This is an ENCORE episode of Hello Chaos with Robyn Farrell, founder of Resiliency Technologies and the Sharpen app. October is Mental Health Awareness Month and wanted to bring back this episode that speaks about the topic. Robyn shares her inspiring journey as a serial founder and discusses her mission to address the problem of mental health. She highlights the gaps she observed as a health educator and how her company is working to make a difference in this space. Tune in to hear more about Robyn's entrepreneurial experiences and insights. Check out this month's edition of OrangeWIP (www.orangewip.com) where we showcase the SharpenFounder app that Robyn's team designed for founder mental health.
In this podcast, this week's guest is Robyn Farrell, the founder of Resiliency Technologies and the Sharpen app. Robyn shares her journey as a serial founder and discusses the problem of mental health that she is addressing with her tech platform.
Robyn Farrell shares her inspiring journey as a founder in the field of mental health. She explains how she was motivated to address mental health issues after witnessing gaps in the healthcare system as a health educator. Robyn also highlights her background in the entertainment industry and how it has influenced her work in increasing engagement with mental health content. Robyn shares her entrepreneurial journey and discusses her focus on addressing mental health. She also talks about her background in the theater industry and how it has shaped her approach to business and collaboration.
Ep. 014 Hello Chaos Podcast with Robyn Farrell FOUNDER of SHARPEN
SPEAKER02: Hello world, this is Hello Chaos, the podcast on entrepreneurship and innovation. We discover and uncover all the messiness and the journey and the great points, the high points and low lights or highlights and low points of entrepreneurship with fantastic guests who have lots to share. I'm Jennifer Oladipo or Jen O. And I am Jennifer Sutton or just Jen.
SPEAKER01: We're the Jens. Just Jen. Yeah. And welcome to Hello Chaos. And today, our guest is Robyn Farrell, who is a founder of Resiliency Technologies, and really the Sharpen app. And welcome, Robyn. Hello, Robyn. Thank you. And she's coming to us from San Diego.
SPEAKER_00: Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Nice to be a part of the chaos.
SPEAKER_01: That's right. Robyn and I do go several years back being female founders and working through multiple journeys of complex architecture and structure of how do you start up the business, all the different products and programs you have to offer. But before we get into that, Robyn, You know, I was telling Jennifer, Jen O, a little bit about your journey, but I was like, I need to hear Robyn tell her journey, because it's super interesting and really inspirational. So I'm going to open up the floor to you.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful. Well, thank you. And again, thanks to both of you, Jens, for making this possible and just sort of highlighting the plight of entrepreneurship in general. My particular story, so I'm a bit of a serial founder. I've founded four companies. And the problem that I was addressing with resiliency technologies is the rather large problem of mental health. Um, which recently, of course, the world is sort of awakened to the reality of that. But back about 20 years ago, I was a health educator and I just saw there were so many gaps. And so, um, I unfortunately had the idea to build a tech platform while building content. And so Jennifer Sutton and I kind of always talk about how you're building the airplane as you're flying it. And. sort of building it as you're jumping off a cliff and trying to land on your feet. And so nothing could be more true than building a technology platform in the area of mental health. But that's a little bit about my story. I also work with my husband. So Tim Farrell and I go back about 30 years to New York City Entertainment. So back in the day, we worked in the entertainment industry. Tim in film and television in news coverage. And I in the theater and was a producer in the theater space. So we also have an entertainment and content creation expertise that we sort of layer in to try to increase engagement with mental health content. That's a little about my journey.
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome. I love, uh, love me some theater folk. I'm currently on the board of, um, I'm going to shout out the warehouse theater here in Greenville.
SPEAKER_01: They need it. They need a shout out. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Awesome. Doing awesome things. Yeah. And so, um, what, one of the things that it's, I don't, I guess maybe more alert to is how often I encounter theater people in like so many other realms. So I would love to hear just to start off, like that's an interesting background from where you're from, where you're coming. But it's the complexities of theater and also film and TV production are amazing. So we'd love to hear how that has fed into where you are today.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jeno, that's a whole story in itself, but the long and short of it. So the theater company that I co-founded is called Transport Group, and that's in New York City, we are celebrating our 20th year right now, and Transport Group, you know, I think that, like you're saying, the arts in general, but especially the art of theater, is such that it teaches you, number one, you're not the only artist in the room, so you have to be collaborative, so it's multidisciplinary, you're kind of herding a lot of cats all the time in the world of theater, and all of you are kind of looking toward the shared mission of building something that's bigger than yourselves. And so all of those skills translate into so many different industries and sectors. So I actually love working with theater students in both college and grad school because I am biased, but I just think that, um, theater people have a skill set that needs to be translated into so many other industry sectors.
