Veronica Nieto

I attribute my success to my case studies and my experience. Throughout my career, I've built up a portfolio of real-world work that demonstrates what I can do, and that hands-on experience has been invaluable in establishing credibility with clients and opening doors for my business.

The best career advice I've ever received is to continue to push forward and manifest what you want. When I worked at ESRI, Environmental System Research Institute, it was really hard to get into that billion-dollar corporation. A lot of my friends applied and got rejected even just by email, but I went all the way through and had to interview with a panel. I actually did a whole presentation, which wasn't even required, just because I really wanted this position. I manifested it too - I said, I'm gonna be parking in this parking lot right here, and I'm gonna be working in this office. I prepared for a couple of weeks for that interview, which took a couple of months, and sure enough, I got hired. When I got laid off at first, I was thinking about the layoffs going on, but I decided, you know what, I'm gonna start co-founding Studio Supermassive, I'm gonna start getting my clients, I know my work, I have the skills, and it just started working.

I would say just go for it in a way that gets you involved in tech. Find the one tech tool that a lot of people are not really looking into, and master it - study it and know what you're doing. This way, when you have a presentation or when you're talking to someone, you know exactly the answers to give and provide. A lot of the times, what opens doors is just knowing the topic and being the subject matter expert at something. Even if you don't know the answer to everything, at least know something of it. When I started SEO, it was a brand new thing and Craigslist was out there. I learned the algorithm through Craigslist and was able to rank other businesses through there. Now it's become more associated with Google, and now it's AI. Instead of seeing AI as a tool that maybe is taking over, see it more like, okay, I need to learn it, I need to know what's exactly behind this, what is LLM, and how can I use it in order to still continue to advance.

The biggest challenge right now is that tech is a very bright area where there's been a lot of layoffs. That's a challenge where it's like, okay, where do I pivot? What do I have to do different? If something is not working, let's pivot and see what is working, and focus on those that actually need the help. For example, a lot of small businesses don't realize the advantage of using AI, and there's a lot of small businesses that need that help and they have the resources. They want to learn how to get their businesses out there because they are competing with big corporate names. A lot of times we tend to focus on wanting to work with these big corporations, but we forget that there's also these small businesses that are also bringing profit, but they also need that help to get their businesses out there. If they thrive, you thrive as a professional as well.

In my personal life, family is definitely the most important value - that's everything to me. My daughter means the world to me, and I feel like that is what keeps pushing me to continue to go forward, because she's looking up to me. She's seeing what I'm doing, and that's something that I want to show her - not to give up on anything and just continue. Recently, she had a little kindergarten graduation, and she said, oh, mom, I want to go to college, and then I want to be a mom, or I want to be a mom and go to college. I didn't teach her that directly, so that's something that she's seeing me do, and I'm like, okay, good, that's what I want her to do. As far as my profession, I think that reputation is very important, and showing your skills is something that, when it comes to this field, is very, very important. And just learning and keeping on learning every day. When it comes to tech, it's a learning field more than anything, every day.