Thread by @SamDeBrule

Ruben Harris started Career Karma, a platform that helps people break into the tech industry, in 2018.

Career Karma raised a $10 million Series A led by Garry Tan @Initialized in 2020.

This is a story of an outsider breaking into the Valley with sheer determination and hustle👇

.@rubenharris’ story is all about overcoming long odds:

• Broke into investment banking with no connections.
• Linked with VCs like @balajis through Twitter.
• Landed a job in SF 3 weeks after booking a one-way ticket.
• Built an audience for CK before building a product.

Ruben went to college wanting to be a professional musician.

He’s been playing the cello for 30 years.

His cello teacher told him to understand business to help him become a professional musician.

To do that quickly, he chose to get into investment banking.

Ruben’s university didn’t have an alumni network in investment banking.

So, Ruben found his own path:

1. Consumed @briand_mi’s blog + course
2. Sent 300 emails to @SEOScholarsNYC and @MLTOrg
3. Set up an SEO booth @Morehouse, where he met @BMO recruiters.

Ruben joined BMO as an analyst in Summer 2011.

In 2013, he moved to Atlanta, where he met his @Career_Karma co-founders @ArturMeyster and @timurmeyster.

All three began to climb the investment banking hill.

The problem was that it was the wrong hill for them.

They saw their future in tech.

The Meyster brothers went the bootcamp route @appacademyio and @HackReactor.

Ruben took the biz dev route, but his path was less straightforward.

He got the attention of @balajis on Twitter, right around the time Balaji joined @a16z in 2013.

He continued networking with Balaji + more VCs on Twitter.

He arranged to meet @balajis, @geofflewis, and @km in May 2014 on an exploratory trip to SF.

During his May trip, he stayed at Agape, a living space founded by @JordanGrader and @justinrosenstein (co-founder of Asana).

But building relationships with VCs and engineers alone wasn't enough to break in.

Ruben took Stanford's CS 101 class since he didn't have a technical background.

He organized Atlanta's first Healthcare Hackathon and raised $40,000 with the leadership team.

In Sep 2014, Ruben went back to SF on a one-way ticket.

He continued to build relationships in the Valley and found mentors like @NaithanJones.

He leveraged one such friendly meeting to meet with Jane Yu, Head of Partnerships & Philanthropy at AltSchool.

.@janestweets didn’t have any open roles on her team, but she did have a contract role for a 6-week project.

3 weeks after Ruben moved to SF, he joined AltSchool for the project.

He eventually earned a full-time role on the growth strategy team.

The Meysters joined Ruben in SF in 2015.

They landed software engineering jobs @blippar and @FundingCircleUS.

All three had an atypical journey into tech, but they felt like the media didn’t cover stories like theirs.

They changed that by starting the @everest10x podcast.

The @everest10x podcast blew up.

Listeners reached out to the team to talk to guests and learn how they could break into tech.

Schools reached out to them for access to their audience.

Here’s how that led to the business model for @Career_Karma (h/t @garrytan):

This is where the idea for @Career_Karma was born.

Career Karma helps people break into tech by pairing them with bootcamps, mentors, and communities to help them get there.

@rubenharris & the Meysters launched CK in 2018.

In 2019, the three co-founders quit their jobs and joined @ycombinator.

In June 2020, they crossed 100,000 users.

The Series A raise led by @Initialized happened soon after.

Ruben’s story offers a playbook for people interested in getting into tech who are outside the Bay Area bubble.

And who knows?

With the hundreds of thousands of people he’s empowering to break into tech, his story might end up being a Silicon Valley classic too.

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