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Amany Killawi, Co-founder of LaunchGood

“I am a social worker turned social entrepreneur. An avid reader and basketball player. Co-founder and COO of LaunchGood.

Launchgood is a crowdfunding platform to support Muslims launching good all over the world by helping them raise funds for their projects, campaigns, and creative ideas.

I used to be a youth organizer and I would often raise funds for youth programs. At some point, I realized with my co-founder Chris and Omar that there are 1.6 billion Muslims and over 400 niche crowdfunding sites but very few that focused on the Muslim community. Post college, I was feeling a bit burned out in the Muslim community, but I felt recharged when I explored the possibility of LaunchGood. It felt like we're so busy defending who Muslims, LaunchGood to me was the freedom to just build and inspire Muslims to aim higher, create, innovate, and launch amazing projects. So we set out to build the site and October 2015 we launched our first ever project: the first Muslim Womens' workout DVD!

Problems we faced when starting up? Everything you can think of! I remember the first version of our site was so bad that when you would donate the numbers would go down instead of up. I have all sorts of horror stories of website issues going wrong, people stealing ideas without credit, and everything in between!

We're an also bootstrapped company which means we have 0 investors! That means as a founder I had to go 3 years before I could pay myself. Although difficult, that wasn't the hardest part.
So many factors have to go right for you to succeed. The hardest part was keeping in mind all of those things like leading and growing a team, managing development, compliance, staying cash flow positive, business development and outreach, and of course, balancing family.

Each stage of our company had its own crazy set of challenges, but the first two years were the toughest because my co-founders and I had to do everything ourselves. We didn't have money to hire anyone else!

On advice: Have a growth mindset. When you're stuck between two paths to take, always go where you can grow. It's the best-guaranteed investment you can make on yourself. I didn't just wake up one day, saying I'd like to start a crowdfunding platform to empower Muslims. I just kept chasing growth and it led me to where I am today.”

-Amany Killawi, Co-founder of LaunchGood.




“Sosyal girişimci, kitap kurdu ve basketbol oyuncusuyum. LaunchGood'un kurucu ortağı ve COO'suyum.

 LaunchGood dünyanın her yerinden Müslümanların projeleri, kampanyaları ve fikirleri için fon toplamalarını sağlayan bir kitlesel fonlama platformu.

 Gençlik organizatörü olarak sık sık programlara fon toplama kampanyaları yürütüyordum. Dünyada 1.6 milyar Müslümanın ve 400 kitlesel fonlama sitesinin olduğunu fakat çok azının Müslümanlara odaklandığını gördüm.
Mezun olduktan sonra bu Müslüman toplumunda biraz tükenmiş hissettim fakat LaunchGood'un yapabileceklerini keşfettiğimde yeniden canlandım. 
Ocak 2015'te sitemizi kurduk ve ilk projemizi, Müslüman kadınlar için yapılmış ilk egzersiz DVD'sini piyasaya sürdük.

 Başlarken yaşadığımız problemler? Aklınıza gelebilecek her şey! Sitemizin ilk versiyonu o kadar kötüydü ki bağış yaptığınızda rakam yükselmek yerine düşüyordu. 
Biz kendi imkanlarıyla giden bir şirketiz. Yatırımcımız yok. Kurucu olarak kendime ilk ödememi yapmam 3 yılımı aldı. 

 Şirketimizin geçtiği her aşamanın kendince dehşet zorlukları var ama ilk iki yıl en zoruydu. Çünkü kurucu ortağımla her şeyi kendimiz yapmamız gerekiyordu. Bir başkasını işe alacak paramız yoktu.
Önerim: Her zaman büyüme odaklı olun. İki seçenek arasında kaldığınızda daima gelişebileceğiniz tarafı seçin. Bu kendinize yapabileceğiniz en iyi yatırım. Ben bir sabah uyanıp Müslümanları destekleyecek bir fon platformu kuracağım demedim. Daima gelişimi takip ettim ve bugün buradayım.”

 -Amany Killawi, LaunchGood'un kurucu ortağı.

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