Lyte presents “Womyn at Lyte,” a series of conversations highlighting the voices of our womyn
Q: AS A CHILD, WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WANTED TO BE AND HOW DO YOU THINK YOU CAME TO THAT DECISION?
Karina Brioukhova: At first, when I was a little kid I wanted to become a doctor, and the main reason for it was because I wanted to take care of my family members when they got older or sick. But then I started taking chemistry classes, I quickly realized that it’s not something I’m passionate about. Then for a short while, I gravitated toward becoming a social worker because it would allow me to engage and help my community.
Q: WHAT WOULD YOUR YOUNGER SELF BE MOST SURPRISED ABOUT HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE TODAY?
Karina Brioukhova: It's wild that through an unexpected path I ended up exactly where I want to be and where I need to be. Growing up, I was never exposed to startups or entrepreneurship to this scale. I never realized that building something from scratch that reaches hundreds of thousands of people a day across the world was a possibility. My dreams were confined to my local parameters in both my professional life and my personal life and now both are very global, which I love.
I graduated with an art history degree with a focus on street art and public art and what attracted me to that was the inherent dialogue and accessibility of this art form. There's no red tape and no bureaucracy that prevents anyone from seeing it or engaging with it.
I have spent the last nearly nine years of my life doing just that, finding ways to make live events, and its artistry and community, more accessible. But it took a bit of serendipity and a lot of hard work.
Q: WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE HARDEST PART ABOUT WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING?
Karina Brioukhova: Breaking through the ambiguity naturally comes with building a startup and creating something out of disjointed data points. It takes time and trusting that you’re on the right path to successfully break the status quo while building something from scratch. There's no playbook that you can follow, you just have to trust your gut, your intellect, passion and iterate and fail along the way. Nothing is handed to you. It's tough, but it's also very satisfying once you do break through.
Q: WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT WORKING AT LYTE?
Karina Brioukhova: What I say to anyone that I'm interviewing for a role at Lyte is that it's never boring. We're always looking at the next big thing with the product, the organization, and the people. There are always challenges that test us. It's not for the faint of heart but it's also very rewarding. Anyone is empowered to solve the problems that they notice; the opportunity to make something better is available to all. There are many, many examples of Lyters who have accomplished great things because they took the initiative and used their superpowers without anyone asking them so.
And the team, everyone has so much grit and soul, it's not only that everyone is very smart and interesting, they're also great humans. The connection that we all have as the team continues to grow. Now that we're over 100 people there's still some elements of the same grit and heart that was there when it was just a handful of us years ago when we were full-on survival mode trying to punch above our weight with very little resources at our disposal. That feeling is still there and is seen throughout different hubs/departments of the organization and that's really cool.
Q: WHAT LESSON TOOK YOU THE LONGEST TO UNLEARN?
Karina Brioukhova: There doesn't need to be an immediate solution to every problem. Sometimes it's best to let a problem breathe to get more clarity and allow for better and smarter resources to show themselves in the future, you know. You may not be the best person or have the skill set to solve the problem and that’s ok. Bringing in other people to the solution is essential to get to the right path, or even handing it over to someone else. I only started to realize this in the last two years, because at first everything is a problem we need to solve right away. But sometimes the short-term solution may not be the best. It’s a lesson that I'm still often trying to remind myself of.
Q: WHAT HAVE YOU ACCOMPLISHED RECENTLY THAT WOULD HAVE SHOCKED YOU A YEAR AGO?
Karina Brioukhova: I'm building the path to automating essential aspects of our product that enable us to fill every seat at a show with fans. I enjoy that because it's rooted in the early days of Lyte when we were experimenting and iterating on a very manual MVP of the product where we only serviced one festival and everything was breaking but the goal was still there: to ensure every seat at the show is filled with a fan. And now it's about how to build and/or improve rules within our platform to do it at scale. Now that live events are back in full scale we need to serve fans more efficiently so that they have more time to get excited about going to the next life-affirming show as opposed to figuring out how to get those tickets.
Q: WHAT ARE YOU MORE AFRAID OF FAILURE OR SUCCESS?
Karina Brioukhova: I’ve realized recently that I’m more afraid of resting on the laurels of success for too long. It’s necessary to enjoy success and celebrate but if you rest for too long, then you could get comfortable, and coming out of that comfort is usually tough. You're not in that growth mindset; the glory days are behind you and you're not looking to the future for what more is out there and what's the journey towards the next goal. The fear is in losing that growth mindset.
Q: WHAT'S NON-NEGOTIABLE IN YOUR LIFE?
Karina Brioukhova: Constant learning, exploration, and growth through building through creating through exploring. Absorbing my surroundings, new situations, and making sense of it all is essential to me. I need to be constantly curious.
Q: WHAT CAN WOMYN CREATE TOGETHER?
Karina Brioukhova: Transformation. When you put a womyn into a situation where she can take control and see what comes out of it - the result is something extraordinary. I've seen it many times and it’s awesome in every sense of the word. Maybe it comes from the fact that we tend to feel we need to work harder to prove ourselves. Our work is worth it and we do it with grace. The energy that we each put into everything, everyday and coming together, imagine what kinds of transformations are possible across different businesses, different organizations, communities, anything. The potential is really limitless.
Q: What's the most exciting improvement for womyn in the industry?
Karina Brioukhova: Visibility and accountability around increasing the number of womyn in executive leadership roles. As a society, we're starting to be more cognizant of that but there’s still a long way to go. Womyn in leadership roles need to be normalized. We need to see womyn in leadership roles and how they are day to day. What are their highs? What are their lows? Because it's not just about the highest moments, but also how do they get through their lows? More womyn can then see ourselves in those roles.
Q: WHAT TITLE WOULD YOU GIVE THIS CHAPTER IN YOUR LIFE?
Karina Brioukhova: Full focus. I’m the type of person who explores every possibility and the unknown and only then commits to something with confidence. I'm in a place both professionally and personally where I’ve done that exploration. I want to put my energy and focus on fewer things that I gravitate towards in order to build the life I want to build and deepen existing connections.
At Lyte, following this curiosity and exploration has led me to all aspects of the company. From building products and teams from scratch to holding a handful of different roles depending on what was needed at the time. Now it's all about using that widespread knowledge to go deep on scaling our product to do what Lyte does best, which is to fill every seat to get as many fans access to their favorite shows.
Q: WHAT IS THE BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT IN YOUR TIME AT LYTE OVER THE LAST NINE YEARS?
Karina Brioukhova: The live event industry and the status quo is changing because of the innovations we’ve developed for fans and event organizers. In 2013, the concept of returning a ticket or reserving a ticket was unimaginable, and now fans demand it at every event. That's really wild. When I think about the last nine years and how I’m continuing to build something that I’m 100% proud of, with people that I’m 100% excited to tackle these challenges with, and also occasionally enjoy a great show together…I feel that is the biggest accomplishment.
