The Edventure Brief

Narek Vardanyan is the co-founder and CEO of The Crowdfunding Formula (TCF), one of the most successful crowdfunding marketing agencies in the world and author of the bestselling ’57 Secrets of Crowdfunding’ book. He is internationally recognised as a crowdfunding expert and got featured in Forbes, TEDx, Startup Grind, FoundR Magazine etc. In this episode, we discuss everything about crowdfunding with Narek. He details the process and gives thorough analysis of each stage and what needs to be considered. From talking about the type of product to the version of platform, he sheds light on the ‘art’ of crowdfunding with all listeners.

Europe's university startup scene with Madeline Lawrence (ASIF Ventures), Jack Chong (OX1), Riam Kanso (Conception X) and Paris de L'Etraz (IE Venture Lab) - Hosted by Michelangelo Valtancoli (Stride)

Republic is a startup investing platform for everyone. They allow regular people — not just a few wealthy accredited investors — to invest in highly vetted private startups, with as little as $10 or as much as $100,000 per investment. Republic was created to democratise fundraising while expanding equity investing to the masses, giving anyone the chance to back the next unicorn company.   Join our episode with Maria Pope and Amora Miller from Republic’s Venture Programmes, the first full stack investor ecosystem for established and emerging leaders in private investing, creating a pipeline from undergraduate mavericks to professional leaders. They talk about the programme they run with VCs and ecosystem builders and discuss the importance of democratising access to capital and investing. They also speak about the investing platform that Republic has and share their personal advice on conducting due diligence as a retail investor. Lastly, they talk about emerging spaces in investing and some exciting areas to watch out for.  

Read more on Republic at: https://republic.co/

In this episode, Oli Littlejohn, the Head of Community at CodeBase, talks us through why NoCode is important and how non technical people can now build digital product. He also shares his own entrepreneurial journey, detailing his experiences helping startups and building a community that helps each other grow. Oli shows us what it’s like to partner with FTSE100 companies to help startups grow and scale as much, and as fast, as possible. CodeBase is the largest technology incubator in the UK and one of the fastest growing in Europe, on a mission to help people build better tech startups and make startups accessible to everyone.  

Read more about Codebase: https://www.thisiscodebase.com/

Ifty Nasir is the founder and CEO of Vestd. Throughout his career he has built businesses and led high performing teams. He is a strong

In this episode, Ifty walks us through the importance of partnerships and how to set them up in an early-stage business. In his words, businesses are built by teams, not by individuals and it's important that everybody is rewarded rather than just the founders. He gives us a deep dive into the topic of equity, explaining cash and non-cash investments, option pools and growth shares. 

Learn more about Vestd, one of the Edventure Emerge 2021 event sponsors, here: https://www.vestd.com/

Dr. Merritt Moore is a quantum physicist and professional ballerina. She graduated with Magna Cum Laude Honors in Physics from Harvard and graduated with a PhD in Quantum Optics from the University of Oxford. She also pursues a professional ballet career, previously with the Zurich Ballet, Boston Ballet, English National Ballet, and Norwegian National Ballet. She was awarded Forbes 30 under 30 and is now dancing and choreographing with robots. Join Zara Zaman, co-founder of Edventure, as she talks with Merritt about her journey, the challenges she faced balancing arts and science, her thoughts on the education system and her advice for those torn between two interests.

Connect with Merritt on Instagram or Twitter @physicsonpointe

This episode is all about e-commerce and D2C brands. Nick, a talented e-commerce entrepreneur, tells us his side of the story, his experiences, and his regrets from building one of Shopify’s most visited stores. He discusses the origination of drop-shipping, the importance of customisation for D2C platforms, and the infinite possibilities that drop-shipping could have in the future world. Nick covers the marketing aspects of D2C brands and how to ride the wave of social media to capture the most attention in a world with an ever decreasing attention span. Lastly, he discusses the importance of having a solid network and an industry-specific mentor.

Grant is a junior at Stanford studying sustainable business. He’s spent the last year at Sequoia Capital, working on the Company Design Program — Sequoia’s early stage accelerator — and supporting founders on product, GTM and strategy. He is the co-founder of the College Ventures Network, the largest network of student-run venture groups in the world. At Stanford, he is co-MD of Cardinal Ventures, an early-stage accelerator whose companies have raised over $400 Million.  

Join this exciting episode to hear more about: 

- The College Ventures Network 

- What’s missing on college campuses today 

- How the landscape for student ventures has changed 

- Opportunities for student founders and what they need to launch 

- How to start a startup accelerator  

Read more about College Ventures Network here: https://www.collegeventuresnetwork.com/

Join us for an exciting #EdventureEmerge episode on how to monetise your passions in 2021 with Daniel Koss (founder of Creable), Matt Timons-Brown, (the Raspberry Pi Guy), Erifili Gounari (founder of The Z Link), and Vivek Pandit, (creator of We Are GenZ). They walk us through their journey of creating content and growing followings which ultimately allowed them to monetise their passions. We learn about the creator economy and what has changed in the last decade. They also share actionable tips and tricks to succeed in the highly competitive environment, but also highlight recent changes that bear immense opportunities, such as the fragmentation of one monolithic platforms to individual ones that cater to niche interests.  

Connect with Erifili Gounari: https://twitter.com/marauders

Connect with Daniel Koss: https://twitter.com/danielkoss

Connect with Matt Timons-Brown: https://twitter.com/RaspberryPiGuy1

Connect with Vivek Pandit: https://twitter.com/vivek_pandit11

In this #EdventureEmerge episode, we are joined by Roberto Croci, Managing Director of Microsoft for Startups MEA. He shares their mission of empowering every founder and startup in the Middle East and showcases the support they provide through initiatives like Highway to 100 Unicorns, the Growth X accelerator, and the Microsoft Reactor. He discusses the importance of connected ecosystems and how to build them. Finally, he explores the startup scene in MEA and why we shouldn't compare it to Silicon Valley, but focus instead on how to leverage its assets to build something unique to this region.

Microsoft for Startups: https://startups.microsoft.com/

Highway to 100 Unicorns: https://www.microsoft.com/MEA/startups/H100webseries/

Growth X Accelerator: https://www.microsoft.com/MEA/startups/growthxaccelerator/

Microsoft Reactor: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/reactor/