SPEAKER_01: Well, not just industry, just business in general of, you know, how do you be a part of a team? How do you help amplify your company's mission and be, and really understand that and, and be that collaborative spirit. And especially in companies that are innovative, you know? So I think, I think it does translate. Robyn, what got you, why mental health? Out of all things to focus on from a founder perspective, why mental health? And you kind of, you started it before it was really anything of a fad, you know, or a focus.
SPEAKER_00: So I would say I owe pretty much all of the reasoning behind why mental health to growing up in the theater. So number one, I had too many friends and loved ones who were in the theater space who were struggling and who kind of went on without ever getting treatment. And that's all my friends in the LGBTQIA plus populations. You just saw so much struggling. Being in New York City during 9-11 was another catalyst. So you just saw that when 9-11 happened, It was sort of the norm as a New Yorker. We sort of all came together, but there were just so many gaps in care. But the real story started with a show that I produced in New York called Normal. And that show ended up being a catalyst using high quality arts as sort of a health education tool. And then I just brought in researchers and experts in neuroscience into these live theater settings. So it actually truly came out of a theatrical production that then I thought would be a three month sort of endeavor bringing this curricular program around the country. And it's been going on 20 years of learning and listening to communities in terms of public health and the gaps that are there.
SPEAKER_02: So I was talking to another entrepreneur who's going to be in the e-zine, um, about their product. And he used this really interesting phrase of, um, he felt like it was educational entrepreneurship because they're having to explain a lot to people about the why of it. It's not like a lot of other products or services. And I'm, I'm imagining that that's a, a L was a lot of your situation 20 years ago when you were starting out.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it, it really is uncovering the why, you know, and, and the way, In my experience, what has led to that is learning from the experts, not just people we consider experts, but people with lived experience in the trenches who have a grassroots and a lived experience layer of knowledge that often we overlook. And so a real simple journalistic style sort of quality that we bring with the Sharpen system is my husband with his background in news coverage and documentary film, my background in the arts. What we did is we simply started asking questions of all of these audiences. And we spent the last 10 years filming documentary style training tools that answered those questions. And so we now have over 4,000 of those films that are under the hood of what is deployed through Sharpen.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Explain sharpen. I mean, resiliency technologies is really kind of the umbrella, but yeah, but then what is, what is sharpen?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so Sharpen is a mental health technology platform. We help communities improve their behavioral health outcomes. And we do that by keeping sort of everyone connected, but also by feeding this psychoeducational content. So a use case, for example, of the Sharpen platform is right now our clients and college campuses, where we're seeing a 75% increase in risk. for things like suicide and mental disorders. The Department of Counseling Services can deploy SHARPEN to all of their students immediately. They get what we call CBT and DBT focused content. So it's sort of an intervention, but also it connects them safely and appropriately to treatment. And we've seen an increase in outcomes such as mental health literacy, improving social emotional skills, and connection to crisis care and treatment. So it's a, it's a comprehensive system that really helps us move the needle in mental health.
SPEAKER_02: And so as you have developed your company, more and more people have moved into the space, especially very recently. And so how have you had to respond to that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. That's, that's sort of the crazy thing about a, a company that's in the scaling stage. Right. And, 20 years ago, we were sort of pounding on the doors of K-16 institutions saying, the city's on fire, there's a mental health pandemic happening. And finally, two years ago, we woke up to that as a people and as a community. But the good news is so many of us have been doing research in this area, there are best practices. And so what I always lean on is the empirical validity, the scientific sort of underbelly of what works and what doesn't following those best practices. But there's no question, Jen, that right now we're in the middle of everyone has risen to the occasion to say, I've got the solution. And so I think for us, that's part of where we're meeting some of our barriers and our challenges right now are, how do we rise up above that noise and differentiate? And so for us, that's through science, research, research collaborations, the wide and deep library of content that we have that's been proven through research study. So I think there's, it's certainly a wide open playing field right now and it's a bit of the wild west. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I was going to say, so just to elaborate on, expand on that, you know, from what I'm hearing, you guys were like the lone gun out there. of really kind of preaching this. And now pandemic happens and… The gun shops open. When you say that it's like a Wild West show, is that because a lot of people are coming out of the woodwork with similar platforms or is it, or they're just like false competitor? I mean, like what, what is the, what is the landscape challenge?
