Joy Ekuta's journey from MIT graduate to accidental social justice warrior is a testament to the power of embracing life's unexpected turns. Her story of pivoting from medical school rejections to sparking a corporate revolution around Juneteenth is filled with valuable lessons for African women navigating their own career paths. Whether you're facing setbacks, considering a career change, or looking to make a meaningful impact, Joy's experiences offer a blueprint for success. Here are five key takeaways from our conversation:
You will learn:
How to pivot your career path successfully when faced with unexpected setbacks from medical school rejections
How to leverage your unique cultural background to drive meaningful change in corporate America.
How to build, nurture and leverage a strong professional network
How to transform personal challenges into opportunities for social impact and entrepreneurship.
How to align your career with your values and create purposeful impact
What We Discuss:
00:00 - Nigerian Roots and American Dreams
03:39 - Navigating Educational Expectations
08:15 - The Medical School Dream Deferred
16:44 - Finding Purpose in the Tech World
25:57 - The Accidental Juneteenth Activist
41:24 - Building Retrospect and Embracing Social Entrepreneurship
50:37 - Embracing Cultural Identity and Making an Impact
55:07 - Lessons in Resilience and Faith
01:02:55 - Personal Growth and Lighting Round
Bonus Question
🔗 Connect With Joy Ekuta:
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00:00 - 00:34
Lola: Welcome to the Kadara Woman podcast where we amplify the voices of inspiring African women making waves across the globe. I'm your host, Lola Soyebo Harris. So if you're new here, please make sure to hit that notification button so you never miss an episode. And if you're loving what you hear, leave a rating and a review. It helps more people discover these amazing untold stories. Alright, today we're diving into the extraordinary journey of Joy EKuta, an Nigerian-American powerhouse whose path has been anything but predictable. From the halls of MIT to becoming an accidental social justice warrior,
00:35 - 01:12
Lola: Joy's story is a roller coaster of resilience, innovation, and unexpected twists. So get ready to hear how a pandemic pivot led to a movement that changed corporate America and discover the power of embracing life's detours. This episode is all about finding your path, even when the roadmap looks nothing like you imagined. Without further ado, let's welcome Joy Ekuta to the Kadara Woman podcast. Hello, hello, hello. Hi listeners. I'm super excited to talk to Joy Ekuta today. She's the co-founder and chief strategy and operations officer at RetroSpec, which we'll talk about in a minute. But Joy, how
01:12 - 01:13
Lola: are you doing? Hello, welcome.
01:14 - 01:20
Joy: I'm doing good. Thank you. Thank you for that. I'm very excited to be talking to you today. So thank you for the opportunity.
01:20 - 01:27
Lola: Oh no, thank you for saying yes. And I'm excited to get into your business on this podcast.
01:27 - 01:29
Joy: My business or my business?
01:29 - 01:30
Lola: Your business or my business, in
01:30 - 01:30
Joy: a good way.
01:31 - 01:43
Lola: I love the fact that we both have gaps, which I think is cool. So it makes me a little partial when you smile. Actually, I have an interesting question and maybe we'll get to
01:43 - 01:43
Joy: it later.
01:45 - 01:53
Lola: Yeah, we'll get to it later. Let's just jump into your business right now. But you're looking good. And I know for those of you who are like wondering, Lola, there's no video. Well, just imagine. She
01:53 - 01:58
Joy: looks great. Lola looks great, too. I appreciate that.
01:58 - 02:01
Lola: But go like the social media if you want to see how she looks.
02:01 - 02:04
Joy: Well, my socials are perfect.
02:08 - 02:37
Lola: All right, so let's get into your business. So a couple of things I found out about you. You have a Bachelor of Science degree. I'm not going to say what it is because I want you to say what it is when the time comes, but it's an impressive 1. You're also a serial entrepreneur, passionate about spaces that intersect people, technology and culture. You have a couple of businesses that we'll get into. And then you also have a non-profit organization as well. And so we're gonna talk about all of that. But before we do that, I'd like
02:37 - 02:45
Lola: to start from the beginning. Tell me more about your heritage, the African country that you rep, and how that's influenced you today.
02:46 - 03:07
Joy: Of course. So my heritage, I am born and bred in Nigeria, but my family actually relocated to the US when I was a toddler. So about 2 years old, most here, and we ended up living all over the US. I lived in Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, all of that before college.
03:07 - 03:08
Lola: And I,
03:08 - 03:35
Joy: yeah, I always share that because people are like, so where do you actually claim as home? And I always say Nigeria is what I claim as home because when I came here, that was the only thing that was consistent across any of the states that I lived in. And if you can imagine with my parents, they didn't know anything about American culture. So we get here. So at home, I was definitely in Nigeria. I was cooking, cleaning. It's the music, it's everything. But then at school, you know, I was learning American culture and learning Americanas. So
03:35 - 03:39
Joy: it's very much part of like my background and the way that I move.
03:39 - 03:41
Lola: And how many states have you, I mean, did you?
03:43 - 03:52
Joy: I haven't hit all 50 that I've lived in. I have lived, like formerly lived in 10 states. Obviously I've lived in 20% of the US.
03:52 - 03:54
Lola: Man, your taxes must have been fun at some point.
03:55 - 03:56
Joy: Ah. Ah.
03:58 - 03:59
Lola: Yes, sorry.
04:01 - 04:02
Joy: OK. I've suffered. I can't
04:02 - 04:11
Lola: move again. And then, of course, you mentioned you're Nigerian. So I have to ask, how has that influenced the woman you are today? Because I think there's going to be cultural nuances in there.
04:12 - 04:42
Joy: Yeah, I think it's 1, influenced the way I move, in 2 ways, I'm going to say. So the first 1 is like from an education perspective, Nigerians, if anybody knows a Nigerian, Nigerian woman, Nigerian man, like we're very serious about the work that we do. That's both in an educational aspect, but then also in a professional aspect. So I feel like, you know, grew up inside the house, would come back from school, present a 98 to my dad, and he'd say, so where's the other 2%? So that sort of mentality, you know, it's pushed the way
04:42 - 05:10
Joy: that I move into anything that I do. So I'm always trying to do it at like the top and like the highest highest level and caliber that's there. So it's not like oh but so-and-so's daughter is doing this. No it's me like the 1 that's doing that. So I think that was the first way. The second 1 is respect and I feel like that has come up a lot more in my personal life. I think as Nigerians, we just hold that to such regard, the way that you respect another person and how you actually express that.
05:10 - 05:21
Joy: And so I think in both my business and my personal relationships, it's 1 of the top qualities that I'm looking for in anybody that I engage with or partner with. Just have a high level of respect for them.
05:21 - 05:31
Lola: I like that. I like that. So education and respect. And you know, before we even go into the education piece, do you remember what you wanted to be when you were younger?
05:32 - 05:55
Joy: I do. So I wanted to be a lot of things. I want to say that I'm now a lot of things, but I initially said first I wanted to be an inventor. I loved Inspector Gadget, and I was like, oh, I'm gonna check all these, you know, things that I wouldn't invent like that. But outside of that, then I said that I wanted to be a chef, a violinist or an artist.
05:56 - 06:01
Lola: So was this, was this happening every time you were changing states or you're just, you know,
06:01 - 06:22
Joy: That kind of was falling the floor. I think it just came up with, I don't know, the side of things. Like, right when I started playing when I was 7, and I played that for 10 years. So I was like, oh, I can do that like full-time. Arts, I wanted to do, but then I had an art teacher, and she said that like, I wasn't good, so then I decided not to do it not because I didn't think I was good but you know.
06:22 - 06:38
Lola: Okay so but you we mentioned education earlier right so you talked about our culture and so you wanted to be a violin chef, inventor, you're not checking off the 4 right now. So what did your parents want you to be?
