Interview with Loral Quinn on being chosen for the Tech Nation programme
Well done Loral! What drove you to enter Tech Nation 2018?
We heard Eileen Burbidge’s keynote when we were pitching at EIE this year - as a Monzo investor, and with Sustainably’s beta being available for Monzo Bank customers, there were clear synergies with what we were doing at Sustainably, so we really wanted to meet her. We were very excited to pitch our idea to Tech Nation, with access to incredible judges including Eileen, who we want to help us on our journey.
It's been a great year for Sustainably it terms of industry recognition. How do you explain it?
It’s been a positive year for us as a business, winning a number of industry awards, and meeting Richard Branson, who even wrote a blog about us! There is a real shift towards more social responsibility and sustainability in business, and a rise in ethical consumerism, and that fits in perfectly with our mission. We’re also seeing a lot of charities hire innovation managers, who are coming to us to help them to engage and attract new audiences through our technology.
It's not the first time you'll be travelling to the US, how important is it for fintechs to develop an international network?
Our growth strategy for Sustainably is very much international. The US is a key market for us and we’re looking to build our partnerships there for international growth.
What does entering this programme mean for Sustainably?
The Tech Nation fintech programme will enable us to connect with other fintechs for peer learning, and access entrepreneurs in the fintech eco-system who can help coach and mentor us through our next growth phase. For us it’s all about learning, to enable us to create products people love and make more positive impact in communities.
What does the end of the year look like for you?
We need to be laser focused on product, so that’s our key priority, as is onboarding additional members of the team and our pipeline of good causes. We hope to make some major announcements soon in terms of partnerships, and we’ve got some great people lined up to join the team.
What challenges do you hope to overcome thanks to Tech Nation?
We hope that by being part of Tech Nation it will help raise our profile, help us with our ambitions for international expansion, and connect us to a peer group to help us learn, partner, grow.
