He possesses nearly a decade of public policy and political strategy experience, works as a policy advisor in Bryan Cave's Public Policy and Government Affairs group advocating before the U.S. Congress and Executive branch agencies to foster innovation both on a domestic level and to increase global competitiveness, represents businesses as well as trade associations in the fields of education, technology, and telecommunications, and somehow finds the time to serve as an executive board member of Venture For America. To say that he is connected on a multitude of platforms is an understatement. Brandon Pollak is a man who wears various hats, all of which he manages to handle seamlessly.
I met Brandon nearly three months ago at the launch of Startup Maryland. We turned to each other to recite our 30-second elevator pitches and I was immediately intrigued by his line of work. He revealed to me that he sits on the board of Venture For America, a New York-based startup created "to revitalize American cities and communities through entrepreneurship, enable our best and brightest to create new opportunities for themselves and others, and to restore the culture of of achievement to include value-creation, risk and reward, and the common good."
Currently the majority of college graduates are heading in to finance, consulting or law sectors rather than flowing into job-creating enterprises like startups or Teach For America. Though they yearn to be a part of a more hands-on business experience, early-stage companies have a difficult time identifying and recruiting talent. Venture For America, modeled after Teach For America, seeks to solve this very problem.
Venture For America replicates Teach For America's two-year commitment, but instead of teaching students, these college graduates work at startups in lower-cost cities. They provide a way for college grads to gain experience in entrepreneurship, learning how to build their own companies and creating jobs in the process. By the end of their two-year tenure with Venture For America, Fellows will be able to attend a capstone where $100k will be given to the highest performing Fellow for initial seed investment.
Andrew Yang, the President and Founder of Venture For America, had three inspirations that led to the birth of the startup. Brandon depicted them as the three periods in Andrew's life that confirmed the necessity of Venture For America's existence.
- After Andrew attended law school he worked at a New York firm briefly until he co-founded a company and watched it fail. Though he had one flop, he pushed through his wariness and coupled with a group of experienced entrepreneurs to create Manhattan GMAT, which was later acquired by Kaplan/Washington Post in 2009.
- While at his alma mater Brown on an entrepreneurship panel, Andrew met Andera founder Charlie Kroll. While they conversed they each shared their personal paths, discovering that their lives had been fairly similar. As they continued to chat, Andrew realized that if more college graduates built job creating businesses, then the economy would be in better shape.
- There was a surplus demand to develop and contribute in various cities, an example that was set by Teach For America.
At first Venture For America started off small, using social media to publicize their launch as it steadily grew from a thought to a thriving business. That's how Brandon discovered Venture For America, through a retweet about their launch. July of last year Brandon was on his way to a meeting in a cab, saw the retweet and a lightbulb immediately went off in his head. Their description noted that they were focused on stem-related policy with a necessity for talent and venturing. There were no programs like it at the time. What really sold Brandon, however, was the inclusion of Detroit as one of the key cities to focus on. "I'm from Detroit so I've seen the brain drain first hand. So many of my friends would leave Michigan and go to cities like Chicago and New York to find jobs. Right away I knew it was an organization I wanted to get involved in," he said.
With a new sense of enthusiasm and passion streaming through his blood stream, Brandon blindly sent an email to Venture For America exclaiming how great he thought it was and how he knew he could help the organization. Shortly after he received an email from Andrew, connected last July, had lunch, and within a couple of hours they just hit it off. Andrew had the right vision for the country and Brandon knew he had the capability of turning the economy around.
Brandon clearly has a knack for identifying successful businesses when they are just launching with Venture For America's accomplishments exceeding anyones imagination. Venture For America has been embraced nationally over the past year through media as well as the Obama Administration. Andrew himself was personally honored by the White House and was one of twelve entrepreneurs to meet with Obama, "incredibly exciting," exclaimed Brandon. Not too many nonprofit organizations can boast that within their first year they had the opportunity to meet with the president of the United States.This is just one testament to excitement around this program nationally, proving what a bright future Venture For America has.
With a passion for job creation, educating various communities on Venture For America's mission has been an easy task for Brandon. As he put it, "There is a great opportunity to bridge the gap between the political community and our thriving entrepreneur community in D.C.."
[Images via Venture For America and Brandon Pollak]
