[00:00:27] Brittany: I'm
[00:00:32] Jay: Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by Brittany Jenkins. She is the founder of WeAreTech. it's a company that's building an ed tech platform to provide underserved communities, equitable digital literacy tools and resources. I think I got through all of that pretty well, Brittany.
Thank you for joining me. How are you?
[00:00:49] Brittany: doing well. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:51] Jay: You're very welcome. I, we were just talking about some interesting stuff before we started kind of some pivoting and just, you know, your branding and all sorts of stuff. But let's start, with where you came from. Where'd you grow up and do you think that had any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?
[00:01:06] Brittany: I think when I grew up has a bigger impact on me becoming an entrepreneur than where, but I grew up in San Diego, California. My family is from the East coast, but the military brought us to the West and yeah, I grew up very, in a very laid back type of, you know, environment. Like we're beach people, you know, always at the beach.
Just taking our time. and I think in terms of being an entrepreneur that did a tribute to me being able to just move at my own pace. because everywhere else I've ever lived, I've been challenged with moving at the city's pace, but because I grew up in Southern California, I've always been able to just kind of level out and at my own pace.
And, entrepreneurship requires you to just really be able to manage your own pace and go with it. You know the flow and the waves and the tides of like what may come in your business development journey So, yeah, I guess you can say where I grew up did a tribute to me being entrepreneur but I think more so when I grew up like I'm a 90s, baby, and I Grew up during that time where technology digital technology was really starting to get, you know integrated Into you know, everybody's everyday life My first phone was that Nokia little brick phone when I was like maybe like in the 10th or 6th grade or no, 6th or 5th grade and yeah that time just made you very scrappy like if you wanted to access the internet you had to So, yeah.
Plug a dial connection into the wall if you wanted to record, you know, things on your TV You had to plug in a VCR like I think that time just having to be very hands on with technology having to Program your myspace page having to burn CDs like we weren't supposed to but still like having to really hack Technology together.
I think that made me very entrepreneurial Yeah, it just made me learn how to figure things out.
[00:03:02] Jay: you have any entrepreneurs, in your life when you're growing up?
[00:03:07] Brittany: Not in my family, Growing up, I did see a couple entrepreneurs in my city. Like, a friend of mine, her dad, owned a chicken shack. My friend Siobhan Charles, yeah, she's really dope. he owned a chicken spot. That was honestly one of my only exposures of people to being an entrepreneur. Like, everybody I grew up around They had, you know, blue collar or like corporate jobs, you know, working for the county, you know, working for like, you know, school.
I didn't really have a lot of entrepreneurs around me when I was younger.
[00:03:41] Jay: Okay. That is the case sometimes. Sometimes it's an acquired, skillset, you know, and just picked up as you go.
so, so tell me about, we are tech, you know, we talked a little bit about, it was maybe more of an org focused kind of thing.
You're pivoting to be more of a platform. But tell me where did the idea come from?
Where did you kind of come up with this and tell me how the genesis of we are tech.
[00:04:05] Brittany: Well, it started, I guess the ethos behind it started when I was working in the tech industry. I quickly learned that there was a lack of diversity in the tech industry, and not just diversity in terms of race, but also diversity in thought. And, that really bothered me. You know, it gets very exhausting when you're Not in a company or not in an environment that one may not fully accept you but also does not always understand where you're coming from and Especially when it comes to tech like tech is deeply integrated into our daily habits And I firmly believe that a tech company has to reflect The audience of the people who are using their platform in order for the company to equitably Serve or empathetically serve so that really bothered me and, I ended up volunteering one time for this.
it was like a, it was like a seminar where some girls came to our company to learn about coding and I volunteered for that. And I just really liked the way the young girls faces just lit up. I was just like, wow, like, you guys really like this. You guys like learning and like, you guys are really warm towards me in terms of learning this from me.
