Inspired with Alexa von Tobel

Dan Lorenc on Building Chainguard into a $3.5B Open Source Security Company

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0000

Chainguard founder and CEO Dan Lorenc is building the security layer the entire software industry should run on. After nearly a decade at Google working on open source infrastructure, Dan co-founded Chainguard in 2021 to solve a problem hiding in plain sight. 90 to 95 percent of the code powering the world's software is open source, free, and largely unsecured. Now leading a $3.5B+ company with more than 600 customers, Dan shares his unfiltered take on where software security, AI, and the future of engineering are all headed.

What You'll Learn:

How Chainguard is securing the open source software the world runs on
Why the AI coding boom is making software security harder, not easier
What the future of software engineering actually looks like
Why CISOs can't afford to say no to AI, even when it scares them
Whether we've already hit AGI in the software space
How to think about your own digital security right now

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:30 Growing Up a Builder
04:22 The Origin of Chainguard
08:20 How Chainguard Works and Who It's For
13:20 How Chainguard Cleans and Secures the Code
15:20 How Dan Decides Where to Expand
17:15 The Future of Software and Software Engineers
25:30 Where Chainguard Goes From Here
26:48 Are We Already at AGI?
28:30 The Security Crisis No One Talks About
31:27 Why CISOs Can't Afford to Say No
33:25 Biggest Trade-Offs and What's Next for Chainguard
38:00 What Disappears in an AI World
39:22 What Shocked Dan Most and What Scares Him
42:30 When Security Becomes Part of Engineering
44:39 Quickfire
Follow Dan and Chainguard:

Website: https://www.chainguard.dev/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chainguard-dev/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@chainguard
X: https://x.com/chainguard_dev
Dan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc/
Dan’s X: https://x.com/lorenc_dan

Follow Inspired:

Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners
X: https://x.com/InspiredCap
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/
Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Teamshares CEO Michael Brown on Why Going Public Is Just the First Inning

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 11:00:00 -0000

Teamshares CEO Michael Brown is on a mission to address one of the biggest problems in the American economy. Millions of small businesses are owned by Boomers and Gen X approaching retirement, and most will never find a buyer. Teamshares buys these businesses from retiring owners. With more than 90 companies acquired across 30 states, over 500 million in revenue, and a Nasdaq listing on the horizon, Michael is proving that the small business economy deserves a better solution.

What You'll Learn:

How Teamshares actually works and why the model gets stronger as it scales
What nearly 100 acquisitions have taught Michael about small businesses that most people don't see
Why going public changes everything for Teamshares and why Michael says it's still the first inning
How he built through COVID and the 2022-2023 rate shock without losing conviction
The long-term mindset behind building a company with a 200-year plan

Chapters:

01:30 Michael's Childhood

04:04 What Is Teamshares

07:44 Why Going Public Is Just the Beginning

15:30 Lessons from 90 Acquisitions

18:50 The Future of Teamshares

28:19 The 200-Year Mindset

32:25 Building Culture at Scale

36:00 Leading Through Market Shocks

37:55 Quickfire

Follow Teamshares:

Follow Inspired:

Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners
X: https://x.com/InspiredCap
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/
Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Important Disclosures and Disclaimers

This podcast episode features a discussion with Michael Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of Teamshares, Inc. (“Teamshares”), and Alexa von Tobel, Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital. Ms. von Tobel and Inspired Capital are existing investors in Teamshares and may have a direct financial interest in the outcome of the proposed business combination described below.

Proposed Business Combination. Teamshares has entered into a definitive agreement for a business combination with Live Oak Crest Acquisition Corp. (“Live Oak”), a special purpose acquisition company. In connection with the proposed transaction, a registration statement on Form S-4 (the “Registration Statement”) has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). This podcast does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. For important information about the proposed transaction, including where to find the Registration Statement and other legal disclaimers, please refer to the press release available at https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260403515446/en/Teamshares-and-Live-Oak-V-File-S-4.

Clarifications. References to Operating EBITDA throughout refer to Pro Forma Operating EBITDA, which includes pre-acquisition results of acquired businesses as if they had been owned for the full year. References to “Corporate EBITDA” throughout the episode refers to 2025 Pro Forma Adjusted EBITDA. Investors should review the full set of assumptions and risk factors accompanying these metrics in the Registration Statement, including a full reconciliation of any non-GAAP measures.

Replay: How Ben Lamm (Colossal Biosciences) is Bringing Back Extinct Species

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0000

What happens when humanity faces the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history? Serial entrepreneur Ben Lamm believes we need a backup plan. With a track record of building and exiting companies across AI, gaming, and conversational intelligence, Ben took on his most audacious venture in 2021: co-founding Colossal Biosciences with Harvard geneticist Dr. George Church to bring extinct species back to life. The company has already successfully de-extincted the dire wolf and aims to return woolly mammoths to the Arctic by 2028. In this episode, Ben shares how his self-described "unemployable" streak became his entrepreneurial superpower, why asking naive questions helps him tackle impossible challenges across industries, and how Colossal's breakthrough technologies represent humanity's essential insurance policy for planetary survival.

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Taylor Francis on How Watershed Is Solving the Climate Crisis

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 11:00:00 -0000

Watershed CEO Taylor Francis is building the infrastructure for companies to decarbonize at scale. After building Stripe's climate program, he saw how technology could move the needle faster than policy alone and set out on his journey as a founder. With a 500 million ton CO2 reduction goal by 2030 and customers like FedEx, Walmart, Airbnb, and Spotify, Taylor is proving that climate action can be both urgent and profitable.

What You'll Learn:

Taylor's journey from An Inconvenient Truth to founding Watershed
What he learned at Stripe about scaling impact and building mission-driven companies
How supply chain collaboration is the real lever for decarbonization (and why it matters more than you think)
What the next decade of climate actually looks like and why the world is winning faster than predicted
The frameworks and principles that attract the best people to solve the hardest problems

Chapters:

1:57 Growing Up and An Inconvenient Truth

5:35 From Princeton to Policy

7:40 What Stripe Taught Him About Scale

9:54 The Origin of Watershed's 500 Megaton Mission

13:09 Breaking Down Scope One, Two, and Three Emissions

16:00 How Watershed Works With Fortune 500 Companies

18:50 The Story Behind the Name Watershed

21:00 Why Network Effects Matter in Decarbonization

23:15 What the Best Investors Taught Him

28:15 The Truth About Climate Today

33:10 Where the World Is Actually Headed

36:20 Product Footprints and AI Done Right

39:42 Why Domain-Specific AI Beats Generic Models

41:00 Quick Fire

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Julia and Thomas Berolzheimer on Why the Future of Shopping Will Run Through Creators

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 05:00:00 -0000

Julia Berolzheimer and Thomas Berolzheimer have spent 15 years turning a fashion blog into one of the most powerful e-commerce brands in the creator economy. What started with a camera and an idea in 2011 has grown into a multi-platform empire spanning a blog, Instagram, Substack, ShopMy, Amazon, and their newest venture, Coreli.

What You'll Learn:

How Julia and Thomas built one of the most trusted brands in the creator economy
Why curation beats creation when it comes to driving real commerce
How they think about managing content, platforms, and technology as a team
Where AI fits in and where it doesn't for creators who've built on authenticity
What the next decade of the creator economy actually looks like

Chapters:

01:52 Intro
02:35 The Beginning of Julia and Thomas's Journey
04:45 Milestones and Evolution of Gal Meets Glam
06:41 Curation and How Julia Starts Every Morning
11:30 Managing Content Across Different Platforms
15:34 ShopMy
20:25 Tools and Technology
25:20 How Julia and Thomas Work Together
29:00 The Future of the Creator Economy
31:05 Using AI for Influencer Content
35:45 Quickfire Round

Follow Julia and Thomas Berolzheimer:

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Solace Founder Jeremy Gurewitz Raises $130M to Transform Healthcare Advocacy

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 12:00:00 -0000

Solace founder and CEO Jeremy Gurewitz is building a marketplace that connects patients with healthcare advocates—covered by insurance. After losing his mother to pancreatic cancer and witnessing firsthand how difficult it was to navigate the US healthcare system, Jeremy founded Solace to help every American manage the overwhelming complexity of healthcare, from finding the right doctors to dealing with insurance. Now, after raising $130 million in a Series C led by IVP, Solace is expanding into commercial insurance and scaling nationally. With a patient NPS of 90 and data showing improved outcomes and lower costs, Jeremy shares how he is building for a future where healthcare advocacy becomes as standard as having a primary care physician.

What You'll Learn:

Jeremy's personal journey from losing his mother to building Solace
How healthcare advocacy works and why patients achieve a 90+ NPS
Why the US healthcare system is so broken and how advocates fix it
Where Jeremy sees healthcare heading in the next decade

Chapters:
02:00 Growing Up with a Doctor Mother
06:45 From Quantitative Finance to Healthcare
09:00 What Solace Does for Patients
11:38 Why Inspired Invested in Solace
12:45 Real Stories of Solace Saving Lives
17:35 Why the US Healthcare System Is So Broken
20:35 Building a Marketplace of Healthcare Advocates
22:45 Measuring What Matters: Outcomes and Costs
28:50 Announcing Solace's $130M Series C
30:31 Building Culture at Scale
33:00 Where Solace Is Headed
36:30 When AI Helps and When Humans Are Essential
40:20 Jeremy's Predictions for Healthcare in 2035

Follow Solace and Jeremy:‍ • Solace Website • Solace LinkedIn • Jeremy Gurewitz LinkedIn Follow Inspired:‍ • Website • LinkedIn • X • Instagram • Substack

Kevin Ryan, the Godfather of NYC Tech, on AI in the Decade Ahead

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0000

Kevin Ryan is known as the godfather of New York City tech. Over three decades, he's founded or backed companies worth more than $40 billion combined, including DoubleClick (acquired by Google), MongoDB (now valued at $30 billion), Business Insider (sold for $450 million), and Gilt Group. As founder of AlleyCorp, Kevin has spent his career building category-defining companies and correctly predicting major technology shifts before they happened. From betting on the internet in 1996 to understanding AI's trajectory today, Kevin shares his framework for seeing what's next and why speed executed properly changes everything.

What You'll Learn:

How Kevin spotted the internet would change everything in 1996 and the patterns he uses to see what's next
The two categories Kevin is betting on: vertical AI applications and deep science breakthroughs
Why winning the first four years matters more than anything else
How to compete for top 0.1% talent in today's market
Kevin's 2036 predictions for work, NYC vs SF, and where technology is headed

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
02:10 Kevin's Childhood
05:00 Reflecting on His Entrepreneurship Journey
08:30 Speed Matters
11:15 The Feeling When You Know a Company Is the One
14:58 Why You Need Top 0.1% Talent
17:00 Two Categories Kevin Is Betting On
20:00 Drawing the Defensibility Line in Vertical AI
22:22 Thinking About the Product
23:10 Acceleration of Science and When Kevin's Antenna Goes Up
25:08 What the World Looks Like in 2036
27:00 Job Loss and AI Displacement
32:00 San Francisco vs New York City
38:18 What Kevin Hopes for NYC Tech
40:50 Interesting Topics Kevin Is Exploring
42:36 Quickfire Round

Follow AlleyCorp and Kevin:

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How Flock Safety Became a $7.5B Crime-Fighting Company with Founder Garrett Langley

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 12:00:00 -0000

Flock Safety founder and CEO Garrett Langley is building the technology infrastructure to eliminate crime in America. A repeat entrepreneur who previously built and sold two companies for over $200 million each, Garrett now leads a $7.5 billion company serving more than 6,000 communities, 5,000 law enforcement agencies, and 1,000 businesses while helping achieve nearly a million arrests annually. He shares his conviction that safety drives economic prosperity, the surprising fact that drones arrive on scene 94% of the time before officers, and how AI will free police officers from paperwork to focus on community relationships.

What You'll Learn:

Why it's getting easier to commit serious crimes in America and what's driving that trend
How technology creates precision in law enforcement that's never existed before
Why drones are transforming emergency response and saving cities money
How AI will reshape policing by eliminating paperwork and doubling community presence
Why safety is the foundation for economic prosperity and job growth

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:08 Why Team Is the Only Thing That Matters

04:40 Growing Up in Atlanta: Learning Sales from His Father

06:45 What Is Flock Safety and How Does It Work?

11:20 The Crime Crisis No One Talks About

14:33 Serving Neighborhoods, Businesses, and Law Enforcement

17:00 Real Cases: From U-Hauls to Black SUVs

19:55 The Future of Policing in 10 Years

23:30 Building Technology While People's Lives Are at Stake

25:38 How Drones Are Changing Emergency Response

28:09 Scaling to $300M ARR at 70% Growth

29:38 Why Safety Drives Economic Prosperity

32:30 The "Do the Work" Culture at Flock

33:48 Quickfire Round

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2026 Predictions: Physical AI, Quantum Computing & the Future of Work

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:08:00 -0000

Alexa is sharing her bold predictions for 2026, from physical AI transforming our crumbling infrastructure to quantum computing breakthroughs that will reshape innovation. With her signature focus on walking into the office "in 2035," she explain why AI won't destroy jobs but will instead free us from mundane work, how autonomous vehicles will give suburban parents their time back, and why smart machines are finally taking us out of the Roman times.

Chapters:

00:09 Prediction #1- Physical AI

02:06 Prediction #2- Quantum

03:00 Prediction #3 - Jobs

05:04 Prediction #4 - Autonomous cars

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Mikey Shulman on Building Suno into a $2.5B AI Music Platform

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0000

Suno founder and CEO Mikey Shulman is building the future of music creation. A Harvard PhD physicist who led machine learning at Kensho before it was acquired by S&P Global, Mikey had a realization in 2022 that audio was a backwater in machine learning—despite being everywhere in human life. He turned that realization into $2.5B company Suno, which grew from zero to over 100 million users. Mikey shares how Suno scales to users generating seven million tracks a day, why music's format will change as dramatically in this era as it did in the shift from vinyl to streaming, and how AI is democratizing creativity for billions of people who never thought they could make music.

What You'll Learn:

How growing up in a loving, stable environment with parents who encouraged following your passions shaped Mikey's leadership style
Why audio was overlooked in machine learning and how Suno made it a first-class citizen
How Suno went from zero users to 100 million and zero revenue to $200 million in under three years
Why a quarter of songs on Suno are remixes of other songs on the platform
The difference between creation and consumption in music and why that boundary is disappearing
How Suno is growing the entire pie of music rather than just splitting existing revenue
Why the business model for music will change when the format becomes interactive
What Mikey learned about speed versus craft when building for billions of users

Chapters:
01:52 Growing Up: Following What You Love
03:45 From Physics to a PhD at Harvard
05:30 Kensho and the Path to Machine Learning
09:30 Teaching Machine Learning at MIT Sloan
12:10 The Birth of Suno
15:30 Why Audio When Everyone Chose Text
16:25 Zero to 100 Million Users in Three Years
18:55 Xania Monet: The First AI Billboard Artist
21:55 Stories That Keep the Team Going
24:15 Music Was Invented to Be Social
27:27 The Business Model for Interactive Music
29:44 Reshaping the Music Industry
32:45 New Boundaries of Music Creation
35:00 The Future: Interactive Albums and Fan Fiction
37:35 Growing the Pie for All Creators
40:00 Will There Be Agentic AI Stars?
41:15 Building Teams That Move Fast
43:30 Speed and Craft: The Cultural Balance
45:30 What's Coming Next at Suno
46:30 Guardrails in a Lower Stakes Domain
47:47 Managing Chaos as a First-Time CEO at Scale
49:55 Quickfire Round

Follow Suno and Mikey:

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Dylan Taylor on Building Voyager Technologies and the Future of Space Innovation

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 12:00:00 -0000

Dylan Taylor, founder and CEO of Voyager Technologies, is building the infrastructure that will define humanity's future in space. Through defense, space solutions, and Starlab, Voyager is working on some of the most ambitious aerospace projects of our generation. In this conversation, Dylan takes us from watching Star Trek as a kid in Idaho to becoming a publicly traded space company CEO. He shares what it's actually like to reach space aboard Blue Origin, why we're living through the biggest space boom in human history, and how space will transform our global economy.

What You'll Learn:

Why space isn't an industry but humanity's eighth continent
His experience going to outer space
How perfect real-time information about Earth will create trillions in economic value
Projects that Voyager is working on
How ambition shifted from personal glory to reflected glory through leadership
Predictions for the space industry
The frontier innovations that will enable humans to live and work in space

Chapters:
01:52 From Star Trek Dreams to Space Reality
04:37 What is Voyager Technologies?
07:02 Winning the Contract to Build Starlab
09:40 Going to Space on Blue Origin
16:36 The Overview Effect and What Astronauts Feel
20:10 How Space Shifted Dylan's Perspective on Risk and Ambition
22:40 The Henry Crown Fellowship and Leadership Transformation
23:40 Inside Voyager Technologies' Projects
26:50 The Purpose of Starlab as a Microgravity Laboratory
31:00 Space Predictions
35:23 Space as the Eighth Continent
36:55 Perfect Real-Time Information About Earth
38:50 What Keeps Dylan Up at Night About Space's Future
41:07 Frontier Innovations in Quantum Computing and Beyond
45:15 Quick Fire Round
47:52 Outro

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Axion Founder Daniel First on Solving the $4 Trillion Manufacturing Problem with AI

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 13:52:00 -0000

Axion founder Daniel First is building the command center for American manufacturing that detects product failures before they reach customers. His AI-powered observability platform links IoT data, technician reports, and customer feedback across aerospace, medical devices, and consumer products to identify emerging issues manufacturers don't even know exist. Born from watching enterprise AI pilots fail at McKinsey, Axion is architecting customer-centric manufacturing where products iterate in real time based on what's breaking in the field.

What You'll Learn:

The trillion-dollar quality crisis plaguing American manufacturing and how AI is solving it
Why most enterprise AI fails and what makes the rare successes different
The future of American manufacturing competing on speed of customer learning
How real-time field data is transforming product development cycles
Unconventional founder habits that enable exceptional speed and deep thinking

Chapters:

2:00 From Orthodox Debates to Independent Thinking
3:00 Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Human Flourishing
6:00 The Pivot from Academia to Industry
7:20 Predicting AI as the Next Cultural Mania
8:10 What Axion Actually Does for Manufacturers
10:35 The Invisible Quality Crisis Costing Trillions
13:30 Surprising Multi-Department Platform Adoption
16:02 Surgery Equipment Failure With Two Root Causes
16:47 Why Axion's Organization Looks Different
18:00 Building an Ecosystem Across Product Lifecycle
20:28 How Quality Data Drives Product Innovation
21:58 American Manufacturing Winning on Empathy
26:00 How Axion Succeeded Where 95% Fail
28:50 Why Robotics Will Create More Quality Issues
31:10 What Enterprise Leaders Think About AI
32:50 Data Centers and Manufacturing Tailwind
34:09 The Experimental Mindset Driving Speed
36:30 Why 2010s Advice No Longer Applies
38:40 The Vertical AI Revolution
39:55 Quick-fire Questions

Follow Axion and Daniel:

• ⁠Axion Website⁠
⁠• ⁠Axion LI ⁠
⁠• ⁠Daniel LI

Follow Inspired:
• ⁠Website⁠
• ⁠Instagram⁠
• ⁠LinkedIn⁠
• ⁠X⁠
• ⁠Substack

Nate Berkus on What It Takes to Become the Best at Your Craft

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 12:00:00 -0000

Interior designer Nate Berkus is one of the most recognizable names in design. He started his firm at 24 with nothing but authenticity and hustle, building an empire spanning TV, books, product lines, and high-end interiors that's landed him on the AD100 list for a decade. His journey includes 12 years as Oprah's design expert, surviving the 2004 tsunami, and building a life with Jeremiah Brent as one of TV's first openly gay families. With his new book Foundations releasing November 18th, Nate reflects on what it takes to stay creatively obsessed for 30 years and build a household name in design.

What You'll Learn: • How he started his firm at 24 and convinced clients to take a chance on him • Working with Oprah and his strategic approach to media • How surviving the 2004 tsunami fundamentally changed him and his reflections on that experience • Why he believes design is part magic, part alchemy, and part sociology • How he and Jeremiah Brent collaborate as both partners and business collaborators • The future of design and how AI will reshape the industry

Chapters: 02:30 Intro 03:15 The Origin of His Design Obsession 06:10 Why Design Is Sociology 08:27 Starting a Firm at 24 With Nothing But Authenticity 14:28 How Surviving the 2004 Tsunami Changed Everything 19:50 The Strategy Behind Using TV as a Platform 23:00 A Funny Oprah Story 24:46 Why TV Was Always a Means to an End 28:40 How He Stays Creatively Obsessed After 30 Years 32:38 Never Stop Learning and Do What Feels Effortless 34:07 Partnership With Jeremiah as Parents and Business Partners 39:30 Why He Wrote Foundations and What It Means 42:15 How AI Will Impact the Future of Design 46:44 His Approach to Curation in the Creator Economy 50:05 Reflecting on His Biggest Life Moments 52:02 Quick-fire Round

Follow Nate Berkus:

• Nate's Website

• Nate's Instagram

Follow Inspired and Alexa:

• Website

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• X

• Substack

May Habib on Building Writer into a $2B+ Enterprise AI Platform

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Writer CEO May Habib is building the future of enterprise AI. Born in Lebanon as the oldest of eight kids, May grew up navigating chaos, multiple languages, and cultures, skills that shaped her into a founder willing to challenge assumptions. After pivoting from Qordoba, she built Writer's own foundational models and spent a decade solving real AI problems for Fortune 500 companies. Now leading a $2B+ company, May shares her bold vision for where AI is headed, from self-evolving LLMs that proactively guide us to why work in 2030 will be unrecognizable.

