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Hillary Bush

Founder of Pollen

New York City Metropolitan Area

Overview 

Hillary Bush is the Founder & CEO of Pollen, with expertise in product development, startups, SEO, and social media marketing. She has a strong background in non-profits and international development, having worked with organizations like Kiva.org and TechnoServe. Bush holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and has experience as an angel investor, growth advisor, and consultant. She has a track record of success in product management and has made significant contributions to companies like Bungalow and MasterClass.

Work Experience 

  • Founder & CEO

    2022 - Current

Pollen is the premier professional development platform for independents, consultants, and solopreneurs.

Raised $5,200,000.00 from ANIMO Ventures, Precursor Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital and Founder Collective.

  • Angel Investor, Growth Advisor & Consultant

    2019

    Investments: Outlier.org, MasterClass, Imperfect Foods, Nex.team, TellTail, Getaway, The Renewal Workshop Advisor / Consultant: Adobe, Outlier, Outschool, MT Copeland, Bungalow, AirOps

  • MBA Associate

    2021 - 2022

    Founder Collective is a seed-stage venture capital fund, built by a collection of successful entrepreneurs investing in other entrepreneurs. Highlighted investments: Marine Snow, Conceive, Bird & Be, Sylva, realAppeal, AirOps

Founder Collective is a seed-stage venture capital fund that helps entrepreneurs build their businesses.

  • Investment Partner

    2020 - 2022

Dorm Room Fund is the strongest community of entrepreneurial students in the nation.

  • Senior Product Manager

    2020 - 2020

    Bungalow is tackling two great challenges of our generation: housing affordability and loneliness. I was responsible for clearing our path to profitability. • Pitched, piloted, and scaled SEO program • Led the effort to make company profitable • Lead PM for top of funnel marketing and operational efficiency • In partnership with CMO, reimagined our marketing strategy in response to covid-19 • Managed a cross-functional team of 20 people (Exec, Design, Eng, Ops, Customer Service)

  • Product Manager

    2019 - 2020

    • One of two non-team leads to be a member of the leadership group • Overhauled and built custom tooling systems for 50%+ of employees • Lead PM across multiple product areas: scheduling, maintenance, revenue share • Owned strategy for 2 new lines of business responsible for making the company profitable

Bungalow provides home rental services.

Raised $171,000,000.00 from Atomic, Bossa Invest, Founders Fund, Coatue, Flucas Ventures, Nine Four Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Deer Park Road.

  • Product Manager

    2017 - 2019

    MasterClass offers online classes from the world's best, including Gordon Ramsay, Serena Williams, and Carlos Santana and more. I joined as employee 30 and helped grow it to a globally known brand. • Lead PM for organic growth; Owned company-wide organic goals • Managed cross-functional and international team of 15+ people • Led the pilot, launch, and scaling of industry-renowned SEO program: masterclass.com/articles • First recipient of company-wide values award for "Be Passionately Curious" • Defined collaboration best practices that were codified into official "Ways of Working" • Started and led company's first growth team • Lead PM for growth, renewal, and referral • Drove effort to ensure subscription business model was a success

  • Growth & Community

    2016 - 2017

    • 3rd Product and Community hire at the company (30th employee) • Managed class launches (Gordon Ramsay, Armin van Buuren, Diane von Furstenberg, and more) • Ran live events with high-profile instructors, laying the foundation for the MasterClass Live program: learn.masterclass.com/masterclasslive

MasterClass is a provider of an online education platform designed to offer video based vocational courses.

Raised $461,400,000.00 from Vershina Capital and Bracket Capital.

  • Community Associate

    2015 - 2016

    By lending as little as $25, you can help people around the world create opportunity for themselves and their communities. • Main point of contact for over 850,000 community members • Internal company-wide representative for Kiva's lending community

Kiva is an international non-profit organization that enables families to make small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Raised $11,800,000.00 from Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative and The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.

  • East African Coffee Initiative Intern

    2012 - 2012

    TechnoServe works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries.

Technoserve work with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries.

Raised $3,500,000.00 from Walmart.org.

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