Go Faster…You Can Always Slow Down Later. Lessons from the Home[ward] Grown Mentorship Program || EP. 182

[00:00:00] She would have figured that out on her own anyway. And how much of it do you feel like you were able to

[00:00:06] bring a fresh or different or new idea to the table for Natalie?

[00:00:12] Yeah. So let me be crystal clear. Like Natalie can figure out whatever she needs to figure out on

[00:00:16] her own. But I do think the things that Natalie and I talked through helped her figure them out

[00:00:21] faster. I made no decisions. I was a sounding board and I would had the privilege of getting

[00:00:27] to hear any question that was top of mind and give a perspective. And I think whenever you're in the

[00:00:32] position where you're hearing a perspective, it either sharpens your confidence in your decision,

[00:00:38] changes the decision that you want to make, but is helpful. And so I think the thing for Natalie and

[00:00:45] I that worked really well is actually what she just described in our first meeting, which is

[00:00:51] the whole intent of this program is to come with whatever question you have that I could be helpful.

[00:01:02] This is inspiring women. And this is the 2024 finale episode of the Homeward Grown mentoring program

[00:01:13] that Dr. Jenny Schneider started earlier this year that will continue into next year. This program is

[00:01:20] one that I am so excited about today. We're speaking with one of the mentees of this program, who is Natalie

[00:01:28] Guayadu, who is the CEO and founder of a fantastic company. We're going to talk about Neurod. And in the

[00:01:36] mentoring program that Dr. Schneider created for all of the listeners of Inspiring Women, I want you to know

[00:01:44] this. We need more women in leadership. And as we close out 2024, we are entering a time where the

[00:01:54] leaky pipeline of the middle, people are dropping out of this pipeline at unprecedented rates for women

[00:02:04] moving into leadership. This program that Dr. Jenny Schneider created is one incredible way that amazing,

[00:02:14] successful women can help those coming along to be the exceptional leaders that they already are and

[00:02:22] soon will further be. So I'm excited to showcase this program. Natalie, I can't wait to talk to you

[00:02:31] about what you're doing with your really exciting company. And thank you for being on Inspiring Women.

[00:02:39] Thank you, Lori. So fun to get to be with you. And thank you as well for being an inspiring woman

[00:02:45] and doing the podcast and all that you do on behalf of women and mentorship and sponsorship.

[00:02:51] You're welcome. Everyone, we all need to do more. All right. But let's talk about this program.

[00:02:56] So Jenny, we always just like to remind people about Homeward Grown, what it is, why you started it,

[00:03:03] what you're doing with it. And Natalie, we want to talk about what this program meant to you. So Jenny,

[00:03:08] do you want to go? Sure. So I have been fortunate in my own career to have mentorship both from women and

[00:03:15] from men and have recognized the importance of that mentorship. I work in healthcare and we know that

[00:03:23] women make 80% of healthcare decisions and yet we are underrepresented at the board level, at the CEO level

[00:03:29] and at the founder level. And so one of the missions that I have is to really try to give back and give back

[00:03:37] to founding women, founding CEOs and women who are interested in advancing their career as they see fit.

[00:03:44] And that was the foundation for Homeward Grown. We have two components. We have an internal where we

[00:03:50] ask our own employees, whom are women and men, to apply and they receive a mentorship program throughout

[00:03:58] the calendar year. And I also mentor one CEO and founder every quarter who comes from outside Homeward

[00:04:07] and that's Natalie. And today, Natalie is going to share her incredible journey. She is an incredible

[00:04:12] entrepreneur doing an amazing business in an area that's really important. So I'm really excited

[00:04:17] to dig in with Natalie. Yeah, Natalie, let's dig in. So just tell us about yourself and tell us about

[00:04:25] Neurod and tell us how you got into this program, which is kind of an exclusive program at this juncture

[00:04:30] to get in. There's a lot of competition for this. I know I feel very lucky and privileged to have been a

[00:04:36] part of it. It was such an incredible experience. So I am a neuroscientist by background. I also have

[00:04:46] ADHD, which is kind of the sort of impetus for starting Neurod. So at Neurod, we make a wearable

[00:04:54] headband that treats and tracks ADHD in 20 minutes a day without drugs and without side effects. And

