Architecture, And: Tanooki Labs Product Manager, Liz Fibleuil

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted, a podcast where we find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects. I'm your host, Evelyn Li, an architect who spans tech as an angel investor, start up advisor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're a seasoned architect or just starting in the field, this podcast is your gateway to think differently about the role architects play within our global community. Hello, wood disruptors. Welcome to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted. I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Liz Fibrilio, a Panama born architect who has made an impressive leap from the world of architecture into the tech industry. Liz is the 1st architect on our podcast who has transitioned into a product manager role at a company outside of the AEC industry, bringing a fresh perspective to our conversation. With over 10 years of experience as a licensed architect and dual master's degrees in architecture and sustainable design, Liz has a deep understanding of design principles and user centric thinking.

A Her passion for creating exceptional digital experiences has driven her to excel in managing web and mobile application projects at Tanuki Labs, a company known for building innovative products from the ground up. In our discussion, we'll explore what inspired Liz to pursue a career in tech, how she leveraged her architectural background to make such a significant shift, and the unique challenges and opportunities she's encountered along the way. Liz also finds inspiration in literature and painting, which adds a creative dimension to her work as a product manager. I'm excited to dive into Liz's journey and uncover how her soft skills, design expertise, and empathetic nature have made her a valuable asset in delivering digital solutions. Hi, Liz. Welcome to the show. We're so glad to have you here.

B Hey, Evelyn. So we just

A ran through your formal bio in the intro, and we we like to open each episode with a bit of an icebreaker. So is there anything else, maybe not in your formal bio, that you can tell our listeners that either completely unrelated to what we're going to talk about or or maybe something that would even help us know you a little bit deeper before we go down this this career journey of yours?

B Yeah. So fun fact about me, I love to travel. Like, that's one of, like, my primary goals in life. Like, not only, like, as a dream to have, like, a leave a legacy behind, but that's one of my biggest goals. So everybody has, like, a to do list to do by 30. By then they turn 30, my to do list was to visit all continents by age of 30, and I accomplished it. So the only continent that I have not visited has been Antarctica. And the only reason that that that was the case was because in my countdown, I did not plan that I was gonna be waiting a long time for one of my visas to be renewed.

B I'm from Panama as well as you mentioned in my bio. So that kind of threw me off a little bit. So Antarctica is still left to be visited, but other than that, I visited all others. So, yeah, huge traveler.

A So do you have a more specific bucket list too in terms of other, like, more specific locations? Like, after you've fulfilled that goal of Antarctica, do you have, like where does your travels take you then?

B No. Do you know, I'm not picky. I'm not picky. I will tell you though that I find myself always traveling somewhere new. I try to visit I I try to go anywhere. Honestly, if a friend tells me tomorrow, like, hey, I'm really going to I'm thinking of going to Mongolia tomorrow. I'm like, let me see if we can fit in within my my schedule and all of that, and I'll go. I'm not really picky.

B So I would say that it's more about as visiting as many places as possible. I don't think I'm gonna hit all countries, but the goal is that when I look back at my life when I'm hopefully, you know, 70, I can say I visited a 100 like, a 100 countries, something like that. And I think I'm on my way. If I keep going one new country a a year till I become 70, I think I can accomplish it. So let's see how it goes.

A I was gonna say that, does that mean your son's gonna become a world global traveler too?

B Oh, a 100%. You know, I actually submitted a application for his passport last week. The guy wasn't even 2 months, you know. So and I already have some plans. So in a couple of months, we're hoping to go to Panama to introduce him to the family there. So he's already visiting one country there. And then, my husband and I always try to visit a new country or a new location for our anniversary every year. So that means that then my kiddo will also visit at least a second country by the end of the year.

B So, yeah. Well, it's so

A great that you have a partner that supports you in that vision. And I have to say as a mother of 2, my first traveled a lot with me before he became more mobile, and it was actually much easier to travel with them at this age.

B That's I'm gonna take advantage of it right now. I'm pretty sure that by the time he turns 2, he's gonna be paying a lot more visits to the in laws and my mom. Okay. And it's gonna be a really good time until he maybe becomes 5 or 6 when they can walk on their own a little bit faster, and then I don't have to carry 30,000 things.

A That was a big for us, graduating from car seats to booster seats and what it meant for, like, all the extra things we had to carry. But anyways, so one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the podcast in particular is we've had a lot of individuals that have explored this architecture and career. But they are architects or people with architectural backgrounds like yourself that actually didn't stray too far from the industry. Like, they're working in a tech company that specifically support the AEC industry in some way. It might not be architects, it might be developers, it might be contractors. But you, on the other hand, are in a company, it's Nucula Labs, whose primary client is completely outside of the industry. So when we talk about architecture plus and really stepping away into a brand new role, I think that's that's the different perspective that you're bringing as a product manager in this space. So let's kick it off just by talking a little bit about your architectural background and eventually how you ended up where you are today.

B Yeah. Sounds good. So let me try to summarize x amount of years into a very short amount of time. I'll take it back to high school. Let's start over there. In high school, I excelled in science and math, and I had an interest in the arts. I find myself like painting on my spare time just for fun. Right.

B So when the time came to, okay, what am I going to do for the rest of my life? I really didn't know. At the time, I think I took one of those tests that based on your attitudes, you they give you a list of, hey, these are your potentials. Right? And out of all of them, like the majority of them were related to like some sort of like politics or international affairs or very, very different in comparison to architecture. But architecture was listed on that list. And it and I was like, woah, this is very different. So I'm gonna pick the 1 the odd item out of the bunch. The more I did research on what architecture meant, it sent it seemed to marry my 2 passions of, like, I'm really good at math and, you know, science and all that good stuff in it's artsy. So that started exploring that.

B And that's how I kind of found myself taking a major and in in in starting my journey from there. You know, in architecture school, not only do you learn how to create experiences for people, but you're sold on this idea that you can actually have a really big impact, not only in one individual's lives, but in multiples and, and possibly what you do will be have permanence beyond you that can also impact the future, right? So that's kinda like the premise of what I got myself in school eventually kind of finish and kind of use as a motivator, right? Along the way, I had extreme amount of luck. I think that I was offered jobs rather than seek for them. So my first internship was with a professor that just said, hey, I have this position. You would like to do it, you would like to do it in the summer. I took that. And then same, I was really offered positions rather than look for them. With the exception of one time, I did apply for a job, but that was because I had an interest in becoming, having a, going to a bigger, bigger firm and just kind of moving up in my career.

B So I worked in architecture for many, many years in different industries. I did healthcare, I did commercial interiors, residential, multifamily. So I saw a big array of different building types. Now we're getting closer to, to so around the pandemic. So like around that time, by that point, I already I was already starting to question if architecture was the right field for me for many reasons. And just to enumerate a couple of them, I think, again, if you go back to the initial idea, I love science, I love art, architecture can change someone's lives, etcetera. Those are like the, the, the pillars of my, my own career. Along the way, my experience with firms were not in accordance to my idea of what architecture was.

B So I started to like lost passion for the, for the career. I'm not, I, I'll be frank, I had, I was part of a very toxic environment in some of my firms that really made me question if I wanted to spend the rest of my really life in a career that I would see people in upper levels that at the beginning would say, oh, that's not acceptable. We should not be treating our people this way. That's so bad. And then I would see them become that. And I was like, if that's where I'm headed, I need to do a little bit of a change. So that was one particular reason why I I started to move and look around what other things can I do? Another big item for me was I needed to create more. I needed to if I go back to the reasons why I joined architecture and what I fell in love with it, I started to really understand that I needed to just create something out of nothing.

B And sometimes in architecture, depends on the firm that you're at, you find you may not find yourself creating things from scratch or or just creating in general. You might find just in the machine doing bathrooms, eager plans and all of that. And that wasn't what I wanted to do again for the next 50 years. I just wanted to create. So that alongside then the pandemic hits and I am discontent with my career. I didn't know where I want to go. Remote became the norm for a lot of us. I think like you mentioned before, I am from Panama and Latin America.

B So I, I am very far from my family and my friends. I live in the US. So I, I used remote work as a way to reconnect with my roots. And that kinda then started to, like, concretize where I needed to be headed. I needed to be headed in a way where I created. I had the possibility of working remotely. And then lastly, the other thing that kind of led me to where I am right now, I really had a curiosity for technology. You know, I kept hearing at the time, a lot a lot of things that were in discussion were like, what is the blockchain? What is the new era of Internet? AI wasn't that big at the at the time, but there were these discussions happening.