What You'll Learn:

How growing up as the oldest of eight in a Lebanese family shaped May's leadership style
Why Writer focuses on highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services
The critical difference between generative AI and agentic AI
How self-evolving AI will proactively prompt you instead of waiting for commands
Why execution is going from scarce and expensive to abundant and on-demand
What the average knowledge worker's job will look like in 2030
Why narrow job specs are dead and career lattices are the future
The two disruptive forces that will make work unrecognizable in 30 years
Why May believes there's no AI bubble

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:50 Growing Up as the Oldest of Eight in an Immigrant Family
05:30 Why Language Shapes Who We Become
09:05 The Decision to Leave Finance and Start Qordoba
12:05 The Risky Pivot from Qordoba to Writer
17:45 What Problem Writer Actually Solves for Enterprise
21:05 Building Trust at Scale in Regulated Industries
24:30 How Writer Stays Maniacally Focused
28:10 Writer's Vision for Self-Evolving AI
35:00 Why Narrow Job Specs Are Dead
37:30 What Work Looks Like in 2030 and the Two Unknowns Shaping the Future
39:26 What Most People Misunderstand About AI
41:44 The Book That Changed May's Life
43:06 Is There an AI Bubble?
43:15 May's One-Word Mantra: Forward
43:49 How May Manages Stress
44:00 Beyond AI: What Excites May the Most

Follow Writer and May:

• Writer Website

• Writer LinkedIn

• May's LinkedIn

Follow Inspired:

• Website

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

• X

• Substack

Rebuilding Healthcare from Scratch with Founder Alan Tisch of Atria Health Institute

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Atria Health Institute founder Alan Tisch is rebuilding America's healthcare system from the ground up. After two near-death experiences in his mid-20s revealed how broken preventive care truly is, Alan made it his life's mission to tackle a system designed to profit from sick people rather than keep them healthy. With a multidisciplinary team of 15 medical specialties and cutting-edge diagnostics, Atria is pioneering the preventive healthcare movement to extend not only lifespan but healthspan.

What You'll Learn:

Why the healthcare system profits from keeping you sick instead of healthy
How a $150 test can prevent heart attacks 20 years before they happen
The difference between healthspan and lifespan and why it matters
Why team-based care across specialties beats the traditional siloed approach
How to think about preventive diagnostics like whole body MRIs and genetic testing
Why now is the most exciting time for healthcare

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:40 Early Influences and Family Background
06:38 Lessons from Building Spring
10:25 The Birth of Atria Health Institute
16:07 Why Healthcare Incentives Favor Sick Care
20:20 What It's Like to Be an Atria Patient
23:50 The Four Step Framework for Disease Prevention
25:49 Health Fads: Overhyped vs Underhyped
28:50 Genomics and Full Body MRI Scans for Everyone
34:50 The Two Sides of Atria: Clinical Care and Research
39:07 The Future of Healthcare
43:58 Healthspan vs Lifespan
47:03 One Thing You Should Do Tomorrow
49:05 AI in Preventive Care
52:00 Book That Changed Alan's Life
52:46 Health Habit Alan Has Adopted

Follow Atria:

Atria Website: https://www.atria.org/
Atria LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/atria-institute/

Follow Inspired and Alexa:

Website: ⁠⁠https://www.inspiredcapital.com/
Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/
LinkedIn: ⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners/
X: https://x.com/inspiredcap

How ShopMy is Revolutionizing Commerce Through Authentic Recommendations with Harry Rein and Tiffany Lopinsky

Wed, 24 Sep 2025 11:00:00 -0000

ShopMy co-founders Harry Rein and Tiffany Lopinsky are building the most sophisticated three-sided commerce platform that revolutionizes how creators monetize authentic recommendations, how brands scale through trusted advocates, and how consumers discover products through curated networks they actually trust. Powered by intricate product graph technology and advanced data infrastructure that maps millions of products across retailers, they're architecting the future of commerce driven by intentional curation rather than algorithmic impulse buying.

What You'll Learn:

Why the "curator economy" matters more than the "creator economy"
How their Circles feature creates personalized shopping through trusted networks
The product philosophy of minimizing "calories" in user experience design
How they thought through scaling ShopMy’s audience
Why authentic recommendations outperform traditional performance marketing
How complementary co-founder skills drive success
The "sweep the floors" mentality that keeps leadership embedded in daily work

Chapters:
01:53 Intro
03:30 From Boston Foodies to Engineering Complementary Backgrounds
10:08 The ShopMy Genesis Solving Creator Monetization
14:18 Breaking Down ShopMy Three Core Constituencies
18:39 Introducing Circles Personalized Shopping Through Trust
25:27 The Three Phases of Building ShopMy
26:35 Product Philosophy Minimizing Calories in User Experience
32:38 Cutting Through the Noise Where Shopping Journeys Begin
34:32 Opportunities Scaling Creator Performance Marketing
36:25 The Role of AI in Taste and Personalization
37:49 From Creator Economy to Curator Economy
44:10 Funding Strategy Building for the Long Term
46:10 Building the Team The Sweep the Floors Leadership Philosophy
52:20 Personal Discoveries What the Founders Buy Through Circles

Follow ShopMy: • ShopMy Website: https://shopmy.us/home • ShopMy Linkedin: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/shopmy-/ • ShopMy Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/shopmy/ Follow Inspired and Alexa: • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/ • Linkedin: ⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners/ • X: https://x.com/inspiredcap • Website: ⁠⁠https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

The Race to Build the First Scaled Quantum Computer with Jeff Thompson from Logiqal

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 15:18:00 -0000

World quantum expert and professor Jeff Thompson, founder of Logiqal, shares his journey from academia (at Yale, Harvard, MIT, and Princeton) to now building the first scaled quantum computer. He explains why the world needs this breakthrough, how Logiqal’s neutral atom technology makes it possible, and what it could unlock for medicine, materials, and the future of innovation.

What You’ll Learn:

What is quantum?
Why the world needs a scaled quantum computer
Jeff’s journey through Yale, Harvard, MIT, and now running a lab at Princeton
Why failure drives scientific discovery
How Logiqal is using neutral atom technology and ytterbium
What quantum could unlock for medicine and materials
How Jeff balances academia and entrepreneurship
How he sees the global race for quantum computing

Chapters:
01:58 Intro
08:04 Quantum 101: Bits, Qubits, and Schrödinger’s Cat
09:40 The State of Quantum Today: Early Days, Big Potential
13:19 What Really Counts as a Quantum Computer?
14:35 How Many Qubits Does It Take to Change the World?
19:11 The Quantum Hardware Wars
24:00 Why Yttrium is the Chosen Atom
26:33 Rydberg Gates: Turning Interactions On and Off
28:39 Founding Logiqal: The Challenge of a Lifetime
31:01 Unlocking Quantum: From Pharma to Materials to Mars
37:05 Quantum + AI: Partners, Not Competitors
40:28 What Gets Jeff Out of Bed Every Morning
41:07 Books That Shaped a Quantum Founder
42:17 The Time for Quantum is Now

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Building a Global Parenting Tool with Dr. Becky from Good Inside

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 11:00:00 -0000

Dr. Becky Kennedy from Good Inside shares her journey from private practice psychologist to building the #1 consumer parenting tool on the planet. She reveals how blending emotional connection with practical action helps parents raise resilient kids and become sturdier themselves.

What You’ll Learn:

• How Dr. Becky built Good Inside into a global parenting movement

• The secret to becoming a “sturdy parent” and raising resilient kids

• Why parenting feels hard even for good parents and how to navigate it with confidence

• How to break cycles of shame and foster deep connection at home

• The lessons Dr. Becky learned while scaling a mission-driven brand

• Good Inside’s future

Chapters:

0:00 Intro

1:58 Becky’s Origin Story

5:34 Parenting Genres of Our Generation

9:38 Early Career and Education

14:11 Internal Family Systems (IFS) Explained

17:19 Private Practice to Parenting Work

21:15 Instagram and the First Viral Posts

27:39 Founding Good Inside

30:34 Parenting as the Last Frontier

39:15 The Good Inside App and Vision

52:30 Broader Societal Impact of Parenting

56:04 Two Mantras Dr.Becky Uses

59:30 One Habit Dr. Becky Does

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• Instagram: https://bit.ly/3H9UWIa

• Website: https://www.goodinside.com/

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• Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

How to Turn Failure into Moonshots with Astro Teller of X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 07:00:00 -0000

What if the secret to solving impossible problems isn't avoiding failure, but learning to leverage it? Serial entrepreneur and inventor Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at X (Alphabet's Moonshot Factory), discovered this counterintuitive truth growing up in a family where intelligence was everything. The grandson of Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, and a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Astro learned that being smart wasn't enough. He had to develop his creativity into his philosophy of "being yourself on purpose." Today, Astro is responsible for steering X’s projects—like Waymo, Dandelion, and Verily—through the bumps and scrapes they meet along the road to reality. In this episode, Astro shares how childhood stories of the Manhattan Project's creative community inspired X's culture, why he transformed from trying to outsmart employees to becoming a "culture engineer," and why intellectual honesty is the real key to turning science fiction into reality.

How to Swing Big with Alex Hawkinson of BrightAI

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 11:24:00 -0000

What if we could predict infrastructure failures before they happen instead of scrambling to fix them after disaster strikes? Serial entrepreneur Alex Hawkinson quips that the Romans would be laughing at us if they saw our current approach to managing the critical systems that power our world. Known as the father of IoT for creating SmartThings—a platform supporting over one billion connected devices before its acquisition by Samsung—Alex is now tackling his most ambitious challenge yet: awakening America's crumbling infrastructure through physical AI. With nearly 500,000 sensors already deployed across water, energy, and essential services, BrightAI is shifting entire industries from reactive maintenance to proactive intelligence. In this episode, Alex shares how BrightAI's observability layer creates an unbreakable competitive moat, how his "swing big" philosophy attracts world-class talent, and why transforming infrastructure management represents humanity's next great technological leap forward.

How to Ask the Right Questions with Ben Lamm of Colossal Biosciences

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 09:00:00 -0000

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How to Innovate Without Compromise with Jon Perl of QA Wolf

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 10:00:00 -0000

With software powering every aspect of our lives, when does quality testing shift from a nicety to an absolute necessity? Despite the stakes, most companies fail to test everything—and even fewer automate their QA processes—leaving critical systems vulnerable to catastrophic bugs. Jon Perl is on a mission to change that. In 2019, he launched QA Wolf to help hundreds of companies automate 80% of their quality assurance processes, accelerating release cycles fivefold and saving customers over $100 million annually. By disrupting the outdated, manual QA status quo, QA Wolf empowers teams to ship faster and more confidently, delivering innovation without compromise. In this episode, Jon shares how a tech mistake sparked the idea for QA Wolf, how they settled on a pricing model that aligns incentives with their customers, and why he believes human-in-the-loop will remain essential until AI achieves flawless accuracy.

How to Innovate at the Speed of Light with Nick Harris of Lightmatter

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 15:53:00 -0000

For 60 years, Moore's Law and Dennard scaling drove the exponential advancement of computers, making them faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient. But as Nick Harris explains, the era of transistor-based technology has reached its physical limits. The future of computing demands a new solution, and that solution is light. Nick founded Lightmatter in 2017 to fully transform AI data center infrastructure. By harnessing light to process and transmit data, Lightmatter is laying the foundation for the next generation of computing. The company invented the world's first 3D-stacked photonics engine and was most recently valued at $4.4 billion. In this episode, Nick shares why he chose to leave academia after receiving his PhD, how his go-to-market strategy hinged on building real friendships and understanding his customers' internal roadmaps, and why he believes that having an obsession is a gift.

How to Pinpoint What Powers Your Growth with Avishai Abrahami of Wix

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 10:00:00 -0000

What if building a website wasn’t just for developers, but something anyone could do easily? This was the simple idea that led Avishai Abrahami to create Wix in 2006. What began as a no-code tool to help businesses establish an online presence has grown into a global platform that serves hundreds of millions of users. Under Avishai’s leadership, the company has reached many milestones including the launch of Wix’s first AI website builder in 2016—one the first commercial AI products available to consumers at mass scale. In 2013, Avishai took Wix public, and the company is currently valued at over $11 billion. In this episode, Avishai shares his take on what differentiates exceptional entrepreneurs from the rest, why he believes in meticulously tracking the most granular details, and how important it is to master the balance of seeking feedback while knowing when to trust your own judgment.

How to Rewrite the Rules of Media with Chris Best of Substack

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 10:00:00 -0000

What if the media you consume isn’t just how you spend your time—but who you become? Chris Best began his career as a software engineer, driven by the idea that writing code could transform how millions of people work. But after nearly a decade of coding, he recognized an even greater potential with writing: the power to shape who millions of people become. In 2017, Chris launched Substack, a platform that empowers independent writers and creators to own their connection with audiences and earn through paid subscriptions. In this episode, Chris unpacks the “anti-media” philosophy at the heart of Substack—eliminating barriers for writers to share their work and creating a meritocratic space where the most influential voices can be heard. From political commentators and fashion gurus to sports enthusiasts, Substack has grown into a vibrant ecosystem where readers can discover their tribe. Today, the platform boasts over 35 million active readers and more than 4 million paid subscribers. Chris shares how he overcame initial skepticism about product-market fit, why he thinks of Substack as an index for culture, and how authenticity is increasingly vital in a world where AI generated content is limitless.

How to Bend the Solar Cost Curve with Chris Hopper of Aurora Solar

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 10:00:00 -0000

Following the clean-tech bust of the early 2010s, the path to renewable energy was anything but clear. Yet in 2013, Chris Hopper took a bold step forward to co-found Aurora Solar, on a mission to accelerate solar energy adoption. Aurora’s platform streamlines and improves the processes of sales, design, and installation—making solar more accessible and efficient for all. Operating in a tough funding environment, he relied on grit to secure a seed round that enabled the company to bootstrap and grow steadily over the next five years. Today, Aurora Solar has raised over half a billion dollars, achieved a valuation exceeding $4 billion, and has empowered the design of over 10 million solar projects worldwide. Chris shares why he’s grateful for the challenging early days, how Aurora's cloud-based platform uses AI to streamline workflows, and why—despite his forward-thinking mindset—he encourages entrepreneurs to remain open to serendipity.

How to Create Community with Sarah Harrelson of CULTURED

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 10:00:00 -0000

In 2011, as the rise of digital media cast doubt on the survival of print, Sarah Harrelson broke from convention and launched her own independent magazine: CULTURED. Sarah set out to spotlight artists, writers, curators, and designers overlooked by mainstream outlets and has since become one of the most trusted voices in the world of art and design. Beyond the magazine’s editorial prestige, CULTURED collaborates with leading fashion houses, luxury brands, and galleries. Sarah has had a decades-long career in magazines, beginning with an internship at Elle and including launching the Miami Herald’s Home and Design section, becoming the editor-in-chief of Ocean Drive and Art Basel Magazine, and ultimately founding her own publishing company. In this episode, Sarah shares how intuition shapes her approach to talent discovery, why her belief in the staying power of print remains unchanged, and how the magazine’s strategic focus has evolved to span global markets and adjacent industries.

How to Build A Competitive Edge with Ryan Petersen of Flexport

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 10:00:00 -0000

In 2013, when Ryan Petersen launched Flexport, he approached the problem from a customer’s perspective. Early in his career, he had worked at his brother’s import-export business, sourcing and selling ATVs, scooters, and dirt bikes from Asia to markets around the world. They built the entire technical platform to facilitate these transactions, and Ryan saw an opportunity to make the freight forwarding industry more efficient. He founded Flexport to make global trade easy and accessible for everyone and has since raised $2.3 billion to fuel the business. Today, Flexport’s platform coordinates logistics from factory floor to customer door, serving companies of all sizes. In 2023 alone, Flexport’s technology moved over $32 billion worth of merchandise. Ryan discusses how he leverages the U.S. Air Force’s OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) strategy, how AI is helping automate 1% of its freight forwarding workflows each week, and why Flexport’s agility remains the company’s greatest strength.

How to Grow from Idea to IPO with Eliot Horowitz of MongoDB & Viam

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 10:00:00 -0000

When Eliot Horowitz, Founder and CEO of Viam, was locked down with his family during COVID, he did what any engineer might do—he built a robot to play chess. Once that project was complete, he turned his attention to his ever-problematic sprinkler system. After that? He added smart software to his HVAC system. Through this series of home improvements, he uncovered a problem he was eager to solve, and his third startup was born. Eliot founded Viam to build a product that connects hardware to software and unlocks AI, automation, and data for the physical world. A career software developer and technology leader, Eliot previously co-founded MongoDB, writing the core code base for the pioneering database and leading the engineering teams for 13 years as CTO. MongoDB went public in 2017 and has a market cap of over $20 billion. Eliot shares why he enforces a no-jerk policy when it comes to hiring, how he evolved as a founder from the seed stage to post-IPO, and why he believes that being the product’s biggest user is essential to success.

Flashback: How to create engaging content with Emmett Shear of Twitch

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0000

In 2007, Emmett co-founded a live streaming service called Justin.tv along with his childhood friend and neighbor, Justin. That first entrepreneurial spark grew into Twitch, an interactive livestreaming service that spans gaming, entertainment, sports, music, and more. Today, at any given moment, more than 2.5 million people globally are engaging with Twitch. While Twitch was acquired by Amazon in 2014 for nearly $1 billion, Emmett has stayed on as CEO and continued to scale. Emmett shares why the company's hardest engineering challenge was scaling live video, why the future of the creator economy is "micro-patronage," and the role Twitch plays in combating loneliness.

Original airdate: Aug 2022

Flashback: How to Unlock Innovation with Emma Grede of Good American

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0000

From the time she was a child in East London, Emma Grede knew she wanted to work in fashion. After a long career at the intersection of fashion and entertainment, Emma now sits at the helm of Good American, the fashion label she co-founded with Khloe Kardashian in 2016. The first fully inclusive fashion brand kicked off with the largest denim launch in history, bringing in $1M on day one, and has evolved to include ready-to-wear, swim, shoes and activewear. Emma shares what it was like to experience the roller coaster of launch day, why the ability to understand what customers want is a superpower, and why she thinks in-person retail experiences will be here for decades to come.

Original Air Date 06-02-2021

FlashBack: How to Ask the Big Questions with Mateo Jaramillo of Form Energy

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Most startups set out to tackle massive problems, but working to develop a low-cost, long-duration energy storage solution that will enable the electric system to be 100% renewably powered? That's a big one by any standard. At Form Energy, Mateo Jaramillo and his co-founders are working to bring that very vision to life, leveraging the smartest minds in the energy storage space. Mateo shares why he bet his career on the climate tech industry after attending Yale Divinity School, how his time at Tesla taught him the importance of top-quality talent, and what it was like to step into the shoes of a founder at age 40.

Original Air Date: 12-16-2020

How to Unlock Healthcare Access for Millions with Brian Whorley of Paytient

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0000

After a career spent inside a hospital, Brian Whorley envisioned a future for American healthcare that, to him, seemed not just possible but inevitable. Witnessing firsthand the growing number of patients burdened by high deductibles, Brian understood that when people have better financial tools to afford care, they seek treatment sooner, leading to improved health outcomes. In 2018, Brian co-founded Paytient, the company that empowers people to pay for care over time with no interest and no fees—ever. Fast forward seven years, and his vision is becoming a reality. Starting in 2025, every single Part D health plan in the U.S. will be required to offer plan members the option to spread their out-of-pocket pharmaceutical costs over time with interest-free monthly payments. Given this new regulation, Paytient is expected to help nearly 25 million Americans more easily access and afford care next year. Brian shares why he believes founders are forged as children, how he built a business among a sea of skeptics, and why he thinks that healthcare entrepreneurs have to partner with America’s existing health system stakeholders to implement the most impactful change.

How to Stand Firm in Your Integrity with Annie Lamont of Oak HC/FT

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Growing up, Annie Lamont was an avid reader with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. This led her to attend Stanford—which coincided with Silicon Valley's tech boom and ignited her passion for entrepreneurship. Immediately, she found herself gravitating towards healthcare investing because of the incredible impact it can have on communities. Today, Annie is the cofounder of Oak HC/FT and is recognized as one of the most influential investors in healthcare and fintech. With over $5 billion in assets under management, she boasts an impressive track record, having backed iconic companies like One Medical, athenahealth, and Devoted Health. To date, she has successfully exited more than 70 companies and achieved 15 IPOs. In addition to her venture career, she also serves as the First Lady of Connecticut. Annie shares her take on how generative AI will impact healthcare and fintech, why she believes the smartest rule in venture is to never compromise on integrity, and how she distinguishes ordinary entrepreneurs from exceptional ones.

How to Attract Top Talent with Daniel Chait of Greenhouse

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 09:00:00 -0000

What if businesses were empowered to consistently attract and hire the best-possible candidates—every single time? In 2012, Daniel Chait set out on a mission to help every company become great at hiring. He launched Greenhouse and scaled the business into the leader in hiring software. Almost a decade later, private equity leader TPG acquired a majority stake in the company in a $500M deal. Daniel shares how leadership’s involvement in hiring sets the tone for the success of a businesses’ recruitment and retention practices, why he believes that magical interview questions are a myth, and how AI is actually making life much harder for both applicants and employers.

How to Test a Hypothesis with Bill Smith of Shipt

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 09:00:00 -0000

When serial entrepreneur Bill Smith relocated his family across the country to build his third startup, the seedling of an idea for his next startup was born. In 2019, Bill founded Landing, the first membership-based leasing model for flexible living. He has since scaled the business to cities around the country with a network of thousands of apartments. Along the way, he’s amassed $255M in funding and been named Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startup, all while making renting your next apartment as easy as ordering takeout. Prior to Landing, Bill founded, scaled, and exited three companies, including the online grocery delivery marketplace, Shipt, which sold to Target for $550M. Bill shares his advice on navigating negotiations, how he discovered product-market fit by asking customers to pay before his product was even built, and why true partnership is critical for a successful acquisition.

How to Shift Consumer Sentiments with Ethan Brown of Beyond Meat

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 09:00:00 -0000

In 2009, Ethan Brown, Founder & CEO of Beyond Meat, faced a dilemma at a rest stop on I-95. Struggling to find a healthy meal for his young children, he realized he had to make a change. That same year, he launched Beyond Meat, the world’s first plant-based meat company, with a mission to drive a global shift from animal-based to plant-based products. Its flagship product, the Beyond Burger, was crafted to look, cook, and taste just like traditional beef. Since then, the company has expanded its offerings and now sells a variety of plant-based products in over 130,000 locations across 65 countries. Today, Beyond Meat partners with major brands like Panda Express and McDonald’s. Ethan shares his predictions for the evolution of the $1+ trillion dollar global meat industry, how he tackled go-to-market for an entirely new food category, and why he believes truths only get truer as his business grows.

