I have an experiment for you to do: figuratively close your eyes (I still want you to keep reading) and imagine what a business looks like. What do you see? What are the employees doing?

Did you see men in suits “businessing” around making money in some non-descript way? That is exactly what I don’t want for Mostly Epic. Matt and I said at the beginning that we wanted to help and enrich the lives of our friends and family. In fact, if we had a mission statement, that would be it. I want to look back at the work we’ve done and say, “Yes, we’ve directly made <name of friend or family> happier, healthier, and heck maybe even wealthier.”

Which brings me to my last thought about what Mostly Epic will and won’t be and that’s definitely not a frat. Tonight I went to a “startups” meeting downtown. It seemed like a great concept: entrepreneurs in the area get together once a month, pitch their ideas to each other and drink free beer. This evening I had been attending a local developer meetup and ended up arriving at the event halfway through.

I kid you not, when the doors opened to the bar that was hosting, it smelled exactly like my fraternity house on Beacon Street during a Sick Bash. It even looked like my frat: about a hundred dudes, sloppily yelling at each other. I left after 5 minutes — if this is the tech startup scene, I want something different.

I’ve had a bunch of female role models in the tech world. Two awesome software engineers, Cat and Nancy, taught me a great deal and I count them among a handful of coworkers for which I have a deep respect. I’ve always been lucky to have wonderful female engineers around me. In fact, the only person from college I know who shares my record of 2 all-nighters in a row was an aspiring woman engineer. I didn’t realize how lucky I’d been until tonight when the “dude” culture of tech startups presented itself to me like the putrid smell of an afterparty.

While Matt and I are the only members of Mostly Epic making it 100% dudes and admittedly, I enjoy bro-ing out (just look at me in that picture), the workplace does not need bro-ness as the predominate work culture. I look forward to being successful enough to bring on engineers and executives with Cat or Nancy’s drive and work ethic to help change that.

If you have thoughts on how Mostly Epic can help move the tech world toward an equitable work environment, I’d love to know.