Colleen Cutcliffe on Challenging Outdated Thinking in the Workplace

Colleen Cutcliffe, co-founder and CEO of the groundbreaking probiotics company Pendulum Therapeutics, started the company with a big goal in mind: changing the way people think about their gut health. And on her journey, she’s had to challenge traditional – and sometimes outdated – thinking from the medical community and investors. In this episode, Colleen told us how she’s been able to disrupt the industry, and gives her advice for making changes in any workplace. 

In this episode, Colleen shares: 

• How she convinced the dean of her PhD program to let her stay – despite almost getting kicked out 

• Why her daughter’s birth inspired her to start Pendulum 

• How she dealt with being told “no” 

• The ways she’s cultivated trust and transparency with her employees

• Why she’s got Halle Berry on speed dial 

On Learning to Deal with Rejection

Colleen: I would say in the first six months of starting this company, I got more 'no's’ in those 120 days than I had gotten in my entire life leading up to that. And there's this thing about resilience, and I think that it requires you to be deliberate about blocking out the negativity and blocking out the 'no's'…. I think it's a really important skill. And I would say it's not just an important skill in entrepreneurship. You do get a lot of 'no’s' there. And so maybe you're forced to either develop that skill or kind of crawl into bed in the fetal position every night. But I think that in life in general, it is helpful to be able to quiet the noise. Not everybody's gonna love you or your ideas, and that's fine, but you can't carry that with you. 

On How She Stays on the Same Page as Her Team

Colleen: I think transparency is really important. People aren't dummies. I mean, I've been the lowest person on the totem pole in a company, and I also didn't feel like I was a dummy there. You don't have to have an MBA, or be a CPA, to understand certain things about financials or certain things about a business. And I think that the way that we've always operated, the way I've always operated, is to just be really candid and transparent about what we are doing here, what's at stake, and what is going to make us pack up our bags and go home. The company has always been founded in trying to help people through this new science. And so that's the mission. It's very simple. We're going to help people through microbiome science. And so then it becomes also very simple that if you can't do that, you're done.

Listen and subscribe to our podcast from your mobile device: Apple podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher