WWDC2015 Session 112

Transcript

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>> A toy company called
GoldieBlox, to get little girls
to love engineering
as much as I do.
[Music]
>> We went from Kickstarter
to Toys R Us nationwide
in only about six months.
>> GoldieBlox just scored a
free 30-second Super Bowl ad.
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>> GoldieBlox just scored a
free 30-second Super Bowl ad.
>> A [inaudible] Thanksgiving
Day float, are you kidding me?
>> The toy of the decade,
there's no doubt about it.
>> GoldieBlox!
[ Applause ]
>> Hi, everybody.
I'm Debbie Sterling,
and I'm on a mission
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I'm Debbie Sterling,
and I'm on a mission
to get more girls
into engineering.
Yeah!
[ Applause ]
>> So it probably
sounds kind of corny,
but this mission is really
what gets me up every morning.
It's what makes me tick.
This mission has led
me to accomplish things
that I never thought were
possible before, like standing
up here right now onstage
at the most important developers
conference in the world.
Can you believe it?
[ Applause ]
And this moment, this is just
one of many crazy, outrageous,
audacious goals that
I've set for myself,
all in the name of this mission.
So I'm going to share
my story with you today,
and this is really a
story of audacious goals.
When you dare to be
audacious, amazing,
unbelievable things happen,
like a Super Bowl victory,
a legal battle with
the Beastie Boys,
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a legal battle with
the Beastie Boys,
and a trip to the tattoo
parlor, just to name a few.
This GoldieBlox has
been a really wild ride,
and I've had a lot
of hard-earned lessons
along the way.
But I hope that this story
today that I'm sharing
with you will inspire all
of you to be audacious
for the things that
you believe in.
So I'm going to start my
story right at the beginning.
This is me when I
was a little girl.
Come on, you can
say it -- awwwwwww.
So I grew up in a small
town, went to public school,
small-town U.S.A., Lincoln,
Rhode Island, to be exact.
Any Rhode Islanders in here?
Oh, there's like one, yes.
So growing up in
Lincoln, Rhode Island,
I remember when I had
my first big break,
and this was I got accepted
into Stanford University.
And this was a really
huge deal for me.
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No one from my high school
had ever gotten into Stanford.
They announced it on the
loudspeaker, and everyone
in the cafeteria clapped.
It was a huge deal, and
that day my math teacher,
she was my favorite teacher,
pulled me aside and she said,
Debbie, what do you plan
on majoring in at Stanford?
And I said I didn't know.
She said, how about engineering?
I think you would
love engineering.
And I swear to God at that
moment I looked at her
and I pictured an
old man train driver.
[Laughter]
And I really, you know, it's
so funny and it's embarrassing
to admit it, but I really had
no idea what engineering was
and I was too ashamed
of asking her.
So I just kind of shrugged my
shoulders and smiled and said,
sure, Mrs. Verlay,
engineering sounds cool.
So I went off to
Stanford, my freshman year,
and like most typical college
freshman I had no idea what I
wanted to major in.
And her voice stuck in my head,
that you would excel
in engineering.
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So I signed up for
Mechanical Engineering 101,
and to my surprise I really
fell in love with that class.
And so for the first time
in my life I set myself
out with an audacious
goal: be an engineer.
Now most of you in this
room are probably engineers
so this probably doesn't sound
audacious to you whatsoever,
but for me this was
an unexpected path.
Once I got to Stanford, it was
really only a handful of women
in my classes, and only
14 percent of women
in the U.S. are engineers,
so it's a huge problem.
And I felt that.
Being one of the only girls
in my classes, it would tend
to mean that the
professors, when they split us
up into group projects, I'd
be the only girl in the group.
And I could see the
look on the guys' faces
when they got stuck
with the girl.
And in our group
projects, I always felt
like my ideas were ignored.
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like my ideas were ignored.
I felt like I'd compare myself
to the guys in my classes
and they just seemed so
much smarter than me,
like they'd been
programming calculators
since they were three.
Many of you in here
probably did do that.
And I really, I never felt
good enough or that I belonged.
I remember the one day that
I almost gave it up entirely.
I had signed up to take an
engineering drawing class.
It was a class where you
had to try and draw things
in 3D, in perspective.
And this class I
was actually excited
about because I'd always
loved art and I figured,
I'm totally going to ace this,
but when I started getting
into the coursework I
struggled with the material.
For some reason, for the life
of me I couldn't draw in 3D.
I tried really hard, and
I remember our final day
of class we had to put
all of our drawings
up on the wall for critique.
And the TAs went around and
they got up to my drawing
and they looked out to the
room, the entire class,
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and they looked out to the
room, the entire class,
almost all guys, and they
said, raise your hand
if you think Debbie
should pass this class.
And everyone just kind of
stood there, so awkward,
not knowing what to do.
And the teachers asked
again, and I turned beet red.
Everyone is kind of
shuffling their feet,
not knowing what to say.
