GeekPack
Meet SCAPE 2022 Cohort Company, GeekPack. As an “accidental entrepreneur” this power house female founder is on a mission, to reach and empower over 100,000 women and teach them how to code and embrace their Inner Geek.
Q: What’s your name, title, business?
A: Julia Taylor, CEO & Founder of GeekPack®
Q: What does your business do?
A: GeekPack® exists to empower women & girls to change their lives for the better through the power of code, community & confidence. We teach valuable technological & business building skills, provide a supportive and encouraging community, and deliver the confidence to believe that ANY dream is possible to achieve.
Q: Tell us about your entrepreneurial journey.
A: I like to call myself an accidental entrepreneur. My journey started in 2008 and I was on my first deployment in Afghanistan when I fell in love with my now husband. He’s British and was in the military, so we did long distance for a while before I decided to quit my job with the US government and move to the UK to be with him. A few years later, we were married and I found myself a military wife (something I’m super proud of). But, this was not without its sacrifices. As my husband, Neil, was assigned to a different station every 2 years, we were moving all the time which meant my career progression was ZERO. Every time we moved, I had to start all over again in another dead-end 9-5 job. While my personal life was awesome, my professional life was not.
One day in the very last 9-5 job I held, my boss waltzed in and asked me to make a change to the website and walked back out without any further instruction. I’d never touched a line of code in my life! My colleague must have seen the look of panic on my face as they turned to me and said, “Don’t worry, let’s Google it”. So we Googled it, found a snippet of code, added it to the website, saved and refreshed… And it worked! It was like magic and from that moment on, I was hooked.
I spent the next few years teaching myself how to code and looking for a ‘real job’ as a web developer. After 100+ job applications, I was getting nowhere. Until one day, a friend, who was retiring from the military and starting his own business, asked me to build him a website and suggested I build websites for other small business owners. I had no idea this was a ‘thing’ and being my own boss had never crossed my mind… But building that one website led to another, and another, and another, and before I knew it, I was running my own business!
Fast forward to late 2017 when Neil retired from the military. For the first time, we both had nothing to tie us down so we took the chance of a lifetime and decided to buy an RV, sell everything and travel the country. As we traveled all over, people started to ask how we managed this lifestyle. Were we independently wealthy, were parents funding this? When I explained that I was a freelance web developer, they wanted me to show them how they could do the same. So while we were on the road, I created several online courses and started teaching other women (and some awesome men) how to code and build a business they could do from anywhere!
I’ve been teaching women how to code and start their own business since Oct 2018 and I literally feel like the luckiest woman in the world!
Q: What was the most powerful lesson you learned on this journey?
A: The importance of a clear mission and vision. Not only does it guide every decision I make in my business, but it is also a driving force behind all of my team members. They believe in the company’s mission and vision as much as I do.
Q: Why did you apply for the SCAPE Program?
A: My vision for GeekPack is to reach and empower over 100,000 women and teach them how to code and embrace their Inner Geek, specifically with the power of a supportive and encouraging community behind them. In order to reach my vision, I need support and guidance from experts with a lot more experience. Through the SCAPE program I will have access to business resources, expert mentors and investment opportunities in order to take GeekPack to the next level.
Q: What companies inspire you the most (local, national, worldwide)?
A: I love to read business books, especially when they inspire me to be a better leader and a better CEO. A few of my favorite books are ‘Start With Why’, ‘The Ride Of A Lifetime’ and ‘Chief Joy Officer’. As such, companies that inspire me include TOMS Shoes and Chick-fil-a for their dedication to their WHY. I’m also inspired by Disney and Menlo Innovations for their embodied leadership and dedication to their employees.
Q: What do you love most about the Four Corners?
A: Our four seasons and diverse terrain! We never get bored, from the mountains of CO to the red rocks of UT, we live in the most beautiful place in the world. My husband is British and we met in Afghanistan. We’re both incredibly fortunate to have traveled and lived all over the world. In 2018, after my husband retired from the British military, we sold everything and moved into an RV. Our main goal: to find our forever home. As soon as we traveled through Durango, we knew we’d found our forever home.
