Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Landers.
Bryan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Two threads woven throughout my story are technology and art. When I was 10 years old or so, I had a cheap Yamaha keytar, which I often took apart for the fun of exploring the mysterious circuit board and electronics within.
My parents got early Apple computers for their business, and I played with MacPaint and spent hours learning all the fun, creative things you could already do with personal computers. I found an acoustic guitar in the basement – an unused gift my father received before I was born – and discovered the joy of recording original music ideas on a 4-track tape recorder. During a summer break from high school in 1997, with what would now be an unbearably slow AOL dial-up internet connection, I taught myself to code HTML and CSS, the building blocks of the web, to make websites.
I moved from coast to coast – New England to Los Angeles – to attend college at the California Institute of the Arts. It was the most wonderful culture shock. At CalArts, I studied music from around the world (Balkan folk, Hindustani, Ghanaia). And outside the school, I fell in love with all the different types of food (Thai, sushi, In-N-Out). I spent a life-changing semester studying and traveling with my mentor, the late banjo legend Bill Keith. I earned a BFA in jazz performance on the banjo.
I spent a few years as a touring and recording banjoist in Nashville, took a detour in Las Vegas while my fiancé sang in Cirque du Soleil, and then returned to LA to compose music for film/TV in Hollywood and work as a music editor for the Reba McEntire sitcom.
All throughout these musical adventures, I continued designing and developing websites and apps for artists and companies. At some point, technology startups became more exciting to me than the music I was working on, so I dove headlong into working as a digital product designer and engineer. I moved to the Bay Area for a few years and worked with companies like Pinterest and Zapier (a platform that glues together the apps people use to run their business).
A few years ago, I moved back to Los Angeles and got interested in venture capital as a way to help more startup founders using all the creative skills I’ve acquired. I started an interview podcast called ‘Mission & Values’ that shared the “why” behind remarkable startup company cultures, and noticed that women and founders of color weren’t being features as often as their white male counterparts in the tech press, in spite of being just as (often more) compelling and impressive.
I interviewed Arlan Hamilton, the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, and we had such a strong collaboration that we started working together on side projects, including what grew into our non-profit, Project Cover, which gives $500 microgrants to driven creatives and entrepreneurs. Eventually, I took a full-time role working at Backstage. I currently live in Santa Monica with my life and creative partner, Kate Conklin. We’re working on our album of contemporary arrangements of Bulgarian folks music for voice and banjo.
Has it been a smooth road?
Having worked with many people who happen to be underrepresented minorities, I can see that I was extremely fortunate to be born with the privilege and access that accompanies being a white man in this society, and I certainly have faced much less adversity than many do. I feel lucky for that gift.
Having said that, I believe everyone faces hardship in their life, and I’ve absolutely faced challenges. For those who greatly value the quality of their work, we climb our way up a never-ending learning curve. But, it’s a bittersweet curse, and it’s all I’ve ever known, so I can’t imagine being any other way.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Backstage Capital story. Tell us more about the business.
I’m a Design Principal at Backstage Capital, a venture capital (VC) fund that invests in tech startups led by underrepresented (women, People of Color, LGBTQ) founders. We’ve invested over $4 million in 100 world-class startups in about 2.5 years. We recently announced that we’re launching a $36 million-dollar fund that will invest $1 million at a time in companies led by Black women, who currently get 0.2% of venture capital funding in the US despite making up about 7% of the population.
I produce our podcast, The Bootstrapped VC, which shares the stories of the exceptional founders we support and our own adventures as we attempt to level the playing field of VC. That sounds all serious, but really, it’s often goofy as hell (game show-style trivia segments, swearing and karaoke sing-alongs…) and we’ve featured a few fun celebrity guests including Orlando Jones and 3 stars from General Hospital.
I manage our brand and marketing efforts and work with our portfolio founders to leverage Design Thinking and Lean Startup methodologies on everything from brand identity to pitch decks to choosing the right tools to run experiments that test business hypotheses. I’m also a Principal on our team that finds and selects new investment opportunities.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The present is already quite exciting with technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and autonomous cars!
But, looking into the future, I believe diversity and inclusion will become as important as design in the business world because of the marketing, economic, and innovation advantages it brings to organizations that truly value it.
As the US moves quickly toward a majority-minority population, the consumer market will demand influencers and leaders with which they can identify.
I also believe that remote work cultures will continue to become the norm. New tools will be created to manage virtual relationships and workflows, and there will be a shift toward valuing the quantity and quality of people’s work rather than their time.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://bryanlanders.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bryanlanders/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bryanlanders
- Other: https://medium.com/@bryanlanders
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