Company Spotlight — Tilt
By: Aratrika Rath
Funding: Raising seed round
Location: Fort Collins, CO
Founded in 2018, TiLT partners with companies to manage parental leave in a proactive and respectful way. Currently risk, bias, and fear are all a big part of taking maternity and paternity leave. We’re working to change that!
What problem is your startup solving?
Today, leave is managed by excel documents, google sheets, and email exchange. The risk to organizations for not storing FMLA paperwork properly, having ill-educated managers, and fearful employees navigate the leave process on their own results in massive talent attrition, litigation risk, disengagement, bias risk, and administrative inefficiencies. TiLT streamlines the entire process, guiding & supporting all stakeholders, and bringing the human back to leave.
Where do you see the company in the near term and long term?
We are building this company for enterprise and international application. Leave around the world is inconsistent, biased and mismanaged, regardless of company or government policies. We are starting by targeting companies who operate in the 8 US states that have passed paid leave legislation and are scaling quickly from there.
VC, Angel or Bootstrap? And why?
Bootstrapped for the 1st 2 years of R&D, MVP and beta tests. We closed a small angel round in 2019 and are now speaking with pattern breaking, progressive and incredible VCs and we raise our seed round.
Your proudest achievement so far?
Taking the leap! Knowing that the current state was broken and deciding to do something about it. This has been one of the hardest things I have ever done and without the support of my family, friends and the unbelievable team that we’ve created, this would still be just an idea typed out on a Google doc.
The biggest mistake you have made so far?
Asking for too much advice and not trusting myself. As a first-time entrepreneur, I became a voracious learner. I soaked up every piece of information I could, read every article, listened to every podcast and talked to every person who would let me buy them coffee for advice. While there were nuggets of brilliance, I needed to start trusting my instincts and experience sooner. Trust me, I still need advice and mentors but I’m much more discerning and specific in what I want input on.
Which one thing do you wish you’d done differently?
Hired a sales executive sooner.
Who are your role models or mentors?
My mom for showing me how to be a strong and independent woman, my husband for always betting on me, my former boss, Noel, for showing me what true leadership looked like and my kids for being my unending cheerleaders and inspiration.
When you’re considering partnering with another person or business, what factors are deal-breakers for you?
We just recently had this happen. We were talking to a CHRO on a sales call and she specifically stated that she didn’t want her managers involved in their employees leaves at all. That kind of fundamental misalignment in what a company needs to provide in terms of support and involvement when life happens is exactly the kind of leadership we aren’t interested in partnering with.
How do you keep your employees (or team members) keen and motivated?
I’m a big believer in putting the work in early and often to truly know what motivates and brings joy to your team. If a leader can tap into that intrinsic motivation, then it’s all about creating an environment where people can excel- stand back and let them fly!
What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to other women entrepreneurs just starting out?
Know your ‘why’ in your bones. If you don’t have a burning drive every single day you wake up, this entrepreneurial journey will eat you alive.
I spent 15 years as a leader in corporate America. I saw talented, driven employees hit serious slowdowns in their careers when they started a family. Again and again, we lost some of our best employees around the time of their parental leave.
Those employees would not have walked away if we had created a smooth leave process and supportive environment.
As a professional mom with 2 small children, I experienced career stagnation myself. My employers assumed I didn’t want to put in 110% anymore. I was left out of critical conversations and skipped over for ambitious projects.
As we’ve worked with employers, we find that miscommunication, reactive behavior, biases, and assumptions are at the root of 99% of the issues. All of which can be prevented. That’s why we built TiLT. Parents deserve to feel comfortable and confident returning to work after leave. And companies shouldn’t lose top talent because their employees decide to start a family.
We are bringing parental leave into the 21st century. Join us!
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