🤫 Issue #106: A Secret To Elevating Your Brand
Glowforge CEO Dan Shapiro shares advice on discovering your unique advantage and how you can leverage that to elevate your brand and standout from the competition.
💬 Welcome to issue #106 of Between the Lines
Good morning & happy Thursday. If you’re an experienced engineer looking for your next big role, make sure to check out some very exciting job opportunities at two of our portfolio companies below…
This week, Claremont entrepreneur Dan Shapiro talks about his first big entrepreneurial experience, the lessons learned from running some of the largest crowdfunding campaigns in history, uncovering and leveraging your unfair advantages, and why there's no such thing as shortcuts in business. It’s a Claremont world out there. 👇
~ Josh, Miles, Pat
👤 Community Spotlight: Dan Shapiro - Win with Your Unfair Advantage
Claremont graduate Dan Shapiro (HMC ‘97) is a tech entrepreneur and the co-founder & CEO of Glowforge. Prior to that, he played a pivotal role in starting and leading Ontela as its CEO before it merged with Photobucket. He then took on the role of CEO for Google Comparison, a Google subsidiary providing comparison shopping for personal finance products. While at Google, Dan also decided to launch Robot Turtles – a board game designed to teach kids the fundamentals of programming. This quickly made history by becoming the best-selling board game on Kickstarter.
In 2014, Dan left Google and co-founded Glowforge, a 3D printer company that achieved iconic status through the world's largest crowdfunding campaign, raising over $27 million in pre-orders in 30 days. Today, Glowforge stands as one of the most popular creative technologies found in homes, classrooms, and businesses worldwide.
Dan sat down with Pat Flynn on the Smart Passive Income podcast to chat about his first big entrepreneurial experience, lessons from running some of the largest crowdfunding campaigns in history, uncovering and leveraging your unfair advantages, and why there's no such thing as shortcuts in business.
Win With Your Unfair Advantage
What is the desire for you to do what you do?
I've always been a tinkerer out in the garage, you know, taking things apart and failing to put them back together. I wasn't a very good tinkerer, but I was always trying and always, always patching things together.
And when I was in college, I wound up helping pay for school by building laser shows, like, you know, Pink Floyd, The Wall at the planetarium type laser shows, little ones and selling them on the early internet, which turned into a DJing business. But it actually started just because I liked building these things and people sort of saw it and were like, Oh, can we buy your laser shows?
Can we hire you to do a laser show where you play some music while you're doing that at our party, which is probably my first sort of big entrepreneurial experience. And, you know, even when I went into software, although my real first love was building physical things, I kind of got sucked into the world of software.
The thing that was magical about it was I could leave an imprint on the world. I actually do things and make things that impacted me and the people around me. And that was so gratifying. So if I look through sort of the arc of my life, so many of the opportunities that I've had have come because I knew how to make things because I had that set of skills and, and I'd say the second half of my professional career has been all about figuring out how to give that gift to others…..
What motivated you during those rough times? What kept you going?
Delusion. Delusion. I kept thinking, yes. I was like, this is going to be easy. This is going to be totally achievable with hard work. This is not random. This is like, like if I just follow the steps, if I just do the things everybody says, I'm sure it'll work out. It's a good idea. I've got a good team. Like, surely it'll all work out.
And, you know, after nine months, the delusion was starting to waver and I was starting to lose faith and, you know, had that gone another three months, I might have given up and thrown in the towel.
I mean, you know, it's like trying to make it in Hollywood. You kind of have to be a little ignorant to the odds or you have to be so absolutely motivated that understanding the odds doesn't dissuade you. Because if you actually look at like, you know, our country produces venture backed companies less frequently than it produces Olympians.
That's crazy. If you were betting on the odds of becoming an Olympian versus a venture backed CEO, you're better off trying to get into the Olympics. That is a wild stat. Right? I mean, like it doesn't happen that much. So if that's your dream, it either has to be because you're a dreamer and you don't know the reality could measure that or because you're so pigheaded that you're going to do it even though you're probably going to fail…..
