ALT "My intention was never to be a developer, ever. I actually wanted to be a psychotherapist, a cognitive behavioral therapist, to be precise." – Sami Birnbaum, Senior Developer at thoughtbot

ALT "I just had this 'Eureka moment', so to speak, where I was like, hey, I know firsthand how difficult it is to found a business. I want to use my knowledge to help at least one person get over the finish line." – Jaclyn Siu, Co-Founder, Starcycle

ALT "We believe that every person inside an organization should have their own personal AI notetaker, and no two meeting notes will be the same because each set of notes is unique to you, your meetings, what your team wants." – Krish Ramineni, CEO and Founder, Fireflies

ALT "What I care about is go-to-market, adoption, and actually getting the tech out there in a way that has market penetration but adds value to every person's life." – Wendell Adams, CEO, PrimeLab.io

ALT "This is a tool for you as a manager to work on your skills and have that growth mindset, not for someone to spy on you or know how you're behaving." – Sarah Touzani, Founder, Waggle AI

ALT "I never really had a plan for my career; it's been a series of lucky happenstances, being prepared when opportunity arose." – Robbie Holmes, Founder, Holmes Consulting Group

ALT "We really kind of package that in a way to give them a snapshot of how they're developing relative to the peer group, to really kind of clarify a lot of these gray areas, if you will, and not take that wait-and-see approach." – Hans Kullberg, Co-Founder, Pathfinder Health

ALT "You need to let go of control...You need to lose the idea that you're in charge and you're making the decisions because otherwise, you get frustrated very fast." – Francis LaCoste, VPE and CTO Coach

ALT "I'm not putting down psychoteraphy at all, but sometimes people don't want to talk about their feelings all the time. Sometimes people want to do something fun, while also having a mental health professional around to guide them." – Hamidah Nalwoga, Founder, Hobi

ALT "Slow is good...I feel when you really want to create an impact, and you are in the green tech space, being slow and getting somewhere is better than going fast and then having burnout." – Sanghmitra Bhardwaj, CEO and Founder, Insusty

ALT "It's really important to provide a little bit of education for new mothers around what kinds of things they can typically benefit from getting support with, particularly in the home in those early days." – Zamina Karim, CEO and Founder, Mevi

ALT "Each parenting experience and giving birth is different. All of that is quite deeply personal. What we want to do with Ammi is be able to provide this co-pilot to expectant and new parents to help guide and help them through that early phase." – Priyanka Mahajan, Founder, Ammi

ALT "Life is so hard for so many people... it is our obligation to help as many people on this planet in whatever way we think we can help them." – Chris Pallatroni, Founder, The Standard.

ALT "Our goal with Luro is not just to streamline the creation and maintenance of design systems but to transform them into living, breathing ecosystems that evolve with an organization's needs." – Trent Walton, CEO, Luro

ALT "Just trusting your idea, knowing that it's okay to make mistakes from time to time... If something with someone doesn't feel right, it's probably not." – Charlotte Holt, Founder, The Fashion Library

ALT "People also fall into a trap if they're trying to do too much at the same time. It's really important to focus on fewer things and take care of yourself. Self-care and self-compassion are important themes in entrepreneurship." – Kristian Ranta, Founder & CEO, Meru Health

ALT "We're part of the health system. Yeah, business tells us to be competitive, and that makes sense. But you also are taking care of patients, and you need to partner where maybe you don't have the services for, but someone else does, or for continuity of care." – Thiv Paramsothy, CEO and Co-Founder, Hera Fertility

ALT "We can make a really big impact as far as being 100% size-inclusive. There are no body shapes or sizes we can't meet with this type of system." – Dusin Butcher, CEO an Co-Founder, MADE TECH

ALT "Iterative design is key at thoughtbot; it allows for designing based on validation or user feedback and doing it quickly to adjust based on that feedback instead of discovering months later that you've gone off course." – Rami Taibah, Product Strategist & Designer, thoughtbot