Like many, Bella Filacuridi didn’t know what she wanted to do after high-school. But with a little resilience and pushing through the many ups and downs in her journey through university, she is now working at her dream company while keeping her passion for startups going on the side.

Bella is a co-founder of Sex Happens, a startup on a mission to normalise conversations about sex, through gamifying the experience. Bella believes that education around sex and sexual health is inadequate, resulting in generational awkwardness and stigma surrounding all things sex. The business was founded on the premise that everyone does it, but nobody talks about it; leaving room for the spread of misinformation,

“So, we're creating a cheeky adult card game that puts it all on the table. It catalyses these conversations and to dispel the taboo around sex and sexual health, and empowers people to own their sexuality.”

Sex Happens injects humour into the experience of discussing sex, using it as a tool to alleviate any tension that could surround the conversation. Bella and her co-founder are aiming to launch next year with a kick-starter campaign to crowd-fund the initiative.

When it comes to Bella’s career, she seeks a job that makes a Monday feel no different to a Saturday. So in tandem with her love for startups, her day job is working at Accenture as a consulting analyst.

“There are so many similarities between consulting and startups,”

Bella says. At Accenture, Bella dives into her passion for design thinking, innovation and disruptive problem-solving across a whole bunch of exciting industries.

What was Bella’s experience with HEX?

“Hands down the best and most impactful experience over my education journey,”

she says. For her, HEX was a very introspective experience because of the connections she built with change-makers, revolutionists, global problem solvers and serial go-getters. It gave her energy to be around people who are committed to making the world a better place, and helped her look at her own life and identify the values that are important to her.

“HEX gave me the clarity and confidence to quit a job I had lost passion for and forge my own entrepreneurial path and a career in innovation consultancy — to do work that actually aligns with my values.”

The biggest take away from her HEX experience was the insane networking opportunities,

“At the end, I couldn’t stop thinking how bloody lucky I was to meet and grow with these people.”

The friendships she was able to make, the mentors she worked with, the cohort she spent all her time with was invaluable to Bella, especially because this was her first brush with entrepreneurship,

“From learning about effective storytelling from a TED pitching coach, to exploring growth hacking and disruptive business models from world-class entrepreneurs, to then pitching your own scalable startup idea to members of the Australian Embassy and VC investors... It's a jam-packed, wild ride to say the least. But, I guarantee that you will come out clearer on what your personal North Star is and more confident in getting there.”

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