Sparking Innovation at LA Tech Week
Mingle, Play, and Work. LA Tech Week instigated an ecclectic collection of thoughtful and fun gatherings for builders and enablers. I was pleased to see my NYC and SF friends and colleagues in attendance.
Executing Change
Great panel promoting women founders and capital allocators in the Batgirl Cave 🦇🏍💥 at Google in San Francisco!
I was joined on the panel by Laura Lucas, GP of L'ATTITUDE VENTURES, Joy Mbanugo, J.D., MAcc., CFO of CXAI (NASDAQ CXAI), Julie Castro Abrams, Managing Partner of How Women Invest/CEO How Women Lead, and Azin Radsan van Alebeek, Co-Founder and GP of Emmeline Ventures. Giselle Valdez Jackson, Executive Director in the Wells Fargo Tech Banking group was a terrific moderator as usual.
Topics discussed ranged from personal journeys as founders, operators, and investors to advice for everyone on the role they can play in facilitating and benefiting from a more inclusive economy.
CAN YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
For sure.
Crowdsourcing Solutions for Humanity and the Planet: Columbia Does It Again!
Last Wednesday at Columbia, hardworking venture teams and early stage investors discussed humanitarian, social, and environmental problems, solutions, and scalable market opportunities to make the biggest impact. A Spring cohort of thirteen startup teams of talented students, researchers, faculty, and alumni in my impact venture incubator course competed for the top seven spots in round 1 judging to pitch live at Demo Day. They were joined by the top seven venture teams of the Fall cohort of sixteen startups. It was impressive to see the traction all of these early ventures have made.
In six weeks of programming, venture teams comprised of people from across Columbia University’s schools, programs, and alumni community validated problems with stakeholders, proposed solutions, created and iterated MVPs, derived go to market strategies, drafted pro forma financials, chose actionable performance metrics, and pitched their ventures to expert mentors and investors. The presentations of their business highlights were met with insightful questions from investors evaluating their offerings.
Our ventures span many sectors: climate impact/environmental sustainability, health and wellness, fintech, proptech/construction, edtech, civtech, safety wearables, journalism/new media, sustainable food, and DEI. Their offerings consist of software solutions, marketplaces, media platforms, and products.
Is It Possible to Launch a Startup in a Weekend?
Columbia unites to propel early stage ventures addressing problems affecting people and the planet.
I am so excited about this upcoming event I have organized with my colleagues at Columbia University! Columbia’s 17 schools have joined forces to crowdsource solutions for the common good. Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center of Social Enterprise is hosting the event.
We are entering the last stretch before Columbia University’s inaugural cross-campus startup hackathon, Hacking for Humanity, taking place September 10-12th. We have 294 people in the process of forming teams, including 83 founders. We have three days of excellent programming ahead. Ten speakers and workshop leaders, thirty-six expert mentors, and nineteen investor judges will provide guidance, perspective, and networking opportunities for our promising founders.
Be the Founder You Want to Be
Last week, I co-instructed the workshop on Pricing at the Long Beach Accelerator with CSULB’s Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship and LBA Board Chair, Dr. Wade Martin. It has been terrific being part of the launch team of this private-public partnership now accepting applications for its third cohort!
Founders, hit the West Coast and enjoy the lifestyle you deserve while you build out your company and network with the right people to get the traction you seek. $75,000 to $100,000 of equity funding is offered backed by excellent tailored programming, mentorship, municipal support, and corporate partnerships. Members of the first two cohorts have already raised above their ask targets and two have received lucrative acquisition offers validating their traction achieved in the challenging conditions of the pandemic.
Ready to Scale on the West Coast?
Last week I had the opportunity to lead a workshop on Customer Discovery and Validation at the newly launched Long Beach Accelerator.
Founders, now you have the opportunity to engage with the Long Beach Accelerator as the applications are now open for its second cohort to begin in the Summer of 2021. $75,000 to $100,000 of equity funding is offered backed by excellent programming (if I do say so myself), mentorship, municipal support, and corporate partnerships.