The future is bright

Innovation isn’t dead

I’m Tyler Willis. I build and support technology companies that make your life a little better.

Technology companies have earned a bad rep lately, but inventing new things is at the core of immensely improving our lives. We need more of it, not less.

I co-founded Unsupervised, which helps people quickly understand meaning in their data so they can make better decisions.

In addition to my work at Unsupervised, I invest in promising technology companies and serve as the chairman of the Effective Research Foundation. I also read, write, speak and share voraciously.

Popular Projects

Unsupervised

I co-founded Unsupervised to help people deal with overwhelming amounts of data — the core challenge to becoming more data-driven and making better decisions.

Kepler Ventures

I founded Kepler as a seed-stage investment fund. We’ve backed some great companies, including Lyft, Classpass, Patreon and Lambda School.

Writing

In a prior life, I wrote reasonably popular columns for BigThink (general innovation) and MediaPost (advertising and marketing).

Managing for Growth

I gave a talk in Paris about how to build and manage a growth team. I cover both the strategy and frameworks I used to acquire 2 million business customers at Involver. Talk was covered by the NYT.

Social Research Group

At Involver, I built a secret industry group for marketers. Top people confidentially shared their first-party research with other practitioners until we were exposed in Fast Company.

Advice for Angels

I taught a class for newly accredited investors on how to invest in startups. Some of the class material was made public & has now been viewed over 350,000 times.

Nomadic Mentors

I co-founded Nomadic Mentors, a non-profit that sends experienced founders to emerging startup cities to mentor new entrepreneurs. To date, Nomadic has mentored over 10,000 founders.

AngelList Radio

I built AngelList Radio which interviewed successful investors, founders, and team-builders. One of the best places to get advice for anyone in tech.

The New Yorker

I was used as an example of “the three business card lifestyle” by the New Yorker. This made me sound like a dilletante, but made my grandparents exceptionally happy.

Companies Founded

Investments

Founders Helped

Cups of Coffee (today)

The Sunlight Fallacy

We need to know that something is bad before we can address the issues causing it, but we are hard-wired to internalize bad news preferentially. That means that the faster we learn about bad things, the faster we fix them and make the world better, but the more...

How to Setup your Carbon X1 for Productivity (Windows 10)

I work a lot, primarily co-ordinating others and pushing bits around the internet. From a moral standpoint, this isn’t a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s something I enjoy a lot. If you are similar, you might find some value in how I’ve set up my machine for...

Example Investments

2x your salary with no student loan.

Lambda helps people learn to be an engineer, and is one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

Backed by GV & Stripe.

Earn a living as a Creator.

In 2018, Patreon will help hundreds of thousands of creators earn over $300M dollars from millions of patrons.

Backed by Index & Thrive.

 

A better form of transportation.

Lyft is like your friend with a car. It generated over $1B in revenue in 2017.

Recently valued at
$15.1 Billion.

Find relaxation in the airport.

Purchase Airport Lounge Access Worldwide Starting at $25. Recently partnered with CLEAR.

Backer: Founders Fund.

Testimonials, Press and Awards

Tyler is the kind of guy you want in your organization. His influence exceeds his team's reach -- he provides a perspective that is invaluable on a plethora of initiatives, whether it be marketing tactics, company strategy, product direction, or user experience. I would work with him again in an instant.

Salman Ansari, Founder/CTO of Rested

Tyler's knowledge and skills for social media, marketing, and brand management are unsurpassed. More importantly, he's a great colleague to work with - always available to chat, no matter how hectic his schedule may be. He's focused, driven, and knows what it takes for marketing and sales to succeed in today's ever changing technological landscape. A privilege to work on his team!

Zal Daruwalla, Business Development at AgilOne

Tyler is an expert at social media, online marketing and product growth. He's also very connected in Silicon Valley. He's fun to work with and a great guy.

Rick Marini, Founder and CEO of BranchOut

Tyler has been an invaluable resource and an incredible angel. His style is very entrepreneur-friendly and he is generous with his time; quickly providing insightful, actionable guidance any time I asked. Tyler also has a great network which he readily opens for the companies he works with. It is an absolute pleasure to work with Tyler.

Aaron Wadler, Founder and CEO of ShopPad

Tyler was one of our first investors. He invested before we even had a product and offered us an incredible amount of help and support over several years and up to our Series A round with Founder's Fund. Even as we've added a lot of world-class investors and advisors, I still keep Tyler on speed-dial.

Tyler Dikman, Founder and CEO of Loungebuddy

Tyler is one of the few people I wouldn't think twice about co-founding a business with. We've already built a non-profit together and invest together. Tyler's good with people and keeping it real.

John Ramey, Founder and CEO of iSocket & Nomadic Mentors

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