Sam Ellis
Partner, Scout Ventures
Bio
At Scout, Sam is focused on leading the SaaS portfolio at the seed, pre-seed, and incubation stages. He also helps with technical diligence and portfolio company support.Sam is an early stage software company builder, advisor, and investor. He's built everything from computer vision micro services for a cloud robotics startup to the systematic signal library for a large quant portfolio at Point72. Most notably, he was the technical co-founder of Dutchie, an industry-leading online ordering provider for cannabis dispensaries in the US and Canada.Sam is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point where he studied Operations Research and applied statistics. Out of West Point, Sam was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow at Northwestern University where he obtained an MS in Industrial Engineering. He was also an Army Military Intel officer and spent several years at CYBERCOMMAND.Although his homebase is NYC, you can find Sam in the trenches with his companies.
Key Quotes
“I'm honored to acknowledge that I learn from my companies all the time; everything from sales channel strategy to quantum computing.”
“Simply put- discipline equals self love. If you love the future version of yourself, then it's much easier to be disciplined about working through obstacles.”
Curiosity is a helpful input to be able to capture from engineers. I think it's important that we test it in some way when assessing candidates.
In this case, Google starts with technical aptitude as the first layer of filtering. This is a smart tactic because there's nothing worse than investing into a candidate that you really click with, only to find out that they're not the right technical fit.
An established history of interest(s) is a strong indicator for future behaviors and interests. People who have a long history of searching/answering programming-related questions on places like reddit and stack overflow truly love the game and won't stop loving it for a while.
“Find the friction to create the value.”
“Investor with a scarcity mindset: Puts energy into 'how can I get a bigger slice'
Investor with a abundance mindset: Puts energy into 'how can I help make the pie bigger'”
“I’m always inspired by people who are naive enough to not know what they can accomplish, so they accomplish more than someone with much more ‘experience’”
“Insight is great; action is better”
“The more you talk, the less time you spend listening, and the less time you spend listening, the less time you spend learning.”
Career
Partner
Scout Ventures
2021 - Present
Investor/CTO
paar
2021 - Present
Managing Partner
WPMC
2020 - Present
Quantitative Developer
Point72
2019 - 2020
Technical Co-Founder
Dutchie
2017 - 2019
Software Engineer
Tend.ai
2016 - 2017
Software Developer
USCYBERCOM
2013 - 2016
Intern (Operations Research and Computer Vision)
MITRE
2012 - 2012
Background
- Bachelor’s degree, Operations Research & Applied Statistics (United States Military Academy at West Point)
- Master’s degree, Industrial Engineering (Northwestern University)