And, finally, my friend, Micah
got up and he stood up for me,
and he told those TAs that
they were humiliating me
and it was unnecessary.
That it was their job to teach
me, not to make fun of me.
Well, I ran out of that room
and I burst out into tears,
and I'm not much of a crier.
And at that moment I knew
what they were trying to do.
I knew they were trying to
weed me out of the major.
And the worst part was I
felt like I deserved it.
But luckily Micah came to
my side and he told me not
to give up, he told
me to stick with it.
He actually became
an Apple employee,
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He actually became
an Apple employee,
so he's a pretty
smart guy, right?
[ Applause ]
And so I followed his advice
and I did work harder,
harder than I'd ever
worked in my life,
and I earned my engineering
degree.
And on the day that
I graduated ...
[ Applause ]
... it was really the
proudest day of my life
because I had set an
audacious goal for myself
and I had achieved it.
And what made it so
much more meaningful is
that it wasn't easy for me, and
once I hit it, once I climbed
that mountain and I achieved it,
I learned something
about myself.
I learned that I really
was capable all along.
On the day of my graduation,
it was the same day
that Steve Jobs gave his
infamous 2005 commencement
speech, and that speech
really changed my life.
He told us all to never settle,
to keep pushing, to keep going
until you find your
true passion,
until you can follow your heart.
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until you can follow your heart.
And I sat there on
that day deciding:
I'm going to find my passion
and I'm going to follow it,
I just don't really
know what it is.
So I started going out
there trying to find it.
I had a bunch of different jobs.
I traveled the world.
I did volunteer work in India.
I was searching and searching,
I've got to follow my heart,
I just, again, don't
know what that is.
Until finally one day it hit me.
I've got to get more
girls into engineering.
The lack of women in engineering
is a joke, literally.
There are memes about it
all over the Internet,
and everyone here knows, and I
know, that there are millions
of girls out there in the
world who are just like me,
who have it in them but
probably won't get lucky enough
to have a math teacher pull them
aside and encourage them, right?
So I started becoming obsessed
with why there are so few girls
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So I started becoming obsessed
with why there are so few girls
and women in engineering and
what I could do to change that.
I started talking about
it with everyone I could,
and asking them, how did
you get into engineering,
and why are there so
few women and girls?
And I started to hear the same
response over and over again:
you can't fight nature.
Seriously, smart, educated
people would tell me, you know,
there are just biological
differences
between men and women.
And they told me, you know,
men just are naturally inclined
toward building and engineering,
they're just good
at it, you know?
They've got spatial skills,
they're born to be engineers.
Well, this really pissed me off.
[ Applause ]
It did, I mean I got
into engineering,
does that make me a freak
of nature or something?
So this pissed me off
so much I decided to set
out with my next audacious
goal: I'm going to fight nature.
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out with my next audacious
goal: I'm going to fight nature.
You say you can't fight nature,
well, I'm going to fight nature.
And what I started to do was
I wanted to get smart on it.
Is there any validity to
what these people are saying?
I'm going to do my homework.
So I started doing research
and read every study I could
on gender differences.
I wanted to know the
difference between the sexes,
those biological drivers
between men and women.
So I read research articles.
I talked to neuroscientists.
I studied cognitive
development in children.
I met with engineers,
and parents,
and teachers, everybody I could.
And I learned some
really interesting things.
First, I learned that,
yes, there are differences
between men and women.
There are differences
between boys and girls.
For example, I learned if
you give a boy a stick,
he will most likely turn it
into a gun and shoot it at you.
This is true, actually,
my three-year-old
cousin literally did this
to me the other day
with my own toys.
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I also learned that girls
are naturally inclined toward
nurturing, in case they
become a mother someday.
This is why baby dolls
and soft cuddly pets are
so popular with girls.
I learned that in
preschool classrooms,
boys like to compete
mano a mano,
man against man,
winner takes all.
Whereas girls like situations
where everybody works
together toward a common goal,
where everybody wins.
And the way that girls tend to
compete is by excluding others.
It's called cliques,
and I have been
in a few cliques in my life.
And I learned so many
things, but I'll jump ahead
to really I think the
most important study.
It was done recently.
There was a global test.
Around the world they
tested boys and girls
on the same exact science test.
And what the results showed was
that girls actually outperformed
the boys on that test
in most parts of the world,
but not in the U.S. What this
study showed, and many others
that have been done
just like it,
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that have been done
just like it,
is that there's actually no
innate intellectual difference
between boys and girls in
the math and science fields.
What the study suggests is
that the problem isn't nature,
the problem is actually culture.
And from a young age, girls
and boys when they look
at the world they see
engineering as a boys' club.
You've got Handy Manny; Bob the
Builder; Sid the Science Kid;
Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius;
Bill Nye, the Science Guy.
From a young age this
is what kids believe,
these are the builders, right?
And what's even worse is
when you look at the world
through the eyes of a kid
it's very clear that dolls are
for girls and building
is for boys.
