Building a Startup From Zero: Nicole Zartarian on Being Employee One and Owning Growth

Episode Transcript

[00:00:01] Nicole:  We were using a testing framework called Jenkins. I thought that was a person because I would hear Jenkins, and I'm like, who's Jenkins? And when do I get to meet him? Like, he sounds so interesting.

[00:00:13] Alicia:  Hey. I'm Alicia, and you're listening to Non-Founder Crew, your insider guide to surviving and succeeding in tech startups. 

[00:00:23] Alicia:  Hello, and welcome to the Non-Founder Crew. Today, we're joined by Nicole Zartarian, who has had the unique experience held by a select few of being employee number one and impressively staying for 10 years, which in the world of startups is several lifetimes. Now, Nicole has navigated some of the toughest challenges commonly faced by startup employees, from those early, early days when she had to figure out things without waiting for direction, to her experience later on, where she learned to stay adaptable through big changes and giving away her Legos. And from a personal perspective, she opens up about her experience as a woman in tech, what it was like coming from a non-technical background, and the decision to start a family while at a startup. Welcome, Nicole. Let's go. So, Nicki, take us back to the very beginning. When you joined, what were things like at the very start?

[00:01:15] Nicole:  When I signed the contract, to say, “Yeah. I'm coming on board.” They did not have an office. Every interview I had done was at the CIC in Cambridge. I knew that there was gonna be an office being procured, but it still was, like, one of these, like, “Oh, no. What am I doing?” Like, they don't even have a space. Is this real kind of thing? By my first day, there was an office. And walking in, it was this really interesting situation where it was me and another person starting within, like, a day or two of each other and not knowing a ton. We knew about what the business was doing and what the goal was, but underneath it all, it was very vague and ambiguous, like, it's not like a job title in the sense of you're gonna be doing marketing or engineering or something of that nature. It was kind of like you're coming on board, and you're being called a project manager, but you could be doing anything. So, early on, you're walking in, and no two days are ever the same. It was you're doing whatever needs to be done in that moment.

[00:02:20] Alicia:  You talked about being self-directed. I think that's something that a lot of people don't realize when they join a company, but I imagine as employee one and two, you guys definitely had to figure out what that was like. Can you walk us through, maybe what that experience was like or how you navigated that?

[00:02:34] Nicole: Being the first employee and having to figure out that self-direction was definitely a learning process. I went in, and I remember the first day, like, to get my email set up, they got me a new laptop. And I remember sitting there being, like, “Okay. Now what do I do?” And being a little bit shy because it's, like, here I'm at this place. I think I had just turned 30. I had had a bunch of jobs, like, here and there, but this was my first time being in this type of role where, at first, it was waiting to be like, what am I supposed to do? And I would say, like, I spent the first week or two in kind of that, like, not frozen mode, but, like, okay, I don't wanna do the wrong thing. I wanna make sure I'm doing the right thing. And then quickly, I figured out this is not the type of role where you sit and wait. You need to be looking for this stuff, and you need to just figure it out. And that's a skill that I don't think that you can learn without just being, like, pushed into the deep end and having to do it. There's nothing that I can think about, think of that really relates to that in real life. The only way you gain that experience is just by, like, having to do it.

[00:03:45] Alicia:  You talked a lot about learning on the job and figuring things out. If I go back to the start of the job, figuring out, like, salary, equity, all of that, how did that conversation go down? How are you thinking about it? Take us back to that moment.

[00:04:00] Nicole:  So, when I went into the negotiation for this role, I knew I wanted some equity, and then I was offered, but it's really hard to understand what does that look like, how much should I ask for, what are the questions that are appropriate versus not. And so I had put an emphasis on, yes, I wanna get some of these really early shares before the strike price changes too much, and I got in before they got that series A money. So, I knew that those shares would be most valuable down the road. In terms of the salary for me and where I was in life, my goal was just I wanna be making more than what I'm making at this current role. And so it was one of these, I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna ask for a certain number, and hopefully, they're able to meet me there. And they got pretty close to it in the offer and stepping out of my comfort zone, because negotiation is not something that I'm always the best at. I went back and asked for more, right, when it was offered, and they were able to meet me there, which was exciting for me because it was significantly more than what I was making previously. And I was ready to go and then be like, okay, I'm gonna prove myself here and just keep moving up in terms of that equity and that salary.

[00:05:17] Alicia:  You mentioned that you hadn't worked in tech before, but you sound like you knew a little bit already about some shares and wanting to get in early and things like that. Was there someone that you went to or talked to about equity? What was your resource?

