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Welcome to Founded On Purpose, the podcast where business meets impact. Hosted by Kt McBratney of Renew VC, each episode features founders, investors, and ecosystem builders answering the same set of questions. While the questions stay the same, the insights and conversations are always unique and thought-provoking. Join us to explore how these innovators are aligning profit with purpose.
Kt McBratney: [00:00:00] Hi, everyone, and welcome to Founded on Purpose. I'm your host, Kt McBratney. Each episode, we have a guest sit in the chair and answer the same eight questions. They might be a founder, funder, or a movement maker. Every time it's a great conversation and today I'm so excited to represent the Midwest and all the overlaid talent that we brush off so easily as fly over.
Mina Raver is joining us. She is personally on a mission to preserve cognitive diversity as the founder and CEO of BetterCEO . I find she's the perfect blend of scientist and creator. Empath and decision maker, and she's a full heck of a lot of fun to talk to. Mina, welcome to the show, .
Mina Raver: I'm probably blushing after that intro.
Thank you so much for having me.
Kt McBratney: Well, you know the format, so are you ready just to dive in and start at the start with question one? Yeah,
Mina Raver: let's go. All right.
Kt McBratney: So in [00:01:00] one word, what's your purpose?
Mina Raver: Purpose, uh, construct.
Kt McBratney: Okay. Break that down for us.
Mina Raver: Uh uh Okay. I'm cheating a little bit because you could say.
To construct
Kt McBratney: or okay, we'll allow it. We will allow.
Mina Raver: Okay. Um, so to construct I love to make things to see things go from ideas to reality and I think that the ability to do that on a physical scale and on a cognitive or systemic scale is the defining feature of humanity and so anytime I see a construct those things that brush up against Like physical, natural, uh, realities so closely that we can't necessarily pull them apart without really deep thinking.
I'm here to identify those [00:02:00] and I love to reconstruct those all the time.
Kt McBratney: How does that tie into your work, right? Before we started recording, you were talking about your, really your life's mission, not just your company's mission, but like your purpose on the planet. So how do those two things.
Mina Raver: Um, I think the red thread between them is probably perception.
If we are all perceiving on a line or in an industrial way, we're missing out on opportunities to re conceive, re perceive, and re construct systems to our benefit. So preserving cognitive diversity is about preserving perception and also ideation. Thank you for listening. And problem solving as many opportunities to really define, um, solutions and, and to even identify and define problems as possible.
I think that's the way forward [00:03:00] for. Um, not to sound weird, but the way forward for our species.
Kt McBratney: It doesn't sound weird at all. We are not afraid of getting deep and getting into complex and nuanced and, and really meaningful topics here. And on that, like I, for our audience and for me, can you tell us more about what cognitive diversity means in both like a category, like a category level, but also like in practice, like what does that practically mean on an everyday basis?
Mina Raver: Thank you. Sure, well you probably experience cognitive, cognitive diversity most commonly or most identifiably in arguments. You know, is this a six or is it a nine kind of thing? It's the way that we perceive things. And ultimately, um, cognition, the way that we perceive and break down and act on information is on a spectrum.
So everybody has a [00:04:00] fingerprint of their own cognition. Through industrialization, we really kind of streamlined a bell curve of employable or deployable cognition. And as we go, as we kind of move away from this industrial and more into a creative and tech, technologically driven world, we're seeing more of that spectrum re arise.
A lot of it is identifiable. It's so far away from that deployable, um, industrial cognition that we can diagnose it. We can call it ADHD. We can call it autism spectrum, we can call it anxiety, but ultimately, it's just a degree of deviation from that centralized, deployable, industrial cognitive model.
Kt McBratney: I feel like you could give a TED Talk or like drop into a grad school class at any moment and teach on this, which is a gift, a gift, and it also shows like your deep [00:05:00] familiarity with not just the space you're solving in, but also The communication element of it, of helping people understand and become aware of cognitive diversity.
We all think differently, we experience the world differently, perception like you brought up. Um, and it's so cool to see those come together. Especially given like, you are, this is not your first time as a founder, you've, you've been an entrepreneur for a while. But this is your first time building a scalable tech company that's tackling this problem near and dear to your heart.
What's that experience been like so far?
