From supporting businesses that help the environment to spreading kindness, we’re putting more thought into what we spend our money on. And with so many people — more specifically, women entrepreneurs — out there trying to make the world a better place, why not support them? Female entrepreneurs are on the rise, after all.
According to the University of New Hampshire’s 2017 Center for Venture annual report, prior to 2014, the number of women seeking angel investment was fairly static at around 15 percent of the total. There was a spike in 2014, with that figure rising to around 19 percent, and the current estimate is that female-owned ventures accounted for around 23 percent of the entrepreneurs that were seeking investment capital.
Daniela Perdomo, CEO and founder of goTenna
Jenna Mons Anderson, founder of Finess
Alisa Vitti, author of WomanCode & founder of Flo Living
Denise Woodard, founder of Partake Foods
Sarah Kaeck, founder of Bee’s Wrap
Lynn Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Spotlight: Girls
Melanie Perkins, cofounder & CEO Canva
Daniela Perdomo, CEO and founder of goTenna
When Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012 and a third of all telecommunication amongst first responders was wiped out, Perdomo was inspired to act and that’s when the idea for goTenna was born. “I was inspired to help those who lost touch with the outside world, and create a solution that was virtually indestructible,” Perdomo told SheKnows.
goTenna is a mobile mesh networking platform that allows firefighters, emergency responders, military forces, law enforcement tactical units and other government organizations around the world to connect in places where there is little or no reception. So how does it work? “goTenna is able to pair with phones and our technology can be embedded into any device or machine, turning the world around us into programmable mobile infrastructure,” Perdomo told SheKnows. “Not being able to communicate can put lives and livelihoods at risk, especially for people on the front lines like our military and first responders. We should no longer have to deal with gaps in connectivity,” she continued.
Perdomo also recognizes that being an entrepreneur in a male-dominated industry is a difficult path and wants to help other women feel empowered to start their own businesses. Her advice? “Find your voice and have the courage to make it heard,” she explained to SheKnows. She added, “learn from women and men alike and search out the best people to work with. At goTenna, we just announced the completion of our series C funding round led by Founders Fund. We are so proud of what we have been able to accomplish so far because of the risks we have taken and the great team we have in place.”
Jenna Mons Anderson, founder of Finess
Like most moms, Jenna Mons Anderson lives an active lifestyle. As the mom of two, she is constantly on the go and has exactly zero minutes in her day to deal with the light bladder leakage that most women experience. That’s why she founded Finess, a small, comfortable and innovative product that doesn’t catch bladder leakage like all of the other products on the market, but stops it before it can even begin.
Yes, bladder leakage products already exist but the options are subpar. Who wants to sit in their own urine until they have a chance to go to the bathroom and change a bulky pad? No one. “We want to show women that they deserve innovation, they deserve options,” Anderson told SheKnows. “The products that are on the market for women should take their lifestyle into account and products should be accessible in such a way that women don’t have to worry about going to the store or being embarrassed about what they put in their cart.”
How exactly does Finess work? It’s placed over the urethral opening and stays in place with an innovative hydrogel so you can rest assured it won’t budge when you sneeze in your yoga class.
Our favorite part about this product and its creator is that their main mission is to destigmatize the conversation around bladder leakage and encourage women to feel comfortable and safe talking about something that affects so many of us.
Alisa Vitti, author of WomanCode & founder of Flo Living
Author of WomanCode, founder of Flo Living and creator of the myFlo app, Alisa Vitti has helped thousands of women around the world solve their hormonal symptoms by building the world’s first menstrual health care platform. She’s your go-to women’s health expert who has provided great tools to help you answer those questions you may not be asking your doctor.
“You are not linear, you are not the same every day, so you need a diet that fluctuates with you each week of your cycle, and that’s what’s unique about Flo,” Vitti said to Sakara in September 2015. “The protocol has two parts — the first half of the protocol is the cleanup — getting your endocrine system to do the things it’s supposed to do hormonally. Then the second half is really about living a life and eating a diet that functions within an operating system that is fully feminine and cyclical.”
