Launch Pad: Recent Episodes
Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship
Meet entrepreneurs and learn the secrets to their startup success on Launch Pad, brought to you by Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship and hosted by Karl Ulrich, Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Wharton School, Rob Coneybeer, Co-founder & Managing Director of Shasta Ventures, and more. Launch Pad was originally broadcast on SiriusXM Channel 132, Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School. Launch Pad from The Wharton School is not associated with Blackstone LaunchPad.
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Rob Coneybeer, co-founder of Shasta Venturesand a 24-year veteran of the venture capital industry, joins Professor Karl Ulrich to talk about his three month Sabbatical all around Europe! https://medium.com/theclutchpedal/why-i-flew-my-land-cruiser-to-europe-a35df754f124
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Stephen Lease, the CEO (Chief Executive Octopus) of the sunglasses brand goodr and the co-host of the CULTURE goodr podcast, joins Karl Ulrich to talk about the company's explosive growth, product designs, partnerships and plans for the future!
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David Heath, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bombas joins Karl Ulrich to talk about launching the company, revolutionizing the modern sock, growth, and staying true to their mission of helping those in need!
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Chris Molaro talks with Karl about NeuroFlow and how it "delivers the actionable behavioral health intelligence you've been missing, so you can deliver the whole-person care that has never been more essential."
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Eric Min, CEO of Zwift shares his story with Rob about how he and his team transitioned traditional outdoor cycling to the convenience of ones home. Soon after, the concept expanded and led to a vast social community of Zwifters cycling together from all around the world.
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CEO and Founder, GT Dave of GT Dave's Kombucha shares the story of this medicinal beverage, full of natural health benefits and the path that lead to "Living Foods."
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Bonus Episode!
Karl Ulrich on Wharton Business Daily
Karl Ulrich, Wharton Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, joined Wharton Business Daily host Dan Loney to discuss his new book, Winning in China: 8 Stories of Success and Failure in the World's Largest Economy.
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Jeff Cavins, Co-Founder and CEO, Outdoorsy shares Rob how his idea became a reality for people to go "Outdoorsy."
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Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter explains his journey throughout the business world from Twitter to today as a managing Partner @ 01 Advisors.
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Joey Zwillinger, CEO and Founder of AllBirds
From merino wool to eucalyptus, Joey tells Rob how AllBirds has evolved to become a leading brand in material innovation. He also shares how the company has adapted to meet customer needs by creating a comfortable facemask you'll actually want to wear.
Chris Stadler, Chief Marketing Officer of Tonal tells Rob how to get fit from the comfort of your very own home using digital weights via AI with Tonal. Chris also shares his marketing journey of how he went from building the branding for beauty products to branding fitness equipment as he's been recognized for redefining the CMO role.
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Hunter Horsley CEO, Board Director of BitWise shares with Karl how the company works to give customers a cryptocurrency index and beta funds.
Michael Baum talks with Rob about his entrepreneurial journey, how he was introduced to software, and how he has worked to help transform data with splunk..
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Rob speaks with CEO and Co-Founder of Porch, Matt Ehrlichman about how his company began and how he's tackling the home industry one project at a time.
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Keith Bellinger, Founder and CEO of RightRice and former Founder of PopChips explains how he put the pieces together to develop his new product, RightRice - packed with nutrients and a satisfying flavor.
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Root Ventures, early stage seed fund investors in tech. Avidan talks to Rob about Root Ventures investment in machine learning, robotics, AI and more.
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Karl talks with CEO of Everlane, Michael Preysman and learns more about the philosophy behind the company and their transparent sustainability mission.
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Not your traditional farm, Karl talks to Irving Fain, CEO and Founder of Bowery Farming about how he utilities technology in a unique way to elevate their crops.
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There's tap, bottled, sparking, and now, Liquid Death... water. Mike Cessario, Founder of canned water company "Liquid Death" shares his story about how the idea came about and where you can get it today.
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In The Unicorn's Shadow: Combating the Dangerous Myths that Hold Back Startups, Founders, and Investors, Wharton School professor Ethan Mollick takes us to the forefront of an empirical revolution in entrepreneurship. New data and better research methods have overturned the conventional wisdom behind what a successful founder looks like, how they succeed, and how the startup ecosystem works.
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Karl speaks with Lindsay Stewart, CEO and Founder of Stringr, a video platform that allows customers to source, edit, publish and monetize video. Stringr has more than 100,000 videographers who respond to custom video requests in near real time.
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Startup studio, Atomic led by Jack Abraham Founder, Managing Partner & CEO helps to actualize people's creative ideas by building dynamic teams.
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Karl Siebrecht Co-Founder and CEO of Flexe takes Rob for a deep dive inside his company Flexe.
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In an ever changing world and job market, global online learning platform, Udacity provides tools for people to develop skills to advance their careers. Karl speaks with CEO Gabe Dalporto of Udacity, a project based learning platform.
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Zach Sims, Co-Founder and CEO of Codecademy talks with Karl about how they teach more than 45 million people around the world the skills they need to upgrade their careers.
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Listen to Karl and Rob talk with Blake Sholl about how his company, Boom Supersonic is building the world’s fastest airliner for a dramatically more accessible world. Boom Supersonic is a startup company in Centennial, Colorado.
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Aaron Levie, Co-Founder and CEO of Enterprise company Box talks with Rob about how the company originated in his college dorm room and landed in peoples now, home offices just in time for the surge of working from home.
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Rob and Karl discuss how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting entrepreneurship globally and domestically, the importance of wearing a mask, and 3 ways to increase creativity levels.
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Eliza Blank, Founder and CEO of The Sill speaks with Karl about her company, which brings the joys of backyard gardening to the inside window sill of a city dwellers apartment.
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We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2019-2020 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences and The School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- BIO: Pawsitive is a pet wellness community in an app.
- TEAM MEMBERS: SAMAYA SINHA (IPD’20); ECHO WAN (IPD’21)
- ADDITIONAL LINKS:WEBSITE
We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2019-2020 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences and The School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- BIO: Mobility seeks to mobilize the large population of economically-restricted individuals in South Africa to complete deliveries of chronic medicines from pharmacies to individual households in order to tackle the medical last-mile challenge.
- TEAM MEMBERS: YIWEN LI (C’21, W’21); JACOB CHIDAWAYA (ENG’23); ARIS SAXENA (W’21); SONIA SHAH (C’22); EASH AGGARWAL (C’21)
- ADDITIONAL LINKS:WEBSITE
We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2019-2020 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences and The School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- BIO: ConnectED Mobile works with the nation’s largest 4G LTE mobile provider to offer family plan pricing directly to individuals. We primarily serve international students, who arrive in the US without families with whom to access a family plan, nor the social security numbers and US credit history required for postpaid plans. Plans start at $22.99/month and include unlimited 3G data in the US and 2G data abroad. Since launching in 2019, ConnectED Mobile now serves students at over 20+ leading universities.
- TEAM MEMBERS: ANDIE KAPLAN (WG’20); COLBY COX (C’20)
- ADDITIONAL LINKS: WEBSITE | LINKEDIN
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We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2019-2020 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences and The School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- BIO: SilkBlu Technologies LLC is a software innovation company aspiring to democratize information and empower companies in emerging markets through WiFi-enabled analytics.
- TEAM MEMBERS:ELIZA CULP(C’20); JOSEPH IWASYK (ENG’20); RANSFORD ANTWI (ENG’20); KYLER MINTAH (ENG’20), JOSEPH KIRAN
- ADDITIONAL LINKS:WEBSITE
We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2019-2020 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences and The School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- BIO: MAR Designs has developed a patient responsive wrist orthotic for the treatment of spasticity in children with cerebral palsy. This device improves wrist function while ensuring patient comfort by dynamically stretching the joint as the child is falling asleep using a specialized motorized system.
- TEAM MEMBERS: REBECCA LI (GRE’23); ARIELLA MANSFIELD (GRE’23); MICHAEL SOBREPERA (GRE’21)
- ADDITIONAL LINKS: WEBSITE
We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2019-2020 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences and The School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- BIO: SHOWCASE vending machines are a platform for brands to trade products for feedback. Consumers get free items, in exchange for a quick survey, and brands get targeted, quality, in-moment data.
- TEAM MEMBERS: DANA KIM (WG’20)
- ADDITIONAL LINKS:WEBSITE
We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2019-2020 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences and The School of Engineering and Applied Science. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- BIO: Frutero is a premium quality, tropical fruit ice cream company with flavors including Mango, Guava, Passion Fruit Guanabana, and Coconut. Frutero is made from 100% real fruits grown in Colombia and Thailand, and the best dairy from Pennsylvania.
- TEAM MEMBERS: MICHAEL WEBER (WG’20), VEDANT SABOO (WG’20)
- ADDITIONAL LINKS: WEBSITE
Tombot develops robotic animals that transform the daily lives of individuals, families and communities facing health adversities.
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CES is the world's gathering place for all those who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. It has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for 50 years — the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace. Kirsten Korosec specializes in transportation and automotive technology. In short (in her own words), if it moves people and packages from A to B, she writes about it.
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The Infatuation's mission is very simple: to bring you the most honest and trustworthy opinions on where to eat around the world, with reviews and guides curated by a small group of highly trained, highly opinionated writers and editors. The startup purchased Zagat from Google for an undisclosed sum in March 2018, exciting the restaurant world with a recently released 40th-anniversary edition of the Zagat New York City guide and, by 2020, a new digital platform for Zagat including an updated website and app.
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Watched live by more than 6.5M people each month, Cheddar is the leading post-cable news, media, and entertainment company. Cheddar also garners hundreds of millions of organic video views monthly across Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social & distributed video platforms.The company broadcasts from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, its street level studio in the glass corner of the Sprint Store in the Flatiron Building, WeWork in Los Angeles, and the White House.
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Revival Rugs believes that buying one-of-a-kind, vintage handmade rugs should be smooth, transparent, and affordable. They handpick a carefully curated selection of rugs and bring them to your door, minus the mark-up. With operations in the US and Turkey, Revival Rugs visits their suppliers regularly to make sure our products meet our quality specifications and that workers are treated fairly.
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Super Coffee utilizes healthy fats for fuel! Coconut Oil has become one of the most popular "superfoods" for its powerful good fats, the elusive MCTs (Medium Chain Triglyceride). The fast-burning energy source also has some antimicrobial activity, clearing your gut of bad bacteria. Combined with Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC) and organic Colombian coffee, it's the “the key to life".
Founded by 3 Brothers, Super Coffee is dedicated to changing your world through positive energy. With three different products, Super Coffee has the clean energy pick-me-up for any occasion.
In America, many of us still don’t have access to high-quality fresh fruits and vegetables. We waste as much food as we eat. Almost half of what our nation’s farms grow is never eaten. Much of this is due to modern-day beauty standards for food. Misfit fruits, misshapen vegetables, and delicious but odd-sized produce are squandered at every level.
It’s not healthy, it’s expensive, it’s a problem at a huge scale, and it doesn’t fit with our view of the world. It’s why we started a company to do something about it. Misfits Market is putting fresh produce that might not check all the boxes for perfection into boxes, and sending it straight to you. Sooner than you’d be able to buy it at a store. For half the price.
SpeedWeed is the largest, most successful medical marijuana delivery service in America. Launched by AJ Gentile, his wife Jennifer and his brother Gene in September 2010 from the living room of their apartment, SpeedWeed now boasts a database of over 30,000 members. With over 70 employees, multiple annexes throughout Los Angeles and Orange County, a strong online presence and highly visible celebrity endorsements, SpeedWeed continues its upward trajectory.
Since 2010, it's the only legal marijuana delivery service in California. Yes, just them.
AND 1 was, and still is, a legendary brand that brought sports and pop culture together in ways never seen before. At its peak, it was the No.2 shoe in the U.S. behind Nike. In addition, AND 1’s entertainment division created the Mix Tape tour and Streetball, an ESPN series that was the No. 1 rated show among male teens, eclipsing SportsCenter. The company was started by Berger as a graduate student at Wharton, who went on to sell the brand in 2005.
Now, Berger is the Managing Director of Sixers Innovation Lab, a 8,000 sq. ft. lab in the base of the Philadelphia 76ers training facility, with investments in companies spanning the esports, daily fantasy sports, pet care and digital cause media industries.
The Spatial Computing age is coming and businesses need to adapt. Infinite Retina is a full-service agency that exists to help companies enter and succeed in Spatial Computing – from building a company vision to getting funded to developing an industry and customer strategy and more. As a full-service agency, Infinite Retina also designs, produces and develops Spatial Computing apps and experiences.
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Vital Proteins helps people feel better and live fuller lives through sustainably-sourced nutrition products, promoting health, fitness and natural beauty. Our bodies’ collagen production slows as we age, our need for it only grows as our bodies become less efficient and we maintain a vibrant life.Vital Proteins accomplishes this by providing nourishing collagen and promoting our production of collagen - an essential nutrient stripped from our diets by modern food-processing.
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Inspired by their Pacific Northwest roots - and trusting their instincts to trailblaze - brothers Ryan and Andrew Beltran set forth on a mission in 2013: Create an entirely unique timepiece out of wood and steel. The seamless fusion of all-natural, sustainable hardwoods and stainless steel proved to be an instant and enduring smash, both on Kickstarter and in the wild, but it was the bold stroke to use reclaimed wood - wood with a story - that redefined what one should expect from a watch.
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In 2013, Mickey Ashmore created a magical pair of leather shoes with a family of craftsmen in southeast Turkey. He called them Sabahs, an original shoe based on a traditional shoemaking method that's nearly 1,000 years old. Celebrated for their quality, comfort and unique look, Sabahs are still entirely handmade by that same family and we now travel the world selling them, one pair at a time.
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Justworks' mission is to help entrepreneurs and businesses grow with confidence. With a simple and friendly platform, expert support from real people when it’s needed, and access to corporate-level benefits that ensure people feel secure and valued, Justworks provides access to payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance - all in one place.
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Snap Kitchen offers a wide selection of ready-to-go meals, curated from fresh meat and produce, to help you meet your dietary and fitness goals. Founded in 2010, Snap was established on the principle that real food should be convenient and delicious, and we live for making healthy meals that people will be excited to eat.
Host: Rob Coneybeer (WG’96), Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Shasta Ventures
A Columbia University-conducted study has shown that cocoa flavanols, a powerful antioxidant, can support brain, heart, skin, and circulatory health. To achieve these effects, a person needs to consume 500-1,000mg daily, the equivalent of nine chocolate bars. FlavaNaturals has, in short, perfected "healthier" chocolate, by delivering 500mg per bar. Thanks to optimized cocoa sourcing and mild processing, the high-flavanol chocolate contains unmatched levels of naturally preserved cocoa flavanols, with each bar containing 500mg of cocoa flavanols per serving.
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Fuelster brings gas to you, helping you save money, save time, with confidence. With on-demand ordering via the Fuelster App and safe, convenient fuel delivery, Fuelster means never having to go to the gas station again.
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There's a shift in the way we consume our food, making it more sustainable, hoping to reverse the long-term effects of agricultural practices. But what about our pets? Well, Wild Earth is leading the pack in crafting the highest quality dog food, substituting meat-based foods with protein-packed alternatives in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint created by our canine pals.
