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XFormer Prisoners Have a Tough Time Finding a Job. This New Incubator Teaches Them to Become Entrepreneurs Instead
Breanna de Vera is dot.LA's editorial intern. She is currently a senior at the University of Southern California, studying journalism and English literature. She previously reported for the campus publications The Daily Trojan and Annenberg Media.

It can be nearly impossible for former convicts to find a job in L.A. A new incubator is training formerly incarcerated Angelenos to start their own businesses instead.
"Nobody runs a criminal record check on a company," said Reboot LA program director Claudia Diaz.
Reboot LA will offer 28 formerly incarcerated individuals a chance to participate in their incubator program offered in partnership with the city of Los Angeles this fall. Its curriculum comes from Sabio Enterprises, a coding and educator developer community that provides boot camps for future software engineers.
"They're taking control, but just being hired on their own digital portfolios and their own talent," she said.
Because of the stigma, many people who have done time in prison or jail face higher hurdles to getting a job. Owning a company, instead of working for someone else or consulting as an individual is often an easier path toward economic sustainability. And studies show that jobs are also associated with lower recidivism.
Reboot LA helps students build skills to be competitive, including how to source clients, create a digital portfolio, perform full stack development and, ultimately, own their own tech consulting company.
Home Boy Bakery & Home Girl Cafe
Reboot LA's Roots
Sabio co-founder and chief executive officer Liliana Monge came up with the idea while working with the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) in L.A. She thought Sabio's curriculum could help people with criminal records gain skills to work in tech and started devising a program to steer them toward employment after they finished a boot camp.
She hosted biweekly coding information sessions at Homeboy Industries and the Anti-Recidivism Coalition last year to gauge interest and engage possible participants.
But when Los Angeles went into lockdown, those classes went online and recruitment got harder. Then the city of Los Angeles agreed to cover the costs for 28 enrollees, and applications started to roll in. "In October, we finally got our first 100% remote program participant," she said.
Monge didn't want to disclose the names of participants because they attend classes alongside other Sabio students. She doesn't want her students to have to deal with the stigmas around incarceration. But she would say said the first participant is a Latina woman.
"[There is] a lack of women talent in the tech industry," Monge said. "So we're excited that our first program participant is a woman of color. And we look forward to having more program participants that are super diverse, and we want gender parity as well."
The city of Los Angeles was already working with ARC to provide job training to formerly incarcerated individuals. The Los Angeles Economic and Workforce Development Department (EWDD) noticed the tech workshops Sabio was doing with ARC. When Monge decided to expand the pilot program, EWDD worked closely with her to make Reboot LA available to all Angelenos with a record.
"The tech industry is thriving in Los Angeles, yet for some Angelenos, finding a job in this realm feels completely out of reach," said Carolyn Hull, general manager of EWDD. "EWDD invests in incubators as part of the city's mission to cultivate the city's clean tech industry and create opportunities for the city's underserved populations to gain access to the tech industry."
Few Legal Protections for Those with a Criminal Record
Angelenos with a criminal record are not legally protected against hiring discrimination based on their record. People with incarceration histories are four to six times more likely to be unemployed than peers without a record, according to data from the Prison Policy Initiative.
There have been a few recent measures in California that aim to provide them with protections against discrimination. But for the most part, these efforts haven't increased opportunities for formerly incarcerated people in the tech industry.
Last month, Governor Gavin Newsom passed an Assembly bill that expunges the criminal records of former prisoners who fought against the California wildfires Not all prisoners are on the front lines of fighting fires, however. And this measure is intended to help formerly incarcerated people seeking employment in emergency response.
In 2018, California passed the Fair Chance Act, known as "Ban the Box," which refers to a box on job applications that indicate whether the applicant has a criminal record. California employers cannot ask applicants about their conviction histories. But that doesn't protect employees from a criminal history check after they are hired, according to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. And any job that already requires a background check, such as those in finance or the government, is not subject to this law.
Emiliano Lopez and Guillermo "Memo" Armenta founded a web app and development company called FutureWork.Courtesy Reboot LA
Future Work: Rate My Parole Agent
Emiliano Lopez and Guillermo "Memo" Armenta — two Sabio graduates — helped Monge develop the ideas for Reboot LA. Both are social justice advocates and their work ranges from community outreach to housing people coming out of incarceration.
"Both my mom and I come from a marginalized community, we both formerly incarcerated folks," said Lopez. "We took advantage of the opportunity that ARC and Sabio had at one time where we were able to join the coding boot camp on a scholarship."
Since graduating, they have founded a web app and development company called Future Work.
Lopez and Armenta were introduced to Sabio's programming at the Anti-Recidivism Coalition. They took a 12-week coding bootcamp, and after finishing, started looking for work in the tech space.
