Hey everybody, how's it going? I'm Luke Baird and welcome to another episode of the Cult of Startup podcast. This is where I sit down with startup founders and entrepreneurs to discuss what systems, strategies and actions they utilize that will help you reach your goals in life, career, as well as start a business. Today's guest is Jessica Santana, who is the co founder of New York on Tech, a startup where it's their mission to prepare the next generation of technology leaders.
Jessica is a great example of leaving corporate to pursue a startup. And what makes her story so interesting is the fact that her experiences in working as a minority in corporate inspired her to develop New York on Tech. We cover topics such as the gig economy and why parents should be paying more attention to it. How the education system is broken simply based on how they limit students by not offering enough hands on learning.
Also, the need for students to be exposed and inspired by potential learning opportunities by going to see these potential employers and much, much more. Thank you for listening. You guys are the best. Enjoy.
How are you today, Jessica? I'm doing very well, Luke. How's everything with you? Everything's going good.
It's really hot here in Los Angeles right now. I'm actually house sitting at my parents house. I've got three dogs here so if you happen to hear any barking or money in the background, it's from these three pups. But we will continue in a classic fashion.
First and foremost. Tell me a little bit about your background. Sure. So I was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y.
native New York my entire life. I was raised by two Puerto Rican parents who migrated here in the 50s and 60s to give me, my brothers and sisters, the opportunity to live the American dream. I probably did New York City public school my entire life, got my degree in accounting and then again in technology. And I started working for really big tech corpor in my career before starting my business.
Interesting, interesting. Could you maybe give me a little bit more background about your education, especially in college? Yeah, for sure. So I did my undergraduate degree in accounting at Syracuse University.
And then after I realized I didn't want to sit for the CPA exam and that my interests were really in technology, I decided to turn down an offer from one of the top account firms in the country and I went straight to grad school under a fellowship with JP Morgan Chase called the Global Enterprise Technology Program. And I got my master's in information management and technology from Syracuse University as well. Interesting. I'm sure there are many graduates of accounting that go.
I don't Know if I really want to do this or not. Definitely, for sure. I mean, yeah, I excelled, you know, really well in my classes. I just really, I didn't like it.
So. Yeah, yeah, I think it takes a specific mind to enjoy accounting. I've. I've had a handful of classes in college and it's like, either get it, you don't.
It's not one of the. It's one of the other. Yeah, definitely. So this, this program you went with JPMorgan sounds really fascinating and probably quite a privilege.
What, what did you learn through that program? For sure. And so JP Morgan Chase went into partnership with Syracuse University to establish kind of like a work and school learning partnership with, you know, with each other. And so basically, JP Morgan Shay established an office at Syracuse University where people from the community and then also students who are getting their degrees in technology could work maybe 15 to 20 hours per week at the office and then also still be able to go to school.
So while I was there, I was in charge of promoting and building out information systems that would actually bring those opportunity students that may not have heard about the opportunity to work for JP Morgan Chase and then also get them enrolled in the minor in Global Enterprise Technology that the information school at the time was offering to really hone in on the 21st century skills that an organization like JPM Chase was looking for. But not only, you know, you know, from the academic side, but actually give students real work experience while they were on campus that they can take with them after they left. Awesome. Awesome.
And to my knowledge, you, you left college or you finished your graduate program and you got an industry and you were there for a handful of years, what was that like? Because I know you eventually said, you know what, this isn't for me. Yeah, for sure. So I started working for a company called Deloitte.
I was a technology consultant for them. And primarily a lot of my clients at the time were financial services organizations where they were really looking to hone in on their, their compliance practices. So anyone who, you know, works with banks understand that they're highly, highly regulated institutions. And from a technology standpoint, they're certain control.
They have to have a place to make sure that keeping the integrity of their systems up to par. My job was to go in and make sure that they were actually doing that. And then after my experience with Deloitte, I had a friend who moved over to Accenture and he basically poached me and I went to Accenture. I started working as a technology consultant there as well.
My role Shifted a little bit. I was working primarily with federal agencies and again with banks, but mostly on digital projects and making sure that we could create internal products that would help streamline a lot of their, you know, a lot of their technology, a lot of the systems that made their organizations run. And I think after about three years at working, I started asking myself like, you know, how did I get here? And you know, you look around and sometimes you see yourself being the only woman or sometimes being your, you know, not really ever being able to interact with people who come from, you know, stories or background like yours.
And you know, I think even from an income perspective, at that time I was making more than four times my annual household income. And to see that shift happen, you know, in the time span of like 1 or 2 years, 3 years after graduation, you start to ask yourself, like, how did I get here and how can I get more people here with me? Which really inspired me to take my organization to the next level along with my co founder. Interesting, I really like that.
So you, you hopped into industry and you recognized that education was an empowering force for you as a minority. For sure. Definitely. Education, I feel like it's always been a priority.
You know, my parents, they, when they left, you know, Puerto Rico to come here and to build, they didn't have an opportunity to educate themselves. And even my brothers and sisters at the time, they didn't have that opportunity either. There's a huge generation gap between, you know, me and my sister. I'm in my 20s, my sister, she's in her 50s.