Mina Raver: Elating, I think, is the best term. People keep asking me like, you know, what's your definition for success? And, uh, this is, this is it. Things are moving, I'm around other creative people, we're all bringing things into the world that have never existed before, which I guess you could say nascent is one of my favorite words, seeing new things.
Um emerge and [00:06:00] evolve and I mean, it's hard to write like you I I just I was I started growing My company started growing faster than I was expecting it to some of my own limiting beliefs Got in the way of my planning And you know now i'm in a little bit of a crunch But the drive to continue to see this grow is so strong and liberating that problems that I'll have to, or that I'm facing right now in, and continuing to do it, it's like a blip on the map.
I almost don't even have to confront directly the limiting beliefs because the drive to Continue to see this grow is so great that I'll do anything, including face off with myself to be the founder that has to, or that is capable of continuing to see this come to life. So it's, it's wild. It's really kind of meta.[00:07:00]
Kt McBratney: You'll move your family from South Dakota to Atlanta to do Techstars because nothing is going to get in your way.
Mina Raver: Exactly.
Kt McBratney: It's awesome. It is why you had to be on Founded on Purpose because it's very clear that absolutely not just like what led you to lead the company or to create the company, but to build it, right?
To do, to act on that, that purpose to construct, um, with that said, what has been your most recent win? And you can interpret that win in whatever way it could be professional, could be personal, it could be both. It could be neither.
Mina Raver: My most recent win, um, Actually, I told you just before this, my most recent, I was in therapy right before, right before we started.
Um, and so
Kt McBratney: We love therapy on the pod.
Mina Raver: I know, I know, and like, for, for me, um, I have a habit of deprioritizing my needs and health. [00:08:00] Um, anyone who has been through, um, any kind of trauma, you know that it's really hard to come out of it. But one of the strengths that we gain tends to be dissociation. And I think I lean on dissociating to get through hard things.
Um, probably too much that might not change, but it's also important if I'm going to use that as a string. To also be able to get help to reset. So I'm not constantly in that state. It's a strength. If you can leverage it, it is not if you're dependent. And so that's kind of like my recent win is one more aspect of self mastery.
Kt McBratney: I, I feel like wheels, my wheels are turning on how to, how that might apply to my own life. Uh, so one, thank you for sharing that. Thank you for shouting out therapy. I, I, I swear it's just a matter of time before we've got a therapy startup that's [00:09:00] sponsoring the book. Um, and also it, it shows the complexity of, Not just founder life, but light, right?
We're all, we're all trying to do our best and every day is another opportunity to do that. It also makes me think about what you said towards the beginning of the conversation about perception. Saying, this can be a strength. This can be unhelpful. And I can be the person who decides. That's, that's huge.
That's so profound. And you're just like, yeah, little, little big epiphany. Just dropping it like it's common sense. So thank you. It was a gem. Thank you.
Mina Raver: Glad to hear it. I hope it's helpful.
Kt McBratney: You know, this is a question that I find particularly fascinating to ask you, given what you're building. So before I, before I ask the next question, please tell us a little bit about BetterCEO because of course we'll have a description in the show notes and things like that.
But I think that [00:10:00] that'll provide some really helpful context for the question I'm about to ask you.
Mina Raver: Gotcha. So BetterCEO is a, currently it's a productivity and performance co pilot for small business owners with ADHD. Um, that is a space very close to me. I was diagnosed with ADHD, autism, and synesthesia at six years old.
Um, and so it's been a lifetime of trying to maximize my strengths. without changing myself. I was a coach who helped other people with that for a long time and realized that coaching wasn't going to have the kind of impact that I wanted. So I started building BetterCEO. It integrates with other software and helps leverage the latest research in neuroscience, learning modalities, and AI to learn the individual and create customized productivity dashboards for that individual and while also preserving the organization's data [00:11:00] continuity.
Kt McBratney: Not a small task. Um, so thank you. I, again, I think it's really important to ground us in what you're building because I'm about to ask you, what's the single biggest missed opportunity in this field?
Mina Raver: The single business biggest missed opportunity in this field is taking responsibility for building software that changes.
Instead of expecting people to change for software. If we're going to say that we're building tools to help, you know, people be more productive or safe money or whatever else that really just help us organize information and not necessarily act on the information in front of us. We're not only missing out on a major opportunity, but we're.