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When off, it's a full-length mirror. When on, see yourself, your instructor and your classmates in a sleek, interactive display, complete with embedded camera and speakers. Mirror is a fully-integrated home gym that motivates you to workout anytime from the comfort of your home. With 50+ new classes and a library of on-demand workouts readily accessible, Mirror is changing the way we exercise.
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WHILL was started by a group of automotive, consumer electronics, and medical device designers and engineers who dreamed of pushing the boundaries of pedestrian transportation for everyone, especially for those who have difficulty walking. WHILL eliminates the wheelchair stigma by redefining its perception through a sleek design and innovative features. By reducing the outward appearance of disability that often causes anxiety, WHILL challenges today’s conventions with user-centric design principles to improve the personal mobility experience, delivering products that are fashionable and fun to drive anywhere.
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Outstanding Foods’ was founded to create “tasty as hell” plant-based foods that everyone can enjoy while making cruelty-free, plant-based living as accessible as possible. Combining ingredients such as mushrooms, safflower/sunflower oil, sea salt and other plant-based components, this venture is playing into the growing demand for both on-the-go and healthier snack options.
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We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2018-2019 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences, The School of Engineering and Applied Science, The School of Social Policy and Practice, Penn Nursing, and Penn Law. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- Flourish Change: Flourish will disrupt fundraising by eliminating uncertainty and making donations habitual, turning pocket change into global change.
- TEAM MEMBERS: BRADEN FINEBERG (ENG’19, GEN’19); ZACH MORROW
- Halo: Halo is putting location-targeted ads on top of Uber/Lyft vehicles. We attach smart ad monitors on top of cars and display creative, captivating ads that change based on the location of the driver in order to more effectively target and engage consumers.
- TEAM MEMBERS: KENAN SALEH (W’19); FAIZAN BHATTY (WG’20); NABEEL FAROOQUI (ENG’21); RYANNE FADEL (W’21)
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We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2018-2019 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences, The School of Engineering and Applied Science, The School of Social Policy and Practice, Penn Nursing, and Penn Law. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- Aerate: Aerate is designing a membrane-dehumidifier evaporative-cooler air conditioner for the Indian Market. Aerate plans to capture this $20 billion market through superior technology designed for high humidity environments; Aerate’s air conditioner is up to 20x more efficient over the course of a year.
- TEAM MEMBERS: SPENCER COLLINS (ENG ’19, GEN ’19), JAKE FINE (ENG ’19, GEN ’19), ASHWIN KISHEN (ENG ’19, W ’19, GEN ’20), YANN PFITZER (ENG ’19, C ’19, GEN ’20), CONNOR SENDEL (ENG ’19, W ’19), SAM WEINTRAUB (ENG ’19, GEN ’20)
- Text-911: Text-911 is an advocacy non-profit that strives to bring emergency text capabilities to all Americans. By working directly with county dispatchers, legislators, and community groups, Text-911 is able to expedite the process of bringing emergency text capabilities to counties nationwide.
- TEAM MEMBERS: KIRTI SHENOY (W’21); ANTHONY SCARPONE-LAMBERT (NU’21)
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We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2018-2019 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences, The School of Engineering and Applied Science, The School of Social Policy and Practice, Penn Nursing, and Penn Law. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- Aavrani: aavrani is the Indian inspired skincare company that leverages the power of ancient self-care rituals, using ingredients such as turmeric that are clinically proven to improve the look and feel of skin. We are focused on encouraging women to embrace their natural beauty by delivering clean, non-toxic products.
- TEAM MEMBERS: ROOSHY ROYCHOUDHURY (WG’19); JUSTIN SILVER (WG’19); NINA DAVULURI
We’re proud to announce this year’s Semifinalists for the 2018-2019 Penn Wharton Startup Challenge. Teams consist of students from The Wharton School, The College of Arts and Sciences, The School of Engineering and Applied Science, The School of Social Policy and Practice, Penn Nursing, and Penn Law. The Startup Challenge and Showcase attracts the best and brightest entrepreneurial minds from across the Penn community as they compete for a chance to win $135,000 in cash and prizes.
- #PeriodPainFree: Up to 80% of women experience period pains. We believe 100% should not have to. For women whose lives are disrupted once a month by the volatility of their menstrual cycle, #PeriodPainFree offers a personalized solution, combining modern technology with over 2000 years of wisdom from Traditional Chinese Medicine to help all women feel #periodpainfree.
- TEAM MEMBERS: LULU GE (WG’19), NICOLE GLATHE
- Verstaan: Atlas is a threat forecasting and intelligence platform that allows users in emerging markets to predict when, where and how organized groups will threaten their firm.
- TEAM MEMBERS: JUSTIN SWIRBUL (ENG’20); MICHAEL CIPOLLA (ENG’20); BENJAMIN SALANDER; JOSHUA CARR
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What is Regenerative Agriculture? It's simpler than it sounds. Put plainly, regenerative farms utilize photosynthesis and healthy soil microbiology to draw down greenhouse gasses and capture them in the soil. This has the potential to reverse global warming and create healthier food and a healthier planet, while also feeding a growing population. Cooks Venture's farm has over 800 acres of wooded land in Arkansas, encompassing a hatchery, pedigree chickens and barns and the country's only biodiverse vertically integrated poultry operation.
Imagine, if there was a place you could go to, a one stop, A-Z solution, for which you could take your ideas and turn them from dreams to reality. An entrepreneurial paradise, so to speak. Being an entrepreneur is tough and we’re here to be the guiding light in an otherwise unlit road. We’re creators too!
Established in 2016, We The People (WTP) is the world's only multichannel crowdfunding retail chain and community. Since its inception, WTP has gone from 14 brands to more than 160 brands with multiple product lines. WTP has five brick-and-mortar stores in Singapore, a store in Malaysia, an online store available worldwide at wtpstore.co, and is expanding its reach with new stores in 2018-2019. Its first U.S.-based, store opened in St. Louis, MO in November 2018. With the goal of bringing together the global creator community, WTP continues to expand internationally in the United States, Australia, Korea, Spain, China, and Indonesia.
Founded for creators by creators Ryan Sim, Joel Liew, Nison Chan, and CEO Jay Kang, the company achieved an 800 percent growth in revenue by the end of 2017.
Founded with the mindset of combating diseases that pharma companies have failed to treat, Denali Therapeutics is currently working on therapies for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The company has 13 large and small molecule programs across various stages of development and two strategic pharmaceutical relationships. Denali believes that new insights into genetics and biology offer, for the first time, the opportunity to discover and develop medicines for neurodegenerative diseases.
Simple Habit is an award-winning app for daily stress relief. Founded in 2016, their mission is to empower people to live better, every day. With more than 1,500 sessions based on situations like sleeping, morning anxiety and lack of focus, Simple Habit offers a practical solution for modern lifestyles.
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Between busy schedules and constant notifications, alarming world news and growing stressors, many of us are struggling to fall asleep. The CDC estimates that 50-70 million adults in the US have chronic sleep disorders. This is where Gravity comes in. Gravity is a health technology company dedicated to improving physical and mental well-being using natural solutions backed by science.
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What happens when the same minds that bring you smart phones, designer coffee, and standing desks turn their attention to social challenges such as poverty, poor education, and childhood obesity? Each week, hosts Katherine Klein, Sherryl Kuhlman, Sandi Hunt and Nick Ashburn highlight the individuals and organizations who are using their business smarts to change lives. Learn how your company’s positive impact in society can support your business model, drive innovation, and improve your bottom line.
Dollars and Change airs every Thursday LIVE from 8AM-10AM Eastern only on SiriusXM 132. We’d love to take your calls at 1-844-WHARTON (1-844-942-7866).
