An Interview With Penny Bauder
Don’t compare yourself to others: It is easy to look around you and feel like you are not accomplishing as much as other organizations, but the truth is that each business has different needs and opportunities. Everyone’s journey is unique.
As part of my series about young people who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Cristina Leos.
Cristina Leos, PhD, MSPH, is a behavioral scientist, entrepreneur, and design thinking expert leveraging technology innovation to improve adolescent health. She is Co-Founder & CEO of Real Talk, a mobile app that connects teens with authentic stories and trusted resources to help them know they are not alone in their experiences growing up. In addition to leading Real Talk, Cristina applies her design thinking skills to train and inspire students, researchers, educators, activists, and public health professionals to design more effective and inclusive tools to support health and wellbeing.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit how you grew up?
I am originally from Texas and grew up on the U.S.-Mexico border. I am also the first generation in my family born in the U.S., so my whole life has been a mixture of cultures and influences between the United States and Mexico. I have a big family and have many fond memories of impromptu gatherings with lots of laughs and food. I was really creative as a child, I loved to make crafts and could get lost for hours reading books. As I got older, I also learned to play the violin, played volleyball, basketball, ran track at school, and was a competitive cheerleader for 15 years. I was a very busy kid! I eventually moved to California to complete my undergraduate degree at Stanford University and later moved to North Carolina to pursue my graduate degrees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Is there a particular book or organization that made a significant impact on you growing up? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I was a Girl Scout for a few years in late elementary school and that experience really helped foster my curiosity and love for learning. Through the process of earning merit badges, I tried things I never would have thought to explore otherwise. I remember visiting our local public library to check out books on plants or crafting or famous historical women to help me complete badges, and I loved it! It was such a wholesome and enriching experience.
How do you define “Making A Difference”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
For me, making a difference means that I am using my skills and resources to help make the world a better place. I have been blessed with many forms of privilege and opportunities, but I know I would not be where I am today if it had not been for the support I received from so many others along the way. It is deeply important for me to use my skills and resources to help others lead happy and fulfilling lives.
Ok super. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. You are currently leading an organization that aims to make a social impact. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change in our world today?
Real Talk is a mobile app that connects teens with authentic stories and trusted resources to help them know they are not alone in their experiences growing up. We do this by crowdsourcing stories from teens on topics like relationships, bullying, identity, and more. We carefully review all submissions and publish stories along with high quality online resources to our mobile app. Teens can browse and search content and submit their own story directly within the app. Our mission is to dismantle the barriers to accessing mental and emotional support for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ youth.
We first launched Real Talk in 2017 and, at that time, we had an exclusive focus on providing sexual health education for teens. Our team had first-hand experience with the education system and we each saw how young people were left without essential information to support them in making healthy decisions. Our goal with Real Talk was to use storytelling to make sex education more modern, engaging, and effective. However, we quickly learned that Real Talk’s impact extends far beyond sex education. Teens wanted stories on more topics like mental health, navigating relationships with friends and family, and how to have difficult conversations. Most importantly, youth told us that Real Talk stories helped them know they are not alone in their experiences growing up.
Now, we cover a broad range of topics (in addition to sexual health) through our mobile app. Real Talk stories help amplify diverse youth voices and experiences to reshape the narratives around stigmatized topics like sexual health and mental health. By doing this, we provide a safe, judgment free space for youth to share their experiences, access resources, and find support for whatever they may be going through.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
Growing up, many of my peers became teen parents by the time that we finished high school. When I moved away from home, I realized this wasn’t just happening in my hometown but also in countless other communities across the country and the world. I remember how taboo it was to have discussions around things like puberty, sex, dating, and sexual orientation, which left so many young people without information or support they needed. I was curious to learn what we could do to better support youth and I decided to pursue a graduate degree in public health.
My research in graduate school focused on adolescent health and development. I learned how adolescence is an incredibly influential time for development because this is the age when many habits are formed that have a lifelong impact on health. I was also excited by the potential to use technology to improve upon traditional health education and health promotion programs for teens. Many of these programs are not designed with teens in mind and do not really leverage the tools that resonate with them the most. I collaborated with two colleagues who shared similar interests and together we came up with the concept that eventually became the Real Talk mobile app.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest it. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?
I never really planned to become an entrepreneur, so this journey really evolved out of a realization that our work was too important to not pursue. Real Talk began as a research project when I was halfway through graduate school. We got really positive feedback from youth who helped us design and build Real Talk, but it wasn’t until my colleagues and I started sharing our work more publicly that we realized Real Talk could have much greater reach and impact if we managed it as a social venture. We were inspired by our early successes and wanted the chance to build out our vision for what Real Talk could be, so we decided to start a nonprofit to manage the app.
Many young people don’t know the steps to take to start a new organization. But you did. What are some of the things or steps you took to get your project started?
None of us had previous experience founding or running a company, so we reached out to anyone and everyone in our network who could provide advice, connections, or resources. We talked with friends and acquaintances who had started companies, asked mentors for advice and introductions to others who may want to support our work, and made a plan for the types of resources we would need to successfully operate our nonprofit. There are a lot of things to consider when starting a new organization and it can be really easy to get overwhelmed, but the key is to ask for help and take it one piece at a time.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
We were featured in Fast Company when we launched in 2017 and the article made it on to the NPR show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! the following week. We had no idea we would be featured until we had people calling and texting us saying they just heard about our work on the radio.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?
