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Serious Lady Business is the podcast where we dive into the serious—and sometimes not-so-serious—realities of being a female business owner. Host Leslie Youngblood keeps it real about entrepreneurship as we dive into the hard lessons no one warns you about to the surprising wins that make it all worth it. Tune in for honest conversations, unfiltered insights, and stories that prove you’re not in this alone.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (00:03)
Hey there, I'm Leslie Youngblood and this is Serious Lady Business, the podcast where we get real about what it takes to build a business as a woman today. From late night Google searches and client curveballs to the wins that make it all worth it, I'm talking about the stuff no one puts in the highlight reel. Each week, I'm bringing you honest conversations, lessons learned and stories from women who are out here doing the work. Messy, meaningful and unapologetically bold.
Whether you're just dreaming about starting a business or deep in the grind, this podcast is your space to feel seen, supported, and fired up. Because let's be honest, this journey is hard, hilarious, and absolutely worth it. So let's dive in.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (00:52)
Welcome to Serious Lady Business. With us today is Danika Kong. Now Danika is an immunologist from Harvard who is also the CEO and co-founder of Scismic, a skills technology company that helps the corporate sector use skills to take a proactive approach to hiring, learning, and development and upskilling. One of the things she's very interested in is helping the workforce navigate the very fast evolving skills landscape. Danika, welcome to Serious Lady Business.
Danika Khong, PhD (01:20)
Thank you, Leslie. Very happy to be here this morning.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (01:23)
Yes, I'm always excited for every conversation. I always feel every conversation I have is important. Today, we're talking about the future of work and how small businesses can adapt and thrive. Now, you have really deep insights into how the workforce is changing from automation to evolving skill sets. So we're going to explore how small businesses can prepare for the future, what to automate, what to keep human, how hiring trends are shifting.
And I know that you started Scismic from a very personal place. Can you share what the problem you experienced was firsthand that inspired the business?
Danika Khong, PhD (01:57)
Yeah, definitely. I always like to say I spent too long in academia, but to be honest, I loved being in academia. So it didn't feel like too long at that time, but there are, you know, I'm a PhD trained scientist trained in Australia, moved to Boston specifically to take a very particular postdoctoral position, you know. And then when I came into the academic world as a postdoc, realized we were all being trained for this one job.
right, this one type of profession. And the reality is 100 % trained, 100 % of us postdocs or, you know, graduate students in that sense, trained with taxpayers money for this one job that only about 15 % of us might get, right? 85 % of us will not get that academic track or that faculty track position and we'll need to find somewhere else to go. And the mindset in academia at that time, this was about
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (02:23)
Hmm.
Wow.
How see me? Mmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (02:49)
five, six, seven years ago, so not too long ago, was you have failed and now you fall back on something else. What's the other career path you could do? How do you repurpose your skillset? What does that industry or sector look like? And most of us, out of that 85 % who kind of need to navigate that space now, don't know anything about it. Not exposed to it much, not talked about, we don't have exploration opportunities. so,
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (02:51)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Right.
Danika Khong, PhD (03:14)
For us, it was just this very interesting breakdown of we have acquired all these skill sets throughout our academic training. Taxpayers money for the most part, scholarships, NIH funding, et cetera, et cetera. How is it that it's not useful anymore? There's a place for it. We know that. We know that on the other side of that equation, the corporate sector within STEM pay a lot of recruitment fees to kind of find people like this with our skill sets. So how are we not
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (03:20)
Right.
Sure. Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (03:39)
connected, how are we not finding these jobs? How do we not know how to navigate that space? And it all kind of came down to skills. We acquire skill sets and they hire skill sets. They hire people and tell them, but people really have skill sets to do jobs and they hire people to do jobs. So could we break these things down into skills units and find matches that were more effective and accurate and help people really understand how to apply skill sets they have acquired, help people frame.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (03:40)
Right. Right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (04:05)
you know, they're trading their experiences into skills units that immediately could connect to the label market, right? So we built technology to do just that. Help people identify skill sets and then help people see where they're needed in the label market.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (04:11)
Right.
Mm-hmm. I love that.
You're solving a big problem, right? I think we talked previously and what Scismic does is when scientists are placed in a position that matches their skill sets and that matches themselves too, obviously everybody's going to see more success. They're to be able to make breakthroughs that they're passionate about and keep working. So it makes so much sense. So it always is mind-blowing to think.
that's not how it was done or that's not how it works. You think like, no. And so to be able to come in and solve a big problem like that, that's not only helping that individual scientist or professional, but also helping the world with what the scientists can go into and potentially discover, develop, and put out there is so monumental. Was it shocking to you that that didn't exist at that time or that's how it was done, Danika?
Danika Khong, PhD (05:05)
Um, I think what was shocking to my co-founder and I was in a way how simple the problem was to begin with. when, you know, it, we, because we lived those journeys, we, we came out of academia, we, felt lost. didn't know how to navigate that. Then we went into the corporate sector and had to hire ourselves and saw the breakdowns in all of that and how they connected. When we really sat down to try and understand what, was the root cause, one of the big things that we found was just language.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (05:11)
Mmmmm
Mm-hmm.
Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (05:33)
Language in resumes and how we see ourselves very different
and we use different language to describe that, than language in job descriptions and how the company saw, you know, effective candidates for that particular role, for example. So it was as simple as being a Rosetta Stone to translate how you describe technical language here versus how you describe technical language in this source, right? It all breaks down into common meaning.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (05:41)
Right.
Gotcha.
Danika Khong, PhD (05:58)
So synonyms matching, semantic matches. And it was just, was a math, you know, it was a very logical explanation for why we maybe couldn't effectively understand both sides. Literally. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (06:08)
Gotcha. That's so interesting. Right. Sure. It's just translating.
Yeah, it makes sense, it's like, right. It's that easy, but yet that difficult too at the same time, right? So, you know, and for small businesses, and so this is like tech, a tech app that, you know, helps hiring and helps placement. And you now have, you know, vast experience in tech. How, with small business owners, a lot of times,
Danika Khong, PhD (06:17)
Yeah. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (06:32)
there's a new tech thing or there's this or there's that, there's AI, right? And so for small business owners that already feel like, and even women too specifically, we're already doing so much, we're already trying to make it work, we're already trying to do X, Y, Z. How can we realistically stay ahead of workforce trends without getting overwhelmed when it comes to tech, while using it to simplify our lives?
Danika Khong, PhD (06:55)
Yeah, that's a very good question. know, conversation in our head offline, actually this morning, you said something about this podcast is for doers, for women who are doing things and how to do it best. And I think it comes back to that first principle, right? It's easy to get distracted and feel left behind with all that's going on and things are fast, faster maybe in the last few years because of certain things becoming more accessible to the general public, right?
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (06:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
were.
Mhm.
Danika Khong, PhD (07:22)
But it's important to come back to what are we doing and what's really needed. Right. And that's been my, my learning curve over the last five, six years in this is sometimes we get a little caught up. We don't feel like we know exactly what we're doing at all. You know, times other people can do it better. There are all these other things that can do it better than us, which is fine. It's there's a, there's a definitely amount of truth to that, but it's also look, it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. What are you trying to accomplish? What's the goal, whether it's just for today, this one conversation, whether it's the business plan or.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (07:26)
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (07:51)
quarter, a year, next three years, whatever it might be, what's important? What are you trying to do? And what can you do well? And then where are the gaps or what takes a long time? And therefore where are opportunities to find other things to help augment that work?
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (07:55)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
brain.
Sure. that something like tell us a little bit about how you are a tech company, you understand how effective and important tech is. Tell us how you've incorporated that into Scismic to help you guys scale and grow. Scismic is over 10 years old now, right? Am I mistaken or? Okay. Okay.
Danika Khong, PhD (08:23)
We are about five to six years in the market,
about I'd say seven years in the making and conceptually about 10 years in the making. So we've launched a couple of things before this that didn't go into the market and then our actual product was about six years in the market at this point. Yeah. Yeah, honestly.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (08:33)
Gotcha.
Mm-hmm.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
Danika Khong, PhD (08:43)
And so, you know, chase the fads, chase the cool things out there, not necessarily always important to spend money on. think where we're at now is this clarity on we're a small business. We're no longer a startup. We're no longer a kind of investor backed startup. We are an independent small business. And the mindset is quite different. Now, you know, the revelation is honestly profit, right? Profit and progress is what we focus on. Profit is important to talk about. We don't, because we feel like it's a dirty word in the business sector. It's not.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (08:55)
you
Mm-hmm.
don't. Yeah, it's how you get you and complete your mission and keep your mission going. You need to keep those lights on. There's nothing dirty. Right, right, 100%.
Danika Khong, PhD (09:12)
It's how we survive.
Exactly. And, and live a life and live a life in that process, right? For all of us. So we're
a team of about 15, 16 people. And now we have a viewpoint on this is an employee run company. This, know, it's every, every employee owns a piece of the, the, of the business. Um, but in that we, need to be realistic. Profit is very important. So we assess workflow for every department. What is our workflow and where are the inefficiencies? What's taking, what's the biggest factor for the, the, the cost.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (09:32)
Amazing.
Danika Khong, PhD (09:46)
in that workflow and look for things then to replace that. The other thing is progress, right? Profit means nothing without progress. In whatever way we define it, progress gets us up in the morning, profit keeps us safe and not hungry. Right? So it's just coupling of profit and progress. And so the other thing is what enables us to reach goals? What enables us to kind of move forward in the most, again, efficient way? Efficiency is quite a key part of our company because
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (09:47)
Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Yes, I love them.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (10:13)
We're mostly operated by engineers and scientists. So we have a lot of very tech savvy people, very data savvy people in doing sales and marketing and customer success sprawled out across the sectors of our business, which is a little atypical, but everyone's quite, everyone gets efficiency. Everyone gets data-driven decision-making in that sense. So always start with the workflow and then, you know, efficiency.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (10:24)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Right, right, right.
Gotcha. What was one tool that was a game changer for you guys as you grew Scismic and hired? Is there one? Is there two? Is there anything that sticks out in your mind?
Danika Khong, PhD (10:47)
I mean, Google sheets are used across our company for everything. game changer, you know, our sales CRM, our sales. So sales is an aspect of the business of any business that can be nowadays very lead generation at the very least. There were kind of, you know, early funnel of the sales pipeline is something that really can be very much automated, should be automated. You know, nobody needs to sit down and send manually 50 emails a day anymore.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (10:49)
Yeah.
