#125: Erik Torenberg - What Is Venture Capital? & How It Helps Job Seekers
Breaking Into Startups13 Elo 2020

#125: Erik Torenberg - What Is Venture Capital? & How It Helps Job Seekers

Not only a true believer in the power of networking, Erik Torenberg definitely walks the talk. Erik is big on community building and networking. He is known for organizing huge events as well as intimate meetups called On Deck, where they allow people to get to know each other on a personal level instead of a professional level. Back in Michigan, Erik started his career by creating rapt.fm, which led him to go to 500 Startups, that also led him to become the first employee of Product Hunt. Later on, he started the Product Hunt Podcast. He then ventured into investing, having seeded notable companies including Omni, Metaverse, Bot.me, and Tribe.pm, to name a few. In 2017, he launched a $100-million fund called Village Global, built around the concept of networking embedded in their company’s DNA. He has curated a group of people including some of the world's greatest in technology - Amazon's Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg - to believe in him. How did he do that? Let’s find out! Recently, he also launched another podcast called Venture Stories Podcast by Village Global. Another one of Erik’s passion project is The Rise Awards, an awards series and community celebrating top talents across all positions.

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#53: Ysiad Ferreiras - How a kid from the Bronx became the VP of Sales at Hustle

#53: Ysiad Ferreiras - How a kid from the Bronx became the VP of Sales at Hustle

With Dominican roots, Ysiad Ferreiras grew up in the Bronx where fear was not unusual thing and where hard life would be an understatement. He has made some bad decisions in his early life but he mana...

30 Touko 20171h 24min

#52: Kristin Parke - How a Music & a Biology major became a Security Hacker

#52: Kristin Parke - How a Music & a Biology major became a Security Hacker

Kristin Parke is a hacker aka a security consultant at the NCC Group. She shares her journey into tech and how she transitioned from music to science until ultimately she becoming an engineer. In t...

23 Touko 201747min

#51: K. Mannah Kallon - an Educator who became an Engineer at Stitch Fix

#51: K. Mannah Kallon - an Educator who became an Engineer at Stitch Fix

From a chef to restaurateur to Math teacher to software engineer, Mannah Kallon has a pretty crazy and nontraditional background. That makes him an asset on anyone's team. He earned degrees in Psycho...

19 Touko 201746min

#50: Jessica Uelmen - A Hardware Engineer who became a Product Manager at Fitbit

#50: Jessica Uelmen - A Hardware Engineer who became a Product Manager at Fitbit

A self-confessed nerd and Sailor Moon enthusiast, Jessica Uelmen built her first HTML/CSS website at 13 years old and got involved with theater during college until she ultimately decided to major in ...

14 Touko 201736min

#48: Chloe Condon - An Actress who Quit her Job as an Office Manager and Became a Software Engineer

#48: Chloe Condon - An Actress who Quit her Job as an Office Manager and Became a Software Engineer

Based in San Francisco, Hackbright Academy is focused on teaching women how to code. We're recording several interviews with Hackbright graduates including our guest today, Chloe Condon. Growing up ...

9 Touko 201752min

#47: Wayne Neale - Founder of GrowthX Academy

#47: Wayne Neale - Founder of GrowthX Academy

Wayne Neale is the Co-Founder of GrowthX Academy, a 12-week, onsite, immersive, full-time educational experience program focusing on careers in Sales, Growth Marketing, and UX Design. The academy was ...

5 Touko 201749min

#46: Niv Dror - How Leaving Finance Led Niv to Become Head of Social at Product Hunt

#46: Niv Dror - How Leaving Finance Led Niv to Become Head of Social at Product Hunt

Niv Dror currently runs social at Product Hunt and does their daily newsletter featuring the latest and coolest products. Prior to tech, Niv shifted from soccer to academics, majored in Finance, and w...

29 Huhti 201759min

#45: Kenny Tran - How an App Academy & Hack Reactor Alum skipped college and became an Engineer

#45: Kenny Tran - How an App Academy & Hack Reactor Alum skipped college and became an Engineer

Kenny Tran is a passionate writer and coder. He chose to forego college and instead pursued his personal projects and his love of writing. After reading a post on Hacker News about App Academy, he dec...

26 Huhti 201740min