Contributor: Jim Whitfill, MD’94
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One of the amazing things about my education from the University of Pennsylvania (Med 1994) is the preparation for my life 20 years after graduating, not just the first few years after. Almost 3 years ago, I partnered with Beverly Bradway, WG’91 to start a new company called Opting Back In (OBI). Simply put, our vision is to create an ecosystem to support professional women who have taken time off from the workforce in order to care for their family.
We each have been struck by the huge amount of talent in our own social circles of women with MDs, MBAs, PhDs, etc. or who have been major executives but after a number of years out of the workforce, find themselves at a loss as to how to reenter. I myself took time out from my career to stay home and raise my kids, and so I know firsthand what it is like to take that pause and then re-enter the workforce. Within OBI we have created a comprehensive process to perform a number of assessments upon entering our program. These assessments help point to candidates’ areas of opportunity around technology use, self-confidence, interviewing, navigating corporate culture, and understanding the changes in American workplaces over the last 10-20 years. From there, a team of OBI experts in these areas provide in-depth training in the areas needed. Some people choose to do that training within a one-on-one scenario, while others prefer our boot camps because of their more social and supportive experience.
I think two of the most important lessons we have learned in starting OBI are (1) the importance of listening to your customers and (2) perseverance. While the skills OBI teaches are no doubt critical to success in today’s marketplace, we have been overwhelmed by the power of the sense of community that has been created by the women who have worked with OBI. This was one of the first lessons we learned in starting this new company. Before we started OBI, we had a number of ideas of what would be valuable to our clients. However, once we started testing our product with real live customers, we could not ignore how powerful the interaction between participants was. Even after our first extended boot camp, the connection between the women in our class was so durable that we knew we needed to enhance and support this bonding even more.
While nearly every entrepreneur talks about the need to keep trying in the face of failure, when you are the one facing a lack of customers despite months of planning and work, the feeling of disappointment is deep. At OBI we have had to see each set-back as a valuable lesson that teaches us what we need to do differently. For example, let’s consider when we have a webinar that has been promoted on social media, has a number of people sending in RSVPs, has good attendance, and then has a good number of attendees purchasing follow-up services. This all seems easy enough, but with two founders and one part-time employee, we know that each part of this chain took not only planning but also some previous failure to teach us how to do things more effectively. On one occasion, we spent months planning an all-day event only to have too few people sign up. While we knew it was aggressive to schedule such a large jump from what we were used to doing, we knew we needed to take risks to learn and expand. That setback hurt. We each took it personally, but we knew we had to step back, learn what we did wrong, and retool for the next effort.
Each of us has worked in a large corporate environment before. Being in a start-up like OBI means adjusting to having one tenth the resources we might have in a larger company. It means having to wear 5-6 hats for each project. And it means that when we fall short, it is clearly obvious. However, the feeling of accomplishment when all of the pieces come together and what we do produce makes a difference in someone’s life—that is a joy that is hard to find outside of starting your own company. When I think about the skills and the attitude it has taken to make OBI a reality, I am grateful for the enduring support our education has left with us.
Contact Jim at: [email protected]