It’s safe to say that Lacey Kaelani has stayed busy since her days at AU. Only a few years removed from her time on campus, the Kogod School of Business alumna recently found herself listed among Forbes’ “30 Under 30,” recognized for her strides in consumer technology.
The accolades are well deserved. After all, Kaelani is already building her second human resources technology startup from the ground up.
Metaintro, the digital professional resume wallet service designed for the growing Web3 technology sector, has received $5.6 million to date in venture capital investments.
This success, Kaelani says, is only possible thanks to lessons she learned in her first go-around as a startup cofounder, not to mention practical, hands-on lessons she learned during her time at Kogod.
And her future aspirations go well beyond her own company’s successes.
“I knew nothing about the back end of running a business.”
It’s an admission Kaelani now makes about the infancy of her first startup, an online casting service designed to connect job seekers with gigs at the likes of Top Chef, American Idol, and other major television programs.
Kaelani had two proverbial feathers in her cap as she pitched Casting Depot.
For starters, she was, at the time, pursuing her MBA at Kogod. That meant she had access to the Veloric Center for Entrepreneurship (formerly AUCI) Incubator, the program that assists graduate, undergraduate students, and recent alums in building successful, sustainable entrepreneurial ventures.