And so at that time they were still trying to figure a lot of it out. So I was the first in my family to go ahead and pursue a four year degree and a two year degree at the graduate level as well. And so education has always been something that my family, that my family pushed for. And it wasn't ever anything that I like, I fought not to do.
Like, I always really liked school. Interesting. I like that, that you've always just sort of been passionate about education. Just to clarify.
So the main reason why your parents came here was to provide opportunity for their family? Definitely, for sure. Because I mean, Puerto Rico, I feel like a lot of people go to San Juan, right, which is a huge tourist hub. And so no one really goes to the outskirts.
To the outskirts. A lot of times that where my family's from, they're specifically from the very rural area. Not a lot of business at the time. And my family and my mom, she tell me stories about when growing up, you know, her primary source of protein was the fish in the sea because it was free and they just had to go catch it.
You know what I mean? With my dad saying things like, you know, at some of their day grad to like walk to school without shoes. And so there just wasn't a lot of opportunity on the island for them to thrive or build wealth for them in the generation that were going to come after them. Interesting.
And I love that they saw that, hey, I'm going to take my family to the US and this is going to be a game changer. And it looks like it honestly has been a game changer for you. It has. Absolutely.
For sure. You know, I don't know what, you know, I don't know where I would be if I was still. I was still in Puerto Rico. I don't know.
I really don't know. Let's go. Okay. You told me about your background for school and your handful of years you had industry and you sort of alluded to it a few moments ago that you kind of recognized that there is this cause and effect that occurred.
Education meant that you were earning four times your household income within a short period of time. What did that make you want to do? I think like, I've always been passionate about community and especially about the youth. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that when I was growing up though, we didn't have a lot of.
There were always programs and nonprofits and people who were in my life that were ready to open doors, were ready to mentor me, who were ready to provide me opportunities. And I think seeing how much throughout my life people were willing to give of themselves, I always knew that I'd come to a point in my career where I felt good enough to want to give of myself as well. So. Yeah, interesting.
So you said, okay, I got this idea to build a certain business based off of your background. Is that what New York Tech is? Yeah, so exactly. So New York on Tech is a nonprofit organization and we work with low income students in New York City to provide them with the development, mentorship, network and access they need to be successful in degrees and careers in technology.
So we work with under resource schools, we work with technology companies, and we work with professional mentors working at technology companies to provide students with a fellowship that really hones in on their technical and professional skills so that they can then use those skills in paid internships to summer after they complete our program. Well, that's amazing because I know at least with any job application currently the first criteria is what the hell is your experience? Right? So providing them with that experience is going to be extremely valuable for them down the line because then they actually put that in the resume, say, well, in high school I was doing this, not in college.
Yeah, for sure, definitely. And I think, I think experience is really important. And the reason why I say that is when I got to Syracuse as an undergrad, a lot of my work experience, you know, was with the summer youth employment program. I was doing a lot of administrative and clerical work.
But, you know, it's the gig economy now. And a lot of the things that you'll need to thrive in innovation, to thrive in this changing workforce are skills that are going to make you competitive for 21st century opportunities. And I'm looking at my peers. They, they had been interning with really big companies and corporations their entire, you know, their entire life, you know, as opposed to me, I felt like I was playing catch up a lot of the time.
But luckily I, when I got, I got my full time offer to the way as a result of me being able to intern with them for many, many years before I even started my career there. And so early on in my college career, I built a relationship with them and I did multiple internships with them all the summer before starting, you know, full time with them after I graduated from my graduate program. And even then, I wish that those experience came to me a lot younger so that I felt even more ready when I got to college. Is that something that you've seen in students, that they are more apprehensive to sort of jump on board and go full fledged into opportunity like this?
You know, actually I think that we, we see, we've seen them an increase in applications over the past two years with students who are, you know, willing to, you know, join a program like Mere Contact. I think the problem is that there aren't enough opportunities like this to actually meet the demand. And I think that students are, I think students in New York City specifically, they, a lot of times they come from the hustle, right? And so now we need to make sure that the society, you know, whether it's whoever takes on this responsibility, whether it's government, corporate, you know, the industry, nonprofit, we need to make sure that we have enough resources to actually provide them with those levels of services.
Definitely. And I'll admit I lived in New York City for two years and the mentality of New York City and just back east in general is so different than Los Angeles people a little bit more rough around the edges, but I love it. Yeah, for sure. I actually have a friend who, who was from Brooklyn.
She moved to Los Angeles. Everything in LA is pretty even keel. Like everything's pretty chill and relaxed as opposed to what I'm used to. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. I know friends here like you're kind of an aggressive driver. Well, I'm just kind of used to it. I just like driving that way.
Sorry. But back to maybe more important things. I want to maybe give me the walk me through. What would be the experience of a student.
So how do you introduce your program? What are the first things you set them off with and then maybe a handful steps after that to exiting? Yeah, for sure. So in the spring of every year we host our recruitment process.
We launch a recruitment process and students learn about our programs in different ways. One of those ways is that we host information sessions at high schools in the city where our target population of students are actually attending. So that's one way too. Some people find us online via social media.
