Women in Tech
In this episode, I have the privilege of talking with Kiola George, an NYC based producer and tech entrepreneur. She has over ten years of media experience with Walt Disney Co. and Screenvision Media. Her latest venture, Heybor™️ is a mobile app growing in popularity that allows users to rate and review residential properties across the US. In addition to her business and career achievements, we talk about women in tech and balancing business and motherhood.
In this episode
- in spite of her success, she still sometimes suffers from imposter syndrome
- she juggles a successful career, a growing business, and parenting her daughter
- Heybor is changing the way we find new places to live and connect with our neighbors
“Whenever you are doing anything in life – people feed into the fear a little bit – but what separates those who were successful from those who don’t follow all the way through is that fear and feeding into the fear.”
Connect with Kiola
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Transcript
Jennifer Maggiore (JM): Hi, Kiola. How are you today?
Kiola George (KG): I’m really good, Jenn. How are you?
JM: I am so good. I am really happy to talk to you. I’m a fangirl. I discovered you on Instagram and I just think you’re so freaking cool. You travel all the time. You’re absolutely gorgeous, super uplifting message, brilliant child and I just think you’re amazing and totally loved following you. I appreciate you being on the show because I think you have so much good insight to share.
KG: Thank you. I’m so humbled to even be a part of this like I’m also a fangirl. I see all the things that you’re doing and all of the women that you’ve been empowering and encouraging through their businesses and their ventures so I definitely feel very privileged to be a part of your project.
JM: That’s awesome. Thank you. What I have found out between the time that I reached out to you, about being a guest too, today is that I was only scratching the surface in terms of knowing everything that you do so I’m really interested to hear about the app but there’s the app and some other things so tell me a little bit about your background and what you do.
KG: Apart from the app, I am a producer by day. I work for a cinema advertising company in New York City, called Screenvision Media. Basically they put together a thirty-minute pre-show which, most people, they know what it is but they don’t know who creates it so when you sit down in movie theater and before the trailer starts, and you see like the trivia and the ads and behind this content of upcoming films, that is what my company does.
I basically am the Project Director and Producer for the company so I make sure that all that stuff gets on-screen weekly. I do reach out and get music videos and write, I don’t write trivia but I make sure that all the trivias, all those assets are created. It’s hundreds of assets that we create monthly and I’m basically making sure that they all reach the screen.
JM: That’s amazing.
KG: I’ve been doing that for about seven years now.
JM: That’s a huge job. That’s a lot of content.
KG: Yeah. I think one of my strengths is that I’m super organized when it comes to executing so that definitely is one of my strengths that I carried through into my own business, into parenting, and to my nine-five. That helps being a Project Director. I’ve had about twelve years of experience in media. I worked at ABC networks before I came to Screen Vision Media and there I was doing broadcast standards for the network. I’ve worked on soap operas like All My Children, I’ve worked on The View, I’ve worked on a number of advertising like I would review all of the advertisements that air all across the network for ABC Family and ESPN on ABC. I have quite a bit of experience in media.
JM: Just a little bit. That’s amazing. That’s even more than I realized. I mean that’s crazy. Tell me, obviously, that’s a pretty high-pressure career, you are very, very busy, how did you end up starting your business?
KG: Heybor actually came about, I was hanging out with one of my neighbors, a wonderful girl, Megan, that had just moved into my building and we were connecting and she was telling me about her background and where she was coming from and then we were talking about the building itself and like, “Well, do you like living here?” We’re trading stories about our experiences into moving in and it was like, “Well, they said that there would be laundry and then since I’ve been here, the elevator hasn’t worked,” and we’re like going through all the things that we were frustrated over.
It was like, honestly, we spent all this money to move in and it’s just such a tedious thing moving and like, “Why aren’t we able to like have these conversations before I move into a building?” I came here a couple times and I saw the building but I didn’t see anyone be like, “Hey, I have a couple of questions about your experience in the building,” and I was like, “There should be a platform.” There should be something like Yelp or like Glassdoor where people connect and talk about their experiences for their building so that I, as a person who’s coming in can see what I’m getting into. That’s literally how it started.
