Sheeza Shah goal is to improve lives and improve the environment. She founded a crowdfunding company called UpEffect. UpEffect works to support sustainable, high-impact revolutionary products that are making a difference in people’s lives. Her platform as a 100% success rate because they work with these companies to help them market their idea. Other crowdfunding platforms have high rates of failure because the people using these platforms do not realize the work it takes to bring these campaigns to the market.
Sheeza is leveraging technology to provide support for social enterprises. As a Muslim woman, she finds that her faith grounds her in her work. She attributes her faith to her desire to prioritize creating value for people before creating value for herself. Sheeza is very critical of companies who claim to be doing good but do not have the metrics to back that up. What she looks for in the companies she supports is what data are they using to know that they are changing the world. The look at the
- The strength of the entrepreneur and their team.
- The impact metrics they are using
- What is their business model
Companies that do not meet these criteria do not make it on to the platform. She wants to ensure that these companies are in the best position to succeed. One of the key things she emphasizes is that no one should be able to beat you in terms of knowledge in the business you are building. Entrepreneurs need to understand their clients and build their business around that understanding. Their habits, the problems they face, and the needs they have.
Her goal is to inspire and support entrepreneurs in their goal to come forward with solutions and to take those ideas to market so they can disrupt these various marketplaces. Building a company is not easy. Sheeza points out that although she has experienced many failures she sees these failures are learning opportunities. For her knowing that it is okay to restart your business model has been an important lesion for her.
Links in the podcast:
https://twitter.com/theupeffect/