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Gerta, Founder at YourNegotiations.com: Advize Career Interview
A diverse career path, marked by roles at Deloitte, IBM, Sanofi, and experience in venture capital, culminated in the founding of YourNegotiations.com.
This journey reflects a consistent drive to learn and adapt, addressing a perceived gap between academic skills and workforce readiness.
The company's co-founder's multifaceted role involves expertise in negotiations, course creation, and strategic partnerships, demanding constant client communication, content creation, and rigorous prioritization.
Success requires resourcefulness, flexibility, and strong prioritization skills, particularly in navigating the challenges of scaling a bootstrapped, niche business.
The co-founder's STEM background instilled first-principles thinking, shaping negotiation strategies, while immigrant experiences and navigating male-dominated fields fostered resourcefulness and sharpened negotiation abilities.
This experience showcases the iterative nature of career development, the importance of strong co-founder relationships, and the profound impact of diverse experiences on entrepreneurial success.
The interview offers valuable insights into entrepreneurship, negotiation, and navigating the complexities of the startup world, highlighting the potential for undergraduates through hands-on learning and personal side projects.
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Gerta Malaj
Founder
YourNegotiations.com
Wellesley College
MIT
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Mathematics, Data Science, Statistics
Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship and Business Owner
International Student, Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Immigrant
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Career Path of a Founder at YourNegotiations.com
Gerta's career path, marked by diverse experiences from research at the Central Bank of Albania and USAID to roles at Deloitte, IBM, and Sanofi, reflects a consistent drive to learn and adapt. This journey, including a master's degree from MIT and time in venture capital, ultimately led to the founding of YourNegotiations.com, a culmination of their skills and passions, reflecting their belief that "there's a gap between the skills you learn in college and then sort of being prepared for the workforce".
Main Responsibilities Of A Founder At YourNegotiations.com
As co-founder of YourNegotiations.com, Gerta's role encompasses "everything," including serving as the negotiations expert, creating and delivering courses ("tomorrow I'm starting a live course"), and developing partnerships through activities such as podcast interviews and speaking engagements at events like the Bay Area Career Fest. This demonstrates a multifaceted career built on expertise and entrepreneurial drive.
A Day In The Life Of A Founder At YourNegotiations.com
Gerta's day as co-founder of YourNegotiations.com is anything but typical; the work is constant, involving client communication ("clients are pinging me left and right"), content creation for platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram, and prioritizing tasks through daily check-ins with a virtual assistant—a system inspired by Tim Ferriss's productivity methods—to maintain focus amidst the demands of running a business.
Most Important Skills For A Founder At YourNegotiations.Com
For a founder, the ability to prioritize tasks, being "the 80/20 person," and not being a perfectionist are crucial, as there are "not enough hours in the day to do everything." This necessitates making "difficult decisions," even if it means accepting imperfection for a higher return on investment.
Favorite Parts of Being a Founder at YourNegotiations.com
Gerta, Founder of YourNegotiations.com, finds immense satisfaction in "helping people" navigate challenging job offer negotiations, especially during times of tech layoffs, combining this impactful work with the creative problem-solving inherent in building a startup and leveraging their negotiation expertise. The company's success-based pricing model and commitment to free resources further underscore this mission-driven approach.
Biggest Challenges Faced by a Founder at YourNegotiations.com
Gerta's biggest challenge at YourNegotiations.com, a bootstrapped company, is scaling a niche business with limited resources; while "people love what we do, and we both win," the path from six-figure to seven-figure revenue requires strategic choices among many possibilities, each with a significant time and financial cost.
Favorite Parts of Working in the Startups and Online Education Industry as a Founder
Gerta, Founder at YourNegotiations.com, thrives on the "creativity" and "freedom" of the startup world, particularly enjoying the lack of a blueprint and the autonomy afforded by not being venture-backed. This allows Gerta to focus their time and energy on their company's mission of helping people negotiate better job offers and contracts, a pursuit they find deeply rewarding because it directly improves "people's careers, livelihood, their families".
What Type Of Person Thrives In The Startup Industry According To A Founder At YourNegotiations.com
Gerta, founder of YourNegotiations.com, identifies three key traits for success in the startup industry: resourcefulness ("a hundred things you have to think about"), flexibility ("things will go wrong sometimes 10 times a day"), and strong prioritization skills, focusing on the "80 20" rule to maximize impact. This reflects their own entrepreneurial journey and the demands of navigating a constantly evolving landscape.
What A Founder At YourNegotiations Wishes They Had Known Before Entering The Startup Industry
Gerta, founder of YourNegotiations.com, learned the crucial role of trust in a co-founder relationship, wishing someone had emphasized that "it's usually a childhood friend, a college roommate, a best friend from before," rather than a networking contact. The significant challenge of scaling a business also surprised Gerta, who now finds their team "scrambling" and operating "in the dark" to determine the best path forward, a situation that could have benefited from earlier planning and mentorship.
Entry-Level Positions for Aspiring Founders
Gerta, Founder at YourNegotiations.com, suggests two entry-level approaches: taking a hands-on entrepreneurship course to learn "team dynamics and how things work in an entrepreneurial setting," and undertaking a personal side project, like the mobile app Gerta developed, to gain practical experience and discover skills needed, such as "product roadmap" development.
Significant Career Lesson From A Founder At YourNegotiations.com
Gerta's significant career lesson, gleaned from "Designing Your Life," is that career development is an iterative process of "playing around with things," learning from each experience, and incorporating those learnings into the next. This approach, exemplified by their journey from IBM to biotech to LinkedIn to founding YourNegotiations.com, highlights how accumulating varied experiences ultimately led to a more informed and confident career path.
College Experiences That Helped a Founder at YourNegotiations.com Succeed
A STEM major, specifically mathematics, provided the foundation for Gerta's career success by instilling "first principles thinking," a logical approach that informs their negotiation strategies, such as recommending job candidates only negotiate after receiving a written offer because "there's only one written offer that goes out," signifying preferred candidate status and maximizing negotiation leverage. This deductive reasoning, honed through a STEM education, is central to the methodology of YourNegotiations.com.
How Identity Has Influenced a Founder's Career at YourNegotiations.com
Gerta's immigrant background, specifically from Albania, initially led to navigating a career in the US "a little blindly," lacking familiarity with fields like consulting. However, this experience, combined with the challenges of being a woman in male-dominated fields, ultimately fostered resourcefulness and negotiation skills, transforming perceived disadvantages into assets in their entrepreneurial journey, proving that "differences have been assets more than drawbacks."
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