This week, we caught up with Anne-Marie Huby, co-founder of popular online fundraising platform JustGiving.

Read on as Anne-Marie talks about getting a startup going during the dotcom crash, shaping your own company’s culture, and building a sustainable business for a social purpose.

What inspired you and your co-founder to start JustGiving?

In 1999, Zarine Kharas, our CEO, spotted the opportunity to use the web to better connect good causes with people who care. When she and I met, I was running the UK branch of the humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres and looking for a low-cost system that would enable the charity to accept donations online. Such a system did not exist. So I joined JustGiving full time and we launched JustGiving a little over a year later, in February 2001. Nearly fourteen years on, JustGiving is the fastest-growing social giving platform in the world, with 10 million users and $3.3 billion raised for good causes to date.

What has been your biggest challenge being an entrepreneur?

Nearly running out of money. We closed our first round of funding shortly before the dotcom crash, so we had to make every penny count thereafter. Being very early was also a challenge. Charities were very sceptical at first, and it took us a long time to demonstrate how valuable online giving would be to them.

What have been your biggest challenges being a woman in the tech industry, driven by men?

I am probably going to disappoint you here, but I can’t think of a single occasion when I have felt that being a woman put me at a disadvantage. Don’t get me wrong, I have no doubt that men and women have very different opportunities and experiences in larger firms – just as in wider society – and those issues are real. But if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to grow a business from scratch, as Zarine and I have done, then you have a unique opportunity to shape its culture and choose the people who work with you.

If you asked me what had been essential to the growth of JustGiving, I would say that it had little to do with the fact that it is run by two women. I’d argue it has a lot more to do with a set of highly unusual investors with a very long-term orientation who have always encouraged us to keep investing and focusing all our energies on creating a great product and a great place for people to work and grow. In short, if you build a great product, and take genuine care of your customers, the financials will follow. A lot of investors say this, but do not act accordingly. Ours have done so consistently, and all of them are men.

What can the JustGiving platform offer users that other charitable platforms can’t?

At its core, JustGiving enables everyone with a cause – whether it is helping find a cure for cancer or fund a new roof for their community centre – to raise more money than they ever thought possible. People and charities raise more money on JustGiving than any other platform – £360m this year alone – because it helps them reach more people and inspire more support than any other application.

What are some of your proudest accomplishments in your entrepreneurial journey so far?

Proving that it was possible to combine social purpose with running a sustainable business. Our for-profit-for-good model has enabled us to keep investing in innovation to a much greater extent than we would have done if we ran JustGiving along charitable lines.

What advice would you give to girls/women interested in working in tech or starting their own businesses?

Two different questions there. The first, about starting to work in tech: if you are looking to move into a tech business, don’t worry too much if your first job is not a perfect match for your existing skills, or looks slightly odd on your CV. Once you have a foothold in a tech firm, new opportunities will open up. As for starting up a new business: building a core team up front is key. Know your strengths and weaknesses and find people who complement you right from the beginning.

Keen to join a massively growing, for-profit-for-good company that’s just moved into some amazing new offices in London Bridge? JustGiving is hiring right now for their product and tech teams! Take a look at the opportunities they’re offering.

This week we caught up with entrepreneur Nathalie Gaveau of Shopcade. She discusses creating and selling her first business and recently launching Shopcade in Asia. She also advises women to quit talking about what projects they’re going to do and to get out and do them!

Tell us about Shopcade. 

Shopcade is the world’s first social shopping app. Think Amazon and Facebook infused with fashion, or it is often referred to in the media as a “shoppable Instagram.”

Our community of users can browse through celebrity styles, create wish lists from what’s trending and shop their favourite looks all in one place, with the added bonus of exclusive deals from our huge network of partners.

It is very entertaining and we always keep our content fresh and new, always with our community of users in mind and what they want to see in regard to celebrity trends, general fashion trends and the newest and coolest brands.

Shopcade is web based and mobile – free to download on iOS and Android, but a word of warning, it is addictive.

What inspired you to start Shopcade? 

The concept was born out of innovation – observing new buying and sharing behaviours and understanding how to position commerce around those behaviours.

On a basic level, it’s about the marriage of content and commerce. I saw a lot of sites that were e-commerce, but lacking content and lacking quality curation. There was no one site for e-commerce that was social and it wasn’t quite working on larger social media platforms.

What have been your biggest challenges being an entrepreneur? 

The biggest challenge is to focus and to smartly do less. When you’re running your own tech company, there are always a million things that you could be doing and suggestions come in from everyone, everywhere. But you can’t do everything. It’s about addressing the business aspects that are in line with the users.

What have been your biggest challenges being a woman in an industry driven by men? 