SPEAKER_00: So over the course of the last two decades, I wrote what I call the 50 components that are putting communities at risk, the risk factors around mental health and suicide. And one of those 50 is that there's not a whole lot of regulation in this field. So unfortunately, and even to this day, anyone on this call could put a shingle outside of their door and claim expertise in this area. And so because of that, there's a lot of people, both in the medical field, in the business community, who are saying, oh, I'm an expert. I know what the answer is in terms of the arena of mental health. And from my perspective, that falls really under researchers and clinical licensed clinicians who've been doing this work for decades and decades. So this market is a wide open playing field right now and sort of the wild west, number one, because of that. And to me, that's a, that's a problem. It's also a huge opportunity for a whole host of entrepreneurs.
SPEAKER_02: That's, um, I have to just say scary as hell.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Well, because yeah, they, you know, like you said, there's no regulation, there's no validity to, you know, who, who, what's the criteria for who is an expert? Yeah. That's right. Absolutely. It sounds like marketing landscape is what that sounds like.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's a copywriter. Everybody's an art director. Yeah, I know. That's right.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right. So take a step back for just a minute, Robyn, and like, what was your, like, okay, I'm going to start a business. What was that? What was the first, was it real resiliency technology? Was that the first?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the first thing that was my sort of let's create resiliency technologies, that was driven from about 15 years of working in the nonprofit sector. So one of the first companies I created in this space is called Mental Fitness. It's a nonprofit that delivers evidence-based programs into schools. And it was doing that work in the nonprofit space, sort of seeing what the work was like in the grassroots perspective, how we weren't really able to move the needle in an efficient way. I saw a great need that we needed to utilize technology to sort of get more best practices out there to more of those humans that are doing the work in the trenches, the therapists, the health educators, teachers that are in the schools that can often be our frontline support for so many kiddos. And so that's why, that was the reason behind building resiliency technologies. It was wanting to supercharge those counselors, those social workers that are doing such great work in the trenches, but often have zero budget and zero ability to really scale.
SPEAKER_02: So with each of those businesses, um, you, you, you really keep focusing on evidence-based, um, you know, practices. And I think it would be really interesting for a lot of our listeners and people in our communities to know about how, how are you building those relationships with like the clinicians and the researchers? Because that's kind of a hard thing. I, you know, a lot of times the good people, everyone's knocking on their door. Um, so can you talk a little bit, like really walk through, like, how do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So from my perspective, Jen, the answer started, I was a health educator and I was doing professional development workshops for the licensed clinicians and the school professionals. So what that looked like is the training tools a la documentary films on the subject, for example, of eating disorders. We would do a live training in a school setting or in a university setting because Less than one day of professional training is often held during medical school on these topics. So when you're meeting with pediatricians and you have your child, often they are not being fully trained on the full gamut of mental disorders. And so we were in there doing the training with all the other clinicians. I was literally bringing them into those live training sessions. And so the number one way that I would get in front of them is by doing the professional development, the sort of best practice training for those clinical providers. So that was number one. Then I was invited to speak at national conferences where I would meet more of those experts in terms of the professionals who needed more training or needed more content in terms of, you know, the latest research out there. And that's honestly, that's kind of been our go to market strategy. And I think Jen, Jennifer Sutton can attest, we've really been a word of mouth program for the last seven years. Uh, it's been word of mouth through the state agencies we work with, through the different agency partners. Yeah, that's right. And so, um, at this stage, we've, we've really invested very little into marketing and PR. Um, and, and that actually is not a, I don't think that's a strength, but that's a reality of, of our company and our growth story. Um, so that's the way in which we connected. And then I had over probably 1600. interactions with researchers, clinicians, educators over the last three years. And for me, sort of the aha was when they see what we've built and you just you see it immediately in their eyes, they light up and they want to do research with us because of because of our values, our vision. That to me has a catalytic effect. And so As a result, we've grown our, our research collaborations by over 120% just in the last year.
SPEAKER_02: So what's the, what is it that that's most exciting to them? And like, I mean, obviously all these people have their own careers and reasons to get, you know, get on board. Um, so what is it that, that drives them to help you build your business basically?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So number one, I think that it meets their pain points immediately. So every clinician who is seeing patients right now, There is a whole host of CBT and the best practices for treatment that involves teaching your client about mental health. So if I am diagnosed with a depressive disorder, the very first part of care is helping them understand, well, what is it? And how did it happen? And what is the neuroscience? And so we just deliver all of that. We serve all of that up to that clinician for them to give to their patient. We also do that on the proactive side. So, when we do prevention programming in schools, we're able to educate a large audience, because it's technology, on all of the topics that our schools and our universities are faced with right now. So, that might be suicide prevalence, that may be trauma, that may be adverse childhood experiences. Because our training content has peer-to-peer documentary-style stories, we bridge that gap. We reduce the shame and the stigma that surround mental health. So that's the other thing that clinicians love, because they're trying so hard to get people to come to them. At least they were before COVID. And we help them shorten that length of time. On average, it takes about 11 years for a person to actually connect with a therapist, finally. And what we've seen is a immediate shortening of that time. We increase engagement by over 86%.
