In Her Words- Jen Leger

Did you know that most businesses don’t apply for external financing? Read Jen Leger’s story below as it is a great example of how women entrepreneurs could benefit from loans. For more information on this topic, check out Tool 4.1.

It was a riveting but easygoing chat with Jen Leger, co-founder of QUBER, mother of two, and Computer Science graduate with 15 years experience in the gaming, tech, and finance industries.

If you’ve never heard of QUBER, now is the time to download their app. When talking about how it all started, it’s visible that Jen is passionate about her industry and wants to make a change in our financial habits: “At the time, fintech wasn’t a word and there wasn’t much going on, so what I wanted to do was take the knowledge I got in the gaming industry and bring it into a personal finance app. Because I was one of those people who always struggled to manage my money, and traditional budgeting tools weren’t helping me. So I wanted to make a behavioural changing app that would change how you spend and manage your money.”

After five years in the gaming industry, she started a new job at a start-up and fell in love with the energy, the environment, and the growth opportunities. That’s what motivated her to become an entrepreneur and have a start-up of her own: “I always want to do different things and I get bored easily, so I loved the start-up world, where I got to do a million different things and feel like you’re actually making a difference.” In 2020, they changed their original plan of selling the software and app to financial institutions and started offering QUBER as a financial wellness benefit to employers. “Employers can help their employees build an emergency fund, and employers can match part of those savings. This is important because, since Covid, it’s been highlighted how people’s financial lives are very fragile when emergencies happen.”

Finances are never easy for anyone. In fact, when talking about business financing, she confessed that her experience with lending institutions is quite different from most entrepreneurs: she had none! She explained that getting a loan wasn’t even an option for them at the time: “We did a lot of different accelerator programs, and to be quite honest, you never hear about loans in those programs. It’s all about raising money and accessing grants. They’re helping you find these grants and what you can do to fundraise, but they’re not really talking about loans. It was just never something that we looked too much into.” When asked if she WOULD have taken a loan had the option been presented, she said that they would have considered it for sure, and then weighed their options.

But not having a loan wasn’t their biggest obstacle: “When we started fundraising, as I said, fintech wasn’t a thing, so convincing people that there would be people out there who would give their bank account information and move money into this app, that was very hard to do. At the time, we were new, and it was kind of innovative and we had a hard time finding people that would support it and that would believe in it. And now, it’s happening everywhere and fintech is a buzzword. But at the time, it was a struggle to find people who would buy into the idea.” Thus, her experience has made her a pioneer in New Brunswick’s fintech industry.

So, from her unique perspective, what advice does she offer to lenders? “Be transparent about what milestones you need to meet. Also, explain more – don’t take for granted that everybody knows all the acronyms or terms you’re using. For example, I never had that financial background, and I would be sitting in meetings thinking “I have no idea what you’re saying” when first hearing all these acronyms, and you feel like you should know so don’t feel comfortable asking.”

Jen’s experience from those meetings inspired her to give this useful advice to new entrepreneurs: “Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Ask as many questions as you can. If you don’t understand something, ask questions. That’s how you learn.”

But above all, she offers this life advice to women thinking about becoming entrepreneurs: “There’s a lot of ups and downs, so prepare yourself mentally. It’s a LONG journey - it’s not something that’s going to happen in just a year. We’re on 6 years now and it’s still a rollercoaster. But go for it. If you have an idea, it’s worth it, especially if it’s helping other people.”