Sure.
Mhm. Mhm.
Mmm.
And
no. Right.
Danika Khong, PhD (11:14)
these things
should be. So I think HubSpot for us and just making sure we always had a viewpoint of our deal board and movement and having the dashboards ready for easy monitoring. And other than that, have to say Google Sheets is a, everything operates on a Google Sheet. Yeah. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (11:17)
Mmm. Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. God bless those Google Sheets. know. It's amazing. What
you said about dashboards too is that is so important because at any given time, you can see the progress that you're trying to achieve with those dashboards. Whereas when you're so busy and there's no one centralized and visual way to track that progress because I feel like it'd be easy to get down on ourselves or down on
Danika Khong, PhD (11:43)
Yes.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (11:54)
progress and maybe we're having a bad day or what have you. then the dashboard you might see like, we're actually on track to have our best quarter ever. And so it just helps to have those tracking pieces and to have those automated too is even better because then you can just anybody, the whole team can kind of ping to it at any time and just keeps everybody focused and optimistic and excited about what you're working towards.
Danika Khong, PhD (12:18)
Yeah, absolutely. The learning curve there is there are simple ways to automate things and there are complex ways to automate things, right? In an ideal world, your accounting software is connected to your sales software, which is connected to your dashboard software. It takes a lot more time and is oftentimes a little bit of a rabbit hole to kind of set up. again, identify what you need to see and who needs to see this. And exactly if there are simple ways of automation, maybe there are again, manual, like simple Google Sheet.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (12:24)
Sure.
Mm-hmm.
Mhm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (12:45)
Someone
is responsible for putting in this number every month and your, your graph generates, and that's enough to make a point to everybody who needs to see that point. That's enough, right? But if you need to, you know, go into Zapier and other tools to connect your automation, your, your, your things together, just take a step back and see how necessary it's nice to have a lot of the time. And sometimes it's not, there will be a point where the thresholds cross where this needs to be automated at this point, but
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (12:49)
right.
Yeah, right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Danika Khong, PhD (13:13)
Again, stepping back and always saying what's necessary to get the job done and what is the job? What's the objective of this? What's the goal? And at which point is the right time for me to start either having a person do it, be in charge of it, or an automation tool that does this for me.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (13:18)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.
Yes, definitely. I think you make such a great point there because it's like what is the most important thing for people to see? Generally, you can do that very cost-effectively and time-effectively. I know that I've worked with clients previously that want to connect all the sales and the marketing and we researched and had like a demo from one company and it was like six figures to create and run a dashboard like this. This is like a small to medium-sized business.
Danika Khong, PhD (13:34)
Okay.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (13:57)
that does very well, they were like, my God. Then we found another option that was still five figures to implement and pool all this data together. So we had to have a conversation like, we really need this? What do we have right now that might not be this gorgeous, amazing, connected, comprehensive platform, but still allows us to see the progress that we're looking to see every month. So that's, yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (14:14)
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. And it changes
when you have a viewpoint of profit. I never thought about profit until we own their business again, right? Because when you have an investor and the relationship's good, right, you're both motivated to get to a growing revenue year on year. It's not necessarily profit that's kind of top of mind, right? But when you look at profit as your goalpost or as your lens,
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (14:26)
Really onion.
Right. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (14:48)
then this very quickly becomes a question. Okay, if we do spend this money, what does it get us in return? Is it very different to what it gets us without this? And that delta you can start to measure how, when it's worth it, right? When you've got enough of the cash reserve to maybe start experimenting with some of these or investing in some of these, what are you trying to get to here? Are you looking to generate about the same amount of income year on year? Are you looking to grow into it? But these things become,
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (14:56)
Mmhmm. Mmhmm.
Right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Danika Khong, PhD (15:16)
clearer when you have a lens of profit and what you're trying to get to.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (15:19)
Yes, I love that.
ROI. What's the ROI of doing this? Do we really need it? Then let that sort of help guide you. And Danika, you noted that it wasn't necessarily something that was important to you when you had investors. And now you guys are independently owned now. Can you tell us a little bit about how that journey from going from one to the other and why it's a better place for you now and what you've learned?
Danika Khong, PhD (15:23)
Yes.
It's not it's just a different place right and it depends on what you're looking for We have we had and we still have a very good relationship with investors that we we worked with a Great majority of our of our journey so far And at some point they just became clear that the value could give each other was not there anymore, right? So then You reframe things in your in your head in terms of okay. Now. This is a business for
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (15:45)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Danika Khong, PhD (16:08)
us, we don't necessarily need to make a hundred million next year. You know, if we're not, if we're, if we're not close, if that's not a ballistic thing.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (16:11)
Mm-hmm.
Right. Somebody
is not trying to get us to hit that or like that's not what we have to punch mark.
Danika Khong, PhD (16:19)
The goal is just changes the it changes the goal of the business, right?
