 From Phoenix, Arizona, theCUBE at Catalyst Conference. Here's your host, Jeff Frick. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're in Phoenix, Arizona at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference, about 400 people. Great show, their fourth year in existence. Back in the Bay Area next year, we want to come down and check it out. So, we're really excited to be here. And our next guest, Mercedes DeLuca, the Chief Operating Officer from Basecamp. Welcome. Thank you. Basecamp, everybody knows Basecamp. It's been around for a long time. Absolutely. We use it, and a lot of people use it, just one of those kind of tools that's ubiquitous. It's all over the place. Yeah, we just introduced our Basecamp 3 version, and now it's something we operate the business on. Excellent. So, we're talking a little bit off camera, and about your session, which is really about career pivots. And God, there's probably no place more important to be able to execute a successful career pivot than Silicon Valley. We hear about it often with companies, and usually it's associated when things aren't going so well, that you have to do some type of a business model pivot or design pivot. But from a career perspective, super important. So, what are some of the lessons that you shared here in your talk? Yeah, so one of the things we did was, how do you sort of take the risk out of pivots, and what vectors do you move along? Basically, recommending that people sort of take one vector at a time. I think getting the industry right is really important. When I first started, I had an opportunity to work in financial services or high tech. I chose high tech. And that formed my career. And so I think getting the industry right's important. I think when you want to move to different functions, there's ways to do that inside companies. That's ways to do that when you move to a different company. Yeah, it's interesting that there's so much pressure with kids and young people trying to figure out, what's the right decision? I got to make the right decision. You don't really need to make the right decision. You just need to make a decision and get on your path, right? Exactly. You just want to make that next move. That's really where you want to focus your energy because as long as you're moving toward your strengths, you're beginning to amplify those. It's just about making that next step. And it's really important to talk to other people and verify that what you think you're going to be moving to is actually what's going to be happening. Right. So when you define some of these vectors, what are some of the vectors that are kind of either consistent or adjacent that make some of these moves easier or more successful? So one would be industry vector. So if you want to get out of the industry you're in, but you may still do the same function in that industry, there's the function vector which says I'm in a function of engineering and I want to get into marketing or I'm in project management and I want to do engineering. And then the third has more to do with how you contribute the level you're at, vice president, director, size of company, individual contributor versus line management. So there's a lot of different vectors. There's three basically is how I think about it. And it's just a recommendation of how to think about making the moves. Now we had Jim McCarthy on earlier who was a speaker and he talked about making like the big shift. You have a life changing event and you just decide this is not what I want to do. I want to do something different. How does that play into kind of what you're trying to help people do to make it successful? So I guess you don't just like drop everything and change buildings. You have to kind of work your way over I would imagine. Right. I think the most important thing though is focusing on your strengths. Really figuring out what is it in your career? For me it's been emerging technology, it's been consumer and it's been leadership and culture. So when I look at those things together, it's always making sure that that next step is moving you even closer and closer to that ultimate place. Basecamp is known for its culture. So one of the things that was really important to me in this last move was to make sure that I wound up in a company that really walked the walk. That was important to me. So what tips do you give to people when they're thinking about that? To figure out culture. It's hard to figure out culture. You know, you go through an interview process and you get to meet the person across the table and you do a little investigative work. But a lot of times you don't really know what you got into until you got into it. Yeah. So how do you coach people to try to figure out some of that culture fit? And again, what are the vectors of culture that are the big ones that you should be kind of aligning to? Well, you know, we're lucky today, right? Because there's Twitter and there's Facebook and there's all sorts of social media that allows us to really learn a lot more about the company and the culture. See what the people, check out what the people in the company are saying about the company. In my case, super lucky because both of the founders blog a lot on our signal versus noise, right? They do a lot of writing. And so I almost felt like I knew the culture going into it. They've written books, et cetera. But for companies that haven't written books and haven't blogged, I think you can absolutely get that by also talking to people inside the company and being clear about what you're looking for. I think that's a big part of it. Right. Okay, well, Mercedes, I'll give you the last word. What is your kind of parting tip to people who are looking to make a move or just concerned, oh my gosh, I'm just locked up because I think I have to get it right the first time. Don't let others define you. Short and sweet. I should ask you the bumper sticker question. Give me the bumper sticker for it. Don't let others define you. That's perfect. Well, Mercedes, thanks for taking a few minutes to stop by. Thank you, Jeff. Absolutely. For nice to meet you. So, Jeff Frick here at the Girls in Tech Catalyst Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. You're watching theCUBE. Thanks for watching.