We're failing our users, we're asking them to do a lot more than they really should have to, and the trade off, what we lose [00:12:00] when we make our users conform to our tool, our way, is worth so much more than, than pretty much anything, if you go back to my initial philosophy, but yeah, that's the single missed, biggest missed opportunity is, is
Kt McBratney: It just makes me think of all the abandoned productivity tools that I feel like every single person I know and certainly every single founder or, um, builder, right, has tried.
And not because we're the problem, but because we're trying to fit, we're trying to, to match something that meets our unique needs, which I didn't realize. You know, I knew everybody's different. Everybody thinks differently. Of course. I think that that's like an inarguable fact if you are a human on the planet and have interacted with more than one other person.
And yet, like, it was really helpful for me to understand. It was a, it's a cognitive [00:13:00] difference. And the tools are mapping to one kind of cognition, right? And so for me, like I've tried tons of productivity tools and I'm super productive, I think, but always trying to be better, right. And trying to your point, the self mastery.
I just think about how every single person I know is like, okay, here's what I've got. I cobble together there a notion, second brain, but then I use AI to send myself notifications, and so people are almost like frankensteining things together instead of the tech world, the business world, saying that's a massive opportunity in what is obviously a saturated market.
To build differently, not just more.
Mina Raver: Mm hmm, exactly.
And I mean, it's, it's, the opportunity to do it is brand new, right? Like, there, the concepts around cognition and learning are so outdated. And we're just now getting new insights and new [00:14:00] research into learning and, learning and cognition. So there's that, but also that AI component is just really starting to emerge.
We're just, it's just now becoming financially accessible to build with it. So there, I mean, now is the first time it's really been possible. To create tools that learn about you and then can also alter their interface to suit you.
Kt McBratney: Okay, so you're right. I shouldn't just blame all of the companies that are putting out, have been putting out more things that don't work for me.
It's not, it's not entirely their fault. So on that, on that thread, I was not, I was a little bit wrong there. When was the last time you were wrong?
Mina Raver: Oh, a lot. Okay. Um, I'm getting, um, better and better at being wrong quickly. Uh, I think the last time, you know what? I just actually hired someone [00:15:00] and I hired her because she's frankly better than me at everything in her field.
She's a marketer and is also bridging into being my executive assistant. She just is more than I hoped for. And she started out out of the gate going, Hey, we need to, you're doing YouTube. You might as well also have a podcast. And my first thought was, that takes so much time. Because I've done that before.
It takes so much time. And even though I'm a cognitive specialist, even though I know that what takes a lot of time for me might not take a lot of time for her, it took me almost two weeks for that to click and go, Hey, if you really want to do this as much, I trust your judgment. She had it done in about four hours.
Kt McBratney: I love it. Like the power of a good team and also the humility and self awareness to say, like, I'm not the best at this and I don't need to [00:16:00] be, but I need the person who is. It's freeing in a way.
Mina Raver: So much.
Kt McBratney: We're actually halfway done, which is shocking. Like time is flying and I'm, I could talk to you forever. Um, again, another theme on the podcast, but for question five, I'm, I'm, I'm really interested to hear. You're somebody who is very committed to building in alignment with your values, in alignment with your philosophy, in support of people.
This can be taken as serious or as silly of an answer, whichever one you, you decide to take it, but what's a hill you would die on?
Mina Raver: Ooh.
Uh, so I'm kind of an incendiary person, so there are more of those than there probably should be. Um. You have conviction. Conviction's a good thing. Specifically this one, um, it is around Diagnosis, [00:17:00] I think that, you know, prior to industrialization, there was no diagnosis. And so now with the, um, neurodivergence and the liberating or the liberating aspects of being diagnosed, helping creatives and engineers and all of these people who make things.
Um, giving them some understanding into why they've always been different. There's more and more dependence on diagnosis. And it's my belief that we have come far enough. We know now that these things can have names. But we should be constructing systems, tools, interactions, and bases that are so plastic.
And so, interactional that anyone can operate them to be part of [00:18:00] our social whole without having to have diagnoses or without having to be far enough away from that central, um, industrial cognitive model that they need a diagnosis. They're going to be different in some way. Even if they can conform to this thing, it's just like what, when, when.