It's not necessarily the exit. It's now a year on your sustainability thing. What do we need to start to get to make this worthwhile for all the business partners for all the employees in that sense? And it becomes actually more challenging to connect it to your mission because your mission might have sounded very large. Can you still get there? Is there a better way to get there? And you know, these things start to it's an interesting refraining.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (16:28)
No.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (16:47)
And
the nice thing is sometimes to see how both you and your business can get to your mission in very much an aligned way. And that's a nice feeling because then it's aligned. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (16:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I love that. That feels so good, right?
Like when that's aligned altogether, that's the special like sweet spot. But I think also too, so many women looking to get started whether they're in tech or whether they're one person and it's so maybe tech you're starting out and you're looking for investors, right? And you're looking for the funding or you're by yourself and you're bootstrapping it. You don't have to be that for the entire.
Danika Khong, PhD (17:03)
Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (17:19)
lifespan of your business. At one point, you can start this and then go look for investors or a partner. You can start with investors and then you can become independently owned. so it's not one thing for forever. And I think a lot of times we can trap ourselves into just having those blinders on when really it's limitless and things can change and the business can change. And so staying open to those different ways of existing and the opportunities that might come around for a business.
Danika Khong, PhD (17:44)
Yeah.
The business can change. The market can change. The market can change in fact, very quickly like it's doing now. Right. And then again, different things become important. I don't think, you know, in, that perspective, a cash reserve becomes very, very valuable. Right. So again, there, right. Profitability because profit is what you go, you start to stash away as your cash reserve in that sense. So it is important to on in the good times.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (17:48)
Mmm. Yes. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Right. Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (18:09)
Say I'm putting this aside because there are going to be bad times or they're to be times of transition that I need to have some security to kind of operate by. And again, it really forces you when you when you pitch to investors, when you have an investor report to when you have someone to report to, you tend to think of goals, you tend to think of what is your five year plan or three year plan. When you're an independent business owner, it becomes it's not the thing that you have to focus the most on. And sometimes you don't think about it.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (18:13)
Right.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Right. I gotta prove it out. Yeah.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (18:39)
Right. And that's the
thing to stop and say, I actually need to think about where I'm going with this. If this is a, if this is a personal business where I have certain financial goals, right. It's different. If this is a, I'm trying to build something to put out there that I want to live beyond me. That's different. If there's a particular impact you're trying to make for whatever reason against the profit and progress type thing, what are your profit progress goals for one year, three years, five years? What are you trying to build to? It's hard to do it without a bit of a goalpost in sight.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (18:43)
Right?
Mm-hmm.
Mmm. Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (19:07)
And we need to remind ourselves to do that as an independent business because it's otherwise you're not reporting to anybody particularly, you're not forced to do that activity. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (19:07)
Sure.
Right, right, right.
Well, and I think that's so, you know, something that we don't, one thing that maybe automation tools and we're talking, you know, in tech and how it can help us where we get so busy, we're doing so much, we don't have time to sit and maybe set those goals and set those goal posts for us as independent business owners, but they are so important. And so that's the way that tech and automation, you know, can also help.
us as entrepreneurs and business owners. Do you think that's a way that tech levels the playing field for small business or do you think it maybe sometimes widens the gap in some ways Danika?
Danika Khong, PhD (19:47)
Yeah.
No, I think it definitely levels the playing field. think there's many, there are many things that, you don't need teams for you. You you can, you can really do with less money than, than you think you need. Again, sales lead Jen is one as a, as a very big example. Most of us, I don't think should be hiring out sales teams from the get-go. think, you know, as we start to see traction and, I think here is an interesting thing of what defines product market fit for you.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (19:59)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (20:14)
Right. At which point do you start expanding that, beyond just yourself and a few co-founders or business partners in terms of selling and all relates back to where you're trying to get to in what year, et cetera. But again, sales lead gen, think it's just enables us to reach a much wider audience without a team. So it definitely levels the playing field just by, and that's a revenue generating activity, right? That has a high ROI. So it's yeah, that itself is a, yeah, no, no, it's, mean, it's.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (20:19)
Right.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
sure.
Mm-hmm. Right. Yes, definitely. That's the good stuff.
Danika Khong, PhD (20:42)
You know, having calendar, Calendly type apps to sort out your, your scheduling with people. So you're not studying your own calendar every time you're trying to make a meeting and coordinating between, know, but there are lots of tools, think thinking of not just automated tools, but fractional services, fractional help, right? Not needing to hire out someone where you have to not think of all these benefits and complicated payroll issues.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (20:52)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mmm... Mm-hmm.
Right.
Danika Khong, PhD (21:07)
but
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (21:07)
Yes.
Danika Khong, PhD (21:07)
you just take the time that you need for HR or for accounting or for even, yeah, or some kind of consultant, yeah. Very helpful, levels to play, for sure.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (21:10)
Marketing, operations, for sure.
definitely. Now you build a tool that skills first and so we're talking about hiring too, right? Which I think is the perfect segue. Why is it important to hire for skills versus resumes, especially in small teams, Danika?
Danika Khong, PhD (21:22)
Yes.
for two primary reasons, right? One, when you take a skills first approach, again, you are looking at what needs to be done objectively and who can do it. So it first means that you need to understand what skills you need, which means you're thinking about the job you're hiring for here. You don't have a person in mind to help you and that is okay if you do, but I think most of us get overwhelmed and we feel we need help.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (21:40)
Mmm... Mmm...
Mm-hmm.
⁓ huh.
