Imagine a stereotypical portrayal of someone working in tech – they’re probably working in a dark room, looking at three screens filled with coding. And they’re probably a man!
We’re here to smash these stereotypes and show you that you don’t have to be technical for a career in tech. Tech companies are looking for a broad range of skill sets and there are hundreds of non-technical roles to be had in the tech sector, such as marketing, design or product.
Joining us today is Sarah Norford-Jones, Co-Founder of YEO Messaging – a private messaging application. Sarah’s background is in advertising and marketing, but she is considered a ‘woman in tech’. Sarah chats to us about how our listeners can get involved in the industry and excel in a career in tech, without having to be trained in code or programming.
hello everyone and thank you for tuning in um I am Katie batesman the content
director at she can goat and today we’re discussing why you don’t have to be technical to work in Tech and we’ve all
heard of that stereotypical person who works in Tech you know the same they’re probably working in a dark room looking
at three screens filled with coding and they’re probably a man so we’re going to
smash these stereotypes today and show you that you don’t have to be technical for a career in Tech so I have the
wonderful Sarah norford Jones co-founder of yo messaging which is a private messaging application and she’s joining
us today to discuss this further welcome Sarah thank you nice to be here thank
you so much for joining us yes we’re excited to to chat on this topic it’s something that we hear a lot people
mention it in passing on here about not having to be technical so we’d love to dive into that today with you can we get
started with a little bit of background about yourself Fast Pace yes of course so um hello everybody I’m Sarah and as
Kaylee’s mentioned I’m the co-founder and CMO of your messaging
um so I started my career about 12 13 years ago now
um in advertising and marketing I started working for an ad agency and
then kind of did a few different things within that realm and started my own business
um which was a creative Boutique which was an agency that focused on branding and digital design for startups and
scale-ups and about five years ago I started working on your messaging with
my father he’s my co-founder and CEO um and yeah we had this idea that we
wanted to repatriate people’s um privacy and put control back into the
hands of the sender things today that you send um anywhere wherever it be on social
media or messaging platforms you lose control the moment you hit send so our idea was we wanted to put the control
back into the hand of the sender with your messaging so what I found really interesting actually when I when I
looked into your company um and and just had little Google as to what you guys do I love the fact that um
I I clicked on one of your uh explainer videos um and it came up right at the end with
privacy security control you got the message and I thought she definitely comes from a background in marketing and
advertising and it was so Snappy that I thought that is just a perfect example
of somebody that you know Tech has such a range of roles and just even seeing
that tiny little explainer video I thought yeah she’s definitely going to be from an advertising background oh I
love it I love it when people pick up on stuff like that yeah um I think just to give a little bit
more background I mean I um as I said my co-founder is my father
he comes from a more Tech background as such you know he’s
older than me obviously he’s my dad but he’s got the the knowledge of that kind of industry and that’s why we work so
well together because I’ve come from it from a design and from a you know calms
like kind of area and we’ve married the two together and it really works so when
you take a really good idea or we think it’s a really good idea when you take a really good tech product like that and
you get some really good marketing or some good branding or you know even if it’s just a really great logo and things
like that I mean it really works so I think that’s really important was it your dad’s idea or your idea so he came
so when at the time I actually had my uh branding agency and he came to me with
this idea and he said I really want to um create a new messaging platform I’ve seen this really cool new facial
recognition um software that can be used on a mobile device that’s continuous rather than
just being for unlocking something because at the moment it’s just mainly for password replacement but the
technology he’d seen was for a long duration of facial recognition on a device without wearing down the battery
and he’s like I really want to do something with this with kind of like a Snapchat but a bit better and a bit more
professional and um being able to authenticate and know who’s on the other side of the message
but he was like I’ve never done an app before I don’t know this world really um that well and I don’t he wasn’t from
that kind of generation of having that instant messaging um tool so he came to me with the idea
and he was like do I want to do it with him I was like hang on a minute let’s see what we can do here let’s have a look see if there’s a market out there
for something like this so we did all of our research um kind of honed in the idea a little
bit more made it um more usable because we’re like how are we going to marry some really like
something that people are so used to doing and so used to like every day people send a message
um and how we’re going to then marry something so complex such as facial recognition software into that
um so we actually also brought in and another one of our Founders which is uh Luca ronioni who is now our CTO and his
background is uh he’s very much as you described the typical background of the
person working in Tech but he was someone that we brought on as well and he’s helped us shape the software and
and build it out yeah it’s always so interesting to hear why people
