Check Out Angela Muhwezi-Hall Online!

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Check Out Deborah Gladney Online!

• Website - QuickHire

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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an original transcript–edited for sense, length, and clarity.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email our host, Doria Lavagnino, at doria@sheventurespodcast.com.

00:00.20

Doria:

Women of color raised .43 percent — less than half a percent — of venture capital in 2020. These two Kansas-born and -raised sisters from Ugandan immigrant parents successfully closed $1.4 million in venture capital for their career discovery and hiring app, QuickHire, despite the odds, making them the first women of color in Kansas to raise $1 million or more. They are here to tell us about their pivot to entrepreneurship and how they got where they are today as CEO and COO of QuickHire. Angela Muhwezi-Hall and Deborah Gladney, welcome to SheVentures.

00:52.30

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Thank you so much.

00:52.81

Deborah Gladney:

Thank you so much for having us.

00:55.95

Doria:

When I saw the article about you in The Guardian, I hunted you down. I decided I’m gonna do anything I can to get these women on my show. So thank you. Before we dive in, I wanted to touch on your childhood. Briefly, your parents were Ugandan immigrants and you had five siblings. What was it like growing up in a small town in the Midwest?

01:30.51

Deborah Gladney:

That’s a very good question. I think first and foremost it was definitely different because there was a huge learning curve for our parents who weren’t raised in this country. So even little nuances of little sayings or norms… things like sleepovers just weren’t a thing in our household. Our parents did not understand. They would always ask, “Why do you want to sleep in somebody else’s house? You have a bed here.”

We joked a lot about what we called the trunk [of a car] — the boot — and we didn’t know that other kids called it the trunk until we were using the word in class and they’re like, “The boot. What is that?” Different things like that made it obvious that we had a different upbringing.

But a lot of our tenacity as entrepreneurs came from our upbringing because we saw our parents work incredibly hard. 

They were so appreciative of the opportunity that this country afforded, and every day they woke up with a mindset of not having excuses. Both of them were in school and they had kids. They were literally trading kids at bus stops. They would take the city bus, and they would pass me off to my dad. They just hustled and made it work, and that was super inspiring for us.

03:23.59

Doria:

Absolutely. Angela, do you have anything to add?

03:26.37

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yeah. I think that when you’re growing up, your parents aren’t from America, and you’re in a small town — we had to lean on each other in order to keep our cultures and traditions alive. Our sense of family is tight. That even goes into Deborah and I. We’re close, but that’s how we were raised. If you want to do something, you have a built-in best friend, a built-in co-worker, or a built-in person to get the job done — whether it’s working on chores or it’s building a company. So I think that sense of family and relying on each other was embedded in us early on.

04:27.62

Deborah Gladney:

For sure.

04:28.64

Doria:

So I’m hearing: community, family, and hustle. All things that make perfect sense as to why you became entrepreneurs, but before that, Angela, you were working in education in Los Angeles for about five years, right? And Deborah, your focus was more editorial/PR/ relationship management pre QuickHire. What did each of you want to do professionally?

05:01.36

Deborah Gladney:

I feel like I am still finding myself professionally. I think both Angela and I — we find it interesting that we somehow fell on this path because for the most part we had similar interests. We were interested in music, and both of us were pursuing that in different ways. Obviously going the PR route I knew that I enjoyed relationship building, but I ended up doing my own PR consulting right before we ended up doing QuickHire, and I knew I was on the right track. I liked the idea of building my own thing where I had kind of the keys to everything; I was rewarded based on how I did versus how a company performed, or how my manager felt about me. It was all based on, “Okay, if I hustle and I kill it for my clients, I’m rewarded. There’s no gray area.” I enjoyed that aspect of it, and I never thought that I would end up in entrepreneurship. But doing my own PR consulting made me realize that there’s something with entrepreneurship that I think that could be a good fit for me.

06:44.30

Doria:

And you have, right? You have so much agency over yourself — like you said — and the hustle. Angela?