JM: That’s amazing. I love that.
KG: I guess it came out of frustration and that was when the lightbulb went off like, “Why doesn’t something like that exists?”
JM: I love it. What else is interesting I think is, and I have seen this behavior on boards that I’ve served on and just indifferent professional groups that I’ve been part of, but I think sometimes we feel really isolated and I mean, I’m kind of a complainer in my mind. I’ve learned how to edit my words but sometimes it’s just like, “Okay, you’re running away with this.” But honestly, I think what ends up happening sometimes is we are feeling unhappy or unsure or we’re questioning something and then you find out that other people are having the same ideas and it’s like, “Oh, okay, so this is a valid issue.” I think for you to be able to connect people around whatever, the good, bad, and indifferent things that are part of the culture where you might go live is super helpful.
KG: Exactly. People do actually have conversations like this like there are groups and stuff like on Facebook where people connect but not about their individual buildings like, “Do we like neighborhood?” and just people having conversations like, “Oh, do you guys know about this thing going on in this area?” and then people have their own siloed conversation. But there isn’t anything that was like, “Well, I live at 123 Smith Street, we all can have a conversation about what’s going on,” or, “My package got stolen, did anyone see anything happening?” like there’s no way for people to really communicate outside of like going door-to-door.
JM: Which like, God forbid, nobody does anymore. I know in my neighborhood, because we’re [inaudible 00:06:45] it’s just a few houses so we kind of know everybody and we’ll do like block parties but for the most part in my adult home-owning life, I mean everybody just pulls into their garage these days and then you go away like we don’t really see each other anymore so really it’s kind of the new frontier on how people can connect within their community.
KG: Exactly. It’s funny because I’ve lived in multi-resident buildings my entire life and I probably have only ever connected with like one or two of my neighbors and there’s like eighty apartments in the building so it’s like even that, we’re still not communicating. I definitely see people all the time and I’m like, “I’ve never seen this person before,” but we live here and it’s like you want to be comfortable where you live but you don’t have any kind of real connection to the people that we live within close quarters too.
JM: I don’t know about you but I feel like in all the times that I’ve ever lived in an apartment building or in condos, it feels very high-risk to me to get to know somebody because what if they’re crazy? Now they know you and you live in the same building so I’d rather like meet somebody through Heybor and decide like, “Are you somebody I want to make a long-term commitment to or?”
KG: Yeah, like, okay, [inaudible 00:08:01] but I’m not going to hang out. [inaudible 00:08:05] when they invite me over, I’m going to say no.
JM: I’m going to be like sitting down the hall or getting into my apartment.
KG: I can make a decision now.
JM: I love it. How do you see Heybor making an impact on the world? What is your vision for this product?
KG: My vision literally is like it becomes the place that people go to when they want to get more information whether it’s for moving like let’s say, I want to move to LA and I’m in New York, I don’t have the ability to go back and forth, fly back and forth to LA to go check out apartments so I can either, right now, if you know someone that lives there, they can go look at places for you or you can go once and kind of make a rush decision on where you’re going to live.
But this gives you an opportunity to go on most of the addresses that you’re actually interested in and see what people think about it, ask the people who live there questions like, “I have a dog, is it okay for me to have a dog in this building?” because that was one of the issues that came up and I made it. One of my friends moved into an apartment then the broker told her that the dog was fine and then when the owner came and she had already moved in, they said that she couldn’t have her dog there, so she had to ship her dog.
JM: That happens all the time shockingly. My husband is a residential broker and that’s what happens all the time. It is crazy and it’s not fair.
KG: It is crazy. It’s not and she literally had to get rid of her dog, she wasn’t going to pay more money to move.
JM: Oh, that’s horrible.
KG: Right, so it’s like you want to be able to have these conversations and so we have more communication with the people that know what’s going on because they’ll know. People that live in the building will know more than the realtor because the broker is literally just there to get a check.
JM: Right. In many cases that’s true or they are trying to manage so many different properties or clientele that they really are not stopping. I mean it’s a lot of work to do it right.
