Stephanie Mills, Founder of CodeGem
Stephanie Mills says herself, “I’m passionate about management. I’m not kidding - I literally took a degree in it.” While studying at the University of Waterloo and interning at a variety of start ups & tech giants, she saw a gap. Her goal in founding and creating CodeGem was to bring together managers and engineers to be able to use data as a means to communicate and work together more effectively. If we are talking #entrepreneurhacks, Stephanie saw and opportunity and made one of her own!
Engineering managers don’t have time or the tools to truly understand and support their team. There’s too much data to review manually, so managers rely on subjective anecdotes and informal one on ones. As a result, productivity drops, teams disconnect, and engineers feel disengaged.
CodeGem integrates with the tools that software engineers use to collaborate (eg. GitHub, Slack, Jira) to generate real-time analytics about a team’s activity, from productivity to collaboration to satisfaction. CodeGem leverages these analytics to unlock tools, such as our 1:1 framework, that help managers turn insight into action.
What is the most beneficial hack you wish you knew when you started your business?
I wish I knew that it’s okay to ask for help. I’ve learned so much from so many incredible people, but it took me time to build up the confidence to have an ask. Whether you’re looking for advice or connections don’t be afraid to ask!
What hack or resource saves you the most time in your work day?
As an entrepreneur there’s always an endless list of priorities and hats you have to balance. Focusing on establishing your personal optimal working habits early is essential to managing the workload. A few productivity hacks I live by are:
Planning your day the night before
Close tasks asap. If an email takes 2 min to send, send it right away.
Leverage tools: We use ClickUp for task management, HubSpot as a CRM, GCalandar and MeetingBird.
How do you feel like Code Gem is used as a hack, itself?
Managers don’t have time to stay up to keep track of the day-to-day of each engineer. CodeGem is the ultimate hack for engineering managers, making them more efficient and effective by giving them the analytics and tools they need to optimize their development team.
Favorite motto or quote that keeps you inspired?
Will the me tomorrow be better than the me today?
Book(s) that inspire you/your company:
Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
How to Win Friends and Influence People
In your personal life, what is one daily practice or habit you have to keep you centered and grounded?
I try to be active at least once per day, whether that's going for run or practicing yoga.
What has been the biggest highlight running your own company?
First and foremost I am so passionate about CodeGem’s mission and the problem we are solving. The incredible support and community we have built up around our vision has truly made this journey the most exciting experience of my life.
Favorite business tools that your company uses? (Slack, PicMonkey, Asana, Liveplan, Adobe etc.)
ClickUp, Slack, Miro, Figma, Tandem, GitHub, GSuite
Favorite other business/leadership resources?
People! I've learned so much through advisors, incubators, and communities.
What is one action you want every woman entrepreneur reading this to take this week?
Find a mentor who can help support you in an area outside of your comfort zone. Personally my background is in Software Engineering, and so my advisors are focused around the business and operations aspect of the company.
What are your top three goals for your company this year? AND! How can the LWL Community support you in accomplishing them? (donating, supporting new product launch, etc.)
Our top three goals are:
Complete beta testing with our first company
Form a partnership with a medium sized company; in which we build CodeGem to meet their needs.
Raise an angel round to accelerate our product development We would really appreciate any support connecting with either investors or corporate partners