ND Connect: Neurodivergent Mentorship and Friendship with Eliana Bravos and Jacob Estep

Welcome back to Autistic Techie.

In today's episode, I'm super excited because we get to be joined by not one, but two really incredible guests also from the neurodiversity startup industry.

Eliana Bravos and Jacob Estep are the co-founders of ND Connect, a mentorship and friendship platform for neurodivergent people everywhere.

ND Connect is an intersectional mentorship and peer connections platform by and for the neurodivergent community.

On ND Connect, you can find mentors, friends, and an authentic supportive community that gets you and wants you to help you thrive.

You can also access weekly hangouts and sessions that help you build genuine connections that can last a lifetime.

ND Connect makes it easy to connect with people who just get you because no neurodivergent person should ever feel like they need to do it alone.

Jacob and Eliana, welcome to Autistic Techie.

Thanks for having us, Shea.

It's nice to be here.

It's nice to see your wonderful face again.

Thank you again for all the help you've given us through our ND Connect journey.

I know you're one of our community members too, so it's always nice to see you around.

Of course, I myself have been following ND Connect for a long time and have been a big proponent of better friendship, better connections, better relationships for

neurodivergent people.

It's one of the biggest things I think about.

what do you wish you'd had when you were younger?

More autistic friends and people who I could empathize with.

So first question I want to ask you, ask the two of you, how did ND Connect

come into existence?

my gosh, I feel like we have a sort of chaotic origin story, but you know, we've all come to this work with our own lived experiences as neurodivergent people and kind of

navigating different spaces and speaking to lot of different neurodivergent community members.

And I think that we all have kind of different things that have drawn us to working on this shared mission together.

But from my perspective,

Yeah, I have ADHD and some mental health disabilities and in university, I was having a really hard time as many neurodivergent people do.

You know, it's you get from high school, you go to university and then suddenly all the structure in your life has changed.

And like there's so many more executive functioning demands and you're like, oh shoot, how do you even like live in this environment?

Like what's going on?

Why were things easy?

Why are things maybe not so easy at all anymore?

And so that was definitely my experience and

I also felt like really alone and really hopeless because I didn't know other neurodivergent people.

I know that there's a planet of 8 billion people, but when you're in it and you feel alone, it feels like you're the only person that's going through that kind of stuff, even

though in retrospect it might sound a little bit silly.

But I ended up connecting with a mentor that also happens to have ADHD and it was completely by accident.

Like I just got really lucky and we didn't even know it at the time.

We just kind of instantly clicked and I was like, whoa.

All the advice you're giving me is kind of scarily helpful and it feels like you actually get it and it feels like you're inside my head What the heck, you know, and so I was

joking and kind of talking to her about that and I told her that I have ADHD and then she also I disclosed that she had ADHD and That was like a really really helpful connection

because she helped teach me systems that works like with my brain instead of against it She'll see me a lot more hope for the future because it was like somebody who was

successful like thriving in my industry who

struggled with some of the same things that I did but who managed to build a career and like a life that worked for them.

You know she had a really cute dog and like you know was like in a happy like partnership and was like you know doing all these cool things and in the fields that I was really

curious about.

And so that was really helpful.

And she also really was able to help like refer me to other people in her network, sponsored me for different career opportunities, and really helped make school feel less

impossible.

And so, you know, I could have done a lot to that person.

I don't know if I would have, you know, graduated from university, let alone done all the cool things I've done since graduating, if it hadn't been for her.

But after graduating, I realized that, you know, yeah, I did get really lucky.

And it's really hard to find those types of connections, those people who understand

who champion you, who make that really meaningful difference in your life.

And for a lot of neurodivergent people, like they don't have those people in their corner.

And, you know, that's, I see that as a huge problem and something that I just wanted to change.

And so I was like, how do we do something about this and take some of the luck out of it and kind of democratize?

peer connections, community, mentorship, for neurodivergent people at all stages of their professional and personal lives, especially for adults.

I feel like there's not a lot for us out there.

think your story and I think everything you're saying really resonates not just with me and the two of you clearly, but with so many Neurodivergent people.

It's a big hump to get over.