[00:05:30] Nicole:  Yeah. So, someone that I had worked with at the previous startup was about the same age as my parents, and she had been a CFO at several companies; her name is Joanie. And she knew that I was looking for work, and she was the one that really helped me look at it and understand what questions I should ask, how much should I be asking for, and what was that appropriate level of amount. So, I was really grateful to have her guidance and to have her be able to say, like, this looks really good. You should go and take it. Would I have been able to figure it out without her? Maybe. But having someone that I trusted right there to be, like, this looks good, was validating and was really helpful to have.

[00:06:19] Alicia:  And 10 years later, you look back, do you feel like you still feel confident in that feeling of getting a good deal?

[00:06:26] Nicole:  Yes. Absolutely. 

[00:06:27] Alicia: That's great. 

[00:06:28] Nicole: Where I was in my career and where that company was in that moment, I was taking a chance on them, and they were taking a chance on me. And so I feel like in that moment, I hadn't necessarily proved myself in tech. I didn't know much about it, right? About tech, but I'm really good at organizing things. I'm really good at figuring things out, and I knew those pieces. I just needed someone to kind of show me the way. And in that regard, they were taking that chance on me. And so I feel pretty good about what I signed into.

[00:07:01] Alicia:  There's so much going on every day, and I'm curious about the fact that you have a background that's non-technical and you went into this role. Did you have imposter syndrome? Like, there's a lot happening. Like, how did you manage that?

[00:07:14] Nicole:  The best is I'd be on these calls with these engineers. And it was before we didn't have Zoom. We were using Join Me, so it was all voice. And so I'd be listening to them and be like, okay. Yep. And I would be taking feverish notes, writing down everything being said and then going and looking it up later. But I would also ask a million questions. And I have to give so much credit to not only our CTO at that point, but also the other, I'm gonna call him the co-CTO, Benny, because he would entertain all of my ridiculous questions and would never make fun of me. So, one of them, and it's embarrassing,  I can't believe I'm telling you this story. But we were using a testing framework called Jenkins. I thought that was a person because I would hear Jenkins, and I'm like, who's Jenkins, and when do I get to meet him? Like, he sounds so interesting. The other one being JSON, I thought they were saying Jason. And again, thought Jason was a person and would ask that question, and, like, he did not laugh at me. He was very, he’d be like, oh, let me show you what this actually is. So, having people that were non-judgmental of my ability and saying, “Well, you might not know these things, but I can teach you these things.” And then actually going and doing it, that's irreplaceable. I can't speak highly enough for that initial year or two years. I was told early on by the chief product officer that we can teach you how to do this and, like, actually follow through with it. I really believe that you can go somewhere and they're like, oh, you're gonna learn all this stuff. And, like, yeah, maybe you will. But for them to, like, really follow through and make good on what they promised, that's irreplaceable. You can't buy that experience, and you can't replicate that necessarily. And having people that aren't making fun of you for not knowing, but are encouraging you to keep asking the questions, is great. The CTO, as well, would have these calls with the engineering team, and they were very technical calls. And I used to ask him, like, can I just sit in? I'm not gonna participate in the conversation. I just wanna hear what's being talked about. And early on at the company, you could join any call. Nothing was off limits. There would be sales calls, investor calls, whatnot, and we would be able to listen in. And so what I really leaned into was listening in on these engineering and technical discussions. And quickly, I learned I'm like, oh, this actually makes a whole lot of sense. I am very much of a brain that wants to break things down and understand how it works. In my life, I always believed that maybe I wasn't technical, and I couldn't do it. And now I look back, I'm like, that was so silly. I'm, like, the most technical person ever. I take things apart for fun. But that is how my brain works, I wanna break things down to the tiniest little detail and then rebuild them. And so coming in early on a product was actually great for me because I'm seeing, instead of having to break it down and how it works, I was part of that process, defining how it works, which I think was helpful in figuring all of this out. But for someone with kind of this sort of brain, I was able to thrive in this because I quickly saw that, oh, I like building things. This is like Legos for me. I'm getting to put all these pieces together. It's not something that you normally get to do.

[00:10:51] Alicia:  Early employees have the joy of building. I mean, I'm one of them as well. It's fun to make things, especially if your brain likes that. I think the tricky part becomes, for many of us, is giving away your Legos. I'm sure you've experienced this. Can you talk a little bit about what that was like for you, going from early to having to pass things on?

