Joanne Lang

CEO

AboutOne.com

Who inspires you?

I know this is an odd answer, but different people on different days. Today, for example, it was Kim Park from Janssen Pharmaceuticals; she went out of her way to give me an introduction. Yesterday it was the amazing people on the AboutOne team who lifted me up when I felt down, and finally at 3am it’s a tiny, half-asleep little 2 year old boy giving me a hug and a kiss.

Why are you an entrepreneur?

No one has ever asked me this question so directly before; I actually whispered to myself, “Wow, why am I am entrepreneur?” When I really look at the reason I think it’s because I have a passion. I believe very strongly that the technology we developed can really help people be more organized, not only saving families’ time or small businesses money, but making caregivers lives easier and perhaps one day even saving a life.

Where do you see your company in the next five years?

AboutOne’s focus is on our customers and what adds value for them. We have developed a platform that in the short term has a family and caregiver user interface. Over time other developers will be able to leverage the AboutOne platform to quickly and securely be able to develop their own applications, saving them time and money and allowing them to get to a minimal viable product quickly to experiment with their ideas.

How is your company different from your competitors?

Our focus is simple:

• Easily getting your information/paperwork into your digital filing cabinet leveraging mobile, gamification, and APIs
• Making your information useful by enhancing the calendar (Google/Outlook) and contacts tools you already use
• Saving time by making your information useful with reports (health summary, education history, home inventory, etc.)

What was a defining moment in your career?

Having one person believe in me - it was in fact an investor who wrote my first check. Sometimes it only takes one person.

What is your next step with your company, your career?

Short term is to focus on some new channels: Weddings, Pet Owners, Schools, Churches and, fingers crossed, a grant to help with foster care children. I would love to hear from any foundations that focus on the Health and Wellness of the children in foster care.

How did you finance your business when it was at the early stage? (Self-funded, crowd-funded, Angel Investor, VC)

I seed funded with friends, family and an investment from Benjamin Franklin SEP (I highly recommend them). Within the same year we closed a Series A with Golden Seeds and MAG.

Tell me something about yourself that we don’t know already.

I am 42 and I have four boys under the age of 8. I was told that for those reasons alone, I would never raise venture capital in the US – but I did. ;)

What is your guilty pleasure? (Real Housewives, Chocolate, 50 shades of Grey, etc)

This may sound strange but I love to get up early on a Sunday morning and go running – all by myself. Its a great stress reliever.

If you had one year that you could say was the best year of your life what year would it be? Why? How old were you?

I was 33 – and in 2003 my first child was born – it was a life changing experience for me.

Describe a time you failed. What did you learn from that experience?

First, what I learned: That my biggest failure in life could be to not aim high enough. Second, I love this quote from Winston Churchill: “Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” I / we fail on a regular basis, but we measure everything and try to learn each and every time. Being an entrepreneur really had to learn to embrace failure and to understand that on many occasions, when someone says “no” it just means “come back later.”

What do you do fun?

Be with my children, have a nice bottle of wine with my family (not my children) and friends.

Do you have a hidden talent?

I can tap dance and I can snowboard off-piste (obviously not at the same time)

What is your favorite mobile app?

On my iPhone it’s AboutOne and the Nike Running app.

On my iPad it’s Netflix (and AngryBirds because it entertains my boys)

In the next few months it will be the Windows8 Family Organizer App (from AboutOne) because it’s beautiful – even if I say so myself.

What do you do to help focus?

This is a good question. I try to prioritize the activities with the largest impact. I also reward myself with email or other activities. In other words, I focus on a job for an hour, then reward myself with Skype, email, a coffee break or even laundry if I am working at home.

Cool Kid or Nerd in High school?

I don’t think I was either – I was kind of the in-betweener.

Any words of advice for up & coming entrepreneurs who are trying to get their products noticed?

Keep trying, hear “no” as “maybe”, and have a strong customer focus. I like the lean launch lab approach too – experiment with a minimal viable product and fail quickly

Keep up with Joanne: Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and YouTube

This interview was conducted by WIM intern Jessica Hubert