When driven by purpose, there’s little that can get in a start-up’s way.
A purpose grounds your start-up and defines what exactly you want it to achieve. It unifies everybody involved and influences each decision and action they take. But without purpose, it’s hard to stay relevant or composed in a world that moves at a lightning pace.
It’s having a purpose that drove our guest, Shardi Nahavandi, CEO and Co-founder at Tuune, to pivot her career from architecture to biomedical science and eventually to found Tuune.
In Episode 2 of High-Potential Start-Ups, we sat down with Shardi to discuss her background and the misdiagnosis that compelledhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/shardi-nahavandi-8a320210a/ her to build Tuune. We also cover her current day to day, where she shares insight on what she looks for in potential hires and why learning is a fundamental part of the business.
Tuune addresses an often overlooked problem in healthcare: women’s hormonal health. Tuune provides personalised contraceptive pill recommendations that help users avoid unnecessary side effects by putting hormonal health at the forefront.
Purpose alone, however, won’t make a start-up successful. Who you hire and how they work makes all the difference. It’s why Shardi prefers to hire based on mindset rather than skill set.
Mindset over skill set
Shardi isn’t alone in this. According to Reed, 96% of employers would hire somebody with the right mindset over having the complete skill set for the job.
Having the right mindset is a powerful force. It influences behaviour, and when built on a foundation of self-belief, it can fuel the desired outcomes.
As Tuune are entering uncharted waters, there’s rarely existing answers or sets of procedures in place – so the team must be willing to keep an open mind and get their hands dirty to find the solution. It’s vital for the company’s growth that they do. McKinsey notes that having this willingness and ability to learn new things is a critical driver of long-term success.
It’s easy to teach somebody the skills they need for a job, but it’s almost impossible to infuse the desired personality into them.
A Learning company
To achieve Tuune’s goal of combating misinformation and improving women’s hormonal health worldwide, Shardi understands that the company must continually learn and grow.
It’s why she explains that Tuune is fundamentally a ‘learning brand’. By seeking new, unbiased information and putting experimentation at the forefront of the business, they get closer and closer to fulfilling their mission.
Similarly, this desire and understanding of the value of learning enabled Shardi to initially go through thousands of research papers to understand that she was suffering from a hormonal problem – not the cancer misdiagnosis from her doctor.
The outcome of this discovery, combined with purpose, determination, and a desire to make the world a better place, led to the creation of Tuune.
To hear the full story of Tuune, listen to the full episode here.
