Brian Truong paid his way through school working for Boston startups. But here’s the thing—when he first came to Harvard University, he didn’t know what a startup was.
“I kept wondering—what are these startup things everyone’s talking about? I had honestly never heard the term before,” the recent grad told BostInno.
The truth is, Truong was accepted to several Ivy League schools in addition to Stanford. But he chose Harvard for several reasons—for one, how multi-dimensional the students are.
“The people I met there—it was easy for them to change conversation from politics, to economics, to tech, to philosophy. There was this broad interest in a variety of things. That was inspiring for me.”
Speaking of diverse interests, Truong has long been a freestyle hip hop dancer and choreographer. In fact, he helped form a dance crew back in high school, which competed in numerous competitions.
The startup bug
So, while pursuing an AB in Human Evolutionary Biology and Computer Science, Truong landed a gig at the Cambridge tutoring company Signet Education. Co-founder Andrew Magliozzi– also a Harvard grad, and a founder behind AdmitHub, FinalsClub.org and OpenRecess.com—took Truong under his wing as an apprentice of sorts, coaching him on a range of aspects relating to business development.
By the end of his freshman year, Truong was leading the product efforts for the note-sharing marketplace KarmaNotes. And the following fall, he started working for Lift Ventures, a company that bought out Internet properties and re-launched them to grow their revenues. Eventually he would dive into biotech, joining a startup called Protomex Life Sciences, which made a medical device that could take a small sample of someone’s blood and automatically tell what cardiovascular diseases they were at risk for.
At this point, it was obvious there was no turning back—Truong was hooked on startups. But even after working for three of them, he says he still wasn’t sure what industry he wanted to be in, what makes a great startup or what investors look at.
“So I had this crazy idea—trying to get into venture capital,” he explained.
Truong estimates that he reached out to roughly 100 VCs, cold emailing to ask for a coffee meeting. Mike Rothenberg, CEO of Rothenberg Ventures was one of those, and he agreed to meet. The company, which is headquartered out of San Francisco, had just raised a $5 million fund. Rothenberg took Truong on as its third employee and by the end of that semester, he helped close a deal. That summer, he had the opportunity to work out of the West Coast office, and ended up closing four more deals for the firm. Among the companies he sourced, conducted due diligence on, and/or led investments for were Freight Farms and Codeship.
As the summer drew to a close, Rothenberg offered him a full time job there.
“I thought about it for a long time...but I was pretty sure my parents would kill me if I dropped out of school,” says Truong.
“Agriculture tech is starting to heat up. But two or three years ago? No one cared about that. When I was presenting Freight Farms to other investors outside of Rothenberg, they thought I was crazy."
So, he went back to Harvard in the fall, and was offered the chance to head up Rothenberg’s investment efforts around Boston, helping to support local portfolio companies. Truong noted that he learned a lot while working for a VC, filling in some crucial areas that he had been missing in the startup world–namely how to pitch investors, how to build a pitch deck and—most importantly—assembling his priorities as a founder at any given time. He also began to hone his eye for promising companies, developing a sense of what ideas were most interesting to him and why.
“I love the startups that are going after really old-world problems, disrupting industries that have been the same for many years,” said Truong. “Like agriculture tech—it’s starting to heat up. But two or three years ago? No one cared about that. When I was presenting Freight Farms to other investors outside of Rothenberg, they thought I was crazy. But it was a $200 billion industry that had no technology. I kept saying, ‘There’s so much to be done here.’”
Paying it forward
A main focus for Truong’s over the years has been figuring out how to give back to the tech community. As such, he’s taken on a number of advising roles.
“I think it’s good karma,” he says.
First, Truong helped to start—and then lead—Harvard Ventures Group his freshman year.
“When I came to Harvard, I noticed a lot of the career stuff was very professional,” he added. “But people didn’t talk too much about startups at that time.”
While it began with several annual events, a couple hundred on the mailing list and roughly 10 founder visits, the group grew to have 2,500 on the mailing list, with 25 events every year and 75 visiting entrepreneurs/VCs.
“You could really see the shift in peoples’ attitudes toward startups—suddenly they could see that this was a very real career possibility.”
Truong then went on be an advisor at LeanGap, where he’s been helping high schoolers find their passions.
“There’s no forcing it—you don’t have to pursue entrepreneurship—but if you’re aware of it and know it’s an option, that’s empowering in itself.”
A new chapter post-graduation
“The number one reason I'd stay in Boston is talent…I know the people here are going to do great things, and I want to be part of that story."
Since graduating, Truong has been pouring most of his time and energy into co-founding HelloToken, a content monetization startup that just launched earlier this year (his business partner is also a Harvard alum, with a PhD in Applied Physics). HelloToken, which BostInno has been keeping an eye on for some time, is currently based at the Harvard i-lab and running beta tests for its service. How it works is that readers “pay” content producers for articles by answering a quick question upon entry to a site, in exchange for access tokens. This native, one-click question method of micropayment allows marketers to leverage the readership networks of online publications, and publishers/blogs to earn 10 times more per visitor than ads.
HelloToken launched with roughly 40,000 users and Truong says it can now reach up to 1 million. The startup has already attracted several angel investors, including Mike Edelhart, lead partner at the early stage tech fund Social Starts (who contributes $50,000 per deal according to AngelList), Bassin Ventures founder Brian York (who contributes $25,000 per deal) and NYC-based Charles Smith (who contributes $25,000-$50,000 per deal).
And looking ahead, Truong says there’s a good chance the company will stick around this area. Why?
“The number one reason I'd stay in Boston is talent…I know the people here are going to do great things, and I want to be part of that story. On top of that, it’s a close knit community, and everyone seems willing to help each other out. It really comes down to the people ultimately.”
By the way, he hasn’t given up on hip hop, either—Truong can be found at a nonprofit studio dancing every Saturday.
Photo courtesy of Brian Truong.
