StartupTree Provides Platform for Startups to Sprout
StartupTree is the newest member of the Rev community. Focused on serving the university entrepreneurship ecosystem, the company provides a cloud-based platform that serves the needs of student and alumni entrepreneurs, through its end-to-end marketplace. To date, the rapidly growing platform helps over 184,000 users find co-founders, team members, mentors, and other essential resources as they scale-up their startups.
StartupTree founder and CEO, Peter Cortle, is no stranger to university entrepreneurship. From 2012 to 2015, Cortle served as the Assistant Director of eLab. Currently, he serves as the Director of eHub and oversees other special projects for Entrepreneurship at Cornell. He is also the co-founder of Life Changing Labs, a summer incubator and entrepreneurship network for Cornell students, which runs the BIG Idea Competition, the largest undergraduate competition at the university.
“Having worked directly in the university entrepreneurship setting put us in the unique position to experience the pain points of establishing an incubator, managing an accelerator, running a large competition, and managing all of the participants around these key initiatives. Our team knew there had to be a better way to do this,” stated Cortle, “A solution that helps organize the chaos of entrepreneurship better guides and empowers entrepreneurs with the resources they need to be successful.”
Cortle launched StartupTree in October 2015. Since then, it has become the leading platform for university entrepreneurship and is used by top institutions all over the world, including Harvard University, Columbia University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to its registered users, StartupTree is available to over 7 million students and alumni at partnered institutions.
According to Cortle, StartupTree’s “holistic approach” has allowed it to become a leader in the industry. “We’ve seen other players in the field tackle one or two pieces of the resource puzzle, and it has been ineffective every time,” stated Cortle, “No one, especially a busy entrepreneur, wants to spend extra time and effort signing up on multiple sites and accessing mentors, co-founders, events, and competitions, using several accounts. On StartupTree, with a single account, the participant gets access to all of these resources and more.”
As StartupTree continues to grow, Cortle is looking forward to taking advantage of membership at Rev. “Rev has such great resources, especially the people behind the organization, which will help us accelerate and explore opportunities that our current team may not have considered.” These resources include workspace, member-exclusive workshops, and access to a team of experienced Entrepreneurs in Residence.
While StartupTree is focused on university entrepreneurship, Cortle envisions the company naturally expanding to allow other entrepreneurship ecosystems players to plug into its growing network.
“StartupTree is already positioned to serve as the backbone of university entrepreneurship. Over the years, the schools we have partnered with have gone out into their communities and spread the word about what we’re doing, which has been driving a lot of inbound interest from entrepreneurship groups looking to scale-up their efforts or have a sustainable bridge to connect with our community,” said Cortle, “So far, this group includes chambers of commerce, corporate innovation labs, non-university incubators and accelerators, and even a few VC firms who want to develop closer ties with universities. We’re working to bring all of these pieces together.” For more information on StartupTree and their services, please visit their website at join.startuptree.com.