Advisor Highlight: Martina Welkhoff
July 5, 2022
Get to know our Advisor, Martina Welkhoff (she/her) with The WXR Venture Fund.
Tell us a bit about yourself:
I am an entrepreneur at heart. I founded my first company, a mobile gaming startup called Zealyst, about 12 years ago, and later started a VR studio. I’m now on the funding side of the equation as a Managing Partner at the WXR Fund, an early-stage venture fund focused on women-led AR/VR and AI companies. I have a young daughter and two rambunctious dogs, and we like to get away from screens and out into nature whenever possible.
What excites you most about tech startups?
I am excited about how much potential tech startups have to shape every aspect of our lives. I hope we can learn from some of the mistakes of Web2 as we move into Web3 and support a much more inclusive, diverse foundational set of founders to build our collective future. I’m especially interested in anything that falls into the physical-digital interaction paradigm or what’s now popularly referred to as the metaverse.
What change are you hoping to create in the industry by serving as a Find Ventures advisor?
I want to help underrepresented founders overcome some of the unique challenges they face and play a small role in their ultimate huge successes!
In your experience with startups and entrepreneurs, what’s one of Founders’ biggest hurdles? What advice would you give Founders facing similar struggles?
Many founders face a lot of rejection from investors early in their journey, which can be profoundly demoralizing. I always encourage founders to build a strong peer network that they can turn to for support and empathy, because I think that community can really make the difference in turbulent times.
Name one tech startup that you really believe in and want to help amplify.
Jessica Loche-Eggert, Founder & CEO of LegUp – a team of parents, child care advocates, technologists, and doers who are passionate about creating a better child care search and enrollment process.
What one piece of advice would you give to a Founder that is thinking about launching their own tech startup?
Get started! Find a small way to start building and testing TODAY. Too often people wait for the perfect time, which will never arrive. You don’t need to quit your job right away, but if you don’t start in some kind of measurable way, you’ll never make the progress you need to learn, iterate and evolve to the point that you’re ready to take that leap.
You can connect with Martina on LinkedIn or Twitter.
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