bad intentions in it, like you can just say they're saying this to me for a reason and I'm going to take them up on it, I think that's been really reciprocal in our relationship.

Yeah, that's so cool. I just from the whole time we've been talking and even from my experience, shannon, it just feels like your company is so conscious about the whole person and having a very holistic approach to work and life and just being a person in the world, and I just wanted to kind of point that out and say it's super commendable and I hope that people are hearing this and going to bring it back into their own organizations because I think it's very important.

We all do better if we're feeling better in the other parts too. Right, Like we can do really well at work and really well at home, and I think that's like Shannon exemplifies that. That's also like in this role. She's the one that like pulls me down from the clouds and puts my feet on the ground every once in a while we all need someone like that though. Yeah, so I actually say I'm like, everybody needs a Shannon.

Yeah, I wanted to talk just for a second about Shannon. How do you lead and manage up to Elizabeth, and maybe can you give us a couple of examples of what that looks like.

Sure, yeah, I think a big part of it is noticing patterns, and so an example of that is I noticed that Fridays were a day that there was a lot of activity. We wanted to get a lot done and we were. And then Elizabeth mentioned she was having some things happen on Monday and we used to meet on Wednesdays. And then I took Friday as my remote day and so I just something was like not flowing right, so I suggested that we move my my remote day to a different day and then I come in on Wednesday, we meet, or, sorry, come in on Friday, we meet Friday morning and really discuss these certain things.

So I created an agenda that said what do we need to finish today to make it feel good to go into the weekend, or Friday finishers, and what happened this week that went well, what happened this week that did not go so well that we need to adjust, and what are our priorities for next week? So having having that those meetings on Friday has been huge as far as, like we just can make those changes and adjustments and then also, as an added bonus, our priorities are clear Going into the next week. I know what she's working on and she knows what I'm working on to support and so that that's just an example of like noticing the patterns and like trying to preserve Elizabeth's energy and making sure she's not in meetings that she doesn't need to be in or doing things that don't make sense, so that she has the the available energy and capacity to do those vision, the visionary work and that big picture things.

Yeah, that's amazing. So you have your Friday meetings. What? Do you have any other touchpoints throughout the week? Or how kind of what is your communication flow throughout the weeks?

Yeah, we so we're a flexible environment, so it's it's really nice. We have some people that are mostly remote and some people that come into the office more frequently, so I generally will come in at least a couple of days a week and so we kind of have a natural touch points when.

I'm here.

We also have our strategic leadership meeting each week, as well as some other touch points and certain projects or divisions, and then we slack and we'll call in text and things like that once in a while too. And when Elizabeth mentioned her sharing ideas, I just have to say like I love her brain, I've always loved her brain, so I get excited when I get like messages about ideas and things. The other day even she, she was in her office and she said, shannon, I have a big favor to ask you. And I was like, oh, I'm excited, it was not that big of a favor, but it was like it made me it was a good indicator.

I just noticed that like, wow, okay, I actually get excited when she's asking me to do a big thing.

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's super cool. I got to ask you how? So? Because this is such a common thing with founders and force multipliers, because the founders have all these incredible ideas constantly. So how are you capturing these ideas and how are you figuring out which ones to act on, which ones to hold off on? What's your process?

Yeah, we've had a few, a few ways evolving right, like when I think about Shannon being like up to speed on where the ideas are I have. I have like my own kind of two methods. One is that I have a notebook and it's like like notebooks many, many notebooks. I'm almost only working in one, but I have like a staff because I never get rid of them because it's like five years later I'll come back to something that was in it.

Or I have like 18 whiteboards that are all like decked out on things. A lot of times it will be like a quick, it seriously will be a text message, or it will be a black message. That's like thinking about this, and then Shannon will add it to our one-to-one agenda so that when we do our check-in, it's like, honestly, sometimes it's three days later and I'm like, yeah, it was just an idea, like I know it has nothing to do with like strategically where we are right now, but like let's either compartmentalize it and put it as a long-term issue, and we have kind of a long-term issue list. Otherwise, if there does need to, if it's like, hey, let's pursue it a little bit. Often, that's where Shannon's role comes in so well, because she can take the first steps kind of behind the scenes, without everybody else needing to necessarily know that. Allow us to then continue the conversation of like is this something we want to do or not? Other times, though, there are the scenarios and this has happened, I mean for sure a handful of times where I've called Shannon or she's been in the office and I've been like come on in here and I've said we're doing this, we're doing it tomorrow. You're all the people I need on it, and here's like where I need your help and like we will have to go really quickly. And so a really critical example of that that I will like not downplay at all was we.

