Why Jason Towns

The founder

I've spent a large part of my career with people who were building something important before the rest of the room understood what they were doing.

Sometimes they needed capital. Sometimes they needed someone to open a door or put the right people around them. Sometimes they needed room to work without constantly having to prove they belonged.

I've seen how much changes when the right person gets real backing.

Standard Loop is where I want to put those lessons to work.

Experience relevant to Standard Loop

Building and operating companies

Jason co-founded Broadband.com, a technology business, more than twenty years ago. That experience informs his understanding of company formation, product development, management, and what it takes to build a business beyond an initial idea.

Building and supporting founders

Through Groundwork Ventures and his work in founder development, Jason has helped entrepreneurs gain access to capital, partners and operating support.

His work has also included CODE2040 and the wider movement to expand access to technology entrepreneurship and opportunity, and participation with educational groups such as Black Girls Code and Echoing Green.

Building accelerator programs

Jason served as Managing Director of the Techstars Future of Longevity Accelerator, working with founders addressing challenges related to aging, health and care.

The work required selecting teams, helping founders develop their businesses and connecting them with people who could move their work forward.

Working across capital and institutions

His background spans technology, entrepreneurship programs, venture investing and institutional partnerships.

That combination matters for Standard Loop. The work will require finding opportunities, earning trust, choosing the right leaders and putting together capital arrangements that allow businesses to perform over time.

In recent years he has participated in advising institutions on AI through GLG and built applied AI tools. That recent work, not only the earlier operating history, is part of why the operator seat is the first hire.

What Jason will do at Standard Loop

Jason intends to serve as founder and chair of the operating group.

His primary responsibilities will be capital formation, leadership recruitment, acquisitions strategy, institutional partnerships and governance.

He will not serve as the daily operator of an acquired school.

Each school needs an experienced leader who is accountable for its people, financial performance, compliance and student outcomes. That leader should have the authority to do the job and a meaningful opportunity to participate in the value created.

The same principle will apply to other parts of Standard Loop. The fellowship will have a director. Any technology business that grows beyond an experiment will need its own accountable leadership.

Jason's job is to help put the right people in positions where they can do their best work.

How he intends to lead

Give people room to lead. Authority should sit with people capable of taking responsibility for the work.

Pay people properly. The organization should be built on sound compensation, fair incentives and sustainable workloads.

Be accountable. If something doesn't work, acknowledge it, learn and change course.

Use capital deliberately. Spend money to build durable capabilities, protect people and improve results.

Keep learning. Each acquisition and operating decision should teach us something useful about the next one.

The leadership gap we need to fill

Jason's founder and venture-building background is relevant, but Standard Loop still needs specialized career-education operating experience.

The founding leadership bench must include people with demonstrated experience running accredited or state-authorized career schools, handling student-aid compliance and managing regulated educational businesses.

We will seek that experience rather than pretend the founder's background substitutes for it.

References and supporting evidence

Supporting evidence is available on request, including:

A plain account of operating, investment, and accelerator roles, with dates where they can be confirmed

Confirmation of Groundwork, CODE2040, and Techstars responsibilities, where records allow

Two or three permissioned references from founders or institutional partners

Examples of capital, partnerships or institutional opportunities Jason helped create, with his precise role accurately stated

Founders Jason has backed can speak to how he works; references on request. Named examples go in only after each person agrees.

Why this chapter

Standard Loop is an attempt to bring several decades of experience together into one long-term institution.

The goal is to build substantial value while helping more capable people get the backing they need, from the students learning new skills to the operators running schools and the builders carrying hard problems.

There's work to do before the model is proven.

Jason intends to put a strong team around it and do that work well.

Discussion material only. Financing terms, entity structure, and financial projections remain preliminary. This is not an offer to sell securities.