Leila Janah
CEO, Sama and Laxmi
Discussion
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
I'm Leila Janah, founder and CEO of Sama and Laxmi - two companies (one non-profit, one venture-backed) with a common mission to give work as a means to end global poverty. In addition to sharing my experiences as an entrepreneur, I can also offer advice on how to fundraise, how to get PR, how to measure social impact, and how to manage your time to enjoy life while you change the world. Looking forward to your questions!
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Jim Kleiber
@jimkleiber · Tools for emotion
Leila, it seems that you may be interacting with groups of people at two very different ends of the economic spectrum. What is one thing that you have learned about working with those two populations?
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@jimkleiber This is the hardest part of my job, going from a village in rural Uganda to Davos and trying to maintain grace and optimism along the way. The most important thing is non-judgment. It's so easy to put people in boxes, but doing so deprives another person of her humanity, whether she's rich or poor. So I try to be open minded and to learn something from every interaction. I fail a lot, but it's the trying that matters.
Corey Hubbard
@corey_hubbard · Founder - DreamHighr
What was the toughest decision you had to make during your startup's pre-revenue stage?
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@corey_hubbard We started Sama with a $30K contract, so we weren't really ever pre-revenue because I had no money to get started. This doesn't work for every startup though -- Laxmi had an R&D phase that lasted about 6 months before we could ship product and earn revenue. The toughest decision then was about who to put on our team, and whether to use agencies vs. in-house people for key functions like design, web development, and product development. My recommendation for startups is to be very cost-conscious with agencies even after you've raised a nice chunk of cash, because it's very easy to spend more than you think you're signing up for.
[deleted user]
@deleted_user
How do you balance your professional and personal life? You're doing so much!
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@loic I fail at this all the time. But I think family is the most important thing in the world, and everything else should come second. :)
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
Hi Leila, How can people in the US and other 'first world' countries make impactful contributions to end global poverty besides donating money to charities and non-profits?
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@tomstocklein it's simple: #givework. Giving poor people free goods and services is disempowering. The only long-run solution is to give them income, which you can do with cash transfers (direct payments in cash, either in exchange for certain actions like enrolling kids in school, or without strings attached) or, preferably, with a job. So the best thing to do is to purchase from fair trade or social enterprises that give work to low-income people. Check out Fair Trade USA for a list of organizations that give work -- we're also working on a Give Work Guide that will feature companies that share our mission. Thanks!
Thomas Stöcklein
@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com
What are your ideas for how the biggest tech companies in the valley could make bigger and better contributions to help end global poverty?
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@tomstocklein I have so many ideas. Most of them revolve around giving work. First, we'd love for every company here to take a #GiveWork pledge to hire people from marginalized backgrounds -- starting with 1% of their budget in a category like suppliers/vendors or help desk support. We can help them implement this locally by partnering with orgs like our own Samaschool or YearUp, or globally by partnering with social enterprises like Samasource that perform data services with a nontraditional workforce of people previously living in poverty. A second solution is direct cash transfers through an org like GiveDirectly, but to me this is less of a sustainable solution than giving work. It's more complicated to give work than to simply write a check from a corporate foundation. But it's the only way to solve global and domestic poverty at the root.
neeharika sinha
@neeeharika · Google, Threadchannel
Leila, its great to meet you here. I would love to know how Laxmi's idea originated. As PR is expensive, what is the best strategy to get your product in front of a larger audience. I have built a fashion App and am trying to get in front of my target demographic. Thanks!
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@neeeharika Thanks for asking! I came across the raw ingredient behind our line, Nilotica, at a market in Northern Uganda. It had never been exported before because the area was in a civil war for 20 years. So I thought, why doesn't someone market this as a luxury product? I saw the chance to develop a #givework business model around this ingredient, and that became Laxmi. In terms of audience for your product, it's basically about hustling. We sent samples to every retailer we had a connection to, and then found creative ways to present the product, even making truffles out of it that we served in a business meeting. That got attention and was memorable. PR is about relationships -- so think about being memorable and forming relationships with the people you want to tell your story.
neeharika sinha
@neeeharika · Google, Threadchannel
@leila_janah Thanks a lot for your response. I have just ordered some Laxmi products. Would love to connect with you offline and talk more about your entrepreneurial journey.
V.S.VIVEK
@vsvivek93 · Unoccupied
In India , a new law has been passed asking conglomerates to spend a percentage of their profits in CSR and companies are squandering these opportunities as it is not their core competency. What do you think we can do make this spending more impact full in the true sense?
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@vsvivek93 We've been trying to figure this out at Sama. I think the best way to use these funds is to #givework to local communities and pay living wages. So instead of donating to build a school or hospital, the company can put the funds into a training program for marginalized workers, which will enable them to fund their own schools and clinics down the line.
Alan G
@alan_g · Red Panda
Some very rookie questions, I'm sure other rookies are asking themselves:
1) If I have a great idea that I've seen a worldwide potential for (mobile app, and for a community I closely work with so I know it's need and value), do I need to be(or learn to be) a coder to get it off the ground? or is it just the same to hire a team to build it($$)
2) I have $3000 livelihood expenditures per month, most of which are student loans. How do I find financial backing, and how do you recommend I deal with my personal debt so that I am not putting about $1500 every month into loan payments which is cutting into the funds I can use for the Start-up. Or are my personal finances separate from what I need to raise for the start-up?
3) How do I go about finding developers or help or investors, without jeopardizing my idea being stolen by someone else.
(My skills: Extremely creative, agile with technology, great designer, graphics, some web, in the limited classes I took on programming I understood it very well, Digital Marketing by trade)
Thank you!
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Leila Janah
@leila_janah
@alan_g Hi Alan,
1. You don't need to be a coder to build a tech company, but you should find someone you trust who can advise you in the hiring process and judge candidates based on what they've developed in the past. I had a technical friend of mine do final interviews for many of our early engineering candidates at Sama.
2. That's hard, and I relate. I had three jobs in college and believe it or not was paying off my undergraduate debt until last year. I'd recommend raising some seed funds for your startup - check out steve blank's website for the essentials of a pitch deck and fundraising advice.
3. Ideas are a dime a dozen; execution is what's hard. I'd be careful to filter who you share your idea with to only serious candidates, and then share with them in depth what you're building to understand whether they'd be a fit as an investor/engineer/team mate. I've shared tons with others and we've even had companies rip language off of our website and directly copy us -- it doesn't matter if you execute well and move fast.
Mahathi Choudhry
@mahathi_choudhry · Applications engineer
Leila, it was an awesome opportunity to listen to you at watermark. I would love to discuss a new opportunity with you in person/phone. Having grown up educated by a Christian institution back at home in India, I had the good fortune of being exposed to a bigger picture in terms of poverty. And with the help of my teachers, I was motivated to change the world around me. However, I could see how my teachers had dedicated their entire lives towards human service. After listening to you speak at watermark and also reading your blog, it's a new perspective to see how a similar service could be measurable, quantified and run like a business model. Congratulations on achieving this, this early in your life.
Mahathi Choudhry
@mahathi_choudhry · Applications engineer
@leila_janah thank you much ! Would love to chat with you offline!!