In the latest episode of Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture for America Podcast, Jeremy interviews Katia Beauchamp, co-founder & CEO of Birchbox and pioneer in the subscription box service industry. Download this week’s episode to hear about Birchbox’s scrappy cold emails to beauty CEOs and their rapid growth, spurring copycats and competitors all over the globe.

Click here to listen

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Earlier this month, we kicked off fall in true VFA fashion—hosting our second annual City as a Startup conference in Detroit. For one day, Fellows, team members, entrepreneurs, and civic leaders gathered at Wayne State University to talk urban development, emerging technology, and working together to build things.

CasS was a one day event that packed a serious punch. Attendees heard from a wide variety of speakers:

• Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, with Andrew Yang and Rip Rapson, the President & CEO of The Kresge Foundation, discussing how philanthropy and the government can work together 
• Pashon Murray, the founder of Detroit Dirt—a compost company working to turn forgotten parcels of land in Detroit into urban farms—with a panel of Detroit entrepreneurs building pro-social companies 
• Melissa Withers, the Managing Director of Betaspring, a Providence-based accelerator and one of our Company Partners, with other tech leaders working to build entrepreneurial hubs in their cities 
• Dan Senor, author of Start-Up Nation, on what makes Israel such a fertile place for founding new ventures
• Jerry Paffendorf, the Co-Founder & CEO of LOVELAND Technologies, on his ongoing project to map every parcel of land in Detroit—and eventually, the world

And that’s just a handful—if you’re curious about the full lineup, check out our online program.

But the biggest highlight for us? Watching our Fellows take the stage.

2013 Fellow Sean Jackson interviewed Dan Gilbert, the Chairman & CEO of Quicken and Rock Ventures, about the history and future of Detroit, and what it takes to start a company there today. “I bet on the jockey, not the horse,” Dan said—he looks for people with the grit and resilience to fall and get back up again. Sean’s been working with Dan at Rock Ventures since joining VFA in 2013, taking on projects from surveying all of Detroit’s land parcels to turning an unused downtown alley into a mini art gallery.

Edie Feinstein ’12 of Dinner Lab spoke with Matt Bonoma, the General Manager of Red Idea Partners, and Brian Rudolph ’12, the Co-founder of Banza, a chickpea pasta company, about food, entrepreneurship, and why Soylent will never replace a real meal. “You shouldn’t look at food as just sustenance,” Brian said. “You need to take time to live.”

Max Nussenbaum ’12, the Co-founder and CEO of Castle, a property management startup, joined a panel of founders who have launched Detroit-based companies in the last few years. The panel included Anya Babbitt, the Founder & CEO of SPLT (pictured with Max above), and Reid Tatoris, the Co-founder & COO of Are You a Human, the company where Max spent his Fellowship. They discussed the Detroit startup landscape and how to draw the right talent to the city—and find the talent already there. 

Finally, we heard from Kate Catlin ’13 about why she views cities as a form of code; Max Walters ’13 on how to increase young people’s civic engagement; Peter DiPrinzio ’13 on his work in Baltimore, and how to keep the needs of the community in mind; and Jacob Robinson ’14 on how hustling hard can create opportunities for others—something he learned firsthand.

Other highlights from our trip to Detroit? Visiting the amazing underground offices of our Company Partner dPOP!, a walking tour of Downtown courtesy our very own Sean Jackson, and most of all, catching up with Fellows from all over the country. 

We came away from CaaS inspired, informed, and eager for next year. Keep an eye on our blog in the next few weeks for videos from the conference!

This week Jeremy sits down with Jon Stein, Founder & CEO of Betterment, an automated investing service that helps clients better manage and grow their wealth through smarter technology for a fraction of the cost of traditional financial services. Download this week’s episode to hear Jon’s journey as a Columbia Business School grad passionate about using technology to better align customers with their financial institutions and why the New York Times named Betterment one of the next “startup unicorns”.