So it was just really cool to have that experience and that made me want to get an education. So I became a teacher and I became a tech teacher in North Philly. shout out to Simon Grass High School. yeah, I became a teacher and while I was there, I learned why there was a lack of diversity in the tech industry.
there were barely any students that I taught that really understood the basics of digital literacy and like, I mean, like keyboard shortcuts, like things like that, like, like this generation, this younger generation, a lot of times people just expect them to know things about tech, but they're really the touchscreen generation, so they don't really understand a lot about different interfaces, keyboarding, using a mouse trackpad, like, There's just little nuances of using tech that it was just lost on a lot of the kids that I would teach So that just made me understand like if they're struggling with this, they're not matriculating into any type of college You know study that is going to lead them on the pathway to being in the tech industry You know, like, you know, you can't do if you don't know what control paste is There's a high probability that you may not understand basic Engineering, you know what I mean, or different, you know what I mean, like there's just certain things where you like, you need those parallels in order for someone to have the transferable, you know, aptitude to matriculate into a tech role.
And, yeah, that made me just want to really start an organization. Originally we started the organization to do workshops and do office visits. So, right before the pandemic, I had scheduled an office visit at, at Facebook, which is now meta. I had an opportunity to work there back in 2016, so I had some really good relationships there.
I scheduled an office visit, scheduled a workshop for my students, just to do like a pilot of like what we are tech can be. You know, getting kids in the environment, learning the skills so that they can see themselves in that position. And, then the pandemic occurred and, everything I canceled. So, so it was just like, yeah, no, like you think you're about to do this, but this is not how this is going to go.
So, but it earthed, I mean it birthed a whole new part of the business. I thought we were going to be just a non profit org where we're exposing kids to tech, you know, through these workshops and office visits. And quickly I became the tech integration specialist at the school that I was teaching at, which was Gratz at the time.
So I immediately started making documents to teach people's keyboarding. Teach people how to navigate Google Classroom and various other platforms for the staff and for my students. So it was a full immersive exposure to like, here's the problem, like people really don't understand basic technology and the reason why that is, is because digital literacy education is not standardized nationwide.
And when you look at, you know like English, math, science. There is statewide, nationwide standards for which you need to know, whereas like digital literacy, there isn't anything, like,
[00:08:35] Jay: Yeah. It's just a computer class or something, right? Like it's not.
[00:08:37] Brittany: exactly, your principal, your district, you know, supervisors, all these people, they're not held accountable to any type of, Standard system that says by this grade our kids need to know how this works with computers by this age They need to know how to do that.
Like there's nothing there and like often times It's a lot of one off where they're like, okay We have like you said computer class or we have a graphic design elective or we have, you know Engineering 101 elective like so that just let me know like I already had a hunch of like Here's why I want to be in this space because it's important for equity.
It's important for inclusion But then once I was put in the hot seat, I was like, Oh, there actually needs to be a product here. Like, I can't just do this for one school community and it shouldn't be all on one person. And on top of that, there's not a bunch of people like me. There's not a bunch of people from the tech industry leaving the tech industry to go work in education in order for kids to get this education.
So, I was like, you know, there needs to be a platform that can make it easy where like, one It makes it more accessible where people can just go onto the platform and access the resources they need or gauge where they are in their understanding and, you know, create a pathway in that way. Teachers need resources, so whenever there's digital literacy integrated into their curriculum, like, say, an English teacher needs to teach kids how to make a worksiteds page, but may not understand the language around teaching kids, you know, the user interface of Word or Google Docs.
There needs to be something there that can address that. So, I started, you know, building. I started building. I went back into my tech bag. I'm like, alright, I know this process. I've been a part of this process before. So, I started mocking up some UIs and Reached out to a strategic partner that partnership that I built and, just built, you know, built a working prototype and, you know, it's been really cool.
Like, now we're at the point where, as I was sharing before, like, we're transitioning from being an organization to needing to rebrand as an actual product because we have something that people can use and it needs to stand on its own as a product and platform versus an organization with the mission.
