Meet Shawn Wehan | Co-Founder & CEO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Shawn Wehan and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Shawn, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
At first, I wasn’t setting out to start a business. My original thought was simply a question: we have social websites, we have business websites, but why isn’t there a website that speaks to my philanthropic interests and that will help me connect with my local community? Once I identified this perceived need in the market, I started talking to my co-founders about what a solution could look like and after presenting that vision to the contacts I had in the nonprofit sector and they confirmed that it was a solution for which they would be happy to pay, we decided that we should build it. We understood that, if all the verticals were properly built, the idea could be an extremely profitable business.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
My journey as CEO has been an educational process. I’ve likened the entire experience to that of learning a complex game. I’ve had to learn the rules (written and unwritten) and how to win. Mind you, winning for us is not a zero sum game. Because of the space we serve, the Givsum platform allows for a multitude of winners. Givsum makes it easy for service clubs and nonprofits to create fundraisers, manage their operations, and engage with their community of supporters – all on one platform. This provides a win for our customers, their supporters, and the communities they serve, as well as our company.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If I had someone visiting me from out of town, I would hope that they brought their surf board or were ready to sail. I grew up in Dana Point, so being on or in the water is second nature to me. One of my favorite surf spots is Strands, but if the wind is making the surf choppy, then we’d have to take out a sailboat. Once we’re done playing in the ocean, we would definitely have to pay a visit to The Shwack for a burger or fish taco and a beer.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Without question, building a business is a team sport. Besides the obvious contributions of my co-founders, employees, and our wonderful angel investors (who have all doubled as advisors at different times), I would like to give a shoutout to a little known resource that comes on any iPhone. If you open up the iTunes U app, you can access courses from world-class universities on just about any topic. When we first started the company, one of my co-founders and I went through an audit of Stanford University’s “How to Start a Startup”. That gave us a great foundation upon which we could build upon. In order to achieve a “beta” version of the Givsum platform, we listened to the feedback we received from our initial group of customers. Without organizations like Mariners Sea Scouts, Fish For Life, and Rock to Recovery, we could never have understood the needs of our market. Once we got to the “beta” stage, we entered into UCI’s Applied Innovation’s incubator program. Thanks to UCI, we learned how to graduate from raising funds from friends and family to professional investors. That leads us to where we are today, where we have obtained investment and admission into the accelerator programs of two VC groups, OC4 Venture Studio and SteelBridge Labs. They are helping us shift our focus from finding “product market fit” to actual sales and marketing.

Website: www.givsum.com
Instagram: @givsum
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/givsum/?viewAsMember=true
Facebook: @gogivsum