Joshua Stylman likes to help people. When he invests in an idea, he likes to get hands-on with the startup team, adapting to their needs and offering support in anything he possibly can, including development, funding, recruiting and fundraising. He is the co-founder of advertising agency Rotomedia, which was acquired by Ask.com in 1999, when he then served as the company’s Vice President of Business Development. He has also served as co-CEO and Managing Partner of Reprise Media, a results-driven digital marketing agency, founded in 2003 and acquired by The Interpublic Group in 2007.
Stylman’s investments have all been in similar markets, many of them being social or crowdfunded media. He has invested in things like Kickstarter, Bit.ly, Tumblr, Digg – anything that you would normally use now as a social media platform, he has invested in.
He is currently a board member for Aviary, a photo editing web application suite, and See.Me, a crowdfunded social media platform for creative artists. Stylman attended Stonybrook University and received a BE in Sociology and History.
Sector Focus:
Social media, Food and Beverage, Content, Real-time Data
Selected Investments:
Betaworks
Bit.ly
Bondsy
Kitchensurfing
Union Square Ventures
Kickstarter
AngelList
Chartbeat
GroupMe
Social Leverage
Boards:
Aviary
See.Me
Expertise areas:
Digital Business Strategy, Product Development, General Mangement
Websites and Twitter:
Memorable Quotes:
On heroes: “We want to believe our heroes our infallible. They’re not. Sometimes they’re even monsters.”
On work ethic: “Typically, I adapt to the entrepreneur’s needs, offering support in a number of areas, including product development, biz dev, marketing, recruiting & fundraising.”
On how all start-ups should work: “Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. Even keel.”
