Startup Leaders Inspire the Next Generation of Founders Through The RDV Academy
Last year, Rough Draft Ventures officially launched The RDV Academy, a program that connects top engineering students with fast growing startups across Boston and New York through a three-month summer experience. RDV Academy scholars spent the summer working directly with top-tier engineering teams, gaining a deeper understanding of how to grow and scale as a part of an engineering team and experience each company’s culture first hand.
The RDV Academy is a platform to deliver on Rough Draft’s larger mission of supporting and inspiring students to pursue paths in technology and entrepreneurship. Through the RDV Academy, top technical students can strengthen their technical skills, while learning how productive teams operate and what makes a successful manager, all while working within an early-stage startup.
“The Academy is an opportunity to connect young tech talent who aren’t necessarily ready to start a company today with tech startups in Boston and New York,” said Rough Draft Ventures Co-founder Peter Boyce, II. “We view it as an important opportunity to identify and cultivate emerging tech talent while potentially inspiring some of these individuals to become founders.”
Our inaugural group of 60 RDV Academy Scholars across Boston and NYC met once a week throughout the summer of 2016 to learn from notable startup executives representing key functional areas at top tech companies. Here’s a look of some of our favorite sessions from last summer:
Meredith Blumenstock, Design Director at AI-powered web-design startup B12, spoke about the intersection of artificial intelligence and design. B12 leverages both machines and expert designers so each can do what they do best: machines automate the tedious work so designers can focus on creative design. The result? Beautifully designed and professional websites.
Giphy COO Adam Leibsohn focused on how the company evolved from side project to a viable business and their vision for monetization moving forward. Adam shared GIPHY’s revenue model as well as the challenges of scaling internationally since cultural-resonance is key to their brand.
Nick Gossen, head of regional sales at Oscar led a discussion on sales in a multi-sided marketplace, sharing that one of the earliest challenges Oscar had to overcome was an elitist impression among the broker community that came from Oscar’s higher-ed employees. Oscar made a cognizant effort to overcome this disconnect by forming genuine relationships.
Catalant’s VP of Sales, Jim McInerny emphasized the importance of building a powerful sales team, explaining that there must be a tight feedback loop between engineering, sales, and customers as the product or business evolves, highlighting the immense value engineers create for sales teams at a company like Catalant.
Dave Gerhardt, Head of Marketing at Drift advised us to think about communities before building a marketing plan: “Don’t worry about being good at marketing, get good at understanding people.” Dave emphasized that when building your brand, to position yourself as a hero to your audience.
Black Duck Software’s PM of Integrations and Alliances, Utsav Sanghani shared five core principles to help founders understand how to ‘Know Your Product’ which include: define problem and focus on what you solve, think about the user, start small but then think about the big picture, think through all of the pieces (IP, renewals, competition), and believe in your idea.
Adam Broun, COO at Kensho led a discussion addressing how funding dynamics change when companies turn profitable, when and why a startup should seek a convertible note versus a priced round, what characteristics of a team investors look for, and how to pitch your vision as it changes over time.
HubSpot’s Chief People Officer at HubSpot, Katie Burke, shared best practices for establishing a culture. She emphasized that culture is great at bringing people in but also letting people opt out, that founders must be intentional with what to include in the culture and only act upon that, to ensure everyone owns culture, and to rely upon data to build culture rather than relying only on what you think culture should look like.
Nick Cooley, VP of Engineering at M Gemi led a conversation focused on the intersection of design and engineering , sharing the differences between right brain and left brain creatives vs engineers must be overcome through a collaborative partnership. For example, while a design team may focus on creating the most beautiful visual website storefront, engineering components must be addressed such as the high lag times.
Applications are now open for The RDV Academy for Summer 2018. If you’re a sophomore or junior majoring in CS or engineering and excited about working at a fast growing startup this summer, make sure to apply by October 15th!
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