In this episode, host Susan Soroko Director of Creative Economy at Arlington Economic Development, explores the vital role of innovation in fostering vibrant communities where people want to live and work. Joined by Natalia Micheletti, co-founder of the Pryze app, they discuss the importance of economic development in retaining and attracting businesses, even amid changing work environments.
The conversation highlights various initiatives like BizLaunch, the significance of placemaking, and the creative economy and arts sector in enhancing community well-being. As Hispanic Heritage Month approaches, the episode also sets the stage for celebrating diverse businesses and events in Arlington, Virginia.
Resources
Pryze App website: https://www.pryzeapp.com/
Press announcement when Pryze App won the Arlington Innovation Fund grant
Arlington Innovation Fund website
The Innovation Economy podcast is brought to you by Arlington Economic Development: https://www.arlingtoneconomicdevelopment.com
The Innovation Economy Website: https://www.innovationeconomy.show
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The Innovation Economy is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company
Transcript
Note: This was AI-generated and only lightly edited.
Susan Soroko: Today, we’re going to talk about the role of innovation in building a great community that people want to live and work in. Hi, I’m Susan Soroko, Director of Creative Economy at Arlington Economic Development in Arlington, Virginia. The role of economic development is typically to retain and attract businesses where workers can live and thrive in a great community even when the work world is changing. We support businesses through programs like BizLaunch, and we value the importance of placemaking, innovation, and a sector devoted to creative economy and the arts. So to help me discuss this topic, I’d like to welcome Natalia Micheletti, co-founder of the Pryze app. Natalia, welcome to the show.
Natalia Micheletti: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.
Susan Soroko: It’s great to be talking with you today. You know, we do all kinds of things to celebrate various companies and businesses and events in Arlington, and we’re coming up to Hispanic Heritage Month. So why don’t we start with you giving a little background on yourself and your role at Pryze?
Natalia Micheletti: Absolutely. Thank you so much. My name is Natalia Micheletti, and I’m one of the co-founders of Pryze. Pryze is a platform that helps businesses with hourly employees increase their productivity, retention, revenue, and employee happiness. And I am a proud first time Latina founder in Virginia. And I’ve just been growing the company in specifically Arlington. So we’re lucky to have felt a lot of the resources and the initiatives that have been coming out. So excited to keep growing here.
Susan Soroko: That’s so awesome. I have a lot of questions, but I’m going to ask you just quickly, where did the name prize come from? Because that, that sounds like there’s some fun involved.
Natalia Micheletti: Yeah, definitely. It was not prize at the beginning. I can tell you that it was a little negative and not as fun, but we give out prizes, right? We give out free stuff to employees and we focus on like happiness and motivation. So price seemed to be the perfect fit.
Susan Soroko: So let’s talk a little bit about Arlington and its commitment to innovation and diversity. Clearly a topic that is really well suited to Hispanic Heritage Month. So tell us a little bit more about, I want to hear your trajectory with PRYZE, not only how you came up with the name. Yeah, absolutely.
Natalia Micheletti: It’s been a long one, definitely. I moved to the Virginia area maybe like 10 years ago. I’m half Puerto Rican and half Honduran, so born and raised in those two places. I moved to Virginia to work and do something cool. And I worked a lot of retail and restaurant jobs. And through that experience, I was able to grow and manage places and work in marketing roles and sales and all this cool stuff that appealed to me. But I didn’t know I liked it until I actually did it. That is where I met my co-founder, who owned a couple of restaurants in the DMV area. And I started working for a cookie shop. And I started to grow a lot and manage a bunch of cookie stores and a bunch of hourly employees and just kind of fall in love with that hustle. But I always had issues with my employees, right? Whether they just didn’t show up to work or maybe they were distracted at work, always on their cell phones instead of working. And I just couldn’t find a cool way to motivate them because I tried yelling at them and writing them up and they would quit. So it would just make a lot more issues for me. That did not work out well. And I tried to kind of brainstorm a way to benefit a business, but also benefit an employee, and how to make people happy and increase the culture in that kind of industry, where there oftentimes isn’t a lot of culture. So that’s kind of how I made prize. It was one of those aha moments, just standing in the restaurant. kind of counting my losses and trying to make something cool and innovative.
Susan Soroko: Well, it sounds like it’s somewhere between being a parent and being a behavioral therapist to be able to figure out ways to motivate people. You know, they say that new businesses are driven by, you know, what problem are you trying to solve? But it sounds like you kind of had a front row seat in observing the problem and, but you had to get savvy in technology because you don’t have a technology background. So how did that all evolve?
