Startup HandMeDowns: Recent Episodes
Startup HandMeDowns
The ultimate podcast for up and coming entrepreneurs. A show by up and coming entrepreneur Philip Kasumu from London sits down with investors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders every week to find out what made them a success and how they got to where they are in today. But what makes this show different from any other business/entrepreneurial podcast is how each guest tells their story in detail allowing you to learn step by step how they did it what they did and in some cases why certain things didn't work.
Today Philip Kasumu had the pleasure of speaking with Raz who's vision is fueled by wanting to leave a better environment for his children and the next generation, Rich ‘Raz’ Razgaitis is tackling a problem most people don’t even know they have: toxic drinking water.
As Co-Founder & CEO of FloWater, which is the world’s most advanced water refill station and member of the Inc. 500 list, Raz is combining this vision with his 20+ years of leadership & tech experience to deliver a product that keeps 5.5 plastic water bottles from reaching our landfills and oceans every second (230+ million to date).
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Today's interview was with Amir Salihefendić the CEO and Founder of Doist and Twist. Amir has viewed life a little differently ever since his family fled war-torn Bosnia for Denmark. He began to see the world becoming borderless and that worldview has influenced his mission to shape the future of work as Founder and CEO of Doist, a fully distributed, bootstrapped company that creates productivity tools used by over 25 million people globally.
Amir has always believed that the future of work is remote way before covid 19 and that innovation doesn’t only happen in offices. From day one, when Amir began working on his first productivity app (Todoist) from his dorm room, the Doist team has been fully distributed. It’s now made up of over 70 employees across 30 countries around the world, building tools like Todoist and Twist - an anti-Slack, asynchronous communication tool made for the modern workplace. Having bootstrapped Doist to profitability from the beginning, Amir has zero plans of ever seeking outside investment or exiting the company.
In this episode, Philip spoke with Girish the co-founder & CEO at Shopalyst. Prior to Shopalyst, he was a Vice President at Infosys where he was responsible for their Retail Industry Solutions Business.
An author of four patents that he helped commercialize, he is passionate about how data and technology are shaping our world. Besides adoption by global customers, his work is featured in MIT Tech Review, Businessweek, and Fast Company, among others.
Girish is a Mechanical Engineer from UVCE Bangalore, and a management graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B).
We talk all things; product, early upbringing and more.
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Peter Yared is the founder and CEO of InCountry, a regulatory technology company that is providing data residency-as-a-service worldwide. Peter is also a 7x founder with more than $500M in exits, A Silicon Valley veteran, Peter founded six enterprise software companies that were acquired by Sun, Oracle, Citrix, VMware and more. Previously, Peter was the CTO/CIO of CBS Interactive, where he was responsible for bringing CBS into the cloud with the end-to-end replatform of its Comscore #7 group of Internet properties. At Sun, Peter was the CTO of the Application Server Division and the CTO of the Liberty federated identity consortium that designed SAML 2.
Site: Startuphandmedowns.co
In this episode, Philip speaks with Kal Vepuri, serial investor and founder and CEO of Hero, the IoT-connected device that automatically dispenses medication when you need it, was inspired to build his company after his mother, who's an M.D., admitted herself to the hospital for quadruple bypass surgery.
The surgery was successful, but it was what came next for his mother that opened her son's eyes to the difficulties millions of Americans face every day. Dr. Vepuri, herself a nationally renowned physician, underwent two readmissions that could have been prevented if she managed her medication as prescribed. Kal talks about the creation of Hero and the work that went into it before they had one customer. In addition to that, we talk about Kal's early success as a founder before he went to college and how he's managed to become a stellar angel investor as well as investing in some household names such as ClassPass, Sweetgreen, Warby Parker, Harry's and more.
Website: startuphandmdowns.co
John is the Founder, CEO, & Product Architect of Enemy Tree, a California, USA based technology startup whose products are wide-reaching experiments in hardware, software, and services that positively impact peoples lives.
Previously, John spent nearly 6 years at Tesla Motors leading teams and internally innovating in areas like operations, sales, delivery, customer service, and marketing. This created an even deeper passion for startups that was already so strong it pulled JOhn to the West Coast. It gave him a profound appreciation for the incredible people who sacrifice so much to make a product and company great.
Prior to that, JOhn not only built a very strong business and operations foundation by working at BIC Consumer Products and learned the roots of quality, systems, process, and execution but also dove deep into the practical and theoretical details of business
In addition to building products now, John is also an active Angel Investor, as well as a mentor and advisor to several startups and entrepreneurs.
John was an early investor in Gimlet Media which sold to Spotify for $200m.
site: startuphandmedowns.co
(Rerun) This week we sat down with Austen Allred of Lambda School, Fit Marketing, Grasswire, and Lendup. On this episode we discuss: - Growth marketing galore - The free upfront model - When to invest Austen Allred has a super interesting origin story, having dropped out of university himself, he went on to co-found his own school and pushing the envelope for the future of education. For those of you who are out of the loop, Austen created Lambda School, a coding school that asks for no money up front in an exchange for a percentage of your salary after you get a job making more than 50k. Austen got his start in the business world at Stubtopia, a ticket brokering company that he started with his brother at 18. After handing over the reins to his brother, he went on to complete an LDS mission in Ukraine which ended up setting a tone of dedication and perseverance for his whole career. If you’re an entrepreneur trying to make your move, I suggest listening to what Austen has to say as he gives honest advice about growth, product market fit, fundraising, and how to take the right advice. Listen on Spotify, iTunes and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!
(Re-run) This week on Startup Handmedowns, we sat down with Gaston Tourn, CMO of Badoo which for those of you who don’t know is a dating app that is most popular in Europe and South America. Gaston describes himself as a writer and a poet, creating the narrative of the customer and integrating their stories into the product in question. Like many of us, Gaston once had the belief that marketers go out and trick people, that it’s more of a "slimy job", which makes his journey to marketing even more interesting. Hear how he didn’t set out to become a marketer at all, and how he was actually convinced by Google to try it out. I mean, if Google told me what job I’m meant for, I’d believe them too. Gaston talks about his time working on projects such as Google Adwords and Youtube before joining Badoo as CMO. The work he’s doing at Badoo is pretty impressive, and from the way he describes it in the interview, it totally makes sense that he sees himself as a writer and a poet. Gaston is working to fix online dating, on the whole, adding safety measures within the app and features to rid some of the common online dating problems and ultimately, get the users on more dates. As well as trying to mend online dating’s failures, he is focusing on the stories of couples who have found each other on Badoo and telling their stories. Gaston is super interesting and has a lot of great tips, especially if you’re marketing a new startup with a limited budget.
In this repeat episode, Philip speaks with Alex about how you should approach investors or attempt to raise money from the crowd? We talk to the founder of Beam and JustPark's Ex-Ceo Alex Stefani about what it took to raise the largest Crowdfunding campaign of its time and to lead JustPark to become a household name. We discuss 1. Tips and tricks to a successful crowdfunding campaign 2. How to make it easier to launch projects when starting out 3. Why focus groups are dangerous and reliable alternatives for collecting data.
(Re-upload) In this week’s episode of Startup Handmedowns, we sit down with Ryan Walsh who is currently a partner at Floodgate. Ryan has had a very rich career history, from starting out as a performing DJ in San Francisco to co-founding his own startup, and working as the VP of product at Beats by Dre. His origin story is wild, as Ryan got his start as a raver in Pittsburg, taking pictures of the polished DJ’s equipment with a disposable camera to figure out how to emulate that sound. After figuring out that the party life of a DJ was not for him, Ryan went on to found a company called Pulselocker, which was meant as a DJ tool to cooperate with streaming services. If you’ve ever talked to a musician who has been playing pre-Napster, you’ve heard all about how much the music business has changed and how rapidly the way we buy and sell music shifts. Well, the way music was being consumed and DJ’d changed even faster than his company could develop a product, and he eventually left Pulselocker.