Take a walk down the pink
aisle and there's princesses,
Barbie Dolls, fashion, literally
ironing boards today in 2015.
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Barbie Dolls, fashion, literally
ironing boards today in 2015.
It's like we're back in the
1950s, and all the products
and characters for girls
tell girls that beauty
above all is what's important.
Meanwhile, the blue aisle
for boys has the awesome super
heroes and action figures
and brainteasers and
construction sets.
Those things really help
develop an interest in science
and technology, engineering
and math,
develop spatial skills,
tinkering.
So I was in this very pink
aisle four years ago and I felt
like I was in the Twilight Zone.
And at that instant
I just knew in my gut
that this was my
opportunity to change it.
So I came up with an obsession.
I'm going to invent an
engineering toy for girls.
I left the store that
day, filled up a cart
with as many toys as I could
and I decided, all right,
I'm going to start
doing research,
get to the bottom of this.
How can I get girls into
building and construction?
I went around, begged my
friends, please, please,
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I went around, begged my
friends, please, please,
please let me babysit your kids.
They were like, all right.
But I needed even more
kids, people I didn't know.
I was searching and searching,
how do I find kids to test on?
I even posted -- I posted
an ad on Craigslist.
I did. It said free childcare
for girls four to nine.
And I didn't realize it
sounded so creepy, right?
My husband was like, thank
God you're not trying
to start a babysitting
company, what's wrong with you?
And only one person
replied, this French woman,
who I think it got lost in
translation or something.
She must have been
like, America,
the greatest place in the world!
But I actually went to her house
and I babysat her daughter.
And through all of this time
I spent with kids I started
to notice some patterns.
I noticed that boys
would build for the sake
of building all day long.
They would build it
up and smash it down
and do it again and again.
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and do it again and again.
I noticed that the girls
really liked stories
and characters, they
liked narrative.
They didn't just want to
build, but they'd want
to build something
for a purpose, like,
why are we building it and who
is it for, and who is it going
to help, and where is it, and
what's the story behind it?
And so all of this research
kind of led me to an "aha" way
to engage girls in building.
It was a really simple
idea, but I thought,
what if I combined
building with a story?
I came up with this
character that I invented,
named GoldieBlox, and she
would be the girl builder,
a girl engineer.
And she'd go on adventures
and have to solve problems
by building contraptions.
And I thought if girls thought
she was cool and they wanted
to be like her and
do what she does,
then maybe that would
get them to build, too,
and maybe the little machines
that they build can teach
them engineering principles
and help solve problems,
give that context
that girls were looking for.
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that girls were looking for.
So this was my genius idea,
this engineering toy for girls.
And I became so obsessed
with it,
it led me to my next audacious
goal: build a startup.
So at the time when I came
up with this engineering toy
for girls, I was working
at a pretty cushy nine-to-five
job, steady paycheck.
And, in fact, ever
since I was old enough
to work I always had
a job, so the thought
of actually leaving it and
starting out on my own,
it was pretty terrifying.
But it got to the point
where I was so obsessed
with GoldieBlox it was
all I could think about,
all I could talk about,
it got to the point
where it didn't feel
like a choice,
it felt like it was
just what I had to do.
So I decided to give myself one
year, I'm going to go for it.
I have enough money in my bank
account that if by the end
of one year this doesn't work
out, then I can always just go
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of one year this doesn't work
out, then I can always just go
and get another job, right?
And even if I fail at the end
of the year, am I ever going
to be ashamed for telling
people that I tried
to get girls into engineering?
No, so I went for it.
This is a picture of
me on the first day
of starting my dream job on
the floor of my apartment,
and I spent hours and hours.
I had this image in my head.
And I needed to be like the
mad scientist, and I needed
to labor away until I came
up with this brilliant
masterpiece invention.
I was so paranoid that
somebody might steal my idea
that I made anyone who came
anywhere near my prototype sign
an NDA.
I even made my mom sign an NDA.
And I worked and worked on this.
I was drawing pictures of
Goldie, what she might look
like building machines,
using thread spools and clay,
stuff around the house,
the hardware store,
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stuff around the house,
the hardware store,
until finally I had
a working prototype.
And it was the ugliest
thing you have ever seen,
but it worked and I was excited.
And so I finally decided I'm
going to take this prototype
to the New York Toy
Fair and I'm going
to see what the industry
has to say.
So I went to the show with my
prototype and a badge I managed
to finagle, pretty
much snuck in,
and a giant stack
of NDAs, of course.
And started walking
around booth to booth,
talking with everyone I
could, toy store owners,
toy executives, other
toy inventors to try
to get their feedback on what
they thought of my genius idea,
the engineering toy for girls.
Well, the response
was pretty unanimous,
you can't fight nature.
Again, these people, they
told me that girls like dolls
and boys like building,
that a construction toy
for girls won't sell.
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that a construction toy
for girls won't sell.
They actually took me
by the arm and walked me
down the pink aisle
of the trade show
where we had the ironing boards
and the fashion dolls
and the tea sets.
