Hey, I’m Brennan!
Startup operator · Investor · Full-time dad
Previously
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AgoraGovernance and compliance layer for onchain protocols and DAOs. $5M+ raised from Haun Ventures, $XM ARR, $4 billion in treasuries governed by Agora-deployed systems.
Head of CX
CX (Customer Experience) has different flavours at different companies. Its primary function is owning the customer journey, either with direct power (e.g. wholly owning a function like onboarding or customer success), or by influence (e.g. collaborating with sales, marketing, prod-eng-design).
At Agora, CX’s key areas of responsibility were onboarding, customer success, and support.
Led onboardingAfter a major kickoff meeting with one of Agora's biggest customers:
, client successWhat my teammates said about how I supported our customers:
, account managementA note from a client:
, and support
for the governance platform behind top crypto protocols. #1 bug catcher.
Wore many other hats, too.I’ll wear whatever hat completes the outfit:
![Slack message in #gen-shoutouts: “So - @Brennan literally went through ALL our PRs. To find PRs that had pics or references to [redacted] without search. Absolute beast. Beast-Mode-Brennan is what I’m gonna call that.”](/assets/agora-many-hats-2-CLpdkn6a.webp)
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AthenaPairs you with an Athena-trained top executive assistant (0.25% acceptance rate) and teaches you to delegate. $XXM raised from Khosla Ventures, ~$XXXM ARR.
VP Experience
At Athena, CX’s key areas of responsibility were sales, onboarding, customer success, support, and client coaching.
Led the ~40-person CX team across sales, onboarding, client success, support, and client coachingA huge part of Athena's success was (and is) ensuring that our clients could delegate effectively to their executive assistants. My team owned that goal.. Personally owned the relationships with many of Athena's top clients, including a US Governor, an author with 10+ New York Times best-sellers, and a team of surgeons. Notes from my team
and boss
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On DeckNetwork and accelerator for founders and the talent they hire. $60M+ raised from Founders Fund and Tiger Global, $XXM revenue.
Head of Talent Marketplaces
On Deck’s primary offering was a focused experience to help founders start & scale a company (see joinodf.com).
Most of these startups wanted access to customers, funding, and talent.
On Deck also had communities for Engineers, Designers, PMs, CS leaders, and many others. At its peak, there were >20 programs.
My team’s primary goal was to create and scale the interfaces where these startups & talent could meet.
LedHow my teammates described working with me:
product, GTM, and ops for a high-signalThere were thousands of intro requests on our core product, with >50% accepted, and ~10x better hire rates and signal-to-noise vs. cold emails/DMs. marketplace connecting top startup founders and talent that was a key pillar of On Deck’s entire ecosystem. Founder/CEO: “Brennan is one of the top 5 contributors to the company’s culture” (then, a team of 250). Serial mentor
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Mosaic ManufacturingHardware and software that make 3D printers more capable. $30M+ raised from Techstars and others, $XXM revenue.
VP GrowthFirst non-technical hire joining a team of genius engineers. Pretty much a dream job. I took everything I could from the COO so he could focus on the highest leverage stuff.(prev. Head of Growth)
Led customer success, support, D2COur Shopify storefront; then, our most profitable channel., distributionIncluded network of resellers & 7-figure Amazon channel, selling directly to Amazon., PeopleOps, marketing, partnershipsOwning relationships with key influencers led to media coverage for major product launches, like this., community at a 3D printing startup. Led online community and content. Developed a core signal processing algorithm
Our hardware device produced multi-segment filament on the fly as a 3D printer consumed it. This enabled multi-color and multi-material 3D printing. Our device had a rotary encoder that measured a 3D printer’s filament consumption and created a data stream. I developed the waveform that the 3D printer emitted (and the rotary encoder detected) at various milestones throughout the print, and the signal processing algorithm that allowed our device to detect it, ensuring the correct color/material arrived on the print at the right time.
I discussed this process in depth in Episode I: The Phantom Ping.
of our flagship product. -
Various Failed Startups
Co-founder
As a naive recent grad, built things with friends. Got furthest on (1) an HR/performance platform
Dr. Randy Pausch (famous for The Last Lecture) used a peer-feedback system in his courses at Carnegie Mellon to rank students on how easy they were to work with.
The thesis is that most people only receive really good or really bad feedback (when they’re in the top 10% or bottom 10%); nobody proactively says “you did just okay in our group.”
But when presented regularly with feedback like “your colleagues perceive you to be a middling performer,” the middle 80% of performers actually become high performers—creating a bimodal curve where 10% remain at the bottom, and most move up, which makes it easier to hire, fire, and promote others.
We productized this. Some companies absolutely loved it, and some absolutely hated it. Because it was both (1) polarizing, and (2) a relatively cheap ($X/head/mo) vitamin (vs. painkiller), we failed because we couldn’t crack the nut on how to lower CAC.
We got caught in the dead zone. (Image from Peter Thiel’s Zero to One.)
and (2) an education platform for teachersTeachers rarely get feedback useful enough to improve. We built a system that surveyed students at key moments (e.g., after a test or project), and had top public and private schools in Canada on board.
I still believe in it, but the business model is tough when many top edtech tools are free.
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On the side
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Startups/Investing
Angel Investor
Yeah, “Angel” investing sounds super pretentious, but that’s the lingo! 🤷
I invest in founders across geos and sectors. Most cheques have been ~$10K, but I’ve done as little as $1K and as big as $75K.
Most are at the earliest stages (pre-seed or seed), but a few (Rewind, Overflow, OpenAI) were later (Series A, A, F).
Copy.ai, Wander, OpenAI (late), Rewind, Taxwire, Ampersand, NoCodeOps, Agora, Overflow, Isoform, and 5-10 others. - Startups/Investing Limited Partner LP at Union Capital, a fund investing in Canadian founders.
- Startups/Investing Limited Partner LP in On Deck’s runway fund, which invests in ODF founders.
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Venture for CanadaNational charity that trains young Canadians in entrepreneurship and places them at innovative startups and SMEs.
Fellowship Judge & Volunteer
Host workshops & create resources to accelerate the growth of Canadian entrepreneurs (Training Camp 2019, 2020, 2023, 2024).
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Gaming
Competitive Gamer
Top 500 (then, top 0.08%) in North America in PUBG (2017).
Masters (then, top 0.04%) in League of Legends (2016).
As a kid, made the then most rare/expensive item in Maplestory (>50,000,000 players), a 73-atk Blue Scarab; IYKYK (2008).If you aren’t familiar with the glorious, pixelated wonder that is MapleStory, this explains it.