Danika Khong, PhD (21:57)
And then we kind of have this person we see in our mind of who can fit that, right? And that's usually a some version of ourselves. And then you are hiring someone like yourself. So you're not looking at what new things a person not like yourself can bring you or bring the team. But most importantly, you don't actually have an objective sense of, you don't have an objective evaluation matrix.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (22:00)
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Yes. Yes!
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (22:23)
of whether
this person can do the job you need today. And that's the most important thing for a small company. Not hiring for three years from now because you may not exist. You're hiring for today.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (22:27)
Mmm.
Right. That's
really important. That's super important product pin in that. It's like you're hiring for today. Three years, you have those goals. Hopefully, you'll get there. Hopefully, you'll exceed them, but you don't hire for three years, you hire for today. think that's really key. Sure. That's profound and like a revelation to keep in mind. So as you're hiring in your small business,
Danika Khong, PhD (22:46)
It's a small business, yes.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (22:55)
How can you build an inclusive hiring process when you don't have an HR department?
Danika Khong, PhD (23:00)
Yeah, that's a, that's a very good question. So the second reason, actually, this is a great segue. The second reason is that it is a reduced bias way of evaluating a candidate. And again, for us, we are, we are very cognizant of the things that we have as skills gaps within the team. Competency gaps, skills gaps, whatever you want to cut gaps. And so when we hire, we tend to focus on what really can help us fill those gaps. And typically that will mean people who don't sound, look, or think like us.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (23:08)
Yeah.
Mm. Sure. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (23:28)
And when you try and hire in a way that is, you know, if you don't see or see specific identifying information about someone, you have a better chance of bringing in people who can actually be quite different to ourselves. So reduced bias is the second reason. The way to do that is we have found, our technology works by skills first matching, which means you don't see identifying information. So one way is to find tools. There are tools out there that are job.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (23:41)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah.
Thank you.
Danika Khong, PhD (23:54)
kind of databases out there where they have, you know, either very underrepresented populations of individuals or just professionals that are not represented in some way. The other way is to kind of, again, identify the skills you need and then have a lens of when you first shortlist somebody, look for those things only, right? Put a pile, put your, put your yes pile or your
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (24:03)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (24:16)
your kind of first shortness pile to be only by these metrics. Right? So you give everyone a shot there. There's no other criteria. It doesn't matter that this person came from this college and not that college or have worked in, you know, the top three consulting firms versus worked not in anything recognizable to you. That doesn't matter if you have the skillset to put them in the yes pile. So for us, technology does that. But if you want to do this in kind of your manual way, that's one way you could do it. The second thing is then to shoot out some application questions to those people and have them.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (24:20)
Mm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Right.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (24:44)
right back and then evaluate your second short list based on the answers only. And then the third one is look for them on LinkedIn. Right.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (24:46)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I think that's solid. It's so interesting. And
I love that you're taking those skills and looking at those skills and remove the colleges, remove the connections, because that's why we get to where we are at today when we have this gap of diversity and gender in the startup space, in the corporate space. And because it's
Danika Khong, PhD (25:00)
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (25:13)
like, hires like, because there's all these other non-objective factors that are going into hiring. so it's not like they're doing it consciously, like, yeah, I'm hiring this person over that person. It's just not subjective. It is subjective. It's not objective. That's it. And so to be able to have a tool like you guys have created to be able to do that is incredible. But I love that you're giving us the steps to implement that type of
Danika Khong, PhD (25:28)
It's not objective. Yes. Yes.
Yes.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (25:39)
tool and hiring perspective. You can do it without having Scismic, but Scismic is amazing for it and of course use it if that's what works. But it's not hard. It's not harder to do it.
Danika Khong, PhD (25:49)
Yeah. It's
not hard, but it is a little bit of extra time and it is more proactive. And what I mean by that is again, most of us when we need to hire as a small business, we are already in pain. We already feel overwhelmed and we're rushing this. We haven't sat down and actually created a job description. We haven't sat down and created a career path. Right? So this is where the job description needs to speak to what they can do today. But there is a section of that because they're human. They need to see what they, know, where they can grow. And if they're good, you want them to stay. You want to give them that potential.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (26:00)
Sure, sure.
Mmm, mm-hmm.
Yeah. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (26:18)
So that's the
second aspect of this is what I need you to do today. But in one year, if we're hitting this point and if you're successful in this, then we will hit this point. And when we hit this point, here's the opportunity for us both. Right. But it's hard to kind of put the time down to think about that. Before we trigger and go, I'm going to start looking for people who can do these things that are really causing me some pain right now. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (26:30)
Right. Yeah.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Right. I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I
love that. Now, Danika, what trends are you seeing in employers that they might be looking for now versus five years ago?
Danika Khong, PhD (26:53)
So let's show on the time that the three years, because we only entered the market about five years ago. ⁓ and before that I was literally running an R D of a, of a biotech startup, but, let's say three years, cause a lot has already changed in three years. So firstly, I see large enterprise organizations definitely have a skills first mindset, which I really like and excited by. see small to medium businesses still kind of need to catch up on that and need to kind of give themselves the space to again, create job descriptions thoughtfully and,
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (26:57)
What?