Natalia Micheletti: Right. Yes. So I’m a non-technical founder, which means I really don’t know anything about technology, right? I don’t code, don’t develop all that stuff. So that was definitely one of the biggest learning curves because coming from kind of restaurant retail background, I felt like I could almost do anything, right? I can make a business plan. I can deal with financials, hiring, marketing, customer service, right? But then how do I make technology? How do I make a platform? So that required a lot of research, right? And kind of tapping into local resources, but then also the internet and YouTube university, all that good stuff. And we were lucky enough in our kind of startup journey to meet partners that were local to us in Arlington, Virginia, in an accelerator program hosted by Unstuck Labs. And they became kind of our technical partners and mentors and advisors. And they were able to do, right, all the technical work, but then also teach us to do the technical work. Because long term, I have had to learn, you know, what all these words mean, or how do I develop a product? Or how do I even hire for a technical role within my company? And having partners that kind of taught us everything along the way with the Unstuck Labs team has been super crucial to continuing our growth, right, and growing the right way, I think.
Susan Soroko: Wow, it sounds like you had a gigantic learning curve along the way. And, you know, I would love to also hear a little bit more about what your challenges are. I mean, I hear that along this, you had a lot of pitfalls that you could have really confronted along the way. Just tell me a little bit more about what those challenges look like.
Natalia Micheletti: Absolutely. And yes, definitely a big learning curve. I always like to tell people or remind people that I am just a normal person. I didn’t go to Harvard or I don’t have PhDs and things like that. I just try to stay very human in a lot of the things that we do, whether it’s a human problem. I’m sure almost everyone has walked into a business and employees have been on their cell phone instead of working or welcoming you with a smile. And kind of keeping that human aspect has helped a lot, no matter what the curve is, right? Even in sales, I’ve never really sold at a corporate level or an enterprise level, but I do now, right? And staying human to those types of relationships and things like that have helped so much along the way.
Susan Soroko: Well, I can imagine that you had a bunch of challenges, though. I mean, I think I remember when we were talking initially about what are some of the financing challenges and how that really played into how you grew your company.
Natalia Micheletti: Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. From a business perspective, running a restaurant or a franchise is super different than a startup because you, A, need different things, the technology part of it, but also tech is more expensive and I’m having to develop it outside of the organization or I’m having to fundraise to pay salaries and marketing and get out there in the world and really make the prize name known. So I think that definitely fundraising was kind of one of those biggest hurdles at the beginning for us. And unfortunately, I did experience like even a little bit more kind of being a female founder, being a Latina founder as well, are definitely challenges that we saw growing. I think one of the biggest things that we learned is keep going, right? And I know it sounds kind of easy or cliche, right? But it’s kind of true. You would get 100 nos when we were pitching for financing or fundraising with angel investors or VCs, private investment. And it would be that 101 person who would say yes, right? Or kind of going back to that personal connection, that really helped me as well. I would connect with people who I knew Like we were maybe all in Virginia, right? Or maybe we’re from Puerto Rico. Maybe we both like soccer, right? Kind of also trying to stand out from the crowd and prove to them that a female founder, a minority founder can really make a difference and like prove to them that we are what they’re looking for.
Susan Soroko: Well, and you’ve actually also just talked a little bit about, you know, you didn’t start this with either a psychology background or a technology background, and yet you uncovered all of the elements that you needed to learn about and find resources for along the way, which is really pretty impressive. Now, I understand that you’ve explored a lot of the resources that are available in Arlington being here. So what can businesses expect from programs like BizLaunch and Arlington Economic Development?
Natalia Micheletti: Yeah, we definitely tapped into a lot of resources. And I think I’ll even kind of extend it. Our office is in Arlington. That’s where we’re based. So yes, we use a lot of Arlington resources. But even at the beginning, before we were in Arlington, kind of all Virginia resources, right? like SBDC programs and different, I guess it’s kind of like the BizLaunch, right, in a lot of different areas. But number one, access to resources and mentorship that we didn’t have before or we weren’t aware of. That’s a big, huge part of it for us. Networking has been very key, right, because you’re meeting people who are experts in behavior psychology, right, or are experts in technology, things that we’re kind of missing from our puzzle to grow this business and be super successful. That plus I think their willingness to help us as well, that’s one of the main things that we love about Arlington and like the ecosystem that they’re building and kind of this new vibe around innovation that we feel every day being in Arlington. is the fact that everyone is so willing to help and connect and build this community. And I think even a step further, the Latino community is also growing very much in this area, something that I’m very passionate about and I’m trying to build as well. So I can feel kind of from all aspects how they’re really pushing to make it grow as a whole.
