Blog

The Myth of the Big Idea and looking Beyond the Resume

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Tim Young speaks with Heather Hartnett, the CEO at Human Ventures. She was NYC’s first female-led start-up studio founder and her philanthropic background brings a unique approach to investing, helping set the firm apart with their Human Network approach.

In this episode, Heather speaks on the “Myth of the Big Idea” and how Human proactively looks at the zeitgeist to see what types of patterns and opportunities are starting to form. She gives the scoop on how this method redefines their thesis to focus on “Reinventing Life Stages,” looking at how each generation experiences life’s stages with unique lenses and what market opportunities each brings.

Heather also talks about Human’s new strategy, Beyond the Resume, born to evaluate founding teams beyond just experience and take into account dynamics and the multidimensional factors that are critical for success, yet so often overlooked at the early stage.

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On company culture & how his role as CEO changes every 6 months

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Hadley Harris speaks with Chieh Huang, the co-founder & CEO of Boxed, an early Eniac company and one of Bloomberg’s Top 50 people to watch in 2018. Chieh is a charismatic, natural born leader, and his passion and dedication have grown Boxed from his parent’s garage to raising over $130M with hundreds of employees.

In this episode, he digs into his journey to Boxed, from his start as a lawyer to co-founding Astro Ape which sold to Zynga in a few short years. He speaks candidly about how his role as CEO changes every 6 months, the most important qualities when working with co-founders and how to recalibrate as the company grows.

Boxed sets itself apart with a vibrant culture and Chieh speaks to why it’s critical to keep employees motivated and how they adapted benefits to fit the distinct needs of employees, such as tuition and wedding costs.

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On spotting the Thunder Lizards before they hatch

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Nihal Mehta kicks off Seed to Scale’s opening episode with one of VC’s most prominent investors Mike Maples, the founding partner of Floodgate. Mike has backed some of the most well-known tech companies today, including Twitter, Twitch.tv, Lyft, Okta, Chegg, Demandforce, among many others.

In this episode, Mike talks about his journey from being an entrepreneur in junior high writing video games to being a founder of two IPO companies, Tivoli and Motiv, and how his pivot to investor was his way to remain close to startups in order to “stay forever young.”

He gives advice to investors on the importance of making randomness your friend and to remember you don’t have a monopoly on truth.

Mike also digs into his role of spotting the Thunder Lizards before they hatch, what he believes makes a good founder: “They want to start a movement, not just a company,” and his biggest red flag.

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By Tim Young, Eniac Founding General Partner

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We are excited to announce the latest company to join the Eniac portfolio: MedCrypt, a San Diego-based company that provides cryptographically embedded cybersecurity software for medical devices.

Cyber attacks are a growing epidemic and the wake of damages is expected to reach upwards of $6T annually by 2021. In healthcare, cyberattacks can mean life or death, and FortiGuard Labs reported that healthcare organizations experience more than twice the number of attacks on average as compared to organizations in other vertical markets. This has gained the attention of top medical device manufacturers and the FDA, which recently released their Medical Device Safety Action Plan.

MedCrypt’s cryptographically embedded security software enables medical device companies to secure and monitor the behavior of their devices and meet the new FDA cybersecurity regulations. MedCrypt will also be uniquely positioned to acquire and leverage a proprietary, cross-platform dataset providing device companies, hospitals, and medical facility security teams with a more robust solution to monitor and protect in real-time.

By The Eniac Team

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Eniac Ventures was founded on values of diversity, beginning with our internal team. We firmly believe the world’s best innovation stems from the most diverse perspectives, and we’re proud to be a pledge partner with #MovingForward.

Eniac has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination or harassment of any type towards and by our employees, our portfolio founders and their employees, consultants, vendors, and other service providers.

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Check out our latest news from Team Eniac and our Founders, including our experience at TED Age of Amazement in Vancouver, new funding announcements, product launches and upcoming events.

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This year the Eniac Team descended upon Vancouver for Ted Age of Amazement. And the event really did live up to its name. It was a week of non-stop discovery.

It would take another week to speak to all the knowledge dropped, but in case you missed it, here are our Top 10 Takeaways from TED.

1. There are so many transformative ideas to save the planet
2. How we’re preserving the human body
3. It is time to challenge the Internet
4. How humans and AI can peacefully co-exist
5. Climbing without a rope
6. Is personal flight the new Uber?
7. Can technology make or break democracy?
8. Data, manipulation and the threat of dictatorship
9. Machine vs. Man — What can they really know?
10. There is life beyond.

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By Tim Young, Founding General Partner, Eniac Ventures

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According to the Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute, the U.S. Legal Services reached upwards of $437B in 2017, and with law firms’ business models being predicated on inefficiencies, Eniac has long been bullish on a company that can capture the spend and make the provision of legal services far more effective.

Enter Legit — the company that we believe is going to reinvent the U.S. legal system one vertical at a time, from IP to tax, M&A and litigation. They are well on their way because today, we are excited to announce that Eniac has led their $2.6M seed round.

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By Hadley Harris, Founding General Partner

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Each year since 2001, Forbes announces their Midas List of the top 100 VC’s in the world. It is an esteemed award filled with the biggest names in venture capital.

But my partners and I will never be on this list.

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By Nihal Mehta, Founding General Partner & The Eniac Team

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Today is International Women’s Day, and my team and I are proud to honor and celebrate the Women’s Empowerment Movement.

Championing women has always been part of Eniac’s commitment.

Going back to our time at UPenn, we were inspired by all the people that helped design, build and operate ENIAC. Almost forgotten in recent history, were the six women — Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spenceand Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum — that actually first programmed the machine. The “Computers,” as they were nicknamed at the time, were recruited as top mathematicians and many of them went on to teach programming and develop some of the earliest tools for software engineers.

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