Karla started Cuyana with the vision of creating a global design house that inspires intentional buying through pieces that are crafted with integrity. Shilpa was drawn to Cuyana for the opportunity to create products rich in meaning, quality, and story. The name Cuyana means “to love” in Quechua, in honor of the craftsman who made their first product. Launched in 2013, Cuyana has expanded past its original vision of classic totes to incorporating entire wardrobe selections for women.
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The press (i.e. journalism) is essential to our society. It’s how the public remains aware of what happens in our neighborhoods, in our cities, and across our country. It has become synonymous with the First Amendment, serving as the voice of the people in steady times and as the voice of democracy in times of crisis. Unfortunately, an unprecedented crisis in journalism has occurred, leaving thousands of journalists who've spent years reporting on the state of our towns, cities, and country laid off. Media conglomerates like Gannett, Verizon, BuzzFeed, Slate, and many more are restructuring their platforms, but most people don’t know how wide-reaching these efforts are nor the impact they have on smaller markets, where local news is the only gateway to the rest of the world. For decades, these companies have bought and monopolized local markets but did not adapt or innovate, leaving us here, with most of these job cuts hitting local markets the hardest and creating “news desserts”.
How does this tie into entrepreneurship? Spirited Media CEO and Founder Jim Brady owns and operates three local newspapers in Denver, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia that rely on innovative methods of reporting and storytelling. His goal: to develop a more intimate relationship with a younger audience and to establish itself as a voice in the communities it serves. Spirited Media is just one example of how entrepreneurship is a multi-faceted sector and can focus on social impact.
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They're hailed as the most dynamic avatar on the market, combining 3D motion capture technology and AI to create realistic digital clones. They are Genies, the most personalized avatars available and the possibilities are endless.
To date, the company has raised $25M in total, allowing Genies to quickly become Snapchat-owned Bitmoji’s rival as more than one million people have created a digital clone of themselves.
Co-founder Evan Rosenbaum (W'14) was honored as one of the finalist for the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30: Consumer Technology.
Future Family has set out to improve access to fertility treatments through building a premiere healthcare platform and empowering their consumers by offering subscription-based plans to families at various income levels. The team consists of SolarCity, Google and YouTube alums and advisors that are leading experts in fertility and medical device technology.
For more infomation on Future Family: https://www.futurefamily.com/
To truly understand what’s its like to live small and comfortably, Jeff Wilson gave away most of his possessions and moved into a 33-square-foot dumpster. His experience led him to start Kasita. Any way you can imagine a Kasita is the right way. With its compact footprint and all-in-one delivery, the Kasita goes where other homes cannot, whether that's an urban backyard, a rooftop, or the rural retreat you've been dreaming about.
A chance meeting and a discussion about Google Glass led to the creation of the world's first "Onstar" for the blind. Aira blends assistive service with wearable technology, empowering a network of trained, professional agents to remotely assist people who are blind or low vision with virtually any task, every day. Aira stands for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (RA).
Yuja Chang is a graduate of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 2018 Social Entrepreneurs.
Here’s Greg’s elevator pitch: “Coravin is a simple handheld system that allows you to drink any amount of wine from any bottle you own, whenever you want, without having to think about when you’re going to drink from that bottle again.”
The idea for Coravin began as a pet project during Greg’s medical career. Coravin is his first consumer product, a departure from the field of medical device innovation.
As an avid wine enthusiast, Greg developed Coravin as a convenient way to enjoy his favorite wine without worrying about the deterioration of the wine left in the bottle for too long. “I remember holding this chemotherapy needle in my left hand and a bottle in my right hand thinking, there’s got to be a way I can get the wine I want out of this bottle with this needle,” states Greg. Relying on his background in medical device technology, Greg began experimentation on the wine extraction process.
Read Karl's Forbes piece on Coravin here.
Made In Cookware looks to reach out to millennials by providing quality cookware at more than affordable prices. It does so by cutting out the middleman and making its products direct-to-consumer, a trend in retail which shows zero signs of slowing down in the coming years. The timing couldn't be better as millennials focus on transitioning into settling down and establishing roots, which means investing in all sorts of home-based goods.
The goal: To become the go-to brand for fast paced, young urban professionals.
Ministry of Supply is where advanced reconstruction meets innovative materials by developing fabric to solve common problems such as wrinkles and sweating. Backed by sports science and technology, they've studied how movement and body temperature impacts clothing longevity. The fabric is then tailored into men's and women's professional clothing. If you ever wondered how Bond managed to stay so cool and well-adjusted after jumping off a moving train, these guys probably had something to do with it.
Ministry of Supply at your service. Good luck out there in the field.
Austin, Texas is one of the hotbeds of startup and innovation in the country. Google, Apple, Facebook, AMD, Cisco and Amazon are just a few of the large-scale data and tech-driven conglomerates that call the Central Texas city home. Despite a notable claim to attracting new talent to the once sleepy capital, the region is facing an underlying crisis: a lack of locally produced talent to fill the demands of the numerous tech positions across the region. Companies continue to source technical talent from outside of Texas and abroad, and as the explosive (and consistent) growth of the area would indicate, the pace is far from slowing down.
Code2College, a not-for-profit entity, aims to teach high schools students the necessary skills to land tech jobs that would normally go to outside talent. According to their site, there's "a population of students in Central Texas who remain under-served. Facing a talent surplus and opportunity deficit, many girls, students of color and low-income students lack two of the most critical factors to entering pathways into STEM careers: exposure and practical experience."
Matt Stephenson, WG'11, is the founder and CEO.
The late 1970s and early 1980s brought forth a new variation of counterculture, birthed in Los Angeles, rooted in surf and skate culture. The style of fashion associated with surfers and skaters became known as streetwear and has since grown to be influenced by and include elements from hip-hop culture to haute couture fashion.
Silver Lining Bespoke is firmly rooted in streetwear culture and fashion, collaborating with artists to create classic clothing paired with brilliant custom linings.
Here's Rel's elevator pitch: "It's What's Inside that Counts."
Here’s Bethany’s elevator pitch for Lia: “Lia is the first flushable, 100% biodegradable at-home pregnancy test.” Listen to her give the complete elevator pitch here.
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Before they started work on Lia, neither Anna nor Bethany had a background in health devices or technology. So they had to start from square one: with a great idea and a lot of motivation.
Anna and Bethany conducted surveys with hundreds of thousands of women and did a huge amount of detailed market research to develop the product. “At the beginning, we had this formal idea of what a paper pregnancy test used by a woman would be and the basic research to understand how the technology could work,” Anna says. “From there, we had to research the technology and learn. [We took] about a year and a half from that concept phase to having a product with over 99% accuracy.”
Read Karl's Forbes piece on Lia Diagnostics here
Have you ever had a curiosity about food from different cultures. It seems more and more specials about food are all over the place, showcasing the best authentic dishes countries have to offer. What if you could find all those mouthwatering dishes all in one place. That's exactly what Yummy Bazaar has set out to accomplish, providing foods from across the world at the click of a mouse.
Here's Rebecca's Elevator Pitch: "Yummy Bazaar is an online and mobile platform that's dedicated providing the largest selection of specialty food from around the world in one place and at great value."
Glow is an ambitious enterprise that uniquely applies the power of data science to health. Our personal health tracking products illuminate health through data, and empower people with new information about their bodies.
Though we live in a time when people track everything from diet and weight to the number of steps taken each day, it remains taboo to talk openly about some of the most critical phases of development: menstruation, sex, fertility, pregnancy, parenthood, and beyond.
Here's Mike's elevator pitch: "We are the largest mobile platform for women's health."