They said this is
what girls want,
girls want to be princesses,
they don't want to be engineers.
They said maybe if you're
lucky you can license your idea
to some little educational
toy reseller
who maybe can convince
a school to put it in,
but starting your own company,
trying to make this
go mainstream,
it's an uphill battle and
you're never going to win it.
So I left the show
pretty dejected
because at this point
I'd quit my job,
I was going off my life's
savings, and I was worried,
what if they're right,
am I crazy?
So after the show was
over, I signed up to go
to this social entrepreneur
conference called
Starting Block.
It was a group of
100 young people
who wanted to change the world.
Now I was feeling pretty
dejected after Toy Fair and,
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Now I was feeling pretty
dejected after Toy Fair and,
honestly, I wasn't
really in the mood to go
and do more networking, but
I had already signed up,
I already paid, so
I went anyway.
And in that session, one
of the first exercises they
had us do was make all of us go
up in front of the entire room
and tell people what
we were working on,
what we were passionate about.
Well, I was still so paranoid I
asked the conference organizers
if I could have all 100
attendees sign an NDA.
And they're like, no, no,
no, that's not possible,
you just get up there and
do it anyway for God's sake.
So I went up in front
of the room
and for the first time ever,
I told the story and the idea
of GoldieBlox publicly,
and the room exploded.
People got to their feet
in standing ovation.
They formed a line around me
and everybody wanted
to be a part of it.
They wanted to know
how they could help.
At that conference I
learned a bunch of things
about entrepreneurship, but
two lessons really stand out.
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about entrepreneurship, but
two lessons really stand out.
The first one that I learned was
this idea called creating your
own luck.
One of the conference organizers
got up and told his story
about how he went
after his dream job.
He knew what organization
he wanted to work at,
but he didn't have
any connections there.
So he started cold emailing,
coming up with every first
and last name combination
he possibly could of someone
at the company, like B.
Smith at company
dot com, Brandon S.
at company dot com, emailing
every combination he could,
got no response.
So he did it again a week later,
every combo he could possibly
think of, no response.
Did it again a week later.
Finally, a woman wrote
him back begging him
to stopmailing everyone, and
she said, fine, I will meet you
at a coffee shop for
an informal interview.
He got the job.
He didn't just sit around
waiting for luck to come to him.
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He didn't just sit around
waiting for luck to come to him.
He went out and got it, even
as shamelessly as he did so.
The next lesson I learned
was about the difference
between being an inventor
and an entrepreneur.
I learned that an inventor
is somebody who holes up,
working on their ideas
all alone in isolation,
trying to perfect
something all by themselves,
but an entrepreneur is somebody
who really puts themselves
out there, tells as
many people as they can
about what they're passionate
about, what they're working on,
and builds a community around
them to be a part of it.
And I realized that all
along I'd been acting
like an inventor, I
was a total hermit,
and that was lonely, too.
And now I had this whole group
of people who believed in me
and believed in GoldieBlox,
who wanted to be a part of it,
and not only that could
actually help make it better.
So from that day forward
my whole view shifted.
After I left the conference,
the people there started showing
up in my apartment every day,
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up in my apartment every day,
and they started
bringing their friends,
and their friends
brought their friends.
And this group of passionate
people gave me the energy
that I needed to
get excited again,
and we started building
prototypes
and encouraging each other.
We even started a blog
where we'd write stories
about what we were
learning and the challenges
that we were facing, and we'd
share it with all our friends
and family and find
more people to help.
And with the help of
this crew of people,
we built GoldieBlox
prototypes and took them all
around the Bay area, into
people's homes and schools,
to Maker Faire to
test it on kids.
It was a process of rapid
prototyping, and the great thing
about it is since we had no
money we didn't get too married
to any one idea, we just
put it out in front of kids
and see what they thought.
We just really wanted to
know what was going to work
with the girls, what
they wanted.
And, finally, after
months and months
of testing we had a product
that I really believed in.
This was our first toy,
it's called GoldieBlox
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This was our first toy,
it's called GoldieBlox
and the Spinning Machine.
In it we have our story, a book
about Goldie and her dog, Nacho,
who is always chasing his tail.
So Goldie decides, I'm
going to spin Nacho.
By using a wheel and an axle,
she builds a spinning machine.
But soon her other animal
friends want to spin, too.
So Goldie invents a belt drive
where she gets everybody
spinning all at once.
This product, you know,
as simple as it sounds,
really did engage
the little girls.
I had girls in tutus pounding
their fists on the table,
we have to have everybody spin!
So it works.
And it was back to all of
the research that I had done,
creating the scenarios
where everybody wins,
engaging with story,
having nurturing,
having pets and characters.
I knew it worked, but the
problem was I knew not a single
toy store was going to buy
it because they didn't think
that girls like building.
Also, I only had $2,000
left in my bank account
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Also, I only had $2,000
left in my bank account
so that was not good
either, and in order
to actually produce
GoldieBlox I needed $150,000
for a first manufacturing run.
