After I left university, I spent two and a half years working on community-driven technology ventures. I built two companies, and worked in venture capital for a bit.
For my first company, we built fan intelligence software for content creators, attempting to bring creators and fans closer together. We had 50,000+ people use our products, had early revenue, and built a few fun product-drops too, like the first tool for Clubhouse creators to monetize through paid or token-gated rooms and a youtube-thumbnail optimization tool used by top YouTubers.
For my next company, we attempted to build an alternative university. We started by unbundling the the community-layer from the university, and built a distributed network of group houses in SF, NYC, Seattle and elsewhere. It was a difficult and beautiful experience. This company was acquired.
Following that, I led Special Project and Programs at a talent-driven venture fund. One project I built from 0-1 was Contrary NYC, a community space in Flatiron, NYC profiled in places like Business Insider and Yahoo. Through that, I helped to identify and back founders at their earliest stages, like Brandon and Andriy at Nomic AI. I also developed, launched, and identified talent for numerous programs, like Contrary Sabbatical, where we invested $250k in up to 5 teams to take a year off and build a generational company (Zepto, the fastest growing company in India and now valued at 5 billion, was born in this program previously).