I am a female entrepreneur in a male driven industry, but it really doesn’t matter. The great thing about the web is that the industry doesn’t care what gender you are. It’s about content creation, transactions and data. The Internet is completely open to opportunity for anyone – young, old, male or female.

Fashion technology is a hot market right now. What sets Shopcade apart from the rest? 

I envision Shopcade as the global social fashion app. It’s great to see what musicians, bloggers and fashion influencers are wearing – that kind of content is everywhere, but we’ve taken it up a notch and connected that content to e-commerce. Our community of nearly one million users can immediately purchase the looks they’re inspired by from the over 150,000 brands that we have on the site via our own e-commerce offering or through our vast affiliate network that includes everyone from Motel Rocks to Topshop to Liberty.

We’re also using our data at Shopcade to tailor the experience across a wide array of functions to make it more interesting for the community. Shopcade is also becoming a top marketing platform for brands.

What are some of your proudest accomplishments in your entrepreneurial journey so far? 

My entrepreneurial journey is about proactiveness. I create opportunities by turning my thoughts into action and build international teams to deliver plans.

Creating the ‘eBay of France,’ PriceMinister, building it up and then selling it with my business partner Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet was incredible and put me on the map as not just a female tech entrepreneur, but one of the most successful tech entrepreneurs in all of Europe. At the time of creation, the dot-com bubble had just burst, so e-commerce wasn’t a popular topic. The difficult climate actually helped because it prevented us from making the mistakes of the others before us. It was at PriceMinister that I discovered my love for the web. It combines the creative and analytical – right brain and left brain.

When we sold PriceMinister in 2010, we were one of the biggest e-commerce exits in Europe. But there was no way that I was going to stop working. That’s where Shopcade comes in.

At Shopcade I’m building upon what I learned in the sector, but adapting to the new shopping environment: visual, mobile, personalized and social. Shopcade is also very international and we made it scalable from the start.

The greatest success at Shopcade so far has been the launch of our mobile app. This made a significant difference in active engaged users daily. Users are now logging in daily to check out what is trending, even when they’re not shopping. It’s also starting to become a content destination in its own right, which is really exciting. The launch of the mobile app has helped make us focus on simplicity more too and end user benefits.

We’ve also just launched in India – setting up a satellite Shopcade team there, and we will be launching in Tokyo later in the year.

What advice would you give to girls/women interested in joining tech or startups?

Women and girls that are interested in tech just need to start. The most important thing that I can advise is to stop talking about projects. If you have a project in mind, you should do it. Tech is still a fairly young industry and if you have good ideas and can realise them, people don’t really care if you are a woman. Both the tech industry and the web are very open, young and meritocratic, making them great environments for women.

This week’s Founder Talks series features Brynne Herbert, CEO and Founder of MOVE Guides. Read on as she talks self confidence, not taking things personally, and the journey to creating an award-winning global mobility solution.

Tell us about MOVE Guides.

MOVE Guides envisions a world where moving global talent is easy. Partnering with companies to make this a reality, MOVE Guides offers the first ever cloud-based technology system for the $50bn talent mobility industry dominated by traditional offline incumbents.

Our unique Talent Mobility Cloud is a tri-sided, transformational HR technology platform that combines employee move planning, HR management and global vendors to deliver a dramatically improved employee experience and millions of dollars in cost savings to companies.

 What inspired you to start MOVE Guides?

Before starting MOVE Guides, I lived throughout Asia and India. I gained a unique understanding of global talent in multinational companies. As an expat on the move, I would constantly watch my friends and colleagues navigate the same cumbersome and exhausting relocation challenges.

After an extremely painful move from Asia to London, I realised that a massive gap in the global mobility industry was an opportunity to disrupt the marketplace. I was determined to create the first ever HR technology service for global mobility that appealed to increasingly global companies, a changing employee demographic and a tech savvy workforce.

What have been your biggest challenge being a woman in an industry driven by men?

It frustrates me that more times than not, I will look around a 50-100 person room and realise that I am one out of four women there to pitch their business or meet with VC funders.  When completing my first round of funding I actually had someone say to me that they would not fund me because I was a woman led tech startup.  Sadly this happens a lot. Only 4.2% of businesses that receive VC funding are female led. While this didn’t stop me, I am sure this discourages many women from following through with their startup.

What do you think can be done to bring more women into tech?

SV not only has a demographic problem but a culture problem. I believe that as more women break through into the tech industry, more will follow to challenge the status quo and change culture to be much more woman friendly. Society also needs to play a bigger role in encouraging young women to enter STEM programs and seek higher education that provides them with the skills they need to succeed in SV. I love groups like Girls in Tech and Girls Who Code that empower girls to seek opportunities in tech and engineering.

What are some of your proudest accomplishments in your entrepreneurial journey so far?

