{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"154 Vern Howard: Hallo's CEO is NOT Your Deliveryman","description":"Vern Howard\u2019s story is remarkable.  Vern was a math prodigy who left high school early, when he tested into Virginia Commonwealth University to study Computer Science and Math.  He paid his way through school by teaching math and serving as a janitor on campus. He went on to sell men\u2019s suits, which taught him the art of selling.  After joining Capital One \u2013 whose signing bonus he used to rebuild an Alpha Romeo \u2013 he built Capital One\u2019s first mobile banking application.  He also built out the Application Security Team at Capital One before, naturally, becoming a securities trader. Hang on, we\u2019re not done yet.  He became an entrepreneur.  He sent a book to Steve Case\u2019s partner at Revolution and\u2026.well, listen to find out what happens! Episode Quotes On Getting Started as an Entrepreneur \u201cSo two people I met accelerated everything. Ted Leonsis kind of introduced me to this network of people. Mike Lincoln over at Cooley was like, \u201cYeah, everyone is raving about you. You didn't go to an Ivy League school, you're not from this background. But you\u2019re just  going into all these office and people are saying: Who's this kid? Vern, right.\u201d So they got me started and did our legal work for free, util we got funded.\u201d On Why Employers are So Focused on \u201cTop Colleges\u201d \u201cSo I think it's a two pronged problem. One is, these are businesses, right? So there's budget, and once you start talking about like numbers and budgets you start looking at ROI. And every recruiter says, OK, great. If we spend one hundred thousand dollars to go to thirty one schools this season, what's the ROI now? If we go to Stanford or we go to Michigan, we kind of know what we get there,  because some of our current engineers went to school there. So we know their level of output is XYZ, as far as coding goes. But if we take a risk and go with something we've haven't done before, like going to Sweetbriar College, which is an all-women's college in Virginia, (the founder of TaskRabbit went there). We may want to take a risk, by going there. We might spend fifty thousand dollars and have no ROI to show. So the best play, much like VC culture, is we go to Stanford, we get 3 students --great. But what happens is the competition, right? If your brand isn't as big as you think it is as a company, your recruiting line is nonexistent. Everyone went over to the Robinhood line.\u201d On Black Founders Being \u201cOver-Mentored\u201d One thing I see amongst the Black founder community is a ton of mentors. And I think Black founders are over-mentored and under-funded. I don't know who coined that term, but a ton of people DO want to mentor. That's funny. I have people fill my inbox from the top VC's in the nation and just say, hey, Vern, let me be your mentor. And, you know, I'm always greatly appreciative, I like the advice.  But I\u2019d also like to get funded\u201d Hallo:  https:\/\/www.hallothere.com\/ Something Ventured:    https:\/\/somethingventured.us\/   ","author_name":"Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast","author_url":"http:\/\/somethingventured.us","html":"