B And I started to just be curious about the whole thing. And I I'm not gonna lie that I taught myself a little bit of code here, writing websites, all that stuff on my spare time.

A So a a lot of individuals have gotten to the same point that you did, but I feel like there's always this big but. Right? Like that, you know, and you you got your master in science in sustainable design, and then you went on and did a 3 years mark essentially to get the accredited d degree program. So if you look at that and and everything that it took to get licensure, you, just in the conversation we had, came to this realization that you believed that you didn't you weren't going to find those things that satisfy your passion in your career within a firm. I think the natural tendency is, what if it's just the firm I'm working in? Like, should I go to a firm? But I've spent so much time and focus on architecture. How could I ever leave architecture? Did you ever have those concerns too?

B Absolutely. It's like the sunk cost fallacy. Right? The more time you put into something, then you start believing, I've put so much effort, I should never leave. It was very difficult to this day, I wouldn't say, like, it's a little difficult to think of so many things. I did get licensure. I'm still, you know, I'm still registered. I still get my, CEO hours in all of that. So, yes, I did doubt it a lot.

B I think that for me, it was more like the more I wait to take the plunge, the more I'm gonna acquire things in my life that are not gonna allow me to move. So at that time, I was already getting to a mortgage, you know, I was getting married. I saw I foresaw that in the future, I was gonna create a family. So I knew that if I wanted to make a decision, it had to be the sooner rather than later. And that's kinda like where where it started to click for me. Like, I need to make a change. And into the point of like, well, maybe it is my firm and I just need to switch firms. The environment that I was seeing in my firm, I started also hearing from other friends that they were experiencing it in their firms.

B Not as bad in my as in my case, I don't think. Or maybe that you try not to share your situation as clearly because you don't want to demotivate people. Right? But I started to understand like, okay, this sounds like if not if I change firms, it's gonna be great for the 1st couple of years, and then I may find myself in the same situation or not. Why don't we do this list? Why don't we try something new, completely new? And if you don't like it, you can always go back. You can always go back. You can always go back. Keep your keep your licensure. Keep being involved in the industry.

B And if it doesn't work out, you can always come back. No one's gonna take the title away from architect from me. I know how to do architecture. So that's not gonna be ever taken away.

A I feel like you have a more optimistic than most of view of what like, I can always go back than than most individuals. Because even if we look at where women tend to fall off during the profession, it's, you know, they leave when they start a family, and profession, it's, you know, they leave when they start a family and the let's go back, you know, there's been a lot of conversations that it's actually harder to go back with the evolution of techno, like say they never learned Revit, you know, and now all the firms are transitioning to BIM. So how, I guess, in your head, how did you maintain that that attitude? Or why do you think that you you believed that?

B I think a lot I have a lot of, like, external factors. I will say I I have a mom that till this day, she, she is 60 right now and she's still working. So from and out of passion, not because she needs to. So I had a role model who has always not only my mom, her her whole entire family. They came from very humble beginnings. So working and studying was kinda like, quote unquote, the way out of of really humble roots. Right? So I had a role model that has taught me throughout the years that you may take the wrong term or you may take a different path. But the only thing and this is gonna sound dark, but I'm and I'm sorry about that.

B But, like, the only thing that is unavoidable, it's death. Right? So you take your path and you are going to confront a little a a thousand different things and you are gonna fail and you're gonna mess up. We're gonna have to stand up and keep going. And that means that if I have to go back and I'm not gonna be great at the first couple of tries, if I've been being back in a firm after now 3 or so years of not being an architect, it's okay. You know, because I'll just prove them wrong. That just because it took some time off, I am not good enough. And that's something I've seen in her. Right.

B I've seen it in my mom take her stumbles. And, you know, she always rose up. It was it easy? Has it been easy? Absolutely not. I mean, till you can ask her right now. She she's an accountant. So it's a very different industry. But a couple of years back, she took a stumble and she's still fighting on, you know? It's just about proving everybody that you're worth it. Not because of what it says, how many years have you been out of the industry? That doesn't really define anybody.

B I don't think it what defines them is, do they wanna learn? Do they wanna improve? Do they wanna create something? So I guess I thought that's just been ingrained in me. That's that's why I never fear that I can go back if I have to.

