2019 Startup Grind Global Conference Recap
I’m still on cloud nine after attending my first Startup Grind Global Conference and wanted to share a few of the takeaways I had from this tremendous event, which I attended in order to find new guests for the Just Go Grind Podcast, make connections, and learn more about startups and venture capital.
For context, the Startup Grind Global Conference had roughly 8,000 attendees with speakers such as:
- Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Partner at Backstage Capital
- Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of LinkedIn, Partner at Greylock Partners
- Melanie Whelan, CEO at SoulCycle
- Joe Gebbia, Co-founder and CPO at Airbnb
- Morgan DeBaun, Founder and CEO at Blavity
- Chris Dixon, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz
- Payal Kadakia, Founder and Executive Chairman at ClassPass
- Michael Seibel, CEO and Partner at Y Combinator
- Jessica Verrilli, General Partner at Google Ventures
- Rand Fishkin, Founder and CEO of SparkToro, Co-founder of Moz
- Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon, Founder and CEO at Founder Gym
Seriously, the list of speakers was RIDICULOUS — all bringing a variety of expertise in startups, venture capital, and beyond.
With multiple stages hosting different speakers simultaneously the only challenge was deciding which session to attend.
My strategy? Go to the sessions I for sure wanted to attend and try to make it to as many of the others that were high on my list.
2019 Startup Grind Global Conference Presentations
Below are takeaways from sessions I attended. While I would’ve loved to have attended more, it simply wasn’t possible with the jam packed schedule (Damn, SG, you’re too good!)
Breaking Rules While Breaking Ground with Arlan Hamilton and Emily Chang
This was one of the sessions I was most excited about and it DID NOT DISAPPOINT.
Arlan Hamilton, who was on the cover of Fast Company last year, has been blowing up (in a good way) recently with company Backstage Capital, and is out to change the venture capital landscape. She was interviewed in this session by Emily Chang, a journalist, best-selling author, and the anchor and executive producer of Bloomberg Technology.
As it says on Backstage Capital’s website, “Less than 10% of all venture capital deals go to women, People of Color, and LGBT founders. Other VCs see this as a pipeline problem. We see it as the biggest opportunity in investment” and Backstage has, “invested more than $4M in 100 companies led by underrepresented founders.”
They’re out to change the game and Arlan is leading the way in making sure it happens.
A few quotes specifically I pulled from Arlan’s talk were:
“I’m looking for people who are underestimated.”
“We’re in it for the long haul, we’re not tourists.”
“That’s your biggest asset — being yourself.”
Arlan also mentioned looking to invest in founders who were “Hungry, not thirsty” and who had some level of domain expertise.
The amount of hustle it took for Arlan, a black, queer woman, to break into the venture capital world was incredibly inspiring. Hearing her talk about sleeping in airports, cold emailing tons of people, and researching the hell out of venture capital truly showed the level of dedication she has to giving underrepresented founders a chance.
The Unwritten Rules of Raising Venture Capital with Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon and Nicole Froker
In this session Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon, Founder and CEO of Founder Gym, was interviewed by Nicole Froker from Google for Startups and Mandela shared insights on fundraising.
Founder Gym is a 6-week online program focused on helping underrepresented founders raise money to scale their tech startups and their 170 alumni have raised more than $35M so far which is absolutely amazing!
As Mandela mentioned, the lack of a strong network is the reason underrepresented minorities struggle building businesses and Founder Gym is helping solve this problem.
A couple quotes from Mandela included:
“Two things you can never get back — time and equity.”
“Interview the investors as much as they interview you.”
In terms of what founders can tell VCs, Mandela mentioned telling them how you’re going to make them money and talking about your business in phases.
The Founder Gym cohort model is very intriguing and in the talk Mandela also mentioned a new partnership with Google for Startups — big things happening for Mandela and Founder Gym!