Three, we have community partnerships. So there's certain non profits that also work with our target population of students that let us host information sessions or tell the students about our program. And then after the student learns about the program, they apply online and they participate in a two step application process. So the one step is you apply online, you submit certain demographic information and you also have to submit about two or three essays.
Then after that, given federal criteria, we'll move you forward to the second round. And in the second round we really looking for students who have the capacity to work in teams. Students who are expressing an interest in technology where we know that we can actually be the people to amplify that interest. And then three students who just literally want to learn because it's not available to them in their schools.
So the application process wraps up around the May June timeframe and we solidify the cohort for the incoming year. Over the summer the students, we give them a few assignments online to complete. And then when September comes around, we host our student orientation session and our parent orientation so that we are then able to provide them with weekly computer programming and technology classes from September to June. So they're learning front end and back and web development, they're learning UXUI design, they're learning about careers and technology as well so that they know that even if you don't want to go into a computer science related career, doesn't necessarily mean that you can't use these skills to actually go into quality assurance and testing or possibly going into user experience design and I think the more critical component of our program, aside from the weekly technical workshops, is that we pair students and mentor in parts of two to five mentors.
So it's two professionals provide students. And these professionals really focus on their professional development and their soft skills to increase their confidence about going into careers in tech. A lot of times students in the program, they never had a family member in technology. They've never had anyone pursue a degree in engineering.
Sometimes it's their first introduction to the field. And so we feel very humbled by the amount of people who volunteer their time on a monthly basis to serve as an advocate and also lend their industry expertise to the students. And after the program wraps up in June, the students are placed in internships as some of our partners over the summer for about six to eight weeks. And this summer we have students aback new McMillan and Warden Parker.
And they take that paid experience to with them along with the professional technology portfolio and the professional assets like their resume and cover letters throughout the year in order to go into college with tools and resources that they're going to need to get to the next level. Wow. I wish I had this toolkit when I graduated high school. It sounds like the ideal resume to have.
Yeah, me too. Yeah, right. And it lines up perfectly with what the trend is, is that you've got to learn tech now, because if you don't know technology, you're going to be behind the curve. Absolutely.
For sure. I want to dive a little bit deeper into what you guys do in assigning mentors for these teams and what their backgrounds are, because I like that concept and I think that's something that more kids should have and more kids should see a mentor, even though they might not realize that that's a present mind thing to have. But. Yeah.
What are your thoughts on why you guys assign mentors? For sure. You know, I think I touched on it a little bit earlier today. You know, mentors are just very, very important.
And I think when I was growing up, I was very fortunate to have a lot of mentors, people who were just there willing to share advice, willing to share resources, willing to open up a door. And the same thing goes for my co founder. You know, he's had a long term, longtime relationship with someone who actually sits on our board of directors. It's been actually more than 10 years now.
And so he met him while he was in high school. And now that relationship has turned into one where, you know, the board, you know, the mental actually is sitting on our board and providing governance on the Importance of mentorship. And I think students do need these professionals in their lives to cut a learning curve for them. You know, I firmly believe that if it takes me five years to do something with the appropriate mentorship, it should take someone one to two years to do it, because I've already gone through and I've already learned through it.
And there's not enough people, you know, out there willing sometimes to realize how important they are to moving the needle on someone else's interest and, you know, and their aspirations professionally, academically, or even personally. Yeah, I feel like if I was a student and I was in high school and I had a mentor that was there to both encourage me and keep me accountable to what I was doing, I would be making giant leaps versus making small steps, trying to figure out where I want to go. Yeah, absolutely. For sure.
Is that something that you maybe personally experienced and feel like you needed to set up a structure for the students with that? For sure. I mean, I'm thinking about, like, even though I've had a lot, a lot of mentors and people who are willing to open that door for me and just sit down and provide a resource, I still feel like there were certain things that I needed to figure out myself. You know, thinking about, like, the college application process for me when I was in high school, because no one in my family had ever gone to college, and the school that I attended, they were just so under resourced.
Like, literally the guidance counselor ratio was probably like one person to like 300 students. And yeah, it was, it was. It's necessary to place people in other people's lives to make sure that they can just get their questions answered. You know, I was thinking about fafsa.
I was thinking about financial aid, scholarships. Like, I was thinking about all these things that my family could not answer for me because they never went through it. And at the time, like, technology was a thing, but it wasn't like now where I could just go on Google and find our resources. You know, back then, technology, technology, you know, we were still on America Online.
We were still still learning about email, you know, and at least for me, you know, I got my first computer when I was about 14, 15 years old, as opposed to a lot of my peers who got their computers when they were like nine or ten. And so I was still very much exploring if I had that. I feel like there were a lot of things that just came a lot easier, a lot easier for me. Oh, I would completely agree.
I know I grew up doing film in elementary school, middle School and high school. And when it came to high school, I had been doing film for so long that I knew how to edit well. I knew about audio. I had all these skill sets that nobody else recognized or realized were things that you could tweak with the film.
And yeah, it puts you at a huge advantage, definitely. All right, I want to go and shift maybe a little bit too about what is your guys business model. Because I personally worked in the academic space for a short period of time with mobile application and I found it very to get sales. But there are different ways that you can monetize an educational platform for sure.