KG: Yes, they’re not vested in whether or not your dog can stay with you.
JM: Right, yeah, that’s crazy. It’s just another nice real-life layer of information for you to get.
KG: Absolutely, so that’s why with this app, I want it to be a place for people to have conversations, to build community, for even the building owners themselves to get more information about what the experience of their tenants are and that’s a way for them to even upgrade their services.
If people are complaining about heat, if people are complaining about the garbage, if people are complaining about strangers getting access, instead of someone calling individually, this is how they can get information gather and they can address things with their tenants. I think that’s something that tenants also would benefit from because I think a lot of times we make complaints and we think that management isn’t listening, so this is the way for them to stay on top of things like that.
JM: I love that. It’s kind of like you mentioned, it’s sort of like Yelp. I think if people know that there is some consequence or people are seeing it, sometimes it gets paid attention to a little bit faster. In terms of who benefits, talk to me about that because it sounds like it’s not just the person who’s seeking a new place to live.
KG: Right. The benefit to the building owners themselves is that they can now take control of how their properties are being spoken about in their industry. Because there’s like a five-star rating and system and you can rate the cleanliness and the elevator works and there are no rodents, you can literally break anything, the close proximity centered to transportation and dry cleaning and all of these things so the building itself gets a rating or five-star rating.
If I have a choice or I’m choosing between a building that’s rated three stars and one that’s rated five stars by the people that live there, then as a building owner, I’m going to want to make sure that my building is being rated highly because I’m not going to have vacancies in my building and it helps them to drive business.
JM: And if you’re the owner of the property and you’ve taken more of an investment role, this is something that happens too, where you’ve got people who hire a management company as kind of the intermediary for managing the property. Of course, every report you get is going to be wonderful or doing a great job, but it’s really nice to hear from the people who are actually, I mean, really they’re the customer and I think it’s really nice to get that additional information as an investor.
KG: I definitely see there’s a benefit for both the tenants and the property owners like I want to be mutually beneficial for both parties. Also just for the community overall because then you know that you’re in the neighborhood where most of the buildings are rated well and people care about what’s going on in their neighborhood and you want to live there.
JM: Absolutely. You make it look so easy. It’s brilliant. When did you actually start this venture?
KG: The idea came to me in November 2015 and I actually started researching and reaching out to developers in like January 2016. By February 2016 I had already found a developing company and started getting all of the paperwork, to get the logo trademarked, and get a lawyer to look over all of our terms and conditions. I have started everything so it’s like figuring out all of the things that I needed, all the boxes that I need to check because I was doing it by myself. Outside of the actual developing of the app, I was focusing on the business part of it because my experience in programming is very limited to like two years in college.
JM: Like, “I know how to break your WordPress site.”
KG: I can code but it’s not that great anymore. It was like, I could handle the business [portion to portion 00:15:00] and then start trying to get some traction to figure out what the app should look like and giving a lot of directions to the developers for what the boxes that it needs to check like it needs to have the ratings, people need to be able to comment, they need to be able to see images of the building, confirm that’s the one that they’re interested in.
That year, from 2015 to about March of 2016, it was just all developing and getting the app off the ground and since then, it changed a lot. The app looks different now. There’s like opportunities for advertising within it and people can promote their blogs or upcoming events and it still serves its main function but there’s different sources or features for advertising and for promoting within the app itself.
JM: You have done a lot so quickly. It really is so fast, I mean, not having that sort of industry background, you have done so much so fast.
KG: Thank you. I mean, I love apps like I live in my phone for the most part. I love working on my phone so I work as efficiently with all of my jobs through my phone like if there’s an app that can do it or an app that can help me like I’m in it.
I download app all the time and I try to find, figure out what the appeal is and what makes people use them, what draws people to them, so that definitely helped, I think with anything, whenever you’re going a bit into a venture, that it has to be something that you’re passionate about. I don’t think someone should create an app if they’re not genuinely interested in that.
