Meet the Lady Whose Tech Blog Jumpstarted Her Career in the Start-up Scene

Irene Enriquez, Veems Head of Communications with CEO and Co-founder, Iddo Goren

How My Tech Blog Kickstarted my Career in Tech Startups

By: Irene Enriquez

“Would you be kind enough to review our app?”

This was the question I received through an email from Revital Darom (Veems Co-founder) almost two years ago.

Revital’s email was polite and genuine. It wasn’t one of those generic PR emails. She complimented my writing style. She noticed my passion for technology. At that time, my tech blog, GirlyGeek.ph, was just a year old. It felt nice to be noticed.

“Yes, I’d be happy to.” I replied.

Her email came at a perfect time, as I was doing a segment called “App of the Week” on my blog. Plus, I’m always excited to discover new apps.

What started as a simple blogger outreach turned into a serious writing career in the tech startup scene. Not to mention a long-term collaboration with some of the most brilliant and hard working people in the world.

A few months after I wrote my app review, I decided to work as a freelance writer. I told everyone in my email list about it. I asked if they have any writing projects for me. I emailed Revital. After a few months of email exchanges and Skype calls with the rest of the team, I became part of Veems as a blogger, writing content and reaching out to other bloggers.

Today, my official title at Veems is Head of Communications. In a nutshell, my role is to use communication to connect people. My workday is composed of two key tasks: creating content and connecting with people. I craft editorial plans, write press releases, and pitch creative content to relevant sites. Note that these tasks are creative by nature. It involves brainstorming, hours of writing, and mixing and matching. I have to make sure that the right content gets published in the right platform.

As a tech startup, however, we have to quantify our tasks so that we can measure our results. Our CEO needs to understand, at a glance, what’s going on.

Luckily, although I’m mainly the creative type—one that cares about stories and empathy towards readers and our users—I’m also data driven. With the help of our Biz Dev, Moran Halevi, we work together to translate creative tasks into hard data. For instance, we use Google Sheets to drill down the numbers. What’s our goal for this quarter? How many press releases and pitches are we working on each week?

With Veems CEO, Iddo Goren, and Biz Dev, Moran Halevi at the VeemsCast Launch after party

The second half is all about reaching out to the right people. We officially launched VeemsCast last June 25, 2015 in Makati, Philippines. VeemsCast is a WordPress plugin and an in-app tool that allows bloggers and businesses to engage with the Veems users (a.k.a. Veemers). It helps them get their content to a wider audience and at the same time helps them create a more engaging and personal connection with their readers. My main focus right now is onboarding the right bloggers and businesses to the platform. In a way, I’m like a talent scout. I have to find the right talent. Of course, this too, must be quantifiable. We also use Google Sheets to know exactly our weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.

While my role isn’t really technical, I still get a lot of say in the technological development of Veems. I work closely with our CEO and Co-founder, Iddo Goren, to make sure that our users have the best experience in using Veems. I report bugs, test new features, and discuss future updates.

Our main office is in Israel. I, on the other hand, work from home in the Philippines. Despite the five-hour time difference and the 5000-mile distance, our team is well connected. We use tools like Slack and Asana to communicate and organize all our projects. And of course, we use Veems, to keep in touch.

With Gian Viterbo of GadgetPilipinas.net and Cheryl Luis (our Veemer guest who’s also a blogger!)

I’ve been part of the Veems Team for almost two years now. I’ve learned a lot since then. One of the best things I’ve learned from our CEO is to always take action. He would say, “You can’t wait for the perfect condition. When you have an idea, act on it.”

So, when you have an idea, let’s say thinking of starting a blog or working in the digital industry, go do it. Do you want to be a programmer? Sign up for an online course. Do you want to be a growth hacker? Connect with someone who’s already doing it.

Test your idea. Push it to the limits. Take notes. If it works, great! If it doesn’t, find ways to make it work. Or move on and test another idea.

If you need help from someone, send him or her an email. Introduce yourself. Be genuine about it.

Sometimes all it takes is one email to change your career. Even your entire life. Just make sure to move that email from Draft to Sent!

Seeing the evolution of the app and how our user base has grown so much in the past year is such an exhilarating and rewarding experience.

As someone who loves to write and loves technology just as much, I could not think of a better work.

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Irene Enriquez is the Head of Communications at Veems. She loves working with tech savvy entrepreneurs with big dreams. She’s the first blogger to be on VeemsCast. Click here to download Veems and here to get early access for VeemsCast for bloggers and businesses.

Editor’s Note: The local technology and digital scene has a lot of opportunities. In fact the problem in this sector is that the demand for talent is so much higher than the supply (aka kulang sa tao na meron skills for the job). To help with this we’re going to do a series of articles talking about the different kind of jobs and work one can find in the digital/tech field in the form of interviews, contribution articles, features, and videos. Our goal is to inspire our readers to consider growing (or starting) their career in the digital industry. Read on and let us know what you think about this new section in the comments! 🙂