# Derek Andersen

> Derek Andersen is the founder of Startup Grind, a global entrepreneurial community that has reached more than a million people across 120+ countries, and the co-founder and CEO of Bevy, the enterprise community-events software that grew out of it. A former Electronic Arts game producer, he left in 2009 to build his own products, failed repeatedly, and turned a once-a-month meetup in his garage into a worldwide network and a company serving customers like Google, Salesforce, and Snowflake. He now also hosts Divot, a weekly podcast of long-form conversations with founders, creators, athletes, and visionaries.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Bevy; Founder at Startup Grind
- **Organizations:** Bevy, Startup Grind, Divot (podcast), Vaporware Labs, Electronic Arts
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Communications, Brigham Young University
- **Known for:** Built Startup Grind into a community reaching 1M+ people across 120+ countries and 600+ cities, Hosted 20,000+ Startup Grind events worldwide, Co-founded and leads Bevy, a community-events software company reported around $325M in value, serving Google, Salesforce, Snowflake, and Atlassian

## Career timeline

- **pre-2009** — Producer at Electronic Arts, working on titles including Burnout Paradise, Mirror's Edge, The Sims 3, and The Godfather
- **2009** — Left Electronic Arts and founded Vaporware Labs to incubate his own products
- **2010** — Founded Startup Grind with a single monthly event in Silicon Valley; also raised $250K for an iPad app that failed at launch
- **2012** — Commonred, a professional social network incubated at Vaporware Labs, acquired by Income.com
- **2017** — Bevy spun out as its own company from the software built to run Startup Grind events
- **2025** — Launched Divot, a weekly long-form interview podcast
- **present** — Continues as Co-Founder and CEO of Bevy and Founder of Startup Grind

## Achievements

- Built Startup Grind into a community reaching 1M+ people across 120+ countries and 600+ cities
- Hosted 20,000+ Startup Grind events worldwide
- Co-founded and leads Bevy, a community-events software company reported around $325M in value, serving Google, Salesforce, Snowflake, and Atlassian
- Bootstrapped Startup Grind from a garage to a global network
- Incubated and exited Commonred (acquired by Income.com in 2012)
- Shipped major console and PC games at Electronic Arts before turning to startups

## Latest updates

- **2025-03** — Launched Divot, a weekly podcast featuring founders, creators, athletes, and visionaries, with guests including Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull
- **2026-04** — Divot continued releasing new weekly episodes, reaching roughly 48 episodes

## Links

- Website: https://www.startupgrind.com/u/derekandersen/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekjandersen
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/DerekjAndersen
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupgrinder/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/derek-andersen
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-30