SPEAKER_02: Wow. Serious numbers. What is it about that form of storytelling that makes people act?
SPEAKER_00: I think that when you are meeting people in a space of truth, when you kind of create a safe space where people can be vulnerable and share their experiences kind of in an appropriate fashion. When a sufferer enters that safe space and they all of a sudden are introduced to this world of people who look like them, talk like them, walk like them, What we've seen is you just feel like you're seen, you feel like you're heard, and the acceptance levels improve.
SPEAKER_01: You feel like you're not alone. It's so funny you describe that. And we've talked about this, you know, Jeno, and Robyn, you and I have had these same conversations of That's the beauty of connecting with other entrepreneurs and other founders. You know, when someone gets engaged in some of these incubators or these accelerators or these programs or mentor and coaching, we hear that a lot of like, wow, I wish I kicked myself for not engaging or finding a place to feel safe and vulnerable and open. Yeah. But a lot of it is cause there's other people that are like me, um, that have gone through those challenges and yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Who have you, who have you leaned on? Um, you know, like where's your safe space as you're building your business and pivoting your business and watching the landscape change? Like where do you go for that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jennifer Sutton and Brighton co have been one of my, uh, safe spaces for many, many years. Um, I think, like you're saying, you know, both of you are saying, finding other entrepreneurs or just thought leaders who are going through a similar experience. So in my experience, I was based in the upstate of South Carolina for the last 10 years. And number one, there were a an inordinate number of female leaders in the community where I was in Spartanburg that just saw what I was trying to do. It's a big vision. It's a tough vision. And they just took me under their wing. And so there were individuals who saw that who were from multiple sectors. And then there were organizations that saw that need. So we connected with a lot of the mentoring groups, a lot of the resources for for startups and accelerator programs in the Southeast corridor. Most recently, I'd say the one that has resonated the most is the Launchpad 2X program that's out of Atlanta. So that is sort of fueling female CEOs and allowing us to all come together in a safe space to share and strategize and gain knowledge. And, you know, out here in California, there's a organization called Hera Hub, which is also focused on women founders and female companies. Not that we are special or different. It's just that when you are able to openly talk with other female CEOs, you just, there's a, there's a litany of resources that you aren't often aware of that, that, that network just catalyzes.
SPEAKER_02: What were some of the, what have some of the things you found that you were like, Oh God, it's not just me. And it made a big difference in how you moved forward.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So number one, confidence. And the data we know about women sort of not going after, for example, RFPs or funding or opportunities for growth in their business because often as women, and this is through research we've seen, women will wait until we have everything down like perfectly. Whereas typically men, and again, these are broad brushstroke comments, but typically men might have out of the 10 characteristics you need for a certain RFP, they're gonna run out the door and they're gonna apply for that funding or apply for that opportunity long before research shows, long before a woman would.
SPEAKER_02: when I'm sorry, just to clarify. So you're saying like women need feel like I got to have 10 out of 10 on this checklist before I go tend to. And then men tend to say six, six or five out of 10 is fine.
SPEAKER_00: That's right. And so all these women are kind of waiting until we are perfect or we've got it down. And we're typically very conscientious in that regard. We want to make sure our eyes are dotted. T's are crossed. And when I heard that data and I learned that from one of my mentors, Bernie Dixon, it changed my life because that was my barrier. I was like, oh, I have to get all this stuff like ready under the hood. And I'm not saying you can't be efficient. You just you need to get out there. If you're not out there, you can't win.