I want to make friends, I want to make people, but for Neurodivergent folks that can seem like a really big challenge, whether that is from the executive functioning perspective,

like not being able to do the thing, or a social fear, like I'm afraid of doing the thing or I don't have what I need to do the thing.

And I want to ask Jacob this next question.

How did you then come into ND Connect or what about ND Connect resonated with you?

How did you meet Eliana?

Yeah, so I grew up pretty early diagnosed when I was in elementary school.

I got an Asperger's diagnosis, which was given to me with a lot of like ableism baked in.

It was basically described to me as like, hey, you're autistic, but don't worry about it because you are smart and you don't need anything.

You don't need any support.

And you know, that is not going to set me up for

like honestly understanding my what I need and advocating for that that's just going to teach me that in order to be acceptable I have to not have needs and so that's that's

basically how I lived for a long time of trying to convince myself that I had I had outgrown it I didn't need any support and it led to me in grad school going into a pretty

intense burnout and really struggling to understand

why I felt like I was on the one hand academically doing very well when compared to my peers, but when it came to like career outcomes, there was just not connecting, something

wasn't matching up.

and it took a lot of processing for me of understanding like no this is something that I that I need to understand I need to be okay with me needing things from other people I

need to understand where I'm actually at and not try to just pretend that I can just kind of brute force my way through things Yeah so in

In grad school, I was really struggling to access the resources that were right around me.

They were right in front of me, but I they were all disseminated socially.

Usually the information was not explicit.

It wasn't put in one place.

It was expected for you to just kind of learn by being friends with everybody, and that was not accessible to me at all.

And

Yeah, so when I graduated, I graduated out of a technically focused grad program straight into the big hiring layoffs and hiring freezes.

I graduated December 2022 as a person who went straight from undergrad into grad school.

So I didn't have a lot of like strong internship experience to back me up.

And I was really struggling to find jobs and I was having a hard time accepting that I was struggling with that because I knew that I had done really well in school.

I knew that I had performed well, that my professors really liked me.

and was hard for me to, yeah, connect the dots and just accept that that was happening and I needed some help.

But after a grueling job search, I ended up finding a neurodiversity-focused group on LinkedIn, and I saw that Eliana had a post there with a Google Doc about becoming a

co-founder.

It's so funny because I had a very similar story about how I met Connor and Jilica from Mentra.

They were posting on LinkedIn.

I heard about it from someone else.

like, wow, this sounds really cool.

I reached out to them.

I got involved.

This is also COVID related.

It was 2020.

It was right before everything shut down.

So I had a chance to work on it to kind of balance out the dread that I was feeling at the time.

But this is the thing that I really wanted to tap into about like burning out and forcing something that wasn't there.

What did that process of acknowledging and accepting your own neurodiversity feel like to you?

Yeah, for me it was a lot of panic attacks and a lot of anxiety of stressing out thinking, is this gonna be what the rest of my life looks like?

Is this burnout gonna be, is this just how I am?

Is this just my normal that I have been ignoring?

And it took a while for me to kind of let myself rest first and...

get back to a baseline of figuring out, what my normal even looks like, not what my burnout looks like, but what my normal looks like.

And then...

sit and like assess what I do and don't need based off of that.

It was kind of hard with social media because I felt like I kept seeing a lot of descriptions about autistic people even from autistic people that were very prescriptive

about this is what autism looks like, this is what autistic people need, and it depends on the person a lot.

And so there was a yeah an acceptance process of just like

acknowledging that what works for everybody else and what doesn't work for everybody else is not necessarily going to work or not work for me.

I need to, yeah, get back to my baseline and figure out what I specifically need.

And your needs are valid, like your needs are your needs, and there are some commonalities between autistic people, but also not every autistic person has everything.

A majority might, but not necessarily 100%.

And I think it's hard to say that anything is 100%, especially when it comes to neurodiversity, there's such a broad swath of experiences.

And I'd love to hear from Eliana's experience as well.

think especially when you met that mentor who described her own ADHD.

Yeah.

it was a feeling of validation or empathy or just acknowledging that it was okay to talk about it.

I'd love to hear about that experience from your end.