[00:11:10] Nicole:  Yeah. So, that was actually one of the biggest challenges for me because I was responsible for so many different things, where I had my hands in so many different things. Now, there were pieces that I, A, didn't have time to do, and B, they weren't the things that were the most interesting for me anymore. And so one of those things is configuring things in the background for users. I have put a lot of time and care into it in defining that process, and what does that look like. But at the same point, it wasn't a critical path to what I was doing to furthering the product along, and it didn't fall into it. It was more of an operational task. And so we would be hiring new people to do that. And that was tricky because you're teaching it, but you had a very specific way of doing it. I still, to this day, have to remind myself there might be another way to do this, not just the way that I'm doing it. I fall into that in my house, in every part of life. And that was really difficult, being able to say, “Hey, new hire. So, excited to have you here. Now this is how you do it, and being okay with they might be doing it a little bit differently than I would have done it.” It also forces you to really think about how to teach someone how to do something. It's not that I didn't have experience with teaching and guiding people, but you have to really think about, okay, what process am I taking? And there's so much that we do on a day-to-day basis that we don't realize that we're doing, and we're on autopilot. And so being able to sit there and then document what you're doing and put that in a clear, concise way for other people to understand is a huge challenge, and it actually would take up a lot of time. And so that was one of the challenges, too, with sharing it. Not just, oh, I don't own this anymore, but now I have to write down how I'm doing it, and I need to then teach someone to do it and trust that they're gonna do it right. And I think that trust part was challenging for so many reasons. Something that took me a while to get, but what I learned is that every time I give something away, I was then filling it with something that was more interesting to me or a bigger challenge or something I hadn't learned yet. And I thrive and do fast when I'm not bored and when I'm learning new things. And my manager realized that, and he knew that. And he would often be like, “Okay, Nicki. I'm gonna have you doing xyz now because you know how to do the other stuff.” And I had told him early on, like, just don't let me get bored ever. I can do all this stuff, just don't let me get bored. And he really did a good job of understanding that, and he would be able to tell when I was getting bored with stuff and give me new things to do. But every time, you have to go, and you have to give something away, and that's hard.

[00:14:00] Alicia:  The company changed and evolved a lot, and you had to stay adaptable. You talked about liking change, and a lot of people don't. But was there any mental model or way that you got yourself accustomed to dealing with change? Or, I guess, what was that like for you going from employee one?

[00:14:17] Nicole:  So, I am not the best with change, and I think anybody that knows me will tell you that. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Wayne's World, but there's this scene in it where Garth is wearing this helmet, and he's having this discussion with somebody. And the person says, “Oh, well, things are gonna change”, and Garth kind of just stands there and goes, “We fear change.” And I use that line all the time. I joke around. I'm like, “Well, I fear change.” But when you're in this situation, you don't have a choice, and things need to change. And so I would pick the things that would be my constants in all of it. And so it's like, okay, well, what are the things that I can control? And what are the things that I can keep the same? And so a lot of that is, like, where my desk was in the office. Okay. I can control that. What do I keep on my desk? I can control that. Things in my environment, but then there's so many things outside of that that you can't change. And so part of that is every time a new hire came in, and this is before the age of remote working. Every time someone new came in, it changed the office dynamic. Because now you have one more person, and it's a little bit louder in there. And it's a new personality being introduced. And so there's environmental change that you need to be okay with. But then there's also just, like, a change in the business. And it's like, okay, you're gonna go from working with somebody that you've been tied to the hip with, we're gonna remove the two of you because we gotta split it and start working on something else, and you're now gonna be partnered with this person. And so that's a hard change too, because you get really used to working styles. And, like, there are some people that you can be totally aligned and totally in sync with, and then other people that you're not. And that's okay, right? But you gotta figure out how to get aligned with them. And sometimes it's more natural than others. As well as new people come in when you were early on, like the way that I was. Even when the tenth employee comes in, they have a different level of dedication to it than you do as the first. And I will often compare launching a product to having a child.

[00:16:24] Alicia:  You mentioned launching a product is like launching a baby. I know that during your time at this company, you decided to start a family. Yep. I would love to hear more about that process in terms of making that decision and how it affected the way you operated at the business, how you thought about your career. What was going through your mind?