SPEAKER_01: And we've heard that, Robyn, too, of some of the entrepreneurs of, well, I've been doing this. I need to get my business plan. I had to have my deck beautifully and all ready. And they're walking to these programs. And the men, their counterparts are coming in with just the idea on a Post-it note or on a scrap piece of paper. And they're like, oh my god, I could have come in here so much sooner to be accelerated. And I think you're right. hey that's common for us we got to break that barrier down and confidence is is a theme of not just confidence in like you know being ready and to enter the room or what but it's having confidence to just go with what you got right and just engage sort of trust your gut
SPEAKER_00: you know, trust your gut, trust your instinct. It's sort of all those messages that we hear, but it's really hard. I've found in my experience to put them into practice and, uh, having pitched for years and years before we got our initial seed round, our, our, our level of capital from a venture, um, from venture South and in South Carolina, in the South Carolina area, um, for the most part, every single pitch session across the Southeast corridor. Nothing against white men, but it was mostly white men in those rooms making decisions about who gets funding. And that's intimidating. When I walk into a space and I see people who don't look like me and maybe can't relate to my experience, that is intimidating. And what I wish I could say to myself five years ago when I first started doing sort of these pitches and raising money and talking this venture sort of conversation, it's just trust your gut. Walk in there, be confident in the things you know, and it's okay that you don't know everything. Like you hire the people who are going to fill those gaps.
SPEAKER_02: And you tell them, you tell the panel, well, that's great. We're going to hire talent for this, this and that with your money.
SPEAKER_00: That's right. And there shouldn't be an apology about it. And in other spaces, there aren't. And I think it was super refreshing for me to hear a cohort of 25 women CEOs talk about these experiences over and over from multiple perspectives. And for all of us to go, I'm not apologizing when I walk into these rooms. This is who I am. This is my vision. You'll either get behind it or you won't, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_02: So you're good now, right? You never have any confidence issues anymore. It's all good.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, right. Yeah. Well, that's, that's the theme. And then, you know, then there's how that plays out on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. What, what was, what's been your biggest, you know, you've had a, a long journey and a complex journey too. Cause you're the, the platform is, is it's technical, but it's also mental health, which, is not a easy conversation. What has been the biggest, Oh shit moment for you? Like where you're, you know, you had the ahas, but what had been the Oh shit.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. So I would say in general, um, the biggest Oh shit phase was realizing it's a whole phase. It's not just a moment. It's a whole phase. It's a, All of a sudden waking up one day and realizing, oh shit, I run a technology company. And my training and expertise is in a certain area of specialty. I don't know about scrum management. I don't know about engineering and code. And it's a whole language in itself. And so I've had the privilege of getting to work with an engineer who's kind of been on our team from day one. And he, Brian Painter is his name, he has really helped us, both Tim and I, navigate this. It's a new language. It's like any other field. And I think my oh shit moment was waking up after we got our first initial investment and I went, oh shit, I'm going to have to be on phone calls every day with engineers building out a technology platform. I don't know the first thing about building a technology platform. And now it's like, you know, years later and now I, I have a lot of hindsight in that area, but that's a, that's, that's an ongoing, Oh shit moment.
SPEAKER_01: Cause, cause I mean, I know Brian's been kind of that counselor for you, but you've had to interface with multiple, tech teams who have again, wide gamut of like, I think that's the one. Nope. You know, talk about like the first, like the first team you came out of one of the incubators and they paired you up with like a data IP, you know, this is going to be your, your own. And they, didn't they just like walk away?
SPEAKER_02: So our first experience. For those who can't see, she just threw her hands up in the air.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just right. I know it was many years ago, but I was like, that was a, that was crazy. Cause that's when I met you. This was like around the time that I met you.
SPEAKER_00: So we went, we went through the, um, the Iron Yard digital accelerator program there in Greenville. Um, and right after the Iron Yard accelerator, and that was back in 2014. where I literally went to the Iron Yard with an idea on a napkin. There was nothing built for the most part, except all of the knowledge and research that I brought to that idea on the napkin. And then they were like, oh, you need engineers. And so out of that program, we were connected with a group out of the Raleigh-Durham triangle that specialized in artificial intelligence. Okay, so they were an AI platform. first and foremost. And of course, what you need to fuel an AI platform, which I had no clue what back in those days, what you need is data. You actually need data in order to fuel that intelligence, right? So we connected with them before we actually built the platform, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So it's lessons like that. In hindsight, you sort of wouldn't make those mistakes going forward, but that's a great example of sort of meeting yourself where you are, where you need to surround yourself with thought leaders in the space you are entering, in particular technology, because that's a whole different animal.
SPEAKER_01: Was that, and the incubator, they didn't connect you with those resources.
