Why I work at Soofa: Building community partnerships & growing revenue

Jared Stein, Community Partnerships, Content Strategy, Growth

Joining the Soofa team has been my first foray into sales, and it turns out I love driving community engagement, growing our business, and having a direct impact on the bottom line.

In the year since I joined, we’ve scaled our team, brought on others who are passionate about the Soofa mission, and invited people to build a neighborhood news feed with us. We earned record revenue last quarter.

My background is in finance — banking, asset management, dollars. Having studied business in college, a role at a bank was a logical next step. But something was missing. I love exploring cities, experiencing a new place, discovering something hidden. And I was eager to make a career out of this passion.

When I’m not exploring new cities, I’m volunteering for The Gift of Life Marrow Registry, where I get the public involved in curing blood cancer. I like knowing that the work I’m doing is impacting real lives. To date, I’ve led countless donor drives, planned galas and 5K fundraisers, and registered over 3,000 people to the bone marrow registry, resulting in three bone marrow transplants. I am also involved with the Excel Ventures Fellowship, serving as City Captain for the Boston community. The Fellowship brought me to Israel, where I was immersed in the thriving Tel Aviv startup ecosystem. This inspired me to seek out emerging technologies back home.

I was introduced to the Soofa team by a close friend, Carine. Carine knew my obsession with cities — how much I enjoyed exploring new neighborhoods, walking with no destination in mind, and experiencing all a place had to offer. I was also eager to find cutting-edge opportunities in the tech startup ecosystem.

Soofa was the perfect mix–an MIT Media Lab startup working to improve the citizen experience, headquartered in one of America’s oldest cities.

I didn’t apply for a sales role at Soofa—I spent weeks interviewing and prepping for another opening at the company. But then a note came from Sandra Richter, Soofa’s CEO and Co-Founder. She saw how curious and excited I was about improving the citizen experience, and asked me to join the team—not in the position I had worked hard for—but in a role connecting businesses with the community in a sustainable way.

When I explore our Soofa Sign neighborhoods, I see the impact our company has.

We build the neighborhood news feed that connects a community with screens everyone can see and anyone can use. I’m proud to be a part of the Soofa team, where we’re making our cities more social and bringing people closer together.

Meeting Boston’s Lime team at a pop-up event.