[00:16:42] Nicole:  I spent my twenties trying to figure out where do I belong in the workplace. What does this look like? And here I was now in my thirties, and I'm thriving. I'm doing the best work I've ever done. It's exciting for me. It was challenging. And the idea of my husband and I had always talked about that we wanted to have kids, and now we're at this point where, okay, well, where does it make sense for us in our life? We're both doing great in our careers, and it's like, what happens if I do have kids? I don't wanna stop working. I don't wanna necessarily put a pause on that. So, it took a little while and a lot of discussions to figure out what does that look like and what was gonna change if we were to go and journey down this path. And, ultimately, I had some discussions with other people about how did it impact your life. And everybody is just like, oh, having a kid changes everything about your life. It's like, but how? How does it? You know, no one was ever able to answer that. So, you kind of go into it, and it's a little bit of, okay, I'm gonna do this, and, yeah, it's gonna change things. It's gonna be scary, and I don't know exactly how, and I'm gonna figure it out on the fly. And so going through pregnancy in an office is not an easy thing, especially with my first child. We were in the office every day, and it wasn't a big office, and I had horrible morning sickness. And the person that I shared with, there was this little, like, office room that, like, three of us were in and shared it with one of my coworkers. He and I were pretty close. And I think I told him around right before my first trimester was over. I said, you know, I'm having a baby. He goes, “Oh, thank God.” Because I thought you had cancer or something. He was like, you were so sick all the time. You seem so miserable. I'm like, “Oh.” So, you know, it's kind of this, like, really hard thing because you're kind of keeping a secret and especially companies early on, they don't necessarily have parental leave policies. And so, you're also figuring that out and working through management to figure what is this going to look like. And given the role that I was in and what I was doing, I couldn't imagine what was it gonna be like if I wasn't there for three or four months. And so that was hard. But what I did learn, especially coming back to the office, it's like, okay, I wouldn't say things blew up while I was gone, but we definitely grew a lot and got two new clients in that time. And so there were new people, new faces, but, like, the show went on. It was a tough pill to swallow, but also, it was a good thing to see. But also during that leave, my manager and I met up a few times, and he was like, you're gonna come back. We signed this deal, and I need you to build this. And that was super scary and super exciting because I was getting thrust into a role where I was literally building something from scratch, which was exciting. But now I had to figure out how to do it. And I needed to figure out how to do it while also having these, like, time boundaries around. Because no longer did I have this option of, oh, I'm gonna wake up at 5 AM, and I'm gonna take these calls with engineers and then be able to stay up till midnight and take calls with them on the other side when they came back into the office. You quickly learn that there are so many tasks that you were doing that you just did not need to be doing. And I very much learned how to be a little bit more strategic in that in planning my day. And that whole thing about prioritizing, it becomes like a sixth sense, because you need to be, it's ruthless prioritization, and not just what am I putting in the product, but for myself and for my life and what I'm doing. And there are these little tasks that I would do that they didn't take too much time, but they took time. And I was able to say, don't need to do it. If I don't do this, is anybody going to miss it? And I was able to see that there was a lot of stuff there, I was doing more for me than I was doing for other people and moving stuff forward. So, quickly, learning how to be more calculated with my time, and also, the other part is I learned how to set a boundary, and that's something that has never come naturally to me. I have always been a people pleaser. Even if I didn't understand how to do something, I wanted to figure it out. And so, having this, you gotta pick up your kid by this time at day care, and you have a partner that's also working full time, and Sam's company was in a different time zone as well. We had to figure that out. And so very quickly, it was, these are my working hours. And I will sign on after my kid goes to bed to finish up stuff that maybe someone needed, but really, having to communicate to people, “Hey, I'm not available between this time and this time.” That was a challenge for me, but something I was able to do. I would say the other thing that got me really good at boundaries was COVID-19 hitting and having to go into a remote work situation, as well as having a two-year-old at home. It was the first week of it, and we were both trying to work at the same time. And it quickly became a thing of, oh, no. No. This doesn't work. And having to do that, I don't think I would have learned how to set work boundaries and be able to maintain them without that scenario and that situation. And it was a challenge. In having a second kid, you gotta double down even more on, okay, the boundaries I had before, I have to keep them, but that ruthless prioritization of what needs to be done and what doesn't need to be done, you go through it all over again. And so I think it made me a more efficient worker on a day-to-day basis. It also made me more efficient at home, and you just figure out systems that you have to have to get by and keep your house going and keep your family going. I'm so fortunate that I'm also raising kids with somebody that really wants to see my career blossom and go. And so having that support of a true 50-50 partnership makes it all possible.

[00:23:11] Alicia:  Were you the first woman at your company or, I guess, person to take parental leave?

[00:23:15] Nicole:  Technically, it was the second person. Another woman had had a baby. At least I got to see that, but then I came in and had my child and went to the CEO and let him know that, “Hey, what we have in place for parental leave is not the best.” And he kind of, like, looked at me. He's like, “Really? It isn't?” And I explained, and he's like, “Okay. Well, what would you suggest we do?” And was able to partner with another woman at the company and, like, write in a policy that got put in place to really be family friendly, and not just for females, not just for women coming in, but also for men. And having an all-inclusive parental leave policy that covers adoption, it covers what it would look like for same sex couples. We had to be able to look at that and see what would be inclusive for everybody.

