• Host – Michele Heyward, Founder, PositiveHire
• Guest – Monique Mills, CEO, TPM Focus & Talisha Shine, CTO, The 10k Project

Positive hire is a tech startup, focuses on connecting experienced Black, Latina, and Indigenous women, who are scientists, engineers, and technology professionals to management roles. We do subject matter expert positions as well. But the importance is, our numbers are small, but we are mighty, and we deserve to be there. We remove more barriers so that we continue to grow and excel in our careers.

We had the opportunity to meet Talisha and Monique as they share what it’s like to be in tech building a startup. 

First Tech Startup

Talisha’s first startup: ” I would say my first tech startup would probably scope scribe. About the application of Periscope, it had week after Meerkat which none of you probably even remember because it came and went just as quickly. South by Southwest, it was hyped, this whole live-streaming platform, it’s gonna change the world. Then the week later periscope came and it was just a smaller platform in the sense, kind of looked at it, evaluated and it was just interesting. Then I kind of saw a pattern happening so I built something just on my computer to look at the majority of scopes on there. There were very few at the time. It became more of a science project for me to be able to take a look at how this could be utilized. Because again, everybody knows it’s all fun and games until the network marketers show up. And they change the game very quickly because they’re using it from a business perspective. So I instantly kind of wanted to see what business application could be built. And I build a service based upon how to leverage that live streaming community because again, you had to learn how to build it. And it has some marketing aspects to it. But there were some technical aspects to it, like when to stream, how long to do it, where were your CTAs kind of input all that, and then out there was no way to look at any of the metrics because it was a brand new platform, they, the actual manufacturer of it didn’t even have it. And so I became a beta tester for them to get some of the Intel for myself to make my business grow. I also just shared with them to the point where they were like, Okay, can we just buy what you’re doing for us? And I was like, sure. And that’s, that was my first startup.”

Monique’s first startup: “Now, it’s crazy how you build a brand from social media. It just lingers on and on good or bad. We have been lucky enough to be good. During my startup journey, I created software from an idea that applied to matching an underutilized commercial space. Just to give you an idea, and of course, it transformed over time. Back when I first started I was thinking small. I was talking to retailers. I told them this will happen, which is what we all see now where there’s no foot traffic, right? So why do you need all this space? And back seven years ago, when I first started the company, I started those conversations. And some were like, oh, wow, yeah, like, but it wasn’t an urgency, right. I spend a lot of time educating that listen, everything is online, people, less and fewer people will be coming into your store unless they can come to one place for multiple things. So who can be your strategic partner that sells something different, but to the same customer that you sell to? So now you see target and Sephora, right? You see all of these things happening. And Macy’s was even doing one with the grocery store too, but they have a few pilot locations. So I say all that to say is I was early to the idea. Seven years ago, now everybody’s rushed and trying to figure out how they can get it together. So that’s one of the things that you know, for those who are thinking of ideas is like a way out there. You have to have a lot of, you know, tenacity to just continue to educate like I was worn now by just educating people because I also have a background and I also have a real estate business. So anyway, that’s how it all ties in together. That was the first thing was the software company. I have. I have a consulting company where I help other people launch new products, new businesses, and I work with accelerators and incubators all around the country with that as well. And I also started a marketing company that’s under that umbrella. So between my tech startup my real estate and my consulting and marketing company. I would say three out of four still kicking is great with my tech startup I licensed it, white label licensed it away. And that’s how I exited the business.”