Starta Founder Spotlight: Iskren Kulev, Founder of KindLink
Iskren has built the platform for all corporate philanthropy: CSR, ESG, payroll giving, sustainability, volunteering and fundraising. KindLink helps employers engage employees and customers with their company’s purpose-driven culture.
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, and your career experiences.
A: I started my education in Germany in management and economics, then worked for three years in the financial services sector in fintech working on online payments. After this, I received an MBA at Henley Business School. I continued my career at a unicorn fintech startup in London for two years.
I founded KindLink with a couple of friends from the nonprofit sector who were ready to move into the startup world. I wanted to utilize our experience in nonprofits, technology, and fintech to build a platform that will show donors where their donations are going. We expanded this into a social network for the entire nonprofit and sustainability sector.
How did your experience lead to the desire to work on KindLink, and where did the idea come from?
For me, this is very personal. I didn’t imagine that KindLink was going to be a big project. Initially, I was thinking about how I could utilize my experience to do something good in the world. Charities were an obvious place to start. I had experience with processing online payments, and when I started looking into the sector, I quickly realized that the biggest issue is transparency in how charities communicate, as well as efficiency because the sector is very underserved by technology. All my technology and fintech experience went into that. I wanted to dedicate my life to doing something good. So we built that solution free of charge.
Let’s focus on the specific problem that you’re trying to solve. How would you describe it, and how does KindLink provide the solution to that problem?
We are trying to connect the entire nonprofit and sustainability sector with a unified technology. The technology has three big stakeholders. First is the nonprofits for whom we solve problems in efficiency, transparency, impact communication, and internal management. We effectively lower the cost of using software. The core business model is to provide B2B software as a service (SaaS) for managing corporate responsibility and sustainability programs, engaging employees, and to enable companies to promote those initiatives externally. This includes all CSR initiatives from volunteering, Dollars for Doers, through fundraising, grant management, matching, payroll giving, L&D and D&I event management, disaster relief campaigns, to sustainability, environmental, and ESG data tracking. Finally, for individual users, we show them their impact and we enable them to do more.
Can you to talk about your team and KindLink’s company culture?
Company culture has always revolved around internal transparency, as much as our model is about transparency. This has meant so much to us and has helped us survive through very difficult times. Back in 2016 and 2017, times were tough because we didn’t have money to pay salaries. We were struggling to find funding because KindLink was only a nonprofit solution. The team stayed together thanks to this internal culture, because we were very open and transparent to them. We told our team exactly what the situation was and what we’re doing to resolve it. Everybody stayed together, and that helped us push through this period. Transparency and being honest with my team has worked really well.
I would also say that we’re very resilient, because everyone who’s been involved with the company as a founder since day one is still involved. That speaks volumes as to how united we are as a team. We’re still together, we still believe in what we do, and we’re still pushing through.
You’ve said you want to build a social network for nonprofits. Can you give us a preview of this long term vision, where you are now, and how you’re going to get to that point?
We have developed three separate solutions. The first solution enables us to grow exponentially. Our database, charity network, and brand have spread. This is because the charity software we provide is unique to the market and it’s free of charge, so it helps us onboard new charities every day. This gives us access to their donors based on their approval, as well as data about payments, donations, and project impact updates. The second solution is the corporate network where we engage with employees. That solution is helping us gain revenue to fuel the rest of our development, while also improving on employee and CSR engagement and promotion, as well as continue to build functionalities for the rest of the solutions.
The next stage for KindLink is to open a B2C app to the world and unite individual donors just like you and me. Not only donors, but anyone involved in community engagement, in any sustainability groups, anyone who wants to help. We’re going to bring all of these people together in a microsocial network.
There are about two billion people involved in the sector already. However, they may not have a network to organize their efforts. They organize with existing tools. On top of this, even if you donate or support a charity right now, there is no mechanism to control your donation and manage your history, initiatives, and impact updates. We are taking the network that already exists and giving it functionalities that are currently spread across other networks and software platforms.
Can you talk about your journey as a founder? What are the challenges and difficulties of starting your own company?
I always remember this saying, “being a founder is like living for years the way that nobody would, so that you can live the rest of your life the way that nobody could.” It does have a lot of truth to it, although we are very philanthropic-oriented. It’s not about the money or making big companies to me.