Over the past 14 years, Flo Living has helped thousands of women in more than 216 countries get back in their “Flo,” so to say, via its signature online program, the WomanCode System.
Denise Woodard, founder of Partake Foods
Denise Woodard’s daughter, Vivienne inspired this mom to turn her daughter’s food allergy into a business. When Vivienne started eating solid foods, it became apparent Woodard’s daughter suffered from several food allergies and Woodard found it impossible to buy snacks that were safe for her daughter. “It was so frustrating because when I would find one of the few things she could eat, she either did not like the taste or I was not happy with the nutritional profile,” Woodard tells SheKnows. That’s when Partake Foods was born.
Partake Foods now offers five flavors of mini-cookies that are free of the top eight most common food allergens. But the best part? They actually taste good. “I initially worked on the formulas myself, but we ended up bringing in a food scientist, who also has food allergies, and we got really creative using dried plum concentrate to help sweeten, rosemary extract as a natural preservative and figuring out how to get those fruits and veggies in,” Woodard told SheKnows.
If you would like to try some of these delicious cookies yourself, Partake Foods is now available at Amazon, Wegmans and a bunch of health food stores across the country.
Sarah Kaeck, founder of Bee’s Wrap
What started as a way to eliminate plastics in her own kitchen and live a more sustainable life has turned into a successful business that has helped people all around the world store food in a way that’s safe for the environment. Founded in 2012 by Sarah Kaeck, Bee’s Wrap products are a washable, reusable and compostable alternative to plastic wrap. It also takes up less room in your lunch bag than the bulky plastic containers.
Kaeck is vocal about other ways to remove toxins and waste from your home.
“There are so many great (and fun) options out there that can replace plastics and other toxins in the home: stainless steel containers and straws, linen napkins, non-toxic household cleaning products, bamboo to-go utensils — the list goes on,” Kaeck told the Moon Cup in July 2018.
Lynn Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Spotlight: Girls
“When I was 6 years old, I auditioned for the lead role in my first play. I was amazing. Everyone knew that I was the Meryl Streep of my first-grade class, but I didn’t get the part. I was the little black girl. I got the supporting role. My friend Maureen, she got the lead part, and she looked nothing like me,” Lynn Johnson said during SHE Media’s BlogHer Conference in 2017. That childhood memory is what led Johnson to create Spotlight: Girls and its two-week summer camp program, Go Girls!, which empowers young girls through the arts.
“I learned what too many little girls learn — that how we look and what we can do is the most important factor in our success. That girls like me should feel lucky to get the supporting role. This is why Spotlight: Girls exists. We need every girl to take center stage in her life so she becomes the leader we’ve all been looking for,” Johnson told SheKnows. “Our camps are just two weeks long and we have found that after just two weeks, 56 percent of parents say that their girls have great confidence after just two weeks and so we hope that girls come back again for another two weeks, and so on. Some of our girls have been with us for a long time,” Johnson says.
Lynn Johnson and the Go Girls! camp are creating a foundation for young women to feel empowered, valued and strong. Can you think of anything the world needs more of right now than empowered girls? Yeah, we couldn’t either.
Melanie Perkins, cofounder & CEO Canva
From start-ups to governments, everyone can use Canva, the online graphic design platform that allows anyone to easily design greeting cards, infographics, websites, calendars and much, much more. Melanie Perkins started this business after she dropped out of college and headed to California to pitch her idea. Now, she is continuing to help members all around the world design easily and quickly.
“I came up with the idea for Canva when I watched the students I was tutoring in design programs struggle to learn and use them despite months of coaching,” Perkins told Entrepreneur in March 2018. “It was the particular insight I gained from watching people who knew nothing about design, trying to use the design tools that became the foundation for Canva.”
According to Entrepreneur, Canva has more than 10 million registered users in 190 different countries, and in January 2018 was valued at $1 billion.
Read the rest of the article:
13 Rising Star Women Entrepreneurs Who Are Changing the World
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