Inna Shekhtman started her career as a software engineer at MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates. After adopting an Irish wolfhound named Adhara, Shekhtman became convinced of the health benefits of a raw food diet for her dog, whose breed often has health problems.
Difficulties in making and sourcing raw dog food led her to start her business, Red Dog Deli, in 2004. Today the North Vancouver business has 16 employees and sells to more than 150 stores throughout Canada, including Whole Foods.
Shekhtman found she was “absolutely in love with the idea of growing a business.”
But the experience has taught her that being the boss demands a very different way of working from what she was required to do as part of a technical team.
“When I worked in software, I had a manager and a supervisor and a project scope that had been developed by somebody else and I was just working on components,” Shekhtman said.
“When I transitioned to having my own business, all of a sudden I was the one that had to make the decisions and do the high-level planning.”
Another big change was learning how to stop saying, “No, this won't work,” and instead say, “Yes, let's try it.”
“When you're a software engineer … you're basically looking for mistakes. That's the review process – ‘Let's look for what's wrong and make sure it doesn't get into the final version.'”
Leading a team of employees is different, said Shekhtman. She now makes an effort to say yes to new ideas from her staff.
“If I keep coming from a ‘No, that's not going to work' point of view … it kind of hinders the whole process,” she said.
“It doesn't allow the people who are trying to work with me to do what they want to do and make the company grow.”
