Tessa Flippin is a former Division I high-jump athlete at Stanford who draws on that experience to talk about discipline, resilience, and clearing the bar in entrepreneurship, bringing a performance and mindset-oriented lens to evaluating founders. As one of a relatively small number of Black women who have founded and lead their own institutional venture fund, she positions herself around shifting paradigms in early-stage venture and closing the racial wealth gap by backing Black and Latinx founders at the pre-seed stage.

• Champions the Chicago and Midwest technology ecosystem. She frequently engages with local leadership, including participating in events with the city's mayor and the World Business Chicago organization, while explicitly encouraging founders in the region to attend local meetups and apply for fellowships.
• Dedication to funding and empowering underrepresented entrepreneurs. Her content heavily features participation in summits for Black and Latinx venture capitalists, and she actively promotes holiday gift guides that specifically highlight businesses owned by diverse founders.
• Active promotion of her firm, Capitalize VC, and its strategic wins. She shares significant milestones such as securing institutional backing from major banks and uses her platform to help her portfolio companies hire talent, for instance, circulating a job opening for a growth hacker.
• Appreciation for tangible consumer products that blend style with utility. She has expressed genuine enthusiasm for travel accessories like functional bags, suggesting an interest in consumer goods with a strong brand identity and practical design.
• Engagement with professional development and peer education networks. She highlights her involvement with prestigious fellowship programs for investors, such as Kauffman Fellows, indicating she values continuous learning and strong alumni networks within the venture industry.