![]() ![]() Teaching those skills turned out to be an effective way of getting employees out of their comfort zone and building morale. It's like one of those old Road Runner cartoons: you run off the cliff but keep moving your feet. You have to learn to start talking without stopping, and without knowing where you're going to go next. The trick to freestyling is to get comfortable with uncertainty. We worked with Quicken Loans, teaching new hires how to freestyle. It wasn't what we initially expected, but one of the ways Rapt made money was in employee onboarding. Crain's Spitting bars with Quicken Loans That was the biggest challenge we faced: creating a usable, low-latency product that was fun for consumers to use.īringing the bars with Rapt. Back then, the tech wasn't well-built out. I enrolled in a Startup Weekend hackathon, pulled an MVP together, and raised money on the spot. This was the same time Chatroulette was popping off - I envisioned a similar product with a different focus. I thought there should be a streaming service that matched rappers and let an audience watch. I wanted to get better at freestyling but didn't have people to rap with. ![]() I thought it was almost a secret way to grow my confidence. I had this feeling that if I could freestyle, I could do anything: speak in front of a crowd, get on a sales call, pitch. I watched them and thought, man, how cool would it be if I could do that? I remember meeting some friends in Detroit that were amazing freestylers. It was in college in Ann Arbor that I started to get into rap. In the mornings, I'll wake up, look at it, and ask myself, how can I earn my way today? Freestyling It's followed me to every house I've lived in since. ![]() I went home and wrote those words on a piece of loose-leaf paper, stuck it up on my wall. I remember one of the mantras he told us: Earn your way, every day. What I liked about him was that he grinded, you know? He started his career in the video room and worked his way into a position that, on paper, he had no business being in.Īs a kid, he came and spoke to my basketball camp. I had a lot of admiration for Lawrence Frank growing up, the coach of the New Jersey Nets. Seeing them do that was formative: it instilled a sense of agency in me, the belief that we're in charge of our destiny, and that we can learn new skills and pursue our dream projects. They ran Microedge for 15 years together and then decided that their true passion was biking and bought a bike shop. It was only five years later that they fell in love and got married. It was called Microedge and was designed to help charities manage donations. They met at Brooklyn Polytech, became friends, and then started a software company. My father is from Israel, and my mother is from Colombia. Last month, the two of us sat down to talk about his love of rap, learning from Ryan Hoover, the network thinking that defines On Deck and Village Global, and a few investments he missed. He is someone unafraid to work hard, to take swings, to hustle, but does so in a way that makes you think he barely sweats. It's perhaps why when I think of Erik - a tech mainstay that moonlights as a freestyle rapper - two words come to mind: hustle and flow. He's one of the hardest-working people in tech, and yet when I spoke with him, I was struck by how low-key he is, how relaxed. Often in this newsletter, I write about venture capitalists, creators, and founders: Erik is all of those things, rolled into one. When you think of him, what comes to mind first? His investments with Village Global? His time as an operator at Product Hunt? The Venture Stories podcast he hosts? Or the digital university he founded, On Deck? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |