“When you hear what others are grateful for, it resonates — and you remember that they appreciate the beautiful moments too”
- Ida Tin, co-founder and CEO of Clue, the celebrated female health app, describes her life journey and what she has learned
- “It sits very deeply in me how profound the global need is for advancing female health… the sense of necessity never leaves me.”
- Ida is fascinated by the life of author Anais Nin — whose journey of enlightenment and discovery inspires Ida’s own.
TOA’s tickets are selling fast — and the price increases on the 30th June — don’t miss out!
~ by Joe Sparrow
In TOA.life’s Journeys series, we try to find out what made admired creative founders successful, and what they count as “success” — that slipperiest of definitions — in life.
In the past, we’ve heard from luminaries like TIME’s design director Adam Perlis, Founder of Selfhackathon Patrycja Slawuta, and serial innovator and founder Dave Mathews to describe how they live life and what they think makes the good things happen to them and the people around them.
Ida Tin is a very welcome addition to this list of inspirational people.
As co-founder and CEO of Clue, the celebrated female health app, Ida has helped empower people by letting them understand women’s cycles better. We wondered what Ida had learned in life and how it made an app like Clue happen — and how much of its straight-talking and empathetic approach came from her.
We asked her about her philosophy, approach, and how she applied this to her work — and, as always, we asked her a couple of Proust’s Questions to get to grips with a lifelong entrepreneur like Ida.
Ida also gave one of the most fascinating and idiosyncratic talks of TOA 2016 — you can listen to it here:
What one life lesson do you think about every day? How does it affect your work?
Ida Tin, Clue: I try to end every day with asking what I’m grateful for today. My partner and I ask each other, and I ask our kids.
It ends the day on a good note and it connects us because when you hear what others are grateful for it resonates — and you remember that the other person appreciates the beautiful moments like you do too. It’s also an opportunity to show appreciation for each other’s small and big actions.
We also know from studies of the brain and happiness that making a habit of focusing on the feeling of gratitude is one of the most powerful things one can do to feel happiness. So why not?
I don’t think I use this actively enough in my work but as I’m writing this, I think I’ll start introducing this practice to our all hands meeting! It builds nicely on the culture for feedback that we are fostering at Clue.
Is there one situation or change that you keep in mind while developing and growing Clue?
IT: I have travelled with my parents since I was an infant and I have seen women’s lives in all parts of the world.
It sits very deeply in me how profound the global need is for advancing female health, as well as the pain associated with lack of education, access to care and the social stigma around those issues.
The list of horror that women endure — or die — from is so massive that I can only occasionally make my self fully present for it, but the underlying sense of urgency and necessity never leaves me.
What do you think is your “superpower” — the thing that you think you can do really well?
IT: I don’t think I have any super powers, but I have enough skills in many areas to be good generalist. I learn fast — or at least I’d like to think so.
I have found that what people refer to as “soft skills” — knowing yourself, being able and interested in growing as a person, etc — can very quickly become the very hard borders that you bounce up against in your career if you lack skills in those areas.
Being strong mentally, having a lot of adaptability, determination, and a creative mind, and being caring — all these things are hugely underestimated and overlooked. At Clue we try in many ways to support each other to strengthen our ability to become healthy and strong emotionally and physically.
Having a group of people who share a culture that take these things seriously helps us develop a collective maturity and wisdom that is powerful. It’s a never-ending task and Clue is still young, but I can feel that we are growing as an organisation — not just in numbers, but also in dimensions which are less visible, but arguably more important.
If you could pass on advice to yourself as you were starting on your Clue journey, what would it be?
IT: I think that not knowing when you start is a great gift. Not knowing that the mountain you are about to climb is 1000 times higher than you thought. That what you believe might prove false and that others see things that you are not yet ready to see yourself.
Starting the journey is the single most important thing as an entrepreneur. Had I not been so determined to start, that would have been the good advice I would have needed: just start!
Proust’s Questions: Who are your favourite heroines/heroes in fiction?
IT: She’s not really from fiction but her universe is so unique that I’l still chose her as my heroine: Anais Nin. I am fascinated by her diaries that, in my opinion, are the absolute core of her work.
Her ability to dive deep into the minds, emotions, desires, and strange places of her mind and others’ is just breathtaking. Her depth and sensuality, sexuality and creativity is inspiring. But she is also an entrepreneur in fighting to make her art her livelihood in a time (the 1930’s-1960’s) where she got ignored because of her gender.
Today we would say that she had an enormous amount of grit. She also has shadow sides — and as an early adapter of psychoanalysis she was also working very actively to develop herself from a timid girl into the strong women that she becomes.
I think there are many parallels to the journey you go through as a founder as you rise to the challenge of being a leader.
Proust’s Questions: Where would you like to live?
IT: There are so many different competing needs when choosing a place to live. Right now, work and the kids’ school takes priority. But if I was existing independently I think I’d live on a rolling hill of Spain in a dry and sunny place, somewhere almost desert-like, with wide horizons and blowing hot air.
The view is always important to me. I do poorly in narrow mountain valleys and forests. I prefer the open sky. I like the dream of simplicity and quiet with room for my own creativity and thoughts. I love visiting New York or London, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
All things considered I’m really happy in our newly renovated old house in a village-like pocket of southern Berlin. Our small garden gives the whole family so much life quality and I’m grateful for our small oasis of nature.
Join us this July in Berlin: come to TOA and connect with top-tier entrepreneurs, artists, and scientists — all in a beautiful, historic location. TOA Tickets are selling fast — and the price increases on June 30th, so get your ticket now!
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TOA founder Niko Woischnik: “TOA is becoming a kind of infrastructure for Berlin’s tech ecosystem” — Everything at Europe’s coolest technology conference pulses from its collaborative, community-focussed mission statement.
Originally published at blog.toa.berlin on June 16, 2017.
