Jeff LaBarge
co-founder and CTO | Tule Technologies
Jeff LaBarge is co-founder and CTO of Tule Technologies, a YC backed startup helping farmers feed the world with optimal water use. Tule builds novel sensors that are installed in farm fields to help farmers improve crop quality and yield. Tule’s clients manage more than 50% of the planted vineyards and almonds in California. Prior to co-founding Tule, Jeff was founding engineer of Zoodles, which was the #1 educational app in the Android Play store and was acquired by HTC.
Jeff has been focused on the intersection of faith and work since college. Each company he has helped start has a theme of venture size markets combined with clear social benefit. Jeff believes that it is possible to pursue both profits and faith.
Jeff has also written several blog posts about how faith can help entrepreneurs survive the stress that is unique to startups. These blog posts have been syndicated and seem to be helpful to others.
Jeff attends Epic Church in San Francisco, where he also co-leads a Faith and Work small group. He lives in Moraga, CA and is married to an amazing wife, Stacey.
LINKS
CONTRIBUTIONS TO FAITH DRIVEN ENTREPRENEUR
Great accelerators and venture funds like YCombinator and Andreessen Horowitz are designed to solve the common problems of starting a company so the founders can focus on the core new innovation. At the earliest stage, this includes things like forming a corporation, choosing a lawyer, and getting free cloud hosting. In the first few months, founders need help prioritizing what is important, focusing on the right metrics, and preparing how to pitch to investors. Later, founders need help with recruiting, building a sales organization, introductions to large companies, etc. These are challenges that nearly every founder needs help with, and investors are uniquely positioned to provide. Organizations like YC and A16Z can build these support services and share them with hundreds of portfolio companies, giving those companies a huge advantage and higher likelihood to succeed.
However, there is another challenge that many founders face that is largely unserved by anyone: how to deal with the stress, pressure, and damage to relationships that are common for founders.