Feb 28, 2021
In this episode, I interview Frances Valintine, the Founder, and CEO of The Mind Lab and Tech Futures Lab. The Mind Lab is a platform that empowers students, schools, teachers, and principals to develop contemporary knowledge and practical skills for today's rapidly evolving world and the future of work. Frances was named one of the top 50 movers and shakers in technology education and awarded a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to education and the technology sector.
She started Mind Lab in September 2013 in her early 40s, The Mind Lab being the 5th organization she has started. From being a small incubator with five full-time team members, they had a very steep growth and now have around 100 people who work with them on a constant basis with at least 80 working full time. The Mind Lab operates as a social enterprise and has been sustainably profitably all through.
Before The Mind Lab, Frances had a consultancy business around marketing, got involved with an organization that was geared towards developing talent for the film and creative industries, and also started an Italian food store that she sold eleven months later. She says the hardest thing in growing a small business is knowing when to accelerate and when to put the foot on the brake, and that the one thing she would tell herself on day one of starting out in business is, “Go fast and don’t let any naysayers get in your ear” Stay tuned to learn some really valuable small business growth tips from Frances.
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Additional Resources:
Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC
BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/