um start businesses and and their experiences I had a lady on here a few weeks ago and she said to me um she she
I thought she was going to say she worked in Insurance previously because she created an App for
um ensure Tech and when she got on here actually she had no background in insurance and it was absolutely amazed
me that the what the roots into technology and she just saw that there was a gap in the market and launched our
own Insurance app um which was absolutely amazing so and and yourself you’re the first I’ve heard
that um uh that your dad um and yourself got together and decided to to create an app um obviously which
is is doing incredibly well and it’s cyber security which I find like nuts that I’ve gone from advertising
marketing and now I’m like a woman in cyber security which I just found with money as a label but yeah
and and honestly um which ties into our discussion today about not being Technical and and having
a great career in Tech um because obviously you know in terms of uh the technical side being a
programmer or a coder requires technical skills um so what does a career in Tech look like for those who who don’t want or
have technical skills so if you think about it Tech touches
almost like every any kind of business now you’re going to have some aspect of it being technical so I think
um we’ve got to stop limiting ourselves from thinking that it’s just programming or coding or you know your
software developer it’s something very very targeted it can hit Healthcare
retail you know travel you can insurance as you just mentioned Finance media and
like marketing everything has a technical aspect to it now or it has a tech role within it
um and there’s no sign of this slowing down there’s so much in I mean I’m seeing every day people with new jobs or
new job roles that are opening up so um from any of those industries that I’ve
mentioned there’s roles such as project management you could do account management sales design marketing as I’m
doing or you know there’s loads of creative roles nowadays in copywriting content creation
um Tech journalism Tech PR you can specialize in not have absolutely
anything any skills to do and still have one of those roles obviously it entails
learning another skill or you need to have other skills to be able to fulfill those roles but
you don’t need to know a programming language to to you know be a project
manager for instance yes it’s interesting as well you just said about being creative there as well
that’s such a stereotype isn’t it you the tech industry is not creative you
don’t have to be from a creative background but actually yourself coming from uh advertising and marketing is
incredibly creative completely yeah um but also there’s so many roles within
like I’m just thinking on our team we’ve got um a you know a UI ux designer who
without the knowledge um of that skill set there’s no way he
could do what he’s doing he’s literally mapping out our entire application and designing each screen and having to
understand the usability and how users want to work and interact with it so it’s
um he’s not gone to school and you know learned how how to code but he’s
definitely you know applying that skill to to Tech right now yes we actually um
had a podcast on here uh a few weeks ago about ux design and exactly that because
you’re absolutely right I think it is one of those um roles where they think oh yeah I’m
definitely gonna have to be a coder um but actually you know you have the person who knows the tech
um uh the the coding side of it and that Designer is there to make sure that your
experience on the front end you know is something that you want to come back and and keep using and actually has nothing
to do with coding which is quite a misconception yeah why do you think the
tech sector is such a great industry to get into we hear about you know some of
the the great benefits it can be very flexible the pay can be very good
um there’s as you mentioned a range of roles there is there anything in your opinion as to why it’s such a great draw
I mean for me I mean you mentioned them the main kind of benefits from my side I
I am a mom I have a son and I have one on the way so for me being able to work
from home and having that flexibility and still being connected as a team
um is really a huge benefit instead of having to go in and out of commuting
every day which um just and it also just means that you’re flexible you can you know sometimes I work better if I wake up
really early and I get a load of stuff done and then I can have a bit of freedom in the afternoon it’s quite
unless it depends on your employer but you know you have that flexibility if you get the work done and you can kind
of work and do it from anywhere really um and yeah you mentioned that the pay I
mean depending on the skill set that you have and the amount of time you have
been employed for you can earn a lot of money in Tech um just look at some of the day rates
for you know um you know Android iOS developers or
any of the other skills that I’ve mentioned the the freelance day rates are just absolutely ridiculous and you
can earn a lot of money um and I think for me one of the things is that it’s always evolving it’s like
change there’s always new things coming out there’s always something happening there’s always someone coming out
inventing something new and there’s new innovation every day um for me it’s I love to continuously
learn um and it’s definitely a role in which I am learning every day so
um that’s one of the biggest kind of wins for me yes and it it’s it’s
interesting you talk about there about the industry always evolving um which it is and I know obviously you
know we’ve heard of some um quite high level uh redundancies from from big companies this year in in Tech
unfortunately but as an industry as a whole we move incredibly fast
um that you know if you’re looking for a career uh for instance if you’re a graduate just coming out of University
