Tech Ready Women’s Program Lead Crystal McGregor catches up with LeapForward founder, Libby Roberts. LeapForward is a digital coach that combines the power of psychology, technology and coaching to get people who have faced injury or illness  back to work and create sustained wellbeing. 

Libby has been working in the rehabilitation space for the past as a rehab counselor, and has been helping people overcome barriers that they face when they’ve experienced injury at work. This includes physical injuries as well as illnesses, like cancer or other chronic illnesses to help them get their “life back on track”. Essentially, what Libby identified problems with doing what she did manually–including cost, as well as access–allied health professionals are not available everywhere. The idea was to be able to provide this support universally, in a manner that would also be quality controlled. 

Libby had this wonderful idea she was passionate about, but was at a loss for how to go about starting it. A friend referred her to Tech Ready Women–and as they say, the rest is history. Libby really benefited from the structured process and knowing each week what the goals were, and the outcomes–the what and the why. Along with the structure that helped build the business, Libby enjoyed meeting others who were on the same journey as her as well as the opportunity to be able to interact with and ask questions to her mentors.

After the program, Libby went on to do another incubator program, and feels that her learning at Tech Ready Women really set her up for success for the advanced learning in the next accelerator program. Her time at Tech Ready Women really allowed her to “ benefit from this next phase of intense learning”. 

On being asked about barriers as a woman in tech entrepreneurship, Libby says being non-technical in general is what caused her more trouble than being a woman. But as she plans for the next steps in her business and getting outside investment, and one she feels “faces all women in tech [...] investors want to have a male who's a co-founder”. Libby does not have a male co-founder, but is optimistic despite that. 

Of her wins, she says she “really lucked out and got a fantastic team” who are not only experts at what they do, but are invaluable because they’re a great cultural fit and work well together–they are her “superpower”, she says. In addition to a great team, Libby has some fantastic clients, as well as universities doing research with LeapForward, which really helps validate their own data. They are also working to bring in someone for their first full-time, in-house tech role, which will bring all of their tech requirements back in which is currently being outsourced.

Libby’s ask from the Tech Ready Women community is for connections–and she says of our founder, Christy, being “amazing at connecting people” and how that was something she really needed. So if you’ve got someone in mind who would be a great connection or collaborator for LeapForward, please reach out to Libby via her LinkedIn or website!