Excited to be joining DRF as an investment partner!
If you’re a student building something cool, feel free to reach out here or email laurenhuttner
@dormroomfund
.com 😎
We could not be more excited to introduce our newest 33 investment partners to Dorm Room Fund.
DRF had a sub 3% acceptance rate this year (!) and this group is no doubt going to take the community by storm.
🎓 graduated high school
📝 switched into journalism school 2 days before the deadline (best decision I ever made!)
💻 did my first hackathon and made a whole lot of friends
I don't give myself time to celebrate my accomplishments, so here are three things I'm proud of over the past 3 months:
- scaled a consumer ai product to 1500 daily new users and $10K weekly revenue
- helped a creator gain 4K subscribers
- wrote 100 pages about Bolivian history
this is super controversial but i am selling my clubhouse invites to raise money for Northwestern University's Dance Marathon. DM me if you are interested. All proceeds will be donated to compass to care :)
you can learn more here:
Got 5 minutes? Here's a short EP summary with
@BryceHall
, drafted by
@lauren_huttner
, one of our first Quest Fellows!
Lauren went viral at 13 for her Dance Mom edits and has been on a search for crazy TikTok hacks ever since. DM her for her Substack!
I should mention that all these crazy journalism x tech ideas come out of conversations I have in class.
Sometimes I wish I could build solutions rather than over-discuss problems.
I feel like there is a stark divide in media innovation about whether we should invest in local news or new technology. Those ideas aren't mutually exclusive.
Like national publications, local orgs can innovate.
Where are the product teams?
Could we use blockchain to store facts for journalists?
As in, all primary footage, interviews and notes are stored on-chain.
Could incentivize objectivity, but there would need to be clear barriers and rules.
Day Job (
@dayjobstudios
) continues to create viral, trendy and unconventional brands.
I sat down with
@rionharmon
to learn more about his team's approach to building the modern brand identity
I finally wrote something about the intersection of journalism and technology!
Here's a little piece about social media's role in promoting credible journalism.
Happy International Women's Day!
Here are some dope projects helping womxn get into Web3 ✨💖✨
✏️written by
@lauren_huttner
, one of two gals on the Shift team (shoutout
@mars_hovi
)
3.
@88rising
Head in The Clouds NFT collection
With art by
@currysicongtian
, 88rising is allowing individuals to own part of their performance + gain access to extra perks
i'm working on a market map of UGC-related companies.
tag people who are
- building software to facilitate interactions between creators and brands
- derive data for UGC activities
- empower UGC creators
Democratizing UGC is more than just encouraging individuals to pick up content creation as a side hustle.
It's about empowering the ordinary consumer to talk about a product they purchase.
Some companies working on this 👇
why aren't journalism organizations finding ways to optimize clubhouse and other audio-based discussion platforms?
feel like there are some interesting applications...
happiness is sipping an oat milk latte while listening to a playlist called "startups x redbull" and developing a landing page at your favorite coffee shop
Another great fireside this week with
@BlakeMichael14
on the
@genzmafia
server! Had so much fun asking him about TikTok, technology and Lemonade Mouth 🍋
Working with
@K50Ventures
this summer was an amazing opportunity!
If you are interested in the intersection of communications and startups/VC, definitely apply and feel free to reach out with any questions :)
We're
#hiring
!
We're looking for a content associate to join our team to manage and execute our communication & marketing strategy across all channels. Tag someone who would be a fit!
Details here 👇
in the past week,
@genzvcs
connected ~20 students to a hot new Gen Z consumer startup to get involved as early beta testers w/ opportunities to join the team as engaged users 💫
democratizing access to great co's is 🔑
My mom's response to me raising $122.71 on clubhouse for
@NUDM
"Wow! Very cool"
Thank you so much to everyone who donated! If you have any late donations you can drop them here:
HUGE NEWS: YouTube is launching a program to train journalists on how to use the platform.
"This yearlong program provides comprehensive support to independent journalists looking to build a presence and audience on YouTube"
is anyone else annoyed when they restart their computer and every app asks if they want to restore their work? like obviously not it caused the problem in the first place
all the prospective northwestern students commenting on my tiktok are so wholesome
plz don't give up on your dreams! you've all got this and I'm rooting for you :)
had so much fun interviewing
@JideCM
from
@WeAreYoke
on the
@genzmafia
server!
if you're interested in the influencer/creator space, highly recommend checking out Yoke-- they managed the Wave House in London and have done some incredible things 🌊
had a bit of a full circle moment writing this...
for those of you who don't know, some of the first "journalism" i did was on a substack about the sides of TikTok...diving into things like North Korea and Venture Capital
Today, I covered founders
I love how Clubhouse allows journalists to profile individuals but also deliver on what the audience wants to know.
Audio-discussion platforms truly allow for more interaction between audiences, reporters and their stories.
Where else can this happen?
Transparency is so important when it comes to UGC and paid content creation
Excited to see how brands improve compensation and their influencer marketing process