[00:10:52] Jay: who is the user, or not the user, who is the, purchaser or your target customer to acquire this platform that you'd be selling? Is it school districts? Is it individual families? Is it individual people? Is it teachers? Like how, who's buying this thing and kind of applying it to the school setting?
[00:11:12] Brittany: Got it. Well, that's a good question. And I've, in having a product like this and I think Can you hear me? Because I think
[00:11:18] Jay: yeah,
[00:11:19] Brittany: Can you hear me?
Okay, cool. I think the next thing I'm about to say will be very useful for social impact businesses Because oftentimes when you make a social impact product, the target audience that you're engaging may not be Your customer may be the person sponsoring your target audience And that's something that I learned with we are tech.
so our target audience. Even though a lot of people are like, Old people, they would love this, they need to learn tech. And I'm like, that's cool, but
[00:11:50] Jay: Right.
[00:11:51] Brittany: people, you know, K through 12, and we're honing in on the 6th through 12th grade because they have a lot more autonomy. They can use it more, as an individual.
our target audience are 6th through 12th grade students. And our target customer would be the sponsors of them, so we're gonna do a, teacher plan. Where teachers can purchase the curriculum or the platform access to the platform and sponsor like a classroom size of students Organizations we've been working with Nonprofits with our workshops and we find that they definitely want to purchase what we have to offer to share it with Their you know organization members and eventually I would love to do a family Plan, but we haven't fleshed out What that looks like yet.
So I haven't really been pitching that or including it in my pitch deck at all. But, but yeah, we're targeting the people who would sponsor our target audience to have access to our platform as customers.
[00:12:49] Jay: Got it. That makes a lot of sense.
[00:12:51] Brittany: Thank you. UX
[00:12:55] Jay: so, maybe, you have, you're going through this rebrand now. you've kind of learned some lessons along the way. I usually ask this question to Companies that have been around for a while, but I'm curious what your answer would be if you had to start over again tomorrow from square one, you know, you've done all these things.
You've learned all this stuff. If you were going to start out to build a product to provide, you know, these equitable, you know, access to digital literacy. what would be step one of you to start over again tomorrow?
[00:13:32] Brittany: research.
[00:13:34] Jay: And
how would you do that? By the way, that's a great, that's a great answer. very specifically, how would you go about doing that?
[00:13:41] Brittany: surveys, I would do what we're doing now, like originally. I had a concept and was like, Oh, let's build this. And then I went and built it and, it was cool. And, but I find that like, and I think a lot of startups do this. They build something where they have an idea and they go and build it. And then when they test it, they try to make the data validate what they built.
[00:14:07] Jay: Of course. Right. Right.
[00:14:08] Brittany: And it's like,
[00:14:09] Jay: and money building something. it better validate what we just did.
[00:14:12] Brittany: yeah. And it's just like, no, like we're. You're not in the business of product. You're in the business of people, like point blank period. when you're an entrepreneur, you're in the business of people. What do people need? What do people want? Because nobody is going to just buy something because you said you, you built it and you want them to buy it.
Like, no, you have to really understand the problem, understand the pain points, understand the needs, understand, you know, the value of solving that problem, the value of You know, your solution solving that problem. So I would have done a lot more user experience research because when you do that, you can really, without doing anything, you can analyze people's experience around, especially when it comes to workflows, you can analyze their experience around the problem you're addressing with their use of other products.
So instead of having to spend all that money. If you're building something that's like a live streaming platform, you can survey people about their experience with all the other streaming platforms. Like, when you use YouTube Live, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Twitch, when you use all these different platforms, you know, what is your experience like?
How do you log in? You know, like you could ask tons of questions and then get insight on like, oh, okay, here's where the pain point is. Here's what other platforms aren't doing that they need a platform to do. Let's do that.
