The 50-50 Pledge with Sandi MacPherson
In this episode, Sandi MacPherson joined us to discuss the story on how she started Quibb, a platform for people to share what they are reading at work. From her background working in government on environment and clean tech, she discussed why she has moved to Silicon Valley and bootstrapped her company till fundraising unconventionally via a crowd equity funding site. Last but not least, she share her latest initiative, 50-50 Pledge in helping event organisers source for women speakers.
Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with timestamps included):
- Sandi MacPherson, Founder of Quibb (@sandimac, LinkedIn, Quibb profile)
- How did she get started in science and technology? [1:11]
- With an interesting background working from the environmental sciences to clean tech (for example, Environment Canada, Social Venture Partners Toronto), what are the interesting lessons in her career that she have learned working in these areas? [2:09]
- How did she end up moving to Silicon Valley and now based in Oakland? Her thoughts on why location matters. [4:01]
- Quibb (You can use BL’s link to apply)
- Why did Sandi start Quibb and what is the value proposition behind the platform? [5:50]
- What is the problem that Quibb is trying to solve? [6:41]
- What is the vision for Quibb and where do you want the platform to be? [9:05]
- How do she acquire her initial users to the platform? [10:15]
- Who was the first Asian user turned up on Quibb? [14:12]
- She has bootstrapped the Quibb platform before seeking funding. Can you share your experience of bootstrapping till getting investors onboard?[15:03]
- Investors look for awesome technology, team, social proof of product/service and traction.
- We also chatted on her usage of Quire, an equity crowdfunding platform unveiled by betaworks to complete her fundraising round. [18:40]
- Getting the users of Quibb to be angel investors and paid users using a subscription model. [22:00]
- What are the essential features which users can do on Quibb? [23:04]
- Discussion with comments (ask to comment).
- As an user of Quibb, I like the feature where I know who has checked out my articles and the interviews that I have done on Analyse Asia, it give me a better understanding of my audience in the US. What are the best practices do you think that users on Quibb should do? [26:44]
- 50/50 Pledge
- What is the 50/50 Pledge and what is the mission of the movement about? [30:48]
- What can companies and community do more about women diversity in technology? [33:22]
- What are your advice to encourage women and men to come forward to support the movement? [34:32]
Podcast Information:
The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bleongcw) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Aspirus Desk on Indiegogo (Twitter, Facebook, Medium) and Linkcious (and check out their other product, Chiibi). Also check out Ideal Workspace’s new standing desk, Aspirus and sign up for their mailing list.