Click here to listen

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One of the coolest things about VFA? Our Fellows work for some of the most innovative and high-growth organizations in the country. Our Company Partners vary in industry, size, and financial stage, but they all share a few common traits that we hold above all else: strong leadership, dynamic opportunities for the Fellows, and a positive, collaborative culture. In this new series, we’re giving you an inside look at who these companies are and what their talented teams are building.
This week, we chatted with Gordon Daily, CEO of BoxCast, a Cleveland-based company that makes live-streaming video simple and affordable for anyone with a camera. Working to turn the Boxcast dream into a reality alongside Gordon are Fellows Peter Spaulding ’13 and Lena Kelly ‘14. This summer at VFA Training Camp, we got our hands on our very own BoxCast (pictured above, with some enthusiastic Team members) and let us tell you—what a game changer! To learn more about Gordon and Boxcast, visit www.boxcast.com.

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Where does the BoxCast story begin?

Strangely enough, we got started in a funeral home. We were moonlighting as web developers when a funeral home director asked if we could come up with something that would make it possible for family members who couldn’t make it to participate in the services for their loved ones. This was the genesis of the idea that later evolved into BoxCast – connecting people through live video streaming. Of course, building our company didn’t happen instantly. My two co-founders (Justin Hartman and Ron Hopper) and I, as well as many other people, have worked a lot to refine the idea and our product.

How has the company evolved since your launch in May 2013?

We’re very pleased with the progress that we’ve made on the product, marketing, and staffing fronts. When we first started, we zeroed in on churches and varsity sports, and we’re pleased with the traction we’re showing there. We’ve broadcasted over 10,000 NCAA events and are actively being used by hundreds of churches.One of the big surprises in the live streaming space is that we never know what’s next for BoxCast. We’ve now streamed everything ranging from Donald Trump speeches to Nike summer basketball tournaments to the unveiling of never-seen-before alien photos at UFO conventions. Even with so much going on and all the additional promising markets, we’re still forced to face to fact that there are only 168 hours in each week. So, we’re hiring additional staff to help us grow. We recently closed our seed round funding and will soon begin working on Series A.

Venture for America was lucky enough to get our hands on a BoxCast for this past Summer’s Training Camp. It was so easy to use! How do you build and develop your product?

We’re constantly evaluating changes in technologies to ensure that we stay current with our product and meet the burning needs of our growing customer base. Since we’re headquartered in Cleveland, we get to take full advantage of Ohio’s rich industrial heritage, allowing us to find local suppliers who can meet our requirements. Speaking of Cleveland, we’ve had the great fortune of recruiting amazing advisors with top notch experience who are willing to get closely involved to our exciting startup.

You now have two Fellows, 2013er Peter Spaulding and 2014er Lena Kelly, helping you build your company. What has it been like working with them?

GD: It’s been a real pleasure, as both Peter and Lena are smart, hard-working, and committed to helping us grow. The first thing that I like most about them is that they aren’t afraid to tackle even the most ambiguous tasks. It’s a startup — everywhere you look is ambiguity. I like to say that they’ve got “street smarts”.The two of them have tackled every task we’ve thrown at them and are getting an insider’s view of what’s involved in launching and building a tech company — the good, the bad, and the ugly that goes with the territory. We don’t feel the need to pull any punches — they handle everything in stride and can be trusted.Peter has been invaluable in helping us set up our accounting system and supply chain and Lena is instrumental in helping us build our PR/marketing strategies. They’re both rock stars. Particularly noteworthy also is their willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Any advice for other VFA Company Partners?

If you’re not involved with VFA, you are missing out. Our experience has been extremely positive. My strongest suggestion is that you shouldn’t bring on Fellows unless you’re willing to take on the responsibility of assigning them top-notch advisors to ensure an awesome experience. If you provide them a fabulous experience, their efforts will return a yield in spades. For us, VFA candidates have brought a lot to the table and want to grow. Two more tidbits of advice: One, be sure to challenge your VFA folks with important assignments with real deliverables. And two, wherever you can, give them the opportunity to learn more about how decisions are made and how your company is managed. We take our obligation to continue the education of VFA Fellows seriously.

A little about your work style: what’s an app or platform that you can’t live without?