So because so basically our business model, we have to define customers right now. We have schools that pay us a fee for the students who participate in our program. And then we have technology companies who pay a fee for internship placements for the students that we that we place into internship with our corporate partners. And so those are two main sources of revenue right now.
But we also have and rely on philanthropic donations from foundations, corporations and also individuals who contribute to Quadris or come to our events and buy tickets, things like that. So walk me through how you guys came to the conclusion. Conclusion that those were the valid business models to deal with for sure. So honestly, we're still experimenting.
And so the reason why we validated that schools were a great source of revenue for us is because right now there's a huge push in New York City for computer science education in schools. And I think everyone knows that the problem with getting computer science education in school is not only getting it in school, but it's what it's going to mean for students who are in schools are learning computer science but still don't have, you know, the mentors or the professional experiences actually amplify that. So when we pitch to school, we let them know that, you know, it's not just about computer science and school. If you really want to see your students go into technology, the way that you should do it is to think about, think about it not from an educational side, but think about it also from a professional development and exposure side.
And so we validated that in our first year. We validated that with the second cohort that we just finished up. And we were validating it again this third year. And it's been working for us.
And I think schools actually really understand the value of having mentors and having professional people in industry involved in education because they know that, you know, there's certain things that professionals and mentors and industry can actually complement that they currently don't have the capacity to execute on by themselves. And in terms of internship placements, you know, I think everyone. Diversity in tech, and it's been such a huge topic since 2012 and even before that when diversity, you know, Google releases diversity numbers, I think it was a huge wake up call that there weren't enough women, there weren't enough people of color in the industry. And I think human resource departments and recruiters are starting to realize the value of earning pipeline initiatives in terms of hiring for later on.
And so the incentive for a lot of our company partners is, well, you know, we can get them in the door now and we can hire them. And that is one of our biggest goals, to diversify our workforce. Oh, I really like that actually. So you're, you're sort of setting the stage already for these employers going, hey, here's so and so you knew them when they were in elementary school or high school, they completed the degree, now you're associated to them, you could hire them as well.
Absolutely, for sure. Because that's what happened with me and my co founder. Like I remember when I was a freshman in college, I got introduced to a recruiter at Deloitte and I went through the interview process and every single summer after I finished one year school, two years or three years of school, I did an internship with them which ultimately converted into a full time offer when I graduated and I started my career there. Okay, so in my head this is what pops up.
Is it possibly cheaper for these companies to donate to your program than it is to pay money for recruiters to find people? Because to my knowledge, it's extremely expensive to hire somebody. Yeah, so for sure, definitely. Because we can do right now what they also don't have the capacity to do.
A lot of times in, in human resource departments, recruiters, like, they're just trying to push people throughout the door. I mean, you know, put people through the door, I mean, which means like they're trying to focus on hiring right now, but they also understand that in order for you to diversify and increase your pool of applicants, you actually have to start early on in the pipeline. You know, the only way you're gonna get more people to hire when they're juniors and seniors in college is if you get them when they're juniors and seniors in high school. But right now, because they're focusing on that really quick turnover to hire people that they can hire on immediately, they'll rather give money to organizations that already have high school partnerships, already have the pool of students to source from already have the, you know, just the capacity internally and the infrastructure to actually execute on the work that they would love to do.
And so sponsoring us is actually cheaper for them. I absolutely love that as a business model because it's sort of twofold. So you, the company spends less money, but they also get a higher caliber student in the end. Exactly.
Yep. And that's a game changer for these companies. Like if I had that growing up and I learned how to do web development in 7, 8 and I did through high school and through college. You know, I have four or five websites built by the time I'm done.
They're actually doing well. Like I'm a completely different person at that point in time. Right, Exactly. Yep.
And then based on, you know, because of the fact that we train students, they know, like company partners know that they're getting world class talent. They're getting talent that's already been prepped about the industry. And so even when they do become employees and they convert to being employees full time, there's no, there's, there's little, there's little learning curve at the entry level for a lot of the students that go through our program. I'm curious to know how you measure success for these students.
For sure. So we measure success in three metrics. One, how many students actually got accepted into a four year college university degree in a technology related program? Two, how many of those students did internship with our corporate partners?
And then three, one year after our program. Is the student still persisting in their four year college university program? Interesting. And are they measured at all in going through the program or is this more like an after school thing?
Is it set in the academic setting? Oh yeah, for sure. So I basically gave you the metric of what we hope to achieve after students go through our program. But throughout the nine months that they're with us, we're measuring their technical proficiency based on a rubric that we created with our technical instructors.
And we're also measuring the, the completion of their professional deliverables. How many students actually completed their professional development workshop stuff which includes their resumes and their cover letters. And so we, we have our short term goals, which is, you know, the thing that we measure while they're in our program and we have the long term goals, which is what we're hoping to achieve after they complete it. I love that.
And it sounds like the model is very much so learned by doing. Right, Exactly. It's project based. Okay.
So are they working in teams mainly? Yeah, for sure. So we put students in team defy. And each of them plays a role in completing a project.
