Maxim Cramer is the technical coach and consultant who helps women entrepreneurs create world-class software. With her ability to erase the gap between the technology and business, she’s worked on apps that have seen a million downloads on the first day and been featured in Apple retail stores around the globe. 

Maxim has worked as a technical consultant, UX designer and software engineer. She was integral to the team that developed Swiftkey, a keyboard app that saw over a million downloads on its first day and whose success was profiled in the New York Times (Microsoft has since acquired the app). She has also been a developer for fine arts collection app Artsy, and a technical consultant for IT firm Hewlett-Packard. Today she works as a principal design technologist at Autodesk on a software product revolutionizing the film and gaming industry. Maxim has also been invited to speak at multiple conferences, including events for Google and Facebook in places from London to Japan. 

As founder of MENNENIA, Maxim empowers female founders to leverage technology and make their biggest impact yet. Repeatedly called out for her ability to turn technology into everyday English, flattening communications barriers between technical teams and visionaries, she’s taken on the audacious goal of securing a digital future for women by doubling the number of female founded tech businesses worldwide. 

Maxim joins me today to discuss the pivotal moment in the industry that things changed for Maxim as well as in the industry. She talks about her start developing for the iPhone in 2009. Her desire for diversity in the type of products and services that were offered and wanted the developers behind them to represent the users. She tells us about her podcast, Cutting Through Tech, and all of the great tech tips that are available on it. We learn about how she helps evaluate the feasibility, desirability and the viability of a product idea. And which one is the most important and often overlooked. Listen and learn as Maxim makes tech strategies easier for beginning entrepreneurs.

“Because it's your business. And it's such a big part of what you're trying to do, you can't leave that in its entirety in the hands of others, you have to steer the ship.” - Maxim Cramer

Today on When She Founded:

• How getting a computer at the age of five helped Maxim spark her fascination and curiosity of technology and how it worked
• How female founders can think through and develop their tech solutions
• Why Mockups are so valuable to pitching your ideas to others
• The different types of pricing models and how to decide which option to pursue
• What one thing a business owner should consider when factoring customer acquisition costs and customer lifetime value 
• Trends in tech especially in augmented reality
• Good strategies for B2B and B2C business models
• The number one pitfall when beginning their business, the one thing NOT to outsource completely

If you would like to connect with Maxim:

She is on Instagram @Mennenia and her website is: mennenia.com

Maxim’s podcast is called Cutting Through Tech

In the introduction here is the link to the Forbes article that Somer referenced: https://www.forbes.com/sites/allysonkapin/2020/01/15/why-women-make-better-venture-capitalists/#7bebc9254faf

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