They had this, so, who did the, the perfect measurements for a woman? And then they went out and actually tried to find that person and she doesn't exist. Right. The perfect standards for, uh, industrial cognition doesn't exist either. So I think that we should be building things as plastic and stable, but movable as possible to preserve as much cognitive diversity as possible.
And the best way to do that is to not have to label or identify deviations in any [00:19:00] degree.
Kt McBratney: That makes me think about accessibility, ability, disability, and You know, as humans, we, we need some level of categorization. It's just, it's how our brains work and things like that. And to your point, sometimes we do it to a harmful degree or an unhelpful degree.
In, in what way do these cognitive differences either interact with or Or overlap with or connect with accessibility and inclusivity when it comes to ability.
Mina Raver: Um, well, the Americans with Disability Act has a very well defined, uh, definition for this. And I think a lot of corporations are starting to bump into that more and more.
Um, as, you know, rigid systems that may not even be their fault, but are definitely Their time to respond to you or they're they're becoming more and [00:20:00] more prevalent But for for me, I guess
if you build with everyone in mind You don't have to worry about it as much right like there's no excuse Ramps don't take up more space than stairs in almost any venue any in any situation. We should be building for ramps
Kt McBratney: You know who else uses ramps people with strollers Uh, people carrying heavy bags, like, it's, yeah, it's this rigidity of, of diagnosis and labeling, right, that has created limits in innovation.
Mina Raver: Every single one of those limits has a social history. Why don't we care about building for people carrying heavy bags? Well, they're probably laborers and laborers are second class. Why aren't we building for strollers? Because women should be accompanied and men should be able to lift it for them. Why aren't we building for wheelchairs?
[00:21:00] Well, we have a really, really uncomfortable history with sanitariums and how we've treated people with physical and cognitive differences perceived or otherwise. And so there's, there's no way to talk about how we have limited accessibility without talking about every single social government discussion that has happened where a decision has been made to limit accessibility.
In order to maintain a social hierarchy that does not benefit the majority.
Kt McBratney: It all comes back to systems and changing systems that, uh, artificially limit outcomes and potential. It's, it's, thank you for, thank you for touching on that. I think that's an important part of your work and your leadership and, and who you are as a person that is not worth glossing over and definitely worth a deeper dive, right?
And, [00:22:00] and other, and other places that where you can. You can, again, teach a master's class or, uh, give somebody, like, the best list of recommendations to be up to speed or and stay up to speed on what's happening in those space. But now that I mentioned speed, I'm going to go to a different area of cognition and I know you know there's a lot of brain science around this, there's a lot of behavioral evidence, so we can get real nerdy if we want.
First, I want to know, how do you play? We know it's important for human development in life. But what does play look like for you?
Mina Raver: Oh gosh, okay, so I have three major outlets for play. Um, I have three little kids, and they are, in many ways, they are my muses. They keep me young, they keep me mentally fit, and, uh, I had a professor once that used the term, [00:23:00] um, morally caffeinated.
Kt McBratney: I've never heard that. That is so good.
Mina Raver: The, the, um, what is it? Ethics and AI class out of Stanford. Check that out because it is open to the public. But he led that class, and that was the term that he used, was morally caffeinated. And my children absolutely do that for me. And in many ways, so does my spouse.
Uh, with whom I play video games pretty much every single day. That's, that's our unwind time is we hang out on the couch after the babies go to bed and play, um, video games. Currently, Alan Wake 2. If you played Alan Wake 1 but you haven't played 2, they're almost completely different games.
Kt McBratney: I'm, I'm married to a gamer and, uh, I like different kinds of games.
Uh, and, but yesterday actually, also, I have a kid and Yesterday, uh, my spouse and my kid were doing the New York Times Spelling [00:24:00] Bee together and I was like, I, this is the best manifestation of screen time ever. Please keep spelling words and also try idyllic.
Mina Raver: That's fantastic. All three of mine have learned how to game playing RPGs, old 90s Super Nintendo RPGs.
We, we get together as a family and everybody plays out their roles so everybody has things that they read and
Kt McBratney: Love it, love it. We, I mean, we, we've got some Dungeons and Dragons, uh, Game Master guides and things around the, Dungeon Master. I'm sorry, I'm gonna get so much flack for using the wrong D& D lingo if he listens to the podcast.