"From there, Memo and I decided to look for jobs in the coding world. And we noticed that it was largely closed for people with a background," said Lopez.
They brainstormed and worked on small projects for a while, which Lopez saved in his Google Drive within a folder called "future work."
"We were just fed up with the way things were going. And we just threw our hands up in the air and we went downtown. We filed to create a company called Future Work, named after the folder on my Google Drive," said Lopez. "We're a functioning part-time business right now. And currently, we have a little product to offer."
That product is an app aimed at improving relationships between parole agents and parolees, for people with backgrounds similar to their own.
"[It's] going to be a "rating app" for parole agents, to understand what the relationship between parole agent and parolee is," said Lopez. "What that looks like on the grand scale is, 'What does that culture look like, with an entire office of parole agents and an entire community of people on parole?' [We'll] use that data to improve those relationships in the future, so we can build a safer society — one that is based on mutual respect, and the common goal of having someone succeed and not go back into the institution."
Reboot LA is still looking for participants for its first official cohort of participants. Applications are available on their website. Los Angeles residents can apply to the free program, and cohorts are selected every month.
Full-time courses run for 13 weeks, six times a week. Part-time courses meet on weekday evenings and Saturdays. Participants are trained in Microsoft's .Net platform, Node.js development, client side frameworks, database architecture and API tools.
"L.A. is really kind of brimming with exceptional tech talent," Monge said." And so we're excited to make sure that through this program, we can bring in diverse voices to the tech ecosystem."
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Breanna de Vera is dot.LA's editorial intern. She is currently a senior at the University of Southern California, studying journalism and English literature. She previously reported for the campus publications The Daily Trojan and Annenberg Media.
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Braid Theory's Plan to Foster the Next Generation of Ocean Tech Startups
Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
San Pedro-based Braid Theory is one of the growing number of accelerators in the country looking to grow the so-called blue economy, which spans a range of ocean-related industries and is estimated at $2.5 trillion a year.
The accelerator is accepting online applications until July 18, with its second-ever program kicking off in August.
This year’s focus will be different from the typical accelerator: Startups in this group will test their products directly with companies active in the ocean economy for four months, collecting data on what works, what doesn’t and further developing proof of concept. Braid Theory will help these startups come up with their business plan and pitches, and connect them to investors and potential partners in the field. In return, it takes an equity warrant that can be converted after three years.
The startups joining Braid Theory typically span industries like port logistics, aquaculture and energy, all of them aiming to test their technologies and untapped opportunities of the burgeoning industry. The accelerator’s goal is to bring those companies from pre-revenue into commercialization.
And all of them are looking to solve challenges within the blue economy ecosystem, many of which have also been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. With 31% of all goods floating across the ocean to and from the U.S. pass through the Port of L.A. and the Port of Long Beach, COVID-19 strangled supply chains and increased the volume of goods handled at L.A. 's premiere dock by nearly 16% between 2020 and 2021. This created numerous logistical challenges for the dwindling workforce at the nation’s busiest ports while increasing emissions.
“The thing that we're trying to think about are ways in which we can leverage biological systems and software to make more immediate changes in markets that have a low barrier to entry,” Braid Theory co-founder Jim Cooper said of accelerator’s approach to addressing a wide range of climate and logistical issues.
Cooper founded Braid Theory with his colleague Ann Carpenter after the pair left PortTechLA, a maritime and logistics incubator that shuttered in 2016. The two wanted to create an accelerator for port and ocean startups that went beyond logistics and took into account other promising sectors of the ocean economy, including sustainable fish and plant cultivation as well as tools to make the shipping sector more efficient.
Jim Cooper co-founded Braid Theory with his former colleague from PortTechLA, Ann Carpenter.Image courtesy of Braid Theory
Accelerators like Braid Theory are attempting to fill a void in the blue economy ecosystem. Despite being home to several universities with robust maritime research centers and a giant port infrastructure that could be better optimized, few startups survive in Los Angeles due to a lack of early stage funding, according to a 2020 report from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation. The accelerator provides funds and lab space and investor connections to nascent startups tackling a wide range of ocean-related problems.
The same report found that ocean startups, particularly early-stage ones, have a difficult time getting funding to accommodate the need for expensive lab equipment like centrifuges, chillers and pipettes. Startups in the blue economy space are primarily funded through federal and state dollars, NGOs and philanthropies, and competitions. But while angel funding has historically been slow to trickle into blue economy startups, some are starting to take note of the size of the market. In the first cohort, eight out of 12 startups received federal funding and investor funding with the help of Braid Theory.
