Meet the Founder: Liisa Vurma, founder of Nudge Me
This month we chat with Liisa Vurma, founder of Nudge Me.
Nudge Me is on a mission to elevate women and their businesses by matching women in business with leadership and business coaches to help grow their career or business into something they can be truly proud of.
Liisa was a part of the 2020 Atto Accelerator.
Learn more about Liisa and Nudge Me below.
Where did you get the idea for Nudge Me?
Nudge Me didn’t start with a concrete idea at all. As a user centred designer, I have always approached building products and services from a perspective of the target audience. So you first define who you want to build for and then spend some time with them - ask questions, run interviews - to find out what their actual needs are.
I knew I wanted to work with people who have the ability to elevate other people from within. I’ve had some powerful experiences from my own life working with psychologists and coaches so that’s where the seed was planted.
I also wanted to tie this to what is relevant for me at this moment. I’m an early stage business owner, what could I learn from this journey? This is why I started approaching business coaches, learning about their needs and the whole coaching space. And then I realised that I actually have to learn more about the coaches’ customers - business owners, someone that I was becoming myself - and so the idea for Nudge Me evolved.
What problem is Nudge Me solving?
The big picture problem is really about how to make coaching more accessible for business owners but at the same time support coaches to build scalable businesses.
We match female founders with business coaches but also offer opportunities for more accessible forms of coaching through peer coaching and self-coaching. So the goal is that women in business would have the support available, regardless of what stage their business is in or how much money they have in the bank. It’s also important that the support would be holistic and values-aligned, encouraging women to build their businesses on their own terms and defining their own measures of success. And feel good about it!
At the same time, we help business coaches build their brand awareness, and bring more clients to them.
Coaching in Australia is still a very misunderstood and undervalued space (especially compared to the US). It’s also an unregulated industry, which makes it even trickier to build the trust that would be required for growth. I’m hoping that Nudge Me can support the industry as a whole and be an advocate for professional coaches and their impactful work.
What were you doing prior to starting your business? Did you start it as a side project or did you go all-in from the get-go?
I was on maternity leave and then the pandemic hit. So you could say it has been a side project while caring for kids and doing homeschooling.
My last two jobs were in early-stage startups leading product teams. But my original background is in communication and human-centered design and the title ‘designer’ is still what I relate to the most in my heart.
What was the first thing you did to get Nudge Me up and running?
I wouldn't underestimate the power of just pure research before you start anything. I started approaching coaches and booked interview sessions to learn more about their needs and the coaching space.
But it all became more real when I applied for the Atto Accelerator in 2020. I actually had to decide what I thought I was going to do and name it something.
The accelerator definitely accelerated it all - I had a personal goal that my minimum viable product had to achieve at least one sale, however small it was. And it did, which was of course empowering and validating.
Was being a startup founder always part of your career plan? If not, what was?
I’ve always liked to work on new ideas and figure out if they could work in real life. But I’ve never had a goal in itself to be a startup founder. To be able to do what I have wanted to do, I’ve needed to become a founder.
What would be the one piece of advice you’d give to other female founders looking to take the leap into something new?
Just give it a go.
I think a lot of people feel that if they don’t succeed, they’ll be a failure. Even if you find out that this isn’t for you (or the idea didn’t work), it’s a massive amount of learning that you’ll bring with you.
I keep thinking that if I ever go back to working as a product manager I will be a much better employee as I’ll have that deep understanding of what my boss might be going through.
And another piece of advice that someone from the startup space gave me 10 years ago was to approach new things as projects, not businesses. It shifts something in your mind - anyone can run a project!
What’s been your biggest lesson so far?
The biggest lessons are probably about my own mindset. I’ve had to learn to wear the new identity of being a business owner and deal with all the mental challenges that come with it. And it was a bit unexpected that it is something I have to spend my time (and money) on while building a business.
What’s been the biggest win so far?
That Nudge Me has survived the first year and I’m not feeling like I should give up. :)
The biggest wins are the relationships that I’ve built with both my target audiences and the learnings that I’ve accumulated over the last year.
What do you love about running your own business?
This quote from Simon Sinek really resonates with me: “Entrepreneurs don’t starve, they drown.” Usually, we have too many ideas and the challenge is to choose just one of them and run with it. And although it is also very difficult to always be the one making decisions, running my own business does give me the opportunity to check in with myself and ask - if I could pick any direction, what would I enjoy most?
What does 2022 (and beyond) have in store for you as a founder? What’s your next step for Nudge Me?
We are about to finish our Nudge Pods pilot - which is a group of female business owners who have gone through a program of peer coaching and are able to use these peer coaching skills to support each other. We’ve also had professional coaches offer hot seat coaching sessions which have provided great value and received very positive feedback. I wasn’t sure if this was an idea that would resonate with people but it’s been more successful than I dared to hope.
So we’ll launch an improved version of the Pods in 2022. I’d really like this to have a sustainable revenue model for professional coaches baked into this - and it’s something I’m working on at the moment.
How do you think Atto has helped you in your business?
In many ways! As a product person, I would have never imagined that I’m still running a business with just a simple website and I’m literally avoiding building a platform for as long as I can. It’s not just the no-code tools that I was introduced to with Atto, it was also the thinking that especially at the early stages it is the founder as a person who the customers need to trust, not the product or the platform.
The other big learning was looking at the tech startup space from a different angle and realising that there are more ways to build a business than the traditional raising VC capital route.
I feel it’s especially important for female founders to know (and see positive examples) of alternatives and to fully understand what all these options actually mean to your lifestyle.
And then of course it’s the format of the accelerator that really sets a container and the accountability system to achieve something in a relatively short time.