JM: I agree. I think you have to be passionate about whatever it is that you’re doing. I just had that conversation today with a potential client and you can just hear it in someone’s voice when they’re talking about their business, are they excited to tell you about it, it’s something they’re passionate about and I think you really do because it’s what makes you resilient because, as I’m sure you know, it’s like entrepreneurs, it’s like you have a really great day today and then tomorrow the shit hits the fan and then it just rotates from there, it’s just up and down and you have to be passionate about it.
KG: Oh, absolutely, because if you’re going to get so many people questioning you, you just have to be in it like it has to be something that you believe in because you’re going to have a hundred people tell you that it’s not the greatest idea but that’s their insecurities, that’s them not on [inaudible 00:17:59] that has nothing to do with you.
JM: That’s such a great point. I love that you say that. This is true for myself, I see this with clients with their parents but sometimes friends and family can be the biggest enemy too when you’re trying to start a business because they don’t see it or it’s their own self-limiting inner dialogue that is coming out. But it’s not really about you. It’s so easy though, I think when we’re fearful to listen to that and want to protect ourselves and say like, “Okay, yeah, I’m not cut out for this or this is not a good idea.” What were some of the challenges when you started Heybor? I mean did you have some of those situations?
KG: Yeah, so when I did decide to finally make an app like I don’t come from a tech background so the biggest thing for me was like imposter syndrome. I always think of Shark Tank, so I’m like, “If I show up to Shark Tank they’re like, ‘Well, what’s your background?’” I’m like, “Well, I work in media for twelve years,” they were like, “But you’re not in tech,” and I’m like, “Well, yeah, you’re right,” and then what am I going to say? I would always doubt myself but I’m literally looking at an app that I created so why am I discounting all of the work that I did because I don’t have a tech background? It’s not like I was never interested in tech, I did, I studied Computer and Information Science for half of my college career so it’s not that there wasn’t an interest, it’s like I had multiple interests and I actually decided to venture off and go into entertainment because when it came down to it I was like, “Ah, I really do want to be in advertising. I really do want to be creative and create,” and I didn’t see the potential to create just programming in computer science so that it wasn’t that I wasn’t passionate about tech, it’s just I just didn’t walk that path.
Whenever you are doing anything in life, I feel like people, they’ll feed into the fear a little bit but what separates those who were successful from those who don’t follow all the way through is that fear and feeding into the fear. The impostor syndrome definitely ate away at me a little bit but I’ve invested so much time and money into this and it really is a good idea that there’s nothing that I can do other than follow through on what I’ve already started.
JM: Right, and to protect your investment. We have this conversation regularly with my coaching group where we talk about imposter syndrome and I think first, just recognizing that fear is just an emotion, fear isn’t the truth, fear isn’t fact, it’s just an emotion and we can learn to manage the emotion around starting a business because it is really difficult and it is really scary especially when we’re doing it by ourselves and I think looking at the evidence, so I look at somebody like you and I know everybody, so many people have imposter syndrome, it is such a relatable issue but I look at you and I think like, my God, like how do you question your amazingness, I mean you’ve accomplished so much and I think it’s great to look at the evidence because the evidence is that you’re this incredibly capable human being, like you’re doing it, like you’re doing the work.
KG: I think that’s the part like we are capable but we let the fear stunt our growth and pull us back from the edge and really and truly sometimes you just have to take that leap of faith because we are capable, but that self-limiting belief, those things really do keep us from reaching our full potential.
JM: Absolutely, and then all the amazing energy that you’re putting into the world and the solutions that you’re providing to people, otherwise, we wouldn’t have that. I love that you share that. I think for somebody to see what you have created and to know that’s something that you deal with too is so valuable.
Provide me some insight into some of the things that you’ve learned. What are some of the tips that you would share with other women entrepreneurs based on what you’ve learned on your journey?
KG: I would definitely say to trust the process like the highs and lows, just like you mentioned, one day you’re going to have great days where things are just hitting on all cylinders, everything is firing, everything is working and then a day or two will come—it’s more like two days or three days—like nothing is happening and it’s easy to fall off track whenever those days come because you’re like, “Well, I haven’t heard back or no one is responding to my emails or what’s going on?”
