About

Jeff Vance founded Startup50 in 2013 as a site that would hunt for signal within all of the noise and hype surrounding startups. The original idea was to come up with a process, one featuring rigorous competitions and challenges, that would strip away the spin and force startups to focus on what really matters: real people and the real-world problems they’re struggling to overcome.

Prior to founding Startup50, Jeff regularly contributed features stories to Network World, TechBeacon, IDG Insider Pro, CIO, and many others.

Then, in 2015, Jeff put his content business on hold for a couple of years, joining the startup Aryaka as Head of Marketing Strategy. After rebuilding the startup’s marketing department and helping them lock down Series D funding, Jeff returned to Startup50, refining his startup selection process based on the lessons he learned back in the startup trenches.

The time away from journalism was eye opening. “In the short time I was out of journalism, the state of the industry deteriorated,” Jeff said. “Many negative trends – outsourcing, clickbait, and downward price pressures – accelerated, while others, such as bot-generated content, added to the troubles real journalists have when pursuing fact-based stories.”

Sensing opportunity lurking amidst all of that the chaos, Jeff relaunched Startup50 as a platform where he could experiment with new ways to create and monetize journalism.

The experiment is ongoing.

Before Startup50, Jeff also founded Sandstorm Media, a copywriting and content marketing firm. His content marketing clients have included BigPanda, Esri, IBM, Qualcomm, Microsoft, ScienceLogic, and many others. He’s taught creative nonfiction at New Mexico State University, and during the dotcom bubble, he was editor of Telecom Trends and Mobile Internet Times.