Hollywood Secrets for Pitching Your Startup, Your Business, and Yourself

Brett Brewer co-founded Intermix Media in 1998, two years out of college, from an apartment in Manhattan Beach. Under his leadership, Intermix launched MySpace, which grew to over 115 million monthly users at its peak and sold to News Corporation in 2005 for $673 million — one of the largest internet acquisitions in history at the time.

After Intermix, Brett became President of Adknowledge, growing annual revenues from $40 million to over $300 million. Next, he co-founded Crosscut Ventures in 2008, one of the defining seed-stage venture firms in Los Angeles, with investments including Branch, Pacaso, Fabletics, Savage X Fenty, Buzzfeed, and Omaze.

Brett has reviewed thousands of founder pitches over two decades as both operator and investor.

Lindsay Sturman is a television writer, producer, and showrunner with over 25 years of credits across network and cable. She served as showrunner, head writer, and producer on over 20 shows. Her writing and producing credits span more than a dozen series including NCIS: Los Angeles, Rizzoli & Isles, Supergirl, Teen Wolf, NCIS: Los Angeles.

Lindsay graduated from Harvard with a degree in English and completed her MFA in Film at Columbia University. She has taught TV writing at The New School.

She brings to this course 25 years of professional practice in the specific craft it teaches. She knows how a cold open works not because she studied one but because she has worked on hundreds of them. She knows how a villain is built because she has spent her career doing exactly that.