[00:05:02] basically, as a neuroscientist, I was thinking about this problem from a brain basis, but really

[00:05:08] personally had tried every medication, experienced horrible side effects and wanted to solve it

[00:05:16] just so I could treat my own symptoms. But then also realized, you know, one in 20 Americans and

[00:05:22] people across the world are also experiencing this and wanted to provide them a solution that didn't come

[00:05:28] with so many compromises. So yeah, that's what Neurod does. And I found out about the Homewood Health,

[00:05:39] the Homewood Mentorship Program through a mutual friend. So Jenny and I actually met at Health,

[00:05:45] I think two years ago, through a mutual friend and one of our investors. And he let me know that

[00:05:52] I would be it would be a very good idea for me to apply. And that I could really benefit from it. And he

[00:05:58] was very right. So well, that sort of speaks to the importance of networking, right? I mean,

[00:06:04] we all think about these big conferences, they say network, network, network, and that obviously

[00:06:08] paid off for you. Natalie, can we go to more about your program? I mean, first of all, you're a

[00:06:14] neuroscientist. Okay, so like, that's not just like any, you know, any degree, that's a pretty serious

[00:06:20] accomplishment in and of itself. You know, a lot about brain function, I think we all think about,

[00:06:26] you know, I'm even saying it wrong, like ADHD, we all we all like we joke about it, we diminish it,

[00:06:34] we all that person has ADHD, you know, like, that's how I think people talk about it generally. Can you

[00:06:40] tell us a little bit more specifically, I spent some time on your website, I listened and watched

[00:06:45] your really well done scientific video that went through all the different brain functions that go

[00:06:52] into on this condition. Can you just tell us a little bit more what it looks like? And then what

[00:06:57] does neurod actually do? I understand as a headband and stuff, but it's not just any headband. I mean,

[00:07:03] this is some serious science behind it. Yeah, absolutely. I think you're right. ADHD, we generally think of

[00:07:11] it as something that affects children only sort of the little boy bouncing off walls at school, but it affects

[00:07:17] women in equal sort of prevalence, but it's less, it goes, I guess, more undiagnosed and less noticed, because we

[00:07:27] present differently. And it's not just children, children with ADHD, most often become adults with ADHD. And this

[00:07:35] wasn't really recognized until 2013, when we started to recognize adult ADHD. And so because of that, we're seeing

[00:07:42] diagnosis rates increasing really rapidly, especially in adults and women. And the medication that we

[00:07:52] prescribe, you've heard of, I'm sure Adderall and different medications, a whole bunch of different

[00:07:56] medications, they were originally developed and tested on young boys. And so the cohort in which you test those

[00:08:06] medications are generally the cohort it works the best for. And so we're seeing more and more people

[00:08:12] looking for alternative treatments. But what is ADHD? It is an executive function disorder. It affects focus,

[00:08:20] memory, impulse control, and it's not, it's very much a sort of a regulation problem. And so people with

[00:08:28] ADHD have trouble regulating these executive functions. It's not that they can't do them,

[00:08:36] they can do them really well, but having a command over when they can do them and exercises,

[00:08:42] executive functions is the challenge. And it comes down to quite a few things. So ADHD has a genetic

[00:08:49] component and it's got a neurotransmitter component, and then also a brain activity component,

[00:08:56] which is where neurodrelease era is in. So the prefrontal cortex, this front part of your brain

[00:09:01] is heavily responsible for focus, memory, impulse control, decision making organization, all of these

[00:09:07] key sort of functions. And in ADHD, these areas are underactive. So if you look at an ADHD brain

[00:09:19] versus a neurotypical brain, you'll see less activity in these areas. But when someone's focusing

[00:09:25] really well, you really need a lot more activity in these areas because it takes more energy, more brain

[00:09:29] resources to focus than it does to be distracted, for example. And Natalie, I am hearing the

[00:09:36] neuroscientist in you like come out in terms of understanding all of these details of the brain

[00:09:43] function. So if we take the science of it, which you know so well, what then compelled you to turn this

[00:09:52] into a company? That is a whole different animal. Absolutely. I was actually working in research

[00:09:59] and was seeing all of the work I was doing not find its way into the real world, just getting stuck

[00:10:06] time and time again in the lab. And so I realized that there were certain barriers to translating this

[00:10:15] research and actually having it impact people's lives that were really important. And the way to do that

[00:10:20] was for me through a company because I was just seeing so much research never leave the lab.