One thing that we realize is that sometimes people think that in computer science or in technology, it's not team focused, it's very singular. But I think because I work in the industry, I know that, you know, the way that you actually execute on technology process for projects is actually very collaborative. That collaborative process that requires many different perspectives. And on top of that, we're also trying to build students social and socio emotional skills and their ability to work with other people who they may, you know, they may not see on an everyday basis.
You know, sometimes they don't come from the same school. And so for us it's very important to give them an opportunity to learn how to communicate with other people and then also give them an opportunity to build networks early on in their career so that they're able to amplify. Amplify that as a skill later on when they go into college and then later on into the workforce. And so teams definitely.
Yeah, so definitely a teamwork focus. The college I went to, Cal Poly, Semis Obispo, the model of the school was learn by doing. And I've had a handful of conversations with friends who've gone to other colleges and they're like, what is the job placement out of most of the major like Cal Poly? And it's pretty dang good.
And they're like, well, how many of your friends have jobs? It's almost like 75, 80 of them have jobs right out of Cal Poly. And friends who went to schools where it wasn't learned by doing focused, they're like, well, half of my friends, 30% of my friends. So it's interesting to sort of see that there's that overlap there, that skills matter the most.
Oh, absolutely, for sure. I mean, because the thing is, like, even when I was in school, like theory was very important. Like I think it gave me framework to understand how to problem solve, but it didn't really prepare me on a skills level of what I needed to do when I was working as a tech consultant. Like those are things that I just needed to be good at.
You know, everything that I did was very project based. It was very much about project management, product management, learning how to use tools and, you know, technology tools like CRMs and databases and learning how to work with, you know, lines of code. Like those are the things that were required of me. It wasn't writing papers and it wasn't creating, you know, just these documents that were not going to be useful for us.
I absolutely appreciate that. It reminds me of a handful of times whenever I started new class in college, I would actually inquire the professor, how do you make this class actually learn by doing, like, what do you do to prepare us for the next step? And some professors didn't like that fact, but I was like, I'm painting a university that does this. Are you doing that?
Yes or no? But it sounds like you guys really have that nailed. Well, yeah, we're trying to. We're always refining every year because we don't want our curriculum to be stagnant.
We know that tech is an industry that's always evolving and always changing. So our curriculum is always changing every single year. So do you have your students do, like, interview practice as well? Oh, for sure.
So one of the monthly workshops that we host with our mentor community is around, you know, interviewing any more specifically, technical interviewing, which is something that our students are not even aware of. Sometimes there's a difference between a behavioral interview, when you go in and you answer questions, as opposed to like, okay, well, now this person is requiring me to, like, analyze this problem on my board, or, okay, now this person wants me to complete this technical assessment in 30 to 40 minutes. You know what I mean? No one really talks.
No one has really taught them that, you know, there's a difference between just a regular interview and a. We cover that. We cover team conflict resolution. We cover how to present yourself as an executive in the workforce.
And one thing we always tell our students is that your network is your network. And so we even cover a workshop on, you know, networking and building professional relationships. Man, if you're making me wish I was part of this program, like, currently sounds like a great thing for an adult too. Maybe that's a secondary business.
All you guys can explore that. There's adult programs for this. Yeah, for sure. We've been approached.
All right, I want to. Maybe let's. Let's talk a little bit more about student experience, because those are your end customers. Even though other people are paying, what.
What do you really want to deliver to these students more so than anything else? Yeah, for sure. I think the. The primary goal of the students who go through New York on Tech is to get them to a point where they're relieved out of poverty, and then they come back to New York on Tech and pay that way for other students who came from the background they did.
That's our only vision. Because we truly believe that the students who go through our program, they have all the technical fields, they have all the Professional development at that point. What they do need is the network and they need the social capital and they need just doors of opportunities open for them for them to be able to drive. And if that means that they go and pursue a four year college university degree, they start working in tech just like I did and just like my co founder did and they're making a livable salary for them and their families and then they come back to New York on tech to serve as a mentor to other generations of students.
That is our primary goal for the organization. I believe it takes a special person to come full circle and give back. It's a very noteworthy and noble attribute somebody can have. Definitely.
I agree. And I think it's something that I've seen a handful of very successful people is that they get involved once they've made it and realize that they need to be part of that support system that possibly support them at the very beginning. Absolutely, for sure. Because that's how you, I mean that's how progress is made.
You know what I mean? Like no one ever gets to where they're at alone. I firmly believe that's just not true. There are no overnight successes.
There are no people who haven't been helped by someone else. And we can create a culture of service and we can create a culture where people feel that sense of responsibility to their community. I think that we can challenge the status quo. We can actually solve a lot of the problems that we have in our society.
I 100 agree with that. I would like to know possibly what is your favorite class that your nine week or your nine month program teaches? Yeah, so actually we had a board of directors retreat about two weeks ago and we had one of the students talk about the, their experience in the program with our board of directors. And one thing that the student mentioned was that they really enjoyed the company visits.
