#6 - William Conaghan and Lizzy Hayashida, founders of Change Donations

For Episode #6 of the One Zero One podcast, Róisín Healy from Version 1 met with William Conaghan and Lizzy Hayashida, the founders of growing startup Change Donations. Change Donations is a micro-donations platform with the mission of connecting everyday philanthropists with good causes. 

Lizzy Hayashida is from Silicon Valley where she spent 8 years working on new product innovation at early stage start-ups and large tech companies before moving to Dublin to complete her MBA at Trinity College Dublin. She was an early employee of Milo.com (acquired by eBay) and went on to launch the first same-day delivery programme for eBay. 

After graduating from Georgetown University, William worked as a Financial Analyst and Business Controller for Nasdaq where he managed over 100 Million in assets, integrated six companies through acquisition, and managed the financials for the dark pool trading and facial recognition projects. William then moved to Dublin to complete his MBA at Trinity College.

In this podcast, William and Lizzy give our listeners a view into how Change Donations came about as a startup during their MBA studies in Ireland, the process of developing the platform, and what they have learned to date running the micro-donations platform. From rebranding in the middle of their platform’s journey, to ambitions of growing across the United States, our guests shared some very candid and interesting learnings from running a startup throughout this episode.

Listen or download this episode to hear more about Change Donations, and how a micro-donations platform is of benefit to both everyday philanthropists and the charitable causes they support.