Piper is the manager enablement platform that is committed to empowering anyone to be a great manager. Piper combines state of the art technology with expert led coaching to create the next generation of managers. In this episode, Founder Sathya Smith shares her story from spending 11 years rising through the ranks at Google, and what is was like to leave that journey, to ‘reluctantly’ becoming a founder when faced with other opportunities such as the VC world… Sathya then dives into why she decided to solve the problem of management training and development before finally sharing her experience with managers and role models earlier in her career, as well as now as a female solo founder.  Questions asked: 1. Intro to Sathya and Piper HQ 2. You spent 11 years rising through the ranks at Google, what was it like when you left? What did you have to learn? 3. When you talk through your journey to entrepreneurship it sounds like you were a “reluctant founder”, you hit a crossroads where you could have been a VC, work in a startup OR become a founder. What led to you setting up Piper? 4. Why have you tried to solve management training and development? 5. Can you talk me through how the product manages generational differences? 6. How have you built a category defining product? 7. I’d love to understand what your managers and role models were like in your career? (leading into – being a female founder, you’re now the role model , can you tell me about how you approach this to inspire others?) 8. What is the biggest challenge in your career to date? (Sales/Marketing and Solo Foundership?) 9. What one bit of advice would you give to someone starting their own business tomorrow? Follow The Start-Up Diaries Podcast on LinkedIn or learn more about Burns Sheehan. Subscribe and leave a review!