Ian the CEO of Mind Candy the creators of Moshi Monsters and more recently Moshi Sleeps. Ian's wealth of entertainment experience comes from his time at Ubisoft and Electronic Arts, which led to his role as International Managing Director at IGN where he was responsible for its global expansion and making IGN the #1 video games and entertainment media network in the world. A father of two, Ian’s inspiration for Moshi comes from his vision of helping millions of families around the world become happier and healthier by helping kids sleep.
https://www.moshisleep.com/
Morgan Housel is a partner at Collaborative VC an investment fund focused on supporting and investing in the shared future. The fund centers around two macro themes which are the growth of the creative class and the concept of collaborative consumption. Now, Morgan has a unique role at the fund because he's not actually an investing partner, he's a writer. He produces all the written content for the fund which was why I wanted to talk with him. In this episode, we talk about content marketing, whether money can buy happiness and his new book, The psychology of money.
The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness Paperback: Pre-order: https://amzn.to/3fR3cZC
Tzahi (Zack) Weisfeld is a seasoned executive and a serial entrepreneur, with 25+ years of experience in tech consumer and enterprise markets. General manager and head of Ignite, Intel's Startup Mentorship Program. President of ASN (Accelerating Startup Nations), Zack was one of the founders of Microsoft Israel R&D site as well as a member of its management team for 8 years where he created Microsoft for startups which has gone on to be one of the most successful programmes in the world.
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In this episode Philip spoke with serial entrepreneur and investor Haymo Meran. Haymo is currently the head of product at Usersnap which provides SaaS companies with feedback collection tools so that they can become more customer-centric and truly make use of the voice of the customer to improve their service.
But before this, Haymo built and sold 2 companies and that is what we spent of our time discussing. How to build meaningful products and what the production process should look like. We also discussed how he thinks about angel investing and how he got involved with Tier the Berlin-based unicorn e-scooter company.
Dan Bowyer co-founder and invest at Superseed VC. Dan invests in technical founders building smart B2B tech startups (SaaS/health/data), with a mission to help them to find global market fit.
It's Dan's job to help them get out of startup mode using scalable, repeatable and profitable sales models. Ensuring they get the right people on the bus, create the right energy, infrastructure & activity to get to their first £1m in recurring revenue - which is definitely the most exciting and precarious stage for any tech startup. Before Dan was a VC he was a Tech entrepreneur, operator, and investor with 20 years experience building businesses and implementing digital. Having enjoyed some spectacular failures and some delightful successes.
Dan has probably been one of the most interesting VCs I've met having started out his career in a boy band managed by Simon Cowell, I kid you not. In this episode talk all things from venture investing to COVID-19 and more.
In this episode Philip spoke with Andrea Hippeau is a Principal on our investment team. Prior to joining Lerer Hippeau, she held management and business development roles at portfolio companies. Andrea worked in corporate development while at Advance Publications and managed client relationships for Thomson Reuters. After studying French and business management at Skidmore College, she went on to get her MBA from Columbia Business School.
In this episode, Philip and Andrea talk all things venture capital, COVID-19, deal flow, and more.
Melissa has been an executive at high-growth companies for over twenty years. She is now Principal of Daimler Partners, working as an advisor, facilitator, and executive coach. Her primary focus is on helping leaders define and operationalize culture.
Prior to starting Daimler Partners, Melissa was an executive who experienced multiple leadership viewpoints throughout her career. She led HR for a fast-growing venture-funded startup. She created and built Learning & Organizational Development functions for Adobe, Twitter, and WeWork. She built a coaching company while also the first employee of Coach University, one of the first leaders in the coaching field. Her experience as an executive and now as a consultant includes coaching executives, helping teams work more effectively, and building scale-proof organizational processes.
Mick is a Brooklyn-based multi-talented creative with influential footprints internationally – from New York to LA, London to Tokyo. He is a DJ, style influencer, tech investor, inspirational speaker, music curator and brand consultant. He's also a pretty cool dad from what I hear also!
In this episode, we talk about Mick's approach to becoming the go-to DJ for many celebrities and how he's the ability to network and add value afforded him many opportunities. Many of these opportunities included giggs, sponsorship deals, and angel investment opportunities. One deal, in particular, was with podcast hosting platform Anchor which was recently acquired by Spotify for a reported $200m which isn't bad at all.
Peter Rojas is a founding partner at Betaworks Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital fund based in New York and San Francisco. He is also the co-founder of several startups, including Weblogs Inc. (acquired by AOL in 2005), where he created and was editor-in-chief of both Engadget and Joystiq; Gizmodo (formerly Gawker Media, now part of Univision); music discovery service RCRD LBL; and gdgt, a social commerce platform (acquired by AOL in 2013). Prior to Betaworks Ventures, he worked at AOL as VP of Strategy and later as Co-director of Alpha, the company's experimental products group. I really enjoyed this episode because I got to talk with Peter not only as an entrepreneur and founder but also as a venture capitalist which is always great as you get both perspectives on things.
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Hadley has done a little bit of everything on the path to co-founding Eniac. Starting as an engineer and development team lead at Pegasystems, he later took on roles as a product manager at Microsoft and strategist at Samsung, where it became clear that big companies were not for him.
In 2007 he was very fortunate to join a very talented AI team out of MIT at Vlingo where he ran a few aspects of the business across product, strategy, and marketing until it was sold to Nuance for $225M. He rolled his experience building a successful startup into Thumb whereas CBO he helped the real-time recommendation app reach user engagement levels second only to Facebook before being acquired.
In this episode, Philip and Hadley discuss product development, startups, consumer startups and the effects of Covid-19 on the ecosystems.
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For close to 20 years, George has run a national executive search firm mostly dealing with executive search and leadership at the C-Suite level such as CEO, CFO, CTO roles throughout the US, Europe, and South America. He's worked with small startups to some household named organizations.
Besides managing his recruiting firm, he also works with similar executives by helping them take control of their careers and branding themselves appropriately when looking for their next move. In this episode, George talks about losing everything in 2008 and having to restart and reinvent himself. We also talk about the importance of creating a strong personal brand, pricing, COVID-19, and more!
Michael Brody-Waite is an award-winning CEO, tech-startup entrepreneur, and recovering drug addict. In 2009, Brody-Waite left a Fortune 50 company to co-found and lead InQuicker, a healthcare SaaS company that allows patients to self-schedule appointments. His leadership grew the organization from two employees to 50 employees and 20,000% revenue growth in less than six years. This exceptional growth landed InQuicker a spot on the Inc. 500 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies. In 2015, InQuicker was sold to a publicly-traded company.
In the time since InQuicker went public, Brody-Waite has made a name for himself as an untraditional leadership coach. He credits his success to the tools he learned in the 12-step program, and now teaches others how to lead through rigorous authenticity, surrendering the outcome, and doing uncomfortable work. His unique views are captured in his TEDx Talk, “Great Leaders Do What Drug Addicts Do,” which has been viewed more than one million times. Brody-Waite’s first book, Great Leaders Like Drug Addicts will be available for purchase on May 5, 2020.
