On Deck 2020 Recap & Looking Ahead to 2021
Where we’ve been and where we’re going
Happy new year!
As we enter the first week of 2021, I wanted to reflect on the past year at On Deck and share where we’re going in 2021.
2020 was a year of extreme highs and lows for us all, and at On Deck, it was no different. This year we launched 11 new programs, ~10x'd both our team and revenue (growing 50% MOM the last 8 months), and scaled our community to thousands of fellows. Next year, we aspire to keep pace and launch 30 new programs and book $20M in revenue ($2M booked in Jan). Below is a reflection and an overview of our 2021 strategy:
2020 in Review
In December 2019, we had just finished the second Founder Fellowship ("ODF"), and opened applications for the third.
At the time we were running in-person fellowships, thinking the best way to build community was IRL. Fellows loved the experience and we were hyped to get ODF3 underway. Then came early-March, and everything changed — San Francisco locked down due to COVID, forcing us to cancel the ODF3 kick-off retreat and delay programming. We prepared for the worst, and frankly didn't know if the fellowshipp would survive.
But crisis breeds opportunity, as they say. Shifting to a remote world was something we’d always thought about but how would we create the same tight-knit bonds as before would be a new challenge. We decided to host a virtual "kick off retreat” and it struck a chord, creating an instant bond among our group of ~160 Fellows. Just as we did IRL, we started planting the seeds for online communities moving forward.
As the COVID crisis unfolded, the On Deck community’s spirit of service showed through. Fellows sprung into action, launching 50+ projects to support those in need — sourcing PPE, developing and distributing tests, and so much more.
When we realized the virus wasn’t going away any time soon, we doubled down on our ambitions to go global & remote, realizing we could still build tight-knit communities online, as we watched fellows start projects and companies with co-founders they’d yet to meet in person.
With the momentum of our Fellow’s COVID relief projects, we announced another, totally virtual cohort — ODF4 — introducing a dedicated curriculum for the first time.
We started building internal tools for the founder fellowship too, pivoting the Cosign team into what became our broader product team. Now we’ve built the On Deck Directory — an internal, private "LinkedIn" to discover and connect with Fellows (and the people they've cosigned) based on keyword searches and tags.
In August we announced our fundraise, welcoming an incredible group of ~70 friends and supporters like Village Global, Data Collective, Keith Rabois, Sander Daniels, Balaji Srinivasan, Elaine Zelby, Bloomberg Beta, and Henry Ward investing $3M to supercharge our growth.
With the raise and subsequent "On Deck Labs" announcement, we began experimenting with ideas of how to build a "modern education institution” — a platform serving the many strands of entrepreneurial identity for ambitious people wanting to change the world. Our thinking was to go horizontal, and with On Deck Labs we’re doing just that: building the operational infrastructure to run tens, and then hundreds, of programs in parallel.
In addition to launching new verticals, we also went international, announcing our expansion into Europe with the formidable Erika Batista at the helm. Being a remote team already, it was only a matter of time, and we’re excited at the prospect of expanding into other geographies as well.
As our expansion continued, the through line of "unlocking" talent became even more apparent as a core piece of On Deck.
In May, we experimented with a novel "convertible ISA" — supporting talent while in transition. In July, we announced a partnership with Savvy to provide healthcare coverage to people "on deck."
In September we announced the On Deck Access Fund — a donor advised fund ("DAF") dedicated to supporting underserved talent in tech. Hundreds of thousands of donations have come in from community members and donors, with On Deck matching 1:1 up to $1M.
Today, On Deck are forming productive teams (even without having met IRL), and have raised over $200M this past year (We at Village Global are lucky to have invested in a bunch of ODF companies).
To match the growth in our program offerings, our team expanded as well. As a service business at heart, supporting entrepreneurs, On Deck grew from 6 to 55 over the last 12 months — with another 11 starting this week.
And this is only the beginning.
Where are we going in 2021?
Coming into 2021, we're entering what may be the craziest period in On Deck history. We’ll be launching at least eight programs in the next six weeks, with many more in the pipeline.
