Happy Friday! Woohoo

Welcome to the latest edition of unistart, where we feature the hottest early-stage startups, job opportunities, and valuable resources, all in one newsletter.

Let’s dive right into what’s on 🔥 right now~

Table of Contents

1. What founders from Stanford are building

2. NEW hand-picked jobs at fast growing startups

3. Unistart’s Top 50 Founders List - Part 1-3

4. Try out the unistart investor outreach tool

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building - Stanford Edition 🌲

Stanford University has been a dominant force in the U.S. and worldwide startup ecosystem having produced thousands of founder talent over the years, including the founders of Google, HP, and PayPal . Here are three of the most exciting Stanford-founded startups today!

Remix

What? - World’s first “Teleporter” device with spatial call technology.

Why? - Feel limited by your phone and video calls? Remix’s Teleporter device enables users to share full physical environments in real time for more immersive and productive communication. The Teleporter also acts as a Bluetooth speaker and wifi modem with ambient AI.

Bonus - Founders Brandon, Kaleb, and Samuel were part of the 1% of founders selected to the inaugural class of Techstars San Diego in 2023.

• 📍Industries: IoT, Communication

• 🚀 Stage: Pre-Seed

• 😎 Founders: Brandon Yowakim (Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo), Kaleb B. T. (Stanford University), Samuel Gerber (San Jose State University)

Nox

What? - An AI-powered concierge platform that proactively takes care of all your needs.

Why? - Nox goes above and beyond Siri, acting as your assistant in catching you up on emails and messages, helping you post to social media, and even making calls to your favorite restaurant for a dinner reservation.

Bonus - Molly left Stanford to build Nox full-time and has since raised capital from established angels as well as OpenAI’s startup fund.

• 📍Industries: AI, App

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Molly Cantillon (Stanford University)

Caspar.AI

What? - Sensor-based monitoring system for at-home patients.

Why? - Patient monitoring often relies on wearables, cameras, and other intrusive devices. Caspar AI utilizes bed-centric monitoring to keep track of heart and respiratory rates, sleep quality, and activity levels in real-time and aims to reduce hospitalizations, improve patient satisfaction, and increase insurance reimbursement for patients.

• 📍Industries: Healthcare, Health Diagnostics

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Ashutosh Saxena (Stanford University)

Interested in connecting with these startups or know of one that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

 📃 New Job Openings

SPONSORED:

• 🌴 LA - Stealth VC backed startup building ground-based robots with unorthodox mobility capabilities for the US special forces is looking for an electrical engineer AND software engineers interested in designing real time systems

• 🦞 Boston/Remote - Stealth VC backed video analytics startup who serve MLB teams are looking for SDE1 (fullstack) and SDE2 (infra/backend)

• 🗽NYC/Remote - Stealth VC backed startup building due diligence tools for LPs are looking for AI and fullstack engineers

REPLY if you or you know someone who maybe interested

Engineering

• Finance management startup Settle is hiring a Full-Stack Software Engineer (Remote)

• Odys Aviation, a startup building vertical takeoff and landing aircrafts, is looking for a Motion Planning & Controls Intern (In-person, Long Beach, CA)

• Construction monitoring and analysis startup Doxel.ai is searching for a Frontend Engineer (Remote)

• Rubie, an Afore Capital and Crossbeam Ventures-backed software configuration service provider, is hiring a Founding Engineer (In-person, New York, NY)

• Satellite construction and space startup Starfish Space is looking for a Robotics Engineer (Tukwila, WA)

Non-Engineering

• 3D asset management platform echo3D is looking for a Sales Director (Remote, NYS/NYC Residents)

• Unstuck Labs, a startup studio, software development company, consultancy, and venture capital startup, is hiring a Project Manager & Business Development Executive (In-person, Arlington, VA)

• Speed and accent coaching app BoldVoice (YC S21) is hiring a Social Marketing Intern (In-person, New York, NY)

• Restaurant recommendation and offer startup Teazy is looking for Affiliates in Growth Partnerships (Remote)

• Wynd Labs, a public web data provider startup, is hiring a Community Manager (Remote)

📸 Top 50 Student Founders List - 30/50 founders ANNOUNCED!

Part 1 ⬅️ Ft “UAV Detectors, Salesforce Killer, Top Selling Sunflower Seeds”

Part 2 ⬅️ Ft “Autonomous financial analyst and a test strip to save millions from overdose”

Part 3 ⬅️ Ft “A group of 20 something year olds who’ve raised over $300 million in funding”

Nominate the most cracked founders for part 4 and 5 you know NOW ⬅️

🚨 Check out: unistart Blast Your Deck

Search through thousands of VC firms with easy-to-use filters.

Get their email contacts directly on the page.

Try it out for free here: https://unistart.io/investorsCheck 

Please let us know how we can best serve you as a student founder or investor at hello@unistart.io Thanks so much

Happy Monday!

We’re approaching the end of the school year, but the unistart community stays building!

