Parul Gupta of Springboard: Why We Need More Women Founders & Here Is What We Are Doing To Make That Happen
An Interview With Jerome Knyszewski
Every day at Springboard, I work with many brilliant women. It constantly blows my mind to see how creative, committed, collaborative, and conscientious they are about doing the right thing. These are qualities that the world’s entrepreneurs and business leaders could definitely use more of.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Parul Gupta, Co-Founder and President of Springboard. Over the years, Parul has worked to build the company from the ground up while leading Springboard’s product, project management, program operations, and course-development teams out of San Francisco. Most recently, Parul has been leading Springboard’s growth through new products, verticals and markets like international and university partnership — always learning! Parul received her B.S. in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and her M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
After graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (’02) and University of California, Los Angeles (’03) with a B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering, I worked at a tech startup and IBM Research before founding Springboard in 2013. While working at IBM in research, I needed to pick up machine learning, something I didn’t have formal training in. I was a new mom with a toddler, a full-time job, a long commute, and limited access to traditional learning. A lot of innovation was happening in online education in those days and ended up taking online courses from the most respected Stanford professors in the field, halfway around the world. It was a powerful experience and my ‘aha’ moment: I wanted to help make education open and accessible to anyone who has the drive to learn, regardless of their life circumstances.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
My career hasn’t had a linear progression, rather (as Sheryl Sandberg would say) a “jungle gym.” I am a big believer in karma and serendipity: when I graduated, I didn’t have a grand vision of what I wanted to do with my life. I just kept putting one foot in front of another, staying true to my values, and found opportunities in the most unexpected places, when I was close to giving up.
Two key life moments influenced how I got to where I am today:
- I dropped out of a Ph.D. twice, dashing my hopes of a career in research. Coincidentally, I happened to meet a distinguished professor, an MIT TR35 award winner, in a lunch line at a conference. He not only helped me start my research career at IBM, but he also became a lifelong mentor and advocate, who eventually championed my nomination for the MIT TR35 award.
- When I was considering starting a company in education, after months of moonlighting and speaking to many potential co-founders, things didn’t quite click. So I started exploring ideas and meeting co-founders in a broader space, including telemedicine and women’s fashion. At the same time, my Springboard co-founder Gautam had been on a sabbatical from his job, flew from SF to Bangalore, and spent several months interviewing and meeting with potential co-founders. Surprisingly we never met or overlapped during this period. However, a common friend connected us when he was at the airport, flying back to the US! We later collaborated over Skype for months before deciding to start a company together.
In summary, don’t give up! Sometimes life will surprise you when you least expect it.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Throwback to 2000, my third year of engineering college. I was desperately trying to get an internship in India’s hottest technology startup, Tejas Networks, started by and backed by highly respected technologists and business leaders. When I didn’t hear back after a few polite emails, I sent a sassy, hyper-confident email to the CTO about how talent was important to their company’s success, and how I fit that mold. (Screenshot below!)
I have to admit, I’m a little sheepish when I read this email now but that’s what got me in the door!
The lesson? Believe in yourself and the value you can bring to the world, and don’t hesitate to assert it.
This bold message to the CTO got a quick response:
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
That’s undoubtedly my husband, Prateek. He is my biggest believer and unconditional supporter. Prateek and I have had parallel careers: we were classmates in engineering and worked together in tech before starting our respective entrepreneurial journeys.
He was the original entrepreneur in the family and sold his travel startup to India’s largest travel company, MakeMyTrip. We’ve staggered our careers and passed the baton back and forth such that when one is leaning in and taking risks, the other anchors the family and pays the bills. For the last few years, as Springboard has grown, he uprooted his successful career, moved halfway around the world, and has been a doting dad keeping the family sane. Especially in Indian culture, you’d be hard-pressed to find men who feel comfortable putting their machismo aside and support their wives’ careers.
