female entrepreneurs Archives - Don't Stop Us Now

Tessa Clarke – The Difference One Person Can Make

November 1, 2021November 2, 2021
by Claire

We’re excited to be bringing you an inspiring and very relevant guest this week given world leaders have been meeting at COP26 in Glasgow for vital climate talks as this episode goes to air.

Tessa Clarke is Co-founder and CEO of the international food sharing and household goods app called OLIO. Her passion for sustainability and for creating simple ways to help all of us to take simple but powerful steps to help the environment is just what we need right now!

Tessa and her Co-founder (whom she met at Stanford doing her MBA) launched OLIO in 2015 and originally focused on food waste in the home, although now you can find new homes for all kinds of other items as well.

OLIO has just successfully closed a Series B fundraising round raising $43 million dollars from top tier VC firms who have described OLIO’s 5-fold growth in the past year as phenomenal. More than 5 million OLIO users in 53 countries are now reducing not only food waste but also preventing more than 3 million household goods going to landfill as well.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How Tessa wished she’d made the time earlier in her career to stop and really reflect about what she was passionate about doing in her career
How Tessa came up with the idea for OLIO;
Her four tips for female founders raising funds;
How food waste globally results in greenhouse gas emissions that would make it the 3rd largest country in emission terms in the world.
And last but not least, Tessa shares how western householders make up for HALF of all that food waste.

So dear fellow citizen of Planet Earth, please make haste and devour this episode with the determined and passionate Tessa Clarke. Enjoy!

Useful Links

OLIO website

OLIO in the App store – Google & Apple

Dana Kanze TED Talk on the real reason female founders get less funding

Future Proof Me Mini Episode

Future Proof Me – Mastering Your Ego

July 13, 2021
by Claire

This week’s Future Proofing mini episode is all about not letting your ego get the better of you.

We were blown away by the maturity and wisdom of young New Zealand entrepreneur, Brianne West, the founder and CEO of Ethique, the global and sustainable cosmetics company. We spoke to her on the show last year.

Brianne’s mission is to rid the world of single-use plastics and Ethique replaces bottled products like shampoos with solid bars of concentrated product.

Brianne has won all kinds of honours including New Zealand’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year and she was named an Obama Leader for Asia Pacific.

With these accolades Brianne could be forgiven for running her global business exactly as she pleases. But what’s so refreshing about this entrepreneur in her 30’s is that she’s well aware she’s never worked in any other business and so she knows she needs other people’s expertise to help her succeed.

And that’s where mastering your ego comes into it. Brianne is so authentic and open about what she does and doesn’t know.

In a world where it’s so easy for all of us to think we have to role play and claim more experience and capability than we may have, one of the secrets to Brianne’s success is that she’s learnt her business needs her to listen to the recommendations of others in order to succeed. She leaves her ego at the door when she goes to work and so do her colleagues.

Take a listen and be inspired how vulnerability really can be the best way forward.

Useful Links

Brianne’s Full Interview with us – Brianne West – Running the World’s most Sustainable Cosmetics Company

Ethique Website

Brianne on Instagram

Interview

Taylor White – The Art of Creating

July 6, 2021August 10, 2021
by Claire

This week we feature the first ever visual artist on the show when we talk with the entrepreneurial and talented American artist, Taylor White.

Taylor has worked around the world creating incredible street murals and fine art. You may have seen her work in Melbourne, Oslo, Berlin, LA, Miami, and her hometown of Raleigh in North Carolina.

Taylor spent a lot of last year driven by the goal to create and produce her own solo exhibition (The Pursuit of Happiness) inspired by her observations of life in the time of Covid. As you’ll hear, producing your own exhibition is no small undertaking.

Being a professional artist is a tough gig – a recent study showed that only 17% of artists make most of their income from their actual art practise. So Taylor’s experiences make this all the more interesting.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How Taylor creates large scale street murals
Her advice for anyone who wants to be more creative
Why focusing on what you can control is so important
And, why she believes almost anything is possible today.

So don’t miss this great conversation with the thoughtful and creative Taylor White.

Useful Links

Taylor’s Instagram – @taylurk

Taylor’s website

Taylor’s Exhibition – The Pursuit of Happiness – go see it or buy her artwork

Shaun Hussack – Melbourne street artist agency – Juddy Roller

Silo Trail in Australia (very cool murals in regional areas)

Interview

Jacqueline Novogratz – Revolutionary For a Better World

May 19, 2020May 20, 2020
by Claire

We have a real treat in store for you today with a truly remarkable changemaker and NY Times bestselling author as our guest.

Acumen Founder and CEO, Jacqueline Novogratz, has been named one of the 25 Smartest People of the Decade by the Daily Beast, and one of the world’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds by Forbes, amongst numerous other honours.

Jacqueline pioneered the notion of ‘patient capital’, investing in social entrepreneurs around the world. Acumen supports them to establish sustainable businesses that serve some of the world’s poorest people.

What makes this episode a particularly fascinating one is that all this work with entrepreneurs has taught Jacqueline and her team so much about what it takes to succeed when trying to create change. And now she’s also just released a new book sharing what it takes to be a changemaker. It’s called Manifesto for a Moral Revolution (and there’s a free course too if you buy the book).

In this episode you’ll hear:

How her early attempts at social change in Africa seriously failed to impress the locals;
What she learnt about humanity when she became one of the first people to visit in jail someone she’d known well who’d gone on to become a major perpetrator in the Rwandan Genocide;
How Jacqueline sees investment as a means to solving problems rather than making profit as the primary goal; and ….
How she’s seeing women entrepreneurs successfully breaking the rules particularly now during the coronavirus crisis.

Enjoy this episode with the incredibly inspiring Jacqueline Novogratz…

Links of Interest

Acumen Website

Jacqueline’s Books:

Manifesto for a Moral Revolution – Practices to Build a Better World – her latest book. If you buy a copy you can sign up for free to her 11 week course ‘The Path of Moral Leadership’ (usually it’s US$195)

The Blue Sweater