SPEAKER_00: I think it was through a mentor through the, um, you know, a lot of these incubator and accelerator programs, um, they do what I call mentor whiplash where you meet like 10 mentors a day, you know, and it's awesome. I'm a people person. I love that. But there's also like, you just don't know how you can use these mentors and how you can. help, engage with them to support your immediate needs. And there was one mentor in particular, he was out of Millikin. And he met with us and really took us under his wing. His name is Kevin Weir. And he brought us over to Millikin and we were like writing all over the walls, the glass, you know, in Millikin there. And he helped connect us to not only those resources, but other capacity related resources in the area. But there weren't a lot of resources in the Southeast corridor at that time. You know, you're talking, this is almost a decade ago. And there was, there's still not much, but there's a heck of a lot more now than there was, you know, seven, eight years ago.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_02: I love that. Mentor with that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, speaking of that, you, you have gone through several mentor programs, launch pads, incubators, um, accelerators. When you take a step back and kind of look at, at, at those, um, offerings, what did you like most about those programs? What did you, what did you get out of those and what gaps, what are missing? Like, you're like, if, if I could have this, I really wish this something would be designed like this.
SPEAKER_00: Yes. So the things that I loved about each of the accelerators and incubators that I went through would be the people, the mentors themselves. I knew that the folks that I was working with, if they didn't have the answer, they would try to find somebody who did. to help me. I'm also a really, I'm a kind of a lifelong learner. And so I think I benefited from going to more training, learning as much as I possibly could. So the one in particular that stands out is the Johnson College of Business launched the greenhouse incubator program in the upstate. That for us, to me, that was an amazing resource. It also provided a space, a literal space, which was something we needed at the time of our growth there. And the other thing that the incubators didn't provide but the community provided was we happen to have a behavioral health task force in Spartanburg that was extremely robust and I happened to be serving on that for many years. So it was, I would just describe the overall benefit of my experience kind of during those incubator phase, the more people and networks that I could meet with, the better. And that helped me figure out how to open doors to leverage that network more. So the people in the humans were amazing. The gaps, I would say were capital. So we were always undercapitalized. The industry sector and the knowledge and awareness in technology in the upstate in general of South Carolina isn't like we're in Silicon Valley, right? So there's a gap there just in terms of understanding the field. And that affects your investors. So if investors are used to investing in real estate or in tangible efforts, technology is just such a foreign language. So I didn't realize that those things correlated back in the day. So I think those were gaps. And there weren't a lot of female CEOs in technology in the Southeast Corridor, or at least not opportunities for us to meet each other. And I found that to be I just found it to be, um, depressing, isolated. And I just was thirsty to connect with other women who were going through what I was going through.
SPEAKER_01: If, if you could take a step and make those correlations, do you think your pitches and those conversations would be different knowing what, you know, of, I needed to connect those dots and make a more tangible, or are you saying you're not even sure they would even still get it? Just curious.
SPEAKER_00: I interviewed a founder. So our investors, Venture South, are also our clients. So we benefit, we're building out a series of content for founders. And during one of a interview session with one of the founders down in Atlanta, she said to me something that really was eyeopening. And I continue to kind of listen to it. And she basically said, I would never put myself in a room where people aren't going to be like minded with me. And this woman who was describing, I was asking a similar question of her. And I guess I never realized in bringing hindsight into this, I would only from this point forward, put myself in a room where people are going to understand what I'm saying. And that may mean that I need to be you know, uh, up in New York city or out in Silicon Valley. I, I want to put myself in the right rooms at the right time with the right people. I don't need to, um, necessarily just, uh, follow a trail that, that isn't going to work for my, my growth story.
SPEAKER_01: So network, just a network sake. That's right. You need to be more intent, intentional and strategic.
SPEAKER_02: And how, and how do you, what are those signals for you to know that, okay, these are people who speak my language or understand or have, can at least have space for the vision that I want to help them see.
SPEAKER_00: So when I asked this particular person, um, for me, that means when I look out into the audience of who's sitting in front of me, it's women who look like all three of us. who are diverse, who have diverse experiences, who are culturally diverse, who have maybe are socioeconomically diverse, rather than sort of one lifestyle experience sitting in front of me. So that means I'm going to be finding as many female investors, female investor groups, folks that that highlight and celebrate diversity, inclusion, equality. I'm also a social impact company. I have a big social impact mission and I need to be putting myself in front of folks that believe in that same thing because that would be a counterintuitive to investment to not be attached to investment groups or you know, thought leaders that are in the same space. So those are just a couple of examples of how it's going to look, you know, plays out hopefully for me.
SPEAKER_01: So as you're looking at like your VCs or whatever, those companies looking behind the curtain of that VC to go, are they a mission oriented social impact or are they a hedge fund or a VC, you know, firm that specializes in minority and women owned Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: That's basically what I was going to ask was like, so even though now that you've got yourself, you know, out on the West coast where there's, you know, all kinds of funding, you're still having to dig and find the right people for you.