06:39 - 07:12
Joy: Yeah, you know Nigerians, they say to be successful, you got to be a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. And the reason that we moved to this country was because both of my parents wanted to have been to their educational careers. So my dad does, he's a doctor, he does pharmacology. My mom was a registered nurse for years, so she did nursing. My elder brother went off into medicine as well too. He's during neurology. And then there's me. So with me, I was like, I don't know that. I said I wanted to be a doctor. That's
07:12 - 07:35
Joy: because I wanted to follow my father's footsteps. But when I got older, started learning biology. That's just not my ministry or my blessing. And so as I live the engineering side of things, I always really, really loved math. So like that, that was an acceptable career for them. And I ended up going to a school of technology. So my parents were very happy with that. But then- Are we just
07:35 - 07:37
Lola: gonna skip over what school you went to? Because I think
07:37 - 07:40
Joy: it's- We're not gonna skip over it. What degree
07:40 - 07:50
Lola: did you end up getting and from where? So your parents wanted you to be a doctor. You followed in that first step naturally because you saw your dad. But what did you end up actually doing?
07:50 - 07:56
Joy: Yes, I ended up getting my degree in brain and cognitive sciences from MIT.
07:56 - 08:05
Lola: Brain and cognitive sciences from MIT. Wow. I mean, and then I thought you also got a minor in chemistry and computer science. Mm-hmm.
08:05 - 08:07
Joy: I did. I know. I know. We just
08:07 - 08:08
Lola: got to leave that on the side.
08:09 - 08:15
Joy: Lola, I know we have a lot to get through the conversation. Those are small things, you know. People get thirsty, they can look.
08:15 - 08:35
Lola: Those are small things. She said that, any listener, she said, brain and cognitive sciences for MIT, small things. Well, in that case, I'll just keep going. Because clearly, that was her engineering degree. Nothing. She has nothing on us. I mean, she has a lot of books in her background. So you know what?
08:35 - 08:38
Joy: I have nothing to say. I'm shocked
08:38 - 08:58
Lola: that you just bring up cognitive sciences. Nigerians, anyways, let's keep going. So obviously you got the degree, you pivoted from what your parents thought you were going to do, which is a medical degree. How did that inform what you ended up, how you started your career?
08:59 - 09:21
Joy: Yeah, Quite a bit actually. So I should come back to, yes, doing the brain and cognitive scientist side and then starting to learn the computer science and chemistry. Prior to MIT, I knew nothing about coding, programming, anything in that world. So I initially came in and I was like, I like chemistry, I like math, so I'm going to do chemical engineering. That's what I thought I was doing.
09:21 - 09:22
Lola: I was there before.
09:23 - 09:53
Joy: I remember. So, you know, I came in, the way that MIT is structured, you actually can't declare your major until the end of your freshman year because they want you to just explore, like talk to people, really understand what path you want to land on. And so I came in, started talking to some chemical engineers. Okay, this is a lot like, it's like the process of engineering, not as much as the chemistry, which I like. Okay, maybe I'll do chemistry. But then I took an intro to neuroscience class or intro to psychology class, sorry. I absolutely
09:53 - 10:19
Joy: loved it because like, oh my goodness, like the way that people work, it's the why, like this is just naturally how I think about things. So I wanted to do that, decided to pursue that career. But then I had a lot of friends who did computer science. So they would make these jokes and be like, hello world, ha ha. Like, hello world, ha ha, I don't get it. So after that, I did my own. I took an intro to computer science class. I loved it. I loved just like the logic based way of thinking about things.
10:19 - 10:49
Joy: It's the way I naturally think and operate. So I ended up continuing to take classes there. Bring these up because I come up on graduation and I was like, okay, well, I still did all, I've fulfilled everything for pre-med. So I'm going to do pre-med, but I want to do 2 gap years like just to make sure and to give myself time primarily because the people in in the office at MIT who are like supposed to help you with the medical applications they're like joy your application doesn't read like somebody who wants to go to like
10:49 - 11:14
Joy: medical school. They're like, you're really here. They're like, you've done like a lot of engineering things. You're not like shadowing doctors. You haven't been doing that volunteering. Like all of your different internships have been in engineering, so I, why do you actually want to be a doctor? I was like, I want to help people, so yeah, I want to be a doctor. So I was going to use the 2 years to like, you know, beef up my skills on the science side. So
11:14 - 11:16
Lola: I learned... Were your parents... Oh, sorry. I was
11:16 - 11:17
Joy: just going
11:17 - 11:21
Lola: to say, Were your parents in your ear when you were still thinking you want to be on the pre-med side?
11:21 - 11:49
Joy: They were. So what actually happened was, again, I went to MIT to be doing chemical engineering. So when I came back and I told my, I like called my dad and said, okay, actually, I found this major. I like it. It's like, it showed a brain, it's called the sciences. My dad was like, brain what? Science what? He's like, the only reason I allowed you to go to MIT, mind you, yeah, I went to MIT on my own conviction, But he said, the only reason that I allowed you to go was because if you're going to
11:49 - 12:20
Joy: go to a school of technology, then you're going to do engineering. Why would you go and do this brain like thing? It doesn't make sense. It's not well studied. I was like, I don't know, because it's interesting. I'm curious. So at that point, I actually didn't tell my parents I was staying on the pre-med track because I transparently experienced so much trauma from that level of disappointment. And I do think that just comes from the Nigerian traits in me to not want to disappoint your parents. You wanna perform well, you wanna be on this side. And
12:20 - 12:32
Joy: so my dad's reaction just maybe not want to share that like medicine was still there as a potential option. And then if I come and disappoint again and be like, oh, actually, I changed my mind again, it just wasn't going to go well.
12:33 - 12:54
Lola: You edited what you told them as you were going through your college career. And so you get to graduation day, right? And then you're graduating with this degree. And I'm guessing they're still like, I guess we'll show up for the graduation, right? To support your brain science degree. And then what happened next?
12:54 - 13:27
Joy: Yeah, it was true for the graduation, but I had a job opportunity after graduation. And I was going to be doing a technical and medical fellow at Duke University. It was specifically under this global health lab. I was going to travel around with different students and take them to volunteer in different hospitals, also support there, and then also be working on a, it's a biomedical engineering lab. So I was going to get to do both. My parents, what they heard in there here was, okay, so you're going from MIT to Duke. Great, cool. It's another tough
13:27 - 13:33
Joy: school. That's really the thing that they heard in there. Anything else that wasn't there, so.
13:33 - 13:42
Lola: Interesting. But it sounds like you still did it even though you, I guess, how did you feel about the support from home, even when you were making those transitions?
13:42 - 14:12
Joy: Yeah, it was, I don't know. I don't know that I feel all this support was there as much as like, okay, you're going to the right named schools, you're going to the right thing. And I think for me with the lab that I worked at at Duke, I was like, okay, I can do this because it's still that mix of medicine and engineering, being in a biomedical engineering lab. Had it not been that, I actually don't think I would have been as excited about it. Anyways, I worked in that lab for a year. They ran out
14:12 - 14:39
Joy: of funding for the role as it happens in academia. Yeah. So I went back to MIT and I worked with an office there just to help them with a program that they had for high school juniors to learn more engineering, science, all of that over the summer period. And I helped them to build out a role just to like really optimize and prioritize around some of the recruiting and admissions process for that. And I did that while applying to medical schools.
14:40 - 14:48
Lola: Okay, so you're applying to medical school, you're still trying to check that NIDA box and then and that was during your gap year, right? The 2 gap years.
14:48 - 14:49
Joy: Yeah, that was the second gap year.
14:49 - 14:54
Lola: The second gap year, wow. And they're not putting pressure on you that the gap year is going?
14:54 - 15:15
Joy: Oh, no, no. So during the second year, because I was applying to med schools at that time, then they know the process is happening. So it wasn't pressure that it's not happening. The pressure came up when I wasn't getting acceptances. Let's talk about that. I applied to, I think it was 36 schools. It's between 32 to 36 schools.
15:16 - 15:18
Lola: You applied to 36 schools for medical?
15:19 - 15:20
Joy: Yeah.
15:20 - 15:23
Lola: Why do you think that happened? Looking back now.
