I have been speaking to Coworking spaces, Incubators and Accelerators across London and it has become apparent that there is a common problem arising from non-technical startup founders. This transcends the culture; this impacts more than just female or minority-led startups. I have worked as a Product Manager at software companies for a few years as well as experienced starting a tech startup myself. One of the harshest lessons I learned was that to succeed at building a tech company; you need technical talent in-house. Put simply; we had to
As a founder, I’m sure you’ve heard ‘build for the long term,’ ‘focus on the long-term’ or some variation of this? As an advisor, you’ve probably given this advice to a founder, haven’t you? ‘Well, stop it!’ ‘Focus on the long-term’ is a trope that advisors, investors and successful founders tend to throw about. What these advisors don’t know is that when a founder is told this, she thinks You, the advisor, aren’t being empathetic know nothing about the founder’s context. You, the investor, are just repeating something you’ve either
Tell us about yourself and what you do? My name is Chandra Arthur, and I’m the founder and Chief Friending Officer at Friendish. The app is designed to eliminate the bias in friend finding that hopes to dismantle the shallow dating app dynamic for Millennials and Gen Z. How was your experience on Planet of the Apps. Planet of the Apps was crazy amazing! The show was my first experience of doing anything of that magnitude, and I honestly felt superly blessed to be selected. There were so many great
During an entrepreneurship talk, in Prof Darragh’s class while at Booth School of Business, I listened to Andrew Mason talk about ‘The Point.’ This was 2009 and Andrew talked about signing people up to collectively fight for or contribute to causes and initiatives that they cared about. Sort of a mass protest platform for the digital age. Andrew had amassed a list of do-gooders and would unleash it on all the necessary causes. It was similar to Change.org and had been started around the same time. Even if it was
12–18 months after raising some money from friends & family or a seed round, many of the founders I talk to shift from product/market fit questions to fundraising concerns. After trying to dissuade them from going this route (and failing most of the time) I point out the self-sabotaging actions that reduce their chances of raising venture capital. Why do I try to dissuade these founders? Because they lack the understanding that a venture backed firm serves several masters and the growth expectations (that help the VC determine return multiples) can
“If you can’t fly then run if you can’t run then walk if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Dr. King Year: Spring 2016 Location: San Francisco Mood: Defeated I was a year into founding my company, Blastchat. Blastchat is a social messaging app, and unlike other messaging apps that focus on one to one messaging (WhatsApp — Facebook Messenger — Kik), we focus on one to many messaging. The value proposition for the sender is that people who want to
My mother always told me growing up that “If you want something done well, do it yourself.” I write stories about founders & investors from diverse backgrounds to address the lack of tech inclusion across the globe. The 15 entrepreneurs featured in this article embody Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Rather than complaining while sitting on the sidelines, they have taken accountability and started on the journey to build something bigger than themselves, a startup. Funding from investors by no means is a
An article by Abadesi Osunsade [also featured in episode 61], a London-based entrepreneur of Hustle Crew. I don’t consider myself particularly risk-loving, but as the company’s priorities had changed, so too had my role. I deliberated the decision over a period of a week or so with friends and family and on a sunny May day in the Berlin office, I video-called my line manager and handed in my resignation. Sure, my colleagues thought I was crazy, but deep down inside in that moment in time… I realized the only person’s whose thoughts
How would you describe what you do and what you work on? What I work on is called Squire. Squire is a backend platform for small businesses primarily focusing on the male grooming space first. We provide software for CRM, booking management, analytics, and POS [point of sales] systems. So, we offer the full range of tools. So, is there any customer facing side to it? Yes. So, in addition to having our backend management system, we do have a consumer-facing product to coincide with our backend management system. We
Kalimah Priforce is just a kid from Brooklyn committed to eliminating barriers to a child’s greatest potential as the Headmaster CEO of Qeyno Labs. Qeyno became industry leader for the inclusive innovation ecosystem with Hackathon Academy, the first pop-up school model that prepares youth and their mentors to build web and mobile apps that accelerate college and career pathways in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art Design, and Mathematics) Tell us about yourself? I grew up in the Brooklyn group home system from seven till I was fourteen. I knew I
