Recently ASBN partnered with TiE Atlanta to cover their 2018 TiECON conference. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Jasmine Crowe the founder of Goodr. Goodr is a food waste management company that works with big businesses that have surplus food. They then help to efficiently get that food to people in need. Jasmine spoke on a power panel at the conference focused on women in business. Tune in to hear more.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Speaker 1: This is the Atlanta Small Business Show with Bridget Fitzpatrick.
Bridget: Hello, everyone and welcome into the Atlanta Small Business Network. We’re sitting here with Jasmine Crowe the founder of Goodr. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Jasmine Crowe: Thank you for having me.
Bridget: Why don’t you talk to us a little bit about what Goodr is and what you’re doing to help people?
Jasmine Crowe: Yeah, so Goodr is a food waste management company. We work with big businesses that have a lot of surplus food. We help them more efficiently get it to people in need.
Bridget: That’s fantastic. Now, you spoke on the panel about the importance of technology being used to help people in need. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?
Jasmine Crowe: Absolutely. There are a lot of gleaning organizations and nonprofits that do similar work to us, but because they’re not using technology, they don’t have real data and they’re not able to deliver real metrics on how that food is impacting communities. When you think about people are still hungry in 2018, organizations like food banks and gleaning organizations have been around for years and you have to wonder where are the inefficiencies? What’s happening? Why are people still experiencing hunger? We think that technology has a real opportunity to decrease these numbers.
Bridget: Absolutely. Now, as a female entrepreneur, what was probably your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
Jasmine Crowe: Yeah. I think my biggest challenge was definitely fundraising. It took almost 200 meetings, hearing no a lot of times. I would get these emails that would say, “Closing the loop.” Or, “Following up.” I would just know this fund is going to say no, or they’re going to deny me. Sure enough, it would always be a denial. I just think I overcame it by continuing to be persistent, continuing to get in front of as many people as I could and tell them about why we needed to do this, why this mattered and just get them to give me a chance.
Bridget: Yes, absolutely and you did it.
Jasmine Crowe: Yeah, I did it.
Bridget: Yeah. Congratulations.
Jasmine Crowe: Thank you.
Bridget: Very good. Now, you talked on your panel about women mentoring women. Talk to us about the importance of women mentoring other business women.
Jasmine Crowe: Yeah, I don’t think I can ever edify just how important that is. It was really important for me having spoke to a lot of female founders that were women when I was raising funds. They would say, “Yeah, it’s going to be hard. I had this many meetings. People told me no. I had to go all over the country. I went to Montana, Nebraska.” I was like, “Wow.” Having that insight before I started raising was really helpful and so even when I was down I was like this is normal. This has happened to other female founders. Some of your mentors went through these same things. That’s a huge need. We need to continue to mentor other people. Even now I’m working with several young women that are starting their own businesses and giving back.
Bridget: Good. That’s fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us Jasmine. It’s been a pleasure.
Jasmine Crowe: No problem.
Bridget: We appreciate you.
Jasmine Crowe: Thank you guys for having me.
