Meet Daniela Santangelo | 2x Founder, Community Builder, 2x Mother, Making Waves in the Desert

We had the good fortune of connecting with Daniela Santangelo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Daniela, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
I actually shifted my mindset to work life integration about 5 years ago. As a parent and founder I realized that the dedication to family and my startup at the time (my first baby) was competing for attention. So I found a way to integrate. That meant taking my baby to moving industry conferences and hiring support within the family and business to support that lifestyle. The new challenge when you integrate is establishing healthy boundaries. Carving out boundaries on work hours to be present for your family is quite challenging especially when you’re a person that values responsiveness. This felt challenging and near impossible during periods of fundraising – but those were just periods of time where we engaged with more support. The marathon not a sprint is also applicable to work life balance — the new chapter for me is sustainable endurance throughout the year.

What should our readers know about your business?
I got to where I am today because of a number of non-linear trials and tribulations. In May of 2022 I encountered a major set back in life and in my career. I was faced with understanding myself on a much deeper level without the toxicity, noise and fabricated vision of what life should be. Often during times of setbacks we can become our most creative self. I’m grateful for the time I had to reset and get back to what’s really important to me. After I got pushed out of my startup, I spent 9 months practicing and training to be a meditation teacher and positive psychology coach. I thought about how interesting entreprenurship would be with this new found practice. Imagine a journey where you don’t burn out and lose your soul in the process. With this new toolkit I became ready to embark on the next chapter. When I moved from Miami to Phx, I did a lot of sensing in the community meeting with all types of stakeholders to understand the lay of the land. As I went down a path of reinventing myself I had to have very honest conversations with myself about – given what I’ve experience, what is my highest and best use in how I serve this community. Very quickly I realized we were missing an independent, founder led brand for the startup ecosystem. Freeway was born out of the community and now is on a mission to help make Phx the most accessible large market startup ecosystem in the country. In partnership with StartupAZ, we launched an ecosystem dashboard showing the real time activity of the startup industry. Our 3 main pillars are aggregating events, jobs, ecosystem data. Twice a year we host a Tech Talent Summit, connecting innovation to opportunity through an all day summit including a modern career fair with live music at the end.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
oo ok! Well depending on the friend, I’d want to go hiking to a different spot every morning. We will wait to ease into Camelback for Day 3 after we’ve warmed up at different mountains the days prior ;). Since I’m a water person and I find it fascinating how much water actually exists in AZ i’d love to show them Lake Pleasant. I would create a mini retreat for a long weekend in Sedona to truly experience the magic. I’d take them to my favorite italian restaurant called Venetos. Maybe there’s a sports game or concert we can go to downtown…

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My shoutout is to my grandfather John Sanzo who passed away on Christmas last year and has laid for eternal rest in Cave Creek, AZ. He was an immigrant and a man who came over with coin in his pocket, but a ton of love in his heart. He was someone who chose happiness, even if the circumstances looked different. He was the original entrepreneur in our family who started a construction company in CT and employed or as I like to say “incubated” 100s of other immigrants from Italy, who later spun off and started their own businesses. Part of the ethos of how he and my grandma lived in was being deeply in grained in their community. Hosting numerous dinners, annual traditions of making homemade sauce, sausage and wine – they built a network based off of love, food and storytelling. I attribute my journey to that of my grandparents paving the way to make the american dream a reality – I will forever be grateful for the exposure to community, business & love exuded from my grandparents.

Website: https://www.freewayphx.com

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