Social Impact Tech: Christine Cafiso Pulver of Theheard On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact
Women are constantly needing new service providers as they move, enter into different phases of life or earn more income. My hope is that providing women with a community and platform they can trust allows them to take the best care of themselves without ever feeling uneasy entering into an experience with a new provider.
In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Christine Cafiso Pulver.
Christine Cafiso Pulver serves as founder and CEO of theheard, a newly launched app in Miami that helps women find and share recommendations for beauty, wellness and medical services. Christine was formerly a marketing leader at LinkedIn for seven years where she led programs like Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and World Economic Forum. In 2021 she left her position to start her company. Christine has lived and worked in Houston, San Francisco, New York and Miami. She is a graduate of the University of Florida where she studied marketing and communications.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
My family moved to St. Augustine, FL from Atlanta in the late 90’s when I was eight . St. Augustine (the oldest city in the United States!) is a small, quiet beach town with tons of history. Many of my fondest memories were spent with my family biking on the beach, volleyball tournaments with friends and big family meals with a lot of Frank Sinatra in the background.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I distinctly remember one panel with The Female Quotient at the World Economic Forum in 2019. The discussion focused on driving equality for women in the workplace. Listening to some of the most successful women in the world discuss change in their respective industries galvanized me to make an impact in my own way. I remembered feeling that while I didn’t know what the path forward entailed, I knew I wanted to broaden my experience beyond my existing marketing role and build something of my own.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Before starting my own business the majority of my career was learning from very tenured leaders at LinkedIn. It’s difficult to point to one particular person, because I genuinely felt that many of the senior leaders I interacted with helped support and guide me throughout my twenties. I came into my own at that company. But as a first time founder I think my biggest supporter has been my husband. It’s true that for early stage companies the highs and lows come quickly and can change at a moment’s notice. Having him believe in me during the difficult moments has kept me moving forward and not let me quit.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One quote that I try to incorporate into my daily life is “no amount of worrying can change the future.” As a founder you have an innate desire to control everything and worry about factors or situations beyond your control. This quote keeps me grounded and reminds me not to constantly worry about every small decision that may or may not be within my grasp.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Vision, resilience and authenticity. I am my own target audience, and I saw a void in the market that would help women easily find self-care service providers they can trust. I have a vision that differentiates theheard from existing products and am striving to build this platform and community for women. Being a non-technical founder I’ve learned the hard way how difficult it can be to physically build a new technology. Coming from a large corporation with substantial resources in place to having to find vendors and hire a team has been challenging. While it was difficult at times, I successfully created an MVP that has launched in Miami which I felt was a huge accomplishment. For all of my interactions I also strive to treat everyone kindly and maintain my authenticity. I truly believe that kindness, especially in the workplace, goes a long way. While problems will always arise, maintaining a strong relationship with your team and being true to yourself has been a core focus.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?
theheard is a community-focused recommendations app that helps women find and share their favorite beauty, wellness, and medical providers. Why are we different? Existing online search platforms offer little personal connection. However, we’ve found that most women prefer personal referrals when it comes to finding services that relate to their appearance or health. So, our aim is to build a community to bring together trusted recommendations curated by like-minded women. Whether you’re looking for a gyno or acupuncturist, we got you covered.
How do you think your technology can address this?
Our app is intended to be a positive social network that supports local businesses and facilitates interactions between women sharing similar preferences and needs. Think “your little black book of recommendations for all things self-care.” Our technology provides a number of important features that are currently unavailable in the market including: detailed user profiles that include unique descriptors (hair texture, skin type), tags to help users search through recommendations and detailed rating system across multiple criteria.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
While living in New York City I remember needing to find a skin specialist as I developed rosacea. None of my immediate friends had dealt with this condition before, so I found myself searching all over the internet for blogs to learn more about how to manage it. From there I wanted to find a dermatologist and a facialist to help treat and give me professional advice. I remember thinking to myself that there are millions of women in NYC and I can’t be the only person that has this condition. I realized that everyday women needed a way to connect on a deeper, more personal level with others who may have physical attributes or conditions similar to them. In my case, being someone that has sensitive skin, I wanted a personal recommendation from someone with a similar situation.
How do you think this might change the world?
I think the biggest impact from our app will be providing women with the confidence they need walking into any appointment. Knowing the woman behind the recommendation is critically important and adds a level of personal connection currently unavailable through on-line platforms. Women are constantly needing new service providers as they move, enter into different phases of life or earn more income. My hope is that providing women with a community and platform they can trust allows them to take the best care of themselves without ever feeling uneasy entering into an experience with a new provider.
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
One of my biggest concerns when starting theheard was that users would flood the platform with negativity and criticism of businesses. When creating a technology that is dependent on user input, a potential drawback is that we provide a space for people with malicious intentions. To prevent this we’ve built theheard in a way where users can only share what they love (entirely negative reviews are handled separately by our algorithm). theheard is a true recommendation site, focusing on positivity by filtering out noise and bad energy. However, users are still encouraged to be honest about the strengths and weaknesses of the business they are championing, which are reflected in the recommendations.
Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)
Know your target audience and their needs. Before I even started developing theheard, I interviewed everyone I could find to learn about their experiences in searching for service providers. I wanted to understand their process and struggle when searching online or asking friends for recommendations and learn how I could help instill trust in the process.
Build a brand that aligns with your vision. I want theheard to feel warm, welcoming and feminine. Although our app spans beauty, wellness and health I wanted to avoid the traditionally sterile nature of medical practices. Our branding is meant to make the process of finding a new service provider feel fun and exciting while removing the stress of finding someone new.
Stay focused on your core problem. When building a new technology, I was constantly receiving advice and guidance on how it should be developed and what types of features should be included. While it is important to solicit feedback and reflect thoughtfully (and pivot when needed) it is also important to stay focused on the problem you are trying to solve. As a self-funded MVP our beta has continued to evolve, but our target problem has remained the same.
Develop a strong community. Finding power users that believe in your product and are supportive of your mission is incredibly important. Many of the women supporting theheard have felt similar trepidations to myself when finding their service providers. My aim has been to target these core users who can benefit most and help them first to build our community.
Be user friendly and helpful. Our aim has been to make theheard as intuitive as possible because no one will use any technology that is cumbersome and difficult to navigate. When brainstorming features and sketching wireframes I constantly solicited feedback from women to better understand their preferences. My aim was to build an app that was intuitive but also had the appropriate amount of information to still be helpful. Adding features that are important to users has allowed me to build a technology that hopefully many women can benefit from.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
If you can find a project you’re passionate about that benefits society, your product may end up helping someone more than you know. It doesn’t need to be a life changing technology to improve someone’s day-to-day life. Any positive change you can help bring out in the world will ultimately be beneficial to many.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Whitney Wolfe Herd! Her ability to pivot after leaving Tinder and start her own app while developing a strong community is inspiring. I’ve thought about her experiences over the past year as I navigate being a founder, and use them as fuel to keep moving forward. Plus we both got married in Italy, so I am confident we’d have a lot to talk about over good pasta and wine.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
For the latest news on theheard I would urge readers to check out our website which has the latest information about our app and company and our Instagram.
Personally you can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.
Social Impact Tech: Christine Cafiso Pulver of Theheard On How Their Technology Will Make An… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.