PlayVS' Delane Parnell on journey from the projects to ~$100M raised, breaking thru in tech | E1050

Jason Calacanis chats with Delane Parnell, CEO & Founder of PlayVS. They discuss the growth of PlayVS, Delane's journey from venture capital to founding his company, and his relationship with Michael Ovitz. They also delve into the importance of diversity in tech and the talent advantage it brings to PlayVS.

Speakers

AI Chat

Unidentified

Jason Calacanis

Host • 46%

Delane Parnell

Guest • 53%

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Chapters

0:00	Opening
0:42	Jason intros PlayVS CEO & Founder Delane Parnell
2:59	What is PlayVS, how do they make money & how fast are they growing?
5:37	Attracting investors, leveraging an exclusive contract to scale across US high schools & average hours spent on the platform by players
13:26	Delane shares his backstory, from flipping shoes to owning cell phone stores in high school to getting tickets to the LAUNCH Festival in SF
26:38	How Delane turned LAUNCH Festival networking to deal flow & a job in venture capital
32:52	Meeting Peter Pham at SXSW, moving to LA to start PlayVS
38:16	Delane on his relationship with Michael Ovitz
40:20	PlayVS' go-to-market strategy & relationship with game publishers
45:51	PlayVS being co-ed & giving female gamers a safe environment to play in
51:08	Race in tech & Delane's advice on breaking into the industry as an outsider
55:57	Not taking any checks from firms who hadn't previously backed black founders
59:05	Does Darnell's intentionality about diversity create a talent advantage for PlayVS?
1:06:06	Relief of hiring high-level operators
1:11:41	LA restaurant scene discussion
1:13:39	Bird vs. Lime vs. Uber, pricing model discussion, thought on Travis Kalanick
1:23:10	Top 5 Tech entrepreneurs of all-time
1:33:40	What's going on at Airbnb?

Transcript

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