From an inspirational YouTube-er to Founder and CEO of an important, much-needed company, Letisha Wexstten, of St. Louis, is truly amazing.
Letisha was born without arms and at an early age had to learn how to do everything with her feet, including driving and painting.
“When I was a baby, my parents were very supportive of me being independent, and that really kickstarted my personality of being OK with not having arms, accepting myself for who I am and accepting others for who they are,” she says. “There were no support groups for amputee babies, and so it was kind of trial and error.”
“My mom – a genius – would sit me in the kitchen, and I would dump the beans out of the jar and then pick them up individually with my toes,” Letisha says. “That really helped with dexterity in my toes.”
“I just figured it out,” she recalls. “And that’s how my life has been ever since. I drive a car, I paint and I’m an artist. I use a normal computer setup – I don’t have any extra adaptations or voice-activated stuff. It’s almost faster for me to use my feet because my feet are my hands.”
And that’s how she got through college, earning a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from UMSL. She has now taken her inspiring, self-motivated attitude to the business world with the company she founded, V15Able.
She began her journey to inspire and assist the disabled community in 2012 when she debuted her YouTube channel, “Tisha UnArmed,“ where she creates and posts informational and humorous videos of her daily life with a disability.
But taking her story online wasn’t something she did lightly.
“A lot of my friends are amputees, as well as my husband, and we’re all real open about our lives and have a really weird sense of humor,” Letisha says. “And because we do all these weird and interesting things, they were like, ‘Tish, you have to videotape some of it.’
And I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want people to make fun of me. I don’t know if I can handle someone making a mean comment about me or saying that’s gross or something.’”
She decided to make one video – showing her making a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich with her feet. She was a hit. The channel now has more than 170,000 followers. Its success made Letisha think about what else she could do to help the disabled community.
Because approximately 60% of all disabled people in the United States of working age are unemployed, and still there are seven million job openings that go unfilled every year, Letisha founded V15Able (pronounced Visible), a new employment platform designed to bring candidates and employers together.
Currently the V15Able website offers disabled candidates the ability to create their own free, customizable profile that best describes and showcases their capabilities in the workplace. Candidates may then share their profile with prospective employers with a personal link.
“When I saw how much of a difference the YouTube channel was making I knew that I wanted to help other people like me gain the confidence they needed in order to take back their independence,” Letisha explains. “I am really excited to see what the future holds for V15Able. We think that this platform is going to change the world.”
V15Able (15 represents the 15% of the global population with disabilities) was developed at the University of Missouri – St. Louis in 2019 through the University’s first Entrepreneurial Quest Accelerator (EQ) program, a six-week course in entrepreneurship that culminated in a competition for a $15,000 grant. Later in 2019, V15Able won a $50,000 St. Louis Arch Grant to put toward building the online platform. In 2020, V15able partnered with St. Louis startup studio Sigla to build the first iteration of its platform, which made its debut in March 2021.
Investors, business leaders, and disability advocates interested in helping bring V15Able to the next stage can contact Letisha at tisha@v15able.com.
“My plan is to change the way businesses hire people with disabilities, allowing disabled candidates to advocate for themselves proving that anything is possible,” Letisha said.
When asked how she acquired such a can-do attitude and positive spirit, she says
“I just figure it is what it is. My mom trusts in God, and she says He made me this way for a reason and don’t ever question that, just go with it – and I’m like, ‘All right, it works.’
“I’d rather work hard and accomplish something than sit around and feel sorry for myself. People may see me and say, ‘Well shoot, you don’t have arms, and here you are working to become a graphic designer, you paint, you drive, and here I am complaining about a hangnail.’”