How to Build with Service at the Core with Edward Norton of Zeck

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Edward Norton is widely known as one of the most celebrated actors of our generation. He has starred in over 50 films, has been nominated for three Academy Awards and has won the Golden Globe, an Emmy, and an Obie, to name a few. What many people don’t know is he has built a parallel career as a serial entrepreneur. Today, Edward Norton is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at his fourth startup, Zeck, the company transforming board dynamics for thousands of corporate and nonprofit leaders. Previously, he co-founded Stax Engineering (emission capture as a service to shipping companies in California ports), EDO (advanced data science and machine learning for audience measurement in the media and advertising industries), and CrowdRise (a charitable fundraising platform that merged with GoFundMe to create the largest online charity platform in the world). Edward shares why he believes business-building is so similar to making movies, how his family taught him to address challenges that make a difference in his community, and why solving problems with friends is infinitely more rewarding than going solo.

How to Take Calculated Risks with Jenny Just of Peak6

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 09:00:00 -0000

What does it take to become one of the few self-made billionaires in the US? According to the visionary business leader Jenny Just, it starts with a comfortability with taking risks. After just giving birth to her first child, Jenny took a risk and founded her first business, Peak6, in 1997. Peak6 began as a proprietary options trading firm and has since grown into a multibillion-dollar financial services and technology giant housing the next generation of products and service brands including PEAK6 Capital Management, PEAK6 Strategic Capital, Apex Fintech Solutions, PEAK6 InsurTech, and Zogo. On top of these achievements, Jenny also co-founded Poker Power—a company she launched with her daughter Juliette to teach poker and empower women to master the art of risk-taking. Jenny shares how stock rewards could address the persistent issue of financial literacy in our country, why she believes her repeated failures have led to invaluable lessons throughout her career, and how she continues to motivate herself three decades into her career.

How to Use Constraints to Your Advantage with Peter Beck of Rocket Lab

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 09:00:00 -0000

How does an entrepreneur without a college degree manage to build a rocket company exploring life beyond earth? Just ask Peter Beck, the Founder, CEO and Chief Engineer of Rocket Lab, a Nasdaq-listed leading launch and space systems company. At an early age, Peter’s parents taught him that no ambition was too big. So he began building rockets, steadily increasing in their size and complexity. In 2006, Peter founded Rocket Lab and has since grown the company into a global organization of 1,800 employees, taking the business public in 2021 with a market cap north of $2.3B. Rocket Lab’s capabilities span the space economy and Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle has become the most successful small launch vehicle globally. Peter shares why he focused on credibility and capability in the early days of company building, how constraints ensure Rocket Lab doesn’t outspend its peers, and why he thinks some regulation is needed in the space industry.

Flashback: Why Data is the New Code with Alexandr Wang of Scale AI

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 09:00:00 -0000

As a freshman at MIT, Alexandr was struck by his classmates' interest in AI. But he realized that despite all that AI technology could solve, there was no solution for managing AI-related data. So, at 19, he dropped out of college and started Scale AI. Scale now helps customers like Pinterest and Toyota accelerate the progress of AI and has grown to a valuation of $3.5B. Alexandr shares how AI is changing software development, why he believes in surrounding yourself with optimistic people, and how he learned to get comfortable with not being able to do everything at once.

Original Air Date 04-7-2021

Flashback: Why Failure is a Path to Progress, with Will Ahmed of WHOOP

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 09:00:00 -0000

As a D1 athlete, Will Ahmed became obsessed with the idea of recovery. How do you unlock human performance, and what data would you need to do so? This interest led to the creation of WHOOP, the next gen wearable technology. Will started WHOOP in 2012, immediately after graduating from Harvard College. Since then, he's raised over $100M in funding, saw 7x member growth in the last year alone, and has been worn by the likes of Lebron James and Michael Phelps. Will shares how the product was born out of his own over-training as an athlete, why he believes WHOOP is fundamentally a data company, and why the most important part of being a CEO is figuring out who to listen to—and when.

Note: This episode was recorded in early March, just as the Covid-19 outbreak took hold of the U.S. Since then, WHOOP has been leveraging their data to aid in health research.

Original Air Date: 4-16-2020

How to Question Everything with Ara Katz of Seed Health

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Ara Katz’s respect for the power of science began in high school when her mom was diagnosed with cancer. After founding her first business, Spring—the mobile commerce startup that helped launch Apple Pay on the iPhone—she set out on a new challenge: creating a consumer health company deeply rooted in science-backed research. Its mission? To lead the field of translating breakthrough science into innovations that impact every aspect of our health related to the microbiome. Founded in 2016, Seed Health is the microbiome science company pioneering innovations in probiotics and living medicines to impact human and planetary health. With 800%+ revenue growth in the last 3 years, Seed has quickly become one of the most trusted and beloved synbiotic brands on the market. Ara shares why she believes science isn’t finished until it's widely understood, how we have the power to significantly change health outcomes if we focus on the microbiome, and why her favorite interview question is: ‘When was the last time you cried?’.

How to Achieve Hospitality at Scale with Noah Glass of Olo

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 09:00:00 -0000

What if restaurants were empowered to deliver a personalized experience each time a guest walks through the door? That’s the idea that underpins Olo, a leading open SaaS platform powering over 700 restaurant brands. Noah Glass founded Olo in 2005, drawing on his experience working from the ground up as a restaurant server, cashier, and delivery driver. Today, Olo is a publicly listed company empowering hospitality at scale. Noah shares how he convinced skeptical restaurant vets and customers that online ordering was the beginning of the future for restaurant tech, why he believes going public was the right idea for his business, and how he made the decision to drop out of HBS to pursue building Olo.

How to Strengthen your Mental Armor with Lindsey Vonn

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Growing up, Lindsey Vonn’s parents instilled two important lessons: her mom taught her the importance of finding positivity in every situation, and her dad taught her that any ambition is achievable with a clear plan and dedication. So, at the age of 9, she confidently stated her goal to become the greatest ski racer of all time. Her dad helped her write a 10-year plan to make it to the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. Today, she is one of the most decorated American ski racers in history and was the first American woman to win a gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Beyond ski racing, Lindsey is a NYT bestselling author, the founder of the Lindsey Vonn Foundation—a nonprofit championing girls through scholarships, education, and athletics—and the creative force behind Apres Productions. Lindsey’s career is a powerful lesson in a differentiated kind of entrepreneurship—one defined by grit, determination, and above all else, consistent work ethic. Lindsey shares how mental toughness is the bedrock of her success, why she views partnerships through a long term lens, and how growing up in a family of seven made her a hard worker at a young age.

How to Capitalize on Information Asymmetry with Andrew Lacy of Prenuvo

Wed, 10 Jul 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Andrew Lacy first encountered whole-body imaging as a patient. In just one hour, he learned more about his health than the American healthcare system had taught him in his entire life. He wondered to himself: why isn’t this technology accessible for everyone everywhere? So he started Prenuvo, the company pioneering proactive whole-body imaging for the early detection of cancer and other diseases—with one 60-minute exam. Prenuvo leverages cutting-edge MRI hardware and software, advanced AI research, and the world's largest database of whole-body imaging to empower patients to proactively manage their health. Andrew shares why information asymmetry amongst physicians was the tipping point that convinced him to start his third entrepreneurial endeavor, how he approached customer acquisition in an entirely new healthcare category, and why he believes humility is a critical quality for repeat entrepreneurs.

Flashback: How to Lean Into the Impossible with David Rogier of MasterClass

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Growing up, David's grandmother instilled an important lesson: that the only thing someone can't take away from you is your education. So when a mentor of David's offered to back him as an entrepreneur, he decided to bring the joy back to education and build a school that everyone would want to attend. In 2015, he launched MasterClass, which now provides classes from 100+ of the world’s best practitioners (from Serena Williams to Martin Scorsese). MasterClass has grown into one of the largest online learning platforms in the world and was most recently valued at nearly $3 billion dollars. David shares why a childhood stutter impacted his entrepreneurial ambitions, why starting with the best teachers was critical to his business strategy, and the importance of getting two opinions (and no more) when making a hard decision.

Orignal Air Date: 09-22-2021

Flashback: How to Adopt a Learner’s Mindset with Rachel Carlson of Guild Education

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 09:00:00 -0000

What if workers could acquire new skills and training, without taking on debt? That’s the value Guild Education strives to provide. Guild Education unlocks opportunities for America’s workforce through education and upskilling and counts Fortune 500 companies (such as Chipotle, Disney, Walmart, and Taco Bell) among its partners. Since founding Guild in 2015, Rachel has scaled the business to reach working learners in all 50 states and has helped prevent over half a billion dollars in student debt. Rachel shares how COVID-19 has accelerated the future of work, why she decided to make Guild a Certified B Corporation instead of a nonprofit, and what she learned from working on political campaigns.

Original Air Date: 07-07-2021

Flashback: How to Craft a Viral Product, with Ivan Zhao of Notion

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 09:00:00 -0000

As we all strive to increase our productivity, it's no wonder that productivity startup Notion has taken off. Since co-founder and CEO Ivan Zhao launched a prototype a few years ago, Notion has gained a cult following of over one million users. With a team of less than 30 employees, the company has already achieved a sky-high valuation of $800M. Ivan shares his approach to democratizing software, why he believes engineers are the scribes of our time, and why he moved to Kyoto to reboot the company in its earliest days.

Make sure to follow Ivan on social at @notionhq and @ivanhzhao.

Orignal Air Date 11-20-19

Flashback: How to Put Kindness First with Sarah Friar of Nextdoor

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Do you know your neighbors? When Nextdoor was founded in 2008, 50% of Americans knew one or none of their neighbors. Fast-forward and Nextdoor now connects 81 million neighbors across 11 countries, building both digital and real-world connections. Sarah Friar joined Nextdoor as CEO in 2018 and took the company public in 2021 under the ticker symbol KIND. Sarah shares how her childhood in Northern Ireland during The Troubles gave her a lifelong belief in the local power of community, how Nextdoor leverages AI to encourage kindness on the platform, and why one of the company's biggest moments to date was bringing together 18 million people in person around the Queen's Jubilee.

Original Air Date: 6-14-23

How to Understand your Users with Shivani Siroya of Tala

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Shivani Siroya started Tala not because she wanted to build a company, but because one problem consumed her thoughts: 4 billion people were excluded from the traditional banking system and lacked access to essential financial tools to help them use, protect, and grow their money. After conducting over 3,500 interviews with micro-entrepreneurs globally during her time at the UN Population Fund, she witnessed firsthand the vast purchasing power overlooked by traditional financial institutions. So in 2011, she founded Tala, the first holistic financial platform designed uniquely for the global majority. Today, Tala is responsible for originating over $5 billion in credit access to a population that was previously blocked from traditional banking resources. Shivani shares how she reimagined traditional credit underwriting to serve a new population, why user experience needs to be at the heart of product development, and how Tala gained the trust of a population that was traditionally turned away.

How to Disrupt a Trillion-Dollar Industry with Paul Monasterio of Kalepa

Wed, 29 May 2024 09:00:00 -0000

What does it take to disrupt a trillion-dollar industry? According to Paul Monasterio, Co-Founder and CEO of Kalepa, it starts with a fresh outsider’s perspective. In 2018, Paul launched Kalepa with its flagship product, an AI-powered copilot empowering commercial underwriters to write more profitable business, faster. And just a few years in, Kalepa has been recognized as one of the most innovative insurtechs in the world by FinTech Global. Paul shares why he believes insurance is the safety net that propels the world’s growth, how AI will enhance—not overtake—underwriters’ abilities to evolve with an increasingly complex world, and why a product demo should be used to create real value for potential customers.

How to Own the Problem with Hari Ravichandran of Aura

Wed, 22 May 2024 04:00:00 -0000

When serial entrepreneur Hari Ravichandran discovered that his credit score had taken a hit due to identity fraud, he realized that consumers were facing an increasing burden to protect their digital safety—and there wasn’t an existing product that provided a holistic solution. So, as an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature, he set out to solve this problem for consumers. In 2017, he founded Aura, the company dedicated to simplifying digital security for families. The business has since scaled to over one million users worldwide with celebrity-backers such as Robert Downey Jr. Before Aura, Hari was the Founder and CEO of Endurance International Group, a publicly-traded global hosting and email marketing company, valued at $3.5 billion with more than 3,500 employees worldwide. Hari shares the astounding data that children are spending nearly 50% of their waking hours in the digital world, why a frictionless product experience was crucial to their go-to-market strategy, and how Aura is leveraging AI to protect families in an increasingly risky digital world.

How to Harness the Power of Curiosity with Trevor Martin of Mammoth Biosciences

Wed, 15 May 2024 09:00:00 -0000

While Trevor Martin was an undergraduate at Princeton, he decided on a whim to take a class called Integrated Science, a course dedicated to encouraging students gifted in physics, math, or computer science to pursue an academic focus in biology. Unbeknownst to him, this class would end up being the catalyst that led him to his successful career as a biotech entrepreneur. After receiving his PhD from Stanford in 2017, Trevor founded Mammoth Biosciences, the platform revolutionizing CRISPR-based synthetic biology products across therapeutics and diagnostics, with the ultimate mission of finding permanent cures for diseases. Trevor shares his favorite mantra: “Let others say no,” how biotechs need to strike the right balance between commercializing their products and researching the next generation of products, and why Mammoth’s go-to-market strategy facilitates the flywheel needed to build a generational business.

How to Prepare for the Future of AI-Workers with Nami Baral of Niural

Wed, 08 May 2024 09:00:00 -0000

As the world of work becomes increasingly global, how can technology fuel the transfer of funds around the world? In 2022, Nami Baral started Niural, on a mission to build a generational product that enables businesses to manage payroll, HR, benefits, payments and compliance in 150+ countries—all in one powerful system. Nami is no stranger to leveraging AI in financial services. Prior to Niural, Nami founded Harvest, a fintech company that built the first AI superagent to reduce debt for American consumers. Harvest was acquired by Acorns in 2021. Nami shares how her upbringing in Nepal taught her that dreams should have no ceilings, why she is focused on building a product 100x more useful than the competition, and how she cultivates employees that work like owners.

How to Build Conviction with Jett McCandless of project44

Wed, 01 May 2024 09:00:00 -0000

From selling everything he owned to meet payroll to achieving a $2.7 billion valuation, Jett McCandless' journey with leading logistics company—project44—has been a story of grit and determination. Founded in 2014, project44 now operates the world's most trusted end-to-end visibility platform that tracks more than 1 billion shipments annually for over 1,300 of the world’s leading brands across 170+ countries. Jet shares how global supply chains could be weaponized amidst an increasingly hostile geopolitical climate, why communication, accountability, and resourcefulness are non-negotiables when it comes to hiring, and how a $120 donation changed the trajectory of his life.

How to Go Slow to Go Fast with Sami Inkinen of Virta Health

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 09:00:00 -0000

Growing up on a farm in Finland and training as a physicist, the path to entrepreneurship might not have been an obvious one for Sami Inkinen. But to date, he has founded two companies: Trulia, the online real estate marketplace that IPOed and eventually sold to Zillow Group in 2015, and Virta Health, the modern healthcare solution on a mission to reverse type 2 diabetes in 100 million people. If that weren’t enough, Sami is an endurance athlete who has completed seven ironmans and set a record for rowing 2,750 miles from California to Hawaii to raise awareness about the dangers of the American diet. Sami shares how a personal health scare motivated him to launch his second company, how leaders must get comfortable making decisions with the absence of perfect information, and why going slow actually allows you to go fast when building a company.

How to Raise Powerful Girls with Jes Wolfe of Rebel Girls

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 09:00:00 -0000

When Jes Wolfe was in highschool her dad and grandfather taught her how to invest. Fast forward to today, Jes contributes much of her success to that early encouragement that she belonged, and in fact, had a knack for business. After more than a decade of various finance and strategy roles, she set out on a new challenge as CEO of Rebel Girls: raise the most confident and inspired generation of girls the world has ever seen. With Jes at the helm, Rebel Girls’ mission is to reach 100 million girls by 2030. Jess shares how she navigated a new role as CEO during the height of the pandemic, why she thinks control is an illusion, and how the Rebel Girls community inspired her to disrupt the antiquated world of publishing.

How to Balance Vision and Timing with Naveen Rao of MosaicML

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 04:00:00 -0000

Armed with a PhD in computational neuroscience, Naveen Rao has built not one, but two, AI companies at the forefront of his field. In 2014, he started deep learning company Nervana Systems, which was acquired by Intel. And in 2020, he started MosaicML to enable developers to maintain full control over the AI models they build. Just last year, Databricks acquired MosaicML in a $1.3 billion dollar transaction. Naveen shares his framework for evaluating an exit opportunity, how his parents' immigration to the United States shaped his perspective on risk-taking, and his insights into the plausibility of autonomous robots transcending science fiction.

How to Reimagine the Entrepreneur's Playbook with Melissa Bernstein of Lifelines

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 09:00:00 -0000

There are a special few founders whose contributions are so prolific that they are better known as inventors. Melissa Bernstein is one of those founders. She spent 30 years at the helm of iconic toy company, Melissa & Doug, where she designed over 5,000 innovative products for children of all ages and sold billions of dollars of toys around the world. Having been bit by the bug of a mission a second time around, she is now Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Lifelines, reinventing well-being products for adults and helping them strengthen their resilience, spark joy and creativity, and unlock their full potential. Melissa shares how you truly know when you have a breakout product, why sometimes being rebellious is the key to your go-to-market strategy, and why creativity is inextricably linked to a beginner's mindset.

Introducing For Starters with Alexa Von Tobel

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:00:00 -0000

After five seasons, sometimes a rebrand is in order. Join host and repeat entrepreneur Alexa Von Tobel for a new season of podcasts with a new title: What was The Founders Project is now For Starters with Alexa von Tobel.

You can expect the same deep-dive into the journey of being a founder, from future insights to "pinch me" moments to big wins.

Join us each Wednesday. New episodes start on April 3. And if you haven’t already, subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. See you there!

How to Build a Differentiated Product with Shiza Shahid of Our Place

Wed, 20 Dec 2023 10:00:00 -0000

Shiza's career path has been one of pivots: she went from a childhood in Pakistan to college at Stanford. Post-college, she started off at McKinsey, but left for the non-profit world, co-founded the Malala Fund with Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai. And then in 2019, she co-founded Our Place,a mission-driven startup reimagining kitchenware for the modern, multiethnic, global kitchen. Our Place’s designs have resulted in more than 140 patents, waitlists of over 30,000 people and more than 1000 press headlines. The iconic Always Pan has sold out more than 30 times. Shiza shares how learning to cook led her to reimagine the kitchenware industry, how she persevered past 100 investor rejections, and why we often think opportunities are riskier than they are.

How to Create a Beloved Consumer Brand with Andrew Dudum of Hims and Hers

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 10:00:00 -0000

As the co-founder of Atomic, a venture fund that builds new companies, Andrew was no stranger to being a founder. But starting Hims in 2017 proved to be his biggest swing yet. He launched Hims to tackle the largest industry in the country that had not yet been touched by modern technology: healthcare. Today, Hims and Hers is a leading consumer health platform powering nearly 9 million medical visits and enabling access for millions of people to a broad range of care, including for mental health, sexual health, and dermatology. Just four years after launching, $HIMS debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. Andrew shares how it felt to get 500 sign-ups in the first week, why it's never been harder to build a brand, and how his time as a concert cellist (playing Carnegie Hall) taught him about accountability.

How to Be Forward-Thinking with Greg Williams of Acrisure

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 10:00:00 -0000

What does it take to build the fastest-growing insurance brokerage in industry history? According to Greg Williams, it’s all about thinking three to four years ahead. When he cofounded Acrisure in 2005, he initially questioned the need for another insurance broker. Yet, by bringing his vision of the future into the day-to-day, Acrisure is now the sixth-largest insurance broker globally and the largest independent real estate services company in America. By providing customers with intelligence-driven financial services solutions, Acrisure combines the best of human capabilities with the best of technological capabilities, and is valued at more than $20B. Greg shares why highly successful people think differently, why he’s bullish on proprietary chatbots, and why he focuses heavily on vision and culture.

How to Adapt Beyond Your Vision with Grant LaFontaine of Whatnot

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 10:00:00 -0000

What does it take to start one of the fastest-growing consumer marketplaces? According to repeat founder Grant LaFontaine, it starts with an open mind. When he and his co-founder Logan Head launched Whatnot in 2019, they went into it know that their starting place and ending place would be completely different. The team opted to be customer-centric instead of vision-driven. Today, Whatnot is a live shopping marketplace that enables anyone to turn their passion into a business. Whatnot is like Twitch-meets-eBay and was most recently valued at $3.7B. Grant shares why they started building with a niche community (Funko Pop collectors), why creativity is vital for consumer startups, and why this generation of shoppers cares about authenticity.

How to Keep Moving Forward with Jim McCann of 1-800-Flowers.com

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 10:00:00 -0000

In 1976, Jim McCann had spent a decade working in a group home for boys and was bartending on the side. A customer at the bar gave him a tip that there was an opportunity to buy a flower shop for $10,000. Jim took the leap and turned that single flower shop on Manhattan's East Side into a billion-dollar omni-channel retailer. He grew store by store, turning on a franchise model, expanding into new gifting categories (from The Popcorn Factory to Harry & David). Through it all, Jim had a knack for adopting new technologies ahead of other retailers. Jim shares where the company's iconic name comes from, how he positioned the company to become the first merchant of any kind on AOL, and why the best way to solve a problem is with a pen and a pad of paper.

How to Follow Your Insatiable Curiosity with Nigel Morris of QED and Capital One

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 10:00:00 -0000

Capital One is such an iconic brand that it is hard to imagine a time before it. But when Nigel Morris co-founded the business in 1994, it was wildly innovative—from the products it introduced to the market (like secured credit cards) to a data-driven approach to customer segmentation to an emphasis on team culture. Today, Capital One is one of the largest retail banks in the United States, serving more than 100 million customers across a diverse set of businesses. Nigel's career didn't stop there: he went on to start QED Investors, a fintech venture capital platform that has invested in companies like Credit Karma, Nubank, and Klarna. Nigel shares why Capital One's early success came down to rapid execution, why restlessness is a positive trait for founders, and how one interesting use case of AI is powering one-to-one marketing.