SPEAKER_00: I will. And, and I am. Um, and so for me, the very first group I connected with was like a girl power group that was out on this coast. And now through them, I'm going to try to work more to find exactly what I'm looking for. And like we all know, it may not be out there yet, but those are the audiences that make the most sense for what my story is, for who I am and for sort of my vision and belief for where I'm headed. A lot of our products are serving kids and families who grow up in adversity. And that looks like a whole bunch of different things. You know, that's, that's a cross section of humanity that my investor groups that I met with earlier, they just don't represent. And so, um, I can't, that's a dichotomy that is our industry. It's kind of the reality of where we are, but I think as a, as a CEO of a company, I've got to take that bull by the horns and try to either make those groups or find them and connect with those like-minded, um, folks.
SPEAKER_01: Do you think that's your biggest challenge moving forward? As like your, your, your what's next? I do.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I mean, I do, I do think that's a big challenge. That said, I do think that there is a little ecosystem, a ground swelling that's happening. I think the other advantage of what's happened during the last two to three years is these conversations are more top of mind for people. We've had, um, you know, racial equity institutes and others that have kind of infiltrated the southeast corridor and other areas. And I think that's what I'm passionate about. And so I think that maybe that's more normalized in an interesting way, or it's just starting to be. So I do think that's a challenge. I think the other challenge for us is sort of this being in between. So we're trying to keep up with the demand of mental health as it is in the field right now, while also scaling and growing our platform, our company, and our team. And so that's every company, right? That's every company's pain point. But that bandwidth, that's another challenge as we're going forward that we need to be mindful of and sort of ride that intentionally.
SPEAKER_01: Let's build the plane while you're trying to fly it.
SPEAKER_00: You're still building it while you're flying it. It's like, Oh, we've got to upgrade the wing now. It's like, Oh, you have a wing, but now you've got to upgrade it all so it can fly better. You know, it's like, Oh, it never ends.
SPEAKER_01: It's good. Hey, Robyn, if, if you again, take a, take a step back and just kind of think back over the last 20 years, what's been your biggest win, your biggest celebration? Like you were just like, okay, this is it. I'm onto something, you know, I feel good.
SPEAKER_00: I'll get emotional saying this, but, um, I would not be where I am. without the people who have believed in the vision. That's you, that's Brian Painter, that is my core team, but nobody more than my partner, Tim. And he left a thriving career as a producer in New York City, as a filmmaker, and he has been all in to this crazy journey of creating a new company. And for both of us, I mean, I think for, and I know Jen, Jen Sutton, at least, I know this, I don't know about your story, Jeno, but getting to live and work with your life partner, and who I respect and admire and have known for so many years. That is really hard, but that is so rewarding. That's just such a gift. And so that, for me, Uh, that speaks my truth very deeply.
SPEAKER_01: I always tease. He is the help desk at Sherpa. Sherpandminds.com. Whenever you look at like help desk, I was like, who's the help desk? And Tim's like, that would be me.
SPEAKER_02: We saw him doing some hardcore, uh, help desking for like 15 minutes while we tried to figure out the audio.
SPEAKER_01: But you're right. It's that it's the lean that lean in on the partners. And, um, yeah. And I think that, I wonder if that's a, it's a trend. I mean, you've talked to a lot more female founders and have a, a really strong community is, uh, do you find that more founder, like partners come on board with female founders? Or are we, are we, are we a rare breed?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we're, I've, I've, I've sort of seen in my experience kind of half and half. I've seen a lot of women that are trying to navigate the train on their own or with, with partners that are not their life partner. And then I've seen a whole group of us that are, are diving in with their, their life partner. I, um, you know, like I'm thinking about this cohort of Launchpad 2X, there were a good number of us that were also working with our spouses. And I think that that, I think it's a super hard challenge. It adds a lot of layers to a company. But at the same time, there's like, who is better? You know, who's better suited to try to help drive this crazy plane?