Welcome to the latest edition of unistart, where we feature the hottest early stage startups, job opportunities, and valuable resources, all in one newsletter.

Let’s dive straight into what’s on 🔥 right now ;)

_{Table of Contents}

1. Startups of the Week

2. NEW job openings handpicked by unistart

3. Try out unistart investor outreach tool

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building

Onlook

What? - A browser extension that lets designers make changes to their team’s UI codebase without any programming knowledge.

Why? - Designers not understanding engineering creates friction within teams. By removing that need, designers will be able to edit, share, and publish changes on their own.

P.S it works for any web product and it’s framework agnostic

• 📍Industries: AI, Design, Dev Tools

• 🚀 Stage: Pre-seed

• 😎 Founders: Kiet Ho (University of Minnesota), Daniel Farrell (University of Denver)

Taiki

What? - Universal API that automatically extracts tax documents and data from payroll and financial providers.

Why? - Who likes doing taxes? Taiki takes away from administrative worries so people can focus on meaningful work.

Here’s what the Loom founder (~$1b exit) had to say about the need for a product like this:

Twitter tweet

• 📍Industries: AI, DevTools, Fintech

• 🚀 Stage: Seed (backed by YC)

• 😎 Founders: Richard Zhang (USC), Alan Lu (NYU)

Siff

What? - An all in one platform that helps you source, interview, and evaluate candidates using AI.

Why? - Traditional methods of using limited filters, Boolean strings, and other manual screening methods takes forever vs using natural language. After finding a candidate, the hiring a team would then spend hours interviewing with limited analytics. Siff AI automates this with their AI interviewer that can conduct both qualitative and technical live interviews.

• 📍Industries: AI, HR, B2B SaaS

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Sam Mielke (UMN), Akhil Sachdev (Berkeley)

  Interested in connecting with these startups or know of one that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

📃 New Job Openings handpicked by unistart

Engineering

• Stealth marketplace facilitating on-box/on-product marketing on CPG products is looking for Full Stack Engineers (students ok!) . Reply “CPG” interested.

• Apriora (Seed, YC) is looking for a founding full stack engineer (new grads ok!). Reply “Apriora” if interested.

• Airgoods (Seed, YC) is looking for a founding engineer (new grads ok!)

• Buildspace (Series A, A16z) is looking for multiple engineering roles in AI and product (new grads ok!) - p.s unistart placed top 10 in their S3 buildathon, great experience

Non-Engineering

• Spice (Seed, YC) is looking for a founding product associate (new grads ok!)

• Roboflow (Series A, Craft Ventures) is hiring a product design intern 

• Kalshi (Series A, Sequoia) is hiring a social media manager (new grads ok!)

• StrongDM (Series B, Sequoia) is looking for a business development representative (1-2 YOE)

• Envoy (Series C, A16z) is looking for revenue roles across BDR & Customer Success (1 YOE)

• Clickup (Series C, A16z) is looking for a business intelligence analyst (1 YOE)

What do you guys think of separating jobs by engineering and non-engineering? Do you like the new format? Any particular jobs you want to see more of?

🚨 Check out: unistart Blast Your Deck

Search through thousands of VC firms with easy to use filters.

Get their email contacts directly on the page.

Try it out for free here. https://unistart.io/investors

Please send a message to hello@unistart.io with any feedback. Thanks so much ❤️

Happy Friday!

Crypto is pumping. Iron Man just received his first Oscar ever. Gabriella Montez from High School Musical is pregnant. unistart just released a new tool.

We’re so back.

If you’re new here, this is the unistart newsletter, where we feature the hottest early stage startups, job opportunities, and valuable resources, all in one newsletter.

Let’s dive straight into what’s on 🔥 this week.

_{Table of Contents}

1. Startups of the Week

2. New job openings at early stage startups

3. *NEW* unistart investor outreach tool

4. More unistart updates!

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building

The Thiel Fellowship just dropped. Here are our 3 favorites:

Etched

What? - Transformer-specific chips that run AI models at unprecedented speeds and scale.

Why? - Cheaper and faster computer is AI’s biggest bottleneck.

• 📍Industries: AI, Hardware

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Gavin Uberti (Harvard), Chris Zhu (Harvard), Robert Wachen (Harvard)

P.S. They’re hiring! Check out their Careers page here.

Mercor

What? - AI-powered platform that sources, vets, and pays your next employees

Why? - Most recruiters overrely on factors like prestige when evaluating candidates which can be flawed. Mercor goes through resumes, public profiles like GitHub, and interviews prospects to get a bigger picture.

• 📍Industries: AI, SaaS

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Brendan Foody (Georgetown), Surya Midha (Georgetown), Adarsh H. (Harvard)

Automorphic

What? - Run language model tuning experiments more cheaply and efficiently

Why? - Prompt stuffing is costly and has context-window limitations

• 📍Industries: AI

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Govind Gnanakumar (GT),

  Mahesh Natamai (GT), Maaher Gandhi 

  Interested in connecting with these startups or know of one that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

📃 New Job Openings

• Rilla is looking for engineering, ops, and revenue roles(0-3 YOE). Reply “RILLA” if interested.

