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Entrepreneur Aims To Support Female Founders With Her Emerging Crowdfunding Platform, Kaia: A Founder’s Story with Hailey Handler

Born in Cleveland, Ohio to an Australian mother and American father, Hailey traveled frequently from the time she was young. At 18 years old Hailey relocated to Cairo, Egypt, and has since lived, studied, and worked in international cities such as Paris, Shanghai, and Addis Ababa. While studying for her MBA in Paris, it became clear to Hailey that what she truly wanted to do was to support women in business. Finally, after years of navigating how best to use her resources for the purpose of creating an entity that can truly support women, Hailey founded Kaia in 2022.

Tell us about your childhood and where you grew up

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio in the United States. Cleveland is a typical midwestern city and culturally so different from where my mother is from; despite her being from an English-speaking country. My mother is Australian which meant that yearly I would travel back and forth from Cleveland to Perth. Flying into international cities and relishing in the excitement of travel as a child inspired me to set flight and venture out into the world as soon as I graduated high school. Growing up I was desperate to leave home and explore the world independently. I read voraciously and I taught myself how to read and write in Arabic and Devanagari (a script used commonly in India) while dreaming endlessly of living a life of adventure. The world inspired me and the possibilities of what could be enthralled me as a very young person.

How did you get started as an entrepreneur?

I studied business for five and a half years in Paris. During my last year of studying for my MBA in Energy and Sustainable Development Management, it became clear to me that I didn’t want to work as an energy consultant. It was early on in the academic year that an incredible woman introduced me to the idea of starting my own business. Despite having lived the most unconventional life prior to that moment, the prospect of entrepreneurship presented as foreign to me. Yet from that moment on I immediately knew that I wanted to create a business that would be able to provide funding support to women. I spent the next several years reflecting on how best I could create such a business and what it would ultimately look like. It was after several months of being in Asia in 2022 that I nestled into my mother’s childhood home and finally realized that then was time to start building Kaia. Shortly after I wrote to my lawyer in the US and asked if he would represent me. From that point on it’s been continuous learning and building.

What is one business lesson you would tell a startup founder?

Support is essential. Grow your support network and be open to advise and feedback- in fact welcome it as much as possible. Be open to receiving as much support as you’re able and continuously apply it responsibly throughout each chapter of your journey as a founder.

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