Startup Genomics: Maximize Success and Avoid Death

Bjoern is the 26 year-old founder of the Startup Genome. One year ago he & his team set out to find a scalable way to accelerate businesses across the world. After releasing two research reports on success & failure of startups that were downloaded 25,000 times he most recently released the first software product that is best described as a virtual mentor for now more than 13,000 software businesses. The published research has been adopted by more than 50 universities globally -including Stanford and Berkeley. Harvard Business School Professor Thomas Eisenmann called the findings an important contribution. You can try the product at startupcompass.co and learn more about the research at blog.startupcompass.co. Before, Bjoern founded and led 4 for and nonprofit ventures in Germany, Bangladesh & the US. He also worked as an executive in Russia for one year for a mid sized marketing company. His personal passion or "leitmotif" is: unleashing human potential. His higher purpose is to strive to maximize the capitalization of every single individual.

Ashley currently works at Jones-Dilworth, a PR and Marketing firm specializing in early stage tech start-ups. Working with startups across the industry, Ashley has developed an expertise in leading teams, identifying market opportunities, and executing strategies that lead to measurable growth. With experience as both an internal member of a startup and an external Marketing and PR team member, Ashley has honed a practice of combining shared team dynamic with market data analysis to develop strategies that have enabled startups to succeed in core functions of product development, customer acquisition, and fundraising. She has worked with a variety of startups across all industries including SRI, Beluga, MyGengo, Roku, ChoiceVendor, Klout, WolframAlpha, Contently, Venture for America, Siri, Bottlenose, and Macmillan. Personally, Ashley's interests lie in academia and she enjoys spending time outside of the office researching neuromarketing, interpersonal communication and neuropsychology and (if applicable) applying these learnings to clients and companies. Originally from San Diego, Ashley has a BA in Communication: Advertising/Public Relations from St. Edward’s University. She currently lives in San Francisco.