Startup Mentors

About: A.T. enjoys spending time playing sports with his wife and three boys.

Bio: A.T. Gimbel is a partner with Atlanta Ventures, focused on helping entrepreneurs find community, content, and capital to successfully grow their business.  Previously, A.T. led product and go-to-market functions for the Healthcare division of LexisNexis, as well as leading roles in corporate strategy and mergers & acquisitions. Prior to that, he was in consulting with Bain & Company serving clients across multiple industries with a focus on growth strategy, process improvement, and customer loyalty. He has also worked for several startup companies in sales and operations roles.

How I can help:
1. Fundraising
2. Business strategy
3. Go-to-market/Customer discovery

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Aaron is a proud father of three who loves spending time with family, cooking and watching Pittsburgh and Georgia Tech sports.

Bio: Aaron enjoys helping founders unlock the most effective levers for growth as the Managing Director of Endeavor Atlanta, a global non-profit that selects and supports founders of the fastest growing companies in the Southeast. He has deep technology experience with strengths in strategy, product development, finance and operations.

How I can help:
1. Go to market strategy planning: you’ve found product-market fit, now what?
2. Preparing to raise capital.
3. Leading and managing a growing team. 

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Company: Stoney River Capital

How I can help:

1. The process and dynamics of growing a company from a fruit stand into a factory.
2. Make introductions and create networking opportunities for Founders.
3. Mentoring is to look at the whole person and their needs and wants, not just what they do.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Andrew is a family man, avid sports fan, golfer and foodie who appreciates all things local (except bourbon).

Bio: Andrew is the Founder and Managing Partner of Phoenix Capital Ventures, a VC firm focused on early stage and scaling sports, media and lifestyle properties.  He has over 20 years of success operating properties in these verticals and has worked with organizations in the NBA, MLS, NCAA and at Nike amongst others.

How I can help:
1. Sharing my experience and industry knowledge.
2. Leveraging your network.
3. Providing an unbiased POV and constructive feedback.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Company: LeanSquad

How I can help:
1. Business: How to apply Lean Startup principles to customer discovery & development process.
2. Product Management: Shape their product roadmap based on customer development outcomes.
3. Technology: Help startup co-founders (especially non-technical co-founders) with technology choices (how to build what they want to build, how to organize their team and development process)

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Angela is a GA native who has two fur babies, a Lhasa Apso and a Doxie that have personalities similar to Garfield and Odie. She is also passionate about helping companies establish a strong marketing foundation – and in her spare time can be found skating figure eights at the local ice-skating rink.

Bio: Angela is a marketing executive with a proven track record in leading small to mid-size technology companies into accelerate growth phases. She is marketer that is driven by data and uses a scientific approach to manage all facets of marketing.

How I can help:
1. Deliver guidance on how to build a marketing plan/GTM that is appropriate for the business.
2. Select the right supporting marketing and sales technology.
3. Fundraising guidance, pitch decks, etc

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter

About: When she’s not working, Asia’s probably playing her ukulele, hiking, or scribbling random ideas in her journal.

Bio: Asia Orangio helps early-stage startup founders build marketing engines that work. CEO & Founder of DemandMaven. Previously at two 10x startups.

How I can help:
1. Marketing & growth strategy
2. Demand generation
3. Troubleshooting campaigns and programs

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Benjamin is a volunteer for the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, for which he has managed a Google Grant since 2010. He usually is found drinking iced coffee, even in cold months.

Bio: Benjamin is the President & CEO of Relevance Advisors with expertise in Digital Marketing. He helps companies drive traffic to their websites, measure results, and optimize performance.

How I can help:
1. Learn SEO Basics
2. Set up a Google Ads Account
3. Set Up and Interpret Google Analytics

More Info: Calendly | LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Bill sets others up for success, both personally and professionally. He enjoys an extraordinary marriage with Cesar and is only snobbish about coffee. Oh, and he loves a great challenge!

Bio: Bill enables leaders to reimagine their CRAP. That is to say, he develops Competency, improves Relatability, ensures Accountability, and advances Productivity. And, he has been equipping leaders for success for 25 years: people-leader skills, teams and psychological safety, change and resilience, and business goal clarity are his strengths.