A Okay. So thank you for letting me take that segue. But now so you're pandemic, we're all remote. You have been testing out you've been taking your own coding classes. You've been seeing conversations around AI and other things, blockchain evolving. Where are you now?

B Yeah. So I am a product manager for Tanuki Labs. I'm gonna start I'm gonna break that statement in 2. So a product manager, for those that don't know, the best way to explain it is, like, I think of it as the architect of the tech world. So a product manager, like the title says, manages a product. So what is a product? A product can be an app, it could be a website, it could be the submit button within the website. So it's it really is about a an experience. And this the complexity and size of that experience might define if there's only 1 product manager or 2 or 3 or 4.

B Now a product manager quote unquote manages the the the products, but this we're talking about like an app. So how do you manage an app? It's the people really that you are trying to manage. So to take it back to the analogy of an architect. As architects, we have stakeholders. A product manager has a stakeholder. As an architect, I'm given a series of goals and end goals for that client that they wanna accomplish. Then as an architect, I and as a product manager, I figure out what is the best way to accomplish those goals. In the architectural world, world might be by program planning, it's space, you know, defining the space, defining the square footage for certain functions, looking at the code, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

B And then there's a team that helps me achieve that goal. And then you have your engineering team, which in the tech world is your developers. Right? Or and then you have your designers. If you if you're only being like a staff architect and you have a designer in house, etcetera, then you have a designer. Same with the tech world. Right? There are UX designers, UI designers. And then you all work together to accomplish the goal that the client presented. So that's what I do.

B And that's that's what a product manager is, at least my my understanding of it is. So if I distill that if I go back, I am giving a goal to be accomplished or help, define what the goal is. Would my team define what is the best way to accomplish that goal? And then I help my team accomplish the creation of that goal.

A Thank you. So last season, we had 2 product managers on and I actually put them back to back because I think the role of product manager kind of changes also depending on the company that you're within. Same thing with project managers, like a project manager working on, hospitality, project's gonna be a little different than a project manager working in healthcare, education, etcetera. But how, I guess, I wanna step back a little bit and say, like, on your role or on your path out of architecture into tech, most people, especially hearing your love of design, tend to default to UX designer. So how did you find this place in product management?

B I take it back to so actually, let me I'm gonna step back a little bit. So when I was looking to lead the industry and find a new role for myself, the I'll I'll take it to, like, what did I define? Why why did it lead me to program manager? It was simply because of my soft skills, if I'm honest with you. So at the time, I was, I was doing my own little knickknack projects here and there with JavaScript and HTML and all that stuff. But I had impostor syndrome. I didn't think I was ready to be called the developer or be able to take on that role even at a junior level because I was self taught. I didn't have, like, a I didn't have a formalized coursework of computer, science to define myself. Like, yeah, I'm ready to take over that. And I saw the same thing with UX design.

B I didn't have a formal background on UX design or a formal education on UX design to go that route. And I didn't wanna go back to school. Because at the time, going back to the sunk cost fallacy, I wanted to go on a path that I was self motivated to educate myself without the need of others to guide me through the education process. So I didn't want to go back to school because if you look at my resume, I, I went to undergrad, I went to masters, I have 2 masters. I had a lot of formalized education. If the result of my formalized education led me through to an industry that I don't really love, I need to teach my I need to find the resources on my own to teach myself what I need to be in a new path. I didn't wanna invest more resources in something that then was not going to work for me. So knowing that I knew I was going to have I already have imposter syndrome because of coding.

B I don't want to go back to school and I'm not going to call myself a UX designer if I don't really have the formalized training that it's going to open the doors for me. What can I how can I break into that industry? It was simply by looking at my soft skills and what I have already and what I'm willing to learn by myself on my spare time. That was product management because I started looking and it just felt so similar to being an architect. The only big difference is that I am not, you know, building physical things, but all the building blocks of that industry are in the same in the same role, you know? And that's and that's where I decided, this is interesting. Let's try it out.

A How did you begin transforming your resume then to be reflective of that? Like, how did you find your first job in tech? And did you so maybe not formalize education, but, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, go and get a PMP certification or something. How did you make that transition?

