WIP Toronto: Going from PM to Founder & Early Stage Startups

The WIPTO team wants to kick off 2023 with our first event of the year.

Often times a new year is a great time to start thinking ahead about your career path. Some folks dream of becoming a founder, while others might be curious about working at a startup and helping to shape the future of the company. If either of these ideas appeal to you, you will want to attend this event.

WIPTO is excited to bring together 2 female founders – Erin Chan from Rhenti and CG Chen from mello – for an intimate and informative chat on being founders (and CPO).

Our event will cover key insights including:

• How to know if this is the right career path for you
• Tips and considerations you should think about before making the move
• What to expect and which PM skills you should strengthen to help you prepare
• For those who are not interested in being a founder, but would like to play an instrumental role in product at a startup, how to approach building product at an early stage startup

We’ll end the evening with a mini hands-on exercise for those that might be interested in becoming a founder.

Be aware of our event policy before you sign up: 

Women In Product Toronto aims to create safe spaces & allow for authentic connections of women-identified product professionals. Our events, whether online or in-person, aim to allow women-identified or non-binary product folks to authentically connect as themselves without fear of discrimination, intimidation, invasions of privacy, or abusive behaviour. This kind of environment may not exist for all community members in their working lives; so we strive to provide psychological safety at our events. 

For this reason, all events are open only to women-identified & non-binary individuals in the product community.

By participating at an event, you grant Women In Product permission to the use of your image, likeness, actions, and/or statements in connection with all forms of photography, audio, and video recordings.

AGENDA: 

6:00pm – Event begins – introductions

6:05pm – Panel discussion

6:55pm – Q&A

7:10pm – Breakout – hands-on exercise or networking

7:30pm – Event ends

FACILITATORS:

Erin Chan – Founder & CPO , Rhenti

Erin Chan is one of the founders and CPO at Rhenti. Rhenti is a Toronto-based B2B SaaS start-up that powers the leading lead-to-lease experience for the rental real estate industry. Erin is a PM Shopify Alum and before that, began her PM journey at Telus/Koodo. She has an MBA from the University of Toronto and a Design degree from the Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson). She is also a proud board member for the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre.

CG Chen – Founder & CEO , mello

CG Chen is a 2x founder (Y Combinator) based in Los Angeles with 7+ years of building and shipping products in the software industry both B2C and B2B including e-commerce, retail, smart-home technology, employee wellbeing and Govtech. She founded 2 tech companies, mello (YCombinator) a B2B SaaS company tackling employee burnout and ample labs using AI & data to help cities prevent homelessness. Before that, She began her career in UX at ecobee designing mobile experiences for IoT devices, and before that Tulip designing enterprise software for luxury retailers like Chanel, Kate Spade, and Michael Kors.

ORGANIZED BY:

This event is brought to you by the Toronto Chapter of Women In Product.

To find more events in the Toronto community, join us on Facebook.

Women In Product (www.womenpm.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing women with equal access and representation in product management careers at all levels. Its mission is to provide women with equal access and representation in product management careers at all levels through Community, Mobility, & Advocacy. The Toronto chapter helps achieve this by building a local community here in our city. As Women in Product Toronto (WIPTO), we exist to create safe physical & digital spaces for women-identified product professionals to authentically connect with one another by listening, sharing, & learning.  

FAQs

How can I contact the organizer with any questions?

You can find us on Facebook here!