Inspirational Women Leaders Of Tech: Angelina Hendricks of Planet DDS On The Five Things You Need To Know In Order To Create A Highly Successful Tech Company
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Expand beyond initial focus group quickly. When you’re a true startup, the company may be two or three people, right? You’re probably talking to family members, friends, and colleagues within your close circle. The key is broadening those conversations quickly and getting input from your initial customers and others in your respective industry as you continue to grow.
As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Women Leaders in Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Angelina Hendricks, Chief Technology Officer, Planet DDS.
Angelina Hendricks is a senior executive with decades of experience in the tech field. Outside of the workplace, Angelina has had a long tenure serving on the board of San Diego’s .NET User Group and volunteers with Connect San Diego. She is also a long-standing member of The San Diego Women’s Foundation. Angelina lives in San Diego with her husband and two children. Angelina has a master’s degree from University of Texas and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?
When I joined Planet DDS as CTO in September 2020, the pandemic was well underway, and like many new hires during that timeframe, it was months — nine to be exact — before I met anyone in person. I’ll never forget my first day. Instead of the typical onboarding activities and introductions to other staff, the day was mostly quiet, especially since most of my colleagues weren’t using Microsoft Teams yet on a regular basis.
However, the silver lining was that the lack of physical meetings and quick “hellos” gave me the opportunity to engage in more intimate interactions. I asked our HR manager for a list of everyone in the company and scheduled a virtual videoconference with each person — about 80 individuals at the time — just to say, “I’m the new CTO, and here’s what I’m going to do here!” It turned out to be such a valuable exercise because I got a wide breadth of exposure and visibility into the activity of every staff member.
As CTO, my role is bridging technology between myself and the rest of the company, and helping employees understand how technical choices impact the business and vice versa. Bridging that gap at a time when everyone was operating in isolation helped improve cross-collaboration and elevate customer experience.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
I remember, in one of my first full-time jobs in tech after college, I worked with a gentleman who called me “girly” and would not listen to me or take my advice. So, I had to ask other male colleagues who were not in tech — like a guy from the shipping and receiving department — to intervene on my behalf. In this case, I asked my male colleague in shipping to repeat the same advice to this gentleman, and only then did he listen. It was such a wake-up call because when I went into college, I thought, “oh, sexism is this thing of the past.”
Also, early in my career, I worked for a startup that failed pretty badly. That was the first time I was ever in a lead role and did hiring and management, and it was hard to see that fail. It was during the dot-com bubble, so we weren’t the only company floundering. But it made me ask myself important questions: Was I going too far when I tried to lead a team and make an idea a reality? Was that a stupid thing to do?
I’m pretty stubborn, though, and I really dislike losing so the experience made me stronger.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
The one that comes to mind is from Maya Angelou: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
And that just comes up everywhere, like during employee reviews. I try to think about how that person will feel when they walk away from that review conversation, because they’re not going to remember the numbers or rating. The key things they’re going to take away is, ‘was it a good review or a bad review?’
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. We’d love to learn a bit about your company. What is the pain point that your company is helping to address?
Planet DDS provides cloud-enabled dental software solutions, and our reach is significant − more than 10,000 practices in North America and more than 60,000 users. Our suite of solutions includes our Denticon Practice Management, Apteryx XVWeb Cloud Imaging, and Legwork Patient Relationship Management.
Everything we design is intended to ease the day-to-day experiences of our customers, who are inundated with a vast amount of data. We’re not just creating a data “sink” where you put your information in and then look it up. We’re creating an information hub that comes with analytics, so users can make sense of their data and use that information to run their practices more efficiently and effectively.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I think we stand out for our ability to stay true to our mission and focus amid rapid company growth — from about 80 to 262 employees over the last two years. We have stayed resolutely client-focused, and we all agree that working together to ensure the success of our customers is the number one priority. I’ve had other experiences in my career where the customer felt like some distant, vague person off in horizon, and going to work felt internally competitive. It was all about making yourself look good no matter what, like some “Game of Thrones” zero sum process of elimination. Not at Planet DDS!
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We’re laying the groundwork for some advanced technologies. We’re definitely exploring the use of AI and machine learning technologies to see if there are places where we can help to provide and improve decision support, to help our customers make decisions easier and faster.
Our goal is not to implement technology just because it’s cool but to figure out how to use it to make things simpler and easier, to offer practical value that enable dentists and dental service organizations to improve efficiencies so they can focus more on patient care.
We’re always evaluating how to use technology to make things simple and allow our dentists and our staff to focus on job no. 1: patient care. We do this by giving them many things, like actionable insights, interactive reports, analytics, and constant support.
Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in more broad terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in tech? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?
Tech still has a long way to go in terms of inclusivity. It’s a lot better today than it used to be when I started working in tech more than two decades ago.
Changing the status quo starts with changing corporate culture — for example, hiring and training practices. Some of the best practices for making it more welcoming for women in tech apply to other groups that are underrepresented as well.
We need to acknowledge that people communicate and interact in different ways. We need workplaces that understand that there are a variety of ways to be a productive contributor, and to accept those.
One way to do this is by carefully considering who you include on your interview panels. For example, if you have a diverse team with various ethnic groups represented, you want to make sure that diversity is represented. If five white guys are interviewing an African American woman, she might think to herself, ‘oh, you know, I’m not going to fit in here.’ So, it’s really helpful to make sure that your interview teams reflects the diversity that that you have, or that you hope to have on your team.
At the organization level, you may have to look a little harder to get a diverse pool of candidates, because there just aren’t as many. So instead of interviewing the first two people that come through the door, maybe you need to interview upwards of 10 candidates.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women in Tech that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts? What would you suggest to address this?