So I had to set out with
my next audacious goal,
Kickstart a movement.
I decided if the toy store
owners weren't going to buy it,
I was going to need to
crowdfund it and prove
that there was market demand.
So as everyone knows
with Kickstarter,
in order to crush it you need
an amazing video, and so I got
to work plotting out
the perfect video plan.
First, I convinced a friend
to let me use his
beautiful workshop, you know,
make it seem really cool.
Then I convinced my husband,
who owned a video
production company,
to use all of their best --
I know it's like kind of a
helpful think I know, I know,
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I know it's like kind of a
helpful think I know, I know,
I know -- but convince
him to film this video
with the best equipment,
lighting, camera people.
And I memorized this
perfect script,
the whole thing memorized.
Got my hair done, my makeup,
went out and bought a new dress.
I was all set, ready to
go, and brought in all
of these people to come help.
We filmed the video and
we were right on time,
we were about to
launch the campaign
in a week, everything was set.
And then the film crew sent
me the first cut of the video
and my heart sank, it was
too good, it felt staged,
it just didn't feel like
me, it wasn't genuine.
You see, when I tell people
face to face about my passion
for GoldieBlox, they get it and
they believe it and they want
to be a part of it,
but this video was
so overdone it just wasn't
reading, it didn't feel natural.
And so even though we only had
a couple days left before the
Kickstarter was going to
go live, and even though
X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=MPEGTS:181083,LOCAL:00:00:00.000
Kickstarter was going to
go live, and even though
so many people had
helped me make this video
and I felt really bad, I had
to scrap the whole thing,
I had to reshoot it.
Literally, we had two days left,
on the floor of my apartment.
And in order to get
comfortable enough to be myself
when a video camera was
staring at me six inches away
from my face I had to
drink three-quarters
of a bottle of wine.
[ Applause ]
Actually, I just did that
backstage -- no, just kidding.
But finally after hundreds of
takes, no script, I just spoke
from the heart, and that
was actually the footage
that we used once we cut out
all of the slurring parts.
Next order of business,
we had the video
and now we needed the support.
In true create your
own luck form,
we created this serial
killer-style list of all
of the people that we knew
we had to let them know
X-TIMESTAMP-MAP=MPEGTS:181083,LOCAL:00:00:00.000
of the people that we knew
we had to let them know
about GoldieBlox in hopes
that they would share it --
celebrities, journalists,
people with big audiences,
everyone we could who we thought
could help get the word out.
And then we started mapping
them, who are these people,
how can we get to them?
Does someone know
someone who knows someone
who can get to Hillary Clinton?
And we maniacally
schemed and plotted.
One of the people on this
list was Tim Schafer,
and I'll just tell the story
of how I got a hold of him.
He was one of many
examples of the people
who we relentlessly stalked.
So after stalking Tim I found --
and Tim, for those of
you who don't know,
legendary videogame designer
and Kickstarter celebrity.
After stalking him, I found
out that we used the same bank,
so I emailed my banker and
sat down with him for a cup
of coffee and kind of just
sort of brought it up,
and he was like, oh,
you should meet Tim.
I'm like, yes, yes,
I'd love to meet Tim.
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I'm like, yes, yes,
I'd love to meet Tim.
And before I knew it,
I'm hanging out at the
office of Double Fine.
And it turns out Tim had a
daughter, and he was interested
in what we were doing.
So I made the ask, I said,
Tim, would you be willing
to let me film you playing
GoldieBlox with your daughter?
And he said, sure.
So we got them together, filmed
them playing for the first time,
and it was really magical
because she loved it and it was
so cute seeing them
play it together.
It was really a genuine
moment, and we actually put it
in our video as a cameo.
And the day that the Kickstarter
went live, it exploded.
First, Tim Schafer tweeted it to
his 90,000 Kickstarter backers.
Then, as it turned out,
reporters from TechCrunch
and The Atlantic had been
reading my blog the whole time,
and so when our campaign
went live they wrote articles
about it.
Our goal of raising $150,000,
we reached it in only four days.
A friend of mine who
works at Facebook sent it
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A friend of mine who
works at Facebook sent it
to Sheryl Sandberg, and
she became a backer.
My aunt knew someone who knew
someone, who knew Craig Newmark
of Craigslist, he backed
it and he tweeted it.
So it just totally exploded,
and the craziest thing is
that Upworthy posted the video,
and it went so viral
online we ended
up selling almost
a million dollars
of GoldieBlox in preorders.
It was overwhelming,
to say the least.
[ Applause ]
And I finally had
money in the bank.
I made my first hire, Lindsey,
she left her job, took the leap,
came onboard, and the next day
we got an email from Toys R Us,
which led us to our
next audacious goal:
disrupt the pink aisle.
So Toys R Us calls
and they said,
we'd like to meet with you.
