Anu Bidani: An Authentic STEM Entrepreneur

Anu Bidani is the CEO of STEM MINDS (a BCorp certified Social Enterprise) and Inno-Hive, an Innovative Learning Community – Not-For-Profit), two companies that focus on shaping the future of education by transforming learning experiences for both children and adults. STEM Minds is on a mission to empower youth to become fearless leaders by developing agility and a love of learning through STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). She believes in creating our future leaders, game changers, and problem-solvers to build a better, more agile society for future generations. With a dedicated teaching staff, a state-of-the-art learning environment, research, and development center, and a network of strategic partnerships, she has built both these businesses that are successfully expanding the reach and impact of education to all children!

Inno-Hive, an Innovative Learning Community, is a not-for-profit focused on supporting communities to innovate for skill-building regardless of age or geographic boundaries.

She is a passionate innovator, leader, revenue generator and entrepreneur with solid experience as a corporate executive where she witnessed the evolution and impact of accelerated technology changes on business processes from a Corporate lens. Her passion for innovation served as the catalyst for repeated successes in optimizing emerging business models to deliver agile profitability and value. With vetted expertise in the areas of strategy, product development, solutions development, project delivery, information security, and audit, Anu has built a solid foundation for her two entrepreneurial ventures – STEM MINDS and Inno-Hive, an Innovative Learning Community. She is also an SHEEO activator and supports other women entrepreneurs in their journey of following their passion.

Anu welcome to my series on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. Tell my audience a little about you.

I am a mom of 2 boys who inspired me to embrace my entrepreneurial venture Stem Minds after a 20+ Corporate career. I enjoy traveling, cooking, and challenging myself to new intellectual possibilities. I consider myself a fearless learner where the glass is always full. I believe in the power of positive thinking so miracles can happen. For me, integrity and authenticity are two ingredients that make me who I am and what I do.

You had a successful career as an executive in one of the banks. Why start a business?

After a successful career as a senior executive, I wanted more out of life. Everyone talks about their purpose and calling and I needed to find mine. When I left my job in 2015, I didn’t want to do the same. So, in search of my purpose and challenging myself I decided to solve a personal problem of inspiring my children to love STEM. In this journey, I have found the joy in inspiring children to love STEM. My business STEM Minds caters to this passion through a holistic STEM learning experience with hands-on activities. I have a state-of-the-art facility with 3D printers, laser cutters, robots, drones, virtual reality, and much more which makes learning fun, impactful, and sustainable.

Talk to me a little about STEM?

Science, Technology, Engineering, Math – STEM is a very important field to build skills in for the jobs of tomorrow. These fields enforce critical thinking, problem-solving, and many other 21st century skills that are innate to digital competencies that are required for success. These cannot be optional in a child’s learning portfolio but mandatory so they are prepared for what will be expected of them as they grow.

What are the future goals and expansion plans?

I am very excited about launching our Online platform – SMOA with gamification, virtual reality, and AI so children can enjoy formal learning at school and home through various toolsets. We are launching SMOA both nationally in Canada and in the USA. We are also working on some strategic partnerships to bring our programming into more school boards. We are working on academic research on our approach to blended learning through online tools in the classroom as well as accessibility in STEM for visually impaired youth. So, lots of exciting things happening at Stem Minds – stay tuned for the evolution!

Help me understand the good, bad, and ugly side of being an entrepreneur?

The good side is – I love the freedom and picking what I want to do when I want to do with no submissions of business cases! I enjoy the freedom to try things out without fear of failure.

The ugly side is that there is no segregation of work life and home life. Sometimes it interferes with the quality time I want to spend with my family but I also have to balance the responsibilities of running a business and supporting a team. So, time is always premium.

What are the skill sets required to be an entrepreneur?

In my mind three most important characteristics of being a successful entrepreneur are:

• fearless learner – you need to keep pushing yourself to learn new things whether it be about your product, customers or markets
• resilience – you need to know that you can get up and move forward every time you fall
• grit – courage to take risks without fear of consequences

My daughter is 14 and sometimes scared of math, science, and engineering. What advice would you give her?

I would tell her to be a fearless learner as we can learn anything if we put our minds to it. Even though math, science, engineering may seem scary, just remember that fear is only in your mind. Give yourself the opportunity to try building skills in these fields in your own way. If you enjoy fashion then wearable tech may be something to explore which combines fashion with coding. If you enjoy art then digital art, graphic designing are options to consider. There are lots of choices you just need to be open to learning.

Walk me through the steps of opening a business, like bootstrapping, business plans, market, competitive advantage, core competence, increasing footprint, and finding a niche?

For me opening a business requires planning and thought if you want it to be sustainable. Plan your finances – you may need a 3-year runway before you get a paycheque. Planning conservatively creates less chaos and panic.

New businesses generally have to be self-funded as there is not much financing available. So, plan to be lean and optimize your resources. Investing in automation to simplify processes is impactful.

You need to know the drivers behind your business, what pain points are you addressing and who is your real client. Understand the competitive landscape and find your unique value proposition.

I am a planned entrepreneur so I spend time building my business plan, financial models, key metrics for monitoring, documenting process flows, and procedures. I invested in these processes so I can grow without dependency on a few people, including myself. My staff can run my business without my presence. If you plan your business that way you have time to be a real CEO with vision, strategy, and forward-thinking.

It is important to find mentors, coaching, and other help to keep you on track. How did you achieve this?

I think mentoring and coaching are important. Having someone to talk to you about your ideas, being held accountable allow you to be better at execution and performance.

I did this by having a leadership coach when I really needed to push my performance. I joined network groups like SheEO and GroYourBiz to connect with like-minded entrepreneurs. All of this gave me a safe place to grow and be my best.

Talk to me about your hiring process and what you look for and how you motivate your staff?

I hire based on potential. I have an awesome team, who is passionate about what they do. I motivate them through empowerment and trust. I know they will always do their best and if mistakes happen it is okay as this is part of growing and learning.

Give my viewers advice on balancing the family? 

Balance is all about deliberate choices. I don’t think there is anything like balance. It is setting your priorities and making choices.

The family should always come first so always make time. Time flies by fast so you want to make the best of it and cherish the moments.