you know the Tech Career um is a great place to go because we’ll always have jobs those jobs are always evolving
um so yeah I think that’s also a misconception isn’t it about the pay uh
and people just don’t quite understand actually the opportunity that’s available uh within Tech and also that
you have to be um very technical to earn high salaries as well yeah but like you said you know
there’s such a broad range of of roles that you can still have a high salary and work in a completely different
department um it could be HR for instance um within a tech company
um do you have any advice for those breaking into a Tech Career without a tech background how would they do that
um I guess my advice would be you’ve gotta I think it’s the same with anything right you just the more you throw out
there the more you hopefully will get back um so in terms of just applying yourself
getting putting yourself in front of as many people as you possibly can I feel
your network is your net worth in a way so I feel like the more you can work
your socials your personal brand I am advertising at the end of the day I
think if you can really push your personal brand where it be social your
LinkedIn profile your bio all of these things create your own content write your own blog articles about where you
know what you want to be doing and what aligns with what you where you want to be as well as who you are now I think is
really important um and just going for it like if you don’t ask you don’t get so I think if
you know there’s a role that you really like the look of but you think oh but I don’t have that skill still apply you
know you if you show that you’re passionate and you show that you are
um you know dedicated and you communicate well I think there’s people I mean I’ve seen CVS come through for
you and we’ve taken people that maybe have not had the exact skill set that we
want but they hit tickle the other boxes they are
incredibly passionate about what we’re doing they want to be part of it and they’re eager to learn so I think as
long as you can put that forward and it um and apply yourself I think go for it it would be my head face on
that yes especially as a as a female in Tech I think companies are crying out
for that diversity and and as you say even if you don’t tick all of the boxes I think they would be absolutely willing
to you know at least um hear you out on an interview um because you might not shine on your
CV um but you know that at least want to chat with you about about your skills
um which which leads me on to the soft skills and um you know what what sort of skills do you think are incredibly
important for Tech roles because you you mentioned quite a few there it’s not necessarily you know what you’re
qualified in um or your background that soft skills are massively important yeah
um yeah I mentioned communicate as long as you can communicate well obviously in
tech there are things that can become very technical and I think you need to
be able to communicate clearly um and also understand the problem and be
able to have that kind of problem-solving side of you as well I think is really important Tech solves
problems obviously there are Tech things that maybe don’t but I think
um if you can really be a good Problem Solver and a good team person and be
able to collaborate with people um oftentimes Tech roles there will be a
lot of collaboration [Music] um whether it is uh you know project management or any of the other kind of
roles that I mentioned you need to be able to collaborate and work well with people
um yeah and I guess the last one would just be being organized being you need
to I mean obviously you can be chaotic in the way you work but as long as you’re organized in terms of showing up
and you know keeping yourself in in order is always a good skill to have as
well yes yes of course every job in Tech
um it’s interesting you’re saying there about um well obviously you know people think
you have to be technical to come into Tech I think when I started in work though you can quite easily get confused
between especially in technology feeling like you you have to know all of
these things and actually you don’t because when you just start to hone down and focus on on your job you know it
doesn’t matter that you don’t know those those things you know it doesn’t matter if if you don’t know how to code the
application that that you you know the business that you work at because it’s not your job and it’s it’s not what
you’re good at and what you shine at so I think it’s this kind of settling into your role and thinking I don’t have to
know everything and be good at everything because that’s what the developers are for and this is what I was hired for
um I think when you say you work in tech people can Panic a little bit and think I remember when I started writing about
tech I used to worry that people would think well you know I can’t actually run
a data center but I used to write a lot of articles about running a data center but but you know obviously would not be
let loose running one for a company and but then it quickly Dawns a new I don’t need to know that’s not my job yeah I
agree and I think as long as you can surround yourself with people that are really good at what they do
you know like as you said I I know enough now after five years of working
with your messaging of what code we use and all these you know more technical discussions I can get involved in
but part of my brain also just doesn’t like function that way so it’s one of
those like left brain right brain scenarios that happens as well I think but that’s why you if you’re starting
your own business you hire people that are specialized in those areas to support you or you know if you’re
working in a larger um larger business maybe not a startup there will be people that have the right
backgrounds for the right roles as well so um as long as you can lean in and lean
on them if you have questions and don’t be afraid to ask questions the amount of questions I ask I’m like what does that
