V1 x YC is almost here: this Wednesday @ 7 PM!
Including upcoming events with the CTO of Loom and the CEO of Duo Security!
A few quick announcements
Just in time for the big Y Combinator event this Wednesday, V1 got a brand new look!
Over the coming weeks, we're going to be adding more to our new website to give prospective members a better idea of what V1 is. If you have any feedback on our website or want to help build it 👀, be sure to let us know!
And in case you're not sick of me asking for feedback, I have another request for all you readers.
We've been writing these newsletters for a few weeks now and are reflecting on what's been going well and the parts we could improve on as we look to step up our content efforts.
If you have any thoughts on the content of our newsletter, the structure, or tone of it (the good AND the bad), please reply to this email!
Upcoming V1 Events
These next few weeks are PACKED with events featuring AMAZING fireside speakers. And what better way to kick it off than with Y Combinator's President, Geoff Ralston this Wednesday at 7 pm EST!
tbh, you've probably already heard about this event from everyone on campus, BUT here's another reminder to REGISTER NOW for the V1 x YC event because you won't want to miss it! 400+ of your peers have already signed up! Sign up now so that you're not the only one in the group chat who missed out on this incredible talk.
Just as a quick refresher:
Y Combinator's President, Geoff Ralson, and Reshma Khilnani will be joining us for our weekly fireside chat on Wednesday, February 17th @ 9PM EST!! 🚀 From Airbnb, Instacart, and Reddit, YC has helped scale simple ideas to multi-billion dollar companies.
The best part? Geoff and Reshma will be talking to Michigan students about common startup myths, the 'behind the scenes' view of running a startup and much more!
Next Tuesday, February 23rd at 8 pm, Vinay Hiremath, the CTO of Loom (one of the fastest-growing startups in the US) is joining up for a fireside chat! Vinay has previously been named to Forbes 30 under 30 and has worked at two startups, before co-founding Loom. Drop by to hear him share valuable lessons from his young, but impressive career!
On Thursday, February 25th at 7 pm we have Dug Song from Ann Arbor's very own Duo Security joining us! If you want to know the man behind all those Duo Push Notifications when logging into Wolverine Access, this is the fireside chat to come to! More details on this in next week's calendar.
Add our calendar here to get all the latest updates about the event.
V1 Michigan Recap (Feb 7th - Feb 13th): If you couldn’t make it to last week’s events you’re in luck because we’ve summed them up below!
Last Tuesday, a few of our favorite Michigan alums joined V1 for our Fireside Chat 😊 Wellnest CEO Tommy Searle and CMO Mars Hovasse talked all about their time as undergraduate entrepreneurs at U-M, ideation, and their fundraising journey, and their most embarrassing startup moments ðŸ¤
Member spotlight — Abdullah:
Abdullah, a freshman studying Computer Science, has taken the initiative to compile notes for each of our fireside speaker's talks to make sure that we capture all the best moments and can share them with the broader community! You can check out all his previous compilations here!
Shoutout to Abdullah for taking up this enormous task! If you've enjoyed his notes, make sure to show him some love 💓
Opportunities:
Our very own V1 member, Michael Sikand, founder of Our Future, is looking to hire writers to cover the craziest student companies and stories across the country. See what Michael had to say about the opportunity, below:
"Anyone love writing about student startups? We're expanding Our Future's team of writers to cover the craziest student companies / stories across the country. We're on that Forbes for Gen Z wave! Or if you run a startup with serious traction we'd also love to amplify you! Email me at michael@ourfuturehq.com (or msikand@umich.edu) if you want to pitch your company to be covered by our team or want to join our staff. Here's a sample piece. of our writing."
If you have some free time this semester and are looking to get your feet wet in the startup world, Menon Labs has opened applications for their Spring 2021 cohort.
Fellows join global, interdisciplinary teams and gain relevant skills by building working products alongside their Menon Labs' start-up partners! Applications are open till February 28th!
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!