How I can help:
1. Coaching for laser-like clarity and focus
2. Relating to and leading others
3. Honing interpersonal and professional impact

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Carl loves to read (mostly history and biography), is a rabid basketball fan (go Spurs!), and loves to travel. He is the proud dad of a smart and handsome son who is a Georgia Tech grad now working for a tech company in Silicon Valley.

Bio: Carl is a partner in the Atlanta-based law firm FisherBroyles and has 35+ years of legal and business experience, including major law firms and in-house general counsel positions. He has spent the last twenty years helping tech start-ups and other SMB’s with a wide range of legal and business issues.

How I can help:
1. Legal issues of start-ups (customer agreements, contractor agreements, protecting your intellectual property, founder agreements, equity grants, etc.).
2. Funding strategy and negotiation (choosing the right funding vehicle, how to approach investors, negotiating term sheets and investment documents).
3. Overall business strategy and business planning.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website | Blog

About:I am married to the love of my life, Kathy, for forty-two years with four adult children and four grandchildren. Go Bravos! This is the year.

Bio: I started my angel investing career as Paparelli Ventures in 1992. I’ve invested in over thirty-five companies all in Atlanta. I focus on entrepreneurs because I have great respect for their vision, passion, ingenuity, and grit. I am an early-stage specialist. This includes the search for product-market fit, communicating your message, developing a strategy people can understand and works, building a discipline for execution and profitability. I am an active twice per week blogger to entrepreneurs focusing on their business and life.

How I can help:
 1. I understand startups and getting out of the ground.
2. Help you put a fundraising strategy in place.
3. Guide you in discovering those first few customers.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Experienced entrepreneur at growing technology focused startups as both an executive and an advisor.

Bio: Founding CTO at BetterCloud, where I grew the technology team from 0 to 100 people. Equity advisor for two startups. Currently an executive for STORD, building out their technology and integrations teams while the company grows 10x. Experienced such rapid growth in my leadership responsibilities, that I needed a coach.  I received so much value from that coaching, that I got certified as an executive coach.  Let’s chat for 25 minutes to see how I could help you.

How I can help:
1. Coach on how to prove there’s value in your product in the cheapest and fastest way possible.
2. Advise on technology architecture, hires, and practices.
3. Sounding board for your toughest problems that keep you up at night.

More Info: LinkedIn

Company: MasterMessaging

About:
1. Identify your Value Positions so that you can communicate high value in your marketing and sales conversations.
2. Help increase your conversion rates in your sales process through higher value sales conversations.
3. Build a unique business development campaign to create predictable lead generation.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

Company: Techstars

How I can help:
1) I’m very experienced with B2C startups and/or brand-heavy startups.
2) Helping a founder get from idea-on-napkin to product-market fit.
3) Any questions about accelerators (i.e. YC, Techstars).

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Derick is married and has 2 kids (6 year old girl and 4 year old boy) and we reside in Chamblee with our dog Dakota. He enjoys all things Minnesota sports, golf, beach and business related (nothing like a good business biography on the beach).

Bio: Derick is GM / eCommerce lead for Pratt Industries. He enjoys helping large companies think like startups, and trying to even the playing field a bit with silicon valley. Proven leader in understanding general business landscapes from strategic perspective, and then knowing how to hire and manage a team to drive sales using an enjoyable customer experience with solid digital marketing.

How I can help:
1. Business Strategy (Target Customer, Competitive Assessment, market sizing, M&A, etc)
2. Product (User) Feedback (UX/UI type stuff)
3. Digital Marketing plans

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

Company: DeCarlo Management Systems

How I can help:
1. Go to market strategy: It’s all about communication a solution for the client.
2. Understanding marketing & advertising – especially decoding the myths about digital advertising and how to get the biggest bang for your buck.
3. Customer acquisition/Sales Development: how to get your first customer, your 10th, your 100th while building a successful sales team.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter

Don is a Full-stack Software Developer and Entrepreneur. He is a SaaS-enthusiast currently focusing on the intersection between marketing automation and machine learning. He is the current Founder and CEO of Lytham Labs, CEO of Kevy, and a proud graduate of Georgia Tech. His specialties are:

About:Dr. DeYonne Parker, affectionately known as Dr. Dee, is the proud mom of two handsome young men. She loves encouraging the fearful dreamer, eating popcorn at any time of the day and is a raving fan of Marvel superhero movies!

Bio: Dr. DeYonne Parker, Vice President of Gem Makers, LLC., is a multi-national author, speaker, and expert facilitator. She is on a mission to empower and equip ladies, leaders and little girls around the world to gain the clarity, confidence, and courage to SHINE in their Brilliant Zone. With over 20 years of experience in global leadership development, personal coaching and business consulting, Dr. Parker has a proven track record of creating strategic and custom learning solutions, strengthening the leadership muscles of globally diverse leaders and deploying learning experiences across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

How I can help:
1. Move from cloudy to CLARITY (business strategy, vision mapping, customer discovery).
2. Move from critical to CONFIDENT (presentation, storytelling & pitching).
3. Move from comfort to COURAGE (strategic action planning, leadership development).

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Executive, tech entrepreneur, advisor and passionate music lover that is trying to make a difference in the world.

Bio: Eric is the CEO of Vivo and a proven leader skilled in growing technology companies. He loves building businesses, solving problems, and creating a culture of engagement where employees love coming into work every day. He has a track record of creating operational efficiency, strong client relationships, and employee engagement.

How I can help:
1. Employee engagement.  Create a culture where employees are the centerpiece and watch as productivity, sales and customer service thrive.
2. Operational efficiency.  Understand how to structure your organization and create repeatable processes so that you don’t rely on a few employees to do everything.  You need to position your organization to be able to scale and support the growth you’re going to get.
3. Leadership. Leadership is not necessarily intuitive; it is a skill to be learned and developed.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website | Startup Website

Company: Mozilla

How I can help:
1. Object Oriented Design and Architecture .
2. Interactive Strategy and Development for Mobile and Web.
3. 3D Application Development, Data Visualization and Simulation.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Geoff is a true entrepreneur. He’s passionate about helping companies find, build and grow their next big idea. He launched his first venture at age 16, when he started a computer store in a shopping mall in Sarasota, Florida.

Bio: Geoff is the President & Founder of Three Five Two, an Atlanta based firm helping industry-leading companies find new market opportunities and build new products and services. He and his team have helped some of today’s most recognizable brands—including Microsoft, Nationwide Insurance, Cox and GoFundMe. Thanks to Three Five Two’s insight and consultation, clients have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue. Inc. magazine has named Geoff one of America’s Top 30 Young Entrepreneurs, and his alma mater, University of Florida, recognized him as the Warrington College of Business’ Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Outside of his professional pursuits, Geoff passionately cheers on the Florida Gators, collects sports cards and enjoys spending time with his wife Kim (also an ATV Mentor) and their three kids.

How I can help:
1. Growth Marketing: How to get traction and acquire users.
2. Product Strategy: How to understand user needs/wants, managing dev teams, product roadmapping.
3. Life as an Entrepreneur: Surviving the ups and downs of startup life.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Greg is an avid golfer and wine enthusiast.

Bio: Greg is the retired Senior Vice President and Corporate Chief Information Officer for Cox Enterprises, Inc. Cox Enterprises is a leading communications, media and automotive services company with revenues exceeding $22 billion and approximately 60,000 employees. Greg served eighteen years as corporate CIO of Cox Enterprises. He was responsible for delivering all information technology and cyber security solutions. He is known for authorship of large-scale business transformations, key technology deployments that accelerate the digitization of manual business processes, a commitment to career path modeling of IT professional and his passion for diverse leadership teams.

How I can help:
1. Sourcing & hiring
2. How to navigate large enterprises/companies to best introduce and expose your capabilities

More Info: LinkedIn

About: James loves hitting a trail with his wife, two daughters and two dogs, practicing yoga, or watching Atlanta United.

Bio: James is VP Customer Success at ShootProof and a seasoned executive with a track record of serving high-growth SaaS companies. His expertise is helping organizations focus on the customer journey to deliver an extraordinary customer experience, underpinned by world-class customer success, onboarding and support organizations.

How I can help:
1. Improving onboarding
2. Building a CS function
3. Scaling support.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Jermaine is an avid reader, loves working out and roots for LSU and the Saints during football season.

Bio: Jermaine is the Founder and CEO of CCAW Automotive Group, a bootstrapped B2C ecommerce company in the automotive space. Jermaine is a leader with experience in building scalable teams, systems and processes. He has experience leading growth initiatives across functions that include Customer Service, Operations, Accounting/Finance and Engineering.

