Just Go Grind #154: Ennie Lim, Co-Founder and CEO of HoneyBee and an Inc. Magazine Top 100 Female Founder of 2019, on Building a Holistic Financial Wellness Platform, De-Stigmatizing Financial Health Support in the Workplace, and Turning an Idea into a Movement
Ennie Lim is a social entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of HoneyBee, the result of her journey through personal financial challenges. The majority of employees HoneyBee serves are women, people of color, or both. They are providing support for issues that disproportionately affect these marginalized groups. Systemic barriers to financial health exist all around us. It’s up to employers to acknowledge this and take a step towards equality. Ennie is passionate about diversity and inclusion initiatives and building businesses for a better tomorrow. She believes that all of us have the potential to become powerful changemakers.
HoneyBee is a Certified Benefit Corporation® with the mission to address financial insecurity in the workplace. They are a holistic financial wellness platform that provides employees with on-demand financial coaching and access to emergency funds for life’s unexpected expenses with a single click. HoneyBee is the only company that allows employees emergency funds at no interest anytime, to help manage unplanned expenses, build credit and pay down debt.
Connect with Ennie Lim
Some of the Topics Covered by Ennie Lim in this Episode
- How Ennie founded HoneyBee as a result of a personal financial setback
- What is HoneyBee
- The initial version of HoneyBee and how it has changed
- The customer discovery process and the payday loan industry
- Getting their first customer
- The early HoneyBee team
- From bootstrapping to VC backing
- Networking, the fundraising process and tolerating rejection
- Growing HoneyBee post- fundraising and how their growth strategy has evolved
- Instilling a culture of authenticity
- How COVID has highlighted the problem HoneyBee is designed to fix
- HoneyBee's target market and how HoneyBee has expanded their offerings
- Ennie's entrepreneurial nature
- The challenge of raising awareness about employees' financial health
- The big vision for HoneyBee
- Balancing short-term execution with long-term vision
- Building out a great team
- A typical day for Ennie and work-life balance
- Ennie's book recommendations
- Ennie's experience as a female founder at a venture-backed, impact-focused company
- Where Ennie finds motivation, community and support
- Ennie's advice for creating impact
Links from the Episode
- #134: Zuleyka Strasner, Founder and CEO of Zero, on Building a Convenient Zero-Waste Grocery Delivery Service, Becoming the Largest Sustainability Platform in the U.S., and Growing 15X in 5 Months
- The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
- Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard
- What Do You Do with an Idea by Kobi Yamada
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek