Name: Chelsea Koglmeier
Hometown: Cincinnati, OH
University: Duke University ’12
Program Coordinator, The Brandery
Cincinnati, OH
 
What initially attracted you to Venture for America?
VFA is something new. I wanted to be a part of setting precedents and expanding the scope of what college kids can easily access post-graduation. In the end, two things really stood out to me that made me join VFA — 1) the other fellows and VFA staff who I met at the selection day were kick ass, AND 2) selection day was rigorous, so I figured the program would follow suit. I have NOT been disappointed.
What is the best part of being a VFA fellow?
The training camp taught me more than I learned in 4 years in college (I hope my parents never read this…).

What does The Brandery do?
The Brandery is a seed stage startup accelerator, nationally ranked as one of the top programs in the United States. Our four-month-long program in Cincinnati, Ohio, focuses on the importance of consumer marketing and branding to turn your great idea into a successful, brand-driven startup. Founded in 2010, we annually select 8–12 companies for our program, each receiving $20,000 in seed funding, a great team of mentors, world-class design assistance, and the opportunity to pitch to investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program. In return, we take 6% equity stake in each company coming through our program.

What do you do on a typical day at work?
Variable. I help run the day-to-day activities of The Brandery with one other full-time staff member. That means my job includes anything from working with our companies, giving tours to people interested in what we’re doing, creating advertising material, tackling social media efforts, writing grants (we’re 501c3 and won’t be self-sustaining until one of our companies exit), taking out the trash, to developing classes targeted at sharing resources with the community.

What’s your favorite thing about Cincinnati?
It’s live-able AND you get a high quality of life. The changes happening in the downtown area and so tangible it’s crazy, construction everywhere, every month a new restaurant is popping up in Over-The-Rhine (10 years ago, there were race riots in OTR, now it’s the place to go for a delicious friday night meal…assuming you’re okay to wait for 2 hours…). The demand is escalating for more and more residential complexes, restaurants and for the basic shops that make a city vibrant. FURTHER, even if you live outside the city a bit, traffic adds 15 minutes to your drive when you’re at the 5pm peak. Finally, the midwest is just a happy place. It moves at it’s own pace and people smile at you on the street. Why NOT, Cincinnati? I couldn’t imagine a better suited city for my first two years of post-grad and getting myself settled as a nuclear adult.

What do you hope to accomplish in your time with VFA?
What a question and people ask me all the time. I barely have an answer. I want to learn as much as a I can, learn what it takes to get a startup off the ground and help get Cincinnati on the national stage as a great place to establish a brand and grow your business.

It’s been almost a year and a half since Venture for America launched last July.  The past 18 months have been an incredible ride.
Our biggest accomplishment is that we now have 40 Fellows on the ground working hard at start-ups and growth companies in Detroit, New Orleans, Providence, Cincinnati and Las Vegas.  The Fellows are doing great – over 80% of them are rated by their companies as either in the top 1% or top 10% of early hires.
4 of the Fellows (Mike Mayer, Billy Schrero, Brentt Baltimore, and Brian Bosche) started a non-profit, the Startup Effect, to train junior high school students in Detroit and New Orleans in entrepreneurship.   The idea was born of a suggestion by Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn and an Advisor to VFA who generously contributed the seed capital for the Startup Effect.  Other Fellows are also hard at work making the cities around them better even as they look to help their companies expand and succeed.
Applications stream in every day for the Class of 2013, and we already have 20 top prospects who have accepted offers and are set to go for next year.  They include programmers, a biomedical engineer, a physicist, a college athlete who started a couple of businesses while in school, and many other talented and motivated young people.  Our 2013 class will be approximately 80 – 100 Fellows.
In addition to our first five cities, we are expanding to Baltimore thanks in large part to a grant from the Abell Foundation.  We are also heading to Cleveland to work with JumpStart and New Haven due to the leadership of Miles Lasater, co-founder of Higher One.
It’s hard to imagine now that Venture for America was little more than an idea 18 months ago.  Since then we’ve been to 50 different universities, in the New York Times and on Fox News, to the White House, to Training Camp at Brown, and to the offices of hard-working entrepreneurs across the country.  We certainly couldn’t have foreseen half of what’s transpired this past year plus.
When we launched in 2011, there were only 3 people full-time.  We had commitments for about $400k and were working out of my old offices.  I was going without salary, in part to save money and in part to help galvanize fund-raising.
Now we are up to 7 people on the full-time team and have raised over $1.2 MM.  Our annual budget has gone from $400k in 2011 to $800k this year to about $1.5 MM in 2013.  We just moved into new offices (still free as we’re being hosted by one of our generous Board members at Mimeo).  There have been countless people who have moved mountains and gone above and beyond to help us reach this point.  We have some very exciting developments coming shortly too.
Upon reflection, it’s a wonder that we’ve progressed this quickly.
I believe it’s because everyone sees the need – our top young people are not being driven to roles that address the needs of our time.  The question I pose at campuses (and occasionally, nice offices) around the country is this – imagine if the same proportion of talent that currently heads to finance, law, and/or management consulting were instead heading to start-ups and growth companies around the country.  How long would it take to meaningfully impact job growth, innovation and economic vitality? What effect would it have on our culture?
That is the question we’re going to answer over the coming years.  Thank you to everyone who’s looking forward to finding out alongside us and helping make it happen on the ground.  Excited to see what the next 18(0) months have in store!
-Andrew