15:26 - 15:55
Joy: I think looking back, it's probably 2 things. So 1, like my grade freshman year, not freshman year, I would say sophomore year when it was more of like the hard sciences, so more of the biology, the neurosciences. I said that one's not my ministry or my blessing. I'm sure I can do that 1. I can't do. So medicine, people are going to look at that and be like, okay, these aren't strong enough. So, but of course my grades went up from there to senior year. So not like, you know, my GPA wasn't the highest. Then there's
15:55 - 16:22
Joy: the MCAT. People may not believe me when I say this, but I have a lot of testing anxiety. Like I do not do well in like tests. If I'm doing like an interview or if I'm like structuring something out or putting to like a product program, I can do that in my sleep. But once you say something's a test or an interview in that way, I just really struggle with it. And that's not to discount why I did not perform as well on the MCAT as I did. I think again, MCAT is a measure of a
16:22 - 16:44
Joy: lot of that more hard science, which was not my ministry or my blessing. So I think that and then third, of course, my background was speaking so much to like this engineering side and this peak, even though I was like, I want to do medicine, I want to help people, and like this is why all those things together. I'm sure that mission is going to be like, it's okay, you'll find your path.
16:45 - 16:50
Lola: How did you process the rejection and figure out a way to move through that?
16:51 - 17:21
Joy: It was a lot. Like, I will say, people knew that I was applying to medical schools, but I probably wasn't as open or transparent with most people around me, around like the rejections, because I just felt a lot of shame around it. 1, and 2, I'm also somebody who's so used to like, I work really hard at something, like I can figure out the thing, like I can, I can get it even if it's just like 1 acceptance, like I can get my foot in, like I can work it around? And not to say this was
17:21 - 17:54
Joy: the first time, but it was 1 of the earlier times of feeling like, wow, I'm literally actually putting all of my effort into this and it's still not enough. And I don't know that I can say that I actually processed it at that time, but I really navigated it beyond just being like, okay, well, like, just like I still have a job, I'm putting myself into work. And well, actually, you'll find this out throughout my story. But while I'm working, this random woman reaches out to me on LinkedIn and she was like, hey, I have this
17:54 - 18:18
Joy: job. I think that you actually might be great for it. I knew nothing about like corporate recruiting, anything there, but she was like, yeah, I have these like 2 roles. 1 of them was at Google. 1 of them was at 2 Sigma. Google, I knew very well. 2 Sigma, I didn't know what that was. She was like, it's a quantitative hedge fund. It's all this. I was like, all of these things are going over my head. Like, finance is not where I've spent time. But she started to tell me more about like the team and the
18:18 - 18:50
Joy: organization. I was like, okay, sure. Like I'll have a conversation thinking nothing will go from this. And I also hadn't worked in a corporate enterprise level company at that point. So I wasn't thinking anything of a that place is in New York, I was in Boston at that time, but I ended up doing interviews, meeting with a lot of people and they're like, okay, why would somebody from MIT do recruiting? I think it just piqued a lot of curiosity for the team, but I ended up getting the offer and I think, I don't know that I
18:50 - 19:19
Joy: can say that it helped me process my feelings around like medical school and those rejections. I honestly didn't do that until much later, but it gave me something else to be like, okay, well there's something here, There's an option. It's still, you know, it's this company that's in finance. It started again by an engineer and a scientist. I was like, okay, it's more engineering culture. Cool. So I can go double and play over there. So I think it just gave me something to distract my mind from and like learn and do and apply. I don't know.
19:19 - 19:47
Lola: I'm getting a thread of curiosity that's actually just pushing you through. You're like, okay, this is, I'm still waiting for this, but I will just keep, I'll keep going in this direction because I'm actually curious about what's going on. Cause you also mentioned that earlier when you said if it wasn't an engineering and the biomedical engineering, you probably wouldn't have done it. So there's a curiosity that's kind of like subtly guiding you through the whole process. All right. And so you work with 2 Sigma, right? And then when it Pinterest, then all the other
19:47 - 20:20
Joy: corporate jobs. They all came in later. I'll keep this actually pretty short from Tuzigma. So Tuzigma, I did there 2 years. I was doing recruiting and program management. 1 of my mentors introduced me to product management. So I ended up like doing a side course at General Assembly for product management. We're gonna come back full cycle to that later. But you know, I did that. And then I was recruited to a new startup. It was about 25 people at that point, but it was being started by the former CEO of Credit Suisse. And so it was
20:20 - 20:47
Joy: like, him, a number of other likes, these sweet people from multiple different banks, they're like, hey, we're starting this company, we want to scale it up from 20 people to about 400 within the next 2 years, looking for somebody to help us build it up, the ground up. I had been doing Recruitment, but I hadn't built up something in that sense from the ground up. But again, I was excited about it. And I knew I was going to start my own company at some point. So I was like, okay, this will allow me to be like
20:47 - 21:16
Joy: working directly with the founders and just really getting to see day to day some of the trade-offs and how this works. So yeah, I went to that company for a year. And then after that, I went to another startup. That 1 was about 30 people also looking to scale up. So that was started by the former CHRO from Google. And he had written this book. So I had read the book and he was a big leader in the like people operations of the field and the space. And I admired his thoughts around people and technology and
21:16 - 21:41
Joy: processes and all of that together. So followed his journey for a while. And then when he announced starting a company, I sent him and his co-founder, I did not know them personally, I did not have that connection, but I sent them an email and I was like, oh my goodness, I see that you're starting this thing. There's not a lot of information. I just know that I want to work with you. Here's my resume. Here's what I can do. Here's what I want to do. Like, you know, if there's ever a fit, let me know. And
21:41 - 22:12
Joy: at that time, I didn't, I didn't hear back from them. But about 8 months into their journey, then they reached out and they're like, hey, we think we have something that may be of interest. That's while I'm at this first startup, ended up taking on the conversations. Things went well, I got the offer, ended up going there. So I was there for a year. But I will say this is probably 1 of the breaking points in my career where I was doing the job and I was doing the role, but I ended up getting fired that
22:12 - 22:15
Joy: year. So this is period number 2 of yes.
22:15 - 22:16
Lola: Another rejection.
22:17 - 22:45
Joy: Rejection. But this is rejection of me being like, wait, I can do the role, I can do this thing. The question is probably then why did you get fire Joy? I would say this is where I have fully learned like founder employee match, sometimes it's not there. So I respect this person, and I believe they respect me, but we're actually butting heads in more than nuts on like, some of those things.
22:46 - 23:13
Lola: So expand on that, Simone, pack that, Simone. So you said 1 of the key takeaways you got from that experience was the, 1, you literally worked hard to get this opportunity. You stayed on them. They came after 8 months of you sharing your resume, you did the work, you were confident in it, there was no like questions there and then you got fired. And so your big takeaway was that it's a founder employee match?
23:14 - 23:49
Joy: Yeah, so I think there was a lot, there's a lot more built up to that. So this company, and I'll try and keep it more limited on what I share here, because I don't know where it's at, but there was a lot of people naturally with the founders, they had all worked at Google together. And so I think even in the ways that the recruiting process was built out, was very catered towards like a Google style of thinking. And so this is of that, you know, had raised constantly from the beginning of like, hey, you know,
23:49 - 24:14
Joy: even like the side comments of, oh, well, like Google, like this person, what made sense on like this team, those references don't, they don't vibe with what you're trying to scale a company from the beginning. 1. 2, it's really important if you're scaling out a team, if you do want it to be as diverse and inclusive as possible, you got to do that from the very first hires because that stretches out to the network, it stretches out to like what people are attracted to. And so I did, you know, actively go out, I sourced and I
24:14 - 24:48
Joy: built different lists as well too and try to make sure that existed within our pipeline. But I think, again, what I recognize more now, having been a founder, I think I had different expectations for like how much time the founders like could invest and needed to be part of this and needed to be pushing in certain areas that I don't believe I always communicated that well. When I'm thinking about like my main stakeholders and my main colleagues, because I was a recruiting team of 1, my main colleagues were the founders of the company. And they think
24:48 - 25:01
Joy: sometimes like that level of proximity to them made me believe like, well, I have a full understanding of like everything that you're working on. You got to prioritize this. I need this from you in these ways where I don't know that that was actually the case.
