St. Louis firm focused on connecting disabled workers with jobs wins startup competition, lands capital

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Letisha Wexstten rests her mobile phone against her shoulder while engaging in a conversation inside her home. Wexstten, 39, was born without arms and a condition that made her right leg shorter than her left leg, requiring her to wear a prosthetic to help her walk.

Dilip Vishwanat | SLBJ

Wexstten works at her home office. She is the founder of V15able, a St. Louis-based startup she launched in 2019. The idea for Wexstten's business developed out of her aspiration to create a mechanism that could give disabled workers the ability to seek out jobs on equal footing with their able-body peers. It has developed an online jobs platform specifically designed for workers with disabilities.

Dilip Vishwanat | SLBJ

Wexstten writes notes using her feet while working at her home office. Growing up, she taught herself how to use her feet like they were hands. She would sit on her family's kitchen floor and practice picking up beans with her feet, placing them into a jar.

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Wexstten uses her feet to navigate her keyboard and computer mouse at her workstation inside her house. Her chair sits up higher than a typical desk chair, allowing her feet to be at the same height as her desk.

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In addition to being a startup founder, Wexstten is an artist. She is a member of Mouth & Foot Painting Artists, a for-profit group that funds disabled artists and sells their work. During a recent speech she gave at Edward Jones, three of Wexstten's paintings were raffled off to attendees.

Dilip Vishwanat | SLBJ

Being born without arms doesn't keep Wexstten from completing everyday tasks, such as driving a car. Her vehicle includes a left-foot accelerator she can use while simultaneously using her right foot to turn the steering wheel.

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Without arms, Wexstten often uses her shoulder and chin to hold and carry items. On a run to grab lunch in late September, she uses her chin and shoulder to transfer her food items from the drive-thru window and into her car.

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The headrest of the driver's seat inside Wexstten's car include buttons she can control with her head to activate the features such as the car's turn signals and windshield wipers.

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Wexstten checks her phone during a staff meeting to review the jobs platform being created by V15able, her startup. Discussions among the team highlighted how V15able is seeking to build a job platform focused on the disabled workforce that's accessible for all its users. For example, at one point, the team discussed how using the word "click" on its website wouldn't work, given that many of the company's users may not be able to physically click on the website. The team discussed using other terms, such as "activate," as an alternative.

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In her role as founder of V15able, Wexstten has become a visible advocate for workers with disabilities, making speeches to share her own experiences in the labor market. In the past month, she's given speeches at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and Edward Jones. Here, she speaks with Edward Jones Managing Partner Penny Pennington.

Dilip Vishwanat | SLBJ

At the beginning of a speech given last month at Edward Jones, Wexstten asked attendees to raise their hand if they were wearing blue. The majority of hands went up in the room. "What if I were to tell you I've decided you are incapable of driving," Wexstten told those wearing blue. "It sounds absurd that one person made the split decision that you are incapable of doing a task you know that you can do." She often opens her talks to groups with that scenario, translating it to the feeling of living with a physical disability and the assumptions that are made based on their appearance to others. "How does that make you feel — upset, angry, frustrated? Great, they are feelings people with disabilities have to deal with on a daily basis." The financial services giant has placed increase emphasis on making accommodating the needs of disabled workers. Earlier this year, it hired a director of disability inclusion and accessibility, a newly created position.

Dilip Vishwanat | SLBJ

After finishing her speech at Edward Jones, the firm's Managing Partner Penny Pennington joined Wexstten on stage to chat with her about accessibility and inclusion. "With so much joy, you really show us that there are things that you see and experience that we can't possibly imagine," Pennington told Wexstten.

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Through her work with V15able, Wexstten is assisting David Carnahan in his job search. After sustaining injuries in 2012, Carnahan spent more than eight years in a nursing home. In 2021, he regained his independence. During a recent visit to his Chesterfield apartment, Wexstten filmed David completing tasks in an effort to help showcase his capabilities to employers.

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During her visit to Carnahan's apartment, Wexstten documented Carnahan's ability to use a computer despite losing his sight 10 years ago.

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Wexstten works with David Carnahan to help David find a job during a visit last week to the Center for Head Injury Services. Carnahan says he is uncertain about the type of job he wants, but he's seeking a role in which he can help support a business, perhaps in a back-office position.

Dilip Vishwanat | SLBJ

During a visit at the Center for Head Injury Services, Wexstten records David Carnahan building a chair in an exercise to show David's organizational skills and way of thinking. He completed the task in about six minutes. Wexstten says Carnahan will be able to use the footage for a video résumé that he can share with employers to document his capabilities. He'll also be able to include the video on his V15able profile, she said.

Dilip Vishwanat | SLBJ

By Nathan Rubbelke - Reporter

December 09, 2022, 01:02pm CST Updated 12/09/2022 1:03 pm

V15able, a St. Louis startup that has created an online platform connecting employers to disabled job candidates, took home the top prize this week in the final pitch competition of Greater St. Louis Inc.’s Diverse Business Accelerator.

With its victory in the pitch contest, V15able (pronounced visible) won $25,000 in non-dilutive funding that founder and CEO Letisha Wexstten says will help her startup begin to generate revenue from its online platform.

Wexstten, who was born without arms and a condition that made one leg shorter than the other, launched V15able in 2019 out of her own experience trying to find work as a disabled job candidate. The V15able platform is tailored to disabled workers, allowing them to create profiles that detail their disabilities, qualifications and accommodations they need for accessibility to do their jobs. It generates revenue through subscription fees paid by companies that then create create recruiting profiles and receive access to job candidates.

Wexstten said the $25,000 contest prize will put V15able halfway toward its goal of raising $315,000 to build out its online jobs platform and pursue the next stage of its growth plan.

“We’ve been building our platform in stages and this next stage is a really important one,” she said. “A portion of the $25,000 grant money will go toward adding features onto the website and automating our payment system. This new feature will get us to revenue generating. The rest will go toward improving our marketing efforts.”

Wexstten has developed her startup in partnership with Sigla, a St. Louis-based startup studio.

V15able was one of seven companies to participate in the latest cohort of the Diverse Business Accelerator, which seeks to help incubate businesses led by diverse founders. Since its launch four years ago, the accelerator program has staged nine cohorts.

While V15able took home the top prize, another startup, freight and motor carrier services company Brilliant Audacity Conveyance, earned $5,000 by winning the contest’s People’s Choice Award. The other companies that pitched in the competition were:

A. Phillips Productions, which provides multimedia production services.
Brick City Stickers, which makes and sells custom stickers.
Clinical Research Concierge, which provides research services for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries.
Reimagine Resources, which refurbishes and resells workout equipment to consumers and gyms.
Simply Sweet Sensations, a maker of luxury cakes.

“We are working relentlessly to implement the STL 2030 Jobs Plan and promote the new energy, ideas, and thinking of entrepreneurs like our Diverse Business Accelerator participants, who are creating new jobs, driving investment, and establishing new wealth-building opportunities for everyone in our region," said Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis.