Brian Garrett

Co-Founder and Managing Director, Crosscut Ventures

Brian Garrett is the CEO and co-founder of Crosscut Ventures. Most recently, he was the co-founder and CEO of StyleSaint. Brian is very active in the Los Angeles start-up community and currently works actively with the following companies: GumGum, Verve Wireless, Pulpo Media, Shoedazzle, Circle Street, Postcard on the Run, MyGlam and GraphEffect. Prior to co-founding Crosscut, Mr. Garrett was a Partner at Palomar Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Santa Monica, California. Mr. Garrett joined Palomar in 2001 and played an active role in managing and investing two funds over 6 years totaling more than $400 million. While at Palomar, he was the sponsor of and/or an active board member in nine Palomar portfolio companies, including successes such as Entone (a video on demand company that sold to Harmonic), Lombardi (business process management software that sold to IBM) and Datallegro (data warehouse appliance company sold to Microsoft in 2008). Prior to Palomar, Mr. Garrett was the Director of Business Development at Niku Corporation. Prior to Niku, Mr. Garrett worked at a boutique strategy consulting firm called R.B. Webber & Company. Mr. Garrett worked with numerous early-stage technology companies including CommerceOne, Inktomi, Sagent, Aurum and Broadbase. Mr. Garrett received his MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and he graduated from Stanford University with a B.S. in Industrial Engineering.

Articles by Brian Garrett

LA Tech Week 2025 Day 2 Recap: Startup Growth – Tuesday Oct 14

After a packed AI Building Day, we continued LA Tech Week with Startup Growth Day, a full schedule of sessions focused on go-to-market strategy, founder journeys, and scaling startups in...

LA Tech Week 2025 Day 1 Recap: AI Building – Monday Oct 13

We hosted three full days of events during LA Tech Week, each one focused on helping founders learn, connect, and build with the latest in AI and startup growth. Day...

Using Customer Feedback to Build a Product that Customers Will Love

Customer feedback is the lifeblood of successful product development, but many startups struggle with collecting, validating, and prioritizing the constant stream of input from users, advisors, and internal teams. In...

Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai

How Shaun Merritt Vibe-Coded Karrot.ai As A Solo Builder

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Shaun Merritt, cofounder and CTO of Karrot.ai, a LinkedIn ABM tool. Shaun was kind enough to share a comprehensive breakdown of how...

7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself

Learn the 7 steps to product-led growth (PLG) to build a product that sells itself. Drive activation, boost conversions, and scale efficiently with Wes Bush from ProductLed....
Balancing self-care and startup pressure as a founder

The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out

A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....

Scroll to Top