SA should learn from Silicon Valley sexual harassment says SweepSouth founder

South African startups and those that help entrepreneurs should learn from the sexual harrasment exposes that have rocked Silicon Valley recently, says SweepSouth founder Aisha Pandor.

Speaking at a Heavy Chef Startup Nation event a Workshop 17 in Cape Town last night, Pandor (pictured above, right with Michael Deon the founder of Augmentors Game on the left and Fred Roed, the founder of Heavy Chef) said a three-month stint in 2015 working in Silicon Valley taught her a lot on entrepreneurship, including a few negative lessons.

“We also learnt what not to do as a start-up,” she added.

SA should use case of David McClure as lesson on sexual harassment stresses Aisha Pandor

Read more: Why SweepSouth believes in US-based 500 Startups incubator

Referring to David McClure the former CEO of 500 Startups she said the South African ecosystem can use his case “as a lesson on how not to behave towards female founders”.

McClure, a venture capitalist, resigned from the early stage venture fund and seed accelerator earlier this month after allegations of sexual harassment were levelled against him by two women entrepreneurs Sarah Kunst and Cherly Sew Hoy. He later apologised in a blog post and confessed to making inappropriate advances to women.

Pandor, a former a management consultant, founded the company with her husband Alen Ribic. SweepSouth provides an on-demand cleaning service and she said the company is addressing high levels of unemployment and low job security in a sector where women are often exploited.

SweepSouth has been operating for the last two years now has made 250 000 bookings through its platform with over 1.4 million hours of cleaning carried out across four cities in South Africa.

Featured image: (left to right) Augmentors Game founder Michael Deon, SweepSouth founder Aisha Pandor and Heavy Chef founder Fred Roed