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November 11, 2022

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Shadiah Sigala co-founded HoneyBook, a $2 billion financial management software platform for small businesses, motivated by her ability to negotiate uncertainty while gathering information and making decisions.

When Shadiah was a child, her Mexican mother together with her two siblings moved to southern California. Despite most of her family members being unable to attend college, she was an honor student whose lifelong ambition was to acquire the greatest degree of education.

Shadia attended Pomona College for Latin American Studies and Harvard Kennedy School for public policy. As a result, she established a strategy for reaching goals she wasn’t sure about.

Before becoming an accomplished millennial, she finished her master’s degree and became the highest-earning member of their family as a project manager at Aetna, a health insurance company, where she learned about entrepreneurship, realized she is a “builder,” and thought starting her own company was the best option.

However, Shadia realized that she wouldn’t be happy there since she wouldn’t be valued. Shadia ultimately started a personal chef business in 2010, using her Pomona College alumni network to find well-off grads who wanted someone to cook for them.

In 2012, another realization occurred to her that cooking wasn’t for her. Shadiah then decided to move with her then-husband to San Francisco and found tech. She arranged informative interviews with everyone in the sector and learned that the problem she wanted to tackle was one she’d experienced as a business owner: no effective method to handle backend logistics like emails, payments, and bills.

With the three Israeli business people who have a similar concern as hers, they decided to digitize all these tedious procedures that micro small firms must complete to free them up to genuinely focus on doing what they love.

Using that concept, Shadia established HoneyBook in 2013 and worked there for five years according to CNBC.

As her most recent business, Shadia co-founded Kinside in 2018, a child-care marketplace that is available to employees that offers new parents a centralized location to look for daycare in their neighborhood, which has reached over $16 million, according to Crunchbase. 

Letting fear and excitement be one’s guide and being open-minded is what Shadia advises to other aspirants. According to her, opportunities that “feel like they are beyond your pay grade” are exactly how stellar is made.

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Image Source: Legacies of War

News

First Lao-American and Millennial To Sit As Chair Of The US Campaign To Ban Landmines – Cluster Munition Coalition

Legacies of War (LoW) CEO Sera Koulabdara is the new Chair of the US Campaign to Ban Landmines – Cluster Munition Coalition (USCBL-CMC). She will be the first millennial, BIPOC, and afflicted nation native to assume the job.

LoW is the only worldwide U.S. advocacy and educational organisation that addresses the repercussions of the American Secret War in Laos and its battles in Cambodia and Vietnam during the Vietnam War, including UXO disposal and victim/survivor support.

Héctor Guerra, Director of International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), has welcomed LoW, acknowledging their work as a great example of global collaborative efforts in supporting communities affected by landmines and cluster munitions.

According to Mary Wareham, Arms Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch, there could not be a better placed organization to coordinate the USCBL-CMC than LoW, as it is committed to ensuring that the US joins and adheres to the international treaties prohibiting antipersonnel landmines and cluster munitions.

CEO of Roots of Peace, Heidi Kuhn, also recognized how fortunate USCBL-CMC is to have Sera as Chair, with her unique qualifications as a leader in mine action, and her family heritage in Laos as the basis of her passion. She claimed that Sera brings a renewed spirit of home to the UXO campaign.

Sera shared in her bio in LoW’s website, that she hopes to make a positive difference in the lives of the people in her father’s beloved homeland, Laos, and to create hope for future generations.

Image Source: Business News PH

Stories

Through Perseverance, Young Entrepreneur Operates 5 Fried Rice Restaurants and 30 Takoyaki Stalls At Age 21

Rice is an essential part of the Asian diet, and it is enjoyed in many different forms. One of these is the classic fried rice, which everybody knows is a tasty and easy meal.

At the age of 21 years old, Briko Galeon from Tarlac City, Philippines, was able to expand his Korean Spam BKB Fried Rice business to 5 branches in just a span of 3 months. Aside from this, he also has a takoyaki business that he was able to expand into 30 branches within 1 and a half years of operation.

One of Briko’s franchisees, Sharmaine Anne De Leon, shared that she used to scroll social media posts about Korean fried rice and have cravings for it. She also said that BKB Fried Rice products are really good, and that’s why getting a franchise with BKB was an easy decision for her.

Briko shared that his inspiration for putting up businesses was his parents. He wanted to give back to his parents and be able to buy them gifts using his own money. Due to his success, he was able to buy 2 cars and is now providing for his family’s needs.

There isn’t an age too young or too old for a person to become an entrepreneur. Briko’s advice is to find a product that you genuinely love or are passionate about. Once you do this, it will be easier for you to learn about the product, its market, and how to serve it.

Nanxi and Tina

News

Blaze.tech Launches and Raises $3.5 Million Pre-Seed Round for AI-Powered No-Code Software Development

LOS ANGELES, January 11, 2023 — Blaze.tech, the smarter no-code platform that’s revolutionizing the way teams build web apps and tools, announced its official launch and has raised a $3.5 million pre-seed round led by Flybridge Capital and MaC Venture Capital. The round also included participation from investors and unicorn founders in enterprise SaaS including Vlad Magdalin (CEO, Webflow), Mada Seghete (Co-founder, Branch), Mark Schopmeyer (Co-CEO, CaptivateIQ), ACTAI Ventures, Sangha Capital, and Bill Tai. This funding round will accelerate Blaze’s growing customer base, increase the platforms’ integrations, and expand its AI capabilities. 