Listen to the full episode to learn how Dan was able to leverage his own unique advantage and run some of the largest crowdfunding campaigns ever.👇
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: Cuy Sheffield, Head of Crypto for Visa
Claremont graduate Cuy Sheffield (PO ‘13) is the Vice President & Head of Crypto at Visa and a well-known leader in cryptocurrency. During his last year at Pomona, Cuy co-founded the student-run accelerator Pomona Ventures with the goal of encouraging entrepreneurship on the Pomona College campus. After completing his sociology degree, he then joined Yub, Inc. as a Strategic Partnerships Associate before settling in at the business development section of TrialPay in 2014. Visa later acquired the company in April of the following year, transitioning him into a merchant partnerships role. It was in 2019 when Cuy was selected to help lead Visa into the world of cryptocurrencies as the group’s new head of crypto.
Cuy was recognized in Coindesk’s Most Influential 2023 list. In a recent interview with Coindesk, he discusses his biggest achievement this past year, his number one goal for 2024, and his prediction for crypto next year. 👇
💼 Who’s Hiring?: Terra AI & Rise
StoryHouse portfolio company Terra AI is on a mission to provide the premier AI platform for the development of critical natural resources. They're leveraging AI modeling, reasoning, and optimization to enhance the performance, predictability, and safety of reservoir, wind, and mineral development projects. Claremont grad Anthony Corso (HMC '14) and John Mern (who previously worked for the unicorn startup KoBold Metals, founded by CMC grad Kurt House) are the co-founders of Terra, and they are looking for a talented Senior Software Engineer to lead the development of their core web application product. If you're interested in learning more or know someone who'd be a great fit for this role, shoot us a message.
Senior Software Engineer (Hybrid) - Startup experience is a plus
Machine Learning Engineer (Hybrid) - Ideally, someone with a background in building image-generation models such as Dall-E, Adobe Firefly, etc.
Claremont serial entrepreneur Daniel Ross (PO ‘11) is the previous co-founder of mental healthcare unicorn Headway. He is also now the co-founder of StoryHouse portfolio company Rise – a teen mental health system that offers help to teens and families early in their mental health journey. Rise distributes care in partnership with school counselors, helping kids who need more help than they can get at school. Dan is building the company together with his Headway co-founder Jake Sussman, and they are backed by leaders from the world of both health care and technology, including Khosla and Town Hall Ventures. They are looking for a Founding Engineer to join their team in this new journey. If you’re interested in the role, message us directly.
Founding Engineer - 5+ years of experience at an early-stage and high-growth startup preferred
Check out the other ~5,000 open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 1,000+ remote jobs, 100+ internships, or 40+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s top read 🔥
Claremont serial entrepreneur Sunil Rajaraman (CMC ‘01) recently shared his guide to navigating the AI landscape. This article is Part 1 of a series he is currently writing for Forbes, covering the basics of AI. Sunil is the founder of StoryHouse portfolio company Hamlet – a technology company using artificial intelligence to make public information easy to understand.
This week’s top listen 🎧
Claremont grad Tristan Zajon (PO ‘03) is the co-founder and CEO of Continual — the leading developer platform for generative AI applications. He sat down with Prateek Joshi on the Infinite Machine Learning podcast to chat about the future of AI. During their discussion, Tristan discussed the ever-evolving role of AI as a gateway to our world and the tech stack of the future.
Claremont alum Leah Wald (PZ ‘12) delved into her multifaceted role as the leader of an alternative asset management firm. She also shared insights into both the technical and interpersonal responsibilities of her position. Leah is CEO and co-founder of Valkyrie Investments – a top-tier financial services firm that bridges the gap between traditional finance and the rapidly evolving digital asset industry.
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🍽️ BTL Snacks:
🥇 It’s A Claremont World Out There….. The Wall Street Journal just released their latest College Pulse ranking, and CMC was named the No. 1 liberal arts college in the western US, with Pomona College closely following in second. CMC was also ranked No. 9 among all colleges in the country. We’re proud to be part of such an impressive community…and so many others agree.
🏗️ Get Big By Starting Small….. When we think about big companies like Apple and Amazon today, it's hard to believe they began in ordinary garages. Claremont grad and best-selling author Steve Strauss (CGU ‘83) recently wrote an article for Inc. Magazine on the journey of some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. Steve talks about the success stories of the largest companies today and shares his insights on why starting small is the path to real success.
🌍 The Unvarnished Truth of Our Climate Crisis….. Claremont grad and business leader Keesup Choe (PO ‘83) discussed some key points from the recent 2023 Emissions Gap Report and why this serves as a jarring wake-up call. He also highlighted the disproportionate emissions from wealthy nations, historical emission disparities, and the minimal progress made since the Paris Agreement. Keesup is the CEO of PredictX - an AI platform focused on data science and augmented decision-making.
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