How I can help:
1. Thinking through what you want to do, why you want to do it, and how to make it happen.
2. Building scalable processes and systems.
3. Identifying goals that move the needle and developing specific action plans to achieve those goals.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Andrew’s a passionate sports fan and when not working, you can find him running the streets of Atlanta, namaste-ing at Highland Yoga, and when possible, shredding on a ski slope.  He’s a dad to a young daughter and old pup and married to a total badass.

Bio: Andrew is the Director of Emerging Technology for the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, and Mercedes Benz Stadium.  He is known for building and launching IoT and Data cloud products, leading teams, and working through tough challenges.

How I can help:
1. Business and people strategy: I’m great at business models and understanding market dynamics as well as team and culture.
2. Product management and go-to-market: I’m a good resource when you are doing long-range planning or sitting on a particularly thorny issue.
3. Wellness and interpersonal: I can help you think through how to best take care of you so you don’t burn out.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter

About: I’m a bottom line, people-connecting relationship builder who desires to help others find their purpose, grow professionally, and navigate complex environments. I am a proud mom who is a big supporter of more diversity in tech, skilled communication, and a strong company culture.

Bio: Karen Houghton is the Vice President of Atlanta Tech Village. The Village is America’s 4th largest tech hub, housing over 300 technology startups and 1000+ members in 103,000 square feet. From curating memberships resulting in $5M+ annual revenue to spearheading marketing initiatives, organizing events, and connecting with investors and sponsors, Karen helped build this community from the ground up. She strives to create a positive and supportive culture while promoting faster connections between ideas, capital, and talent. 

Karen is a relationship builder who holds a Masters Degree in Psychology. Previously she worked in a business consulting firm, and was the Founder of a non profit called the Do Good Initiative. She is passionate about well crafted emails, paying it forward, and helping technology startups on their quest to change the world.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Katharine is an Atlanta native, mother of two teenage boys, and a marketing maven. She is passionate about branding, bourbon, and the beach.

Bio: Katharine Voyles Mobley is an award-winning marketer with technical DNA. Her branding methodology and proven track record of driving revenue growth is highly sought by organizations from global brands to technology startups. Currently, Katharine serves as Chief Marketing Officer for First Advantage, the global leader in background screening with 26 locations and over 4,000 employees worldwide.

How I can help:
1. Raising Angel funding, Series A, B, & C.
2. Marketing positioning and messaging, specifically for pitch decks, business development, and partnerships.
3. Developing thought leadership and industry expertise positioning for founders and executive staff.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Kelli is a mom of two, who loves to travel, hike and read. She is passionate about building strong teams, top-notch execution and list making.

Bio: Kelli is a strategy and execution executive, with global leadership experience in sales effectiveness, human resources, organizational development and program management. She leads initiatives ranging from M&As to new product design and implementation to technology transformations.

How I can help:
1. Strategy and strategy execution – building goals, setting your priorities, and ensuring successful delivery of your most important objectives
2. People and culture – building top teams, strengthening company culture and growing in leadership to accelerate your growth
3. Designing scalable, efficient and effective operations – making ideas a reality through actionable steps and repeatable systems

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Ken is a trained philosopher turned software engineer. He enjoys thinking about humans and technology.

Bio: Ken started his career in the earliest days of ATV at BetterCloud. He has seen the team grow from 7 to 70+ software engineers and has learned a great deal about how to build and ship software reliably and quickly in a scalable way.

How I can help:
1. Cloud native architectures
2. Continuous delivery best practices
3. Infrastructure as code and test automation

More Info: LinkedIn

About: Kerry is a corporate hippy that loves hiking, meditation, yoga, making kombucha and natural, healthy stuff.

Bio: Kerry has been in marketing for over 20 years from startups to Fortune 50 companies. She specializes in marketing strategies.

How I can help:
1. Creates succinct messaging
2. Helps with strategies to reach customers and message to them
3. Asks tough questions to help create focus

More Info: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website

About: Kim is an investor in early-stage technology, health care, consumer product, and media companies. The JumpFund has invested in more than 25 Southeast based companies since 2013, across our two venture capital funds.

