#7 FFF Rebeca from Rio de Janeiro.
I met Rebeca from one of the freelance platforms. I was looking for a designer who can upgrade the YesPlz website. Among the many candidates, I liked Rebeca for her creativity and awesome looking websites she has worked on.
To make a long story short, it was a bit rocky journey in the beginning. Rebeca had many ideas and poured out her creativity into our product. Yet, I realized what I was looking for was enhancement for the website, not the complete makeup over.
I have been a product manager over 15 years that I know too well it does take time and a ton of communication to understand the language each other speaks (of course there are some lucky exceptions.)
Having a hard deadline, I had to decide perhaps it is better to let Rebeca go and find another designer who can quickly help me with the website enhancement. I will skip the part where I was going through pros and cons if I let Rebeca go, but jump right into the part where I told Rebeca how I wasn’t happy with her work.
I told her “Rebeca, I like you but I am not happy with the design.”
It’s true I like her. She is passionate and has many cool ideas for our website which I value highly. But I have my business to build and I have no time. I continued “I don’t think it is going to work out for us.” Then it was her response that got me want to write this blog.
Rebeca said, “Jiwon, I want to help you to succeed. I am not going to charge you the work you are not happy with. I myself am a founder and want to help with your startup. May I ask what is troubling you?”
For a second, I was taken back a bit. To me at the least, this was not the expected response. The earnest desire to help me when she could be offended or look for a way to be defensive.
I stuttered a bit trying to figure out what to say. Normally, I would throw out something to end the conversation ASAP like “something came up, bye” or “It just didn’t work, sorry.” This time, to my excuse her authenticity came over me and I started sharing what I didn’t like which became almost venting out.
Rebeca sounded calm over the slack messenger and said “Jiwon, can you give me one more chance? I carried away with my design, but let me get back to you with the new design based on your comments.”
Sure, one more day wouldn’t hurt. Plus, how can one say no to a person who genuinely wants to help you?!
This story has a happy ending. She proved she could deliver what I asked for.
I got a new design for the desktop version which I was happy with. She met a deadline but most of all showed passion through the entire work process. I felt like I could tell her anything what I don’t like. She would listen to me but also would push back time to time with her ideas which turned out to be a great one.
Our website still has a long way to go. It will be continuous reiteration and a long journey, but a person like Rebeca I met along this journey inspires me. She masterfully turned around a rejection to be a strong alliance. How does she do that?! I want to be able to do that, too!!
Rebeca is a badass engineer, designer, and founder from Rio de Janeiro. If you are looking for an awesome react engineer and UI/UX designer, reach her out. Or I will be happy to connect you two. Another fierce female founder I met and wanted to share her story.
