Orgo with Zoya Lehrer feature 124 of Together Talks

"Together Talks" feature 124: Orgo presented by KLS, freight company

Some Background on Orgo

Today's edition of "Together Talks" campaign, KLS had the opportunity to interview Orgo and Co-Founder/CEO, Zoya Lehrer. Time remains the most precious commodity and for many of parents, it is highly constrained within our personal lives. Here is where they pursue interests and fulfill our commitments as mentors, role models, and coaches; here productivity becomes paramount.

Yet unlike within the professional realm where productivity tools are abundant, our brains are working overtime. Much of what we struggle to keep organized is scattered across multiple calendars, post-it notes, and never ending text threads (don't get us started on the carpool coordination!). Inevitably, communication breaks down, tensions rise, mistakes are made, and stress takes over.

Enter the modern-day burn out and our inability to simply be present. Introducing Orgo, an AI-boosted app and your new HQ. Orgo empowers active families to greet the day with confidence and control, making time for more moments that become memories. Plan your activities effortlessly, manage unforeseen conflicts seamlessly, and execute upon your busy days efficiently. Centralized, in one place, for your extended Crew.

When did the company begin?

We launched on April 5th, which happens to be my birthday and my Mother's birthday as well. We had been in app store jail. It was unplanned in the sense of the date being the 5th but it just kind of started to near it. As the pieces were falling into place it so luckily we could launch on that day.

Story of how it was created?

It definitely is a personal founder problem fit. Professionally, I've spent 20 years in financial services, primarily within banking, SaaS, insurance, et cetera, always within the New York, New Jersey area. I've had the pleasure of working for some of the bigger companies in the area, always within a tech capacity. My degree is in computer science and information technology. That's kind of been my home all of the while and the last role that I held was head of digital for a bank in the area. I had the best of tools, the best of enterprise tools that kept me productive. There was never question in terms of what is the day entailing? What is next? Who am I meeting with? What's on deck?

By direct contrast and in my personal life, utter chaos that reign supreme.

We have three daughters, ages 13, 9, and 6. They are very busy, and by extensions us included. They are athletes, which puts them into a different category in terms of what their days are like and what our days are like as parents that surround with that kind of lifestyle. So when I say chaos, it wasn't a matter of chores or any of those kind of inside the house type of tasks. However, it was always the challenge of what happens when we leave the house. And when we leave the house, something special happens, logistics kick in, right?

We have to travel through space and time in a very physical manner. That was kind of this dichotomy and an observation that I started to come to say, well, why does it feel so chaotic in this particular area being personal, and less so within the professional is because the tools first and foremost are fit for purpose. So as a technologist, I began to observe, why is there such a technical chasm between these two worlds? We're solving for very similar problems. We want places to go to. We have commitments that we need to fulfill upon. There's people that are relying on us to show up at the right place at the right time. And yet, again, our tools are not really fit for purpose within that personal space of logistics specifically.

That observation ultimately, really started to fuel frustration and then I had to take action and so much so that I left my career after 20 years. A solution that not only would solve my personal pain point around this but knowing that families that obviously live this particular lifestyle. And by the way logistics is not just a family problem. There's many other offshoots that certainly exist as a use case elsewhere for us to perhaps pursue in the future.

Meaning behind the name?

It is derivative of organization on the go. In fact, our opening graphics when you land into www.orgohq.com takes you into organizational organization on the go, contracts it into Orgo and that's kind of how that came to be. We love the symmetry of the o's. We like the four letters and that's that's what we landed on.

What separates your company from competition?

FinTech is a very specific area that is an extension of the care economy, not to be mistaken by FemTech, which is surrounding feminine, you know, whether it's products, hygiene, all things lifestyle, beauty, et cetera.

FinTech is everything that's within the care economy, family is included. And within that space, there are definitely notable players that I've began to observe. First of all, I was looking at them myself as a solution.

Founder 101, you don't start to pursue a solution without understanding if there's one that already is out there.

And that's where that aha moment came that there is in fact a gap in this logistical component because we're all relying on the same traditional frankly calendars that map us through space and time in a very 2D capacity.

Like you and I connected today, we dialed right in. Here we are. We talked about the physical space being not so.

It is 4D. There's places. There's people. There's time. There's things. And so all of that needs to be kind of represented differently. At first, I didn't fully understand that that's kind of what made us different.

Define the strengths of the company?

There's chores management, there's task lists, there's, you know, who the comings and the goings, like all of that exists. But because the reliance of the actual doing of those things, when you leave the house and then logistics kick in, that's where we differentiate ourselves.

We're looking to really position in the space such that we do not necessarily compete with those existing offerings, but we start to position ourselves to serve as an extension of them because the parental journey, we are singular, we're a single human, right?