The rest of my family, especially my parents, have also been incredibly and selflessly supportive throughout my career and I owe a lot of my success to them as well.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Mindset by Carol Dweck
I grew up in a very fixed mindset environment, where you are either smart or you’re not. Mistakes were frowned upon and seen as a weakness. Not only did it create a confidence crisis about my own abilities, but also made me judge others similarly, which I regret.
The book had a simple but powerful message that human beings are always a “work in progress.” It changed my outlook about people, my relationships, and work. It made me more resilient and accepting of failure in myself and others. It made me appreciate the effort more than ingrained abilities.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?
“If you’re not willing to be a fool, you can’t be a master.” — Jordan Peterson
I’ve had to reinvent myself over and over again in my career, especially in my time at Springboard. I started as the technical co-founder of the company and built many teams and initiatives ground-up: engineering, product, design, operations, and new businesses. Throughout this process, I’ve felt like an impostor all the time. I’ve stumbled, made mistakes, and learned to keep on going with a growth mindset because you have to be a fool before you can be a master.
(Full quote for reference: “You stumble around like an idiot when you try to do something new. That’s why the fool is the precursor to the savior from the symbolic perspective — because you have to be a fool before you can be a master & if you’re not willing to be a fool you can’t be a master.”)
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I’ve made a conscious choice to keep a positive impact and mission at the core of my life’s work. I try my best to support and advocate for women and also mentor earlier career professionals and founders.
Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
Social stereotypes and expectations. Whether it’s beliefs that girls can’t be good at math or that they should look and behave a certain way, the pressure to conform to social expectations might be the biggest reason that holds women back. I found these to be exceptionally pronounced in India, where a woman’s primary role was to take care of the family rather than pursue her full potential.
Founding a company can be all-consuming and studies show that women are more time-poor than men because a disproportionate amount of home and childcare responsibilities fall on them. Having a better support system for women and working moms would be a huge step towards creating equal opportunities.
Can you share with our readers what you are doing to help empower women to become founders?
I’ve experienced the impact that mentorship can have on one’s career path, so outside of Springboard I spend time mentoring many aspiring female entrepreneurs. I spend time with them sharing my mistakes and learnings to help them grow as business leaders.
This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Every day at Springboard, I work with many brilliant women. It constantly blows my mind to see how creative, committed, collaborative, and conscientious they are about doing the right thing. These are qualities that the world’s entrepreneurs and business leaders could definitely use more of.
Here is the main question of our interview. Can you please share 5 things that can be done or should be done to help empower more women to become founders? If you can, please share an example or story for each.
- Elevate female role models. Talk not only about their successes but also about their struggles. This will go a long way to help women relate, feel that they belong, and normalize their own struggles.
- Form a strong network and community: It takes a village to make any big, hairy, audacious mission successful. My network has played an invaluable role throughout my career and especially at Springboard. Many of our early investors, company leaders, mentors have come through our networks
- Create a flexible and supportive ecosystem. This is especially true for working moms and women with other family and caregiving responsibilities. Thankfully, I’ve had a supportive husband and parents, who’ve always been there for me along the way and afforded me the ability to dedicate my career to creating Springboard.
- Mentorship. Mentors have helped me open up new paths in my career and given me invaluable insight along the way. I wouldn’t have been able to get to where I am today without their guidance and advocacy.
- Normalize risk-taking and failure. I’ve learned through experience that the best way to truly grow is by taking risks and making mistakes. We need to foster an environment where women are encouraged to fail, rather than expected to be perfect.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
In present times, it has to be for awareness and urgency of action to stop climate change. It is an existential crisis that affects the entire planet and all living species, and we are racing against time. Greta Thunberg has shown that movements can start anywhere — the smallest spark can light a flame!
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Bill Gates. Not only for creating an iconic company that changed the world of computing, but for directing his brainpower, wealth, and influence to solve some of society’s most pressing problems spanning global health and climate change.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/parul8ue/
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