And so I think for me, I really enjoy the company visit that we do with the students is not so much about the, you know, the content we deliver to them. I think it's more about me seeing their expressions when they go into this large corporation that they've never even seen before or even knew that they lived close to. Like in our first year we took, we took our students to a company that focused on search engine optimization that was housed in what looked like an apartment building in the West Village. And actually we walked in, it was like a three story, you know, company.
And I think when they walked in they were like what? I think they were just like super amazed that, you know, they can Walk into something that looked like an apartment building, but it was actually a technology company. And even when we took them to LinkedIn, you know, LinkedIn had a lot of graffiti on the wall and it was very, it was really nice. A lot of the students, you know, left there saying, like, I want to work here.
And I think it's not so much about, you know, a favorite class that I have. I think I just have favorite moments throughout the program that reinforcements, you know, reinforce my purpose a lot of times sounds like as if it was like the tangibility of those moments matter the most. Absolutely. For sure.
I know my personal experience growing up, I was able to go to a handful of like, movie sets, and seeing the movie set really inspired me. Like, I want to be part of that and end up in film, of course. But maybe another time to relate to that is through college when I was president of the entrepreneurship program. We go visit companies and seeing those companies, it's a whole different light that's shed on what that company does.
You know, it's not present mind, it's not in your mind to think, hey, what else is this company doing? Or who are they as a culture? What does it look like in our office, this place I can see myself going to every single day. And I feel like students, when they see that, they will definitely aspire to go, hey, I want to walk into that.
You said the SEO shop there in New York. I want to work there. I want to work at LinkedIn because they've got a graffiti office. I like that environment that jives with my mindset.
Yeah, for sure. Perfect. I amnd you big time for saying that this is something for them and that they can aspire to this in the future because that gives them dreams and opportunities and something sort of reach for rather than something else that wouldn't be as, as enlightening and long term as successful for them. Yeah, definitely.
And I also think that, I think, you know, just the, just the fact that now they know where to go. You know, we surveyed our students and sometimes they never even heard about the companies that, you know, that we took them to. They, they were just amazed that these places actually existed. And sometimes they would even exist maybe one or two train stops away.
Because if you know New York City, and I know you do because you lived here for two years not too long ago, but, but in New York City, there so many, so diverse, and there's so many different pockets of communities that are literally like two or three blocks away from each other. Oftentimes don't even like, you know, talk to one another because everyone is just so busy a lot of times, you know what I mean? And so to actually, you know, have them leave with that information, it lets them know that like, you know, I can literally just cross the street and see that this place is somewhere that could actually employ me later on. Yeah, they can stay at home.
They can still live New York City and have those opportunities there for them. Yeah, for sure. All right, I want to talk a little bit about your experience with your family when you decided to go full on into this entrepreneurial venture and what your parents thoughts were because they obviously put you through college and you know, they came here so for the American dream. What were some of the things that occurred during that time?
So, you know, my parents have always been super supportive of me and anything that I wanted to do. And I think it's because I've built this level of trust with them and they've never had to question my integrity or my, you know, my ability or, you know, they always just trusted my instinct. But I will say that when I told them I was going to take New York on tech full time, that I was going to be a non profit entrepreneur, they were very confused because for them, you know, the idea of success, you know, my mom and dad, they work their entire life in factories and that's how they made their living. So the idea of owning something or that the idea of entrepreneurship, it was something that was very unfamiliar to them because we don't come from a family of entrepreneurs.
Even though I would say, or I would say we don't come from a family of traditional entrepreneurs. Right. Because my mom, she used to like knit, you know, she used to sell to a lot of her friends. So I still consider that a form of entrepreneurship.
And so for me, you know, they just didn't, they didn't get what, you know, they didn't get this idea of me taking New York on tech full time. I mean, I think still today they still don't get it. But there was a moment a few months ago, so I started as a technology anchor for Omidcion New York, which is the largest Spanish news network. And when they saw me on TV and they saw that I was talking about technology and I was talking about the importance of family engagement.
I think that's when they're like, okay, I think my daughter is doing something really good. As opposed to like when they didn't see me on TV at all, they were just like, what is it? When we were like. And they never really bothered me.
You know, it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, they like, excommunicated me from the family. It was more. It was more like, you know, I don't, I don't understand what you're doing right now. Just let me know if you're gonna be good and let me know if you're gonna end the back of my house.
Yeah. Spare room for you. Should I keep around that kind of stuff? Yeah, exactly.
My parents are coming home. Like, oh, you sit down there. But this time. Okay, a handful of times.
I'm curious to know a little bit more about your experience in doing tv. I has a really cool opportunity. I sound like you do it fully in Spanish as well. Yeah, I do it fully in Spanish.
You know, I think that there is, there's a lot of content online that's available for families and for parents to encourage their students to go into STEM related fields. But there's not enough content in Spanish and there's a huge population of Spanish speaking in the United States that that is their primary language when they're at home. And so we found that it's very important to actually get information in the hands of parents and content, you know, in Spanish to them so that they could also encourage their, their students to go into technology and go into engineering and mathematics. And so the purpose of the segment is really to give families, you know, a better understanding of the landscape of opportunities for their, their children in technology and give them pathways and resources to actually go explore if that's something that we were able to pick an interest in.
