Jul 8, 2022

Jul 8, 2022, Wanderjaunt “I t is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends,” Joan Didion famously wrote in her essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem. While Didion was writing about leaving New York City behind, her words still resonate for young entrepreneurs shuttering their once-promising companies. Closures in Under 30 Land are rarely Big Bang-worthy explosions that conclude with branded fleece vests tossed in WeWork trash cans. Rather, the shuttering happens slowly and in stages: Tension between cofounders, endless internal strategy sessions, unrenewed contracts and deleted job postings. Months and years later, closures are all but confirmed by the looks of outdated websites, “working in stealth” LinkedIn statuses or simple, unfettered silences. Such is the case for WanderJaunt, a short-term stay rental company with $57 million in funding from Decacorn Capital, Founders First and others, which just ceased operations after six years. The company’s cofounders, Andrés Green and Barrett Glauser, operated around 1,000 properties (managing everything from interior design to housekeeping) at the time they made the 2020 Forbes 30 Under 30 Consumer Tech list. Now, the website is defunct and the cofounders did not return a request for comment. But where there is an end, there’s also often a beginning, however rickety. Fellow Under 30-founded company Alltrue (previously called Causebox) laid off 50 employees in April and shut down all operations of its subscription boxes from socially conscious brands business. Now, under new management , the company will ship never-delivered boxes and resume operations. The cofounders did not respond to requests for comment, and seem to be uninvolved in the resurrected company. Endings like those of WanderJaunt and early death rattle of Alltrue are sad, but inevitable. Due to acquisition, lack of funds or market shift, it’s natural for founders to exit at some point. As Didion noted: “I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was.” To those young entrepreneurs saying goodbye to all that they have built, sludging through the ambiguities, the second starts and broken resolves, we simply offer our respect. LLUSTRATION BY GRACELYNN WAN FOR FORBES; PHOTO BY WEST END61/GETTY IMAGES This Week's Money Moves An Under 30 alum has landed in the spotlight for an unexpected reason: She’s the mother of Elon Musk’s newly revealed twins. Shivon Zilis made the 2015 Forbes Under 30 Venture Capital list for her work as a founding member of Bloomberg Beta, Bloomberg’s early-stage venture capital firm. Musk has quite obviously accomplished a lot, but Zilis is a star in her own right (though with far fewer Twitter followers). In 2018, Forbes named her an Under 30 All-Star for her work as a project director at OpenAI and Tesla. When Zilis made the Under 30 list, she listed her “mom and dad” as her dream mentors. Well, now she gets to pay it forward–presumably with help from the world’s richest man . Read the 33-page pitch deck that Skye cofounder Jessica Wolf (Full disclosure: she’s a former Forbes staffer) used to raise $1.6 million . (Insider) This new lawsuit alleging that blockchain company Solana is a security could have big implications for the crypto investment landscape. (Forbes) Hold on to an employee for three months , executives and human-resources specialists say, and that person is more likely to remain employed longer-term. (Wall Street Journal) The owner of Sabah, the unofficial shoe of finance bros who pay $20 for a tequila soda at the Surf Lodge, is doubling down on his Texas manufactory . (Forbes) Everyone is quitting , even bosses. It’s in the data. (Vox) Startup founders complain that venture capitals are driving harder deals , saying it’s not a lack of capital, but gun shyness. (Wall Street Journal) How will we know if we’re in a recession ? Here’s what economic forecasters are watching. (Vox) ‘This is the only secret I’ve carried’: 14 business leaders share their abortion stories. (Fortune) Inside Scoop Nick Nagatkin was on vacation in Sri Lanka when he received the news that Russia had begun an invasion of his home country, Ukraine. As cofounder and CEO of international IT company Digis, the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe honoree spent much of his time finding talented engineers to write software code for startup companies. But once the war started, the 26-year-old shifted his focus to getting his employees out of eastern Ukraine, while also trying to assure his customers—many of whom rely on his company’s IT infrastructure and software—that their services would not be interrupted. Despite the obvious setbacks, Nagatkin is projecting that Digis will reach its annual revenue goal of $10 million this year without the need for outside investment. How was he able to keep the company afloat during wartime? He says his strategy was to hire IT engineers from other parts of Europe, such as Poland and Romania, to make sure the bulk of his company was not concentrated in Ukraine, and the services he provided would not be disrupted. “We’re very flexible in our structure, and we proved that during Covid,” says Nagatkin, referencing Digis’ transition to an almost entirely-remote workforce during the pandemic. “So we’re able to change our strategy fast and continue growing.” While he currently relies on an international workforce, Nagatkin also makes a point to help his country in any way he can, like hiring interns in Ukraine and teaching them to code. “This is part of our social responsibility because after the war started, businesses need to support our government and our people in all the possible ways because many people left without their homes [and] jobs,” he says. Robinhood cofounders Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev have seen their stock price tumble as the market capitalization of the company tumbled over $50 billion. Getty Images