One of my favorite recent discoveries is Next Issue – it allows me receive about 150 magazines online at a reasonable price. With only so many hours in each day, this allows me to have a wealth of information at my fingertips. To be a great leader, I find that I need to constantly be feeding myself with information to challenge myself and my organization. Besides, you can’t work constantly and need to balance out life. Family/Reading/Exercise/Sleep help me make the most of those remaining hours in the week.The hottest boost for our internal communication has been the adoption of a tool called “slack” (visit slack.com). This tool has nuzzled itself into everyone’s natural workflow, replacing both internal chats and emails.

Building a startup is filled with some of the highest highs and lowest lows. What are some of the motivators and drivers that keep you going through the experience?

I’ve started to embrace what people have called an “irrational” belief in what we’re doing at BoxCast. In the early days, people thought we were crazy. Crazy isn’t the right word — it’s all about conviction that we can help connect people with some of the most memorable moments in life. Our product is simple, reliable, and affordable and it enables organizations and people around the world to connect with each other and share important moments. I’m very proud of what we’re attempting to build and am happy that we’re creating meaningful employment for talented people, and I hope, over time, returns for investors who have shown their faith in us through their financial support.

What’s the dream for BoxCast?

People can’t always attend meaningful events in person. The tragedy is that 9 out of 10 of these events still don’t live stream — even though everyone has a smartphone these days. My dream is that the ease and elegance of the BoxCast platform will connect those not in person through live video streaming.Step-by-step, our dream is becoming more of a reality every day. What I find most satisfying is building a great team focused on pushing out an outstanding product to the masses. Companies are all about people and VFA is a big part of making the people at BoxCast happen!

In this episode, Jeremy interviews Nick Taranto, Co-founder of Plated.com, a service that delivers a weekly box of fresh and seasonal ingredients, pre-portioned for the recipes you choose, so you can create great food with less effort. Nick shares his journey from the Marine Corps to Wall Street to budding entrepreneur trying to accomplish what he calls BHAG, “big hairy audacious goals”.

Click here to listen

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Welcome to another edition of Meet Team VFA! This week we’re checking in with the data-loving, bike-worshipping, low-key Instagram-famous Will Geary, our Company Partnerships Associate. Will hails from the Boston area, and spent a few years cutting his teeth at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Food52 before joining the #VFAmily, where he builds relationships with amazing Company Partners and uses data for good. Beyond his serious professional chops, Will brings a certain spirit of adventure to the team—ex: last summer, while the rest of the team headed to Training Camp in rented minivans, Will made the 183 mile trek to Providence on his trusty bicycle—and we’ve never felt more inspired to hit the road, Geary-style.

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Name: Will Geary
Position at VFA: Company Partnerships Associate
Department Name: Company Partnerships, aka CoPa
College or University: Duke University
Job before VFA: Finance & Strategy Lead at Food52

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What does your team do and why is it awesome?

The Company Partnerships team has one goal—to help VFA Fellows get great jobs! We find and partner with amazing entrepreneurs across the country so that Fellows have access to a robust pipeline of opportunities. We build strong relationships with startup founders throughout the year and get to see the impacts that our Fellows make first-hand.

What do you do?

My team takes a divide-and-conquer approach. I manage company partnerships in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Birmingham, though we all chip in to make sure we have adequate coverage in our 15 (and growing) cities. When I’m not on the road to meet with a new prospective company, I’m knee deep in data. Lately, I’ve been digging into our wealth of Fellow and company data to build predictive statistical models that will (hopefully) help us identify what attributes and environments make for a great startup employee.

What are you known for at VFA?

My unrelenting love for spreadsheets and charts. Actually, probably for riding my bike to work every day (rain or shine, thanks to Cleverhood out of Providence, RI)! [Ed. note: this is a Cleverhood in action, modeled by our own Will Geary.]

How did you come to work at VFA?

After leaving a would-be career as an investment banker to join Food52, I quickly learned that the startup life was for me! I’m inspired by those who take the path less traveled and was drawn to VFA’s community of conscious entrepreneurs.