Karl sits down with Travis Katz, co-founder of Trip.com and Vice President of Product at Skyscanner
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There was a time when children couldn't wait until Saturday morning to sit down in front of the television and waste half a day watching cartoons. Today -- almost everywhere you turn -- there's another platform that delivers content, so much so that it's hard to keep up with all of them. Platforms like YouTube, Netflix and Amazon all deliver high-quality content that's accessible to anyone for free or at a low monthly cost, offering a large selection of shows catered towards younger audiences. The question PocketWatch aims to answer is exactly how much of that content is truly engaging and educational?
To start, here's Chris Williams', CEO & Founder of PocketWatch's Elevator Pitch: "We are branded kids studio and we celebrate the new digital stars and formats [that] the kids are really passionate about and we bring them to kids everywhere."
Listen to Karl Ulrich, Wharton’s Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, speak with Chris about how companies like Viacom see the potential in child-produced content.
Here's Mark's elevator pitch for Anki: "Anki is a consumer robotics and AI company that takes a lot of the sophisticated science of robotics and applies it to mass-market consumer products."
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Anki originated a decade ago as a group of Ph.D. students who spent their weekends brainstorming and collaborating. "Every Saturday we'd get together and we would just work the entire day," Mark says. Their first product: a toy car. "We've built a very viable business that started out with a kind of autonomous toy cars, shrunk down to slot car sizes."
The fascinating thing is that Anki didn't stop here. Mark and his team understood this successful product as a stepping stone. Their strategy: "Let's go into a segment where we can have a huge impact today and build an increasingly sophisticated robotics platform with an increasingly sophisticated stack of technologies to take on harder and harder challenges in consumer robotics."
Here’s Adriana’s elevator pitch for Lilu: “We are making breastfeeding more compatible with the lifestyle of the modern mom.... We have developed the first pumping bra that mimics expert recommended breast massaging techniques to help nursing mothers breast pump 30-200% more milk, hands free and hassle free.”
Adriana explains that “over 80% of mothers start breastfeeding, and the vast majority are also returning to work within the first year of their baby’s life.” Once mothers are back at work, however, the pumping process can be so slow that it eats away as much as 25% of the workday. Pumping is also uncomfortable, and often doesn’t provide enough milk. Lilu aims to fix all of these problems.
The benefits here are twofold: 1) a product that makes pumping milk be a better experience for breastfeeding mothers; 2) the time savings and added convenience and comfort mean that mothers who return to work are able to spend more of their time working, so society as a whole benefits from their increased productivity.
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Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch for the Month of July is Lilu, founded by Adriana Vazquez Ortiz, GEN'16.
Elevator Pitch, from Adriana: “We are making breastfeeding more compatible with the lifestyle of the modern mom.... We have developed the first pumping bra that mimics expert recommended breast massaging techniques to help nursing mothers breast pump 30-200% more milk, hands free and hassle free.”
If you’re at work right now, chances are you’ve got a phone on your desk that came with the job. If not, you’re one of the lucky few: according to Craig Walker, founder of Dialpad, there are about 190 million desk phones in the U.S.
Dialpad is aiming to change all that, by bringing down the desk phone, and bringing your business communications into the cloud so they can integrate with all your devices.
Here’s Craig’s elevator pitch: “We are all about business enterprise communications, and we believe that your personal communications are pretty good. You have chosen whether you use an iPhone or an Android, and what apps and tools you want to use. And then you get to work and a lot of times you are faced with this technology that was made for your parents, like a desk phone with a bunch of lights and blinking things on it. What we do is we built a business phone system fully in the cloud that uses your own mobile phone or your own laptop or your own tablet, or your desk phone if you want to have a desk phone as well, but basically moves all of that infrastructure into the cloud, makes you—for a modern mobile worker, being able to use the tools that you actually want to use for your business communications.”
Listen to Karl Ulrich, Wharton’s Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, talk with Craig about how why he and his team are the best possible people to execute on this vision. (Hint: he and his two cofounders ran the engineering for Google Voice.) Plus much more about starting, funding, and growing this startup.
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Nothing says comfort like chicken soup, and now you can send that comfort to your far-away loved ones with Spoonful of Comfort.
Company president Scott Gustafson explains: “Spoonful of Comfort is an on-line gifting platform that enables the sender to send a very personal message of comfort and care to a loved one living anywhere in the continental United States. It allows them to be able to serve up a personal message of care through the time tested product of chicken soup and other gourmet soups. We package them up in gift packages. We have gone to great lengths to create a real unique and personal out of box experience so the recipients are getting more than just a thought when they are actually going through something.”
Listen to Karl Ulrich, Wharton’s Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and Scott talk about making a personal connection in this digital world. Plus, get the inside story of Spoonful of Comfort’s Shark Tank appearance, which Scott credits with increasing the company growth from 50% a year to 80%: “We'll always speak highly of the experience, even though when you watch it it's maybe a little bit cringe-worthy.”
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch for the Month of June is Daily Harvest, founded by Rachel Drori, C'04
Elevator Pitch, from Rachel: “Daily Harvest makes ready to blend smoothies, ready to heat soups, chia parfaits, overnight oats, all of the incredible drool-worthy foods that you see all over Instagram, frozen, delivered to your door, and ready to eat in seconds.”
When Rachel Drori, founder of Daily Harvest, was raising her Series A, she had an investor ask her this question: How do you plan to be a good mother and an entrepreneur?
The bad news is, this is a situation that many female entrepreneurs still find themselves in. The good news is, Rachel came up with the perfect answer, and you can use it, too.
In the hour-long conversation between Wharton Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation Karl Ulrich and Rachel Druri, Rachel impressed Karl over and over again with her entrepreneurial acumen, and they geeked out over everything from product-market fit to the best ratio of lifetime value to customer acquisition cost. If you like to get in the weeds on how to start and scale a company, this is the podcast for you.
But Karl was especially impressed by her handling of investors. Here's just one example:
When asked, “How do you plan to be a good mother and an entrepreneur?” here’s what Rachel did: “I thought, and I was very quiet, and I kind of went inside of myself, and I flipped it, and I was so proud of this moment. What I said is, if what you are asking me is if I am 100% committed to making Daily Harvest successful then my answer is yes.”
This is brilliant, because she doesn’t fight back at this rude and ridiculous question. The temptation, of course, is to point out the absurdity, and the fact that no one ever asks male entrepreneurs how they plan to balance fatherhood with working on a company. Instead, Rachel stayed on task, and highlighted her unwavering dedication to her startup.
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Just a few minutes into the conversation between Karl Ulrich, Wharton's Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation, and Gregory Lattieri, founder of Recycle Track Systems, Karl called RTS "the Uber of waste." Want to know why?
Gregory explains RTS this way: "We are a technology company first, but we are in the waste and recycling industry. So really a garbage and recycling company without trucks.... We have taken the technology that has been in car service and has been in food and other sectors and we have built a technology platform that allows us to be a waste and recycling company across multiple cities and service our clients. And then the key factor as the business changes and sustainability and people look to do better and do more for the environment we track our recycling material to the appropriate facility."
RTS gives companies essential transparency, both into when trucks will arrive for their waste, and into validation of the recycling material. Good for these clients--and good for the earth.
Listen now for the sheer amusement of hearing Wharton Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Karl Ulrich spend 10 minutes eating bugs: chocolate covered crickets, chile-lime crickets, and coconut brittle bugitos, which Karl describes as, "like peanut brittle, but it's larvae brittle." Don Bugito, founded by Monica Martinez, sells edible insects as a healthy, sustainable snack food. They're high in protein, Omega-3, fiber, and are extremely water-efficient to grow. The whole interview is a fascinating dive into Monica's unexpected entrepreneurial journey, and by the end, you'll want to snack some larvae brittle as well.
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Summer Crenshaw explains Tilr: "Tilr is a mobile first technology that matches people’s skills to company job requirements to automate the recruitment process. So really we’re in the business of eliminating discrimination and closing the skill gap through our technology." One example she uses: a person who has been a restaurant server and a customer service representative has all the skills for a job as a bank teller--and that's the job Tilr matched her to. And the success rate is terrific. According to Summer, 60-70% of the people placed by Tilr are offered full time, permanent roles at the companies.