Rebroadcast: This week we sit down with Patrick, founder/CEO at HelloFresh. An all-around foodie, Patrick talks us through his road to success and the difficulties of bringing a new product to market. For those who haven’t tried it yet, HelloFresh is a meal kit service that brings portioned packages of food to your door with easy recipes to follow, and it’s actually the first meal kit service of its kind. Being the first of your kind in any sphere is tough, and Patrick really brings to light the process of educating the public about your product, which can be a real struggle when your product fills a need that people don’t yet realize they have. Patrick’s origin story is also quite interesting and pretty entertaining, as he started his career as a lawyer in a buttoned-up law firm. He would literally sneak out of his office to cook at various restaurants downtown and he basically kept up a double life until he resigned to be a full-time foodie.
This episode was sponsored by Blinkist
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This week in Startup Handmedowns, we chat with Abhi Lokesh, founder CEO of Fracture and down-to-earth world traveler. Fracture is a glass printing company that emerged out of Abhi’s university passion project, an e-commerce art business that donated all of its profits to charity, as well as a trip to Swaziland with his classmate, Alex. A major lesson in this week’s episode, is patience. Abhi talks about refreshing his order intake page and projecting the typical hockey stick growth curve in a naivié way that I’m sure a lot of us can relate too. His dreams for Fracture were pretty idealistic, but the steps to get there actualized in slogging through Facebook marketing campaigns, trying to get on Techcrunch, and really just trying stuff out and seeing what worked. Additionally, Abhi did not take the traditional fundraising route with venture capitalists, advisors, and a bunch of fundraising rounds. He believed in his product and its ability to grow on its own.
Startup Handmedowns: startuphandmedowns.co
In today’s episode I had the pleasure of interviewing Rodney Appiah founder and chairman of Cornerstone partners, an angel investment group focused on investing in predominantly black founders. They not only invest in the business but they also provide debt financing to businesses already in operation and generating significant revenues. Rodney is also a Director and venture capital investor at Foresight Private Equity, a leading investment firm focusing on earlier stage UK businesses. He has worked with several entrepreneurial companies over the last 11 years and currently sits on the board of a number of high growth businesses. In this episode, we discuss growing up in Mitcham and working in investment banking straight out of university. We also discuss the funding process when and how startups should be approaching this.
Jude Gomila is a serial entrepreneur and a serial angel investor. He's invested in over 180+ companies including Airtable. In this episode, Philip talks with Jude about early life and "failed" projects to moving to San Francisco and starting Heyzap with his childhood friend which they went on to sell for $45m. We also discuss getting into Y-combinator and the conversation with Paul Graham (PG) on the sidewall.
Lo Toney is an investor and founding managing partner of Plexo Capital a fund that invests in women and people from minority backgrounds.
Plexo Capital, the fund founded by the former GV partner recently closed its first fund of $42.5 million. The plan is to invest in both startups and emerging VC funds, with 60% of the capital going toward venture capital funds as a limited partner, and 40% going directly to startups.
Lo has had an incredible career to date and on this episode, we discuss the work he’s done over the years with the likes of eBay, to the gaming giant Zynga to transitioning into a venture role at Google Venture Partners which led him to create Plexo Capital. Not only do we get all the gems of what an elaborate career such as Lo’s would produce but, we also get super detailed on marketing, consumer brands and more importantly how marketing should be viewed as maths and science and anything else.
This episode was sponsored by Blinkist
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Anthony Frasier is a digital strategist, tech entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. A Newark, NJ native, Anthony has a long history of mentoring, advising startups & community infrastructures, to solve real problems and build solutions. Before joining Newark Venture Partners as their entrepreneur in residence, Anthony was one of the founders behind The Phat Startup. With well over a decade of experience in tech, media, speaking and coaching aspiring entrepreneurs and students from underserved groups, he has developed a thoroughly different worldview. A published author, Anthony believes that success isn’t something external, it comes from within. You can create your own luck, no matter your background or lack of experience. startuphandmedowns.co
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew MacGill who’s an entrepreneur and product director. Andrews has been through 2 exits where the ideas have been in their early stages of development so he knows a thing or two about building meaningful products. Andrew is currently the VP of product at Pager, a New York-based startup that’s transforming the way consumers interact with their healthcare. Pager has raised over $34m to date. They allow you to interact with your doctor or carer through your phone, at any time from anywhere. It’s super easy.
This episode is sponsored by Blinkist. Click the link below to start your 7-day free trial and get 25% off
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Ramon is a serial entrepreneur and in my opinion a serial hustler. He’s a different kind of entrepreneur, not a tech startup tech-savvy kind of guy but more of a methodical "how do I drive traffic and monetize" it kind of guy. In this episode we discuss how to create engaging content and drive huge amounts of traffic to your site and also, how Ramon started a soap opera blog which he went on to sell for $9m without ever watching a single soap opera show. Learn how to pick a topic, start testing content ideas, grow traffic and monetize your content all on this episode.
Re-run - This week we're sharing our interview with Tammy Nam, COO of PicsArt, a photo-editing platform with over 100 million monthly users. Tammy has worked at tons of cool companies such as Slide, Scribd, and Viki, and has earned quite a name in the consumer-facing tech world. In this episode we discuss: How to deal with different founders The attributes of virally successful companies The role of culture in startups Full of helpful startup marketing tips, this episode is for all non-technical entrepreneurs out there. Voted one of the top 25 women to watch in tech by AlwaysOn, Tammy has a ton of expert advice to share, from how to bring out the best in different founders to navigating the challenges of being a woman in tech. Our favorite part of this episode is her strategic, purposeful marketing and growth strategies. Marketing is often boiled down to storytelling or hacking, but Tammy shows us how you can approach marketing in any stage of your company in a thoughtful, future-focused way. Don't miss this episode if you really want to get into the client-focused side of a product, it is an expert crash course in UX/UI.
In today's episode, Philip spoke with serial entrepreneur Heini Zachariassen Founder of Vivino. Vivino is currently the world's largest online wine marketplace with over 36 million users and attracting 20 thousand new users per day. Boosting a very impressive database of over 10 million wines from over 200 thousand producers around the world Heni knows a thing or two about how to build a tech company. To date, VIVINO has raised around $57 million dollars in funding in venture funding.
Before founding Vivino he also played a key role in the success of BullGuard an antivirus startup that went on to generate $20m in revenue.
In this episode be prepared to learn everything you need to know about building a successful app, building a startup the right way and when and how to leverage strategic partnerships and more.
This episode is sponsored by Blinkist. Click the link to start your 7-day free trial.
https://www.blinkist.com/nc/partners/startup-handmedowns
This was a slightly different type of interview as I did not interview a serial entrepreneur who’s built multiple tech companies and sold it for millions or a venture capitalist but instead, I spoke with a different type of entrepreneur. Ben Hecht, Ben is an unusual type of entrepreneur because he actually focuses on philanthropy and more specifically on shortening the race pay gap and the racial wealth gap. I don’t think based on his work he’d call himself an entrepreneur but his approach to solving this problem is nothing short of entrepreneurial and it’s been he’s life’s work for over 20 years. From creating a site in the early 2000s allowing people from economically challenged backgrounds to improve their skills to today where he’s the CEO of Living Cities which is collaborating with large corporations and local governments to help achieve dramatically better results for low-income people through investment, research, networks. We talk about everything from systemic issues surrounding low-income households to what can be done to change things over the next 100 years. We also discuss his latest book Reclaiming the American Dream: Proven Solutions for Creating Economic Opportunity for All.
site: startuphandmedowns.co
In this episode, Philip had the pleasure of speaking with serial entrepreneur, advisor, and investor Dan Sutera. Dan Sutera has started a number of tech companies which he’s either sold or, has created so much meaningful value that it'll eventually sell at some point. When you have a look at Dan Sutera's entrepreneurial resume it looks as if everything he touches literally turns into gold. Amongst his many successes, Dan was the co-founder of Futurism which is a technology-focused media company that boasts over 5m monthly views–– the company was recently acquired by Singularity University. His most recent project is Parallel Markets which brings liquidity to private investors in the cryptocurrency market which is great if you’re sitting on some crypto.