[00:15:41] Jay: That's a great,
that's a great. And so I love that very much. And I talk about this quite a bit on the show and just in general to other friends. Market research has to be like the biggest boogeyman in the world, right? Like it's the scariest, but probably most easy to do thing. You know, it's like, it's a very daunting task to go out and say like, I'm going to do that.
So I am curious
if you were building, you know, just pick an example. If you were doing a live stream, if you were doing maybe even your own platform and you were going to go do market research, tell me kind of. You know, tactically, like how do you do that? Would you like find people on the street? Would you like call people?
Would you like find people online? Like, do you send 'em a spreadsheet? Like how
would you acquire that information from potential customers or people who use platforms like ones you were gonna build?
[00:16:42] Brittany: There's a variety, so you can always, so here, I'll say this. It's good to interact with people who are part of the demographic that you want to appeal to that you don't know. So like, oftentimes, people get sucked into like, okay, like, I want to build. This thing for salon owners because I'm in the beauty industry and I noticed that all the salon owners that I know They struggle with this.
So what happens is because you're in that energy that industry You tend to go to the people, you know, and then those 10 15, maybe even 100 people, you know They all are you know, like oh, yeah. Yeah, I like that. I'd like that. But nine times out of ten, like, they like you, they know you, and they want to encourage you, you know.
you need to put yourself in a position where you can survey a test sample of people that you don't know. So that's step one. So, and there's other ways to step out of, you know, your inner circle and think outside. Okay, how can I engage people I don't know that are still in this demographic that I want to appeal to?
Rooted in reality step one step two is look at the different strategies you can take So if you want to do And I think these strategies can be based off the sample size you want to work off of so like with tech a thousand is a is really a standard sample size in terms of traction like any pitch You'd ever do with any investor.
It would be great to say like we Talk to a thousand people, you know, but hey, it's 200. That's fine, too. There's ways to Identify what's the best service sample size for you? And there's actually a book that I learned about in the early validation Academy that I'm a part of that they talked about It's something about statistics like I forgot It sucks I forgot what it's called, but there's books on like, you know, just literally Google the words UX research and statistics and you'll see like, or UX research statistics manga.
And there's literally one book that's going to come up for that. But any who, yeah, identify the strategy. If you want to work with a small sample size, maybe you might want to do like some hands on focus groups. If you want to do a larger sample size surveys. there's different options in terms of like the market research testing or, that you want to do.
So surveys, focus groups, I can't think of a lot more of them right now. but even workshops, I think workshops work too. Cause like that's the tool we're using at We Are Tech. Like workshops put you in a position where like you can. Put it out there in terms of like what you're about especially if you're a social impact business You can create some type of themed workshop around what you're about and then that puts you in a mixture like you're in a focus group Slash you're probably testing content on your platform to refine it and then after the workshop you can give somebody a survey And it's like a full immersive kind of like market research process.
and then one I think that is really dope is lead generation tactics. So like marketing funnels and lead generation tactics, I think are, that's something I want to get deeper into. So like, if you wanted to identify, you know, identify with those people who are part of your demographic that you don't know.
You can set up, you know, a web page, put some Facebook ads out into the ether, Instagram ads, any type of social media ads, put them out into the ether and lead those people to that web page that has either your survey or, a brief, you know, you know, tidbit about what you're doing and get people serving that way.
Like there is, you know, there's a few different things you can do. I know one thing we're gonna do at VR Tech is do, some assessment, so kinda like the 16 personalities test. We're gonna create an assessment that people can do and let that be a funnel into the, into our, you know, our ecosystem of content.
So, so yeah, Yeah, get rooted in reality, you know, in terms of stepping outside of people that you know. Find, think of what type of test sample is gonna work for you, whether it be small, large, and then think about the tactics that fall within that and, you know, don't be shy with, type form or paper form, you know, those tools work.
