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Innehåll tillhandahållet av The VentureFizz Podcast. Allt poddinnehåll inklusive avsnitt, grafik och podcastbeskrivningar laddas upp och tillhandahålls direkt av The VentureFizz Podcast eller deras podcastplattformspartner. Om du tror att någon använder ditt upphovsrättsskyddade verk utan din tillåtelse kan du följa processen som beskrivs här https://sv.player.fm/legal.
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In Her Ellement
1 Bringing Your Whole Self to Work with Port of Rotterdam’s Saskia Mureau 21:38
21:38
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21:38People want to feel supported and safe at work – and inspired to innovate. What can people working at large corporations do to create this kind of environment? Saskia Mureau is the Director of Customer Digital at the Port of Rotterdam where she is harnessing digital systems to reduce emissions. She is passionate about creating inclusive workplaces where psychological safety and collaboration drive meaningful change. In this episode, Kamila sits down with Suchi to talk about why she chose to work at large corporations rather than startups. Saskia also reflects on her personal experiences, including navigating IVF while at work, and discusses how organizations can foster environments where employees feel empowered to bring their whole selves to work. Links: Saskia Mureau on Linkedin WHO infertility research BCG 2024 report on psychological safety in the workplace Suchi Srinivasan on LinkedIn Kamila Rakhimova on LinkedIn About In Her Ellement: In Her Ellement highlights the women and allies leading the charge in digital, business, and technology innovation. Through engaging conversations, the podcast explores their journeys—celebrating successes and acknowledging the balance between work and family. Most importantly, it asks: when was the moment you realized you hadn’t just arrived—you were truly in your element? About The Hosts: Suchi Srinivasan is an expert in AI and digital transformation. Originally from India, her career includes roles at trailblazing organizations like Bell Labs and Microsoft. In 2011, she co-founded the Cleanweb Hackathon, a global initiative driving IT-powered climate solutions with over 10,000 members across 25+ countries. She also advises Women in Cloud, aiming to create $1B in economic opportunities for women entrepreneurs by 2030. Kamila Rakhimova is a fintech leader whose journey took her from Tajikistan to the U.S., where she built a career on her own terms. Leveraging her English proficiency and international relations expertise, she discovered the power of microfinance and moved to the U.S., eventually leading Amazon's Alexa Fund to support underrepresented founders. Subscribe to In Her Ellement on your podcast app of choice to hear meaningful conversations with women in digital, business, and technology.…
Episode 332: Ben Lerer - Managing Director, Lerer Hippeau
Manage episode 411287978 series 1854666
Innehåll tillhandahållet av The VentureFizz Podcast. Allt poddinnehåll inklusive avsnitt, grafik och podcastbeskrivningar laddas upp och tillhandahålls direkt av The VentureFizz Podcast eller deras podcastplattformspartner. Om du tror att någon använder ditt upphovsrättsskyddade verk utan din tillåtelse kan du följa processen som beskrivs här https://sv.player.fm/legal.
Episode 332 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ben Lerer, Managing Partner of Lerer Hippeau. The tech scene in New York City has come a very, very long way over the past 14 or 15 years. A lot of that transformation and growth was due to access to early-stage capital which wasn’t prevalent back then, but Lerer Hippeau was a key element to the foundation of its success as a seed stage investor. The firm was an early investor in many consumer brands that you recognize as they have all been very successful like Allbirds, Casper, Warby Parker, BuzzFeed, Mirror, Venmo, and many more. Its reputation was built on these consumer breakouts, but ultimately the firm is category agnostic investing equally across the enterprise and consumer landscapes. For example, take a look at two of their most recent investments, which are Boston companies, 10Beauty (consumer robotics for manicures) and Tollbit (content monetization in the era of AI), which we talk about in details for this podcast. Ben is now a fulltime VC after founding and running Thrillist that scaled and then added other digital media brands under its umbrella as Group Nine Media, which was acquired by Vox Media. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Ben’s thoughts on the market and if now is the ideal time to start a company. * The inspiration behind Thrillist, plus lots of stories and lessons learned around the full lifecycle and evolution of the company to Group Nine Media and acquisition by Vox. * Advice for entrepreneurs on building a startup media company in today’s world. * How Lerer Hippeau came to fruition and what they are targeting for investments, plus why he considers himself a talent driven investor versus a thesis driven investor. * And so much more.
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366 episoder
Manage episode 411287978 series 1854666
Innehåll tillhandahållet av The VentureFizz Podcast. Allt poddinnehåll inklusive avsnitt, grafik och podcastbeskrivningar laddas upp och tillhandahålls direkt av The VentureFizz Podcast eller deras podcastplattformspartner. Om du tror att någon använder ditt upphovsrättsskyddade verk utan din tillåtelse kan du följa processen som beskrivs här https://sv.player.fm/legal.
Episode 332 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ben Lerer, Managing Partner of Lerer Hippeau. The tech scene in New York City has come a very, very long way over the past 14 or 15 years. A lot of that transformation and growth was due to access to early-stage capital which wasn’t prevalent back then, but Lerer Hippeau was a key element to the foundation of its success as a seed stage investor. The firm was an early investor in many consumer brands that you recognize as they have all been very successful like Allbirds, Casper, Warby Parker, BuzzFeed, Mirror, Venmo, and many more. Its reputation was built on these consumer breakouts, but ultimately the firm is category agnostic investing equally across the enterprise and consumer landscapes. For example, take a look at two of their most recent investments, which are Boston companies, 10Beauty (consumer robotics for manicures) and Tollbit (content monetization in the era of AI), which we talk about in details for this podcast. Ben is now a fulltime VC after founding and running Thrillist that scaled and then added other digital media brands under its umbrella as Group Nine Media, which was acquired by Vox Media. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Ben’s thoughts on the market and if now is the ideal time to start a company. * The inspiration behind Thrillist, plus lots of stories and lessons learned around the full lifecycle and evolution of the company to Group Nine Media and acquisition by Vox. * Advice for entrepreneurs on building a startup media company in today’s world. * How Lerer Hippeau came to fruition and what they are targeting for investments, plus why he considers himself a talent driven investor versus a thesis driven investor. * And so much more.
…
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366 episoder
All episodes
×1 Episode 364: John Andrews - CEO & Co-Founder, Cimulate 1:08:41
1:08:41
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1:08:41Episode #364 of The VentureFizz Podcast features John Andrews, Co-Founder & CEO of Cimulate. There is a wave of entrepreneurs who are uniquely qualified to build a pillar tech company in the Boston tech ecosystem while leveraging the platform shift to AI. Not only is John one of them, but he is also an alum of the very successful crew from Endeca. John and his co-founder, Vivek Farias, are tackling the future of eCommerce and as you’ll hear, their platform is a perfect use case for Gen AI. Their last company, Celect, was a big data predictive analytics platform for the retail industry which was acquired by Nike. Cimulate recently announced a $28M Series A round of funding led by Spark Capital with participation from their seed stage investors SIERRA Ventures and Pillar VC, with additional participation from LFX Venture Partners and Commerce Ventures. In this podcast, we cover: * A deep dive into the use cases of AI in the retail & eCommerce industry especially around personalization. * John’s background story and getting his career started at Deloitte Consulting and getting an MBA from HBS. * How he met Steve Papa, the founder of Endeca, and the full lifecycle of his experience there including the acquisition by Oracle and integration of their tech there. * Connecting with Vivek Farias and Devavrat Shah through Steve Papa and the story of building Celect which was using AI / machine learning back in 2014. * How the acquisition by Nike came together * All the details about Cimulate and how the platform works, plus their growth plans ahead. * Biggest lessons learned as a multi-time CEO. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 363: Jay Batson - Acquia Co-Founder & Founding CEO, Serial Entrepreneur, Investor 1:04:57
1:04:57
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1:04:57Episode 363 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Jay Batson, Acquia Co-Founder & Founding CEO, serial entrepreneur, investor, and mentor. Lots of people like to make predictions, especially around this time of the year. Few are right. Jay on the other hand made some bold predictions about the future in a Forrester report that he published back in 1995 called Beyond Internet Gaga and it is pretty remarkable. So what does Jay predict in 1995? Yes, the internet was emerging but these predictions were made when there were only about 35 million internet users and before the Netscape IPO. He detailed three scenarios: 1. The first was internet-based cyberattacks. 2. The second was how a younger generation would be glued to the internet (think screentime) and how it would replace the television, plus the emergence of social media, & online gaming. 3. The third was the advancement of smart appliances. It’s really amazing and as you’ll hear, Jay has a knack for seeing the future and creating businesses that capitalize on shifts in technology, some that have been widely successful or some that just didn’t hit. We chat about all of them. In this podcast, we cover: * Jay’s background story and how he got started in entrepreneurship by building a company in the energy sector. * Moving to Boston and more of his early experiences in the tech industry. * All the details about founding PingTel and its innovation in IP phones and he even pulls out one of the phones for the visual, plus his reflection on why the company didn’t succeed. * The full story of how he met Dries Buytaert (who was a guest on Episode #326) and how they co-founded Acquia together and lots of great scaling stories to unicorn status. * His role post-Acquia as a mentor and investor. Why founders should spend more time on their go-to-market strategy. * The importance of co-founder and investor alignment. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 362: Alice Pomponio, Managing Director of BrightEdge, Investing Arm of the American Cancer Society 42:05
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42:05Episode 362 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Alice Pomponio, Managing Director at BrightEdge, the investing arm of the American Cancer Society. Venture capital and private equity investors are all working on meaningful initiatives in terms of building great companies with the hope of gaining a meaningful return for investors. However, the role that Alice plays in the world of investing into startups is different… As the innovation, impact investment and venture capital arm of the American Cancer Society, BrightEdge propels groundbreaking patient-centric solutions by accelerating ACS’s mission to advance science, reduce disparities, and promote healthcare sustainability. All of the investments from BrightEdge have a common goal and that is to fight for a world without cancer. On top of this incredibly important mission is how the firm operates where the financial returns are reinvested back into the fund or are returned to the American Cancer Society to build a diversified and sustainable source of funding for the organization. In this podcast, we cover: * The platform shift to AI and its potential impact on cancer research. * Alice’s background and how cancer has affected her family, plus a walk through her career in the biotech & pharmaceutical industry. * The details of the firm’s proprietary Cancer Impact Investment Framework. * Sample portfolio companies and the overall impact that BrightEdge has made. * How BrightEdge is helping to advance health equity and increase representation for underserved populations. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 361: Phil Pergola - CEO, CloudZero 56:29
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56:29Episode 361 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Phil Pergola, CEO at CloudZero. Phil has a tremendous track record and we talk about a lot of great companies that he’s helped build throughout his career, but I need to highlight one of these companies in this intro and that is BladeLogic and the lasting impact the company has made. If you’ve ever read the famous startup book by Ben Horowitz called The Hard Thing About Hard Things… the competitor to his company Opsware was BladeLogic which is absolutely classic. BladeLogic went on to become a public company and was subsequently acquired by BMC Software. Another fascinating point about BladeLogic is the people and how many have gone on to become C-level sales executives or advisors at some of the most successful companies out there like MongoDB, AppDynamics, Snowflake, Wiz, Okta, and others. There is even a podcast called Hunters + Unicorns which interviews a bunch of them. CloudZero is the leader in proactive cloud cost efficiency. They enable engineers to build cost-efficient software without slowing down innovation. The company announced a $32M Series B round of funding last year. In this podcast, we cover: * The importance of building a successful pre and post-sales organization, plus the details of the LAYR model (Land Adopt Expand Retain). * Phil’s background and the story of his initial interest in pursuing a career path as an actuary. * A trip down Boston tech memory lane across multiple companies like Eggrock Partners which was acquired by Breakaway Solutions, BladeLogic, enerNOC, and CloudHealth Technologies. * All the details about CloudZero - how they found product market fit, why he joined as CEO, and the latest at the company today. * Advice on raising venture capital funding. * Lots of great advice on being a first time CEO - his lessons learned, what you should think about in the first 90 days, and advice on how to get on the radar for CEO positions. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 360: Mike Troiano - Partner at G20 Ventures 1:01:51
