Fireside chats with Dug Song, co-founder of DUO Security and Vinay Hiremath, CTO of Loom — THIS WEEK!
Plus V1 presents SHE BUILDS, a month long makeathon for those who identify as female or non-binary!
Happy Monday and welcome to all our newest subscribers! Buckle up 🚀 because this week's newsletter has a few new announcements + exciting opps that you'll want to read all the way to the end for!
Last week's YC event was a MASSIVE success - thank you to everyone who attended and a huge shoutout to all the new V1 members who joined following the YC talk!
The V1 community launched just earlier this year to empower Michigan builders and while we're already 300+ strong, we know there are so many more Wolverines that we can reach 🤗
In that spirit and in honor of Women's History Month coming up, V1 is launching a new month-long makeathon called SHE BUILDS! 👩💻
Do you identify as female or non-binary? Have you always wanted to build your own side project? Do you want to get to know other women in entrepreneurship? Or maybe you didn't like the "bro-y" culture of hackathons. Maybe you've always had an idea but weren't sure where to get started or who to team up with.
If you agreed with any of the above statements, then SHE BUILDS is for you!
Over 4 weeks, you'll get to team up with fellow female student builders, create a V1 (get it? 😜) of your idea, and pitch it to a panel of judges! Along the way, we'll have weekly check-ins + office hours with mentors to make sure everyone feels supported!
The best part? We'll host fun social events for everyone to get to know each other + fireside chats with speakers who'll talk about all the ups and downs of being a female founder!
and stay tuned for more details coming next week!
New Community Initiative: Startup and Project Directory
We've been saying this for a while but the Michigan entrepreneurship scene is BIG and it's hard to keep track of all the student startups and projects being created!
That's why V1 Member, Chris Okumura launched the Startup Directory. This will be the central place where anyone can go to learn about ALL the student run startups on campus! Check it out here!
It'll have everything from what the startup does to the industry they're in, who the founders are, if they're hiring for any roles, and much more!
If you're working on a startup and you're currently not in the directory, send a message in the #drops channel with all relevant info to be added! If you run into any issues, let Chris know!
*The Startup Directory is located in the V1 Vault, which will act as our central hub for all V1 related content and resources. If you have any ideas for the Vault, or want to help build it out, reach out!
Upcoming V1 Events: We've got two in one week!
Get excited for our fireside chat this Tuesday, February 23rd @ 8 pm with Vinay Hiremath, the CTO of Loom, a video messaging app for work. From appearing on Forbes 30 under 30 and starting one of the fastest growing start-ups, Vinay's accomplished quite a lot in his still very young career. He'll be here to talk about the tips, tricks, and resources, he used to build a career, starting at the SAME as age as you!
And on Thursday February 25th @ 7 pm Dug Song, our very own 〽️ Wolverine , co-founder of Duo Security will be joining us! Dug's the mastermind behind Duo Push Notifications which protect all our Michigan accounts (and sometimes annoy us 😳). Make sure to come by to ask Dug all your questions about his experience with Michigan Engineering, his views on cybersecurity and more!
Add our calendar here to get all the latest updates about the events.
V1 Michigan Recap (Feb 14th - Feb 20th)
If you couldn’t make it to last week’s events you’re in luck because we’ve summed them up below!
Last week, we hosted our biggest event yet with Y Combinator's President, Geoff Ralston and YC alum, Reshma Khilnani! 🚀 If you weren't able to make it to event, make sure to check out the recording!
Last Monday, V1 member Matt Lichtinger lead discussions over his app, Slide! Slide is a social and professional app that allows for instant sharing of phone numbers, social media, and more. You can download the app here and if you have any thoughts on his app, feel free to reach out to Matt!
Member spotlight — Ellie Day
Meet the woman behind V1's marketing success! Ellie creates all our of AMAZING posters (peep the SHE BUILDS one above). For all the OG V1 members, you'll recognize her work in the Alex Lieberman poster + the YC poster!
Ellie also led our entire onboarding initiative to welcome new V1 members and get them all caught up on V1's inner workings!
On top of all that, as a Biology, Health, and Society major and someone who stumbled into entrepreneurship she brings a much needed perspective to our team meetings!
V1 definitely would not be where it is without Ellie! Show her some love in the Discord ❤️
Beneath the hype: WTF are NFT's?
We're starting a new mini-section in our newsletter breaking down common tech trends into a quick explanation! First up, is NFT's!
We're only two months into 2021, but it's looking like it's going to be blockchain's year! Bitcoin often gets all the attention but in recent weeks, NFT's have been all the hype!
But what are they? NFT's stand for non fungible token's or in layman terms digital assets that represent unique items. For a better analogy, here's David's thread!
Okay..but why is this cool?
We can create scarcity online and this means we can change the way we value digital products! Consider digital art. Right now, it's hard for a digital artist to monetize their creations because it can be duplicated and spread for no cost. But imagine the digital art as an NFT. Since it can't be duplicated and shared among many, people have to 'trade' for that piece of art, driving up its value.
NFT's are still VERY new and the opportunities it can unlock are unknown to most, but if you're interested, here are a few links for you to read more!
https://www.coindesk.com/what-are-nfts
and if you want to see an example of an NFT in action, check out Cryptokitties!
Opportunities
Seeking Brand Designer for Student Healthcare Startup: Two MBA students are looking for a designer to provide assistance in developing their go to market materials for a healthcare startup targeted towards students/Gen Z. The design work will be compensated. Specifically, they are looking for design support in:
Creating their logo
Designing go-to-market materials (they will create content, you will help us make it look nice!)
Developing an overall aesthetic for marketing materials (e.g. specifically branded fonts, colors, stock images, etc)
If you are interested in learning more, please feel free to reach out to Kasha Scott at kashas@umich.edu
Events
Student Venture Showcase: The CFE is putting together a Student Venture Showcase on March 5th from 4 to 5:30 PM! Check out this entrepreneurial meetup where 13 student ventures will be presenting their ideas and answering questions! If you want to get to know what student founders are building or want to join a team, make sure to attend! RSVP here.
That’s all for today’s newsletter but if you have any specific requests of what you’d like to see in future editions, any ideas for the V1 Community, want to contribute to the newsletter, or any thoughts at all please reach out to us via email or DM us on Twitter!
And if you’ve read all this and still aren’t in the Discord community, what’s holding you back? Join here!