06:50.59

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yeah, as Deborah said we were into music, so I graduated college and I worked for Volunteers of America in Los Angeles and I thought, “I’m moving to L.A., and I’m gonna work for this nonprofit and live my life. But that nonprofit absolutely changed the way I saw life. I worked in South Central high schools as their college and career counselor, specifically in schools that didn’t have counselors. A lot of these schools were severely underfunded, but there was so much talent in these schools. One thing about growing up in Wichita, Kansas, is we went to public schools all of our lives, but I’ve never seen underfunded schools the way it was there. It opened my eyes to how unfair the system can be based on where you were born. And so I asked myself, “How can I bridge the gap and make sure that people are getting equal opportunity — no matter where they are?” The idea for QuickHire came while I was working in those schools. 

08:18.84

Doria:

Yes, that was my next question, so I teed you up!

08:27.45

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

When I was working in those schools, we were focusing on those college-going students. We were trying to find individuals that had the opportunity to go to college and groom them and mentor them. But if you were not on the track for higher education, there weren’t any tools for you. Some people would drop out, and it would be like “Good luck to you.” They weren’t going to community college. It may have been that there weren’t any resources for them. Some of these students were the most talented, smartest individuals I’ve ever met, but somewhere the system had failed them.

We were essentially giving up on them, and not giving them any resources. So I had experiences like that. One in particular: There was a student who came to my office, and she had all of these paper applications. She was trying to find a [job at a] local grocery store and retail opportunity, but she didn’t have a computer, and the school didn’t have proper computer labs. She needed to borrow my computer to continue her job search, and it struck me that while it’s been so long since I’ve worked in those areas — or since Deborah has worked in those areas — since our parents worked in those areas, the way of getting a service job is the same. They may give you a paper application, or they may send you to different websites to complete that application. And I was thinking, “Wow, when you are in the white collar industry, there are so many tools and resources for you. But if you are in the service industry or a skilled trade, there aren’t any tools.” The school systems aren’t helping you out either if you are going into the real world. So I wondered, “How can we not just connect people to jobs but also make sure that the talent going into the world is getting the proper tools that they need to advance.”

10:48.91

Doria:

I love that, and I also want to echo that I only lived in the Midwest for a year, but it was the best education I got in elementary school. And I think a lot of Americans who live on either coast don’t realize how robust the education system is in many states in the Midwest. I live in New York City now and what you’re saying resonates with me that there’s often a lack of path. I think there’s a little bit more recognition of it now. But there are still definitely hurdles. So you’ve described how QuickHire came about — the idea — so then what happened? How did you approach your sister and how did that work?

11:37.00

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Absolutely, so I approached my sister. This was actually on a 2017 vision board.

I thought I have to do something with this idea, but I did not know where to start. Deborah is such a doer. She was creating her own opportunities for her own companies. She was working with startups and getting them off the ground, so I knew that we had to do this together. I would always bring this idea to her anytime that we had a family function or drop it periodically. “Hey, remember there’s this app that we’ve got to work on” and she’d always be like “You should do it.”

12:25.74

Deborah Gladney:

Right I’m like yeah, you go girl, go!

12:31.30

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

But you know when COVID hit and it was April or March of 2020 and we saw what was happening with our economy. Deborah gave me a call at 4 am saying, “Hey you remember that app you’ve been talking about? Now is the time we’ve got to do it.” And so definitely COVID was the catalyst to get things going.

13:02.28

Doria:

It’s amazing that Deborah was able to see it as an opportunity at that point, right? How did you find out about Techstars accelerator?

13:14.91

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, it was such a journey for us, because as Angie was saying we didn’t know what to do. We knew it was a great idea, and we saw so many shifts happening in the labor market.

The big thing was timing because we knew that there were a number of players and in order for us to really infiltrate the market it would be about the right window of opportunity. So when we saw all those shifts happening it was like okay now’s the time to do it. But now what the heck do we do? Neither one of us has a tech background. Neither one of us has huge access to capital. So we’re like okay, let’s put together a Powerpoint. From there luckily, as Angie was saying, we both spent time building networks. We both had almost a decade of work experience post college, so we both had relationships that we built over time. Some of those relationships that Angie built out in L.A. — a few of them had built tech startups before. So, we started asking people for advice, figuring out what they did with some of their learnings. That was the biggest time and money saver because we were able to learn a lot before even spending a dollar. So when we were ready to spend a dollar, we knew where to put that money as far as getting a developer or what have you.

