Startup Team Meets CTO on NovoEd, Receives Hundreds of Thousands in Funding

The founders of Stylemarks (acquired by Junique in 2014) created their company while working from three different time zones throughout the world. Marc Linneweber, the COO, explains “from the first days working together in our team, we carefully chose the right tools to collaborate…[NovoEd] was a great tool for exploring the fundamental lessons of entrepreneurship.”

“The platform enabled us to connect with an impressive crowd of individuals who were equally enthusiastic about working on a game changing idea and building a successful company. Throughout the course, we reached out to a great number of very talented people with impressive backgrounds from all over the world. This eventually led us to find our co-founder and CTO, Andrey, who is based in St. Petersburg, Russia, as well as a Senior Advisor who is still in our board.”

Throughout the course, members of the team found great value in connecting with mentors and other startups to help benchmark their progress. They gained their first customer insights through a class assignment, which led them to reshape their business model from a C2C local marketplace on mobile to a B2C model connecting retailers to consumers. The most valuable assignment though, according to Linneweber, was the final exam where his team composed a convincing pitch deck, which formed the foundation of their successful fundraising campaign.