WEXCHANGE PODCAST

Learn about the success stories, lessons learned, insights and advice of experts from the entrepreneurial ecosystem and woman entrepreneurs in STEM from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Sally Buberman, Wormhole: Preparing Human Capital for the Digital Transformation, Ep 3

Sally Buberman followed her gut and left her secure job at a multinational company to start her own business. Now, eleven years later, Sally is cofounder of Wormhole, an online platform that helps companies, institutions, and organizations with the digital transformation of their human capital. Wormhole believes that people’s growth translates directly into the organizations’ success.

Before taking on Wormhole, Sally worked for an automobile company, and tutored children in math through an online platform. She was surprised by the positive feedback she received from parents and their kids using this unconventional way of learning. That’s when she asked herself what would happen if she could replicate the learning experience in a classroom by simply providing a connection to the Internet and a computer in places where teachers are scarce? The idea for Wormhole was born from this realization and eventually became the first “Live Learning” platform in the region.

In this episode, we sit down with Sally to discuss her decision to leave her job and how this changed her social circle, and what inspired her to get involved in education. We also talk about lessons learned as an entrepreneur and her experience raising capital as an Endeavor Entrepreneur.

“For our friends and family, starting a business was like saying we were going to sell necklaces at the beach”

Sally comes from a family where the highest aspiration for a child is to work at a multinational company, get a Master’s degree, get married, have two children, and adopt a Labrador. Therefore, explaining to her parents that she was leaving her stable job to start a company from scratch was hard to process. While her friends worked from 9 to 6, Sally and her partners saw no division between work and hobby –it was one continuous thread– and that mode of living was not always easy to understand.

In this episode of the WeXchange podcast, Sally explains how her social circle was affected by the lifestyle change that being an entrepreneur demands, and also how that difference played in their favor in critical moments like the 2008 financial crisis.

We set our own limits

As an entrepreneur, Sally learned that each person sets their own limits. The most common reason for not starting a business is lack of funds, especially without a secure initial investment. However, Sally knows that if people detach themselves from the situation, they realize that they lack inventiveness;there is always a way to achieve that goal with other resources. Often, money is not actually the answer..

Listen to more of Sally’s lessons learned as an entrepreneur in this episode of the WeXchange podcast.

“In today’s world, the quickest fish eat the slowest fish.”

After raising $500K in 2013 through the Endeavor network, Sally and her partners decided to hold off on raising another round. Wormhole was too big for some funds and too small for others. However, they did not let this barrier stop them and decided to find other forms of financing, which included debt financing and low-interest loans. That’s when they realized that their size didn’t matter because in today’s world the big fish don’t eat the little fish, instead, the quickest fish eat the slowest fish.

Raising a round is not always an option for many entrepreneurs. Listen to this episode of the WeXchange podcast to learn about the different ways of financing a startup’s operations.

Sally Buberman is the driving force in Wormhole, a startup that is transforming the way in which we learn and educate in the digital era of organizations. She is an Endeavor Entrepreneur and a judge in StartUp Chile, she also frequently participates in lectures to talk about her experience as a female entrepreneur in the STEM field.

 

Programa:

  • [1:18] – About Sally and Wormhole
  • [2:22] – Before starting a business
  • [6:05] – Her inner circle’s reaction
  • [11:36] – Key moments as an entrepreneur
  • [15:36] – Wormhole’s investors
  • [19:00] – Next steps for Sally and Wormhole
  • [20:31] – Advice to female entrepreneurs
  • [23:00] – Advice to Sally’s younger self

 

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