Los Angeles (March 24th, 2025) – Native co-founders Jessie Tran (CEO) and Rex Ordonez (CTO) met for the first time at the USC and Techstars Startup Weekend, a three-day event designed to develop new and researched ideas within the Trojan community. As students at the University of Southern California (USC), Jessie (M.S. ‘24) and Rex (B.S. ‘26) joined Startup Weekend to pitch their startup ideas, meet potential co-founders, and build the foundations of a startup — all in one weekend! This is where their startup journey began. 

The USC and Techstars Digital Economy Program launched in April 2024 as an exciting partnership between Techstars and the USC Office of Research and Innovation (OORI). This initiative supports founders at every stage of their entrepreneurial journey and includes Startup Weekend, University Catalyst, and the Digital Economy Accelerator.

At last year’s Startup Weekend, participants pitched 36 new startup ideas and chose 10 top ideas as collaborative projects to form teams around. Julian Tedja, a Master’s student at the USC Marshall School of Business, pitched an idea called “We Ball” that gamified financial literacy for student athletes. By the end of Friday night, “We Ball” transformed into a startup called “Momentvm” with a team of six aspiring founders from various backgrounds: Evans Pope, III (Doctoral student at the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences), Isaiah Eruaga (Doctoral student at the Keck School of Medicine of USC), Henry Groome (Undergraduate student at the USC Iovine and Young Academy), Jessie Tran (Master’s student at the USC Marshall School of Business), Rex Ordonez (Undergraduate student at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering), and Julian Tedja (Master’s student at the USC Marshall School of Business). “Working all together as a team from different departments and different backgrounds was a really enriching experience,” Julian shared. 

On Saturday, the teams validated their ideas through customer discovery interviews, worked with mentors to identify market opportunities, and began creating their minimum viable product (MVP). “Techstars came in and almost leveled the playing field, made it a lot easier for us to collaborate,” Henry proclaimed. “I came into the weekend thinking that entrepreneurship was kind of this daunting thing, but you can really create anything!”

During final pitch presentations on Sunday, Momentvm won first place and secured an interview for both the University Catalyst pre-accelerator program and the Digital Economy Accelerator. Jessie reflected on the experience, stating, “The thing that I learned the most from this competition is how to build trust with people from different backgrounds than my own. I think trust is one of the key strengths that we had.“

The Momentvm team, as well as 74% of Startup Weekend participants, planned to continue working on their startup after the event. Building upon initial traction, Momentvm learned how to better understand their target customers, refine their unique solution, and pitch their startup in a compelling way. They applied and earned acceptance into the USC and Techstars University Catalyst cohort later that fall. The founder journey required them to hone their entrepreneurial skills by making tough decisions, such as redefining roles and responsibilities, pivoting from their initial startup, and iterating on new ideas quickly. 

Those tough decisions led co-founders Jessie and Rex to establish their new startup, Native, an AI-enabled language tutor for English language learners. This March, Native was accepted into the USC and Techstars Digital Economy Accelerator cohort, a 13-week on-campus program in which they will receive up to $120,000 in funding, participate in speaker series and pitch practices, meet regularly with mentors to refine their product and business strategy, and gain valuable introductions to critical business partners. See how their story continues to evolve by attending Demo Day on June 5, 2025, where they will pitch directly to enthusiastic investors.

Techstars and the USC Office of Research and Innovation hope that Native is one of many startups to gain entrepreneurial support through this programming. The full lineup of annual USC and Techstars Digital Economy programming includes:

• Techstars Startup Weekend: a three-day event designed to ignite ideas and build startup communities

• University Catalyst: a 10-week, pre-accelerator program for idea and early-stage startups

• Digital Economy Accelerator: a 13-week, intensive program designed for startups to scale their vision into thriving businesses

Begin your startup journey by attending USC and Techstars Startup Weekend on April 11-13th. USC faculty/staff, alumni, and students will develop new and researched ideas with a focus on tech and digitally enabled solutions, such as those in DeepTech, Health / BioTech, AI, EdTech, FinTech, and more. All USC Trojans with a curiosity for entrepreneurship are encouraged to participate. Register before April 7th!

Telesha Bowen

Program Lead

Techstars Startup Community

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