Startup Savvy: Young Entrepreneur Paola Santana Of GLASS Shares Their Secrets For Rapid Growth and Success
An Interview With Eden Gold
Don’t ask the right questions to the wrong people. If you need insights, feedback or advise, be intentional about who could help you think about your questions in a creative, objective and constructive manner.
The entrepreneurial landscape is more vibrant and challenging than ever, with young entrepreneurs at the forefront, driving innovation and redefining the boundaries of success in the business world. These dynamic individuals are not only creating new products and services but also building sustainable business models that thrive in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven environment. Their journeys are filled with lessons of resilience, strategic innovation, and the relentless pursuit of growth. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Paola Santana.
Paola Santana is a lawyer, public procurement expert and serial tech entrepreneur, creating the next breakthrough in government systems. She’s the founder and CEO of GLASS, a Silicon Valley startup revolutionizing how governments buy through her pioneering product that powers government marketplaces for small purchases. Previously, she co-founded Matternet, a Silicon Valley company pioneering drone logistics networks. A Fulbright scholar and graduate from George Washington, Georgetown and Singularity University, she’s been featured as CNET Top 20 Latin in Tech, Forbes Next 1000, LinkedIn Top Professionals Under 35 in Enterprise Tech, and served as Lead of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Unmanned Aircraft Systems Advisory Group and appointed member of the first FAA Drone Advisory Committee.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about cultural sensitivity, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
Moonshot Mindset — I’m always thinking big, dreaming big, planning big, building big, for me and for others.
Discipline.
Resourcefulness and creativity.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview about young entrepreneurs secrets to rapid growth and success. To start, how would you define success?
Success for me is the opportunity to have big dreams and frameworks of action to be the best version of myself and become a leader that can bring massive change that positively impacts everyone. It’s seeing the vision, designing it, building it day by day with people that I respect and admire, and feeling a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunity to materialize the new.
The collective part of success — the building — benefits from developing strong networks: a new relationship could turn into a potential investor, business partner, vendor, mentor or advisor. This is where EY Entrepreneurs Access Network (EY) is so valuable. As a cohort member, I attended webinars and events where I could network, make connections and seek advice on funding opportunities and industry best practices. One major benefit that came from the connections through EAN was finding mentors who could share expertise and advice specific to doing business and forging long-lasting relationships within the public sector, which demands a more sophisticated and targeted approach.
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly contributed to your startup’s growth, and why do you think it was so effective?
During our venture capital fundraising process, we were meticulous and focused in how and who we pitched. We focused on just fundraising for a couple of months, making sure we were targeting 100 investors that were a fit with our company. Targeting this many investors meant having around 20 calls per week.
We stayed organized, with all the documents ready during our pitching process and were constantly working to improve our pitch as we learned and heard new questions. Discipline and focus are necessary because you’re having 20–30 conversations at a time, and you’re going to hear many “no’s” before you get to a “yes”. These strategies helped us land $3.7 million in funding as of October 2023.
Can you share a critical pivot point in your startup’s journey and how you navigated the decision-making process?
Being a GovTech startup pioneering e-commerce for governments, we’ve been ultra-focused on the government buyer experience, just to realize that what unlocks and improves that experience exponentially is buyers finding everything they need in our search bar comes from heavy digitalizing government vendors and their catalogs of products and services. There are 33 million American businesses, and we estimate that less than 5% do business with government, so bringing them into the digital economy is unlocking a Trillion-dollar industry that wasn’t evident when we started.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Things You Need to Succeed as a Young Person in Business?”
1. You need to be willing to just go for it and do things before you feel fully ready, especially if you’re building something new. Sometimes we overthink, over-plan and endlessly work to perfect things, only to see how those plans do not work or make sense in the real world — that is where ideas get to change things and move the needle, and that’s where we should be testing and trying, not only in our computers or our heads.
2. The first version of your idea is rarely the best version of your idea, so it’s much more effective to improve something once you’ve put a first version of that out. Send your business deck, pitch your ideas, start doing and learn along the way.
3. Stay focused, keep doing the work and do not despair. Usually, you start seeing results of focused efforts just when you’re about to give up!
4. Don’t ask the right questions to the wrong people. If you need insights, feedback or advise, be intentional about who could help you think about your questions in a creative, objective and constructive manner.
5. Be pragmatic and assertive in the decisions you make, while staying empathetic.
What is one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur that you wish someone had given you at the start of your journey?
Do what you need to do and be who you want to be to get to your ultimate goal — you don’t need to fit any labels. It’s your vision — only you can see it in the way you do, there’s no need to convince anyone.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
Governments run by people, for people, with people — who care.
How can our readers further follow you online?
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paolasantanam
- Company Website: https://commerce.glass/
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Eden Gold, is a youth speaker, keynote speaker, founder of the online program Life After High School, and host of the Real Life Adulting Podcast. Being America’s rising force for positive change, Eden is a catalyst for change in shaping the future of education. With a lifelong mission of impacting the lives of 1 billion young adults, Eden serves as a practical guide, aiding young adults in honing their self-confidence, challenging societal conventions, and crafting a strategic roadmap towards the fulfilling lives they envision.
Do you need a dynamic speaker, or want to learn more about Eden’s programs? Click here: https://bit.ly/EdenGold.