Parqueto se yolo natamien. Oh, very nice. That's great. I don't know if I told you, but I'm bilinguals.
I'm speaking Spanish for about five years now. Now I was like, oh, yeah, you're from Puerto Rico and of course you speak Spanish, but I saw that you told me that you did TV stuff, so that was very interesting. So do you feel like there's definitely a need for more parents from Hispanic background to be exposed to these kind of things just so that they go, hey, kids, you need to jump on this opportunity? Absolutely.
I think, I honestly think that parents are the, like, very important part of a child's experience. Of a child's experience, aside from the education system. A lot of times we bring opportunities directly to students not understanding that their parents have the final say on whether or not they can go to program or whether or not they can be involved in certain things. And so there needs to be more Opportunities for parental engagement.
There needs to be more opportunities to educate parents on opportunities for their students, especially for parents who. Who have never had an opportunity to explore education for themselves. You know, like my mom, she always just. My mom and dad, they always just trusted me to come with really good information and they would scope out the scene and like, based on how they feel, they would say yeah or nay when they actually came with me to attend.
You know what I mean? But, you know, if I didn't bring these opportunities for them, they wouldn't have known to encourage me to continue to go, as opposed to if someone came to my parent and was like, hey, there's a really cool technology camp or there's really cool mentorship program. Come check it out. You know, I, you know, I feel like there would have been more opportunities that my mom and dad would have pushed me through as opposed to me scraping and looking for resources and then hopefully trying to convince them.
I think there's a whole entire different dynamic that exists when it's. When it's introduced to them in their native tongue. Absolutely. For sure.
There's a. Significantly more likely to act upon it at that point in time. Right, Exactly. I'm even thinking about, like, parent teacher association meetings, you know, when you can.
Parent teacher conferences. Like when my mom used to go to the school, my dad used to go to school to speak to my teachers, to, you know, just get a progress. A report on how I was performing in classes. Like, a lot of times I would have to translate and my mom would just be there, like, shaking her head up and down like, okay, this is nice.
Yeah. Smiling because I was getting good feedback and she knew I wasn't going to translate. Like, oh, I was going to translate, you know, wrong information. So, yeah, I think.
Yeah, for sure. I think she. She think she would have appreciated a Spanish speaker. Yeah.
Yeah. I could see that being a game changer for parents to be able to have an additional person in there. Transl. What's going on?
All right, I want to talk a little bit about some other experiences you've had. I know you're part of. I believe it was called Camelback Ventures, and that actually is how you met another person I interviewed. Logan, tell me about what Camelback Ventures is.
Yeah, so Camelback Ventures is a fellowship program for underrepresented entrepreneurs who are looking to start up their organization in the social impact space. And so you'll notice that a lot of the fellows that go through the program have a specific focus on education or have a specific focus on you know, health for children, you know, it just has to have a social impact component. And it's for both for profit and nonprofit companies. And the way that we thought about Camelback Ventures was at as the friends and family round for, you know, entrepreneurs that oftentimes don't have friends or family to actually give to a capacity that would miss the needle on their idea.
And so through that fellowship, I met Logan over at Kudzu and she's. She's great. You know, I think we internally connected. She has a huge hustle and drive and I met a lot of other really great people who are doing amazing things in education and social impact for their communities, both on the national level and on the local level.
You know, those are relationships and people that I think very, very highly up for the work that they're doing. It sounds like they were sort of a catalyst to you getting to where you need to be. Yeah, for sure. I think that, you know, going through, so.
So I think going through accelerators are really important because oftentimes when, especially like during that time when I was in Camelback and I did other accelerators as well, it was just ev. We had no instructors, we had no team. It was just literally me and Evan, who was my co founder. And you know, when I, you know, when you, when you do an accelerator, it's really nice to get objective point of views that are not so part.
So that are not so part of your business because it allows you to get external perspectives for. For free. Right? External perspectives for free that you then take back with you and then iterate on your product or service.
So I found, you know, the accelerated. That one's really helpful for that. Yeah, I think this is a perfect segue into a topic we were discussing earlier, which is how entrepreneurship today is romanticized. What do you think on that?
Definitely. You know, I always tell people that entrepreneurship is. Is one of the hardest things that you could possibly do. You know, I mean, I think like a lot of people who are not part of the day to day or part of the actual business, they see a lot of your external success because of things like social media or Twitter or LinkedIn.
But I always tell everyone, like, you know, that's just a very small part of the puzzle of what is entrepreneurship like. There's some days like, oh my God, yay. You know, we got funding from this person, oh my God, yay. You know, we certified all the mentors and students.
But there are days where it's like, oh my God, this is so hard. And you Know, I think there's not enough stories about how hard it is because there's so many, like, clickbait kind of articles online about the successes that people are having. Granted, we've had our successes, but we've also, you know, know, have learned so much in the past two years that, that I would say didn't come from just easy learnings, they came from really hard learnings. Yeah, there needs to be a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into starting a company.