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1:01:51Episode 360 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Mike Troiano, Partner at G20 Ventures. When I think of Mike, I think of a master marketer, a branding guru, and an amazing storyteller. As we start our conversation we discuss the importance of these traits as it relates to entrepreneurs. The importance of storytelling and brand building is often overlooked by entrepreneurs. Yet, it is such a critical part of a startup’s success as a good story attracts customers, talent, and capital. If you haven’t followed his blog, please make sure you check it out on Medium, as there are so many great pieces of advice to help you improve your skills in storytelling, creating a brand, and building a startup. He’s one of the best. G20 Ventures is the capital partner that helps new businesses grow with smart money, great storytelling, and the right connections. The firm’s sweet spot is mainly Series A investing in enterprise software companies. In this podcast, we cover: * Playing sports at Cornell and getting his career started in the marketing agency world, plus starting his own company which was acquired and went public. * The full lifecycle story of M-Qube which was acquired by VeriSign and all the details about how the company powered the voting for American Idol and the lucky case drawing for Deal or No Deal. * Launching a startup called MatchMine which was backed by the Kraft family and was building a personalization tech for consumers that ended up being too early for the market. * The story of Actifio and its copy data management solution which grew into unicorn status with backing from Tier A investors and was acquired by Google. * How a viral post on Medium started his journey into venture capital and joining G20 Ventures, where he was a founding member and LP. * Getting started as a VC and how he found his Zone of Genius, plus what he’s targeting for investments. * The 5 phases of a career. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 359: Matt Douglas - Founder & CEO, Sincere 1:20:07
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1:20:07Episode 359 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO of Sincere. Boston has this legacy reputation that you can’t build consumer companies in the area, yet there are so many great companies that have scaled like Wayfair, DraftKings, iRobot, SimpliSafe, and so… so… many more. Plus, don’t get me started on how many brands, especially footwear, are located here. Anyway, Sincere is another example of a great consumer company at scale. It is highly likely that you’ve used one of their products like Punchbowl to plan a party, Timehop to relive past memories, or Memento, where you can collect and preserve memories together for a group video or photo album. Sincere’s latest brand is Lovebird, a new platform for the wedding industry which is taking on The Knot and other outdated incumbents and as highlighted in this interview with Matt, there will be more coming from Sincere. In this podcast, we cover: * A discussion around the legacy of an entrepreneur and what led Matt down the path of starting a corporate foundation at Sincere for charitable initiatives. * Matt’s background story, growing up with 5 brothers and how he started his entrepreneurial roots early on. * Getting his career started and how he became the youngest Product Manager at Adobe. * His brushes with tech luminaries like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Alexis Ohanian, Justin Kan, and Dharmesh Shah. * The background story of Punchbowl and the three key characteristics he used for building a business. * Why the expansion into the wedding market with Lovebird made sense for the company and how they are differentiating themselves from the competitors. * Matt’s philosophy around buying premium domains and a hint about his best 5 letter domain that is not even live yet. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 358: Simon Taylor, Founder & CEO - HYCU 46:12
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46:12Episode 358 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Simon Taylor, Founder & CEO of HYCU. One of the things that I love about this podcast is hearing the stories of entrepreneurs and the ambitious moves they make to build their companies. For example, last week’s interview with Brian Liu was a great example where he and his Co-Founder cold called and got the most recognizable lawyer on the planet - that being Robert Shapiro - involved with LegalZoom in the early days of the company. Simon’s story is also legendary. At the point of having an MVP, they wanted to partner with a fast growing company called Nutanix. He flew out to the company’s offices in California and unannounced, he asked to speak to the CEO. After pitching his company and convincing team members during that initial unannounced call, the CEO did finally sit with him and after building a backup solution for Nutanix, a partnership was established and they were off and running. HYCU is a leader in the multi-cloud and SaaS data protection as a service industry. The company has raised $140M in VC funding to date. In this podcast, we cover: * A discussion around leveraging a partnership model for a company’s GTM strategy and how to build it with the right mindset and approach. * Simon’s background story, including receiving a signed book from legendary computer entrepreneur An Wang, the founder of Wang Laboratories, when his family moved to the U.S. * Starting his career in cubicle jobs and how he learned the importance of rigor like his experience as a 401K rep answering phones and how it helped shape him as an entrepreneur. * Building his first company in Prague, an IT outsourcing company which was acquired by Comtrade and then his next company, a monitoring tools company that was acquired by Citrix. * The full lifecycle story of HYCU and all the details about their platform. * The benefits of raising capital from corporate VCs. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 357: Brian Liu, Serial Entrepreneur - LegalZoom, BizCounsel, & Overture 45:43
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45:43Episode 357 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Brian Liu, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of companies like LegalZoom, BizCounsel, & Overture. Lots of the best ideas come from experience within your own industry and it was Brian and his co-founder, Brian Lee (who has since gone on to be a co-founder of ShoeDazzle and The Honest Company) who both had experience in the law industry and saw an industry which was ripe for disruption. After experimenting with some ideas, the idea for LegalZoom had the best validation for building a company and some of the most successful entrepreneurs take bold risks. For example, to bring validation for consumers about the legitimacy of their business for legal docs, they cold called and got Robert Shapiro (yes, the high profile attorney from the OJ Simpson trial) involved in the business… and from there, they were off and running… which ultimately led to a publicly traded company. His latest company is Overture, an attorney-to-attorney referral platform for solos & small firms. In this podcast, we cover: * A discussion about the impact and potential that AI has for the legal industry. * Brian’s background story and his experience as a practicing attorney. * The full lifecycle story of LegalZoom, including the Robert Shapiro cold call and how they scaled the company. * All the details about Overture. * Brian’s work as an advisor for entrepreneurs like Julia Rodgers from HelloPrenup, who was featured in Episode 336 of The VentureFizz Podcast. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 356: Erika & Colin Angle - Ixceda & iRobot 1:02:32
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1:02:32Episode 356 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Erika Ebbel Angle and Colin Angle. I’ve had co-founders on my podcast in the past but it is very rare that I have a married couple and it is very hard not to use the phrase power-couple of this one. Having both Erika and Colin on the podcast was awesome, as we were able to dig into both of their background stories and professional journeys. If you are in the Boston tech scene, you probably know about Colin as a co-founder and former CEO of iRobot, but equally impressive is his wife, Erika. Here are some examples of her many professional accomplishments: * B.S. in Chemistry from MIT; Ph.D. in Biochemistry from BU. 2004 Miss Massachusetts * Founder of a non-profit organization called Science from Scientists which teaches STEM lessons to students in grades third through eight. * TEDx speaker about Your Gut Microbiome that has over 2 million views. Co-Founder & CEO of Ixcela. Ixcela is a pioneering company in internal fitness, specializing in the gut microbiome. The company recently announced its Ixcela Cancer Support Program in collaboration with Roper St. Francis Healthcare which showed the critical role that gut microbiome health plays in reducing cancer care side effects. Ixcela's supportive care is designed to be hyper-personalized to help mitigate symptoms and improve the patient’s health. In this episode of our podcast, we also cover: * A discussion about the gut microbiome and Erika’s research. * The story of iRobot and how they discovered product-market-fit through a combination of work in mine-hunting algorithms, industrial store cleaning, and the My Real Baby doll with Hasbro led to the Roomba. * All the details about Ixcela and how their personalized care and support works. * Colin’s role in Ixcela as a member of its Board of Directors. * The state of personalized healthcare and how AI has its place but why the human element is still very important. * The future of robotics and AI, plus a discussion about 10Beauty. * What dinner looks like in the Angle household. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 355: Ben Maitland-Lewis - Director of Startup Banking, Silicon Valley Bank 53:31
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53:31Episode 355 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ben Maitland-Lewis, Director of Startup Banking & Founder Success at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and yes, this episode is also sponsored by SVB. Ben and I go way back. His previous company, Pretty Instant, had a long-standing relationship with VentureFizz. This Y-Combinator company was an on-demand photography marketplace that did all of our office tour photoshoots on VentureFizz. It honestly was an amazing experience… such a great company. But even when you work with someone for a long time and you have a great professional relationship, there is so much about the person that you don’t know and this is one of the reasons why I love this podcast. I learned that Ben’s background story is very eclectic… from living abroad as a child, to being a street performer and being in the circus to playing music with an orchestra… and then being in a band playing the top clubs in LA to playing drums for other bands like Incubus, Dishwalla, and others… I could go on and on, so I’ll stop here and let him tell his story in this interview. Today, Ben is still leveraging his experience as a founder but helping other entrepreneurs in lots of meaningful ways at SVB. In addition to Ben’s background story, we also cover: * A discussion about making the transition from founder to employee. * Ben’s journey into entrepreneurship and the story of PressKit. * All the details about Pretty Instant and how the company got started and scaled. * His current role at SVB and the different ways he is working with founders. * Some analysis and positive vibes from SVB’s State of the Markets report. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 354: Paul Morville - CEO & Co-Founder, Parrot AI 1:05:37
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1:05:37Episode 354 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Paul Morville, Co-Founder & CEO of Parrot AI. This episode was recorded live at Startup Boston Week at Suffolk University. I recorded two episodes at this year’s event, so stay tuned for the second episode in a couple of weeks. Paul is a serial entrepreneur and as you’ll hear from our podcast, he is very successful but likes to fly under the radar. Case in point, while most companies can’t wait to broadcast a round of funding, I couldn’t find any press releases or media coverage about any outside investment for Parrot AI. Come to find out, the company raised capital in 2021 from Accomplice, Pillar, Legion Capital, and others. We discussed his reasoning as to why they decided against announcing funding which was very interesting. Parrot AI is not just a meeting recorder, transcription, and note-taking tool. It is an AI-powered collaborative workspace that turns conversation into results because of its understanding of the full context of a business. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The 2 biggest lessons learned while building multiple companies. * Paul’s background story and his work on building Barron’s online property which was one of the first financial websites. * His professional journey as a Product Manager, including experience at Arbor Networks and how so many people have gone off to start other companies like Twilio. * The founding story of Confer which was one of the first endpoint security solutions in the cloud that was acquired by Carbon Black which later went public & was acquired by VMware. * His decision to pass on an opportunity to join a VC firm and continue down the entrepreneurial path. * All the details about Parrot AI and how it differentiates itself from competitors. * What makes a great Product Manager. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 353: Giuseppe Stuto - Co-Founder & Managing Partner, 186 Ventures 58:20
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58:20Episode 353 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Giuseppe Stuto, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 186 Ventures. Did you know that the venture capital industry originated in Boston back in 1946 with the founding of American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC) which backed Digital Equipment Corporation and saw a 1200X return when the company went public. Since then, Boston has been very fortunate to have a steady stream of VC investors at all stages to foster the local startup ecosystem and one of the newest firms is 186 Ventures. Co-Founded by Giuseppe and Julian Fialkow, 186 Ventures is a pre-seed & seed stage VC firm investing broadly across technology. I kept hearing about the firm, so I was excited to interview Giuseppe for the podcast as they have been out there hustling and have been earning the respect from entrepreneurs and their peers in the VC industry. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A discussion around the importance of investor & founder alignment. * How a conference at Stanford changed the trajectory of his career into entrepreneurship. * The full background story of SmakHigh and how they evolved to Fam, the first live group video application for iMessage, including how Jeff Bussgang’s book - Mastering the VC Game - helped them raise venture funding from Jeff. * The full story of how the acquisition by DraftKings came to fruition. * The details about 186 Ventures and what they are targeting for investments. * The 4 fundamental parts of a business that matter. * The importance of building a repeatable sales model for not only your go-to-market strategy but also how it factors into raising capital. * Why Boston is the best place to build an AI startup. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 352: Mark Ghermezian & Manisha Shah - Co-Founders of Tildei 53:46
