💥 join us this thurs + we're back with jobs💥
a workshop on social media app growth, a call for tech partners, and welcoming our community co's 💻
💼 welcome from headquarters (HQ)
It’s back to school season 🎒 We’ll save you the **Join our club!!** posts you’ll see across campus, but prepare for our recruitment for investment partners email in Sept.
🥳 first thing… join us for a community event this thurs!
How To Scale Social Media Apps: Growing a 90K+ Waitlist with Faves
Thursday 8/19 from 7:30-8:30pm ET; Open to All
Join us at this Thursday’s workshop with Faves, a viral DRF community company that connects friends over content curation and link sharing! Founded by Tyler Maloney-Confrey, Faves has impressively amassed a waitlist of 95K to date and counts Marissa Mayer, VCs at Sequoia and Lightspeed, and the Heads of Product at social media giants among its early adopters.
Join Faves’ Founder and Community Lead and DRF’s Community HQ in learning about growing a mobile app, tapping into superusers, and attracting an enviable early adopter group. REGISTER HERE.
📖 what we’re reading in our dorm
😎 Emoji identities: Yat lets you buy a URL with emojis in it. The team’s first single emoji 🔑 sold for $425,000 in an auction. The emoji thread lamb and a bikini (“Lamborghini”) went for $60,000. Kesha has one too. If DRF had a Yat, we would be 💸👀🦄.
🤖 Kiwibot’s tiny robots deliver fresh food on college campuses.
📎 The Wall Street Journal reported that Silicon Valley’s approach to work-from-anywhere has made hiring in small towns more difficult.
⏫ Robinhood IPO’d at $38 per share, but prices dropped 12% before rebounding. The no-fee trading app works in a competitive space – think Coinbase and TD Ameritrade –and faces regulatory looks from the government.
🌴 TechCrunch reported that climate change startup 44.01, which turns carbon dioxide into stone, raised $5 million. 44.01 = the molecular weight of carbon dioxide.
💟 new friends to the DRF family (Jan - March 2020)
In our newsletter, we’ll introduce our newest companies since last year.
Wunderite streamlines the process of applying and renewing business insurance.
Sleek saves customers the headache of standing in long lines.
Kaoshi leverages enables African banks to service the African diaspora.
Glisten (Allparel) enhances clothing product data for better search and analytics.
Highlight allows brands to trade products for feedback.
Flyby (Kiki Airlift) builds delivery infrastructure for teleoperated drones.
The Rounds: Zero waste refills of sustainable staples.
Bizwise makes it easy for anyone to own their own services business online.
Oycose partners with multi-family properties for fast renting.
BeamBar is a Drybar for teeth whitening.
Expedock eliminates the pre-shipment work for medium freight forwarders.
Watershed Informatics Inc. democratizes bioinformatics.
Faves is an app connecting people over content, dedicated to the social experience of link sharing and curation. TLDR; we’ve got a growth workshop with them this Thurs - register here.
a call for tech partners!
If you are building a product for businesses that might be a good fit for our community companies’ needs (or a product for students that our community can trial), we’d love to have a conversation about partnership! Drop melissa@dormroomfund.com, our Community HQ, a line.
😄 venture side of things
👀 my path to DRF … an ongoing series📍
Vincent Ponzo, our startup partner at Amazon
Ansh Nanda, DRF head of operations
talking to cool DRF folks 📣
Meet cool people through our summer team, Female Investor Track, Female Founder Track, PRISM, Blueprint, and Ph.D. Founder Track.
Arjan Guglani on LGBTQ+ identity and his DRF in Michigan
Jarrod Barnes and Chris Quaidoo on leading the Blueprint Investor Track
Ivan Zhao on the launch of PRISM Investor Track
Adrian Hackney on LGBTQ+ representation, fashion
Raaghav Goel: Coming out in India
Shub Gaur on representing DRF from Los Angeles
Jasmyn Howell: pivoting from consulting to VC
What Alec Zorrilla learned from going vegan as a football player
Sreya Parakala on consulting vs. VC
Schwarzman Scholar Austin Mejia on LGBTQ+ communities
How marketing and travels in Egypt inform Kerdany’s VC experience
⭐ getting social at DRF
for the nerd (or not): our summer book recommendations, Wall Street Journal’s VC Daily Newsletter, Elizabeth Yin’s blog at Hustle Fund
Slack away: Bunch of Founders, MBA Slack, BLCK VC, and VC Intern Collective
💻 we love jobs!