In this episode, Philip and Dan talk all things product from ideation to execution to process which Dan seems to have down to a tee.
Site: startuphandmedowns.co
In this episode Philip sat down with Ezechi Britton Principal at Impact X Capital and Co-founder of Neyber to talk about his journey so far. From growing up in Lewisham with his parents who were teachers to finding his way into investment banking and later as a co-founder to a startup that would go on to raise £200m. Ezechi touches on moonlighting Neyber while still working as an engineer at an investment bank and why he believes entrepreneurs should keep cashflow coming at all costs until they can transition out and work on a project full time.
visit: startuphandmedowns.co
Re-run: This episode originally aired in March 2018 but Kai's lessons in entrepreneurship are timeless. In this episode Philip spoke with serial entrepreneur and now venture capitalist Kai Bond. Kai is the lead investor at Catalyst Fund which is a seed fund based in New York City. Catalyst Fund is an extension of Comcast Ventures and it serves as a unique investment vehicle to elevate minority entrepreneurship by matching capital and resources with underrepresented minority entrepreneurs. Prior to joining Catalyst Fund Kai has had a truly remarkable career as an entrepreneur. He’s had some painful failures and tells Phil about his lowest point where he didn’t even have enough money for a subway ride. Kai talks about building his third startup within 60 days (Pixie Tv) which he would then go on to sell to Samsung within a year. Kai was also the General Manager of Samsung's accelerator and Hatch Labs where the dating app Tinder was incubated during his tenure as GM.
Visit our site: startuphandmedowns.co
Sticking with the theme of Black History Month, Philip sat down with Eric Collins who's the founder and CEO of Impact X Capital which is a venture capital firm based in the UK. They invest in diverse, underserved –– or what Philip likes to say "underestimated"–– founders in the UK and across Europe.
On this longer than usual episode, Eric talks about him growing up in the South and his career as a consultant where he worked on M&A deals. Eric talks about the importance of key partnerships to enable growth, raising capital and why he and his stellar founding members decided to start Impact X Capital.
Skip to 1:00:00 if you want to get straight into the Impact X Capital conversation.
Site: startuphandmedowns.co
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Alain Sylvain is the founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, an innovation and brand design consultancy. They have offices in New York, Amsterdam and Richmond, VA. The company serves as a strategic planning resource for product developers and marketers. They have some of the biggest names as clients including Google, Airbnb, Spotify, General Motors, Samsung, Facebook, Nike, Uniqlo, PepsiCo, Bloomberg, and others.
Alain is co-founder and investor of several ventures including: Master + Dynamic, a design-driven, premium audio brand. Lílo, the first-of-its-kind refrigerator-stable açai bowl, and Waynesaw, a mobile game.
On the show, we unpack what it takes to get branding right and he gives us an insight into the creative process without giving away too much.
If you haven't already please subscribe and leave a review on the show wherever you listen to podcasts!
Sponsor: DesignCrowd. A website that helps entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses outsource or ‘CROWDSOURCE’ design. Get $100 off your first project with this link designcrowd.com/hmd
On this episode, Philip spoke with Charles Hudson. Charles is a serial entrepreneur and is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures. Precursor is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. They recently closed their second fund at $31m, doubling their first fund which was $15m. Prior to founding Precursor Ventures, Charles was a Partner at SoftTech VC. In this role, he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure.
Before joining the world of venture capital Charles was a budding entrepreneur in the events industry and then the gaming industry.
In this episode, they talk startups, diversity in tech and more.
This is a rebroadcast to celebrate black history month.
Today I had the pleasure of interviewing Jordan Fliegel who’s an early-stage investor and serial entrepreneur with a focus on sports tech. Before Jordan started investing he co-founded a number of successful startups, including Draft, a fantasy league app which he started with his best friend and went on to be acquired by Paddy Power. At the time of the acquisition, they had a team of fewer than 15 employees. Jordan also co-founded CoachUp which he raised $15m for with the likes of Steph Curry from the Golden State Warriors later investing in the company. A calm and humble entrepreneur Jordan talks nothing but facts about what it actually takes to start and run a company and how marketing is really about maths. These days, Jordan Fliegel heads up TechStars as the MD of their first-ever sports tech-focused accelerator based out in Indiana.
We recorded the show at BetaWorks studios in meatpacking New York.
This was one of my first interviews when I was still getting into podcasting. This interview was first aired in 2017 and you can hear just how bad of an interviewer I was! But luckily, I was interviewing an OG! Tom Bilyeu brought that fire regardless of my poor interviewing skills! SO many great insights and killer pieces of advise for startup founders that he drops here. If you haven’t already checked out Impact Theory–– Tom’s Youtube and podcast–– make sure you do, he has some of the best interviews and with some of the highest performers in the world.
Quick background on Tom, Tom was one of the co-founders of Quest Nutrition which was recently acquired $1bn in cash and is now the founder and host of Impact Theory. Before Quest Nutrition he ran a successful tech company for 7 years before he started working on Quest on evenings and weekends.
What’s crazy is that at the time of this Quest was only valued at a billion dollars so for them to have actually recently sold for a billion dollars is incredible.
Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Adam Liebman who's currently VP of Sales at Seated who is known in New York City as one of the top sales executives in the tech ecosystem. Adam has built and grown sales teams for some of the largest tech startups in New York City such as Yext (YEXT) which is now a publicly traded company where Adam was sales hire number one and SinglePlatform where he also played an integral role in craft the sales experience before rapidly growing the team. Adam started out wanting to be a journalist before getting into sales which turns out to be a pretty interesting story.
This is definitely a sales 101 episode as Adam drops some serious bombs on this one so make sure you got your notes app at the ready.
Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Nathalie Molina Nino.
Nathalie is an impact investor targeting high-growth businesses that economically benefit women and the planet. A confessed but recovering serial entrepreneur, Nathalie launched her first tech startup at the age of twenty and like most of us got hooked. She's the co-founder of Entrepreneurs@Athena at the Athena Center for Leadership Studies of Barnard College at Columbia University, where the idea for LEAPFROG was first born. Before that, she spent over a decade sharing her no-BS, opinionated flavor of business advice and growth strategy with folks like Disney, Microsoft, MTV, Mattel, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Everyone needs to hear this episode and if you know a vc then share this with them.
Just prior to launching her last venture, BRAVA Investments, Molina Niño led the launch of Nely Galán’s New York Times bestselling book and online education venture, Self-Made, and stepped in as CRO of PowerToFly, the fastest growing hiring platform for women in tech and beyond.
Leapfrog Book: http://bit.ly/NathalieLeapfrog
Angel Gambino is a WIRED Top 100 executive who has built companies on three continents. She's also an urban regeneration pioneer, a visionary investor, a passionate environmental lawyer, and a dedicated and loving mother. The technology phase of her career has included co-founding investment partnership Prehype Partners, senior roles at the BBC and MTV Networks, and leading the pioneering UK social network Bebo. She has also played pro soccer, and she ran logistics for the USWNT at the Olympics. Raised in Detroit, she recently returned to San Francisco as founder-CEO of a social artificial intelligence startup called Sensai.
This is fitting as it’s Women’s Month and Gambino is nothing short of an incredible entrepreneur and investor. Her background should inspire you to take more risks, pursue your goals and do whatever you feel passionate and compelled to do.
