ISAIAH is currently the Director of Business Development at Dori. Before Dori, Isaiah worked in business development at Carta, Microsoft, and Silicon Valley Bank. Isaiah was also an operator at AngelList and helped build out Rolling Funds, Isaiah began his career as a startup attorney at Fenwick & West LLP in Seattle and a corporate attorney at O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Newport Beach, California. Isaiah earned his J.D. from Stanford Law School, holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from USC, and is currently finishing up an MBA program at the University of Washington’s Michael G. Foster School of Business.

Isaiah grew up in Moreno Valley, California, and was raised solely by his mother for most of his life. Isaiah is multi-racial (Black, Latino, Native American, and White). He is also disabled and was diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy as a child.

Isaiah is passionate about mentoring and hopes that this blog will serve as a resource for underrepresented founders/operators/investors/talent in the startup and VC communities that do not have access to the same resources as their white counterparts.

You can learn more about Isaiah on Twitter.

SEBASTIÁN is currently a Sales Operations Manager at Blockdaemon. Sebastián holds a B.S. in Managerial Economics and has numerous technical certifications in Salesforce and Tableau.

Before Blockdaemon, Sebastián spent the majority of his career consulting at Accenture and was a part of two startup consulting companies. He also has served as an Investment Associate at Bay Angels.

During his time at Bay Angels, he noticed the lack of diversity in the startup community from both founders and investors.

Sebastián was born in San Jose, CA but grew up in Woodland, CA. He’s a first-generation Mexican-American and the very first of his family to attend a four-year institution.

In his spare time, he enjoys soccer, tennis, and traveling to learn about different cultures. He has visited 30 different countries.

You can learn more about Sebastían on Twitter.

An experienced operator and angel investor with Pipeline Angels, NICOLE CUELLAR-LOPEZ is currently the Director of Diversity Equity & Inclusion at Etsy. She has a track record of investing in early-stage startups that have a positive social impact and are led by women, femmes, and underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Nicole graduated from Howard University with a B.A. in Spanish and Russian and completed a Fulbright fellowship in Siberia before beginning her career in non-profit. An early Uber employee (2013-2019) who went on to lead DEI at Peloton, Nicole is both an experienced operator and well-versed in shaping and transforming company culture.

Born in the Bronx and raised in Orlando, FL, Nicole comes from a Puerto Rican-Cuban and Jamaican family. She’s the mother of 9-month-old Aurora, her first child. She’s an angel investor with Pipeline Angels and has a track record of investing in social impact startups led by women, femmes, and people of color.


Any views or opinions expressed here are strictly the authors. The authors are solely responsible for all content published here. This is a personal blog, not a corporate blog. Content published here is not read, reviewed, or approved in advance by my employer and does not necessarily represent or reflect the views or opinions of the authors’ employers or any of its divisions, subsidiaries, or business partners.