Ellen Goodwin, Co-Founder and Chief Solutions Officer of Artifcts, joins ChedHER to discuss how she's creating a platform to preserve the history of your belongings, and her experience succeeding in male-dominated industries.

chedHER

'Artifcts' Platform to Preserve History and Your Memories

joining us now is Ellen Goodwin, co founder and chief solutions officer at artifacts. Ellen, how does the platform actually work? Bring us down for us. Hi lisa, Good morning. Thank you for inviting me here. So what we've built is a desktop and mobile based platform where you can simply grab a photo, video, snippet, audio with grandma, you know, on your trip and upload it privately. Save it there build a collection, it can grow with you throughout your lifetime and and it will be yours. Right? That's the whole idea is that we have a privacy first platform where you can bring yourself and your history together. So what's the story behind artifacts? You know what, what did you and your co founder c that was missing from the market. A lot of our story is that, you know, my co founder went through a very difficult time when her mother passed away abruptly about five years ago and as the eldest daughter, she had an entire household of objects to go through and what meant something to her mother. And what was just the thing that was that was lost. You know, why did mom where this same necklace, whether she was at the beach or where she was at a black tie event, right? Um, and we really wanted to save people that trauma and that burden of having a lot of stuff and none of the history of memories to go with it. And what we found in the market today is chaos. So I have to drive full of 10,000 photos. Great, I have social media accounts, I have email, I have documents that archive pieces of my life, but nothing was connecting the dots. Right? So if I'm gone tomorrow, how is anyone going to know my story? How is anyone gonna know this photo and this video go together? Right. And and furthermore, some of us, you know, even have pieces of local or national or global history that we can share and we can engage with and others. So we wanted a privacy first platform where you can then say, hey, guess what? I would like to share this into a social media platform and engage with others. That's great. Um maybe not. Maybe I want to share it with my mom and I want to say, hey mom on the youngest of three. I don't know if I got these details right. Can you please check it for me? Um, so it becomes a way to bring generations together. It has a way of bringing history forward, the way that you describe it. It sounds just so fascinating applying kind of traditional history and the way we, you know, document history with insight into the way we tell our personal history just seems so fascinating and like an obvious solution that should have been out there earlier. Um it's interesting though because you guys launched during the pandemic, which is which I would imagine it's a fun time to launch to speak to us about kind of the advantages and disadvantages of that launch timing. Sure. And you said it right in the introduction. Right? We're all sitting at home with a lot of our stuff staring back at us. And so you know that was an advantage, right? People are realizing, wow I got a lot of stuff around me. What what is this? And and that is a is a positive for us um you know even smaller things right? When I create an artifact I then can easily print a QR code and I can attach it to the object or I can post it on a wall if I'm a photographer and in my gallery. Right. So the Q. R. Code had a resurgence. Thanks to Covid. Right? We all order off menus with it now my mom has it on her phone. So it's really made it as far as that's concerned. It also meant from a Corporate side we were able to be digitally native. We were able to avoid building in costs in terms of actual meeting facilities, things like that. And and it made it easier for us to go nimble on the talent that we're gonna be bringing in as we grow in 2022 um negatives. There are those of course, right. We would much rather be talking with potential investors in person. We had always planned to do already pop ups. You know, I had the luxury I'm part of the Chief Executive network. And Sara blakely came and talked and she spoke to, I just showed up at department stores, I showed the women and the men who were selling my products how they should be sold and talked about, right? We had envisioned something very similar where we could help people bring the stories together, we could bring a photographer on site and do pop ups and we do have concierge services to help families get through this as well. But once covid lifts, we hope to get back to some of that sounds exciting. You know, when I think about you and your founder, it's clear obviously both of you are women and as we know it at the top of the story. You guys are both formerly in the C. I A. Now you find yourself in tech, you know, these are two very male dominated industries. So I'm curious has this presented any unique challenges that I hope have been turned into advantages during your, your career journey? Yes, for sure. I mean CIA is military and its origins and its mission orientation and I think, you know, coming in, there is a 26 year old, maybe I was a bit naive to how that would play out. Um you know, sometimes it's not so obvious and it doesn't just affect me, it affects my colleagues to when they perceive these behaviors that are going on. And so you very quickly learn to find those allies and to draw lines and to create safety zones And I think that, you know, morphing them into the tech sector and security for my co founder heather, you know, those are much more male dominated and that's not always a bad of course, but it does anytime you're only or rarity, um, I think the benchmarks are a little bit different for proving yourself and having a voice in the conversation and being seen as credible. So you have to kind of come to the table ready to be bold and reinforce your position. And I think it also means that that, you know, networks like chief that's important, right? It needs, you need those allies, you need to be able to let your guard down sometimes and also find those promoters that give you that voice. Um, but also to remind you how to be a better mentor. Right? How do I look back and make sure that I'm supporting the next gen coming coming up through the ranks. It's such an important aspect. Even that latter part really supporting kind of other women potentially coming up in tech as you kind of continue to thrive, really love your product and your company, really appreciate your time. Ellen Goodwin, co founder and chief solutions officer and artifacts