We’re less than 1 week away from our second of three application deadlines for the Class of 2013!

If you haven’t already, you must submit your applications by Monday, December 3rd at 11:59 EST. To start or continue an application, visit our application page below:

Apply now

If you have any questions, you can visit our website to read through our FAQs or get more info about our 2012 fellows. IF you still have questions, you can e-mail apply@ventureforamerica.org.

Name: Andrew Chatham
Hometown: Wickford, Rhode Island
University: Cornell University ’12
Urbanist, Downtown Project Las Vegas
 
 
What initially attracted you to Venture for America?
The talk Andrew Yang gave at Cornell clearly articulated my frustrations with the job search process as a senior. I was 100% convinced after going to the final round interviews and meeting the candidates, judges, and seeing how thoughtful the selection process was.

What is the best part of being a VFA fellow?
Being able to be a part of the incredible energy and support network of fellows, board members, and mentors. The fact that something so powerful has been developed in such a short time is a testament to the underlying mission of the organization.
What does Downtown Project Las Vegas do?
The Downtown Project does a million things, but they can all be boiled down to trying to create the most community focused city in the world.
What do you do on a typical day at work?
I am currently working with on the Campus Development and Coworking side of the DTP. We are focused on building out the most collaborative workspaces in the world here in Downtown Vegas, as well as taking on a few other development projects that fit into the greater DTP mission. There is no typical day with my team – I find myself doing everything from setting up a meshed wireless network downtown to sitting in on meetings with the general contractors working on the 200,000 square foot Zappos HQ building.
What’s your favorite thing about Las Vegas?
The open and honest nature of the people here is incredible – I was totally unprepared for the community that I found in Downtown Vegas and watching it develop each day has been my favorite thing about moving here.
What do you hope to accomplish in your time with VFA?
Build the skills and connections that will allow me to build my own business in the near future. I want to hire a VFA fellow within 5-7 years!

Andrew Yang recently spoke at TEDxGeorgetown, where he gave a talk on “Fixing the Flow of Human Capital”.
During his talk, Andrew explains why the flow of talent in the U.S. is one of the fundamental problems we face today, and how VFA seeks to solve it. Check out the video here:

If you’re interested in learning more about Venture for America, or know someone who is interested in getting hands-on business experience and becoming an entrepreneur, visit our FAQs page for more info. You can even share this video with them and help spread the word!

It’s a busy two days before Thanksgiving break, with VFA events throughout the Northeast! Check out the schedule below to see when we’ll be near you:

Monday, November 19th

RPI Info Session
Career Center Lounge
DCC 209
3:30pm

Columbia Info Session
*Co-hosted by CORE
Lerner Hall, 2920 Broadway
5:00pm

Georgetown Info Session
Career Education Center
Seminar Room 2
6:00pm

Williams Info Session
Mears Lewis Room
8:15pm

Tuesday, November 20th

Employer Info Table
Skidmore College
2nd Floor, Case Center
11:30am-2:00pm

Name: John McGrail
Hometown: Arlington, Virginia
University: Amherst College ’11
Product Analyst, TurboSquid
New Orleans, LA
 