Yeah, absolutely.

think.

Yeah, so I was somebody who had an early anxiety diagnosis.

And I think people talk a lot about like the in women, the anxiety to ADHD to sometimes like autism diagnosis, like pipeline.

And so I feel like I was at least the first half of that kind of, you know, I always struggled with like panic attacks, anxiety, and you know, the ADHD was always there.

But in school, I would work really hard to try and like ever hide the fact that I was struggling for a long time.

And it was always

always late night, studying last minute, pulling all nighters, but it was okay.

It worked well enough for me in high school.

And then when I came to university, and that's when there was a lot more, being on your own, independent living, executive functioning kind of demands placed on you, and a lot of

competing priorities that you have to plan around.

Maybe you have some courses with two assignments worth 50 % of your mark, and you have to self-pace.

It's a very different environment.

And that's where I was like, what the heck is happening here?

a weight.

Exactly.

And I was really struggling socially in university too, because, you know, in the first year I made friends, but then I also felt like I didn't have the energy to go in and do

things because I felt like if I wasn't studying or, you know, I don't know, trying to cope with school that I just didn't have the mental energy to do it all.

And I went through a really hard burnout as well.

And, you know, that came with like a lot of really negative mental health symptoms.

I felt really depressed.

I struggled with suicidality.

put in my life as well.

And then I initially went for support very begrudgingly because mental health was something that was very stigmatized for me for a lot of my life.

And so I was like, oh, I felt weird accessing the resources.

And I didn't really know what was even out there.

And I felt like I just.

It also felt kind of overwhelming to even think about like how to find help because I already felt like I was drowning, you know, at that point in my life.

So it's like, you know, do I have extra mental energy to go and like figure out like this whole other new system now that I don't know will be effective?

you have the spoons for it.

Right, exactly.

And I wasn't familiar with spoon theory at the time, but yes, exactly.

It was very much like, my gosh, I'm like so burnt out.

I feel like I just don't have like the mental space.

eventually, you know, accounts reached out to me and I did, after speaking to a professor, and I did eventually go in and that's when I was doing like a mental health screening and

they said, wow, you have like a lot of ADHD symptoms.

And they really recommended that, you know, I go see a psychiatrist.

And I was like, really?

I don't know if have ADHD.

Like, I didn't really know what ADHD was properly at that point in time.

But then I did end up going to see a psychiatrist and, you know, eventually got diagnosed.

was like the first meeting and he was like, you definitely have ADHD.

I don't know if you have anything else.

Like, I think you probably do, but you 100 % have ADHD and I'm a specialist and I was like, oh, okay.

And so, you know, I felt kind of like I didn't know what to do with that information.

I felt very alone because I felt like, oh.

I don't know, there's not like anybody else that I knew in my life that like talked openly about that kind of stuff.

you know, university is also like a very competitive environment sometimes, even though I wish it wasn't like that.

Like I went to the university of Perakwa.

And yeah, so that was gonna be really gut there, right?

And so I was just like, my gosh, now there's this whole thing, but I of just like sat with it and continued like to struggle, especially because...

you know, a lot of times I had to go start going to therapy for the first time.

But like, it was like, you know, literally my therapist was like, take a bubble bath.

And I was like, I don't like baths.

Like I have now I recognize a lot of sensory issues around like some of that stuff.

And I was like a bath is like the worst thing I could do for myself right now.

But like, you know, she kept talking about like the concept of like self care.

But I was like, that's even like a more energy and like all I want to do is like not like fail and ruin my whole life when I like, you know, fail my exams at school.

So I think.

I was kind of frustrated because I felt like that wasn't really what I needed at that point in time and it was also a lot around maybe...

evaluating some things that have happened in the past in my life.

I was just like, just want like strategies to like cope right now and to like have my head a little bit more like above the water.

And I felt like there weren't like a lot of resources around that.

And like eventually I did get it connected with accessibility services and accommodations really helped in my university process.

But a big part of that push and support was that mentor that I met who really like encouraged me to do that and helped walk me through the process, because it can be really

obscure, especially if it's something that, know,

when you're overwhelmed navigating systems, getting those accommodations, getting everything in place, a lot of times by the time you realize you need it, you're almost in

like the worst position to actually be getting it.

