In partnership with

Welcome back to the Collective. We're continuing our behind-the-scenes coverage from our extraordinary week featuring two billionaire entrepreneurs at New York universities. After exploring our event featuring Daniel Lubetzky (Founder of KIND Snacks and the newest full-time Shark Tank judge) at Pace University last week, today we're taking you inside our event at NYU featuring Michael Baum.

Michael founded Splunk, the enterprise software company that sold to Cisco for $28 billion last year, but what makes this event particularly special is how it showcased his newest venture: The YOPE Foundation. This non-profit startup support program takes a revolutionary approach to founder development, providing selected entrepreneurs with $100k in funding and access to an elite network of unicorn founders and investors.

This newsletter examines how we created a forum that went far beyond typical founder storytelling. Instead of the standard “how I built my billion-dollar company” narrative, we crafted an environment where Michael could share his innovative perspectives on entrepreneurship and connect directly with the NYU founders who would benefit from YOPE's unique approach.

This newsletter offers an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at: 

• how we created a targeted, founder-focused environment that facilitated meaningful connections;

• our approach to highlighting fresh and valuable perspectives on entrepreneurship;

• how we connected university talent with real funding opportunities through the YOPE Foundation;

• the techniques we use to capture and distribute multi-format content that extends the impact beyond a single event; and

• why our unique position at the intersection of founders, universities, and thought leaders creates an exponential value flywheel for all parties.

We'll explore how we partnered with the NYU Stern School of Business' Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship to bring together the perfect audience, how we highlighted Michael's thoughtful views on product development and founder physical/mental conditioning, and why our ideas-first storytelling framework creates value for universities, speakers, and attendees.

Alright, it’s time. Here we go.

— By Antonio DiMeglio and Leon Li

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Background

For context, this event required extensive coordination between Michael's team, our team, and NYU Stern School of Business' Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship. We developed an introduction that set the tone by highlighting Michael's journey from Splunk to YOPE, designed promotional materials centered on "Founder Performance" to attract the right audience, implemented our professional 4K multi-camera recording setup, and facilitated extensive Q&A and networking time for direct founder engagement.

Just like we did with our Daniel Lubetzky event, we're currently producing multi-format audio and visual content including social clips that will extend the impact of this single evening across multiple platforms and audiences.

Collaborating with Michael Baum and the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship at NYU Stern

Michael Baum represents the ideal entrepreneur profile, combining technical brilliance with business acumen. However, you’d notice this from hearing any conversation featuring Michael! So, to make this event memorable, we knew we had to tell a story that reached beyond Michael’s experiences building Splunk.