Alley Community,

For those of you who don’t yet know me, I joined Alley’s team a year and a half ago in the role of COO. I’ve always been attracted to Alley’s founding value of “Community Over Everything,” and I am so proud to be a part of the Alley ecosystem, which now touches over 3.9 million people.

Two weeks ago, I transitioned into the role of CEO at Alley. Instead of sending out an announcement email and hosting a happy hour to meet all of you in person, I spent my first day as CEO making the difficult call to suspend our on-site operations effective immediately. This wasn’t the triumphant new chapter we had imagined, but I can’t think of a better way to honor Community Over Everything than protecting the health and safety of our team, our members, and our greater community.

Alley is a part of a vibrant entrepreneurial community that drives both our economy and society forward, building the future as it happens. However, being on the cutting edge also makes our members uniquely vulnerable to large systemic shocks, like the one we are currently experiencing. We rely on our community to innovate, share resources, and exchange ideas. Now we need to preserve that community, especially as this exchange of ideas becomes even more important in a time of crisis.

If we work together and build an active support network, we have an opportunity to emerge from this crisis stronger and more resilient than ever. With the right approach, we can use this as an opportunity to explore new ways of thinking about our businesses and the impact we have on our customers, employees, and society at large.

Alley has always been deeply committed to nurturing and growing the startup community in all of our cities, and at a time of such economic uncertainty and turmoil, that commitment is redoubled. Whether you founded your business eight days ago or eight years ago, you’re probably grappling with the same questions: What if I need to raise another round of funding in this environment? How do I even apply for an SBA loan or federal relief program? We hear you.

Although our on-site operations are suspended for the immediate future, we are continuing to honor our original mission of Community Over Everything by leveraging new channels to answer these questions, and more. Over the coming weeks, we will be launching new digital events and creating virtual spaces to connect and share information and resources. This will take the form of panels, group discussions, and more informal mediums. If you’re working on resources or projects that you think the community would benefit from, we would love to hear from you.

I hope to see you all at our upcoming events. If you need anything, or have questions, feel free to respond to me directly on this email. I, along with the rest of the Alley team, am here for you -- wherever we go from here, we will do it together.

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Noelle Tassey

Alley, CEO