So knowing what to look for, as we continue to network with our existing relationships. One of the guys I went to college with, he is in tech, and he helped with some of the Techstars startup weekends. That was his first piece of advice. He said, “Hey you should look into accelerators because I think that that will help you.” So that’s how we started to do some of the research and looked into Techstars. We realized that it could be a really good fit for our business.

15:23.72

Doria:

And it’s an incredibly competitive program. What were some of the learnings that your network gave you or why do you believe that your idea stood out.

15:34.34

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, so to be candid with you, we applied to Techstars multiple times. That was the biggest learning for a lot of people who get into these programs — they apply multiple times.

You may not get in the first time, and when we look back we’re so grateful we didn’t get in the first time because we were very impressionable. We were trying to kind of prove ourselves, if you will.

The second time that we did get in I think that we got in because we were so dang confident about what the heck we were building, and I think that that confidence was contagious in a way because these accelerators, these investors, especially early stage they’re betting on the founders. They are betting on the team. They know that the product is going to change, the product hasn’t even been developed, so they have nothing else to go off of besides, “Can these two people do it?” I think that’s why we got in.

We were convinced that we were heading down a path that was going to help change people’s lives. We were so convinced. You can either join us on this journey or not. Regardless, we’re going to get there. So it’s up to you. Yes, yeah.

17:02.45

Doria:

We’re gonna do it. Yeah, and the tenacity…I love it because so many people get rejected and say “Oh, you know, it’s obviously not a good idea, or not meant to be, or blah blah blah.” Do you have anything to add, Angela?

17:13.45

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yeah I think that one thing from our childhood helped. We had to make sure without a shadow of doubt that we were putting our best foot forward in giving people no reason to doubt us. Going into the tech world — where there’s not a lot of people who look like us — where we don’t have the traditional background of Ivy League schooling or whatever the case may be, we really had to, like Deborah said, 100 percent make people believe what we are doing.  Believe in ourselves and show we have traction already, show the need is there. 

Even before we spent a dime on QuickHire, building the app, we did so much research. We spoke to so many small business owners. We spoke to so many people who worked in the service industry and skilled trades. We did a lot of different questionnaires to make sure that we knew what people needed and created exactly that. Even when we first came up with the idea — it was specifically how we could get people jobs. How can we work with jobs and get them moving? The more research we did, the more we talked to people, the more we found that gap. We realized that it was an issue with people advancing in their careers. So talking about impressionable. If we would have done it the first time we applied, who knows what QuickHire would look like now. But because when we did get in we were like “No, we’re not just a job board. We are a career discovery app and this is why it’s needed specifically in the service industry.” And being a Midwest team, we were so deep in it, and by that time we had users. We had people that were utilizing the product. So we had to give no one reason to doubt us at all.

19:22.65

Doria:

And what you’re saying is so important about field research because I think oftentimes entrepreneurs have an idea but they don’t validate it, and they base their whole pitch deck on it. They may look at statistics, but they aren’t talking to real people. In doing that you not only build a case for your product but you’re increasing your confidence in it.

19:50.58

Deborah Gladney:

Yes, absolutely it did for us. If we are giving people what they need, there’s no way that we’re going to fail. Tune into that. Even if investors doubted us, or if other people doubted us. It’s like that’s fine. They’re not our customers.

19:59.61

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Easy.

20:10.46

Deborah Gladney:

As long as we are giving customers a product that they need, everything else is going to fall into place. We believe in that, and that’s what we’re abiding by even in this stage of our business. We’ve got to stay in tune with the customer to make sure that we’re giving them a product that they need. 

20:31.83

Doria:

So your customer is twofold, right? It’s the job seeker and the companies that are hiring them. Right?