Susan Soroko: Yeah, I think I understand also that you were the beneficiary of some funding from the Arlington Innovation Fund.
Natalia Micheletti: Yeah, we recently won a grant from Arlington and part of the innovation fund to kind of A, celebrate the growth that we’ve had so far in Arlington, but B, accelerate our future growth in Arlington. So that kind of came at a super crucial time for us where this innovation grant is allowing us to expand to like corporate clients and enterprise clients that are like 10xing our revenue. And we’re super excited to be here and keep doing that in Arlington with their support.
Susan Soroko: Well, we understand that your work has paid off with some significant contracts and, you know, we’d love to hear more about that because, you know, success is infectious. So tell us what the good news is here.
Natalia Micheletti: Yeah, definitely. I have a lot of good news to update, but some of our kind of key clients here, key growth expansions. We recently signed Paris Baguette nationwide. It’s a huge, huge deal. And we just also signed the largest McDonald’s franchisee in the world. is a pretty big deal for us because they are also based in Latin America and the Caribbean. So I have some chances to travel back home whenever I can to get them on board. But I also like to tell kind of a cool little story here. My very first job in college was at a McDonald’s in Puerto Rico. And I have recently come back as the CEO of Prize, being able to service that very location with some of the managers that helped me grow. And yeah, just come back to that company full circle moment for me.
Susan Soroko: That’s a pretty impressive full circle moment. It’s like the undercover boss. You were there as part of the team, and now you’re there as the CEO of this incredible software. I want to hear a little bit more. Pryze just sounds like it’s full of a lot of fun, and yet it’s a pretty serious application. It’s one that’s really intended to benefit both the company and the employees. I mean, you’ve got a super cute logo, you know, it’s all very playful looking, but it’s a serious thing. So how does that work? And how do businesses really take advantage of that and say, you know, I want to do this, but I don’t want this to look like my employees are playing another game while they’re supposed to be working.
Natalia Micheletti: Yeah, no, definitely. It definitely goes a lot deeper than that, right? But for businesses, they’re liking prize because we can, A, get employees off of their cell phones when they shouldn’t be on them, right? In a positive way, though. That’s kind of where it all comes in, where we’re not scolding them, it’s not punitive, none of that. It’s more motivational. And then businesses also love prize because employees on Pryze accomplish like four times more goals with prize than before. So basically we are adding a culture aspect to like performance tracking and performance leveling up, if you will. So businesses get to set their own goals on prize. And this will be KPIs that they’re currently tracking. So it can be anywhere from sales goals, all the way to wearing the proper uniform, or just showing up to your shift on time. It can be cleanliness goals, all these little aspects that business owners focus on. But maybe every single employee isn’t as focused as they should be on. So we just take that, and we add a little bit of gamification to that. recognition as well. That way on the employee side, that’s where the fun comes in. And it’s like every time they accomplish a goal, you know, they’re getting instant recognition like, Oh my God, you’re amazing. Thanks so much for working here. Here’s your 10 price points for increasing the sales goal by 2%. And then they use their pryze points to cash them out for free stuff provided by prize. So our users on Pryze are winning anything from a coffee at the local coffee shop all the way to $500 Amazon gift card, Airbnb, PlayStations, vacations, almost anything that they want.
Susan Soroko: So you play and then you have fun at the end of it because you’ve been really successful both in your work world and managing to be productive. I can only imagine, gosh, this application sounds like the software is so ready for a lot of other industries besides the hourly wage earners. Have you thought about that? And where are we going to see this next? Because I’m thinking, you know, I would like to see the person who’s at the front of the traffic line who’s distracted on their phone and doesn’t pay attention to the green light have a way to be motivated to move it when they need to.
Natalia Micheletti: Absolutely. Yeah, no, definitely. We are in a couple of different industries now, but We always get kind of a sneak peek from other experts in their area, right? When people are like, oh, you know, we should have this at schools. Make sure the students and the teachers are not distracted when they should be learning and things like that. So definitely a lot of use case applications, I think our main focus on this hourly workforce for now, because we were all hourly workers that prize employees like all come from restaurant or retail backgrounds, which also, again, like that human aspect really helps us connect with our customers. So if your account manager at pryze used to work at restaurants, right, they’re handling restaurants now. If they used to work at a supermarket, they’re handling supermarket accounts now. So I think that aspect really helps to to like customize it even further. But yeah, we definitely are expanding into hospitality, maybe sales incentives, kind of anywhere where we need to combine culture and performance a little bit more and just make the best team that we can make every single day.
