We recently connected with Isaac Saldana and have shared our conversation below.

Isaac, appreciate you joining us today. Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

The most unexpected problem I’ve faced was an engineering problem at SendGrid, but not the type of engineering problem you’d expect. It was not engineering a technological solution but rather engineering a mindset shift for myself. I had to transition from being an introverted engineer to becoming a CEO. At first being a leader felt deeply uncomfortable, because I was making the mistake of thinking a leader was promoting myself and requiring me to grow an ego that I didn’t have. Asserting me, Isaac, was not how I was brought up in a working class Mexican family.

But Sendgrid needed strong leadership to compete against industry giants with deep pockets. So I had no choice. Company growth depended on my personal growth. I treated this growth as a project, and as a simple proposition: as a leader I was playing a role that was promoting ideas and the company not me.

Addressing these issues meant confronting my introversion head-on, realizing my weaknesses, and embracing them. What kept me going was the thought that if I didn’t step out of my comfort zone, our groundbreaking ideas might never see the light of day.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’m Isaac Saldana, and my story isn’t the typical tech whiz kid narrative you’d expect. I was born to a working class family, raised in Mexico and came back to the U.S. without knowing English. As a student, I had responsibilities most dorm room entrepreneurs do not. I married and started a family at age 19.

So I had much to overcome.

I co-founded SendGrid, a game-changer in cloud-based email delivery.

But my latest venture, Memo, is closest to my heart. Memo is redefining the traditional rules of social media, but for now, I will leave it as that!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

A vivid one is when I was 19. I was married, juggling two jobs, and attending school full-time. I remember nights when sleep was a luxury because I had to pass my classes. Every day, I was reminded to put one foot in front of the other and persevere. That experience shaped my entrepreneurial mindset, and creating a tech startup is no different, it is just another hurdle to jump.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I used to believe that leaders needed to have all the answers. But my time at SendGrid taught me differently. I learned that a leader is one who finds the right people, asks them the right questions, and asks in the right way to motivate them to get the answers needed.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacsaldana/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/isaldana?lang=en

Image Credits
Juan Carlos Ariano