Squire, Edlyft, Promise: The Journey, Challenges, & Impact

My co-founder Dave and I didn't have any history working in the barbershop industry or in tech for that matter. Both of us had been going to barber shops for years. I started going as a kid, around six or seven, with my dad. It was like 20 years later, and the process of getting a haircut really hadn't changed at all—very inefficient, long wait times, often a cash-based business. It seemed like software was really touching every other part of modern life, except this one experience of getting a haircut was being totally unaddressed.

My co-founder and I went to high school together over a decade ago, and back then, we never imagined ourselves in computer science. I never saw anyone who looked like me in computer science; I didn't see myself in that space. A lot of people just don't consider themselves "quote" like computer science people, and so they don't try it. However, despite that, we both ended up pursuing CS, given, you know, tons of really great mentors and ample academic support. We ended up becoming engineers at Facebook and Google when we realized there were so many people who were just like us who were initially intimidated by computer science, but they never actually got the support to pursue it themselves.

The reason I wanted to start a tech company is because I wanted to understand how I could create technology and work with others to help the people I grew up with live better lives. So we started EdLift because we realized there were way more people who could pursue tech and be engineers but didn't have the support systems to help them make it through.

My name is Song Laron. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Squire, and Squire is a business management and point-of-sale software focusing on barber shops. I'm Erica Hairston, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of EdLift. My name is Arnell Ansong, and I'm the CTO of EdLift. My name is Phaedra Ella Slamkins; I'm the CEO and co-founder of Promise. Promise is a cost-effective way for people to pay off their government debt.

The most important process in deciding if you want to start a company is the self-reflection around what's important to you and what things will help you feel confident. When I talked on the phone with Phaedra, it was just so validating to hear from this badass Black woman who has created such an impactful company that's mission-driven, creating profit in the startup world, raised venture. She had done all of these things that I aspired to do.

My job is to make the room wider, right? So that we create opportunity for more people and then to shine a light in any room they're not in, to talk about how remarkable they are. It was one of those things that kind of shut down that nagging voice in my head that told me I couldn't do it, and it gave me something to reach for that I could see.

For us, it is hard. If we're going to try to spend this much money, this much time, this much energy, we want to shift an institution that will be here long after we are. There is a high degree of risk for starting any company, whether that's a pizza store on the corner or a venture-backed startup. There's always going to be risks. As entrepreneurs, we thought to ourselves, "If we were to quit our jobs and pursue solving this problem, how can we best set ourselves up for success?"

We did research essentially on top companies and what did they all have in common that we could make sure we had in place to make sure EdLift was successful. The thing that we realized was the common thread around a lot of successful startups was Y Combinator. The benefit for us was structure; it just put us on a timeline of when we needed to achieve things by. So like, "Okay, by this date, by demo day, we need to have the following things done." Building your MVP, you know, build a quick prototype of it, see if it's actually solving their problem, and then iterate on it with them.

One way we thought we could get our first users was, "What if we stand outside of the classrooms of really big computer science classes on campus, and once classes end, we’ll walk up to students and kind of ask them about, you know, what's hard about your CS class?" And that is actually how we got our first five to ten students.

We would literally haul this heavy barber chair to different co-working spaces and bring the barber to the customers because we couldn't get the barbershops to use it. And, you know, we did that summer, winter, through the snow, through the mud. I mean, it was not fun. But that's the process; you've got to go through those early trials to make it out on the other end.

Whenever we have a problem, we know that there’s someone in the YC community that we could reach out to, and they would help us. I think it's important for us as a YC community to create space and place for people. The more people who get involved in creating the future of technology, the more diverse solutions we will have to solve so many problems that are going unsolved now.

It's another reason I think it's very important to bring diversity. Frankly, I would like to see more successful Black founders and more Black founders getting funded, in particular because I think that in terms of looking at the racial wealth gap in this country, technology could be a means to help bridge that if people are given opportunities.

You are solving a really big problem that you felt and is not being solved right now. The more you trust yourself and your team and the process, the easier it is to be resilient and persevere.

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