Build Personal Moats - Erik Torenberg
Talks about personal moat, career advice and competitive advantage
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Erik Torenberg
Founder of Village Global
San Francisco, California
Overview
Erik Torenberg is the Founder and CEO of Turpentine, a company that invests in various sectors including Digital Health, BioTech, and FinTech. With a background in founding and leading successful ventures like On Deck and Token Daily, Erik has built a reputation for his expertise in entrepreneurship and angel investing, making strategic investments in companies like Extend, Inc. and VeriSIM Life.
Work Experience
Founder
2023 - Current
Founder
2023 - 2024
Turpentine is a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, culture, and the trends driving our future.
Co-Founder and Partner
2017
Village is an early stage venture fund capital fund backed by some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. Village is not a traditional VC. We’re a network. From how we invest in startups to how we help founders - we operate as a network. When you raise money from Village, you’re not just getting money. You’re getting connected capital.
Investor
2014
I've Invested in Scale AI, Rappi, Nurx, Lattice, Extend, Figma (late), Perplexity, Replit (late), Flexport (late), Long-Term Stock Exchange, Winnie, Carrot, and ~60 more companies
Founder, Chairman
2015 - 2023
On Deck is building Stanford for the Internet. On Deck aims to take the bundle that is Stanford—network, credentials, education, etc—and apply it to the entire lifecycle of a person’s career. A place where people explore what they want to do, gain skills & expertise, and make the most meaningful relationships of their lives. On Deck is a totally independent, venture backed company and has no formal affiliation with any VC firm besides our investors (Founders Fund and Village Global among many others) Check out more here: www.beondeck.com
On Deck is a community platform designed to develop different ideas and build companies.
Raised $20,000,000.00 from Pioneer Fund.
Co-founder and Chairman
2017 - 2018
Www.tokendaily.co
Founding Team, Employee #1, Community & Business Development
2014 - 2016
Product Hunt is the place to discover your next favorite thing. 😻 http://www.producthunt.com
Sandboxes helps build website for a new product or startup.
Co-Founder, CEO (#500 Strong)
2011 - 2013
Bi-directional video platform for rap battles, cyphers, performances. We were trying to be like twitch.tv but for all verticals, starting with rap.
rapt.fm allows its users to freestyle rap with top rappers around the world and challenge others to one-on-one rap battles.
Product Marketing
2010 - 2011
Tried to make a better way for colleges and recruiters to evaluate students.
Curriculum Development / Player Training
2009 - 2010
Can't make the NBA? Help NBA players.
Business Development
2008 - 2009
Participated in making a social network for books. Tried to make a better goodreads / shelfari