Hold Up — Arya Is Now the Founder of Her Own (Totally Feminist) Startup?

Maisie Williams, “Game of Thrones’” most pint-sized badass (not counting Lady Mormont, of course), has moved on from slaying the Night King to slaying the startup game. And, in what we’ll go ahead and call true Arya fashion, she’s doing it in a way that benefits women, too. 

Back in 2018, Williams announced that she was diving into a new role — that of tech entrepreneur — with the launch of Daisie, a talent discovery platform aimed at connecting creatives. After officially rolling out to the public in May of this year, the app hit a whopping 100,000 members in just 11 days, and Williams and her co-founder, Dom Santry, recently pulled in $2.5 million in seed funding.

But what’s especially worth noting about the platform’s 100K creative professional users is that 70% of them are women, according to Santry. This gives Daisie an edge that’s decidedly feminist, if subtle. Essentially, when institutional arbitrators of creative talent haven’t historically been the friendliest to women — think of the parties indicted by #MeToo and #TimesUp, or the decision makers who keep female artists out of art museums — a platform that lets female creators connect directly with each other to share and elevate their work is a breath of fresh air. (Not to mention a concept we’re pretty fond of at Fairygodboss!)

If you’re questioning whether 22-year-old Williams is up for the challenge of founder life — don’t be. In a new interview on AngelList’s blog, she spoke about what it was like to build Daisie while “Game of Thrones” was still shooting — (“Dom and I would have to FaceTime at 11 p.m.; so many huge decisions were made over FaceTime”) — and how acting has informed her identity as a founder overall. 

"I have confidence everything is going to be great,” she said. “Sometimes I get a real fire in my belly when people think it’s not going my way. Having that ability to be able to overcome it, though, is so important — to have that belief in yourself."

Spoken like a true Arya! 

--

Don't miss out on articles like these. Sign up!