Rita Brooks, Co-Founder of Palmly, joins ChedHER to discuss how she's creating a social networking app for Christians, and her experience being a female founder in the tech industry.

chedHER

How This Female Founder is Creating a Social Networking App for Christians

joining us now is Rita brooks, co founder of Palm Leah social networking app for christians, rita, really glad to have you on this morning. Can you tell us more about kind of the act calmly and who you're hoping to reach also, you know, what's your mission here? Oh, thank you so much for having me. I am super happy to be here. Um but my family is a mobile platform where people can go to find and build community while growing in faith together and we're hoping to reach two groups of people um first individuals who consider themselves christian or who are simply interested in exploring Christianity and they're looking for a positive, safe space to do so. And then secondly, we're planning to reach as many churches as possible because our technology is there to empower the local church. You know, churches have been in somewhat of a struggle, especially since the pandemic and getting used to this hybrid online in person landscape. Um, but what I know to be true based on my own personal story, as well as operating in ministry for a number of years is that connection in this community, their key, if the church wants to be sustainable, because it's part of what sustains the individual and it helps us to remain grounded in our faith. And so we provide churches with the suite of features such as exclusive engagement rooms and analytics and they also have the opportunity to be a part of our church matching system where someone who is looking for a church could possibly match with them based on their needs and what they're looking for in a church home. Ultimately we're helping churches increase their engagement and grow their impact. And so I encourage anyone who's interested in that to visit our website at get calmly dot com for more information, you know, in addition to having as you know that there a moment ago, kind of a background, you know, and ministry or being in ministry for for quite some time now, you also have a background in finance in sales. Why did you decide to kind of, you know, make the move to build your own app and I wonder, you know, what has your experience been like being a female founder in tech. That's a good question. It's actually funny because I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur, let alone a tech entrepreneur and I had a great job in finance actually mischance. I was a territory sales rep with this huge book of business and I was comfortable, right? But then I got married, I became pregnant right away and I began to evaluate what is it that I'm really called to do in life and I believe everyone is born with a purpose and we are most fulfilled when we are operating in that purpose. So, I decided to build this app along with my husband and our team really, because we saw a huge need for it when I first started my faith journey, there was this community of people who really helped me to stay grounded and there's still some of my best friends to this day. And then when I became involved in ministry myself, I continued to see this pattern where groups of people would grow and thrive the most when, when, when they were connected. So palms was really birthed out of what my husband and I experienced and what we witness and ministry. Um, and then there's this interesting academy by experience as far as being a female founder and tech at the moment. Um, on the one hand, I have noticed that when I'm in meetings with investors, there's this different level of expectation, which I think all women in all industries across the board we've experienced. Um, but questions tend to revolve more around risk mitigation rather than the quality of our company were expected to be extremely tight when it comes to knowing our numbers and things like that, which of course, you know, these are all things that founders and business owners we should know, but there's almost no room for error. There's almost this unreasonable expectation that's placed on female founders and especially black female founders and other female founders of color. Um, but on the other hand, I really do think it's a great time to be a female founder because while there's still work to be done um, for supporting the females, I do think as special, it's a special time since there's way more opportunities available than in times past. And then I also think that people are beginning to take notice. You know, women generally overperform, we over deliver and we generate more revenue than our male counterparts. I really love that you kind of, you know, give an honest insight into both sides of that coin here. Um we know that you are participating in Jpmorgan's text, our founder catalyst program, How was this program kind of helped support you as a female founder? You know, I I really can't tell you in the amount of time that we have here, how incredible the program has been both from my business and for me personally, I really think that's why for the most part I have this more optimistic view about around what it is to be a female founder because I felt so supported, I felt so safe in this program and I understand that many women's introduction into the tech world is just not as such, but the program supports female founders by providing us with education mentors and the network which many people just do not have access to, but all of which are necessary to be successful and to take our business to the next level. And not to mention the camaraderie between the other founders that were part of the program. I built these peer relationships and these mentor relationship that I so might very much so value. And I know I'll continue to grow with throughout my career that networking being critical in any space before I let you go, you've only got about 45 seconds but I wonder if you can touch on this for other female founders and business owners out there. You know, what goals should they be setting to achieve success? Um First I need to take some time to define what success looks like for them, right? Because there's all kinds of ways to measure it and it can only be defined by that business owner, otherwise they'll look up and they're chasing a definition of success that you're like, okay, how did I get here? It's not what I expected. So first getting super clear on that, I mean that would be different for every stage of your business, you know, right now, success for me and possibly looks like getting to our next timeline, but once you're super laser focused on that, you forgot what you need, who you need to help you get there and make sure your goals are smart, they're specific, they're measurable, they're attainable, they're relevant and they have a time attached to it. I believe that Elon musk is the one that said, if you give yourself 30 days to clean your home, it's gonna take you 30 days. But if you give yourself three hours, it'll take you three hours. And so it's a way to really hold ourselves accountable by adding that time attached to it. Such great insight and advice, really appreciate your time and all of those tips, Rita brooks, co founder of Palm Lee.