A Conversation With Mel Gordon, Founder & CEO of TapHunter
On this edition of CTO Studio, we meet Melani Gordon, CEO of TapHunter, a company she co-founded with Jeff Gordon, who is CTO. She tells us how she and Jeff have been successful at work and at home, what TapHunter does and what the current state of women in tech is.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- Why you should set boundaries with your founder.
- The importance of body language, especially for women in tech today.
- How can you stop comparing yourself to others, and why should you do it?
- Why you need to pick up the phone to prove your idea.
- Is having self-serve customers really possible?
- And so much more!
Also on this episode, we get into the details of what their business is and what it does: TapHunter is a tech start-up in San Diego. They are a premier company for bars and restaurants that want to drive foot traffic and boost profits.
It was an idea her husband had and about 7 or 8 years ago she thought there was something valuable in it. The craft beer scene was exploding, some of their friends were in that scene and she knew they needed the most help. Their vision from day one was to help local businesses and they started in the niche of specialty beverage locations.
It’s always been clear from day one who would do what in terms of roles. And that’s because they’ve worked together before TapHunter. They ran an agency and they met at a tech start-up in early 2000. She was the marketing director and he was the technology director, they loved working together and soon expanded to working freelance gigs. It’s what they’ve always known, so it comes naturally for them.
Because she’s been a tech leader for so long, I wanted her input on what it’s been like to be the female CEO and how the tech scene has changed regarding women at the helm of tech businesses. Mel was brought up to believe gender didn’t matter so it’s never mattered to her that she was female, she was going to work just as hard and earn everything she deserves like everyone else.
However, throughout her career she has experienced some poor treatment because she’s female, and she’s had to deal with some misogynistic men. Although progress has been made, it is nowhere near where it needs to be in this industry. Mel says women bring in different perspectives, different approaches, and different life experiences and all of those things matter when growing and scaling a company.
In my personal experience with the hack-a-thons I run, there are differences I see when the pairings are only male, only female or a mix. The most unsuccessful teams are the mixed teams because the men usually dominate conversation where the females don’t feel they have a voice. The male teams typically get a lot done with low quality, and the female teams get very little done with supreme quality. Those are my observations.
Next she shares advice she gives to female tech leaders today along with how to know if you are really passionate about the tech you are building, and how she negotiates disagreements with the CTO. We finish with her thoughts on the current start-up culture – hear them and more on today’s edition of The CTO Studio!
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