B So I first to be to be completely frank, I just look a lot of job postings first, trying to understand what the role was looking for. And what I found gaps in, like, for example, there's a lot of terms like PRD, actually UX, UI, what is that? You know, there's all these terms that are not known to people outside of the industry. So I started seeing those in, what's the roadmap? I started seeing those in job postings and I was like, I'm gonna learn those. I'm gonna learn that. So I would start looking for online resources in Udemy or LinkedIn learning all these different free resources to learn the lingo because I knew that the soft skills I had. And once I learned all these lingo, then I started to tailor and change my resume to highlight that. And I was very frank with my resume too. I said, I am an architect.

B I am looking to immerse myself in this new career. I don't know what I don't know, but I am willing to learn. And that's how I started to get interviews. I submitted, I'm not gonna lie, I would submit like 5 applications per day. So I don't even I think I at some I think I may at the time, I may have submitted, like, 50 applications in total until I finally found a match for me. Had way too many interviews as well. And I I actually would learn from every interview, I would say. And I would always ask for feedback.

B So if if someone said, hey. We cannot, hire you. I would always say thank you so much for your time. Can you tell me what was the decision making behind that? And and I would take that and I would say, okay. Now I know what I need to learn to be better for the next one. So, yeah, that's that's until that's how I did it until a couple people took a chance on me, you know, and I eventually made the decision that Tanooki Labs was just the best compliment and the best match for me at that time.

A I went through the same thing too when I graduated. So I graduated in 2012 with my, my MBA and my MPA, and it's like, well, architecture is hurting right now, so I'm going to start applying to other places. And I just, as you were speaking, I opened up my archives to my application folder and there's at least 50.

B Yeah. I think

A if I counted, I, I think if I counted them up, it would be closer to 80 job applications within the course of 2 or 3 months that I was applying to. And I did exactly what you did. Right. And this is pre AI. Right. So you need to redo every single resume to match the job description. It's not easy, but I think it's necessary because we always talk about how individuals don't understand what architecture, like, the value that architects bring to the table. So if you take that lens and you apply it to, I'm an architect looking for a new job in the world and nobody understands what we do or my value, you need to make sure that you're using the language that they understand and how your skills transfer over.

B Absolutely. I think that that is key of any time. I would say not even any time that you're trying to switch careers or jobs or etcetera, but every time you also meet a client. Right? You have you have a value to yourself. And they're looking for something very specific. You know that they're valuable to them, but you need to talk to them in a way in their language, in what they're looking for. Because you might say there's a 1,000 words for the for maybe one thing that they're looking for. So trying to find the word that fits that specific client or that specific industry, it's what you have to do, you know, in general, to not only win such as careers.

A So now I think I think now we've covered the full kind of evolution over in into product. So you you did a whole bunch of applications. So so what did it feel like to kind of finally get through on on one side on the technology side. And and and I guess, you know, was there any feedback that they gave you in kind of knowing that you're switching careers and, like, helping you kind of anticipate what that would be like going into an entirely new role?

B Yeah. So a lot of the feedback that I would get would be we're looking for with someone you're great, but we're looking with someone with more experience. I mean, I'm I'm going from 10 years of experience in architecture to 0. You know? I'm back in I am in back in junior mode.

A Were you mentally prepared for that? Were you in this process where you're saying, like, I'm going to end up with it in a junior role or I'm going to end up taking

B I was totally prepared for the reduction in salary. I was totally prepared to answer to to maybe younger people, you know, as as now my bosses.

A And by the way, all of my bosses, all of my direct bosses in tech, when I made the move were younger than me, I went from a profession where I felt like I was on the old, like the younger end of the spectrum, to like feeling ancient and having people even kind of 10 years my junior being being my boss. Yes. But the pay was actually better. But yeah.

B Exactly. No. I mean and I think that's and and let's go back to that because I knew I was gonna start as a 0 person. I knew. Entry level. And yes, my salary was probably not gonna match the salary that I had in architecture. And that's, and that was okay. Because to be completely frank, at least at the time, a couple years ago, my salary increases per year, I would great amazing I would get amazing reviews.