So yeah, but definitely connecting with her made me feel really validated because she had also struggled with a lot of the same things that I did in her life.

And she was able to figure out systems that just kind of worked and gave her more space in her life.

And then, you know, having some of that like actionable advice, you know, even around small things, like I remember one of the things

was around like organizing systems and like how She was like, you know, if I always struggled to keep like a clean space But one thing that's really helped me is using like

open shelving So instead of just like throwing things into drawers that I can never find later having like like a book

and having it all there.

And now I do that.

And like, I'm not gonna pretend that my room never gets messy, but it makes like a really huge difference.

And that's just like one thing.

you know, she really helped me break down like the process of like writing and, you know, preparing for exams in a way that was like a lot more structured and really supported like

my executive function needs and like modeling, like how to do that in a more like ADHD friendly way.

And so, you know, part of it was like really actionable advice.

And the other part of it was just feeling like I wasn't alone.

And there were other people like me who had been successful.

and are happy.

Because at that point in my life I wasn't very happy and I think, you know, I wish that I more people in my life that could tell me like, you know, you can be happy and like feel

like you're thriving in your life and just because it's this hard now doesn't mean that like it'll always be this way.

I feel like that's like a huge...

you know, part of why community with other people like you really matters, right?

Because then there's like that practical like wisdom sharing and guidance.

And then there's also that feeling of like, hey, I have people in my corner who are there.

And I think when you don't feel like you have those people, everything just feels like so much harder.

yeah, this idea that you mentioned about self-care, like maybe for you, self-care doesn't mean a bubble bath.

Maybe it means reading a book.

Maybe it means going for a walk.

But what one person's idea of self-care, especially for neurodivergent people, that may look unorthodox than for other people.

Someone's idea of self-care might be going for a run, doing a workout, doing something that might look to other people as being not self-care, but could be very

relieving for others.

And I think like at that point she also gave me like, it was like homework where she was like, here, like do like self care tasks and she'd give me a sheet with like things to do.

And I was like, the problem is, yeah, I was like, I'm so overwhelmed right now.

Like the problem is, is that I feel like I'm drawing with school.

Don't give me more things to do.

Like, please.

It'll never get done.

Yeah, I can't do that on top of everything else.

So honestly, what I needed was somebody to sit down and be like, OK, this is everything you need to do.

This is a plan for how to do it.

Let's like break it down and like chunk it into smaller bits and just like, you know, like body double with somebody.

Here's some support just getting started on the thing that you're struggling with.

Like, that's what I needed.

But like therapy was like, yeah, bubble bath or light some candles at that point in time or like, let's just talk.

And I was like, I need to like not talk.

I need to actually do stuff and like get unstuck.

so, you know,

And I think a lot of therapy is really helpful.

But I think in that moment, I feel like I needed some more maybe like help with action.

And that wasn't like I didn't have any resources for that until I started meeting other people with ADHD and like neurodivergent community.

And then we were able to set up some of those structures and like get more of that like practical help.

And that made a big difference.

Speaking of action, I am really curious about the plan and the actions that you have taken to scale ND Connect to where it is today as a startup in a very hot space about

neurodiversity.

What that process has been like, taking it from its infancy to something that is a much bigger organization, a much more widely known app, website than it is today.

So Jacob, what has that process, those actions looked like from your end?

I mean, from my end, I'm our front end engineer.

So I've been building out the app bit by bit.

I Elion has been more on the partnership side.

So we've partnered with a couple of universities with some pilot programs.

We've also gotten some grant funding to help us just keep paying ourselves, keep working on it.

Can I just say, Jacob, don't undersell yourself.

you, like literally like we were just talking about like pricing strategy together for like hours.

like I feel like you do a lot of like, yeah, you're a full co-founder.

Like I know a lot of like your time is spent and then nitty gritty, but like you do like strategy and product vision and like we talk about everything together and like, I don't

know.

Like I feel like you can speak to a lot of that stuff too.

So I just, I just want to say have some confidence because you're great as a co-founder.