Bio: Kim has more than twenty-five years of global expertise in human resource consulting, corporate and leadership roles. Kim’s experience includes leading M&A transactions, service delivery transformation, talent, compensation, benefits and recruiting program design, as well as technology development, selection and implementations.

Kim most recently was a Senior Partner with Mercer, responsible for leading their overall go-to-market strategies in Atlanta. Kim received a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Louisiana State University.

How I can help:

1. People and talent management strategies
2. Strategic planning
3. Fundraising with angels and venture capital

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Kim is a journalist turned entrepreneur who successfully founded, grew and sold her startup – AND had three babies – all within the past few (chaotic) years. Her husband Geoff is an ATV Mentor too!

Bio: Kim is an experienced Founder and CEO, having successfully exited her most recent start-up: Social News Desk (SND). As a former-journalist, Kim saw a problem in her own industry and solved it by creating a SaaS company which would go on to become the worldwide leader in social media solutions for local news. In 2014, Kim led Social News Desk through an acquisition by Graham Holdings (NYSE:GHC); a public company which was founded by Katharine Graham, the first female Fortune 500 CEO. Today, Kim remains at the helm of Social News Desk, overseeing an entirely remote team and supporting more than 30,000 journalists worldwide.

How can I help:
1. Sales Strategy for early-stage SaaS
2. Optimizing Development Roadmaps
3. Pitch Deck Feedback

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Mike is a musician, braves fan and father of 3 daughters. His wife and he are avid cyclists and like to tour the U.S. in their RV.

Bio: Mike is a serial entrepreneur in B2B SaaS healthcare technology/patient experience. He founded Dialog Medical – the leading provider of Informed Consent systems – and sold it to Standard Register (NYSE: SR) in July 2011. He founded Clockwise.MD -the leading virtual queue for healthcare – and sold it to Warburg Pincus/DocuTAP in April 2017. He is currently founder and CEO of Copient Health.

How I can help:
1. Customer Discovery.
2. Customer Development.
3. Building a repeatable, scalable sales model.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Mike is passionate about cooking, fitness, college football (Go Auburn), and March Madness. He’s the only person we’ve ever met who once sold billion-dollar jet fighter aircraft for a living!

Bio: Mike is founder of Allegro Consulting , a business growth specialty advisory firm. He’s been helping metro-Atlanta private business owners and start-up founders build and execute growth strategies for 18 years. His focus is on strategy creation and sales process.  Prior to Allegro he was an international sales campaign leader and program manager for aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed. Disciplined adherence to sound business practices and utilizing a replicable sales process are his passions.

How I can help:
1. Conduct a candid review of and share feedback on your growth strategy or startup business plan. Do you have one?
2. Reveal the “secret” to achieving a high win-rate in the the complex sales (to corporation, governments, universities, etc…) environment.
3. Share 16-years of experience consulting elusively for privately-held businesses: how they grow and how to avoid the common pitfalls that lead to failure.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Morgan enjoys coloring outside the lines of entrepreneurship, technology, and social impact to build human centered businesses.

Bio: Morgan is a thought-filled software engineer and entrepreneur who understands that deliberate, consistent progress over time is life’s greatest growth strategy. Regardless of his job titles, Morgan sees leadership as a choice, not a rank. He strives to make that choice daily and challenges others to do the same.

How I can help:
1. Aligning technology with business objectives
2. Solutions to improve efficiency as the business grows
3. Strategies to refine a go-to-market movement

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: MK is father of two who loves and lives soccer and startups. He is all in with Atlanta United and Manchester United. He is passionate about coaching and mentoring early stage entrepreneurs, specially the ones just taking leap for the first time.

Bio: MK is the Entrepreneur In Residence for the Main Street Entrepreneur program at Georgia State University.  MK has started and exited two companies, and has led product and innovation teams at fortune 500 corporations.

How I can help:
1. Help with product,
2. Go to market and pitching
3. Story telling.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Nandu is a marathon runner, neural artist, and aspiring paleontologist.

Bio: Nandu is CTO of KyckGlobal and President of ATL CTO. For over 20 years, in roles spanning IT, software engineering, and operations, he has followed his passion for truly agile–with a lowercase a—approaches to getting things done.

