EP14 Efua Akumanyi, Co-Founder and CTO at Furnishful on Bootstrapping, Failure and Demystifying Technology

My wonderful guest this week is Efua Akumanyi, CTO & Co-Founder at Furnishful, the new platform to discover and shop for furniture online. Efua is on a mission to make shopping for home furnishings a more inspired and creative process, by bringing your favourite homeware brands together in one place. With Furnishful, you can create inspiration boards, discover beautiful pieces and shop from thousands of home décor items. Finally, a shoppable Pinterest! In this episode, we talk about how Efua has bootstrapped her business over the last three years and what she has learnt along the way. We discuss the principles of addictive technology, using tech for good and how Efua wants to empower women to upskill their technical abilities to better serve their businesses. We talk about failure, mentorship and working with your life partner! Enjoy! Join in the conversation online using #THEWOTPOD on Twitter https://twitter.com/TheWotPod and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thewotpod/. Chapters: 00:00 Episode Taster 00:28 Chapter 1: From Developer to Co-Founder 09:10 Chapter 2: Creating an Affiliate Business Model 15:36 Chapter 3: Incubators, Funding and Upskilling 20:10 Chapter 4: Networking and VC Office Hours 23:59 Chapter 5: Building Healthy Tech 28:28 Chapter 6: Relationships and Personal Finances 36:21 Chapter 7: Bring Your Best Self Episode resources: Positive Planet - https://positiveplanetuk.com/ The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/B005MM7HY8/ Hooked by Nir Eyal - https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/B00HZY1N0K/ Find out more about Efua Akumanyi and Furnishful: https://www.furnishful.co.uk https://www.instagram.com/furnishful/ https://www.pinterest.co.uk/furnishful/ https://twitter.com/Furnishful https://twitter.com/efuaakumanyi https://www.instagram.com/efuaakumanyi/ Connect with your host, Frankie Cotton: https://frankiecotton.com https://twitter.com/FrankieCotton_ https://www.instagram.com/frankiecotton_/