Over the past two years, my team and I have grown MOVE Guides from a small London-based startup to an award-winning global mobility solution, supporting moves to 100+ cities across six continents. This in itself is an incredible accomplishment and is a true testament to the quality of our services, an understanding of the marketplace and the dedicated team behind MOVE Guides.

One of my proudest moments along this journey was when we closed our seed-funding round from Notion Capital and NEA, bringing our total funding to $2.4 million. This was a huge accomplishment and provided us with the resources and expertise that we needed to accelerate growth and be a champion in global mobility. Also, this year we were very excited to be featured by Startup.co.uk as one of the top 100 new businesses in London. They even quoted us as “the group that make relocating more like taking a holiday.”

How do you describe your leadership style?

I am very direct with my team and believe that transparency is the best way to approach a successful business. I try to lead confidently and assertively, which I think is important for companies like MOVE Guides, that are still in the early stages of success. I run a company with only 15 employees and sell to FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies that have never heard of us and have never even heard of the category that we sell in. This type of disruption in the marketplace requires direct communications and a strong voice to get people behind it.

If you could be anything other than the CEO of MOVE Guides what would it be?

I absolutely love to travel, meet new people and experience new cultures, so it would have to be something that spanned across cities, languages and continents. I would probably look into opening a chain of hotels around the world or develop an app that supports world travellers.

What advice would you give your 18 year old self?

When I was 18, I was a member of the Ivy League Championship gymnastics team, always on the move and competing. My experiences in gymnastics really shaped my work ethic and drive. That said, if I were to go back in time and talk to my 18 year old self, I would tell her that there is so much more ahead of you and that the best is yet to come. Savour your time and independence in college and don’t forget to have fun!

What advice would you give to women interested in starting a new business?

If you see a void in the marketplace, don’t wait for someone else to fill it. Be self-confident, believe in your product and fight for it.

Also, don’t take things personally. People are going to challenge your every move and try to bring you down. You need to be strong and be able to compartmentalise emotions, tune out those that do not support you but learn to accept and appreciate constructive criticise.

There is no doubt that more and more women are starting to take on entrepreneurial roles in business, which is inspiring other women to have the courage to get out there and start their own thing.

What’s even more inspiring is seeing some of those women as young as Grace Regan, 23-year-old co-founder of audio news app Clippet.

We caught up with her this week on working in startups, what inspired her to do this app, and why traditional news outlets need to change the way they do things.

Tell us about Clippet.

Clippet is an audio news app, which mines news from around the world to curate and create audio ‘clippets’ that last no more than 60 seconds.

We’re aimed at young professionals, university students and metropolitan commuters. We know our users seek a deeper understanding of the issues of the day but don’t have enough time to wade through various news platforms. We therefore do the hard work for them, curating, researching, writing and recording short digestible news clippets, which keep our listeners up–to–date with what’s going on in the world. 

What are your thoughts on business being so content marketing focussed in 2014? Did that inspire you to start Clippet?

I think the trend towards content–focused business is a reaction against previous tendencies for tech–led companies to simply aggregate 3^rd party content and regurgitate it without thinking about the consumer and their needs. I was inspired to start Clippet because I believe news journalism needs a facelift – it’s become stale, old fashioned and irrelevant to a modern audience. The content of traditional media has become almost impenetrable; it’s incredibly time–consuming to pick apart. Why not just put information in the simplest, clearest and most conversational way possible? This is the ethos behind Clippet’s content. I think this is a general trend amongst new media content. I was excited to read Sir Howard Stringer’s report on BBC News and his suggestion that the BBC must understand it’s audience more and make their news more relevant to them. In order to engage people with your content, it must connect with them on a personal level. 

What have been your biggest challenges being an entrepreneur?

I think the biggest challenge has been learning to know when you’ve made a mistake and act upon it. So much of business relies on gut instincts. There were occasions in the early days of Clippet when myself and my business partner circled around taking action/changing direction on something because we didn’t trust our natural instincts enough. We’re getting better at this! It’s also challenging to keep pushing yourself to improve when there’s no (or few) people breathing down your neck (like in a normal job!). I’m learning to constantly challenge myself and push myself to keep improving.

What have been your biggest challenges being a woman in an industry driven by men?

To be honest, I haven’t noticed my sex getting in the way of my day–to–day work. I suppose both the journalism and tech industry are dominated by men and this has been very noticeable (especially when you go to panel discussions with industry experts and there’s no women!). The fact that we’ve built our own team of young journalists, producers and developers means that traditional gender hierarchies simply don’t exist within Clippet. That being said, I do find that ‘business talk’ and ‘tech talk’ is often a domain reserved for men. I’m often given a surprised look whenever anyone hears that I work in the app world and I think it’s this assumption that women and tech don’t mix that needs to change.

What are some of your proudest accomplishments in your entrepreneurial journey so far?