mean I have no idea can someone explain this because it’s just you know I’d rather get it right and ask the question
than pretend I know and then look stupid down the line because I’ve not ever asked but
yeah there’s also incredibly unique um for for Founders as well isn’t it I I
think I think the um the phrase I’ve heard before is um founder syndrome and
not being able to let go and as you say it’s absolutely correct that you you know yo you hire the best people to do
the job because that’s what they can do and and you understand that you can’t do everything and I think especially with
startups sometimes you do have that person that kind of clings onto everything I think I can’t let go I
think I was that person I’m not gonna lie and I have learned over the the years to let go and I’ve definitely let
go now but at the beginning I was like I must control everything but yeah it’s impossible and it’s also
not healthy and it’s um yeah you need the good healthy work
life balance and if you’re going to try and control everything like that then it’s definitely going to be
tipped more towards uh the work rather than the work life
yeah so I think probably once you started to get a team around you that you could trust that that started to
become slightly easier yeah letting go of things yeah
um do you think um having that lack of technical skills for for some people do you think that can put women off from
applying for roles I I don’t know
I think probably yes um I think I don’t want to speak for all women
around because I know that everyone’s different but I think that that women do
suffer more with imposter syndrome with feeling maybe they’re not good enough
and they maybe they just don’t go for it as much as um our male counterparts but I I don’t
know maybe that’s just me generalizing because I do feel that there has been a major shift and I think that more women
are pushing putting themselves out there um there’s a lot in the media there’s a
lot you know of people speaking up about the the topic and I think that it is slowly changing but um
yeah maybe maybe some people have put off because they just don’t think that they’re good enough or you know they
don’t think they have the right skill set so they just don’t even bother but I think that probably applies to both but
I don’t know maybe it is maybe more just well I don’t know I really don’t know but there is that uh that saying isn’t
there about um with job applications and females feeling like they kind of was apply
unless they hit you know sort of 90 um of of the asks on that job
application um compared to a guy who might just go for it and I suppose that also depends
on on the person um as well you might not go get men that go for jobs and only meet you know two
of the bullet points um and have the cheek to apply anyway uh it does depend on the person but I think you’re
absolutely right um if you feel that you don’t meet all of the criteria she’s still absolutely
just just even just putting an application and see if somebody comes back back
um just to say you know actually we’ve they might come back and say we have a training program internally where we can
you know help you with whatever these these extra things might be especially if you’re returning to the workplace
um say after a maternity or a briefly for um caring for somebody for instance there are lots of companies that are
there to to bridge that Gap and to skill you back up so why wouldn’t you
um uh reapply or apply for a role that you think is you know could be suitable
for you and you mentioned a little bit already so as a female founder of a tech company
um you talked a little bit about how you navigate the the more techie aspects of your business you mentioned sometimes
you just think you know what this just isn’t for me and I’m going to leave it to to somebody else
um luckily with you though you I I’m assuming like because you have your father who can who can deal with that
side of things is that how that how that works and you just think you know what maybe I’m not the right person for this
or or are you involved in those conversations I think that goes also back to the control aspect of it at the
beginning yes I was like I need to know everything that’s happening and I need like obviously I have oversight of
everything that’s happening but before I wanted to get into that the nitty-gritty and try and learn and honestly my brain
just like it just was a bit too much I guess for me because I was taking on too much but
um yeah I think having the support of a co-founder that has a different skill
set than you um and having that level of trust you are able to just let go of some things
and just say okay I don’t need to learn I don’t need to know everything I’ve got a real base level of this and I can you
know as a Founder if we get picked to do things or talk to people or investors or
whoever it might be I need to have a core knowledge of what we’re what we’re doing and I need to be able to answer
questions on it but to be able to get into the real granular detail of it not
so much anymore I have you know a good team that I can I can direct people to which is good yes yeah and and as well
as that just just owning your role and I suppose just figuring out what you’re good at and and
um being proud of that and be able to say these are my skills as a Founder you
know you you can speak eloquently about yo and and the business perhaps one of your developers might not
be able to do that so you know it’s kind of all of those skills are necessary to ensure that your business is successful
um do you have any advice for those thinking about launching their own Tech businesses anything that you wish
somebody would have told you um I yeah the first thing that comes to
my head is um it’s gonna take a lot longer than you think it’s gonna take which
um yeah we thought oh yeah let’s just you know build this great app that’s new
messaging and it’s going to have facial recognition and do your fencing technology and all these great features
