a16z’s TxO Initiative is funding culture innovators. Here’s why.

Over the past few decades, Silicon Valley has created an ecosystem for scaling tech companies, but has yet to build the same support for makers propelling cultural breakthroughs.

The Talent x Opportunity Initiative (TxO) was created to help emerging cultural geniuses by providing them access to a new system of funding, training, and mentorship. The program currently works with promising consumer startups built on top of cultural tailwinds, formed by entrepreneurs outside of the typical Silicon Valley startup ecosystem.

The Initiative has four components:

• The fund, which invests money in the companies
• TxO University, an online training program hand-tailored for culture-driven companies
• TxO partners, a select group of corporations that contribute products and services to the program
• The TxO community, a fund of donors and mentors who support and guide the entrepreneurs

Why culture is a powerful factor in building consumer products

Culture is really used as a social shorthand. It's a signal that you and I belong to a group or a movement, and agree with an idea or an approach to how things should be done.

An example is the “I voted” sticker we see all over social media around elections. When people post about themselves with their stickers, they are trying to flex and show off that they believe in democracy—that they’re patriotic. This has the intended impact of driving others to go vote.

The best brands have that same effect on pride of ownership. That pride is shared by word of mouth and can eventually position a company as a brand leader. Time and time again, we’ve seen culture applied to an existing category, recreating that category entirely. Culture is just that strong.

Sadly, the inventors of culture-forward ideas who manifest these huge shifts too often lack strong resources and networks. They are not thinking up their idea at an elite school with ties to Silicon Valley, or in the offices of well-known tech companies. We’re trying to remedy that by offering a program that evens the playing field, giving culturally inclined entrepreneurs the instruction, mentorship, and networks they need to take their cool idea and turn it into a cultural phenomenon.

Capital tends to be the most obvious barrier to entry for these companies. Although we do help our companies meet and pitch investors, the best long-term source of capital is customers. We want to get these new brands in front of as many customers as we can. Most companies in the TxO cohort are shipping physical products, but either way, they need to acquire users and buyers. That’s why launching on Product Hunt is so cool. Product Hunt itself is a cultural phenomenon and has become the world’s foremost community of early adopters. We couldn’t be happier to see cohort Alpha of TxO on this platform.

Here’s a list of TxO companies that launched on Product Hunt.

FUTURESTREAM
Autumn Adeigbo
Breakr
Oui the People
Coco and Breezy
The Elite Donut
Pamper Nail Gallery

The future

Our hope for the TxO founders is that they build marquee brands and maintain majority ownership of their companies along the way. Their success will be aspirational. It will positively impact a new generation of entrepreneurs outside the system and fund the expansion of the program to reach more, talented entrepreneurs every year.

With this success, we also hope to impact how founder talent is screened and how consumer-facing companies are measured when looking for investment in Silicon Valley. We want to see more programs like this built. Most importantly, we hope these entrepreneurs will build lasting legacies in their communities, as employers, and as examples of entrepreneurs who turned aspiration into reality.