Alumni
We have an active and growing group of over 350 alumni. Many of these founders have gone on to quit their jobs, raise money, join Accelerator programs, or bootstrap and grow. Others realized their startup needed a sizable pivot following Tacklebox. Many are now on their second or third startup since the program leveraging our framework.
Tejas Konduru
Title + Company: Co-Founder & CEO at Via
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap → Seed
Tacklebox Experience: "I chose Tacklebox because I was starting to build a product, but needed help on every single thing that goes into getting a startup off the ground
It's hard to do a startup and having someone who has helped countless startups makes it easier. I talked a mentor of mine (head of growth at a startup) about TB. I told him the biggest thing I learned was how to quickly test hypotheses and iterate up to get closer to the "right" answer."
Tayler + Rett Carraway
Title + Company: CEO + COO @ Happy Medium
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap → Sales
Tacklebox Experience: "Tacklebox will help create relentless focus on the first principles of building a business the right way. You should join Tacklebox if you want to be held accountable for doing the right things instead of the fun things when starting or considering to start a new startup."
Deepak Chhugani
Title + Company: CEO @ Nuvocargo
Post-Tacklebox Path: Y Combinator → VC Funding → Pivot → Seed
Tacklebox Experience: "I came into Tacklebox with a little bit of validation for my startup and honestly a healthy does of skepticism for the program. Speaking with Brian immediately calmed my nerves and my investment in the program was game changing. The process of validating your startup with a thought partner like Brian will change the trajectory of your company and is worth more than 10x what they charge."
Advice to Founders: "Be very careful about tricking yourself into solving too small of a problem or a “fake” problem. It’s good to be iterative and to talk to your customers, but before deciding to pursue an idea, take a step back and convince yourself this can really work as a business before dedicating years of your life into this!”
Koushi Sunder
Title + Company: CEO @ Stemless
Post-Tacklebox Path: Angel Round → Quake Accelerator Program → Funding
Tacklebox Experience: "I was laid off from the company I was at the day Tacklebox started. I told Brian we'd have to make this idea work and it did. The process you'll learn at Tacklebox is outstanding and will give you a strong foundation to build a company. They'll force you to focus ridiculously tight on customer, something that allowed us to grow in a tough market. If you have a startup idea, this should be the step before you pay any money to build anything."
Advice to Founders: "Just start - start small if you need to (I actually recommend this), but start nonetheless. It's pretty tough to grow a business you never actually began."
Ilse Paanakker
Title + Company: Founder & CEO @ Habit House
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap → Pivot
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox completely changed my career. I knew it would be a great professional learning opportunity. In seven weeks I was able to figure out if Habit House was an idea worth pursuing and if there was an opportunity here. When I started Tacklebox I had a loose idea and now I have a real company with a product people are paying for. I've quit my job and am working on Habit House full time.
Advice to Founders: Truly spend time getting to know who exactly your customer is so you don't end up building a product no one wants or needs.
Tiffany Kelly
Title + Company: CEO @ Curastory
Post-Tacklebox Path: Raise $155k on WeFunder Campaign
Tacklebox Experience: "Tacklebox helps founders zero in on their serviceable obtainable market, their brand messaging, and their successful customer acquisition channels before it's too late and you're building the wrong product for the wrong customer."
Melanie Haber, Jessica Canetti, and Marisa Vera
Title + Company: Co-founders, Milx
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: We entered Tacklebox for fun and for curiosity's sake. We thought we potentially had a great product idea for new moms that we wanted to explore, but we were unsure of whether or not there was a business behind it. We also had zero manufacturing experience, which is an essential component of Milx. Thanks to Brian's guidance, curriculum, and faith in us, we quickly realized that we were onto something, we could make it happen regardless of our experience levels, and we never looked back. Despite juggling babies and full-time corporate jobs, TB helped us get Milx off the ground. We started with the goal of selling ten bras and have now sold out of every run of bras into the thousands, helping to make new moms' lives easier. We owe it to TB for giving us the confidence to start and the tools to build and grow.
Advice to Founders: If you think you have a great business idea, test it out. Start small. Set little goals for yourself. You might be pleasantly surprised at how far you can go with it. If you don't try, you'll never know.
Ciarán Murphy
Title + Company: COO and Cofounder at Sero
Post-Tacklebox Path: Pivot —> Fundraise
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox was the validation that I was ready to be a founder, even though I eventually shut down the startup I was working on at the time. The fact that I got the attention of someone with so much founding experience was a massive boost that I've been able to build on since then.
Coming from an engineering background, I don't have storytelling experience. Brian's advice on rebranding and renaming my startup changed all my conversations.
Brian's contacts are amazing. He introduced me to people I needed to talk to and helped me figure out exactly what to ask them (including my first paying customer!). Even if he didn't have a customer contact that I needed at the time, he gave me a strategy for finding who I was looking for.
Advice to Founders: Do way, way more customer interviews than you think you need (and don't be shy about sending those cold emails). Really hone in on the pain they have.
Dominique Olowolafe
Title + Company: CEO & Founder @ Lightly
Post-Tacklebox Path: Friends + Family Funding
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox is a godsend. Especially for those without a traditional MBA or Silicon Valley connections. Beyond the incredible framework for helping you validate your idea - Brian Scordato actually cares about you as a person. It's not a transactional gimmick, this accelerator is focused on helping you truly understand the actionable steps needed for validating your ideas.
Advice to Founders: You don't have to do it alone. Find a community of like minded individuals on the same entrepreneur journey. Tacklebox offers you that. Ask for help, listen, and don't be afraid to pivot.
Rachel Serwetz
Title + Company: Founder & CEO @ Woken
Post-Tacklebox Path: iFundWomen (crowdfunding)
Tacklebox Experience: The hardest part of a company is not knowing how to begin, so to have the steps to know exactly what to do every single week to begin and get yourself to a place where you can keep going is what Tacklebox did for me. It helped me lay the groundwork for my startup in so many areas.
Tony Lew
Title + Company: Founder - CoSolo
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: In terms of learning - Tacklebox exceeded my expectation. Having been in product management leadership role for several years now, and having dabbled in startup, I thought I knew all of the things I needed to do build a startup business. And in some respect, I did - but the challenge was there were so many methodologies it was not clear to me what actually works for me. Brian's specific methodology, which had examples of how it really worked in the market, gave me confidence that following his method could work. And it certainly accelerated the progress we were able to make.
Sara Wadud
Title + Company: Founder & CEO at Tkoor
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox gave me the courage and strength to really take my idea and start-up forward. It also provided a community with the cohort who were going through the trenches with me and that created a real support group.
Evan Waldenberg
Title + Company: Founder & CEO at Junk in your Trunks
Post-Tacklebox Path: Crowdfunding → Equity Funding
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox forces you to ask questions and consider some things up front that many founders naturally put off until late in their startup journey. Most people go too quickly from their idea toward trying to build the product related to their idea. Tacklebox ensures that you ask the right questions to make sure you are heading down the right path with regards to your idea, like: are you actually solving the problem you are trying to address? Is it a problem that is inconvenient enough to need solving? What does the day-to-day look like for your ideal customer and what role do you hope to play in their lives?
Many people chase their ideas because they know that there is a gap in the market, but by avoiding some of these questions up front, a lot of people end up heading in the wrong direction.
Jerry Staub
Title + Company: Founder & CEO at Fohm
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox wasn't really a decision. Once I heard back from you, I was in.
People who have a nagging idea in the back of their mind that they daydream about pursuing during their full time job should go through Tacklebox.
Ramona Ramadas
Title + Company: Founder & CEO at New Trails Navigators
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap → Non-profit Grants
Tacklebox Experience: After Tacklebox, my company’s messaging and story really crystallized. This was not due to writing and re-writing elevator pitch copy, but by testing, learning, and sharpening through following the Tacklebox framework.
Kat McCoy
Title + Company: Founder & CEO at Best Kept
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox is like an MBA that doesn’t wipe out your personal savings. Brian and the Tacklebox curriculum get to the heart of the most important pieces of starting a business. The content around customer segmentation continues to drive a lot of our strategy and thinking.
Callum Curry
Title + Company: Cofounder & CEO at Sussd
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Brian got us speaking to our customers. Back in February this is something that Brian and I talked about a lot and I’m glad that we did. Since coming back from New York I have taken literally hundreds of hours of interviews that have majorly impacted our product and business. The reality is that unless you speak to your potential clients you will not identify what their biggest painpoints are and you’ll miss out on that product-market fit.
Jonathan Stidd
Title + Company: Cofounder at Ridge Growth Agency
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Brian understands how to distill big ideas into actionable products — he’s got a 6th sense for understanding what people want. Any early stage startup that works with him will be miles ahead of where they would be working on their idea alone. Every interaction (consultation?) I’ve had with Brian has left me with actionable insights that helped me take my product from the ideation stage to the market and acquiring users.
