Episode 140: Lucy Deland - Partner, Inspired Capital

Lucy was a student at Harvard during the same timeframe when Mark Zuckerberg was starting Facebook. As we discuss in this podcast, Facebook was a key catalyst to ignited the entrepreneurial spirit at the institution. She was a co-founder and COO of Paperless Post, which included two other Harvard alumni. The company disrupted the online invitation industry by making the process a lot more elegant and personalized with a design-led philosophy, which was unique at the time. Lucy is now a Partner at Inspired Capital, an early stage investment firm that was recently launched by Alexa von Tobel. Alexa is best known as the Founder & CEO of Learnvest, a company that was acquired by Northwestern Mutual. And yes, it was at Harvard where Lucy originally met Alexa. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * What is was like attending Harvard during the creation of Facebook and its impact on entrepreneurship there * The full background story on Paperless Post and the many challenges they had to overcome * The details on Inspired Capital and what they are targeting for investments. * What pitfalls to avoid when scaling. * When you should hire a COO to join your company. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.