Entrepreneurship - Nurse to Tech Entrepreneur: The Woman Behind a Visual Revolution - Axelle Vanquaillie (Founder of Drawify) E110

Axelle Vanquaillie, a Belgium-based entrepreneur, has transitioned from a non-tech background to founding her own tech company. Axelle shares her journey from being a social nurse to creating "Drawify," a platform that simplifies complex content into visual stories.* Axelle's transition from a social nurse to a tech entrepreneur, highlighting her passion for visual storytelling.* The inception and evolution of "Drawify," a platform that turns complex content into visual narratives.* Axelle's advice for budding entrepreneurs: dream big, be authentic, and surround yourself with the right people.Axelle Vanquaillie (Founder of Drawify)I live in Belgium, but I feel like a citizen of the world. My visual story started in 2010. I’d been an HR and communications professional for 18 years when I discovered the magic of (live) visual storytelling for corporate purposes (Where has this been all my life?!). By combining drawing and strategic skills, I hope to prevent information overload and create illustrations with a powerful ability to clarify the most complex strategic content and transform viewers’ perspectives.My mission is to inspire and empower anyone in the world to draw to communicate and to learn. My trainings and book Start to draw were the first step to make this possible. During Covid, I started the visual storytelling platform Drawify to convert content into visuals, without having to draw yourself. Together we can make information in this world easier to capture, to understand and bring to life.Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/axelle-vanquaillie/Instagram:Drawify_comAxelle_vanquaillie_Website: Drawify.com⚡️ In each episode, Paddy Dhanda deep dives into a new human Superpower and gives practical advice on how you can apply it immediately.👉 Sign-up to Newsletter: https://www.superpowers.school/subscribe👉 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/paddydhanda/★ BUY ME KO-FI ★If you enjoy the podcast, then you can donate a small amount here as a token of your appreciation: https://ko-fi.com/paddydhandaTranscription:[00:01:01] Paddy Dhanda: Hey folks. Today we're joined by a very special guest on the Superpower School podcast. I have a female entrepreneur who has gone from a non tech background into starting up her own tech company.And she's based in Belgium. And I have the pleasure of meeting her because we are meeting at the International Sketch Note Camp conference over in Leiden, which is in the Netherlands. So I'm super, super excited to welcome Axel van Kwaaij. Hey, how you doing?[00:01:37] Axelle Vanquaillie:Hi. Hi, Paddy. Thanks. I'm doing good. And thanks for inviting me for this podcast.[00:01:42] Paddy Dhanda: Oh, you're welcome. Did I get your surname[00:01:44] Axelle Vanquaillie: right? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. It's closer than anyone else. Thanks. Thanks.[00:01:51] Paddy Dhanda: That's good, because I have been known to get people's names very wrong on this podcast. So I'm glad we got that right.[00:01:57] Axelle Vanquaillie: I have a very difficult name.[00:01:59] Paddy Dhanda: So Axelle, like your background when you and I were talking previously, you mentioned, that you never saw yourselfas a tech person and all of a sudden you've won this award. So could you tell us a little bit about your background? Like, where did you start? And it'd be great to know what you did.[00:02:20] Axelle Vanquaillie: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe first before expectations are too high. It wasn't really an award. It was kind of a nomination in a magazine.But anyway, it was very special already. So my background is. It's really something different. So as a, from study, I'm a social nurse. I have chosen for that study because I wanted to help people and I wanted to travel around the world. I thought if I'm a nurse, I can work wherever in the world and I can help people.So that's how I started. But I'm very eager in learning. I'm always.So I ended up being a communication specialist, a human resource specialist, I became a consultant, I saw someone drawing at a conference, making visual summaries, and I thought, wow, that's the coolest job in the world, I can travel with that, and I'm helping people to remember their message better. So I went to a training, and I learned that, and I started doing graphic recording 12 years ago.So that's. The background of the last years and then of course, COVID came and as I was traveling around the world to visualize meetings and conferences, my agenda was, of course, wiped out in less than two days. I had nothing to do. And in the beginning I enjoyed it, but after a few days or weeks, I was really getting bored and I was thinking, okay my mission is.To make visual storytelling accessible for anyone in the world. So I wrote a book, but that's clearly not enough to make people become a visual storyteller. So I was thinking, how can I make visual storytelling more accessible for everyone? Also people without a budget or without the talents to draw.And that's how I came ...