Greater Chicago Area
I’m a nut. I lost a recording contract in 1997 when another caucasian rapper from the midwest started gaining popularity & it completely knocked me off my perceived trajectory. That "failure" set me on an anomalous path. I went from building online hip-hop forums & fronting bands to working in restaurants – starting as a dishwasher & grinding my way up to a certified somm & mgt. Eventually, I burnt out on being a "servant in the castle". So I pivoted. I studied entrepreneurship, taught myself machine learning, brushed back up on coding, & co-founded a B2B SaaS company. But here is what they don't tell you: building the tech is only half the battle. When it came time to fundraise, I struggled. I worked with a pitch coach right before presenting to shark Daymond John & 100s of people. The result? Total friction. Even when I got into the right rooms, my early pitch decks were too aspirational & deeply confusing. I was met with decisive "nos" while watching my peers make raising capital look easy. Flash forward 1,000s of hours studying the psychology of VC, tearing down (& rebuilding) decks & refining narratives. I finally cracked the code, having raised our rounds, & ultimately exited that company following a Forbes feature, BuiltIn recognition, & national media attention. Today, as a 3x “Mentor in Excellence”, EIR & f/ MD at the Founder Institute & a LinkedIn Top Voice with over 600K followers, I leverage my network & experience to ensure other founders don't repeat my expensive, painful mistakes. How I Work: I currently offer a highly focused 1:1 advisory program for founders preparing to raise capital. I work directly together to: • Completely rebuild & optimize pitch deck & narrative • Design profile & content strategy to generate inbound investor interest • Facilitate warm, direct introductions to relevant investors once truly ready for the room This system competes directly with programs others sell for mid-6 figures. I charge a flat-fee of $19,995. I’m currently in an early-adopter phase offering the complete program for $14,995, I’m open to accepting up to 50% of the compensation upon success or via equity at an early valuation, entirely subject to my discretion. If you know of a founder actively raising, I’m happy to chat. Beyond my advisory practice, I am the Editor-in-Chief of Tech For Good (250K+ subscribers), Chief Growth Officer at Starchild, Momentus Tech (Glide), & Phyll, & a co-founder across several entities. Still obsessed with UBI, AI on the blockchain, dogs, music & community. Opinions are my own.
Featured at 2025 Oracle AI World and backed by Oracle, AWS and NVIDIA, Phyll is digital intelligence for the physical word. We make sense of all the data the surrounds us all all the time, so that it can lead to actionable insights that power actual action.
DCRBN and DCRBN Labs is a carbon-neutral web3 launchpad and venture studio helping build, scale, fund, ISO certify and incubate blockchain and A.I. based projects with amazing founders, potential, opportunity, and differentiation. Cofounder as we as partner and portfolio company myself, I help build product, GTM and GTF (get to fundable) strategies, viral growth hacking and more.
WeJ came to me as a download to marry blockchain and generative AI to “read the room” in public places to play music people who are actually there actually want to hear, and was fortunate enough to assemble to perfect cofounding team, who challenged my premise that it should be a tech platform and helped us pivot to building a community for DJ (and producers and musicians) to leverage and learn new technologies to earn more, “work less”, play more (and harder) and to finally own their industry using blockchain and AI.
Founder, host of podcast, namesake, & chairman at #Coryconnects - the forward thinking tech-forward organization helping many thousands worldwide upskill, get placed into amazing new roles & opportunities, and to best leverage social media to network & get ahead in this world. #Coryconnects people, opportunities & ideas for the greater good! https://coryconnects.tech.