This month we’ll be talking to Sonya Williams and Leighton Roberts from Sharesies, two of the seven founding members of the innovative investment platform that’s on a mission to make investing easy and accessible for kiwis.

Sonya, who runs the Product and Marketing for Sharesies, has been around the SaaS and Fintech scene for a number of years. She has worked for companies such as Collect, Xero and Kiwibank. Leighton, the Sharesies COO, has had an impressive career in banking and finance space with Kiwibank and has clearly had an early interest in investing as he started an investment club at 18 years old.

It’s been an interesting journey for the founders. It all started with a small idea and a fair amount of research, which led to them quitting their permanent jobs, getting awarded an accelerator programme spot and completing a successful private Beta phase. They now have over 14,500 active investors who have invested over $13.5 million dollars via the platform.

We’ll be talking to Sonya and Leighton about their journey and the ups and downs along the way, focusing on three key points they felt have been instrumental to their early success; falling in love with a problem, adapting to being a startup in an industry that is heavily entrenched (and regulated), and the importance of teamwork and resilience. We’ll also learn what the future looks like at Sharesies.

Follow us on Twitter! @StartupGrindNZ #SGWellington #StartupGrind #SGWomen