Flashback: How to build a 100-year company with Harley Finkelstein

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 10:00:00 -0000

Harley Finkelstein first encountered Shopify as a user. Back in 2006, while in law school, he was one of the first merchants to use the platform. He joined the company in 2010 and now serves as President, helping to scale Shopify to millions of daily active users across 175 countries driving $444B in global economic activity. Today, Shopify is the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow a business—and is second only to Amazon as the largest online retailer in the US. Harley shares why the future of e-commerce is just the future of commerce, why his favorite motto is "how you do anything is how you do everything," and how being a power extrovert has made him a stronger leader.

How to Have a Customer-First Mindset with Chen Amit of Tipalti

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Approaching a new industry as an outsider and as a team of one would be daunting for most founders. But Chen Amit, Founder and CEO of Tipalti, was a repeat entrepreneur building in a new arena. In the past 13 years, he has scaled Tipalti— a finance automation suite focusing on global payments and accounts payable—into one of the most highly valued privately-held fintech companies in the globe. With a valuation of $8.3B, Tipalti processes over $43B in payments annually. Chen shares why signing his third customer was his biggest signal of product-market fit, what playing poker taught him about taking calculated risks, and why he relearns his job every eighteen months.

How to Build a Lasting Brand with Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Over the past 13 years, Warby Parker has become synonymous with offering stylish eyewear at revolutionary prices. The company was born back at Wharton in 2010, when a group of classmates—including co-CEO Neil Blumenthal, came together around an idea they couldn't get out of their heads. Since then, Warby Parker has grown to over 200 brick and mortar locations and went public in 2021. They've also hit a giant milestone: distributing 15 million pairs of glasses globally through their Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program, helping people get the glasses they need to learn, work, and achieve better economic outcomes. Neil shares how it took them six months and over 2,000 names to settle on Warby Parker, why getting pricing right was key to their early success, and why empathy is key to business-building.

FROM INC STUDIOS AND SAP - Growth Agents: How Pink Lily went from a side hustle to a multimillion-dollar company

Tue, 24 Oct 2023 09:00:00 -0000

The company’s director of finance explains how her job goes well beyond accounting. Tina Hetzer, director of finance at Pink Lily, is one of the rising financial stars who are helping to bring their businesses to the next level. She built Pink Lily’s finance team from scratch and has helped the company become one of the fastest-growing retailers in the country. In this podcast, part of the SAP-sponsored Growth Agents series, Hetzer discusses the cash-flow challenges unique to fashion retailers and explains how working at a smaller, founder-run company can fuel greater collaboration across the organization.

How to Identify Your Growth Factor with Daniel Yanisse of Checkr

Wed, 18 Oct 2023 09:00:00 -0000

In 2014, as an engineer at a delivery startup, Daniel Yanisse identified an opportunity to improve a part of the HR tech world that was known to be high on friction. He co-founded Checkr to leverage technology to transform the world of background checks. Today, Checkr is a leading HR tech company that processes over 30 million background checks annually—and has earned a valuation of $5B. Daniel shares why the company is committed to Fair Chance Hiring, how Checkr grew alongside the on-demand economy companies it first served (like Instacart and Uber), and why being new to the industry was an advantage.

FROM INC STUDIOS AND SAP - Growth Agents: Duolingo’s CFO on how the company took over the language learning space

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Duolingo’s freemium subscription model, beloved brand and strategic investments have allowed it to execute its educational mission and become a cultural touchstone. Matthew Skaruppa, CFO of Duolingo, is one of the rising financial stars who are helping to bring their businesses to the next level. Since he joined the company in 2020, Duolingo has grown its base of monthly active users by more than 80%. Each month, 75 million users hone their language skills on the Duolingo app. In this podcast, part of the SAP-sponsored Growth Agents series, Skaruppa discusses how his analytical background has allowed to him to be a more strategy-oriented CFO. For him, that has meant balancing big aspirations and finite resources, and turning the uncertainties of tomorrow into action today.

How to Pave Your Own Way with Athena Calderone of EyeSwoon

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 04:00:00 -0000

Athena Calderone is a multi-hyphenate creator through and through. She is widely known as an interior designer, author, chef, and entertaining expert. Since she launched EyeSwoon in 2012, she's grown the brand from editorial platform into an e-commerce destination and hit major milestones along the way: earning over a million Instagram followers, writing two best-selling books, and launching a collaboration with Crate and Barrel that beat its yearly sales projection in the first 60 days. Athena shares how her parents' careers as hairdressers gave her an early appreciation for aesthetics, why finding your authentic voice takes time, and how she structures her calendar to make space for creativity.

FROM INC STUDIOS AND SAP - Growth Agents: The inside story of Sweetgreen’s rapid rise to the top

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Mitch Reback, CFO of Sweetgreen, is one of the rising corporate financial stars who is helping to take their companies to the next level. When he started, Sweetgreen had 25 stores; today, there are more than 220—and Reback says the company is still in its “infancy.” In this podcast, part of the SAP-sponsored Growth Agents series, Reback takes a deep dive into his role as a growth agent. Capital is the engine that drives growth, and Reback says his job is to make sure the company has adequate capital to grow as well as determining how best to allocate it, including investments in stores, marketing, staff, and technology—or, as he puts it, to push innovation forward in a way that’s capital efficient.

How to Stay Open-Minded with Girish Mathrubootham of Freshworks

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 09:00:00 -0000

In 2010, after a bad customer support experience for a TV delivery, Girish Mathrubootham decided to build a better solution. He launched Freshworks as the first multichannel customer support system. Today, the product has evolved into a robust suite for IT, customer support, sales, and marketing teams. Freshworks now has three offices across eight countries with over 5,000 employees and more than 65,000 customers. In 2021, Girish took Freshworks public on Nasdaq as the first Indian SaaS company to go public in the US. Girish shares why he believes this is the Indian decade for tech, why UI and design are key for product-led growth, and why "pressure is a privilege" is a motto that resonates.

Flashback: How to Build a Vertical Product with Andrew Bialecki of Klaviyo

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 04:00:00 -0000

What if brands were empowered to deliver personalized experiences online, just as well as they could do in a store? That's the idea that underpins Klaviyo, the leading customer and marketing automation platform. Andrew Bialecki cofounded Klaviyo in 2012 and now serves over 100,000 brands, helping them generate $28 billion in revenue for its customers in 2021 alone. Andrew shares why he bootstrapped the business until profitability, how early partnerships can be a key to efficient customer acquisition, and why he feels like he's only achieved 1% of Klaviyo's potential.

Original Air Date 12-07-2022

How to Unlock Employee Ownership with Michael Brown of Teamshares

Wed, 20 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Michael Brown started his career in investment banking, meeting two colleagues who would go on to become his co-founders. After some time in finance, he set out on a new challenge: acquiring and running small businesses. Along the way, he identified a huge mission and plans to dedicate his whole career to this singular focus—helping thousands of small businesses become employee-owned. In 2019, Michael co-founded Teamshares with Alex Eu and Kevin Shiiba. The team has raised over $245M in financing and acquired nearly 90 businesses across the country, stopping the succession problem and building wealth for employees along the way. Michael shares why he operates with a 200-year mentality, why financial education for employees is a critical part of ownership, and why the perfect hire has a mix of kindness and ambition.

How to Evolve with Your Audience with Max Lytvyn of Grammarly

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0000

What if someone told you they could help you communicate better? That's the mission Max Lytvyn, co-founder of Grammarly, has been on since 2009. After working on plagiarism detection technology, Max realized that the root of plagiarism was people's desire to be better writers. The company was incredibly early to use AI to aid in communication and now has grown to over 30 million daily users and a valuation north of $13 billion. Max shares why their technology started with the mechanics of language, why the first product targeted professional writers, and how his childhood in Ukraine inspired him to become an entrepreneur.

How to Keep Learning with Euan Blair of Multiverse

Wed, 06 Sep 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Euan Blair started his career in finance, but he had a nagging interest at the intersection of education and employment. In 2016, Euan launched Multiverse, a tech startup on a mission to create a diverse group of future leaders by building an alternative to university and corporate training: apprenticeships. Today, Multiverse helps over 1,000 organizations hire apprentices to close skill gaps and develop a diverse talent pipeline. The company has trained over 10,000 of these apprentices and earned its status as the UK's first EdTech unicorn. Euan shares why the company's apprenticeships are rooted in high-growth areas like tech, why founders should devote even more time to hiring, and how growing up with his dad as the Prime Minister fostered a deep sense of public service.

How to Be Industry-Oriented with Sajith Wickramasekara of Benchling

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0000

In 2012, Saji Wickramasekara took a bold leap: he took a leave of absence from his undergraduate studies at MIT to start Benchling. A computer scientist by training, Saji had also worked in labs and realized just how much was still run on pen and paper. Today, Benchling's technology powers the biotechnology industry, used by more than 200,000 scientists at over 1200 companies and 7,500 research institutions around the globe. Saji shares how he approached building a digital lab for scientists to do their best work, why they offered their early product to academics for free, and what it means to grow a purpose-built business.

How to Build the Right Team with John Colgrove of Pure Storage

Wed, 23 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0000

At his core, John Colgrove, aka "Coz," doesn't consider himself an entrepreneur. He sees himself as an engineer who loves to build things. But despite that, he is the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Pure Storage, a company that uncomplicates data storage—and has a market cap over $11B. Coz co-founded Pure Storage in 2009 to empower every organization to get the most from their data and has grown the business to over 11,000 enterprise customers. He spent 20-years at Veritas Software and holds over 170 patents in computer system design. Coz shares why he hired engineers outside of the storage industry, how to maintain a 10x mentality as you scale, and why hard drives will be a thing of the past.

How to Channel Your Creative Spirit with Godard Abel of G2

Wed, 16 Aug 2023 04:00:00 -0000

To build one successful company is a feat. But to do it over and over again? Over the course of his career, Godard Abel has built repeat successes as a serial entrepreneur. Today, he is co-founder and CEO of G2, the world's largest and most trusted software marketplace used by over 80 million people. But he is also the founder of Big Machines (acquired by Oracle) and SteelBrick (acquired by Salesforce). Godard shares how to find joy in the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey, how to build a community of trusted peers, and why he believes AI will change everything.

How to Follow Your Curiosity with Virgilio Bento of Sword Health

Wed, 09 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Growing up, V watched his older brother suffer an accident and struggle to access the intensive physical therapy he needed to recover. V has since dedicated his career to solving pain for the 2 billion people around the globe who suffer each year. In 2015, he started Sword Health to free the world from pain and has helped thousands of people along the way. Sword's digital therapist is proven to outperform traditional physical therapy and reduces surgery by 60%. V shares how he made the transition from PhD to CEO, why Sword's success is built on a combination of AI and human-led therapies, and why getting rejected is imported to success.

How to Live Your Values with Melinda French Gates of Pivotal Ventures

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Melinda is the Founder of Pivotal Ventures in addition to co-chairing the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has spent much of her life dedicated to promoting gender equality, having invested, donated, and committed $1B to just this cause. Already, she has invested over $65 million in comprehensive federal paid family and medical leave, and they have launched a Future of Longevity Accelerator bringing innovative solutions to elder care. Melinda shares the four key industries that can change society, how her parents taught her to live out her values, and why she found success as a manager by living authentically.

How to Operate with No Regrets with Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy

Wed, 26 Jul 2023 09:00:00 -0000

As a serial tech entrepreneur, Greg Jackson entered a new arena in his career in 2016. He decided to shift his focus to the green energy revolution, pursuing a lifelong passion of his to protect the planet. The London-based founder started Octopus Energy Group, which has become the second largest energy supplier in the UK and has expanded operations to 14 countries and 5.1 million customers globally. Greg shares how he's using technology to help tackle climate change, why he's optimistic about the path to renewable energy, and why Al Gore becoming an investor was such a pinch-me moment.

How to Build a Global Company with Scott Farquhar of Atlassian

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 09:00:00 -0000

At some point in every tech employee's career, one likely comes into contact with an Atlassian product, from Jira to Confluence to Trello. Scott co-founded Atlassian back in 2001 along with his university friend, Mike Cannon-Brookes, to help unleash the potential of every team. The iconic collaboration company now has over 240,000 customers around the globe and a market value over $40 billion. Scott shares why insatiable curiosity was key to their success, how Atlassian has helped the Australian tech community thrive, and why they've adopted a work-from-anywhere policy and use offices solely for intentional togetherness.

How to Run Toward Problems with Vikram Kapoor of Lacework

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Vikram has spent much of his career as an engineer, managing database storage at Oracle and earning several patents. But in 2015, he officially took on the title of cofounder, starting Lacework to build the security layer for the cloud. The company's thesis hinges on the idea that security problems can be solved through the right datasets. In 2021, Lacework raised a $1.3B Series D round, the largest funding round for any cybersecurity company. Vikram shares why they approach security as a data problem, how they are able to onboard customers within an hour, and why solving the biggest challenges you can is what creates the best company IP and value.

How to Solve Climate Change with Kurt House of KoBold

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:00:00 -0000

For decades, Kurt House, a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Science, has been at the forefront of climate tech. He decided to dedicate his career to helping transition the energy economy into a renewable one—and realized that a critical material shortfall would be one of the biggest hurdles in electric vehicle adoption. So in 2018, he co-founded KoBold, an AI-driven mineral exploration company. KoBold has launched 50 projects on 3 continents, partnered with major mining companies, and is now valued at over $1B. Kurt shares how KoBold's data helps identify locations with anomalously high concentrations of particular elements, why their team combines experienced explorers with technologists, and why failing fast is critical to their business model.

How to Cut Your Own Path with Julia Hartz of Eventbrite

Wed, 28 Jun 2023 09:00:00 -0000

In 2006, Julia Hartz and her cofounders launched Eventbrite, the global self-service ticketing platform for live experiences. Since its start, the company has empowered event creators with seamless technology to bring more events to life. Last year alone, Eventbrite was home to 1.7 million paid events generating $3.3 billion in gross ticket sales. Julia shares how an early focus on self-service helped the company succeed, why she drew on her maternal instinct to guide Eventbrite though the pandemic, and how an early job on the set of TV hit Friends gave her a fear of phone calls.

How to Turn Your Users into Fans with Leif Abraham of Public

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 09:00:00 -0000

In 2019, serial founders Leif Abraham and Jannick Malling came together to launch Public.com, the popular investing platform that allows everyone to invest in stocks, ETFs, crypto, and alternative assets. They set out to build a community around the stock market, and in just a few years, they've scaled to 3 million members. Leif started as a fintech outsider, but took his entrepreneurial experience and accolades—a double Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner who was named one of the Top 10 Minds in Digital by Adweek—to create a fintech platform that members love. Leif shares how they work to build an emotional connection with users, why it's important to have a "black swan" playbook to prepare for major market events, and why he believes in playing the long game with business relationships.

How to Put Kindness First with Sarah Friar of Nextdoor

Wed, 14 Jun 2023 09:00:00 -0000

How to Bring Creativity to Market with Jo Malone of Jo Loves

Wed, 07 Jun 2023 09:00:00 -0000

For anyone who's ever smelled one of her iconic scents, Jo Malone needs no introduction. Described as an "English scent maverick," Jo has created some of the world's most-loved fragrances. Her first company, Jo Malone London, gained cult status around the world and was sold to Estée Lauder, and in 2013, she launched her Jo Loves, a global fragrance brand. Jo shares how scent has been a superpower since childhood, how she conquered a bout of anxiety by jumping out of a plane, and why the desire to create led her back to the founder seat.

How to Follow Your Intuition with Sara Blakely of SPANX

Wed, 31 May 2023 09:00:00 -0000

In 1998, Sara Blakely set out with a big idea to revolutionize the undergarment industry. Overnight, she went from being a frustrated consumer to the brilliant inventor of SPANX. Sara acted as the product's number one salesperson, using her skills honed in fax machine sales to get SPANX everywhere from the shelves of Neiman Marcus to Oprah's Favorite Things. Sara was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world by TIME and was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine as the youngest self-made female billionaire. Twenty-two years after starting the company, Sara sold a majority stake to Blackstone and became Executive Chairwoman. Sara shares how SPANX has been profitable since day one, why what you don't know can actually be your greatest asset, and why it's important to bucket your days to spend time on what you're best at.

How to Communicate Visually at Work with Joe Thomas of Loom

Wed, 24 May 2023 09:00:00 -0000

What does the rise of video-forward platforms like TikTok and Snapchat mean for how we work? That's the question Joe Thomas and his co-founders set out to solve at Loom, the video communication platform for async work. They started Loom in 2015, long before the pandemic, and have scaled the platform to 21 million users and more than 215 million "looms" recorded. Joe shares why it took a few product pivots to find real user traction, why asynchronous work is more inclusive, and why he invests 6 hours on Mondays in one-on-ones with his direct reports.

How to Build a Company around People with Julie Rice of Peoplehood

Wed, 17 May 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Julie Rice is no stranger to building massive brands. In 2006, she co-founded the fitness phenomenon, SoulCycle, with her business partner Elizabeth Cutler. They scaled SoulCycle from a small dance studio to 60 spin studios across the country, attracting Equinox as a buyer. Along the way, they realized while people came for the workouts, they stayed for the community. Julie and Elizabeth are back in the founder seat with their newest venture, Peoplehood. They have pioneered a guided group conversation practice designed to create new relational habits. Julie shares why she's working to combat the loneliness epidemic, how it feels to be a second-time entrepreneur, and why her family's weekly observance of Shabbat is key to recharging for the week ahead.

How to Operate with Speed with Dave Rogenmoser of Jasper

Wed, 10 May 2023 09:00:00 -0000

In 2021, Dave Rogenmoser got access to the OpenAI beta. He quickly spotted a giant opportunity: using GPT-3 to help people write great content more quickly. He co-founded Jasper and in under two years, scaled the company to over 100,000 users and a valuation of $1.5 billion. Today, Jasper is an AI-powered content platform working with increasingly large enterprises. Dave shares how AI-powered content became a must-have for companies, why he believes the world won't be dominated by a singular language model in the future, and why his next entrepreneurial swing after Jasper may be found on the golf course.

How to Treat Every Day Like Day One with Divya Gokulnath of BYJU'S

Wed, 03 May 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Over the course of her career, Divya Gokulnath has gone from teacher to cofounder of the world's largest edtech company. In 2011, she co-founded BYJU'S with her husband, Byju Raveendran, to create a world where every student can learn better. By harnessing technology, BYJU'S has scaled to educate over 150 million students around the world, and the company has become India's most valuable startup. Divya shares why her biggest strength comes from starting as a teacher, how BYJU'S assesses every acquisition through three specific parameters, and why being the founder of a hyper-growth company is like being "an elephant with wings."

How to Build a Lasting Company with John Berkowitz of OJO

Wed, 26 Apr 2023 09:00:00 -0000

John Berkowitz's default is to be in problem-solving mode. So after selling his first company Yodle for $340 million, he was ready to get back in the ring. In 2015, John started OJO, an industry-leading real estate technology company that partners with the top real estate teams and agents to deliver value for millions of consumers. OJO was early to use AI to help people navigate the world of real estate. John shares how the company delivers personalization at scale, why it's important to stay curious, and why he treats OJO as a family business and considers his wife and four kids as an extension of his executive team.

How to Engage Your User Community with Trina Spear of FIGS

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Over lunch with a nurse friend, Heather Hasson realized that the whole experience of buying scrubs—from the shopping process to product quality—was subpar. So she and co-founder Trina Spear set out to create a direct-to-consumer brand dedicated to modern healthcare professionals: FIGS. They went from selling scrubs out of a car in 2013 to going public in 2021 at a valuation of over $5 billion. FIGS was the first company led by two female co-founders to ever be taken public. Trina shares how the company quickly pivoted during Covid to produce protective gear, how leading a public company forces improvements in areas that are not working, and what she learned from her first job as a waitress at Johnny Rockets.

How to Deliver Quality Results with AI with Jason Boehmig of Ironclad

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 09:00:00 -0000

What if lawyers could work 10x more efficiently? That's the problem Jason Boehmig set out to solve in 2014 at Ironclad, a leading legal software provider that helps businesses create and manage contracts. But as AI's capabilities have grown, Jason now has his sights set on making legal work 1,000x more efficient. Jason transitioned from corporate attorney to founder, and Ironclad now has over 1,000 customers and a $3.2 billion valuation. Jason shares why Ironclad invested in the legal community early on, how the company is closing the "access to justice gap," and why he starts off every year by reading a poem to the whole company.

How to Be Exuberantly Optimistic with Vlad Magdalin of Webflow

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Today, Webflow is a company valued at over $4 billion. But it took Vlad and his cofounders repeated attempts to get the company off the ground. In 2012, they started gaining steam for their vision to allow people to create websites with no coding experience. The company now brings the power of software engineering to designers through an intuitive visual interface and has grown to over 3.5 million users. Vlad shares how Webflow has made its user community a superpower, why having two kids when he started the company gave him extra motivation to succeed, and how he predicts no-code and generative AI will intersect.

How to Deliver Value Through High Quality Products with Jeff Raider of Harry's

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0000

While in business school, Jeff Raider co-founded Warby Parker and watched the iconic glasses company take off. So when his friend, Andy Katz-Mayfield, G-chatted him one day with an idea to reimagine mens' razors, Jeff was intrigued. In 2013, the duo started Harry's to create exceptional shaving and personal care products that better meet the needs of modern men. The company has since reached tens of millions of people and become the #2 men's shave brand in the country. Jeff shares how they signed on a German factory to manufacture a million blades before writing a business plan, how their first referral program led to over 100,000 email sign-ups in a week, and how he found the silver lining when the FTC blocked a planned acquisition of Harry's in 2020.

How to Walk with Purpose with Reese Witherspoon of Hello Sunshine

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0000

At fourteen, Reese Witherspoon’s acting career kicked off. In the ensuing decades, she has become an A-list star, earning an Academy Award for her performance in Walk the Line and starring in iconic films like Legally Blonde and Election. But despite her success, she found herself underwhelmed by the quality of roles for women. In 2016, she started Hello Sunshine, a cross-platform media brand and content company, to drive the production of female-centric content. Hello Sunshine was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential Companies and was acquired for $900M in 2021. Reese shares why female collaboration fuels creativity, how Hello Sunshine has found success across so many media platforms, and what she learned from her first business (a custom barrette company in the third grade).

How to Measure Time by Impact with Jyoti Bansal of Harness and Traceable

Wed, 15 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0000

Jyoti Bansal is a serial entrepreneur, through and through. In 2008, he first made the leap from startup engineer to CEO with AppDynamics, a company that was acquired by Cisco for $3.7 billion just under a decade later. After giving retirement a shot, he returned to the founder seat: he started software delivery unicorn Harness, cybersecurity platform Traceable, startup accelerator BIG Labs, and VC firm Unusual Ventures—and has more than 25 US patents under his name. Jyoti shares his simple formula for finding product-market fit, why ringing the Nasdaq closing bell was part of his Cisco negotiation, and how he's learned not to stress about things outside of his control.

How to Scale via Product-Led Growth with Eugenio Pace of Auth0 and Okta

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 10:00:00 -0000

Over his decade-plus at Microsoft, Eugenio Pace became an expert in cloud computing and identity management, co-authoring several books on the topic. His drive to solve the problem of identity management for fellow developers inspired him to start a company of his own, Auth0, in 2013. Over eight years, he scaled the company into a trusted global brand, leading to a 2021 acquisition by Okta in a $6.5 billion dollar deal. Today, Eugenio is the President of Customer Identity at Okta, serving Auth0's and Okta's combined customer base. Eugenio shares why they decided to offer parts of Auth0 for free, why he attributes his success to a CEO development program, and why he felt like it was the right moment to sell his company—even though Okta started courting him years prior.

How to Stay Emotionally Calibrated with Tim Chen of NerdWallet

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 10:00:00 -0000

In 2009, Tim Chen found himself laid off from his Wall Street job and was trying to figure out his next move. But a simple question from his sister about finding the right credit card turned into the core idea for NerdWallet, the company on a mission to give consumers clarity around all of life's financial decisions. NerdWallet started as a tool to help people shop for credit cards, but has scaled to serve over 19 million users. In 2021, Tim led NerdWallet through an IPO. Tim shares why they raised venture capital only after the company was profitable, why he loves the Jeff Bezos quote that very few decisions are irreversible, and how his parents instilled Tim's entrepreneurial drive.

How to Create a Design-Centric Platform with James Hirschfeld of Paperless Post

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 10:00:00 -0000

While a sophomore at Harvard, James Hirschfeld put lots of time into planning his 21st birthday party—but when it came time to figure out invitations, there was no option that spoke to him, between expensive stationery and clunky online tools. He started Paperless Post in 2009 along with his sister, Alexa, and has since reimagined the experience of sending and receiving invitations for over 175 million users. James shares why it was an uphill battle convincing investors that consumers wanted premium tools for digital communication, how they turned the business impact of the pandemic (the worst thing that could happen to a company centered on events) into an investment in the future, and why user trust and loyalty is sacred.

How to Build an Evidence-Based Business with George Fraser of Fivetran

Wed, 15 Feb 2023 10:00:00 -0000

In 2012, George Fraser teamed up with his lifelong friend, Taylor Brown, to build Fivetran. Their initial vision was completely different from what Fivetran is today: a fully managed automated data integration provider, valued at over $5 billion. But the two listened to customer conversations and realized that they could build a viable business around a singular pain point. Fivetran now serves thousands of customers and hundreds of leading brands across the globe. George shares how his PhD in Neurobiology impacts his style as a founder, why fear of failure is an underrated motivator, and why they got creative with a major acquisition in order to build a full-spectrum offering overnight.

Why Execution is More Powerful Than Ideas with Allon Bloch of K Health

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 10:00:00 -0000

Allon Bloch is no stranger to starting companies, but when he launched K Health, he was new to healthcare. Before K Health, he was the CEO of website publishing platform Wix and car retailer Vroom. But his father's health struggles inspired him to turn his focus to delivering high quality medicine at scale. He co-founded K Health in 2016 and has scaled the platform into the #1 downloaded app in the medical category, covering over 6 million people. Allon explains how K Health leveraged AI early on to teach a machine the language of medicine, why he believes it's a great time to be a healthcare entrepreneur, and why he attributes his success to the partnership of strong co-founding teams.

How to Be the Customer with Anthony Casalena of Squarespace

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 10:00:00 -0000

Nearly twenty years ago, Anthony Casalena was a student at the University of Maryland who wanted to build himself a website. Finding no easy platform in the market, he created his own. Today, Squarespace is an all-in-one website building and ecommerce platform used by more than 4.2 million people. Anthony worked as a team of one for the first few years, but now has over 1,800 employees and took Squarespace public in 2021. Anthony shares how he got his idea off the ground with a $30,000 investment in servers and Google AdWords, why it still feels surreal to see a Squarespace ad at the Super Bowl, and how running a public company is completely different than what he expected.

How to Deliver Real Value with Ara Mahdessian of ServiceTitan

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 05:00:00 -0000

Growing up, Ara saw firsthand how hard his father worked as a contractor running a trade business. When he met Vahe Kuzoyan, a fellow Armenian immigrant whose family worked in the trades, they saw an opportunity to help their own families work more efficiently and grow their businesses. Over time, word spread and they decided to go all in on building ServiceTitan. With a valuation over $9B, ServiceTitan helps thousands of customers in the trillion dollar trade industry. Ara shares how his dad wandering the aisles of Barnes & Noble kicked off his coding skills, why the two victories of B2B software are making customers money or saving them money, and how he and Vahe strive to cultivate a winning culture.

How to Operate with Velocity with Waseem Daher of Pilot

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 10:00:00 -0000

Co-founder dynamics can be notoriously challenging. But Waseem Daher and his co-founders, Jeff Arnold and Jessica McKellar, are now building their third business together. Their most recent company is Pilot, which they started in 2016 to solve a pain point they experienced as founders: how time-consuming it can be to manage company finances. Pilot is now the largest startup and SMB bookkeeper in the United States, serving over 1,900 clients. Waseem shares why speed is the most critical advantage for startups to leverage, how he learned to delegate in later stages, and why a founder's strongest ethical obligation is to their customers and team.

How to Build a Vertical Product with Andrew Bialecki of Klaviyo

Wed, 07 Dec 2022 10:00:00 -0000

Flashback Episode: How Constraints Create Opportunity with David Velez of Nubank

Wed, 30 Nov 2022 10:00:00 -0000

After business school, David Velez moved to Latin America to become a venture capitalist. But after finding a dearth of startups to invest in, he founded one of his own. Since then, Nubank has grown into the largest independent digital bank in the world. The Brazil-based company has over 39 million users and a valuation north of $25 billion. David shares how Nubank built a waitlist of over a million people in just 18 months, why the company's first product was a purple credit card, and how waking up at 5am every day makes him a better founder.

(Original Air Date: Jun-9-2021)

Flashback Episode: How to Build Your Executive Team with Ali Ghodsi of Databricks

Wed, 23 Nov 2022 10:00:00 -0000

In 2013, a team of academics at UC Berkeley was working to solve massive data challenges that were impacting the tech companies in their backyard. Fast-forward and that team now represents the co-founders of Databricks, a data and AI company used by more than 5,000 organizations worldwide. In 2016, Ali Ghodsi stepped into the CEO seat and the company is now valued at $28 billion. Ali shares why he prioritizes building leaders over making decisions, how he sees the future of AI, and how he navigates the unique experience of having six co-founders.

(Original Air Date: 3-17-2021)

How Naivete Can be a Strength with Sean Duffy of Omada Health

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 10:00:00 -0000

Just a year into medical school at Harvard, Sean Duffy decided to pursue a new route toward healthcare delivery. In 2011, he started Omada Health to explore how design and technology could make a difference in healthcare. Today, Omada Health is a virtual-first care provider that blends clinical protocols with behavior science to help people with chronic conditions achieve long term improvements. The company now serves over 700,000 members and has facilitated over 13 million messages between members and care teams. Sean shares why Omada chose to focus on in-between-visit care, how the pandemic accelerated digital adoption by a matter of years, and why his most helpful read as he started a company was The Entrepreneur's Guide to Business Law.

How to Persevere with Saeju Jeong of Noom

Wed, 02 Nov 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Today, millions of users know Noom as the most-installed weight loss app of 2020. But it took countless pivots and many years for the consumer-led digital health company to turn its mission—of helping people live healthier, happier lives—into a product users are obsessed with. Saeju's intense desire to help people dates back to childhood in South Korea, growing up in a family of doctors. He started working on what would become Noom in 2007, but it took nearly a decade for the company to hit its stride. Saeju shares why he's hyper-focused on preventative healthcare, why he would have been shocked as an early founder to learn he'd be in the weight loss business, and how becoming a father made him realize the value of his parents' unconditional love.

How to Build a 100-Year Company with Harley Finkelstein

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Why Friction is Underestimated with Sebastian Siemiatkowski of Klarna

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 09:00:00 -0000

It has been nearly two decades since Sebastian Siemiatkowski started Klarna, based on the simple idea of enabling customers to pay how they'd like. Today, Klarna is a fintech giant on a mission to revolutionize the retail banking industry. Headquartered in Sweden, Klarna is now a fully licensed bank operating across 45 markets. The company has scaled to over 150 million active consumers and over 450,000 merchant partners. Sebastian shares why he thinks of Klarna as a digital assistant that saves people time and money, why he thinks the banking industry will shrink (making Klarna a larger player in a smaller industry), and how growing up as a Polish immigrant in Sweden gave him a hunger for entrepreneurship.

How to Define a Flexible CEO Role with Max Rhodes of Faire

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 09:00:00 -0000

How do retailers find brands to feature in their stores? For years, trade shows were the default option. Until Faire entered the scene. Max Rhodes started Faire in 2017 as an online marketplace where retailers discover their next bestsellers from independent brands across the globe. Today, the company supports over half a million retailers in 15,000 cities and connects them to over 70,000 brands around the world--earning the company a $12B valuation. Max shares what it felt like when he realized Faire had reached product-market fit, why he thinks solely direct-to-consumer brands will go away, and why being a college athlete at Yale felt like entering the working world four years early.

How to Keep Growing with Noah Kerner of Acorns

Wed, 28 Sep 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Amidst a fintech boom over the past decade, Acorns has continued to scale dramatically. The app which allows consumers to save and invest has grown to serve over 11 million customers and has helped its users invest over $15 billion to date. Noah's path into the CEO seat was an unusual one: he's a 4x entrepreneur and former DJ for Jennifer Lopez. But growing up in New York City gave him a life and career purpose to help level the playing field. Noah shares how he thinks of Acorns as a financial wellness system, why behavioral economics have helped the company make an emotional connection with users, and why he's inspired by the quote "the process is the prize."

How Impatience Fuels Innovation with Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe

Wed, 21 Sep 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Three years after the first human genome was sequenced, Anne Wojcicki cofounded 23andMe. After a decade on Wall Street investing in healthcare, Anne started a new career chapter as a founder working to empower people with direct access to genetic information. Fast-forward and 23andMe has become the only personal genetic test with FDA authorization to deliver health information directly to consumers. To date, over 12 million people have taken a 23andMe DNA test kit. Anne shares why she adopted a low-margin and high-volume business strategy, why she believes personalized medicine is the future, and how figuring out time management was one of her biggest hurdles.

How to Test Your Assumptions with Eynat Guez of Papaya Global

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 09:00:00 -0000

As an expert in global payroll and global workforce management, it was only a matter of time before Eynat took the leap to close the industry's technology gap. In 2016, she started a revolution in global payroll management when she co-founded Papaya Global. As the pandemic accelerated the growth of global teams, Papaya has scaled to work with over 700 companies, managing over $3B in total payroll. Eynat shares how customer discovery sessions impacted Papaya's product roadmap, why she believes in worst-case-scenario planning, and why she stayed the course with an aggressive growth plan in 2020.

How to Make Better Decisions Remotely with Sid Sijbrandij of GitLab

Wed, 07 Sep 2022 09:00:00 -0000

In 2012, as a Ruby programmer, Sid Sijbrandij encountered GitLab, an open source technology that sparked his interest. Soon after, he decided to build a company on top of GitLab and has since scaled the DevOps platform to an estimated 30 million+ registered users from startups to global enterprises alike. A decade after the first GitLab code was written, the company went public at a valuation of $11B. Sid shares how their pricing model is based on end user, the value of starting a CEO shadow program, and why he decided to make the company's 2,000 page employee handbook public.

How to Create Engaging Content with Emmett Shear of Twitch

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 09:00:00 -0000

How to Get Honest Feedback with Brian Long of Attentive

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 09:00:00 -0000

When repeat founder Brian Long set out to build a text communication platform for businesses, he soon realized that the first version of his product didn't have the market pull he was looking for. After a pivot, Brian found himself building Attentive, the comprehensive mobile messaging platform for brands. Six years in, Attentive has become a major player in the e-commerce space and counts thousands of major brands as customers, from CB2 to Michaels. On average, Attentive drives 20% of total online revenue for its customers. Brian shares how he managed hypergrowth in 2020 as customers grew by 270%, why he always asks for quantitative feedback in every customer conversation, and why his unusual trick to destress at work is through reading World War II books.

How to Make Speed a Feature with Dan Lewis of Convoy

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Throughout his career, Dan worked at tech giants Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. In 2015, he set out to build a tech giant of his own: Convoy. Convoy is a digital trucking network that is transforming the trillion-dollar global trucking industry. Dan went from interviewing truckers on the side of the road to building a business that works with over 300,000 trucks across the country. Dan shares how the rise of mobile technology was an accelerant to his business, how he used YouTube to learn the language of trucking, and the pivotal advice Jeff Bezos gave him about building a leadership team.

How to Operate in a Regulated Industry with Ed Fenster of Sunrun

Wed, 10 Aug 2022 15:25:01 -0000

Today, millions of homes across the country have installed solar panels. But that was not the case when Ed Fenster co-founded Sunrun in 2007. Since starting the company with his business school classmate, Sunrun has grown to become the leading home solar and storage company. Ed is driven by a deep mission to power the planet through the sun, and Sunrun, which went public in 2015, now operates in 23 states. Ed shares how he recognized a huge opportunity on the residential side of the market, how his successful business partnership was fueled by an alignment in ethics and decision-making, and why his secret to unwinding is playing blues piano.

How to Build a Growth Flywheel with Adi Tatarko of Houzz

Wed, 03 Aug 2022 09:00:00 -0000

In 2009, Adi and her husband Alon Cohen embarked on a home renovation. They quickly realized how challenging it was to find both inspiration and qualified home professionals, so they started a side project to bring technology into the home design space. Organically, the Houzz community blossomed to hundreds of thousands of users before Adi decided to take on outside capital and make Houzz her day job. Today, Houzz is the leading platform for home renovation and design and has over 65 million users. Adi shares how she overcame knowing no one when she first moved to Silicon Valley, how she built a thriving two-sided marketplace through word of mouth, and why she loves building the company alongside her husband.

How Naysayers Can Fuel Your Success With Jason Gardner of Marqeta

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 09:00:00 -0000

In 2010, over a sushi dinner with a friend, Jason sparked an interest in what would become his next entrepreneurial adventure: transforming modern card issuing. With a deep intellectual curiosity for how credit cards work, Jason built Marqeta to bring game-changing card products into the world. Marqeta now works with customers in 39 countries, has a team of nearly 900 employees, and IPOed in 2021. Jason shares how he almost moved to Australia to start a Jamba Juice-style chain before Marqeta, how he persevered after nearly running out of money in 2015, and why he's fueled by the challenge of people not believing in him.

How to Plan for Success with Amol Deshpande of Farmers Business Network

Wed, 20 Jul 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Family farmers, who are the backbone of the food and agricultural system globally, represent fast-growing small businesses looking to innovate. That's why Amol Deshpande left his career as an investor to start Farmers Business Network (FBN), the global farmer-to-farmer network and agtech company. FBN is on a mission to power the prosperity of family farmers around the world and now supports over 43,000 farmers responsible for over 80 million acres in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. Amol shares why—despite the stereotype—farmers are tech-forward, how his upbringing instilled an appetite for risk-taking, and why it's critical to invest time with your children consistently, just as you show up consistently at work.

How to Make Good Moves with Jay Kreps of Confluent

Wed, 13 Jul 2022 09:00:00 -0000

In 2011, Jay Kreps was an engineer at LinkedIn, leading the platform's search, recommendation engine, and social graph. In an effort to figure out how to make real-time streams of data useful to organizations, he started an open-source project called Kafka, and it took off. Realizing a major business opportunity, Jay took the leap into entrepreneurship and started Confluent in 2014. Today, over 70% of Fortune 500 companies use Kafka, and he took Confluent public in 2021. Jay shares what it means to process "data in motion," why it's daunting to go from being a software engineer to CEO, and why he only spent one year in a traditional high school before deciding to teach himself.

How to Focus on the Work with Josh Tetrick of Eat Just

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Growing up in Alabama, Josh Tetrick dreamed of being an NFL player. But when that dream didn't come true, he set his sights on a wholly new endeavor: to make a better version of an egg. He started Eat Just, a food technology company working to build a healthier and more sustainable food system. Since then, Eat Just has created America’s fastest-growing egg brand, which is made entirely of plants, and the world’s first-to-market meat made from animal cells. Josh shares how he got his plant-based eggs into nearly every major retailer, how he's overcome the challenge of scaling from a lab to national distribution, and why thinking about death helps him frame the urgency of his priorities.

How to Be Execution-Focused with Alex Bouaziz of Deel

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 09:00:00 -0000

In 2019, with a belief that work was becoming increasingly borderless, Alex Bouaziz and his cofounder Shuo Wang started Deel. They built a global compliance and payroll solution that helps businesses hire anyone in over 150 countries. Fueled by a shift to distributed work unlocked by the pandemic, Deel has experienced unprecedented growth: the company has raised over $600M in funding, scaled to over $100M in ARR, and now has over 1,000 employees in 75 different countries. Alex shares why he holds two KPIs sacred (monthly growth and customer satisfaction), the importance of keeping money in the bank and spending like you're a round earlier, and why larger companies are beginning to think more about output than input.

Flashback Episode: How to Build Community Through Ownership with Roham Gharegozlou of Dapper Labs

Wed, 22 Jun 2022 09:00:00 -0000

If you've heard of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), it's likely thanks to the work of Roham Gharegozlou. Roham is the Co-Founder and CEO of Dapper Labs, the NFT company that has created some of the most viral brands out there, from CryptoKitties to NBA Top Shot. Through his venture studio Axiom Zen, he started looking into crypto back in 2014. With a mission to bring play to crypto, Dapper Labs has been named one of the most innovative gaming companies by Fast Company and has created some of the most broadly used applications in the history of crypto. Roham shares how NBA Top Shot scaled to over one million users, why he thinks of NFTs as the next evolution of social media, and why entrepreneurship requires a healthy balance of optimism and paranoia.

How to Make the World Better with Pat Brown of Impossible Foods

Wed, 15 Jun 2022 09:00:00 -0000

In 2011, when Pat Brown took a sabbatical from his position as a biochemistry professor at Stanford, he had already spent decades making a positive mark on the world. He had developed a technology that made it possible to monitor the activity of all the genes in a genome, a huge development in cancer research. But during his sabbatical he decided to address the environmental impact of animal farming. Enter Impossible Foods, which is now available in thousands of grocery stores and restaurants across the country. Pat shares why he's on a mission to completely replace the use of animals in food technology by 2035, why their initial go-to-market strategy centered on top chefs, and how trail running and large amounts of coffee fuel his entrepreneurial journey.

How to Create a Happiness Advantage with Henry Schuck of ZoomInfo

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 09:00:00 -0000

While working at a small sales intelligence firm in Las Vegas, Henry saw an opportunity to leverage technology to unlock opportunity for go-to-market teams. In 2007, he started DiscoverOrg from his law school dorm. Brick by brick, he scaled DiscoverOrg, leading the company through 11 acquisitions (including of Zoom Information, from which the business takes its name). Thirteen years after founding the company, ZoomInfo became the first tech company to go public during the Covid-19 pandemic. Henry shares why he believes in the American dream, what it was like to take a company public in a fully remote environment, and why the practice of gratitude journaling makes him a better founder.

How to Create a Network Effect with Michael Shaulov of Fireblocks

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:00:00 -0000

As a serial cybersecurity entrepreneur and operator, Michael found himself investigating a $200M bitcoin hack that happened in 2017. As he dug into it, he realized there was a big opportunity to help companies manage digital assets securely. In 2018, he co-founded Fireblocks, the leader in digital assets and cryptocurrency custody, transfer, and issuance technology—or in Michael's words, "Shopify for crypto." Fireblocks now works with over 1,200 financial institutions and supports over 850 tokens. Michael shares how Fireblocks built up a referral network that drives a third of inbound inquiries, how serving on an elite military technological unit gave him a refuse-to-lose mentality, and why he believes NFTs will transform how people do business on the internet.

How to Have a Founder's Mindset with Nikil Viswanathan of Alchemy

Wed, 25 May 2022 09:00:00 -0000

What does it take to grow a company from zero to over $10 billion of value in just five years? In the case of Nikil Viswanathan's Alchemy, the answer comes down to speed and hustle. Nikil and his cofounder are both Stanford-educated serial entrepreneurs who set out to build a company that would change the world. They see web3 as a major paradigm shift and business opportunity, and the duo has scaled Alchemy into the world's leading blockchain developer platform (think: Microsoft for web3). Nikil shares why 22 of the company's first 27 hires were former founders, why he believes NFTs will be the first web3 iteration to be mass-market friendly, and why he and his cofounder celebrate big wins with a trip to the gym.

How to Give Employees a Voice with Didier Elzinga of Culture Amp

Wed, 18 May 2022 09:00:00 -0000

How did Didier Elzinga go from CEO of an Academy-Award winning visual effects company to tech founder of the world's leading employee experience platform? Spoiler: it's all about the people. In his first CEO role, Didier realized that people were everything and that his role was primarily focused on people management. So in 2009, he set out to create a better world of work. Since then, Culture Amp has scaled to work with more than 5,000 companies and 25 million employees across the globe. Didier shares why he believes in the transformative power of story, how the importance of communication ramps up during periods of hyper-growth, and why post-Covid offices must facilitate a different way of bringing people together.

How to Nail the Post-Sale Customer Journey with Todd Olson of Pendo

Wed, 11 May 2022 09:00:00 -0000

A three-time entrepreneur and seasoned product leader, Todd Olson is on a journey to build software that makes software better. At Pendo, his Raleigh-based company, he's helped over 2,300 customers—from Salesforce to Toast—build product-led organizations. Nearly a decade into building Pendo, Todd feels he's finally found the entrepreneurial success he's been striving for throughout his career. Todd shares how he got his first customers through community-driven events, why companies should have separate product and engineering leaders, and how he incorporates his family into the company, often cooking for investors and customers in his home.

