David S. Rose

Singularity Expert: Entrepreneurship

David S. Rose is an Associate Founder of Singularity University and its Founding Track Chair for Finance, Entrepreneurship and Economics. He is an Inc. 500 CEO, serial entrepreneur, angel investor, author and keynote speaker who has founded or funded over 100 pioneering companies. David has been described by Forbes as “New York’s Archangel”, by Crain’s New York Business as “the father of angel investing in New York”, and by Red Herring magazine as “patriarch of Silicon Alley”. He is the New York Times best-selling author of both “Angel Investing” and “The Startup Checklist”.

From his initial involvement with the first online communities in the 1970s, through founding one of the first personal computer training companies in the 1980s, one of the first wireless data information networks in the 1990s, the first global angel investing platform in the 2000s, and the first institutional real estate capital markets platform in the 2010s, David has been at the forefront of innovation in business and technology.

Among the fields in which he has been actively involved as an executive, board member or investor are: real estate, wireless communications, consumer electronics, crowdsourcing, international finance, social networking, space tourism, user-generated content, mobile network security, biological testing, electronic music, out-of-home advertising, fiber-optic networking, concierge medicine, and many others.

As an entrepreneurial executive himself, David is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Gust, the world’s largest online platform for entrepreneurs and early stage investors, and Founder & CEO of the US Real Estate Market. He is also Managing Director of Rose Tech Ventures; Founder and Chairman Emeritus of New York Angels; and the former chairman of JUMP Bikes (Uber); Comixology (Amazon); Pond5 (Accel); and Panjiva (S&P Global). He currently serves on the boards of Koolspan and Moven.

David is well known in the business startup community for discovering and mentoring high-potential entrepreneurs and has been profiled by BusinessWeek as “The Pitch Coach”, with his TEDtalk on “How to Pitch a VC” having been viewed over a million times. He lectures at business schools including Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Cambridge, and was named Mentor of the Year by NYU’s Stern School of Business.

Prior to founding AirMedia Corporation in 1988, for which he served as CEO for over ten years, his career included over fifteen years in real estate development, government, and urban planning. David was co-founder and Chairman of The Computer Classroom and Vice President at Rose Associates, Inc. Earlier, he served as Deputy Director of the New York office of US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

A native New Yorker, David has a BA in Urban Affairs from Yale University, an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School and a D. Eng. (hc) from Stevens Institute of Technology. He is a graduate of the New York City public school system and Horace Mann High School. He is an Associate Fellow of Pierson College at Yale University and a member of the Entrepreneurship Advisory Boards of Columbia Business School and Yale University. David can be followed online @davidsrose

VENTURE CAPITAL PITCH BOOT CAMP

Speaking Topics

All About Angel Investing

Angel investors, the high net worth individuals who put their own money into backing startup entrepreneurs, regularly see annualized returns of 20%, 30%, even 40%, on their early investments into companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple and Pinterest. In this program designed for high net worth audiences, David S. Rose, one of America’s leading early stage angel investors and the founder of Gust, the industry’s official platform connecting investors with startups, will reveal the secrets behind getting in on the ground floor in the next Big Thing. He will share stories of triumphs and disasters from the more than 100 high-tech startups in which he has personally invested, including companies that were purchased by Facebook, Google, Amazon, Intel, CBS and Kodak for hundreds of millions of dollars. This program, ideal for affluent audiences, is based on David’s New York Times best selling book Angel Investing: The Gust Guide to Making Money and Having Fun Investing in Startups, the industry’s standard handbook on the subject, In this session, which can be delivered as a keynote or workshop, David will guide participants through the world of professional angel investing, and introduce them to all the tools and sources they will need to select and make their initial investments.

Everything You Think You Know...Is Wrong,

David S. Rose knows how the world is changing, and what YOU need to know to keep up with it. As one of the country’s most active early-stage investors, he understands how the latest technology is up-ending every facet of every business. In this special keynote session, the expert who has consulted to everyone from startups to Fortune 500 companies will walk participants through the latest developments and technologies that are redefining business in the 21st century. Based on his renowned work at Singularity University, this mind-expanding keynote is a crash-course in the future, covering topics including the Long Tail, Web 2.0, Globalization, and why hyper-accelerating technology is driving the cost of everything to free.

How To Start A High-Growth Business

This program is perfect for entrepreneurs and prospective entrepreneurs looking for specific guidance for business creation in an era of exponential technological growth. David S. Rose, the founding Chair of Singularity University’s Entrepreneurship program, walks participants through how to start a business designed to grow rapidly, be funded by investors, and eventually exit to a larger company or through an IPO. Famous for his dictum that “any company designed for success in the 20th is doomed to failure in the 21st”, David has founded or funded over 100 companies at the cutting edge of innovation. The audience will leave with a solid understanding of how a “high-growth startup” is very different from a “small business, as well as the specific, actionable steps needed to plan, incorporate and finance a startup. This talk is based on David’s New York Times best selling book The Startup Checklist: 25 Steps to a Scalable, High-Growth Business, and usually includes a book signing, photo session, and extensive Question & Answer session with the audience.

No More Companies, No More Jobs: On The Way To A World Without Work

Optimistic futurists such as Ray Kurzweil claim that new technologies will create new jobs in an ever-growing virtuous circle. Pessimists such as the late Kurt Vonnegut project a dystopian future of pandemic unemployment. David S. Rose will unveil a third vision, as developed during his work as Track Chair for Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Economics at Singularity University: that technological development is moving us to a ‘post sufficiency’ economy, with neither ‘jobs’ nor a need for them. He will lead an entertaining, eye-opening and thought-provoking discussion tracing the growth of companies, and projecting their future disappearance. Your audience will come away with a completely new perspective on the future and what their role in it will be.

The Essence of Entrepreneurship

Starting a new venture is simultaneously the most exhilarating and terrifying occupation on earth, and entrepreneurs are the passionate, driven, engines of the world’s economic development. In this inspirational, educational keynote, venture capitalist David S. Rose, described by BusinessWeek as a ‘world conquering entrepreneur’, will regale the audience with stories from the more than 100 companies he has founded or funded, discuss the reality of entrepreneurial life choices, and provide invaluable guidance to current entrepreneurs and those considering starting on their own. This presentation is ideal for business schools, entrepreneurship programs, and business leadership events.

Venture Capital Pitch Boot Camp

David S. Rose, described by BusinessWeek as “The Pitch Coach” and by Forbes as “New York’s Archangel”, knows what it takes to get venture capitalists and angel investors to open up their checkbooks to fund a new venture. As the Founder of New York Angels, he hears more than 500 pitches a year, and routinely sees otherwise great companies turned away because their fundraising pitches completely missed their target. In this special coaching session for high-growth entrepreneurs, he will walk attendees through exactly how to prepare and deliver a presentation that will give their companies the best chance of being funded. In his unique dynamic style, he will teach the top ten rules for fundraising pitches; what your investors are really hearing…despite what you’re saying; how to structure your presentation to walk out with a check; and his ‘Pitch Perfect’ techniques for using PowerPoint. David S. Rose’s classic TED talk on “How to Pitch a VC” has been viewed over million times and is mandatory viewing in business schools around the world. As an optional addition, David can do a live ‘make-over’ of a pre-submitted presentation from the audience, demonstrating the amazing difference his presentation techniques can make.

Publications