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Karl Ulrich talks with Startup Challenge Semifinalist & Welligence founder Seth Neel, GRW'20.
Elevator Pitch, from Seth: “What Welligence does is we gather the richest dataset of upstream oil and gas data, we think, in the world--particularly in Latin America. And we build our own proprietary models to forecast well-by-well production, which is then combined into these pretty clean data tools for our clients to use and make better decisions.”
Karl Ulrich talks with Startup Challenge Semifinalist & SpectrumScores founder Philip Williams, C'15, M'20.
Elevator Pitch, from Philip Williams: “SpectrumScores was founded as a way to empower LGBTQ patients to take care of their own health care by offering an intuitive ranking and review system for health care providers across disciplines, on the basis of their LGBT competence. By providing all of this information and leveraging the collective experience of the community, we hope to be able to connect these patients to the best providers to meet their unique needs.”
Karl Ulrich talks with Startup Challenge Semifinalist & MD Ally founder Shanel Fields, WG'19.
Elevator Pitch, from Shanel: “MD Ally is a non-emergency 911 navigation solution that ensures the appropriate use of emergency resources by providing non-emergency callers with immediate access to medical guidance, transportation services, and then also scheduling into more appropriate sites of care.”
Karl Ulrich talks with Startup Challenge Semifinalist & Collecto founder Federika Longinotti-Buitoni, WG'18
Elevator Pitch, from Federika: “Collecto is an online luxury retailer that offers an unparalleled gifting experience, and we do so by focusing on three things. The first is a unique product curation. The second is a specialized gift presentation. And the third is a high-touch customer service.”
Karl Ulrich talks with Startup Challenge Semifinliast & InstaHub founder Michael Wong, W'19
Elevator Pitch, from Michael: “Our vision is to simply simplify automation with snap-on solutions, to help automate energy savings. Our product is a motion-sensing device that goes on top of a light switch, and it mechanically flips the switch for you. So imagine a mini-robot on top of a light switch. You do not have to pull anything out of the wall or hire an electrician to re-wire any systems.”
Karl Ulrich talks with Startup Challenge Semifinalist & Chipper founder Haley Russell, WG'18
Elevator Pitch, from Haley: “Chipper Pet is an environmentally conscious pet food company that enables pet parents to do good for their pet and for the planet. We do this by using sustainable alternative proteins. Our first product is a dog treat that uses cricket protein, which is really powerful. It has two-and-a-half times the amount of protein as your traditional animal meats, and it uses just a tiny fraction of the land and water. It's loved by pets and enables pet parents to feel good about what they're buying.”
Karl Ulrich talks with Startup Challenge Semifinalist & Avisi founder Rui Jing Jiang, W'18
Elevator Pitch, from Rui Jing: “Avisi is a medical devices company that's working on a product called VisiPlate. VisiPlate is a nanoscale aqueous implant for the drainage of intraocular fluid in glaucoma patients. Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness in the world, and it currently has no cure.”
Republic is, in founder Ken Nguyen's words: "an investment platform that allows everyone, not just millionaires, every day people, irrespective of your income of net worth, to actually invest in private companies, may it be crypto or equity. It's a relatively new thing. It's only been legal for a little bit less than two years."
This means that you--yes YOU--can go on Republic.co right now and invest as little as $10 and as much as 10% of your income in the startups that Republic has vetted and decided are a good fit for equity crowdfunding. Then if they get rich, you get a piece of the pie. Listen to Karl and Ken talk about the benefits for both investors and companies, the legal and technical difficulties of making it all work--and a bonus primer on "initial coin offerings" or ICOs.
As an analyst at a big Wall Street bank, Wharton Executive MBA grad Jack Kokko spent a lot of time digging through information, and he vividly remembers the feeling of “fearing that you're missing something critical that's putting a billion dollar deal at risk.”
Other analysts need no longer suffer as Jack did, thanks to Jack himself, CEO and founder of AlphaSense. In Jack’s words, “AlphaSense is an intelligent search engine for knowledge workers in corporations and financial firms. We're doing to business information what Google did for the internet. We're organizing it and making it really fast and easy to find the information you need as a business professional.”
Karl Ulrich does a great job of summarizing what Kabbage, founded by Kathryn Petralia, does, after several minutes of intense conversation around APRs and credit lines: “I can get a reasonable amount of money in ten minutes, at not-onerous interest rates, with you guys doing the work of filling out the forms based on access to my financial records.”
Here’s how Kathryn puts it: “Kabbage is a data and technology platform, enables real-time lending just to small businesses. We do this both directly in the US, and deployed over $4 billion to 130,000 small businesses in the US, and we also operate internationally, through partnerships with large institutions that licensed our technology to do the same thing abroad. We partner with big banks like Santander, ING, and Deutsche Bank. And our customers are able to, using our automated platform, get through the entire application process for a small business loan in less than ten minutes, and actually in many cases have funds in their accounts.”
Listen to their half hour conversation for a deep dive into small business lending and how Fin Tech—and especially Kabbage—are changing how it happens.
When it comes to finding patterns in huge quantities of data, computers are way better than the human brain--at least once they're properly trained. (This is the hard part.)
Zebra Medical Vision is training computers "how to detect malignant tissues in breast mammograms, how to detect brain bleed in head CTs, how to detect vertebral fractures in chest and abdomen CTs, and how to detect opacities and congestive heart failure in chest x-rays and many others." Because not only are computers better at this than people--they can handle the huge quantities of data, as we do more and more scans to diagnose disease.
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for March is VEERAH, founded by Stacey Chang, WG'12.
Elevator pitch, from Stacey: “Veerah is inspired by women, made for warriors. We are a mission-driven luxury shoe company founded for women to conquer the world in style and make a positive impact. Veerah is PETA approved vegan. All of our shoes are responsibly sourced and meticulously crafted without compromising quality and style. We are proud that we are the only luxury shoe brand that offers high fashion, high function and high impact. Our founding principle is to do good, look incredible.”
How do you go about convincing factories to work with your startup--especially if you're trying to make a luxury shoe entirely vegan, without sacrificing quality craftsmanship or comfort?
Stacey Chang, WG'12, founder of VEERAH, knows, because that's exactly what she did. Listen to her and Karl Ulrich, Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Wharton School, talk about her manufacturing journey, plus the story of how she got Suzy Welch into a pair of VEERAH shoes (hint: it involves Instagram and a lot of persistence).
After 20 years as what she calls a "sick care entrepreneur," Ashley Dombkowski wanted to truly become a health care entrepreneur. She’s now Co-founder and CEO of SpoonfulOne, a startup that is trying to stop food allergies before they start.
Based on intellectual property licensed from Stanford University, SpoonfulOne introduces the foods are responsible for 90% of food allergies to babies when they are just four to six months old and starting to eat solid food. The science behind this says that, as Ashley explains, “if you can introduce and then include foods that may commonly become allergenic before they become actual allergens to that immune system, we can keep the body from starting to think that those foods are actually something that they should mount an attack to.” Basically, give babies common allergens right away, and they’re less likely to develop allergies to those foods.
SpoonfulOne makes this as easy as possible: the product comes in powder form, and includes a daily dose of vitamin D. Parents can mix it into any food that their child enjoys, and ensure that kids get their daily dose of allergens.
Finding a new place to live is stressful, but VeryApt—founded by two Wharton MBA alumni, Scott Bierbryer and Ashrit Kamireddi, both WG’14—aims to reduce that stress by restoring trust in the apartment search process.