Sure, right? Sure, sure, sure.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (27:19)
a little bit more objectively in terms of the skill sets. most people, when they say things, more things are being automated, things are moving to AI, very generically use that term. Mostly what they're looking for is people who are adventurous and experimental, right? Open to open to exploring new ways, not going to be stuck in a particular way to accomplish something. but curious and brave, but also
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (27:21)
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Hmm. Curious.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (27:44)
you know, strategic, right? Which aspects can we experiment? Critical thinking is very important actually, because you need to, like you're running a small business. cannot be experimental entirely. have, there are some things that you need to be consistent and stable and it might be boring and it might be whatever, but it brings in the bread and butter money. need that. There's going to be, and you want people to help do that, you know, at the very beginning, So, people who are kind of think if you're, if you're not thinking automation, you're thinking or, or AI tools.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (27:48)
Right. Mm-hmm. Mm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (28:12)
or technology
overall, you're thinking of, you're curious and you're experimental, but you've got this mindset of, will help us figure out, you know, where and how, we'll do that part. We'll make that decision together, but I'm conscious of that. I'm not idealistic, yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (28:20)
Mm-hmm.
Right. Yeah, I love that. Sure. And I
think you mentioned to be curious and the rise of AI and all these things that are changing in the world. It was very crazy right now. And the future of work feels uncertain for a lot of people. What advice would you give to a business owner and even a professional to future proof their business or career?
Danika Khong, PhD (28:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, future proof. It's a good, I mean, I don't know that I have an answer for that per se. think the way, can tell you how we think about future proofing and a lot of future proofing is just sometimes the next quarter or the next year. Again, for us, it's, there are cash reserve goals because I think that helps to future proof change, right? Anything that is in flux is just to have security.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (28:51)
Is that possible? Is that possible?
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Right.
Danika Khong, PhD (29:17)
And to shorten your timelines, your future viewpoint to what you can see and what is a little uncertain and is a little hypothetical, right? You can have hypotheses in place, but you need to know their hypotheses. You actually don't know what's going to happen. You don't know which way they can go. So the way to do it is shorter future plans that are...
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (29:23)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Right. It's true.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (29:41)
concrete
in that sense and to put in checkpoints. When will you rethink? When will you reassess? What information would you need to collect to see which way is going at which point? Who needs to be in that conversation? So again, we have a team of 15. So for us, it's not just me. I cannot make these decisions. I don't want to make them unilaterally. Again, I guess that I need to bring in other other perspectives. And I'm lucky to have business partners that, you know, we are complimentary to each other's skill sets. And a team that, you know,
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (29:46)
Mmm.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (30:09)
is very intellectually switched on in that sense. They want challenges, they want to figure out new things. so what data you need to see how far, when you need to see it and who needs to have that conversation. And I think if you have that system set up, then you can remain agile and move through periods of uncertainty or change. I don't have a better answer to future proofing than that in terms of trends.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (30:18)
Hmm-hmm.
Right, yeah, I agree.
Great answer. To set yourself up for success.
And I love the idea of accelerating the timelines. Like, we want to do x by z. But then you're changing like, no, we're going to actually do a by b. And it's like much faster because then, I mean, really, we don't know what can happen tomorrow. But like when you're kind of like challenging yourself and your team to achieve something faster, then you get to where you're going faster, no matter what is going on in the external.
Danika Khong, PhD (30:44)
Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (30:59)
economy, industry, trends, like all the things. So think that's like so on point, like truly.
Danika Khong, PhD (31:05)
The key to, I think the key to...
to kind of let landscapes or markets that you cannot see is just navigation, right? You just need tools to navigate. And that's what we do. So what we use skills data for, for our job seeking population, our workforces to help them navigate precisely this. The, you know, the goal is we're all a little nervous. Some of us are really afraid because we don't understand what AI means or what it can take over. And the, and the best way to be less afraid and be more confident and kind of know
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (31:19)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (31:33)
where to go is again, short and short, to have navigation tools to be able to see as far as you can see. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (31:37)
Yeah, and take action
for sure. Now, Danika, you transition from academia to entrepreneurship and we talk about skills and how skills are evolving. What skills translated well for you and was there anything you had to unlearn maybe within that transition?
Danika Khong, PhD (31:55)
The biggest thing I had to unlearn was comfort with, know, in academia, it's a very slow moving game, right? Impact and change is, I mean, maybe not right now, but in the normal times, right? Things don't change in a 10 year span. It's pretty stable if you'd like. In the real world, it's not. Things can change overnight. That was a big learning to not be complacent.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (32:06)
Yeah.
Yes.
Mmm. Right.
Yeah, sure.
Danika Khong, PhD (32:22)
big,
learning, had to unlearn and just get used to, know, we took months until we realized things were happening differently in the market. And then by that stage, it was too late because we hadn't maximized the opportunities that we were seeing or we weren't thinking of shifting or pivoting. And then it became very apparent to my co-founder and I at that time that, wow, the world changes a lot faster than academia. I think we have to be more on our toes and, you know, have a shorter timeline, et cetera. So that was the biggest thing.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (32:44)
Sure!