Um, But okay, so those are your three outlets for play.
Mina Raver: Those are two. The last one, number three, is I'm a tinkerer. And that is really what led me into being a founder. So I do have a history with starting companies, but I usually put up a little LLC or S corp, and I use the money that [00:25:00] I make to fund research.
So the first one was around, um, cognitive disabilities and like, um, deterioration. So I was learning about something I called multi sensory stimulation, working with individuals and their doctors to see if cascades of, um, uh, like touch and smell and sound sensation improved their healthcare outcomes. So I set up shop during the day and sold candies and perfumes.
And by evening I was helping people, you know, take better care or take in treatments for say Parkinson's.
Kt McBratney: So you've always been working with purpose and it's certainly been an anchor of your entrepreneurial journey. Did you know it at the time? Like, have you always known this? Um,
Mina Raver: well I actually started my first company at 10.
Um, I put, my mother [00:26:00] was not able to work and she shortly after actually left the family and my stepdad was really, really sick and couldn't work. And so to keep my family together, I started, I sold origami to my classmates. To raise money to buy a lawn mower. And then that summer I started a lawn mowing company and moved my family out of the projects for the first time.
Um, I was really, it came so naturally that I was really excited once I finally turned 18 and got my first job at a co op and I got another job as an assistant editor, and I left that job, uh, to the tune of never going to do that again. When my, um, My department head told me after I turned in my, my resignation, he came in and goes, you know, I've always been a little bit intimidated by you.
And I said, Good, you should be and there are more of us coming and I've never been back to corporate
Kt McBratney: Hey, we [00:27:00] love a nonlinear career I mean, we love a nonlinear life like that is that is something that I will hang my hat on and and I can say just my personal take as somebody who has a neatly fit into boxes is It's a lot more fun and I get it It works for some people like being a specialist and and being you know in a certain You Linear path works for some people, but I'm here for the like, I'm here for a plot twist.
I'm here for a creative pivot that makes absolute sense, even if at the time people are like, what? Oh my gosh, so origami for the lawnmower, then corporate, then oh my god. Okay, I'm like, I'm going to go into a deep dive and be like, what different hats have you worn? Because it sounds like almost every,
Mina Raver: uh, quite a few.
And it always comes back to Researcher, tinkerer, I guess the difference between a researcher and a tinkerer is function. Researchers [00:28:00] want information for the sake of information, and you publish on it, and, you know, under the best case scenarios, you get your accolades. Tinkerers go through the same rigor, but then they want to see their findings work.
And I think that essentially is the difference. So I'm constantly just driven to learn new things, and to see things not just as they are, but as they could be. So I say tinkerer, because, I mean, information, knowledge, if it's not functional, it's just a flex.
Kt McBratney: Put that on a t- shirt.
Mina Raver: Better CEO merch coming next.
Kt McBratney: Um, okay, this is time is flying. So I'm going to take us back to the planned questions. We only have two left. I know. Time flies when you're having fun, I think. Um, that was so corny, but I'm going to leave it in. I'm leaving it in. I'm in charge of the [00:29:00] edit. I'm leaving in the corny. Okay, how do you, how do you, as somebody who is probably privy to receiving a lot of advice, I'm How do you navigate, what advice to take, and what, hear, and leave?
Mina Raver: So, this is, this is actually one of the superpowers of synesthesia. So, synesthesia is just when your senses are crossed. Mine, anything I smell and anything I hear gets, is very visual. So, when I'm taking advice, I can zone out just a little bit, and I can put things in their places, and if it clicks in, Then it clicks and I can really see how much of it I have to kind of shave off or reshape or what I need to move around and make decisions about whether or not I want to make all of those other moves.
Um, so I guess the initial is the gut check. Do I actually want this person's advice? [00:30:00] Am I going to, when I talk to this person, is it because I want to hear what they have to say so that I can try it out or so that I know exactly what not to do? Because that was, my role models growing up were very great examples of what not to do.
So I'm kind of good at working from their back sometimes. And then once I have that information, it is, does it click? Does it fit somewhere? Can I see it in my cloud? Um, and if not, I put it in reserve and move on because as things shift and kind of the clouds shift and the pieces shift, sometimes room is made and it does fit in when everything else shifts.
