Ep 09: Conscious Leadership with Amy Yin

Paint & Pipette: The Art & Science of Innovation

This week we get together with Amy Yin, CEO and Founder of Office Together, a company that delivers manager empowerment and scheduling tools to achieve the full potential of a flexible workplace. We talk with Amy about her unique life experience and how it influenced her mindset and career. She describes how her parents raised her to have a CEO mindset and be comfortable with risk and how this differed from the upbringing of her peers who share her American-born Chinese identity. We hear from Amy about her decision to drop out of Harvard to pursue an opportunity to be part of a start-up with her professor in Paris, and why the opportunity was so valuable despite the company ultimately not succeeding. Next, we discuss Amy’s work experience at companies like Hired and Coinbase and how her experiences with working remotely prompted her to found her own company. Amy goes on to explain why she was determined to hire her friends, why she is proud of her choices, and how she maintains those relationships with clear boundaries and expectations. You’ll also hear how Amy nurtures creativity and inspiration in her daily life and why she is a big proponent of conscious leadership. Join us today for this inspiring conversation on what it means to start a company!

Key Points From This Episode:

• Get to know today’s guest Amy Yin, CEO and founder of Office Together.
• Amy’s company Office Together and how they are helping managers by selling empowerment and scheduling tools to run a hybrid office.
• How Amy started Office Together after being inspired by the quiet time inherent to lockdown measures and working from home.
• Amy’s upbringing and how it diverges from many of her peers who are also the children of immigrants.
• Why Amy’s parents raised her to take risks and have a CEO mindset and how that affected her education, career, and attitude towards risk.
• How Amy dropped out of Harvard to build a company and how her parents’ support was integral to that.
• Why this experience was hugely formative and positive, even though the company didn’t succeed.
• The Conscious Leadership framework and how it manifests in Amy’s attitude to work and life.
• Amy’s decision to hire many of her close friends and their experiences organizing other events together.
• What Amy has learned from working with friends like setting clear boundaries and expectations.
• Some of the ways that Amy encourages people to think outside of the box at social engagements.
• How Amy recognized the moment that she should start a company.
• Why it was difficult for Amy to leave her job at Coinbase and start her own company.
• Amy’s search for a co-founder and how she became a solo founder.
• How to determine whether you have a customer and whether something is worth building.
• How Amy used her connections to interview companies to test the viability of her product idea.
• How Amy nurtures creativity and inspiration in her daily life.

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Amy Yin

Amy Yin on LinkedIn

Office Together

Hired

Coinbase

Jeremy Utley

Melissa Miranda

Mar Hershenson

The Paint & Pipette Podcast