Introducing the Startup Women Advocacy Network 2023
Two years ago, we created the Startup Women Advocacy Network (SWAN), a network of 11 early stage, woman-identifying founders from each province and territory to champion the needs of women entrepreneurs across the country.
SWAN members have the opportunity to amplify their business across our platforms, are given a seat at important government roundtables aimed at policy creation and decision-making, and are invited to be speakers and panelists at key entrepreneurial events such as Startup Canada Tour to showcase their stories.
This is just the beginning. The hope behind SWAN is to create an ever-growing network of champions in each Canadian province and territory to ultimately increase the visibility and voices of early-stage, woman-identifying entrepreneurs.
In the spirit of amplifying women entrepreneurs, we sat down with each of our SWAN members to learn more about their founder journeys. Our fourth interview is with Vivian Liu, Founder of Mae: Making Auto Easy, from British Columbia.
Meet Vivian Liu, our SWAN Member from British Columbia
Vivian Liu is the founder of Mae: Making Auto Easy, the first-ever unbiased car shopping experience built for women by women.
Vivian started her career at General Motors at the age of age 21. In four short years, she went on to directly manage over 70 dealerships across Canada. Vivian was one of the very few racialized, young females in the team (quite possibly in the industry), overseeing a network of high-performing dealerships and was responsible for a $1M+ marketing budget.
Now, she’s using her industry experience to solve a major pain point in the auto world: how to make car buying better for women. Vivian is dedicating her focus to empowering women and levelling the playing field – making the automotive buying process a positive one.
We’d love to learn a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey toward founding Making Auto Easy (Mae).
I’ve spent my entire career in the auto industry, primarily with General Motors, consulting a network of dealerships across Canada. I’ve always felt entrepreneurial but never really had an idea that I wanted to work on. The idea for Mae came to me during COVID, and it was one that I couldn’t ignore. The auto industry is incredibly male-dominated and I saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the market that women were facing regarding the second-largest purchase in their life. Car buying should be an enjoyable and empowering experience, and that’s what I set out to create with Mae, a new car buying experience for women by women.
I started whiteboarding my idea and connecting with entrepreneurship support organizations like The Forum and New Ventures BC. These organizations sent me down a path of asking the right questions to start building and executing my vision.
What has been the most challenging obstacle for you in starting your business? And how did you overcome it?
One of the most challenging things when starting a business is not knowing what to do next and being unsure if you’re on the right path. As a perfectionist, this is hard to overcome when everything is an obstacle and everything is very ambiguous. The only way to overcome it is to talk to people who have experience and can guide you down the right path. Sometimes it’s unexpected connections and conversations that you didn’t expect to get anything out of that are filled with golden nuggets of wisdom.
What brings you the most joy or excitement in working in your business?
I am very passionate about Mae’s mission, and it excites me when I see other women provide support and encouragement for the work that we’re doing. When we see women feel more confident going into a dealership with the information we’ve provided them, that’s a really impactful experience you can’t get in a larger corporation. I also love working with my team. It’s awesome to see women who previously had a poor car-buying experience look to find ways to work together and build a better experience for other women.
You’ve built up a solid community on Instagram through the educational video content you post. What impact has this engagement made on your and your business, and what is your goal with this content?
Seeing all the organic reach we’ve gotten through our social content is amazing. Creating engaging social media content is not an easy task and is a full-time job in itself. Our content allows us to gain organic traffic and engagement and build a community of people who are resonating, learning, and finding value from our content. We love getting questions from women regardless of where they are in their car-buying journey and seeing their growth and confidence as they learn and engage more with us. We want to build a strong community of women, regardless of their experience in buying cars, to support one another and help co-build the kind of experience they want to see in this industry.
What does being a part of the Startup Women Advocacy Network mean to you?
The communities and networks you build as an entrepreneur make a crucial difference in your experience as a founder, especially as a solo founder. There’s so much you don’t know; you can only learn by doing and putting yourself out there. Being a part of SWAN is more than just being a part of another entrepreneurial community. It also gives me the opportunity to give back and support other women founders. I’m a big believer in the fact that you can learn something from anyone, so bringing together women from across the country, from all provinces and territories, to learn and build better resources for all of us not only helps me in my founder journey but hopefully for future generations of women entrepreneurs to come.
In the spirit of advocacy, is there a woman-identifying, early-stage entrepreneur in British Columbia that you admire or are following along their entrepreneurial journey?
Someone I personally admire and that I’m cheering from afar is Carolyn Chen, the founder of Dandylion, a sensitive dog care product company. I love the work they do at Dandylion, and I love her work ethic. It’s inspirational to see all of her content and how far she’s come in such a short amount of time. She’s definitely an entrepreneur that I look up to!
When founders talk about their journey and their business, they often talk about their “why” – why they do what they do. So, we’re interested to know – what is your “why”?
My “why” is levelling the playing field for women in an industry that’s predominantly male-dominated. I would love to see a world where car buying is something that women no longer feel afraid to do but rather feel confident and empowered.
Thank you for joining us! If someone wants to connect with you, where is the best place for them to go?
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn, DM us on Instagram at @makingautoeasy, or e-mail me at vivian@makingautoeasy.com.
———————————-———————————-———————————-————————-
You can learn more about our 2023 Startup Women Advocacy Network at https://www.startupcan.ca/startup-women-advocacy-network-2023/