Today’s public launch follows a successful beta phase in which Fortune 500 companies and startups used Blaze to build dashboards, HIPAA compliant apps, complex workflows, automated invoice generators, and inventory management systems all without writing any code. Because of Blaze’s emphasis on security and its robust suite of enterprise security features, the company has found popularity with organizations in highly regulated industries like healthcare, legal, construction, transportation and logistics, and finance.

With Blaze’s AI-powered no-code platform, teams are able to create and launch highly custom and secure applications and internal tools in minutes. Blaze gives non-technical people the superpower to be entrepreneurial product builders with an intuitive all-in-one drag-and-drop interface and AI system. Blaze AI is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3 model, the same one used by ChatGPT. App creators can tell Blaze AI to create complex workflows, automatic triggers, custom filters, advanced calculations, and more.

Blaze improves operations and productivity, and with pre-built integrations into Airtable, DocuSign, Freshdesk, Google Sheets, Salesforce, Stripe, Shopify, and many more tools, users can build multiple apps on top of their existing tech stack.

The no-code/low-code market is one of the fastest growing markets (from $25 Billion to $187 Billion in 2030), and Blaze’s unique positioning is enabling teams to build software with complexity, customizability, and security that otherwise would require writing code.

“We’re so excited to maximize the talents of people inside organizations by giving them the ability to solve business problems with software,” said Nanxi Liu, Co-CEO of Blaze. “We’re seeing individuals supercharge and significantly increase the efficiency of their team’s operations with Blaze.”

“Our users can implement their app’s business logic in just a few clicks because Blaze has done all the difficult work on the technical side to provide a platform that generates intuitive front-ends and secure, scalable back-ends,” said Tina Denuit-Wojcik, Co-CEO of Blaze.

“We are thrilled to support the Blaze team in their mission to create powerful tools and dashboards without the need for expensive engineering resources,” said Adrian Fenty, General Partner and Co-Founder of MaC Venture Capital. “Nanxi and Tina have the business acumen to be huge disruptors in the industry, and because they’ve experienced these challenges first-hand, we know Blaze is building a top-tier product.”

“Nanxi and Tina are exceptionally talented founders with deep insights into the needs of Blaze’s customer base. Having watched how well they led and capital efficiently managed their prior company to significant success, we were delighted to invest in this dynamic duo,” said Chip Hazard, General Partner and Co-Founder of Flybridge Capital.

Additional investors in the round include Dean Schnider (Partner, Najafi Companies), Felicia Curcuru (CEO of Binti), Holly Liu (Co-Founder, Kabam), Lin Capital, Michael Einziger (co-founder of the band Incubus), Mike Lu (co-founder of Triller), Root and Shoot Ventures, Socially Financed, and The K Fund.

About Blaze.tech

Blaze.tech is the smarter no-code platform that’s revolutionizing the way teams build web apps and tools. Blaze’s AI-powered platform improves operations and productivity by enabling non-technical people to build and launch custom software in minutes, without writing any code! From dashboards and workflows to portals and more, Blaze’s all-in-one-builder has pre-built integrations, security and reliability. 

Blaze is headquartered in Los Angeles and was founded in 2022. The founders, Nanxi Liu and Tina Denuit-Wojcik, previously founded Enplug, a leading digital signage software, which was acquired in 2021.

For more information, visit Blaze.tech.

Press Contact:

press@blaze.tech 

Press release documents here.

Image Source: Mila Supinskaya Glashchenko / Shutterstock

News

Indian-American’s Thriving Community Create A Positive Impact In North Texas

The rising population of Indian-Americans in North Texas is proving to be a strong force. Indian-Americans like Singh have permanently shaped North Texas’ cultural landscape in a variety of fields, including technology, education, and politics.

Tony Singh grew up with a father in the Indian Navy and moved every couple of years. Today, he’s settled in Little Elm, and even elected as councilman to serve his new neighborhood. Singh established initiatives to benefit Little Elm residents, while actively and regularly volunteering himself.

Most Indian-American employees work in only three industries: computer science and mathematics, management, and health care. Among all immigrants, Indian-Americans are the highest earners in the state. For this reason, Dinesh Hooda came to Texas in 2011 in search of employment.

Dinesh Hooda’s family had trouble adjusting until he attended India Association of North Texas’ Indian Independence Day. Through this, they established friends with Indian-Americans in North Texas who share similar experiences and struggles. Hooda is currently Uber’s senior technical program manager.

The fastest-growing ethnic group in the state is Asian, with Indian-Americans making up the majority of the group. Texas has the second-largest population of Indian Americans in the nation overall. This group will expand even more in the upcoming years, which could have a significant impact in the area. 

And while there are many struggles and difficulties to face as immigrants in the state, there are also lots of groups and communities willing to reach out to help one another and make each other feel welcome and at home.