20:48.32

Deborah Gladney:

We are a job seeker–driven platform and the reason why we are that way is we do believe that the people on our platform are the product. The better people are, the more they are set up for success. The more engaged they are, the better talent they will be for employers. So that is why we’re really trying to build a career discovery platform that’s focused on the job seeker and empowering the job seeker to take hold of their career, to go after what they want to do —  because we believe that if we are able to get people empowered and feel excited to go to work every day, that’s only going to produce better results and talent for our employers.

21:34.31

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Indeed.

21:35.44

Doria:

Absolutely and going back a second to Techstars, for listeners who are interested in applying — I know you were accepted in July of 2021. I’m curious what happens after that. What does the process look like?

21:54.99

Deborah Gladney:

It’s about a 12-week program, and it is kind of like business school meets boot camp. 

You really have to buckle down. I think that the companies that are the most successful after an accelerator are the ones that take advantage of all the accelerator has to offer…

22:31.90

Doria:

Such as?

22:34.51

Deborah Gladney:

Such as the different workshops they put on. A network that provides real networking with other startups within the Techstars community, or the investors that are connected to the community. It’s taking the time to focus on what they’re presenting to you. We heard different founder stories that we were able to listen to and learn from. We had former CEOs and builders come in. You can sit there and passively listen and check the box or you can engage, ask questions, get advice. The people that really engage and take advantage of that are the most successful coming out of the program.

23:28.50

Doria:

Makes sense. Do you want to add anything to that, Angela?

23:31.65

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

No, only that there are several different techstars programs around the world, so you want to apply to one that fits your business.

23:36.78

Deborah Gladney:

Yes.

23:48.28

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Also take a look at who the MD is, who the [managing] director is, for that specific location and what you think you can gain from them. Our MD was fantastic. Oh my goodness, I cannot sing her praises enough. 

24:02.71

Doria:

Call out.

24:08.14

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Her mentoring style — what she brought to the table — as far as her life experience, the mentors and workshops she brought to us, she was such a big resource. We were in the middle of the interview process, and we were dealing with a potential client. Instead of going through the rigor of interview questions. She said, “All right. How are we gonna approach this client?” She was already mentoring us, even though we weren’t in the program yet. Techstars was an amazing experience for us. If anybody out there is interested, take a look at those MDs, the different locations, what they offer, and see what connects with you most.

24:55.41

Doria:

Great advice. Let’s talk briefly about your business model. It’s for workers as you mentioned — it’s a career discovery platform. It’s free for people who are working and then I believe it’s a tiered pricing structure for business.

25:06.12

Deborah Gladney:

That’s correct. You’re absolutely right. Companies can subscribe to our platform on a recurring monthly basis. Like you said, we have different tiers based on company size, hiring needs, or different things. It’s all outlined on our website at getquickhire.com. We have plans that support bigger enterprises, multi-unit locations, so we’re able to customize based on their needs.

25:45.76

Doria:

Do you want to stay in the Midwest or do you envision expanding?

25:51.24

Deborah Gladney:

Our goal was to start in the Midwest, but we definitely see this as a solution that can be helpful to businesses across the country. We don’t think it’s too early to plant those seeds because we are really trying to help people. 

We’ve been through the ringer as a country for the last several years, and we want to be able to get people not just back to work but to meaningful work and meaningful careers.

26:14.14

Doria:

Amen.

26:28.91

Deborah Gladney:

This is a solution we see being helpful across the country. Obviously with us being headquartered in the Midwest, our roots are in the Midwest. We also think it’s an overlooked geographic region, so that’s why we chose to start here. We’re trying to help as many people as possible.

26:50.14

Doria:

I’m sure you got the next question a million times: How are you different from LinkedIn?

26:55.60

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, we get this all the time and we knew it came with the territory, which is why the timing of us launching QuickHire was important because it’s a relatively noisy market.