One of the most memorable mistakes we made was when we were preparing to pitch our initial Real Talk idea for a large pot of funding that would allow us to actually build and launch it. We decided to have a practice pitch presentation to get feedback before we did the real presentation, so we invited professors, friends, students, and others to hear our pitch and to demo our app prototype. Our pitch was pretty strong, but the product demo was a complete disaster. We provided mobile devices to the audience and planned to have each of them explore the prototype on their own for a few minutes before our main pitch presentation. However, some people couldn’t access the prototype, others were confused by elements of the prototype that were not fully functional, and overall they didn’t have enough time to interact with it before we moved on to our pitch. We knew we had to come up with a different way to demo our prototype, but we had to come up with a new idea fast because we only had 48 hours before we were scheduled to give our presentation. We re-wrote the opening of our pitch and filmed a video walk through of the prototype as the demo, hoping that it would be sufficient for our final pitch. Thankfully, we ended up getting funded so it turned into a funny story to look back on rather than a regret, but one of the key takeaways for me was about the importance of being prepared and getting feedback early. We put a ton of work into preparing for this pitch and I’m glad we were able to catch the problem areas and address them before we went into the actual presentation — if we hadn’t, we might not be here today!
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
Absolutely. We were fortunate to have a lot of support from faculty members in our graduate programs when we first developed Real Talk and also other advisors who have helped us navigate the process of building and growing our organization. We were selected for the Fast Forward Accelerator in 2017 and this experience completely shifted our trajectory. Our participation in the program came at a really critical time, just before we launched the first version of our app. We were just at the beginning stages of seeing Real Talk as a social venture (and not just a research project) and the Fast Forward team helped us refine our pitch, prioritize and set goals, and get connected with resources that could help us make this shift successfully. Fast Forward has been an incredible resource and we are still in touch with them.
Without saying specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
One teen we worked with shared that Real Talk helped her when she was struggling with something that made her feel like she was the only one in the world going through it. After reading Real Talk stories, she realized that others had gone through something similar and now she had some tools (based on others’ experiences) for how to get through it. We’ve also heard from many adults that they wish they had something like Real Talk when they were growing up (and I feel the same way!).
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Real Talk is grounded in authentic teen voices and amplifying their unique stories as a way to dismantle the barriers for youth to access resources they need to be healthy. We made a commitment to be guided by youth voices and I believe this is what has made us successful. In that vein, my three recommendations are:
- It is critical for communities and policymakers to listen to young people and include them in decision making processes. This can be incredibly difficult for adults to do, especially because we have been socialized to believe that adults know the answers (we don’t) and that young people are apathetic, aloof, or ignorant to the issues affecting their life (they’re not).
- I challenge those whose work involves youth to reflect on the ways their work does or does not take youth perspectives into consideration when identifying priorities and designing programs and policies. Cultivate the individual and organizational self-awareness necessary to examine the ways in which we are reproducing oppressive dynamic for the youth we work with. I am currently a part of a nationwide coalition that is working to dissect these dynamics within each of our organizations, with an emphasis on centering historically oppressed and intersectional identities so that we can better serve these groups specifically. It is hard work, but also really important for any organization that deals with youth issues.
- Celebrate youth in your life and embrace them as they are. We all were children and adolescents once, and I am sure we can all recall moments where we wished to be seen and accepted just as we were (perhaps this is even still true for us today). We can make that possible for the next generation of young people to radically improve their lives.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of the interview. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each).
The 5 things I wish I knew when I first started as an entrepreneur:
- There are no “right” answers: You will never have all the information you need to make a fully informed decision, so learn to be comfortable with uncertainty and making educated guesses as you learn.
- Don’t compare yourself to others: It is easy to look around you and feel like you are not accomplishing as much as other organizations, but the truth is that each business has different needs and opportunities. Everyone’s journey is unique.
- You will always be learning: Nearly everything you do as a first-time founder or leader will be a brand new experience. Even when you think you’ve got it figured out, you’ll reach a new phase of your business and start all over again. There will always be new challenges and decision to make that will keep stretching you.
- There will never be enough time: You will never have the time or capacity to do all the things you want or can do for your business. Set priorities and boundaries to help you make progress without burning out.
- Stay focused on your mission: Your mission will keep you inspired when things are tough and will help guide you are not sure what the next step should be. Always come back to the impact you want to have on the world.
Video link here: https://youtu.be/9CtYp6okT6U
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?
Everyone has a unique perspective and contribution to make to the world. It is easy to get caught up by comparisons or fear of not knowing the “right” answer, especially if you come from a community that has been historically oppressed. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not true — your talents have a place in the world.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Lizzo, hands down. She is this amazing representation of owning who you are and what you stand for, unapologetically. She is a big inspiration for me — plus I love watching her TikTok videos!
How can our readers follow you online?
Sign up for our newsletter updates at www.realtalkapp.com.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Young Change Makers: Why and How Cristina Leos of Real Talk Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.