This week, VFA’s second class of Fellows arrived in Providence to kick of the second Venture for America Fellow Training Camp at Brown University. Already, they’ve created teams and logos, heard from amazing speakers like Gary Chou and David Rose, redesigned the VFA website, and had a two day business school crash course.
In addition to weekly updates, if you want to know what’s going on at Training Camp day-to-day, follow along with our Training Camp Blog! We’ll be sharing photos, updates, and regular reflections from our Fellows.
Week 1 Highlights
Website Challenge: For the first challenge of Training Camp, the Fellows were tasked with redesigning the VFA Website. One group made a video , some created new info graphics, and one team even opened with a VFA splash page featuring our Fellows.
To see the challenge winners and the other redesigns, check out the Training Camp Blog.
Gary Chou: On Monday, Gary Chou (@garychou), who most recently worked with Union Square Ventures, came to talk to our Fellows about some important things he’s learned throughout his impressive career. Among other things, Gary talked about how to design social products and then closed out with his list of “12 Things I Didn’t Want to Learn“. Definitely worth a read!
David Rose: Yesterday, seasoned investor and entrepreneur David Rose of Gust came to speak to the Fellows about what it takes for entrepreneurs to find investors and how to pitch business ideas. Among other things, David highlighted that he often looks for integrity, passion, and leadership among a handful of other qualities when investing in an entrepreneur’s idea. As someone who has been on both sides of the table as an founder and angel investor, David provided invaluable advice to our Fellows. We were thrilled to have him!
One Fellow, Oliver Li, shared what he learned from David on the Training Camp Blog.
Congrats to our Fellows for a first week well-done! We can’t wait to kick off Week 2.