[00:10:25] And that's what made me want to step out of the lab setting and into a startup and into a more

[00:10:32] business setting. And you've had some success. You've recently been awarded some seed fundings,

[00:10:39] some pretty significant seed funding, three and a half million dollars, I believe it is. Is that correct?

[00:10:44] Yeah, that's right.

[00:10:46] It's awesome. So maybe Jenny, like what did you see in Natalie? I mean, you see so many of these now

[00:10:52] applicants who want to be part of the Homeward Grown program receive this mentorship, you know,

[00:10:57] from somebody who is as successful at doing this as you have been. What did you see in Natalie that

[00:11:03] said she's the one for this quarter?

[00:11:05] Well, I think what she just described reminded me of when I was reading her application, which is she's

[00:11:10] very, she's a very intelligent, smart woman. And she's actually focused on something that she deeply

[00:11:15] understands. And she was eager and willing to what you just asked Lori, to take a jump, like to

[00:11:22] understand that, know that, but then go do something about it and take the risk to launch a business to

[00:11:27] try to distribute and refine, distribute and grow a product is an incredible leap. And so someone who's

[00:11:35] willing to do that, both the background knowledge and the eagerness to do that is exactly what

[00:11:40] what I was looking for in the applications.

[00:11:43] And so Natalie, what happened during this time being in the mentoring program? What,

[00:11:48] what has been helpful to you in, as you're building Neurod, what has worked really well? It's like,

[00:11:54] ah, man, I'm so glad I took your friend's advice who said, go meet Jenny.

[00:11:59] Yeah, absolutely. So I think the timing couldn't have been better for this mentorship program with

[00:12:06] the stage we were at with Neurod. So we had just finished up a clinical trial,

[00:12:12] been really excited about the results. And we're about to launch our private beta where users could

[00:12:17] purchase the device and give us feedback. And so meeting with Jenny kind of, we're at these really

[00:12:24] key intervals through that process. So we first meeting, I like had all these notes and I just

[00:12:33] dumped all these questions on her, but it was so, so helpful because at first meeting we were asking

[00:12:39] things like, okay, well, we're about to launch this beta. How do we get our users? How have you seen

[00:12:46] this play out? And just brainstormed all these ideas. And then there was the two week interval where I got to

[00:12:52] implement all of these sort of ideas and test them and see what worked. And then at our next session,

[00:12:59] our beta had sold out. So like it all worked. Oh my gosh. Some of our ideas worked really well.

[00:13:05] Others didn't work at all. But essentially I was, how do we get users? Two weeks later, cool. We've sold

[00:13:11] out. We got all the users. Now at that point, a new problem has like a new challenge had arised where

[00:13:16] we were madly rushing to get our first set of headbands out to users in a process that we were

[00:13:22] trialing for the first time. And I was feeling a lot of the urgency and sort of stress that comes with

[00:13:30] doing all these things at once for the first time in a time crunch. And so we discussed like leadership

[00:13:36] and how much of your stresses do you share with your team? And because we want to be, you know,

[00:13:41] a candidate and share the urgency, but at the same time want to be a supportive leader. And so we

[00:13:47] dove into those kinds of things. And so at each point we were just going through a new,

[00:13:52] like working through new challenges that were kind of immediately applicable to what I was going

[00:13:57] through. And Jenny, as you were in these different discussions and sort of, you know, there's so much

[00:14:02] energy that comes from like, you know, new challenges and new ideas, but I'm assuming these are many of

[00:14:08] the challenges that you've seen in one way, shape or form before. How much during the sessions,

[00:14:14] you know, for you, Jenny, were, were you like, Oh, she would have figured that out on her own

[00:14:20] anyway. And how much of it do you feel like you were able to bring a fresh or different or new idea

[00:14:27] to the table for Natalie? Yeah. So let me be crystal clear. Like Natalie can figure out whatever she needs

[00:14:34] to figure out on her own, but I do think the things that Natalie and I talked through helped

