A story about becoming someone you’ve never been before.
The Catmadillo.
What happens when the person you’ve always been is no longer the person you want to become?
Public Speaking · Personal Storytelling · Women in Tech · March 2024
In March 2024, I took the stage at Richmond Hill Tech Community’s International Women’s Day event to share a deeply personal story about entrepreneurship, self-doubt, and reinvention.
And I told it through a rather unusual character.
A cat who wanted to become an armadillo.
The Catmadillo, on stage. Richmond Hill Tech Community · March 2024.
01 — The story behind the story
I spent years learning how to become a designer. Then I had to learn how to become someone else.
For most of my life, my identity was clear. I was an artist, a designer, a storyteller.
I co-founded Kafshdoozak, a children’s storytelling startup that grew from a university project into a business. Later, I moved to Canada, explored animation and multimedia, and built my career in design.
But when I co-founded Foodeasy in 2023, I found myself navigating unfamiliar territory.
Suddenly, being a good designer wasn’t enough.
I had to understand business development, networking, funding, strategy, and a hundred other things I had never been taught.
Worse, I had to learn how to see myself differently.
The hardest part of becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t learning new skills. It was learning to believe I belonged.
02 — Meet the Catmadillo
Imagine being a cat your entire life. Then deciding to become an armadillo.
You’re an excellent cat. You’ve mastered scratching furniture, looking adorable, and taking care of your humans.
But one day, you decide to follow your dream. You’re going to become an armadillo.
You wake up the next morning, full of excitement.
Still a cat.
The next day?
Still a cat.
That’s the Catmadillo: the awkward space between who you are and who you’re trying to become.
I created this little character to explain something I was struggling to put into words: transformation isn’t an instant change of identity. It’s a long, often uncomfortable journey between thinking, acting, and finally becoming.
And sometimes, that journey gets messy.
Cat
Catmadillo
Circle
Triangle
Circle, again
The journey, told through the original presentation’s characters. Scroll sideways to follow the story.
03 — When a circle becomes a triangle
Three things almost stopped me from moving forward.
01 /
The things I didn’t know
Every day, I encountered a new skill I didn’t have, a business concept I didn’t understand, or a problem I didn’t know how to solve.
The more I learned, the more I realized how much I still didn’t know.
02 /
The way others saw me
To the people around me, I was still the designer.
When I talked about my startup, people would ask whether I designed its logo or website.
They weren’t necessarily trying to discourage me. But being constantly reminded of my old identity made it harder to feel confident in my new one.
03 /
The beliefs I carried with me
Growing up, I experienced expectations about what women should and shouldn’t do. I had to confront beliefs that made me question my capabilities long before I started a business.
Those experiences didn’t simply disappear when I decided to become an entrepreneur.
Together, these challenges slowly changed my shape.
In the presentation, I imagined myself as a circle: smooth, confident, rolling forward.
Then came the bumps. The pressure. The sharp edges.
Until eventually, I was a triangle.
And triangles aren’t particularly good at rolling.
04 — The turning point
I didn’t need to become a circle overnight. I just needed to make one flip.
There were days when giving up seemed easier than trying again.
But what changed things for me wasn’t some extraordinary breakthrough. It was a much smaller idea.
Inspired by Atomic Habits, I began breaking overwhelming goals into tiny actions I could repeat.
One problem at a time. One step at a time.
And because progress can be invisible when you’re living through it, I started measuring my habits and tracking my progress.
Little by little, I began to see changes. Not because the challenges had disappeared, but because I was learning how to keep moving despite them.
One flip. Then another. Original artwork from the presentation.Scroll sideways to see the full sequence.
You don’t have to see the entire path. Sometimes you just need enough courage for the next flip.
05 — The power of 1, 1, 1
One event. One person. One question.
Networking terrified me.
As an introvert, I could invent a hundred reasons not to attend an event.
So instead of forcing myself to become a confident networker overnight, I created the smallest challenge I could imagine.
1
Event per month.
1
Person to approach.
1
Question to ask.
That was it. If I completed those three things, I could go home feeling successful.
Where one question led
At one Richmond Hill Tech Community event, that tiny commitment led me to meet Priti from the Richmond Hill Small Business Centre.
That one conversation introduced our startup to the Starter Company Plus program, workshops, mentorship, funding opportunities, and a much wider entrepreneurial network.
We later connected with organizations including YSpace and the Toronto Business Development Centre, and participated in the Land & Expand program as one of its top ten businesses.
A small personal challenge had opened doors I hadn’t known existed.
Sometimes, the distance between where you are and where you want to be starts with one question.
06 — Bringing the story to the stage
Making a difficult subject feel a little lighter.
I didn’t want to give a conventional presentation about entrepreneurship or success. I wanted the audience to recognize themselves in the story.
So I combined personal experiences, playful characters, shape-shifting animations, simple illustrations, and a little self-deprecating humour.
The Catmadillo became a way to talk about things that aren’t always easy to discuss: insecurity, belonging, childhood beliefs, fear of failure, and the exhaustion of starting over.
The goal wasn’t to present a perfect success story. It was to make the messy middle of transformation feel understandable, relatable, and a little less lonely.
Personal
Turning difficult experiences into a practical framework for moving forward.
Professional
Building connections through the 1–1–1 approach, leading to mentorship and startup opportunities.
Communication
Using visual metaphor, animation and humour to make an emotionally complex subject understandable.
A story shared with the community that helped me take those first steps.
07 — The message I wanted to leave behind
You get what you repeat.
We often imagine transformation as a dramatic before-and-after moment. But most of the time, it happens quietly.
In uncomfortable conversations. In tiny decisions. In days when things don’t go according to plan.
I still don’t believe growth means never getting stuck again. It means learning how to make the next move when you do.
You don’t have to become an entirely new person tomorrow. You just have to take one small step toward becoming that person today.
Scroll sideways to follow the full transformation.
And if you’re feeling a little like a triangle right now?
Maybe all you need is one more flip.
Lift. Pull. Flop.
International Women’s Day Special · Richmond Hill Tech Community · March 7, 2024.
Event details
The Catmadillo
The Challenge of Creating a New Identity
International Women’s Day Special Richmond Hill Tech Community
Speaker: Armaghan Taghvaei, Co-Founder of Foodeasy
A personal storytelling presentation exploring identity, entrepreneurship, limiting beliefs, resilience, and the power of small, measurable actions.
