"Take a chance, believe in what you can do, and actually go for it. What's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is you just never tried in the first place, and the best that can happen is you're massively successful."
Elizabeth Dodson learned the value of taking a chance when she co-founded HomeZada, an online app that helps homeowners manage their largest financial asset, their home. Elizabeth believes that your worth is determined by what you value it to be and credits her confidence for her success. She points out how women can help one another feel more confident by showing each other a different "mirror" of ourselves and talks about her experience advocating for her female colleagues' advancement.
We speak with Elizabeth about the value of taking risks, the importance of confidence, founding and managing a startup, her experience advocating for her female colleague's advancement, advice she has for other women in their careers, advice she received from her biggest mentor, being flexible in your career, her awareness of gender in her career, tools she uses to make her life more manageable, and more.
"Managing and owning and operating a company is hard work. This is not for the weak of heart, they need to really stand beside it and they need to move forward and persevere. Not only is it hard work, but you are going to get a lot of naysayers...you have to really believe in what you're doing in order to move forward."
Advice:
- If you have adult responsibilities but want to create a start up look at your work hours – can you reduce them but stay in your job, and use your weekends.
- As women we don’t have to everything on our own, look for like minded co-founders.
- With so much rapid change make sure you keep embracing education.
- You can do anything if you work really hard.
- Listen to what your clients are saying.
- Take the chance as this opens the possibility to take more chances.
- You need to just ask if you want a raise of a promotion.
Life gets in the way.
Your value of your worth is determined on what you value it to be
"I would like everyone, especially women, to look in the mirror and just remind themselves: they are confident and that they can do anything, and sometimes taking a risk and a chance actually will pay off."
In this episode, you'll learn:
Elizabeth is the co-founder of Homezada which manages all the details of your house and stores them in the cloud and can also be linked with associate products for the home eg, mortgage
insurance, service provider, home improvements.
Elizabeth had the idea when she realized she had a management system for the construction of the Dallas Cowboys stadium, but not for her home.
This is the only product like it in the market which means that Elizabeth has to sell and educate her customers.
Elizabeth took this chance with the start up and moved from the East to West coast having never visited California.
HomeZada has users in every US state and 8 international markets.
To work in a start up, you need a supportive partner and educate them on what to expect.
Working in a start up means that you get to work in several roles over time.