and it’s taken years so I guess that that’s one piece of advice it’s going to take longer than
you anticipate um and then the other one is uh just
really research before you even start it just you need to know if there’s a
market for it there’s no point there’s so much there’s so much competition it’s expensive to do you know to really build
something and build it well so before you even go there I would suggest doing
all the market research you possibly can making sure that there is a use space a
use case and a user base out there that’s actually going to want and will benefit from the tech that you have that
you’re wanting to build yeah yeah and because startups obviously they come with their own unique set of
challenges as well like have you found any you know challenges with with Staffing maybe in terms of
I think there are there are those people out there and one of them who loves working at a startup
um but you don’t always get that do you I mean there are obviously ups and downs of working at a startup I completely
enjoy that life but have you found any challenges there finding the right staff to fit your business yes definitely I
think as you say it takes um a certain type of person to really enjoy it and grasp that startup
um environment it’s fast it’s you know there’s things change every day one
minute we’re going after one client the next minute we’re having to go for another one uh we’re pitching for
investment we’re doing this and every day is different so it is very um
fast-paced it’s um it’s I wouldn’t say unstable but it
feels as if it’s like you know we’re shape-shifting every day kind of thing trying to do different
things and as a um as a person obviously that’s hired into a startup
you agree to your role and yes that’s your role but just know you’re going to be doing a lot of other things because
you wear lots of hats when you work in a startup um whereas which is for me as well I’m a
startup person I love it I get really excited about it um and I love doing a bit of everything
um which you know I think keeps me on my toes um but uh yeah it’s an interesting one
we’ve we’ve had some developers that have come and gone and said this isn’t for me
um they prefer the more um you know rigid kind of I guess role
that they know that they’re coming in every day and doing the same thing because maybe it’s not really for them
um and but then we’ve had some people that are still with us since day one so
it really depends and I think we’ve gotten better now about our interviewing process and really explaining the role
and explaining who we are and really making sure that the person understands that we are a startup and this is the
kind of environment that they’re going to be involved in um and then the other thing I guess
um when we well for a startup it’s hard to retain the salaries uh when
you’ve got huge competition like Facebook and or meta sorry all of these
huge big tech companies that um can just poach and you know put a massive uh um
increase of salary on top so there’s you’ve got to find the right people and the people that are really passionate
about what you’re doing and that can fit in in that startup environment it’s
really important yeah and people that are looking for that Journey where they can really you know
move fast and as you say just learn new things and want to learn skills that
they you know probably have never done in any other company because you know you’ve got so much responsibility on you
in a startup because you’re thinking you sort of look behind you sometimes and you think oh is there anyone else that can help with that no there’s nobody
else so that’s me it just means that you know you’re gonna have to learn very fast
um and and just and just move for it which is a lot of fun um but as you can say can can be quite a
challenge for some people um when when they’re thrown in the deep end so it’s it’s obviously about finding
the the right fit for a startup um we we are nearly out of time so I
just wanted to ask you what’s next for your messaging um well this year has already kind of
started out with a bang for us we just got uh listed as one of the startups 100 businesses to watch out for this year so
I’m very feeling very positive we are going to start working with um a few
clients that we had um already been in discussion with last year so those will start really being
pushed forward this year which we’re really excited about um and for me I am very passionate about
making the digital world safer for children as well as
um for the business clients that we have so I’m really hoping to do a partnership with the children’s organization this
year as well where we can provide safe messaging for kids where they can know
who’s on the other side of the of the messaging so there’s no room for kind of
um fraud or you know the darker side of things that can happen with children so
that’s something that I’m really be pushing for and looking forward to doing more work in this year oh amazing yes
when I when I was reading um about you know you have lots of different features don’t need security elements like being
able to remove messages um from somebody else’s app if you need and all of those things and I was
reading it thinking oh hopefully this would be incredibly useful especially for young people as you mentioned online
just just to have that safety net yeah completely so yeah that’s what I that’s
one of the reasons why I got involved and did this in the first place so for me
um that’s always been my driving force so I’m really passionate and hopefully we can get something going this year for
that side of it as well yeah yeah well wonderful thank you so much we were already out of time
um so thank you so much for for coming along and chatting with us today Sarah it’s been a pleasure thank you for
having me I’ve loved the the chat thank you and for everybody listening as always thank you so much for joining us
and we hope to see you again next time
