About Joel Cutler

As a founder, mentor, and venture capital investor, Joel Cutler supports young entrepreneurs throughout their entire startup journey. He loves big ideas and establishing leaders in new fields that aren’t already saturated with a flock of me-too companies. If you’re going into a market or a region where others got there first, you can’t be just a little better. To be a leader, you have to be at least ten times better. Better yet is charting new territory. Then you get to define a space, make something out of nothing, and define leadership. To him, a great team with a good idea beats a good team with a great idea. That helps set General Catalyst apart from other firms: they work as a team internally, and with the founders of their companies, to create the greatest possible impact for the ideas that have come their way. Joel Cutler spent his entrepreneurial career building travel, specialty/targeted consumer direct commerce, and consumer fintech businesses before starting General Catalyst with his friend David Fialkow. That experience has served him well in helping entrepreneurs build really new and next-generation consumer products and services. In the early days of General Catalyst, Joel Cutler was fortunate to partner with Paul English and Steve Hafner to start KAYAK in their offices to provide consumers with an easy and transparent way to purchase travel services online. Joel Cutler likes working with great teams that relentlessly focus on creating real inflection points in consumer experiences. One of his favorite things is to think through the confluence of new technology platforms and disruptive business models that can be the foundation of new consumer experiences. Companies Joel Cutler’s currently involved with include Airbnb, Cadre, Chloe + Isabel, Freebird, Handy, Lemonade, Lola, M.Gemi, Oscar Insurance, Rockets of Awesome, and Warby Parker. Some of his previous investments include GroupMe (acquired by Skype), ITA Software (acquired by Google), Jet (acquired by Walmart), OLX (acquired by Naspers), Reveal Imaging (acquired by SAIC), and Venmo (acquired first by Braintree and then by eBay). Joel Cutler graduated from Colby College and Boston College Law School. Along with the boards of companies he is involved with, Joel also serves on the boards of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital Trust.