AMA With CEO & Founder Yaa Priscilla Birago
By Raman Kang
For the entire month of July, The Collective decided to go all AMA, all the time! All month long, we had Ask Me Anything sessions with amazingly talented women in tech. These sessions give us a chance to learn from experts by asking them all sorts of questions. Our first guest expert was Yaa Priscilla Birago, Co-founder and CEO of FemmeBnB Inc.
Yaa Priscilla Birago is a mentor, speaker, IT consultant, philanthropist and social entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and CEO of FemmeBnB Inc, the first social networking vacation and short-term rental platform that allows women to rent their spaces to other women in hopes of maximizing safety, comfort, and peace of mind. She started the company in 2017 to provide a safe space, community and convenience for women travellers after she had a terrifying experience as a solo traveller in Rome. Yaa is also the founder of Soko Bags Ltd, a manufacturing company based Ghana that produces eco-friendly bags to solve environmental issues. At the same time, Soko Bags positively impacts the socioeconomic status of women in Ghana through gainful employment.
Recognized for her purpose-driven work, Yaa has received numerous awards, including the Women's Courage International Award, The Black Canadian Role Model Award, Top 30 Under 30 Pioneers by Future of Ghana, and was named one of the Top 100 Black Women to Watch in Canada.
Yaa is a mother of two and is passionate about promoting the advancement of children and women through mentorship, empowerment and creating opportunities through various high impact initiatives. She is also enthusiastic about travel technology, women travel, sustainable travel, and improving women's travel experience across the globe. Here are some of the questions
Yaa answered during her AMA session:
Q: What compelled you to be a founder of your own company? What role do you think social enterprises play in our economy and specifically in COVID-19 recovery?
A: I started my company based on a horrible experience I had encountered when I travelled solo to Rome. I was sexually harassed in front of my Airbnb apartment, and when I voiced my concerns to my male host, he said to me, "this happens all the time you will be fine". This was my "aha" moment. My company aims to promote sustainable travel, and we are doing this by encouraging our community to travel locally until we are ready to fly internationally. When we travel local, we are not only helping sustain the environment; we are also helping to put money in the pockets of women who have lost income due to covid19. Local travel will also boost the local community's economy.
Q: I'm wondering about the impact COVID is having on their business. I assume bookings are down, but maybe since it's a niche market, there's not such a significant slowdown. Can you share a little about the business side (are most travellers local, regional, international? Sales up/down/same?)
A: Unfortunately, COVID has affected the travel industry in the worst possible way. However, I truly believe travel will pick up again in no time. We are supposed to launch our beta platform on International Women's Day, but we decided to hold off on the launch. We have been using this time to cultivate our community, conduct more market research and ensure that we can strategically position the company when travel picks up again. We see this impact of COVID as a positive impact rather than negative. Local travel trends have been picking up, and we are now in an excellent position to leverage on this trend. So we will be gearing to launch our beta in the next few weeks.
Q: I'm curious to know what your journey has been like as a woman of colour, creating her own business? What have your successes and challenges been?
A: My journey as a woman of colour in the startup tech space has been exciting. I have been in situations where my capabilities to deliver and run this business has been questioned. It's been a bit difficult to get access to the right resources to help my business scale. There are times my negative experiences start to play in my head that maybe I am not the right person to do this. The imposter syndrome has been real for me on my occasions. However, the past few months have been remarkable. More and more people and organizations are stepping up to help women and also women of colour. So I have been taking advantage of every single opportunity that comes my way. My successes so far are being able to create a dynamic team to move FemmeBnB mission forward, raising 30k in pitch competitions, grants and crowdfunding. And, of course, completing our beta application.
Q; What is your favourite failure story, and what did you learn from it?
A: My favourite failure is spending two years of my resources on building software that didn't work and having to start from scratch again. My lesson from this is to do some extensive research before choosing my remote developing team. Learn to start small.
We have an incredible lineup of women who will be participating in our AMA sessions throughout August. Join The Collective to get in on events like this.