Portrait No. 001
Yana Welinder
Founder & CEO
Kraftful
I started Kraftful because I wanted companies to build products shaped by real needs, not internal assumptions. As a product leader, I was often the only woman in the room. That experience made the gap impossible to ignore: the people building products rarely reflected the people using them. We’ve all seen what happens when that gap goes unchecked: smartphones that were too large for the average woman’s hand, early voice recognition systems that struggled to understand higher-pitched voices, car safety tests designed around male crash dummies, and even early health studies that excluded women entirely. I built Kraftful to close that gap: bringing real user voices, through feedback and data, directly into the product development process so teams can build what customers actually need.
In her words
“My founder journey is equal parts innovation and empathy: build boldly, listen deeply.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
I started building grit early, immigrating from the USSR to Sweden as my family fled antisemitism and pogroms. As a child, I lived in an asylum camp, survived on just a few dollars a day for food, and faced racism in school while learning a new language and trying to blend into a homogeneous society. I carried that resilience with me, eventually studying abroad at Harvard and becoming an entrepreneur. I started Kraftful at the very beginning of the pandemic. Schools shut down, childcare disappeared, and I was in lockdown with my two-year-old son while trying to get a company off the ground. I was a solo founder. I raised three rounds on my own, built the fastest-growing product in my category, and ultimately sold the company to a public company. Today, the product is a core part of a platform used by thousands of product teams around the world.
Chapter II
Your vision.
Kraftful brings real customer voices—through feedback and data—directly into the product development process, so teams can build what people actually want. I'm obsessed with making delightful, truly user-shaped products the default, not the exception.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
At the start of my Kraftful journey, I co-founded VC-Backed Moms, a nonprofit supporting women navigating entrepreneurship and motherhood, with my friends Amelia and Margot. We launched in the middle of pandemic lockdown. A brutal time to be a mother, a founder, and especially both. The moment we announced it, we had instant PMF. Founder moms were asking: How do I fundraise while pregnant? When do I tell investors? How do I do this without tanking my company? That community changed my trajectory. When I had my second child—one week after starting intense M&A negotiations to sell my company—I felt fully prepared. I want future women to build iconic companies without choosing between ambition and motherhood.