Impact Hustlers - Entrepreneurs with Social Impact Maiko Schaffrath

Sançar's Sahin, Co-founder at Oliva, a B2B2C startup that provides on-demand therapy, coaching, and classes. It has previously worked with employees of companies like HubSpot and Sifted. Oliva focuses on effective process matching to build a value-based platform. 


In today’s episode, Sançar shares his personal story of experiencing burnout while working in a fast-growing startup and the importance of addressing mental health in the workplace.


EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[01:26] Sançar's personal story and getting to work on Oliva.[06:19] Maiko's Mental health journey.[07:39] Getting Mental health support, Online Therapy.[12:50] How Oliva Works.[19:08] Sançar's Perspective.[24:57] Oliva's differentiation factor.[30:09] Achieving wide adoption within a company.[35:27] Onboarding solution.[36:59] Insight into acquiring the first 10 customers.[38:50] Hardest lesson Sancar had to learn.[41:09] The future of Oliva.

KEY LESSONS & QUOTES
“There are many bad things about the pandemic, but one of the good things is that it accelerated reducing stigma around talking about mental health and accessing help.” [10:09]“Mental health is one of the most important things affecting a business.” [23:05]“To make a meaningful impact on your mental well-being, you can't just focus on preventative  and content-based care.” [25:12]“Bad matches in online therapy cause people to opt out completely because they believe it isn't them."  [26:17]Support the show

In today's episode, I speak to Rodney Williams, who's the co-founder, chairman, and president of SoLo Funds, which is a B-Corp-certified community finance platform that's now used by more than 1 million users. Members can borrow and lend money between themselves rather than go to traditional lenders, loan sharks, or banks.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[01:16] Rodney's personal background
[03:18] What other alternatives exist
[04:50] How does SoLo work?
[07:25] When and how do your customers use SoLo
[08:56] Difference between Credit score vs SoLo score
[11:50] Fighting the step crisis
[14:27] SoLo's plan for the future
[16:15] SoLo’s expansion to Nigeria
[18:22] SoLo's approach to fundraising & growing revenue
[19:53] Investors' feedback on the business
[24:36] How did SoLo approach investors
[27:53] How did Solo get to become
[33:04] Undeniable product market fit
[37:32] 10-year vision


KEY LESSONS & QUOTES


" You can't build wealth without growing it. " [12:12]
"Subprime product, underserved communities, helping people that usually doesn't sound like a big business you’d want to invest in." [19:44]
"Our goal to market strategy is done right and do good because if you can't buy users, you need users to really like what you do.” [21:46]
“A challenge that has made this extremely difficult is that the same financial system
that has created the market that we live in today has created so much discrimination.” [20:30]
“The majority of the group who use this predatory product, tend to be women. Women are taking advantage of these products significantly more.” [26:30]
“All of the impact investors who have turned down Solo, I think they're a joke.” [24:57]
“As we made the consumer experience better, our growth rate accelerated and that's when I knew it was an undeniable product market fit.” (35:01)

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Mark Horoszowski, the CEO and co-founder of Moving Worlds, a platform that's supporting social enterprises by connecting them to corporate content and pro-bono professionals that can really help them get ahead.
In today’s episode, we discuss how their platform can help social entrepreneurs or if you're in a corporation, how you can actually work with social entrepreneurs all over the world. 
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[00:54] Mark's personal background & journey[09:56] Moving World's impact in transforming business[16:12] How does Moving Worlds work? [22:08] How do corporate partners measure success working with social enterprises?[26:16] Mark's advice on social enterprises understanding how corporates work[31:01] Mark's advice for social founders on when to scale up[36:17] Common mistakes social entrepreneurs make working with corporates[38:53] How can social entrepreneurs join Moving Worlds?[40:11] Mark's (Moving Worlds) 10-year visionKEY LESSONS & QUOTES
“You don't need to wait for all of your partnership, create a series of assumptions of who is my target buyer, and do some customer discovery then validate whether that is a repeat business model” [28:59]“As the pilot is starting, what does success look like for you? And if you hit it, what happens next? So you're actually designing for the pilot to be successful and designing for your next sales activation model in place because as soon as you have a data point, not that you've achieved it, but that you're tracking to achieve it.” [32:28]“Often entrepreneurs will get into the room with someone, they will speak so clearly about their mission, passionately about their product or service, eloquently about their organization and they'll walk out not understanding the actual needs of the person that they were just talking to.” [36:57]
Moving World’s Program- Website
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In today's episode, I speak to Krish Himmatramka, the founder of Do Amore, a direct-to-consumer startup that sells engagement rings with conflict-free diamonds. Each ring also funds water projects, which can be traced using GPS coordinates and photos that prove there's an actual impact.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[01:05] Krish's Journey
[03:47] How the Water Project Happened
[07:50] Approaching Do Amore with Traceability
[11:56] Verifying source and responsibility of Diamonds/Gold
[15:01] Outsourcing Lab Created Diamonds
[16:14] Future for mined Diamonds
[17:26] The Journey of a Diamond
[22:07] Blockchain Tracking
[25:17] Hardest lesson building the company
[29:49] Acquiring first customers
[32:15] Current playbook
[34:52] Marketing and growth channels on Organic SEO
[36:16] The Future of Do Amore
[38:20] Way to change big companies
[29:49] Acquiring first customers
[32:15] Current playbook
[34:52] Marketing and growth channels on Organic SEO