Recently, Scott joined Karl Ulrich, Wharton’s Vice Dean of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, on his radio show, Launch Pad. Here’s Scott’s elevator pitch for VeryApt: “VeryApt is an apartment marketplace that allows renters to search, schedule and sign an apartment all on one platform. When we built VeryApt what we really wanted to solve was trust in the process. So when lots of people think about the apartment search they think about bait and switch and they think about scams and they really are not sure what they're getting into when they're moving to a new apartment. Everything that differentiates our site is really focused on building up that trust and then getting the renter to the point where they can really enjoy thinking about their new home.”
Listen to Karl and Scott’s half hour conversation for more on how VeryApt optimizes your apartment search; why Philly’s a great place to start a business (Karl and Scott agree!); and the two questions that Scott uses to keep VeryApt on track: “Could we get paid? Do people use it?”
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Fig Loans is super cool for a bunch of reasons:
1)They’re in the payday loans business, but they’re helping people rebuild their credit;
2)The founders are Wharton alumni who met and founded the company while they were getting their MBAs (fun fact: their first project, created at PennApps Hackathon two weeks before school started, was a game called Llama Run);
3)Karl loves the way they identified the opportunity for Fig Loans;
4)Their goal is to “survive indefinitely and to not rely on venture capital money, but to take it, instead, for purposeful growth.”
There’s so much here to love.
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for February is Rockets of Awesome, founded by Rachel Blumenthal.
Elevator pitch: “Rockets of Awesome is a personal shopping service and vertical apparel brand for kids. What we really seek to do is to deliver solutions and services to parents. And what we had identified is that kids are outgrowing their clothes every single season. So unlike you and me, where maybe we want a new pair of jeans or a new jacket, my kids actually need an entire new full dresser every single season. It's entirely time-consuming and expensive to do that every three months. So we wanted to do the work for parents, and deliver them exceptional products and value with amazing service.”
Karl Ulrich has given a LOT of thought to how to come up with a great company name, but his conversation with Rockets of Awesome founder Rachel Blumenthal has made him revise his naming rules.
Listen to hear why he thinks Rockets of Awesome is such a great name--as well as for some great entrepreneurial insights about how to validate an idea, and for hints on the huge importance of data—as Rachel puts it, “We are actually a tech and data science company, that is masked by a kids' apparel brand.”
In the words of Sally Poblete, WG'00, Wellthie founder: “Wellthie is a marketplace and sales optimization platform so that small businesses can find the best fit insurance for them across the United States, with the help of a licensed insurance expert.”
Wellthie lays out the full array of insurance options for small business—with under 50 or, in some states, under 100 employees—which account for 95% of businesses in the US, employing about 50-60 million people. Sally knows this industry from the inside—she spent over 20 years in healthcare—and she always knew she wanted to start her own business. A few years ago, she saw that “technology, consumerism, and then regulation were all forming a perfect storm” where she could make an impact. Wellthie was born.
You need to deck out a new home--you need Snowe. Founder Andres Modak, WG'12, G'12, has sourced luxury essentials and priced them way below fancy department stores.
Here's his elevator pitch: "Snowe is first and foremost, a vertical brand. We're building the home goods destination for the contemporary consumer. What we do is, we simplify shopping for the home by providing, designing, and selling the perfect luxury quality home essentials at attainable prices. So, what does that mean? We're primarily an e-commerce platform, but we are our own brand. We design and develop and sell luxury-quality linens, bed linens, bath linens, glassware, flatware, dinnerware -- all of your basics, all of your foundational goods. And we do that directly to the consumer online. All of these products are designed and developed to be absolutely exceptional, but at very disruptive prices. We're able to achieve that through innovative product design, cutting out middle men and markups, and selling directly to the consumer. "
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for January is The One Health Company, founded by Penn and Wharton alum Benjamin Lewis.
Here’s Ben's elevator pitch: “The One Health Company is changing the way that animal testing is done. We’re totally turning it on its head, from something that hurts animals to something that actually benefits animals. Rather than taking animals in the laboratory that are otherwise healthy, giving them a disease, and then testing on them, what we do is we work with pet parents whose dogs and cats are naturally sick, and we pair them into pharmaceutical trials in an effort to try to make them better. The best part is, we actually pay for everything, and these pets are being seen by the world’s best veterinarians. And it turns out that this data ends up saving pharma a tremendous amount of money on the back end.”
Here’s founder Ben Lewis' elevator pitch: “The One Health Company is changing the way that animal testing is done. We’re totally turning it on its head, from something that hurts animals to something that actually benefits animals. Rather than taking animals in the laboratory that are otherwise healthy, giving them a disease, and then testing on them, what we do is we work with pet parents whose dogs and cats are naturally sick, and we pair them into pharmaceutical trials in an effort to try to make them better. The best part is, we actually pay for everything, and these pets are being seen by the world’s best veterinarians. And it turns out that this data ends up saving pharma a tremendous amount of money on the back end.”
Not only does The One Health Company offer more ethical animal testing, and give “pet parents” the chance to enroll their sick animals in clinical trials with cutting edge treatments—but the data from these tests is significantly better.
Possibly the worst part of healthcare is the sheer incomprehensibility of the bill. Is it right? Is it wrong? With all those codes, and back and forth with the insurance company, who can tell?
As it turns out, people mostly just don’t pay healthcare bills. According to Chris Wolfington, founder of FinPay, “in 2016 there were $460 billion, with a b, in out of pocket expenses for consumers. Only 19% paid their bill.” Chris explains why this happens: “People don’t pay things they don’t understand, people don’t pay things that aren’t simple, and people don’t pay things where they don’t have a variety of options on how to pay…. Health care doesn’t do any one of those things.” FinPay does. Imagine sitting down with someone, before you get that knee operation, and understanding what you’re going to pay for it, and figuring out a payment plan. No confusion, no anxiety when an unexpectedly huge bill arrives. That sure sounds a whole lot better than getting an incomprehensible bill in the mail 30 days later.
Better for the patient—and better for the provider, too.
If you can lead soldiers into battle, you can cold call 140 investors.
Neuroflow founder Chris Molero, WG’17, is a veteran, and he’s seen the effects of PTSD. As he reminds us, “20 veterans a day commit suicide, on average.” Neuroflow is his way of fighting back.
Neuroflow uses wearables to measure the physical effects of stress, and quantify them in a way that is useful to therapists who are treating people for severe anxiety and stress. For the first time, therapists can use quantifiable measurements to see if their therapies are working—and adjust for maximum effectiveness. Listen to hear how Chris and Karl talk about fundraising--and how Neuroflow ultimately raised $1.25 million, after talking with 140 investors.
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for December is Harper Wilde, founded by Jenna Kerner and Jane Fisher, both WG'17.
Harper Wilde “takes the BS out of bra shopping.” Jane and Jenna “decided to build a company that would make it easier to buy more fairly priced bras, everyday bras, online, without the hassle.” They offer home try-on of three bras, and they sell just a few great options, all priced at $35, “which is about half of what you would find at a similar quality product at other retailers.”
All right, men: imagine that every time you wanted to buy a pair of boxers, you had to spend three hours searching through hundreds of options and pay $50 or even $70?
This is the hook that finally got investors—93% of whom are men—to pay attention to Harper Wilde, a company which, as founder Jane Fisher says, “takes the BS out of bra shopping.”
She explains that she and her cofounder, Jenna Kerner, “decided to build a company that would make it easier to buy more fairly priced bras, everyday bras, online, without the hassle.” They offer home try-on of three bras, and they sell just a few great options, all priced at $35, “which is about half of what you would find at a similar quality product at other retailers.” Listen to hear Karl talk with Jenna and Jane about the perils of pitching to (male) investors, how to test a home try on method using no tech (and spending virtually no money), and pinpointing the actual pain point of bra shopping.
