Advisor Highlight: Brett Greene
March 23, 2022
We are so grateful for the community that we have at Find Ventures that we wanted to introduce you to each of our advisors that are committed to helping us fulfill our vision to make “all entrepreneurs” a reality by prioritizing Black, Latin, Indigenous, people of color, women, non binary, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, and low-income founders.
To start us off, we’d like to introduce you to Brett Greene of New Tech Northwest.
About:
Brett Greene coaches tech executives through challenges with business, ADD, ADHD, and introversion to be happier and more successful rather than failing because they don’t have professional support.
He holds an MA in Counseling Psychology and has coached, mentored and advised hundreds of executives through Google Community Leaders, Founder Institute, SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event, University of Washington Foster School of Business Product Management Center, New Tech Northwest, Washington Technology Industry Association, Startup Weekend, TechStars, and many additional accelerators. Some of these companies were acquired after their leaders and teams were coached by Brett.
He is the Founder / CEO of the New Tech Northwest community of 60,000+ members where his clients include startups to Fortune 10 companies. As an advocate for tech for good Brett has appeared on NBC, CNBC and CBS television, & shared a stage with national government leaders. He has produced hundreds of event experiences, worked with multiplatinum bands, been a Top 35 Social Media Power Influencer in Forbes, and spoken at the White House
What excites you most about tech startups?
Tech startups drive innovation and creativity to solve really hard problems. What’s most inspiring to me is how startup communities 1) support people with great ideas, and 2) encourage taking action to build new opportunities, products, and services while seeing the high chance of failure simply as a learning experience along our ongoing journeys.
What change are you hoping to create in the industry by serving as a Find Ventures advisor?
The change I’m hoping to create in the industry by serving as a Find Ventures advisor is to create more equitable opportunities for founders who do not have the inherent outsized benefits of being born into a family with deep resources.
In your experience with startups and entrepreneurs, what’s one of Founders’ biggest hurdles? What advice would you give Founders facing similar struggles?
One of the biggest hurdles for Founders is not starting with research to prove that their product or service idea is wanted enough for customers to pay for it. Too many times founders invest time and money to build an MVP (minimum viable product) and then try to market it to convince potential customers that they should want it. This is backwards and incredibly common. Don’t fall in love with your product or service idea that may fail due to lack of interest. The smart move is to identify your target market, ask them what their pains are, and develop a solution for that need. What the customer wants and will pay for to solve their problem matters more than how cool an idea is for a product or service.
Name one tech startup & it’s Founder(s) that you really believe in and want to help amplify.
City Bldr is a startup I’ve supported from day one because the founders are smart, caring, and visionary. They simplify the redundancy and costs of real estate acquisition by streamlining the analysis and evaluation of properties. This helps people to get higher value when selling their homes and creates more affordable housing options by identifying properties highest value and best use for new developments.
Follow them at: @CityBldr on Twitter, Bryan Copley (Co-Founder) on LinkedIn, @citybldrceo on Twitter & Devyn Cairns (Co-Founder) – on LinkedIn , and on Github
What one piece of advice would you give to a Founder that is thinking about launching their own tech startup?
Research the interest in, and viability of, your idea and then build relationships with members of startup communities to support you. Behind every successful founder is a community of peers, mentors, advisors, coaches and startup community organizations. Give generously to others in the community and you will receive even more than you give.
You can connect with Brett on LinkedIn and Twitter. Following New Tech Northwest on Twitter and visit learn more about New Tech Northwest and Epsilon Coaching on their sites.
If you’d like to learn more about ways you can get involved with us at Find Ventures visit our Get Involved page to connect, join our community, and to continue getting regular updates.
To see a full list of all of our advisors check out our Team page.