[00:14:38] her figure them out faster. I made no decisions. I was a sounding board and I would had the privilege

[00:14:44] of getting to hear any question that was top of mind and give a perspective. And I think whenever

[00:14:50] you're in the position where you're hearing a perspective, it either sharpens your confidence

[00:14:55] in your decision, changes the decision that you want to make, but it's helpful. And so I think the,

[00:15:01] the, the, um, the thing for Natalie and I that worked really well is exactly is actually what

[00:15:06] she just described in our first meeting, which is the whole intent of this program is to come with

[00:15:11] whatever question you have that I could help be helpful with. And sometimes there's a question

[00:15:16] like, I don't actually know the answer. Natalie, I'm not sure I can help you. Let's go to the next

[00:15:19] one or Kate, you know what, here's somebody who might, I can connect you to that person to help you

[00:15:24] give, give you a different perspective. But the underlying thing here is as a CEO and a founder

[00:15:30] so often, and you know, this Lori, so often you have to like, I know all the answers or I have,

[00:15:36] I can instill the confidence in you that I know what I'm doing when you're like, I have no clue.

[00:15:41] And I need to find somebody to ask this question because it'll help me get there faster. And I,

[00:15:46] and I'm looking for some background and information. I think that's, um, why being a CEO and a founder

[00:15:52] is frankly, so lonely is that you have this perception of how you kind of project yourself,

[00:15:58] but like, without a doubt, Natalie can figure out anything, but having, um, a, a network of people

[00:16:03] where you can ask the questions to get to the answers faster, I think is the real help.

[00:16:08] Yeah. So lonely and also so hard. Every, every problem that you're trying to solve for is a hard

[00:16:17] problem. There's, you know, the fact that you sold out your beta, I mean, holy cow, that is just

[00:16:22] like so stunningly amazing. I hope these are the future problems that you have endlessly because

[00:16:29] that's just amazing. So Natalie, just as you went into this program, uh, first of all, have you had

[00:16:35] mentors before? Was this the first time with a mentorship program? This is my first formal

[00:16:40] mentorship program. I've got more casual, a mentor mentee type relationships, but having

[00:16:47] like a structured program was actually incredible because seeing someone more frequently, like every

[00:16:51] two weeks and getting, you kind of get to dig in so much deeper to not just when you, you know,

[00:16:58] meet oneself and you're like, here's one big problem. You really start to like go layers down into, okay,

[00:17:03] well, we solved that problem. What's, what's next? What's, what's a deeper problem? What's like a

[00:17:06] more pervasive problem. And you can really start to dig, dig further in. And I was also going to say,

[00:17:12] what was so great about Jenny's advice is that there's, it was absolutely no ego in our conversations.

[00:17:17] It was like, there's no right answer. It's not about like, here, I think you should like, this is

[00:17:20] what you should do. Um, it's actually more valuable than that. She was, she would always, um, sort of

[00:17:27] provide this sounding board, share new perspectives, and sometimes even play devil's advocate,

[00:17:32] challenge my ideas. And I think, um, that challenge is so, so helpful because when you're so

[00:17:39] close to something, you're kind of in your own echo chamber and having someone say, well, hold on a

[00:17:44] second. What about this? What about that? Um, is valuable in the moment, but also you take away

[00:17:50] from it a bit of a framework that you can use on your own and go, oh, well, actually that was a really

[00:17:54] like insightful question. Let me ask myself that question more. Um, and so it was, yeah, really,

[00:18:01] really helpful in that sense. And I also think what you're talking about, the no ego, one of the,

[00:18:05] I mean, mentorship is studied quite a bit. And the things that we know about mentorship is that women

[00:18:11] don't have enough of them generally speaking, and they need to have mentorship experiences where that

[00:18:18] no ego, um, if that's a critically important component of it, it's not, you know, this,

[00:18:25] like I'm just learning from, oh, the, um, oh, wise one. It's coming to a real conversation

[00:18:32] where you can get real and tangible value that shows the, um, that are the most successful

[00:18:38] mentor mentee types of relationships. Natalie, I'm curious for you. Um, you obviously were excited

[00:18:45] to get into this program. I'm guessing you had some expectations. What expectations were met for you?

