#253: Ethan Austin, Chief Strategy Officer at Gig Wage and Former Managing Director at Techstars, on Fundraising, Joining an Accelerator, and His Experience as a Founder and Investor

Dec 18, 2020

Ethan Austin is the Chief Strategy Officer at Gig Wage, former Managing Director at the Techstars Western Union Accelerator, and the Founder of GiveForward.

Gig Wage, a company that's raised more than $10M in venture capital, is a platform designed for innovators who want a simplified way of managing contractor payments so they can recruit and retain world-class 1099 talent and power modern contractor commerce.

Some of the Topics Covered by Ethan Austin in this Episode

• What Ethan's role is at Gig Wage and what the company is doing
• Why Ethan decided to join Gig Wage
• How Ethan first got involved with startups
• Ethan's experience starting GiveForward
• How Ethan found his co-founder for GiveForward and his experience bootstrapping for 2 years
• Ethan's Techstars experience as a Founder and his fundraising experience
• Getting Naval Ravikant as an investor in 2012
• The team behind GiveForward and how Ethan built a great culture at the company
• What Ethan did to grow GiveForward in the early years and after they raised funding
• How Ethan went from GiveForward to Techstars after losing 75% of their Facebook traffic in a year
• Why Ethan took a year off after GiveForward
• What Ethan's role entailed as the Managing Director at Techstars
• The experience of going through Techstars for a founder
• How Ethan thinks about being an investor vs. running a company

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