Hi, I'm Brittany Laughlin. I'm the new General Manager of the USV Network. As Gary wraps up his two year rotation, I'll be taking the reins, working to strengthen relationships among the community of people that work for our 40+ portfolio companies.
I've spent the majority of my career learning to support, start and grow businesses, so this is an exciting opportunity to learn more by doing. I studied Marketing and International Business at NYU Stern and minored in Film at Tisch. After graduation, I joined American Express OPEN to work on customer acquisition and new product development.
After a few years at AmEx, my increasing involvement in the NY tech community inspired me to co-found a social travel recommendation engine, gtrot. We raised over $1.5M from Lightbank, grew to become a 10 person team and attracted tens of thousands of users. After two years, I left to focus on a problem that had been central to my role as COO of gtrot: sourcing quality development talent.
Having grown up in a Navy family, I found an untapped market in our military. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were beginning to wind down, I founded Incline, a program to train military veterans in web development and offer job placement opportunities in the technology sector. Today, the program works with 80+ NYC companies, including a few USV portfolio companies, and is currently accepting applications.
I am excited to explore topics on talent, hiring/training, company growth and user acquisition in my role as GM. I also look forward to learning as much as possible from the USV team, our portfolio companies and from you, the USV community.
When I'm not working, you'll likely find me planning a trip to somewhere new (7 continents and 39 countries so far), trying new food, or finding new athletic challenges (snowboarding, yoga, surfing, CrossFit). I also blog about my interests in education, artificial intelligence, art and design at likesandlaunch.tumblr.com. You can also find me on Twitter @br_ttany.
Tweet this