Favorite part about your role at VFA:

Teaching Tommy Griffin how to excel in Excel.

One thing you do every day at VFA that you probably couldn’t do at another job:

Meeting awe-inspiring entrepreneurs across the country.

Favorite annual VFA event:

Other than Training Camp? I’m pumped to attend my first City as a Startup in Detroit with the rest of the team next week.

Favorite Training Camp memory:

Night strolls through India Point Park with the team.

Coolest thing you’ve done outside of work with VFA team members in the last year:

Last weekend Victor Bartash and I rode bikes down to Rockaway beach for some sun, surf and fish tacos <3

What newspapers, websites or blogs do you kick off your day with?

I usually start my day with a healthy dose of the New York Times and Instagram. [Ed. note: no seriously, check out Will’s insta.] Also, I love citylab.com.

What are you reading and/or watching right now?

Right now I’m reading The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler. It’s a hilarious/depressing look into how automobile-dependent suburbia supplanted humanistic urban design principles.

Best tip or life hack for increasing productivity during the work day:

Ride your bike to work!
 

In this week’s mouth watering episode, Jeremy chats with Kristen Tomlan, Founder & CEO of DŌ, Cookie Dough Confections, a young startup that uses the highest quality ingredients and zero preservatives to make individual batches of ready-to-eat cookie dough perfection. Download the interview to hear why cookie dough is “the new cupcake”!

Click here to listen

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Listen to the most recent episode of Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture for America Podcast, a play.it original in collaboration with CBS!

In 2011, right out of the Marine Corps, Nick Taranto took a job in private wealth management at Goldman Sachs. In less than a year, he was miserable. So Nick decided to team up with a friend from Harvard Business School, Josh, and start something of his own. After many nights of eating greasy takeout, Nick and Josh came to the conclusion that it can be prohibitively hard for a busy person to get a good meal on the table. And yet, every year, Americans waste over $300 billion in food. It seemed to them that the food supply chain was broken, and they decided to fix it using data and technology—and what they deemed BHAGs: Big Hairy Audacious Goals. After a few iterations, they came up with the idea for Plated, a service that delivers a weekly box of fresh and seasonal ingredients, pre-portioned for the recipes you choose, so you can create great food with less effort—and less waste.
In the early days, the Plated team learned a lot and failed a lot, too. From taking hundreds of conversations with potential investors that amounted to zero dollars, to spending $30k building a makeshift refrigerator in the old Guinness Factory that couldn’t cool the space more than 60 degrees, things didn’t always go smoothly. But the Plated team of two carved a path for themselves in the budding food technology space.
Now, after almost two years as a “real business,” Plated has grown over 500% and increased their team of tw0 to a team of 400, not to mention raised $57 million in VC funding. Download this week’s episode of the #VFApodcast to hear Nick’s theory on why it’s dangerous to raise too much money, and the “champagne problems” that come with high growth.

Mark grew up in Oakland, CA, and graduated in 2013 from Wesleyan University, where he earned degrees in Math and Music. Mark spent the months leading up to the VFA Fellowship out in San Francisco honing (okay—more like building from scratch) his technical skills at Hack Reactor, a coding bootcamp. He took his recently acquired talents to Detroit last week, and is already off and running at SocialProof, a company that helps companies produce personalized, impactful local advertising.
For more information on becoming a VFA Fellow, visit apply.ventureforamerica.org.
Name: Mark Bennett
School: Wesleyan University ’13
Major: Math and Music
VFA City: Detroit
VFA Company: Social Proof

