Building a Tech Startup: A Journey from Childhood Curiosity to Entrepreneurship with Christine Spang – Techstrong Unplugged EP45

Welcome back to Textron Unplugged. My name is Cassandra Chin, and today we have Christine Spang. Hey, Cassandra, it's nice to meet you.

Can you introduce yourself? Sure. So my name is Christine Spang.

Um, I am the founder and CTO of a company called Nylas. Um, I've been working in tech startups for really been building this company for 11 years at this point, which is a long time. Um, I actually graduated from college in 2010, so I've been sort of building my career for about 15 years at this point.

And, um, uh, I was born in Canada, um, but I grew up in, in the United States of America, in, um, in the state of New York, sort of in the suburbs. Um, and, uh, Uh, that's who I am. So what inspired you to get into technology?

Yeah, so, you know, growing up like my, my family, sort of, I, I feel like I came from a, a family of engineers, um, though, you know, a lot of time growing up I did normal kid stuff. I was just like playing outside climbing trees. My, um, my grandma and grandpa had sort of like a, a farm out in the countryside.

And, um, I have a lot of really happy memories. I used to go there in the summer. Um, and one thing, so this was sort of like a, where my grandparents retired to.

My grandpa was a chemical engineer, but he sort of had this like, um, he, he couldn't stop building stuff. So like on this farm, which was sort of his retirement hobby, he built, uh, barns. I remember like as a kid, like helping, um, helping put up the, the struts for like a new barn.

So like when you do like a barn raising, it's um, you know, they're really big. So it's like 40 feet tall, 50 feet tall, and, um, you like build, um, the sides of the barn and then you sort of like haul them into place and then you like attach them via sort of the spine of the building. And so, um, I remember helping with this, like they, they would let me sort of climb up and like hammer and nails and stuff like that.

And, um, so I feel like I sort of had this culture of building things that was just like a part of my family. Um, and doing like crazy experiments too, like, um, my uncle who, uh, is a software engineer, he, I remember this one time where we decide to see if we, we could build like the biggest possible kite that would still fly. And my, my grandparents had been sort of re insulating the side of their house, so we had all this house wrap and it's made of this material called Tyvek, which is like really strong and it doesn't rip roof easily.

Um, so we like built like a kite frame from wood and used the Tyvek to make like a kite that was like, I don't know, six feet long or something like that. And then, and then we had, um, uh, like, um, uh, a, uh, they had, um, baling twine, like sort of twine that comes in, these big rolls that you'd use for all sorts of things on farm, but specifically for like making hay bales. So we had like a big roll of that, and that's what we used as the kite string.

And so like, we like got the kite flying in the hay field and we were like sort of letting out this, um, the bailing twine and it, it got like way up high. And so we were flying the kite and it was working. Um, and then eventually like some sort of draft came and, uh, we were like pulling in the string and trying to keep the kite up, but the kite crashed, like, I don't know, it must have been like a kilometer away or something like that.

And, um, it crashed over the, the hydro electrical wires. And, uh, I remember, uh, my uncle saying like, you know, we were like going through sort of the, the bushes to go and find the kite, but he's like, don't touch the, the string because if it's wet at all and it's like over the electrical wires, it can conduct electricity. And it's like those, you know, hydro wires are super high voltage, and so could have been like a really dangerous thing with the wire being, or the, the kite being down over the electrical wires.

Um, so those are just like some examples of like, things that were like kind of normal, um, in, in my childhood. And so I really felt like I, I wanted to build things. I wanted to be an engineer.

Um, and uh, how that sort of turned into me going into software was, um, uh, in, must have been in high school. Uh, I I started getting into computer games with my brother and, um, you know, we didn't really have any money, so we were like downloading all these like, old games from the internet and like playing them on my computer. And eventually I started exploring these things called, uh, multi-user domains, which is like if you played like Dungeon and Dungeons and Dragons or like, um, sort of like RP G style games, it's like text-based RPGs that are played online and then like people will go and sort of like build a world and sort of construct the rules for the world too.

And then people log in from all over and sort of make a character and play within that world. Um, so, uh, I was like really into the Lord of the Rings and I started playing, um, on a Lord of the Rings themes, uh, mud is what they call 'em for short. Um, and I got so into this game that I actually started helping build it.

So they had folks, um, and you know, it was all volunteer created. It was just like people in their spare time. And so first I started out by sort of using the in-game tools to like build parts of the world and sort of run storyline plots.

Um, but, uh, eventually I was like really curious. There was like this one guy who was part of the people that, no, there was two guys actually that were part of the people that ran this game who, uh, who could write code. And to me it was like they had like magic powers because they could like change the rules and create new game mechanics and sort of, um, alter things in a way that was much less prefabricated and like any sort of idea that you, you thought up, like it had to go through the people who could code, um, in order to make that into a reality.

So, um, I started being interested in learning to program and um, I started learning to code when I was in high school. And pretty much from then on I was like, I want to be a software engineer. I want to build things from software because, um, it seemed like that was like the people that had the magic powers.

