By: Espree Devora
“The Girl who Gets it Done”
WEARELATECH/ WOMEN IN TECH PODCAST
“I think this part of my story could inspire others”
My community work isn’t successful by luck, it’s by design. Hi my name is Espree Devora aka ‘the girl who gets it done’.
You may recognize me from being the face of the Clubhouse app, on stage at South by Southwest or listening to my podcasts.
This is the story about why I created WeAreLATech which helped fuel Los Angeles to become the 3rd largest tech community in the world. To have an idea about how much the LA startup community has grown – in 2009 the LA Tech community all fit in 1 photo, now in 2023 people are moving to Los Angeles to build their startup and chatting about tech in local coffee shops is more common than Hollywood script chatter.
WeAreLATech, which I founded in 2012 (just had my 10 year anniversary) was created for people working in tech to feel safe being vulnerable and to collaborate with one another. The biggest compliment I received about my community was from a founder in a fancy top tier accelerator saying he got more value out of WeAreLATech than from the accelerator. I was surprised since he had access to the top venture capitalists and tech executives so I asked why… and he shared that in that accelerator he could never ask for the help he needed because he had to always appear like everything was going great. This stunned me, he had all the access to the most inaccessible people and still it was my organization that propelled him.
In 2015 I launched the Women in Tech podcast (produced by WeA- reLATech) because I kept hearing how impossible everything was for women in tech. I wanted to share stories of possibility to expand what listeners believed they could achieve. The mission of the Women in Tech Podcast is “If She Can Do It, So Can I.” I had already built the first action sport social network, I had already raised money, I had already moved onto my next company… I had no idea that I wasn’t supposed to be able to achieve most things. My Mom always says every ‘No’ is one step closer to a ‘Yes’ so I just stay focused on finding the Yes. I wanted to create something where the community felt empowered to also find their moment of Yes.
I consider myself to be an “artist of human connection”. I’m proud to say my connective community work has brought thousands of business people together both digitally and in person to form long lasting high quality relationships. These relationships have turned into fruitful business partnerships, employment opportunities and even meaningful friendships and marriages. My focus has been building technology, events and content to unify community by focusing on 7 senses. Every last element from smell, sound, sight, taste, touch, mood and mind all come into play when I am ‘painting’ either a digital or offline experience.
Anything is possible, no matter how big I dream. I do my best to create without limitations in mind, holding onto confidence that I will figure it out. This perseverance comes from reading the book “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, where I I learned that no matter how big a dream is, if a sincere heart is behind it, the whole world will conspire to make dreams a reality.
My journey becoming an entrepreneur all started playing in my father’s home office clicking away on the computer making friends in the AOL chat rooms. I started dreaming about how I could bring people with similar interests together through an online community and ended up building the first action sports social network back when it was MySpace vs Facebook. Pulling from the pains of my personal founder’s journey building my sports tech social network is what inspired me to create WeAreLATech. I wanted to create a place to safely lean on one another, a place to be vulnerable and ask for the help we need.
My organization’s sole unbiased purpose is to propel individuals in the Los Angeles tech startup community so they don’t have to experience the pain I had growing my startup. The evolution of WeAreLATech turned into an additional endeavor, my Women in Tech podcast. All I kept hearing was that it wasn’t possible for women to win in tech. This confused me, when I had already achieved so much. As I mentioned above I set out to empower the global women in tech community in addition to my Los Angeles tech work by sharing stories from women in over 100 countries.
Entrepreneurship has been simultaneously the most difficult gut wrenching experience and rewarding experience all at once. I invent my life, I have freedom in how I spend my time, everything is a source of creativity from my coffee mug, to a flower I see, to overhearing words from a passerby. My path has no boundaries other than my own self limiting beliefs. Being a creative (aka founder, aka writer, aka community builder) is like playing a video game with an infinite amount of levels. You have to jump the frogs, capture the stars and save the princess each and every day.
Each leader has their own super power. I’ve overcome a lot in my personal life which I think hard wired me to become a deeply empathetic person. This empathy is a superpower for community building. I need to be careful not to give so much of myself away that there’s nothing left of me energetically to serve. When creating I assess my own energy levels. If I am not operating from energetic overflow then I’m not able to serve to my highest ability. So it’s essential I do all the things; eating clean, sleep, fitness, breathing. It’s ironic that what makes a great leader is how we show up and what is encouraged in tech is to diminish our health in order to succeed. The two don’t go together.
That deep desire to “succeed” has led me down both bright and dark paths. The word success continues to evolve and change. When I was a new founder success meant being on the cover of a prominent business magazine like Kevin Rose featured on Inc., then it meant IPOing and being as big as Google and of course at times it meant who stacks the most revenue. It was in the past few years when I truly started to reflect on my own happiness. I questioned if success had anything to do with business growth at all. Afterall, would you rather be poor and full of joy or the wealthiest and feel empty inside… Of course we’d all like both abundance in the bank and a happy heart so how do we get there…
Often I make the joke that I found purpose before plentiful profit and I am waiting for profit to catch up. Purpose is definitely a key ingredient in my recipe to be a respected leader and build a credible referrable company. There’s that annoying saying, ‘it’s about the journey, not the destination’ and the more years that go by the more I find that to be so very true. A lot of business people who have gained financial success end up fearing apathy, nothing excites them anymore, after having achieved all their pursuits. They feel lost with nothing left to strive for. So with that reflection I am grateful I’ve had the tougher, slower road. The win will drip out in bits and pieces so my ride can last longer. In the tech world we get so caught up to create a major company by 20 and if we don’t we feel we’re done for. It seems the opposite is true. The longer our drive is, the more curiosity and adventure there is to be explored . It’s not emotionally fulfilling playing the comparison game on social media thinking we’re behind. What if in the full scope of our entire life, the journey in its entirety, the longevity of our ride does indeed end up making complete sense.
I want my life to stand for something. That thing that really matters to me is showing leaders aren’t perfect. We’re all flawed. I’m a vulnerable leader always afraid to show my vulnerability. Despite my fear, I do it often and it never gets easier. Showing up with open candidness regularly feels right so I bypass my fear that sponsors and customers may not trust my lack of perfection – when in reality no one is perfect, some people just pretend to be. The beauty in genuine relationships is having the opportunity to get to know one another’s flaws and strengths and elevating each other in the process.
The job of an entrepreneur is a professional problem solver. It’s all about being resourceful. I always say “Your Intuition Is Your Oracle”. The job of a leader is to help others achieve their dreams too. Everything I work on is about being compassionate, pushing myself to grow and creating an ecosystem for community to believe in themselves and be supported in the impossible. If we suspend disbelief even for a moment, our minds find solutions and possibilities. We’re stronger by collaborating than we are by competing.
