Last week after news broke that 1776 would be adding another mission – 1776 Ventures – to its operations, the D.C. tech community became somewhat worried about the man selected to lead the new charge. That’s not to say that David Zipper isn't qualified to head the new, for-profit project to assist young firms looking to grow in highly regulated governmental industries. With experience as the city's director of business development and strategy, he may be the best man in this city to help young businesses overcome the hurdles of regulated industries. However, when 1776 was still just an idea, he was instrumental in helping the now thriving incubator score a $200,000 grant from the city to get its start. Now less than a year later, Zipper will join 1776 in a spotlighted leadership role, which has many questioning if this is a conflict of interest.
Donna Harris, co-founder of 1776, said jokingly, though, that she wishes she had the foresight to concoct a plan that intelligently, but really things happened a lot more serendipitously. “I didn't know David very well," she said. "Even in our dealing with the city – we worked with Jen Boss, we worked with David, we worked with the deputy mayor, we worked with the mayor's team – so in our relationship with the city, while I think David's name comes out a lot, the relationship was much more spread about more counterparts. The idea that David was the guy is somewhat overstated."
Really, it wasn't until a few weeks ago that Harris got to know Zipper on a personal capacity and began entertaining the idea of taking him on as a leader of 1776 Ventures, which they had long been planning. "I had really not spent a lot of time with David until we were in Beijing at the same time for an event," Harris explained. "For me it was the first time outside of an official capacity getting to know him. I was really impressed. I made an offhand comment to Evan (Burfield) – we had been scouring to find the right person who understands tech, understand startups, understands how startups work within the city, understands our genre of startups, and somebody who's well connected and respected as a connector – that it would be interesting if we could hire him." Burfield took that interest to heart, and immediately asked Zipper if he'd like to discuss his future with the possibility of becoming a part of the 1776. Though all sides understood the political implications, Zipper accepted and immediately recused himself of his dealing with 1776 on an official level. "We literally had a two hour conversation a few days later, and that afternoon he went back and met with the ethics office," she said.
Harris and Burfield took lengthy measures to make sure that Zipper would not take on any sort of roll related to his former career. And while having him on the 1776 Ventures team is valuable, it comes at the cost of completely removing him from any role with city business. "One of the things we wanted to make sure David got an opinion on and got documented is that the role that he's in, he will not be going back, on behalf of 1776, to have any conversations within the city about our business," Harris explained. "So the grant that we had to open the campus is a different legal entity (than 1776 Ventures), and he will have zero role related to it, other than that he will be working in the space. He's literally not doing anything related to city business."
Sure the conflict of interest claim was something Harris and Burfield worried about given Zipper's work with 1776's grant, but Harris said that people are really overthinking it. "There's a lot of speculation of some grand scheme, that we engineered this from the beginning, but that couldn't be further from the truth. And I know that's potentially hard for people to see, but it is the truth. I wish I could be that smart, to have said two years ago that this is how the stars are going to align."
Harris thinks that a lot of the issue with people struggling to grasp Zipper's role within the new venture is the fact that, though it's tangibly connected to 1776 and its brand, it is a very separate part of the incubator's larger vision. And still in the preliminary development stages, 1776 Ventures is more of an idea than a concrete entity yet. "It's our equivalent of what an accelerator would be, but we don't want to use that word because it's not like a TechStars or a 500 Startups accelerator," she said. "It's 100 percent focused on companies in regulated spaces, they already have product-market fit, they already have a little bit of capital, and now they just need to scale revenue – how do we use our global network to help them drive revenue?" But the long-term vision, Harris said, is not set in stone, and they're open to the possibility of some sort of investment program.
[Image via Washington Life]