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This time last year, I was constructing a plan for how I would turn myself into a software engineer. I was in New York City during my first job out of college, doing interesting work with smart people, but I had figured out fairly quickly that my long-term interests lay outside the arena of management consulting. I enjoyed the creative elements associated with tackling problems for young, small nonprofits and big, bureaucratic organizations alike. But as a math major who finds great pleasure in figuring out the quantifiably “correct answer” to a problem whenever possible, I wanted my everyday responsibilities to be rooted in a more technical skill set. Enter software engineering.
I was interested in finding the quickest way to becoming a credible engineer. I had been learning web development for the prior six months on nights and weekends, and enjoyed it immensely. But I was still an absolute beginner. After weighing a few options, I decided to do what many aspiring engineers are doing today—attend an intensive software engineering program.
Around the same time I was developing my plan to become a software engineer, I was also applying to join Venture for America. In my head, the game plan made perfect sense. I would leave my job at the end of the year, spend the spring getting trained up as an engineer, and land a gig with a VFA company as a software developer. With VFA, I’d become a member of an amazing social and professional network of driven, intelligent, and enterprising young people that would last well beyond the two-year Fellowship. With my new company, I’d get to add value to a startup in a new, exciting city while continuing to hone my technical chops.
So that’s what I did. I was lucky enough to be offered a Fellowship with VFA, and immediately accepted. A few weeks thereafter, I was accepted to Hack Reactor—a software engineering immersive program in San Francisco. In December, I left my job and New York City to move back west and kick off my new adventure.
The engineering program was everything I was hoping it would be. The schedule was life consuming and the pace was intense, and I developed skills and aptitude at an incredible rate. But more than any of the engineering or technical problems I tackled, perhaps the thing that challenged me most during the program was a question that I thought I had already answered: “Why are you doing Venture for America?”
Graduates of top software engineering programs, and of Hack Reactor in particular, get exceptional training in technical skills. As a result, they land great jobs. They join exciting startups or large, successful corporations. They earn six-figure salaries, work alongside incredibly talented and seasoned developers, and participate in the most active and engaged community of software engineers in the world. And if they are interested in starting their own business? They live and work in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area, the Mecca of the startup world.
Given all that, people didn’t understand my motivation for pursuing VFA. I was already set up for success as an engineer (and, if I was so inclined, an entrepreneur)—what more was I looking for? Why was VFA the better path?  Good questions, which I’ve struggled with, too.  And yet, I have confidence that today, my second day in Detroit, less than one week until I start my new job, I am in the right place.
In choosing VFA, I placed a bet on people. The prospect of working for a small company with people I liked and admired, and participating in a broader community of Fellows, were the biggest reasons I chose the program. This, I realize, is what made it so challenging to communicate my motivation for choosing the Fellowship six months ago – I hadn’t met my class of Fellows or my new coworkers.
Over the last several months, I accepted an offer to join SocialProof as a software developer, in large part based on the people. I spent five weeks bonding with my “fellow Fellows” at Training Camp, being consistently amazed by the talented and passionate group I had joined. Silicon Valley, with all its startups, engineering talent, and sunshine, isn’t going anywhere. Today, I could not be more excited to be in Detroit.
 

A version of this article was originally published on http://techonomy.com/
W e are in a golden age of entrepreneurship. Young people are starting businesses in record numbers. Our culture is embracing risk-taking and innovation at the educational level and it’s paying off.
Actually, none of this is true.
A recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “Endangered Species: Young U.S. Entrepreneurs” laid out the facts. Only 3.6% of households headed by adults younger than 30 owned stakes in private companies in 2013, a 24-year low. This figure was 10.6% in 1989 and 6.1% in 2010–a dramatic decline. Similarly, the proportion of people ages 20 to 34 who started a business in 2013 dropped to its lowest level in at least 17 years, according to the Kauffman Foundation, a big proponent of entrepreneurship.
The decline in entrepreneurship among young people is part of an overall decline in new business formation. The U.S. startup rate – the ratio of new firms to all firms – fell by nearly half between 1978 and 2011. The number of newly-founded firms shrank from 562,000 in 2006 to only 400,000 in 2010 and 2011 and has stayed there since. Reduced business dynamism was cited by the Fed last year as one of the big headwinds our economy faces.
So not only is this anything but a golden age of entrepreneurship, the trends among our young people are even more troubling. Even as we are bombarded with prominent images of young people starting tech companies, the facts tell a very different story. As McKinsey put it, “What’s particularly disturbing is that the greatest decline in entrepreneurial activity [from 2007 – 2012] occurred in the 18-24 year-old cohort . . . The shortage of young business founders means that the U.S. economy is currently not producing enough of its next generation of serial entrepreneurs.”
Why are fewer young people starting businesses? Some possible reasons:

• Financial weakness. The financial crisis hit young people and recent graduates particularly hard – the average net worth of households under 30 has fallen 48% from 2007 to 2014 to $44,354. If you have less capital to risk, starting a business is less appealing.

• Higher levels of indebtedness. In 2013, the 69 percent of college grads with student loan debt graduated with an average debt load of $28,400, much higher than in the past.

• Consolidation. Industries of all kinds have been consolidating – from mass retailers and restaurant chains to community banks and construction companies. So now instead of competing with other mom and pop businesses, entrepreneurs frequently compete with large firms that have national brands and the cost advantages that come with scale. That may be deterring the creation of new firms.

• Technology. People generally think of technology simply as a spur to start new businesses. But the Internet has also made it possible for more businesses to compete for any given opportunity. Back in the day, you could start a business that catered to local customers and it didn’t need to be world-class – now you’ve got to be better than the best online option.

• Higher fear of failure. In one survey, 41% of 25 to 34-year old Americans who saw an opportunity to start a business said fear of failure would keep them from doing so in 2014, up from only 24% in 2001.

A lot has been written about the attributes and attitudes of millennials in the workplace – how they like to learn, crave more connectedness, disdain hierarchy, and care about making a positive impact on their community. You’d hope that the desire to be passionate about their work and have independence would lead to higher levels of entrepreneurship for the upcoming generation. Instead, the facts show lower appetite for risk and a paralyzing fear of failure.
Stillborn businesses today mean fewer jobs tomorrow. Fewer companies mean fewer opportunities for people who need them. A slow-motion economic trainwreck is playing out in front of our eyes, with downstream effects for decades to come.
The spirit of enterprise appears to be fading in the U.S. The pioneer spirit made our country strong for so long: “Build it and they will come;” “Can-do;” “Bring it on!” It all combined with world-class competitiveness and a potent work ethic. If we lose this we’ll lose everything.
At Venture for America we’ve worked with hundreds of aspiring young entrepreneurs who want to build businesses and change things for the better. Over the past several years, 3,000+ college grads have applied to join Venture for America – we selected 300 who then spent up to 2 years working with existing companies.
Here are some things we’ve learned that can make entrepreneurship a more viable path:

• Mentorship. Our Fellows spend time working with a more experienced entrepreneur to learn the ins and outs of building a business. In most every business, you learn by doing. The apprenticeship model is much more effective than the classroom for cultivating entrepreneurs.

• Lower costs. Our Fellows relocate to help build businesses in cities with low costs of living. It’s easier to take a risk and stretch resources in Detroit or Baltimore where you’re paying $500 – 600 a month in rent than in New York or San Francisco.

• Help with loans. Our donors and supporters help defray student loans for young people that start a business. That helps clear the path for them to take the challenge.

• Access to technology. Every entrepreneur doesn’t need to be technical – there are plenty of opportunities out there for people who aren’t coders. That said, we provide training to help them become more tech-proficient and technology-savvy, and our entrepreneurs often work with technical people as co-founders.

• Community and network. Entrepreneurship can be very lonely, so we create a community of Fellows who can rely upon each other for advice and guidance. We also have mentors and advisors for first-time entrepreneurs.

• Investment and resources. We put money to work and also enlist outside investors. Our companies have raised $6 for every $1 our organization has invested directly.

Over 25% of our alums have gone on to start a company after 2 years (at an average age of 25), with an additional 50% remaining engaged in entrepreneurship as a manager or early employee.
If we want young people to start businesses, we need to put resources in place to help more of them surmount the obstacles.
Our young people aren’t starting many businesses. It’s up to us to figure out why this is and change it as fast as we can.
Venture For America is proud to partner with Techonomy; our annual City as a Startup conference will immediately follow this year’s Techonomy Detroit.