Co-Founder / CEO at Third Space
Dhruv Chopra
Former CEO of Elsewhere, iconic Brooklyn live music company and venue. Represent 5,000+ businesses through trade associations. Asset mgmt, Yale, South Park Commons.
Questions & Answers
What's the story behind your company?
After a stint in asset management, I spent a decade building a large live music company called Elsewhere and lots of advocacy work for nightlife and hospitality across the country. Our insurance premiums rose by 3x across the board. I tried for years to do something about it as an advocate. Eventually it became clear that we had to take matters into our own hands and build a new insurance company from scratch, and that the technology had arrived to solve crucial failures. Third Space is a response to an existential threat not just for nightlife, but all brick and mortar spaces. We're here to keep these places alive and safe.
What's a memorable 'aha' moment you've had while building your startup?
For months we were hitting our head trying to get more operators to try our product. Then one day I was talking to my old co-founder, a branding genius, and he said we had the pitch backwards. I was trying to get people to use our "risk management tools." What I should have been doing was pitching them a "savings program." The language changed, the product didn't, and the floodgates opened. Words matter.
How is your team uniquely positioned to solve the problem you're tackling?
I am perhaps the only industry insider with a large network and finance experience trying to tackle insurance. My co-founder is a brilliant engineer from Ramp who knows how to build regulated financial products at scale, and is crazy enough to go on this journey. We have real empathy for our customer, massive ambition, and are not afraid of doing the unsexy work, over and over again.