[00:18:52] What surprised you out of this program? Yeah, I guess, I guess given it was my first mentorship

[00:18:59] program, I didn't have any concrete expectations. I knew I wanted to, like, I, you know, as,

[00:19:08] as you guys are saying, like, you're really, it is quite difficult. You're in, you're, you're doing

[00:19:13] this on your own. You're constantly having to solve problems and just hope that you're doing

[00:19:18] the right thing. And so I was so excited to be like, I have a sounding board. What do you think of

[00:19:22] this? What do you think of that? Am I like doing things the right way? How are you thinking about it?

[00:19:27] And so I think, um, because I didn't have expectations, it could be whatever I, we needed

[00:19:35] it to be or whatever I needed in that moment. And I think that was really helpful. Um, maybe if I had,

[00:19:41] you know, been through another program that worked in a very structured way, I would have come with

[00:19:46] more like preconceived ideas about how this should be run. But really it was just me coming with all of

[00:19:52] the things I'd been thinking about and all of my, uh, sort of challenges or, or, um, you know,

[00:20:02] ideas I needed brainstorming on, uh, input on and digging in. That was how we spent the sessions.

[00:20:09] Awesome. And Jenny, you've, this is the fourth time around with this particular program. You've

[00:20:14] mentored so many over, um, the years and you're going to continue this forward. As, um, as you think

[00:20:20] about this particular time with, um, with Natalie, what, what was different this time? What stood out

[00:20:27] to you? You always learn something from these sessions as much as you give, you get a lot as

[00:20:32] well. Yeah. And I, um, so, uh, I had a good Natalie and I had, I think had a, we're a great match. I

[00:20:38] think we had great chemistry and I, every session walked away feeling inspired with how excited she

[00:20:45] was about her business. And, and, um, that's not always the case when you're starting a business,

[00:20:50] there's lots of headaches in that. And it takes that, um, excitement and inspiration for the founder

[00:20:55] and the leader to continue to drive throughout the organization. I definitely learned a lot more

[00:21:00] about ADHD. I learned more about, about the neurod. Um, uh, but it was, it is the, the, the joy of getting

[00:21:07] to see both the passion and the thought work going into something, somebody, something that

[00:21:12] somebody is building for the benefit of population. And that was very, very strong, uh, through Natalie

[00:21:18] and in our, in our interactions. And I do want to say like Natalie and I are a great match, but

[00:21:23] for those listening, it's your mentor may not always be a great match or may not be a great match

[00:21:28] at any given time point. And that's not a reflection on individuals. It's really just trying to find the

[00:21:33] right mentor and trying to find the right mentor for the right time. Um, I think we grow into and grow out

[00:21:39] of mentors. And so that's okay. I think that's should be an open part of the conversation,

[00:21:45] right? It doesn't, you shouldn't force fit it if it doesn't work, right? It is the whole intent

[00:21:49] for, for sure, for me in this program is to be helpful. And if it's not helpful, then I definitely

[00:21:55] don't need to take any time, but I think time is so valuable. So mentees and mentors really need to

[00:22:01] have, I think a frank conversation, like, is this working or not? And if it's not no harm,

[00:22:05] no foul, but you know, find something we were fortunate to have a really great, strong connection

[00:22:10] that I think was, um, by, uh, was mutually beneficial and frankly, just fun, um, which

[00:22:16] is always, uh, added, added cherry on the cake. And, and Jenny, are you sure that it was, um,

[00:22:22] all Natalie or is it because you want to spend more time in Sydney, Australia and visiting Natalie?

[00:22:27] Was that part of the totally? And I had tried to get some sort of visit and then she had this huge

[00:22:32] breakthrough in her business and then came into the Bay area. So that was hard to get to Sydney.