And that's huge.

Like, it's awesome to see you two like work together as a team and be a really tight duo.

Like, never underestimate your own power and never undersell yourself either.

Because you are responsible for a lot more things on the technical end than you realize when the compliance and privacy people come calling.

They'll be talking to you and not to Eliana.

Yeah, it's the things it's it's usually just not as salient in the front of my mind because I've got like a million linear tickets Eating away at me at all times

So how do you then organize?

How do the two of you then decide what's most important thing for folks in the platform?

I just want to also say we do have a third co-founder as well who can make it right now named Peter and he does a of our backend and operations stuff.

So he's a very big part of also making this like a smooth sliding operation.

But yeah, Jacob, please go ahead.

Yeah, so we, I mean, we have like daily check-in meetings where we talk about our priorities, but we listen a lot to community member feedback.

We have our weekly community hours and we...

usually have some people hang around afterwards and give us some feedback, but we're always also DMing our community members asking what's important.

Sometimes we'll just post in our community saying like, hey, here's a few things that all seem like they're the same priority to us.

Can you help us understand what might impact you the most?

been to a couple of community hours as well.

People really enjoy that, having that camaraderie, having that sense of empathy from folks they may never have met, and finding friendship, finding mentorship.

Eliana from your end, what has that been like as far as seeing the impact and seeing the effects that it has on people?

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think, you know, it's been very, like, rewarding, but, you know, I think that we're still very early in our journey.

You know, we only formally, like, our incorporation date is July 2023.

And so we're only about just over a year and a half old.

If we really like look down on it, I think the idea came a little bit earlier than that for ND Connect, but it's been, it's been like a lot of like learning and going through

that process.

Um, I'm really proud of the fact that we've made 800 mentorship and peer connections, just over 800 now at this point in time over the last year and a half.

So that feels really good.

And you know, lot of people tell us that they found like their best friend in our community, or they found like a mentor that's given them like a warm introduction and they

were able to get an interview or, you know, that they were able to get, you know, a piece of wisdom or advice that's really changed a part of their life.

And that feels really meaningful.

I know I really benefit from like the mentorship in our community to both as somebody mentoring other people and as kind of like somebody who's in more of like the mentee role

sometimes.

I know

For example, we had a mentorship hour this past weekend with Victoria.

Yeah.

So she was awesome.

So she talked a lot about like, you know, writing and communications and how to tell stories as, you know, an autistic person and kind of her career journey and some of her

tips there.

like her tips have been really helpful for me because it's been something that I've been feeling really stuck about, especially as somebody who's like not a marketer, like not a

business person.

My background is in psychology and peace, health and justice.

And I never thought I would start a business.

I always thought I would do something, you know, like be a speech pathologist or work in the community.

sector or like something like that.

But, you know, I just kind of got obsessed with this problem and then we just kind of just kind of happened and we kept working on it.

And I guess now we are.

But to answer your other question a little bit earlier, too, about our operations and what the process has been of building and scaling it, I think that we've grown a lot as like

people and as founders throughout this journey.

One of the things that's a little bit unique about us is we're actually structured as a cooperative.

And so we're kind of like a social enterprise, not just like a traditional like four

profit corporation, but we're not nonprofit either.

Cooperatives are owned by the key stakeholders.

So we're structured as a multi-stakeholder cooperative with primarily worker control.

And the idea is that our goal is to be owned and operated by the people that...

really need this.

And so there's no, like if an investor comes in, they don't get the control over the direction of the organization.

We never sell to advertisers.

We're very privacy oriented.

We really wanted to create a different type of digital space and structure an organization that would ultimately make us the most legally accountable to the disabled people that

work on our team.

Because we know that a lot of neurodivergent people have had really bad work experiences and we wanted to create a really good place to work.

And we also know that

times neurodivergent people have histories working with organizations, whether in the non-profit or not or for-profit sector, that unfortunately don't meaningfully listen to

their voices.

I've worked in the community sector and seen, you know, advisory boards that are unfortunately sometimes more tokenism than like a real like meaningful engagement.

