NTT — Fran Danczak, Head of Communications & Marketing at Stitch
Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, where you live and what your interests are.
Hi! I’m Fran, I live and work in London and grew up in the countryside nearby. At the moment I’m big into podcasts, crime books and the rise of women storytellers in film, TV and other media. Who knew women would be so good at telling women’s stories ;) That’s me on the left:
How did you end up working in technology?
After a few years in advertising I started working in PR, partnerships and brand strategy for tech giants like Microsoft — and for tech start ups like Signal Media. From there I moved to become Head of Marketing/ Communications at Stitch (stitchapp.co) — we’re a tool designed to help creative businesses manage their black book of creative talent, so freelancers, photographers, designers, crew etc. That starts with a central database of contacts for your company — and then has features to help with things like in-bound applications and shortlisting.
What is a typical day in your job / life like?
I wish I could say that I get up at 5am, do yoga, have an acai bowl, read the paper and skip to work for 8. In reality I get up at 7, spend 20 minutes psyching myself up for my 40 minute cycle across London and start work around 8.15.
From there…. there is no typical day. It sounds cheesy but it’s true — we talk a lot as a team about business strategy and make sure that myself, our CEO and head of product all make decisions together, so we often have unplanned 2 hour catch ups which sort of throws you day out! Sometimes it’s meeting with clients and potential clients to learn about their pain points and how we can build the product around them. Sometimes it’s taking an online course to learn a new skill… Sometimes it’s hours of scribbling strategy on A3 paper. I try to head home around 7.30pm, eat and then go to the gym.
What do you like most about your role?
I really enjoy being able to bring my experience and view point to a team who all have a tech background - I think it’s really healthy for a team to have different angles on things. On the flip of that, I love being in a room full of people with a very different view point to mine, and a very different way of working. Having come from bigger companies I also really value the balance of power and responsibility that comes from working in a start up.
Working with a great team on an exciting product in a fun market also doesn’t hurt!
What are the skills and experiences that are needed to succeed in your field?
There’s absolutely no one answer to that. My experience of lots of different types of marketing helps me to create holistic marketing plans, but equally if I had spent lots of time doing one type of marketing that would give me different strengths. I think a key factor is that you need to be able to think like your customer not yourself, be ready to listen to your users and most of all be ready to say — that’s not my field of expertise, let me go and learn some more.
What excites you about technology, and what worries you about technology?
The ways in which technology can be used to improve human life, through better food yield to prosthetics to connecting people all over the world is all really exciting. I do worry about the effect of technology on my personal mental health, but I know lots of people find solace in connecting with like-minded people around the world. Overall I just think we need to all be ethical and responsible with the way we think about technology both on a personal and general level.
How would you describe your company culture?
Happy. We’re all excited to come into work in the morning — we like each other and we like what we do. We also debate a lot — being really open and transparent means any issues are resolved quickly and before they become a problem and we know we’re going in a direction that we all believe in. We also sat down early on and said — what kind of company do we want to work in, and what working environment is good for us, and we then try to make that a reality.
What would you say to someone reading this article, who is interested in working in tech but doesn’t feel that they are ‘techie’ enough?
That’s not a thing. Think about what skills you have that can help a tech company learn about the market, develop the product or sell their product. Are you good at research? Are you good at strategy? Are you good at understanding a consumer? Are you good at design? Can you write great copy? Can you bring a viewpoint that they don’t have but need?
If you can find a tech company in a field you know about or work in already you’ll likely be able to bring something to the table.
Is there anything else you’d like to share / tell us, maybe something you’re working on?
We’ve just launched Stitch — a way to bring your black book into the digital age. Basic accounts are free so if you’ve got a network of creative people you work with we’d love to hear any thoughts / feedback!
Finally, where can we find you online?
You can find the company at stitchapp.co and on Insta as stitchapp.co and Twitter as stitchapp_co
You can find me on Twitter at FranDanczak or add me on LinkedIn — Francesca Danczak
