Raising Venture Capital is a challenger sell. | Tyler Willis
Talks about venture capital fundraising, challenger selling and educating investors
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Tyler Willis
Founder of Unsupervised
Bainbridge Island, Washington
Overview
Tyler Willis is the co-founder of Unsupervised, an AI analytics company based in Bainbridge Island, Washington. With a strong background in startups and artificial intelligence, Tyler has successfully led Unsupervised as Founder & COO, and has made impactful investments in companies like Induced AI, Pogo, and Lambda School.
Tyler's career highlights include founding Unsupervised, a successful AI analytics company, and making strategic investments in early-stage companies focused on AI and enterprise software. His role as a co-founder and COO demonstrates his expertise in entrepreneurship, product management, and strategic partnerships.
Work Experience
Founder & COO
2017 - Current
I am the Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Unsupervised. Unsupervised automates analytics so you can quickly see why your metrics are dropping or improving without drilling into dashboards. Highlights (so far): - Customers have found over $1B using Unsupervised - We raised over $60M from top investors including Cathay, SignalFire, Coatue, and Eniac - We have delivered results for some of the biggest companies in North America
Unsupervised is an automated analytics platform provider that finds hidden insights in complex data.
Raised $53,499,220.00 from SignalFire, Coatue, NextGen Venture Partners, Eniac Ventures, Elad Gil and Cathay Innovation.
Member Board of Directors
2022
Board Director at Roots, which enables flexible home ownership and improves the experience of owning a home for the vast majority of Americans. The priorities of American households are shifting towards flexibility: nearly 90% of younger Americans (Millennial/Gen-Z) want to own homes, yet high-income earners in those cohorts overwhelmingly choose to rent. Life today demands increased flexibility and Roots offers an attractive solution: rent homes flexibly while building equity in the house. Between 2015 and 2020, while the overall renting population grew by 3.2%, renters with annual income above $150k grew by 82%, underscoring the preference Americans now have for renting – even when they can afford to own. Roots delivers the best of both worlds: members earn equity in their home for every month that they occupy it and can purchase more equity in the home at any time (up to and including buying the whole home). Roots gives every member the tools needed to meet their personal goals around home ownership, financial return, and location flexibility.
Marketing
2015 - 2016
I consulted for AngelList and helped them review and improve their marketing efforts. AngelList is a small team of ex-founders & future founders building the infrastructure that startups need. AngelList helps founders raise money from investors, hire top talent, and find their earliest customers and users. It also owns and operates Product Hunt. Highlights: - [Marketing] Was the host and producer of AngelList Radio, which ran for 3 seasons and was a top 5% podcast in the US by average number of listens.
AngelList is a U.S. website for startups, angel investors, and job-seekers looking to work at startups.
Raised $170,200,000.00 from Beyond Capital, FJ Labs, Nomad Ventures, Kyle Tibbitts, Angel Collective Opportunity Fund, Sprint Vc, Ride Home Fund, Palumni VC, Vishal Rao and Tiger Global Management.
Chief Marketing Officer
2015 - 2015
Served as the Chief Marketing Officer after the company raised their Series B. I led the Marketing and Talent Curation organizations. During my tenure, the company grew dramatically and we launched several new cities—including our first international city (London). We averaged a new city launch every 6 weeks. Hired helped the most in-demand candidates – including engineers, data scientists, and sales professionals – discover and choose between jobs from thousands of top tech companies in most major startup cities across the world. Hired raised over $100M from Silicon Valley VCs and operated in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Advisory Board Member
2012 - 2015
Helped the team with recruiting, growth marketing, and user acquisition from Seed to Series B as the company grew substantially and raised >$30M.
Vice President, Business Development
2011 - 2015
Unified built enterprise marketing technology used by over 600 top global brand marketers. I led our Business and Corporate Development efforts from six months before the company's launch through our Series B fundraise. I focused on publisher partnerships, product partnerships, and M&A. Highlights: - [BD] Developed several strategic partnerships [Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others] that led to us having the most complete product offering of any company in our space. - [M&A] Sourced and led the acquisition and integration projects of PageLever and Awe.sm
Unified equips marketers with information and intelligence they need to make the best decisions about their social advertising investments.
Raised $64,000,000.00 from Wellington Financial and Silicon Valley Bank.
Advisory Board Member
2011 - 2013
Helped the growth and user acquisition team during their hypergrowth phase (acquired >20m users in a span of 3-4 months).
BranchOut lets people capture and share everyday moments in the workplace through photos, news and updates.
Raised $49,000,000.00 from Employee Stock Option Fund, Redpoint, Accel, Norwest Venture Partners and Mayfield Fund.
Head of Marketing
2007 - 2011
Involver was acquired by Oracle in 2012 where it became Oracle Marketing Cloud. Involver was the web’s most trusted social marketing platform. I led our customer acquisition and growth efforts. We grew to over 2,000,000 customers (including a large percentage of the Fortune 500) before being acquired. I was one of the first few employees. I led marketing from the launch of the company until ~2010 and then ran both marketing programs and brand strategy (which included partnerships and relationship support for some of our largest customers). Highlights: - [Marketing] Led customer acquisition (over 2m customers) - [Marketing] Managed product launches with key launch partners (Sony, Golden State Warriors, Facebook, White House, Olympics) - [Brand Strategy] Helped hundreds of agencies & brands plan and execute award-winning campaigns - [Partnerships] Built several strategic partnerships (Facebook, White House)
Involver offers a social marketing platform that provides SaaS-based tools to help businesses manage their marketing on social media sites.
Raised $11,336,500.00 from Bessemer Venture Partners, Cervin Ventures and Western Technology Investment.