How to Build an Entrepreneurial Company with Nik Storonsky of Revolut

Wed, 04 May 2022 09:00:00 -0000

With the rise of fintech apps, consumers find themselves with accounts scattered across institutions and brands. But what if there was one financial superapp that functioned on a global scale? Enter Revolut, the company Nik Storonsky co-founded in 2015 that is transforming the way we do all things money. The app has seen exponential growth with more than 18 million customers across 35 countries, earning it a valuation over $33B. Nik shares how the company went from a single card product to a one-stop financial solution, how a great product scaled the company entirely by word of mouth for the first five years, and why the secret to his management philosophy is rooted in the math of hiring exceptional people.

How to Identify a Market Gap with Woody Levin of Extend

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 09:00:00 -0000

When a consumer adds an AppleCare warranty to their purchase, it adds a layer of trust and protection. What if you could insure most purchases you make online? In 2019, Woody Levin co-founded Extend to modernize the warranty industry. As Covid accelerated the e-commerce, Extend's business has seen rapid growth, working with customers from Sur La Table to Peloton. Woody shares how his aha moment for Extend came from losing a fantasy football bet, why it was like to hire 350 employees in one year, and how he's used career failures as fuel.

How to Adapt Your Plans with Ariel Cohen of TripActions

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 09:00:00 -0000

In 2015, Ariel co-founded TripActions to transform business travel. In the classic Blockbuster vs. Netflix analogy, TripActions set out to be the latter—replacing travel agents and complex expense reports with a best-in-class digital experience. The company's tremendous growth came to a screeching halt in 2020, when Covid stopped business travel altogether. But TripActions adapted and came back even stronger, now boasting over 9,000 customers and a valuation north of $7B. Ariel shares how a disastrous business trip to Ukraine was one of his aha moments, what it was like to lose all revenue in a two-day span when the pandemic hit, and why distributed teams have now unlocked a new category of business travel.

How to Scale Globally with Kate Ryder of Maven

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:00:00 -0000

When Kate Ryder founded Maven in 2014, to reimagine healthcare for women and families from the ground up, she was ahead of the curve. With virtual care delivery at its core, she's grown Maven into the largest telehealth network for women's and family health globally. Maven's growth started with a "boots on the ground" marketing strategy and was accelerated in recent years by Covid. Today, the company has a thriving B2B model that supports over 10 million families in 175 countries. Kate shares why her earlier career as a journalist makes her a stronger founder, how summers in the Adirondacks sparked her imagination and self-reliance, and how she created a new category in healthcare to fill in all the moments outside of the doctor's office.

How to Make a Difference with Glen Tullman of Transcarent

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 09:30:00 -0000

To build one successful company is a major achievement—particularly in an industry as complex as healthcare delivery. But Glen Tullman has done it time and time again. He digitized electronic prescriptions, led a hospital resource management company, and built the first at-scale digital health company to empower people with chronic conditions. He led his last company, Livongo, through the largest consumer digital health IPO in history. With Transcarent, he's back in the CEO seat, building a better healthcare experience for employees of self-insured companies. Glen shares why "telehealth" should just be called "health," why he'd rather be building a business than sleeping, and what role tech players like Apple and Amazon will have in the future of healthcare.

How AI Can Drive Customer Insights with Amit Bendov of Gong

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 10:00:00 -0000

In 2015, Amit Bendov was not looking to start a company. But he was looking for a way for his sales team to more automatically capture CRM data. He and his co-founder started Gong to help sales teams have better conversations with customers and win more deals. Gong quickly found product-market fit, which only accelerated when Covid pushed all sales calls to the digital format. Gong has grown to over 2,000 customers with a valuation north of $7B. Amit shares why he charged early customers a high price to stay in the beta, why he believes autonomous applications are the way of the future, and why you learn more from successes than failures.

How to Build a Personalized Product with Florian Otto of Cedar

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 09:00:00 -0000

Across the United States, there are 50 million people who have a bad credit score because of medical debt. That's just one of the many reasons Florian and his co-founder started Cedar in 2016. At Cedar, they are combining the best of fintech, healthcare, and consumer products into a unified platform that helps patients pay bills with ease. The company is valued at over $3 billion dollars and has helped over 12 million patients to date. Florian shares how he's overcome the slow velocity of the healthcare system, how he learned to show vulnerability as a leader, and why he believes M&A is undervalued by most startups.

How to Find a Better Way with Dave Ferguson of Nuro

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 09:00:00 -0000

What would it look like to better everyday life through robotics? That's the question Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu set out to answer in 2016. After working as the machine learning and computer vision lead at Waymo, Dave co-founded Nuro to focus on autonomous vehicles that deliver goods (not people). The company's focused approach—on transporting everything from produce to prescriptions—aims to cut down on the 100 billion vehicle trips we take to run errands each year. Nuro's vehicles have been piloted across Texas, Arizona, and California, and the company is valued at over $8B. Dave shares what it means to design a passenger-less vehicle, how Nuro supports a more sustainable relationship to consumption, and why he aims to make Nuro a company where employees do the best work of their careers.

How to be an Experimentalist with Arif Nathoo of Komodo Health

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 11:00:00 -0000

Across the globe, a trove of healthcare data is being created and amassed at scale, but how can the health system leverage this data to create better outcomes? In 2014, Arif Nathoo—with AM, MD, and MPA degrees from Harvard—took the humbling leap from healthcare executive at McKinsey to founder of Komodo Health. He and his cofounder set out to reduce the burden of disease with data-driven insights and powerful software applications. Today, Komodo Health works with everyone from pharmaceutical manufacturers to payers to startups, and the company is valued at over $3B. Arif shares why Covid was a watershed moment in utilizing healthcare data, why the future of healthcare will be fully centered on the patient, and what it was like to hire more people in the last year than the company hired in the first seven years total.

How to Build Community Through Ownership with Roham Gharegozlou of Dapper Labs

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 10:00:00 -0000

How to Lead with Intentionality with René Lacerte of Bill.com

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 11:00:00 -0000

As a fourth-generation founder, René Lacerte's passion for helping small businesses is deep-seated. That passion has empowered him to grow Bill.com, the leading provider of cloud-based software that transforms the way businesses pay and get paid, into a massive success. Bill.com went public in 2019 and now has a market cap over $20B. Beyond the metrics of success, René's work is driven by his values and in the value he hopes to bring to the SMB community. René shares how patience has been a vital tool in his 15-year journey at Bill.com, why he took a horizontal approach to building his business, and why all small businesses need to leverage technology to stay ahead of the curve.

How to Work Asynchronously with David Barrett of Expensify

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 11:00:00 -0000

For the 10 million plus users of Expensify, the company's origin story will likely come as a surprise. In founder David Barrett's mind, Expensify was a fictional startup concept that he pitched to banks to gauge their reaction for an idea he had to solve homelessness in San Francisco. But when David lost his job in 2007, he decided to turn this fictional idea for Expensify into a real business. Expensify is known to most as an expense management app, but since going public in 2021, the company continues to throttle toward a broader vision: to be a platform that facilitates conversations that accomplish things in the real world. David shares how he's kept headcount to 140 while generating over a million dollars of revenue per employee, how an employee-first acquisition model was their key to growth, and how an async work culture means the sun never sets on the Expensify empire.

How to Meet the Demand Shift with Abhi Ramesh of Misfits Market

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 11:00:00 -0000

It was his first visit to an apple orchard that gave Abhi Ramesh his aha moment. Seeing all of the misfit apples that were going to be discarded, it was impossible to ignore the inefficiencies in the food supply chain. So it 2018, at just 26 years old, he started Misfits Market. In a crowded online grocery delivery space, he is building an entirely new food value supply chain that fixes the many inefficiencies across the food system. Last year, Misfits Market rescued 228 million pounds of food and earned a valuation over $2B. Abhi shares how the company is bringing grocery delivery to the tens of millions of Americans who live in food deserts, why he believes grocery delivery will become more mainstream post-Covid, and why being a little bit naive is a positive for founders.

How to Stretch Your Knowledge with Raghu Yarlagadda of FalconX

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 11:00:00 -0000

As crypto adoption ramps up, institutional investors are getting in on the action. And many of them are doing so through FalconX, one of the largest and fastest-growing digital asset brokerages, co-founded by Raghu Yarlagadda. An engineer by background, Raghu spent many years on Google's ChromeOS team, but an interest in the future of blockchain technology led him to a wholly new category. He launched FalconX in 2018 and has since scaled the company to a nearly $4B valuation with revenue growth of 30x year-over-year. Raghu shares why much of the world's value will be tokenized in the next five years, how FalconX reached its scale through word of mouth customer acquisition, and how entrepreneurship has become a shared language for his whole family.

How to Build Good Tools with Lukas Biewald of Weights & Biases

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 11:00:00 -0000

What will the future of machine learning look like? According to Lukas Biewald, machine learning has the power to solve many of humanity's biggest problems. That's why he founded Weights & Biases, to build tools that help machine learning practitioners thrive. Weights & Biases is used and loved by over 100,000 practitioners to track their models, datasets and experiments. Lukas shares how the company works with partners like Toyota and Samsung, how he instilled a culture of product-led growth, and how the acquisition of his previous startup kicked off his daily yoga practice.

How to Lead with Trust with Gene Berdichevsky of Sila

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 10:00:00 -0000

Gene Berdichevsky started Sila, the next generation battery materials company, over a decade ago. But, with an eye toward building a hundred-year company, he's just getting started. Gene started his career as the seventh employee at Tesla, where he engineered the Roadster battery. Now at Sila, he's focused on battery innovation in driving the larger shift toward renewables and electric vehicles. Gene shares how he fell in love with energy as an undergrad at Stanford, why having a huge impact depends on both breakthrough tech and an ability to scale, and how he had maintained patience through 55,000 experiments before Sila brought their product to market.

How to Build from the Ground Up with Eren Bali of Carbon Health

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 11:00:00 -0000

To build one successful startup is no easy feat, but to do it twice is even more impressive. It was a childhood spent in a small Turkish village that propelled Eren Bali's passion for working to solve problems of accessibility. First, he created Udemy to make education accessible, scaling it to over 10 million students worldwide. In 2016, he started Carbon Health to reimagine the healthcare experience from scratch. He's raised over $500M in venture funding and has ambitions to open 1,500 clinics across the country over the next few years. Eren shares why he believes the future is "omnichannel healthcare," how Covid went from a business threat to a major accelerant, and why he doubled down on communication skills in his second time around as a founder.

Flashback Episode: How to Think Long-Term, with Steve Fredette of Toast

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 10:00:00 -0000

In 2011, Steve and his co-founders set out to build a company. They understood the power of a vertical strategy and realized that restaurants were ripe for innovation. Enter Toast, which powers restaurants with point of sale, front of house, back of house, and guest-facing technology. Toast has grown rapidly with a clear focus on their customers: restaurants. Toast has raised a whopping $850 million in venture capital and was recognized as the third fastest growing tech company in North America. Steve shares the secret to gauging product market fit before you build a product, how Toast won its first customers through competitive pricing, and why Covid pushed technology from a nice-to-have into a must-have.

Flashback Episode: Why Creators Matter, with Jack Conte of Patreon

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 10:00:00 -0000

At his core, Jack is a creator. While his musical group Pomplamoose had taken off on YouTube, he realized that the mechanism for turning his fans' attention into dollars was broken. So, he built Patreon, a membership platform that makes it easy for creators to earn salaries directly from their biggest fans. Since its launch in 2013, Patreon has paid out more than $1 billion to creators on its platform. Jack shares why the myth of the starving artist is over, why he's willing to work harder than the competition, and how all creators should think about engaging their fans.

Flashback Episode: How to Craft a Viral Product, with Ivan Zhao of Notion

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 10:00:00 -0000

Make sure to follow Ivan on social at @notionhq and @ivanhzhao.

Flashback Episode: Why Equity Matters, with Henry Ward of Carta

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 11:00:00 -0000

What if there was a stock market for private companies? Carta is well on its way to realizing that vision. Henry Ward launched the company to 2012 under the name eShares. Fast-forward and Carta now manages over $575B in equity for 11,000+ companies and has a sky-high valuation of its own at $1.7 billion. Henry shares his vision for closing the wealth inequality gap, how he's hiring 50 new employees each month, and how his previous startup's failure led to Carta's success.

Flashback Episode: How to Build Community, with Jonathan Neman of Sweetgreen

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 10:00:00 -0000

After meeting as freshmen at Georgetown, Jonathan and his two-cofounders set out to open a healthy fast food restaurant in a 500 square feet storefront. From those quaint beginnings, Sweetgreen has grown into a massive food platform, with over 100+ locations and 200+ outposts. Jonathan shares why authenticity is core to the brand, why their inexperience actually enabled innovation, and how he thinks about falling on the right side of this equation: as companies get bigger, they either get better or worse.

Flashback Episode: How Process Helps You Build Faster with Vlad Tenev of Robinhood

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 10:00:00 -0000

What if every American were an investor? At Robinhood, Vlad Tenev is on a mission to make the financial system work for everyone. He co-founded the company in 2013, and the fast-growing brokerage has become an investing giant. With over 13 million users and $1 billion in funding, it's no surprise incumbents have been influenced by Robinhood's model, which drove an industry-wide shift toward commission-free trades. Vlad shares why he decided to build Robinhood as a mobile-first platform, how Covid helped to accelerate user growth, and why waking up to an analog alarm clock is a critical part of his routine.

How to Lean Into the Impossible with David Rogier of MasterClass

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 09:30:00 -0000

Why Utility Matters with Vishal Garg of Better

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 16:11:00 -0000

In 2012, Vishal Garg and his wife tried to buy a home and quickly realized how inefficient the mortgage process was. As Vishal puts it, the mortgage industry acted as though the internet didn't exist. So in 2016, he founded Better to build an all-in-one platform to take customers through the entire home-buying process, from finding an agent, to securing a mortgage, to shopping for insurance. Five years in, Better has funded over $30.9B in home loans and last year alone, the company grew revenue by 850%. Vishal shares why his first move was applying for a mortgage nearly everywhere, why he believes home ownership will shift to a fractional model, and how the best way to grow is to center your customer relationship on utility.

How to Approach a Complex Space with Andrew Hines of Canvas Medical

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 09:00:00 -0000

After watching his wife—a Nurse Practitioner—struggle to keep up with patient notes, Andrew Hines had an idea. What if he could apply his engineering training to architect a better EMR (electronic medical record) to power our healthcare system? In 2015, he started Canvas Medical to shift the paradigm of what an EMR can and should be. Today, Canvas is the only complete software platform for value-based care. Designed to empower clinicians, administrators and even software developers building the next generation of healthcare platforms, Canvas is a simple solution to a complex problem. Andrew shares why he tries to maintain a student's mindset, how Canvas is equipping developers with game-changing APIs, and how he launched his first startup (a surfboard company) as a teenager.

How to Build a Global Business with Kristo Käärmann of Wise

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 10:00:00 -0000

In 2007, Kristo and his friend Taavet were two Estonian friends living and working in London. They quickly realized how expensive it was to exchange money between Pounds and Estonian Euros. Their hack to this problem ended up becoming the foundation for their startup, Wise, which they founded in 2011. Today, Wise allows people to hold 56 currencies, move money between countries, and spend money abroad. Not only is Wise one of the world's fastest-growing tech companies, it was recently listed on the London Stock Exchange in a direct listing that valued the company at $11 billion. Kristo shares why demand for Wise is still growing at a rapid clip, why he's personally eager to get back to the office, and why saying thank you is critical.

How to Create a Magical Experience with Joe Ariel of Goldbelly

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 16:20:33 -0000

Joe Ariel went to college in Nashville, where he fell in love with local delicacies like Nashville hot chicken. Living in New York, he had a craving and wondered if his favorite restaurants could ship food to him. Thus, the idea for Goldbelly was born. Founded in 2013, Goldbelly is an ecommerce platform that empowers the best restaurants and small food makers to ship nationwide. Recognized as one of the top 50 websites in the country, Goldbelly now works with over 850 restaurants and covers all 50 states. Joe shares how Covid accelerated Goldbelly's growth, why restaurants are excited to open up a new online sales channel, and why a phone call from chef and restaurateur Jose Andres was Joe's most meaningful moment to date.

How to Strive for Excellence with Iman Abuzeid of Incredible Health

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 10:00:00 -0000

There is a major nursing shortage plaguing the US healthcare system. By 2024, we're on track to be short over one million nurses. Yet, for working nurses looking for a new job, the industry average job search lasted 90 days. Incredible Health, co-founded by Iman Abuzeid in 2017, has brought that search time down to under 20 days. Incredible Health is the fastest growing venture-backed career marketplace for healthcare workers. The company has partnered with over 500 hospitals to offer its proprietary matching software and play an integral role in supporting nurses throughout their careers. Iman shares why she picked the entrepreneurship path after graduating from medical school, how her grandfathers' experience as founders make her comfortable with risk, and why a CEO support group is essential.

How to Be Transparent with Mathilde Collin of Front

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 10:00:00 -0000

In 2014, Mathilde Collin moved from France to California to take part in Y Combinator and to bring her vision for a better email platform closer to her target customers. Today, Front is the leading Customer Communication Platform that serves more than 6,5000 customers, including Shopify, Airbnb, and Hulu. Mathilde has raised over $138 million in funding, and through it all, has taken an open-book approach to sharing her journey of entrepreneurship—including making all of her fundraising decks public. Mathilde shares why she obsessively communicates Front's revenue metric across the company, how she's worked to build a low ego culture, and why she has no work apps on her phone.

How to Stay the Course with Sid Viswanathan of Truepill

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 10:00:00 -0000

The last decade has brought a wave of direct-to-consumer healthcare companies. Instead of building another, Sid Viswanathan and his co-founder Umar Afridi set out to create technology that could fuel the consumerization of healthcare. In 2016, they started Truepill with a focus on the pharmacy industry. Now, they power an end-to-end healthcare experience, have filled over 7 million prescriptions, and facilitate over 50,000 telehealth visits per week. Just three years after launch, Forbes named them to their Next Billion-Dollar Startup list. Sid shares the LinkedIn outreach strategy that led him to Umar, how bootstrapping Truepill in year one impacted their strategy, and why he believes founding teams should be able to launch with only internal resources.

How to Get Comfortable with Negotiation with Kathy Hannun of Dandelion Energy

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 10:00:00 -0000

If you asked how ubiquitous electric vehicles would be a decade ago, it's hard to imagine their current rise into the mainstream. So what's next for clean energy innovation? Kathy Hannun, co-founder of Dandelion Energy, believes the next frontier is geothermal heat pumps. At Dandelion, she's working to bring geothermal technology, an energy-saving way of heating and cooling homes, to households across the country. Along the way, Bill Gates' firm led her Series B, and she's been recognized as one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business. Kathy shares why she was a reluctant founder at first, why she believes the adoption of geothermal is inevitable, and how she harnesses a constant need to innovate.

How to Adopt a Learner’s Mindset with Rachel Carlson of Guild Education

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 10:00:00 -0000

How Skepticism Can Fuel You with Irving Fain of Bowery Farming

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 10:00:00 -0000

What if we could make farming faster, safer, and more sustainable? Meet Bowery Farming, the largest vertical farming company in the United States. Irving Fain started the company in 2015 and has overseen the growth of a proprietary operating system—Bowery OS—which leverages AI, robotics, and computer vision systems to allow its farms to grow traceable produce at 100 times the rate of traditional agriculture. Today, Bowery Farming produce is sold in over 800 stores across the United States. The company has raised over $472 million to date and is valued at over 2 billion dollars. Irving shares how Bowery Farming grew during the pandemic, why he believes indoor farming is the future of the agriculture landscape, and why listening to skeptics can strengthen your business.

How to Be Deliberate with Your Time with Sanjit Biswas of Samsara

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 09:00:00 -0000

In 2015, after selling his first company Meraki for over $1B to Cisco, Sanjit Biswas set out to bring the latest in technology to the world of operations. He re-joined forces with his Meraki co-founder and started Samsara: a company that makes it easier and more affordable for businesses that depend on physical operations to harness IoT data. Samsara has raised over $930 million in venture capital to build a suite of solutions that includes driver safety, mobile workflow and compliance, asset tracking, and industrial process controls. They have grown to serve more than 20,000 customers across North America and Europe. Sanjit shares what his first startup taught him about being a founder, why listening to the customer feedback loop is essential, and why allocating your time is the key to staying sane as a founder.

How to Solve Your Customers’ Core Problem with Jack Morrison of Scythe Robotics

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 09:00:00 -0000

While mowing his lawn in Colorado, Jack Morrison had an aha moment: what if he could apply the latest robotics technology he was so familiar with to the challenge of caring for the outdoors? He teamed up with two co-founders to create Scythe Robotics, a company building autonomous robotics solutions for the $105 billion dollar commercial landscaping industry. Scythe Robotics has emerged from stealth with over $18M in funding and an all-electric, fully autonomous mower. Jack shares how robotics is helping an industry-wide labor shortage, why they decided to start mowing in the most challenging state (Florida), and why spending time outdoors is the best way to manage the rollercoaster of being a founder.

How Constraints Create Opportunity with David Velez of Nubank

Wed, 09 Jun 2021 09:00:00 -0000

How to Unlock Innovation with Emma Grede of Good American

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 09:00:00 -0000

Why Companies Should Think of Employees as Customers with Jack Altman of Lattice

Wed, 26 May 2021 09:00:00 -0000

In 2015, after working at a high-growth startup, Jack Altman realized that companies were in need of technology to better serve their most important customers: employees. In an employee market, it falls on companies to engage and retain their talent. Enter Lattice: the leading people management platform for businesses with people-first cultures. Since its launch, Lattice has grown to support over 2,500 companies and was most recently valued at one billion dollars. Jack shares why performance feedback should be ongoing, how the journey of being a founder is an ultramarathon, and why he started a program to invest in Lattice alums who become founders.

