Greg’s entrepreneurial journey began fairly early, when as a second year law student, he started and sold a company which lifted him out of some financial troubles. This success led him to continue on this path, making a small profit with each business he started and sold. All was going well until the company he was building after law school collapsed. His fall back luckily, was to start practicing corporate law for technology and entertainment companies specializing in intellectual property.
Pete and I had the pleasure of chatting with Yumi Alyssa Kimora on our podcast recently. Yumi shared her incredible story, including the the many trials and tribulations she endured as a ambitious young female in the male-dominated corporate world of Japan and her inspiring journey into entrepreneurship in America.
Peter Pakalski's entrepreneurial drive started during his college years, where he and his brother started a paddle-board company selling and renting boards in Wisconsin and California. While in college he participated in an accelerator program where he learned how to build a company from the ground up and applied that learning to start a supplement company and gain more experience in online marketing. He also connected with some angel investors and founded a venture capital group. Pretty impressive!
Kevin Smith describes The Vault as an experiment founded with an original idea to create a better place for startups to grow and accelerate. The space itself is beautifully designed with a sophisticated retro speakeasy feel. You walk downstairs into The Vault and are surrounded by exposed brick and beams in a building that itself goes back before the big SF earthquake of 1906. Now in its 4th year of operation, The Vault has grown into a full stack innovation ecosystem with hundreds of events and thousands of people flowing through its spaces every year. The focus is on helping startups accelerate their growth by creating an intentional space that creates opportunities for collaboration as well as hosting a robust platform of events, workshops, boot camps, founder happy hours, and invite only events for investors.