About the Instructor

Gordon Daugherty

Over the past 15 years, Gordon Daugherty has seen more than 1,500 startup pitches, given personal advice to more than 500 entrepreneurs and been involved with raising over $45M in growth and venture capital. He spent the first ten years of his career in brand name companies like IBM and Compaq and then progressively gravitated towards the early stage and high growth companies. He spent eight years in the video conferencing industry, including four years as President of a company that grew to $36M in a short few years and went public on the Euronext stock market.

Gordon has served in an executive capacity over most company functions, but with emphasis on strategy, marketing, sales, business development, and M&A. He ran corporate development and strategy for Austin-based NetQoS, who grew rapidly to more than $55M in revenue before being acquired by CA Technologies for $200M and was a founding advisor for digital advertising pioneer MediaMind, who reached $65M in revenue and a NASDAQ IPO in 2010.

As President of Austin-based Capital Factory and through his advisory practice called Shockwave Innovations, Gordon is an active angel investor, VC and startup advisor. He is also a board member for Austin-based technology companies SwimTopia, Riskpulse and StoryFit. He is also a Managing Director at SoftMatch and a board member for Austin-based technology companies SwimTopia, Riskpulse, Chiron Health, and StoryFit.

What are Startup Founder’s Saying About Founders Academy?

“Founders Academy is a must! Gordon unlocked new value in concepts I thought I was already familiar with.”

“I’d recommend Founders Academy to other startup founders because of critical early alarms about easy to overlook things.”

“I wish we had done this a year ago.”

“I could not have been more pleased with how clearly Gordon explained things.”

“The way you convey the material is great and the examples you give makes things clear.”

“Fantastic. The camp really provides a complete view of the components necessary to build your business. The additional personal stories you interjected really validate your message.”

“I didn’t know anything about starting a company before joining Capitol Factory, and this workshop has probably taught me the most.”

“If you are thinking about becoming a founder this is an up close and personal intro from the trenches. If you’ve been around the block a few times, you’ll still learn something. A founder can’t hear this stuff enough.”

“I wish I could have done this years ago because my first venture with VC’s did not go well. You don’t know what you don’t know and the startup landscape is hard to navigate.”