Y Combinator’s Essential Startup Advice with Michael Seibel and Derek Anderson
Derek Anderson, Co-founder of Startup Grind and Bevy, interviewed Michael Seibel, CEO and Partner at Y Combinator, the top startup accelerator in the world, for this session.
Prior to Y Combinator, Michael also was a Co-founder and CEO of Justin.tv and Socialcam.
In this session Michael offered a plethora of insights, including how the “batch model” was critical to Y Combinator’s success early on, allowing founders to get support from each other on top of the support they gained from Y Combinator directly.
To address the issue of organizing YC to accommodate more founders, YC chose 205 companies out of 12,000 applicants in their latest batch, up from the roughly 140 companies previously. One of my podcast guests, Artur Meyster, and his company, Career Karma, is one of the 205 companies that made it in. The companies that aren’t selected get real feedback from YC, something not many venture firms or accelerators actually do.
Furthermore, for startup founders, Michael had specific advice when it comes to their pitches, saying that, “Your investor pitch and your customer pitch are two very different things.” This seemed to be something that founders have been getting wrong recently.
Lastly, in regards to trends, Michael noticed that more founders are creating companies to make the world a better place — not just to make a lot of money — something I was happy to hear, but wonder what this looks like in the real world.
How to Build Trust in the Fake News Era with Marlon Nichols and Morgan DeBaun
In this session Marlon Nichols, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Cross Culture Ventures, interviewed Morgan DeBaun, the Founder and CEO of Blavity.
Blavity is a tech company for forward thinking black millennials pushing the boundaries of culture and the status quo.
While not actually discussing much related to fake news, there were a few notable quotes from Morgan which I really enjoyed:
“Pick one or two things and really do well at that.”
“In true startup fashion, we test a lot of things.”
“I have to make sure I am ok so the company can be okay.”
“Don’t forget why you started.”
Morgan also discussed her story of being an underfunded startup and just grinding to gain traction, eventually raising $6.5M in their Series A round of funding in 2018.
She also stressed the importance of going after VCs that align with your mission, something she didn’t initially do and mentioned regretting.
Design for Startups with Garry Tan
This was a quick session with Garry Tan, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Initialized Capital, but I thought it was incredibly worthwhile.
A few key takeaways from Garry’s session included:
- Contrast is your #1 tool as a visual designer
- Your landing page should include:
- A solution to a problem
- A concise description
- A big button basically saying “Solve problem here”
- Use whitespace
He also suggested a book called Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug and referenced a 90 minute talk of his for Y Combinator which you can watch part 1 and part 2 of on YouTube which is definitely worth checking out.
Can the Current AI Boom Scale to AGI with Reid Hoffman and Greg Brockman
Reid Hoffman, Co-founder of LinkedIn and Partner at Greylock Partners, interviewed Greg Brockman, the Co-founder and CTO at OpenAI, a non-profit AI research company, discovering and enacting the path to safe artificial general intelligence.
The talk was fascinating.
Taken from wikipedia, AGI or artificial general intelligence, is “the intelligence of a machine that could successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can.” The applications of this are plentiful, something Max Tegmark mentioned in his book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
In the talk, Greg mentioned how AI was the most important problem he could work on, how “we want to make sure general AI benefits everyone” and that “It’s about enhancing what humans can do.”
In regards to computational power and algorithmic progress, Greg would go on to mention that “We get to choose how these technologies change our lives.”
Furthermore, Greg harped on the importance of data and how we could “have systems that learn human preferences through data.”
Finally, Greg expressed concern over late stage artificial intelligence turning into an arms race and how OpenAI is working to make sure that doesn’t happen.
2019 Startup Grind Global Conference Startup Tents
In addition to the various stages at the Startup Grind Global Conference, there were also various tents featuring all sorts of startups.
A few of my favorites were:
There were plenty more amazing startups and with the ability to walk around the tent, strike up conversations with founders, and get connected to follow up this was a valuable piece of the Startup Grind Global Conference experience.
