Hi. This is Paul Zalazar, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. Please hit that subscribe button on whatever platform you're listening on. It helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much.

Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to my friend and colleague, Vicky Apodaca, and our title is community, diversity, and the growth of New Mexico as a tech hub. Vicky Apodaca is a seasoned entrepreneur and a start up strategist with a track record of success in the tech world. She was a founding member of several start ups, including StellarFi, Joust, and Softly, and has been through two successful exits. Joust was acquired by ZenBusiness and Starship HSA by Optum. Vicky specializes in go to market strategy and data driven marketing, helping precede and seed stage companies scale and amplify their products. She's also a passionate advocate for mental health and underserved communities As a chapter director and cofounder of Techarilla New Mexico, she's dedicated to empowering Latinx professionals in tech. And side note, the New Mexico Techarilla chapter is the largest one in the country because Vicky is a rock star. When she's not advising startups, Vicky is working on her own projects or spending time with her puppy Gizmo.

Welcome to Awarepreneurs, Vicky.

Thank you. When you when you say it like that, it sounds like I actually know something about something.

Yeah. I know. Right? I thought you we just hang out and, like, eat pizza sometimes, but, actually, you get some stuff done. Right?

Yeah. I mean, I do. I manage it, at least. And the bio actually is missing one key thing. I have another puppy now named Mooney.

Oh, you I okay. Two puppies. I'm sorry.

I need to update my bio.

You totally need to go to LinkedIn. I I stole this off of LinkedIn. So yeah. See, I'm

gonna start Mooney.

My deepest apologies to Mooney. Yes.

Mooney didn't make it. But, yeah, I mean, I you know, try to manage my time in the day. You also I need to update my bio to mention New Mexico climate. We're gonna

get to that too. And I'm planning with Vicky and I are cofounders of that together. We got a bunch of things that, you know, where the buyer just to give them an idea, Vicky. We have an hour to give them try to fill in some of the things that won't fit in your bio.

Yeah. Sounds great.

So to start with Vicky, a question for you. There's a a term here in New Mexico called the boomerang story. Right? So you grew up in New Mexico. You headed off to Austin and then went to Scandinavia, did cool start up stuff there, and you came back to New Mexico. It's known as a boomerang story. Why did you come back and why did you leave?

Yeah. I mean, I I got my bachelor's degree at UNM Albuquerque, born and raised UNM. I went to Anderson School of Management, great management school, honestly. And I was on the lottery program, which a lot of us at the you know, even today can take advantage of it. At the time, it was a % tuition. We had the bridge, which is a little scholarship your first semester, but then after that, it was free, and it's like I went to my parents actually sent me to private school for for high school because in New Mexico, they were like, that's the only way you're gonna get into college is if if you, you know so they actually spent my college fund for my high school, and it really did prepare me, but it was really hard to to not take advantage of that lottery system. So I think New Mexico, we're just such a special place where there is access to education. I I talk to people in other states, and they just don't have that.

So I stayed here for college, got my business degree, cons did a did a concentration in marketing management. But then when I graduated, although the UNM system had this great opportunity for the lottery program, when I graduated, I was like, okay. Now what? Or I should say before I graduated, I started looking into it. And, you know, I had a vision, as a lot of young people do, that I wanted something corporate. I wanted to be big business. You know? I, I watched Gossip Girl and I was like, let's go to New York and let's do all these things, you know? And, that was kind of the vision I had for several years while in college. However, my second to last semester, I studied abroad in Australia. And I was like, this place is amazing.

So when I graduated, I went back to Australia. And I did some work out there, worked, for a marketing agency for a little bit for some really British guys. People ask, what does that mean, really British guy? I mean, they drink their tea, tea, their afternoon tea, and their crumpets. So, you know, worked in that environment. Ended up coming back home for a little bit, but I had the bug. I had the travel bug. And so ended up traveling and working overseas again in Warsaw, Poland, and I actually taught English to business people for a little bit. Just just six months.