Sheena Allen
Founder & CEO of CapWay and Sheena Allen Apps
Sheena is the Founder and CEO of CapWay and Sheena Allen Apps, a social and media entertainment tech company. Sheena bootstrapped her first startup, Sheena Allen Apps, during her senior year of college and has generated millions of downloads. Sheena’s second startup, CapWay, is a financial technology company that she started after noticing the people in her hometown still relied heavily on predatory lending. Since her start in tech, Sheena has been featured in an international documentary, She Started It, founded two startups, and written her first book, The Starting Guide.
Connect with Sheena on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn.
1. What’s a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you get through it?
I remember with Sheena Allen Apps, I released my third app called Dubblen for iOS. It was doing really well, but because I was bootstrapping the company, I had to be very careful with money. I started getting bombarded with emails from users wanting Dubblen for Android. Bootstrapping has its ups and downs and not being able to scale as quickly as you want is sometimes one of the down sides. However, I ended up saving all the money I was making from the iOS version and invested in into the Android version. It was worth it. The Android version did hundreds of thousands of downloads in the first couple of months of release.
2. What’s something you’ve done that you’re really proud of?
I started an internship for college students in Jackson, MS. Startups are not plentiful in Mississippi, but there are a lot of millennials really into tech and who want to be part of, or at least experience, the startup life. To be able to allow those in my home state to intern at my tech company was an amazing feeling.
3. What’s something that’s been on your mind this Black History Month?
Oprah Winfrey’s speech at the Global Globe Awards: “A new day is on the horizon.”