• 222 is hiring growth and creative director roles (1-3 YOE). Reply “222” if interested.

• An advertising marketplace facilitating on-box/on-product marketing on CPG products is looking for Full Stack Engineers (students ok!) . Reply “CPG” interested.

All these jobs are PAID!

None of these a fit? Check our job board for more.

We update our job board weekly with the best entry-level jobs in startups & tech.

🚨 JUST DROPPED: unistart Blast Your Deck

Search through thousands of VC firms with easy to use filters.

Get their email contacts directly on the page.

Try it out for free here. https://unistart.io/investors

🎤 Moreeeee Schools!

We added even more schools to our database, including a dedicated filter for founders who got accepted into YC!

Discover some newly added startups on our website.

And we’re coming to CORNELL next! If you know any startups we should add or founders we should meet, reply to this email and let us know!

Happy Saturday!

Welcome to the latest edition of unistart, where we feature the hottest early stage startups, job opportunities, and valuable resources, all in one newsletter.

It’s our last newsletter before the end of the year, so we wanted to wish everyone a happy new year!

Let’s dive straight into what’s on 🔥 this week.

_{Table of Contents}

1. Startups of the Week

2. New Entry Level Job Openings

3. unistart Update

4. We NEED your help!

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building

Glimpse

What? - An AI browser extension that understands the context of whichever website you’re on. It gives real-time information and includes citations so you know where it comes from.

Why? - ChatGPT is limited by its knowledge cut-off and does not give tailored responses based on the websites you’ve visited. Glimpse takes ChatGPT’s tech and builds on it to create a better web browsing experience.

• 📍Industries: Software, AI

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Nisreen Mandviwala (ASU), Jerry Wang (USC), Donald Morton (Rochester), Kyle Michel (USC)

P.S. Glimpse is looking for an AI Research Engineer intern. Reply to this email with “AI” if you’re interested.

ContentPro

What? - A Chrome extension that lets you search through their curated database of company blogs and articles.

Why? - It helps you create quality blog content faster. You can compare your company’s content and optimize it against other companies in the industry. This also makes it easier to find non-competitive backlinks.

• 📍Industries: Marketing, Market Research

• 🚀 Stage: Unknown

• 😎 Founders: Andrew Fraine (BU)

Sizzl

What? - A food-centered live streaming app to share food trips, recipes, hidden spots, and more.

Why? - Sizzl is the only food-focused live content community. It allows people to interact around food in new ways. One example of this is one of their users and her grandma going live together and sharing recipes that have been in their family for generations.

• 📍Industries: Software

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Justin Musterman (University of Baltimore), Norman Harrower (ESADE)

  Interested in connecting with these startups or know of one that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

📃 New Job Openings

• Kleiner Perkins just opened their 2024 fellowship program.

• Hamza from Newform.ai is looking for a Twitter ghostwriter, TikTok creator, and media buyer. Reply to this email with “NEWFORM” if you’re interested.

• Epic Games is hiring a quest design intern.

None of these a fit? Check our job board for more.

We update our job board weekly with the best entry-level jobs in startups & tech.

📈 unistart Update

We added 5 more schools to our database. We’re excited to share the entrepreneurial talent from these schools in the coming weeks.

Check them out here.

🎤 We NEED your help - share a testimonial

Love our product? Have any recommendations for anything else to add?

We’d love to hear more! Click the button below to submit a testimonial.

Happy Friday!

Welcome to the latest edition of unistart, where we feature the hottest early stage startups, job opportunities, and valuable resources, all in one newsletter.

Let’s dive straight into what’s on 🔥 this week.

_{Table of Contents}

1. Startups of the Week

2. New Entry Level Job Openings

3. VC looking for investors

4. We NEED your help!

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building

Intecular

What? - A smart outlet that automates your smart home technology with best-in-class sensors. It can detect temperature, humidity, air quality, motion, and also functions as a night light.

Why? - If you ever tried to turn your home into a smart home, you know that you need to install a bunch of sensors around your house. Intecular’s InvisOutlet packages all of that into one outlet.

• 📍Industries: Home Maintenance, Hardware, PropTech, Consumer, Real Estate, Hospitality, IoT

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 😎 Founders: Leon Xue (UMN), Lawrence Ko (RIT), Aaron Maan

Bonus: Their kickstarter was fully funded in 12 minutes 🤯

BOND

What? - An app that gamifies team bonding in remote workplace environments.

Why? - Remote workplaces often lack a sense of community. Creating daily prompts encourages team interactions. The individual responses also give people a more personal connection to their coworkers.

• 📍Industries: SaaS, B2B, AI, HR, Community

• 🚀 Stage: Bootstrapped

• 😎 Founders: Chloe Samaha (Babson), Brian Cho (UofT)

Halla

What? - An AI solution that takes over 100 billion shopper and product data points to accurately recommend what grocery items shoppers should buy next.

Why? - By suggesting products that shoppers are actually interested in, it gives them a better and more frictionless shopping experience that may encourage them to spend more.

• 📍Industries: SaaS, AI, Food and Beverage, Ecommerce

• 🚀 Stage: Series A

• 😎 Founders: Henry Michaelson (Cal), Gabriel Nipote (UCLA), Spencer Price (USC)

  Interested in connecting with these startups or know of one that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

📃 New Job Openings

• Glints, the #1 SEA career discovery platform, is hiring a Web Software Engineer.

• Wiz, a startup reinventing cloud security, is looking for a Marketing Designer.

• TikTok is hiring a Security Operations Manager.

• 2K (The NBA 2K, 2K) is looking for a Technical Artist.

None of these a fit? Check our job board for more.

We update our job board weekly with the best entry-level jobs in startups & tech.

💰 A VC fund is fundraising

In the past couple of weeks, we have been giving a preview of a fast-growing startup raising right now.

Today, we are switching it up.

Three experienced investors are raising a $1M microfund to invest in the outliers of the next YC class.

The general partners have backed decacorns startups like Deel at a multi-billion dollar VC fund, created mega communities from scratch, and graduated from Stanford.

If you are interested in this checking out this deck or getting connected with the GPs, fill out this form.

🎤 We NEED your help - share a testimonial

Love our product? Have any recommendations for anything else to add?

We’d love to hear more! Click the button below to submit a testimonial.

Happy Monday!

Welcome to the latest edition of unistart, where we feature the hottest early stage startups, job opportunities, and valuable resources, all in one newsletter.

We’re excited to announce that we just launched at the University of Minnesota! In honor of that, this week we’re featuring 3 popping startups from their school.

Now let’s dive straight into what’s on 🔥 this week.

_{Table of Contents}

1. Startups of the Week - University of Minnesota Edition

2. New Entry Level Job Openings

3. Deal Preview of the Week

4. We NEED your help!

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building

Nivoso

What? - An autonomous winter maintenance robot that can clear snow and maintain lawns. It’s like a Roomba for snow.

Why? - If you live in a place that snows, you’ll know that clearing snow is a chore. You have to constantly monitor it and it takes hours to do. Nivoso uses sensors to work around the clock to ensure that your driveways and sidewalks are safe.

• 📍Industries: Home Maintenance, Hardware

• 🚀 Stage: Pre-seed

• 🛠 Founded: 2020

• 😎 Founders: Max Nivoso (UMN)

Bonus: Nivoso actually started as a 6th-grade science project of the founder, Max Minakov. We featured his story in a LinkedIn post here.

They’re also looking for mechanical engineering and robotics interns. Reply to this email with your resume if you’re interested!

Lucy

What? - An AI assistant that reads and synthesizes information from an organization’s internal files and systems and over 50 million pages of content from thousands of sources. Instead of searching for information themselves, employees can save time by asking Lucy.

Why? - Information in the workplace is inefficiently shared. Companies spend time and money doing research that someone else in the company might have already done.

• 📍Industries: Marketing, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Media, Customer Service

• 🚀 Stage: Series A

• 🛠 Founded: 2016

• 😎 Founders: Scott Litman (UMN), Marc Dispensa (NYU), Dan Mallin (UMN)

Zoee

What? - An all-in-one platform for coaches to host their business. It includes everything a coach needs to run their business from client scheduling to automated invoicing.

Why? - Some coaches may not be equipped to run the business side of their coaching programs. Zoee takes care of this so they can focus on what they do best — coaching their clients.

• 📍Industries: Consumer Software, Marketplace, SaaS, Software

• 🚀 Stage: Debt Financing

• 🛠 Founded: 2019

• 😎 Founders: Nichole Lowe (UMN)

Know of a startup that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

📃 New Job Openings

• Intuit Credit Karma, helping more than 130 million members globally with their credit, is hiring software engineering interns.

• Build your finance skills by interning for Red Hat.

• Get practical experience interning for one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world at FOX.

None of these a fit? Check our job board for more.

We update our job board weekly with the best entry-level jobs in startups & tech.

💰 Deal Preview for the Week

Each week, we’ll be giving everyone on our email list a preview of one of the startups in our curated deal flow list.

This week’s: Social ticketing app growing 40% MoM at $25k MRR.

Interested? Shoot us a reply and we will forward you the deck

🎤 We NEED your help - share a testimonial

Love our product? Have any recommendations for anything else to add?

We’d love to hear more! Click the button below to submit a testimonial.

Happy Friday!

Welcome to the latest edition of unistart, where we feature the hottest early stage startups, job opportunities, and valuable resources, all in one newsletter.

We’re excited to announce that we just launched at Babson College! In honor of that, this week we’re featuring 3 popping startups from their school.

Now let’s dive straight into what’s on 🔥 this week.

_{Table of Contents}

1. Startups of the Week - Babson Edition

2. New Entry Level Job Openings

3. Deal Preview of the Week

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building

Hypercard

What? - A consumer credit card company powered by employers. The card’s features are tailored for company employees, such as housing perks and immediate reimbursements.

Why? - Hypercard aligns employer-employee incentives. The more perks and the happier employers are with them, the more retained they’ll be in the company. The card membership benefits also allow the company to save on costs. Using personal credit cards also keeps employees responsible and reduces corporate card misspending.

• 📍Industries: Delivery Service, Delivery, Food Delivery

• 🚀 Stage: Pre-seed

• 💵 Funding: $5 million in equity & $10 mil in debt

• 🛠 Founded: 2022

• 😎 Founders: Marc Baghadjian (Babson), Nikolas Ioannou (UWashington)

Bonus: Marc is a serial entrepreneur. Remember the super viral Tinder x Tiktok dating app Lolly? Yep, he founded that.

Hypercard is also proudly backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman 😳

They are looking for an operations intern. Reply to this email with your resume if you are interested.

Investsky

What? - A social investing platform to trade over 5000 US stocks and ETFs commission-free.

Why? - Investors usually manage multiple apps and communities to gain investment insights. Investsky provides an all-in-one solution by providing market research tools, a community portal, and a commission-free way to buy stocks.

• 📍Industries: FinTech, Social Network, Stock Exchanges

• 🚀 Stage: Pre-seed

• 🛠 Founded: 2021

• 😎 Founders: Nitish Mittal, Turki Alshaikh (Babson)

Carbon

What? - A universal retrieval engine for LLMs to access unstructured data from any source such as Discord channels and Microsoft Office files.

Why? - Incorporating AI can be intimidating for businesses. Carbon makes it easy because it can collect data from any source and convert it into AI-friendly plain text.

• 📍Industries: API, Developer APIs

• 🚀 Stage: Pre-seed

• 🛠 Founded: 2022

• 😎 Founders: Derek Tu (Babson)

Bonus: Carbon’s founder was employee #1 at Italic, which then went on to raise $50 million in Series B. Italic was founded by Jeremy Cai, who previously built Fountain, a hiring platform that’s now worth $1.5 billion. Jeremy Cai dropped out Babson for the Thiel Fellowship. Crazy story right?

This is why you should network with people in your school. (Hint: use unistart)

Know of a startup that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

📃 New Job Openings

• WAFL, an on-demand college laundry service, is looking for a USC brand ambassador

• Stealth startup based in LA is hiring a SWE intern (paid)

• Stealth startup is hiring a social media manager / content creator (paid)

Interested in any of these jobs? Send us a reply for more info.

None of these a fit? Check our job board for more.

We update our job board weekly with the best entry level jobs in startups & tech.

💰 Deal Preview for the Week

Each week, we’ll be giving everyone on our email list a preview of one of the startups in our curated deal flow list.

This week’s: A personal assistant for educators, this SaaS app went from 0 -> 52K ARR in 12 months, and has $1 mil+ in sales pipeline.

They are raising a conservative $1 mil pre-seed round.

Interested? Shoot us a reply and we will forward you the deck

📣 We want to hear from you!

If you are job hunting or hiring for roles in startups & VC, searching for deal flow, or just want to grow your college's startup ecosystem, we want to help.

Schedule a 30-min call with us so we can understand your needs.

🔗 Important Links

• Founders 👨‍🔧: Fill out this quick 2-min form to be featured on unistart.io and the newsletter

• Job seekers 👩🏼‍💻 - Sign-up for our alerts to be matched with tailored opportunities

• Investors 🧙🏻‍♀️ - Join our private deal flow to see the hottest startups from top universities and their alumni base (this week features decks of Babson founders)

The outside world is quick to admire the final product entrepreneurs successfully deliver to the world. The fame and fortune that comes with this triumph is certainly well deserved.

However, behind the veil of success stories the mainstream media feeds us lies a graveyard of startups that failed after complicated, tiresome, and often dispiriting journeys.

Behind these failures, and even the successes, are entrepreneurs fighting internal battles of their own.

Jake Millar, John McAfee, Tony Hsieh. Recognize any of these names? These are the founders behind Unfiltered, McAfee, and Zappos. These high-profile, successful founders died by suicide or suspected suicide.

For a short news cycle, stories of their battles with mental health dominate the media, but then quickly dissipate.

The truth is that founders voluntarily put themselves under pressure day in and day out. Oftentimes, their stress and responsibilities provide fertile ground for mental health issues to grow.

Considering this, we decided to do a deep dive by researching and speaking with real founders. What we discovered did not just provide important insights, but offered hope that there are effective ways of combating this crisis.

Before diving in, it’s important to convey why we chose to set up our research the way we did. We not only wanted to collect data from research online, but we wanted to speak directly with the founders. We spoke with founders ranging from successful YC-selected builders to founders just starting to grow their own businesses within the past couple of months.

Created with DreamStudio: “depressed man in flannel behind computer with world ending futuristic style”

From a bird's eye view, the problem is quite startling. Founders are 2x as likely to suffer from depression, have suicidal thoughts, or experience psychiatric hospitalization. Founders are also 3x more likely to suffer from substance abuse, and 10x more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder.

These basic stats prove that merely embarking on your entrepreneurial journey makes you more susceptible to these dangerous conditions.

But what are some of the drivers of this widespread problem? Many studies claim that stress is at the root of this issue. It frequently affects those in positions of leadership with great responsibility.

There are two types of stress, however. Acute stress is a type of stress that comes in waves and only affects someone for short periods of time. This type of stress is most common and is usually a harmless side effect for working individuals. Chronic stress is a different type of stress which dominates the psyche throughout the entirety of the day. This type of stress is an indicator of poor mental health and can lead to more serious side effects if not addressed.

According to Clinical Psychologist Dr. Sherry Walling, many founders battle the effects of chronic stress. This stress often comes from the pressures and expectations of running a startup which can lead to cases of depression and severe anxiety.

The scary reality of this “chronic stress” is that it is isolating. No founder wants to dishearten anyone who believes, works for, or invests in their startup by venting to them about their issues. It’s reported that 81% of founders do not share their stress, fears, and challenges with the dread that it might sink their reputation or chances at success.

Now, is loneliness a necessary sacrifice for some founders? There are plenty of entrepreneurs that go at it alone and win. Jeff Bezos, Henry Ford, Pierre Omidyar. These founders practically changed the reality we live in as solo founders. It’s important to make a distinction, however, between solo founders, and founders who face social isolation.

A solo founder who surrounds themself with people they can trust and people they confide in will better manage their mental health than co-founders who lack communication. Loneliness itself can lead to high blood pressure, obesity, depression, and cognitive decline. Throw that in with the rest of the pressure and fear founders face and you’re looking at our current problem.

So, what do real founders have to say about this?

The first founder we interviewed was in the YC W23 batch building a Generative-AI powered B2B SaaS. After being asked how being a founder impacted his mental health, he recalled feeling extraordinarily nervous all the time. He described how he would simply shut down and not be able to make decisions when overwhelmed.

Luckily for this founder, he had a good relationship with his co-founder. He described how being open and communicating his stress with his co-founder enhanced his ability to manage stress and deliver results. It’s important to recognize, however, that this founder had built a previous relationship with his co-founder in college and felt comfortable being vulnerable.

Not all founders are as lucky. An interview that stood out to me was with a young founder of a fintech platform. Based out of Las Vegas, he had gone to a prestigious university and worked at Goldman Sachs. He is also a solo founder with a family history of mental health issues. When asked about what stressed him out the most, it was his investors. He recalls being ghosted, lied to, and played by people whom he trusted. Investment continues to prove to be a double-edged sword for founders. You may receive more funding which allows you to grow, but you also may be burdened by the sacrifice in time, equity, and stress these investors cost you.

Because of this betrayal, his stress levels and mental health were at their worst. Thankfully, however, his family history of mental health prepared him with strategies to cope with the adversity. His outlet was exercise and meditation. Both of these two activities, he claimed, allowed him to practice control. Absolute control is something most founders lack in their lives. The ability to have absolute control for short periods of time every day helped this founder center his mental state.

One of the later founder interviews we conducted shed light on yet another interesting aspect of this challenge. I interviewed this serial founder out of Prague and initially asked him if the pressure of his job affected his mental health. He disclosed to me how the pressure of managing 20+ employees was a tremendous weight on his shoulders.

He resorted to drinking and using drugs as his coping mechanism because he had no concrete habits to fall back on. Thankfully, this founder was able to obtain coaches and a psychologist to correct his unhealthy tendencies. He was then able to develop healthy self-care and communication skills to thrive.

Now let’s take a look back and analyze these three very different interviews. We have a founder who was able to cope with his chronic stress by communicating with a co-founder. We have a founder who was able to cope with the pressure of the role because of previously developed healthy habits. And we have a founder who fell into bad times but could afford guidance and mentorship.

It was not an accident that we chose to highlight these three interviews. These interviews are representative of a larger pool of results from speaking with founders. Many founders who are succeeding have used these different strategies to battle isolation, pressure, and chronic stress.

The founders who continue to struggle seem to lack these strategies altogether. The ability to master or get a grip on the chaos of the mind either through any of the previously mentioned ways is essential to fend off symptoms of depression and anxiety. Yet still, while none of the strategies mentioned above are kept secret, most founders still suffer. Why?

50% of founders report a stigma within the founder community surrounding mental health support. On top of this, only 23% of founders reportedly seek to go to a psychologist or coach for help.