25:02 - 25:30
Lola: Interesting. Wow. So you also mentioned that when you were getting these opportunities, you knew you wanted to run your own company at some point. So maybe that's a good way to segue into what I call it the the Kadara moment. Like it's what I found is a lot of people at some point in their journey, they figure that moment of clarity when they're like, this is where I want to go spend my time. This is where my true calling lies. When did that happen for you?
25:30 - 25:57
Joy: Yeah, so it happened after this period of getting fired. So like the first month after I got fired, I honestly couldn't get out of bed. It was a full level depression. Like I developed like irritable bowel syndrome. Like I was super anxious. I have an anxious personality, but this is the first time that I like started to sort of spiral and like well maybe if I had done that conversation differently or maybe if I would like had this or like maybe if I had like followed up on this like on time like just so many things
25:57 - 26:25
Joy: that spiraled it in in my head but 1 I'm like so grateful for my community that was out there in the Bay Area because my old colleagues as well as friends, like they made it a point to like come out and see me at my place and like remind me of the things that I had done or I was capable of. And so that's 1, I would say it's the only thing that got me through that period. But then after that I was okay let me try and like apply to some jobs now and see if
26:25 - 26:54
Joy: that's something of interest. I think maybe I put in 3 4 applications and I was like you know what I actually do I don't know that I could work for somebody else right now. I actually don't want to go through that labor. And so I felt earlier than the time that I actually wanted to start my own company. But I was like, what better time than now? So at that point is when I started to seek out a couple different resources. I did a program called Founder Jam just to learn around like the capital raising side.
26:55 - 27:14
Joy: I did like YC's virtual startup school. So just to learn like a lot of like the fundamentals. I did another course called venture deals to really learn like the terms from cap table, all of that, just set myself up right. What was needed. And then if we go back to that product management course that I've taken on the sidewalk to sigma
27:14 - 27:15
Lola: with general assembly, right
27:15 - 27:45
Joy: At General Assembly. I had this idea that I did through the course where I was like, ah, I'm planning so many events for different friends, like they're bachelorettes and I'm planning people's surprise birthday parties and I'm planning events at work. I was like, there's got to be an easier way to do this for smaller events. And so I thought is when I first came up with the concept for what eventually became that first startup called Hosto Wambay, or if you hear the Nigerian reference from a Wambay, like it's like a platform to hire affordable party planners.
27:45 - 28:05
Joy: The way I thought about it was, hey, it's a platform. You can find the party planners, but I'm going to do it based off of different small scale events. Your bar mitzvahs, your quinceañeras, your milestone birthday parties. But once you actually hire somebody into place, then you can track the full planning process as it happens. Instead of this back and forth like text and email, you can see everything within the platform.
28:06 - 28:18
Lola: Oh, so it was like a lack of a better word, like a CRM, like a portal for that managing all the multiple vendors for the event. So there's nothing like that before then?
28:19 - 28:45
Joy: So there's nothing like that for like small life events that happen. There are for bigger events, so for your weddings or any sort of like corporate events. But those one-off things like a kid's birthday party where people are like, they're struggling to try and manage and plan the thing themselves like there's people who can do it and then there's party planners who are like oh that budget might be too small for me to be doing multiple at the same time but if there's a way to reduce some of the communication that's there like
28:45 - 29:15
Lola: oh I could have used that a couple of times. There was a lot of text messages and Excel sheets and notepads and dedicated notepad for this birthday party, especially for kids' birthday parties. So let me back up a second. So you were going, you were educating yourself in the startup lingo. You did Y startup, you did the rental deals, you did the product development for General Assembly way back earlier. You're putting all these pieces together. It sounds like you were taking these courses, you didn't really have the idea, but you still were going through and then
29:15 - 29:18
Lola: it came together in that journey.
29:19 - 29:42
Joy: Yeah. The idea I had from that product management course. So 2017, it was always an idea in the back of my head. But I was like, I don't know if I have the right resources, the right time, the right skills to be able to start the platform that I want to start. When I started doing these courses, it was all in support of learning the business side, but I had the idea. This is like fall 2019.
29:43 - 29:44
Lola: Okay.
29:47 - 29:49
Joy: You know where that's going. Right.
29:49 - 29:54
Lola: Right. Yeah. So what happened? Well, I started it.
29:55 - 30:22
Joy: And as soon as I started it, friends had use cases for it. So 1 friend immediately was like, oh, I need to plan my, and that's my now co-founder, but his wife was like, I want to like plan his 30th birthday party. We can run it through this platform. So I'm building things at the same time. So like all the templates and such, of course, with any sort of startup, I'm not building out the platform from scratch first. So starting in like spreadsheets, what it looks like to plan it out, the different selections options. So that
30:22 - 30:49
Joy: was the first event. But then people who had gone to that event, you know, I like started branding. I didn't know those terms at the time, but I, you know, on the emails, it'd be like powered by Hostel Wambay, or it's like in the footer of like any of the events page. There was 3 people who went to that event who were like, oh my goodness, I went to this. This was like so well executed. I have this event coming up. 1 was a citizenship party. So somebody like recently got their citizenship. 1 was somebody wanted
30:49 - 31:15
Joy: to do a birthday party. The other 1 was like, not a book release. Some sort of like spoken event like that, but they wanted it because they saw the quality happen from this first event. So then I started doing those events. Then, you know, all this while trying to build up the events I'm trying to make connections with a lot of party planners in the Bay Area. I'm learning a lot more around what my you know what we're separate from my own assumptions to what like what their day-to-day actually look like the different rules building this
31:15 - 31:44
Joy: out and then from those parties, people were like, oh, I have like a housewarming event that's coming up. I want to plan this. I have a baby shower that's coming up. So the word was getting out and like I had events in the pipeline. I also, in what I learned in like the capital raising side, I need enough traction if I'm gonna go to VCs, actually show them, because I believe this idea is here, but I need to be able to show them that people are willing to pay for it, which they were across the board.
31:45 - 32:14
Joy: So I've given myself a timeline of 6 months, try and get the traction into place in terms of events, in terms of different connections I had, to then start go out and fundraising. I was like, that'll probably take me 6 months to do. You can imagine where the 6 months fell. Right, it began in February. February 2020, Yeah. So I was 1 of the first ones where like, just like that, events like started getting canceled, everything in the pipeline like cleared up. Then we had our whole like, the shelter in place call, we didn't know how
32:14 - 32:42
Joy: long that was going to be. People started to do a lot of like birthday parties over Zoom or celebrations. And the questions I did start getting from people is, Joy, people are looking for like social connection. They're looking through this. Like you should pivot Host A Wambay to that. But my whole motivation in like starting the company was to make it easier for people to get together in person and doing things in a virtual space just wasn't going to like fit in that same way. So at that point, I was yeah, I was like, OK, I'm
32:42 - 33:10
Joy: going to I'm going to put the business on hold. I don't know what I'm doing between. But when I started the company, I was like, OK, even if it doesn't work out, I'm in the Bay Area. There's lots of jobs that I hear. But no, if you remember the beginning of COVID, that was the beginning of a lot of layoffs. So now it's layoffs. Now the industry for like what I was building around is completely obliterated. Didn't, I didn't know what was happening. I was going through another period of like,
33:10 - 33:10
Lola: okay,
33:11 - 33:20
Joy: did I fail because, did I fail because of the time? Did I fail because like I should have been doing this faster, should have started the conversations. There was just a lot happening in that period.
33:21 - 33:53
Lola: So there's a lot to unpack in that. And obviously there's another transition that you made from that. So let's even go back into Host Awambe. So I love the name, I thought that was a very clever way to combine the cultural piece and make it memorable at the same time from a brand standpoint. But you mentioned that you are gaining traction from a test model. Sounds like you're probably using your engineering skills there. You did an MVP. So a minimal variable product tested out is great traction. And Then you mentioned that 6 months in, COVID happens,
33:54 - 34:00
Lola: people are telling you to pivot but you didn't pivot. Looking back now, how do you feel about that decision?