💡 community company jobs
From our community companies shaking things up 🚀
Check out careers at Mati, a digital reputation API that turns anonymous strangers into trustworthy users. Growing fast and hiring for roles across marketing, product, sales, engineering and operations!
Fractal, building the world's fastest web browser: engineers + interns (Full-time ideal or fixed-term, remote, NYC)
HYP, social bidding platform for exclusive releases: founding lead engineer (NYC preferred, remote)
GameFi, gaming platform to help people save money: Head of Engineering & Head of Product Design (SF)
Primer, building a new kind of education company for ambitious kids: educational experience designer (contract or full-time, SF)
Remnote, workspace for organizing thoughts: Biz Ops, Engineering (Frontend + Backend), UI/UX, and Design (Berlin, Cambridge MA, Remote)
Culdesac, post-car real estate developer: biz ops, data interns (Temp, AZ, part-time or full-time)
Twentyeight Health, women’s health startup: Full Stack Engineer (Ruby on Rails) and Partnerships Manager (remote, NY)
Expedock, reinventing global shipping and supply chains: engineers (Remote)
Ash Wellness, remote diagnostics testing company: multiple roles in operations, business, engineer (Remote, NY)
No-code internship, no-code software to build products: engineering (Remote, part-time)
PatchRx, improving prescription usage: engineering and sales (remote)
FairStreet, empowering the elderly to make health insurance choices: founding engineering (SF-based, open to all locations)
📋 VC jobs
From our friends in the industry
Northzone, early stage VC fund: venture capital associate (London, NY, full time)
VC platform, connects VC professionals: intern (Remote)
MBX Capital, invests in health: VC associate (email team@mbxcapital.com, NY)
Ardent Venture Partners, invests in tech that transforms work: associate, senior associate (email jobs@ardent.vc, Washington, DC)
Axon Capital, investments + equity securities: analysts (email Kori Estrada at kestrada@axoncap.com)
Cleo Capital, fund focused on the future of income, complicated consumer, and decentralized enterprise: operations lead (San Francisco)
Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania: VC analysts, associate (full time)
Bessemer Venture Partners: full-time and summer analysts to join their investment team in 2022 (New York, rolling applications)
📌 If you want to send job suggestions, email jobs@dormroomfund.com.
📚 crash course
VC is hard. That’s why we’ll break down lessons. Up first: fundraising rounds.
Seed stage: Here, we plant the seed, except it’s super expensive. Rounds range from $1-3 million. Founders show that they can do things (traction) but they need $$ to build a product and find customers other than mom and dad.
Series A: Time to ramp up that development for an A+ grade. Rounds range from $3-10 million. People think it’s cool enough that founders have found a “product-market fit.” Now they want to party it up and scale their users. More customers = more $$.
Series B: Maybe you don’t want that B on your transcript, but you would love $5-25 million. Here you’ve shown revenue, large market share and repeatable growth. You scale your internal team and want to be an emperor by achieving market domination.
Series C: We constantly hear that C’s get degrees in college. That holds true in VC, except you’re extra cool. Take that C and tell people you’ve won $10-100 million. You’re ready for some large scale expansion.
After … The wheels on the bus go round and round. After series C comes D, then E, and so on. In between each series, you’ll pause for 18-24 months, get some gas, then rev up the engine to find new friends and sell cool things.
😂 Meme 😂
By the DRF team
Email us at info@dormroomfund.com and get updates on our Twitter and website. Apply here to be considered for an investment. For newsletter feedback, email annewen@dormroomfund.com. To update your community company status, email melissa@dormroomfund.com. See you soon! 🚀