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Brett Martin (he/him)

VC & Founder, Fonzi AI

Brett is the President and Co-Founder of Fonzi, your personal AI recruiter backed by Lightspeed Ventures, and Charge Ventures, a purveyor of premium pre/seed venture capital based in Brooklyn, NY. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, where he teaches applied machine learning. A serial entrepreneur, Brett has spent his entire career building or investing in technology startups, including stints as an EIR @PrimaryVC (NYC-based seed stage fund with >$100MM AUM), Co-Founder @Switchapp (mobile recruiting), Co-Founder @Sonar (pioneering location-based social network), Director of Investments @Appfund (NYC-based incubator and seed stage fund), and @Vice (the multi-billion dollar media company). Brett and his companies have received awards such as Ad: Tech Best Mobile Startup and TechCrunch Disrupt Runner Up and have been featured in hundreds of media outlets including the New York Times, CNN, Huffington Post, Fast Company, The Atlantic, TIME, Financial Times, and Ad Age. He began his career on Wall Street as an equity research analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners. Outside of technology, Brett has published his Fulbright research in Harvard Business Review, founded an indie rock band, started a non-profit, and sailed 6,000 miles on a 30ft sailboat. He graduated from Dartmouth College and proudly hails from Ocean City, MD.

Sessions

Mentor Office Hours

Product management

Finding product-market fit is an iteration, a dance between what you build and who it's for. It's exhausting, often humiliating, and absolutely necessary. See More.
Mentor Office Hours

B2C customer acquisition

B2C marketing is weird, and constantly evolving every time a new trend or platform hits. Let's talk about customer acquisition and consumer marketing in the modern age. See More.
Mentor Office Hours

Managing boards & advisors

We'll talk about managing your strategic advisors to keep the expedition moving towards its goal. See More.
Startupfest

30 Days Til Your First Hire: A Tactical Guide for Startup Hiring

How can I attract top talent on a shoestring budget? How can I avoid bad apples and find diamonds in the rough when interviewing? What AI tools and techniques can I use to save time and money on talent acquisition? Join Brett Martin, cofounder of Fonzi.ai, and Charge Ventures, NYC’s premier pre/seed VC, as he shares battle-tested strategies for hiring scrappy, relentless people on the cheap. From “pair recruiting” to “Always Be Selling (ABS)” to the latest AI recruiting stack, Brett offers practical guidance on identifying, seducing, and supporting the talent you need to drive your business forward. See More.