Today we’d like to introduce you to Shaina Shiwarski.
Alright, thank you for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, how did you get started?
I grew up in a small town in Pittsburgh, PA, to a mom that was a software engineer at the age of 20 and a dad who spent his career in corporate finance. I dreamed of exploring the world as a little kid. I would order travel books from Tahiti and Fiji in hopes of one day exploring the crystal clear blue water. I went to college at Penn State University, where I studied sustainability, energy, and finance, and graduated with a job at Deloitte Consulting in their New York City office. I spent two years at Deloitte successfully getting promoted, but I felt my soul crushed with every new presentation I was asked to make. I loved to problem solve, identify consistencies and see trends before others. I left Deloitte and ventured into the early-stage tech startup world 10 years, where I spent 2.5 years helping to build the Go-to-market strategy (GTM) and enterprise function for an enterprise learning and development company from Series A-C that ultimately sold to a large incumbent in the space. I then joined a marketplace company that was Series A, where I helped build the GTM strategy, define our positioning and product and generate 90% of the revenue for the business over 4.5 years – into over $10M in ARR.
In 2019, I deeply desired to get out of NYC and explore the world. I became a digital nomad for two years as I worked and traveled through Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South America, and North America. As I started to move around the world, I realized there was no easy way to find the places I wanted to go to or the people I wanted to connect with. My Co-founder and I met in NYC and decided it was the perfect time to solve a problem we had been living with for years while on the road. With the surge in remote work from COVID and the shifting paradigm of people able to live and work anywhere in the world, we are left with new challenges related to finding and needing community. With the problems that our planet and society face today, we need a global community and collaboration to solve the deep problems we’ve created from our individualistic lifestyles. I still live the digital nomad lifestyle as we build Legends and am currently spending January-March in Costa Rica.
Would it have been a smooth road, and what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I feel incredibly grateful to be allowed to explore and live the life I am living today, but with this life comes a lot of chaos and disruption that can be challenging. Living a life of constant change and uncertainty creates everyday challenges of feeling high levels of responsibility, no routine, and disconnection. I’ve found that community is always the thing that makes it worth it and better. We’re all experiencing a lot of the same things at the same time, and helping each other move through the challenges helps us move the world forward together. I’ve learned through all the challenges that the most important thing to take care of is your mental state and energy. The more your energy is optimized and balanced, the easier the challenges are. As entrepreneurs, we often put our mental and physical health behind the business or others. The more I’ve been able to keep my energy at its optimal state, the more things come to me, rather than me having to seek them out.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Legend is a new startup serving the growing population of remote workers and digital nomads experiencing loneliness and a loss of connection as they move around. We’re creating the first multi-threaded community app for these Global Citizens. Our focus is on this demographic and the businesses that serve them. Through our smart tech, we automate the capture of your “travel DNA,” a new digital identity that powers you to easily connect, share and discover as you move around the world. Imagine coming to Austin and instantly being connected to people looking for the things you offer and finding people who can help you. We do this at a global scale for communities all over the world. We are the first company in the travel ecosystem to put the consumer first and create a unique digital identity that our members can own, monetize and receive rewards based on their contribution to the community. Compared to Instagram or other social sites where companies own your data and how you see it, we will provide our members with tools to earn and have ownership. For users using Legends, we are reducing the barrier to help each other explore the world. For instant sharing, take a photo, and we instantly translate that into a recommendation for your friends to see Connections – we match you with people in the same location and industry, offering something you’re looking for and have traveled the world similar to you. (This is currently in beta to launch in April) Advice + Insight – We make it easy to share what you’re looking for and match you with people and brands offering those services. (This is currently in beta to launch in April).
How do you define success?
Success for me and our business is measured by every step forward we can take. Success is every new conversation we have with a partner, a new employee wanting to join the team, a new investor, and being able to wake up on the beach and build and create the thing we’ve dreamed of building for years. It’s the small moments of the local people we engage with while we explore and the ability to live a life based on our choices and decisions. Life is long and challenging, and we often try to rush to the finish line, realizing we didn’t take in any of the things we experienced along the way and ultimately feeling depleted, unfulfilled, and disconnected.
Pricing:
- Free
Contact Info:
- Website: www.livemylegend.com
- Instagram: @livemylegend
- Facebook: Live My Legend
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/livemylegend/?viewAsMember=true
- Twitter: @livemylegends
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pPbPmb5IMc
