After I failed miserably at my personal challenge to dedicate 83% of our family spending with women-created products and services, I found a huge information gap about my buying decisions, and so I started MAIA.

I wanted to buy from women equally across all of the ways I use my money: investing, spending and giving.

There were small pockets of curated information here and there. I could find articles about women-owned or led businesses in the news, but I wanted something sustainable and comprehensive, with no barrier to entry, across all of the ways I use my money.

While my main goal was to uplift and support women, I also wanted access to information about environmentally-conscious businesses, marginalized communities’ businesses, social-impact businesses, local businesses, and every other faction of vendors. These categories have never been mutually exclusive, and I do not want to treat them as such.

I also wanted to hear these women’s stories and buy from the businesses who support the causes I care about too.

Women Supporting Women

I met Florence Karp last week, she’s the founder and CEO of Chef Flo-K Foods, she created Afric Stew, a nigerian style stew gravy. Florence is a lifelong entrepreneur who has always dreamed of turning her love of cooking and traditional African foods into a business.

After immigrating here in 1997, Florence started the African Dynamic Women’s network, which brings together African women from around the region on a monthly basis to share resources, knowledge, fellowship, intellectual discussions, accountability in a relaxed atmosphere. Networking with other African business owners and entrepreneurs is partly what motivated Florence to start Chef Flo-K Foods.

“Many Africans in this America, work very hard and have such busy lifestyles that they do not have time to cook and eat healthy homemade African foods,” she said. Florence helps people feel at home wherever they are with Afric stew.


MAIA makes it easier to connect with those you’re buying from, by providing you with the information you need to make meaningful and conscious decisions about your money. MAIA’s platform allows all women-owned businesses to share their stories, their passions, their significance.