POV: I Started a Company with My Mother 🎙️

New Podcast Episode! ✨ Meet the first mother-daughter founding team in cybersecurity on the latest episode of How I Met My Co-Founder.

Hi everyone, I’m here to share an incredibly fun conversation with a mother-daughter founding team. This duo has turned the traditional generational model of family business on its head, starting their company two years ago as equal co-founders.

Instead of looking for co-founders among her Stanford classmates, Juanita Duque called up her mom Olga Botero (former CIO of Bancolombia) to start Seccuri. In doing so, they became the first ever mother-daughter founding team in cybersecurity. Tune into How I Met My Co-Founder for a rare glimpse into the dynamics of founding a company across generations.

Our conversation covers everything from navigating the unique seniority and power structures of founding with a parent, making (and learning from) mistakes as a founder, and protecting their relationship while having fun along the journey.

Listen, watch, or read about Juanita and Olga’s partnership in founding award-winning global cybersecurity skills and talent platform, Seccuri.

Know friends or founders starting a company with family? Forward to them!

Listen now on Spotify / Apple / YouTube / Google.
Brought to you by Confidante, preventing the co-founder conflicts that kill 65% of startups.

Episode Summary & Takeaways:

Ep 1.4 • Cybersecurity's First Mother-Daughter Founding Team | Interview with Seccuri

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Juanita Duque (CEO) and Olga Botero (CTO), co-founders of Seccuri, are the first mother-daughter co-founders in the cybersecurity sector.

Olga and Juanita, are no strangers to mixing business and family. Growing up, Juanita fondly remembers regular dinner table conversation about current market dynamics, or learning from her mother’s many executive and board advisor roles, including as former CIO of Grupo Bancolombia, one of the largest financial groups in Latin America.

It felt like a natural next step in 2022 when Juanita, a Stanford MBA and engineer by training, called up her mother and asked to be co-founders. They came together as equals with Juanita as CEO and Olga as CTO and Chair to launch Seccuri, a global cybersecurity skills and talent platform. In doing so they became the first ever mother-daughter founding pair in the cybersecurity sector.

In our conversation, we discuss:

• Starting a Family Business in Cybersecurity

• Varying Levels of Seniority in a Founding Team (Who’s the Boss)

• How to Make (and Support a Co-Founder through) Mistakes

• Creating “Rules of Engagement” (When Are We Family vs. Co-Founders)

• Navigating a Male-Dominated Industry (as Female Founders)

Some takeaways:

1. Know what you and your co-founder individually want to get out of the company (e.g., leadership experience, sales, social impact) and check in regularly on whether these motivators are being met.

2. Agree to leave mistakes in the past. It may be a mother’s tendency to point out the mistakes of her child… however a co-founder’s role is not to dwell on mistakes of the other, but to help them move forward and say, “ok what’s next?”

3. Admiration and respect are critical when founding with seniority levels. The founder with more seniority needs to believe there is as much to be learned from their partner as there is to teach. (See: Sound Relationship House)

4. Create “Rules of Engagement” when you are more than just co-founders. When do we talk business (or not)? What happens at family dinners? How can we respect each other’s schedules? For example, if one of us wakes up “late” (is 7am late…?) (See: Partnership Agreement)

5. Be very careful when founding with family - if you cannot separate professional life from family life, then do not do it. If you do, you will be putting your family at risk. (See: Family Charter)