Hantz Févry of Stoovo: My Life As a Twenty-Something Founder

You will encounter people who have the belief, ‘How can someone so young be doing this?’ I would know because people with this mindset wouldn’t ask me the business questions but they would ask me how old I was. Ageism goes both ways, there is a lot of talk about discrimination towards Boomers but there is also discrimination towards founders in their twenties. You just can’t let it affect you.

As a part of our series called “My Life as a TwentySomething Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hantz Févry, CEO and co-founder of Stoovo, Inc., an AI-driven gig economy platform that helps gig workers find the best-paying jobs and reduces the income volatility so prevalent amongst gig workers. Stoovo was founded in 2018 and with massive unemployment due to COVID and millions turning to gig work for survival, his idea could not be more timely. A Haitian native, Févry founded his first company in high school selling promotional branding items, in college he founded I. Trade International in 2010 following the 7.0 Haiti earthquake, at just the age of 20 his early warning earthquake design was marketed in Haiti to help save lives.

Thank you so much for joining us! What is your “backstory”?

I am from Port-au-Prince in Haiti and it is very different from other parts of the world because there are really only two classes — upper class and poverty. With no middle class, I really consider the people of Haiti who live in poverty to be living in misery because the conditions are so bad and the lack of opportunity is so limited.

As my LinkedIn profile says, “I believe in the progress of humanity with the help of technology” and believe that technology will make the world a better place for the millions who live in poverty and are suffering and nowhere is that more near to my heart than in my home country of Haiti.

I credit my mother with instilling in me the concept of money and finance when I was ten years old in an inventive way that was fun to me at that age. My…