The Cake
I Tried to Build a Social Justice Startup. It Was Tougher Than I Thought.
My dream of creating a sex education platform proved to be complex and contentious
As a queer woman of color, I’ve long regarded my work as a founder and entrepreneur in the straight, male world of tech as a form of activism. But I also knew I could do more. So after successfully co-founding my first company, the accounting software InDinero, I wanted my next project to focus more directly on social justice — specifically sex education.
I’d been raised in a working-class immigrant household that was deeply religious. My own sexual development was suffused with shame and stigma, and I knew that if I could reach outside the progressive bubbles of New York and San Francisco, I might save future generations from the trauma I experienced.
As a woman, I understood the need. As an entrepreneur, I saw an opportunity. As an activist, I saw a way to lift up a community.
I raised a small amount of initial capital, and in 2017, with a team of queer women and women of color, I set out to build a platform called O.school — similar to YouTube or Twitch — with which local, community-based sex educators could reach a global audience. Hundreds of millions of people…
