Esgaia was founded in spring 2020 by three friends from Halmstad. Upcoming Fridays we will introduce the engaged people behind Esgaia and present their story.
Today we are presenting Frida Femling, our CIO and one of the Esgaia Co-founders. She has been on this journey from the very start, from taking the idea to MVP, to launching the product. Frida is a data engineer and has experience of running her own businesses. After finishing her master’s degree in Entrepreneurship and Business Design at Chalmers University she started working full time with the development of Esgaia- launching only a few months later.
Read about Frida's journey and how she, with a great combination of technical skills, creativity and a truly entrepreneurial mindset, has developed Esgaia.
Frida, as the CIO and Co-founder of Esgaia, what do you do?
I would say I spent 30% of the time related to the business, and 70% of the time coding. I work as a fullstack developer, building new features as well as improving the design and user experience. I believe it is the perfect mix!
How has your journey been from creating the business idea to developing it till today?
It’s definitely one of the coolest journeys I have been on! We started by pitching our idea with wireframes. Dependent on if that idea showed traction or not, we decided to build an MVP (Minimum Viable Product). After a couple of pitches, the feedback we got was so good that we had to build an MVP. The MVP was established collectively with some of the biggest fund companies in Sweden. We iterated the MVP multiple times based on feedback which required a lot of work (I did not see the sun this summer…).
When the MVP was established, it was tested by more potential customers. Then we decided to build and develop the product. Today, we have a fully working product on the market with some features left to build, but they are in the pipeline!
What keeps you motivated working with a product like Esgaia?
Sustainability, technology and economy are three things that are very close to my heart - and the combination of those three makes this my dream job. To improve the product and build new features is super motivating. I love following the development of the product and identify all the possibilities we have to make it a kickass product for the financial industry.
What have you learned from sustainable finance and responsible investments?
I have learnt a lot about active ownership and how our customers work with it. It has affected my personal investment strategy as I, in the future, will invest in transparent funds managed by active owners. It is very important that we let capital influence the sustainability strategy of large corporations.
That's it for today. If you want to learn more about Esgaia stay updated here for more interesting meetings with the people behind Esgaia.
Any questions? Do not hesitate to contact us. Follow us on instagram for updates on Esgaia's journey.
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