Check out our site: Startuphandmedowns.com
This week is a repeat episode with Ian White who’s the co-founder and former CTO of Sailthru. Recorded June 2017
On this episode, we discuss:
- How to build a product
- The importance of talking with users
- Speed to market
Ian White was the CTO and Co-Founder of email service provider Sailthru. They’ve raised over $48m and now staff over 200 people in New York City. He also helped build Silicon Valley Insider which later grew to become Business Insider. He’s known for building the famous slideshows feature in Business Insider articles.
Ian is now the Founder of Stardog which is his consultancy business for startups.
In this episode of Startup Handmedowns Philip and Ian talk about the early days of Business Insider and building Sailthru whilst still at Business Insider. They talk about product managers, CTO’s and more
Listen on Spotify, iTunes and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!
This week we sat down with Austen Allred of Lambda School, Fit Marketing, Grasswire, and Lendup.
On this episode we discuss:
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Growth marketing galore
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The free upfront model
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When to invest
Austen Allred has a super interesting origin story, having dropped out of university himself, he went on to co-found his own school and pushing the envelope for the future of education. For those of you who are out of the loop, Austen created Lambda School, a coding school that asks for no money up front in an exchange for a percentage of your salary after you get a job making more than 50k. Austen got his start in the business world at Stubtopia, a ticket brokering company that he started with his brother at 18. After handing over the reins to his brother, he went on to complete an LDS mission in Ukraine which ended up setting a tone of dedication and perseverance for his whole career. If you’re an entrepreneur trying to make your move, I suggest listening to what Austen has to say as he gives honest advice about growth, product market fit, fundraising, and how to take the right advice.
Listen on Spotify, iTunes and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!
This week we're interviewing Tony Conrad of True Ventures, Sphere, about.me, Wordpress and many other great startups. On this episode we discuss: - The turning point of modern startup culture - Expert level networking - The emotional intelligence necessary to excel in the startup landscape The theme of this episode is networking, networking, networking! And no, you aren't just going to hear the obvious "just get out there and meet people!", Tony has some concrete advice for how to surround yourself with people that will guide you along your journey as an entrepreneur. Coming from a tiny midwestern farming town, Tony was not set up for the life as an entrepreneur that he went on to lead. His startup experience more or less fell into place after a decision to move to California after working in the corporate world for 8 years, and he's been killing the game ever since which is why we call him the Godfather of Silicon Valley. Having invested in companies such as Blue Bottle Coffee, Bandcamp, Fitbit, Peloton and more, Tony seriously knows what he's doing and you won't want to miss out on the expert advice on this episode. Visit our site: startuphandmedowns.co
This week we're sharing our interview with Tammy Nam, COO of PicsArt, a photo editing platform with over 100 million monthly users. Tammy has worked at tons of cool companies such as Slide, Scribd, and Viki, and has earned quite a name in the consumer-facing tech world.
On this episode we discuss:
How to deal with different founders The attributes of virally successful companies The role of culture in startups
Full of helpful startup marketing tips, this episode is for all non-technical entrepreneurs out there. Voted one of the top 25 women to watch in tech by AlwaysOn, Tammy has a ton of expert advice to share, from how to bring out the best in different founders to navigating the challenges of being a woman in tech.
Our favorite part of this episode is her strategic, purposeful marketing and growth strategies. Marketing is often boiled down to storytelling or hacking, but Tammy shows us how you can approach marketing in any stage of your company in a thoughtful, future-focused way. Don't miss this episode if you really want to get into the client-focused side of a product, it is an expert crash course in UX/UI.
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This week we've interviewed David "DJ" Jamilly, co-founder of Theme Traders, a creative event production business (emphasis on the creative) which grew to the impressive from his party entertainment gig as a teenager!
On this episode we discuss: The social aspect of doing business Setting client expectations Kindness (both the not-for-profit organization David founded and just kindness in general)
David is just a super nice guy who has figured out how to make millions off of having fun. You know when people tell you "just do what you love and it'll work out" and you don't believe them? Well, it actually worked out for David! He founded an event production business with his sister called Theme Traders which has worked on events such as Pride London 2018, album launches for Island Records, and much more. David is equally as dedicated to his philanthropic work, which has led to him founding Pod Children's Charity, The Good Deeds Organization, and Kindness Day UK.
If you are disheartened by the cold nature of a business or just having an off day, give this episode a listen, because David "DJ" Jamilly will seriously restore your faith in humanity.
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Ok I know last week we promised a new episode but you're going to have to wait one more week... this week we're playing a rerun of one of our favorite interviews with Mat Braddy, former CMO of Just Eat and current mentor extraordinaire. On this episode we discuss: - Why Mat Braddy ran for office - Eating the Big Fish by Adam Morgan - The importance of bold marketing as a brand competitor - Some marketing tips and tricks (read: how to not waste your whole marketing budget on an ineffective ad)
Mat is a pretty funny guy which is why 30% of this episode is Phil laughing, and it's also why Just Eat got to be one of the biggest takeaway brands ever! From ads such as "give hunger the finger" and bold marketing stunts such as kidnapping celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson, Mat Braddy could be described as a marketing genius. My favourite bit of advice in this episode is to consciously try and take in every ad you see on your walk home, and in the morning, ask yourself which ones you remember because those are the ads that made you think.
This week we are reairing and old episode- our interview with Anton Derlyakta, CEO & co-founder of Sweatcoin and founder & managing partner at Talent Equity Ventures.
On this episode we discuss: How to tell when someone is going to be a success The best qualities of an entrepreneur The contextual nature of the startup world This episode was aired two years ago and since then, he’s been busy. For those of you out of the loop, Sweatcoin is an app that pays you in Sweatcoins to move outside. SweatcoinsThis interview is full of great venture capital insights as well as his origin story. Anton tells us that he wasn’t a natural born entrepreneur (though technically he did have a startup at university). He didn’t go to business school until he’d already had a significant career as a marketer in a large company. But, in the past decade, he’s funded countless startups at his VC, Talent Equity Ventures
are their own cryptocurrency and can be exchanged for real stuff on their app like a fitness watch, gift card, ebooks, etc. The app has over 20 million downloads and the founders are now working on expanding their cryptocurrency, but at the time of this interview they were just starting out!.
This week on Startup Handmedowns, we sat down with Gaston Tourn, CMO of Badoo which for those of you who don’t know is a dating app that is most popular in Europe and South America. Gaston describes himself as a writer and a poet, creating the narrative of the customer and integrating their stories into the product in question. Like many of us, Gaston once had the belief that marketers go out and trick people, that it’s more of a "slimy job", which makes his journey to marketing even more interesting. Hear how he didn’t set out to become a marketer at all, and how he was actually convinced by Google to try it out. I mean, if Google told me what job I’m meant for, I’d believe them too. Gaston talks about his time working on projects such as Google Adwords and Youtube before joining Badoo as CMO.
The work he’s doing at Badoo is pretty impressive, and from the way he describes it in the interview, it totally makes sense that he sees himself as a writer and a poet. Gaston is working to fix online dating, on the whole, adding safety measures within the app and features to rid some of the common online dating problems and ultimately, get the users on more dates. As well as trying to mend online dating’s failures, he is focusing on the stories of couples who have found each other on Badoo and telling their stories.
Gaston is super interesting and has a lot of great tips, especially if you’re marketing a new startup with a limited budget.
Welcome to another episode of Startup Handmedowns! We promise this episode was worth the wait! This week, we chat with Porter Braswell, co-founder and CEO of Jopwell, a career advancement platform for people of colour. As Porter describes, Jopwell was created out of necessity. When Porter entered the finance industry, he noticed that there were very few people in the industry that looked like him, and as a black man who had many opportunities that most people of colour are systematically barred from, he allocated the responsibility onto himself to fight for diversity in the workforce.