The company was restructured a year ago, complete restructure of the company. We went from a full services company with a little bit of technology and product built in to walking into an educational technology company, which meant all of the things that a restructure means, right. And so there came a day where I had to go to Shannon and say, hey, this is what needs to happen. I have 4,000 questions that I need to answer. I have an entire plan that I need to really like build out and act on in the next three weeks. I need someone by my side to do it. We went to another location, sat at a counter for like a full day and just like went at the work we needed to do.

And that's the kind of thing where sometimes it is like a kind of fluffy idea and other times it's like no, this needs to happen, it needs to happen right now. Just the fact that Shannon can play into like that, like talk about being unpredictable, like she can roll with it and she can go from being like probably in her head being like that's really out there idea and it'll probably go nowhere anywhere right now, right, but like. And then the other end of her looks at something and says, like I need to drop everything right now to support all of this. So that's kind of how we capture things right. It's like I, if it's, if it's urgent for me and I know it has to take action she never questions that Like, we go straight into it and I don't use it frequently. But the other things. We have that kind of system of like. Is it strategically aligned? If it's not, we capture it. I continue to let my brain go on it in a notebook and then pull it all out again.

Shannon, is there a tech tool that you use for that? Or how are you like cat, even like the long term ideas? Where are those? Where do those live?

Yeah, we hold them in Asana.

Yeah, okay, yeah, I was curious what tool you use. Great, that's cool. Obviously, you have a very successful partnership, but I also kind of like to dig into any times you've had challenges, because we can learn a lot from that. Can you think of any examples where you've had a challenging conversation or just had some difficulty in the relationship, and how did you work through that?

I feel very lucky that I can say that, like in the 12, 13 years, like there hasn't been a moment for Shannon and I that led to like really like hard, like we need to handle this and like our relationship is at risk. We are so like fortunate to be able to say, like we haven't had that kind of moment. There's not to say that there haven't been moments where it's like we both need to lean a little bit more on like our like kind of radical communication to each other to say like, hey, this is or is not working for me. And when we think about some of the challenges like we've talked about with startup and with, like that person being in their strong, like kind of strong seats and their skill set, shannon can do so many things and it is so easy for me to be like Shannon can do that, shannon can do that. And quite literally, like at this point I'll say like well, shannon has done just about everything that a company needs to do right, because she's done a little piece of everything.

And so there are times when both Shannon and I are wearing like five or six hats at the same time, and that's when I would say, like our challenges come up is because we're we're knowing how critical her like leadership, integrator role is, but because there are all these other hats that she's wearing at the same time, like do we lose sight of it? Do we lose her advancement of what could be happening there and how do we come back to that? And so I think, when I think about the like really honest conversations we've had to have, it's more about like, how are we both continuing to elevate and grow and support each other in doing that and not just be in that kind of reactive response mode where, like we both know we can do a whole lot of things and therefore we're just going to keep like spinning on the wheel? I don't know, shannon. I know from your lens. So this, I think it impacts Shannon more than it does for me. Right, because I like, because I'm the person who I can like end up in the clouds and Shannon has to again like pull me down and be like I'm right here and remember this is my seat and this is what we talked about.

Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, I would agree with all that.

I think, yeah, because of all of the roles and hats, sometimes knowing the priority is the biggest struggle and if, like, there's a lot going on and Elizabeth and I are not connecting like we usually do, I can start to spin out on things and be like, okay, I'm doing, I'll do this and then, but it's, but it might not be what is actually the most impactful, like priority for me to work on.

So it's just a matter of, like, coming back together and having those conversations and connecting and, yes, me voicing where I feel like I'm off doing something and I need to come back into the priority and into what's really important. Yes, and I also say that Elizabeth embodies someone who elevates leaders. I mean, she has the skill of putting people in the right seats and and bringing the right people toward her and toward the company, and I've just always seen that in her and respected that in her and really felt that in my career that she's lifted me up in in many ways and showed me that that trust in that, like that has been so important for me to see, like, oh, I am able to do this. Yes, this is hard, but she trusts me and I need to do it. I need to find a way, and so that's happened just throughout our 12, 13 year relationship, over and over again.

