When her daughter's food allergies presented a challenge, Susie Hultquist ended up creating the popular app Spokin.
"I decided not to wait for the world to be safer for my daughter," Susie Hultquist says."I was going to create a tool that makes a real change."
Determined to help the 32 million Americans with food allergies save energy and time, Hultquist left Wall Street and created an app called. The app connects members of the food allergy community to each other, and to safe resources like information about cookies, restaurants, travel and more. Originally based on user-generated reviews, Spokin is now working directly with companies to increase transparency with verified information.
I felt like I had no choice but to build something that I wished existed for her. My instinct just took over. There was no going back.I loved what I did, but I had this gnawing feeling that there was something more for me. I wanted to do something bigger that would help people. I really didn’t know what that was until that moment.I was going to create a tool that makes a real change: to make it easier, faster and safer to manage food allergies.
Opening the app is designed to provide as many ‘yeses’ as possible, eliminating a lot of ‘noes’ and often fear that comes with living with food allergies. Our app users share reviews, so that one person’s ‘find’ can help the whole food allergy community.