We've got things yelling at us all day long, got all these tools that we're trying to kind of reconcile. And so we continue the journey. You got all those task management tools. But when you leave the house and you have to actually get the right people to the right places on time and you need, real-time guidance. You need that turn-by-turn instruction of how to execute you to that more precisely than what we have in hand.

What have been the biggest challenges?

Yeah, it's been quite an interesting year and a very active one of that. So firstly, I should mention that we are bootstrapped company. We've not taken in a single outside dollar, the way that we've been able to do so is by sweat equity on the part of the team.

I have foregone my banker's salary, which on the record should say, I miss very much. And so, I am full-time, the rest of the team is still moonlighting, so there's a lot of challenges surrounding the availability of our resources, all companies are constraint in resources. The three-sided constraint triangle applies to all, of course, but especially to a team that is continuing with full-time parenting and also full-time jobs and they're trying to carve out space and time between thought. That's been very much a foundational challenge for us every single day throughout that year. And yet we still were able to deliver, we still were able to stay on track, remain cohesive as a team, and ultimately cross that initial finish line being launched together.

Reflect on a goal you set and how it made you feel to accomplish it?

When we launched our friends and family what we've called our alpha. So lack of a better word, was an MVP. It was a fully executable downloadable app that a cohort of about 40 users we've collected and hand selected within our immediate circle had the ability to experience for four weeks.

We stayed in very close touch with them. We learned based upon their learnings and their observations and feedback. so that feedback loop is really, really strong. We had the benefit of them being within our geography. We were side by side. We were able to sit with them and kind of conduct a lot of those usability studies. Much of our initial hypothesis was tested based upon that initial alpha group. Coming out of those learnings, much of what we've already thought ourselves as well. Because remember, I'm user number one, like I've got a calendar that needs to be resolved, conflict that needs to be solved,

Coming out of that very critical phase, it shaped the rest of our roadmap between then and now. It is what we refined from a functional standpoint and the front end experience wise, but it also is what we hardened on the back end. And we made a very controversial investment. There were two sides of the camp that would say, well, you have no business of investing in the back end and getting it ready for scale and investing into the infrastructure before you even hit product market fit. You don't even hear the word infrastructure until that comes in. But we are a team of technologists, probably much to our detriment, we did feel it very critically important to make sure that we've got a back end and we've got a database structure and we've got all the data treatment that we ultimately would want to glean insights from ourselves before we even deliver as additional value.

We would hate to be in market six, eight months and go, you know what we should have done, we should have done that thing that we were talking about doing back when we didn't have anybody on the platform. We kind of took that opportunity to position ourselves functionally on the back end and infrastructure-wise and have a pretty good foundation that we can build upon.

Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?

There is no interim step between alpha and being public now. We aren't limiting use in any sort of way, we're about to launch into Android as well. So we're opening ourselves up as widely as possible, and we do so intentionally, because we want this to be a design with kind of journey and not a design for. We're bringing as many people into the experience and we communicate very clearly on that kind of invitation as possible, we do so

through our channels that we can reach folks far and by, just to say, look, come in, that we solely exist. We've put that into writing as recent as yesterday. We solely exist for the purpose of delivering value to you.

What were your concerns about making this transition?

The desire to pursue something else was a decision that I made standalone ,that milestone of 20 years was very meaningful to me. I reflected on it, the industry is more of I used to be on the CIO path I used to love that kind of being my mantra. Then with digital more present I kind of felt pigeonholed and in both the industry as well as my own role. I was like all right I need a moment to kind of take a step back and reflect as to what's next and in that reflection I think that that frustration started to assert itself a lot more readily.

My husband, I always gave him the credit, said this might have legs and you will never know unless you go and have a conversation with somebody. By doing so it allows me to get that of my own head and just go externalize and kind of kick this idea around. I called upon somebody that I had become connected with by way of my previous role. As a senior engineering manager at a large organization. I was like, you know, that's somebody that I would really trust to kind of sit down and challenge the technical concept with. Nothing more just to be like, this is a thing, should I even be thinking about this?

We sat down and it was two hours, I believe, and I had a co-founder. And I loved telling this story so much because there was no ask. There was not a listen, I have a thing for you, let's get down to the proposal here. It was, it's an observation. I have this pain point. I know you're a parent. Do you also have this pain point? But you're also a technologist. So let's think about, is this a tech play that would be both feasible as well as valuable for someone to pursue.

I think it was just the entanglement of all of those kind of topics, all the ones that said, not only is this a thing, but it's really hard to solve for, and I want to be the one to help solve it with you. That's kind of how we left that discussion. what followed next is really, because not do only two people kind of come together. This, I'm sure happens all the time, and they're like, this is amazing. Let's go look and do this thing. Because we were aligned on how we wanted to go about, even taking the next step. As both builders and pretty senior in our career, we're like, I just want to go do. Like, let's go do. So all the credit goes to him, because it was his ability and and fortitude to say, I'm going to roll up my own sleeves after managing people for so long, and I'm going to sharpen up my own developer chops. And I want to give this thing a go. And then we brought on another co-founder.

