Cherry's Gillian O'Brien's Life As A Founder, Sister, and Yoga Instructor

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Read the rest of the article here: Cherry's Gillian O'Brien's Life As A Founder, Sister, and Yoga Instructor

I got the chance to speak with Gillian O’Brien, co-founder and CEO of Cherry. Cherry is an office benefits startup that allows employees of companies to choose their own perks. Our conversation ranged from her experiences as starting a company with her sister to being a yoga instructor. O’Brien obtained her Bachelor’s degree from New York University. After graduating, she and her sister participated in Y Combinator’s startup accelerator as part of the Winter 2019 (W19) batch.

Frederick Daso: What's it like having your sister as a co-founder?

Gillian O'Brien: Deciding to start a company was a huge risk — and though nothing makes that less daunting, it certainly helped that I had already gone through many of the ups and downs of life with Emily. Work puts an additional strain on a relationship, but we had a strong foundation between us to build from. We entered our relationship as business partners with a prerequisite understanding of how the other "worked." (How does she respond to stress, success, inconvenience, and day-to-day challenges?)

Funny thing is I get this question a lot, so I've taken the liberty of writing a whole article as an answer here.

Daso: Why are you particularly interested in the employee perks space?

O'Brien: I experienced this problem firsthand. I was working at a startup that offered benefits I couldn't use. I realized I was missing out on a few thousand dollars each year because of this - and my company was wasting money too. This sparked my interest in the problem space. Companies are evolving their offerings as the lines between work and life blur, and I'm interested in how employers can set their employees up for success in an individualized way, and how to create a streamlined process for that to happen.

Read the rest of the article here: Cherry's Gillian O'Brien's Life As A Founder, Sister, and Yoga Instructor

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