Astinova Blog

“Don’t Just Stand There…”

Love that phrase. It’s exactly how I feel about my personal and professional life. Thanks to that mindset, last year was a fantastic year for me. I continued to grow my company on the East Coast, moved from the East to the West coast, traveled for work (and play), and expanded AstiNova even further by opening up in San Francisco, California.

I’ve worked with so many amazing clients who have shared their ideas,

I get this question all the time. People are always curious about what I actually do. I am a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) specializing in English Pronunciation. Most people think of SLP’s working at schools with children who have trouble talking. But, that isn’t the type of thing I do. I specialize in the pronunciation of sounds in the English language. I know exactly which muscles to use for each specific sound.

So, I quit my job. Then picked up my boyfriend at the airport. In the 20 minute ride home we decided we would move from Charleston, SC to San Francisco, CA.

I’m not kidding. But why?

Because I’m worth it. I mean this in all aspects of “worth.”  My time, education, experiences, patience, happiness, and morals all deserved more. I’m still head over heels in love with my career as a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP).

In late January, I received an email from a former client of mine. The subject: Yo, Badass!

So of course I opened that one first over the 17 emails that were new to my inbox.

This client frequents Hacker News and had stumbled upon a blog post from Jessica Livingston at YCombinator announcing that they would be hosting the First Female Founders Conference on March 1, 2014. I thought about it for 30 seconds and then applied.

I recently went to a networking event where someone had compared my Accent Reduction or English Pronunciation Training with the article in Inc.  “Paul Graham on Building Companies for Fast Growth” by Issie Lapowsky. The part of the interview we chatted about was when Graham noted seeing a correlation with CEO’s of Startups with strong foreign accents being a bad indication of their future success. This apparently ruffled some feathers in the Startup community because it prompted him to write this response.