I think so many people do struggle with, how do I take that leap and what state of mind should I be in and what resources should I get lined up? This however was so progressive in that one step gets to the next and the next. Maybe that's the honest truth. Maybe that's what someone just needs, to open themselves up to just taking one extra step. For us after that conversation, it was obvious to say, well, we should probably incorporate.

Let's go then take that following step and then the rest starts to become a little bit more of a path path. Don't even think about the macro implications of oh my gosh, I'm going to be a CEO of this! Just take the next step, just have the next conversation and then go from there.

How have you learned to be the face of the company?

It has been the hardest part. So I've led large teams in the past both globally and domestically. I've always led from behind. That's been my management style and I pride myself in that. I'm a servant leader type. I've found success in that, the complete and polar opposite in this.

Coming out of corporate, one of the biggest changes was that I now had to find my own voice, forget about asserting it and then doing what we're doing right now. Let's back it up to this time last year where I was like, I should probably start thinking about something I've heard about that's called personal brand. Never had to do that before, never couldn't even, it was not even a thought in my mind.

So with that, it was contending with, okay, now I got to start doing. Having a conversation in LinkedIn is the channel in which I've always felt most connected to. That's where my identity stems from. And that's where I began starting to follow people that were talking about themselves, their services, they were presenting themselves in a very, I don't know, self-promoting way, which is like storyteller way, right?

Oh, there's a magic formula. There's a five step formula. You've got to mix in your personal anecdote. You've got to talk about the industry insights. You have to talk about your business. You have to talk about some quip, and then engage. That's essentially the formula and the algorithm of LinkedIn. But I didn't know that. So just completely trial and error.

But like, still sticking to it. I'm posting maybe once a week. And that ultimately became twice a week where I was like, all right, I've got maybe one more thing to add.

It's been a huge, huge shift in that becoming like the de facto face. I don't want to. I don't want to. That's not a natural space for me. I would love to crawl back into the hole from which I came and like, you'll never hear from me again. But it's part of the journey, it's part of what we're working on.

Describe the journey of being an entrepreneur?

Where we start is never where we're going to end.

That's just the rule of thumb, and we're very much prepared for that. It's early still, but so far we're lucky in the sense that the observations that the users are making are so obvious that they are unequivocally something that we as a team align with. What's the order of operations as a technologist, as a prior computer programmer, that is how you think that is how you live. The order of operations is everything. So there is an end game. There's a solution. Absolutely. But is anyone sitting there going, here it all is all at once. No, it's so iterative. It is so progressive that that's kind of like that side of the brain.

But on the personal front too. My mom and I came here when I was nine years old, we had $8 in our pocket. We came from Ukraine. So talking about living one day at a time, that is the road to survival. Is there a world in which like, yeah, we want to be thriving, we wouldn't do all these things. That world doesn't exist until each and every single one of those days is taken to the next of the next. And it was a matter of survival. It was a matter of micro decisions that led into big impacts, et cetera.

What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?

I have never been more me. This was like a crazy observation that someone made of me.

I always kept two worlds very separate. My professional world and my identity was one that I pride myself on and I probably overly indexed on that piece for so long and because I grew up in corporate and I grew into corporate very quickly and I started to step into fairly senior role. As a woman in tech, as a woman in insurance, as a woman in banking during that time that was great. I actually loved it and that's something that I will always look back on very positively. I was well received in that space and never felt like, oh gosh, I'm the only woman in the boardroom. I was thinking this is amazing. Let's get more. So I didn't feel the strife there. It was kind of just understanding that I had to be a certain identity type. When I walk into that boardroom, I had to assert myself as such and I was very young. So I needed to show up and take up space in a certain way.

And I remember a friend of mine, she was working with us as a temp and she worked in our QA team for a little bit of time. She was the only one that's ever traversed the two worlds. And then she observed me in my professional and she was like, who the is this? I have never met this person in my life. There is such a disparity between your two personalities that she couldn't even comprehend how I feel with that. That's probably a lot of work subconsciously to constantly balance out the two. I have no such option right now.

I am from my previous conversation in very ways, the brand and the journey and the product right now. So it is just unequivocally me, like this is all day, every day. so I had to get comfortable with that. The voice assertion had to be direct extension of that recognition. I should just continue on with it. I should just continue to show up in the way that I am.

So it's been the biggest growth leap in that way. I'm just sorry that it took me until I was 42 years old to get there.

Why is this not work for you?

Mondays, TGIM. When the Monday comes it's like oh, I love Mondays meetings, you know, oh, this is just so great! Emails!

