We started TxO in summer of 2020 as an avenue for entrepreneurs who have the talent, drive, and ideas to build great businesses, but lack the typical background and resources to do so. Last fall, we accepted seven companies in the first TxO cohort. The founders of those companies took part in TxO University, an online program of company-building curriculum, networking, and advising.
Our first cohort of founders has now graduated, and three have since completed subsequent funding events, one company has a signed term sheet in hand, and two companies are actively in discussions with potential investors for future rounds of funding.
We are now accepting applications for our second cohort!
We intend to run two, six-month long cohorts in 2022, with the first kicking off in January. We will keep the application link open ongoing, but please apply by December 31, 2021, if you would like to be considered for the January cohort.
If you or someone you know is a great candidate for the TxO program, apply here.
The TxO team is growing!
We learned a lot from the first cohort and as we launch our second, we are welcoming three new faces to the TxO team.
- Jeff Jordan, a16z Managing Partner and General Partner, will now oversee TxO. Jeff brings decades of experience building consumer and marketplace companies, such as eBay, OpenTable, and Paypal, to mentoring TxO founders and their teams.
- Kofi Ampadu joined TxO as a Deal Partner based in New York City, NY. He will focus on sourcing and selecting companies for the program, as well as managing the network of downstream investors. After stints at Kraft and Accenture, Kofi built several of his own consumer-facing startups and bootstrapped his own pre-seed investing fund called SKU’d Ventures.
- Tauri Laws-Phillips joined TxO as a Partner based in Austin, TX. She will focus on running TxO University and cultivating the network of TxO Partners, which include Amazon, Facebook, Google, and TikTok. Tauri comes to us with over 10 years of CPG marketing experience, both on the client side at Unilever and agency side, as an equity mentor, and most recently as the Program Director for The SKU Accelerator.
Of course, we couldn’t do any of this without contributions and support from our community. We see so much opportunity to connect resources to talented builders who aren’t in traditional networks.
As we’ve reached out to our ecosystem seeking volunteers, donors, and mentors, we have been overwhelmed by the interest in TxO and willingness to help make this program impactful for the founders.
If you know a person or organization that might want to help find, mentor, or coach TxO founders, we’d love to hear from you.
-The TxO team