How I can help:
1. Software engineering,
2. Devops/sre
3. Process

More Info: LinkedIn

About: Nick is a father of four who loves to spend time outside with his kids.  He is passionate about giving back and college football.

Bio: Nick is a corporate attorney at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, with a legal practicing focusing on venture capital and mergers & acquisitions.  Nick serves in a de-facto general counsel capacity to many technology companies and tech-focused funds throughout the country. Nick previously co-founded a small technology startup and enjoys leveraging that experience, together with his legal expertise, to support emerging technology companies throughout their corporate life cycles: from formation and early stage funding to growth equity financings, acquisitions, and exits.

How I can help:
Legal guidance for tech companies with a focus on:
1. Corporate structure
2. Fund raising
3. Contracts.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Patrick is a hopeless optimist with a thirst for technology and how it can improve every facet of our lives, allowing us all to focus on those things that really matter.

Bio: As an audit principal with Windham Brannon LLC, a top Atlanta public accounting firm, Patrick leads their technology practice with a focus on wholistic objectives for businesses and its owners. Leveraging the experience of client’s success and failures, Patrick helps remove potential obstacles to enable greater success.

How I can help:
1. Assist with entity selection, set up of initial accounting processes, and understanding of fundamental financial acumen.
2. Develop financial modeling to tell your story.
3. Identify potential pitfalls in scaling your business.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Patrick is a founder with a maker’s mentality. He is passionate about startup operations, technology, and diversifying tech. He’s a straight talker and a champion for fellow founders.

Bio: Patrick is the Co-Founder of Spaceship a delivery platform for SaaS applications and the CEO of Deft Services a consultancy focused on helping technical leaders guide their teams to quicker delivery with fewer bugs. Patrick is twice a graduate of ATV with a focus on high-growth teams. During his tenure at SalesLoft the product delivery organization grew 200% over 18 months and adopted processes that allowed them to ship dozens of times a day. At that time, SalesLoft was recognized at the 7th fastest growing company in North America by Deloitte in its Fast500 rankings. During his tenure at Calendly the product delivery organization moved from a monthly release schedule to daily updates and grew 150% over one year.

How I can help:
1. Optimize your end-to-end product delivery process
2. Technical recruitment strategy
3. Business operations

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

Kelly Anne was born and raised in Milton, GA and yes- she does have two first names. A proud graduate of the University of Alabama, she is the only roll tide in a sea of red and black in her household. As the Community Development Manager, Kelly Anne is the the genius behind the Village snapchat, an epic tour giver, and the ultimate recruiter of talent for the Village. She works with Universities, sponsors, and runs our Mentor and Advisor program. Kelly Anne is sharp as a tack, a natural relationship builder, and passionate about connecting students to startups. Oh, and on a perfect night, she is sitting on a porch eating appetizers with good company.

About:Ricky is a nerd who works for fun in between video games. He loves to teach others and find ways to make hard concepts more approachable.

Bio: Ricky is a software engineer and general technologist with 20 years of experience and now leads operations and cloud automation at Rigor. He is well known for getting outside of the technical bubble and working with sales and business leaders to understand and use technology to be more effective in their roles.

How I can help:
1. Brainstorm technology pros/cons and help make decisions.
2. Review systems architecture, especially as they relate to cloud infrastructure.
3. Assist in soft-skills required when working with and hiring software people.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Scott is a father of two boys under two, so you may see him snagging a nap in the lobby at any time. He loves coffee, cocktails, and anything with a good story behind it.

Bio: Scott is the Principal at Tech Square Ventures, an early stage venture firm in Atlanta. He sources, conducts diligence, and invests in leading high growth tech companies in the Southeast. He knows how to clarify business milestones and line up funding accordingly. He is focused on helping founders find a repeatable and scalable go-to-market strategy.

How I can help:
1. Fundraising strategy
2. Business model
3. Go-To-Market strategy

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Shila is mom and wife who loves spending time with her family. She is passionate about people, community and entrepreneurship. Connecting is her super power!

Bio: Shila Nieves Burney has spent a 20+ year professional career working closely with leading organizations and exceptional talents to create solutions that address disparities through investment in human capital. Her super-power is connecting! After spending a year sourcing investors for a startup that culminated in a $5M term sheet, mentoring and advising founders of color, Shila was able to see first hand challenges founders of color face getting access to capital and the resources they needed to grow and scale their companies. She founded ZANE Venture Fund, a seed fund that would invest in underrepresented founders with the goal of closing the funding gap and generating high returns for investors, and the Founders RoadMap Forums to bring the needed resources to the entrepreneurs in their own backyard.

How I can help:
1. Operations management
2. Organizational support
3. Connecting to move the needle for work and community

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Stefanie is a boy-mom who loves dance, yoga, travel and personal finance. She is passionate about women’s issues, bravely living from your intuition, and anything that takes her back to her homeland of Puerto Rico.

Bio: Stefanie is the Founder & CEO of Powered by Verve, an investor relations firm focused on helping companies engage their existing and potential investors. She is Founder & Host of the She Conquers Capital Podcast and WOE | The Women Only Experience Atlanta-based event series. Contact Stefanie for advice on raising capital, crafting your pitch, connecting with investors, building community, public speaking, hosting events and anything to do with overcoming doubts and fears.

How I can help:
1. Investor engagement
2. Raising capital
3. Presentation/public speaking

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Steve is a jazz saxophonist who loves selling and helping start-up founders get their first 10 customers.

Bio:  Steve is a serial entrepreneur, sales professional, CEO, and angel investor with 35+ years of experience selling and running tech product and services start-ups.   Villagers looking to start or expand their sales efforts, accelerate corporate growth, and increase shareholder value should leverage Steve’s experience.   Steve tuns ATVs monthly Sales meetup on the first Monday of every month.

How I can help:
1. Sales
2. Partnership
3. Strategy

More Info: LinkedIn | Website

About: Steve is married and a father of five living in Roswell; he has now officially been an entrepreneur in 4 decades.

Bio: Steve is a Co-Founder and COO of Accord Systems.  He has started or been part of the  management team that started and sold multiple  businesses.  With a focus on human resources and insurance technology, Steve understands the business models and opportunities that exist in this sector for innovative start-ups.

How I can help:
1. Help a team focus on the right things.
2. Setting a customer centric culture.
3. Create operational disciplines now not later.

More Info: LinkedIn | Website | Website

About:Tim is a technical founder of numerous startups, including SalesLoft, Showcase IDX, and Spaceship. He also apparently likes the letter “S” a lot.

Bio: Tim is a co-founder of SalesLoft, former Entrepreneur in Residence at Georgia Tech’s ATDC, CTO and CEO of several startups, a participant in the Flashpoint accelerator at Georgia Tech, and founded and sold his first company in his 20s. He is currently working on a new startup, Spaceship, in the DevOps/DevTools space.

How I can help:
1. Technical questions
2. Team building and leadership
3. General business strategy

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Wayt is a life-long ATLien, is the father of 5 kids, and spends time on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.

Bio: Wayt is a startup lawyer who loves helping early-stage SaaS and software entrepreneurs. He’s been a software entrepreneur and an angel investor, and is known for keeping the legal stuff as simple as possible.

How I can help:
1. I was a software founder (N2 Broadband) myself; after several near-death experiences we eventually “made it” and sold for a nice $$ exit after raising a bunch of VC money. Been there, done that, and can relate to the psychological demands on founders (that’s the hard part, IMHO).
2. I’m a lawyer for several SaaS startups, including several current and former villagers like Rigor, BridalLive, Terminus, SalesLoft, Calendly. I also represent ATV and Atlanta Ventures. So I can help startups avoid big mistakes and big expense by helping them keep it simple.
3. I’m old. It kinda sucks being old, but it means I’ve been around the tech community for a long time, seen a lot of ups and downs, done plenty of angel investing myself, and have learned a lot. I enjoy passing that on and helping early-stage startups.

More Info: LinkedIn | Twitter | Website

About: Yuri is a patent attorney, tech entrepreneur, and a deal maker.

Bio: Yuri started his career in 2005 drafting technical specifications for inventors and their companies.  Over the years, he progressed his career to managing international patent portfolios for the biggest patent filers in the world.  In 2013, he left the big firm life and co-founded Founders Legal, right here in the village! His law firm is one of the most advanced technology focused law firms in the nation, and have licensed their proprietary software to law firms nationwide.

How I can help:
1.  Patents
2. Trademarks
3. Licensing
4. IP Valuation/asset planning

More Info: LinkedIn | Website