Welcome to BrightLoop

WELCOME,

We’re excited to announce BrightLoop, a new platform for VC-backed startups and the rising executives who want to build more successful startups. We’re on a mission to help 1,000 founders and startups succeed, and we hope you’ll join us.

FOR EXECUTIVES

As executives, even in companies we led and loved, we sometimes felt stifled – are we allowed to admit that?! – that we were so narrowly focused that we weren’t seeing or learning as much as we could. We were having an impact and meeting new people, but all in our narrow industry. This feeling might be inevitable when you’re in the same industry for 5 or 10 or 20 years, even if you’re rising through the ranks and conquering the world. 

We also wished we had more ways to win in the startup world. The most valuable companies in the world are tech companies, and we wanted a way to be part of more of those starts. Investors are diversified but executives aren’t - our jobs, our bonus, our equity are often all tied to a single stock that may or may not work out, and we wanted more ways to win. 

The way executives often attempt to solve this challenges is switching jobs - to a new role or industry that offers us new opportunities to grow and learn, or to a new company that promises us a more lucrative future. But it’s a temporary fix.  

We’re designing BrightLoop to help executives build real relationships with VC-backed founders and startups - to broaden the impact they have in the world, to meet people outside their narrow industry, and to participate in the success of these companies.

FOR STARTUPS 

As founders, we built the foundation of our companies on relationships we built with key executives, executives whose insights and introductions transformed our startups - insights that told us what to build, and intros to our earliest customers, partners and team members. 

As we got bigger and time got tighter, we found it harder to maintain these relationships and we lost the unfair advantage those insights and intros had given us, our product team, and our go to market team.

We’re designing BrightLoop for the startups who want to maintain the unfair advantage that they key relationships can generate. 

FOR VC INVESTORS

Last but not least, we’re designing BrightLoop for the VC firms who want to help accelerate their portfolio companies, deliver on their promise of game-changing introductions and want to showcase the value they add to their companies.  

HOW BRIGHTLOOP WORKS

As a startup or startup founder, you’ll describe the type of executives you want to advise. You and your investors will get tools to invite the executives you know and to reach out to the ones you don’t. You’ll get the ability to create feedback loops that ask the executives for feedback on new products and new ideas, and to reward the most helpful executives with formal advisory roles or opportunities to invest in your next round. 

As an executive, if you’re invited to advise a startup and decide to advise,  you’ll help build more successful startups in three main ways: you’ll spend a few minutes each month offering insights on new products and programs the startup is considering and provide live feedback once or twice a year; you’ll offer intros if you have a contact or company you think the product might fit in its current form; and you’ll raise your hand to trial if and when you think the product might fit you.

In return, you’ll learn about and help shape new products, new companies, new markets. You’ll meet VC investors, VC-backed founders and other advisors. If you’re engaged and you’re helpful, you’ll earn opportunities to earn equity and opportunities to co-invest a few angel dollars in vetted companies and alongside vetted VCs. Most of all, you’ll help build products you actually want to use and help build more successful startups.  

THE ETHOS

One happy byproduct of building a platform for executives and startups  is that the underlying realities of business are understood. If you’re an executive on a call with a startup or founder, you’ll know that they value your insights but would also love for you to refer a potential customer or become a customer. If you’re a startup on a call with an advisor, you’ll know that they want to help but are also keen on other opportunities you might offer. 

There’s a give and a get, but we’ll work to make sure  it doesn’t get too transactional or distract from the goal of building more successful startups, we’ll build ratings and mechanisms into the platform to help keep it that way - starting with a “too sales-y” (“too transactional!”) button that works both ways. 

OUR MODEL

We charge the startups a subscription fee for the platform and a referral fee if any companies that advisors refer become customers. If a startup invites its advisors to invest in a round, we coordinate these investments, invest our own money  alongside them, and charge a management fee and carry that’s similar to a venture firm. We also open part of each round BrightLoop raises to advisors who would like to own a part of BrightLoop (and a part of all the companies we invest in) - so that each executive can have dozens  or hundreds of ways to win. 

DESIGNING TOGETHER

It’s early, but we hope to design the platform with you. In addition to advising startups, we hope you’ll advise BrightLoop and give us feedback on the platform. We’ll use your insight to build a better product for every advisor, and we’ll share the carry on all the investments made on the platform with you in return. 

Thanks for your help and we’re excited for 2025.