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53:46Episode 352 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Mark Ghermezian and Manisha Shah, Founder of Tildei. Mark is the Founder and General Partner of m]x[v Capital and he’s also the CEO of two companies that have spun out of his firm, that being Tildei and Gynger. Mark has been an entrepreneur pretty much his entire life and he shares lots of fun and interesting stories of these ventures, including the full story of Braze, a customer engagement platform that eventually went public in 2021. Manisha is a Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Tildei. In this interview, she shares her professional journey into the tech industry and ultimately running customer success at Rebel which was acquired by Salesforce. Tildei is changing how companies and customers communicate. The company’s AI-powered platform, which is initially focused on WhatsApp, enables brands to build deep relationships with customers through conversation at scale. The company has raised $6M in funding led by Susa Ventures with participation from Ludlow Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Vine Ventures, MXV Capital, Marcelo Claure, Jason Lemkin, and other angel investors. In this episode of our podcast, we also cover: * The importance of persistence and grit when building a startup. * How Mark and Manisha came together to build Tildei and how it works. * Building and investing into companies from m]x[v including the details on Gynger. * Mark’s contrarian point of view of PLG sales models and why he favors a traditional outbound sales operation. * Manisha’s biggest lessons learned as a co-founder. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 351: Meredith McPherron - CEO & Managing Partner, Drive by DraftKings 1:04:27
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1:04:27Episode 351 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Meredith McPherron, CEO & Managing Partner at Drive by DraftKings. Legalized sports betting, NIL, transfer portals, college conference re-alignment, streaming, pitch clocks, new kickoffs, the explosion of pickelball, and so much more, there is no denying it, the sports industry is going through a rapid amount of transformation. But the number one area that I’m the most excited about is the explosion of women’s sports… from college basketball, WNBA, NWSL, Olympic success, and more… there is so much going on! Thus, I couldn’t pick a better person to have a conversation about how women’s sports are having a moment than with Meredith and this topic is exactly how we kick off our interview. If you are not familiar with Drive by DraftKings, the firm invests in seed and Series A companies in the SportsTech and Entertainment industry specifically in Gaming, Fandom, and Human Performance. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Meredith’s background story including being a walk-on two sport Division 1 athlete at Harvard. * Getting her career started in investment banking and consumer products at General Mills and how she made the switch to the tech industry. * Running her own startup called Zipteva, which was early to market and would have been perfect in today’s world of NIL deals. * Her role at The Arthur Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at HBS which was the segue into her role as a VC at Glasswing Ventures. * All the details about Drive by DraftKings and what she is targeting for investments, plus its all-star network. * Biggest challenges around building a startup in the sports industry. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 350: Steve Papa - Founder, CEO, Mentor, & Investor 1:21:04
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1:21:04Episode 350 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Steve Papa, serial entrepreneur, mentor, and investor. It is time for another milestone episode and I couldn’t be more excited about this interview. Steve has accomplished so much throughout his career, so let’s just dive in. In this interview you are going to hear lots of amazing stories like: * Steve’s background and how he got his career started in the tech industry, including his involvement in the early days of Akamai. * The full lifecycle story of Endeca in terms of how the idea originated, to getting traction and raising funding, scaling, to a $1.1B exit to Oracle… plus so many amazing stories along the way. * The Special Ops team at Endeca and how many of the members of this team have gone on to be founders & leaders of companies. * Investing all of the money that he made from Endeca back into startups. * The story of Toast and how its distribution channel innovation drove the company’s success and helped create the vertical SaaS category. * The importance of Parallel Wireless and why it is such a passion project for him. * The problem that Shoobx was solving for startups and its exit to Fidelity. * How the tech industry repeats itself and his thoughts on AI. * Plus so much more! Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 349: Chris Gardner - Partner, Underscore VC 55:10
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55:10Episode 349 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Chris Gardner, Partner at Underscore VC. One time, could be luck. Two times, ok… maybe you are on to something… but in the case of Chris, he has been part of several acquisitions, so there is something deeply there in terms of his ability to pick the right company to join or company to help co-found. There is no denying it, based on his track record as an operator, there is an obvious translation to his current position as a venture capitalist. This episode is another fun walk down Boston tech memory lane, as we talk about some legendary companies that were acquired like edocs (an early e-billing and customer self-service applications), M-Qube (early mobile messaging and content services company), ExtendMedia (white label video platform), and Paydiant (an early mobile wallet tech company that powered payment apps for Subway, Harris Teeter supermarkets, Capital One, MCX, and many more). What I also find really interesting is how Chris’ background spans across both product and marketing, where he led both entities at companies. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it is a skillset that I haven’t seen too often. Chris is currently a Partner at Underscore, a firm that is investing in pre-Seed and Seed B2B software founders. The firm recently announced a new $58M Fund III. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Chris’ background story and how he got into the tech industry. * The stories and his role in the companies previously mentioned including being a co-founder of Paydiant, their impact on mobile wallets, and the company’s acquisition by PayPal and what he learned there. * How Chris became a VC and the details on what he is targeting in terms of investments at Underscore. * Pitch advice for startups and the importance of storytelling. * How you need to think about compensation structure as a company scales. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 348: Jonathan Bensamoun - Founder & CEO, Fi 48:10
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48:10Episode 348 of The VentureFizz Podcast, sponsored by Silicon Valley Bank, features Jonathan Bensamoun, Founder & CEO of Fi. It’s crazy to think that The VentureFizz Podcast has been around since 2018 and I believe that I’ve only had one repeat guest and that founder was talking about a new company. Thus, this is the first time I am doing a follow up episode and Jonathan was my guest for Episode 110 back in 2019. I ran into Jonathan at the Lerer Hippeau summer party in NYC and as we were chatting about his business, it seemed very obvious that we needed to do a new interview. What’s cool about this episode is the format, as it is different from most of my interviews. Since we already discussed his background story in the original episode, we were able to go deeper into Fi’s business and what has happened over the past 5 years. If you are not familiar with Fi, they are the creators of the Fi Smart Dog Collar which not only has real-time location tracking, but the device also includes activity, sleep, and behavior monitoring. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A brief overview of Jonathan’s background story and what was the inspiration behind Fi. * The latest about the Series 3 product line, plus a demo and all the cool features. * The importance of sleep tracking for your dog and how the movement to health tracking is a key piece of Fi’s strategy. * Lessons learned from retail and why a straight direct-to-consumer model is the right fit for them at this point in time. * Building out a company’s leadership team and Board of Directors. * What the fundraising process has looked like through Fi’s journey. * Creating a category and why more competition in the industry would be a good thing. * And so much more. More about our sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 347: Joe Caruso - Investor & Mentor 57:17
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57:17Episode 347 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Joe Caruso, Investor & Mentor. Lots of people know of Joe as an angel investor, but when I think of Joe… I think of a mentor to so many entrepreneurs and a major supporter of the Boston startup ecosystem. If you go through Joe’s portfolio of investments from his Bantam Group website, it will give a strong perspective to the depth of his connection to the Boston tech scene. This podcast interview is a bit different. We start off by talking about his role as a mentor and during that conversation, we weave in his background like leaving high school before getting his diploma and enrolling into Northeastern. He shares lots of great advice throughout the conversation. What I found to be incredibly fun was the talk down memory lane and getting to hear the inside story of some of his investments in companies like HubSpot, Constant Contact, Carbonite, and LevelUp, plus the missed opportunity with DraftKings. And one of my favorite stories actually has nothing to do with tech… he was on the board of the company that invented the Frappuccino. Oh, you think that was Starbucks? You’ll have to listen to find out……
1 Episode 346: Scott Weller - CTO & Co-Founder, EnFi 57:35
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57:35Episode 346 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Scott Weller, CTO & Co-Founder at EnFi. The formula for a thriving tech ecosystem ideally looks something like this: * Entrepreneurial-minded person works for startups and learns a ton. Perhaps they even witness success at scale to an exit. * Said person takes lessons learned and builds their own company to an exit. * Said person then starts to mentor and invest back into the ecosystem to fund the next generation of companies. * Said person eventually finds an idea that they can’t get out of their head and launches another company. This is the case for Scott, as he was involved in tech from an early age and connected with a talented group of entrepreneurs who were building the first generation of online gaming where he witnessed a couple of exits. He then co-founded and was the CTO of SessionM which led to a successful exit to Mastercard. He was angel investing and advising companies when he and another successful entrepreneur, Josh Summers, saw a problem which was a perfect opportunity to disrupt an industry using AI. Josh has the same startup founder pedigree as he was part of the WHERE team that was acquired by PayPal and then went on to found Clypd which was acquired by Xandr. The two have come together to build a company called EnFi which recently announced $7.5M in seed funding led by Unusual Ventures with participation from Boston Seed, Argon Ventures and Impellent Ventures. EnFi is accelerating complex credit analysis and risk monitoring with AI Assistants for bank and private lending origination, underwriting, and portfolio management teams. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A discussion about the AI landscape in the Boston tech scene. * Scott's background story and his early involvement with one of the very first Internet Service Providers called Intelecom Data Systems as a teenager. * Working at an early stage web gaming startup called Gamesville which was acquired by Lycos. * GameLogic and the early innovation of working with regulated games and the level of innovation in terms of patent creation which was acquired by Scientific Games. * Being early to market with an online video product for SMBs called SnapYap that he started with others. * The founding story of SessionM with Mark Hermann & Lars Albright and how the company evolved through the years, plus its acquisition by Mastercard and how things materialized post-acquisition. * SessionM’s involvement in building the very successful mobile app for Starbucks and its bonus & loyalty campaigns. * The background story and all the details about EnFi and how they are disrupting the market. * Common startup mistakes that he sees entrepreneurs make over and over again. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 345: Laura Teicher - Executive Director, FORGE 47:28
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47:28Episode 345 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Laura Teicher, Executive Director at FORGE. Did you know that there are over 7,000 manufacturers in the state of Massachusetts? I certainly didn’t. My gut is that most entrepreneurs think that they need to go overseas for manufacturing versus leveraging local resources. And, let’s face it, building a startup is hard but when it is a physical product… it is a whole different ballgame. However... FORGE can help. Spun out of Greentown Labs, FORGE is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that helps startups figure out some of hard stuff through the journey from physical prototype to commercialization. The organization works with startups to help them figure out how to establish and scale manufacturing to sourcing from supply chains and suppliers. FORGE has supported over 800 startups with an amazing high survival rate. So, you are probably thinking… is this an accelerator… or what’s the cost… maybe they are expecting equity from your company… nope. It’s free and their impact is massive as you’ll hear from this interview with Laura. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The specialized and collaborative nature of the organizations that support the Boston hardtech startup ecosystem. * Laura’s professional journey including how volunteering helped open doors for her career. * All the details about FORGE in terms of how companies can get involved and how they help companies at each step along the way. * The key benefits to manufacturing locally and some of the hidden costs that can arise from offshore manufacturing. * The Valleys of Death for building physical products. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 344: Wardah Inam - CEO & Founder, Overjet 48:39
