Shori Hijikata of Shirts of Startups: Photographing the faces behind startups

Shori Hijikata founded Shirts of Startups, a passion project that captures the inspiring stories of startup founders (including Parpera founder Daniel Cannizzaro himself). She personally photographs and interviews each founder; with the name of her project deriving from the fact that everyone is photographed in their startup shirt.

Why did you decide to start your own business?

I fell in love with photography in university. In my third year, I got to photograph and meet Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of NY, and was inspired to start something similar.

Being in the startup world today, I thought a founder-focused blog would be interesting because there’s no linear path to entrepreneurship, so everyone has a fascinating backstory.‍

What are your top 3 frustrations with managing money for your business and what would a better future look like?
It’s still very early stages for the blog and it’s currently only monetized through buying virtual coffees, but with growth, I’ll be thinking about if and when to monetize and how to manage that!

I think it would be great to leverage a seamless platform that includes a virtual card, strong visibility on spending, intuitive graphics and insights, partner discounts, and a community to support creators and smaller businesses.

Thank you Shori for taking the time to share your story with our community and we wish you all the best for the future success of Shirts of Startups!