Sujude Dalieh, 25
Founder and CEO, Gajo
Location: Menlo Park
Education: B.S. in physical chemistry from U.C. Berkeley; M.E. in design from Stanford University
Resume: Dalieh found her way in the startup and innovation world through a nontraditional path that included spells at startup incubator Socos Labs and as a consultant at Alchemist Accelerator.
Social media habits: Dalieh mainly uses Instagram to keep her friends and family updated on her personal life. Twitter, on the other hand, is mainly for business. Her key follow? Turner Novak (@TurnerNovak), an investor at early-stage Banana Capital known for both his startup advice as well as his startup memes.
Education has always been a big part of Sujude Dalieh’s life. She grew up tutoring in her hometown in Ohio, taught classes while attending U.C. Berkeley, and worked a side gig as a substitute teacher early in her career.
What she found through those experiences was a pervading sense of anxiety among her students as they tentatively tried and answer the perennial question: What are you going to do with your life?
Because of the lack of resources to explore what a career is really like in depth, Dalieh said many of the students she spoke to turned to influencers or social media figures as “pseudo-mentors” to model themselves after.
Seeing an opportunity to provide a more validated information source, she co-founded Gajo, a career exploration app that combines the social networking aspects of TikTok or Reddit with the job searching aspects of a Glassdoor.
The idea was to create a platform that combined information about work-life balance, pay and benefits, with vetted professionals who could give real insight into the actual (and sometimes messy) career path they took. Among the six-person startup's advisors are top HR executives at companies like JPMorgan Chase who have identified their own challenges in trying to reach a younger generation of talent.
“I think there’s a shift in how young people think about jobs as more lifestyle based, but there’s not a defined path. They’re piecing together that understanding through social media or blogs,” Dalieh said.
The sense of directionlessness and anxiety is a feeling that Dalieh relates to. Although ironically, she would probably be the person many people would look to as a model for a professional career.
“I always tell people not to use me as an example because I honestly think a lot of my story is luck,” she said. “I wouldn't tell someone who is very similar to me to necessarily take my path.”
Of course, that humility is backed by hard work and the ability to see and pursue opportunities when they arise. Her own startup story began as an undergraduate student focusing on the hard sciences before a car accident led her to change her focus and explore new interests in design. That ultimately led to roles in product development and consulting, working on edtech and health care products and eventually getting an entryway into venture capital, including roles at Lux Capital and K50 Ventures.