And to Angela’s point earlier, there are so many solutions that are catered to the desk/white collar worker, like  LinkedIn. There’s so many great platforms like that out there. For us, first and foremost, we are for the nontraditional education path worker, so it’s okay if you didn’t go to college. It’s okay if you learned skills on the job, or if you went to trade or vocational school. Those are the types of people that we’re trying to serve. That’s the first differentiator. Secondly, as Angie was saying, we are a career discovery platform and what that means is that we don’t only want to help people find the right job, but after they find the right job, we want to help them continue to progress. That is our long-term vision, and even now in a time where we are seeing a huge talent shortage — it’s really because people… this goes way beyond the pandemic… people in this industry have faced decades of neglect with unfair pay. Many different things are related to not creating pathways for people in nontraditional education. For us we’re saying, “Hey now that you have found the right hires, after we’ve helped you find the right people, what are you doing to retain your service industry workers?” The average retention is two months. Two months is such a high churn, so for us that’s another huge differentiator with us.

29:07.96

Doria:

Yeah, such high churn is expensive. Are you envisioning working with companies to help them in a consultative way or how does one change that?

29:27.98

Deborah Gladney:

There’s a number of different things we’re working on. Again, being more people-driven, what we’ve really tried to hone in on is what the job seeker wants to do, so they’re able to input their goals. They’re able to track different training or career development things that they are doing, and employers have an insight first and foremost into what it is that their people actually want to do. Angela has given different examples of folks she knows who work in restaurants, in the service industry, or the skilled trade type of industries. A lot of them don’t know how to express interest in management roles, or wanting to be a franchisee because there’s really no platform for them to do that. There’s no succession planning in restaurants. We do that in the corporate world and in offices. But for the frontline customer service worker, we’re sending this message of, “This is it for you.” We all know that those are the type of workers who make the best franchisees. They make the best general managers. They make the best district managers. The best CEOs are the people who know what it takes to make the product please the customer.

31:00.57

Deborah Gladney:

For us. It’s about bridging that gap and creating that insight.

31:03.33

Doria:

Makes so much sense to me. I’m curious. You’re both co-founders. How did you decide who would be CEO and who’d be COO?

31:11.10

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Oh goodness. There was a lot of back and forth. Deborah is the CEO, but it was probably a little bit by force.

31:21.21

Deborah Gladney:

Exactly, I’m glad she told the truth. It was more, “You’re the CEO. Be quiet and walk in your purpose.

31:32.23

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

I say that because when I look up CEO in the dictionary, I’m telling you I see her face there. In all seriousness, Deborah has always been such a doer, a person who can figure out how to do this even when we didn’t know where to start. I wasn’t sure what we should be looking into. She was like, All right, let’s get a presentation. Let’s put a Powerpoint together. Let’s pull all of our resources together. Let’s talk to our community. Who in our networks do we know? Can we pick their brain? I heard about some accelerator programs. I thought maybe we should be doing that. I heard that there are these VCs you can pitch to, so I will email all the VCs I can find. While Deborah was literally having a baby — she had a baby in April and was still sending out emails from the hospital to VCs while looking at wireframes. Yeah, it was insane. 

32:42.34

Doria:

Are you serious? 

32:47.39

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

I was like, “Deborah, we can get to it when you’re at home.” But she has this presence and this tenacity about her. If we say it’s something we’re gonna get done — I don’t know how we’re gonna get it done — but we’re going to put our heads together and figure out how to make that first step. Sometimes it’s knowing how to make the first step that makes a world of difference. Even for me, this was on my vision board in 2017. I had it all pictured out. I drew out everything, but taking that first step can be so daunting that people will get stuck in that idea mode. Sometimes you know when we’re talking about CEO and COO and things like that I think that Deborah had such a way of accelerating our business that it was as clear as day that she needs to be CEO. So yeah, here we are…

33:48.18

Doria:

I love it! If you have disagreements — which you must — how do you resolve them?

33:56.29

Deborah Gladney:

I think as Angie was saying, we have been close all of our lives. We’ve gone through a lot personally too. We’ve disagreed all our lives. We have fought. We have done all these things, and we’ve come out on the other side. So for us we disagree, but I don’t know — I feel like we disagree with love and respect because at the end of the day — QuickHire aside — I care about and love my sister more than anything.

34:30.51

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yes.