B Amazing, you know, and I would be giving like a 2% salary increase. And that was discouraging because if you have to talk numbers, you know, inflation is here and my salary increase is not even matching inflation. That was not kind of like where where again, one of the many reasons why I kind of really had to take the plunge is it's also that, right? And I knew that if I moved to tech or any other industry, I probably was gonna start in a very low level and salary wise. But I think eventually what took me 10 years in architecture was probably gonna take me a shorter amount of time outside of architecture. So I was willing to take I was willing to take the the hit because the reward hopefully was gonna be higher in a shorter amount of time. I was well aware that was gonna happen. And until this day, I'm not gonna lie, it's difficult to say that I have 3 years of experience, you know, when I'm I've been out of college for so long, but it is what it is.

A And and I I even carry that. Like, actually, one thing that ultimately ended frustrating me in the end when I began stepping away from tech is seeing all of these younger people kind of climb the ladder much faster than I did because they had a deeper knowledge base than I did when I moved into tech. And I would I mean, the the flip side is, yes, I'm so happy to be in tech, but I'm also, like, hitting myself over the head. I'm like, why did I, like, why did it take me so long to make this move?

B It happens to me. You feel

A yeah. So you you feel that too.

B Absolutely. And I think it has to do with the fact that I've been in tech for close to 3 years now. The honeymoon phase is over. So then the question lies, do you still love it? And I'm like, yes. After the honeymoon phase, I still love it. I still not regret my decision. I love what I do. I really do.

B It has all the things that I that fulfill me as a person. So I find myself always questioning why didn't I make the jump sooner? Why? Why? Why? Why? Because I feel like I would be so it would I would be so ahead. I mean, I'm heading there. You know, I'm I'm an optimist as you as you mentioned. I'll head there, but I don't know. I I feel like I would if I've done it sooner, if I wasn't scared, I think right now we would have in a different conversation right now. We would we would probably be having the conversation of, like, I am a founder, you know, rather than a PM. Ask me again a couple years where we are, but

A We'll we'll have to bring you back on when you start your new company.

B Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But that's that's the goal. Like, that's where I just look at myself and I say, if I did this 5 years ago, where would I be now? And although that is a sad thing, it's a sad way of looking at things like the past really depends where you are right now. So I would have loved to join sooner, but I wonder also if I would not be if I would not love it the way I love it, if it wasn't because I took really great thought about joining. I didn't just just jumped into it, you know? Yeah. But it's it is a little annoying, I would say.

B I should have done the the jump sooner.

A Okay. It was something that I always felt internally, but I've actually never had that, been in a position to really share that with somebody else. So, so thank you for that, that nice, that we, we've both had that, that same feeling. So we've told people a little bit about product manager in Tanuki Labs. We actually haven't told anyone about Tanuki Labs in itself. So why don't you start with what is Tanuki Labs? And then, you know, as a product manager in Tanuki Labs, what does your day to day look like? So let's go there.

B Absolutely. So Tanuki Labs is what you would call a consultancy or an agency. And in very layman terms, we take somebody else's say you have an idea, a really good idea about a product or an app or a company. But you are not a developer, so you don't know how to make it into fruition. You cannot even you may not even have funding. You may not even have money in your pocket to find a team that does this for you. So what we do is, like, we are that team for for you. So Evelyn come you come with an idea.

B Let's say that you really wanna work on creating an app that helps people adopt puppies. And that's a great idea. You come to us and you say, look, I have this idea, but I don't know what I need to make it real. Like, what languages do I use? Like, is it an app versus a website? I hear what, like, what is JavaScript? What is Ruby? What what is all of this? And then we we can help you in 2 ways. 1, actually, in there in a lot of ways, we maybe can create with for you design a pitch, a prototype of your idea. We discuss what are the requirements of that idea. Like, if you wanna do an app for puppies, that means that maybe you have a you define, like, maybe what the colors are, what the features are, etcetera. We we define that with you.

B And you can use that prototype to get funding. Or if you already have funding and you don't have a team that makes it for you, you know, like the the technical aspect of things, then we become that team for you. We have developers in house, etcetera. Tanookia Labs really came from it's by 2 founders, 2 guys who in them they they are they were and are developers that they were starting to get approached. Like a lot of developers nowadays are starting to get approached like, hey, I have this idea. Can you help me build it? So that's how it really all started. They didn't wanna work for a specific company because they really found passion in creating different things. They just wanted to build stuff, you know? So that was the baseline of what this this company started us.