I actually think it’s like sometimes it’s just the ebb and flow of energy because I swear, whatever things are happening, they always happen together like everything, it’s like, “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up,” and then wait and then if you just stall for a while and then all of a sudden everything starts happening again and so it’s like you just have to trust the process, you’re going to have amazing days, you’re going to have fine days, and then you’re going to have days where nothing is happening and you’re going to question everything, you’re going to want to throw in the towel, and you should just wait it out, just let things slip, let things happen and just stay on top of everything and things will work out. It’s very important.
JM: Yeah. I think it’s persistence and being consistent. It’s like still showing it like you said it’s like you just hang in there and you keep going and you keep doing the things that you know that you’re supposed to do and you don’t stop. The people that quit, of course, are the people that things don’t work out for. It’s interesting too because in the last few years of my life, just indifferent experiences whereas an entrepreneur, I think there are times that we’re really heartbroken. We get our hopes up and there are things that we really wanted to have happened or there are collaborations that we hope are going to work and sometimes it just falls through and it can be heartbreaking, be devastating, but I have tried to start looking at those situations as an opportunity to pivot or to take a different look at the situation and that helps me to stay persistent. It’s hard sometimes, it is not for the faint of heart.
KG: Oh, absolutely. It’s really, really important to not let your insecurities drive your decision making, especially, in those instances where things are not looking the way that you want them to look or the collaborations and like you’ve sent out a bunch of emails and you haven’t heard back from any one of them and you’re starting to think maybe it’s you and maybe you don’t have a great idea, that’s your insecurities talking, so you just kind of have to, like you said, be consistent and not let those things like the self-doubt drive you quitting your business or not following up. I’ve sent so many emails and no one has responded and then I’m just like, “Well, you’re just going to get another email.” “Just going to [inaudible 00:25:48] back to you just in case you missed it.”
JM: “You’re going to hear from me again.”
KG: I know. I like that. I had an interview with GoDaddy back in December and it was funny because I met the head of their social at an event and they were discussing their show that they do and she was like, “Cool, send me an email,” and I emailed her and a week went by and no one responded and I was like, [“Shay,” 00:26:18].
JM: Like, “Was she just being nice?”
KG: It took me a lot to email her again. I was like, we don’t like to bother, I’ve got to like bothering people. So when I emailed her, she responded almost immediately, she was like, “Hey,” and I was like look, “Huh?”
JM: “I’m very happy to get your email”
KG: I’m so happy that she didn’t block me.
JM: How do you know the difference? I mean I think it is such an amazing thing for you to be able to articulate that, that sometimes we do let those insecurities get in the way of making a decision. I mean are there times that you remind yourself like, “No, that’s just the insecurities getting in the way,” versus, “Okay, that was dumb or that wasn’t my best offer to somebody or this wasn’t my most polished day?” like how do you know the difference to when you should keep pushing versus like, “I just didn’t do this right.”
KG: Usually, if I reach out to someone, it depends on what I’m trying to get really, but if I reach out to someone, usually two emails is my cut off unless it’s something I really absolutely need, then I’m going to keep emailing you like it’s not going to stop. But if it’s just like it was the opportunity to collaborate, it was an opportunity for us to work together and I’ve emailed you twice in two weeks and no one responds, then it’s just not the collaboration like I’m going to move on, I’m going to think of something else, I’m not going to quit what I’m doing, but this one isn’t coming back the way that I wanted it to so I’m going to let it go for now and maybe I’ll come back when I have something else to offer of different idea. Because usually if someone thinks that it’s a great idea, you email them once and they miss it, the second one usually people don’t miss. It’s like, “Well, alright they’re not interested, I’m not going to wear this one out because I might want to come back to it.
JM: Right, that’s a great point. That’s a very good point. There have been times too, in my career where something does get missed or somebody’s very busy, I personally think it’s incredibly rude to ignore someone’s email, but there are so many times where six months go by or three months go by and don’t you know, I get a response from somebody so I think just staying open to the possibility, too.