34:32.84

Deborah Gladney:

And I would never want anything like QuickHire to get between us. That’s the approach that we always take, you know, even if Angie says something that she disagrees with or she doesn’t understand why I’m doing something, I always take it as she just doesn’t understand let me explain. I never take it as if my sister doesn’t care or worry if she’s mad. It’s not even a factor with us because I know how much my sister cares about me. I know how much she has my back. She’s had my back for 34 years, so this whole thing to me, I think it’s so easy working with her in this capacity because of the level of trust and respect we have for each other.

35:26.46

Doria:

I love that trust factor. You’re so right: It depends on how you ask the question. I could see VCs asking about it a lot. So, getting to raising capital — it’s a project in and of itself. Project Diane is still crunching the numbers for 2021, but in 2020 women of color raised $715 million which sounds like a lot of money until you realize that it was out of $166 billion raised. It ends up being less than half a percent. What was your experience as women of color raising capital?

36:07.51

Deborah Gladney:

To start off, as Angie was saying, it’s first just the awareness of it because we didn’t know anything about venture capital or any of that stuff going into this and so just knowing where to start or who to contact was the first barrier because a lot of venture firms don’t put their contact information on websites. They have information on there that’s kind of ambiguous, so you don’t know if you fall in those categories. They’ll say we invest from day zero, so you know you can’t be too early. Yet for a lot of them you are too early. They’re like “No, you need some revenue.” There’s a lot of things — it’s just such a learning curve, even the access and understanding from the beginning. 

The early days as Angie was saying, of me emailing investors, a lot of that was learning. We didn’t get much from it. It was more for me to understand what works and what doesn’t work. What is this language? What is pre-seed, seed, and series A. 

A lot of it was learning for me. By the time we got to Techstars, and again, an accelerator helps especially when it comes to raising money because you learn a lot about raising funds during the accelerator. So all of that research just prepared us to move faster during Techstars. There still were a ton of barriers because I think people are not used to seeing two Black women building a hiring marketplace. That is not what you see. People aren’t used to seeing people like us create awesome companies. You know, related to diversity and inclusion, there are some great ones out there. Some product-led types such as shea butter — a lot of those types of businesses have led the way which is awesome, but with a hiring solution like ours. They’re not used to it, so I think we met some resistance.

38:41.26

Doria:

How did that take shape? How did you sense it? Was it a sense that you had resistance?

38:47.78

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, there was definitely a sense. As Angie was saying, we tried to build this business in a way where there wouldn’t be an excuse for why you shouldn’t invest. As in, we were going way above and beyond even with our valuation. We were giving quite the discount, but we thought we’re not gonna give them a reason. We’re not gonna have any barriers. We’ve got revenue. We’ve got crazy traction. We’ve got all of these things: check check check check check.

And you’re still hesitant because of what you — and we hate going there. You know? Obviously we don’t like going to that conclusion, but you can’t help but ask well then what is it? You know, no one’s going to ever admit it. 

39:33.23

Doria:

Right. Of course, not yeah.

39:41.85

Deborah Gladney:

Blatantly, we know it’s there.

39:43.26

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yeah, and sometimes people would be like “Oh okay, QuickHire. So I’m assuming it can help with diversity, equity and inclusion and you know, getting more Black and brown people in the door.” And we say it’s for everyone. Making sure that people aren’t just putting us in a box was a big thing and also people understanding what we have access to. I tell this story a lot when we were initially trying to find some investors for $250,000. We were trying to put money together and someone said, “Oh at that point ,you should go to your family and friends. A family and friends round, and you realize they are so disconnected from us. I don’t know if any of my family or friends have that and if they did I’m sure they…

40:42.76

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, like what family? What friends? 

40:58.98

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

They’re so far removed from what my reality is, and they think that that’s sound advice, but it makes the process even more daunting. That, “Oh my gosh, Deb they’re telling us that we have to go to our family. What are we going to do?”

41:01.29

Doria:

Yes.

41:02.17

Deborah Gladney:

Exactly.

41:16.14

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Some people don’t have an understanding of our experience, and coming into this VC world was definitely a challenge.

