Unqork It: Two Female Innovators Driving Growth Of Enterprise Tech App
Jane Tran (left) and Sharon Rodriguez of Unqork share advice for women in tech innovation.
It was the first of many smart choices for the team that created Unqork, a software development app that recently raised $80 million in venture capital and has grown to 160 employees in two years.
“The name was the first of many smart choices for the team that created @Unqork, a software development app, that recently raised $80 million in venture capital. #WomenInTech”
Jane Tran, head of solutions, says that the url name “Uncorked.com” costs $500,000, and the url “unqork” cost $14.99 on GoDaddy.com.
So when building the company website in 2016, they changed the spelling of the name of the company that has to date raised $110 million for the cloud-hosted development platform for customers including Goldman Sachs and Careerwise.
Read more from Gloria Feldt in Take The Lead on women innovators in tech
“It just stuck,” says Tran. “It was about uncorking your competitors’ advantage. People say it’s so trendy and it was just very practical for us.”
As tech leadership overall is about 80 percent male and 20 percent female, having two women in top leadership out of nine positions at Unqork is noteworthy.
“As tech leadership overall is about 80 percent male and 20 percent female, having two women in top #leadership out of nine positions at @Unqork is noteworthy. #WomenLeaders”
Julian Vigo writes in Forbes, “IT is a male-dominated field and it’s not like software companies are going to change this demographic anytime soon since the problems are far more social than they are institutional. And India is dominating in terms of women in IT with a study last year that shows that India has a higher percentage of women in tech (35%), far more than their female counterparts in the UK (17%) and the US (20%). This together with a decline in computer science degrees for women where women represented 37.1% of computer science degrees in 1984 but in 2008 they represented only 18%.”
Read more on women in tech leadership in Take The Lead
Vigo writes, “As we are bound to see more software and new tech coming from women and more IT companies run by women in the not-so-distant future, the reality is that western countries have a lot to learn from non-western IT industries and cultures. Given that the real advances for women within IT are coming out of South Asia and Latin America, North American and European companies might consider studying what others are getting right in order to create a new approach and equal opportunities for females in IT.”
The creation and growth of Unqork is an origin story of friendship, innovation and women’s leadership.
“The creation and growth of @Unqork is an origin story of friendship, #innovation and women’s #leadership. #FemaleStartups”
Sharon Rodriguez, chief customer officer at Unqork, says she met Tran at Met Life, where she was head of global strategy from 2013-2017, and Tran was senior business consultant at MetLife from 2014-2016.
Read more on young women in tech in Take The Lead
“We had been working on the idea of a startup,” says Rodriguez, and Jane was trying to figure out next steps for herself, including business school.
“I said, ‘Don’t take a permanent job, trust me!’” Rodriguez said.
This was in 2016 and Tran says, “I got a text from Sharon that says, ‘Meet us here,’” and that meeting led to creating the 150-page business plan and strategy for the company over the two-week holiday break with CEO and founder Gary Hoberman.
“A lot of what we put in there stills holds,” Rodriguez says.
Read more on filling the pipeline for women in tech in Take The Lead
“I think one of the things that is really important for our team is we look at each other as contributors to the whole, not as men or women. We are all different but bring the right things to the table.”
Rodriguez brought decades of experience following an undergraduate degree in biology from Eckerd College in 1995, followed by years in medical research for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. She earned her MBA in finance and healthcare management from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania in 2003.
Rodriguez then went to Pfizer as a senior manager and later to AIG as a senior vice president until Met Life, which she left to launch Unqork.
Tran says the Unqork team is focused on outcomes, quality and care, and when they look at resumes to hire talent, names are not attached.
“We are removing the stigma of gender in tech, it’s about outcomes,” says Tran, who graduated from Syracuse University in 2010, with a degree in policy studies and economics. She started working at JP Morgan Chase and stayed there until 2014. She then became a senior planning analyst at Marsh before joining MetLife and meeting Rodriguez.
“Tran says the @Unqork team is focused on outcomes, quality and care, and when they look at resumes to hire talent, names are not attached. #GenderNeutral #Hiring”
“We have leveled the playing field,” says Rodriguez. “Diversity of thought is important and that makes companies good.”
““We have leveled the playing field,” says Rodriguez. “#Diversity of thought is important and that makes companies good.” #GenderEquality”
Tran says that she has always been motivated by problem solving and that her choice to come on board was simplified when she didn’t get into grad school: “I said let’s do this, it wasn’t a risky endeavor. I knew the team.”
According to Venture Beat, “Unqork provides a cloud-hosted development platform with a drag-and-drop interface that enables customers including John Hancock, Goldman Sachs and CareerWise to build apps quickly and cost-effectively. Its frontend and backend — which can be deployed to single-tenant, cloud-agnostic environments like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft’s Azure — collate rules, workflows, and databases to support a range of integrations and data operations, and to pull in data directly from trusted sources for real-time use.”
Crunchbase reports, “Unqork can take over the mundane tasks and free up those technologists’ time so they can create value doing other things. The company raised its $22 million Series A in April. This year has been one of fast growth for the company, with Unqork growing its workforce from 30 employees at the beginning of the year to now more than 150. Turning to financial metrics, the company’s annual recurring revenue grew at ‘a significant triple-digit rate’ over the past year.”
“I thought we would never be bigger than a team of 30 people,” Tran says, and the team has more than five times that many employees and continues to grow.
“I’m pretty certain we will double between now and next year. We are trying to be smart. If we keep growing the way we’ve been growing, it scares the beejeezus out of me, but it’s exciting,” says Rodriguez.
What advice do these two leaders have for innovators and tech startup founders?
“You don’t have to be an engineer to be in tech,” says Tran.
“Figure out what are the values of the organization and be fearless. If you are always held back by what other people think you should do, you will always wonder what if.”
“What advice do these two leaders have for tech startup founders? “Figure out what are the values of the organization and be fearless,” says Tran. #WorkAdvice #WomenLeaders”
When seeking funding, Tran says, “Know what you want. It’s like asking for a salary. When female funders go and raise money, you can’t be afraid to be yourself. A lot of the bias is changing. There was a notion of women needing to be perfect, just be relaxed. Show your personality and don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.”
“Do not say yes to the first thing that comes your way. Be mindful of what you want,” Rodriguez says. “We were offered a lot of money early and we would have lost equity. It didn’t feel right. We’ve been firm and we’ve gotten what we wanted.”
““Do not say yes to the first thing that comes your way. Be mindful of what you want,” Rodriguez says. #StartUps #Advice #WomenInTech”
“It’s OK to walk away,” Tran says.
“You have to find the right talent for the right problem at the right time,” says Rodriguez. “And this is where mistakes can happen.”
She adds, “We learned from everything we have done, and we feel good about it. Life is not about getting it perfect every time.”
