Resource Stories: Miki Reynolds, Grid110

Miki Reynolds co-founded and now runs Grid110, an early stage startup accelerator that’s become the leading community for underserved founders in Los Angeles.

Miki is an LA tech veteran and digital marketing expert. She co-founded Grid110 as an accelerator for fashion tech startups, but quickly saw that the need was more fundamental: all sorts of founders were excluded from the LA tech scene and needed help getting their foot in the door.

Grid110 helps offer community, mentors and resources to grow their businesses – or in some cases establish it. “We take founders early – in some cases when they just have an idea,” she says. Since 2015, Grid110 has been able to support 21 cohorts featuring a whopping 360 entrepreneurs.

Now they have gone national. In January Grid110 launched their first national program in partnership with the venture capital firm Slauson & Co, called “Friends & Family”. The program received nearly 600 applications from 38 states.

Read the Q&A below to learn about Miki’s journey

She recently raised $5.5 million. She's been interviewed a couple of times since her rise in success and she attributes Grid110 with taking a chance on her when she just had an idea, and the benefit of the program and the community that it provided.”

When I oversaw the design team at a software development agency, I hired a woman and I remember that she was so excited to have a woman boss, and she felt that there were very few opportunities she had seen for women to advance in tech spaces because they were more male dominated. The two of us went to a women in tech event that was hosted at the General Assembly in Santa Monica. There was a venture capitalist speaker, a startup founder, just a really interesting representation of women in different types of technological careers.

I think it was maybe the first networking event that stood out to me, and I thought We need more of these, why is this the first time I’m experiencing this?

So what did you do about it?

I connected with a group of entrepreneurs in the Downtown Los Angeles area and we started talking through the potential problems that we could be solving, speaking to different stakeholders around L.A., trying to figure out, what are the common challenges that other entrepreneurs are facing and how can we create a solution for it? Is this a policy issue? An infrastructure issue? 

Soon we landed on a problem: office space. At the time (2014) there was only one WeWork in all of L.A. Coworking was still not mainstream. Downtown L.A. had 6 million square feet of empty office space and lots of high rise towers that were looking to attract more tech and creative companies to them. But these developers didn’t understand that early stage startups don't even know if they're gonna be around in six months, but they know that they need a place to work out of, they need internet, and ideally they'd love to pair up with a couple of other companies to be able to split the cost and have that camaraderie of other founders around.

Eventually we convinced a building owner to partner with us on space for a year, to provide that kind of co-working space. We came up with the model: six months of free office space, entrepreneurs could work out of this space 24/7, and we would provide weekly check-ins where that kind of the community aspect would come into play as founders helped other founders. 

We also brought in an advisory board of seasoned CEOs and executives that would host round table sessions and advisor dinners just to connect founders with people that they could learn from. That was the very first program that we launched.

We’ve had an incredible ability to support women founders and founders of color, but we really came about that organically. When we launched, we weren’t specifically looking for underrepresented founders. We had a lot of women founders that were building in the fashion tech space, and we noticed that the applicant pool reflected more women founders.

Then even more women applied when we launched Idea to Product, an idea stage classroom curriculum-based program in our third year. As well as founders of color. The program was built to be open and democratic – the idea was that anybody who had an idea for something could apply, even if it wasn’t yet materialized. It was really able to lower the barrier to entry into this type of space.

What is Grid110’s vision today?

Our goal is to build the most thriving, inviting inclusive community for entrepreneurs. We want to create access that has typically been restricted to business school and other networks - to make it more accessible for folks from underserved communities. 

We offer a 12-week virtual program that helps entrepreneurs build a strong foundation and then adds layered support. We offer one-on-one advising and peer support through an intimate, cohort-based experience. We’re unique also because we offer a no cost, no equity element, which is huge for our companies, especially being at that early stage — not having to give up anything from their company in order to have access to these resources. 

Last is the ongoing support. Our relationship with these founders doesn't end as soon as the program ends. We have a community manager that specifically focuses on alumni related engagement efforts to make sure that these founders have opportunities to continue to learn, meet each other, and give back if they'd like. So it's creating this living, breathing, organically growing space where we hope to be a part of entrepreneurs’ journeys for as long as they'd like to stay engaged.

What sets Grid110 apart?

We tend to work with companies much earlier than similar types of programs would. We’ve had founders come to us with just an idea, and I think that there are very few others who cater to this early stage. We help people flush out their ideas at the most critical stage of their journey: when they don't yet have a significant amount of traction or customers, or product market fit validation. 

What’s Next for Grid110? How can people help?

We started in just Los Angeles, but we've set our sights on a much broader geography.

When we launched, we were so focused on community as it related to place and geography and building the L.A. ecosystem. But the pandemic has allowed people to connect outside of these geographic areas and get access because there are events that are happening virtually. You can get access to speakers that maybe you wouldn't have normally been able to get access to.

Specifically, we want to continue to support founders nationwide through the Friends & Family initiative and continue to double down on efforts here in Los Angeles. We’ve seen a number of programs, funds and initiatives launched recently that are focusing on supporting diverse & inclusive communities of founders and we’re excited to continue to contribute in this space.