Bios
Long Bio
Brian Weisfeld has been building businesses his entire life. In elementary school, he bought 95 pounds of gummy bears and hired his friends to sell them. As a teen, he made and sold mixtapes (ask your parents what those are), sorted baseball cards (he got paid in cards), babysat four-days-a-week after school, and sold nuts and dried fruit (and more gummy bears) in a neighborhood store.
As an adult, Brian helped build well-known, billion-dollar companies including IMAX Corporation and Coupons.com. Then he watched his oldest daughter struggle to sell Girl Scout cookies and he also became frustrated with some of the less-than-empowering influences he saw for his two girls. So he bought a copy of Writing Children’s Books for Dummies and decided to write a novel series to inspire girls (and boys, too) to open their first lemonade stands or other businesses and to empower them with an entrepreneurial mindset.
Brian is the Founder and Chief Squad Officer of The Startup Squad, an initiative dedicated to empowering girls to realize their potential and follow their dreams, whatever their passion, and is the co-author of the The Startup Squad book series which was published by Macmillan Publishers. The Startup Squad is his first book series (woo-hoo!) and was co-authored with the fabulous Nicole C. Kear. Brian lives in Silicon Valley and can often be found eating gummy bears with his wife while watching his two daughters sell lemonade from the end of their driveway.
Visit and learn more about Brian at thestartupsquad.com, on Facebook at @chiefsquadofficer or on Twitter at @weisfeld. You can also learn more about The Startup Squad at @thestartupsquad on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and more!
Medium Bio
Brian Weisfeld has been building businesses his entire life. As a kid, he bought gummy bears and hired his friends to sell them. As a teen, he sorted baseball cards, babysat, and sold mixtapes. As an adult, he helped build well-known, billion-dollar companies including IMAX Corporation and Coupons.com. But after watching his oldest daughter struggle to sell Girl Scout cookies, Brian decided to write a novel series to inspire girls (and boys, too) to open their first businesses and to empower them with an entrepreneurial mindset. Brian is the Founder and Chief Squad Officer of The Startup Squad, an initiative dedicated to helping girls reach their potential and follow their dreams, whatever their passions, and is the co-author of The Startup Squad book series published by Macmillan Publishers. Brian lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and two daughters.
Baby Bio
Brian Weisfeld has always built businesses – from a gummy bear business as a kid, to IMAX Corporation and Coupons.com more recently. Brian is the Founder of The Startup Squad, an initiative dedicated to empowering girls to reach their potential and follow their dreams, whatever their passions, and is the co-author of The Startup Squad book series published by Macmillan Publishers. Brian lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and two daughters.
The Startup Squad Books
The Startup Squad (Book #1)
Girls mean business in a brand-new middle grade series about friendship and entrepreneurship!
All the great leaders had to start somewhere. And Theresa (“Resa” for short) is starting with the lemonade stand competition her teacher assigned to the class—but making it a success is going to be a lot harder than Resa thinks. The prize: line-skipping tickets to Adventure Central. The competition: Val, Resa’s middle school nemesis. And the biggest obstacle to success: Resa’s own teammates. Harriet is the class clown, Amelia is the new girl who thinks she knows best, and Didi is Resa’s steadfast friend—who doesn’t know the first thing about making or selling lemonade. The four of them quickly realize that the recipe for success is tough to perfect—but listening to each other is the first step. And making new friends might be the most important one…
The back of each book features tips from The Startup Squad and an inspirational profile of a girl entrepreneur!
Face The Music (Book #2)
In the second book of The Startup Squad series, Face the Music, Harriet’s brothers are hoping to enter a local battle of the bands. Winning could get them on a reality TV show! But low funds have left them without even a working guitar.
The Startup Squad jumps into action—and quickly pulls together a plan to sell T-shirts to raise money. They have a lot of great ideas—until everything starts to go wrong. Ruined t-shirts, musicians with stage fright, and money mishaps soon leave the girls with less funding than they started with.
When disappointed fans become an angry mob, the team realizes they have to get back into the groove before the band members—and the Startup Squad—break up for good!
The Startup Squad: Face The Music Cover (2.0 MB)
The Startup Squad: Face The Music Press Release (0.6 MB)
The Startup Squad: Face the Music Kirkus Review
Party Problems (Book #3)
Girls mean business in the third novel of this series about friendship and entrepreneurship that Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal-winning author of The One and Only Ivan, calls “A great read!”
All four friends in the Startup Squad want to raise money—but when they can’t agree on what business to start next, they strike off on their own. Didi’s idea seems perfect: making place cards for a wedding.
But after the wedding planner gets sick, Didi finds herself in charge of everything—and then the caterer cancels and the band goes missing! Didi’s business is turning from a dream to a disaster. Will the Startup Squad come together in time to save the wedding?
TEDx VIDEO
Learn how my two daughters, several boxes of girl scout cookies, and too many fairy books inspired me to create The Startup Squad and how you can kindle your inspiration into something that just might change the world!