#SGGlobal 2019 Speaker Feature: Q+A with Sara Mauskopf
The 2019 Startup Grind Global Conference is just around the corner, and we have some phenomenal speakers.
Check out this Q+A with Sara Mauskopf, Co-founder and CEO of Winnie, and don’t miss her on the #SGGlobal Storytelling stage on February 12.
Where are you from originally and where do you live now?
I’m originally from Philadelphia and for the past 11 years I’ve lived in San Francisco. I live with my husband and two daughters, Bryn and Aubrey.
In a sentence, what does Winnie do?
Winnie helps parents discover great local daycares, preschools, and more.
What is your mission?
Our mission at Winnie is to help raise this next generation of humans to be the best they can be.
What moment are you most proud of in your career?
One of my proudest moments was raising Winnie’s latest round of funding when I was in my third trimester of pregnancy. I’ve been really fortunate with both pregnancies to be able to work right up to the day I gave birth and challenge the stereotype that pregnancy is some kind of disability. Creating humans is a superpower!
What has been your biggest challenge as a parent and founder?
I’ve only ever been a founder as a parent, so I don’t know what it’s like to do it differently, but I will say that I consider it one of my secret weapons. Being a founder requires incredible focus and being a parent gives me this discipline. I ruthlessly prioritize and say no to things that are not important. Being a parent has also given me unique insight into the massive opportunity to bring technology to parenting and turned me into a founder in the first place.
What’s one thing you wish you’d done differently?
I wish I spent less time early on caring what any other company was doing, especially when that company is also a startup. Our success or failure as a company is pretty independent of what anyone else is working on. Many of the startups we considered “competitive” three years ago no longer exist today and others are focusing on different problems than we are. It simplifies a lot when you just focus on what you’re building.
How do you encourage diversity within your company?
Having a diverse team was important to us from day one at Winnie. One way we achieve that is we don’t just recruit from our networks. We list every job online and every candidate goes through the same process, even if we know them. In a recent round of engineering hires we made, we saw candidates that were 54% female, 33% from underrepresented groups, and 62% from nontraditional backgrounds like bootcamps. This enables us to have an engineering and product team that is 50% women and a leadership team that is 75% women.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing startup founders today?
Recruiting and retaining top talent is a big challenge startup founders face. At Winnie, we don’t just pay lip service to building a great work culture; we live it. My co-founder and I are both moms of young kids so we take work life balance seriously. We don’t work late nights or weekends and don’t expect our employees to. This helps us attract and retain employees who value flexibility and time with their family.
What is one question you ask yourself before making a big business decision?
I always like to go back to basics and check in with our mission to help raise this next generations of humans. If we’re not building a company we can be proud of and doing right by our users at every turn, then it’s not worth building, no matter how rich it would make us.
Do you have any personal or professional goals for the coming year?
I’ve spent the last 3 years at Winnie building for parents — helping them find great childcare, things to do with their kids, and get the advice and information they need to be successful. Something I’m realizing though as my own children get older is that caregivers and educators can be equally influential in a young child’s life. My daughter spends more time with her preschool teachers than she does with me in any given week! If we want to have a real impact on children at Winnie, it’s important to empower these folks as well. A big goal for me this coming year is to work on building tools, technologies and services to support the caregivers and educators in our childrens’ lives.
What is one piece of advice you’d give to parents that are considering making the leap to become founders?
Do it! I think being a founder is one of the best jobs you can have as a parent. Because you can build the company how you want, you can set policies that are inclusive, family friendly, and allow you and your employees to have much-needed balance.
The Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs Accelerator, powered by Techstars is looking for game-changing connectivity, media and entertainment startups for its 2019 class. Apply now for a chance to elevate your company with help from our renowned mentor networks. Class starts this July in Philadelphia!