2019 Startup Grind Global Conference Networking
My number one goal for the conference was to make new connections to amazing people and I was definitely able to do that. The Startup Grind Global Conference provided plenty of opportunities to network, not just with attendees, but with speakers as well.
Arlan Hamilton and the Backstage Capital Crew
I was able to meet Arlan, Founder and Managing Partner at Backstage Capital, in between two of her talks.
Walking out of one of the startup tents I happened to see her on the corner of one of the streets with her crew from Backstage Capital. I just waited for her to finish speaking with another attendee, introduced myself, and talked with her for a few minutes about running Backstage Capital and her experience.
Arlan was so approachable, which I think speaks to both her and the conference venue, and I’m grateful she gave me a few minutes of her time. I also asked about having her on the Just Go Grind Podcast, she seemed open to it, and it’s something I’m working on hooking up.
I was also able to talk with a few members of her team including — Monica Wheat who is the Managing Director of the Backstage Capital Accelerator in Detroit, Lisa Atia who is the Chief Revenue Officer of Backstage Capital, and Tapan Kataria who is the Director at the Backstage Capital Accelerator in Detroit.
Rand Fishkin
Rand, Founder and CEO of SparkToro, gave a great presentation at the main stage at the conference, but when I tried to catch his second talk about SEO and marketing for startups it was so popular that there was a line outside the door of people waiting to get in.
Knowing the speakers at certain stages had to pass through the same hallway, I waited for him after his talk and, sure enough, he came out with a group of people and stayed after to speak.
Standing right next to Rand I was able to hear him answer various questions about marketing and eventually was able to ask him about promoting a podcast, with the biggest takeaway for me being to create amazing graphics for each episode that guest want to share. After hiring an assistant to help with the podcast the past couple of weeks this is definitely something I’ll do more of.
Of course, I also asked Rand to be on the podcast, and he agreed — I’m also working to set that up.
Mandela Schumacher-Hodge Dixon
Mandela, Founder and CEO at Founder Gym, was another person I was able to talk to after her talk in the hallway leading out of the various stages.
I was able to hear more about the Founder Gym business model — charging a cohort fee instead of taking equity — and how they operate remotely.
Mandela is filled with energy and you can feel that when she’s on stage as well as when you talk with her in person. It’s easy to tell she has a passion for what she does and I find the Founder Gym model fascinating.
Erik Huberman
Erik, the Founder and CEO of Hawke Media, one of the fastest growing digital agencies in the United States, was also a speaker at the Startup Grind Global Conference and I actually had him on Episode 23 of the Just Go Grind Podcast.
I ran into Erik in the lobby leading up to a few of the stages and was able to discuss more about his company’s growth, all the things he’s been working on, and how I might be able to connect him with a couple people I know.
Jessica Joyce-Brady
Jessica is the Founder and CEO of HairLooks, technology that matches the right hair talent to your service needs, and we met prior to the pub crawl event after day one as my classmate at USC, Jake, and I, as well as thousands of others, were trying to figure out where to go.
Jessica is currently fundraising for her company and I was able to hear her pitch and learn more about what it’s like trying to raise funds for an early stage company (hint: it’s difficult).
An absolute hustler, tracking down VCs all over the valley, I’m sure Jessica will get funding soon.
Christian Johnson
Christian is the CEO of MultiPass Ventures, a company created to invest in early stage technology companies led by women and underrepresented minorities.
I met Christian at the 2019 USC Demo Day just a few days prior and we were also able to reconnect through the Startup Grind Global Conference a couple different times.
2019 Startup Grind Global Conference Overall Thoughts
The conference was incredible and I definitely plan on attending again next year. It’s hard to compare to the quality of speakers and numerous opportunities to network.
Considering attending? Do it. You’ll get way more value out of it than the cost of the ticket.
#JustGoGrind
Originally published at www.justgogrind.com on February 16, 2019.
