We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lauren Rogers. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lauren below.
Hi Lauren, so happy to have you with us today and there is so much we want to ask you about. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others developed certain skills or qualities that we are struggling with can be helpful. Along those lines, we’d love to hear from you about how you developed your ability to take risk?
My introduction to risk taking came early, and intentionally. When I was a kid, my dad would take me to playgrounds and have me climb to the top of the play structure. Then, he’d tell me to jump. I’d always jump, and he’d always catch me. I was lucky to come from a family that encouraged risk taking, and offered the emotional safety I needed to feel comfortable going out on a limb.
I put this to the test and when I was in college signed up for a study abroad program in France. Dressed in my Michigan sweatshirt, I arrived at Charles de Gaulle with no one to pick me up, hands full of an overstuffed suitcase to get me through the next six months. I had to figure out how to use the train, bus, and walk to my new school – and this was before smartphones! I didn’t know anyone, didn’t know my way around, wasn’t fluent in the language (yet) and didn’t have anyone but myself to fall back on… And still, I figured it out. I grew so much during this time – confidence in myself to learn how to communicate outside of my norm, an increased willingness to take risks, and the understanding that I can always rely on myself to make things work.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m the Chief Experience Officer at Datafy, an analytics and ad-tech firm that’s finding new ways to use data and technology to help communities and retailers drive growth with more efficient and measurable advertising. I had spent the bulk of my career in tourism, but was a casualty of underemployment during Covid due to the unprecedented impacts on travel. I also had a toddler and knew I had to find flexibility while re-entering the workforce. I had a deep tourism marketing background, but very little technological expertise. When I saw what Datafy (called SeeSource at the time) was building, I couldn’t believe someone figured out how to build a product that was so desperately needed and such an obvious product market fit. Once I met with the founders and learned more about the product roadmap, I knew that I needed to be a part of it. Even more importantly, the founders were people that I liked, believed in, and could see myself collaborating with long-term. They had conviction in what they had created and were ready to go all-in on getting it out there – but they cared equally about being kind, decent people and creating a company that took care of the people that it employed.
Those were early, uncertain days… but we were lucky to have a small team of folks who were adaptable, willing to jump in at any cost and really just try to treat each other with respect and accountability. Every single day we established more trust as a team, making it easier and easier to push forward with something that some may have considered a risky venture. I believed in the product and the founders’ vision for the company, believed in our team and believed in myself enough to know that we could figure it out.
Today, I’m happy to report that we have, indeed, figured it out. Less than five years later, our little team has grown to a team of sixty. We started out primarily as a geolocation and analytics company, and have since added industry-leading custom software and ad-tech capabilities. We’re best known in the tourism space, thanks to our ability to provide Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) with a full-circle solution to understand and impact their visitation, drive smart tourism growth, and measure the real impact of their marketing. But that was just us getting started.
I’m excited for some major growth for Datafy this year: We’re expanding into new verticals (retail, attractions and civic), and we’re going global with new capabilities that will allow our clients to track and analyze visitors and clients from all over the world, and target international audiences with hyper-effective digital advertising campaigns.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Seek out uncomfortable situations: Putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation once will change your life. I think back to landing in France, with no idea what I was doing, and just figuring it out. Since then, I’ve spent chunks of my career working for tourism boards and global brands, developing sales and marketing strategies in international markets like Brazil, India and China. It has meant being dropped into new places to develop entry strategies for markets that I didn’t totally understand. But with my experience to lean back on, I’ve never been afraid to start from scratch and always know that I can find a way to make it work.
Genuinely caring is cool. (And good for business): Exhibiting kindness and genuinely caring about the people that you work with is such an under-valued professional skill. I think of it as a professional asset: One of the things that drives me most in my career is how much I care about the livelihood of people, and wanting the best outcomes for the people that I work with.
Look for the big picture: An ability to zoom out has been so important at every point in my career, but especially in this one. Focusing on everyday challenges of our clients has given me the context I need to focus on driving innovation with our product and to figure out the problems that we can solve with it.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I grew up being taught that we had to be well-rounded. I was the 4.0 National Honors Society, captain of the soccer team, president of the French club overachiever. I did just as well in math as I did in chemistry, but I loved foreign languages – even though I had never been out of the country in high school. The reason I love languages now makes a lot of sense to me: I’m good at it, I like it and, at the end of the day, it is communication, which I consider my best strength.
Now when I think about telling my daughter that the only way to be good at anything is to be good at everything, it sounds absolutely insane. It’s so much more important to me that she can focus on what she loves, because that is very likely her biggest strength. I’m pretty repelled by what kids have to do and the pressure they undergo to get into college now. I wish there were schools where entrance was based on how much you like doing the activity.
I believe in figuring out what you’re good at, and going all in on it. I’m an ideas person. I’m intuitive and a bit impulsive – but it serves me to move quickly. I’m great at getting things out of the way so that my team can do their jobs well. I’m great at humanizing our company, working with clients, and hiring exceptionally smart people that align with Datafy’s exact needs.
What am I not? I’m not the most detailed oriented person in any room. My team laughs at my desktop, organizational systems, and overall jumping from subject to subject like a madwoman. But I’m okay with that, because there are people around me that are so good in the areas that I lack. I think we’re better off accepting our individual strengths and weaknesses as the things that make us individuals and uniquely powerful humans. I really believe that, as long as a company is intentionally staffed, leaning into strengths – rather than spending time and energy towards trying to make everyone well rounded – is the strongest path to sustainable growth.
(Can you tell I love these people or what?)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.datafy.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/datafy_hq/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/datafy-hq/posts/?feedView=all
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DatafyHQ
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