[00:22:38] I came to you instead. Yeah. So Natalie, as we close out here, I'd love, um, just for you to

[00:22:44] give us, uh, you know, some highlights of like, what do you take from this program that you're going to

[00:22:49] use going forward in building Neurode? And then, um, where do you expect Neurode to be in the next

[00:22:56] near-term future? What are you excited about next? Yeah, I think some of the most important lessons

[00:23:03] I learned from the mentorship program from Jenny is the impact of storytelling everywhere. So not just

[00:23:10] where you think with investors and users, but with your team, um, there's almost, there are probably

[00:23:16] only a few places where storytelling doesn't help. Um, and I can't think of any right now. So just how

[00:23:21] impactful that is. And the other thing was, um, Jenny really encouraged me to lean forward into

[00:23:28] going faster. Um, something she said is go faster. You can always slow it down. And it's funny because

[00:23:33] as a founder, you're always wanting to move faster. I'm constantly experiencing this sense of urgency

[00:23:40] of like, we're not moving fast enough. What can we do to move faster? Um, but then when things start

[00:23:44] accelerating kind of on their own for the first time, and it's actually not your foot on the gas

[00:23:48] pushing to go faster, it's just, it's moving. And you're like, Whoa, I didn't, I didn't do that.

[00:23:52] Um, it can be a little scary. And so she really gave me the encourage encouragement and confidence

[00:23:59] to not like lean into the fear and lean into the move fast. Um, with that little safety of like,

[00:24:05] you can always slow it down, which I thought was really, really helpful. And I remind myself of that

[00:24:09] all the time. Uh, and in terms of where Neurod is going, I am really excited to keep expanding

[00:24:16] our cohorts, get, uh, more users, try Neurod, hear more and more feedback, iterate the product

[00:24:21] so we can give them an incredible experience. And, uh, yeah, eventually move out of private

[00:24:27] beta and into a proper launch of the product. Well, we can't wait. Do you have one of the

[00:24:31] headsets near you? Is it, do you have one right here? I would love to see it.

[00:24:34] I always have a headset with me. Actually, I know like we're sort of like the end, but tell

[00:24:39] us what that is just literally. Can you just, it's so cool. Yeah. So this is a headband

[00:24:45] that you wear for 20 minutes a day. You just pop it on your head like this and it combines

[00:24:49] two key technologies. The first is a type of non-invasive brain stimulation. So you'll

[00:24:55] remember I mentioned the prefrontal cortex and how it's involved in ADHD. We want to boost

[00:24:59] that activity so your brain can activate more neurons and provide you with more focus. Uh,

[00:25:06] and then we also measure the brain using a technique called FNIRS. And it's basically a

[00:25:11] light based method of measuring brain activity. And that's impactful because we need to measure

[00:25:16] one, that the therapeutic is being delivered to the way we want it to, that it's increasing

[00:25:22] brain activity and two, so we can help you actually track your improvements. Mental health

[00:25:26] can be a very sort of vague, uh, can be a little bit behind the traditional medical, um, system

[00:25:32] of like measuring everything. It'd be quite vague to know if you're improving and in what ways.

[00:25:36] And so we bring some precision there by measuring a brain, tracking those improvements and sharing them

[00:25:41] with the patient. Well, it is, um, exciting to see, and I am really excited to hear what happens

[00:25:47] with this, um, launch that you're doing. We're closing out on inspiring women and, you know,

[00:25:52] where I started was talking about my excitement for this homeward, um, grown program for all that

[00:25:58] it brings and for someone as accomplished as Dr. Jenny Schneider to take the time to build this program,

[00:26:06] it's exceptional. And we need more women leaders who are doing that active work, despite being

[00:26:11] extraordinarily busy. Jenny, as we close out, um, as you're looking forward to 2025,

[00:26:17] what should we expect from Homeward Grown? Well, we're going to continue the program,

[00:26:21] um, thanks to the great success, um, that we've had this year. So applications are open, uh,

[00:26:27] they're on my LinkedIn and I think on our company, um, our company page as well, but look out for 2025

[00:26:33] Homeward Grown applications. So we'd, we'd love to have you part of the program. Anyone who'd like

[00:26:38] to apply, please do so. All right. Well, this has been another fantastic inspiring women episode

[00:26:44] with the Homeward Grown Mentorship Program. I'm going to speak with Dr. Jenny Schneider and Natalie

[00:26:49] Guayadu from Sydney, Australia with her company, Neurod. Thank you both so very much.

[00:26:56] This has been an episode of inspiring women with Lori McGraw. Please subscribe, rate and review.

[00:27:02] We are produced at executive podcast solutions. More episodes can be found on inspiringwomen.show.

[00:27:09] I am Lori McGraw and thank you for listening.