And so through this model and through kind of our team processes, we really wanted to create a space that makes us ultimately like accountable and really center the people that

matter, which is our neurodivergent people.

That's also why we decided to be primarily

community funded.

So we do, you know, have like a...

membership model that is like sliding scale that offers scholarships and sponsorships.

It starts at like three dollars and something cents a month, three thirty I think a month, so it's pretty accessible.

But even then if that feels out of reach, we give people full scholarships to the community as well.

And it's a really easy process to access those if people need it.

But we really wanted to have like the incentives aligned such that like everything makes us accountable to the neurodivergent people.

at all steps of the process that really needed benefit from this instead of any outside interest because I work in a lot of other organizations where the mission has been, I

don't know.

maybe take it little bit off course because there's been other incentive structures outplay.

And so that's been something that we've felt very blessed by, but also definitely posed some challenges because a lot of times traditional startup funding hasn't been as much of

an accessible avenue for us to navigate.

And so we've had to kind of get creative with some of our solutions, work other jobs while also building this, deal with the burnout from those other jobs.

But I think we're doing pretty well right now and we're just trying to still work

towards making this sustainable for ourselves and for our community long term.

Do you still find yourselves as part of the other startup conversations?

Cuz I still see, you were an event recently for Neurodiversity Celebration Week with Tiffany Jameson, who we both know.

I still see both of you out there in the neurodiversity space, whether it's as a startup or as influencers, as leaders.

How do you think that ND Connect as an entity has already made an impact on this space?

You mentioned 800 people.

That's a lot of people who have gotten mentorship.

What do you think the splash has been?

Yeah, I mean, think a lot of for us, it's not just about the quantity of the number of people reached, also the quality of those connections.

And I think just anecdotally, people have told us again that this has made a really big difference on their lives, that they've grown their professional networks, that they've

met really close friends, that they felt less alone and they've had hope for the first time in a very long time.

We get a lot of people in more rural communities because it's a virtual platform also connecting and being able to find other neurodivergent people.

when they don't know anybody else that's neurodivergent in the place that they live, let alone somebody that's in their industry.

And so, you know, that's felt really impactful on our end.

Also, yeah, people just kind of sharing it.

We get a lot of messages from our members being like, oh my gosh, thank you so much.

This has made such a big difference.

Please keep going.

I know sometimes I question, there's been times where all founders do it.

It's like, oh, are we making a helpful difference here?

And our whole community always shows up and it's like, oh my gosh, you need to keep building.

The community, when I was working another job, I was a little bit more burnt out.

And so I have the amount of energy that I did previously to dedicate to this because I was in my own kind of burnout and our community was

supportive but they're also like quit your job like we need you to be full-time here because this matters so much to us quit your job and then I did quit my job and so you

know that that

has felt really good.

But I think also like kind of beyond that, it has felt good to also be part of like the broader conversations.

I know on like LinkedIn, for example, we get messages being like, I've been seeing your posts and like, I saved this piece of advice, this has made a huge difference for me or

like, oh my gosh, I've never heard anybody else talk about this.

And thank you so much for being open about your experiences.

And so I think that there is a lot of power to about being able to share and talk about some of these topics, both giving like actual advice, talking about our own like

experiences

like a vulnerable, authentic way.

I think that sometimes LinkedIn feels like, I I love, I have a love hate relationship with LinkedIn.

I think I've met some really, really amazing and wonderful and cool people there.

But sometimes also it can feel like people are just building with their personal brands and they can feel like, you know, humble bragging or whatever.

And so I think what's been really nice is to be able to create kind of community spaces where people can show up as their like full authentic, sometimes messy selves and be

vulnerable and ask for help and get

like meaningful help and find like the right people to support that process.

That felt really good.

And that resonates with people.

They see it and they say, this validates me.

ND Connect allows me to be myself and not have to mask.

Jacob, you were talking a little bit before about masking, about trying to move past neurodiversity or not acknowledge it or not address it.

And in your capacity as a co-founder at ND Connect, like...

How do you and how do Eliana and your other co-founder, how do you develop a working space or a working style where you can all do your own thing?

Because I think that's something that I heard from both of you, just like being able to be yourselves.

