Startup Spotlight #115: Saga
Saga helps you save family memories on voice audio.
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Saga is hiring! Check out their open roles here:
I got the chance to speak with Amelia Lin, co-founder and CEO of Saga, about what she’s working on at her startup, and any advice she has for emerging entrepreneurs.
Lin is the CEO and co-founder of Saga Voice Journal, a social audio app to save family memories. Saga has been featured in publications including USA Today, NBC, and Forbes. As the daughter of two Chinese immigrants, Lin started Saga to save the stories of her own mom and dad. Prior to founding Saga, she worked at a range of Silicon Valley technology companies including Udacity and Optimizely. She holds an undergraduate degree in physics and an MBA from Harvard University and lives in Mountain View, California.
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Startup Spotlight: Saga
Problem: I started Saga for my own mom and dad - I’d asked them for years to find a way to save their stories for me, but writing a book felt like a big project. I wanted to make it easy and fun for us to save their memories together, for me, but also for my kids one day.
Market: Family memories and history is a huge market, with 120m families in the US alone. Companies like Ancestry and Shutterfly have built businesses worth billions that help families save memories.
Solution: Saga helps you save family memories, in their voices. We make it easy and fun for parents and grandparents to record memories for your kids, or have your parents record memories for you, even when you’re apart.
Team: We’re a tight-knit and passionate product and engineering team that’s built products together at companies like Instagram, Google, Udacity, and Optimizely. Most of us are based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Recent Success:
Lin: We’re passionate about building a product people deeply care about and that really changes people’s lives. So one thing we’ve been successful at is driving organic interest. That’s led to Saga being featured in publications including NBC, USA Today, and Forbes. We also won the 2020 Innovator Award from End Well and AARP, the nation’s largest nonprofit for seniors.
However, the thing I’m most proud of is the team we have built - it’s a fantastic group of talented human beings - we’re hiring!
Recent Struggle:
Lin: A lesson I had to learn was getting over feeling like I was supposed to always have “the full plan.” In the beginning, I felt I wasn’t doing a good job as a leader if I didn’t always have the answers for everything. One of our team members had to tell me it was okay that I didn’t always have the plan - that that was part of what we all knew we were signing up for was to figure problems out together. Now, I try to focus more on finding and empowering talented people to do their best work, instead of trying to figure out how to do it all myself.
Founder Advice:
Lin: Let people pleasantly surprise you. Most people who know me would probably say I’m unusually persistent and optimistic. But I like to think that the fact that sometimes the big things I try sometimes do work out, is proof that I’m not optimistic - because it really can happen! Some of our earliest hires and investors were people I thought would never say yes, but I asked them anyway. Get good at being brave about asking for things, and shrugging off no’s - getting to that yes that you never thought could happen makes it worth it.
Saga is hiring! Check out their open roles here:
Four Cool Founders You Should Know About:
Lin: Here are four founders you should check out next!
Joseph Mahavuthivanij, Founder of Mythic Markets: Mythic Markets allows anybody to invest in fractional shares of alternative assets with massive fandoms.
Siran Cao, Founder of Hey Mirza: Mirza believes in the potential for anyone to be a great parent and have a great career.
Lisa Marrone, Founder of Revel Gatherings: Revel Gatherings is a collective of women 50+ rewriting the narrative on midlife.
Krysten Hargrove, Founder of CoTripper: CoTripper is a community and family travel booking platform for single moms.
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