34:01 - 34:08
Joy: I feel great. Because me not pivoting is actually what opened up the door for like the company I now have.
34:08 - 34:09
Lola: Okay. It's been
34:09 - 34:11
Joy: 4 years and it wouldn't have happened had I pivoted.
34:11 - 34:35
Lola: Oh, wow. I love that. So, what were your emotions during the COVID time? Because we have medical school history, we have fired from the startup history, we have the energy of, oh my God, I'm going to stop this coming and take all these classes. Oh my God, let's start this and then you get interaction. COVID hits. What is your mindset at this point? What's going through your head?
34:36 - 34:39
Joy: The way I'm laughing now is actually what my mindset was.
34:41 - 34:42
Lola: You're like, hey,
34:45 - 35:14
Joy: yeah. I literally had no idea. I was like, I don't... Me also making the decision to like bootstrap this thing for 6 months means money is not coming in the door for 6 months. So my question at that time was, okay, I'm in the Bay Area. How am I gonna afford to like, stay and live in the Bay Area too? What am I actually gonna go and do? Like, I didn't wanna go back and do recruiting. And then I just didn't wanna apply in a period where a lot of people are getting laid off. Like, I've
35:14 - 35:42
Joy: been on the recruiting side. I know what it looks like, like managing the numbers. I didn't really want to go into that. And then with the idea to pivot it, I don't think I operate very well in like virtual spaces. I've gotten better over time, but I'm more of like an in person sort of like vibes and community. And so that's really why I didn't want to pivot this company to like, okay, anything virtual events. Like there's other people who can do that. That's just not what I want to do for the period. But like my
35:42 - 35:58
Joy: emotions was, I literally don't know what to do and I just need somebody to tell me what to do, but I really don't know what to do. And the world seems like they're crashing around us. Does anything matter anymore? It really wasn't very chaotic since the emotions.
35:58 - 36:09
Lola: So how did you pull through that? Even that chaotic voice speak, like, I don't even know what to do cuz I was telling like who did you who did you talk to how did you get through that
36:09 - 36:26
Joy: yeah so my now co-founder he had actually started a creative collective it was called hella creative and it was again started virtually online but essentially was like a Slack group. And then every Thursday, we'd get on a video call, people would like grab something to drink.
36:26 - 36:27
Lola: How did you meet him?
36:28 - 36:31
Joy: My co founder, we went to undergrad together. Okay, okay.
36:31 - 36:32
Lola: Okay, sorry. Good.
36:32 - 36:58
Joy: No worries. But he had started this group of friends and I started he like invited me to join it so I started joining and like that was just good from a sense of like I Don't know it was a mix of like creatives like entrepreneurs like people in tech And so a lot of people had the same experience. And I was like, okay, so it's not just me, even though like I was starting this company, it's not just me who's like, trying to figure out these very unknown times. And so that was like, you know, good
36:58 - 37:31
Joy: for like 2, 3 weeks going going into the pandemic. But then George Floyd was murdered. At this point, you know, we all get on this call and I think like that was just the limit for everybody who was on the call. You know, we're like, okay, we've all been inside, like we're still dealing with like black people being murdered outside when we're all like we're all literally inside. It helps us make it make sense. And so this is like 2 weeks out from Juneteenth. And so we started talking about getting outside to socially distance and we're
37:31 - 37:56
Joy: like, okay, you know what, We're all going to take the day off and we're going to go outside for Juneteenth. And this starts this conversation of like Juneteenth as a holiday, which you're in Texas, so you may know it a little bit more at that point. I didn't know too much about the holiday at that point. But once we started just talking about the history, it started this conversation of like, why isn't Juneteenth like a holiday in the first place? And we're like, well, we're gonna make it our own holiday. So, and the creatives that we
37:56 - 38:25
Joy: were just like trying to have an outlet from like the chaos. We, Some of us got together that weekend, we put up a website and just made it a little bit more information about Juneteenth. But then having worked in HR and recruiting, I wrote some email templates because I know the language to use. This is what people can send to their CEOs, their HR manager, their ERG leads. There were different templates that people could send out to request for the day off without accounting on PTO. You know, at that time, companies are putting up black squares,
38:25 - 39:00
Joy: everybody's trying to figure out what their corporate response. No, I'm just saying, they figure out the corporate response. And so we put this up. But then, you know, I believe in social pressure. So that's actually where I learned like Airtable is like, we need a way to like display like what companies are actually like signing on board to do this. So we're calling them in. It's just, you know, I make it on the list. But I'm saying we put that together and in about 48 hours 60 companies have signed on board, which we're like yeah, this
39:00 - 39:04
Joy: is exciting. Like I was already excited. Wait, wait, pause.
39:04 - 39:14
Lola: How did you get from you guys building the website, coming up with templates, and then 60 companies signed up on this Airtable spreadsheet?
39:15 - 39:41
Joy: Yes, so on that cadence, we made the website within 2 days. Like when I said it was a very quick website, we really made the access for social, we did it in 2 days. The templates, again, I'm writing that. My co-founder is doing like a lot of the visual design. We had like 2 other people who are also working on like some of the resources. This was a very quick sprint and like, I don't know, it wasn't meant to be what it turned into, but we did that. And then because it's the people in this social
39:41 - 40:13
Joy: collective who were also asking their employers for the day off, then they're getting that buy-in that we can put those companies on board. What did happen though with the CCC companies is that Jack Dorsey, you know, also announced Twitter and Square, we're going to be having change teams off and somebody within the collective had worked at Twitter. And I guess, you know, they at least were close in proximity to Jack, that when he makes this announcement, we're like, okay, tell him about like what we're doing. So that person sent him the link, he saw it, he
40:13 - 40:48
Joy: ended up reposting it for us like on his site thread. And like the Juneteenth stuff. And if you might like Jack at that time, I had a lot of you know, a lot of connections, a lot of respect across the industry. And so it gave us a lot of credibility very quickly. And so Next thing you know, companies start signing up for things. And as they're signing up, we're doing this for free. Like we're not getting paid, but I'm a business woman. So we built this and automatic, the parent company of WordPress, they were like, hey,
40:48 - 40:52
Joy: we see that you're doing this thing, you're building it on WordPress, let us know if you need anything.
40:52 - 40:55
Lola: But actually- They reach out to you?
40:55 - 41:24
Joy: Because it's getting a lot of traction as like companies are getting the day off and we're building it on the platform. So they said that they would like release some features for us, like again nothing paid so we don't have to do anything there. For Airtable, I asked a friend who worked there, like hey can we actually get this interface level like for free just so we have all the functionality around the tools? They gave it to us. Then there was a PR firm who was like, hey, we really love what you're doing. We'd love to
41:24 - 41:52
Joy: support any in-kind support that you need. And I was like, okay, cool. Let us know what you need to do. So they took that on. They gave us about 45 hours of in-kind support. And so like any sort of company that could help us then. Wow. Yeah, we took it. So within 2 weeks, like when I say this thing snowballs, I mean, this is a 2 week period from George Floyd murdered to Juneteenth. So every day at that point, it's literally getting like a lot of emails and communications. And the way so I was working at
41:52 - 42:16
Joy: that time was I'd set up the air table so that if people had like a public announcement, I was like, you just need to put the link in there. But if you don't have a public announcement, that's okay. But you have to email this alias with like the internal communications that you're sending out to the team. And a lot of companies sent them. So I'm reading through these like every day and making sure that it's clear, it's valid, it's by like somebody within the company. And what we started to notice was a lot of people were
42:16 - 42:47
Joy: like, hey, are there other ideas around like what we could do or what we could like put out? So internally on our side, people are doing this on the side of work. We're just doing it free time building and refining the website. People started talking about a lot of different events. So we created a separate air table to basically crowdsource and allow people to submit if they're hosting an event for Juneteenth around the country. So people were outsourcing, using that as a centralized location. Then a lot of publications started reaching out. I think it ended up
42:47 - 43:19
Joy: being 60 publications. But then people were just talking about this thing that we're doing. And within that period, I wanna say it was about 650 companies leading up to Juneteenth. And companies are like, I don't know, they like wanted us to speak on panels do this but people want us to do it on Juneteenth and we're like hey we've already said like Juneteenth is like it's a day free of labor that also means a day free of unpaid labor so literally we are not doing that. We yeah so we I mean we still went outside as
43:19 - 43:29
Joy: intended and we did our pick-me-up on Juneteenth's side we ended up like hosting a virtual event for Juneteenth, so we had, like, a lot of different, like, artists and creators come in, but, like, this was fully, like...
