Collin Wallace: Driving Innovation in Tech and Venture Capital
Episode description
Collin Wallace has over 20 years of experience as an engineer, inventor, operator, and investor. Before joining Lobby Capital, he was the Managing Director for Techstars Silicon Valley, where he launched the first two Techstars accelerator programs in the Bay Area in partnership with JP Morgan and eBay. He started his career as the founder and CEO of FanGo Software Systems (TS S10), a leading company in restaurant mobile ordering. In 2011, FanGo was acquired by GrubHub, and Collin became the Head of Innovation, responsible for OrderHub, new technologies, and a significant portion of Grubhub’s pre-IPO patent portfolio. In 2019, he co-founded ZeroStorefront (YC W19), a data analytics platform for restaurants, which Thanx acquired in 2022. He is an alumnus of both Techstars and YCombinator, an advisor for the Roelof Botha and Huifen Chan Innovation Program, and a faculty member at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he co-teaches the Startup Garage class. Collin has run two YCombinator Demo Day Funds, investing primarily in marketplaces, developer tools, productivity, the future of work, sustainability and artificial intelligence. In total, he has invested in over 80 early-stage companies, including Payjoy, Landed, Mosaic Voice, Postscript, and Vellum. Topics: * Strategies for a Successful Exit * Lessons for Entrepreneurs Turned Investors * Expertise on Investing in Key Sectors (Future of Work, Sustainability, Productivity, Verticalized SaaS, and DevOps Tools) #VentureCapital #StartupJourney #TechInnovation #FutureOfWork #Sustainability