Startup accelerator

And again, I was coming out of having done two venture-backed startups and then having been an investor in my own little angel fund.

I had launched Tech Accelerators, TechSource Quartz.

I'd run TechSource New York City.

I was an advisor to startups.

Jalene was named Puget Sound Business Journal's 40 Under 40 in 2024, which means she's a lot younger than I am.

She also mentors entrepreneurs at UW's Foster Business School and Startup Accelerator.

and serves as an advisor for the Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Program.

I know there are probably not a lot of 14-year-old girls listening to the show, but I promise if you're a leader, or actually if you're a person, this is going to be very relevant to you.

The foundation of every successful business is the founder.

I have been working in a startup accelerator program where we have been supporting more than 16 startup founders to really go from ideation all the way up to investment.

And it always came back to the point that that you are the founder and we are looking at things from a systemic approach.

Okay.

But that is just as important.

Like I have not seen the startup founders that I worked with at the beginning to really invest time in themselves.

But they have eventually throughout the entire Startup Accelerator program all realized that it is super important to take care of their own well-being and of all the other factors that are influencing them financially.

Because they realize that it has eventually an effect on their business as well.

Um, but I really believed in it.

And, and we ultimately im- we got onto something called the Microsoft Startup Accelerator, and once we got that, that then became a catalyst for lots of other things.

So it, it was a bunch of stepping stones.

So we had that investment.