[00:24:07] Alicia:  So, really, your influence affected many parts of the business, from policies to the way projects were done to talking about things candidly with the CEO. I mean, I think a lot of people don't assume that that's what influence means, especially when it comes to an early employee, but that's a big range. Did you have HR at the time? It feels like one of those, like, hey, not my department. Someone else should be covering this, but you're stepping in in a way that, you know, you're voicing your opinion on it. How did that go down?

[00:24:34] Nicole:  Yeah. So, HR was kind of this interesting thing where it was being handled by the CFO. So, there's not like at that point, at least. Right? We eventually got people that were more experienced in that area and had more of an HR department. But at that point, we didn't necessarily have that. So, I had to work with different people there, different founders, to make sure that we got something in place that covered all aspects of all of it.

[00:25:01] Alicia:  The ten years, you have your initial grant for equity. I'm assuming, like, standard, like, one year cliff, four years for full vesting, so, obviously, four years come and goes. Are you talking about getting new grants? Are they being offered to you? What is that looking like behind the scenes in terms of making sure that your compensation continues to increase with the work that you're doing?

[00:25:20] Nicole:  That was always a challenge. As my role was changing, it was hard for me to go and ask for more. It was uncomfortable. And I think that's where we're talking earlier about imposter syndrome. That's where it really came up for me.

[00:25:34] Alicia:  Yeah.

[00:25:35] Nicole:  It’s, like, I would go, and I would research what a product manager would go and make, and my compensation wasn't necessarily in line with that. And so having to go and have the conversation of, okay, a product manager should be making X, I'm making Y. How do we close that gap? It's so scary. I bring up being a female in a male-dominated industry, I think are more susceptible to feeling like an imposter, and you have less peers to talk to about it. And that was always challenging, but I would every now and again have that conversation. And there were times when I was given a raise in more equity without asking, and that's great. That's wonderful, but that doesn't usually happen. And you really have to put your foot down and like ask. And I was told no at some points. Either no, we can't because we're not there in the business, we're not making enough, or being told you need to show us xyz before we can do anything else. I was like, okay, great. At least I'm aware of what's needed. It's not easy, but I would advocate for it whenever I could. It would take me. No joke. I would sit down. I would script the conversation out, and I would think about what am I gonna say? How do I say this in a way and not get emotional? Because it's really hard to do that, and I think that that's something that challenges a lot of women, is how do I go and do this while being able to keep my composure? And that was a challenge for me every single time because I don't like to ask for things. I wanna just, like, keep everybody happy, and that was definitely something that was scary for me.

[00:27:18] Alicia:  You mentioned having mentors to go to. Was it someone internally? Did you have someone outside of the company? Who was your mentor for that period of time?

[00:27:27] Nicole:  I go back to the woman early on that helped me look at my initial offer from the company, Joanie. And I would call her up, and I joke around that she's like my fairy godmother. And she would joke around, go bibbidi bobbidi boo with a wand. And she was great because she was so direct and would be like, no, that's not enough. You need more. And I need that direct feedback sometimes. I need someone to push me and say, “No. You got this. Go do it.” She would do that for me often and be able to really help me in that regard.

[00:28:05] Alicia:  If you were to go back in time and talk to the Nicole years one, two, three, what would your advice be to yourself?

[00:28:13] Nicole:  Telling myself that it's hard, and that's okay. Telling myself to not be afraid of new things and keep going, and also to ask for more. Challenge yourself more. Don't settle for no and push further, and keep trying the thing that seems really scary, or the thing that you're interested in, just go do it. Just don't get complacent with any of it. Just keep pushing for more, but also being okay with failing. And I'm not good at this. I want things to be perfect, and sometimes it takes me longer to get something done because I am so focused on putting forth the best thing ever, and sometimes you don't need to do that. That's a hard thing to realize. I think the other piece is to tell myself would be it's okay to change. It's okay to change your mind about something. It's okay to not do the thing that everybody is saying that you should do. That's okay as well.

[00:29:13] Alicia:  Well, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us and telling us all your tales of employee number one, deciding to be a mom, and how that changed you. I mean, there are so many amazing lessons in here that I'm sure folks will really love. So, thank you so much.

[00:29:29] Nicole:  This is great. Thanks, Alicia.

[00:29:31] Outro:  Thank you for listening to Non-Founder Crew. If you want more insights, learnings, and stories from the trenches, sign up for my newsletter by going to www.nonfoundercrew.com. And, hey, listen, if you know a friend who could stand to hear this advice, send it to them. See you next time.