Finessential

So many of us dream of starting a company in our 20s but end up sitting on it. From starting a company while still at college, to being accepted into Y-Combinator, to raising 850k in funding and hiring people from across our world, our next guest Ahana Banerjee has done it, while still in her early 20s. We discussed coming up with startup ideas, hiring your early members, and many more topics arou...

Welcome to episode ten of Finessential. A podcast where we explore finance, sustainability and entrepreneurship through conversations with industry stalwarts. From studying anthropology to working in content, Product management and fintech to now being an entrepreneur in the impact tech space, April has truly done the full circle. We discussed with her today how her previous roles helped set her u...

The edtech industry has been growing for a while now, but with the pandemic, it saw an exponential rise as people started to understand how important up-skilling themselves was. Today, we have with us Craig Vezina, founder of The Spaceship Academy, an organization dedicated to teaching entrepreneurship, impact and advising companies on ESG. From studying in the US to teaching in Croatia, Austria a...

Ayurveda has been around for centuries, but what if we told you there’s someone who built a multimillion-dollar company around the traditional practice of Ayurveda? Today, we have with us Arjun, founder of Dr Vaidya's, one of India’s largest D2C healthcare brands. We discussed how he started, what motivated him and some of the challenges he faced. He also shared with us some valuable advice for as...

The term carbon footprint is becoming extensively popular. But have you ever wondered about what a handprint means? In today’s episode, we have with us Mathias Boissonot, co-founder of Handprint, a climate tech company that strives to make the knowledge about how money is spent in organizations more transparent. From building a website at the age of 13 to taking over a consulting company, to now b...

Coffee is one of the best things to have been discovered by mankind and every day most of the world is thankful for its existence. However, this beloved beverage sometimes comes at a huge price to the environment, leaving behind a considerable carbon footprint. This is where Sander Reuderink, a coffee lover who couldn't disregard its negative effect, decided to make a change. By combining satellit...

In the words of Pauline, The Changemakers' Syndrome relates to an overwhelming, irrational sense of individual responsibility towards solving the world’s most pressing social or environmental issues, even though one does not have any legal nor professional hierarchical obligations to honour this responsibility. Sustainability can no longer be considered a side project. The world is evolving at a r...

What do you do when you face a problem? You can either look for an existing solution or go ahead and build your own solution. When Hugo was certain his productivity was being affected because of all the notifications he was getting, he looked for a solution to fix this. When he couldn't find one, he went ahead and built silentus, an app to help him, and hopefully, many others, concentrate better b...

Gen z is all about change - for the better. Making the world a better, cleaner place to live in, saving it from ruthless treatment. Consequently, many new terms have been coined, related to the environment and sustainable business. While most go over the head, we are here to tell you it's actually really simple! Why is ESG always taken as a three-in-one deal? Why isn't it ever just one of the lett...

What does it take to build businesses that solve the most pressing issues the world faces? The most pressing environmental challenges the world faced twenty or thirty years ago have still not been solved a 100%. This makes it more important for us to understand how we as individuals can contribute to the betterment of society. As impact-tech startups begin to gain popularity, it's important for us...

With more and more people considering entrepreneurship as a career over the traditional routes, it becomes crucial to understand the process behind it. While on the exterior, the life of a CEO seems super glamorous, everyday life includes a lot of strategizing, firefighting, and trying to keep up with the ever-growing competition. In this episode, James talks about how the idea behind Spotship was...