43:30 - 43:35
Lola: Wait, was that the intersection of Host the Wanda to plan that party for the Juneteenth?
43:36 - 44:03
Joy: I mean, that was where I started thinking about, you know, a social side. I didn't want to do too much planning at that sense. But what I actually did do was I had written this post on Medium before we got into this Juneteenth stuff that ended up getting a lot of traction, is what I'd say. Basically, once George Floyd was murdered, like it's the way that I processed my thoughts and I was like, okay, I've been in all these different spaces. I'm so tired of this. I can't, I cannot be the sounding board for my non-Black
44:04 - 44:36
Joy: friends. It's really what it comes down to. I'll say people still find that article today. It's a little insane. But where Hostewame came into this is that I was like, okay, people are planning different events. Let me actually have this list for people of how to host the perfect Juneteenth event. And so I had recommendations around what the food could look like, what the music could, how people should think about colors into it, all this stuff. And I would say every year at Juneteenth, it still peaks now because I think at that time it was just
44:36 - 44:41
Joy: getting a lot of hits. So it's still like 1 of those things that Juneteenth is coming up. I'm like, okay.
44:41 - 45:17
Lola: Wow. So, okay. Okay. I mean, there's so much in there. So first of all, I didn't even know where to start to dig into this. This snowballs from a conversation of you while you're trying to figure out, I'm in the middle of this pandemic and this business that I had all these dreams for is not going to be as productive or fruitful, but I want to keep going to all your little side events here and then you guys are talking and then Snowballs, Jack Dorsey, tweets it out. I can't imagine the surge even to the website.
45:17 - 45:29
Lola: You get creative, scrappy. It sounds like you basically you're a second entrepreneur in the process because you're starting this other business without a fully formed business plan.
45:29 - 45:45
Joy: It wasn't meant to be a business. This 1 was literally, no, it was meant to be a thing for our friends to take the day off for Juneteenth. Like, it was like, we talked about it at the end, because as of those, those, the original 650 companies, companies still kept on signing up after that point. Because Juneteenth was not-
45:45 - 45:54
Lola: But when did you know it was a thing? When did you know it was like, oh my goodness, this is a movement, this is big. We're, you're basically, may I say this, influence policy.
45:55 - 46:30
Joy: We did help influence a lot and there's a lot of people on the ground who have already been making movement around Juneteenth, so we'll never take credit for making Juneteenth a holiday. I can say we were directly responsible for a lot of companies making a company holiday before it was a federal holiday. But yeah, knew it was a thing once the name started rolling in. Like after, I think, again, Jack Stamp helped a lot on just credibility with fellow corporate partners. But when I say like, companies are like Netflix, Glossier, Spotify, a lot of people on
46:30 - 46:56
Joy: the market. Like there was just a lot of different companies and the people who were reaching out, I was like, oh no, this is, this is a thing. It's an article. Celebrities are like referencing it. It's like hella duty, this hella creative, company. It was, yeah, it was a lot. And at the end of it, we had also, we're like, yeah, okay, well, we did that thing. We, you know, we made this market history that was cool. It was 2 weeks.
46:56 - 46:57
Lola: You're right, we're hopping today after.
46:57 - 47:33
Joy: I mean, we rested. It was not supposed to be anything beyond this two-week period, like this two-week chaotic period. But then companies started reaching out to us and they're like, hey, we have this project, like can you guys help us do X, Y, and Z? We're not a company. However, again, going back to the business side, if you hear this thing 3, 4 times, there is a need some way for somebody and people have money to pay for it. And so then, you know, 3 or 4 conversations later, we started having serious conversation around like what
47:33 - 48:07
Joy: it could look like for us to do this type of work full time. And I had created business plans before, so, you know, helped lead my other co-founders who had not created business plans or had not been founders before, walk them through that process. We all divided and conquered to make a business plan. My now current co-founder, his company, you know, was 1 of the large marketing shareholding companies. So they, of course, put a lot of interest into this viral campaign that's happening from 1 of their employees. So, you know, he starts having conversations with them.
48:07 - 48:29
Joy: They're like, yeah, he wanted to build something. They were like, we're invested in this. And I think, you know, there was just so much social capital. And it's the times that it was that this is the only way that this could work. But it was the time. So enough conversations happened through. We negotiated a lot through into place and they agreed to invest in us. And yeah.
48:29 - 48:30
Lola: And that company was called?
48:31 - 48:32
Joy: It's called Retrospace.
48:32 - 48:35
Lola: Retrospace, the company, you're the chief strategy
48:35 - 48:40
Joy: officer. Chief strategy and operations officer now. We've been doing that for almost 4 years.
48:40 - 48:43
Lola: And how big was the team at the time?
48:43 - 48:56
Joy: Yeah, at that time we were 4 co-founders, it was 4 of us, And then we brought on our very first employee in, I think 6 months after we started the company. So we're
48:56 - 48:56
Lola: our first.
48:56 - 49:28
Joy: So after Juneteenth. Not after Juneteenth. So we, yeah, so Juneteenth 2020 happens, then October, this is actually where Pinterest comes into place. Like I got a job at Pinterest. I started at Pinterest in August. Then all these conversations are starting to happen. There's just a lot of momentum. And I had said at that point, I just came out of like entrepreneurship, I don't know if I'm like ready to go back into it. But also I would go into it if we had investment, like that's just a very different situation. And so I'm working at Pinterest, also
49:28 - 50:00
Joy: having these conversations. Once they agreed to fund us, then I told my manager at Pinterest, I was like, okay, but I think I gave them about 3 months. During that time, I like documented a lot of things out. I was also, yeah, helping to, my manager to build up a like a new vertical there. So there were just a lot that I was doing entrepreneur wise for the company. So I'm there, leaving 3 months, but I had met somebody at Pinterest. She was in New York. We had not met in person just yet, but I had
50:00 - 50:15
Joy: seen the way that she moved. I had looked at her back and before, and I was like, nah, that's it. That's who we need is an employee number 1. So when I'm serious, so with my co-founders, there were 3 men at that time. I was like, 1 of our next hires is going to be a woman of
50:15 - 50:15
Lola: camp.
50:15 - 50:37
Joy: He's the only 1. But beyond that, they got to be a jack of all trades. And like, she is that, you know, in every sense of the word. And so I started to see with her, I was like, hey, I have this thing. It was wild. It was still a picture. I was like, I have this thing. I don't like have full clarity of what it is yet. I don't know if we're gonna raise it, but like I think that you could be great for it. Next thing you know we do conversations with me different candidates,
50:37 - 50:38
Joy: but she was it.
50:39 - 50:51
Lola: Wow and that's how retrospect was born. So there's a lot of time to that journey because I think it sounds like the Pinterest opportunity, did it come because of the Juneteenth? Did they tie that back to you?
50:52 - 50:54
Joy: I don't think it came to me because of that.
50:54 - 50:55
Lola: Okay.
50:56 - 51:25
Joy: My my Medium article, so what I said, had actually been shared around through through Pinterest on 1 of the channels. So I think people knew my name from that, but the job at Pinterest I got, because 1 of my fellow founders, when I was like, oh, I'm putting Hosto Juanbe on hold, like she and I used to do regular conversations. She was like, oh, this person I used to work with at Facebook, they're Pinterest, I think, I just, she just put up a role. Let me just make an introduction. She made that introduction. We did a
51:25 - 51:29
Joy: conversation, you know, a couple of ones with the team. Wow.
51:29 - 52:12
Lola: So your network basically came through. So you talked about community early, you talked about your undergrad community and network then. So I love how that's all connected. So I wanna switch gears here for a second, because first of all, I think, actually, no, before we even do that, I think it's, I'll be remiss not to ask this, because you're a Nigerian-American, you literally, again, help amplify and support a very big initiative that's meaningful to the African-American community. And unfortunately, you don't see a lot of that type of integration between the African and African-American communities. So was
52:12 - 52:24
Lola: there any noise around that? Was there any, were you just moving at lightning speed where you couldn't even pay attention to, oh, I'm Nigerian, I shouldn't be in this space, or were you getting like, who is she to be doing this? How
52:24 - 52:59
Joy: did that go? So I would say there was not negative noise in that sense. If anything, it was, I would say we were very conscious about it as a team. So there's myself, who's Nigerian-American, like born in Nigeria, but raised here in the States. 1 of the other people who was also 1 of our co-founders at that time, He's Nigerian-American as well, but was born in LA. Also, I grew up here, but then he had went back to live in Nigeria for some time. My co-founder, Quinton, he's Chicago, like Black American through and through. 1 of
52:59 - 53:32
Joy: the other people, again, also another co-founder, he was Jamaican, Jamaican, Jamaican-American. The whole collective was very diasporic. And so I think for me, it was important, 1, to learn about the holiday, but 2, as a Nigerian-American, I always hold the duality of like both of my cultures. And I think before I went to college, I feel like I was forced to reckon with that duality where people are like, well, no, you're Nigerian. Or they'd be like, well, no, you're black. And I was like, well, I'm actually, I'm just both. Like I'm in the mix. And so
53:33 - 53:45
Joy: I'm recognized with like a holiday like this. Now it's true. It's very important to Black people, not just Black Americans and so I think that distinction is important for people. When people see me out in the world, they see a black woman.
53:45 - 53:46
Lola: Exactly.
53:46 - 54:17
Joy: If you're Nigerian, you will see a Nigerian woman. Although in the DMV, people think I'm Ghanaian, so that's something else. But, you know, people will see. Being able to amplify that history, like Black American history, American history, broader like diasporic history was really important to do that in a way that's like, okay, well I'm in a position to do this, but like how do I make sure I learn as much as possible? And I'm like, yeah, we had also people in our group who were like Black Americans from Texas. So like new Juneteenth in another way,
54:17 - 54:35
Joy: so it's just making sure we had the right voices in the room, who that was their actual lived experience, but then also my lived experience is well I'm Black, people see me as Black, so like what is the role that I have in this, what is also what are the gaps that like I need to learn, How do I help other people learn around their gaps as well too?
54:36 - 55:09
Lola: I love how organic that was. And it sounds like you guys were quite intentional about making sure there was a voice at the table for every single type of black, for lack of a better word. Right? There were very different ways that we all saw the same thing. And I always say, I think it's important that Africans pay respect to the fight that happened that makes this possible for us to be here. So I think it's so amazing that you were part of this crazy snowball movement that pushed for Juneteenth being a recognized holiday in companies.
55:10 - 55:40
Lola: Because you're right, that was just by default. Those companies were like, if this person is doing it, I'm going to do it too, just so they don't get left out of the conversation. Like you said, social pressure. Wow. Okay. So we're almost done here, but there's a couple of things we haven't touched on because you're obviously a woman of many talents. And I see you laughing. I mean, I love it. But you know, you have this nonprofit that you started and let's even give them some context here. So when you were in college, and correct me
55:40 - 56:05
Lola: if I'm wrong, but you studied the effects of ADHD in students and children in Chile. You were running workshops in Mexico, Jamaica, Tel Aviv, you were doing all that at MIT. I can see why they told you that you were doing everything but the medical stuff. Right? But how did all of that shape you and what made you start your nonprofit and tell me more about your nonprofit.
56:06 - 56:19
Joy: Of course. So the nonprofit is called Impact Labs Global Initiative. So for transparency, I don't do anything with the day to day of that anymore myself and most of the co-founders there are people in Nigeria who are still doing stuff.
56:19 - 56:21
Lola: So it's based in Nigeria.
56:22 - 56:55
Joy: Yes so that is specifically a hands-on engineering workshop so to teach university and high school students just like the hands-on application of anything engineering wise. So part of the motivation to start this is that I guess before college, high school, I don't know if it's just like innate in me, but it's been very important to me to like teach other people or just like give them exposure to other like to other fields and I think some of that has just been driven by like my own level of curiosity to like a lot of fields and like
56:55 - 57:28
Joy: Why does 1 people to like know that the options are here and know that like something is possible for them And So I did that throughout high school. And then coming to MIT, I would spend my summers doing something that was education-oriented. And so those different countries, Chile, Jamaica, Israel, was all in the vein of specifically teaching, again, university students. But I was also a university student looking back. But teaching university students and high school students, just like the application portion and just like the different fields. And so like designing curriculum around that, that just was
57:28 - 58:00
Joy: like innate to who I was. But I remember before I graduated, I started talking to MIT and I was like, hey, like, why don't we have anything like this like on the continent? MIT has like a lot of different opportunities for people to work, work abroad. But when it comes to the African continent, they were more volunteer based, you know, opportunity that's That's different than like working back home. So I was starting that conversation and I learned through that conversation, I learned through a couple of conversations there with other people, you know, who were like trying
58:00 - 58:32
Joy: to start similar things. And so somebody at MIT connected me and like 1 other person. They're like, hey, y'all are all trying to like start things in Nigeria. So that's really how we started. So a couple of us, my co-founders at the time, 2 of them were in Nigeria. They came to the US for their graduate studies, so for their PhDs. And then me and the other woman on the team, she was like born in Nigeria as well. She grew up in like the DMV area for the most part. So like both of us spent a
58:32 - 59:03
Joy: lot of time here versus there. But all of us were very passionate about this idea of like, Nigeria, we mentioned education is super important to us. But sometimes the education is very much like, take it all in and then just regurgitate it. And there can be a gap between the application side, but MIT is very heavy on the application side and trying things out and giving you the resources. And so we are all taking that shared experience from MIT slash Harvard to actually come back home and do that in the same way.
59:03 - 59:34
Lola: So no, that is so cool. And it's still a functioning nonprofit. And we'll definitely make sure we get the information in the show notes. I just thought it was so cool that you tied all these different experiences. But now it's even more interesting to see why the medical whoever was checking your history was like I mean I know you want to do this but I'm not seeing it in everything you've done especially by using every summer to go back and teach. All right so we're going to go into the final round and actually 2 final 2
59:34 - 01:00:00
Lola: rounds. I shouldn't have said final round. That was pre-final round. And I think 1 thing and you touched on this throughout, but I just had to ask off the bat, what is something that has pretty much sustained you through all these different, I don't want to call them failures, but lessons learned. What is that 1 thing? How did you overcome the fear, the uncertainty? What is that 1 thing that...
01:00:00 - 01:00:02
Lola: Just kept you locked and loaded.
01:00:03 - 01:00:32
Joy: I'm going to say it's 2 things. So it's 2 things. So 1 is a faith aspect. So I am Christian. I am a believer. You know, God and I be having a roller coaster relationship. So sometimes it's up here, sometimes it's down here. But we know ourselves. But I will say that throughout the entire course of my career and just life, it feels like my steps have been crafted for me and I don't stay that lightly. Like the opportunities that have come to me, they come at the right time and you know people are seeing these
01:00:32 - 01:01:00
Joy: pivots of these moves. They're like, how are you getting there? Like, that's a good question. I don't know either because like the opportunities are coming my way. And so I do, you know, I do believe that God has specifically like guided my steps And he continues to guide my steps, even in this season, where there's a lot of change I got that's literally placing me in the spaces that he wants me to be. The second part of that, I would say, is my community. So I've always, you know, I've been very social as a person. I
01:01:00 - 01:01:27
Joy: used to be more extroverted, but I'm just like social in in nature but I've seen the value of like the relationships that I've built not like work first but really in a people first manner that people have continued to speak my name in places that I'm not in that's both on a personal side but even on the work side my jobs are now coming the opportunities at retrospect outside of retrospect are literally becoming because of the community that I've built out over time and continue to build.