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48:39Episode 344 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Wardah Inam, Founder & CEO of Overjet. Building a company in an underserved industry has its pros and cons. Yes, it’s nice to have less competition and a head start, but on the flip side… it might be harder to raise funding if it isn’t a sector of interest for investors or it might even tougher to acquire customers because you have to educate the market. But… if you can build it and the market is ready… it can be magic, just like you’ll hear from Wardah’s interview. Based on a personal dental experience, she recognized a problem and embarked on a journey to build a dental AI platform which ended up being the first FDA approved solution. From detecting oral disease with unmatched precision to educating patients with clearly annotated images to getting insurance claims approved 5X faster, Overjet is the dental AI platform that lets dental professionals put patients first and operate efficiently. Back in March the company announced a $53.2 million Series C round of funding which is the largest investment ever in an AI for dentistry company and it brings the total funding to date at approximately $133M. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Wardah’s background story including how she got started in building autonomous robot during undergrad. * Her history as an entrepreneur starting multiple companies and her early experience working with AI. * The full story of Overjet and how a lucky Uber-pool ride helped her get started in terms of building expertise in the dental industry. * All the details about the company’s platform and value, plus the current state of the state of the company. * Fundraising advice for underserved markets and how the Overjet story evolved over time. * The importance of velocity for a startup. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 343: Jonathan Corbin - CEO & Co-Founder, Maven AGI 53:53
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53:53Episode 343 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Jonathan Corbin, Co-Founder & CEO of Maven AGI and our first sponsored podcast episode! Yes, please welcome Silicon Valley Bank (more info about SVB below) as a supporter of The VentureFizz Podcast. Any time I see a funding announcement for a new company, I get excited, as I’m an optimist and I hope that every company will scale and reach great milestones… but when I saw the news about Maven and how they are using Generative AI for enterprise customer experience… it was different… it was a no-brainer moment and I’m calling it now… this is going to be an anchor company in the Boston tech scene. Why? The team. They have a world-class team from HubSpot, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Stripe. Take Jonathan for example. He was the Global VP of Customer Success & Strategy at HubSpot where he led a team that was responsible for over 200,000 customers. Prior, he held leadership roles with major tech companies like Sprinklr, Marketo, Adobe, and others. He is one example of a team that is uniquely qualified to solve this problem. The problem. The use case for Generative AI at Maven just makes a world of sense and they already have early customers with amazing results which he gets into in during our discussion. Backing. In May, Maven announced that it had raised $28 million from investors Lux Capital, M13, E14 Fund, Mentors Fund and 786 Ventures, with participation from executives from OpenAI, Google, HubSpot, and Stripe. Maven is absolutely a company to keep an eye on and one of the key companies that are part of the next wave in the Boston tech scene. Oh... and they are hiring - you can check out their jobs here. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * What the fundraising process looked like for Maven. * Jonathan’s background story and a journey through his career path, plus his early entrepreneurial roots as a kid. * How he learned to lead a global organization of over 1,000 team members at HubSpot. * What led Jonathan and his two co-founders Eugene Mann and Sami Shalabi down the path of starting Maven. * All the details about Maven and the velocity they have been operating under in terms of building the platform and getting early customer adoption. * Advice for startups on building out a customer success function. * The vibe for the AI startup community in the Boston tech scene. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $40B in loans as of Q1 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.…
1 Episode 342: Matt Weinberg - Partner, Max Ventures 1:04:31
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1:04:31Episode 342 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Matt Weinberg, Partner at Max Ventures. Did you know that there are a ton of resources available for startups from the government including non-dilutive funding? I’m talking billions of dollars are allocated to hundreds of startups every year. This is a topic that has never been discussed on The VentureFizz Podcast and Matt is uniquely qualified to speak about this topic based on his experience in the public sector, including his time at the Small Business Administration’s Office of Investment and Innovation. Matt shares some very useful information about the pros and cons of exploring this potential funding path which includes information from organizations like the National Science Foundation’s SBIR program. Today, Matt is in the private sector as a Partner at Max Ventures, an early-stage venture firm based in New York City with a global reach and a primary focus on digital health, SaaS, and digital commerce. The firm has also co-founded 8 venture backed companies. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Matt’s background story and getting his career started in government under the Obama administration. * How his various positions in the public sector helped him take his career into venture capital. * Joining Max Ventures in the early days of the firm and how it differentiates from other VC firms in terms of both investing and incubating its own companies. * The details about The Post and Elion, two of the companies it has launched. * How to get on Matt’s radar and what he expects to get out of a first meeting. * The benefits of small group dinners and some tips for success. * And so much more.…
1 Episode #341: Somak Chattopadhyay - Managing Partner, Armory Square Ventures 51:01
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51:01Episode 341 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Somak Chattopadhyay, Managing Partner at Armory Square Ventures. Yes, markets like the Bay Area, NYC, and Boston get a lot of attention when it comes to building startups and having the ability to raise capital, but there are lots of other places to build a successful company. This has always been the case, but the pandemic definitely pushed this reality further. This is why a firm like Amory Square Ventures exists. There are lots of secondary markets where entrepreneurs need access to capital and it is also a very important matter for the local economy for these companies to grow and create jobs, versus relocating. Somak shares the details of what led him down the path to start Armory Square Ventures, a seed and early stage venture fund, and why their approach of investing in seconday markets has not only been a differentiator for their firm but what they also consider as an optimism engine and a community catalyst for regions outside Silicon Valley. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice on how founders can push back on advice from investors. * Somak’s background story and his early career in startups. * How he landed in venture capital at Edison Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners. * The details on what they are targeting for investments and portfolio company examples like Machinery Partner and ACV Auctions, a Buffalo company that went public. * Somak’s anti-portfolio, companies that he reviewed and an investment didn’t work out and went on to be a successful company. * Advice on building a marketplace. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 340: Steph Johnson - Co-Founder & CEO, Multiplayer 52:52
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52:52Episode 340 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Steph Johnson, Co-Founder & CEO at Multiplayer. Steph is an inspiration. As discussed in this interview, her background might not be the prototypical tech CEO profile for a few reasons. First, she came up through the agency world and then ran comms in-house for major tech companies like DigitalOcean and MongoDB. Second, she is a female founder of a dev tools platform startup and yes, we need more female founders. And third, she has a neurological condition called Tourette Syndrome. All of these factors have ultimately given her unique skills to thrive in her current role. Multiplayer is a visual collaborative platform that makes it easy for engineering teams to design, develop, and manage distributed software. The company is venture backed and on a mission to create better ways for developers to work. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Steph’s background story and how she got her career started with agencies in NYC. * Her decision to move in-house to run comms at DigitalOcean and MongoDB, plus what she learned at each company like the importance of a developer community. * Advice for making the shift from agency to in-house roles. * Founding Multiplayer with Tom Johnson, her Co-Founder, CTO, and husband… and why being married was a strategic advantage when they raised capital. * The details on the Mutliplayer platform and its beta release. * Advice on the storytelling element for a company building technical products. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 339: Andy Palmer - Serial Entrepreneur, Investor, and Author 46:49
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46:49Episode 339 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Andy Palmer, serial entrepreneur, seed investor, and now author. Andy is one of my OG’s, that being original guests. If you go way back into the archives of The VentureFizz Podcast, you’ll find my first interview with him for Episode #22 back in 2018. In that interview, we talk about his full background story, his career building companies like Tamr & Vertica, plus investing in companies. For this interview, Andy and I connected for a different reason. He has written a book with his co-author, Paula Caliguiri titled “Live for a Living: How to Create Your Career Journey to Work Happier Not Harder.” The two met on a Bumble date which resulted in a friendship and a collaboration for this book, which is useful at any stage of one’s career. It’s ultimately a guide to designing a life that leverages your personal values, motivators, and goals in your career. I’m a fan of audiobooks, so it was fun listening to Andy and Paula narrate the book and I have to admit, they both have great voices for it. Plus, it was cool to know some of the people that they highlight in the book like Elizabeth Lawler, CEO & Co-Founder of AppMap, who we recently on my podcast. The format of this interview is different from my normal style which was a fun change of pace. In this episode, we chat about: * How Andy got involved in AI back in the 80’s and how this is his third AI hype cycle, plus the details about his latest company called DBOS. * The inspiration behind the book. * The 5 phases of ideal careers that being: Starter Phase, Foundational Phase, High-Growth Phase, High-Focus Phase, and Give-Back Phase. We go through each phase in detail. * Why a simultaneous career path can be a benefit. * The advantages of working at startups and how it can push your career forward. * And more! There is obviously a lot more to this book than what we had the opportunity to chat about, so make sure you check it out! The title again is Live for a Living and you can find it on Amazon or the audio version Spotify or any other major outlet.…
1 Episdode 338: Tasneem Dohadwala - Founding Partner, Excelestar Ventures 56:21
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56:21Episode #338 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Tasneem Dohadwala, Founding Partner at Excelestar Ventures. It’s a lot more common to find VC firms that are investing into deep tech or hard tech, but when Tasneem started Excelestar Ventures in 2010, it was far from the norm. Not only was it abnormal to invest in companies building highly advanced engineering products, but it was also a very challenging time in the tech industry in general. So, to start a new VC firm was very rare. Excelestar Ventures is a bit different than most VC firms as they operate an evergreen fund which gives them flexibility, especially during different economic cycles, in terms of the types of investments they can make versus having to raise a new fund every 2-3 years. The firm is also passionate about funding disruptive businesses led by under-represented founders. Across Excelestar’s entire portfolio, 61% of their companies are minority-led and 50% are female-led. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Fundraising advice for women or minority founders and why you should always be thinking about asking for introductions. * Tasneem’s background story and how she got her career starting in finance at Goldman Sachs, plus her decision to go back to B-school at HBS. * All the details about Excelestar Ventures in terms of the companies they are targeting, including her interest in personalized medical devices, as well as how their due diligence process works. * Tasneem’s involvement with Golden Seeds, a firm focused on investing in women-led companies. * Advice for pitching your company and the importance of being able to properly articulate the value proposition of your company, having the right market size for that investor, and another factor that she calls the confirmatory mindset. * And so much more.…
1 Episdode 337: Gloria Hwang - Founder & CEO, Thousand 39:47
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39:47Episode 337 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Gloria Hwang, Founder & CEO of Thousand. Gloria’s career has centered around mission oriented initiatives and companies. Starting at Habitat for Humanity… then to TOMS, which is the gold standard in terms of businesses with a social mission based on their One for One model. She joined the company in its early years and played several key roles while there. As the Founder of Thousand, a Public Benefit Corporation, Gloria named the company after an initial goal of saving 1,000 lives (which they have passed) by making a bike helmet that consumers will actually enjoy wearing. The inspiration for the company came from a tragic story of a coworker who passed away from a bike accident in NYC. When you think of it, it is a category that hasn’t really evolved in terms of style and functionality. What started out as a Kickstarter project… then fast forward to today, Thousand has brought a new level of style and innovation to a category that has been stagnant forever. And, it is working. The company continues to grow aggressively and has been expanding into other categories like the launch of its Thousand Jr. collection. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A deep discussion around building a company that is mission and community focused. * Gloria’s background story and her mentality as a builder that started as a child which was influenced by her father who started the robotics program for NASA. * Her experience at TOMS including playing a key role in building out their non-profit and giving programs and what it was like working closely with Blake Mycoskie. * The full lifecycle story of Thousand, including how she got started from designing the product to manufacturing to building a brand. * How they decided to expand their product line based on feedback from existing customers versus trying to build out new markets. * Starting the company with a bootstrapped mentality and how that helped the company over the long run. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 336: Julia Rodgers - CEO & Co-Founder, HelloPrenup 59:59
