Wil Schroter

Wil Schroter is a serial entrepreneur who has started 9 companies since 1994 and sold 4 of them to date.[1][2] He is currently the CEO and founder of Startups.co, the world's largest startup launch platform.

Career

Wil founded his first company, Blue Diesel, as a 19-year-old student at the Ohio State University.[3] Three years later, he merged Blue Diesel with inChord Communications where, as CEO and Board Member, he helped grow the company to over $700 million in capitalized billings within 5 years.[4] In 2003, the company was purchased and renamed inVentiv, which now generates over $2.5 billion in annual revenue and employs 15,000 professionals worldwide. The company was most recently valued at $3.8 billion.[5]

Following the sale of Blue Diesel, Wil founded Virtucon Ventures, an idea-stage incubator for Web startups. There he helped conceive and launch a number of well known companies including Swapalease.com, Unsubscribe.com (sold to TrustedID), Startups.co, and Fundable.com. Virtucon's portfolio of companies has attracted more than a dozen prominent venture funds, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founders Fund, Bessemer Ventures, and Charles River Ventures.[1]

In 2012, Wil founded Startups.co, the world's largest startup launch platform. It has since been used by over 1 million startup companies globally. Since then, Startups.co has helped startups raise over $500 million in funding commitments, attracts 20 million early customers, has hosted over 500,000 product launches, and attracted over 10 million visitors per year.[6] The company is based in Columbus, Ohio and employs over 150 full-time staff.

The Startups.co platform consists of 6 related products that help entrepreneurs through the entire startup journey

  • Startups.co (education) features lessons from founders including Elon Musk (Tesla), Brian Chesky (AirBnB), and Daniel Ek (Spotify).
  • Fundable.com (equity fundraising) has helped startups raise over $500 million in capital commitments.
  • Launchrock.com (early customer acquisition) has assisted startups in adding 20 million early customers.
  • Clarity.fm (export mentorship) provides startups with access to 10,000 mentors, including Mark Cuban.
  • Bizplan.com (business planning) is used for compiling and presenting business plans.
  • Zirtual.com (virtual staff) adds a virtual team member to startup companies.

Media

Wil has contributed to columns that have been nationally syndicated in business newspapers across 40 major markets, and he is a frequent columnist for Forbes,[7] Entrepreneur,[8] and The Wall Street Journal.[9]

Awards

Wil's awards for entrepreneurship and business achievements are numerous and include being named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Association and Business First's Top 40 Under 40.[3]

Books

Wil has authored and published 8 books centering around startups and fundraising. They are:

References
  1. Virtucon Ventures
  2. "Wil Schroter | Vator". vator.tv.
  3. Tae Radio
  4. "inVentiv Communications". adage.com.
  5. "Press Releases - inVentiv Health". www.inventivhealth.com. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
  6. "World's Largest Startup Company Platform | Startups.co". www.startups.co. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
  7. Schroter, Wil; Schroter, Wil. "Wil Schroter". Forbes.
  8. Schroter, Wil. "Wil Schroter". Entrepreneur.
  9. Huston, Caitlin (July 1, 2013). "Wil Schroter: Focus on the Simple, Painful Problem".
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