Julie Trell On The Impact Of SheEO & Its Outstanding Network Of Impact-Led Female Entrepreneurs
Julie Trell was recently the Head of Telstra’s startup accelerator, muru-D. She came to the role with a vast and varied background spanning both startup and corporate environments. In her previous role as the Founder of Playful Purpose, she helped companies integrate meaningful philanthropy programs into their businesses. She was an advisor to several startups from San Francisco to London.
Julie was instrumental in launching SheEO Radical Generosity in the USA in 2016, a global initiative to transform how we support, finance and celebrate female entrepreneurs and launched SheEO in Australia in 2018. Prior to that, Julie has two decades of experience in corporate philanthropy, spending much of that time as a founding member and Vice President of All Things Fun, Meaningful & Rewarding at Salesforce.com Foundation.
Julie discusses Key learnings from working intimately with early stage start-ups and the qualities and principles she believes are inherent to an entrepreneurs success.
Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)
[Tom Allen] - To kick things off, could you please share a little bit about your background and what led to your passion in supporting people in start-ups, business, and particularly having a focus on supporting female founders?
[Julie Trell] - My journey is very serendipitous, following the universe and listening to the universe often. I started my life as a teacher and a technology specialist in a middle school, which I guess you could say is the ultimate start-up phase! I worked with teachers and students and had to integrate technology into the curriculum. I just loved being the catalyst for when that light bulb moment went on for the teachers and the students alike, when things clicked, which led to then more serendipity. I had a conversation with Marc Benioff, who is the founder and CEO of Salesforce. This was back in 1998, and that unsuspecting conversation led me to having an unsuspecting conversation that was my interview to help start the Salesforce Foundation.
Back in 2000, there were only 115 people there at the time, and Mark Benioff knew that he wanted to start the culture of the company and integrated philanthropy from the start. It was the concept of giving back, but I like to say giving forward, from inception.
I got to work with employees and non-profits alike and match them as volunteers to the much-needed non-profits. Then when we saw the technology of Salesforce, how it was a very powerful tool for non-profits to manage their work. That's what my role is, VP of all things fun, meaningful, and rewarding.
I got to work directly with the employees and non-profits, and I guess you could say it was in the early business of people and impact. Then more serendipity followed when I answered a job description that said filling the flip-flops of my predecessor, Annie Parker.
It was her love letter to find her replacement. I actually think it was akin to the Mary Poppins, when the kids write the letter to find their Mary Poppins. There were two things that stood out. She was looking for someone that had the gravitas to work with corporates, so with my 12 years at Salesforce I had some of that ability to influence the corporate environment. Then they needed to have considerable experience with early stage and scale up start-ups, and I think growing up at Salesforce was very helpful. Then I just took the leap, not necessarily having been a founder myself, which was that imposter voice in my head. Seeing what had happened, I took the leap and moved to Australia three and a half years ago.
Wow! You've done a lot since then. You've headed up Muru-D and you're also the SheEO Australia country lead. Can you please tell us a little bit more about how SheEO supports women and your role there?
When I came down here, I figured, "you know what, I launched this in the U.S. This is a nice place to launch it as well, given it has already launched in New Zealand." What SheEO, the fund is, it's a new model, a new mindset, and an attempt to create a new system.
[The current] systems are very old and archaic and somewhat broken. It's a fund for women entrepreneurs, which made up of contributions from other women that are not necessarily investors or donors, they just want to be part of this network.
Women who contribute $1,100 are again not donors or investors, they're 'activators', and we like to use that word because they're activating their capital, buying power, network and expertise to help other women lead ventures. The funding then goes to five women led ventures who are working on the worlds to do list, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals. The women are the ones who select, the activators vote, and activators are anywhere from year 11 students up to the age of 90, with backgrounds from corporate start-up, starting up their own business consultancies, different ages, different regional and indigenous women across Australia.
Once the five are selected through a very democratic process, they then decide how the money is divided up. It's not a winner takes all type initiative; the five women decide how this capital is divided and it can't all go to one person and it can't be divided evenly.
What starts to happen is they learn how to negotiate on their own, and then they form these beautiful bonds to support one another. It's the opposite of a shark tank! The other women that have applied but weren't selected are still in the network, they come to calls and they become activators themselves. I know that I have become involved with companies that weren't selected, but I got to see that pipeline through the application process. It was a real process where you can still get these amazing touch points as a venture, as a founder, looking for not only capital, but looking for expertise. We have 10 ventures now in Australia, all working on the world’s to do list, and it's really been amazing to watch them support one another. For instance, one of the companies needed to get a DGR status and the other one helped with auspices and this person needed a designer, and one company actually had designers within their company.
It's this beautiful connection and network. It's very diverse from the heart and the start, and as I mentioned, we have a balance of age, location, expertise, indigeneity, and it is in five countries, so it is a global initiative.
There's 5,000 women around the globe, so when we start travelling again, if you're a venture in this cohort you can say, "I'm going to San Francisco, I need connections to X, Y and Z." Then, there's a bunch of activators in that location that can say, "I can set you up right away." Finally, in Australia alone, we have over 550 women that have contributed over the last two and a half years with the tune of over $670,000. I failed to mention that this is a zero-interest five-year loan, so that money it's perpetual funding, which will stay in Australia.
It's such a supportive initiative Julie, and I'm familiar with some of the initiatives that have been supported and also some of the activators who are part of SheEO. They're all really inspiring women and initiatives. Great work there in bringing that to Australia and getting it set up.
Let's talk a little bit about your recent role as the global head of Muru-D, which is a start-up accelerator sponsored by Telstra with programs across Australia. During that time you supported many early stage start-ups, so I was really keen to hear some of the patterns and qualities that you witnessed across the different founders you worked with, which have gone on to make some seriously big impact?
