Mike Raab

Executive Director

2022 - Current

The Garage is an 11,000 SF co-working space, community, and network of resources for Northwestern students interested in entrepreneurship and bringing their ideas to life. Since 2015, The Garage has incubated >1,500 student-founded startups. As the executive director, I lead the vision, community, and programming of The Garage to empower students to discover their potential and increase their impact.

Interim Director

2022 - 2022

Associate Director

2020 - 2022

Founding Director, San Francisco

2019 - 2020

Founded The Garage San Francisco, a community of Northwestern/Kellogg alumni founders, operators, and investors in the SF Bay area who support each other professionally. Through a weekly newsletter, regular programming, and ad hoc introductions, The Garage SF "manufactures serendipity," by creating collisions that otherwise wouldn't happen. Additionally, the professional community in SF serves as a bridge to students at The Garage at Northwestern when they are in search of mentors, advisors, investors, and resources to get their startups off the ground. *In 3 months, built a weekly newsletter of 800+ community members with a consistent newsletter open-rate >50%

Award-Winning Author, Founded: The No B.S. Guide for Student Entrepreneurs

2021

Founded is an Amazon Bestseller in Startups and Starting a Business categories; the 2022 Best Indie Book Award Winner in Entrepreneurship; and the 2022 Silver Medalist in Entrepreneurship in the Axiom Business Book Awards. It is currently utilized in dozens of university and high-school entrepreneurship programs around the world.

Moderator, Interviewer

2019

Experienced interviewer and moderator of public and private conversations with world-renowned successful leaders in startups and technology, including: Jon McNeill (former President of Tesla, COO of Lyft, current CEO & Co-founder of DVX Ventures) Michael Horvath (Co-founder & CEO, Strava) Priti Youssef Choksi (Partner, Norwest Venture Partners; former head of corp dev @ Meta & Google) Dennis Yang (CEO, Udemy) Rob Goldman (Founder & CEO, threadsy; former VP Ads @ Facebook; Board Member @ IndieGoGo) Michael Krakaris (Co-founder, Deliverr - $2.1B exit to Shopify) YouTube Creator Panel, Google HQ NYC (John Battelle, Andrea Hippeau, and Prashanth Venkataramanujam) Dinesh Moorjani (Co-founder, Tinder; Managing Partner, Time Zero Capital)

Principal

2017 - 2019

Sourced investment opportunities in early-stage consumer technology companies, performed diligence, synthesized market research, conducted reference checks, authored investment memos, constructed quarterly LP reports, built firm’s platform initiatives, and formulated the firm’s investment theses on sectors including digital media, gaming/eSports, XR, and cannabis.

Associate

2017 - 2018

Manager, Strategy & Insights - Digital Consumer Group

2017 - 2017

Led team of three analysts at FNG’s new division overseeing digital platform analytics for Fox Broadcasting, FX Networks, National Geographic, and Fox Sports, interpreting user data into actionable insights, forecasting performance through growth and financial models, and building & presenting research-backed D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) strategic cases for management. • Surfaced insights through regular and ad-hoc user analytics reporting across all content / products / platforms, partnered with growth team to measure performance of marketing campaigns, coordinated with product team to A/B test UI features and customer flow, and advised networks on best performing content, all leading to 20%+ increase in user retention (returning viewers) over first 6 months. • Led large-scale research projects for management culminating in presentations on a variety of strategic concerns including: *Primary research evaluating consumer sentiment and reaction to potential D2C propositions, branding, and pricing, *Competitive content analyses comparing content offerings across all SVOD & DMVPD platforms in market, and *Synthesizing third-party research uncovering insights around cord-cutting and evolving viewership behavior. •Collaborated with finance, marketing, engineering, ad-sales, and programming to prioritize and align growth initiatives. Left DCG in December 2017 to join Sinai Ventures in San Francisco.

Analyst, Brand Management & Digital Media

2014 - 2016

Business / corporate development, research analysis, and financial modeling to organize and present strategic options for the digital distribution strategy of the world’s largest scripted content producer, incorporating alignment of all ancillary revenue streams and focused on optimizing the long-term global value of the company’s assets. • Facilitated decision-making through research and evaluating key industry trends, competitive strategy, emerging platforms, deal evaluation, and business development opportunities, preparing recommendations for management. • High-visibility projects included long-term strategic plan (completed every 5 years), studio’s annual budget book (presented to 21CF Chairman), and the strategic plan for the merger of two subsidiary cable production entities. • Coordinated with finance, research, distribution, legal / biz affairs, marketing, and production to align key stakeholders. Left TCFTV in May 2016 to travel for 6 months.

Executive Assistant to EVP of Brand Management & Digital Media

2012 - 2014

Started from the bottom.