Our story

Becoming philanthropreneurs

In 2015 we (Loral and Eishel — a mother and daughter team) had an idea… about creating a new way of living and giving.

At the Startup Summit in Edinburgh we were inspired to create Sustainably.

Since then it’s been an amazing journey with a number of highs and lows… Some of the highs (we’ll not mention the lows… that needs a post all to itself!) were…

Taking the plunge to quit our jobs and join Entrepreneurial Spark… being selected by Business Gateway for their Gateway to Investment programme… winning the Edinburgh fintech hackathon judged by Deloitte, The Data Lab and The Infinite Kind; being selected for Entiq’s (the team who created Innovate Finance and Level39) Fin4Fem programme and being part of WeAreTheFuture’s Silicon Valley accelerator… joining the Scottish Enterprise High Growth Venture Unit’s StartGlobal programme… being selected as one of the start-ups for the Web Summit Alpha programme… coming 3rd out of 2,000 startups worldwide at Startup Grind Europe… being shortlisted for the BIMA Technology Conscience award… going to San Francisco with AccelerateHER… being finalists in the female founders startup battle at UnboundLive…. and getting selected to demo at FinovateFall.

It’s taken us a lot longer than expected with many challenges along the way but we’ve had incredible support for Sustainably and our vision and we’re really excited to be in the home run to launching soon.

As a digital strategist (Loral) and eco-warrier (Eishel) we wanted to create a new business model where we could create a successful company and also solve major challenges.

We all know how detrimental to the planet the old ways of doing business are, and the most innovative and forward thinking have begun turning this picture on its head.

We get asked this question all the time…

“Can you create a profitable business and benefit the world?”

Of course the answer is yes. And we see that in the rise of the number of businesses creating successful business lines through sustainability and social good that are now generating over a billion dollars including Tesla, Chipotle, IKEA (see Green Giants — Freya Williams book), as well as new business models like Toms shoes one for one model, generating huge revenues, seeing its company valuation rise to $625 million in 2015. Entrepreneurs have demonstrated a tremendous ability to change the world.

We see value in driving forward thinking initiatives that genuinely make a positive impact on the planet. For us it’s all about sustainability (hence the name Sustainably): creating long term strategies for sustainable long term impact; collaboration — working with like minded organisations and enterprises who share our vision about the causes we care about; and measuring what matters — primarily, the impact we are making on our mission, not just in revenue, but in the people we bring on the journey and the difference we make along the way.

As philanthropreneurs — we’re not ignoring profitability outright, but rather want to use our ability to identify and meet needs to create mass appeal and tremendous value that stretches beyond company profit alone.

We’re happy to announce that Round ups from Sustainably is now in beta and available at Sustainably.co

The last 12 months have been an incredible adventure, and a steep learning curve.

We look forward to going on this journey with you.

Loral & Eishel

Co-founders, Sustainably