Part of the reason why Jopwell is so successful is that Porter is able to foster a community that is about more than just finding a job. He knows that bigotry isn’t something that is just felt in a controlled environment like work or school; being a marginalized person means that you experience the world differently, giving you a unique perspective on the world around you. This can make it very hard to find success in a workforce that heavily favours white men, but what many companies are discovering with the help of Jopwell is that the diversity of thought resulting from a diverse workforce is extremely valuable.
This week we sit down with Patrick, founder/CEO at HelloFresh. An all around foodie, Patrick talks us through his road to success and the difficulties of bringing a new product to market. For those who haven’t tried it yet, HelloFresh is a meal kit service that brings portioned packages of food to your door with easy recipes to follow, and it’s actually the first meal kit service of its kind. Being the first of your kind in any sphere is tough, and Patrick really brings to light the process of educating the public about your product, which can be a real struggle when your product fills a need that people don’t yet realize they have.
Patrick’s origin story is also quite interesting and pretty entertaining, as he started his career as a lawyer in a buttoned-up law firm. He would literally sneak out of his office to cook at various restaurants downtown and he basically kept up a double life until he resigned to be a full-time foodie.
This week in Startup Handmedowns, we chat with Abhi Lokesh, founder CEO of Fracture and down-to-earth world traveler. Fracture is a glass printing company which emerged out of Abhi’s university passion project, an e-commerce art business which donated all of its profits to charity, as well as a trip to Swaziland with his classmate, Alex.
A major lesson in this week’s episode is patience. Abhi talks about refreshing his order intake page and projecting the typical hockey stick growth curve in a naivié way that I’m sure a lot of us can relate too. His dreams for Fracture were pretty idealistic, but the steps to get there actualized in slogging through Facebook marketing campaigns, trying to get on Techcrunch, and really just trying stuff out and seeing what worked.
Additionally, Abhi did not take the traditional fundraising route with venture capitalists, advisors, and a bunch of fundraising rounds. He believed in his product and its ability to grow on its own.
In this week’s episode of Startup Handmedowns, we sit down with Ryan Walsh who is currently a partner at Floodgate. Ryan has had a very rich career history, from starting out as a performing DJ in San Francisco to co-founding his own startup, and working as the VP of product at Beats by Dre. His origin story is wild, as Ryan got his start as a raver in Pittsburg, taking pictures of the polished DJ’s equipment with a disposable camera to figure out how to emulate that sound.
After figuring out that the party life of a DJ was not for him, Ryan went on to found a company called Pulselocker, which was meant as a DJ tool to cooperate with streaming services. If you’ve ever talked to a musician who has been playing pre-Napster, you’ve heard all about how much the music business has changed and how rapidly the way we buy and sell music shifts. Well, the way music was being consumed and DJ’d changed even faster than his company could develop a product, and he eventually left Pulselocker.
In this week’s episode, we interview Paul Grossinger, an angel investor and co-founder of Gaingels Syndicate, Blue Jay Syndicate, A-Level Capital, and Pervasive Group Inc. Gaingels Syndicate is a group offering investment opportunities to LGBT founders and Blue Jay Syndicate offers investment to founders in the Johns Hopkins community, which Paul started partially as a way to give back to his community.
During this interview, Paul challenges the idea that there is a perfect startup formula of funding and encourages founders to think critically about their company’s funding strategy. We are taught to go after big-name venture capitalists, but are founders really going to benefit when they sell their company for a huge chunk of cash and investors take their share first?
Jake Levine is the former Founder & CEO of Electric Objects, named one of Time Magazine's 25 Best Inventions of 2014. He started the company in 2013 to explore ambient computing and the future of art. In 2017 Electric Objects was acquired by GIPHY, which is basically the Google of gifs. Before Electric Objects, Jake was the General Manager of Digg, a Betaworks company which they acquired in 2012. Jake is a part-time VC at Notation Capital and is also a product manager at Square. We cover a lot of ground in this very chilled interview with Jake. we talk about his time at Digg and the painful process of starting a company. This episode was recorded at Betaworks.
Russ Shaw is the founder of Tech London Advocates and Global Tech Advocates. He originally founded Tech London Advocates in 2013 to establish an independent voice for the technology sector which would focus on the private sector. Since then he has been championing London as a global tech hub and campaigning to address some of the biggest challenges facing tech companies in the UK – diversity, digital skills, immigration, infrastructure and of course access to funding.
Tech London Advocates is a network of more than 6,000 tech leaders, entrepreneurs, and experts in London, across the UK and in over 50 countries worldwide and Philip actually joined Tech London Advocates a few years back.
Before starting TLA Russ was previously the Chairman of The Marketing Group of Great Britain following senior positions at Skype, Telefónica, O2, and CEO of a later stage startup called Mobileway. He’s an angel and venture investor.
Patrick Jackson who is the Chief Technology Officer at Disconnect, which allows people to browse the web without being tracked. given the new GDPR regulations you could say these guys launched way before their tme. Disconnect launched in early 2010 and has gone on to have over 50mill users, they’ve raised a millions of dollars and have google chrome and Firefox extensions of the product.
Before joining Disconnect Patrick founded a number of startups through his company imaginary feet which received over 8 million downloads across various apps that they launched. Like one of our previous guests, Mckeever Conwell the 2nd Patrick also worked at the NSA, in fact they worked together and then went on to launch a number of startups together.
In this episode we talk about how to launch an app quickly and also when to kill your project , why press releases don’t matter and why you shouldn’t buy into the hype.
Anthony Frasier is a digital strategist, tech entrepreneur, author, and public speaker. A Newark, NJ native, Anthony has a long history of mentoring, advising startups & community infrastructures, to solve real problems and build solutions. Before joining Newark Venture Partners as their entrepreneur in residence, Anthony was one of the founders behind The Phat Startup. With well over a decade of experience in tech, media, speaking and coaching aspiring entrepreneurs and students from underserved groups, he has developed a thoroughly different worldview. A published author, Anthony believes that success isn’t something external, it comes from within. You can create your own luck, no matter your background or lack of experience. startuphandmedowns.co
Mckeever Conwell, 2nd, AKA Mac is a Baltimore native serial entrepreneur. He’s currently a Deal Team Coordinator at TEDCO which is an independent organization that strives to be Maryland’s lead source for entrepreneurial business assistance and seed funding. Prior to joining TEDCO Mac worked with the Department of Defense where he achieved Top Secret Security Clearance. He also went on to co-found two startups going through a number of accelerators including NewME. Mac sold of those startups back in 2014.
We talk about life as a programmer to life a CEO and why it’s hard to be a founder of color in tech. This is a huge topic in the industry right now and I’m so glad that we got to dive into with and get Mac’s perspective.
Alain Sylvain is the founder and CEO of Sylvain Labs, an innovation and brand design consultancy. They have offices in New York, Amsterdam and Richmond, VA. The company serves as a strategic planning resource for product developers and marketers. They have some of the biggest names as Clients including: Google, Airbnb, Spotify, AB-InBev, General Motors, Samsung, Facebook, Nike, Uniqlo, PepsiCo, Bloomberg and others.
Alain is co-founder and investor of several ventures including: Master + Dynamic, a design-driven, premium audio brand. Lílo, the first-of-its-kind refrigerator-stable açai bowl, and Waynesaw, a mobile game.
On the show we unpack what it takes to get branding right and he gives us a brief insight into the creative process without giving away too much. Ok, let’s jump into the action.
