113: Rockstar Turned Tech Investor D.A. Wallach on Career Pivots, Social Media Music, & Biotech

Imagine that you're fresh out of college, touring with your rock band, and you meet Puff Daddy at backstage at your show. Sounds surreal, right? Well that what is what happened to D.A. Wallach. After graduating from Harvard, he toured the country with his rock band Chester French. And the likes of Puff Daddy showed up at his shows.

 

Years later, D.A. has become a bio tech investor. He's pivoted his career many times. Chester French was a rock band like the Beatles, with a sensbility and style of Outkast.

 

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As a freshman at Harvard in 2003, D.A. joined the band Chester French as its lead singer. Coincidentally, Mark Zuckerberg was also at Harvard that year. Lucky for D.A. he was one of the first 2,000 users of Facebook. D.A. and his band road the first wave of social media. D.A. explains that an early adopter, his band's use of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter were the central factors in the rock group's early success.

 

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They were trying to figure out how to build audience on campus via the social network. Their curiousity lead them to book tours and meet fans though social media. He realized that in many ways, his fans were like him. And social media helped him to literally meet tens of thousands of friends.

 

While growing up in Wisconsin, D.A. recalls downloading every David Bowie album through Napster. Years later, as a musican, he watched the music industry get eviscerated. As his days of rock touring were slowing down, a small company named Spotify was preparing for its U.S. launch. That's when D.A. made his first pivot.

 

 D.A. is now investing in biotech companies, as he's fascinated by humans relation to biology and is interested in driving an enhanced understanding of the connection. New powers and insights can be gained as the future of biology and technology gets defined. He is now looking for businesses that are taking cool scientific ideas from academia or the lab. He wants to turn concepts and technologies into businesses for entrepreneurs. 

  

D.A. Wallach on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dawallach

 

D.A. Wallach website: http://www.dawallach.com/