The biggest differentiator between before and now is like, you know the feeling of I have to do this and now I get to do this. This is a choice. That vernacular is an entire mental shift, I get to do this. I get to come into a Monday and I get to solve the problems that we do and I get to answer those emails. I get to think about the next steps and yes get overwhelmed by all the things that are important all at once, but like I get to do that.

Also self created, right? We can fabricate the stress and feel the sense of urgency when we're tied to these deadlines within our traditional jobs. But like, how really connected are you to the value chain? And I think that's big, that was the biggest question I began to ask myself. That was the biggest gap and I am so excited to be back in the game and feel the direct impacts of that. I think we all have that binding factor as co-founders, everyone was seeking and thirsty for that vibe and energy .

Continuing the movement to represent women?

I haven't really kind of touched on it yet. We talked about being a female in tech early days, still very much I lead with that into many rooms and I identify as that and I am certified as that as well at the government level. All of those are part of the aspects here, but because I started in tech so early and I wasn't only growing the room and I was so comfortable with that, I've always used that as a strength. I feel the way that we're talking so much about, especially in the VC world, during the startup world, which again, I'm very new to...currently, I'm just an observer and I'm a guest at the table, but I'm just thinking, where's the ra, ra, strength?

We talk about how there's a lack of us in the room, but we're all in this room talking about how there's a lack. But who's in that room where the lack is actually had? So let's get at it. I want to strike a balance and I'll write about this too, but I love the rooms, I get them, a part of them, I do all the things, but I love leaving that room and going into the other room and deploying. That's the connectivity that I think we, some of us women in tech, have the power and the ability to do much more. My expectation was that the female leaders that I was looking up to in my corporate days would somehow pull me in, right? So I'm trying to pull in when we start to hire. The only two checks we've written, we've only written both to female solo printers. Any opportunities like that to kind of enrich the ecosystem, that's a hidden passion of mine. Because I am raising three of my own daughters and one of them will go into tech, possibly. And I will want there to be a path just like there was a path created for me. And I think there's so many amazing people that are working on that.

I'm just saying, let's continue to do more of that. I want to do my part.

Generational effort

I'll go upstream and downstream. I'll start with them, go bottom up. So 13, 9, and 6, think about their skill sets. And this is actually like super topical for how the digital natives need to be harnessed in a way. But with the 13-year-old, she's a digital native, she knows no different, right? She tests with us all the time, and so she'll say, you know what, that feels like a swipe to me, and you're making me do something unnatural, I don't want to click that, I want to swipe it. We really dial in with what it is that is super natural and within her usability, so she's been great.

With that, the nine-year-old is in the third grade, which is conveniently the level at which when you're communicating B2C, you need to be writing at the third grade level, so she'll proof copy for us. I go, does this make sense to you? She's like, I don't know what that word means or I'm not following. We send off for immediate revision and she takes that very seriously.

Then the six-year-old who's all about aesthetic and I go is this pretty. Do you like this, would you put this on your water bottle.

Then we'll go further upstream, my mom. I'm a second generation techie stemming from her career in technology, she was a computer programmer. That's why and how we were able to stay here, I'll be honest with you. Because she was able to put her skill set that traversed language barriers of which she had no language she was able to work day one plus one hour. I've had a computer in my home as a direct extension of her efforts since

way before, when everybody would come over and play Tetris because it was cool.

She's still involved and my stepdad too. They are testing back-end database engineering issues, job engineering, and solutions architecture. We bring everybody to the table and it's cool and of course the team itself too but like they have so much expertise, they test. Oh my god, they're the best QA, our QA team is strong because she reports every bug and it gives me such anxiety because she sees everything. I'm like can you just unsee that thing it's too much, but truthfully during those early stages that's the critical eye that pushed us forward.

Yeah it's a multi-generational effort.

Piece of Advice

The first thing that comes to mind and very much related to what we just talked about previously, just show up. I have a massive social anxiety, talk about like a personal journey.

I've had to just show up because in many ways I am the thing that is the only one who is able to be in market talking about this. If I'm not in that room, back to our previous point, if I'm not at that event or if I'm not in this conversation, no one is. So showing up physically, showing up step by step, taking meetings, having conversation by conversation, all of those kind of micro moments and milestones.

I've moved at least 13 times in my life. I've been the new kid on the block a lot. And that's extremely important skill. When you would think I would be so comfortable with new environments, no it was the opposite. That actually deepened my social anxiety. So this is another round of like being in a new kid on the block and walking to a room, you don't know anybody. But just walk in. So just show up. That's it.

In Closing

KLS wants to thank Zoya Lehrer, Co-Founder/CEO, of Orgo for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!

Instagram / LinkedIn / Facebook / TikTok

Klimson Logistics Solutions - Together Talks with Orgo feature 124