Sponsor: DesignCrowd. A website that helps entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses outsource or ‘CROWDSOURCE’ design. Get $100 off your first project with this link designcrowd.com/hmd
Brian Berger is the founder and CEO of menswear basics brand, Mack Weldon. With over a decade of success in the digital world, Brian created Mack Weldon in 2012, a men’s specialty line consisting of underwear, socks and t-shirts with a focus on design, performance and functionality. Mack Weldon has grown to become one of the leaders within the industry.
Brian served in several leadership positions within consumer internet and media companies including Comcast, WebMD and Excite@Home.
Brian graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Colorado and continued his education at Columbia University where he received a Masters in Business Administration.
About Mack Weldon - Mack Weldon is reinventing men's essentials with smart design, performance fabrics, and a simple customer experience. The brand's signature line of underwear, socks, t-shirts, sweats, and polo shirts are engineered to promote comfort, mobility, and performance.
Katia cofounded Birchbox in 2010, driven by a fascination with the business dynamics of the beauty industry and a mission to redefine the way people discovered and shopped for beauty online. Today she is more passionate than ever about building the beauty destination for the average woman who is not passionate about beauty. Birchbox, which is best known for its monthly subscription of personalized samples, now has more than 1 million subscribers, 4 million total customers, 800 beauty and grooming brand partners, operations in six countries and a flagship store in New York City.
This episode is brought to you by DesignCrowd. DesignCrowd is a website that helps entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses outsource or ‘CROWDSOURCE’ design. DesignCrowd has over 600,000 designers from Sydney to San Francisco ready to help you with awesome creative ideas. Get the perfect custom design, every time.
Get $100 off your first project with this link designcrowd.com/hmd
On this episode, Philip spoke with Charles Hudson. Charles is a serial entrepreneur and is the Managing Partner and Founder of Precursor Ventures. Precursor is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the first institutional round of investment for the most promising software and hardware companies. Prior to founding Precursor Ventures, Charles was a Partner at SoftTech VC. In this role, he focused on identifying investment opportunities in mobile infrastructure.
Before joining the world of venture capital Charles was a budding entrepreneur in the events industry and then the gaming industry.
In this episode, they talk startups, diversity in tech and more.
precursorvc.com
Startuphandmedowns.com
This is Part 2 of Philip's interview with serial entrepreneur and now venture capitalist Kai Bond. Kai is the lead investor at Catalyst Fund which is a seed fund based in New York City and an extension of Comcast Ventures.
The second half of this interview Kai talks about his experience as a founder of color and also what founders of colors can do to increase the 1% of venture capital funding that goes to founders of color.
This episode is brought to you by DesignCrowd. DesignCrowd is a website that helps entrepreneurs, startups, and small businesses outsource or ‘CROWDSOURCE’ design. DesignCrowd has over 600,000 designers from Sydney to San Francisco ready to help you with awesome creative ideas. Get the perfect custom design, every time.
Get $100 off your first project with this link designcrowd.com/hmd
Today Philip spoke with serial entrepreneur and now venture capitalist Kai Bond. Kai is the lead investor at Catalyst Fund which is a seed fund based in New York City. Catalyst Fund is an extension of Comcast Ventures and it serves as a unique investment vehicle to elevate minority entrepreneurship by matching capital and resources with underrepresented minority entrepreneurs.
Prior to joining Catalyst Fund Kai has had a truly remarkable career as an entrepreneur. He’s had some painful failures and tells Phil about his lowest point where he didn’t even have enough money for a subway ride.
Kai talks about building his third startup within 60 days (Pixie Tv) which he would then go on to sell to Samsung within a year. Kai was also the General Manager of Samsung's accelerator and Hatch Labs where the dating app Tinder was incubated during his tenure as GM.
On this episode, Philip spoke with his former boss Derek Flanzraich who is the CEO and Founder of Greatist. Greatist is health and wellness media startup for millennials. Derek is the son of 2 medical doctors and he grew up on the west coast before moving to Miami at age 11. He later went on to study at Harvard University where he found his passion for media and content creation. After graduating from college he went on to work at a high flying startup which would go on to exit just after 6 months of him joining.
As someone who openly admits to struggling with his weight, he decided he would start a health and wellness blog with a group of friends which wasn’t intimidating but informative where every post was backed by a scientific study. Today, Greatist has 12 million readers per month and what’s really impressive is... it’s all organic.
They’ve raised $8m to date and have some rockstar investors including; Gary Vanerchuck, Ramit Sethi from I Will Teach You How To Be Rich, Ann Mi
On this episode, Philip Kasumu speaks to serial entrepreneur Victor Penev. Victor founded Bulgaria's largest internet company info.bg which has been called the the Yahoo and Google of Bulgaria by Forbes which he sold to 2 of Bulgaria's largest media companies in a multi-million dollar deal. He's also co-founded 3 other companies including his current startups Edamam which is about helping people eat better by making daily food choices simple and easy. The company has set itself the ambitious goal of organizing all the food knowledge in the world!
Victor has some interesting views when it comes to raising money for your startup and what you need to have figured out before you start knocking on doors.
On this episode, Philip Kasumu spoke with serial entrepreneur Brian Schechter. Brian, a former high school teacher turned successful entrepreneur loves to watch people grow whilst supporting them in their own version of self-expression. He previously co-founded and sold dating site 'HowAboutWe' and he's currently the founder and CEO of SelfMade.
SelfMade’s a platform that connects members with expert and affordable professional image editors and brand strategists. Members elevate their brands on Instagram, which results in follower growth, business opportunity and increased revenue.
They've raised $11m to date from top investors such as Primary VC, BoxGroup, FirstMark and many more.
You can check out SelfMade by following this link http://selfmade.refr.cc/philipk
Co founder of Wework Labs and Investor.
Jesse’s investment interests includes mobile, SaaS, big data, consumer and e-commerce. Prior to joining Flybridge in 2016, Jesse was an early executive at WeWork, one of the fastest growing and most valuable startups in history. He co-founded WeWork Labs in 2011, which became WeWork’s global startup incubator, and ran WeWork X, M&A, startup investments, business and digital product development as well as inside sales during his five-year tenure at the company.
Prior to WeWork, Jesse was the co-founder and CEO of Backstory, a venture backed startup. Jesse began his career traveling across the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Israel and China as a network security engineer based in Philadelphia. He moved to New York City where he became the head of information technology at LivePerson in 2010.
Step by step guide to raising VC money from a VC with Sumeet Shah from Brand Foundry.
Sumeet Shah is a principal at Brand Foundry VC. Brand Foundry VC have invested companies such as Warby Parker, Birchbox, Harry’s, Peloton and more. Sumeet graduated from Columbia university in 2008 with a bachelors in biomedical engineering focusing on biomechanics. He has over 6 years of experience across the startup and private equity industries, formerly running new business strategies at Gist Digital and handling business development and project work at Gotham Consulting Partners. He also assisted in the creation of XRC Labs, a consumer and retail accelerator, as the Program Manager for their inaugural class and was Head of Strategic Partnerships for their second class.
In this episode Sumeet lays out the blueprint for anyone who wants to raise Venture capital or anyone who is considering a career as a venture capitalist. This was a really informative show so make sure you’ve got your note-tak
Hear the incredible journey of Andrew Weinreich with SixDegrees, the first ever social network that sold it's patent to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.
Andrew Weinreich is a serial entrepreneur, social networking pioneer, and active presence in NYC’s Silicon Alley for 2 decades. To date, he’s founded 7 startups and has been awarded 2 software patents.
