What's on the minds of some of the Twin Cities' top startup founders?
At Minne Inno's 2021 Startups to Watch panel, founders got candid about the struggles and triumphs they've had over the past year. The panelists were: Breathe99 CEO and co-founder Max Bock-Aronson, Fulcrum CEO and founder Sunny Han, Bim Bam Boo CEO and founder Zoë Levin, and Soona CEO and co-founder Liz Giorgi.
We've excerpted some of the best quotes from each founder. You can watch the whole video below.
Giorgi on using social media effectively: "There are two rules that I have. One is if you wouldn't say it out loud, don't say it online. And that goes both ways. If you're funny in person, leverage that to use your online personality to your advantage. The other rule is there's no such thing as too much content. You've got to be proactive, you've got to prioritize it, and the brands that do it best really figure out how to leverage a conversation like this one and turn one tweet into five pieces of content across their entire ecosystem."
Bock-Aronson on the new normal created by Covid-19: "One of the maybe silver linings that we're going to get from the pandemic is these increased public health practices actually having really significant health implications beyond Covid-19. For example, at this time last year, I think it was over 250 children had died from the flu. This year, it's one. We will see masking as a more common trend. The public understanding of masking being important for health has definitely expanded."
Han on his biggest challenges in growing while working remotely: "When you're in an office together, you have that passive understanding of what the culture is that you don't have to say. You might not even know how to say it because it can't be said, it's just a feeling, right? I think a lot of people who are now adjusting to working at home feel guilty spending time socializing or whatever whereas if they were in an office they might just do that organically."
Levin on being a younger founder: "I feel like I don't know what I don't know. I don't know what it's like to be any older. All I know is I'm like: 'Ok, what do we need to get done?' And my body can somehow do it. I can sit through Zoom calls, I've got the eyes for it. I can push through this, and that is the biggest gift about being a younger founder: You have the gift of, hopefully, your health. There's a lot of stress that goes into this."
