Just a week ago, there was a chance to present NomadHer in front of a renowned IT company manager in South Korea, and he asked me this question

“If the religion, ethnicity and the language of your team member are all different, doesn’t it work as a barrier for a startup? Considering that a startup needs to make a visible output, doesn’t diversity deter your success?”

Why Diversity matters so much? Like what he said, why cannot we just construct a team with the same origin, ethnicity, nationality, religion and also who speak the same languages? If we identify our members, won’t it accelerate the company growth speed?

“Diversity is the key factor for a startup which wishes to go international. This is not like a “conditional phrase” which is “good to have” but not “necessarily to have.” This is not a conditional phrase which you can say “If, later our company grows bigger, we might…”

Because,
The more diverse team we are, the more effectively we can work in a broadened spectrum.  Because, diversity should be at the core DNA of the team, not what we can put. or pursue in the later stage of the team building.

There were several occasions that I thought that diversity is so important during the team-building process.

For our first Pajama Party hosted in 3 different languages (Korean, Arabic & English), our team members Soo, Jason, Oumaima and Hyo gathered together for brainstorming, Jason drew a picture of a girl with a glass of “wine” and chilling out, and then Oumaima came up with an opinion like this.

“This girl is holding a glass of wine. But there are many Muslims out there who do not drink alcohol at all, or generally people who do not enjoy drinking alcohol. I do not think this would be an appropriate photo for those who do not drink alcohol. Why don’t we draw an extra picture with a girl drinking orange juice? “

After that meeting, our team changed the design photo into a girl holding a glass of orange juice instead of wine, and this might not have been possible if the NomadHer team did not consist of team members from different religion with different beliefs.

Also at once, we held a meeting for International Women’s Day together. We drew different types of women travelling in different forms with a wheelchair, travelling in a bicycle, travelling within a backpack. and then the feedback we got was

“There are different stands of beauty and why did we only draw the skinny girl?”

“Why don’t we show that a girl with a wheelchair can only travel?”

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Since then, we drew different types of women travelling, as a girl in a wheelchair, who is curvy, and also a woman over 60 years old.

After seeing the final illustration, one NomadHer member told us

“Since I was young, I was always relying on a wheelchair and I was lacking confidence in myself. Thank you so much NomadHer for giving me big support and confidence that I can travel freely. This shows that anyone can travel.”

If NomadHer consisted of members coming from the same background, same ethnicity, religion and culture - can we discuss and come up with these different opinions and ideas?

Thanks to Oumaima who is a Muslim, we got to know the custom called “Ramadan” where you need to fast during a month, as we are working with Vinay from India, we got to know how diverse languages and customs we have even within India, as we are working with Jason and Soo who are living with their lovely dog and cats, we got to know the importance of the “animal right” and we know the “vegetarianism” thanks to Hyo who do not eat red meat.

The world-renowned company Uber had huge issues as their company working culture was focused on white male team members. Trevi was directly designated as it was a huge issue how the company could not handle the sexual harassment and the racial discrimination. If you want to think and act big,  the diversity should start with the start and this is not like a toppings of ice cream that can be put later.

Again,

For those who are asking why “diversity’ is so important for a startup which need to accelerate and make fast decision within a short time.

“Because if you believe that this company consists of over thousands of team members, and strongly believe that this can impact to over billions of people, there is no doubt that diverse team can elevate the company. Because diversity is the core DNA and the seed to grow the company not what we need when we are grown.
Because thanks to these diverse opinions and ideas,

The company can grow more and more.

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