B And then it evolved into really becoming partners to to people who have great ideas. So we have clients who we have seen from very, very small, all the way to getting acquired by like Meta or or other big, big companies. And it's just having pride in, we help them. We remember when you were nothing, you know, like not, not nothing, but just an idea. And now you're being used by millions of people.

A Is there an equity play in Tanuki?

B So yes and no. Depends. I think that we do have equity in some with some clients, and that's part of, like, this, the the the negotiations, but not for the most part. We give you a fee, an estimate of how much it's it's gonna take. We work with you if you need to fit it into a budget. We start saying, okay. Is this important in your app? Probably not. Right? So why don't we just don't we we let's focus on what you really need to make this idea real.

B And then rather than spending all of your resources in unnecessary things. So we really work with you to define what is the MVP, the the minimum viable product to get you out the door, get that market fit, and then hopefully see you IPO ing, and then build it from there.

A So I guess another way for architects to look at that, this is is for untechnical people who actually build a product. Right?

B Correct. Yeah. Exactly. And then not only that, we also do have clients who have in house teams. They already they already have, say, a medium size. They have developers on their end, but they need to maybe the developers in their team don't have, the expertise to, let's say, define an app. But they have developers that in house work on their webs website. So we become then your partner for this different product.

A So you supplement them or you supplement, like, the the developer side of other organizations as well?

B Exactly. Or say, for example, you work in a very you work in a in a in a company that needs to develop something really fast, but the gears of that company are a lot slower. So we are your, like, innovation team. So we we move at a faster pace there than what your in house team would be. So we also do that. And some clients of us are like that. Some clients are like the idea to the the 0 to 1. That's typically what we do more, the 0 to 1.

B But, yeah, we do have clients that are just larger and we just are the complementary, their their partner and other things.

A So I have to ask, now that you've been in tech for 3 years, what do you miss most about working in architecture? Do you miss anything about working in architecture?

B I think I miss creating something physical, I would say. Creating something physical. I think that our lives have really moved in the last couple of years and more in a digital space, but we still, as humans, have to inhabit places. And there's nothing like that sense of awe that you experience when you walk into a place that really fills your soul, you know, by whether the how the light touches the floor or how that handle feels or their physicality of things. And I think that's what I miss. Having to wonder how can we, with a very small budget, create a big punch in a big impact in giving that sense of awe. Because not everybody gets awe from opening an app or opening a website. Right? So, yeah, I think that's what I miss.

A What advice and we talked a little bit about this throughout this conversation already. And I am getting more mid career individuals even coming to me and saying, like, how do I get out of this? So what advice would you give for architects no matter where they are in their career that are interested into a move for tech? Or what advice do you wish you had so you would have been able to make that transition either smoother or faster?

B I would say, like, the moment that you have and this is telling myself going back to the I should relapse sooner. The moment that you have you're starting to question if this is the right path for you, whether you are 5 years in or 35 years in, you know, the moment you start questioning, don't ignore that. You know, don't ignore that. I would say, okay, I don't think I love this. Why don't I love it? Is it a fundamental reason why I don't love it? Is it a financial reason? Is it because I don't love my boss? Like, what are the what are the real reasons that you are discontent at any stage in your career? Once you define that, then start to real not realize, but analyze if you can find it somewhere find it somewhere else. And really go through that personal exploration of, okay. I'm not happy here, but I can endure. No.

B No. No. Look, life is too short to just to be a martyr. No. There's no need. And, yes, we have responsibilities. The older you get, you know, you you have a family, you have a mortgage, you have all of that stuff. So I'm not saying ignore that.

B But at the end of the day, if you are happy, everybody around you will be happy. And and that starts with what you do 40 at the minimum 40 hours a week. Right? So if you're not happy there, look for what makes you happy because that's gonna that's gonna really define everything around you after that. Because you might not be happy in in you might not notice it, but, like, then the people around you do, and they want you happy. And and and and once you're happy, you start creating better things for yourself without noticing. Yes. I had salary decrease when I moved into tech. But because I was coming home happier, I was, you know, more upbeat.

