In the Room with Amy Nelson
By: The Room Podcast
Tags: Founders, İnnovation, Theroompodcast, Technology

Madison McIlwain and Claudia Laurie with guest, Amy Nelson

This week, we sat down with Amy Nelson, CEO and founder of The Riveter, a digital and physical community for women. Spending 10 plus years in corporate law, Amy never thought she’d be a founder. However, after the 2016 election, she took a closer look at what mattered most to her — The Riveter was born. While it’s been a challenging year for physical spaces, Amy has gallantly persevered by building a growing digital space proving our belief that “the room” is more than four walls. In today’s episode, we’ll explore insights and themes such as how political and venture fundraising have more in common than you might think, motherhood in the workplace, and core product pivots. Listen to the episode here. Let’s open the door.

Key Theme 1: Political and Venture Fundraising Leverage Similar Skill Sets

Amy worked on political campaigns in her home state of Ohio before becoming a lawyer. There, she leveraged her naturally direct nature to raise funds and inspire votes on her candidate's behalf. Raising venture capital dollars requires a similar level of commitment and belief, however this time it’s on behalf of yourself and your vision for a better future.

“You have to be willing to ask everyone for everything all the time.” — Amy Nelson, CEO of The Riveter

While the world of politics and technology might seem mutually exclusive, the skills one learns across business, law, and politics translate well into being a founder. Amy applied these when looking for her first check for The Riveter, and the persistence paid off!

tldr: Apply the skills you’ve learned in other contexts to excel in the entrepreneur journey.

Key Theme 2: Raising a Family in Community

As a mother of four daughters, Amy is no stranger to the unique challenge of balancing motherhood and being a full-time founder. On The Room, she shared openly about her personal and professional goals of building a better future for her own daughters. The Riveter lifts up its community members through a collaborative and compassionate support system. Amy likely learned the power of familial support through her own mother, who can often be found visiting with her in Seattle helping take care of Amy’s daughters. While not everyone has a mother like Amy’s, The Riveter is a community empowering all women to have the support they need at work so that they might have the personal life they desire.

tldr: Seek out authentic communities that support your professional and personal milestones

Key Theme 3: Pivoting your Core Product Well (in a pandemic)

In a year of distance everything, The Riveter community was no different. Amy and her team were forced to re-invent what community living and working looked like amidst a digital-first world. Offering virtual events such as “How to Deepen Social Connections While Social Distancing” and “The Working Mom You Want Your Kids to See”, The Riveter has rapidly transitioned to offering targeted events meeting the unique stresses of this (almost over!!) year. It’s challenging to pivot your core product in normal times, but exponentially more challenging when your core product was a physical space and the world falls into a pandemic. By asking her community what they needed and re-building for the evolving needs of her core customer, Amy has been able to pivot The Riveter’s core product.

tldr: listen to your customers first when your business needs to pivot