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59:59Episode 336 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Julia Rodgers, Esq., CEO & Co-Founder of HelloPrenup, a platform that takes the awkwardness out of discussing and creating prenuptial agreements. This is the 3rd and final podcast interview from my live sessions at Suffolk University with 3 alums that being Don Bulens, Ernesto DiGiambattista, and Julia Rodgers. Some of the best entrepreneurs that I have interviewed for this podcast have either bootstrapped or raised a very, very minimal amount of capital to build their company in the early years. If you are successful with this approach, there are many benefits including the fact that you will have likely built a solid foundation for your business and if you do decide to raise capital to help fuel the growth, you’ll have a lot more control over the terms. As you’ll hear from this interview, Julia has raised only $150,000 total. She started working on HelloPrenup while working a fulltime job. This would involve working with the developer on the initial build of the product while also writing 1,200 word blog posts daily about prenups. This is a true foundational story of entrepreneurship and why I love doing this podcast. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Julia’s background story and her experience as an attorney in family law. * The industry trend that prompted her to start a business around prenups, a topic that has a history of being a taboo between couples. * All the details about HelloPrenup including how she met her co-founder, Sarabeth Jaffe. * A deep dive into their appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank and their successful investment from Kevin O’Leary and Nirav Tolia, the Founder of Nextdoor. * Why she hasn’t raised institutional venture capital funding to date. * How she has approached hiring for the team and found people who are passionate about their business. * Advice for female founders and the power of networking. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 335: Ernesto DiGiambattista - Managing Director, Genesis Accel 1:03:52
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1:03:52Episode 335 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ernesto DiGiambattista, entrepreneur and investor. This episode is the 2nd of three interviews that were recorded live at Suffolk University with Suffolk alums. Ernesto has a unique background that hits the trifecta of experience. He spent time in senior roles with larger enterprise corporations, then he founded a venture backed company called ZeroNorth which was acquired by Harness, and he’s now an investor in early stage startups as Managing Director of Genesis Accel. Thus, he was able to provide a very unique perspective, not only around building companies but we also talk about some of the inner-workings of the venture capital industry. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The details behind EIEIO, which is the acronym that Ernesto uses for hiring, that being Energy, IQ/EQ, Experience, Integrity, and Organizational Fit. * Ernesto’s background story and how he got his career started in the tech industry and how he landed his role at Bank of America and then as an executive at Sentinel Benefits. * What led him down the path of entrepreneurship and how he recognized the market opportunity that turned into ZeroNorth and the full lifecycle story behind the company. * What Ernesto and his partner, Tom Meredith, are targeting for investments. * The importance of understanding the fund dynamics of a VC firm like their deployment requirements and other key factors. * Common pitch mistakes that he sees from founders and why you should show customer retention and revenue growth. * His view on customer success at a startup in the early stage and why it might be more important than sales. And so much more.…
1 Episode 334: Don Bulens - 5 Time Startup CEO & Executive Chair at CloudZero 59:32
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59:32Episode #334 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Don Bulens, 5 time Startup CEO and Executive Chair at CloudZero. This episode was recorded live at Suffolk University which was so much fun! We recorded 3 interviews with Suffolk alums on April 2nd, so this is the first conversation and we’ll have two more coming in the following weeks. And just a side note about Suffolk, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well at the school. I was blown away by how many students attended the sessions and how many came up to me afterward with great questions. Back to this episode... Don has had lots of success throughout his career including being the CEO at EqualLogic which exited to Dell for $1.4B in cash, which was the largest cash transaction of its time for a venture backed company… but what I admire about Don is his transparency about his failures. His first two CEO positions didn’t quite work out and he shares the details of this experience of getting knocked down and losing confidence, but how he got back at it and ultimately persevered. Today, Don is the Executive Chair at CloudZero, a venture backed cloud cost intelligence platform, which raised $41M last year in one of the most difficult markets to raise capital. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Why the success of a company is all about the people. * Don’s background story and how he got into sales, plus the importance of learning how to sell. * A journey down the tech industry across the companies he led as a CEO - that being Radnet, Trellix, EqualLogic, Unidesk, and CloudZero. * Don’s 3 secrets to success. * The story of the EqualLogic exit. * All the details about CloudZero and how they found product market fit. * Meeting his wife, Lynne Capozzi at Suffolk, who was the Chief Marketing Officer at Acquia. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 333: Geri Kirilova - Managing Director, Laconia 58:09
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58:09Episode 333 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Geri Kirilova, Managing Partner at Laconia. From what I’ve seen, it is very rare for someone to start their career in venture and continue to progress up the ranks. Usually, an Associate or Senior Associate will do a rotation for 2-3 years and then move on to a portfolio company, maybe start a company, or do something else. For Geri, outside of a stop at Techstars, the path to venture capital started when she was at NYU as an intern for VC firms including Laconia. Fast forward to today, she is a Managing Partner at the firm and has been recognized by Forbes as a 30 Under 30 recipient. Laconia leads investments in pre-seed and seed stage B2B software companies with a focus around supporting founders in the early days in terms of sales acceleration, operational execution, and capital strategy. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice on building a career in venture capital. * Why she chose NYU and the details of her experience while in college as an operator. * A masterclass on how to build your network and lots of really useful tips on how to avoid the uneasy feeling that some people might have with networking at events. * How Laconia got started by David Arcara & Jeffrey Silverman, plus all the details on the firm. * Seed round funding benchmarks in the current market. * The unique due diligence process that Laconia runs which helps founders make potential customer introductions. * Details on Laconia’s internship and fellowship programs. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 332: Ben Lerer - Managing Director, Lerer Hippeau 1:02:16
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1:02:16Episode 332 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ben Lerer, Managing Partner of Lerer Hippeau. The tech scene in New York City has come a very, very long way over the past 14 or 15 years. A lot of that transformation and growth was due to access to early-stage capital which wasn’t prevalent back then, but Lerer Hippeau was a key element to the foundation of its success as a seed stage investor. The firm was an early investor in many consumer brands that you recognize as they have all been very successful like Allbirds, Casper, Warby Parker, BuzzFeed, Mirror, Venmo, and many more. Its reputation was built on these consumer breakouts, but ultimately the firm is category agnostic investing equally across the enterprise and consumer landscapes. For example, take a look at two of their most recent investments, which are Boston companies, 10Beauty (consumer robotics for manicures) and Tollbit (content monetization in the era of AI), which we talk about in details for this podcast. Ben is now a fulltime VC after founding and running Thrillist that scaled and then added other digital media brands under its umbrella as Group Nine Media, which was acquired by Vox Media. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Ben’s thoughts on the market and if now is the ideal time to start a company. * The inspiration behind Thrillist, plus lots of stories and lessons learned around the full lifecycle and evolution of the company to Group Nine Media and acquisition by Vox. * Advice for entrepreneurs on building a startup media company in today’s world. * How Lerer Hippeau came to fruition and what they are targeting for investments, plus why he considers himself a talent driven investor versus a thesis driven investor. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 331: Rob Go - Co-Founder & Partner, NextView Ventures 55:50
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55:50Episode 331 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Rob Go, Co-Founder & Partner at NextView Ventures. I’ve been fortunate to have many people support my journey with building VentureFizz through the years and Rob was one of the earliest. Shortly after I launched the site, he reached out looking to meet up and needless to say, I jumped at the chance. Through the years, Rob has always been incredibly helpful with his feedback on VentureFizz when I needed an outside perspective. I thank him at the beginning of our show, but I did want to note a sincere “thank you” here as well. Rob’s also has a podcast that you should check out called The Idea Maze where he asks the question: where do great entrepreneurial ideas really come from? You can find it on all major podcast platforms, plus I have included a link to it in the show notes. NextView Ventures is a pre-seed and seed stage VC firm that invests in founders who want to redesign the Everyday Economy. The firm’s portfolio includes Bobbie, The Browser Company, Devoted Health, WHOOP, Attentive, and more. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The five flavors of AI. * Rob’s background story including what he learned from his Dad’s entrepreneurial endeavors, getting his career started in management consulting, and then learning product at eBay. * How he landed a VC position at Spark Capital, plus a fun story about his almost investment into Groupon. * What led Rob and his Co-Founders, David Beisel and Lee Hower, down the path of starting a seed stage firm and what the seed investing landscape looked like back then. * What Rob is targeting for investments and the importance of founder-opportunity fit. * What he’s learned while running a venture firm. * And so much more. This Week's Sponsor This is exciting… for the “Hey Mom, I made it” category… we are in a book… not any old book… but a book from MIT! Be on the lookout for the new book for entrepreneurs called Startup Tactics. It is available globally starting on April 2nd and it features 15 tactics entrepreneurs need for success. You’ll find VentureFizz listed as a “tool of the trade” in the chapter on Hiring for Startups! Amazing!!! Get your copy now from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Bookshop.org.…
1 Episode: 330: Harman Singh Narula - Co-Founder & CEO, Canary Technologies 53:17
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53:17Episode 330 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Harman Singh Narula, Co-Founder & CEO of Canary Technologies. “Are these entrepreneurs uniquely qualified to build an industry leading company?” - this is one of the many questions that most (if not all) VCs ask themselves when deciding to make an investment into a company. When you look at Harman’s background, it is obvious that his “Founder Fit” is at a very high scale. As a graduate from Cornell’s esteemed hotel school, he built a foundation in an industry that was ripe for disruption, that being the hospitality industry. The guest experience is so mission critical, yet for years and years, hotels relied on old systems and the same old check-in process. Not anymore. Canary Technologies is modernizing the hotel tech stack with its end-to-end Guest Management Platform that digitizes everything from post-booking through checkout. The company works with more than 20,000 hoteliers in 80 countries and is venture-backed by Insight Partners, F-Prime Capital, Y Combinator, Thayer Ventures, Commerce Ventures, and others. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A conversation about the market for vertical SaaS solutions. * Harman’s background story and how he landed at Cornell to study Hotel Administration, plus how he got his career started including spending time in the strategy group at Starwood Hotels. * His long standing friendship with his Co-Founder, SJ Sawhney, and what led them down the path of starting Canary Technologies. * All the details about Canary, from their experience at Y Combinator to surviving the pandemic to the latest with the company & its platform, including their use of AI. * Outside of their domain experience, the key factors that influenced future rounds of capital. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 329: Pano Anthos - Founder & Managing Director, XRC Ventures 57:36