How to Rebuild the System with Iyah Romm and Toyin Ajayi of Cityblock Health

Wed, 19 May 2021 09:00:00 -0000

Medicaid spends $10,000 on average for a hospitalization in NYC. What could you do if you had that money to prevent a hospitalization? That's the fundamental question Iyah and Toyin set out to answer at Cityblock Health. They have built the first tech-driven provider to bring better care to neighborhoods that have historically had poor access to quality, affordable healthcare. As a healthcare policymaker and a family medicine doctor respectively, these co-founders have quickly built Cityblock into a unicorn that serves over 70,000 members across the east coast. Iyah and Toyin share why they hope for a revolution in healthcare, how their unique approach is driving high NPS and avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations, and why founders must accept that they'll make mistakes every day.

How to Foster Curiosity with Augusto Marietti of Kong

Wed, 12 May 2021 10:00:00 -0000

API requests represent an astounding 83% of all web traffic, and Kong is the startup on a mission to power these connections. Founded in 2017 by Augusto "Aghi" Marietti and Marco Palladino, Kong's open source API platform has been downloaded more than 220 million times. Aghi and Marco started out in a garage in Italy and moved to Silicon Valley to pursue their dream, crashing with new friends like Travis Kalanick of Uber and Brian Chesky of Airbnb. Now, Kong has raised $171 million and was named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies. Aghi shares why a successful startup requires a "good wave, a good surfboard, and a good surfer," how acting as VP of Sales for a few quarters taught him empathy, and why seeing the early days of Airbnb made him prioritize design and community.

How to Pace Yourself with Francois Kress of Feelmore Labs

Wed, 05 May 2021 08:00:00 -0000

At this very moment, you might be wearing a device to track your heart rate, your steps, or how well you slept. But what if you wear a device that impacted how you felt? That's the vision behind Feelmore Labs, and their debut product, Cove — a scientifically proven new wearable device that improves sleep and cancels stress. Cove's co-founder, Francois Kress, comes from the world of luxury fashion, but he brings a lifelong passion for science. Cove is already showing great results, with 90% of people who used Cove for 30 days experiencing 41% less stress. Francois shares why the future of self-care is active wearables (not passive ones), what he learned from opening a Louis Vuitton store on the island of Saipan, and why he still starts every day with a well-organized to-do list.

How to Create a Sticky Product with Flori Marquez of BlockFi

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 09:00:00 -0000

Blockchain, NFTs, ethereum—the world of crypto is wildly complex for most consumers. But Flori Marquez and her cofounder Zac Prince had a vision to bridge traditional finance and blockchain technology through their startup, BlockFi. With a range of products, like a credit card that lets you earn bitcoin in lieu of reward points, BlockFi is bringing crypto to the mainstream. Since launching in 2017, BlockFi has grown to manage over $15B in assets, scaled its team to over 500 employees, and hit a $3B valuation. Flori shares why they started by building the hardest product first, why it was difficult to raise their first round of venture capital as a crypto startup, and how her Argentinian roots impact how she thinks about financial security.

How to Stay Present with Christy Turlington Burns of Every Mother Counts

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 08:00:00 -0000

Christy Turlington Burns is known around the globe as a model. She's been featured on thousands of magazine covers and was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. But Christy is also a repeat founder—of yoga lifestyle brand Nuala, skincare line Sundari, and for the last decade, not-for-profit Every Mother Counts. After experiencing a childbirth related complication of her own, Christy founded EMC to make pregnancy and childbirth safe, respectful, and equitable and has invested $21M globally across 29 programs in 9 countries. Christy shares why she became a global health advocate when she became a mom, how she thinks about the use of storytelling in EMC's work, and why lobbying for legislative change is more accessible than it looks.

How to Solve Hard Problems with Stephany Kirkpatrick of Orum

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 08:00:00 -0000

As Certified Financial Planner, Stephany has long had a passion for helping families manage their money. And as a seasoned tech executive, Stephany realized that the most effective way to help hundreds of millions of families was to build new fintech infrastructure from the ground up. In 2019, she started Orum to make money movement smart and real-time—working to improve upon the 50-year-old system of ACH. Stephany shares why the self-driving wallet is coming sooner than we think, how Orum will lower the $11B consumers currently pay in overdraft fees each year, and why her secrets to success as a founder include Whoop and ice cream.

Why Data is the New Code with Alexandr Wang of Scale AI

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 13:09:00 -0000

How to Identify Your Customer with Armon Dadgar of HashiCorp

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 07:00:00 -0000

Armon was on the PhD path, poised to become an academic. But he and his college friend Mitchell Hashimoto realized they had an opportunity ahead of them: building technology to support cloud infrastructure. They founded HashiCorp in 2012 and have grown to more than 80 million open source downloads per year, with a company valuation over $5 billion. Armon shares how a stint at a San Francisco startup led to his aha moment, how HashiCorp decided on an open-source model and enterprise customer, and why the company was remote-first long before Covid.

How to Stay True to Your Principles with Ken Lin of Credit Karma

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 08:00:00 -0000

In 2007, a year before the Recession hit, Ken Lin set out to offer free credit scores and bring transparency to the credit industry. His startup, Credit Karma, now serves more than 100 million members around the globe and has continued to roll out free, consumer-first tools to help members manage the entirety of their financial lives. The industry took note of Credit Karma's exponential growth, and in 2020, the company was acquired by Intuit for $8.1 billion dollars. Ken shares why doing right by consumers is his guiding principle, how he beat imposter syndrome in the CEO seat, and why an IPO was never his end goal.

How to Build Your Executive Team with Ali Ghodsi of Databricks

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 07:00:00 -0000

How to Work Smarter with Andrew Frame of Citizen

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 08:00:00 -0000

What if technology could make us safer in the real world? That's the problem Andrew Frame, founder of Citizen, set out to solve. The Citizen app, which combines location information with 911 intelligence, is now used by over seven million people across 25 cities. Andrew is a serial entrepreneur and tech whiz who is creating a fundamentally new category: safety. Andrew shares why he considers Citizen a mission instead of a product, how he approaches the burden of responsibility for building tech that impacts our psychology, and why he opts for poetry and philosophy over business books.

How to Create Cultural Change with Alyssa Ravasio of Hipcamp

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 08:00:00 -0000

Alyssa had booked the perfect camping trip, but when she arrived, she realized the campsite was the ideal surfing spot—if only she’d known to bring her board. She decided to leverage the power of technology to make getting outdoors more accessible. In 2013, she founded Hipcamp, which has grown into the most comprehensive resource for unique outdoor stays. Since launching, Hipcamp has raised nearly $100M in venture capital and partnered with private landowners to unlock new outdoor experiences. Alyssa shares why “nights outside” is Hipcamp’s north star metric, why she’s been organizing people to create change since 2nd grade, and how she creates space to listen to her intuition.

How to Be Patient with Tristan Handy of Fishtown Analytics

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 08:00:00 -0000

Tristan Handy did not set out to build a venture-scale startup, backed by the likes of Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. But that's precisely the journey he's on after founding Fishtown Analytics back in 2016. The company started as a consulting firm, but Tristan soon realized that their core technology—dbt—was a powerful tool in the budding field of modern analytics engineering. Today, dbt is used by over 3,000 companies to organize, catalog, and distill knowledge from their data warehouses. Tristan shares how he built dbt's community and grew through an organic flywheel, why the next generation of knowledge workers will increasingly work in code, and why working within time constraints makes him a more mature founder.

How to Build a Competitive Moat with Kiran Bhatraju of Arcadia

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 08:00:00 -0000

After growing up in Eastern Kentucky coal country, Kiran Bhatraju is no stranger to the energy industry. But as the founder of Arcadia, Kiran is on a mission to make renewable energy accessible for everyone. To combat climate change, he's starting with most people's largest carbon footprint: the home energy bill. With a new model, Arcadia is working to transform an industry by going direct-to-consumer and is able to support customers in all 50 states. Kiran shares why he believes climate work is the biggest wealth creation opportunity for our generation, why he invested in strong technology and data out of the gate, and why he schedules his days in fifteen-minute increments

How to Ignore the Noise with Isabelle Kenyon of Calibrate

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 08:00:00 -0000

75% of American adults are overweight or obese—and that number is only growing. Enter Calibrate, the modern, medical metabolic health business that is changing the way the world treats weight. Isabelle Kenyon founded Calibrate when her mom came to her for advice. Isabelle realized that the science around weight loss was clear, but the industry was lacking a consumer-first approach to helping people address the totality of their metabolic health. Since launching the company in 2020, she has raised over $27 million in funding and seen user growth grow 54% month over month. Isabelle shares why she's striving to change the conversation around weight loss, how she enlisted a best-in-class group of industry experts to help along her startup journey, and what the shift toward consumers paying for their healthcare means across the industry.

How to Accelerate to Meet Demand with Johnny Boufarhat of Hopin

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 11:00:00 -0000

In 2020, the idea of attending an event virtually became commonplace. But Johnny Boufarhat came up with the idea for Hopin, the online platform that's redefining virtual events, years prior. After becoming immunocompromised in 2015, Johnny was searching for a way to enable networking digitally. He started Hopin in 2019, and in less than a year, scaled the company to over 3.5 million users and 50,000+ organizations hosting events. Johnny shares the moment he realized he'd created a viral product, why he wants to build something as impactful as Google, and how he manages his time to fit in an extra day of work each week.

How Process Helps You Build Faster with Vlad Tenev of Robinhood

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 10:00:00 -0000

How to Ask the Big Questions with Mateo Jaramillo of Form Energy

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 10:00:00 -0000

How to Be a Constant Learner, with Deon Nicholas of Forethought

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 10:00:00 -0000

What if you could perform like a superhuman at work? That's the idea behind Forethought, the AI company on a mission to bring intelligence to every single workflow. Co-Founder Deon Nicholas is building technology to augment—not replace—workers, starting with an AI for customer support. Since launch, Forethought has resolved over 500,000 customer support claims automatically, won TechCrunch Disrupt's startup contest, and received funding from the likes of Ashton Kutcher and LL Cool J. Deon shares how he learned to be true to himself as a leader, how to identify your business's customer profile, and why technical founders need to spend more time on go-to-market.

How to Build a Viral App, with Prerna Gupta of Hooked

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 10:00:00 -0000

Topping the app store charts is a once-in-a-lifetime experience—unless you're a mobile entrepreneurship genius, like Prerna Gupta. She and her husband created hit music apps, like AutoRap, that have been downloaded by 350 million people. Now, Prerna is at the helm of Hooked, building a new television network for Gen Z that has already reached an astronomical number of viewers around the world. Hooked uses data to upend the traditional model, rewriting how content is created and distributed. Prerna shares how her idea for Hooked was inspired by a year of travel, what three rules every mobile app creator should follow, and why TV will look fundamentally different in a decade.

How to Lead, with David Rubenstein of Carlyle

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 10:00:00 -0000

Upon reading that most successful founders start their companies by age 37, David Rubenstein decided to join them. A lawyer who worked in the Carter administration, David set out to start a private equity firm based in Washington DC. He co-founded Carlyle in 1987, and the firm has grown to become an industry giant that manages over $221 billion. David is an avid reader-turned-author who interviewed icons like Jeff Bezos and Oprah for his new book, How to Lead. David shares how he built a strong brand through recruiting top talent, why the most elusive thing in life is the pursuit of happiness, and why the best leaders share humility and a desire to give back to society.

How to Be a Multiplier, with Cal Henderson of Slack

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 09:00:00 -0000

The story behind Slack—the communication platform used by millions around the globe—is almost a happy accident. Cal Henderson and his co-founders had been toiling away on a gaming startup, Glitch, when they realized the product of most value within their organization were the tools they'd hacked together to collaborate across locations. That collaboration tool spun off into Slack, which IPOed in 2019 and now has a market cap of over $16 billion. Slack has become more vital than ever in 2020, standing in as our "digital office." Cal shares how to scale an engineering organization, why the role of the office is forever changed, and how to master personal time management.

How to Maintain Extreme Focus, with Peter Colis of Ethos

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 09:00:00 -0000

What if you could get a life insurance policy in just 3 minutes, 24/7? That's now a reality, thanks to Peter Colis and his digital-forward life insurance startup, Ethos. Ethos is a next-gen InsureTech company that puts accessibility front and center, underwriting applicants in real-time via proprietary algorithms. To date, the company has raised $100M in venture capital and serves people ages 18-85 across 49 states. Peter shares how his experience as a boxer helps him stay calm in the face of adversity, how Covid accelerated the adoption of financial technology, and how he overcame imposter syndrome as a student at Stanford

How to Make a Positive Impact, with Jason Gross of Petal

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Parts of our financial system are so deeply ingrained that innovation seems impossible. But after realizing how archaic the credit score was, Jason Gross set out to fix it. He launched Petal to reinvent the credit card and leverage banking data to democratize credit scoring. He's long been committed to fairness in financial services, having served on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Consumer Advisory Board. Now, with tens of thousands of customers, Petal is rising to combat the financial inequity that Covid has exacerbated. Jason shares how being a lawyer has made him a stronger founder, how to hire a low-ego team, and the importance of prioritizing sleep.

How to Love the Journey, with Josh Reeves of Gusto

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Building a business is a team sport. No one understands that better than Josh Reeves and his co-founders at Gusto. Since 2012, they have been hard at work building the leading people platform that empowers small businesses to take care of their hard-working teams. With a valuation of nearly 4 billion, Gusto now helps over 100,000 companies with payroll, health insurance, HR, and more. Josh shares why he focused on the small business segment, why it's critical to put employees first, and why raising venture capital is just like hiring.

How to Build Something from Nothing, with Paul Judge of TechSquare Labs

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Dr. Paul Judge is a serial entrepreneur through and through. After stumbling into coding as a kid, he has spent his career as an expert in information security issues. With a Ph.D. and 30 patented technologies in his name, he's co-founded three companies that have been acquired and is currently the co-founder of Pindrop, which has raised over $100 million in funding. Now, he's paying it forward to other founders in Atlanta through TechSquare Labs. Paul shares how he removes the fear of failure, why cofounders need to share a sense of urgency, and how to align your time management to your priorities.

How to Think Long-Term, with Steve Fredette of Toast

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 09:00:00 -0000

How to Build a Thriving Marketplace, with Chris Bennett of Wonderschool

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Chris Bennett grew up in Miami, and out of his 31 first cousins, he was the first to go to college. Looking back, he realized it was his access to early childhood education that set him on his trajectory—to a degree from Wharton and a job in private equity. So, he launched Wonderschool with an aim to provide high quality early education to every child. The education marketplace has already matched thousands of families with quality educators. Chris shares why in-home education will pay a role in the future of edtech, the importance of talking to customers, and why the best moment to date was Wonderschool's very first enrollment.

How to Drive Retention, with Dylan Diamond and Max Baron of Saturn

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 09:00:00 -0000

At 15, Dylan Diamond built an app to help his high school classmates manage their schedules. The simple tool was an instant hit, with over 90% of the campus using the app daily. Fast-forward to college: Dylan met Max, and the two decided to go all-in on Saturn. They are working to build community around the calendar in high schools, with a big vision fueling them: to own the time layer of the internet. Dylan and Max share why retention is social, how living together has given them an "always on" founder mindset, and what they learned from their early work experience at Tesla and Havas.

How to Fix a Broken System, with Othman Laraki of Color

Wed, 02 Sep 2020 09:00:00 -0000

What if you could discover what diseases you're genetically predisposed for? That's the problem Othman Laraki set out to solve at Color, with a tech-forward approach to genomics. Since launching in 2013, Color's aim has expanded to building public health infrastructure (making it no surprise that Color is one of San Francisco's biggest Covid-19 test providers). With degrees from Stanford and MIT and tech experience from Twitter and Google, Othman is bringing an outsider's view to healthtech. Othman shares why entrepreneurship requires a level of irrationality, why a minimalistic UI is critical in healthcare, and how he defines Color's customers.

How to Build a Connected Team, with Brynne Rojas of Habi

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 09:00:00 -0000

When Brynne moved to Bogota, Colombia after graduating from Harvard Business School, she quickly realized that there was no tech solution for finding a home. In 2019, she teamed up with co-founder Sebastian Noguera to tackle the $10 trillion Spanish Latin American real estate market with the launch of Habi. In just the past year, Brynne and Sebastian have positioned Habi as Colombia's largest homebuyer, scaled their team to 50 employees, and built a game-changing dataset for the Colombian real estate market. Brynne shares why choosing a cofounder is like getting married, what makes the Bogota tech scene so special, and the importance of holding strong views weakly.

How to Make a Difference, with Julia Cheek of Everlywell

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Trying to get a diagnosis for a myriad of symptoms she was experiencing, Julia Cheek ended up spending thousands of dollars on lab testing bills for results she never even saw. Julia saw an opportunity to transform the 25 billion dollar lab testing industry, so in 2015, she founded Everlywell. With 30+ types of at-home lab tests, Everlywell has scaled to tens of millions in sales and is sold in Target and CVS stores nationwide. Julia shares why she decided to pitch on SharkTank, what being a professional equestrian taught her about entrepreneurship, and how she led her team through an industry-leading response to Covid testing.

How to Engage Your First Customers, with Olivier Pomel of Datadog

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 09:00:00 -0000

When Olivier and his co-founder launched Datadog in 2010, they didn't write a single line of code for the first six months—despite having backgrounds as engineers. Out of the gate, they have made it their mission to listen to customers and understand what problems they can solve for them. Fast-forward a decade: Datadog is the essential monitoring platform for cloud applications and a true DevOps pioneer. The company IPOed in 2019 and its market cap now exceeds $27B. Olivier shares why he thinks of companies as a set of systems, how to push forward even when VCs tell you no, and why he's still subscribed to all Datadog support emails.

How to Learn What Motivates You, with Daniel Gross of Pioneer

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 09:00:00 -0000

When Daniel Gross was 18, he traveled from Jerusalem to Silicon Valley to join Y Combinator as the youngest founder ever accepted at the time. In just a few short years, his search engine startup, Cue, was acquired by Apple. Now, he's at the helm of Pioneer, a fully remote accelerator that backs unconventional startups from around the world—no matter the founder's zip code. Daniel shares why community is critical for business-building, what it means to be a company born online, and why he thinks space will fuel the next decade of innovation.

How to Quantify Product Market Fit, with Rahul Vohra of Superhuman

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Why is it so hard to stay on top of your email? After building Rapportive, the first Gmail plugin to scale to millions of users, Rahul Vohra was ready to tackle the problem of email itself. In 2014, he started Superhuman with the goal of building the fastest email experience in the world. If his waitlist of over 300,000 people is any indication, he's done just that. Rahul shares why domain expertise matters, how he learned to choose a strategy and stick with it, and why you have to figure out positioning before pricing.

Why Creators Matter, with Jack Conte of Patreon

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 09:00:00 -0000

How to be Tenacious, with Blake Hall of ID.me

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Why isn't it easy to securely prove your identity online? That's the big question Blake Hall is working to solve with ID.me, the next-generation digital identity network, that is now used by government agencies, healthcare organizations, and retailers alike. A third-generation soldier, Blake started his post-college life leading a reconnaissance platoon in Iraq, for which he was awarded two Bronze Stars. With a Harvard MBA in hand, he set out to build ID.me and has scaled it to over 24 million users. Blake shares the big pivots he took in his early startup years, what his military career taught him about leadership, and why ID.me has credentialed 30% of all nurses in the country to give back during Covid-19.

How to Know You're Ready to Launch, with Julie Bornstein of The Yes

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Julie Bornstein is a seasoned e-commerce executive, who has spent her career building major retailers online, including Nordstrom, Sephora, and Urban Outfitters. After scaling Stitch Fix to over $1 billion in revenue as COO, Julie has launched The Yes - the digital department store of the future. Julie shares what it's been like to launch during COVID, how she has gained the confidence to set out on her own, and why she believes shopping should be more like browsing on Spotify.

How to Build a Company Remotely, with Wade Foster of Zapier

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 09:00:00 -0000

After their day jobs wrapped, Wade and his co-founders spent their nights building what would eventually become Zapier, the workflow automation tool. Originally based in Missouri, they decided to put their full focus onto their budding startup by joining the Y Combinator accelerator. Zapier is now one of the highest valued companies to come out of the program. Today, it has millions of users and connects to more than 2,000 apps. Wade shares how he got his first beta customer from a cold email, how the company's formula for scaling is a blend of data and intuition, and the surprising upsides of having relied on a fully remote team from the earliest days.

How to Pursue Audacious Goals, with Marcelo Claure of SoftBank

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 09:00:00 -0000

When he was a child, he set up a stand in front of his house to sell his mom's clothes. In college, he ran an airline miles business with 17 friends working out of his apartment. And post-college, he started Brightstar, which became the world's largest global wireless distribution company, with over $10 billion in revenue. Marcelo Claure's career accomplishments run deep. He led Sprint through its historic merger with T-Mobile and now serves as COO of SoftBank and executive chairman of WeWork. Marcelo shares how he picks new pursuits (like doubling down on WeWork), why his current goal is to set the world record for being the oldest soccer player in a professional match, and why his latest venture is leading SoftBank's new Opportunity Fund, which will invest $100 million in companies led by people of color.

How to Be Your Customer's First Call, with Zach Reitano of Ro

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 09:00:00 -0000

When each member of his family grappled with a life-threatening illness—himself included—Zach Reitano found his mission as an entrepreneur: to provide personalized health care to everyone on the planet. In 2017, Zach and his co-founders started Ro. With offerings that span Roman (for men's health) to Rory (for women's health), Ro quickly took off and, in 2019, it was named one of the world's most innovative companies by Fast Company. Zach shares how Covid has accelerated the adoption of telemedicine, why building trust with patients is so critical, and why putting his dad in Ro's commercial was one of his best decisions to date.

How to Be a Present Parent and a CEO, with Jessica Rolph of Lovevery

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 09:00:00 -0000

After co-founding the top organic baby food brand in the country, Jessica Rolph got her second startup idea from an unlikely source: a doctoral thesis on child development. Jessica launched Lovevery in 2015 to offer products to help parents feel confident they're delivering the tools their children need. The company has taken off, with backers like Maveron and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Jessica shares why becoming a serial entrepreneur is scarier than it looks, why she chose to build Lovevery in Boise, Idaho, and what tips she swears by to help us all parent better during COVID and beyond.

How to Trust Your Gut, with Adam Nathan of Almanac

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 12:51:00 -0000

When you sit down to work, do you often find yourself starting at a blank page? Adam and his team at Almanac are trying to fix that. Just as Github has allowed engineers to access a database of code, Almanac is doing the same for knowledge workers and documents. With user growth doubling month over month and a roster of investors that includes 100 expert startup operators, Almanac is on a mission to democratize access to knowledge. Adam shares why we're at an inflection point of businesses going fully digital, why he measures success by users outside of silicon valley, and how an internship at Apple made him realize he wanted to be a founder.