You can't, can't do a company on half life. It doesn't work the same. For sure. It would be nice to just get up and have like a list of customers waiting to pay you, but, you know, that's just not necessarily how to go.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Anybody I know, I know. I recently have been doing a lot of consulting actually through Snapchat.
So I have a follow. I have a large following on that. And I haven't really communicated to the community that always looks at my Snapchat feed. And I started asking them, like, what do you guys plan on doing?
What are you doing with your company? Anything I can answer questions for. And I get a lot of entrepreneurs that are very hesitant to launch or go, I got this going on. I got this going on.
And I, every single time I advise them is, do you want to do it or not? Right. Exactly. You know, some of them are like, yeah, I really want to do it.
Well, take the time and get something out there. Don't waste your time. Don't, don't be so apprehensive to diving in. You can make a mistake.
It's totally okay. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, like, that's one thing I learned, like just about building a startup is like, hey, you're not really going to know what works until you actually go do something and test your idea.
You know what I mean? And I think, like, I think the, the idea of perfectionism and has to be the right time, you know, there's no right time. You can't be perfect. You have to be scrappy.
And you just have to learn. So long as you don't continue to make the same mistake over and over and over, you're going to be, you're going to be okay. Yeah. That.
Building up a resilience as an entrepreneur is key to success. I know. A recent interview with Jeremiah Miller, 14 years. He talked about grit being the number one attribute of successful and that if you've got grit, you're likely to plow through whatever optical you have in order to get that result, no matter what's going on in your life.
Absolutely. For sure. I mean, because grit is going to determine whether or not you're going to keep up the fight or whether or not you're just going to let any little backing that comes your way to feed you. Exactly, exactly.
Well, Jessica, I want to sort of come to a conclusion of our interview here with a couple of rapid fire questions. How's that sound? That sounds great. Do you have a favorite book?
I do. I actually finished reading Never Eat Alone by Keith Ramnath to rather not too long ago, and I would say that by far that's my favorite book right now. What about Never Eat Alone do you like the most? You know, I think that there's not enough emphasis on building relationships.
And I think especially like with a lot of my peers, when I talk to them, they're just like jazz, like, you know, you're so good at connecting with people. And I'm just like, yeah, because I connect people with people and all of my connections, like I provide a value to them. You know, it's not just I meet someone, I take something and they never hear from me again. You know what I mean?
And I think that he does a really good job at showing how, you know, your network is actually one, you know, you know, actually the people that can catapult you to the next level and they, you know, the way that you build those relationships is based on trust and based on, you know, credibility. It's not, you know, it's not one of those things where you meet someone, you automatically have to take them. You have to be authentic, you have to be genuine. And there has to be a mutual opt in for that relationship to actually work.
And I think he did a fantastic job at, at, at presenting scenarios and building on use cases in his personal life and others that actually worked. You know, you've inspired me to read that. I, I really like that story. I've yet to hear that book, to be honest.
And I, I honest, I really now. Yeah, that's for sure. Definitely look into it. So my next question, who inspires you?
You know, my mom and dad inspire me. And it's because I've seen, you know, you always hear stories, you know, about people who come from the bottom and then make it to the top. And those stories are really nice. When you read them, it's like, oh, you know, congratulations.
Like, that's really huge. But for me, like my mom and dad, like, I saw their, their, their bottom to top, like I saw it, you Know what it was like to have to be creative because when you don't have a lot of resources, you're forced to create. And I think seeing how even in those moments of uncertainty or in those moments where they didn't have a lot, they still kept a smile on their face. And they were always very positive people who instilled very important values in me despite, you know, whatever it was that they were going through I think was always very inspiring for me.
So my mom and dad are definitely those people. Awesome parents. Do your part. You can change your kids lives for sure.
All right, my final question for you is if you weren't an entrepreneur, what would you be doing? You know, I really liked, I really liked working as a technology consultant. I think I've always thought about, you know, products and services and how they play a very important role in our society and you know, working for the companies I worked for, I think digital projects and you know, being part of creating long term impactful things. What was the more, the more fun thing about my job is if I wasn't doing New York on Tech all time, I would still be a tech consultant and looking for other outlets to express my, you know, my desire to give back to the, to the community.
I really enjoyed being a techie. Sounds like you wouldn't be too far from where you currently are, just. Exactly. Yeah, for sure.
Awesome. So just go. Where can my listeners get in contact with you? For sure.
So you can follow my personal account on Twitter, Instagram @Jess Worldwide and you can also follow our New York on Tech account at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram New York Contact. And that's New York spelled out as New York instead of ny. But yeah, those are my primary sources of contact and I'm always on social media. I respond with that.
Perfect, perfect. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to interview with Cult of Startup. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no, thank you for having me.
This was a really great interview. Awesome as always. Cult of Startup listeners, you live. There you have it folks.
That was Jessica Santana of New York on Tech. Feel free to reach out to her at any point in time. I will leave all of her contact information for you in the show notes. As always, thank you for tuning in.
Please reach out to me. I'm on social media. I'm on anchor, I am on Instagram, I on Snapchat, I am on Facebook, I'm all those channels, all at Cult of Startup. Come find me and communicate with me, especially on Snapchat.
Hope you all have a great day and take care of.