How to Transition from Corporate to StartUp Founder | How We Got Accepted into YCombinator

I'm Elsa, the Founder and Managing Partner of Toro Ventures (TV), a venture capital fund focused on early-stage startups. Seven years ago, before founding TV, I worked at Sherpa Capital in San Francisco and Bebe2go in Mexico. I have experience working in VC Funds and the early-stage startup struggle. I have served on the Impact Investment Committee of INADEM. Through my experience, I have analyzed over 1,000 pitch decks and invested in 19 companies as a Venture Capital and an Angel Investor.

In this live event, I will interview Sarah Hamer and Elle Smyth about how they effectively transitioned from corporate to successful startup founders. We will also discuss their path to Y Combinator (Winter 2024). We will hold a Q&A after the discussion.

Sarah graduated as an industrial engineer from Georgia Tech, was very involved in GT's entrepreneurship community, and started her career at Microsoft. After about a year and a half, she realized she missed the fast-paced startup life and made the switch to Stord – a unicorn supply chain software startup. It was there that she met her co-founder Elle and realized her love for the supply chain industry.

Elle is the Co-Founder of RetailReady, which she started with Sarah Hamer. An engineering graduate from Duke University, she worked at BlackRock and Stord prior to becoming an entrepreneur. She is driven by immense curiosity and a love for solving complex problems in the supply chain industry.