Three came to mind when I thought about this question. Resilience [is one], so embracing that fear that comes to stepping out from wherever you came from, whether it's university or a big corporate.
[It’s] embracing that fear and using it as a superpower to lead, lean forward and have conviction in whatever problem that you're solving. Basically, believing in yourself is a really strong pattern for those companies and the founders that are still moving forward.
This is especially when they say, "here comes a pandemic, how can we adapt and adjust?" That resilience is a really important quality. Another quality is a willingness to be curious, this goes along with that whole adaptation, being adaptable, curious, having a growth mindset. [It’s also having] open and active listeners in the network of people that are helping you out and knowing how to be able to shift should something like a pandemic come.
Or even if customers are having problems with whatever your product is. Really being able to listen, it's very key.
Finally, believing in what you're doing and the difference that you're planning on making in the world is really important. Finding that balance of what you're doing and that you're making a difference so that the macro and the micro of your business still has those convictions.
I absolutely agree with all of those points. I'm keen to hear a little bit more about the broader advice that you'd give Julie, particularly to those entrepreneurs that have a very strong impact or purpose-led focuses who are at the early stages of starting? Where have you seen them typically go wrong, and what sort of advice would you give to them?
They're my favourite because they're at the early growth, playful curiosity stage. [What's] really important I reiterate is to talk to your customers and do your research. Are you solving your own problem, one that you have, or is it some that many other people are struggling with? Really understanding what the problem is and how your customers want it solved might be different than the way you see it yourself.
Being able to step out and listen again, that's where they go wrong. [Another suggestion is] be very clear in what your impact is and how you're doing well. If you can tell your story straight up to your investor or your customers and they get what you're saying [that's great].
I love this little game that we did at Muru-D, and I've seen some other accelerators do it called 'Baby Shark Tank', where instead of the judges being adults, the judges were 6-14-year old kids. If you can't tell your story to a 6 to 14-year-old, you need to work on your marketing message. Plus, these 6 to 14-year-old judges are going to ask very different questions. Being prepared for all of these different differences that come out is a bonus. The other thing is report on the impact that you're making, explain it to your customers and investors, make sure you always keep in touch with your investors! That's been where they've gone wrong.
Even when things you think are going sideways as a founder, your investors invested in you for a reason. You've got to tell them what's going on, and I get emails from the founders saying here this is the good, bad, and the ugly. I want to help them, and I'm ready to help them before it gets worse. That communication is really key.
The other place where they typically go wrong is listening to experts who are not experts in the social impact space, where they're looking for only money and to stay strong. If you're coming from a non-profit or a pure social enterprise and you know how to solve the problem and get around things, make sure that that's guiding you as well, versus someone that wants to make money from what you're doing and they don't have that expertise.
Such great advice there Julie, and I'm sure we know that you've worked with a lot of these different enterprises, so which projects or initiatives have you come across recently that you find really inspiring, and are out there creating really positive social change?
Oh, that is not fair to ask me, it's like asking who your favourite child is! I'm going to dig into the SheEO portfolio because I love that they're all guided around the Sustainable Development Goals. Some initiatives that are very inspiring to me are Indigital by Mikaela Jade. Her story in and of itself is really inspiring.
She was not a technologist, and Indigital works in schools and are combining cultural intelligence, also known as CQ, with digital intelligence, DQ, for sustainable communities. It's teaching kids, students, how to build AR components through the lens of Indigital historical cultural stories.
It's got all these beautiful pieces of elders, education, culture and technology. She was a park ranger, and she is creating incredible partnerships and stories! The language, cultural aspects and technology is all being now taught in part of curriculum in schools. She is really inspiring.
Then, Helen Black of Work Restart [is inspiring]. It's a social enterprise creating communities and giving meaningful employment opportunities for currently and previously incarcerated people.
They're building an accelerator inside prisons, and as I referenced earlier, one of their ventures is they have designers within the prison system that can help do graphic design. It's a win-win, so when they get out, they have something. Neighbourlytics, run by Lucinda Hartley and Jessica Christiansen-Franks is a social analytics platform transforming how neighbourhoods are planned, designed and managed. It's looking at all the components of designing neighbourhoods, which is really important now especially again with COVID and work habits changing. A really insightful platform.
Another one I found interesting was Full Circle Fibres. While not selected in the SHEEO portfolio, they are yarn and fabrics sustainably sourced in Australia. It's not technology, it's making sure that they're ethically sourced fibres and the whole supply chain is really exciting.
They're an example of while they weren't selected by everyone, I'm still inspired by many of these companies that are still doing amazing work.
Absolutely, and there's some great initiatives there and it's good that you mentioned Helen Black of Work Restart. It's funny that just last week we interviewed Amanda and Kelly of Green Fox Studio who work inside the prisons, helping incarcerated Australians and reducing recidivism rates. Our listeners can hear directly from those founders themselves, and they were also a part of our Elevate+ Accelerator program this year.
To finish off then Julie, could you please share some books that you'd recommend to our listeners?
I'm currently reading Undaunted by Kara Goldin. She is the founder of Hint Water, and her career journey has been really inspiring back in the days before e-commerce, and how e-commerce has started. That book is called Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. Then I've been reading Trusting Yourself by MJ Ryan. She happens to be the development guide for the SHEEO ventures, and the similar guise of trusting yourself, the doubters and overcoming all of that is the theme.
In order to be a good founder and a strong leader, you need to understand your strengths, gaps and how to overcome them.
Thank you so much for sharing your generous insights and time. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk and we'll look forward to tracking your journey as you move forward.
