Jun 9, 2022
Founders Spotlight — Patricia, Kairn | (eF20)
Patricia is the Co-Founder of Kairn (eF20), a project management app that helps you regain control over your days. She started out her career in finance in M&A, before learning to code and becoming a startup programs manager.
Then, just two years ago, she embarked on the project of a lifetime building Kairn with eFounders. Fast forward to now, Kairn has achieved #1 on Product Hunt, boasts 7 employees and has plans to take on the US productivity market by storm.
Behind every great product, is a great founder. That’s why in this article we’re going to get to know Patricia better- from her multicultural background, to her thoughts on getting more women in tech and everything in between.
First things first, what’s your best memory so far at Kairn?
Our launch day on Product Hunt. Really cool energy, everyone was 500% into it, reaching out to all the people they knew and getting the word out that Kairn was ready for them. It was a very energizing day and we absolutely rocked it. The team did an amazing job.
How would your friends describe you in 3 words?
- Positive — I always look on the bright side of things.
- Motivational — I never let anyone lie around and always try to give them energy.
- Challenging — I hate sugar coating things, and always try to push people to go the extra mile.
How do you take care of your mental health as a founder?
- Exercise — I try to exercise at least twice per week — one cycling session / one yoga. When I don’t work out, I really feel it has an impact on my energy: I get more stressed and struggle to sleep.
- Get founder friends and be 300% transparent with them — I’m super fortunate to call some amazing founders my closest friends, we talk non-stop about our days and struggles and it really helps. They’re also the best to celebrate small victories with, as they fully understand the effort that goes on behind the scenes. eFounders has definitely helped build that network ❤️
- Get non-founder friends — talking with founders is great, but getting your head out of that environment and talking about other things than work is important too!
Great advice — and how has your multicultural background influenced you?
For context- my mom is Brazilian, and my dad is half Italian, half French, and I was born in Switzerland. I think this hodgepodge of cultural influences has helped me enjoy having people very different from one another around me. I’m usually considered fairly non-judgemental and I tend to appreciate people for what they bring to the table — not what they wear. Being multicultural forces you to adapt faster and be less stuck in your ways.
How do you think we could attract more women in tech?
I think we need to teach women to fail. Men are taught to run and fall, and build and destroy. I hope it’s less the case nowadays but when I grew up girls were supposed to look pretty and play with dolls- there wasn’t much to break and fail in that respect.
Tech is about code, and when you code you’re constantly failing. Your first lines of code are not going to work, you’ll test, it will, you’ll re-code, right until it works. You’ve got to be comfortable with not getting it right the first time round. If we change how women feel about failure, we’ll get more women engineers, more women into tech, ready to say they’ve got no clue until they do 😊
And last but not least, if you weren’t a founder what would you be doing right now?
That’s a super hard question! I have 10 ideas of startups I’d like to build haha, I guess my passion for entrepreneurship runs deep. But if that’s not possible, I’d be building a coral restoration project in South East Asia, coupled with a really cool remote work approach… but then again, I guess that’s still founding something 😂
Thank you Patricia for hanging out with us today and sharing some valuable insights as a Founder! You can follow her journey with Kairn on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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