Since 2013, he has sold 2 businesses, including Xtify to IBM, while advising 5 tech startups such as Classpass. He is currently the co-founder and Chairman of Indicative, a data analytics startup. He leads Predicting Our Future, a podcast about the next revolutions in technology.
Katia cofounded Birchbox in 2010, driven by a fascination with the business dynamics of the beauty industry and a mission to redefine the way people discovered and shopped for beauty online. Today she is more passionate than ever about building the beauty destination for the average woman who is not passionate about beauty. Birchbox, which is best known for its monthly subscription of personalized samples, now has more than 1 million subscribers, 4 million total customers, 800 beauty and grooming brand partners, operations in six countries and a flagship store in New York City. Katia holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in International Studies & Economics from Vassar College. Prior to graduating business school, she worked in structured finance and commercial real estate. She has been honored with accolades including Advertising Age Women to Watch, CEW Achiever’s Award, Fortune 40 Under 40, Inc. 30 Under 30, and WWD Digital Innovator of the Year in the Prestige Beau
On this episode, Philip interviewed Sam Parr the Founder of The Hustle and Hustle Con. Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur who’s started a range of businesses from selling whisky online, to selling hotdogs, to then starting one of the most relevant business newsletters for millennials - The Hustle.
They talk about being aqui-hired for his Roommate app. Sam then talks about taking a 6 month month trip across America on his motorcycle where he was in solitude for the majority of that 6 months and what that did for him. They also talk about starting Hustle con which then led to The Hustle newsletter being created which now has 1,000,000 subscribers.
Sam also explains why he doesn’t care about the website and why they’re going all in on the newsletter. They also talk about closing a crowdfunding campaign of $300k for The Hustle in less than 50 hours! Must listen!
Ian White was the CTO and Co-Founder of email service provider Sailthru. They’ve raised over $48m and now staff over 200 people in New York city. He also helped build Silicon Valley Insider which later grew to become Business insider. He’s known for building the famous slideshows feature in Business Insider articles.
Ian is now the Founder of Stardog which is his consultancy business for startups.
In this episode of Startup Handmedowns Philip and Ian talk about the early days of Business Insider and building Sailthru whilst still at Business Insider. They talk about product managers, CTO’s and how speaking to users was crucial in the early days and more.
Tom Bilyeu is the co-founder of 2014 Inc. 500 company Quest Nutrition — a unicorn startup valued at over $1 billion — and the co-founder and host of Impact Theory. Tom’s mission is the creation of empowering media-based IP and the acceleration of mission-based businesses. Personally driven to help people develop the skills they will need to improve themselves and the world, Tom is intent to use commerce to address the dual pandemics of physical and mental malnourishment.
Tom regularly inspires audiences of entrepreneurs, change makers, and thought leaders at some of the most prestigious conferences and seminars around the world, including Abundance 360, A-fest, and Freedom Fast Lane. Tom has also been a guest on the Tony Robbins podcast and The School of Greatness podcast and has been featured in Forbes, Inc., Success, and The Huffington Post. Tom is currently on the Innovation Board of the XPRIZE Foundation.
In this episode, Rent the Runway CTO Josh Builder walks us through how the founding team launched Rent the Runway, their journey to changing the way consumers think about fashion, and all the challenges along the way.
Should you approach investors or attempt to raise money from the crowd? In this episode, we talk to JustPark's Ex-Ceo Alex Stefani about what it took to raise the largest Crowdfunding campaign of it's time, and to lead JustPark to becoming a household name.
We discuss:
- Tips and tricks to a successful crowdfunding campaign
- How to make it easier to launch projects when starting out
- Why focus groups are dangerous, and reliable alternatives for collecting data
Kicking of Season 2 with a blast, Ranbir & Phil interview Jack Bowman who has had 3 exits before the age of 29, with his last business getting 500 MILLION downloads and selling for £70million.
We talk: 1. Strategic partnerships 2. Explosive growth 3. Acquisitions
In this End Of Season 1 group episode, Ranbir, Phil and Omar sit down to discuss:
- The highlights of learnings from the guests in seasons one
- How Omar is generating 100 new followers a day on social media
- Phil entrepreneurial dilemma.
This time it's personal.
With Zak Mir, we explore whether entrepreneurs can trade part time to support their startup dreams. In this episode we discuss:
- The different types of trading and their pros/cons
- Is it benefitial to trade part-time?
- Where & how to start with reduced risk
With an incredible story like this, no wonder James is shaking up the food industry. Having worked in Venture Capital, and then gone on to be a founder and raising Venture Capital, James has some unique hacks into raising money. Listen out for:
- What is Derisking, and how to do it
- How to push investors over the line
- When NOT to raise investment
In this episode with Dreamstake's Paul Dowling, we discuss: 1. What is founder-market fit and why it's so important for angels 2. How to conduct the right tests with your MVP to set yourself up for the next round 3. The next big trends in tech, and where money will be injected.
Enjoy, and let us know what you think!
We sit down with the former CMO of JustEat and allround business-playboy Mat Braddy and talk: - The importance of creating a personality behind your brand - Why JustEat ran for parliament & kidnapped a chef - How they managed to turn JustEat into a household name
Today me and Phil have a very special story edition of Startup Handmedowns in which Russell Hall walks us through his unbelievable life-story from a cab driver to founder of Hailo Cabs- Europe’s BIGGEST startup, which is now valued at over $1Billion. There’s ups, there’s downs, and a whole lot of comedy in-between.
So sit back, strap in, and enjoy the journey!
Matt Lerner, London Distro Parnter of world's largest VC fund- 500 Startups- talks us through his experiences on learning how to manage people. Highlighted topics we discuss:
1) The secrets to becoming a great manager 2) What’s a more effective way to guide your business- by human feeling or by numbers 3) The types of people he invests in
Enjoy the episode!
Today me & Phil get a complete guide on how to do our own PR from Seedcamp's Communications & Marketing Manager, and host of Geek-Girl Podcast, Cathy White. With her background in leading PR agencies, and getting press in the likes of Techcrunch, she is the ideal candidate to answer all of our lingering PR questions. We discuss:
1) Should you do your own PR vs hiring a PR agency 2) How to catch a journalists' attention and build a relationship 3) How to create a story that the world will share
Today me & Phil speak to serial founder of multiple million-dollar companies and techstars mentor Conrad Poulson about:
1) How he raised £15m for Xtempus 2) Why it was a terrible mistake and his learnings 3) How to win high-hitting partnerships
In this episode we learn: 1. Conducting a kpi-centered approach to marketing 2. The most efficient marketing channels 3. How to know when your mvp is ready for launch.
Ed gives pure marketing gold guys, enjoy the episode!
In this episode we talk to Varun Chawla, founder of the incubator 91Springboard about starting a tech business abroad, and how to streamline & hack your way to success in an international market.
In this episode, we talk to serial entrepreneur Oleg Fomenko, about creating an entrepreneurial career path, and bouncing back from setbacks.
In this episode, we talk to Venture Capitalist Anton Derlyatka about common mistakes while raising investment, and strategies to catch the interest of the top VC firms.
So usually introductions come first, but as Tai Lopez says, there's nothing wrong with eating the desert first. This episode is all about us, Ranbir, Phil & Teej, and our lives leading upto this podcast. (Viewer discretion: Innuendo Abundancy).
Silas Adekunle launched his business Reach Robotics while still in University, and is today poised to disrupt the games industry by bringing Augmented Reality to physical toys. In this episode we discuss:
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How he secured 18 grants to launch his business
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How he got press in the likes of Bloomberg and the Financial Times before even launching
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How he managed being younger than all of the people he employs