Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Nicole Yelsey, co-founder and chief marketing & strategy officer of KindWorks.AI, located in Chicago, IL, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
At KindWorks.AI, we believe that Kindness is the next wave of well-being. Hundreds of scientific research papers prove the benefits of Kindness, including happiness, life and job satisfaction, human connection, a sense of purpose, and so much more. We have developed a friendly AI agent, ‘Beni,’ who suggests simple and fun Kindness actions and exercises and helps users build their Kindness ‘muscle.’
Our first customers are large and medium-sized businesses looking to keep their employees engaged, motivated, and delivering beyond expectations while feeling purpose and meaning in their day-to-day work activities. These factors are critical for companies that want to continue growing and delivering bottom-line results in the new hybrid workspace, with new employee expectations, while in the context of ‘the Great Resignation.’
Beni connects to employees seamlessly through tools that employees already use to talk to each other such as Slack, WhatsApp, Teams, Webex, and more. Beni is by each user’s side to help encourage and track their personal Kindness journey to become happier, more connected, and more impactful in and out of their workplaces. And happy and kind employees are more productive, stronger leaders, and less likely to turnover.
Learn more in our 1-minute manifesto video here.
Tell us about yourself
I am the Co-Founder and the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer. When Daniel Lozano (Founder & CEO) first shared the KindWorks.AI vision with me in early 2021, I knew it was something that I wanted to be a part of. As I dove deeper into the research on Kindness and the KindWorks.AI business model, it became crystal clear to me that Kindness has the power to solve some of our biggest problems as individuals and as companies – problems that significantly increased with Covid.
I’ve been lucky to lead a diversity of teams and people across multiple organizations throughout my career, and I have learned so much from each person and team that I’ve worked with. I’m passionate about creating workplaces and communities where people are genuinely happy, connected, open, and collaborative. When I started researching Kindness, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. Kindness is at the center of those communities that I’m passionate about building and leading. By joining KindWorks, I can help lead that transformation in workplaces and communities at scale, and that excites me every day.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Our values are at the core of every decision we make as individuals, as a team, and as a company. Establishing our values, but, more importantly, incorporating them into the ethos of our company has been a top priority from day one of KindWorks. We literally review each one (kindness, trust, transparency, excellence, innovation, inclusion, commitment, collaboration) and what it means for us when there are major decisions or crossroads that we come to as a leadership team. It is hard to say this is an ‘accomplishment’ because it’s something that we are iterating on and learning with constantly, but it is definitely an aspect of the business that I am most proud of.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
In our young life as a company, we are moving extremely quickly and have had to make some hard decisions to part ways with team members. As a leadership team, we have learned a lot about how we want to do that and about ourselves and our business through these tough conversations. We always reflect on our values and align our decisions and how we approach the decisions based on those values. It does not make the conversations easy, but it does help make us stronger as a team and as a business. It helps us maintain trust with our other team members and between ourselves.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- If you have co-founders, be extremely thoughtful and strategic about choosing them. You will be in the trenches with them and tackling hard questions, and you won’t always agree. Be sure you have people by your side who want to go through both good and hard times together (very similar to getting married!).
- Pick an idea and purpose that you are passionate about. The journey is not easy, and you will question yourself and your path more than once. If you are truly passionate about bringing your idea to the world and are purpose-driven, that drive will get you through the harder times.
- Always be learning. The chances are that you will adapt and grow your business model and your product multiple times throughout the business lifecycle. The only way to do this successfully is to listen to people whose ideas are different from yours, whether customers, advisors, employees or anyone else who has input. This does not mean implementing every piece of feedback and advice you receive. But rather listen, digest, and reflect on the learning considering your business purpose, and then determine what action to take.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://kindworks.ai/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KindWorksAI/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindworksai/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kindworksai
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kindworksai/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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