Yeah, that was really cool and I just wanted to mention, to the point that you said that, how important in this to make sure that you're connecting regularly. I know that you have your Friday meetings, but I also know that in sometimes things happen or you're on vacations or you're just missing each other. And I know from experience as a force multiplier, when you work so your work is so closely tied to what your founder is doing you can get a little off track or just like feeling like okay, am I on the right track? Which is just one more reminder to everyone listening that those weekly touch points between a founder and a force multiplier make such a difference. I mean, to me that's one of the most important tactical pieces of the partnership.

Yeah, I even noticed if we adjust the time, something's not right. Like I'm already thinking in my head right now about next week, cause I'm traveling next week, right, and she knows I go into sales mode for three days like it's a good thing if you don't hear from me a lot, but at the same time, like totally pushing off the cadence is what disrupts the flow, right.

And so.

I keep thinking about like as like I talked about the quarters change, like my travel schedule has significantly changed in the last six months and so it's like we're up into that now of like how do we keep the time? And like, how do we carve out the time and no matter where I am, can we still have the meeting right and can we do things in the same way, or what's gonna kind of throw us off track.

Yeah. So I'm speaking of going into your sales meetings and your schedule shifting a little bit. I'm assuming some of it has to do with the fact that you've been working on some capital raises and Shannon being the amazing force multiplier that she has told me that as a female founder and CEO, you are in the 2% of women who have actually raised capital. So can you tell us a bit about that process and kind of where you're at with it and what you've learned?

Yeah, absolutely Just gave me the chills again and it's like it doesn't go away. So it has been a really incredible ride in the last couple of years. Like I mentioned, we had a restructure last year when we restructured to a technology company, and what feels so right about it is the vision has always been the same, right Like since the day that I was still working in the school building and told Shannon that I was gonna start this company. I said I want every special educator to feel like their job can be a career.

And what I noticed a couple of years ago while I was making this transition to the technology side was like the word every, every single one, right Like every single one across the US. And then in my head it was like across the globe, there are people doing this job everywhere. And so that scaling led to an entirely different kind of business that I was running. I went from bootstrapping a company to almost 3 million in revenue to then completely switching over and running a technology company where I had incredible risk. Right, I risked losing a lot of customers in the transition between services and technology. I risked just reputationally, like what it looked like to restructure a company in that way, and what I could lean back on was the value of, like I said, every.

And so fundraising for us was a long journey. I had a team that stood by in every single moment. We had incredibly hard operational decisions to make during that time in order to extend our runway. It was a ride. I told them I'm like we feel like we're on a roller coaster. This is like a little bit feeling like it's a roller coaster with like an underground tunnel we didn't know about, but like we'll cook it out and I won't shy away from talking about how hard it was Right. I mean, I think my family felt it, I felt it, shannon felt it, shannon's family probably felt it, our whole team felt it.

What was really important was that now, with it being done, we've raised $3 million, $3 million in capital. We've closed our seed rounds. We have the money we need to be able to really put the efforts on the sales and marketing end to get to all of the people, so we can get to more than 13 states. We can get to like everywhere in the US. We have the right people on the board. I feel so supported by my board members. It just it worked out in the way that it was supposed to. I just had to try to find it. Never shy away from talking about what it's like to be a woman in that environment, because it is different and it needs to be talked about more, and I can't wait for another phase of my life where I can kind of like well surface out all the notes I took in my phone.

The whole process. Yes, because I'm like, okay, we need to hear the story. So at some point, yeah, you'll need to share it, but I think that that's just great that you're so aware of it and you know that it was challenging and perhaps even more challenging for you, and it isn't talked about enough. So congratulations. First of all, thank you very much. Incredible, and I am just curious why this is just. I don't know enough about the ed tech industry, but what is it about ed tech that is not as attractive to investors?

Two things market size and sales cycle. So market size, just quite like when you look at a TAM, it's like, okay, it's just not the big number that you're gonna see. When you're talking about, like, everybody who has a job, right, so you're just automatically talking about a smaller size in terms of market. That being said, it's really underestimated, right. Like when you're talking about how fund mean works and how the market works, like it's just a really kind of quick way for investors to be like oh, that market size it's not. It's something we're not really comfortable with.

