The impresario
Nº029 / 100
Cyan Ta’eed
Founder of tech marketplace Envato and social enterprise chocolate company Hey Tiger. Envato is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars; do you still have to explain to people what it is?
All the time. To sum it up in one line, it’s a series of marketplaces where people buy and sell digital goods but only people who work in tech and the type of people who read the Australian Financial Review would know that. No one else does and why would they? If you’re not a designer, developer or tech-savvy small business
owner you’d really have no reason to have come across it.
What’s it like being a female leader in the male-dominated digital space?
For a number of years there was only one female developer I ever came across. We tried to hire her but she declined because everyone wanted to hire a female developer. It’s a blokey environment and for a long time I was trying to find that balance of how to lead while also backing myself. To learn to trust myself when
I was getting pushback took some time and energy; it was consistently challenging for a few years. One of the lessons we learnt was how to create a culture that will facilitate inclusion but it took a bit of work to get there. I’ve mostly gotten over imposter syndrome but it’s taken 14 years.
What do you want to achieve with Hey Tiger?
I knew I wanted my next venture to be a social enterprise, something to really lean into and create a positive impact. I don’t take a salary from it; Hey Tiger is owned by a charitable trust and we make a donation for each bar sold to development projects in cocoa farming communities in West Africa. I find it fulfilling that my team and I are putting our hearts and souls into something that we believe in.