Guest Lily Lyman is a General Partner at Underscore VC, a leading Boston venture capital firm known for its Underscore Core Community of proven business builders helping each other succeed. She is also a Board Director for the New England Venture Capital Association, MIT Sandbox Funding Board, and is a leader of the Boston All Raise chapter.

Lyman has a background as a founder, investor, and operator. She came to Underscore VC from Facebook, where she worked in product strategy focused on the international growth of core products including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
 
Prior to Facebook, Lyman held a variety of strategy, operational, and entrepreneurial roles. Through it all, she has gained a truly global perspective, having lived and worked in more than 75 countries. 

At Underscore VC, Lyman leads investments on Future of Work, AI/ML, Insuretech, Commerce, and more. With experience that spans the globe, she spends her time identifying investment opportunities and guiding startups that will define new digital categories, reshape industries, and change the world. 

On this episode of Boston Speaks Up, we chat with Lyman about her lessons from the past, her bets today and her predictions for the future.

085: Underscore VC's Lily Lyman

Devan Sood is the Co-Founder of Orca, a membership-based network of furnished month-to-month accommodations in dream destinations around the world. As working a 9-5 increasingly no longer requires a long commute to a 5’ x 5’ cubicle, Orca is designed for digital nomads who travel freely and work remotely around the globe. A digital nomad himself, Sood is currently traveling the world helping inspire others to ditch their 12-month lease and live in a myriad of their dream destinations, without breaking the bank.

Sood grew up in Los Angeles and jumped into his first venture at the ripe age of 14 when he started Unlimited Ltd. Clothing. Within less than 3 years, Unlimited Ltd. was being sold in multiple countries, endorsed by top celebrities, and working with charities across the globe.

I had a chance to meet Sood when he was at Babson College where he was racing to graduate early and build more startups. He graduated in less than 3 years and moved back to LA to launch a marketing consulting firm specializing in creative growth strategies to market to Millennials and Generation Z. That venture evolved into 96-LA, Sood’s growth agency focused on helping early-stage consumer-facing tech startups with product-led growth and acquisition experimentation. 

With 96-LA still growing, Sood is leveraging his consulting skills to fuel the growth of Orca, while he travels the world living the experiences he is pitching to fellow digital nomads. We talk about all of this, Sood’s advocating for “teen-preneurship” and much more.

091: Devan Sood of Orca

Guest Kiel Servideo is a former Hollywood assistant who’s always found comfort with a pen and a notebook. He moved out to Los Angeles a year after graduating from Boston University where he hustled various temp agency jobs before landing full-time gigs with Hollywood titans such as Jerry Bruckheimer and Shawn Levy. While living in LA, Servideo wrote his first novel -- The Preposterous Dreams of Tucker Adams -- a fiction documenting a modern tale of the pursuit of Manifest Destiny. 

In the Fall of 2019, Servideo and his wife left their life in Los Angeles and each accepted jobs abroad teaching English to grade schoolers in Seville, Spain. Half way through the school year, a global pandemic changed everything. Servideo spent much of 2020 in lockdown with his wife, utilizing Airbnb to see more of Spain while remaining in isolation. 

Servideo is now living in a 300 year old farm house in Umbria, Italy, and he and his wife are working for DTC nail services startup Olive & June. 

As Servideo continues to life hack the pandemic, he’s discovering authors, reading, writing and reflecting on the divisive politics in America from Europe. We’re grateful to begin 2021 catching up with Servideo for all to hear.

056: Author & Former Hollywood Assistant Kiel Servideo

Leaders, entrepreneurs, creators, innovators and artists from all over the globe join Boston Speaks Up to share their stories of inspiration. Recommend a guest: team@valuecreationlabs.co. Learn more and sign up for the newsletter: www.valuecreationlabs.co.

091: Devan Sood of Orca

Boston Speaks Up

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