The bigger thing they care about is really the sales cycle. So when you sell into K-12, you're talking about like upwards of an 18 month sale cycle. So relationships are insanely important. Budget cycles and the way they work. You could be talking to a district in August and not see anything come through until next June or July, and so it's just this longer cycle. So you're taking longer to figure out what your true metrics are. So, from a venture capital side, when they're looking at like SaaS metrics, it doesn't completely line up in the same way that something else might, right, and so it's just Thank you.

It's just another hurdle. But that's where I say I'm so lucky with the investors that I have because they're willing to learn in it and they also 100% trust me as the expert in that industry. Right? They understand that cycle used to oversee all of those budgets, like there's just that understanding that it is going to look different. That doesn't mean that it can't look successful.

Yeah, yeah that. I just think it's so fascinating that both of you have done and the idea from the idea and the iteration to now seeing it, we've built this company and now you've shifted this company and now you're raising capital like incredible journey over the past 12 years or so. Okay, cool, so I'm assuming that's what you're working on next, but is there anything else you have up your sleeve that you're working on?

Well, I always have things. No, I think the best is when Shannon hears from me and it's like an idea that has absolutely nothing to do with creative focus. I have two kiddos with severe food allergies, and so my brain is constantly going to the problems that we face in that world and how those things can be solved. I very much become the first new walks into a room and it's like I identify random problems and I'm like how could we be solving that? So no, I mean the biggest moves right now, or what's next for us is thinking even bigger.

I can't stop thinking bigger. I never will stop thinking bigger with what we're doing. We have such a unique team and product in the education environment that I think has great potential to impact other really highly passionate people and passionate fields, and so when I think about the people who are choosing to do the really passionate work in a highly regulated area and required to do tons of paperwork in combination with dealing with all of the hard work that goes into the work they do, I think we just have so much opportunity because people will always need people. So what's next for us is one just getting this into the hands of every special educator so we can fulfill that vision, and then just continuing to dream about how we can help more people stay in the jobs that they love.

I love that so much. Now, after you said that, I'm like also thinking about areas of businesses that can be super applicable to what you're building, so maybe I'll show you some ideas on that. I'm sure you've already thought about it. I need more ideas, okay, last question I see behind you you have Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart yep, which I love that book. What are you both reading now? Shannon, I know you're a big reader, but like what's the? What are you reading now? Or what are some books that you just are like? These are my must reads.

I actually got both of my current book ideas from you, probably unknowingly, and I know I've been in your book club now and again. But I'm reading On Our Best Behavior by Elise Lohnen and oh my gosh, I'm underlining like the whole book.

You're always saying yes, yes it's so good.

And then I'm also reading Coming Up for Air, which is really a great way of looking at efficiencies and it's kind of changed the way that I'm looking at like information access for me and for the company.

Yes, yes, I highly recommend both of those books.

So I don't read. The joke is like I haven't read a book from Starts Fitter since I was like 17,. But I listen to a lot of things. I and I do read research journals, so I will literally like go to bed and be scrolling through a research journal like that's what I read. However, when I think about like the books that have made a difference especially in like Shannon, I talked about things too so the hard thing about hard things like nothing has felt more relatable than different stories that have come through that, and so I listened to that while I was running because I was like it feels like somebody knows what I'm talking about.

Yes, that one the other one is actually a kids book and it's like the most beautifully illustrated book and it's what to Do with an Idea, or what Do you Do with an Idea. I love what Do you Do with a Problem and like a couple of the other ones. But what Do you Do with an Idea is one that I just like I will pick up and look at I don't know, probably once a month and it just like embraces entrepreneurship at a whole. Like it resonates so much when you read it, and if you have kids read it with you too, they start to like kind of wonder about it and you can just see the wonder happen, and I think that to me, is just like really exciting. So, even as an adult, I like pulling up kids books because I think we can learn a lot from them.

So yeah, I agree. I agree, All of those books are great suggestions. Well, thank you both so much. I loved hearing your stories and all about your partnership. You're both such an amazing example of what it looks like when you do have that right person beside you and you're really both operating in your strengths. So thank you for sharing.

Thanks so much, Hallie. This was so fun to be on here and thank you for all the support you've provided to Shannon. And yeah, just so, just so happy to have met you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we appreciate you.

Hallie, thank you. Thanks, shannon.