01:01:28 - 01:01:34
Lola: I love that. Wow. So God, faith, and community, it's all connected, actually. It's all interconnected.
01:01:35 - 01:01:37
Joy: Family, friends, all the hips.
01:01:37 - 01:01:52
Lola: So if there's 1 thing though, you had to tell anyone listening who's had all these stop gaps or things not going to plan, what would you advise them? How would you tell them to keep going through?
01:01:53 - 01:02:26
Joy: Well, I'm going to tell you how faith. So you have faith. 2, the community is really identifying the people around you who know what you've been capable of doing before and can remind you of that in the moment. So even if you can't see it for yourselves, being able to have the honest conversations of like, wow, I was fired and like, not that I'm just sad about this, it's like making me question everything about myself as a person and what I bring and how I operate like all these things. People who can help ground you back
01:02:26 - 01:02:55
Joy: in that. And number 2 and then 3, everything is fourth season. So there's always chance for change. Like what whatever the current situation looks like today may not look like that in 6 months. It could look like that in 6 months and it could also look like that in 2 years. But you never know. Like there's it all it takes is 1 person or 1 situation to turn things in a completely different direction. So keeping in that mindset that again, what's happening today just is not the reality for forever.
01:02:56 - 01:03:12
Lola: Yes, that is good advice. All right, so we're going into the final 1. I call it the lightning round and there are no wrong answers. It's really whatever comes to your mind first. Do not let, I have to repeat this especially for Nigerians, do not let the Nigerian you do more than yourself. There's no essay here.
01:03:12 - 01:03:16
Joy: I love who's saying Lola, you've seen me throughout this conversation.
01:03:16 - 01:03:30
Lola: I mean, I see you already bubbling, like, no. Whatever comes, don't edit, just let it out. Just let it flow. And, you know, again, all right, so what is the 1 thing that you're learning now about yourself?
01:03:32 - 01:03:52
Joy: I know you said what comes to mind first. Okay, I'm learning about myself, how to communicate more in the moment, to be completely honest. Like I'm very much a written communicator, so I can write my thoughts, I can like get all the things out on paper, but like really expressing what I'm feeling in the moment or what is coming to mind first though. Now y'all got to see that in practice.
01:03:53 - 01:03:57
Lola: And the greatest fear you have. Oh,
01:03:58 - 01:04:00
Joy: this is real personal, but.
01:04:00 - 01:04:02
Lola: Yeah, it's called a lightning round for a reason.
01:04:02 - 01:04:11
Joy: Okay, yeah, I mean, yeah, the greatest fear is like never truly being like in love with a partner.
01:04:13 - 01:04:25
Lola: And that's the season you're in right now. That is right. Okay. How do you what would you consider your okay, this would be interesting. What do you consider your greatest achievement to date?
01:04:28 - 01:04:30
Joy: It's definitely the Juneteenth moment.
01:04:30 - 01:04:31
Lola: Yeah,
01:04:31 - 01:04:45
Joy: I think yeah, being able to impact something at like a national and a global scale, I feel like I've had my make history moment. Like even if I did nothing else in life, I know that I've literally made history.
01:04:47 - 01:05:08
Lola: I couldn't agree more. I think that was big. And I remember when our company, where I was working my day job, we made it a corporate holiday. Just knowing that it was actually a Nigerian behind the scenes who helped push this is just crazy, like not expected. Okay, what matters most to you?
01:05:08 - 01:05:37
Joy: Like relationships, but I don't mean that like surface level. I mean like my little connections or like true interactions with people. Like I want shared memories. Like I'm in a season in my life that I prioritize like my experiences or my memories with people over anything else. So those life moments, they matter to me and it can be the big birthdays, weddings, all of that sure. But then also like the couch moment just to like, hey, I'm coming over to your place. How are you? What are you thinking about? What's in your mind?
01:05:37 - 01:05:46
Lola: Yeah, I like that. If you could go back in time and tell yourself something when you were 20, like right out of college, What would you tell yourself?
01:05:48 - 01:05:59
Joy: It's going to be okay. Like all of these things will make sense later. But it's okay to do all these things. It's okay to change your mind. It's okay to do something different. Like it's really okay. Wow.
01:06:00 - 01:06:15
Lola: I like that. I like that. All right. Okay. This one's a good 1. So 3 words that you use to describe yourself as the Kadara woman. Remember Kadara means destiny. 3 words.
01:06:16 - 01:06:18
Joy: Just 3 separate words? Yes. Okay. No, no, no. I have 3. I have 3.
01:06:21 - 01:06:26
Joy: I'm proactive, humble, and a doer. Okay. See? Look at that. You just fought
01:06:26 - 01:06:36
Lola: against that and I desperate to do more. I love that. And then the last question, what are your thoughts on destiny?
01:06:38 - 01:06:59
Joy: I believe in destiny, but I think destiny is grounded in faith. So I think you have to have faith in order to be able to follow your destiny and in order for it to come to fruition. I think destiny there's all these things that are possible but like if you don't take the first step you'll never even like access or see what was possible like there.
01:06:59 - 01:07:15
Lola: Yeah, yeah I love that. And before we wrap up actually there's something I said I was going to ask you, which was about your gap. Yeah. And I'm curious, as someone who also has a gap, did you have any insecurities growing up with that?
01:07:15 - 01:07:50
Joy: I had a lot of insecurities. You know, like your friends around you are like wearing braces and like that just wasn't like seen as the beautiful thing. There's actually a fun fact about my 2 front teeth and my gap. So when I was 7, I was raising my sister, tripped and I chipped my front tooth. And that front tooth was not fixed until my sophomore year of college, primarily because you know, you know dental things like they cost a lot of money. And at that point, like my, my family couldn't do anything around that. But because
01:07:50 - 01:08:15
Joy: of it, all these places I moved to, that was always the first question people ask me. They're like, oh, they're like, did you just trip? Like, did you just chip your tooth? And I always had to explain to people like, No, I didn't like, I actually like, true to like this many years ago and you know, it's always like a type of conversation. So much so like my name is Joy. So like, my smile is 1 of the first things people call out about me. But then like this tooth like that that thing was there. So
01:08:15 - 01:08:18
Joy: I actually ended up writing my college application around my smile.
01:08:19 - 01:08:52
Lola: Oh wow. Oh, I was not expecting that. I love that. Wow. Well, I mean, I think that's a fun way to end. And Joy, thank you so much for just sharing a lot of yourself. And I always remember when I first met you, I just said, I'd just like to say hello, Joy, and then you just smile. And so it's interesting that actually that became how you got into MIT. Wow, the irony of that. Wow, That is a good 1. Well, thank you so much for being on this podcast. Thank you for being on the Kadara
01:08:52 - 01:08:55
Lola: Woman podcast. I really, really did enjoy our conversation.
01:08:56 - 01:09:01
Joy: Thank you. And thank you for all that you're doing for all the Kadara Women. I'm excited to be 1 of them. So thank you.
01:09:03 - 01:09:41
Lola: And there you have it folks, the incredible journey of Joy Ekuta. From her early days juggling the cultural pressure to become a doctor, to becoming a key part of making Juneteenth a corporate holiday. Joy's story reminds us that our paths are rarely linear and her experiences teach us the value of embracing change, the power of community, and the importance of faith in ourselves and something greater. Remember as Joy said, everything's for a season. So whether you're facing rejection, pivoting careers, or chasing a dream, know that your Kadara, your destiny, is unfolding 1 expected turn at a time.
01:09:42 - 01:10:02
Lola: Until next time, this is Lola from the Kadara Woman podcast reminding you that your kadara moment of clarity may have already happened and all you need to do is embrace it. This podcast was created, produced, and recorded by Lola Soyebo Harris and sound edited by Mo Isu. The Kadara Woman podcast is a production of Kadara Media.