Forward Thinking: Founder stories - Episode 3 (Bilkis Miah | You Be You)

Welcome back to episode three of our series ‘Founder Stories’. In today’s episode we speak to Bilkis Miah, founder of You Be You who shares her journey to becoming a founder. You Be You is a life skills app developed for children in schools, celebrating diversity, fostering inclusivity, and empowering young minds with essential life skills.

Bilkis shares her inspiring story and journey and shares her passion of helping young people foster life skills. Listen to the episode below.

Episode Transcript

Bayley (00:00):
Welcome to today's episode of Forward Thinking Founder Stories brought to you by Fox Williams. Our Founder Stories series shines a light on the remarkable journeys of underrepresented founders. As part of our ongoing efforts to support diverse entrepreneurial talent, we've created a platform where these inspiring people share their stories, lessons learned, and the unique challenges they've overcome.

Bilkis (00:01):
Okay, so my journey so far, I'm a British Bangladeshi woman. I was born in Birmingham, lived in London and I am the founder of Soaring and we are a life skills app. So teaching life skills that are really important, as important as literacy and numeracy, confidence, resilience, good mental health practices and we do that in safe screen time in an app and we connect parents and children.
It's very much needed. It's important, but it's really hard and moments like this, I, you know, Fox Williams, thank you for organizing this event is really good to connect with your peers, with other people, but importantly. With investors because it goes back to life skills, right? You have to have a network It's who you know, if you don't know them, yeah, and I'm gonna use Hamilton as my, you're not gonna be in the room where it happens So it's really important
So now it's kind of getting into that journey. And to all the other founders out there, um, it's really hard to keep at it. Like, yeah, I mean, we're only at the beginning of the stage. Mm hmm. So what are some of your biggest challenges you've faced so far in your journey? Um, network. So having links into the VC world, if you don't have that, and that can be, you know, overwhelming at times and building that network.
And that's hard because obviously it's your baby. So you want it to work first time round. And if you're a perfectionist, it's hard. So you have to just let that go. And I think as well, Building something and having that resilience, another obstacle, is having people say no or don't get the product. So you have to go back and really think about the story that you're telling, refining your pitch, and not taking no for an answer.
And again, it's really important to build communities around you where you can support and empower each other. Because the other thing as well is there's a power in community and numbers,
appropriate way and push you because you don't just want yes people around you either that's not going to work and I think the best supporters for me have to be other female founders that have done it and my parents yeah they've been they're entrepreneurs but they would never call themselves that but they run their own business and That's what I would say.
Like, take your time. If you fail, you can figure it out. And failing isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing. You can learn from it, right? And I would say to founders, if you feel It's in your gut and you have to do it, which is how I felt about my idea. Do it, go for it, try it. And even if you get one paying customer and you're like, yes, oh, and the other thing, celebrate your successes.
Right. And it's just how at the end of the day, people are just people. So it's been really nice to just connect with peers, with VCs, have those conversations where you're like, I'm stuck. Uh, how do I get traction? And someone else is like, actually I'm the same in the same boat. You feel less alone, which is really important.