Siblings. Partners. Besties. These are the pairings artists typically see at matching tattoo appointments. CEO and employee? Not so much.

But for Tatstat Product Officer Carley Feil, that’s exactly who she chose to share her first matching tattoo with: her mentor and Bitwise Industries CEO Irma Olguin Jr.

Olguin’s been getting matching tattoos with Bitwise Industries’ team members for several years. 

(Tatstat is a portfolio company under Bitwise Industries’ startup venture studio, Bitwise Ventures.) After working for Bitwise for almost 5 years, Feil was thrilled to join the more than 2 dozen Bitwise peeps who share a tattoo with the CEO.

“It’s very special to have a matching tattoo with Irma,” Feil said. “Working at Bitwise has made me grow into the person that I am today, and that wouldn’t have happened without Irma’s influence.”

Olguin and Feil met up at Faithful & True Tattoo in Downtown Fresno, where Tatstat co-founder Channelle Charest tattoos.

The matching tattoo was Feil’s ninth tattoo, but her first identical one. The event also marked the first time that Charest tattooed Feil. “It’s been a long time coming,” Feil said of the Tatstat co-founder/product officer collab. “I’m so glad this day finally came.”

Booking With Tatstat

Another first for the product officer was experiencing the tattoo booking app from a client’s perspective. “Booking with Channelle as a client was super easy,” Feil said. “She shared her artist link with me, which took me to her profile.” Feil then filled out an intake form with the design concept she wanted and sent a reference image — all within the app.

Once Charest reviewed Feil’s design ideas, she responded with a deposit request and booking time options. “After confirming my appointment time, I got a calendar invite, which was super nice,” Feil said.

Finding Inspiration

As many tattoo artists and clients know, the original design isn’t always what ends up getting inked. In Feil’s case, her original matching tattoo idea was a lily pad.

“Irma's always referred to my roles as lily pads,” Feil said, recalling her early days managing Bitwise Industries’ coworking space before becoming Tatstat’s thoughtful product officer.

Yet she struggled to find the right lily pad designs for inspiration (“they all looked like distorted Pac-Mans”). But in Feil’s true adaptable nature, she quickly jumped to another idea: a boxing frog.

Ribbit, Ribbit

The new design turned out to be the right choice, as evident by the huge smile on Olguin’s face when she saw it for the first time. (Yep, Olguin walks into every matching tattoo appointment not knowing what the design will be. Brave.) Not only did the boxing frog fit perfectly with Feil’s traditional vibe, it also represented Olguin’s fierce belief in the product officer.

“Irma fights for me on everything — in my work life, personal life, all of it,” Feil said. “She has my back.”

And now, a matching tattoo.