Danika Khong, PhD (32:47)
The thing that carried out like translated is I have to say my PhD taught me and my postdocs taught me a lot of very strong experimentation skillsets, right? So to do one experiment, get the data, evaluate, then take your next step. Right. things like that. It taught us how to make decisions when maybe you don't have enough data sets as well. Cause in, in science and academia research, you never know, you don't know the whole picture. have small pieces of puzzles and then you kind of move forward with small pieces.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (33:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mmm.
Right? Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (33:14)
Um, and so I'm very comfortable getting, you know, making decisions that are half hypothesis, half solid data, but knowing when to, you know, knowing how much to bet on that because of the, the certainty, knowing when to evaluate more data and knowing when to take a pause and think and process the data. Uh, having that value point of going, going, going is not good. You actually do have one day a week that you do need to think because it is can, can move you like more, more significant steps. Yep.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (33:20)
Act. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Ooh, ooh, I really like that. Give yourself a day
a week to think and ooh, that's a good one. Yeah. Right.
Danika Khong, PhD (33:44)
Yeah. It's very, very important, especially if you're leading a team. You've
got, you've got, you you don't want to do, you, you don't, want to empower your team to make those decisions and to, to move those steps without you. You want this to live beyond you and your business partners. So you need to kind of guide them instead of tell them, which means you need to think ahead and without space. How do you do that? There's no way you're not doing it effectively. Yes. Yes. Yes.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (33:54)
Mhm. Yeah.
Right. Right. Right. And they're looking to you. Right? Like they're looking to you. They're like, you're the leader. And you're like, you're
right. It's me. No.
Danika Khong, PhD (34:13)
Yes. And they don't like it when you change your mind all the time. So when you're doing this yourself, you can half think things
and then like, you know, put all that work into it and then half think it. But when you're working with other people, it's not fair. It's very frustrating for them to do that. So you need to do better and create that space.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (34:20)
Yeah.
Right. True. So true.
Yeah, I love that. Because when it's just us, like, I messed up, I'm just going to do it like this now. Then when you have a team, they're like, what are you doing? You told us it has to be like this. You're like, oh my gosh. You're right, I'm sorry. I know. I'm sure if any of us that have been in the corporate world and previous world, we know how incredibly frustrating that is and then we can actually become it you're like,
Danika Khong, PhD (34:29)
Peace.
Exactly. We've spent, we spent two weeks working on this plan and now you want a different, you know, yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (34:51)
shoot, that's on me. Wow, I see the other side now. So you have to realize that and be cognizant of that. I think that's really, yes, you need to prepare and be proactive and communicate and all those things. Danika, what is one thing that you wish more founders, especially women, knew about navigating the changing workforce?
Danika Khong, PhD (34:52)
Yes. Yes.
You need to prepare. You need to prepare. Yeah.
Mm.
Hmm. When you say founders navigating the workforce, do you mean for themselves? Do you mean for their companies? Is there, is there a specific.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (35:21)
Let's do one at a time, I think for themselves and then I think for like, you know, their teams and like what's going on externally.
Danika Khong, PhD (35:23)
Okay.
All right, let's go
with the team's first. So again, I cannot, you know, highlight enough there. Think of the role you want someone to fill now. Think of the job you need done now, objectively, right? Don't have a person in mind because that will, it means you're evaluating the person, not necessarily for the things that you need them to do now to make sure you can get to where you need to get to. That's the first thing. I think we all make that mistake.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (35:36)
Yeah. You do? Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (35:52)
The other thing I think of the other side of it is, that one requires a little bit of, in terms of the workforce, think again, it's just critical thinking, but specifically women making, I think just being a little bit more lenient. Typically women tend to undervalue the skills or under calculate or know, undersell their skill set.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (36:13)
Where? Yeah, what is it? Underestimate
Danika Khong, PhD (36:18)
Underestimate, underestimate, that's exactly it. Yes. So if
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (36:19)
ourselves and our skills. Yep. Yep.
Danika Khong, PhD (36:22)
you sat down and listed down all your skillsets, you know, and when a job comes, when a job description comes in front of you, aim to get 50 to 60 % of it, not a hundred percent of it. If you can speak to 50 to 60 % of the skillsets in the job description, based on what you have. And again, a lot of these things, would encourage you to not just be in your mind to write things down so you can see it enumerate, right? Becomes tangible, becomes objective.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (36:24)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (36:47)
Apply for a job when you have 50, 60%, not 100%.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (36:50)
Right. I love that. Then as a potential small business owner, you say just jump even if you don't have a, obviously, no one's going to have the answers. If somebody that's considering starting or somebody that's still trying, as we all try to navigate and change, what would you say you wish that more women founders knew that are currently small business owners and founders right now?
Danika Khong, PhD (37:14)
Honestly, again, objective goalpost ambition in terms of where you're trying to get to, be a little bit more prospective about it. See further ahead and kind of objectively go towards those things rather than to make everything a gut feel or an intuition based. But yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (37:18)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love that. And I think also too that
whether we're in the corporate space underestimating ourselves or even as a founder underestimating ourselves. And I always like the idea of like 10X your goals. Like I want to make a million this year. Like no, make it 10 million and see where you land, right? Because, but then you might think like, you know, and having conversations with incredible leaders and women like you where I've had them before. like.
yeah, I could totally get there. But until you're talking and connecting and even your brain can't sometimes get there on your own. And so I think like you said to like try to think bigger for yourself and where you want to go and then create those goals because you can do it.
Danika Khong, PhD (38:03)
Yeah.
Think bigger. Yes, I actually
just had a, you sparked something. Actually, the number one thing I would advise for women's owners, talk to other people. When I go to networking events and we share about company growth or business growth or kind of business models, I often am talking to men. feel unusually engaged, know, who's...
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (38:18)
Mmm. Yes.
Hmm.
Danika Khong, PhD (38:33)
who's interacting with me openly, who's more bold in their thinking or in storytelling, is they're typically men. I actually don't have a lot of interactions with business owners where we're talking about where we can get to or business models or mistakes. It's not as open a conversation about the business. And I gain a lot of information from the men, you I really do. They've all done it before. Yeah. Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (38:42)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Right. Sure. Sure. Yeah, they're willing to share it. Why do you think that
is? Why do think we don't go there? Is it the situation where we don't feel like we can go deep or it's because we don't really know that person? How do we solve that problem, Danika? Yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (39:05)
or we don't feel like we know enough, maybe we feel like we don't know enough. So in those
conversations, I typically approach it as I'm learning from them. I don't have as much to share.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (39:14)
Mmm, but you do. You totally do. Yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (39:16)
I do, I do, and
they do too, and I want us to share more.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (39:20)
Yeah,
yeah, I love that. I think that it's so true to go out and connect and talk to other women business owners and of course, all types of owners, right? Because you can learn and then you might be like, well, they can do it. Or somebody you think like they don't know it and they did that and so then I can do it or they did that. Talk to me, how did you do that? Can we connect on LinkedIn? Can we have a coffee date? What I think is so wonderfully magical about
Danika Khong, PhD (39:35)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (39:46)
the world we live in and we've been talking tech and the evolving workforce. So much of business success still comes down to those person-to-person connections and to be able to tap into a human and have a conversation and learn and grow from each other. So community is so much a part of being a business owner and a founder and even a professional as well. So as we evolve in AI and robots and everything, it's still such a human-to-human thing. So I think that's really wonderful.
Danika Khong, PhD (40:11)
Yeah, we,
we need our version of let's go to the golf course, right? We need our version of that.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (40:17)
Oh, Danika and for
our late serious lady business listeners, I am going to have a golf tournament. I'm like a serious lady business golf tournament because I'm like all these men go to the golf course for years and years and that's where they wheel and deal. I'm like, we need just women to be out on the golf course, golfing and making deals. So I literally was just the other day planning the first serious lady business golf outing and trying to get that figured out. We'll see if we can hit the summer, if not the fall.
Danika Khong, PhD (40:23)
I play golf.
Yes.
I'm in.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (40:43)
But that's the thing, until you're looking at all the way that business has been done that is exclusive, and how do you want to get in here? I'm like, you know what? Let them have that. Let's make our own. It's going to be amazing and even better because it's going to be full of like-minded women and humans coming together to connect over that.
Danika Khong, PhD (41:02)
Yeah, agreed.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (41:04)
all about this is a hot exclusive.
can't believe you said that because I'm like, I want to do golf outing. That's a thing. It's like the old boys club on the golf course. I'm like, no, we need to have our girls club on the golf course. Amazing. Awesome. know one of my first jobs was a caddy at this really prestigious country club here in Oakland County, Michigan. I was truly, I think it was like
Danika Khong, PhD (41:15)
Yep, I'm looking at my golf clubs right now, so I'm definitely here if I'm invited.
⁓
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (41:30)
eighth grade I was a little scrawny squirt and I was carrying these rich men's golf clubs talking to them about the WNBA and how I was so excited that the WNBA was starting so I know I'm dating myself as well and I look back now and they were probably like who
Danika Khong, PhD (41:41)
No.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (41:45)
Can
Danika Khong, PhD (41:44)
Hahaha
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (41:45)
I get somebody else? Right? But so and I would like hardly ever make any money, right? Because who wanted a little squirt girl that didn't really know how to be a professional caddy? There were lots of really, you know, the high level caddies that had been there for years. But I just love golf and like I've seen the way like, you know, that it it is and so there's no reason that we cannot be doing it. And so I you will be my first invite and I'll let you know when I locked down the date in the place, Dan, I can't will make that happen. Yeah.
Danika Khong, PhD (41:55)
Right.
Agreed. Great.
Looking forward to it. Looking
forward to it.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (42:12)
I'm so excited. Awesome.
Well, Janika, that's all my questions I have for today. But I would love before we wrap up for you to share where our listeners can find you on LinkedIn, your website, and all those good places. And we'll also drop these in the show notes, guys.
Danika Khong, PhD (42:25)
Danika Kong on LinkedIn, please absolutely reach out, I respond to most of my LinkedIn mail. And our website is Scismic.com, so S-C-I-S-M-I-C.com.
LESLIE YOUNGBLOOD (42:35)
Seismic.com. Awesome. Danika, thank you so much for the incredible conversation today. I'm so excited for everybody to take these learnings and run with it, and we will talk very soon. Thank you. It's saying likewise, Danika. Thank you. Bye.
Danika Khong, PhD (42:36)
trip.
Talk soon. I had a lot of fun. Thank you.
Leslie Youngblood (42:50)
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