How Faith went from “not a software person” to selling her first enterprise solution at $4K/year in just three months
“I went into these business classes thinking, ‘Well, I'm not a software person. I'm just somebody who works their 40+ hours a week. I'm just going to keep my ideas to myself.’ Now I have a product and potentially, a company, that's going to help me professionally and personally. It's given me such a boost of confidence. This is me dreaming bigger.”
The founder
Faith Douglas is the founder of Assess with Care, a software that allows recruiters from small business and enterprises alike to build custom assessments for job candidates, store assessment results, and ultimately, hire better candidates. She is also a senior recruiter at Included Health.
The Challenge
After 20 years in HR, Faith saw a need for a new software. But she wasn’t a tech developer.
When Faith walked into her first Propeller class with The Coastal Enterprises, Inc (CEI) Women’s Business Center, she didn’t have a business idea. The class was designed to help women entrepreneurs develop their businesses. Faith had been encouraged to sign up for the class by fellow board members at The Third Place, a co-working space for women of color. She and her fellow board members wanted to empower the BIPOC community of Maine to have an entrepreneurial spirit, and Faith was excited to learn and create something new.
Faith’s background was in HR. She’s a senior recruiter at Included Health, a health tech company. When Nick Rimsa, owner and product designer at Tortoise Labs and teacher at the Propeller class Faith was taking, asked Faith what she was really passionate about, she confessed she was interested in the creative side of tech. But she didn’t have a concrete idea yet. She was also afraid to take a risk on a tech product.
“I had always just played it safe,” says Faith. “Being in HR, I tend to be systems-based, so jumping out on my own to become an entrepreneur felt counterintuitive. Also as a single mother, especially with a young child, I was scared. It felt safe working for somebody else.”
After she graduated from Propeller, she ran into a recurring problem at work. She was hiring for telehealth positions, and she needed a tool that would allow her to assess candidates based on their ability to communicate appropriately and empathetically via chat. She couldn’t interview for this skill, and Google Forms wouldn’t cut it as an assessment tool.
“In HR, it’s so important to feel that you can hire the right candidate,” says Faith. “It’s important to understand the skills that are needed for a role, and then be able to design assessments that work for that particular role at that particular company.”
She couldn’t find any software that would allow her and her team to easily build their own assessments for candidates and collect results all in one place. So she asked Nick to help her build it.
“I wasn't just looking for software vendors to partner with,” says Faith. “I needed to build it with somebody who could be patient with me and teach me along the way.”
“I wasn't just looking for software vendors to partner with. I needed to build it with somebody who could be patient with me and teach me along the way.”
The process
Building trust, getting stakeholder buy-in, and thinking like a designer
The first step in Faith’s process was finding out if this whole venture was possible. Faith had 20 years of HR experience, but was new to entrepreneurship and had never built a tech product.
“I had already spent months working with Nick and seeing how he interacts with startups and other people’s entrepreneurial dreams,” says Faith. “Seeing that he thought this was a good idea, when he's very much in the tech startup community, was energizing.”
With her newfound energy, she pitched her vision to target customers and got buy-in.
In her pitch, she talked about:
The problem she was trying to solve: No existing software would allow teams like hers to build assessments for candidates, store results, and meet security requirements
The product itself: Assess with Care would have the security features companies like hers needed, be easy to use, and was possible to build with help from expert partners
Her partnership with Tortoise Labs: Nick had experience bringing software products to life, from planning and prototyping to help with the legalities and financials. He was excited about the product, and he knew the right people and processes to make it happen
Once Faith had buy-in from potential customers, she and Nick blocked out time on their calendars to determine what, exactly, they needed this software to do. As they defined app requirements and designed user flows, Faith learned to think like a designer.
“It was eye-opening for me because I had a hard time thinking like a designer,” remembers Faith. “But Nick developed the product with me. He helped me understand what was and wasn’t possible.”
They needed a product that would allow companies to build out and develop their own assessments, instead of having to find vendors for everything. They also needed it to be secure and simple to use. They wanted their product to serve small companies and enterprise companies alike.
“Everything that we did together was such a learning moment,” says Faith. “We could honestly say to each other, ‘Okay, let's not do that,’ or, ‘Let's do more of this.’ Or, ‘this is why I think this would work.’ There was no ego, and no feelings got hurt. I just felt like there was that trust.”
Once they had designed the app, they worked with Brendan Barr, software developer, and Tortoise Labs co-founder, to bring it to life. Then, they quality tested it, deployed it for testing with customers, and made improvements based on feedback. Their entire process was heavily guided by customer research. There was so much research that they needed to create a project management board to organize and analyze it all.
They’re still finalizing the product, but their results so far speak for themselves.
“Everything that we did together was such a learning moment. We could honestly say to each other, ‘Okay, let's not do that,’ or, ‘Let's do more of this.’ Or, ‘this is why I think this would work.’ There was no ego, and no feelings got hurt. I just felt like there was that trust.”
The results
Selling an enterprise subscription for $4k/year three months after starting work on the product
Since launching the beta product, Faith has already sold her first enterprise subscription for $4k/year.
“Just a few months ago, we were sitting around in meetings, trying to figure out how we were going to do this,” says Faith. “Seeing the product come to life — that we can use it and touch it and feel it — is everything I was hoping for and more.”
Her customers are just as thrilled by it as she is.
“All the questions that our users are asking, we actually have solutions for,” says Faith. “It’s very intuitive. It's very easy to use. We have users who are saying, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can't wait to tell the health tech community or the HR software community or my friends.”
Their next steps include finishing up the final product design and rolling out the product to more customers.
“I'm more excited now than ever because I see the future of telehealth and telepsychology growing, and everyone needs to find the right talent,” says Faith.
Her biggest takeaway from the process of building (and selling) her first software product? Dream bigger.
“I went into these business classes thinking, ‘Well, I'm not a software person. I'm just somebody who works 40+ hours a week. I'm just going to keep my ideas to myself,’” says Faith. “Now I have a product and potentially a company that's going to help me professionally and personally. It's given me such a boost of confidence. This is me dreaming bigger.”
“Just a few months ago, we were sitting around in meetings, trying to figure out how we were going to do this. Seeing the product come to life — that we can use it and touch it and feel it — is everything I was hoping for and more.”
The Propeller class at the CEI Women’s Business Center came to life because of the efforts of Anna Ackerman and Director Sarah Guerette. If you’re a woman entrepreneur in Maine looking for a supportive learning environment with other women as you grow or start your business, be sure to check out their community and consider signing up for a free workshop. They’re an incredible resource.
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