Susan Soroko: Well, and it doesn’t look like the app really requires tremendous kinds of training. I mean, just looking through it, it has a very simple, very clean interface, and it doesn’t look as though the employees or the employer really need much training to be able to implement this. Am I reading that right?
Natalia Micheletti: Yeah, totally. It was made that way by design, right? Because they’re already doing a million things at work, right? They have tons of stuff to do every single day, and we did not want to bother that. We’re here for productivity and results. So making it nice and clean, simple, understandable, right? It’s in a lot of different languages. Yeah, just so that everyone can participate and really see the benefits quickly.
Susan Soroko: Well, I’ve heard that you have your own secret sauce when it comes to playing a bigger role in building this sector. I hear about your, and I heard at the beginning, your sense of being committed and very passionate about being part of this community. So tell me a little bit more about how you’re connecting with other people. Absolutely.
Natalia Micheletti: So I think we always kind of would look back at our journey I mean, we’re still in the journey, right? We’re still growing a lot. But every time we sit and think, we think about all the people that helped us kind of along the way, whether it was just with a simple 30-minute conversation or people who would meet with us weekly to, you know, tell us kind of ins and outs of sales or fundraising, anything like that. And that really did make the largest impact on us, not only professionally, right, because we were learning and gathering new resources, but also personally, when you’re trying to grow a business, right, a startup, and it’s hard, and you feel like giving up some days. And then you got all these people around you who are, like, supporting you or kind of helping you get to the next level. So it helps to not give up. And I think that that’s really what we try to do when we think about building community here and just letting people know, like, there are resources out there. There are people out there. There are people like you out there, right, who maybe we are minorities, first-time founders, we have nowhere no idea what to do next or what to do. Just kind of raising my voice in that aspect and making sure that they know, like, you can come here, you can call me, you can email me. And then trying to join groups or be part of initiatives like LATIC and things like that, that would help us unite communities. Because again, I think sometimes people just don’t know that they’re out there or they’re kind of in the funk of doing the same thing every single day. You need kind of that breath of fresh air to help them grow to the next level.
Susan Soroko: Well, you are to be commended for being one of the first people to step into that LaTeX initiative that’s brand new and just evolving out of economic development. I think it’s so important. It’s great to have people like you on board with that. Now, you’ve been tapped to at least be on hand, if not participating fully in the Hispanic Heritage Month. event coming up at Biz Launch, the brunch and business at the Crystal City Hyatt. So I’m going to put a plug in for that so that people will pay attention. We’ll have some information in the show notes about that event coming up on October 24th. I’m just so impressed and excited to hear about your story and how you are making your way and how you’re staying positive and how you’ve managed the challenges and how you’ve done everything. And you’re preparing to expand your family on top of it all. But I certainly want to say thank you for joining the show and ask if you have any parting words.
Natalia Micheletti: Thank you so much. I do appreciate all of that. Thanks. Um, yeah, I would love to share another kind of thing I like to highlight to other people. And it’s like, you know, everyone is, has a thing, right? You’re kind of awesome at something that you do. And many times we don’t think it can translate to the business world, or maybe we don’t make that connection. So I would encourage you to tap into your strengths and then apply that to your business to watch it grow. I always like to mention you know, kind of before prize, before I worked in restaurants, I just played soccer. You know, I played a lot of sports. I played soccer and field hockey professionally. And that was kind of my life and my career. And I traveled the world doing that. And I never in a million years at that moment thought that that would help me run a business and start a business. lead a team, but now it’s the way I do everything. It’s the way I think of everything, right? Whether it’s how competitive I am and wanting to win things or how I try to pick up my team right in the second half and score that goal to win or land that client to win and take us to the next level. But it really is kind of the core of of the way I handle things and do things. So again, just like tap into your strengths, right? We all have something that we’re a little bit better at and embrace it and and do it. And then on top of that, celebrating and thinking about Hispanic Heritage Month. I would like to say that throughout this journey, I really learned to partner with people, right, or have people in my network and circle that truly, honestly believe and celebrate who we are as individuals. So they maybe they’re not Latinos, but they are truly and authentically focused on on helping Latinos or female founders, right. And that has made a huge, huge difference. And now we’re at a stage where, you know, we don’t have to be where we are not wanted or celebrated, right, where our differences aren’t celebrated and having people around us that truly do support who we are has been like the best thing ever, right? I can’t even begin to explain how much of a difference that made and how much you can feel it when it really is authentic and they really do like celebrate you and support you.