What initially attracted you to Venture for America?
I wanted to work for a smaller, high growth company instead of a larger company.  I believe that I could learn more, and have a more exciting experience, working in an environment where my duties would vary.  I did not want to work somewhere where every day at the office was identical.
I also applied to Venture for America because I believe that start-up companies are a key component to the American economy.  I spent last year teaching English in eastern Ukraine, in a city full of coal mines and factories.  The idea of a start-up company was virtually non-existent due to imbecilic government regulations.  Many of the people that I met seemed resigned to a lifetime of manual labor, despite being well educated and technically savvy.  I realized that Americans are privileged to have the ability to start a business and was eager to become a VFA fellow to maintain this culture of innovation.
What is the best part of being a VFA fellow?
The camaraderie amongst fellows is great.  A lot of my non-VFA friends have expressed envy that I was able to find a job that doubled as a social network.
What does TurboSquid do?
TurboSquid is a deep-sea fishing company that is known for the fantastic speed at which it catches its product.  I’m joking. We actually are the world’s largest market place for 3D images.  Artists from around the world sell their products on our site to buyers from a surprisingly diverse set of industries.
What do you do on a typical day at work?
I am a product analyst, which involves analyzing past sales trends to help predict what products will sell well in the future. A typical day involves a few meetings, some work with Excel, and at least 10 minutes embroiled in a Nerf gun fight.
What’s your favorite thing about New Orleans?:
Come on, it’s New Orleans.  What’s not to love?  Great parties, great weather (hurricane season aside), and great food year round.
What do you hope to accomplish in your time with VFA?
 I hope to acquire the necessary skills and real-world experience to start my own business.

VFA hits the West Coast this week, along with Cleveland, New Haven, and Boston! Check out the schedule below to see when we will be at a school near you:

Monday, November 12th

CMC Info Session
Claremont McKenna College
Founders Room, Bauer Center North
11:30am-1:00pm

Case Western Info Session
Case Western Reserve University
Sears 372
6:00pm

Tuesday, November 13th

Yale Info Session
Yale Entrepreneurial Society
254 Elm Street, New Haven, CT
6:00pm

UCLA Info Session
Start-up UCLA Space
6:00pm

Wednesday, November 14th

MIT Info Session & Meet a Fellow
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Room 24-121
7:30pm

USC Info Session
University of Southern California
Popovich 210
5:00pm

Check out Venture for America in the December issue of Vanity Fair! On newsstands now…

We hope you all stayed safe and warm during Hurricane Sandy! Though we unfortunately had to cancel recruitment events last week, VFA is back in action this week in New York:

Monday, November 5th

NYU Info Session
New York University
UC 21, Tisch Hall
12:30pm

Tuesday, November 6th

Vassar Info Session
Vassar College
Faculty Parlor
2nd Floor of Main Building
5:00pm

This week, The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce featured three VFA fellows on the cover of their Events Guide for 2012, and it got us thinking about how proud we are to be part of the Providence community.

So how did VFA become involved in Providence? Read on…

1992-1996

Before Venture for America was even a thought, Andrew Yang spent four years on College Hill in Providence at Brown University.

2008

Andrew met Charlie Kroll, CEO of Andera, at a Brown University Entrepreneurship Panel.

Charlie told the story of how during his senior year at Brown, he submitted a business plan for a website building company to Brown’s Entrepreneurship Program. Though he didn’t win the competition, one professor saw Charlie’s potential and invested seed money. Though his company barely made it through its first few years, it eventually developed a product for online account-opening that took off. 11 years later, Charlie was still in Providence and his company had grown and created over 80 jobs there.

Andrew realized that if more college grads followed in Charlie’s footsteps, rather than joining large firms in other cities, hundreds, or even thousands of jobs would be created in the cities that need them. However, having tried to start his own company soon after graduating from Law School, he knew how difficult and risky it was. The wheels began turning…

July 2011

After gaining the support of dozens, including Charlie Kroll who was one of the first to join the Board of Directors, VFA launched with the plan to provide a pathway for recent grads to join startups and growth companies in emerging U.S. cities. Venture for America would provide the training, mentorship, and network young entrepreneurs need to eventually go on to build successful businesses and create jobs. VFA planned to launch in three cities: Detroit, New Orleans, and of course, Providence.

March 2012

Venture for America gets its first grant from Providence’s very own Rhode Island Foundation.

June 2012

By the Summer of 2012, VFA had done exactly what it said it would. 40 Fellows had been recruited from many of the country’s top schools and placed in startups in the original three cities, including Providence, in addition to two more, Las Vegas and Cincinnati.

The VFA Team and inaugural class of fellows then spent five weeks throughout June and July at Brown University for the 2012 Fellow Training Camp. Trainers and speakers traveled to Providence from around the country to help get the fellows ready to hit the ground running at their startups.

August 2012

Four VFA fellows–Melanie Friedrichs, Sean Lane, Sean Pennino, and Bryant Yik— began their post-grad lives in Providence. The four recent grads rented a house on College Hill, and are currently living in Providence working at various startup companies and enjoying all it has to offer.

Fall 2012 and Beyond

VFA is proud to be part of Providence and appreciates the support the city, Brown University, and those involved in Providence’s startup community have given over the past year. Already this year, VFA has returned to Brown University to recruit for the Class of 2013.

We’re looking forward to sending more fellows to Providence next year, and many years afterward!