SoGal Waterloo: Startup Stories Panel Recap
Our dream team of 5 over at SoGal Waterloo hosted our first SoGal event last Tuesday. We kicked off the new chapter by hosting a panel of four inspiring founders from the Waterloo region. We picked their brains to learn how they developed their ideas.
Stephanie started with a passion project.
Alessandra stumbled upon a business opportunity during the pandemic and hasn’t looked back since.
Anna was interested in starting her own business and bounced back after her first attempt.
Aaiman, a longtime hustler, discovered her path at a startup incubator.
Their origin stories are all uniquely badass.
Many people dream of starting their own businesses, but few actually take the leap. Stephanie, Codegem founder, was inspired by a previous manager who used the term ‘gem’ to set goals. What started as a passion project has now grown into her business. Anna started an e-commerce store a year and a half ago that failed. She grew from her first venture and came back stronger with Copysmith.ai. Alessandra never even planned to start a business but identified an opportunity during the onset of the pandemic to design masks. Her vision is to connect fashion with technology. She has now expanded House IUNGO (fun fact: this means connect in Latin!) into a fashion tech company where she combines 3D printing, her engineering background, and her passion for fashion. Aaiman, a passionate storyteller and diversity and inclusion advocate, envisioned her business to focus on social impact.
Catalysts
What were the catalysts that propelled them into their entrepreneurship journey?
University can be an excellent place to discover your passion and forge your path. Stephanie found her voice at a pitch competition. After pitching her initial idea for Codegem at Concept 5k, a pitch competition at the University of Waterloo, she identified potential in her idea and decided to apply for Velocity, University of Waterloo’s signature entrepreneurship program. Similarly, Aaiman joined the Greenhouse Social Impact Incubator where she found a problem she was passionate about and eventually developed her idea for Our Stories In, a childrens’ book series that aims to change the male-dominated narratives in stories by changing education first. She believes representation is important in empowering individuals to believe in their potential, and that starts at an early age.
But incubators were not the only way that our founders kicked off their business ideas. While Anna was a founder at Velocity, she also found value in extracurriculars such as the Tech+ Mentorship initiative at UWaterloo. Through mentors at Velocity and Tech+, Anna gained leadership insight and came to a realisation that working for large tech companies was not for her.
Finally, Alessandra’s business launched during the pandemic when she identified a business opportunity in designing custom face masks. She had prior experience and skills from her work at Fashion for Change and Project Trashion, where she worked as a fashion designer. Through these non-profit shows, she seized the opportunity to create collections on models. With her technical background in her Mechatronics degree and experience garnered from her previous technical internships, Alessandra learned to seamlessly blend her passion and technical expertise into a business model.
Challenges
Learning to overcome challenges is vital to any successful business.
Stephanie was both an intern at Uber and a full-time student when she started CodeGem. Anna worked two internships, took engineering courses, and built Copysmith at the same time. They shared that this experience taught them the toll of overworking and the importance of finding a healthy balance.
Striking the perfect balance is tricky, but Stephanie encourages founders to be focused and deliberate. It’s good to be ambitious, but it’s also important to take care of yourself. Anna believes that the key to taking care of her company and her employees is to first take care of herself — to lead by example and be an anchor. Alessandra echoed their sentiments, adding that having catch up days and avoiding distractions is critical. For Aaiman, her largest challenge was financial. Sustaining a project can pose economic hurdles, but she cited this challenge as also being one of her biggest growth experiences. Though she often found herself piled under grant applications and crowdsourcing initiatives, it was also during this time that she discovered and built an incredible network of people who she still works with today.
Taking Risks
Founding a start-up is an impressive enough feat, but no start-up story is complete without curveballs — and our founders have experienced their fair shares.
Stephanie earned the Thiel Fellowship, a prestigious entrepreneurship fellowship that offers fellows USD$100,000. But there was one catch — the recipient must drop out of school to build their idea up. During this time away from school, Stephanie developed CodeGem, which through its many iterations, has grown and shaped into what is today. Alessandra took the leap to shift her focus away from her mask business and towards fashion tech. Aaiman found a new business opportunity in releasing and creating merchandise. Anna is on an indefinite gap year to focus on scaling Copysmith.
Looking Back
What would our panelists tell themselves if they could travel back in time?
Anna shared her advice on how to get direct feedback from users — through discord. With a direct channel, she was able to hear first-hand what features her users wanted and how to improve. A strong support system is also critical; Anna emphasized the importance of finding other women mentors — women who are CTOs or technical founders — and not being afraid to ask for coaching sessions and mentorship.
Stephanie reflected on feeling that she started her own venture quite late (in her own hers — she’s still a university student!) and wishes she discovered her passion for entrepreneurship earlier. She advises aspiring entrepreneurs to invest time in building a strong network, such as through hackathons, but also to be smart about surrounding yourself with supportive and healthy relationships. Stephanie found that approaching hackathons with the mindset of launching a startup idea helped her through her ideation. Alessandra wishes she knew about and took more entrepreneurship courses (@UWaterloo students — we’re looking at you, BET courses). She advises young entrepreneurs to be confident in their abilities. Overcoming imposter syndrome is hard and finding mentors is important. Aaiman took a more philosophical approach to our question. Focusing on self-improvement, thinking about what you care about and how you can foster traits to become the person you want to be were her secret weapons Always step outside of your bubble and meet people outside your program and field — don’t be shy to ask for coffee chats.
To Conclude
Our founders paved their own path in a time of uncertainty. SoGal Waterloo is excited for what is to come for these young, brilliant and ambitious founders. Make sure to give our panelists some love on their socials.
Stephanie Mills — Founder of CodeGem. 2020 Thiel Fellow. Management Engineering at University of Waterloo.
Alessandra Schlums — Founder of House IUNGO. Mechatronics Engineering at University of Waterloo. Founder
Anna Wang — CTO of Copysmith. Systems Design Engineering at University of Waterloo.
Aaiman Amir — Founder of Our Stories In. Environment and Business, Minor in Entrepreneurship at University of Waterloo.
We’d love to see you at upcoming SoGal Waterloo events. Be sure to shoot us an email waterloo@iamsogal.com and join our Facebook group see what we’re up to!