Um, and uh, it really sort of narrowed my focus in terms of like taking my interest in building and math and science and turning that into some what I wanted to do for career. I think gaming's a fun way to like get into coding. Yeah, it's pretty common.

I actually have a, a cousin who, um, went from a just like love of like playing games to like, he started studying like game design and learned to program through that. And then, you know, I think he has a job that's completely unrelated to gaming at this point. But, um, I think games really show the magic and the power and they're really engaging, um, and sort of draws people into the world of what you can do with computers.

That is one of the ways I got into computers. Oh yeah. Gaming like Minecraft.

Okay. Through Minecraft. Yeah.

Any other games or just Minecraft? I think it's mainly Minecraft 'cause it's written in Java. Okay.

There's plugins so you can kind of hack it. Yeah. And right in Minecraft it has like all these sort of in world tools where you can like kind of build stuff in the game, right?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I've heard a lot of good things about that.

Like people like to, I, sorry, I'm like identifying myself as old, but like I have friends who have kids who, who play Minecraft and they think it's great and I love it like a creative platform. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It's not just, it's not just a game. It's like really, uh, a cool thing where you can like build stuff and um, get engaged beyond sort of like going through a preformed storyline. Like for me that was like something that was really important.

I didn't wanna have to like follow this one specific path I wanted to explore. And so I went from like playing games that had more of a defined path, almost like being an interactive movie to like things that are more freeform and that allowed you to like, choose the direction that you wanted to go and, uh, and explore. Yeah, I think that's really unique to coding.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, can you talk a little bit about what you're doing now?

Yeah, so, um, basically what happened from me getting interested in computer programming, um, you know, I I ended up going to college to to study computer science, uh, at, at this school called MIT. Um, and uh, yeah, I was definitely like kind of like a nerd and an outcast in, um, in grade school. Uh, I would say like, I sort of found a crowd of people who are, or sort of like music nerds, uh, played like in band and stuff like that.

Um, but basically the minute I arrived at MITI just like sort of felt like at home, like people were really excited that I worked on open source software in my free time and like published code on the internet. Um, and I guess I had gone from like the building the game to, um, the game ran on this operating system platform called Linux. And then I just sort of followed my curiosity of how does this operating system work that's like, built by people all over the world.

That's pretty cool. Um, so I started contributing to Linux and then, um, I ended up going to college to study computer science. And um, actually through that I ended up sort of by accident in the world of entrepreneurship because, um, some folks that I knew at MIT had started a company and, um, I ended up working for them part-time during college.

And so it wasn't something that I'd rather really like imagined for myself, like going into like, like starting a business. Um, like I think that like a lot of people who identify as like builders sort of feel like allergic to this idea of like business. 'cause there's like, you know, finance and there's like all these, um, people and sort of culture, uh, around corporations that seems like sort of the antithesis of like the ethos of just like building and going and doing stuff yourself.

But, um, discovering startups actually ended up being a really cool thing for me because it allowed you to like bring that builder mindset and then learn how do you like, create an organization that, um, can sort of take what you build and use that to like, uh, help other people do something. Um, and um, so I, I basically joined a startup that was started by some friends of mine from college and I was there for a couple years. Um, and then after that I ended up starting my own company, which is this company called Nylas.

And I've been building and running that company for 11 years at this point. It's been a long time. Do you still do a lot of coding as an entrepreneur?

I used to. Um, I don't right now for sure. Um, my company is like over a hundred people in terms of the number of people who work there and, um, uh, I mean when I started the company I was like two, two or three years outta college really.

Um, I guess it was three years. Um, and so I, I built a lot of the original version of the product, but then we sort of grew and scaled a lot that ended up hiring a whole team. And so, um, honestly, every, everybody on the team who is like in charge of building the product today is like much more experienced than I was when I started the company.

And so I think being an entrepreneur you have to like, learn a lot of different skills and do a lot of different things, but it, it's not really conducive to specializing. Um, so sometimes I write some code to get, get something done, but I also like, um, you know, work with our marketing team to like produce content that will help people discover us and like help translate what does this piece of technology mean for, you know, people who ought to be, you know, using the product. Um, but it's a, it's a developer product, so we actually make a, like a platform that, uh, is sort of tooling for developers.

So, um, I feel like I don't code every day, but it is still like very much like, like a, almost like a, it's a programming related job. It's interesting how you still need coding skills to be an entrepreneur. Yeah.

And like almost everybody at my company, they don't necessarily know how to code, but you have to be familiar enough with technology and programming to be able to talk about how you would use our product and how it relates to, um, to other technology out there because, um, it's something that people use when they're building software. So, uh, you kind of have to be able to talk about it. It's like a foundation.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's like a synonym for the word platform for sure.

Um, I think we've had a really good chat today. Cool. Well thank you Christine.

It was nice getting to know you a little better and telling you about, um, about how I got to where I am. Yeah, I think I learned a lot today just from like your own experiences. Cool.

Thanks for having me on.