Mollie’s Post

For a long time, the tech industry has felt like a room where only certain voices are heard. If you’ve ever looked at a career in tech and felt like you didn't quite fit the traditional mold, you aren't alone. But the only way to reshape a male-dominated industry is by bringing new, diverse perspectives to the table. That is exactly why we created the Mollie Pathways: Scholarship Program, and this is your reminder that applications close on July 31st! 🗓️ We aren't looking for a "perfect" tech resume or someone who already fits into the existing landscape. We want to hear your unique story, your curiosity, and your perspective. Here is what this opportunity offers to female-identifying talent: 🧑🏫 The Workshop (Sept 26–27): A 2-day experience in Amsterdam using the Designing Your Life framework to help you claim your space and map out a career aligned with your values. ✅ Zero Barriers: Mollie covers 100% of your tuition, return travel, and hotel. 🧑🤝🧑 A Built-in Ally: You’ll be paired with a Mollie team member via our Buddy System to ensure you never feel like you're navigating this space alone. The table is being set for a new era in tech, and there is a seat reserved for you. 👇 Apply now and check out the FAQs via the links in the comments! The deadline is July 31st! Designing Your Life - Netherlands #MolliePathways #DiversityInTech #DesigningYourLife #SocialImpact #WomenInTech

There are 194,585 Black-owned employer businesses in the United States. Together, they generate $211.8 billion a year. Most tech investors couldn't name that number. Fewer could tell you what sector leads it. It's not retail. It's not fashion. It's healthcare; 25.6% of Black-owned employer firms sit in health care and social assistance, the single largest category. That's not a side hustle economy. That's infrastructure. And it's growing fast. Employer firm counts, employees, and payroll have all climbed sharply since 2017, even as these businesses remain underrepresented relative to population share. Here's the part that should make tech leaders sit up: this growth is happening almost entirely without the digital tooling that scales everything else in this economy. A hidden class of Afro-Caribbean businesses exists right now, operationally strong, trusted in their markets, generating real revenue, but weak in data systems, e-commerce, and digital distribution. Not because the demand isn't there. Because nobody has built the rails for them yet. In Canada, the pattern repeats. Black business ownership still trails population share, but Statistics Canada | Statistique Canada just published its first nationally linked data series tracking it. BDC backed that momentum with a $100 million Black Entrepreneurs Fund. The capital is starting to show up. The infrastructure hasn't caught up. This is the gap technology exists to close. Every fintech, every e-commerce platform, every AI-driven ops tool built for "small business" was designed with someone else's business in mind. The founder who inherits three generations of trust in a specific community, who trades across Lagos, Kingston, Toronto, and Atlanta in the same week, that founder is building a fundamentally different kind of company. And almost nobody is building tools for it. The market isn't underdeveloped. It's undercounted, undercapitalized, and under-built-for. That's not a charity case. That's a category waiting for its infrastructure layer. If you're a founder building fintech, logistics, or commerce tools, go look at who's actually driving this growth before you build for who you assume is driving it. #AfroCaribbeanBusiness #FutureOfTech #InclusiveInnovation #DiasporaEconomy #ProductStrategy

The most important number in European tech isn't a valuation. It's 7%. In the US, 15% of employees hold equity in the company they work for. In the EU, it's 7%. Less than half. I've spent ten years setting up employee participation for Dutch companies, and I can tell you what this gap is not. It's not culture. Dutch employees want ownership as much as anyone in California. It's not appetite from founders either. It's plumbing. For decades, giving your team equity in Europe meant notaries, bespoke legal work, and bills that scared off anyone smaller than a scale-up. So most founders filed it under "later." And later never came. Meanwhile, every Dutch startup competes for talent with American companies that put equity in the offer letter as a matter of course. The machinery has changed. Setting up employee ownership in the Netherlands no longer takes months of legal work. But most founders still believe it does, and that belief is now the biggest thing keeping the number at 7%. If you run a Dutch company and equity for your team has always felt legally out of reach, tell me what stopped you. That belief is exactly what I want to hear about. DMs open. #EmployeeOwnership #StartupEquity #ShareCouncil #CoOwnership

2026 marks 30 years of Intuit partnering with Canadian entrepreneurs, and it's a reminder that powering prosperity doesn't stop at any one country's edge. We’re incredibly proud to support small business owners both here in the United States, and internationally. From helping people file with confidence to empowering consumers to make financial progress, the throughline is the same everywhere we work: back the small businesses that hold local communities together. At this 250-year milestone, here's to the entrepreneurs carrying that story forward on both sides.

"When businesses thrive, communities thrive."   Our partners at Intuit shared what the U.S.-Canada relationship means to them and the communities they serve on both sides of the border.   As a U.S. company with more than 30 years as part of Canada's story, they've seen firsthand how the partnership between American and Canadian businesses powers prosperity on both sides of the border.   As the United States marks 250 years, here's to the builders and innovators across both nations. #Freedom250

Six challenges. Six posts. One truth about US expansion: 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬. Not the pitch or the product, but the people decisions - made too late, too fast, or not at all. Over the past six weeks we've broken down where UK founders get it wrong, and how the ones who defy the odds get it right. Missed any? Catch up here: 1️⃣ Your first 5 US hires set the tone for the next 50 → https://hubs.ly/Q04mkT8c0 2️⃣ US comp is a different language. Learn it before you lose people → https://hubs.ly/Q04mCy4S0 3️⃣ Culture doesn't copy-paste. Translation, not transplant → https://hubs.ly/Q04mXjff0 4️⃣ Org design isn't admin. It's strategy → https://hubs.ly/Q04nmcgd0 5️⃣ The founder–US lead relationship fails more than it succeeds → https://hubs.ly/Q04nJY5f0 6️⃣ US employment law. The blind spot that gets expensive fast → https://hubs.ly/Q04p0d3C0 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞. We're pulling all six challenges - plus what we couldn't fit into a LinkedIn post - into one in-depth playbook. 𝐊𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭. Expanding to the US? We should talk 👉 https://lnkd.in/eRYGnYv2 #founders #USexpansion #UKtech #peopleandculture #scaleup

upReach is proud to announce our partnership with the Personal Finance Society. This collaboration marks an exciting step in expanding our reach within the Financial Services sector, enabling us to support even more talented young people from underrepresented backgrounds. Together, we’re driving real change and building a future where talent knows no boundaries. 💪

The best software projects don’t start with code. They start with customers. One insight from a recent founder session during London Tech Week stood out. Mission-driven businesses and user-centred design aren’t competing priorities. They strengthen one another. The organisations building successful digital products aren’t asking: “What can we build?” They’re asking: “What problem should we validate first?” That distinction changes everything. It reduces wasted development. It accelerates learning. It improves adoption. It increases confidence before significant investment. This thinking continues to shape how we’re evolving our services at Zeds Career First Software Engineering Firm Ltd. Rather than jumping straight into full-scale development, we’re expanding our approach to include Rapid Product Validation Sprints. These engagements help organisations: • Validate business ideas before major investment • Gather structured user feedback early • Test assumptions with real customers • Prioritise features based on evidence • Reduce delivery risk before scaling The strongest digital products aren’t always built by the teams with the biggest budgets. They’re often built by the teams that learn the fastest. That’s the philosophy we’re bringing to every new engagement as we expand into the UK market while continuing to support organisations across Africa. Because better products begin with better conversations. #DigitalTransformation #ProductStrategy #UserCentredDesign #SoftwareEngineering #Innovation #EnterpriseTechnology #UKTech #AfricaTech #ProductDevelopment #DigitalInnovation

The part of US expansion nobody puts on the slide. Our founder Frederik Pen on why the six-minute shortcut becomes a six-month problem — and how to break into the US the right way. 👇