OpenUp: What Makes A Startup Fundable

Tara Spalding Managing Director, BoomStartup Accelerator Tara Spalding is Managing Director of BoomStartup Accelerator. BoomStartup is an accelerator and mentorship-driven angel-stage investment program for startups. It operates as an online technology-driven accelerator, providing entrepreneurs a custom business plan including business maturity guidance, investment preparation, and capital structuring relevant to growth, and investment strategies as well as a curated marketplace for services. Tara is also the founder of Hen House Ventures, an early stage incubator that helps tech companies rapidly scale when entering massive markets, and is also on the board of trustees for VentureCapital.org. Tara is the recipient of the 2020 Utah Business 30 Women to Watch award. Tara began her high-tech career in Silicon Valley when she taught herself to code software and became the first employee, and eventually VP of marketing at industry leader, SugarCRM. Her Silicon Valley experience included roles as CMO at GroundWork Open Source, VP marketing at Magnet Systems, and co-founder and CPO at BenchPick. Tara received her bachelors from University of Colorado, Boulder.