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57:36Episode 329 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Pano Anthos, Founder & Managing Director of XRC Ventures. I always love it when things come full circle. I first met Pano back in, what I believe was 2008 when he was building Hangout Industries. I was running a recruiting firm at the time and I stopped into their offices to discuss some of their hiring plans. Hangout was early to market as the company’s technology in the metaverse lane was very impressive but not ready for adoption by consumers yet which apparently is still the case. It was great to come full circle years later to interview Pano for The VentureFizz Podcast and get up to speed on what he’s been up to in the startup circles. Inspired by a discussion with his wife about the retail industry, Pano went off to start XRC Ventures, a venture firm & startup accelerator investing in retail tech, consumer goods and the consumer healthtech sectors. The firm’s portfolio includes companies like Billie, ShopShops, Fillogic, and many more. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A conversation about anti-dilution protection and why that is an important term for entrepreneurs to understand. * How Pano got into entrepreneurship by starting a company in the global trade industry and how the early days of the internet impacted this sector. * Other companies that Pano has been involved in like Pantero, Hangout, and others. * Launching XRC Ventures and how the accelerator works, plus what makes it unique like not having a traditional cohort program. * The details on the firm’s Opportunity and Brand funds. * Thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro and spatial computing. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 328: Ellen Chisa - Partner, boldstart ventures 49:38
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49:38Episode #328 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ellen Chisa, Partner at boldstart ventures. Back in 2016, we wrote a profile about Ellen on VentureFizz when she was leading product management at Lola.com. The profile was part of a series that we called Driven, which I think is a very fitting word to describe Ellen… and ironically, the discussion around considering a role in venture capital actually came up. So, in my opinion, it was only a matter of time. From being part of the winning team in high school for the FIRST Robotics competition, to starting a company in college, to a career path in product management, to leading a company that was developing a new programming language… Ellen has built the perfect core foundation for a successful career as an investor. boldstart is a venture capital firm that is your partner from inception for developer first, infrastructure, & SaaS founders that looking to turn your idea into a category-creating iconic company. The firm’s portfolio includes companies like Snyk, Kustomer, BigID, Superhuman and many more. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A conversation about what makes a great product manager. * Ellen’s background including the story off taking some time of to build an EdTech startup with other classmates while in college at the Olin School of Engineering, * Working on early mobile initiatives at Microsoft, then joining Kickstarter as a Product Manager, and what led her to pursue her MBA at Harvard Business School. * Meeting serial entrepreneur, Paul English, and leading product at Lola.com, a travel app. * Developing a new programming language for her startup called Dark with Paul Biggar which allows companies to build software faster, plus what this experience taught her in terms of leading a company and getting adoption with the developer community. * The future of AI developed code. * How she landed in venture capital at boldstart including what she is targeting for investments and what has been her biggest surprise as a VC. * Startup pitch advice. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 327: Reed Sturtevant - General Partner, Engine Ventures 1:20:29
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1:20:29Episode #327 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Reed Sturtevant, General Partner at Engine Ventures. This is exciting! Why? Because this episode is longer than my normal interviews, as Reed and I cover his career that spans multiple decades across major technological platform shifts. This means that based on his career, he has so many great stories to share. It is like a historical walkthrough of the Boston tech scene. We even had to do two sessions, so if you are watching this video from our YouTube channel then you’ll notice the different sweaters that Reed is wearing. Today, Reed is a General Partner at Engine Ventures, a “tough tech” venture capital firm launched by MIT and trust me on this one, as you’ll want to stay tuned throughout the whole episode! Here is an outline of what we cover: * Reed’s background story, including graduating from high school at 15 years old, his experience as a factory worker and his studies at MIT. * Developing a program called Freelance Graphics at a startup that was acquired by Lotus and his experience there, which was twice the size of Microsoft at the time. * Co-Founding Radnet, which raised the largest venture round of its time in Boston. * Running company development in Boston for IdeaLab, Bill Gross’ internet incubator which spun out companies like Compete, Picasa and others. * Meeting Katie Rae at EONS, a startup founded by Jeff Taylor, and then running Microsoft Startup Labs. * Launching Project 11 Ventures with Katie and then running Techstar Boston together which included many successful companies like GrabCAD, PillPack, and others. * Founder conflict and how it can destroy a startup. * The details of Engine Ventures and what Reed is targeting for investments, plus portfolio company examples. * What it was like leading a course at MIT with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 326: Dries Buytaert - Drupal & Acquia 53:09
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53:09Episode 326 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Dries Buytaert, Founder and Project Lead of Drupal and Co-Founder, CTO, and Chief Strategy Officer of Acquia. Many of the most successful companies in tech were created by founders who built something that was to fill their own need. This was certainly the case for Dries, who back in 2000, started an internal online message board for his friends from his dorm room in Belgium which turned into Drupal. Fast forward to today, Drupal powers 2% of all websites in the world and over 10,000 people contribute to the Drupal open source project every year. In addition to running one of the most successful open source projects, Dries went on to build Acquia, along with his Co-Founder & the company’s first CEO, Jay Batson and early investor - Michael Skok. Acquia’s innovative business model has been a blueprint for other open source companies. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The details of the Drupal community and what are the right ingredients for building a successful community. * Dries’ background story growing up in Belgium, how he developed a passion for technology, and the full story of how Drupal came to fruition. * Drupal’s growth and momentum, plus a great story of how the community stepped in to help fund this open source initiative. * The early days of Acquia in terms of figuring out the business model and then scaling the company under Tom Erickson’s leadership. * The current state of the state of Acquia as a Digital Experience Platform. * Why entrepreneurship is 80% sales and marketing, even as an engineer. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 325: Alex Shashou - Co-CEO & Co-Founder, 10Beauty 55:50
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55:50Episode 325 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Alex Shashou, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of 10Beauty. About 10 years ago, Peter Thiel is credited for saying “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” True, Twitter or X certainly was not in the same frame of mind as to what we saw on The Jetsons, but are we finally starting to get there? The Roomba was a step in the right direction in terms of a consumer robot success story. But… the future just might be closer than you think in terms of the possibilities of robotics and automation? Behold… I share with you 10Beauty! The world’s first and only autonomous manicure machine. I might not be the target market for this robotics company, but my wife and two daughters are definitely in the strike zone and when I told them about it… their immediate response was "WHEN AND WHERE CAN I GET ONE!" 10Beauty is not going to be available for consumers to purchase (at least not initially), as they are taking a B2B approach in terms of their go-to-market strategy. For me, it’s less about the tasks that this robot is performing and more about a team that is thinking bigger and ultimately delivering on something that is incredibly difficult. 10Beauty has raised $38M in funding from Shine Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Imaginary Ventures, and Red Sea Ventures. And, they already have serious traction as they already sold out of their entire first run of machines which means they have over $13M in annual manicure subscription revenue ahead. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A deep dive into the challenges and the complexity of building a robotics startup. * Alex’s background story and how Alex met his co-founder, Justin Effron, the first day of school at the University of Pennsylvania. * The story of their first company, Alice, a task management platform for the hospitality industry that was acquired by Expedia, plus how they connected with their technical co-founder, Dmitry Koltunov. * The definition of a good partnership between co-founders and how they divvy up roles & responsibilities. * All the details on 10Beauty… from meeting Chris Casey (one of the original Roomba engineers) to building out the initial prototype to raising funding to the company’s business model and projected launch. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 324: Sameer Gulati - Founder & CEO, Ordway 51:08
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51:08Episode #324 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Sameer Gulati, Founder & CEO of Ordway. Sameer loves SaaS and it’s for good reason… it is expected that the size of the SaaS market may hit almost $1 trillion by 2030! Yes, the tech industry is having some challenges, but did you know that… even though the evolution to SaaS started 20 something years ago… the adoption of SaaS still only sits at a 36% adoption rate versus traditional on-premise software. There is still such a massive opportunity for growth. Ordway is a billing and revenue automation platform that is specifically designed for today’s innovative, technology-centric business models. With Ordway you can automate billing, revenue recognition, and investor KPIs for recurring revenue from subscriptions or usage-based pricing models. The company is venture backed by leading VC firms like CRV, Clocktower Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, and others. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A deep conversation around the current state of the SaaS industry and the evolution of pricing models. * Sameer’s background story and how he joined one of the first SaaS companies called Intacct which exited for a billion dollars. * Working as part of the early stage team at Workday, Zuora, Zynga, GrubBeat, and Spree Commerce. * How he leveraged his experience in finance and billing software to disrupt the industry and build Ordway, plus all the details on the company. * Why it is a bad idea to over-capitalize your startup. * The importance of being a mission critical application versus a nice-to-have solution. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 323: Elizabeth Lawler - Founder & CEO, AppMap 1:03:59
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1:03:59Episode 323 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Elizabeth Lawler, Founder & CEO of AppMap. A question that I ask every guest at the end of every interview is - “What do you like to do for fun outside of work?” Oftentimes, I get common answers like - hiking, traveling, etc. But, Elizabeth’s answer has by far been the best one yet and it is proof that she is not only a great entrepreneur but also a maker at heart. Elizabeth is building with her husband & Co-Founder, Kevin, and their kids, a two seater RV-12 airplane. They previously built a car together when the kids were 6 & 8 years old, so this is their next challenge. So cool! AppMap is a leading developer of code visualization and runtime code review analysis technology. Its platform is redefining how developers improve their software and has become one of the fastest-growing tools for software visualization and runtime analysis. The company has raised $10 million in funding. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A deep conversation around community building and the importance of authenticity. * Elizabeth’s background story and how she learned entrepreneurship from her parents. * Getting her career started in public health research and epidemiology after receiving her PhD. * The background story of Conjur, which was bootstrapped initially and raised a minimal amount of capital and had a successful exit to CyberArk. * Preferred versus common stock and how that affects the payout post-acquisition. * All the details about AppMap and how they built traction and got developers to engage with their product. * How Elizabeth is supporting women entrepreneurs and the role that Andy Palmer is playing, as well. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 322: Ryan Shank - Founder & CEO, ShareWillow 44:42
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44:42Episode 322 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ryan Shank, CEO & Founder of ShareWillow. Finding the right idea for building a company that will scale is hard. It’s even harder when you get influenced by all the news about the trends in tech like AI, Web 3, crypto, or whatever is the latest trend. Yet, there are still some very large industries that are still operating with very old tech and are still ripe for disruption. Case in point is Ryan’s latest company, ShareWillow, which is a modern platform that enables businesses to design, launch, and manage profit-sharing plans. It makes me think of Gusto, which modernized payroll or Stripe, that modernized payments with tech that just worked. As Ryan was looking under the hood of this industry, it became very obvious that there was a massive opportunity. Instead of stock options, lots of companies issue profit-sharing plans and come to find out businesses that have a profit-sharing plan tend to be more profitable over the long term and get more output from employees. Yet, there really isn’t an easy way for creating a profit-sharing plan on a modern tech stack that does everything from getting started to ongoing management of the plan. Bingo! Here is a massive market opportunity to build a category defining company which is in desperate need of a modern tech stack and user experience. Investors have noticed too as the company has raised $6.5m from top-tier software investors in what ended up being an over-subscribed round. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The importance of learning sales as an entrepreneur. * Ryan’s background story growing up in Ocean City, Maryland and his early entrepreneurial roots. * A rant / business idea about how the experience of college tours is broken. * The story of mHelpDesk and its acquisition by HomeAdvisor. * The details and lessons learned about his next startup, PhoneWagon, which was a TechStars company that went on to get acquired by CallRail. * The state of the state with ShareWillow * Things to think about during the acquisition process, including how an escrow factors in. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 321: Gabi Steele - Co-Founder & CEO, Preql 50:52
