Believe in yourself first. But having another person believe in you makes a huge difference...

"In our last year of college, while we were both in line to get pizza, Matt comes up to me and says, 'Hey, do you have any experience with Django?' I told him I'd literally just built my personal site using it and I could help him out. That's how it all began. He knew I was interested in entrepreneurship so, a few weeks later, he asked if I wanted to work on a business idea together. We talked a lot about our personal lives and our values in those sessions. I think that's when we really started bonding. Three months into the business, we were at the library and Matt asked if we could step outside. He told me that, even though we're co-founders, he thought we were mature enough to run the business and try dating. I was so shocked. It's embarrassing, but the first thing I said to him was, 'Honestly, dude, I think you're out of my league.' I told him no — no for now, at least. You'd think that would have made things really awkward for us business-wise, but it didn't. A few weeks later, he went on a hike and had this incident where he could have died. He brought me to the spot to tell me about it and said he couldn't stop thinking about me when it happened. At that moment, I realized that I just wanted to try it, I wanted to try dating him. And I'm so happy I did. I've always been independent, and I truly think it's important to believe in yourself first. But having another person believe in you makes a huge difference. You're willing to take risks you previously thought were too bold. I've learned to put myself out there more and just ship instead of being a perfectionist. Working alongside someone who really believes in me, someone I trust and care about so much — it's been life-changing."