During my MBA, we were prepared to rule the world. And as many of us entered the workforce, we realized that we needed to be humbled by the world first. I went to Stanford with the very clear intention of starting something similar to Odetta, but it took me many years to get there. Along the way, I almost gave up, wondering if I would ever bring to life what was inside of me.

When I got the idea for Odetta, I was living in New York in the first home I had ever decorated as if I might stay a while. I felt like maybe it was too late in the game to move to the Middle East to start a company. I was proud of the life I had built. However, I knew deep down that I had to start the company, and that even if it failed, it was better than not starting the company.

In the first year of Odetta, I realized that things happened as they should. I needed to have learned sales to effortlessly trust myself in growing Odetta. I needed to have a bad boss to know what a good one might be. I needed to have felt the ego of a failed company to know I wanted to build this one differently.