Today we’d like to introduce you to Leena Gupta.
Hi Leena, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I have lived in San Diego for over 20 years, raising my children, establishing my career, and creating incredible friendships. These years have instilled a sense of pride and connection to San Diego that truly make it our home. Before San Diego, I lived in Boston, where I attended business school at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to that, I started my career in the financial services and fintech sectors in Chicago, where I was born and raised.
In one of my first jobs as a Management Consultant at Ernst & Young, we were tasked with building out the first internet banking platform in the U.S. My role was to collaborate with the development team to build out the user experience for online banking customers, which is what is now called UI/UX (did that term even exist in the 90s?!?) Who knew 20 years later, I would use those same skills to develop my own mobile donation app!
Coin Up is an app that invites everyone to “round up and donate” to a charity of their own choice. It is similar to restaurants and retailers where consumers round up their transactions at check out, however, we enable everyone to connect their debit or credit card on our platform (website or app) to round up ALL their transactions to the next dollar and send it to any of over one million IRS approved charities. This gives donors control over their spare change giving and connects them to the causes they care about.
For example, if you use your debit/credit card at the dry cleaner, gas station, or anywhere really, and spend $17.25, Coin Up rounds it up by $.75 (to $18). This is calculated on each purchase until a monthly limit that is set by the donor. At the end of each month, the total “round-ups” are added up and charged to the consumer, then sent to their selected charity. Instead of charging at each transaction, we only charge the total amount of roundups at the end of each month to minimize the number of transactions and keep costs low. It’s your digital “spare change in a jar” going to charity each month! Everyone receives a monthly impact statement to remind them of the good they do and at the end of each year they get a tax donation receipt for their total donations.
Users can track their round ups throughout the month or set a fixed donation as low as $5 a month. They can even change their charity or search by cause to learn about new organizations that need support. We are excited to share our vision with everyone who wants to give, at any level, to make a difference for a cause they care about!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The path has not always been clear in this entrepreneurial journey. We had to pivot and re-develop our product many times over as technology is constantly changing and improving, so we want to make sure we extend these best-in-class tools to our users. In addition, we have to be very conscious of expenses since we are a lean company that works in a heavily cost-conscious sector. Finally, it takes many different subject matter experts to build and scale a company. We are constantly evolving in terms of our needs in different areas of expertise and looking for new ways to build awareness and engagement for Coin Up! It definitely takes a team to do the heavy lifting, but the returns that come with each new milestone make it beyond rewarding!
As you know, we’re big fans of Coin Up. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
Coin Up is an innovative company that paved the way for other donation apps on the App Store. When we submitted the app to Apple , we learned that they did not accept donation apps due to multiple challenges in regulations, compliance, and tech. Our expertise in these areas allowed us to push back at the obstacles and demonstrate our transparency and expertise in all these areas to become the first accepted donation app.
A few years later, we were awarded multiple grants from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for our innovation in small dollar, recurring donations that have become a major focus for the philanthropy sector. This is based on the incredible passion that younger generations, including millennials and Gen Z, have shown for giving back. As some individuals are newer to giving and unsure where to donate, they can even use Coin Up to search by cause, zip code, or keywords to help narrow down their charity selection.
Our mission is to leverage the potential of small dollar donations to create momentum and ultimately a movement that leads to major support for our communities.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Starting a new company always comes with its fair share of trade-offs. There are many unknowns, especially when creating a product that did not exist before. We did not have any examples to build from, so we were very unsure at any point of the obstacles that could prevent us from completing our product. In addition, some of us were giving up potential job opportunities. Finally, you may not be able to find the necessary funding, expertise, or technical resources when they are needed. Overcoming some of these tough issues and brainstorming creative solutions to build something meaningful is a challenge I truly enjoy. However, I also believe that it may be valuable to have a backup plan or other options available if one needs to pivot due to any of the risks that may arise. For me, the reward of innovation for social good has been an incredible journey that we hope continues to change lives and communities!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.coinupapp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coinupapp/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Icoinup
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coin-up-app/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@coinupapp005
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