Journey-wise, I’m an unexpected founder. My first time seeing a startup was with my previous company; they were a fintech and I joined from series B to series D. This was the first time I experienced a scale-up environment. It was very interesting. I didn’t know that a company could be so open, so intriguing, so inspiring. This experience gave me a really fascinating environment that I could strive towards.
I thought that KindLink was going to be a one-off project done within a few months, but we wanted to grow what we built. It became a full-time dedication for all the founders. This is the purpose of my life. It’s what I want to do. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done and it continues to be to this day. I don’t think anybody’s born for this journey because it’s continuously stressful and painful. Yet, you somehow find a middle ground where you can survive, exist, and sometimes thrive.
Where have you found the most joy in your founder journey?
My team. Working with my team has been so rewarding because I can see how dedicated they are. They’re not here just to get a salary. It brings such a positive feeling to the entire world when you find that the people around you are nice. I can see the passion in them to do good. My team meetings are something I’m always looking forward to, even if it’s something routine. It’s something I’m constantly excited about, and I always get out with a smile and a warm heart.
The other driver is clients. Having clients means that you have market validation. We have people that need our product and others that we’re already helping with it. In our case, it also means that we are doing more and more good for the world, helping nonprofits and corporates become more engaged with their employees.
Why did you want to be a part of Starta Accelerator? How has the program benefitted you and your company so far?
In 2020, we knew that we needed to expand to the US. It’s the biggest market and we bring something unique to that market for corporate responsibility. The Starta team’s approach was really great. We got accepted into two accelerators, one in Texas and one here.
We decided to come here because it’s personal and because of the people here. We’re their focus. They want to bring external companies to us. At Starta, everything works towards our company. Starta allows us to get in front in front of investors and potential clients, and that is what our focus is. It’s a complete match.
On the other note, I really liked the way Starta engaged with us. From the first call to the last, even the contract, everything was done with immense understanding from start to finish. You could see, even at that earliest stages when we didn’t know each other, that everyone at Starta means well. Usually, a lot of red flags surface when you start talking to people, negotiating contracts, and seeing how they behave. This was a great surprise for us. At this point, I thought to myself, “these guys are the real deal.” At the end of the day, you’re trusting somebody you’ve never met. You’re investing three months of your life, money, resources, and relationships into a program like this. You need to be certain of this partnership.
So where do you see KindLink at the end of the batch? At the end of the start of accelerator?
My ambitions never end, so I’ll start realistic.
Starta has given us more than I would have imagined. With the additional resources provided by Starta, such as the team of interns we’ve been matched with, we can bring more clients, do more marketing, and make more content. These resources provided me with a great structure and plan for what we can achieve during our time in New York. We will be doing two industry events that will be organized here in the office. These will be industry panel events for both corporates and nonprofits. We know that we’ll have a lot of exposure through these events.
After this, with the interns, we’ll be doing much more marketing than we had expected. The ultimate goal is more clients. Our second goal is to establish corporate partnerships. This is a type of integration partnership that can help distribute our product. I’m basing this on the hopes that we can meet people from these companies in New York. We are talking with Workday, Salesforce, Microsoft, Google, companies that have corporate venture capital and are highly innovative. We’re focused on finding a name and brand to stand behind us. We have really good tech, but we have lacked on marketing. That’s where our focus is: marketing, sales, and distribution. In an ideal scenario, we want to establish an office here in New York.
If we can go through all of these steps, find the right customers, distributors and investors, we’ll have a very good foundation to kick off US operations in the coming years.
You can learn more about KindLink here.
If you are interested in attending KindLink’s upcoming event, “Corporate Responsibility (CSR) in the Digital Age: KindLink US Launch,” on May 30, 2023, you can RSVP here!
About Starta Accelerator
Starta Accelerator is a NYC-based soft-landing program designed to help international startups scale their US market presence and raise capital. Our Spring 2023 cohort is deep into the program and we are all gearing up for our upcoming Demo Day on June 1st. Join us nearly as twenty international startups pitch their companies to industry experts and investors.
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Stay tuned for more interviews with founders from the Spring 2023 cohort!