KG: Yeah, and it’s like you have to just keep working and doing other things because sometimes, just because someone didn’t respond to your email when you originally sent it to them does not mean that they’re not going to, your name or your project isn’t going to pop back up somewhere down the line and they’re going to remember, they’re like, “Isn’t that girl that was emailing me?” and all of a sudden they’re reaching out to you.
JM: Right, absolutely. That’s a good point.
KG: I’m always like, “Stay the course, work on something else, just don’t be stagnant,” like you have to continue to further develop so that when that opportunity does come back around, that’s when you have even more to offer and maybe you’ll get even more back from this from the new idea than you would have in the original one.
Women in Tech
JM: Letting that idea kind of develop more can be really valuable too. I know from talking to you before too, that you have had some experience with pitching your business, I wonder what that experience is like for you especially we talk about what it’s like for women who try to raise funds in any business, let alone in technology, and it’s a tiny, tiny percentage of that money that women are able to secure, so talk to me about that experience.
KG: Yeah, it’s a very, very, very tiny minuscule amount of women in tech that gets that game funding, it’s a very heavily male-dominated industry. But women are making a lot of headway, I think a lot of women are seeing the opportunity is there and there’s a lot of great ideas so there’s definitely more funding that is available to women and a lot of companies are investing in female entrepreneurs these days so I pitched twice so far, neither one of them have worked out in the way that I’ve wanted them because pitching is really difficult.
First, you have to actually know your pitch which part of it is knowing your product and also believing in yourself because when you’re pitching, investors want to see that you’re actually passionate about your idea because at the end of the day, they’re not just investing in the idea, they’re investing in you to carry the idea through. So as good as your product is, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to get funding, that means you still, as the individual, needs to practice and make sure that your pitch is on point, you need to make sure that you’re on point, that your business, that you have great goals and milestones for your business. You have to be able to answer questions, tough questions that the investors are going to have for you. It’s very important for you to not be insecure about yourself or your product or to take anything personally because it’s easy to feel attacked if they’re like, “Well, I don’t see the value in it,” now your baby, you created this and you’re like, “What do you mean there’s no value in it?” or, “What do you mean there’s nothing proprietary about it,” but that’s their opinion and they’re entitled to their opinion so it’s very important for you to feel secure enough in your product and feel secure enough in yourself to be able to handle the pressure of pitching and to not take the nos as your product or your business isn’t something that’s viable, it’s just not for that particular investor.
JM: That’s really good advice. It is hard not to take things personally but we were talking earlier and you made a remark that was kind of to the effect of something about how it’s this opportunity to understand the questions that people have about your business and to be able to answer those or be able to show them the value.
We had a workshop recently where a woman was talking about her business and she offers consulting services for women who are in transition and she kept using this terminology and finally one of the other women was like, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” we had bonded a lot by that point in the day so we were kind of talking to each other that way which is like, “I don’t know what the hell you sell. I don’t know what this is,” and sometimes she could have taken that really personally and like had something else to say to her or like walked out of there but instead, she took the moment and said, “I never thought about the fact that’s why people aren’t registering for my services because people don’t really know what I sell.” It is this really valuable learning opportunity.
KG: Absolutely. You have to see those as opportunities because now she has an opportunity to teach them to pitch. One of the biggest things I think you can do for anyone is to teach someone something new. A lot of times, people don’t even realize the issues that they have until someone tells them that there’s a problem that they had no idea that they’re experiencing. She probably was like, “You didn’t even know you have this problem, now I’m telling you all about it, and now you need it.”
JM: That’s exactly right. Isn’t that funny? We don’t know what we don’t know.
KG: No, you have no idea. It happens all the time actually like I’ll go get like a facial and then the esthetician is like on my face and she’s like, “Did you know that you had this problem?” and then I was like, “Really?”
JM: Like, “Nope.”
KG: Now she’s getting more money out of me because I had no idea. I’m telling, if you can teach someone that they need something, then your business will be amazing like actually, you need this, you had no idea that you needed this. That’s what I’m trying to do with Heybor, you had no idea but you needed this app, just how you [inaudible 00:35:20]. We’re all here like talking about experiences at restaurants and we’re giving all kinds of feedback about even our Uber drivers like we have every rate, everything, but what it’s like to live in our home?
JM: Long term, someplace that you’re going to spend half of your life.
KG: We spend the most amount of money and the most amount of time here at home.
Balancing Business and Motherhood
JM: That’s so funny. I love it. It’s such a great concept. Last but not least, I want to ask you about Zoey because she is your beautiful daughter who is your like mini-me on Instagram, how do you manage to do it all?
KG: I do have special circumstances, actually. Zoey’s dad and I actually split in 2015 right when the app started so a lot happened [inaudible 00:36:22]. Zoey’s dad and I do split her half of the week so I do have time to dedicate to the app and dedicate to going out and meeting people and sitting down and talking to my developers when she’s not here because when she is here, I am a full-time mom, she has her activities and her playdates and she is scheduled based so she knows when she has to do something and it has to be done then so I don’t have much flexibility with her.
But she is a dream when it comes to certain things because she’s very understanding, she’s very caring, and she is dedicated. Actually, funny enough, I will take her to, if I have like any kind of informational sessions or any pop-up, and one time we had a pop downtown Brooklyn and I suffered from a slight mild anxiety attack and I was like, “I can’t do this. It’s not going the way that I planned.” I’m having a slight breakdown and she was there and she was like, “Mommy, do you want me to go give the cards to everyone?” It was like out of a farmers market kind of thing going on and my daughter took the information cards and literally walked around and gave them to everyone and she’s five.
JM: She’s like a little partner. I love it.
KG: It was actually the best thing because then like she got me so calm and she’s like telling everyone, she was like, “Here, this is my mommy’s company.”
JM: Oh, I love that. They’re so charming.
KG: Oh, God, everyone thought it was the cutest thing ever and they paid more attention because a child was giving it to them like I think if I was walking around giving it…
JM: I agree. We did a client appreciation event at a restaurant and we brought our people in, we had branded merchandise that we’re giving away just to anybody who came in and it was getting like so crazy and so loud and so many people and I, much like you, had a slight breakdown, not a full breakdown, a slight breakdown, and it was like feeling so overwhelmed and then here are these kids that drive me insane at home and are beating on each other, it’s like suddenly were these little gentlemen when we’re walking around and we’re handing out t-shirts and mugs and things and people think it’s great.
KG: Yeah, most of the time, it’s like I have to just always be conscious of her and her emotions and what’s going on with her and it seems like whenever I need her, and I’m not like, “Zoey, I’m having a nervous breakdown right now,” she just knows then she just like [swoops 00:39:22] in and she’s like, “Mom, I got it.”
JM: Aww, it’s emotional intelligence. She sounds amazing, I mean like really for a child to be able to read the situation and just say like, “Hey, I know what you’re going through,” but how lucky is she to learn from you. She’s so lucky.
KG: Oh, we learn from each other. This kid is amazing. She teaches me so much in a lot of patience and a lot of this I do because like even the app itself, it’s very important for me to leave someplace that I feel safe having my daughter.
JM: That’s really cool. She’s an inspiration for so much.
KG: It’s literally like where I want to know exactly what I’m getting into because I’m responsible for this girl.
JM: For this amazing little human being. She’s awesome. Well, she’s anything like you, watch out world, watch out. How can people reach you, Kiola? Because I’m sure people are going to listen to this and they’re going to want to learn more, they’re going to want to probably talk to you to find the app, how can they find you?
KG: Heybor is available in the App Store and on Google Play and if you want more information, then you can go to heyborapp.com. We also have an Instagram and Twitter, it’s @heyborapp and then you can email me at kiola@heyborapp.com as well so feel free. I’m available for any kind of questions or if you have any problems with the app or any kind of inquiries, feel free to reach out to me and let me know. I’m here.
JM: That’s awesome. Thank you so much. We’ll make sure that we have those links in the show notes on our website. If you’d like to find those show notes or reach out to me, please feel free, you can find me at brandwithcatalyst.com. Kiola, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed talking to you.
KG: Thank you so much, Jenn. It was a pleasure. I really appreciate it.
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