We recently connected with Shelly Scott and have shared our conversation below.

Shelly, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

At Intuit I was trained on Scott Cook’s Design for Delight and Customer Driven Innovation framework. These tools became so ingrained in my psyche after ten years, that I naturally worked from them when I left the company in 2022.

It took nine months to arrive at the concept of GetSidekicks. I knew I wanted to start a marketplace, I believe in the power of community, and I knew I wanted to find a way to take care of parents, I referred to this as “ParentTech” vs Child Care or CareTech. I really believe that if we changed the way we talk about care focus on parents, we’d find new use cases and ways to innovate.

Any how, I had a few proof-of-concepts I tested with users, some of them worked, some didn’t, but none of them kept me up a night. And it was really important to me to find a problem space that I cared so deeply about I would trade almost anything in the world to solve it, including time with my kids and even my own money. And those proof of concepts weren’t it.

Scott Cook talks about his “kitchen table moment” where his wife was balancing the check book at the dinner table and he thought “there has to be a better way” — I had a kitchen table moment too. My husband and I were getting the kids ready for bed one night talking about balancing taking care of our kids with the travel demands of his job. I made a comment about how his mom and how she must have felt when his dad would get deployed in the Navy. That night, I laid in bed and all I could hear was my voice repeating that phase over and over, as if someone was playing it back to me on repeat. I woke up the next morning at 5am – I was wide awake – and I started researching what the current challenges are in the military.

As I delved deeper into understanding the lives military families, I reflected on my own experiences. Like many, I’ve had moments where my heart was touched by the challenges and sacrifices of those in uniform. While I won’t delve into personal details out of respect for everyone involved, I will say that these encounters left an indelible mark on me. They made me acutely aware of responsibilities carried by our service members and their families to a point where I was frustrated with myself for taking so long to realize how big of a problem space there is within the community.

And that was it, that was on May 9th. By May 10th I formed my company and got to work – I haven’t stopped since. This community is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about before I fall asleep — and, yes, I’ve had dreams too. I’m completely obsessed.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m Shelly Scott, Founder and CEO of GetSidekicks. I’ve always considered myself an entrepreneur. Growing up in a low income family, entrepreneurship started out of necessity. Even back in elementary school, I used to sell custom friendship bracelets to my classmates. They would pay for the bracelets with their snack money, and I would use the money earned to buy snacks. In my early twenties, I packed up my car and drove from Georgia to California. I earned admission into  UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, then got hired at Intuit where I spent ten years leading strategy and partnerships.

At Intuit I created new businesses – so I still got to fulfill that entrepreneurial spirit, which at this point went from being a necessity to pay for food, to being something that provided me with intrinsic fulfillment.

I left Intuit in 2022 because I couldn’t find childcare. I started a craft business making 100% hand poured soy wax candles. This side hustle gave me a creative outlet, but was also completely flexible so that I could care for my kids until they got into a daycare facility. At the same time I was running this side hustle, I was talking to as many parents as I could to identity where they had a unmet need. Ultimately, the money I made creating candles I used as seed money for the tech company I run now: GetSidekicks.

GetSidekicks aims to make military life easier by enabling military connected individuals to find and book one another for the essential services they need, like childcare and home repairs. Due to the military lifestyle, families have to reestablish the operational tempo of their lives pretty frequently. GetSidekicks enables them to do that faster by connecting them to individuals within the community that already understand that lifestyle.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

There are two main pieces of advice, one for recruiting and one for retaining.

For recruiting, it’s vitally important for me to find individuals that are incredibly passionate about this problem space. I feel that passion enables grit and resilience. As part of my role as the CEO, I look for people with the passion, pour fuel on it, then give them a role that let’s them exert all that energy into output for the business.

For retaining, and I feel like this is where some folks can slip up, it’s so important to listen to your team, to know where they are, and how they are doing. Wellness really matters to not only day-to-day productivity but to overall morale too. As part of this, I think it’s important to NOT take the team along for all the ups-and-downs of being an entrepreneur. Even on days were I feel like I just need to vent, I don’t – because I can’t assess what the longer term implication could be to that team members energy and morale.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.getsidekicks.co
• Instagram: /GetSidekicks
• Facebook: /GetSidekicks
• Linkedin: /GetSidekicks
• Twitter: /GetSidekicks
• Youtube: /GetSidekicks

Image Credits
These are photos taken by me or my family members