NCFA Canada | Melissa Dysinger | August 2, 2016

Originally founded in the US three years ago by Co-founders Tabitha Creighton and Lisa Ohman, InvestNextDoor is a crowdlending platform focused on helping small businesses get direct loans from consumers, banks, and other private financial institutions that they may not have access to.  InvestNextDoor recently published an excellent article titled "3 Ways that Empowering Women Leads to Economic Growth" that was the catalyst for reaching out to conduct the following video interview.

In this interview with Tabitha Creighton, CEO/co-founder of InvestNextDoor, we discuss Tabitha's experience as a Female Founder and the challenges in her road to success.  We learned that to "InvestNextDoor", it is all about equalizing access to capital so that small businesses are on the same foot as bigger businesses in terms of options and ability to get the money that they need to borrow in order to grow.  As a strong and passionate female founder, it is easy to look up to Tabitha and take her advice when she has been so successful in cofounding InvestNextDoor, while also being a mother of two. Throughout this video she talks all about the ups and downs in entrepreneurship while giving great advice to women to encourage others to follow in similar footsteps.

See:  Only 7% of partners at top VC firms are women:  The first comprehensive study on women in venture capital and their impact on female founders

Tabitha explains what peaked her interest in entrepreneurship when she was just a teenager. She liked the freedom to try new things and be creative, and these aspects started to form the roots in regards to her interest in founding her own business. Tabitha’s inspiration, she says, comes from anyone who seems to be able to handle “the impossible”, especially all the other mother’s out there in her similar position. The interview also consists of conversation about barriers to female leadership today, and in the next generation.

About Melissa Dysinger:  NCFA Marketing and Events intern summer 2016. Melissa is a student studying Marketing in her fourth year at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, US.  "Crowdfunding is creating a new market that connects both the general public and lead investors with investment opportunities that used to be available only to the wealthy. Soon Crowdfunding will become the future of how the majority of small businesses will be financed.”