The accelerator’s first graduating class included Florida-based Tampa DeepSea Xplorers, which makes seafaring autonomous vehicles that can scrape the bottom of the ocean and collect data faster for researchers to use as they study climate change impact or source for different medicines. Irvine-based ReCreate Energy is another graduate, which sources algae to create a more sustainable bio-crude oil that can be used at gas and oil refineries. While FlashQ, a Canada-based AI platform, is trying to reduce truck congestion and the emissions caused by them at the port by creating a scheduling platform that optimizes waiting and shipment times.
“The key is the opportunity, the opportunity was there,” Mimi Carter, a biotech investor with the Pasadena Angels, said of the business opportunities in the ocean market. “We saw a market that was unaddressed and is still an emerging market.”
A cluster of cranes at the Port of Long Beach.Photo by DJANA 575/ Shutterstock
To Carter’s credit, L.A. County boasts 75 miles of coastline that the LAEDC expects by 2023 will produce more than $80 billion in regional output, make roughly $50 billion in gross county product, and create over 200,000 direct and indirect jobs, according to a 2020 report. And, according to the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, economic and job growth in this sector relies heavily on the creation and implementation of new technologies, making angel investors necessary players in bolstering the ocean economy.
“Not only do we want to be investing in a sustainable product, but someone we count as a first mover,” Carter said of her investment approach. Already, groups like the Pasadena Angels and Techstars L.A. have made investments in the space. Reece Pacheco, a blue economy angel investor, is quietly working on a new venture fund around the blue tech space that hasn’t been announced yet.
“What we're starting to see is there are entrepreneurs who are either coming up through these research firms, or there are entrepreneurs who have cut their teeth elsewhere but care about the ocean,” Pacheco said.
There’s also Braid Theory’s neighbor (and landlord), AltaSea, the nonprofit research hub that has facilitated a number of partnerships with companies across the world.
“We do want to become the leading destination for the blue economy in terms of technology, finance, the education pathways it takes for students to get into these jobs in the future, and then the actual workforce development for the jobs of the future,” said Terry Tamminen, the new CEO of AltaSea.
Braid Theory’s makeshift shipping container-turned-lab is next door to a slew of other startups and projects in the blue economy space. USC researchers are incubating bubbling cauldrons of kelp that could create biofuels and alternative food sources. While Oceanographer Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic wreckage in 1985, set up a sea exploration program a few doors down.
“The ocean is more than a destination for tourists and a place for Jacques Cousteau and David Attenborough to go diving,” Tamminen said. “It's actually something right at our doorstep that we need to protect for our own survival, but it’s also an economic opportunity.”
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Keerthi Vedantam is a bioscience reporter at dot.LA. She cut her teeth covering everything from cloud computing to 5G in San Francisco and Seattle. Before she covered tech, Keerthi reported on tribal lands and congressional policy in Washington, D.C. Connect with her on Twitter, Clubhouse (@keerthivedantam) or Signal at 408-470-0776.
JC2 Ventures’ John Chambers on Navigating the Economic Downturn
Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.
On this episode of Office Hours, host Spencer Rascoff joined John Chambers, founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures, to discuss how executives should approach the shifting economy. The recording was held at this year's Montgomery Summit, an annual gathering of over 1,000 senior-level investors, thought leaders and technology executives in Santa Monica.
Chambers served as the chairman and CEO of the technology conglomerate Cisco Systems, Inc. during the recessions of 2001 and 2008. Cisco survived both crises, he said, because it was quick to make tough decisions.
“This is where leadership is lonely,” Chambers said.
He described making the decision to lay off staff while sitting alone on his roof in 2001. In the next several months, Cisco would lay off 7,584 employees.
“That was pain,” he said, adding that because he made the decision early, the company was able to help many employees find jobs. “It was the worst year of my business career. It was really, really hard. But the opposite is true. Most of my competitors never came back and a large number of them just didn't survive.”
Chambers said he sees the signs of a slowing economy coming into focus, adding that there are five or six variables at play. The one he has his eyes on is inflation—a problem, he said, the current generation of leaders in government and business haven’t had to deal with before.
“The biggest issue in my opinion is can the Fed get us in for a soft landing, right? All I want is—like the guy in Florida—I want the plane to get down, it can bounce down the runway as many times as it wants.”
There are a few factors, he suggested, that make this downturn different. Foremost, is that technology is the firmly entrenched in all industries—whether it's healthcare, manufacturing or even government work—and few companies will cease investing in new tech.
“We're mainline, front and center,” he said. “There's a lot of money available, and there's nothing like helping you through a crisis like having money available.”
