Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Brandon Brooks (@OfficialBBrooks), tech entrepreneur, founder & founding partner at Overlooked Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on transparently supporting and investing in early-stage tech and tech-enabled startups with one or more historically ignored founder that are building for humanity, wellness, and in industries lacking innovation.
Brandon has partnered with organizations such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Players Coalition on various social justice initiatives. With his experience as a bootstrapped tech founder, he looks to share his experiences and insights with other overlooked founders so their startups can excel. Keep an eye out for Brandon’s next project, to be announced in 2023!
Website: https://www.overlookedventures.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/inventrify/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OfficialBBrooks
Show Notes:
0:00 How Brandon is serving founders in the ecosystem through Inventrify, the first black-owned crowdfunding platform in U.S. and Overlooked Ventures, which he founded with Janine Sickmeyer
1:50 Why Brandon feels a responsibility to solve the problems he’s tackling
4:33 How Brandon’s community approach to venture stems from his upbringing
6:38 The early days of launching Overlooked Ventures
9:30 The role audio spaces played in enabling Brandon to build a network and being a very early Clubhouse user
12:22 Developing the thesis for Overlooked Ventures and discovering their value-add as investors
14:38 Making the democratization of VC a reality by intentionally not taking warm intros
16:41 How Brandon found direction for his next project and how he stays true to his vision and beliefs
20:01 How to handle difficult conversations
22:48 How Brandon is approaching things differently as he builds his newest venture
26:13 Where to connect with Brandon
More about the show:
The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 400+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.
Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series.
The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.
The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.
More about us:
VITALIZE Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. VITALIZE has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The VITALIZE Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212
Larissa - https://twitter.com/LarissaInsogna
Vick - https://twitter.com/vahram_sf
VITALIZE Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalizeangels.com/