There is a serious culture problem here. As a founder, you’re supposed to have the utmost belief in your vision. But what if you don't have the utmost belief in yourself? More often than not, the latter rings true.

It’s impossible to eradicate the fear of failure from this industry. And it’s impossible to eliminate the insecurities and struggles founders face. What matters is making sure these founders are not suffering in silence.

It’s hard to prescribe a call to action, so we’ll just point to examples. Take unistart. Unistart is building a community of founders for anyone to tap into. This community encourages shared ideas, communication, and the celebration of the work young founders have accomplished.

We need more companies that prioritize building a community and bringing people together. Founders are fragmented, and they experience their problems in silence. We need more than Twitter to bring them together to share their grievances and achievements.

Major Takeaways

1. Success is not the cure for mental health struggles. Seek professional help.

2. Isolation is a founder killer…be vulnerable and remain close to your team, friends, and family.

3. Great mental health is infectious and can uplift and inspire others…prioritize it!

What up future VC,

We’re going all in on startup resources. This week, we aggregated a list of 100+ active VC fellowship and scouting programs.

If you’re trying to break into the industry and meet talented investors and founders, this resource is perfect for you.

Over 100 opportunities!

To access the spreadsheet, click here.

🔗 Important Links

• Founders 👨‍🔧: Fill out this quick 2-min form to be featured on unistart.io and the newsletter

• Job seekers 👩🏼‍💻 - Sign-up for our alerts to be matched with tailored opportunities

• Investors 🧙🏻‍♀️ - Join our private deal flow to see the hottest startups from top universities and their alumni base

Happy Friday,

Welcome to the latest edition of “Resource of the Month”, where we present a tactical resource crafted with care by our team, aimed at empowering your entrepreneurial journey.

This time is a spreadsheet of 200 early stage investors that are investing right now.

We know how hard it is to raise in this macroeconomic period. So we hope that this spreadsheet can be useful to help you secure funding.

To access the spreadsheet, click here.

🔗 Important Links

• Founders 👨‍🔧: Fill out this quick 2-min form to be featured on unistart.io and the newsletter

• Job seekers 👩🏼‍💻 - Sign-up for our alerts to be matched with tailored opportunities

• Investors 🧙🏻‍♀️ - Join our private deal flow to see the hottest startups from top universities and their alumni base

From left to right: Holly Liu, Kevin Lin, Kun Gao, Patrick Lee

Do the names Holly Liu, Kevin Lin, Kun Gao or Patrick Lee ring a bell? Perhaps not.

But I’m sure the names Kabam, Twitch, Crunchyroll, or Rotten Tomatoes do.

These are the companies that each of these highly successful Asian entrepreneurs founded. What’s more interesting though, is how these founders’ relationships with each other play such a pivotal role in their success stories.

I’m sure we’re all aware of the PayPal Mafia…a group of visionaries including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and Max Levchin, who revolutionized the global business arena by founding companies including Tesla, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Yelp after building PayPal together.

Their fame and influence are renowned worldwide for leaving an indelible mark on the world and Sillicon Valley.

While the Paypal Mafia might be the most notorious inner circle of highly influential entrepreneurs, there are lesser-known but equally significant groups of founders who deserve the spotlight just as much.

This is the story of the PKO, the most legendary founder squad you never heard of.

Holly Liu's extraordinary journey took her to Dublin, Ireland, where she worked for the US Embassy after graduating from Berkeley. A few years later, she built Kabam, an interactive entertainment and gaming enterprise behind mega titles like Marvel Contest of Champions. Kabam was acquired for $1 billion in 2017.

Kevin Lin, the outlier of the group, graduated from Yale in 2004. Fresh out of college, he immersed himself in various startups, acquiring invaluable experiences that culminated in the creation of a little live-streaming company called Twitch in 2008 which Amazon bought for $970 Million in 2014.

Kun Gao, a fellow Berkeley grad, used his development skills to land him key software engineering roles until he finally started building Crunchyroll in 2006. Kun is successfully helping to deliver the best Anime entertainment experiences for fans around the globe which has led to Crunchyroll’s $1.2 Billion acquisition by Sony.

Patrick Lee started building companies straight out of Berkeley. Eventually, he and his best buddies from school founded Rotten Tomatoes. The site struggled for a short while until the film Rush Hour, starring Jackie Chan, drove unprecedented traffic to the site propelling the brand to new heights.

Three out of four of these founders share a common origin, having graduated from UC Berkeley. This historic school has an exceptional entrepreneurship ecosystem that exposed these founders to the dynamic world of startups. Growing from their roots at Berkeley, they diligently nurtured their personal networks, while pursuing diverse professional paths. UC Berkeley served as a catalyst for these aspiring entrepreneurs to construct and sustain their networks, knowing that these connections would eventually contribute to their future success.

The personal relationships that act as the foundation of this particular founder circle have led to the creation of various impactful enterprises.