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50:52Episode #321 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Gabi Steele, Co-Founder & CEO at Preql. Building a company is hard and there is no “one right way” to go about getting started, especially when you are creating a new category. But, when I talk to founders like Gabi, there was always an emphasis on generating revenue from the start. It’s a smart move, as you can obviously control your own destiny through any customer work that might seem more like a services play. But, in addition to being able to pay the bills by bootstrapping, you are also getting a tremendous amount of market research and exposure to the real world problems that your customers are trying to solve. It was this approach that allowed Gabi and her Co-Founder, Leah Weiss, the ability to spin off and launch Preql as a stand alone product company and raise capital to grow it. Preql is a no-code data transformation solution built for business users. Their technology’s core solutions help companies with data access, metric management, and data governance. The company has raised $7M from Bessemer Venture Partners. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A deep dive into the world of data visualization and the career path into this field. * Gabi background story including how her career got started at The Washington Post. * Her experience at WeWork, where she met her co-founder, and the creation of the company’s Data Cult program… plus, how the portrayal in the WeCrashed series may have been under-dramatized. * The founding of Raw Haus, a community connecting emerging talent across the art, design, technology, and entrepreneurial spaces. * The background story of Preql and how they built revenue from its consultancy and spun out a product. * The challenges of building a new category in tech and selling it to a business user. * Hiring the company’s first sales leader. * Lessons learned while building a product company. * And so much more.…
1 Episode 320: Mike Duda - Managing Partner, Bullish 56:24
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56:24This is episode #320 and today’s guest is Mike Duda, Managing Partner at Bullish. Peloton, Harry’s, Warby Parker, Casper, Birchbox… these are all iconic direct-to-consumer brands that have all disrupted various categories that were ripe for disruption. Take Warby Parker, the eyewear company that disrupted Luxottica’s business which pretty much owned the whole market from eyewear brands to storefronts. Or Casper, the company that made the process of purchasing a mattress much more enjoyable. A common thread for all of these companies is Bullish. One-part consumer investment firm, one-part strategic agency, Bullish blends capital, consulting and creation to design the most remarkable businesses in the world. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A discussion on the state of the state of the consumer market and a dive into Function of Beauty, a personalized shampoo DTC company. * Mike’s background story and initial career through the ranks in the agency world. * A sincere nod of appreciation to First Round Capital for starting office hours for startups and how they were helpful to both of us starting our own businesses. * The story of Bullish and how they set out to build a different firm through its project based work and investments. * What it’s like building a Super Bowl commercial for a brand. * The investment criteria for Bullish and what he means by a “chip on the shoulder” entrepreneur. * And so much more.…
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1 Episode 319: Peter Berg - Managing Partner, M12 (Microsoft's VC Fund) 51:33
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51:33Episode 319 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Peter Berg, Managing Partner at M12, Microsoft’s venture capital fund. I’ve had lots of investors as guests on the podcast, but I was excited to interview Peter because I’ve never interviewed an investor from a CVC or a Corporate Venture Capital fund. I’m not sure what the number is today, but according to a 2023 report about CVCs, it counts 1,100 active CVCs. Based on this scale, it is a very meaningful opportunity for entrepreneurs in terms of raising capital. Thus, Peter and I pretty much get right into the details towards the beginning of our conversation about the world of CVCs… from what they are, differentiators, strategic advantages of raising capital from a CVC, how to evaluate a CVC, and other topics. As previously stated, M12 is Microsoft’s VC fund. The firm invests in Seed, Series A, and Series B rounds of funding across different categories like Cloud Infrastructure, AI, Cybersecurity, Web 3 & Gaming, Vertical SaaS, and Developer Tools. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * How Peter landed a first name @peter handle on Twitter / X.com. * A walk through Peter’s career including his investment into Square and the creation of Visa Ventures which scaled to a global organization and went on to invest in Stripe, LoopPay (a Boston startup that was acquired by Samsung), and many other companies. * All the details on Peter’s area of focus at M12 and what he is targeting for investments. * M12 portfolio company examples like Inworld and Typeface. * His thoughts and opinions on the current state of the market for raising capital. * And so much more.…
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1 Episode 318: Henrik Werdelin - Entrepreneur, Author, BarkBox Co-Founder 53:03
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53:03Episode #318 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Henrik Werdelin, entrepreneur & author. Incubators are not a new thing but some are certainly more successful than others. Take prehype, a venture development firm in New York City where Henrik is a Founding Partner. It has holdings in major success stories like BarkBox and Ro, plus over a dozen other venture capital-backed startups. As a Co-Founder of BarkBox, he was part of the team that built one of the most successful subscription commerce companies with a focus on making dogs and their owners happy. The company went public in 2021 and has launched several businesses internally on top of the core business like BARK Food, BARK Bright, and more. Henrik’s latest project coming out of prehype is Audos, an AI copilot for entrepreneurs which is committed to making entrepreneurship accessible to all. With a focus on customer-centric strategies and innovative problem-solving, Audos empowers people to “just get going.” Conversation Outline: * A discussion around how greatness can’t be planned. * The details about Henrik’s background including his experience at MTV and how he ended up in the startup world. * How prehype operates. * The story of BarkBox in terms of the full lifecycle of the company including the day that BarkBox went public. * All the details on Audos and how it will help entrepreneurs. * Henrik’s 8+1 Framework which allows him be a bit more purposeful with what he spends his time on and live a more rich & meaningful life. * And so much more!…
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1 Episode 317: Deon Nicholas - CEO & Co-Founder, Forethought 43:36
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43:36Episode 317 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Deon Nicholas, CEO & Co-Founder of Forethought. I was at a couple of networking events the other week and let’s just say the word AI was brought up many, many times. Yes, we are in a major shift in terms of a tech platform, but doesn’t it feel like some companies are forcing AI into their business model or solution… versus an organic solution. Well, this is not the case for Forethought where AI has been core to their platform since the beginning. Forethought is a leading Generative AI company providing customer service solutions that transform the customer experience. The company has raised over $92M in VC funding from top investors. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A discussion around AI and how it should be organically applied to a business and not forced. * Deon’s background story including how he got involved in AI back in high school and getting his career started at Dropbox and Pure Storage. * The background story of Forethought and how they ended up pitching at and winning TechCrunch Disrupt. * How Forethought is disrupting the customer service industry and why AI as a solution makes sense. * The current state of the company and future outlook. * The importance of storytelling for raising capital, hiring, sales, etc. * And so much more.…
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The VentureFizz Podcast
1 Episode 316: Clement Cazalot - CEO & Co-Founder, Machinery Partner 51:15
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51:15Episode 316 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Clement Cazalot, CEO & Co-Founder of Machinery Partner. From scaling docTrackr to an exit… to running the Boston Techstars program… to his latest company… since coming to Boston from France in 2011, Clem has become an anchor of the Boston tech scene as an entrepreneur, investor, and community builder. Machinery Partner is on a mission to digitize access to high quality heavy equipment and machinery for small and medium sized businesses. Its unique, integrated model offers procurement, financing and service that are more affordable, more efficient and more accessible for customers, enabling them to start or scale their businesses and punch above their weight in a competitive landscape. The company just recently announced $11M in funding. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A discussion around the current state of the tech scene in Boston. * Building docTrackr and how Katie Rae, who was the Managing Director of Techstars Boston at the time, persuaded Clem to move the company to the U.S. * His experience running the Techstars Boston accelerator and the most common issue he would see with entrepreneurs. * His family roots in heavy equipment and all the details about Machinery Partner in terms of how they are digitizing the heavy equipment and machinery industry. * The latest on the company in terms of the new round of funding and plans ahead. * The importance of finding the right investors who are aligned with your business. * And so much more.…
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The VentureFizz Podcast
1 Episode 315: Jordan Fliegel - Managing Director, Techstars 54:40
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54:40Episode 315 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Jordan Fliegel, Managing Director of Techstars’ NYC and Sports accelerators. Athlete, entrepreneur, investor, mentor, are just some of the words to describe Jordan’s career. Originally a fixture of the Boston tech scene with his first company, CoachUp, and now a major part of the NYC tech scene as the leader of the Techstars program, it is shocking that Jordan hasn’t been a guest on The VentureFizz Podcast, since that is the two markets that we are focused on. Well, the wait is finally over and it was worth the wait! If you are not familiar with Techstars, it is the world’s most active pre-seed investor and one of the top accelerators in the world. Since 2006, Techstars has worked with over 9,000 founders from companies like DigitalOcean, Zipline, DataRobot, and more that have gone on to raise over $26B in funding. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The similarities between coaching athletes and mentoring entrepreneurs. * Jordan’s background story and his experience playing professional basketball in Israel. * The inspiration behind CoachUp, a venture backed marketplace that connects athletes with personal coaches, and how he landed Steph Curry as an investor. * Working closely with his childhood friend, Jeremy Levine, on Draft, a fantasy sports company, which was acquired by Paddy Power Betfair. * Launching the Techstars Sports Accelerator in Indianapolis and portfolio company examples, plus the details on the NYC program. * The inside look at how companies are selected for Techstars. * And so much more.…
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1 Episode 314: Cory Munchbach - CEO, BlueConic 53:21
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53:21Episode 314 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Cory Munchbach, CEO of BlueConic. There is no set rule on how one becomes a CEO of a tech company and when you look at Cory’s career path, it is one of the main reasons why I encourage people to work for high growth startups. She was employee #17 at BlueConic, eight years ago, and was announced as the company’s CEO earlier this year. My point isn’t that you should join an early stage company because it is the best shot to a CEO role, but it is a perfect example of the career progression that one can experience if they are dedicated and are a top performer. If you are interested in becoming a CEO some day, then you are in luck as Cory shares some great advice. BlueConic is a leading pure-play customer data platform that liberates companies’ first-party data from disparate systems and makes it accessible wherever and whenever it is required to transform customer relationships and drive business growth. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Cory’s background story and how she got her career started as a Research Associate at Forrester covering the Martech industry. * How she landed at BlueConic in the early days of the company and how they were able to gain traction initially. * All the details about BlueConic in terms of the company’s platform today and the value it provides to customers. * Lessons learned since becoming a CEO. * How Cory thinks about the culture at BlueConic. * The future of the Martech stack and how AI will play a role. * And so much more.…
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1 Episode 313: John Simon - Co-Founder, GreenLight Fund & Managing Director, Sigma Prime Ventures 1:06:28
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1:06:28Thanksgiving is not only a special holiday because of the time with your family, all the great food, and of course, football, but it is also a time when lots of people volunteer and give back. Thus, the timing of this interview with John couldn’t have been more perfect as we head into the Thanksgiving holiday. Most people know of John as an entrepreneur and investor, as he was the founder of a company that went public and was a co-founder of General Catalyst and has since been with Sigma Prime. But what many people might not know is the philanthropic side of his background. John is the co-founder of the GreenLight Fund, a national nonprofit network matching local communities’ unmet needs with evidence-based social innovations. The organization takes a unique approach which is similar to how a VC firm operates where each city that it supports raises it’s own fund and decides on what strategic investments will have the greatest impact. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice for founders on how to incorporate a social mission into their company or a culture of giving back. * John background story and how he started his career in venture capital in the earlier days of the industry. * Starting and scaling UroMed Corporation to an IPO. * The story of how General Catalyst got started and his experience as a Venture Capitalist at Sigma Prime Ventures. * What led John and his co-founder, Margaret Hall, down the path of starting the GreenLight Fund, plus how their model works and the impact it has had to various cities. * Advice for entrepreneurs on how to build a company of lasting value. * Why he has focused on investing into founders who are uniquely qualified and have world-leading domain experience to solve problems. * And so much more.…