B Then my mind opened up to start thinking about expansion. Like, what okay. Now that I don't have that bugging me down, what else can I do? Because inadvertently, the the things that make you upset might might really kinda hamper you being able to do more and be more. So I think that would be the number one advice. And then I I would say that, once you think that you have to leave and that and then you know that you have to leave, don't be afraid to be rejected. You're gonna be rejected. A thousand times, you will be rejected. Just like Evelyn said, she said, like, if you sent, like, 80.

A I might count it up and I'll make a LinkedIn post out of it. But, I mean, it's it was it was a lot. And and, I mean, I had a very supportive partner throughout throughout it all, but, you know and most of them, you just actually send them into oblivion and you never hear back. But I would get, like, at least, and I would go through these interview process and sometimes multiple interview processes, and then you get very limited feedback on on what you could have done done differently. So it's it's it's not a fun process, but it was also kind of a necessary process.

B It's a necessary process. My husband was the one who told me this. Like, I am I'm just basically reverberating what he told me into the into the into the world. You will get rejected, and that's okay. You only need one person or one team to believe in you and you have a foot in the door. And then say you don't like it. You now have something in your resume, you have experience and now other doors will open, but you only need one to believe in you. And if you believe in yourself, someone will buy it.

B At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what industry you have. You need to you need to sell and you need to get that client.

A And and the interesting thing, and I don't know if you found that because you're you're in DC and I'm in, like, more Silicon Valley, like, you know, home of all things tech, if you wanna say that. Right? So but the the other thing I found out that it's much more mobile to move from company to company once you have your foot in the door. You just need to get Mhmm. Your foot in the door.

B Exactly. And don't be discouraged. Just because you got, I don't know, 20 rejections and 4 go 50 ghostings, don't use that as an excuse to stop. You know, again, someone needs you. Someone needs you. That's how it works. You know? So definitely keep trying. One will believe that you're they will take the chance on you.

A And then one last question, kind of going full circle, looking back at why you became an architect in the in in the first place. You can take this multiple ways. Like what, what do you say for the new grads that just graduated or more broadly? What is your vision for the future of the profession? I mean, you still love architecture. You miss the physical aspects of it, you know, community and people made spaces, just reiterating the words you said, you know, not less than 10 minutes ago. What is your hope for the future of the profession and the industry?

B I think that couple of things. I think that if you're passionate about creating things from scratch, from not even or or just transforming transforming things, you're in the right field. Architecture is that for you. You know, you will create, you will transform, you will impact. But at the same time, I would use also same words to describe as an architect architect, you should also treat your peers and clients in the same way as you're trying to impact and create and transform the world. What I mean by that is let's start to be more empathetic. I think empathetic with your where when you are principal, empathetic with your junior staff. And when you're a junior staff, be empathetic with your principal.

B And the and what I mean by that is that every day, we sometimes make assumptions of how everybody woke up that day and how their reactions are to things. And in architecture, it's just, like the master architect, right, it's a trade. Right? And at the end of the day, we are we have education, we have apprenticeships, we have all these things. It's just like a real it's like a very old school way of thinking, in a good way, of how to develop in the career. And I think having that in mind that we have a hierarchy of of of teams, We need to be gentle and nice to each other. So I hope that the industry moves to a place of more empathy with our clients, with our teammates. And I think once that's done, I think we are gonna see great things. I think a lot of people complain, like, no one values architecture anymore.

B And that's the reason why maybe our fees are difficult in in, you know, fighting every inch of everything. I think with more empathy, we're gonna change that. When you start valuing, okay, my developer has a budget that, that I think they're stingy, but let's actually put ourselves in their place, what they are trying to accomplish. Oh, my principle was difficult with me today. I wonder why. Well, did you know that they just lost a really big RFP, for example? Or, my junior staff is not accomplishing things, I don't know, by this deadline. Let's talk with the junior staff and understand what are the obstacles they're having. Because once you have that, then we can start having conversations of higher salaries, work life balance, different quality of life, different experiences, happier people in the office, happier places in, environment.

B So I think that's what I'm hoping for. It's where we start moving towards. And I think the new generation, there's a lot of complaints. There were a lot of complaints about millennials too, but we, they're a little more empathetic and a little bit put in their shoes of the other. And I think, that's gonna be good for the industry in general.

A Hi, disruptors. Thank you for joining us today on an episode of Practice Disrupted. If you like the content for today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practice of architecture.com/podcast.

B Be a

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