Behind-the-Scenes on Our New Video Series
There is magic in our eight-week program.Talk to our alumni, instructors, or hiring partners and you’ll get a sense for it. The people who make up our community are a special breed of passionate people who care deeply about making an impact. If you come to Talent Expo, the capstone event of our full-time program, the energy is palpable. If you scan the love letters on our website or bootcamp reviews, you’ll begin to understand why we believe so strongly in what we’re doing.
This magic is the shared experience that binds our alumni community, develops careers, helps great companies grow, and makes the entire tech ecosystem better. Yet, clearly explaining this intangible quality has eluded us.
But, this didn't stop us from trying.
Last week, we released a three-part video series in hopes of bringing our students' eight-week journeys to life.
Thirty alumni, instructors, and partners joined us to share their stories and contribute to this project, led by Jed Hammel of Volta Visual and his team, including video editor R.J. Placko, videographers Joe Martino, Caleb Rasek, and Roger Metcalf, and sound engineer Joe Cooke.
The result: three videos, developed to give our prospective students a better sense of the experience and outcomes of the Startup Institute program. We think of them as “Inspiration” “Transformation,” and “Validation.”
Inspiration
Our top-of-the-funnel, bite-sized glimpse into Startup Institute’s mission, vision, and values. The concept was to have a number of alumni recite our manifesto to share why we do what we do, and to show that bringing diverse people and perspectives to the startup world is necessary to its growth.
We had so much fun shooting this one—laughing as we played with camera angles, stumbling over lines and reenacting Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” (see 0:41). Special thanks to these alums for their brilliance in front of the camera: Seyi Adebayo, Roselangie Cano, Meredith Davies, Emily Griffin, Ryan Kelly, David Lewine, Jenn Mason, Christopher Wong, and Janet Yeung.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnb2xzT-Z2g[/embed]
[bctt tweet="The best startup talent is found at the intersection of community, skills, and mindset."]
Transformation
No one can explain our program experience better than those who have lived it firsthand. “Startup Institute: The Eight-Week Journey” follows the stories of alumni from each of our program tracks (web development, web design, marketing, and sales and account management) as they discuss where they were before Startup Institute, their experiences in the career development program, and where they are now.
Thank you to the alumni, instructors, and hiring partners who contributed to this piece: Tarikh Campbell, John Carmichael, Juliana Casale, David Delmar, Evan DiLeo, Renee Farster-Degenhardt, Julia Feld, Jordan Fliegel, Micah Martin, Lilian Mitchell, Andrew Krebs-Smith, and Christopher Wong.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1vTJ8E_1wc[/embed]
[bctt tweet="Do you want to work on the assembly line or build the assembly line? I want to build it. - @eyeamkai"]
Validation
The third video is about outcomes.
In “Why Employers Love Startup Institute,” we interviewed our hiring partners to hear directly about why they love hiring Startup Institute graduates—how our program pre-vets candidates, graduates top talent, and prepares them to be highly effective in the startup environment.
Thank you to Jonathan Bingham, Juliana Casale, Jeff Fagnan, Jordan Fliegel, Brent Grinna, Sara Hopson, and Giles Phillips for sharing your experiences.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ai_CNpXvdM[/embed]
[bctt tweet="If I could hire every employee I need from @StartupInst, I would. - @jwbingham" via="no"]
From ideation and production coordination to filming, editing, and sharing with the world, this project has been a labor of love. Endless gratitude to Jed Hammel for his commitment to our story and vision. He understood the magic of Startup Institute from the start.
We have many more stories to tell, so be sure to subscribe to our new YouTube channel to see more video content coming out in the near future. We look forward to the start of our fall cohort on October 19th, and welcoming a new group of career changers, difference makers, and innovators to the Startup Institute community. In the words of design instructor David Delmar,
When you get people in a room together who share values and share passions, they can’t help but build awesome stuff.
[bctt tweet="Get ppl in a room who share values + passions + they'll build awesome stuff - @delmarsenties"]
On the set:
[bctt tweet="Check out @StartupInst’s 3-part video series: http://bit.ly/1Jfur8j" via="no"]
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