And Jacob, you mentioned burnout before, and I want to emphasize, like, how do you de-burnout in your current role at ND Connect?

Yeah, think I had seen I had seen something somewhere somebody I forget who it was but somebody had put it well of saying that burnout often comes from having a ton of

responsibility without a lot of agency so you have a lot of expectation without having control about being able to meet those expectations and I think something that we have

done very well is

and learning our strengths and our weaknesses, understanding what we can do and how long that's going to take and being just kind of being very vulnerable with each other.

I think we've also, we have different communication styles and something that has made such a huge difference in the psychological safety, I think, of our team is

being able to understand our different communication styles, understand what each other need from it, what I might misread in other people's tones, what they might misread in my

tone, and to give each other the benefit of a doubt, understanding that we're in this together, we're working on the same thing, we have the same goal, and yeah, the, any...

friction that exists there is usually, yeah, a byproduct of us just having slightly different communication styles, but still wanting the same things.

I think we've also, we've all experienced burnout on our team.

And so we all are very,

patient, I think, and understanding and really want what is best for each other.

So when we need time, we say, I need some time.

And the rest of us say, cool, we will work around that need because we understand that, especially if you're, I don't know, if we're wanting to get the best work out of

ourselves, we need to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves and not just.

burning ourselves out to where we have really low quality work too, low quality output.

But we also just, yeah, we care about each other as people.

And that's something that I hear about often for neurodiversity.

Like you want to give people what they need to be able to succeed.

That doesn't apply just to neurodiverse people.

It applies to everybody.

Like provide folks as a support accommodations and trust they need to get their work done and they'll be great.

But if you hamper their ability to do work, then they'll only be capable of so much as far as pure output, far as efficiency, happiness, mental health.

It's like you're taking a hammer to it.

and I'm sure that that's how it feels.

I was gonna say, startups are hard, right?

Like there's so much that's hard about doing a startup, like the instability that comes with it, everything, but you know, I would not rather work with anybody else on this team,

like ever.

Like I know, I told Jacob and Peter so many times before, but like if I were to start anything else in the future, I would want like these two by my side because I feel like,

as Jacob said, we just do really fundamentally care about each other as people and we care about creating a good place to work for us as well.

And like thinking of fun, right?

Like through all the ups and downs and challenges.

Literally, were visiting me the other week and we were doing every like, we're mostly remote as a team, but every like three, four months we try and meet up for like a week in

person to have like a little like co-founder's retreat.

And it's a really nice way to like kind of do team building and to connect outside of the virtual worlds.

And they were staying with me and our basement flooded with like literal sewage.

Okay, it was disgusting.

We did not have a function toilet for like four days.

or a shower.

And for a lot of people that would have been a terrible thing.

But we all just kind of laughed about it and we like, well, we better get to work.

And we went to the store and then we took selfies with the plungers.

We just really came together as a team and it felt so...

easy to navigate such a terrible situation and like so I was like you know I was like gagging I was like my god I can't do this the jink was like you go upstairs for a bit I've

got this right now and I was like okay okay I think I can do it now now let me take a turn and so it was just you know I think that we've cleaned up a lot of like shit together

literally and figuratively and I think there's nobody else and there's nobody else that I would ever rather clean up

metaphorical or literal shit with again.

I feel very thankful.

But yeah, I think a big part of that is the psychological safety and like, I've never felt so supported by anybody.

And I think part of that is just being able to say like, I know, I like, we'll be like, hey, like this is happening in my personal life right now.

And it's really affecting me right now.

And like, you know, Jake will be like, you know, I'll be like 10 PM, I'll be like, hey, do you want to call and talk about it?

Like, I'm here, like whatever you need, right?

Or it'll be like, you know, don't know, sometimes I struggle with task initiation and I feel like lot of

shame around that.

it's like, you know, I really want to do this thing, but for some reason, my brain's having a hard time getting started on this one task in particular.

And so even though it's not, you know, our role, you know, I'm mostly community building partnerships, James mostly front end UX design and Peter's mostly operations and back end,

you know, all of us are really like flexible and we work together to support each other, kind of regardless of what our like main responsibilities are.

