BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Overview of Creative Destruction Lab
Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) is a program for massively scalable, science- and technology-driven startups. Our sweet spot is working with founders at the pre-seed or pre-series A stage. The program takes no equity and charges no fees – it is funded through philanthropy and corporate partnerships.
At the core of the CDL program is a series of five intensive, full-day objective-setting sessions, spaced at 8-week intervals. At these sessions, founders meet with a curated group of investors (angels and venture capitalists), successful tech entrepreneurs, and accomplished scientists to set short-term milestones and raise capital. CDL is complementary to incubators and accelerators but provides a unique type of support focused on establishing lasting relationships between experienced deep-tech entrepreneurs and new startups to help prioritize milestones in the early stages of a company’s development.
CDL currently operates from 13 universities in 7 countries. Over 650 startups were admitted in the 2023/24 program year across all locations and in a variety of specialized streams including Health, Manufacturing, AI, Climate, Fintech, Oceans, Quantum, and others.
CDL-Seattle at the Foster School of Business at UW Seattle
CDL-Seattle began in 2021 and the program is housed at the Foster School of Business at the UW Seattle campus. We are also supported by the College of Engineering, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science, CoMotion, WRF, Microsoft Research, and other partners.
The two streams that CDL-Seattle currently runs are Advanced Manufacturing and Computational Health:
- Advanced Manufacturing is particularly suited to founders who aim to transform the way that companies manufacture, improve, and distribute their products through the use of new technologies and digitization. Examples of Advanced Manufacturing innovation areas include:
- Additive Manufacturing
- Advanced Materials
- Industrial IoT
- Machine Intelligence
- Robotics
- Simulation Tools
- Workforce Augmentation
- CDL Computational Health is particularly suited to founders who are capitalizing on trends in computer science, software engineering, data science, machine intelligence and cloud computing to build viable commercial products in health. Examples of Computational Health innovation areas include:
- Computational Biology and Designed Proteins
- Drug Discovery
- Health Databases, Marketplace Platforms, and Workflow Tools for Providers
- Immuno-Oncology
- Biomanufacturing and Process Development
- Bioinformatics and -Omics
- Clinical Diagnostics and Tools
- Image Processing and Radiology
- Digital Therapeutics
Relevant links:
- Creative Destruction Lab Website
- 3-minute Overview Video of CDL-Seattle
- List of CDL-Seattle Mentors
- List of CDL-Seattle Alumni from 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 cohorts
- CDL-Seattle LinkedIn Page
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VENTURE ANALYST
ROLE DESCRIPTION
We are looking for 2 UW graduate students to join us full-time for the summer (June-August 2024) and then ideally transition into a part-time role for the 2024/25 academic year (September 2024-June 2025).
June-August 2024: Venture Recruitment
Applications for startups (aka “ventures”) to apply to the CDL program are open through the end of July, and then the team evaluates and interviews applicants in August to ultimately determine the Top 20 that will be admitted to each stream.
- Participate in recruitment and selection processes for seed-stage ventures from research institutions in Washington and beyond, as well as from incubators, accelerators, research universities, venture capital lists, Pitchbook, and Crunchbase.
- Help to identify centers of innovation in the local and global ecosystem and build a strong pipeline of CDL startup applicants.
- Leverage Salesforce, Gmail, LinkedIn, and other tools to perform outreach to founders to convert leads to submitted applications.
- Support evaluation efforts by helping to assess the suitability of ventures who apply to the program and conduct interviews for applicant companies alongside full-time CDL team members.
- You will also help coordinate other team activities including recruitment events, startup ecosystem data analysis, and report preparation.
September 2024-June 2025: Venture Management
- Assist in onboarding admitted ventures and be the point of contact for 4-7 of the admitted ventures.
- Manage bi-monthly documentation workflow for ventures within the current cohort and regularly prepare venture summaries, venture updates, financial due diligence briefs, etc.
- Advise startups through the program by learning about their businesses, coaching founders on communicating value propositions, summarizing technologies, and drafting SMART objectives.
- Act as liaison between ventures, mentors, scientists, and students throughout the program.
- Form and strengthen relationships with innovation centers to improve the CDL presence in the local startup and venture capital ecosystems.
- Support administrative duties as needed.
- Actively participate in CDL-Seattle Session Days:
- Session #1 (in person at Founders Hall, Foster School of Business)
- Thursday, October 17, 2024: Advanced Manufacturing
- Friday, October 18, 2024: Computational Health
- Session #2 (virtually, via Zoom and Slack)
- Thursday, December 12, 2024: Advanced Manufacturing
- Friday, December 13, 2024: Computational Health
- Session #3 (in person at Founders Hall, Foster School of Business)
- Thursday, February 27, 2025: Advanced Manufacturing
- Friday, February 28, 2025: Computational Health
- Session #4 (in person at Founders Hall, Foster School of Business)
- Thursday, April 24, 2025: Advanced Manufacturing
- Friday, April 25, 2025: Computational Health
- Session #1 (in person at Founders Hall, Foster School of Business)
ELIGIBILITY/CRITERIA
The ideal candidate would be able to join the CDL-Seattle team from June 2024 through June 2025.
- 30-40 hours per week during the summer (June-August 2024)
- 15-20 hours per week during the academic year (September 2024-June 2025)
International students are eligible for this role.
Strong candidates will:
- Be a current graduate-level UW Seattle student through June 2025. Students with and/or working towards degrees in STEM, business, or technology fields are particularly well-suited to this position.
- Have proven experience completing projects and research related to science, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Experience working with startups, technology companies, or venture capital is advantageous.
- Demonstrate experience and/or passion for fields related to computational health, manufacturing, artificial intelligence, startup fundraising, and related areas.
- Possess strong analytical ability, experience managing databases and tools to curate, augment, and manage data, and/or experience conducting market analysis to understand business models and drivers of success. We mostly use Salesforce, Airtable, Google Suite, Slack, and Zoom. While experience with these tools isn’t required, tech-savviness and willingness to learn these tools is essential.
- Be self-starters, highly analytical, and have strong communication and interpersonal skills.
- Have excellent written and verbal communication in English, as this role includes working with multiple stakeholders.
- Have confidence in your ability to talk with potential CDL program participants and to network with industry experts and other mentors.
- Be a team player and open to collaboration. This role entails consistently working with Foster faculty, the CDL-Seattle team, and experts from across campus.
COMPENSATION/SCHEDULE
- $25 per hour
- 30-40 hours per week during June-August 2024
- 15-20 hours per week September 2024-June 2025
- All UW Holidays apply to time off for this role as well. School breaks can be discussed for time off.
- Our team works from Founders Hall on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then remotely/work from home on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Ideally, you can be onsite with us at least one day per week.
- Work attire, whether in the office or working from home, is business casual/smart casual.
TO APPLY
- Submit your 1-2 page resume and 1-page cover letter via Handshake by 11:59 PM Pacific Time on Monday, May 6, 2024.
- Please note in your cover letter which CDL-Seattle stream, Advanced Manufacturing or Computational Health, you would prefer to be aligned with.
- We will aim to review all applicants the week of May 6-10 and conduct interviews with shortlisted candidates in mid-to-late May with an ideal early June start date.