Danielle Morrill

After dropping out of community college, Morrill took her first job in accounting at a shipping company, where she automated tasks with PASCAL scripts. She has worked as a business analyst at Expeditors International, editor in chief of Seattle 2.0, and community manager at Pelago. She has described herself as a “professional hobbyist” and said: “I've always written code to solve a problem.”⁠[1][2]

Morrill was the first employee of the cloud communications company Twilio, serving as director of marketing in a role that included writing content, attending conferences, and tinkering with the platform’s code. In 2010, while at Twilio, she invested $5,000 in InternMatch, her first investment; InternMatch later became part of WayUp.⁠[1][3][2]

After leaving Twilio, Morrill founded Referly as CEO; the company later pivoted to become Mattermark. Founded in 2012 and based in San Francisco, Mattermark sold startup and company data to customers including venture capital firms; its co-founders included Kevin Morrill as chief technology officer and Andy Sparks as chief operating officer.⁠[1][3][2]

Mattermark raised more than $17 million, including a $7.3 million Series B in 2016, from investors including Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry, NEA, 500 Startups, Foundry Group, and Sherpa Capital. Its monthly revenue grew from zero to $300,000 between 2013 and 2016.⁠[3][1]

On September 8, 2014, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) released the episode “a16z Podcast: Raising Money and Valuing Startups — What Happens When Things Don't Go As Planned?,” featuring Morrill as co-founder of Mattermark alongside a16z’s Scott Kupor and Danny Shader, founder and CEO of PayNearMe.⁠[4]

The episode picked apart startup valuations, noting that while many entrepreneurs want a massive valuation, terms come along with that number, and discussed what happens when things do not go as planned. It was uploaded to the a16z YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel on January 1, 2019.⁠[4][5]

In December 2017 Mattermark was sold to Denver-based FullContact in a private stock transaction worth less than $1 million in total, consisting of under $500,000 in cash to facilitate the shutdown and FullContact stock valued at slightly over $500,000; common stockholders received nothing. Mattermark’s services continued for customers as part of FullContact, which hired six Mattermark employees.⁠[3]

In a letter to common shareholders, Morrill said the outcome was not what the team had hoped for when they started nearly six years earlier.⁠[3]

Morrill has worked as a “scout” for Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry, helping find early-stage startups; in 2018 she was a partner at XFactor Ventures. She is co-founder and CEO of GroupThink and is based in Denver, Colorado.⁠[3][1][2]

One of her stated principles is: “If the risk won't kill you, take it.”⁠[1]

X: Public account: https://x.com/DanielleMORRILL (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellemorrill (opens in a new window).⁠[2]