SPEAKER_02: You know, but yeah, you know, I once, I once, um, I was, I've been a business reporter for several years and there was somebody I, um, had written about and I wrote about the, his, uh, well his team and their entrepreneurial journey. And they had this great big exit. Everybody got to be millionaires. I mean, I think it was like $1 million, but still they all, We're like millionaires. Yeah. But so, so then I, so then I went out on my own and a few years later, um, somebody approached me about being a partner in a company. And so I, I talked to this guy who was also in the financial field. So I was like, all right, um, you know, can we, can we talk? And I was wanting to ask him about, you know, what should I, I was thinking, okay, this opportunity is here and I don't, I don't know what to ask. I don't even know what I should be thinking about, you know, So I was, I was getting ready to hear stuff about contracts and all kinds of things like that, you know, or liabilities or I don't know what. And, um, we were at breakfast and so, you know, chit chat a little. And then finally I said, so here's, here's the deal. Here's the situation. And he said, well, he said, it's pretty much like a marriage. He was like, it's as emotionally and financially, taxing, engaging, you know, risky. And so being vulnerable and having those. And he said, so if it's the type of person that you wouldn't be married to. Don't do it. And. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. And that was all he said. And then we just had breakfast. And so a little, little down the road, I was like, I'm going to get into this thing. And it was just like this little tiny problem. It was a publishing kind of thing. And this little tiny problem happened. And one of the two partners just, just went off the rails. I mean, lost it. Just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know? And I'm thinking, let's have a phone call. Let's figure out what happened. We get on the phone and he's, man's losing his shit. And as he was going on, the words, again, this is like a couple years later, just came back into my head. And I was like, not in a zillion years would I be married to somebody like this. Not in a zillion years. And so I hung up and picked up the person who brought me on the team, and I was like, I'm out. And that was that. So I think the thing about, if you could build a working, good life partnership relationship with someone, then I can see why. That could make business magic. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially in the world of a new small company, you know, when you're first launching, you're working 12, 14, 16 hour days, you're spending more of your life with that person than anyone else in the world. Right. And you don't realize that's going to be your reality, but that's your reality. And so, um, so it's a big decision who you go into business with.
SPEAKER_01: That's right. That's right. So Robyn, I've got to ask you, you, you got, you kept saying that you and Tim from New York had these great careers in theater, entertainment. What, how in the world did you get to Spartanburg, South Carolina? Had you even heard of Spartanburg? Like, seriously, what, what led you? And look, Spartanburg is a wonderful city, but it's, but New York to Spartanburg just is not a normal, trajectory.
SPEAKER_00: That's right. Neither of us had ever heard of Spartanburg. We were like, where let's get out the map, you know, in the, in the old days. And the reason was, um, that rock musical program that I developed, um, by that point it had been traveling around the country. It had gone to the Edinburgh, the fringe festival in Scotland. It had sort of gotten a lot of notoriety and a dynamic. One of these thought leaders in Spartanburg, decided to license the right to that musical. And that was the beginning of not only a lifelong friendship, but this endeavor to build, sharpen, and all of the resources that we saw. So it was through her bringing this program into the Spartanburg community that we saw the great need to scale and to, we went into a research collaboration with researchers in public health to really find a way to scale a model to teach more educators about all the risk around suicide and these mental disorders. So the funny thing about being in a big city, any of the big cities, but especially New York City, where bureaucracy gets in the way of us reaching the kids in the schools. And crazily, I never would have thought this was true, but coming to a smaller market, you're able to actually make a giant impact in a very real way. And so I credit all of what I've been able to accomplish because I had that network in Spartanburg that was very determined to look at upstream solutions. that were evidence-based and empirically driven. And that's kind of, um, that's how we got there.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we stayed also. And real innovative.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was like shock, sort of surprisingly innovative, right? Like I, I, you just, I wouldn't have, I didn't know they existed. And then now I'd been there almost 10 years and love the upstate, you know, it's, it's, um, it's, it's beautiful humans that for me keep the richness of the upstate in my experience. I've really loved the people.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it sounds like you've you've mentioned that many times that the people are really what's keeping you going and driving you and keeping you afloat. Yeah, that's right. So on that note, we have to wrap it up. And I am so glad to have met you now. I hope you're back in the area. We get to chill or something.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely. Lots of beautiful people. I was like, we're going to bring the zine to San Diego. That's right. That's that. You're on a target target market. That's good.
SPEAKER_00: That's good. Well, we'll make it happen for sure.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Well, thanks so much, Robyn. Robyn Farrell with Resiliency Technologies.
SPEAKER_01: And the Sharpen, the Sharpen app, Sharpen Minds.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah. Check it out in the show.
SPEAKER_01: Check it out. And at sharpenminds.com, right? That's, uh, people can see the full gamut and click on the help desk and you can talk to Tim. Yeah. And you'll talk to Tim. Well, um, so you can listen to this podcast on any of your favorite podcast platforms. So iTunes or, uh, Spotify, Pandora. Stitcher. Uh, Ooh, yeah. All the, all the, all the platforms, but also you can listen to these or watch the podcast, um, on our local zines, the city zines, um, which are rolling out to many cities near you. So keep an eye out. So keep an eye out. And we're again, very grateful for Robyn. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me guys.