Brian’s advice and guidance allowed me to bring my product to market while avoiding unforeseen obstacles and acquire users much faster than I could have done alone. Tacklebox saved me tons of time and tons of money. Probably thousands of dollars building a more refined prototype. I’m really grateful for how that turned out, and for the next idea I have a set path for how to going about building a product from prototype to finish…
Jillian Tessler
Title + Company: Founder & CEO at Jillies
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox taught me how to validate concepts so I know whether or not I should pursue them. As someone who loves to create new products, having this skillset is invaluable. At the end of my time with Tacklebox, I saw without a doubt that the business I went in with was not worth pursuing. However, I was able to launch and grow my current business, Jillies, because of the strong foundation and frameworks I learned from my time in Tacklebox. I cannot recommend Tacklebox enough.
Advice to founders: Buffer 4-6 weeks around each date/milestone you set. Something always comes up and that’s okay. It’s okay if things take longer than you expected.
Shantanu Sharma
Title + Company: Founder & CEO at Stem Lending
Post-Tacklebox Path: Pre-Seed
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox was the ideal platform for a technical co-founder like myself to think about unit economics, market sizing, marketing, positioning and developing a USP for our StemLending.com mortgage shopping platform.
Brian and Tacklebox Team were incredibly helpful in exploring levers of growth best suited for us and helping refine our pitch. Working with the Tacklebox team helped us build relationships with fellow Tacklebox alumni in our cohort that we so very much appreciate!
Advice to founders: Founding a high growth startup requires a number of complimentary skills. One will benefit from getting feedback early on, especially on areas that you haven’t accumulated years of experience in. That’s where Tacklebox is Godsend.
Colin O’Rourke
Title + Company: Founder at Maxwell Skincare
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox was my first and most important step towards launching Maxwell. I came in with an idea, no market validation, and no compass for moving the needle forward. I left with a real market validation for mens skincare, actual interviews with (now) paid customers, and a roadmap for focusing on the things that matter most. Who is it for? What will it help them achieve? I wouldn't have the company today without answering these questions at Tacklebox.
Advice to founders: Focus, focus, focus. Your vision might be wonderful, but pinpoint your efforts in one specific dot on the map. "Build something for everyone, sell to no one." Tacklebox will not only help you focus your idea into something tangible, but test that focus in the marketplace through strategy, guidance and established mentors.
Chris Gorges
Title + Company: Founder at Everharbor
Post-Tacklebox Path: Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: I'm a huge fan of Tacklebox and refer other early-stage founders to Tacklebox on an almost weekly basis. Like hiring a personal trainer, the experience of being methodically coached in the exploration of a startup idea, with supportive and sometimes-uncomfortable critique, is an extremely valuable process that I'd recommend to anyone who's testing the waters of startup life.
Advice to founders: Make sure you know your business model. Without a business model, your "startup" might be fun, and it might add value and joy to your life, but it's not a business. Always be self-aware and cognizant of whether you're pursuing a side hustle, a hobby, or a startup you truly want to scale.
Ramya Dronamraju and Harpur Schwartz
Title + Company: Co-founders of Intuition
Post-Tacklebox Path: Crowdfunding + Non-dillutive grants
Tacklebox Experience: Going through Tacklebox helped us to create value for our target customer even before we built our product. Thanks to the Tacklebox coursework, we got market validation for our idea and heavy traction on our waitlist. We’re so grateful for this experience and Tamara’s guidance every step of the way!
Advice to founders: As we all know, building a startup is incredibly difficult, but it helps to have a supportive peer-group of others who understand what you’re going through and advisors helping you navigate road-blocks!
David Feiger
Title + Company: Owner @ Nook BK
Post-Tacklebox Path: New Business → Bootstrap
Tacklebox Experience: Tacklebox focused and refined my idea considerably to a point where I feel confident it can be successful. It also validated a lot of my key assumptions and makes me less anxious that I am heading in the right direction..
Advice to Founders: While listening to potential customers is always #1, don't forget to listen to yourself. If YOU aren't 100% passionate about the direction, then it's not the right direction. I learned that my Tacklebox startup was ultimately not the right path forward for me, so I transitioned to starting Nook and NookWoodworking which I am obsessed with and I think holds significant opportunity.
Testimonials
What they’re saying…