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The VentureFizz Podcast
1 Episode 312: Ben McKean - Founder & CEO, Hungryroot 55:18
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55:18I don’t mind shopping for groceries but my problem is that I’m a creature of habit and I tend to purchase the same things over and over again. Plus, I am terrible about meal planning, so after doing a full shop there is still “nothing to eat.” I guess I’m not the only one. As Ben and I discuss, on average, consumers spend 2-3 hours a week grocery shopping. 75% of what we buy at the grocery store are the same items as the week before and 20-30% of what is purchased at the grocery store is thrown away and wasted. Terrible. So, what if you could have a service that cuts that shopping time down to 2-3 minutes a week, plans the meals for you, creates the list of ingredients that is only 10% of what you purchased the week before, and delivers it to your home! Sounds dreamy right… well, say hello to Hungryroot. Hungryroot is the only grocery and recipe delivery service designed to make healthy eating easy, personal, and sustainable. The company is profitable with revenues of $182M for the first six months of this year all while building a “relatively speaking” capital efficient business. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Ben’s background story and how entrepreneurship was part of his DNA from an early age including starting a company at 18 years old that was ultimately acquired. * The details about Savored which helped restaurants book empty tables using dynamic pricing which was acquired by Groupon. * The full story about Hungryroot which evolved from selling its own line of food products and how they pivoted to a grocery service and using AI at its core since 2019. * His lastest entrepreneurial side project called Every which is an app focused on enhancing human experiences and fostering deeper connections among individuals. * Advice on creating and scaling a consumer business. * And so much more. This week’s episode is sponsored by MarketMuse, a content intelligence platform that sets the standard for content quality. Their AI-powered software enables companies to create predictably better content at scale that increases traffic and engagement, improves productivity, and drives revenue. Get more out of your content with packages starting at $0/month, plus you can get 20% off the MarketMuse Standard plan by using our code "FIZZ20" at checkout. Go to marketmuse.com to get started!…
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1 Episode 311: Carl Gish - Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Aro Homes 47:49
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47:49Did you know that 23% of global emissions come from single family homes? Needless to say, this is a underserved segment and an industry that is ripe for innovation. Carl’s current company, Aro Homes, is a purpose-driven company on a mission to redefine residential construction. The company was founded in 2021 and has raised $21M in funding from world-class investors including Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Why Carl has build a career with a focus on working on products that touch the lives of millions of people in a positive way. * A deep dive into Carl’s professional history across lots of market leading companies including Unilever, Amazon, Dyson, eBay, Affirm, and other startups. * The environmental impact for single family housing and why the industry has lacked innovation. * All the details on Aro Homes and how they are disrupting this industry, including their emphasis on reducing waste and improving efficiency. * Advice for building a great consumer product. * And so much more. It’s hard to believe that we have over 300 episodes of The VentureFizz Podcast. We have built up an amazing catalog of inspirational stories around building companies and every episode includes lots of great advice to follow, as well. If you haven’t checked out our past interviews, go to venturefizz.com/podcast for the complete list. Oh, and one ask - please share The VentureFizz Podcast with your friends and colleagues in the industry. I appreciate your support…
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1 Episode 310: Wes Schroll - CEO & Founder, Fetch 37:07
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37:07This episode is the second live interview that we recorded live at Startup Boston Week at Suffolk University which was a ton of fun and maybe it is something that I should do more often. As you’ll hear, Wes is a native New Englander. He grew up in Acton and launched Fetch while he was in school at the University of Wisconsin. The company has office locations in Madison, Chicago, and other locations, but he is local to the Boston area again as he moved back a couple of years ago. Fetch is a consumer-engagement platform that rewards shoppers for buying the brands they love. The company has over 700 employees and has raised over a half a billion dollars in capital with its most recent round valuing the company at greater than $2.5B. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice for when you are in the pre-product market fit and figuring out the right problem to solve. * Wes’ background story and how entrepreneurship was always a focus. * How the idea of Fetch came to fruition while at the University of Wisconsin and how he met his co-founder, Tyler Kennedy. * The early days of the company and how they built the foundation of customers and consumers. * The current scale of the business which includes 6M DAUs (Daily Active Users) and $150B of aggregated spend. * Lessons learned from scaling the company and how he learned to lead. * Why they don’t use surveys for making decisions. * And so much more. Is your company hiring? If yes, then you might want to add a VentureFizz subscription. It is our employment branding and hiring solution that helps to keep your company top of mind for our targeted audience of professionals in the tech industry. A VentureFizz subscription includes an employment branding page, unlimited postings to our Job Board, access to our exclusive content series, and more. Send an email to info@venturefizz.com for more details.…
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The VentureFizz Podcast
1 Episode 309: Elyse Winer - Partner, Material Impact 59:51
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59:51This is a first! This episode is one of two interviews that we recorded live at Startup Boston Week at Suffolk University which was a ton of fun and maybe it is something that I should do more often. Material Impact is a deep tech VC firm that was founded by Carmichael Roberts and Adam Sharkaway. The firm is investing in companies that are powered by material science that solve enduring, large-scale, real-world problems. They are full lifecycle investors and work from the earliest stages of companies. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Elyse’s background story including how she made the transition to marketing and her role at high growth startups like MC10 and Lose It! * The importance of understanding your customer and the difference between B2B versus B2C marketing. * All the details about Material Impact in terms of the types of companies they invest in and how they support their portfolio companies. * A deep conversation about Gen Phoenix, a portfolio company where Elyse is their interim CMO, that rescues leather offcuts destined for landfill and regenerates them into a premium, durable leather material coveted by the world’s most iconic brands in the fashion industry. * Advice on getting media attention for your startup. * And so much more.…
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The VentureFizz Podcast
1 Episode 308: Steve Herrod - Partner, Juxtapose 44:11
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44:11Steve is an operator turned venture capitalist. After a very successful run at General Catalyst, he joined Juxtapose earlier this year as a Partner to focus on building innovative B2B companies. Juxtapose is an investment firm that partners with experienced entrepreneurs to build category-defining technology companies. The firm has developed over twenty companies over the last 25 years including Tend, Great Jones, Earned, and others. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * How to make big bets and recognize shifts in the tech industry as an investor. * Steve’s background from academia to how he got his career started in the tech industry. * The story of VMware and how he learned how to scale an engineering organization to over 3,000 people. * His experience as an investor at General Catalyst and his thesis around making investments in cybersecurity, along with portfolio companies that have scaled like Illumio and Datto. * What he is up to now at Juxtapose and how the firm is unique in terms of investing and company creation. * And so much more. If you are listening to this podcast, then it is highly likely that you are interested in the founder journey and lessons learned around building companies. Please make sure you don’t miss any episodes by subscribing to The VentureFizz Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or Soundcloud. Oh, don’t forget to leave us a review. It will really help us out!…
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1 Episode 307: Andrew Brown - CEO & Co-Founder, Check 46:26
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46:26It’s nice to get paid, but what happens behind the scenes for each payroll cycle is actually very complex. There’s a plethora of different tax calculations, remittance, filling, plus the movement of money between companies and employees. Yet, it would probably make sense for lots of companies to offer payroll as an add on service to their existing business. That’s where Check comes in. Check is a payroll-as-a-service API that allows companies like Homebase, Bambee, & 7Shifts, an easy way to integrate a payroll product which creates new sources of revenue and the ability to better service the needs of their customers. The company is backed by Stripe, Index Ventures, Bedrock, and Thrive Capital. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The difference between building and scaling a B2B versus a B2C business. * Andrew’s background story, the difficulty of getting Duke / UNC basketball tickets, and starting his career at Google. * The inspiration behind Oyster, which was like a Netflix for books and how they scaled the company to an exit to Google. * All the details about Check and why this market was so interesting for building another company. * Advice for founders on building a platform of platforms company. * And so much more. This week’s episode is sponsored by MarketMuse, a content intelligence platform that sets the standard for content quality. Their AI-powered software enables companies to create predictably better content at scale that increases traffic and engagement, improves productivity, and drives revenue. Get more out of your content with packages starting at $0/month, plus you can get 20% off the MarketMuse Standard plan by using our code "FIZZ20" at checkout. Go to marketmuse.com to get started!…
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The VentureFizz Podcast
1 Episode 306: Emily Glass - CEO, Syncro 46:42
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46:42Syncro is an all-in-one professional services automation (PSA) and remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform for managed service providers (MSPs). The company is backed by Mainsail Partners, a growth equity firm. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * How having a broad range of experience across different functional areas helped position Emily into a CEO role. * Emily’s background story and the details on her career path across Product Management, Customer Experience, and more. * What is an MSP (Managed Service Provider)? * All the details on Syncro and how they are helping their customers run a profitable business. * Advice on building a diverse workforce. * Some of the challenges she has tackled as the company’s CEO. * And so much more. Is your company hiring? If yes, then you might want to add a VentureFizz subscription. It is our employment branding and hiring solution that helps to keep your company top of mind for our targeted audience of professionals in the tech industry. A VentureFizz subscription includes an employment branding page, unlimited postings to our Job Board, access to our exclusive content series, and more. Send an email to info@venturefizz.com for more details.…
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The VentureFizz Podcast
1 Episode 305: Kelly Fryer - Executive Director, FinTech Sandbox 43:59
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43:59Fintech Sandbox is a nonprofit that helps fintech startups build great products. Founded in 2014, Fintech Sandbox provides critical data access and development resources to FinTech entrepreneurs around the world. It’s a 6-month program where startups can get apply anytime, as the application process is rolling and there are no deadlines to get involved and another big part of what makes this program unique is that they don’t take equity or fees for participation. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * An overview of Boston Fintech Week which is powered by FinTech Sandbox and this year’s event is happening from October 10th - 13th. * Kelly’s background story and how she got her career started at Bloomberg and then later how she got involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem while getting her MBA at Indiana University. * Her experience at Techstars and being part of the team running the Barclays Fintech Accelerator. * All the details on FinTech Sandbox and what makes their program unique, types of companies they are targeting, and what FinTech startups can expect by participating. * Fundraising for FinTech startups and a conversation around different trends in the industry. * And so much more Did you know that you can set up a user profile on VentureFizz? It is a feature that gives you access to personalized content, job seeker tools, and administrative features to manage your email subscriptions. To create a user profile and maximize your experience on VentureFizz, go to venturefizz.com/register to get started.…
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