In this interview, we had the pleasure of sitting down with Tyler Roberts, an alum of our Summer 2020 cohort.
What made you join School16 when you were already a full-time student?
I go to the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and that program is super geared toward funneling kids into investment banking and consulting. I didn't want to get into either one of those fields, and there was no helpful resource for getting into the tech world, specifically startups.
School is sometimes something you have to do to get the piece of paper. But I chose to go to School16. It was so valuable hearing from experienced professionals that were such credible sources of information.
During my second week, our assignment was to reach out to 10 people we wanted to network with. I ended up with five responses and two job offers.
That’s some seriously impressive networking.
One of the outreaches I made was cold. He was looking for a co-founder for his company. I wasn’t interested because I was headed into my junior year of college—I was looking for internships. Instead, I offered to work for him that summer, while I was still enrolled in School16.
I was also starting my own company at the time.
How did that come about?
I went to a decent amount of bars and hated waiting in lines. I’d get 100s of texts at night from friends asking what we were doing and where we were going. I felt sick of responding to them.
I thought of a way to incorporate a one-stop-shop to night life where you can figure out where your friends are, see how long the line is at that venue, and pay to skip it.
COVID threw some bumps in the road but we’re ready to launch soon.
And after all these career moves you made, you continued utilizing your School16 network.
I reached back out to Vadim last October, a little over a year after my cohort ended. I was working on my startup and getting ready to graduate. I needed a refresher and some direction on how to apply for roles.
We had a 30 minute meeting and within two weeks I had the job that I have now.
I’m a Growth Lead for a tech startup based in Houston called Paladin Drones. I jumped right into the role and began working at least 50 hours a week for them, last November.
