A Day in the Life of Kyle Waters, CPO & Co-Founder of Ash Wellness

‍Co-founder Kyle Waters gave us a rundown of a typical day of handling internal management priorities and supporting client success. 

[8:55am] Steve Jobs famously woke early each morning to look in the mirror and ask himself If today was the last day of my life, would I be happy with what I'm about to do today? I am not Steve Jobs. I wake up a few minutes before 9am to wash my face and brush my teeth. 

[9:00am] Take Leadership Standup in bed. What do we hope to achieve? What are our immediate needs? Mio Akasako, VP of Brand and Design, is finalizing Q2 OKRs. Emma Rayner, Head of Strategic Partnerships, has a big Hubspot sweep. Jack Hildick-Smith, Chief of Staff, is interviewing engineers. David Stein, CEO, is deep in fundraising. 

[9:20am] Coffee. Emails. 

[10:00am] Check in with Hershel Perlmutter in Operations. He says an analyzer is down at one of our labs. Note to email our clients about delayed turnaround times. Another lab is rejecting a high percentage of Dried Blood Spot cards. It’s all from the same client. 

‍[10:35am] Call client to discuss DBS card bottleneck. Would they consider adding more informational materials in kits to help end-users collect better samples? Double check that they have access to Ash Wellness collection videos. 

[11:05am] Zofia Mita, Client Success Lead, shoots me a Slack. “We need to automate order cancellation.” It would free up a ton of her time. 

[11:30am] Call with Stephanie Patafio in Product. What are the next few releases? How do we prioritize the immediate needs of Operations and Client Success?

[12:15pm] My boyfriend, Mike, comes home from school. He sticks his head in the office to say hi. No time for lunch together. 

[12:45pm] Check out the new list of requested tests from a potential client. Look into which of our lab partners could fulfill. 

[1:30pm] Second coffee. Emails. Emails! 

[1:45pm] What does Sales need? Call with Emma. Talk about pricing. 

[2:15pm] Eat leftovers — cottage cheese, grilled chicken — and answer Slack notifications. 

[2:30pm] Pop into a meeting with Mio to discuss UX/UI. We review designs for a new client dashboard. Beautiful! 

[3:00pm] Walk up the hill to get a haircut. I moved to Ithaca with Mike a couple years ago. I’ve been seeing my stylist, Brenna, once a month since 2019. We complain about the weather. Wasn’t it just 60 degrees last week? Why is it suddenly winter again? 

[3:50pm] Chasing down more tests. 

[4:30pm] Deep dive into naming limitations for one of our lab partners. Their transfer of clinical and administrative data between software applications is very Eurocentric. It requires the Latin alphabet. No special accents. How do we accommodate end-users with non-Western names? 

[6:05pm] Peloton spin. 

[6:40pm] Quick check in with David. 

[7:00pm] Close laptop. Start making dinner with Mike. Once I’m off, I’m off. Only Nick Sempere, VP of Engineering, can interrupt me now. (And, Nick, it better be a major meltdown.) 

Want to work with Kyle Waters and Ash Wellness? Schedule a time to speak with us here. Or check out our careers page to join our team!

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