As you can likely tell, the common thread in everything we do stems from an obsession with building the strongest ecosystem for talented, ambitious people to change the world. Each community is distinct, yet entwined — each bootstrapping "supply" to another's "demand.”
Looking through the perspective of ODF, On Deck Founders need three main things:
Capital
Talent
Distribution
Thinking about how we could best provide all of these things, we built other communities to supply what our founders demanded.
For capital, we built ODA (On Deck Angel Fellowship) and ODVC (On Deck Venture Capital Fellowship) — two communities for angel investors and VCs, respectively, looking to hone their craft, increase their dealflow, and build community with like-minded peers. As each community grows, their natural output is capital and expertise (“supply”); and both want dealflow, which ODF has in droves ("demand").
For talent, we built OD50 (First 50) and ODNC (No Code) to help supercharge hiring for ODFers and create new opportunities for those looking to break into the startup world, allowing them to meet new operators and craft their MVPs.
For distribution, our “creator” fellowships offer an outlet of which our founders can take advantage while scaling their businesses. On the flip side, writers and podcasters (and soon more types of creators!) can gain inspiration from Founders to host discussions or write essays based on interesting trends or markets. This is the early beginnings of a distributed media org:
But some problems and industries are so complex, they require a specialized community: a space for many who wouldn't otherwise identify with founder, investor, or creator-centric programs. Thus, we created ODCT (Climate) and ODH (Healthcare), and we have fin-tech, crypto, and others on the way.
No matter your industry, once you find product-market fit and raise $1.5M+, scaling your business is sometimes even harder than getting it off the ground. ODS (Scale) is where you’d go to scale yourself as a leader, get proximity to OD50 for talent and ODVC/ODA for investment, and join a tried and true On Deck community of founders in your specific stage of company life.
But we know building a lasting institution requires more than just the CEO/founder. So we're also spinning up a handful of small, intimate communities for executive leaders, starting with the "Chief of Staff" role. ODS and other fellowships can take advantage of these programs as well, sending their company leaders to learn from industry peers and build new connections to last a lifetime. This year we’ll launch similar programs for leaders in Engineering, Design, Talent, and People Ops, creating “YPO for X”. Every position deserves its own YPO-like forum.
As a result of everything we’ve accomplished this year, we noticed a remarkable flywheel of flywheels occur that set in motion our horizontal expansion:
People pay $ to join a fellowship.
We use that revenue to hire amazing teammates, who create & curate incredible experiences.
As a result, fellows realize the program’s value, building a positive reputation.
High NPS increases new member demand, as fellows’ referrals increase social proof.
New members bring in more revenue, and the flywheel keeps spinning.
This same flywheel also creates network effects that increase fellow retention. The more amazing fellows in the network, the more value each additional fellow can receive. Paired with the credential being an On Deck fellow brings, fellows benefit from being a part of the community just as we benefit from their participation.
You could imagine starting an On Deck fellowship right out of college (or maybe, in the future, as an alternative…), joining another one for your first job, another one as you get promoted, another one for when you want to transition, another one for when you want to start a company, another one for when you want to angel invest, or build audience, or uplevel your skills—the idea is that we hope to be alongside every step of people’s careers, from discovery, to upleveling, to transitioning and beyond.
When I first started On Deck as a dinner series for my talented friends, I couldn’t have imagined it would turn into such an incredible community. I’m grateful to each and every fellow, employee, investor, and friend of the company. I can’t wait to see what this year has in store, and hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Note: Among many other roles, we’re hiring a head of special projects at On Deck to work with me to incubate products and communities that will help fellows across programs.
Thanks to David Booth and Brandon Taleisnik for major contributions to this piece.
Read of the week: My 2020 book-list. Here was my 2019 list.
Listen of the week: How to Build Communities w/ NFX and Membership Communities with Greg Isenberg and Justin Murphy.
Watch of the week: This YT channel on history is great.
Cosign of the week: Alexis Guzey has a great blog. He came on my podcast the other day.
Until next week,
Erik