Drawing on their shared college experiences and past projects, these four entrepreneurs joined forces to establish PKO Investments—an influential syndicate of founders investing in tech worldwide. Leveraging their unique perspectives as successful founders, they secure the best deals and offer unparalleled business insight. 

The team maintains a high standard of quality for each investment as they locate exciting and dependable founders in tech who will benefit from their expertise.

Beyond PKO Investments, their shared identity serves as another powerful connecting force. As Asian entrepreneurs, they have worked towards uniting the Asian community in the business realm through initiatives like Gold House. This dedicated company invests in and uplifts Asian creators. This is merely one of many examples that underscore Holly, Kevin, Kun, and Patrick’s commitment to giving back and fostering positive social change.

Major takeaways!

1. Alumni-founded unicorns are more common than student-founded ones. Why?…experience!

2. The network you build in college is far more important than any product you build in college.

3. The earlier you start building, the easier it is to fail and learn from your mistakes.

Relationships in college lead to career success!

🔗 Important Links

• Founders 👨‍🔧: Fill out this quick 2-min form to be featured on unistart.io and the newsletter

• Job seekers 👩🏼‍💻 - Sign-up for our alerts to be matched with tailored opportunities

• Investors 🧙🏻‍♀️ - Join our private deal flow to see the hottest startups from top universities and their alumni base

Happy Friday!

6 weeks ago, our team joined Buildspace, a 'school for builders’ that raised $10 mil led by A16z.

We were part of their S3 competition, where 7500 teams competed for $100,000.

Result: WE MADE TOP 32!

Then last Sunday, we competed in the top 32 for $100k. The first two rounds consisted of a crowd vote. Here’s what happened…

In round 1, we faced a startup that recruits students to consult startups. We pulled away in the final second and won by 0.4%.

In round 2, aka Sweet 16, we were down by a couple of % for the whole minute, until the last second, where we TIED. Just look at the reaction in the chat. I think I broke my chair watching the stream.

After the crowd vote, Buildspace picked 4 winners out of the 10 teams that made it. We did not get picked but we are forever grateful for the opportunity to participate.

From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to thank everyone for supporting us on this journey and voting last Sunday ❤

We want to give back by sharing this spreadsheet we have built. It’s a list of 100 pitch competitions and accelerators. If you are an early stage founder, applying to these can be one of the most effective ways to get capital in this VC winter.

Click the link below to access the spreadsheet.

 📃 New Job Openings

• Micro-influencer platform Anonymous Agent is hiring marketing interns (Remote & NYC)

• M13, Arc Ventures, and Night Ventures are hiring analysts and MBA Interns (LA & NY)

• Bookkeeper startup Keeper is hiring a Product Designer and a Sales Development Representative (Austin & Remote)

• Mobile edtech startup EasyA is hiring campus ambassadors 

*Anonymous Agent and Keeper are founded by alums from USC ✌️

Want your job to be featured like those startups? Send us a message by replying to this email!

🤟 What Your Classmates Are Building

Fastgen

What? - Webflow for the backend

Why? - Webflow made it possible for anyone to make a beautiful website without code. Fastgen wants to do that for the backend with drag and drop workflows and one-click APIs.

• 📍Industries: Dev Tools, SaaS

• 🚀 Stage: Pre-seed

• 💵 Funding: $500,000 (backed by YC)

• 🛠 Founded: 2023

• 😎 Founders: Mike Mahlkow (USC), David Nordhausen (USC)

Bonus: The founders of Fastgen previously founded Blair, an income-sharing agreement platform for students, and raised $100 mil.

Revere VC

What? - A data analytics tool that helps you visualize and make sense of VC investment data.

Why? - Navigating through VC data can be challenging to understand and extrapolate insights from

• 📍Industries: Big Data, Business Intelligence, FinTech

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 💵 Funding: $4,170,000

• 🛠 Founded: 2020

• 😎 Founders: Chris Shen (UT Austin), Eric Woo (UC Berkeley)

Advantage Club

What? - Increase employee engagement through rewards programs, gamified contests, perks, and more.

Why? - Better employee engagement can boost company culture and morale and increase productivity

• 📍Industries: Employee Benefits, Employment, Human Resources

• 🚀 Stage: Seed

• 💵 Funding: $6,700,000

• 🛠 Founded: 2014

• 😎 Founders: Sourabh Deorah (UCLA), Smiti Deorah (UCLA)

Know of a startup that we should feature in this newsletter? Send us a reply!

🔗 Important Links

• Founders 👨‍🔧: Fill out this quick 2-min form to be featured on unistart.io and the newsletter

• Job seekers 👩🏼‍💻 - Sign-up for our alerts to be matched with tailored opportunities

• Investors 🧙🏻‍♀️ - Join our private deal flow to see the hottest startups from top universities and their alumni base

Awesome 🔥 | Good 👍 | Meh, I'm unsubscribing 😬