Chambers said executives should view the crisis as an opportunity to reconsider the company’s values. Companies should allocate resources to areas where they can get the most out of their funding and consider taking advantage of the lower prices to acquire rivals.
“I think this is a natural shakeout in an industry where it was getting too hot. There were 20 startups for each key idea,” he said. “A lot of the top tech companies actually broke away during downturns. So I see it as an opportunity to break away in your planning for this year.”
For companies needing to make tough decisions, Chambers said executives have to put themselves in the position of their employees as they make decisions and be clear about what they plan to do and why.
Navigating such situations is what makes leadership difficult, he said, but moments of crisis can also shape the future of a company.
“Be transparent. Don't hide,” he said. “Don't waste the crisis. Deal with the world the way it is not the way you wish it was.”
Want to hear more episodes? Subscribe to Office Hours on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radioor wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.
Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.
Though the image of perfecting a pitch deck and then presenting your concept to investors and VCs is central to our common conception of being a founder and entrepreneur, many of the largest and most valuable tech companies in the world – from MailChimp to Shutterstock to Hewlett-Packard – bootstrapped their way to success.
Although funding obviously provides additional resources and risk mitigation – not to mention an established support system made up of experienced industry veterans – bootstrapping is not without its own advantages, particularly in terms of the freedom and control to steer your new company as you see fit.
Among local companies that forged this path to success in Los Angeles, one standout is digital marketing agency GR0. We spoke with co-founder and CEO Kevin Miller about his own bootstrapping journey, and what advice he’d pass down to his fellow founders.
While he concedes the natural downsides to funding your startup yourself – particularly as it concerns the strain on a founder’s personal time and resources – for Miller, the bootstrapping process itself was its own reward.
“Seeing your company grow, getting to see new hires weekly, and building out an office space is so rewarding,” Miller said. “I can’t believe I can go to my own office now and employees are there working hard and taking their careers seriously. The fact that we are now a company that people look to and learn from is so satisfying.”
Here are some of Miller and GR0’s top suggestions for starting and growing your own business from scratch:
Set Priorities
For bootstrapping founders, keeping expenses low is absolutely essential in order to conserve resources. “When you raise $10 million in equity, you can go hire whoever you want and invest in whatever platforms and tools you need,” Miller pointed out. “But with bootstrapping, every dollar counts.”
He recommends splitting expenses into two groups – must-haves vs. “nice-to-have” expenditures – and then ruthlessly focusing on the must-haves alone. As an example, Miller cites having an office space as only “nice-to-have” for GR0’s first few months; instead, he worked out of his own living room, which freed up funds to pay for a “must-have” legal adviser.
Though missing out on important resources like a full-time designer or other key hires may end up costing the founder time and aggravation, ultimately it pays off by freeing up future budget restrictions.
Don’t Sweat the Small Details
It’s probably not possible for a bootstrapping startup founder to remain cool, confident, and relaxed at all times. This is a difficult abstract to even envision. Still, Miller suggests “looking at the big picture and flying at 30,000 feet” as an important overall mindset and strategy.
“Just focusing on the bigger picture and knowing you are working toward something bigger will help get you through it,” Miller advises. “Are you moving closer to the bigger dream you have? If so, don’t sweat it.”
Finding the Right Co-Founders and Early Hires
When seeking out collaborators for a new startup project, it can be tempting to look for complementary skill sets, to ensure the company has a balanced and experienced team. But for Miller and GR0, an individual’s personal outlook proves just as important as their background and on-paper qualifications.
“The most ideal traits are honesty, trustworthiness, and integrity,” Miller said. “There will be times where you and a co-founder will have differing opinions, but if you approach every situation with integrity and honestly, then you will be able to get through those times.”
He recommends seeking out new hires based on their positive outlook, enthusiasm, and eagerness to dig in to the relevant details at hand.
“The most important trait you can have is a can-do attitude,” Miller noted. “In the beginning, we didn’t have the budget to build out a full team yet. So having someone come in with a can-do attitude and up for any challenge is so impactful.”
Getting To Your Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The minimum viable product (or MVP) was first introduced as part of the “Lean Startup” methodology devised by Eric Ries. Essentially, this is a no-frills version of the product or service your startup will provide, allowing the team to begin working with customers and learning more about the industry and business, with the least amount of up-front effort and cost.
Though it’s important to develop and launch an MVP as quickly as possible, it’s also important that the offering speaks to and aligns with the company’s overall goals. If it’s not attracting users the company hopes to convert into long-term customers, and it’s not providing specific and valuable feedback and data to the team, it’s not providing full and robust benefits to the company at large.
Miller suggests waiting until the company has an MVP that can handle a full sales cycle independently.
“If it can go through every step and intake a customer,” he said, “then it’s ready to launch.”
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