[00:21:01] Jay: And I love those answers. all right, let's switch gears a little bit because I am curious. I think I have a good read on your type of personality, which is very, kind of consistently inspired
and you get excited by, you know, by putting new things out into the world and kind of seeing how people react and building things. I can appreciate that. I can appreciate that, mindset. So, but my question is, what are your hobbies and what do you do to not be dialed in all the damn time and like just relax a
little bit and not be thinking about the next big thing?
[00:21:43] Brittany: man, I try. I really like collaging even though I haven't done it in so long. I like the outdoors. so I love going on like hikes and stuff. Hiking out here is different than it was in Cali though. Like, in California, like, I used to drive hours to go for a hike because even though you don't have to, you could hike, you know, down the street, you know, at the park that's 15 minutes away, but I would drive for a while to go hiking because those beach spots, oh my gosh, those beach spots are just like a oasis.
but I live near the Wissahickon out here in, in Philly, so I'm always going to Wissahickon Park to walk with my dogs and stuff. yeah, that's pretty much it, hacking and collaging. And since I haven't collaged in a while, I've actually taken up 3D design.
So, I like that a lot. Like, I feel like 3D is like a, it's like a catch all.
Like, I get to be creative, and you have that as an outlet, and it's a lucrative field, so I get to build on something I could do to earn money while I'm building my business, you know.
[00:22:43] Jay: Beautiful.
All right. One
last question. One last question. Non business related. And I'm even going to throw another. caveat on this one because I feel like I'm going to lead you to an answer if I don't say this. not, you know, non business related, non, you know, non community, non, you know, equity related, just more of you personally. If you could do anything on earth, maybe a bucket list item, maybe anything else, and you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?
[00:23:21] Brittany: I knew I couldn't fail.
I guess for me, failing means like, you know, just dropping everything and not, like, not taking care of anything. So I would just travel.
[00:23:34] Jay: That's a
great answer. See,
[00:23:36] Brittany: I knew bills weren't due. I
[00:23:40] Jay: Fair answer, and I
love
[00:23:42] Brittany: travel.
[00:23:43] Jay: It's fully
[00:23:43] Brittany: Travel non stop.
[00:23:45] Jay: It's my mine. I think mine's very similar. I would do the same thing I have five kids and one on the way so travel for me Failure is always Not even an option. It's guaranteed. So
[00:23:57] Brittany: Yeah.
Facts.
[00:23:59] Jay: Appreciate that answer.
I love to travel and see new things. I love an answer. All right
if people
want to find you, if people want to find you, Brittany, if they want to find WeAreTech, or whatever the future name is going to be of your platform, what should they do to reach out to talk to you?
[00:24:13] Brittany: if you want to contact me directly, you could dmm me on Instagram at B, the influence is B, the letter BTHE Influence all spelled out. if you wanna reach out to, we are tech, we are Instagram as well. It's, we are tech, but also swing by our website. We are tech.education. even though we are going to go through a rebrand, everything will be forwarding to our, you know, to our new, URLs and everything.
so yeah, reach out, DM me, I'm always available there. even reach out LinkedIn. You can search up Brittany P. Jenkins on LinkedIn and message me as well. I love talking about startups. I think this is what gives me energy because Tech entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Like it is the hardest thing you'll ever do in your life.
but it really brings me a lot of joy. So, have you have any questions or want to just talk? Let me know.
[00:25:07] Jay: Beautiful. you're very inspirational. I think the city of Philadelphia is lucky to have adopted you. I'm glad you're here. I expect big things from you. I love your energy. I think, you know, there's certain people I talk to that you can tell me. Thank you. Are heading towards something and I certainly feel that way about you.
So I wish you the absolute best of luck. I will
definitely make it a point to find you at some of these events that I'm sure we're
both at in
Philly. So, I look forward to seeing you in person and,
enjoy the rest of the week. Have a great weekend and thank you for being on. I'll talk to you soon, Brittany.
[00:25:38] Brittany: Yes. Thank you.
[00:25:40] Jay: See ya.