Finding Your Market Fit: Alana Frome’s Journey to HiMama
“I think it kind of encapsulates my journey; both running from, and running straight toward the feeling of being an impostor.”
– Alana Frome
Barely 30 seconds into our webinar with Michelle Scarborough, Managing Partner with BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund and Alana Frome, Co-Founder and CTO of HiMama, a theme women entrepreneurs know all too well came to dominate the conversation: impostor syndrome. Even though HiMama — Alana’s socially responsible software app — raised $7.5M in Series A funding last year, Alana shared how she occasionally still suffers the odd bought of doubt.
“You hear phrases like ‘fake it till you make it’ a lot, and I think that's both helpful and harmful.Harmful, because it normalizes the feeling, but also helpful because you know you do just have to jump in.”
As Michelle asked poignant questions about Alana’s entrepreneurial journey, we were struck by the frankness from both interviewer and interviewee, the social mission behind HiMama and the inevitable grit, hard work and integrity behind every entrepreneur. Here are some of the fantastic Q&As from Michelle and Alana:
Michelle:
I see lots of founders and co-founders of companies that are looking for venture to grow big global businesses, but not many of them have a woman in the CTO position of their business. You're very unique in that role. How did you decide that was what you wanted to do?
Alana:
The “product-market fit” of my career has not been a straightforward path. Engineering is sort of hilarious; initially I chose it because I really didn't know what it was, and it sounded ‘mysterious.’ I thought, ‘well, I like math, I like writing, maybe this does both?’
Right out of school I went straight into what I thought I would be doing — a mix of consulting and software. But it felt too corporate for me, and I really bounced around for a while; I moved to France to teach English, I worked as an independent contractor while living in India, and then as a compound manager in South Sudan. And throughout these different experiences I’d ask myself: Is there a way that I can blend this with tech, software and some of the other things I’m passionate about? It seemed like there was an opportunity for me to carve my own path, which was clearly already a theme for me.
I had to have the confidence to be really bad at something. Because being an entrepreneur is a lot about being really bad at things and getting comfortable with that.
When I finally got into tech start-ups, I was kind of loud about it. I moved to New York and finally found my product-market fit — and I needed people to know! I looked on Start-up Hub to see if anyone needed co-founders. I joined clubs. I even rode a bus for a few days trying to start a company with other entrepreneurs. I really immersed myself in the start-up space, and in the end, that’s how I wound up with HiMama — through that whole experience.
Michelle:
Talk to us a little bit about the story of HiMama. Why did you think that building a company like HiMama is serving the market that you're after?
Alana:
HiMama is in the childcare and early childhood education space, and we currently make apps that we sell directly to childcare centres that help the administrators and owners of these businesses run their companies better. Our software helps educators in the classroom better plan their days and share the results with parents , really immersing the whole family in the learning experience and hopefully giving parents visibility into how they can better help their children at home, too.
The idea of early childhood education was always at the forefront for us, and I think that’s why the opportunity was so interesting and unique. I met some of our co-founders through another start-up I was working for in New York. One of them had recently had a child and they introduced me to Ron Spreeuwenberg, HiMama’s Co-Founder & CEO. Together we realised that there was an opportunity.
Studies keep coming out about how important early education is in a child’s journey and we saw this as a place for technology to help. This immediately got us excited.
Michelle:
Let’s talk about social impact. As you think about your career, has social impact — being able to make a difference in a child’s life or a family’s — always been important to you?
Alana:
I get asked that question a lot during recruitment and interviewing — and it is true — it’s in the fabric of our business. Our mission is driven within early childhood education, it pushes us to be a better business and focus on the social good. We became a B Corp — we devote time and resources to really being involved in our industry in an impactful way, we do educational content for the industry —It seeps into everything we do.
Michelle:
Absolutely. Lots of people have the “fire in their belly,” but also having that triple bottom line approach to business is where the markets are going and where people are really leaning in. As you think about leadership in your organization and being a very prominent leader yourself, both as the CTO and also as a co-founder, what are some of the key attributes that you bring to that role?
Alana:
I think not losing sight of the big picture is certainly something that I try to bring to the company and within my teams. We have to make a lot of very small, and yet very important decisions day in and day out. It's sometimes easy to lose sight of all of this — and as you say, the fire in the belly, you know, you don’t want to lose sight of it when it’s this important and impactful.
Like all businesses of our kind, we’re in an interesting place; the mission is important, it’s what drives us, but we also do need a sustainable business — we need to be able to keep driving towards that mission. Part of my role is finding that intersection and finding the next thing that does that for us, helping shape how we grow as a business and the social mission piece of it all.
Michelle:
HiMama has raised multiple rounds. The company is growing even through a crisis. What is your role in fundraising?
Alana:
During the early days, we did much smaller friends and family rounds. It’s interesting to have the opportunity to awkwardly reach out to your closest friends and family to find out if they believe in the crazy adventure you’re on — making clear that you’re not asking for charity, but that the investment is risky.
You are, of course, asking for people’s hard-earned money — and they should be skeptical. But you know, I have a couple friends who would probably never know what I do — but because they’re now investors, they do. And that’s pretty cool.
Michelle:
You now have institutional investors as well as friends and family. Did you find the dynamic of the earlier investors change as you brought on institutional investors?
Alana:
Oh yeah. They brag about it! Now they’re proud of it.
Some of my friends actually feel they missed out! So with more institutional investment, I would definitely give a shout out to others who are more heavily involved in that process. To answer your question, it depended on the investors. Sometimes, it’s very important that they need co-founders and really stand for that dynamic in the beginning.
Michelle:
Talk a little bit about the kinds of investors you were looking for. As you transitioned from friends and family to angel and onward to institutional, are there important considerations?
Alana:
I would say we approached the problem, like we do a lot of problems, with due diligence. We made a spreadsheet, we put all the firms in it, and we investigated what their particular interest in our type of business would be. We looked at the amount we wanted to raise within their philosophy, for example, if they were private equity or VCs. That helped us to prioritize outreach.
Michelle:
From your perspective, what is it like coming out of this pandemic crisis as you’re looking to be a global player?
Alana:
Well, we for sure immediately went into crisis mode. When talking with our investors and our leadership, it’s always on our minds to protect the business from what could happen. Our industry is very impacted by the pandemic — 80% of childcare centres enacted temporary closures — these were very challenging times and we all know it could happen again.
These things are hard to plan for. But you need to have reserves to plan and understand what all it means. We found that having a lot of communication and transparency within the team to be very valuable and to make sure we’re giving them enough information that they feel comfortable because everyone is in a state of anxiety.
Basically, we learned to be prepared. To understand now with this first hurdle that this is something we can get past, to make sure we’re still looking to the future, and making exciting plans for the things we believe in. And that we’re able to make progress even in these times, with these new rule cards.
Michelle:
I think I’ll wrap up here, with: If you had one piece of advice to give to women building their business today, what would it be?
Alana:
For me, advice around failure and learning to like it, is really important. You need to learn to like it. According to statistics, your first company will fail. My first few did — you can’t be afraid to look stupid while you’re doing things and learning.
Thank you so much, Michelle and Alana! We’re tempted to transcribe all the audience questions as well, but there were so many good ones, and this blog post would transform into a novel.
Which actually… sounds like a pretty good read.
Learn more about Michelle here and BDC Capital’s WIT Fund here, along with Alana here, and HiMama here.
Thanks again.
-The51 Team