CODY CANDEE (BBA ’11)
Why he’s among the 8 to Watch: Candee started Bounce, a venture-backed startup that helps people find a place to leave their belongings anywhere in a city. The company’s locations—more than 100 across New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.—have been used to store tens of thousands of personal items. The vision for his company: “The big vision for Bounce is to be the interface between you and everything you own,” says Candee. “People spend too much time planning their lives around the things that they own. So much time is wasted commuting out of your way because of your things. Bounce will be cloud computing for the physical world so that you can access your things wherever you are.” Steps to success: After graduating, Candee spent four months backpacking through South America, lived and worked in India for a brief time, and traveled around Southeast Asia. His time abroad helped inspire the idea for Bounce. Key career moment: “I had the idea for Bounce brewing in my head forever. I decided to try it out. My co-founder came to New York where I was living at the time and we formally started building the company in October 2017. Now we have over 100 retail locations and over $1 million in angel investment.” Number of countries visited: 50 The impact of a WSB degree: Candee wasn’t admitted to UW–Madison at first. In fact, he formally appealed his admission decision. Eventually, he was the last student admitted to the freshman class in 2007. Determined to prove he was a chance worth taking, Candee studied hard his freshman year and earned close to a 4.0 GPA. He also started Delta Sigma Pi, a co-ed business fraternity. The challenge and subsequent reward of getting admitted imbued Candee with a special appreciation for the power of persistence—something he says he employs regularly in his career now. Advice to students and young professionals: “The more you can define where you want to be in 10 years, the better. Plan backwards. Get started; do stuff.” 22 | UW–Madison Wisconsin School of Business
Cody Candee photo by Jim Newberry
City: San Francisco Title: CEO and co-founder, Bounce Previous job: Global product manager, Intuit