Like I've done like design work with Jacob before.

Jacob's like helped me with community onboarding before.

So it's nice that we can kind of

be like fluid and like move on our team and just support each other with whatever we need.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, and like, you know, it's nice because then all of us have ownership over one domain and more like agency, but we all...

are like one team working towards the same goals.

And, you know, I can always pull either Jacob or Peter to help me with my stuff and they can pull me to help them with their stuff except for coding.

I don't know how to code, you know, for a lot of things.

So yeah, that's really nice.

What do you all both see as being the big next steps or the big next things for ND Connect?

Yeah, so one thing that we've been working on for a little while now and took some technical improvements to build the groundwork for was enabling small curated peer groups

around specific similarities in people.

So I know we've talked about women leaders in tech or I don't know, like a

women people leaders or I don't know if there were other examples that we have.

people applying to grad school, you know, like any, like there are groups of 12 people and we pair you with like 11 other people around like some shared purpose for three months and

then the group meets bi-weekly.

And so it's like a space where you have like a smaller group of like your people that you can connect with and get advice for.

I've gotten emails from somebody who's run those groups as well, I forget his name, but I've seen him on LinkedIn and I've gotten emails about them.

So if you haven't already gotten in touch with him, I definitely will put you in touch with them as in the show.

know that that has happened in the past and it has had success.

And I've been a part of like a leadership and neurodiversity group too.

And I love that and would absolutely attend one.

I was gonna say something that we've found over time that, especially in our community hangouts, having bigger group discussions is great and can get, I don't know, it can meet

a lot of needs for a lot of people, but some people really thrive in smaller, more focused groups, especially when the group has like a specific topic or goal that they're talking

about.

And so connecting those people and helping them

Yeah, just like giving them the framework to talk about a specific thing that's really important and relevant in their life and that brings them all together.

And I think also just like helping people in.

You know, with any connect, one of the things that we've learned throughout our journey is, yeah, of course, a different version, need very different things.

And for some people, for example, they might come onto the platform and have a really easy time reaching out to people, forming those connections, having those one to ones.

And for some people, that might be really intimidating.

Some people might really like asynchronous chat or communication spaces.

Other people might need live events and interaction spaces.

And so when we've been designing, we haven't just been going with the majority approach, but really trying to figure out how do we create

spaces and different options that are really going to meet like a broad variety of needs and let people choose the way to receive mentorship or make genuine connections in a way

that works best for them on their terms.

And so I think just expanding those options and helping people also like initiate relationships is something that we've really been thinking about, like how do we make that

process easier for people and peer groups is part of that.

But we also have some other things kind of on the horizon that we're excited to kind of play around with and see how that can make a difference.

for neurodivergent people too.

I cannot wait to see all the things that y'all are cooking up and I'm just excited and thrilled to hear about it.

If folks want to join ND Connect, if they want to find you, if they want to get in touch and learn more, where can people find ND Connect on the World Wide Web?

Yeah, so right now it is a web app, which is a terrible name for something because everybody thinks we're on the app store.

We're working on that.

But right now, if you go to www.ndconnect.app, it's a website that you can apply to join.

It's a pretty quick application form.

I'd say it takes anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to fill out and then we'll process your application, send you an invite code, and then you can join the community that way.

And you can access it on website or you can download it to your home screen through a

process we'll explain.

And so we're formally on the App Store, but that's kind of where we're at with that.

It's the Progressive Web App.

I know what you're talking about.

Most people don't know what that means outside of tech spaces, so I say I keep making the mistake.

See, I'm not a marketer and now I've learned my hard one lesson of don't call things a web app unless you're on the actual app stores.

So now we say website, but soon, fingers crossed.

Yes, yes.

I empathize with Jacob's plight as far as developing a native app.

This has been an awesome episode.

I will make sure that all of your information are in the show notes for the episode.

Thank you for coming on and for talking about and being able to connect about yourselves and opening up.

I learned so much and just thank you all for being all open and vulnerable.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for having us.

This was a really great conversation and it was a lot of fun.

So I appreciate both of you for that.

Yeah, thank you so much.

It was a lot of fun.