I’m still a minority, both as a technology professional and healthcare leader. Women comprise about 30% of the tech workforce in the U.S. And while there are more women in the healthcare workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fewer than 20% hold key leadership positions.
This means that the further up the executive ladder I climb, the lonelier I am, in a sense.
The closer you get toward management, the more you have to be an advocate for yourself — and for change. I see my position at Planet DDS as an opportunity to highlight some of those efforts to be inclusive and promote diversity in our organization.
What would you advise to another tech leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth or sales and “restart their engines”?
If an organization has found itself at a standstill, it’s time to regroup and reassess. Perhaps the market’s changed, or the company’s lost track of its mission or vision and they’re no longer connecting with their customers or understanding what the market needs. Or maybe the competitive landscape has shifted and the organization needs to segue into new markets and opportunities.
When growth is slow, take a step back and ask: What’s going on, at a broader level? Has your company invested too little in technology that can’t scale effectively as it grows (and accommodate the evolving needs of clients)? Has there been enough investment in hiring the right talent and the right team for your ongoing needs? What areas are experiencing the most — or the least — growth right now?
Take some time to analyze these things and figure out a path forward. Often times, the early mistakes, such as not investing in the right infrastructure to support growth, will become clear.
Based on your experience, can you share 3 or 4 strategies to give your customers the best possible user experience and customer service?
As they grow, businesses need to make sure they’re keeping pace with their customers’ needs. I’d say the three most important strategies are probably:
1. Expand beyond initial focus group quickly. When you’re a true startup, the company may be two or three people, right? You’re probably talking to family members, friends, and colleagues within your close circle. The key is broadening those conversations quickly and getting input from your initial customers and others in your respective industry as you continue to grow.
2. Get into the minds of those who aren’t buying your product and service. Don’t listen to just the people who already drink your Kool Aid. You also really want to talk to people who haven’t bought your product. Maybe they haven’t heard of it, and that’s a marketing issue you need to solve. Maybe they looked at your product, and it didn’t meet their needs for some reason. That is vital feedback to evolving past initial launch. Having a strategy for gathering that true market feedback is vital.
3. Try to really think ahead. You don’t want the problem of building up a repository of technology that won’t work in 10 years or will cost a fortune to maintain. Technology specifications, needs, software, applications — and cybersecurity threats — are always evolving. Try to consider, long term, what you’ll need in five or 10 years’ time so you have a viable path to getting there.
4. Involve more of your team in the decision-making process as you go
As your business grows, it’s easy to forget to connect on a regular basis because you get so involved in building your software, building your team, and even focusing on the finance side. Be purposeful in bringing key stakeholders into the decision-making process, especially as you re-examine the tools and processes you started out with. For example, maybe you need to evolve from QuickBooks to something like NetSuite. Before making that decision, make sure everyone who would use a particular software application or tool is involved.
Here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful tech company? Please share a story or an example for each.
1. Prioritize information management and data storage
Deciding where to keep information doesn’t seem like a priority when you’re starting up: everybody’s just running full tilt, right? No one writes anything down − it’s the nature of a startup. But once a company grows, if you haven’t agreed with your colleagues on where documents and information are kept, you end with this horrible problem of not being able to find anything. Even the simple decision to use Dropbox or SharePoint can be a lifesaver down the road. Understanding where information is and how to communicate information is critical.
2. Don’t Be Afraid of Initial “Tech Debt”
A truism I use all the time is, “tech debt is the sign of a successful startup.” However, many startups don’t invest enough capital in technology up front.
There’s always the issue of having to balance technology optimization with getting to market quickly — and inevitably, decisions will be made to move quickly and push products to market over doing things the right way with the right systems, tools. and infrastructure in place. That’s okay, but recognizing this is key. Once you’re not worried about stuff like making payroll, think about those trade-offs you made, and invest in the right technology that can support future needs.
A lot of companies right now are faced with the challenge of having applications that were designed well for “on premise” or “data center” deployments, and now they want to put these applications up in the cloud. Well, if you just take things that were designed for running on premise and shove them in the cloud, it’s really problematic!
3. Keep an eye on the evolving threat landscape.
It’s never too early to plan for cybersecurity. The threat landscape is becoming increasingly challenging. From my perspective, cyber threats increased in terms of intensity during the height of COVID lockdowns in 2020 just because everybody was at home with nothing better to do than to try and hack into system. Don’t turn your back on these threats just because the pandemic has become more manageable.
4. Develop a strategy for customer input
A startup should have a strategy for how to talk to its client base and get their input on a regular basis. It’s not uncommon for companies to get comfortable and stop listening to their customers. It’s easy to think, ‘we’re totally focused on dentists; we read about the firms who invest in dentists; and we’re experts on their needs.’ But this belief doesn’t necessarily translate. For example, at our company, Planet DDS, we’re experts on dental software, but we’re not actually a dentist or a dental office manager or an executive at a dental service organization. These are our customers, and they have their own unique and evolving needs. We need to hear from them on a regular basis, to listen to their concerns, so we can make sure we can accommodate — or adapt to — their changing needs. We regularly seek feedback from our clients to guide our product roadmap and believe some of our best innovations have come from their valuable feedback.
5. Keep tabs on the technical health of your product.
When you are a startup, your focus is really on the cool features. It’s tempting to ignore some of the technical headaches and just focus on features because that’s exciting — it’s what marketing and sales wants because it’s something the company can create some buzz around. Nobody cares if you updated your internal data access framework from a really old version to a new version. But underlying all the cool features of a product or the actual technical guts of the product, and if you’re not paying attention to those “guts,” you’re going to run into trouble.
Thank you so much for this. This was very inspirational, and we wish you only continued success!
Inspirational Women Leaders Of Tech: Angelina Hendricks of Planet DDS On The Five Things You Need… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.