I think it would be spending months and months researching and developing our audio content (tone, style, format etc.) and coming up with a formula I’m proud of (although we’re constantly developing and improving it!). The most satisfying part of this has been being able to pass the ‘Clippet style’ onto our team of journalists and editors and watch them learn and grow into the Clippet mind–set.

What advice would you give to your 18-year-old self?

Hard work pays off! Around this age I really began putting my all into everything (I was a bit of a disorganised mess before!). Looking back, I’ve realised that every achievement (no matter how small) so far has been down to pure grit, perseverance and hard work.

What advice would you give to girls/women interested in joining tech or startups?

Just do it. Ignore all the preconceptions of tech being a male–dominated world (it will never change if girls continue to think like this). There’s nothing more rewarding than working for a start up – it’s a lot of work but it’s worth it. Also, keep challenging yourself – whether it’s trying something new at school or leaving your current job to pursue something you’d rather be doing.

 

 

This week we caught up with Emma Owens, co-founder and CMO of Rormix, a startup from Manchester that discovers music videos of emerging artists. She began her co-founder journey at just 23-years-old which is a huge accomplishment for her already.

Q: What has been your journey so far in tech?

A: I was introduced to tech when I met young entrepreneur Amman Ahmed after graduating Uni in 2012. We met and chatted about his startup and I came on board working with him on his first business, roundwaves.com, as a marketer. To explain briefly, Roundwaves works with artists in developing countries and creates music with a solution e.g. sleep music, concentration music and my personal fave, dog music! In terms of revenue Roundwaves is a YouTube Ad Network and Itunes structure.

I was given total freedom to do as I wished, something which was very alien to me but definitely my favourite part of working in a tech start-up.

At Roundwaves I improved viral growth by 250% and created a social media community. With Roundwaves automated, we moved on to build a new tech startup, funding it from the revenue of Roundwaves.

Now at 24 I am a co-founder of tech company Rormix – Discover Emerging Music Videos, something that I’d never imagined but is now my proudest achievement. Now we are a team of five and we have the best job working on the Rormix app. Every week is a different adventure.

Q: What have been your biggest challenges so far as a young co-founder?

A: As a young co-founder I have found that my biggest challenge is probably facing myself. I think I should be more confident as I am sometimes concerned that people may think I’m inexperienced. Interacting with VC’s and investors can sometimes be a challenge when you are a young tech team. This is where the knowledge of mentors is so important so I think that is something that is essential to incorporate. In general I have found that being a young co-founder has probably played in my favour as I can adapt to situations easily and I am so eager to learn. Plus all the experience I am gaining feels very valuable.

Q: What have been your biggest challenge so far as a woman co-founder?

A: To be honest, when I came into tech I didn’t realise that there were so few women in this industry, so when I went to my first few networking events and was the only woman there, or one of two women there, I was really surprised. I love being a woman in tech because I want to encourage other females and show them that this is the best industry to be in if you are passionate about it of course. However I also find it extremely difficult at times. At certain events I have been treated very differently to my male colleagues, even though we are at the same level. Some men will not shake my hand, even if I started the conversation. Some guys will not make eye contact and it has been something that is so obvious that other people have noticed. So this is something that I am very keen to change since the most successful technology companies are made up of both genders. It’s quite shocking how such a forward facing industry can be so very backward in this way. I don’t want to sound like I’m against men because that’s completely untrue I just want to make women feel more comfortable in a tech environment and that is everybody’s responsibility.

Q: When was Rormix launched and what are the company’s accomplishments to date?

A: Rormix the app was launched at the start of October on both iOS and Android. Since then we have got 4500+ downloads in more than 100 countries and have had some great feedback. We’ve also been featured in The Next Web twice as one of the top music discovery apps next to Shazam and some other huge players. Something we were really proud of.

Q: Tell us about your current role and responsibilities as co-founder and CMO at Rormix:

A: At Rormix I cover a lot of things (typical startup) but my main role involves user acquisition, marketing and social media management. I’m trying to get the app out to as many people as possible so I plant seeds in as many places as possible. I reach out to users to get feedback – so for example I spoke with Reddit users about the Android app and this was a massively important point for us because we changed the app based on their feedback.

Q: Is there anything new you’re planning on learning or focusing on to become a more well-rounded entrepreneur?

A: I would love to learn to code, even on a basic level but at the moment all my time is going into Rormix. I am just keen to keep learning – I seem to hear new things everyday, which I love. In terms of the future I am keen to push for change for women in tech. I want to see more women at events, speaking and generally having more of a presence, plus any prejudices that are currently in place need to disappear and I would like to help towards that.

Q: What is one piece of advice you’d offer other girls interested in tech?

A: Use being a woman to your advantage, be strong, be a pioneer, ask questions (so you can learn!), push yourself forward through the ignorance and enjoy it!