Lauren Long was originally born and raised in China, and moved to Canada when she was 10. She had to learn English for the first time, which taught her how to embrace hard things and challenges. She attended University in Canada, and started her first company there called BoxIt. Outside of tech, she is an outdoors person - post moving from China, where she was more of a city girl. She loves to hike, rock climb, and do yoga. She also loves to cook, and claimed she learned to cook a whole duck once, creating 5 meals from all the parts.Lauren was a key developer at Firebase, and post that, she started thinking about her past experiences and what areas could be improved - and she landed on integrations. Once she met her now co-founder, they realized they both were passionate about solving this problem.This is the creation story of Ampersand.SponsorsCipherstashTreblleCAST AI FireflyTursoMemberstackLinksWebsite: https://www.withampersand.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenzlong/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/code-story-insights-from-startup-tech-leaders/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy