#313: Sehreen Noor Ali, Co-Founder of Sleuth, on Creating the Largest Crowdsourced Database on Children’s Health

Just Go Grind

Sehreen Noor Ali is the Co-Founder of Sleuth, a childhood health recommendation engine, powered by crowdsourced insights and machine learning. The platform allows parents to share stories and information with each other to get essential perspectives on programs, treatments, therapies, tips and tricks, and outstanding specialists. Sleuth is backed by NewLab and Antler.

Previously, Sehreen was an educative executive in technology with experience spanning across sales, business development, marketing, and community-building. She is deeply operational and is adept at scaling nascent product lines into revenue-generating departments. Her sweet spot is closing large deals that get new products in the hands of parents. She's passionate about inclusion and has launched a newsletter (in beta) for parents of color. Sehreen is a frequent speaker on business strategy in education technology and is the recipient of SXSWedu's first ever Change Maker Award in 2015 for her founding of EdTechWomen. She is a fellow with the Pahara Institute, the 92Y's Women inPower program, and the Truman National Security Project. She has appeared in Scary Mommy, Mom 2.0, The Harvard Business Review Podcast, and others.

Topics Covered by Sehreen Noor Ali in this Episode

• How Sehreen’s personal experience led to the founding of Sleuth
• Deciding to raise money through VC
• Sehreen and her co-founder Alex Leed‘s experience at the startup generator program Antler
• Being surprised by who decided to invest in their company
• Sleuth’s business model and pricing strategy
• How they approached early growth through personal branding
• Building trust with customers
• Growing the Sleuth team with part time hires
• Their experience hiring through the freelance platforms
• The process of building out the product itself and what makes it unique
• The UX for first time users of Sleuth
• How they control crowdsourced data and ensure credibility on their platform
• What’s next for Sleuth
• How Sehreen takes care of her own health and wellbeing as a founder

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