So Lindsey and I get on a plane
and we fly to Wayne, New Jersey,
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and we get into the meeting
with these Toys R Us
executives, these men in suits.
And in part of the Kickstarter
video, I was skulking
through the pink aisle holding
up a picture of GoldieBlox next
to Barbie, it was
obviously like at Toys R Us.
And the Toys R Us guys were
like, so what's up with
that part in your video
where you're making
us look really bad?
I'm like, sorry.
And it turned out that the
head construction toy buyer
at Toys R Us had two daughters,
and he said, you know,
GoldieBlox is the
kind of product
that I want for my girls.
And sure enough, six months
later we're on the shelves
of Toys R Us nationwide.
I remember going in there
and looking at our products
on the shelf for the first
time, and I had tears in my eyes
because we had set this
audacious goal, yes,
we'll be in Toys R Us, and
never thought it would happen
so quickly, that all of
that hard work and passion
and belief could
actually happen.
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But at the same time
it was pretty rough,
we started to get sales reports
in, and just because you're
in Toys R Us nationwide
doesn't mean
that people are necessarily
going to buy it.
And it wasn't looking good,
the toys weren't selling.
So we asked the Toys R Us
team, you know, what can we do,
how do we get more
people to buy GoldieBlox?
And they said, well, most brands
in our store will do national
TV advertising for a minimum
of a $2 million buy, you know,
you might be able
to move the needle.
Two million dollars?
That was definitely
not an option, right?
But we did have 5,000
Kickstarter backers
and we had my husband, Beau,
who knew how to make a video.
So we decided we've got to
make our own commercial.
And maybe we can't put it
on TV, but you know what,
we can put it up on YouTube.
So we're going to disrupt
the pink aisle ourselves.
We reached out to all of our
Kickstarter backers and we came
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We reached out to all of our
Kickstarter backers and we came
up with this idea, let's shoot
a video having girls rampaging
through the pink
aisle at Toys R Us,
singing "We Are The Champions,"
like this is awesome.
So we called up our Kickstarter
backers, and we said meet us
in the parking lot of Toys
R Us, we've got an idea.
So about 50 kids and
their parents showed
up at the Toys R Us parking
lot in the blazing heat.
And, by the way, we didn't
exactly have permission
from Toys R Us to do this, so
we were just trying to lay low,
which definitely didn't happen
because within minutes the
security vehicles started
circling us.
And I'm like, oh, my God, we're
totally going to get arrested,
we're going to get busted,
and these parents are going
to be like, who are you people?
And then the manager of Toys R
Us comes out with his clipboard,
and now I know we're doomed.
And he looks at me, he's
like, who is in charge here?
Like, what's going on?
And I said, well, we're the
Ada Lovelace Girls Club,
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And I said, well, we're the
Ada Lovelace Girls Club,
and we're on a field trip
to our favorite place
in the world, Toys R Us.
Smiling. He kind of looks at me,
raises and eyebrow,
silence passes.
He says, why didn't you
tell me you were coming?
I don't know if we
have enough gift bags.
Turns around, runs back into
the store, comes back out,
there's a guy dressed up
as Geoffrey the Giraffe.
We bring all the girls in, they
announce on the loudspeaker,
welcome, the Ada
Lovelace Girls Club!
And we set up our camera,
we get the girls running
down the aisle, we get the shot,
and then we run out of there
as fast as we possibly can.
[ Applause ]
We post the video on
YouTube, and it went viral.
Forbes picked it up
with the headline,
GoldieBlox Wins Toys R Us and
Quests to Redecorate Pink Aisle
with Engineering Kits for Girls.
And Toys R Us, they were a
little annoyed at us at first,
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And Toys R Us, they were a
little annoyed at us at first,
but they saw what a great story
it was and they got behind it
and they shared it
with their customers.
And before we knew it, finally
our toys started to sell.
So this little video thing
was working out for us,
so much so in fact that my
husband, Beau, actually left,
sold his video company
to come to GoldieBlox
and take his video-making
powers and use them for good.
And we decided, okay, what's
our next video going to be,
we've got to come up
with a video that's going
to make engineering
so cool for girls.
So over a lunch of margaritas
we started brainstorming,
and we came up with this idea.
So we were all big fans
of the OK Go Rube
Goldberg-machine music video,
we're like Rube Goldberg
machine,
that makes engineering
cool, right?
But how will we make
it cool for girls?
So we came up with making
a Rube Goldberg machine
out of entirely stereotypical,
sexist, pink-aisle toys.
And then we thought,
what if we set the video
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And then we thought,
what if we set the video
to the Beastie Boys
song "Girls,"
but we flipped the lyrics,
so instead of "girls
to do the laundry," it could be
"girls to build the spaceship"
or "girls to code the new app."
Well, we were so excited
about this idea after the end
of the lunch we were all high
fiving, we were like, yes,
this is the best idea ever.
And then the crazy thing
is we actually did it,
so we created our own luck
and we started serial
killer-style stalking
to find one of the engineers
from the OK Go music video.
