'You have to jump out of the plane'

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Tiambi Simms came to the Netherlands to study at the VU in 2009. After completing a Master’s in Human Movement Science, her career took a whole new direction. She earned another Master, this time in International Business and Strategy at the UvA. In less then a year after graduating she was helming her own start-up: SheFarms, a company that helps (mostly female) farmers and stakeholders to connect by providing valuable insight about their farming activities. 

Can you elaborate what SheFarmers does?
“SheFarms is a financial technology startup that works with smallholder farmers in emerging markets. We are the facilitator between the farmers and micro finance institutions. A lot of these small farmers do not have records of their cashflow or productivity levels, and because of this they can’t easily go to a bank to apply for a loan, because they don't look credit worthy. A lot of this has to do with the fact that a lot of the farmers have low literacy levels, or are illiterate. What we provide them with is a visual application, a mobile phone app, in which they are able to input their information. Most of them do not own computers or laptops, but because mobile coverage is very high in the two countries we are piloting in (Ghana and Kenia) almost all them own mobile phones. And most of them do know how to use numbers, which they input in a picture based interface. Once their numbers are in the app, it creates a farmer profile, which is then shared with a micro finance institution. From there the bank will be able to asses if the farmer can get a loan or not.”

'I’m not money driven, that’s not my core'

How did you get you get from Movement Science at the VU to working in agriculture, something totally different?
“After the VU I had an internship with a physical therapist lined up back in the US, but I realized it wasn’t really what I wanted. So I decided to stay in the Netherlands, although I wasn’t really marketable here: I was compatible with jobs I didn’t want to do anymore. I figured I needed a business background, because then I would be free to do other things and be open for other options. So I went to business school at the UvA.”

“After that I was doing corporate, and I hated it… One day I read an article about the CEO of Nestle, that he wanted to privatize water. The fact that someone could think they have ownership on that is a real problem to me. When I read that I started thinking on my ‘why’. I was asking myself ‘what is my purpose, what do I want?’ I’m not money driven, that’s not my core. My core is being fair, I don’t like inequality. So because of the article, I had the idea of creating a water filter so people would always have clean water. I knew then I wanted to get into agriculture. And then I found the job application that turned into SheFarms.”

SheFarms originated from a job application?
“Yes, the idea came to me in October 2014 when I was applying for a job at an agriculture consultancy firm. A part of their application process was to write a proposal about what kind of program you would implement for smallholder famers in Nicaragua if you had a hundred thousand euros. So I wrote a proposal, which was already called SheFarms, and the idea was that farmers would receive text messages with valuable information. Good thing that I didn’t get the job, because now I had a great plan and I could do it my way.”

“The plan focused specifically on female farmers, because I realized from my research they were not getting the access to the information, the resources and finance that they needed. I didn’t understand why that was the case because they were the ones working the land, almost 80-90% of the farmers are women. We soon realized though that a lot of the farmers are illiterate so they wouldn’t be able to read the messages, so over time it evolved into a physical app that would be very easy to control with pictures, logo’s and icons, which is where we are at right now.”

'I need to feed my soul'

Why a startup? Have you considered joining an existing organization?
“Not really, from the beginning I wanted to do it myself. Partly because of my personality; I didn’t feel much for stepping into a corporate system again that is clearly doing a lot of things wrong. Because there’s a lot of money being allocated to NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) and other organizations, for relieving poverty, but it’s still not being resolved at all. What have they been doing with all that money? I knew I was also going to fall into my own pitfalls, and fail from time to time, but that’s okay because it’s part of the process. I wanted to do it my way, I need to feed my soul and that’s hard in a corporate environment.”

What does it take to create a successful start-up?
“You have to build a good team. I have ten people working for me, which is great, but I have to sign off for everything. That means you need to know that the work is getting done, so you don’t have to micromanage everything. It will teach you a lot about communication, which is another important part of a successful company. A start-up also needs to focus, stay away from sidetracking. At one point we evolved into being cacao traders to create an income in the business. That didn’t really work, because it wasn’t our core expertise or what we really wanted to do. That’s a lesson we had to learn; you can’t do it all.”

What’s the advice you’d give to someone that’s about to launch their own start-up?
“Be very disciplined. Because nobody is going to tell you that a deadline is coming up. Nobody is going to tell you to get up in the morning to get to work. If you’re not disciplined I don’t believe you can be an entrepreneur. And having a tough skin is necessary, because you’re going to be told ‘no’ a lot of times. And it’s going to hurt. It doesn’t get any easier. And last, you have to jump out of the plane. You just need to do it, people are always waiting for their moment but it’s never going to be the perfect time.”