41:24.96

Doria:

I can imagine. Your round ended up being oversubscribed. Were there any — how do I ask this question — were there any people that you turned away? That you didn’t feel was a right fit?

41:36.36

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Oh goodness. Yeah.

41:39.53

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, there were a few. I think part of it was once we got to the point of being oversubscribed, luckily we were in a position where we had to look at things like dilution.

That was a big factor for us, and then there were a few where it wasn’t a good fit. A lot of it was personality, or I could tell as we were talking to them how they were trying to tell us what to do. Trying to brand QuickHire: “It needs to be this, you need to do that, and as long as you’re coachable,” and all these things. I am a coachable person. I’m definitely looking for partners but they were forceful with it. So we were in a position where we could leave those ones out. We look back, and we know we made the right decision. We’re so freaking stoked with the syndicate that came together because we knew that things were not always going to be perfect with our business, and we needed to find people who truly believed in us and in our vision. 

Again, entrepreneurship it’s up and down. It’s up and down there will be months where our revenue will stink, months where we’ve been pretty flat, or where we got something wrong. Or we made a bad hire, and we wanted to find people that believed in us first and foremost and that were really truly down for the journey.

43:27.35

Doria:

So that was going to be my next question. One “must do” and one “must not do”: If you had advice for women of color specifically in raising capital, what tips would you give?

43:50.50

Deborah Gladney:

My gosh. There’s so many. There’s so many things that are circling in my mind. The reason I paused is because I was going to say don’t sell yourself short. Do not cheapen yourself too much. Like I said, we knew we were giving a great valuation, but we also knew that there was a cutoff point, too. We weren’t going to go way too low because we knew what we brought to the table. I also would say do not do not solely rely on investors. Do not think that is the end all be all, because you know Angela and I were on the fence on whether we should raise or not and I was starting to doubt myself and Angie was like, “Okay go out there try to raise. If we raise something, great; if not, we’ll be fine. So who cares.” And that is the thing because I think sometimes we overglorify rounds and raising money. But there’s so many great businesses that were built without VC dollars early, so I think that the biggest “do not” is do not think that your business is going to live or die based on whether you get funds. If you don’t get funds,

go out there and build. As Angie was saying, don’t give people an excuse for why your business isn’t great and you can build it. So I think that’s my biggest thing. I don’t know if Angie has anything to add to that.

45:25.66

Doria:

Love it.

45:34.30

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

I would say do not take advice from everybody. You have to pick and choose who you’re taking advice from and who you connect with as mentors. Like the person who gave us the advice of the family and friends round. They don’t understand your experience. There are so few Black women that have that experience, or could even relate to what you are going through that a lot of times people are well-meaning and they think that you should be doing X, Y, and Z with your business, but it will completely derail you if you take that advice. Especially if you’re at an early stage, so I would just say do not take advice from everyone. So soon and so early.

46:22.94

Doria:

That’s such an excellent point because when you’re at an early stage, you’re not completely secure in your idea, so it’s easy to be swayed by people that you think might know better than you.

46:27.15

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

But do they?

46:36.58

Doria:

They do sometimes, but oftentimes they do not know your business. 

46:37.12

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yeah, I would also say do not let what that stereotypical startup life or founder image stop you from going for it.

46:40.12

Deborah Gladney:

Yep.

46:53.81

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Deborah and I are the complete opposite of what people think a startup founder would look like. We are Black women. We went to state schools. Deborah is a mom of three. We’re in our 30s, we’re both married.

47:08.66

Deborah Gladney:

We don’t have tech backgrounds. 

47:12.66

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Don’t have tech backgrounds. This is our first business together. Yes, there are many things that make us different from what the average startup founder looks like. And if we could, you know,   you could easily get stuck in — or be intimidated by — that, “No I’m in my 30s or I’m too old,” or whatever the case may be. But it’s like no, you can go and get it. Honestly, our experience in life is what’s gotten us this far whether it’s our networks or whether it was being able to pull from our savings to get our first beta. We were able to pull from our 401(k)s or whatever the case may be just to get an MVP going, so those things that we think may hinder us can be the strongest parts of us to get us ahead. So yeah, so I would say that as well. 

