Hello!
“Screw-bee-us, am I saying that right?” Chances are, if we've spoken, you've asked me that question. I knew Scroobious wouldn't be everyone's favorite name when I picked it, but it's meaningful and as soon as I tell the story everyone nods and smiles. Take a moment to read Edward Lear's short poem, The Scroobious Pip. It'll take 2 minutes. I'll wait…
I interpret the poem as a celebration of being unique and not falling neatly into a classification. More than that, in the end all creatures rejoice together in collaborative diversity. We should all be Scroobious. Proud of our uniqueness and supportive of those around us.
June is a Scroobious month. In the U.S., we observe Juneteenth (now a federal holiday!) to celebrate the emancipation of African Americans who were enslaved. We also take this month to honor the Stonewall Uprising and celebrate those in the LGBTQ+ community. Equality is front and center both in the recognition of past, and sometimes current, atrocities and the joy in progress made.
Our mission is to increase diversity in the startup ecosystem by providing founders with education and tools, bringing humanity front and center in the pitching process, and identifying new ways to help investors quickly and meaningfully discover them. We've had a product offering for 10 months and in this short time, with no formal marketing, over 150 founders have engaged with PiP™ (if you read the poem you'll get the acronym) and become part of our community. I credit a lot of this traction to our authentic connection with those we are aiming to serve and word of mouth from our amazing founders.
Read on for updates, an awesome new team member, ways to get involved, and our featured founder.
Do you want to be more Scroobious? Let's chat!
Thank you for reading this. Thank you for helping us. I appreciate you.
Allison Byers, Founder & CEO
Each newsletter features the perspective of one of our members.
This month’s featured founder is Will Cohen, Founder & CEO of Topcorp. Will foresaw the inevitable cookie regulations and created an alternative with Top. They collect direct customer data via polling and voting, across all digital channels, formats and devices. This gives customers a voice with the brands they care about, and it gives brands a wealth of information such as demographics, behavior, and future behavior with clean and easy data collection.
Will and I connected right away as fellow “Jews in tech.” Most people don't realize that Jews are only 2% of the US population, and 0.2% of the world population. If you live in New York you might be thinking, “That can't be right,” but even there we are only 9% of the population. I encourage you to read this thread about rising antisemitism in the US. It's real and can get scary in a hurry. Will is passionate, determined, and has great traction. Definitely an entrepreneur you should know!