Why Execution Is More Important Than Ideas, with Milind Mehere of YieldStreet

Wed, 27 May 2020 09:00:00 -0000

After co-founding and selling ad-tech platform Yodle, serial entrepreneur Milind Mehere had identified a new pain point. After Seeing his investments plummet during the last recession, he wanted to create a digital wealth-management platform that would get people on the road to financial independence. So, in 2014, Milind he launched YieldStreet—which has since been cited on the Inc. 5000 as the fastest-growing company in New York City. on the Inc. 5000 list. Milind shares how YieldStreet educates consumers about the alternative investments space, why founders should personally be involved in a company's first 100 hires, and why he believes the next decade will be the golden age of fintech.

How to Build a Marketplace That Scales, with Steven Galanis of Cameo

Wed, 20 May 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Steven had a big realization: Selfies with celebrities are the new autograph. With strong conviction in his idea, he and his co-founders set out to launch Cameo, the marketplace that allows fans to book video shoutouts from a library of over 30,000 celebrities. The company has taken off—with more than 850,000 Cameos recorded, over $65M in VC funding, and an astounding 1,000 percent increase in bookings during the Covid pandemic. Steven shares how Cameo came back from "the worst product launch of all time," why the best businesses grow via word of mouth, and why he requires a whiteboard and marker in interviews for future Cameo employees.

How to Tap Into What Makes Your Business Special, with Bryan Murphy of Breather

Wed, 13 May 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Bryan came up with the idea for his first startup on the back of a cocktail napkin—and went on to sell the resulting business, WHI solutions, to eBay. Now, he's at the helm of Breather, the company providing flexible workspaces that are as easy to book as an Uber. Breather has expanded to more than 10 cities to date and is poised to grow even faster as commercial real estate evolves in a post-Covid world. Bryan shares how he quickly put together a "get back to work" task force, why he believes crises accelerate disruption, and the importance of being a leader in service to your team.

How to Integrate Work and Childcare, with Chriselle Lim of Bumo

Wed, 06 May 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Chriselle Lim built a fashion empire—replete with a YouTube channel that has gotten more than 29 million views, a collection at Nordstrom that sold out in 48 hours, and a Barbie modeled after her. But after becoming a mom, she realized how hard it was to be present both at work and as a parent. Now, she's the co-founder of Bumo, the startup working to make parenting easier. Chriselle shares her vision for co-locating work and daycare, how she navigated the challenge of convincing investors that she was ready to do something new, and why flexibility is the most important trait of startup employees.

How to Chase Your Passion, With Shane Curran of Evervault

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 09:00:00 -0000

At age 7, he learned to code. At 12, he started his first company. Now, 19-year-old Shane Curran is working to make data privacy simple and accessible for everyone through his startup Evervault. With seed funding from the likes of Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, the Dublin-based entrepreneur is poised to be a major player in the future of safety on the internet. Shane shares why he believes privacy is a fundamental right, how he learned to interview despite never having held a job before, and why the best founders embrace the macro over the micro.

How to Turn Feedback into a Business Model, with Austen Allred of Lambda School

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Austen spotted a major disconnect: a labor market in need of specialized talent and inaccessible education programs to train future employees. Enter Lambda School, a fully remote tech school with Income Share Agreements (ISAs) at its center. Rather than pay up front, students pay a portion of their income after they're hired. Austen shares how a customer survey led him to a brand-new business model, how growing up in small-town Utah has given him a unique view on scalability, and what it feels like when your role models become your peers.

Why Failure is a Path to Progress, with Will Ahmed of WHOOP

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 17:18:00 -0000

Note: This episode was recorded in early March, just as the Covid-19 outbreak took hold of the U.S. Since then, WHOOP has been leveraging their data to aid in health research.

How to Manage Risk, with Marla Beck of Bluemercury

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Armed with a lifelong passion for cosmetics, Marla Beck saw an opportunity to transform the makeup shopping experience. In 1999, she founded Bluemercury, and then went on to scale the company into hundreds of stores and multiple product lines—while surviving several recessions—before being acquired by Macy's in 2015. Marla shares why omnichannel customers are most valuable for retail businesses, how she implemented a radical HR model, why she hires for "skill, will, and fit," and why she believes entrepreneurship isn't about risk-taking—it's about risk management.

How to Grow Your Business Organically, With Joel Flory of VSCO

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 09:00:00 -0000

From a career as a successful wedding photographer to launching one of the top-five highest-grossing photo apps in the App Store, Joel Flory's trajectory is a noteworthy one. As the co-founder and CEO of VSCO, Joel's work centers on his passion for photography, design, and technology. VSCO went viral from the start: Its first product launch grossed north of $250K in the first 24 hours, and its debut app gained a million followers in the first week. Joel shares how to build something people are willing to pay for, why moving forward is one of VSCO's core values, and why he believes the future will be defined by the "experience economy."

Why Building a Company is a Team Sport, With Chris Urmson of Aurora

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 09:00:00 -0000

Fifteen years into his career in the self-driving-vehicle industry, Chris Urmson has assembled a team of his own. His vision? To make our roads safer by building the world's driver. With a PhD from Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and experience developing Google's self-driving-car program, Chris partnered with his co-founders in 2017 to launch Aurora. Since then, Aurora has raised over $600M in venture funding and inked partnerships across the auto industry. Chris explains how he drives urgency despite the long road ahead, how to foster diversity of thought, and what he thinks the rollout of autonomous vehicles will look like for the average consumer.

How to Take the Startup Leap, with Richie Serna of Finix

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 09:00:00 -0000

After starting his career as a management consultant, Richie Serna left it all behind to move to San Francisco and learn to code. After sharpening his engineering skills at a startup, Richie took the leap to build one of his own: Finix, a payments infrastructure platform that has raised over $55M to bring payments technology to a wide range of customers. Richie shares how being an engineer helped him build a better product, why fundraising is a combination of running a clear process and lots of pitch practice, and why he's a creature of habit (eating the same meals every day to drive efficiency).

How to Nail Your Value Proposition, with Kevin Tan of Snackpass

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 16:00:00 -0000

It all started with a crush. Yale student Kevin Tan wanted to gift his crush a smoothie, which led him to the idea for Snackpass: a food app that saves its users time, money, and most importantly, is social. Since launching in 2017, Snackpass reached over 80% penetration on Yale's campus and now has plans to scale to 100 campuses in the next two years. Kevin shares why Snackpass is focused on pick-up over delivery, how the company is transitioning from building a product to building a team, and why the secret to capturing any customer is authenticity.

How to Solve the Unsolvable, with Doug Hirsch of GoodRx

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 09:00:00 -0000

When you start your career as one of the first employees at Yahoo and go on to launch photo tagging at Facebook, what do you do next? For Doug Hirsch, the answer came from looking around for the most challenging problem to solve next. In 2010, after being quoted an outrageous price for a prescription, he had the idea for GoodRx - a company that now provides millions of Americans with affordable and convenient access to prescription medications. GoodRx is now the #1 rated medical app and has a $2.8 billion valuation. Doug shares why he's obsessed with solving messy problems, the importance of blocking out time each day for thinking, and how he views his career through the lens of wanting to make the world a better place.

How to Grow from Founder to CEO, with Brian Halligan of Hubspot

Wed, 04 Dec 2019 09:00:00 -0000

In 2006, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah teamed up in Boston to launch Hubspot. Since then, Hubspot has become the leading B2B software for inbound marketing and sales. The company went public in 2014 and continues to grow rapidly, with approx. 70,000 customers today. Along the way, Brian has co-authored two books, is a lecturer at MIT Sloan, and has been named a Top-Rated CEO by Glassdoor four times. Brian shares how he made the switch from delighting prospects to delighting customers, why he believes in being a product-focused org, and why he personally receives a 30+ page 360 degree review to optimize his performance as CEO.

Make sure to follow Brian on social at @hubspot and @brian_halligan.

How to Speak to a Niche Audience, with Samantha Fishbein of Betches

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 09:00:00 -0000

In 2011, Samantha Fishbein came together with two college classmates to start an anonymous website, "Betches Love This." When the site took off, Betches quickly went from a fun project to a meaningful business known for deeply resonating with its massive millennial audience. Today, the Betches empire includes New York Times bestselling books, an e-commerce platform, podcasts, and nearly 7 million instagram followers. Samantha shares why bootstrapping helped the company grow at a steady pace, why positive feedback is critical as a manager, and what makes gen z tick.

Make sure to follow Samantha on social at @betches and @sami.

How to Craft a Viral Product, with Ivan Zhao of Notion

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 09:00:00 -0000

Make sure to follow Ivan on social at @notionhq and @ivanhzhao.

How to Be the Best at One Thing, with Alli Webb and Michael Landau of Drybar

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 09:00:00 -0000

In 2010, professional hairstylist Alli Webb had the idea to open a salon with a simple motto: "No cuts, no color, just blowouts." She teamed up with her brother, and Drybar has since become a clear beauty industry leader, with over 130 salons and full suite of products. Now, a long stream of upstarts claim to be "the Drybar of [insert service here]." Alli and Michael share how they found investors who could add value and not just capital, why Michael joined Alli even though he was skeptical about the market fit, and how they've trained thousands of stylists over the last decade.

Make sure to follow Alli and Michael on social at @thedrybar @alliwebb and @mdlandau.

How to Scale Rapidly, with Toby Sun of Lime

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 09:00:00 -0000

The era of cars being our go-to mode of transportation may be behind us. At least, if companies like Lime continue on their trajectories of rapid growth. Since launching in 2017, Lime has revolutionized the first and last mile for people around the world, serving more than 15 million users in just a few short years. Toby shares how growing up in a city of over 20 million people inspired his big idea, how Lime grew 10x last year and achieved profitability in key markets, and why he believes our future cities will be built around people—and not cars.

Make sure to follow Toby on social at @lime and @toby.lime.

How to Build an Effective Company Culture, with Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 08:00:00 -0000

In today's world, the success or failure of a company is often attributed to its company culture. But what defines culture? That's the question Ben Horowitz sets out to answer in his new book, What You Do Is Who You Are—drawing on key lessons from history and his own experience co-founding Opsware (which sold to HP for $1.6 billion) and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (which counts Airbnb, Lyft, and Slack in its portfolio). Ben shares the two things he looks for in founders before backing them, why culture is how people behave when you're not there, and what prison culture has to do with corporate culture.

Make sure to follow Ben on social at @bhorowitz0 and @andreessenhorowitz.

How to Foster Collaboration, with Dr. Joseph DeSimone of Carbon

Wed, 23 Oct 2019 08:00:00 -0000

What if 3D printing was 100x faster? That's the big question Dr. Joseph DeSimone posed in his 2015 TED talk, which he gave at the very same moment he unveiled his new company's website. Since then, his company, Carbon, has quickly grown to become the most valuable 3D tech company in the world with a valuation north of $2 billion. Joseph shares how his 20+ years as a professor at UNC lead him to entrepreneurship, what it feels like to have a team counting on you, and how Carbon has achieved an 89 NPS score with the first-ever manufacturing product available via subscription.

Be sure to follow Joseph on social at @carbon.

How to Build for the Future, with Everett Cook of Rho Business Banking

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Advancements in fintech mean that entrepreneurs are shaking up every aspect of the financial system. Co-founders Everett Cook and Alex Wheldon have just launched their company, Rho, to do exactly that for business banking. They believe a winning formula is a mix of better rates, best-in-class service, and sleek technology. Everett shares why over-communication is key for a strong partnership, how he leverages his Sunday afternoons to make for more productive weeks, and why he believes in hiring employees who have a sense of urgency.

Be sure to follow Everett on social at @rhobusiness

How to Be Authentic Storytellers, with Danielle Snyder and Jodie Snyder-Morel of Dannijo

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 08:00:00 -0000

What started as a childhood hobby for sisters Danielle and Jodie has turned into a thriving fashion business, Dannijo. Through a commitment to scrappiness and a knack for marketing via ever-evolving social media channels, Dannijo has managed to stay relevant to its community of super fans for over a decade. Danielle and Jodie share how getting fired gave them the courage to launch, how they put their sisterhood aside in pursuit of a strong business partnership, and why the retail experience needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Be sure to follow Danielle and Jodi on social at @dannijo, @danielleasnyder, and @jodiesnydermorel.

Why Emotions Are Not a Liability, with Jason Brown of Tally

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Money is an inherently emotional topic—and the emotions it tends to inspire are anxiety and fear. Jason Brown is working to change that through Tally. With empathy ingrained in its company culture, Tally now manages more than $400M of consumer credit card debt, and counting. Jason shares why he gets his best ideas on a weekly 60 mile bike ride, the importance of finding an investor who's aligned to your mission, and how he's scaling the business while maintaining a sky-high retention rate.

Follow Jason on social at @meettally and on Twitter at @SF_JCB.

How to Create Change, with Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan of Chief

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Sometimes, change starts at the top. Carolyn Childers and Lindsay Kaplan weren't willing to wait to reach gender parity in the workplace, so they started Chief. These startup vets — who helped build Soap.com, Casper, and Handy — have created a community for senior women executives that already has a waitlist in the thousands. Carolyn and Lindsay share how they've built a no-judgement zone, their approach to creating a game-changing brand, and why coaching is critical to the future of work.

Make sure to follow Carolyn and Lindsay on social at @childerscarolyn, @lindsaykap, and @chiefamongstus.

Why Equity Matters, with Henry Ward of Carta

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Make sure to follow Henry on social at @cartainc

How to Build a Transparent Business, with Max Levchin of Affirm

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 08:00:00 -0000

In 2012, Max Levchin launched Affirm to give consumers a new way to buy with instant point-of-sale loans. Max is no stranger to transforming financial services—as a co-founder of PayPal, he's been reimagining our relationship to money for decades. Max shares how his quest to build a better FICO score expanded into a broader mission for Affirm, what he learns from listening to customer service calls, why he set out for Palo Alto after college to start "an internet company" (which became PayPal), and reveals his Myers-Briggs type.

Follow Max on social at @affirm and on Twitter at @mlevchin.

How to Be Scrappy, with Eric Senn of Storr

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Will the future of retail be decentralized (think: what Uber's done for transportation and Airbnb for lodging)? This entrepreneur thinks so. Eric shares how Storr is enabling anyone to monetize their style by opening a digital store in just three clicks, why he started by researching the history of retail (all the way back to the 1800s), and how he got creative to sign his first brand partners before raising seed funding.

How to Make Customers Happy, with Daniel Schreiber of Lemonade

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 16:45:00 -0000

While insurance is a $5 trillion dollar market, Daniel noticed an opportunity: most insurance companies are not described as lovable or delightful. He wants consumers to forget everything they know about insurance and start fresh. Daniel shares how Lemonade leverages technology to build trust, how they've achieved an NPS of 70+, and why keeping Shabbat each week helps him set healthy boundaries as a founder.

How to Turn a Pain Point into a Business, with Brian Chen of ROOM

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 17:30:00 -0000

70% of American employees work in open floor plan offices—and according to Brian Chen, they don't like it. Brian and his cofounders set out to reimagine the modern workplace and launched their first product, an office phone booth (which already graces the offices of Google, Apple, and J.P. Morgan). Brian shares his own frustration with not being able to find a quiet space at work, explains how he and his co-founder personally delivered and assembled their first prototypes, and why they care about being responsible citizens of the world.

How to Be Yourself at Work, with Bobbi Brown

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Bobbi Brown began her career as a freelance makeup artist. She didn't set out to build a billion dollar makeup business, but she quickly accelerated from creating a line of lipsticks to an acquisition by Estee Lauder four years later. Bobbi went on to spend nearly two decades building Bobbi Brown into a household name. Bobbi shares how she adapted to being a corporate employee post-acquisition, why being able to wear jeans to work matters, and how she interviews for work ethic.

How to Get Through the Tough Stuff, with Aaron Levie of Box

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Aaron Levie dropped out of college and moved into his uncle's garage to launch Box. Fast-forward and the company has 95,000 enterprise customers and a $3 billion market cap. While one of his first win's was securing an investment from Mark Cuban off of a cold email, it wasn't always an easy journey. Aaron shares how he zeroed in on the right business model, how he hires for culture adds, and why startups have to be 10X better in some way (like simplicity).

How to Be Vulnerable with Justin McLeod of Hinge

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Justin McLeod has an unusual mission: build a dating app designed to be deleted. It was his own offline love story that helped him gain clarity into his vision for Hinge and guided the company through a critical pivot. Justin shares what it was like to be acquired by the Match Group, why he thinks social media is the new smoking, and how to know when a new business strategy is working.

How to Know Your Customer, with Misha Nonoo of Misha Nonoo

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 08:00:00 -0000

From the time she was a teen, Misha Nonoo dreamed of becoming a fashion designer. She has since grown her women's apparel company into a powerhouse that constantly stays ahead of seismic shifts in the retail landscape. Misha shares why she forewent the wholesale model to gain a direct relationship with her customer, why sustainability is critical to the future of fashion, and why discipline is the most important trait for entrepreneurs to embody (and to hire for).

How to Build Community, with Jonathan Neman of Sweetgreen

Wed, 12 Jun 2019 08:00:00 -0000

How to Achieve Your Goals, with Leandra Medine of Man Repeller

Wed, 05 Jun 2019 08:00:00 -0000

From her parents' house to two million+ monthly readers, Leandra has built a media business at the forefront of fashion. With a firm belief that quality content should drive all, the Man Repeller team has grown to over twenty employees and continues to innovate into new lines of business. Leandra shares the blessings (and curses) of building a brand on social media, why creativity is a key ingredient for a great day at work, and the difference between being a good leader and a good boss.

How to Maximize Every Minute, with Susan Tynan of Framebridge

Wed, 29 May 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Susan started Framebridge out of a personal paint point: she tried to frame a series of National Parks posters and realized the process was both confusing and expensive. With $82 million in funding and a major facility in Kentucky, Framebridge has fundamentally transformed the experience for consumers across the country. Susan shares why she always does the hard thing first, the challenge of managing seasonal spikes in business, and how she doesn't waste time on guilt as a working parent.

How to Build Trust with Consumers, with Eddy Lu of GOAT

Wed, 22 May 2019 08:00:00 -0000

There's something about sneakers. It's one of those rare product categories that can get people to line up around the block. GOAT has made a huge dent in the sneaker scene, building a managed marketplace that currently lists over 1 million sneakers. Eddy shares how GOAT authenticates the product moving across their platform, how he thinks about online vs. retail sales, and what it was like to acquire a sneaker pioneer as a new upstart.

How to Achieve Product-Market Fit, with Shan-Lyn Ma of Zola

Wed, 15 May 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Shan-Lyn Ma is transforming the wedding business. After graduating from Stanford Business School and joining Gilt as their first product person, Shan launched Zola in 2013—and has already helped over half a million couples. Shan shares why product is so important to every business, how to get smart (and actionable!) consumer feedback, and the real story behind Zola's creative name.

How to Stay Ahead of the Competition, with Philip Krim of Casper

Wed, 08 May 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Mattress shopping never sparked joy — until Casper came around. Philip and his coworkers have upended the industry and now have a $1.1 billion dollar valuation. Philip shares his vision for the future of sleep, how to scale a brand (both digitally and in retail experiences), how he thinks about the competition, and tells us about the synchronous run-in at a co-working space that led to Casper.

How to Build a Subscription Business, with Jessica Lessin of The Information

Wed, 01 May 2019 08:00:00 -0000

After working for 8 years as a Wall Street Journal reporter, Jessica set out to build a new content model - a subscription business founded on a simple premise: create articles worth paying for. Jessica shares why she became an entrepreneur, how she learned to make decisions quickly, and how content consumption will evolve over the next decade.

How to Make it Work with a Cofounder, with Lindsay Ullman of Umbrella

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Umbrella is on a unique mission: the startup is aiming to help people 65+ stay in their homes longer. The demographic they serve is not only one of the fastest-growing, it's also an audience that avidly uses tech. Lindsay shares what excites her about the market opportunity, how product testing uncovered key wins, and most importantly, how she makes it work with her cofounder, Sam Gerstenzang.

Why Hospitality Matters, according to Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality Group

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 07:00:00 -0000

Chances are, you've experienced Danny Meyer's brilliance. He's the founder behind Union Square Hospitality Group, which holds a remarkable 28 James Beard awards and is responsible for Shake Shack, which now has over 250 locations worldwide. Meyer opens up about what he looks for in new hires, how he took the leap into the food world, and shares his scariest moment to date (spoiler: getting punched in the face by a diner).

Brynn Putnam, MIRROR

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Brynn Putnam is no stranger to building businesses. In 2010, she started Refine Method, the award-winning boutique fitness studio. Now, she's the Founder & CEO of MIRROR, tapping into the $14 billion dollar home fitness market with a connected fitness system that streams classes to users in-home, all via (you guessed it) a mirror. Putnam shares how she came up with the idea and built her first prototype, the surprising range of users who love the platform, and how her professional dancing career makes her a stronger CEO.

Howie Liu, Airtable

Wed, 27 Mar 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Founder of Airtable, Howie Liu, built his first company at age 20 and sold it to Salesforce just a year later. The second time around, he's built a new platform that's already valued at over a billion dollars, putting Airtable in the rarified group of unicorn tech companies. Liu shares how he's found success via a slow and steady approach, his aspirations to become the next great tech company, and why he prefers farming metaphors to the wartime ones so often used by entrepreneurs.

Jimmy Chen, Propel

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 08:00:00 -0000

Founder of Propel, Jimmy Chen, is working to build anti-poverty software. With their first product Fresh EBT, Propel is using technology to transform the experience of using food stamps for millions of Americans. Chen explains how he’s building Propel at the intersection of social good and profit, his above-and-beyond approach to gathering user feedback, and how he plans to expand his team.

Jenny Fleiss, Jetblack

Tue, 12 Mar 2019 05:30:00 -0000

Jenny Fleiss, Jetblack Co-Founder of Rent the Runway, Jenny Fleiss shares when she had her "aha moment" for her new venture Jetblack, what it's like to start a company under the umbrella of Walmart, and why shopping via text is so sticky for consumers. Plus, learn what motivates her for the week ahead.