HOW IT BEGAN

Tech Bettys was originally created as a web series by Mary McGloin and Amanda Van Nostrand. It is now a half-hour television series, with Mary at the helm.

ORIGIN STORY

During the premier of Silicon Valley in 2014 that included a talk back, Mary raised her hand and asked about the absence of female engineers in the show. She asked not intending to put anyone on the spot, but because she wanted to audition. The cast members responded with nerds inability to talk to females but Mike’s answer was more insightful:

“The tech world as you know is like that…I have a picture I took at the Tech Crunch Disrupt of the audience and it’s maybe two percent female. My ex-wife was an engineer and also worked in the tech world, so I know they’re there…”
– Indiewire

Upon returning home from SXSW, Mary told one of her coworkers at the internet start-up she worked at about the interaction at the talkback, and she said,

“Wait a minute, I just read about that in Indiewire, is this you?”

And showed her the article. Sure enough, Mary and her question were the woman mentioned in the article whose question caused a ruckous at the talkback.

Soon after, Mary had writer’s block on another series she was working on and went to her neighborhood bar. When she relayed the story to Amanda, a comedian and bartender at the bar, Amanda suggested she write about her day job at the tech startup and said she’d help as she worked in tech as an Office Manager. So thus, at a bar in Brooklyn, Tech Bettys was born.

In 2016, Mary and Amanda  added a third female producer to the team, Lindsay Schimer, and shot a promo video that was shared online and via business cards with attendees of SXSW. That summer, Amanda and Lindsay decided to move on to other projects, but encouraged Mary to continue, who has kept the torch going. The show is near and dear to Mary as she is very familiar with the lack of women in tech, in addition to being an actress and filmmaker, she also has a career as a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer. With a desire to bring awareness through content, she’s forged on with the show.

The journey has been long, but worth it. The promo video we shot in 2016 went on to appear in two festivals, The Big Apple Film Festival in 2016 and The Silicon Valley International Film Festival. It was at the Silicon Valley International Film Festival where some interesting things happened. The first was that Mary pitched Tech Bettys and relayed the SXSW story. Another attendee said:

“So you’re the woman!”

Mary replied a bit perplexed, “What?”

He continued, “I’m the daily digitals editor on Silicon Valley at HBO and we still talk about you and that question. They haven’t solved it yet.”

Mary was thrilled to hear this and said, “I know! You’ve gotta show Mike Judge this video!”

Mary met director Kathleen Davison of Painted Saint Entertainment  at the Silicon Valley International Film Festival, pitching her show, Primrose Lane. Mary and Kathleen became fast friends and Kathleen expressed her interest in directing Tech Bettys. Mary was thrilled to have Kathleen on board as she really wanted an all-female crew if she could find the right people. Thus Mary and her production company Goodly Rotten Apple Productions LLC and Kathleen’s company, Painted Saint Entertainment came together and shot three webisodes, which went around the world to a lot of festivals, were nominated many times, and won several awards. These webisodes are now the proof-of-concept for the television series.

As of this writing, Mary has restructured, rewritten, and written the entire eight-episode first season of the half-hour version of Tech Bettys as a television show. The scripts have been vetted by her mentor, a veteran showrunner. The pilot script has been an Semifinalist for the Maven Media Scholarship, an Official Selection at the Stowe Story Labs, An Official Script Selection at Catalyst 2021, a Second Rounder at Austin Film Festival and an Official Pitch Selection at Catalyst 2022. Mary is currently actively looking for funding and partners to produce ideally the full first season, but at least the new pilot in the next year.