Q&A: Donna Novitsky, CEO of Big Tent

[Ed. note: If you've got the entrepreneurial bug, Lylah's interview with Donna Novitsky is a must read. Check out her advice to women who want to start their own businesses.]

Donna Novitsky
Donna Novitsky

Donna Novitsky has gone from a career in Industrial Engineering to honing her marketing skills at an enterprise software startup that she helped build from nothing to $100 million in revenue. From there, she joined the venture world before becoming an entrepreneur and the CEO of Big Tent, a company that provides free online technology and facilitates the organization of real-world communities.

Novitsky lives in the San Francisco area with her husband and their two children, ages 9 and 10. In addition to her work with Big Tent, she teaches at the School of Engineering at Stanford University, is a former board member of the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose, and volunteers extensively at her children's school.

So, how does she do it all? She credits her husband, John. "He is my huge support system."

You have a degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University -- pretty different from venture, marketing, and entrepreneurship! Tell us about the career path that took you from engineering to Big Tent.

It's been a lot of years. From Industrial Engineering, I got a job in Europe and worked there for a couple of years, and then I went to business school in the Boston area. From there, I got a job working for Sun Microsystems. That actually is not an unusual job for an IE major, although they did call it "Imaginary Engineering!" IE, as it was taught at Stanford, had a lot of economics and finance and marketing, and a lot of different discussions in addition to the engineering side of it; it wasn't hardcore computer science, more like applying technology to real-world situations.

I was at Sun for about six years, during really the high-growth age of the late '80s, and worked with a lot of great people. From there, I went to my own start-up, Clarify, an enterprise software company. We didn't have a product, we didn't even had a demo -- we had a dream: $100 million and 500 employees and a public company over 7 years. It was truly living the silicon valley dream. I was married at the time, but had no kids -- we put all of our effort into that company! And then I had my son in 1998, our daughter 1999. It was time for a change; I needed a job with more flexibility so I could be a mom. I wanted to raise my own kids. But work was really important to me, it's a big part of who I am. At this point was when I tried to figure out how to balance. So, I changed jobs, went to work for Mohr, Davidow Venture as a venture partner. I was there for about 8 1/2 years. ...

Big Tent was an opportunity to pull all of the diverse activities that I care about together into one place. It's a really different kind of business from what I had been working in. It's all about working for these volunteer-powered groups led by moms like you and me. Beyond a business-oriented mission, they have a community... this is something that helps them achieve their mission and helps them in running their group. It's a really great opportunity to take what I know about technology and building companies and help other people who are actively doing things in their communities.

Tell us a bit more about Big Tent. Who can benefit most from membership?

We're a platform or infrastructure. We're the enabling technology for groups. It's not great for really tiny group, like a book club, unless you're already on the system for someone else -- then it's easy to add a book club to an existing group. But a lot of our benefit is handling the back-end administration for big groups, 100 people in a group and more. The group needs to have a membership concept.

I think adults, parents, people who are working ... they are busy. I think they already have the social networks that they want to have. They're in alumni groups, they know other parents in school that they want to hang out with, old friends keep in touch with, so Big Tent is not about meeting new people as much as it is about keeping in touch with the social networks you already have and helping people participate efficiently in the things that they care about.

It takes a lot of optimism to become an entrepreneur, but a lot of people in Venture Capital feel that you need the exact opposite in order to succeed in the Venture world. What do you think?

I'm too much of an optimist to be in venture. I tend to believe in people, tend to believe that they know what they're doing and are smart and will figure it out. I really love the roll up your sleeves... in venture, you advise and consult, but it's not your baby. But it was a great hands-on role -- I changed companies every six months or so, worked with great entrepreneurs, always experienced the heyday. You know, you get it started right, going right, and you don't have to fix it later. But, after a while, it got little old working at everyone else's company and I kind of got the itch to do it again, like back in my Clarify days.

What is your personal passion?

Helping these community groups, helping them be more successful. And the people I interact with on a day-to-day basis are such great people, I'm so happy we're doing this for them. It's very rewarding.

What advice would you give to a mom who is trying to start her own business?

I am advising exactly such a mom right now! The advice I gave her is: She needs to find a partner who shares her vision and who she can work with closely. They need to have a really solid business plan and really look to see if, between the two of them, do they have the skills they need to pull off this business. They need to be able to challenge each other and ask tough questions, make sure it's going to be a good investment.

Remember: If you're raising funds, you're talking to someone who is an investor looking for a return. Unless it's a social enterprise-type investor, chances are you are going to have to show the investor a return, so make sure that end of your business is solid. In the end, people can believe in your concept, but the cold hard fact is you're going to have to make them money, otherwise it's not a good investment.

Is this your dream job?

Yes, it's definitely my dream job. I've always wanted to do my own entrepreneurial venture, and doing something that's so close my my heart is even more exciting. What would make it better is not having a commute. Right now, I commute about 30 to 40 minutes each way.

What's the hardest part for you, personally, about juggling career and parenthood?

Both jobs are 24/7. You're a mom 24/7 and a CEO 24/7. What bothers me is if it gets too far out of whack and I start missing too much of the school activities and the concerts and the soccer games... I don't have to be at every one of them, I take every shortcut I can, but what happens if I miss too much of my kids stuff is that then I get this sort of sadness and feel like I need to reconnect.

Fortunately, I have a great support system at home. My husband and I have been married for more than 20 years. He gets the kids to school in the morning. We do have a nanny for four hours a day -- I'm a master delegator -- but John is the one who is always home to relieve the nanny. He or the nanny gets dinner on the table. He is my huge support system. I used to wonder why there aren't more women CEOs, more women in venture capital... it's because the men who are in those fields have support systems. You need a support system if you're going to take on that kind of a role. I'm really grateful that John is willing to play that role.

Do you have other projects outside of Big Tent? If so, how do you fit them into your schedule?

I teach marketing to engineers at Stanford. My ulterior motive there is to create more great product managers, people who understand customers and technology and can bridge the gap between the two. I'm also on the foundation board for my kids' school -- we raise a lot of funding for the school. I think [the time to do all of this] comes out of the sleep bucket.

What's your favorite organizational tool (besides Big Tent, of course)?

Lists, basically. I have a to-do list -- I'm looking at it right now. There are categories; the personal category says "make Shutterfly photo albums" and "clean the playroom." There's a separate category for teaching -- grade papers, prepare tomorrow morning's lecture. Another category for my kids' school foundation -- I do a lot of marketing and fund-raising for that. This list goes with me everywhere. Sometimes I write things on it just to cross them off.

When you do find time for yourself, what do you like to do?

Exercise with my friends. A lot of them are other moms from the school, and it's like killing two birds with one stone -- I can catch up on what's going on in school and get exercise and see my friends. I love to hike, and fortunately we live in a place where there's great hiking nearby. Skiing is my other favorite -- it's a great equalizer.

Lylah is a full-time editor, a freelance writer, and mom and step mom to five kids. She writes about juggling career and parenthood at The 36-Hour Day on Work It, Mom!, where she is also the Managing Editor, and she blogs about writing at Write. Edit. Repeat.