KEY LESSONS & QUOTES


"The hardest thing I learned is that social impact can only take you so far. To really succeed, you have to go beyond it." [25:23]
"When you have so much passion for something, It's very easy to only care about that. But the thing is most of your consumers might not." [26:41]
“We got our very first customers by doing things that we didn’t expect to scale” [30:49]
“My biggest lesson from starting as a company that had to be profitable was knowing that to really make the mission work, the economics of scale had to work.” [34:09]

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Eleanor Kaye, Executive Director of the Newton Venture Program. Program helping people from underestimated and overlooked backgrounds break into the venture capital industry and also advance their careers once they are in the venture capital industry.
In today’s episode, we discuss her journey in the venture capital industry and talk about some of the challenges in the industry and how the Newton Venture Program is curbing them. 
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[00:41] Eleanor's personal background & journey[06:17] What is the Newton Venture Program?[11:43] Who is the Newton Venture Program for?[15:35] Root problems of the diversity challenge in the industry?[19:02] Barriers into the VC industry blocking people from underestimated backgrounds[23:35] Are VC roles advertised or relationship-based?[26:55] Work experience’s impact on role growth in the VC industry[29:42] Structural barriers within the VC industry preventing role-growth[33:02] Advice for founders fundraising from underestimated backgrounds[35:12] Eleanor's 10-year visionKEY LESSONS & QUOTES
“I think there are misconceptions around venture capital. It's not a get-rich fast, side of a career.” [22:03]“Venture capitalists need to bring in specialist partners to be able to identify good products in these new trends” [30:4]“A massive step is understanding if you want more diverse candidates, then you're gonna have to go to the places that collect the diverse candidates, and that's very cool” [27:29]“It's not even about finding the roles, but it's how you stand out and I think that's quite difficult if you haven't got the background as an investment banker or, potentially, any  experience in venture capital.” [27:56]Newton Venture Program - Website
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Rene Haas, the co-founder, and CEO of NeoCarbon. A company that has created a product that removes CO2 from the atmosphere by retrofitting industrial cooling towers with direct air capture devices. Direct air capture has been promoted as one of the most promising solutions to climate change.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
[0:47] Rene Haas’s background.[4:33] Do entrepreneurs have to start from bigger companies before committing to start-ups?[7:45] Intentionality of building a company around your life[11:07] How does NeoCarbon work?[14:49] How far along is the technology? [15:50] NeoCarbon business model[18:16] Business benefits for cooling tower manufacturers[19:06] Clients benefits from using NeoCarbon[20:24] Next steps to achieve target cooling tower solutions[22:16] Inflation reduction act client's impact [23:44] Lessons learned along the journey[29:57] Co-founders therapy, how does that work?[31:31] Is a business start-up exciting or not?[32:58] Rene’s 10-year vision  

KEY LESSONS & QUOTES
“Hardware is different to scale than software for manufacturing companies” [16:05]
“Big companies and manufacturers have crazy high margins on their products hence easier for them to do service maintenance on their equipment” [18:29]
”Our next step, is going from lab to the real environment as fast as possible, because we started, prototyping super early, before we had proper models” [20:44]
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