Doria:

Got to have skin in the game, right? That’s some serious skin. So you’ve raised $1.4 million. Is there anything you can share about how you plan to deploy the capital or your traction to date? Anything you want to share?

48:30.78

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, the biggest thing is developing our tech. We have great ideas, goals, and a product roadmap, so it’s getting the right team and technology in place to get us there.

48:48.15

Deborah Gladney:

A lot of it is investing in the tech — whether it’s in the actual product or making the right hires on the tech front. That’s a huge thing for us in the near term. Also as our product develops ramping up our sales and continue to build more relationships and partnerships with more companies. We know that this is a unique moment in time from a talent standpoint, and we want to be a resource for companies. That’s a big thing on the horizon. We’re continuing to see growth on both the job seeker and the company side, which is great but we want to do more. We want to achieve more, and that’s what we’re looking at. 2022 is achieving more and being able to say hey we have created a great playbook on how we can find success in different markets. We want to be able to take that playbook and deploy it across the country.

49:50.44

Doria:

Love it. How do each of you define success?

49:59.44

Deborah Gladney:

I feel like this is a question that I should have an answer for because it is a great question because honestly, it’s something that I have been grappling with a lot because of what we’ve achieved so far. We’ve had a lot of opportunities like speaking with you and speaking with others and people asking for us to come share our story. I have this internal struggle because I feel like I haven’t really made it yet. What can people really learn from me? I haven’t made it yet. But I think that for me success is about being proud of what you’ve been able to accomplish knowing that the journey is still going. I think a lot of people can still learn from your story thus far. Even though we have a ton more that we want to accomplish, it doesn’t mean that we’re not successful in achieving certain milestones that others haven’t been able to achieve before. That is successful. The fact that we are inspiring other Black women to go into technology is success. If what we’ve done helped shed a light on a topic of how

women and minorities are underfunded, and now people are starting to pay more attention — that is success. So I think success is being able to recognize different milestones, pillars, and barriers that you’ve been able to remove based on things that you’ve done.

51:53.64

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yeah, for sure. I think that you know what defines success. It always changes for me. When we first started with QuickHire, getting it in the App Store and Google Play was a challenge. Then we started getting people that are finding jobs on our app. It was amazing.

52:17.73

Deborah Gladney:

Yeah, oh my gosh. Yes.

52:26.72

Doria:

Oh that must have been so cool.

52:28.71

Deborah Gladney:

Yes.

52:33.13

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

There it was just Deborah and I for so long, and we would hear all the stories and of course it would be Deborah and I and our CTO. We’d hear the stories of people finding work, and someone would say, “Oh I have this job I got from your platform. It is the best job I’ve had in years,” or “I haven’t worked since the pandemic, and now I can put food on the table.” I mean that was amazing. The idea for QuickHire came about to remove barriers for people that have had so many. I think that success to me is that. The easier that we can make it for people to find opportunities, quickly, and give them more tools and resources to even the playing field.

So I think it’s gonna be continuing to evolve as we evolve, but I’m excited to see what that next level of success looks like for QuickHire.

53:37.38

Doria:

I can’t wait either. Where can listeners find out more about QuickHire?

53:44.21

Deborah Gladney:

Check us out on our website which is Getquickhire — dot — com. There are ways that you can easily sign up as a job seeker or company. You can schedule a demo with us if you’re a company or a job seeker, and we’d be happy to show you how the platform works. Angie can share all the social media stuff.

54:05.93

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Oh yeah, so GetQuickHire @ Instagram and on Facebook and QuickHire on LinkedIn. You can also download the app on Google Play and the App Store: QuickHire, check us out. We would love to connect with everyone. If you want to send us an email, it’s hello @ getquickhire.com.

54:31.39

Doria:

Yay! I’m gonna put you on the spot. I’d love to have a conversation a year from now. What do you think? Let’s do it, all right? Thank you so much for joining today.

54:35.61

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Yes, let’s do it.

54:43.36

Deborah Gladney:

Thank you so much. It was fun.

54:43.41

Angela Muhwezi-Hall:

Thank you.