Welcome back to Fuckup Nights!

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Last month we had a special event with the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce: an edition of Mujeres Sin Filtro at Gofest.

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In a five-day event that brought together more than 25,000 attendees, three women entrepreneurs told their stories of failure and resilience.

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The story you are about to read was told there for the first time. But we wanted Rosario B. Casas to share it with you again because it has everything: a weekend deadline, sleepless nights, coding errors and tears.

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Read on and find out...

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- Eric, General Manager of Fuckup Nights Global.

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Who

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Rosario B. Casas is an entrepreneur with more than 9 years of practical experience in AI and technology platforms and more than 25 years in executive roles. Co-founder of XR Americas, BCPartners Tech, Dreamers & Doers and Brooklyn2Bogota Digital Transformation Community, she is an expert and developer in spatial computing.

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Recognized with the 2019 Legendary Women award by Ford and one of the 100 innovators in 2020 by OBO Movement. Her passion is to get more women and Hispanics ready to solve problems with technology.

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Defining failure

FuN: What is your personal definition of failure?

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Rosario: Failure is not the fall, but inaction . Failure is when you become paralyzed in a situation where you know you could make a significant change. It is limiting yourself to the minimum, knowing that your experience and voice have the power to transform a context.

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FuN: What was everything like before the failure?

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Rosario: From 2013 I started my adventure in the tech world, and in 2015 I decided to work on my training to become a technical founder. Everything was moving along very well, while I was part of teams that were pioneering immersive realities in the New York ecosystem. 

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Until the pandemic forced us to rethink many things. Many businesses started to close, especially due to lack of digital skills and competencies. And that's when, together with my life and business partner, Felipe, we discovered our true mission: to help bridge the digital divide and give the basic tools to operate. So we decided to enter that world and become the non-technical founding team.

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That's how we met Lauren, a woman entrepreneur and founder (non-technical) who had managed to find a real problem to solve with the use of technology. Her company made software to make note-taking easy for non-profits.

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A good cause, with volunteer users, elderly people who sometimes did not have resources or access to new computer equipment.

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Lauren had already had three teams of freelance programmers who failed to align. She didn't speak the language of technology, and they didn't speak the language of business. The platform still had a lot of problems and users were getting a lot of bugs, yet users loved the platform and kept using it because it solved a real problem for them.

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So we started working with her.

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I was connecting on calls with her and the users. Sometimes, they did not know that the "rectangles" they saw were buttons. Even, when asked for a screenshot, they would send us a picture of the computer with the cell phone. Undoubtedly, this digital divide was an issue to be covered.

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The real F*up 💩

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Rosario: When we started the technical part, we found several problems, so we worked on the design of a new version. When you are going to do something like this, you need to take the platform off the air, put a "maintenance" message and start working with the developers.

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But Lauren didn't want her users to find the platform down during work times. The problem was that users were on schedules from the United States to Australia. So we chose a Friday to go live. That day we ordered burgers for the team, all ready from home to work remotely. 3, 2, 1, platform down and we started working.

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When we thought we were ready to go back on the air, the platform wouldn't come back. We tried to find the problem: in the database? in the front end? in the back end? where?

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My team was working, looking for solutions, not getting much rest, with a horrendous level of stress. We knew that each of the organizations using the platform needed it for their work. Everything started to become very tense as Sunday approached. 

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Lauren was sending me message after message via Slack, I was the barrier containing her stress from my team. And so the most difficult moment came: a video call with Lauren. It was Sunday morning and I was very distressed, and she was even worse. She said to me:

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"I feel that I am not certain about what they are telling me. I don't know if I'm understanding or not. This is beyond me. I'm running three teams of developers, you guys are the fourth. I don't think I'll be able to pull this dream off."

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Lauren turned off her camera. And I could only hear her sobbing. I was cold.

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FuN: How was the situation resolved?

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Rosario: At that moment I understood that my role was not just to be a technical leader, but a human bridge. It was time to put aside technical terms and connect with the real fear of a person who had tried everything. I said, "Lauren, if you want, you don't pay us, but we're not going to leave you or the users abandoned."

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I asked him to stop texting me so we could concentrate, he agreed, not in a very good mood, but I committed myself to report to him every hour. So the worst moment became a chance to see the light again.

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Hours later we had to ask for authorization to return to the air with a version that still had some flaws. Between us, we had to self-hack ourselves to regain control. But we had something very good, a version in production that was close to what we had in mind.

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And the best part is that I was absolutely proud of my team that had managed to pull through such a crisis and get back on the air. It took us two more months to stabilize the platform. Rebuilding Lauren's confidence took a little longer, but she recovered as users began to have fewer problems, or at least not the same problems. 

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Three years later, the company is still our client and will soon be telling very special stories.

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The adventure with Lauren taught me that true mastery is not in the code, but in the ability to build bridges of trust and communication by bridging the digital divide. One conversation at a time.

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In conclusion…

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1. Crisis is always going to come. Whether we foresee them or not, they are going to happen. But when we are clear about the magnitude of the problem we are facing and we know what we don't know, we are halfway to success. Being prepared is vital and having in the team those who have already gone through crises and have trained the necessary muscle to get out of them is extremely valuable.

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2. A top team and honest communication make all the difference. Don't take anything personally, create fluid communication systems where everyone knows that it is important to contribute.

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3. Frontier technology is fascinating, but.... Those of us who build technology have a superpower, by understanding what is possible, we can help those who are just starting to learn how to use technologies to impact their communities. Always take the time to contribute to bridging a gap that is bigger than we can imagine.

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Connect with Gabriela!

On Linkedin

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Remember, our channels are open for your questions, complaints, feedback, or collaboration at: rich@fuckupnights.com.