And we actually found one,
we told him about it,
and he was pumped.
He said, yes, let's do it.
We rented a house, an
Airbnb in Pasadena,
we actually removed all of
the furniture from the house
so that we could build a
giant princess machine.
Going through every room of
the house, out by the pool,
in the garage, out the backdoor.
We got three of our original
Kickstarter girls to star
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We got three of our original
Kickstarter girls to star
in the video, which started with
them watching this ultra-sappy,
girlie commercial on
TV, not looking amused,
so then they deploy the
Rube Goldberg machine.
And it winds its way
all through the house
until finally coming back
in through the living room,
hitting a frying pan,
going straight at the TV,
turning the channel
to GoldieBlox.
We posted the video online,
and within a week it had
over 12 million views.
It was on the Today Show,
Good Morning America,
Ellen is tweeting it, Chelsea
Clinton is tweeting it,
everyone is going insane.
It was unbelievable
until we found
out that the Beastie Boys were
not very amused with this video.
And we went from literally the
highest of highs to the lowest
of lows in an instant
and ended up having
to face a really public lawsuit.
We worked as hard as we could
to settle it, which we did,
but in that low, low time we
had to keep pushing forward.
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but in that low, low time we
had to keep pushing forward.
What's next?
How do we keep disrupting
the pink aisle,
staying on our mission,
and making engineering
cool for girls?
And then the opportunity
of a lifetime came.
We found out that Intuit
was running a program
where one small business
could win a free Super
Bowl commercial.
And I couldn't help but think,
all of those old dinosaur
toy people who said
that GoldieBlox would never go
mainstream, this was our chance,
and this was our fate, right?
I knew we deserved to win,
so our whole company got
onboard, all 12 of us.
We made it our number
one company priority,
and every single day we begged
our fans, we posted pictures --
Vote for GoldieBlox,
Vote for GoldieBlox.
And the amazing thing was
that when we went at it
and we reached out to people,
just like we had done back
in the days of Kickstarter,
people voted and they shared.
And we actually ended
up winning.
So last year in the Super Bowl,
which is traditionally one
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So last year in the Super Bowl,
which is traditionally one
of the most sexist,
male-dominated ad slots
in the world, we had a pack
of girls grabbing
their pink-aisle toys,
racing into a park where
they built them into a rocket
and shot them into outer space.
[ Applause ]
Well, we were on
top of the world,
but then my biggest
fear became a reality.
We had a problem
with the product.
We were making the toys
so fast to meet the demand
of all the viral videos and
the Super Bowl commercial
that we started facing
quality issues, and the holes
in our blocks were a
little bit too loose,
like 0.0001 millimeters
too loose.
And even though that
sounds really small,
it had catastrophic results
because what happened was
that girls would get frustrated
and they wouldn't want to build,
even though they were excited.
And so we had to set
another audacious goal:
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And so we had to set
another audacious goal:
replace every single block.
We decided we've got
to tackle this head-on.
It was easy to fix the blocks,
we began to do this right away,
that wasn't the issue.
It was that there were hundreds
of thousands of these blocks
out in the market, and how
were we going to convince girls
to give us a second try?
So we decided to reach out
to every single customer
that we possibly
could and tell them
that we would send them
new blocks for free.
We made a huge investment.
We didn't have to do it.
It wasn't a product recall.
But it was the right
thing to do.
And then we took
it a step further.
We got the name of every
single kid who had bought it
and wrote them a
personalized letter
from Goldie explaining
the engineering lesson
of how we fixed the block,
that we turned the holes
from a circle shape
into an octogon.
[ Applause ]
And it worked.
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The girls thought
Goldie was a real person,
and they sent us letters
back, thanking her
for inspiring them
to become inventors.
So after all this blocks
debacle we were like, gosh,
making hardware is really hard,
and maybe we could reach
more girls digitally,
wouldn't that be great?
And so we came up with
a new audacious plan:
we're going to create
an app and we're going
to use our great stories
and engineering lessons
and scale this digitally,
reach even more girls faster.
And we can't just make any app,
we've got to put an
audacious goal around it.
So we're going to make an app
that gets featured by Apple.
So we made our first hire
on the mobile space, Kyle.
[ Applause ]
Hi, Kyle. Making an app was
not easy, let me tell you.
What started as an ebook
turned into a monster.
We had feature creep,
is what they call it.
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We had feature creep,
is what they call it.
But Kyle was not going to
give up, he's like we're going
to get this featured
by Apple, I promise,
and if we do I will
get a tattoo.
So to make a very long story
short, including a drive
to Cupertino, where we had to
activate wireless tethering
for Kyle's cell phone so that
he could download the build
and code it in the car,
demoing it to Apple,
and none of us could
believe it actually worked.
We launched this thing,
and multiple hotfixes later
we got featured by Apple
and Kyle got his tattoo.
