Her Story
About Yana
I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family, and my mom was an entrepreneur. It always seemed like a job is something that you create for yourself, not something given to you. I always had that sense that being your own boss would be my way of living, with the freedom that comes with it, but also the control over the quality of work. I was very fascinated with that aspect of it, and I knew that this was fitting better with my personality and my way of being. I spent 2 years in Silicon Valley under the Alchemist Accelerator, which is one of the best B2B accelerators for startup founders in San Francisco, backed by Salesforce, Cisco, and some of the other big companies. We were one of 10 companies that got selected to receive funding from Techstars out of about 2,000 applicants, which is another notable business accelerator. I learned tremendously from that education for business owners and entrepreneurs, and the learnings from those experiences really shaped me as an entrepreneur in that ecosystem. My previous company was a consumer company that served over a million customers and was number one on the App Store for task management for 4 years. I was in touch with the customers and could feel the impact we were making in their day. Now with my current company in enterprise AI, it's different because you're a bit more removed from the actual impact on the end user, but the goal is still the same - to help knowledge managers in large enterprises feel that their day functions better and they feel more fulfilled in their job because the tedious work is now done by AI.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Yana
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think that mindset of being uncomfortable, being nervous - I don't see myself as successful, and I think that this is also part of what keeps me going. I always think, oh, I can do better, I can do better, and I should do better, so I can learn more. The moment I feel like I'm getting too comfortable in a field or in an area and there's not that much to learn, I want to move to a new room where I'm gonna be the complete newbie that goes around and asks stupid questions. I really try to put myself in an environment where I'm constantly learning and growing.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be your own cheerleader. Don't expect people to go around and believe in your ideas, believe in your way. Really ground yourself in your intuition, and if you really want to do something, go for it. The cheerleaders will be right there once you actually start to make it happen. You don't need them on the way to get there, just believe in yourself. I think it's a really important thing, especially for young people, that can get them out there learning new things instead of waiting for the validation of somebody externally.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge with AI right now is that the technology itself is moving very rapidly, maybe to the point where it seems off-putting to a lot of people. There's a lot of fear talk and constant bombardment of stories about how professions are no longer needed and people are gonna get fired. This is creating a lot of anxiety among people and resistance to adopt the tools that can ultimately serve them to do their job better and take over tedious work. I'm not as fascinated with the technical challenges - there are way smarter people working on them. What fascinates me most is how can I enable the average person to get over the inertia to work with AI, and how can I help them mentally feel empowered that this can serve them. I want to get them out of the negative narrative and focus on the positives, and bring back that empowerment that they are experts in their fields and can be very valuable in this new era. There are so many opportunities they can unravel if they're willing to learn new skills with these technologies.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
In my personal life and my work, I look at them as a synergy - I don't want to change who I am between the two. Most important is to be a good person. When you have a hard choice between doing good, doing what's right, and doing something that will materialize your success or whatever, do the right thing. Always do the right thing. In the long term, I believe it pays off in terms of quality of life, the person you become, and the people you will surround yourself with as a result of these choices. It will naturally filter out the bad partnerships and the bad business opportunities. So it's a really simple filter that trickles down to so many things in life and business afterwards.
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