So I try to keep things in reserve too. It's
a great, great tool.
Kt McBratney: That's a great framework that I think can be applied to different, different brains, right? This idea of you can keep it in reserve, you don't have to take it right now. And time and time again, like, the gut does come up here. Like, intuition, our gut, it's a source of data.
And I'm sure you could give us, like, 15 [00:31:00] links to actual proof of that. That is research fact. So, if anybody's coming for receipts, just let us know. Let's do it. Research.
Mina Raver: Yes.
Kt McBratney: All right. You've already mentioned that being a tech founder is challenging and that you're not afraid of a challenge. You're always pushing at the edge of growth and understanding and function.
So right now in this season of Better CEO and of Mina, the CEO, what's the hardest or most challenging part of your job and what is just like the absolute best favorite thing that you get to do?
Mina Raver: Sure. All right. Let's get the challenge out of the way. Um, the challenging thing is. I mean, really, honestly, the most challenging thing is being limited by capital.
There's like a deep frustration there. Cause it's like when we're talking about the constructs and the things that we've made up and so when you're like making new things, it seems [00:32:00] so weird to, to like have to stop and gather leaves. To like, put up on the counter to go, see, I can, I can, I can hit his progress.
Um, like, I understand, like, I get the, I get the function and, and, um, like, I understand. And also it's like, when you get to a point where you're actually are moving to have to like, stop and, and, and to do that is frustrating. Um, but on the other side of that, you know, that is, that is what it is. On the other side of that, it is so, um, actually this is, uh, maybe I shouldn't say it, but this is what I was talking to my therapist about.
I've always been solo, like I'm a solo founder. I spent, you know, all of my previous companies, I was working by [00:33:00] myself. Um, with this, I just started bringing on a team. Like, it's exciting to have an idea and turn it into something and watch someone's base change as they use what you made for them. There is a completely different level of intoxication involved in going, um, and cure the pieces.
You make this you make this I'll do this and then coming back and putting them together and see everyone light up Over this thing that looks nothing like you would imagined at first Because it's imbued with the heart and soul and sweat and decades of experience of people you've only scratched the surface of understanding.
That is, um, getting chills, I'm starting to sweat, like, uh, I'm not fit for anything else because nothing else, there's no other career, there's no other outlet that [00:34:00] can do this. And it's just the best. It's just the best.
Kt McBratney: There's no feeling like it. You're absolutely right. I think that once you're a builder, and you know you're a builder, you can't not build.
Okay, we don't believe in, uh, shameless self promotion. We know that there are going to be folks who want to know more about you, know more about better CEO, maybe even trade academic, like journal access. Holler at me if you've got a JSTOR. Just kidding. I already have access. Oh, right. Just don't tell them.
No, it's fine. Everything is done on the up and up. I'm going to let the record show that. But, back to you. Less about my misadventures. How can people keep up with you, get in touch with you, get in touch, follow BetterCEO, use what you're building, and both light up from that experience? Where [00:35:00] can we find you?
Mina Raver: Awesome. And so you can find me at betterceo. app. Well, you can find the app at betterceo. app. You can, um, email me at Mina at better ceo dot app a key game. Um, and if you want just a lot of free coaching and a lot of, you know, what I've been working on with people for years, I've turned it into a YouTube series.
So I publish all over everywhere, um, predominantly on YouTube every single Tuesday. You can sign up for email list and got all of the updates and freebies and, um, watch those videos, use the, um, The worksheets that go along with them and I am here to help people master themselves to preserve what makes them unique.
So yeah, go grab all of that stuff. Email me if you'd like. I'm on LinkedIn and all of the social places. Very accessible.
Kt McBratney: Awesome. We will drop [00:36:00] links in the show notes to make that even easier for folks. And if you are driving or moving or just. If you're not looking at your screen, just go to betterceo.
app and you will be able to find it all from there. Thank you for keeping that neat and organized. It's always lovely when a, when a founder or really anybody makes it easy for the folks that they're serving and, and working with find them, right? None of us can do this alone, to your point. You know, this was so much fun.
Thank you. Thank you for being on the show. I can't wait to keep up with you. Try to keep up with you and see where this amazing journey takes you next.
Mina Raver: Kt, you're excellent. Thank you so much for having me. I'm flattered, honored, all the things.