[ Applause ]
And so now without further
ado, I'm going to walk you
through this product that
sent us to the tattoo parlor,
and it's our first product
so I'm really proud of --
it's called GoldieBlox
and the Movie Machine,
and it blends digital
and physical and story.
And so as we learned
with all of our research,
the way to really engage
girls really starts
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the way to really engage
girls really starts
with a great story.
So in our story we
start with Goldie.
She's not a princess and she's
not really a genius either,
but she's an inventor
who loves building even
if she gets it wrong
half the time.
So one day Goldie finds out that
the Bloxtown Film Festival is
cancelled because the
projector is broken.
So her and her friends decide,
we're going to save the
festival with an invention.
After hours of brainstorming,
Goldie comes up with the idea
to build a zoetrope,
it's the first pre-cinema
animation device.
Using the engineering
and persistence
of vision science principles,
Goldie and her friends
build a machine
that creates a moving picture.
Once the machine actually
works, Goldie's friends kind
of realize, hey, there,
Goldie, there's a problem,
this movie is only
a second long.
Another typical Goldie invention
flop, but Goldie sees this
as a golden opportunity.
Why don't we create the first
ever one-second Film Festival
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Why don't we create the first
ever one-second Film Festival
and we'll make a million movies?
And this is how we open up the
world of engineering to kids.
With our construction set
kids can build a real working
zoetrope with our pieces.
The pieces are inspired by
common household objects,
stuff from the hardware store,
the arts and crafts section.
What helps with making
these pieces feel
like common household
objects is it makes kids start
to see the world
as their toolbox,
that they can really
invent anything.
But then what really
brings the experience
to life is our mobile app,
with drawing tools, stamps,
stop motion photography
and backgrounds,
kids can make their
own movies digitally,
and then they can air print
them if they want to play
in their actual zoetrope
movie machine device,
they can email them,
they can text them,
or they can even send
it to the Apple Watch.
[ Applause ]
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And there, Mom and Dad can give
them a star for a job well done.
What's so cool is to see
what this app has inspired,
you never can guess what
kids are going to make,
and it's pretty extraordinary.
Actually, kids have made
over a million movies
in this app that we launched.
And it's so rewarding to see
how girls can get excited
to invent things and build
cool stuff, and it's awesome
to be a part of that
and give them the tools
and encouragement to do that.
So where do we go next?
How do you go from here?
We've hit a lot of
audacious goals, right?
Well, the thing about having
audacious goals is once you hit
one and you know it's possible,
you set out a bigger one
and an even bigger one.
And that's certainly
what my team is doing.
We've got a ton of audacious
goals that we want to hit next.
Now we probably won't hit all
of these, but we're never going
to stop shooting for the
moon, like, literally,
first doll on the moon is
actually one of our goals.
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first doll on the moon is
actually one of our goals.
And how can we be so audacious?
Well, it's because at the end of
the day, the mission is greater
than our company, and I
never feel embarrassed going
and asking somebody for help
or asking somebody to be a part
of it because it's
bigger than all of us.
We really believe in it,
and I'm reminded every day
that it's working because
every day we see evidence
of girls getting
inspired by GoldieBlox.
Recently I got a letter from
a mom, she was telling me
that her daughter was not
excited to go to science camp,
that every morning her
daughter would whine and whine
and she'd have to
drag her to camp.
Her daughter didn't want to go
because the camp
was almost all boys.
And then her mom bought her
GoldieBlox and they played it
over the weekend
together, they had a blast.
On Monday they were
getting ready to go to camp,
and her daughter wasn't
having her usual crying fit.
And her Mom asked her what's
going on with you, you know,
what's going on, and why aren't
you nervous about camp anymore?
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what's going on, and why aren't
you nervous about camp anymore?
And her daughter said, oh, Mom,
I'm not nervous about camp,
I've got GoldieBlox,
I'm all set.
And I know it sounds like
I'm making this story up,
but I'm actually not,
like, this really happened.
And it's amazing because with
GoldieBlox we're starting
to give these girls
a role model,
somebody who they can
see themselves being.
And we're not just teaching
them some engineering lessons,
but we're actually
giving them confidence.
And that's what we,
all of us here,
have the opportunity to do.
We can help kids shape the
way that they see the world,
whether it's the
products that we build
or just the things
that we say to kids.
I mean think about it, every
time you see a little girl
and you tell her that
she looks beautiful,
imagine what a difference
it would make
if you said she looks capable?
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Or every time you're
making a game or a movie
and you're choosing a hero and
you automatically make it a boy,
what if you made it
a girl, you know?
Sometimes we propagate
gender stereotypes
and we don't even realize
it, but the cool thing is
that we have the
opportunity to change that.
There's no pink or blue
aisle in the App Store,
and we get to put stuff
out there that, you know,
kids are so impressionable,
we can put stuff
out there that's going to
make them see the world
in a whole new way.
And if we do that, and if you
all join me on this mission,
we can achieve my last and
final audacious goal --
that sometime in our
own lifetime 50 percent
of WWDC is women.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]