Jessica
Mansourati
Strategic Advisor and Program Manager at Uppsala Innovation Centre, Innovation Leadership Group
"Start before You’re Ready: A Practical Playbook for Building while Life Happens"
"Start before You’re Ready: A Practical Playbook for Building while Life Happens"
Fri May 15 - 4:10 AM EDT/New York (See in local time)
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05/15/2026 4:10 AM
05/15/2026 04:30 AM
America/New_York
#WTGC2026
"Start before You’re Ready: A Practical Playbook for Building while Life Happens"
#WTGC2026
"Start before You’re Ready: A Practical Playbook for Building while Life Happens"
https://www.womentech.net/ringcentral
https://www.womentech.net/ringcentral
"Start before You’re Ready: A Practical Playbook for Building while Life Happens"
"Start before You’re Ready: A Practical Playbook for Building while Life Happens"
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Session: Start before You’re Ready: A Practical Playbook for Building while Life Happens
Many of us hold back from venturing into tech and starting our own thing because life isn’t set up for a clean leap - a full-time job, responsibilities, or financial reality make the "all in" mentality unrealistic. The 996-style is not optimal - or relevant - for everyone, even though a quick scroll on your Linkedin-feed oftentimes signals otherwise.In this talk, Jessica Mansourati shares practical recommendations and potential ways to begin anyway. Inspired by the “build things that don’t scale” mindset, she’ll show how to start small on purpose: choose a narrow wedge, test your idea manually, collect real proof, and plan for the next step, not for the coming ten years. The goal isn’t to quit your job tomorrow but to build momentum, confidence, and audacity while you’re still balancing real life. Attendees will leave with a simple framework and concrete first experiments they can run in just a few hours a week.
Key Takeaways
- starting small
- venturing into tech
- entrepreneurship
- side-hustles
- confidence
Bio
Jessica Mansourati is a startup advisor at UIC (one of the leading Nordic incubators), where she supports early-stage founders with validation, go-to-market, partnerships, and building programs - including initiatives in defence innovation. She is a former startup founder (Antler Sweden’s first cohort and SSE Business Lab) and has worked with strategy and communications at companies such as Spotify and Nextory, as well as at Business Sweden USA, helping Nordic startups expand into the US market. Jessica is passionate about making entrepreneurship and tech more accessible - especially for women building alongside real-life constraints.