Meet Philly’s Venture for America Fellows: Lauren Kase, LeadiD

For Lauren Kase it all started with an inspirational hot dog stand.

The summer after her junior year at the University of Michigan, Kase, now a 2014 Fellow with Venture for America in Philadelphia, worked for Quizzle, a personal finance company, in Detroit. That summer a man started a hot dog stand down the block from her office.
“At first nobody came,” Kase said, “and then it became this huge thing. Here was this guy, who out of his own initiative changed that street corner.”
In Kase’s words, the hot dog man “took space, added some value, and it became a ‘place.’” Kase knew she wanted to accomplish something in the same vein: “I want to impact the community around me, I want to change something at the street level.”
Kase’s experiences that summer and her interest in urban development and city planning led her to apply to Venture for America. When it came time to choose a company placement Kase knew she wanted “to learn from people who had [built a business] before.” Furthermore, she wanted “a great team” and “a company [she] thought was disrupting the landscape.” Kase found what she was looking for at LeadiD in Ambler.

At University of Michigan, Kase studied organizational psychology, an academic background that makes her appreciate “being able to experience the changing and growing of an organization,” something that has been happening at LeadiD since she started in August.
Kase’s interest in organizational structure has also led to her role in redesigning LeadiD’s customer experience. Creating a great customer experience is “a very internal project — making sure all of the internal stakeholders have what they need to do the job,” said Kase, a sentiment that reflects her belief that a genuinely positive customer experience must stem from all parts of a company.
Having learned about Venture for America while working in Detroit, Kase has firsthand knowledge of the differences between the entrepreneurial ecosystems of Detroit and Philadelphia. Whereas Detroit “is just getting going,” says Kase, “Philly has a very established startup scene, even though it’s really young, it’s been cool to come in and see that there has been a groundwork laid and [the community is] very interconnected.”
If Detroit and Philadelphia are so different how is Venture for America relevant to both places simultaneously?
“[Venture for America is] about getting people to go places other than giant hubs,” says Kase, a San Francisco native. “Young people are hungry to start their own thing. We’re all trying to learn in a way that’s learning through doing.”
Reflecting on her first six months at LeadiD, Kase says, “[LeadiD has] a really good foundation and now it’s about how do we grow the business in a sustainable way. We’re looking toward the future.”