If what you need is a diamond, head over to RareCarat.com immediately.
If what you need is some insight into founding and growing the Kayak for diamonds, listen to this fascinating conversation between Karl Ulrich and RareCarat founder Ajay Anand.
This interview is full of useful ideas—one of which is, obviously, to be in Karl’s class at Wharton and get him to be an advisor for your company, as Ajay did. But even if you can’t have that, you can pick a great name (Rare Carat was not Ajay’s first idea); decide whether to pre-arrange affiliate relationships or wait until you’re already sending them traffic; and figure out how much time you, as a founder, should spend answering customer questions on the chatbot. (How often is Ajay actually the chatbot? "Most of the time.")
What happens when two women with amazing tech skills and experience have kids? They create Winnie, a companion app for modern parents.
Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall, founders of Winnie, have some seriously impressive tech cred. Anne was a Webmaster at Google during its early days, then quit to build iPhone apps as soon as soon as Apple released the iOS software development kit, because, as she explained to her horrified parents, “that is the future, I am going to work on that.” After a stint at a startup called Inkling, she was an early employee at Quora, before going to Postmates, where she met Sara, who had prior stints at Google, YouTube, and Twitter.
Sara returned to work shortly after having her daughter, and quickly realized that there was a lot she needed to know—but she wasn’t sure how to find it. “I was a working mom, and I was busy, and so I turned to Anne and I said, where do people get all of this information? I don’t have time to dig, and look at the bulletin board at my local library for activities. And she said, there really isn’t anything. You have to spend time, and you have to network, and you have to meet other parents, and that’s how you get your information. It’s really you can’t just put in a Google search, you have to find the right groups to really get the high quality information.” That was the lightbulb moment, when the two of them realized, “This was a problem we could solve with technology. We could take these vast amounts of data that’s right now in parent’s minds, or offline, bring it online and make it searchable and accessible and personalized.”
Winnie was born.
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Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for November is Allbirds, founded by Joey Zwillinger, WG'10.
Elevator Pitch: “We set out to make the most comfortable shoe in the world. What we did to do that was strip away every single detail of a current construction of a shoe that is unnecessary and either takes away for comfort or is focused on dropping cost or doing something else that's unrelated to our customer. And then we engineered and innovated a fabric where we packed in fibers from the merino sheep that are about 20 percent of the width of a human hair that are typically used in $5,000 suits and we engineered a fabric that was strong enough to make into a fabric that could be an upper of a shoe, that's the part that's above your foot. And we constructed what we think is a great shoe. And we did it in a way that was incredibly sustainable for the planet.”
Karl's wearing Allbirds right now.
Partly for the look--no logos, just a stylish wool sneaker--partly because they really are, as Time magazine called the, The Most Comfortable Shoe In The World, and partly because they're made of sustainable materials, which is awesome. But he truly loves this company because they're so very innovative. Think a shoe company can't also be a great innovator? Listen to this terrific interview. Did we mention that Joey is a #WhartonGrad?
Fertility care is expensive—and the experience itself is far from wonderful. Enter Carrot, which works with employers of any size to offer egg freezing and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) as a workplace benefit.
Fertility is having a transformative moment. Tammy says, “Infertility and fertility are fast becoming no longer taboo topics to talk about—so much so that people will ask their employer for it. And that was not the case 18 months ago.”
Cost is the biggest barrier to fertility care, but Carrot isn’t just a financial vehicle. Tammy explains, “Carrot is a platform that helps make the experience better. So you can chat any time—text or video or voice—with fertility experts. And these are nurses and doctors, to help you really navigate your decision-making.” Carrot just raised $3.6 million in seed funding, and Karl has a takeaway for the smart VC out there: “If women and opportunities related to women are systematically being under-invested in by others, hey, that's all the better for those who get it.” Listen to the Tammy and Karl’s full conversation for more entrepreneurial insights.
Lunch for under $6. That’s what MealPal promises.
Here’s how it works: you place an order online, anytime between 5:00 pm the night before and 9:30 am that morning, and you get to choose from lots of restaurants that have partnered with MealPal. Each restaurant offers just one meal, but you get a picture and an ingredient list. Set when you want to pick up your lunch, between 11:00 am and 3:00 pm. Then at lunchtime, you walk up to the counter—skipping that long lunchtime line—and pick up your lunch. That’s it.
Of course, what makes this possible is economies of scale. As founder Mary Biggins explains, “we're really helping restaurants with their labor costs. So for restaurants, labor is actually the biggest cost that they have. That accounts for over 35% of their total cost. It's much more than food. Food is usually about 25% of a restaurant's cost. And so because on MealPal, each restaurant is only offering one meal per day, they get a lot of efficiencies of scale, because they're making a lot of the same thing at once.”
One fascinating aspect of MealPal is that they launched in Miami, where Mary was located at the time, and Mary thinks that this helped them: “In San Francisco and New York, there are so many people knocking on the door of restaurant owners every day--whether it's a delivery service or something for front of house or back of house, and so in Miami we didn't have that same competition, and the restaurant owners that we interacted with were so helpful.”
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Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for October is Zipline, founded by Keenan Wyrobek.
Elevator Pitch: “We deliver essential medical products using drones, small robotic aircrafts, in the hardest to reach parts of the world. Our first customer is the government of Rwanda, and we are responsible for all of the outgoing blood supply chain, delivering units of blood to hospitals for the entire western half of the country.”
Blood has a very short shelf life, and in Rwanda--as in many countries--getting blood to where it's needed can be a transportation nightmare. Enter Zipline, which uses drones to deliver blood to the hardest to reach parts of the world. Their first customer is the government of Rwanda, where they deliver blood to hospitals in the entire western half of the country.
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A test drive that comes to you. A car loan you can close on your mobile device. Wouldn’t it be amazing if buying a car could be this easy? With Shift, it is.
Here’s founder George Arison’s elevator pitch: “Shift is a way to buy and sell cars. If you have a car to sell you come to our website, you submit your car quote, or you download our app and you scan your VIN. And based on that car information that you submit we give you a price quote on that car for how much we think we can sell the car for, and then how much money you would make on that sale. Virtually all of the time you make more than you would if you traded a car into a dealer, and in many cases a lot more than if you trade the car into a dealer. If you want to then work with us we will come out and pick up the car from you and take it away, and you’ll never see the car again, and we’ll do all of the work to get it sold.”
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for August is Flyr, founded by Alex Mans.
Elevator Pitch: “What we do at Flyr is we are really good at predicting what the price and availability of specifically airline tickets will be in the future, and we use that knowledge to either allow customers that are booking their travel have more flexibility in doing so on sites like Trip Advisor. Or on the other hand help airlines be better at pricing their airline tickets.”
Elevator Pitch: “What we do at Flyr is we are really good at predicting what the price and availability of specifically airline tickets will be in the future, and we use that knowledge to either allow customers that are booking their travel have more flexibility in doing so on sites like Trip Advisor. Or on the other hand help airlines be better at pricing their airline tickets.”
Basically, you start to look for plane tickets for an upcoming trip. You find a good price, but you need finalize your plans, and you’re afraid that the price will spike if you wait too long. Here’s Flyr’s solution, in Alex’s words: “On sites like Trip Advisor we give consumers the ability to pay us a small fee, and in return we will guarantee today’s price. So even if the price spikes by the time you make your booking we will cover that price increase.” What kind of small fee? $4 to $20, on average $13. Basically, Flyr is selling insurance on the price of your ticket.
Andy Rachleff, W'80 isn’t your ordinary VC.
After founding Benchmark, which has among the highest returns in the entire venture industry, he retired. Then he came out of retirement to found Wealthfront, which is bringing all the services of a high end financial advisors to people who could never afford the minimums—all on your mobile phone. Why did he come out of retirement to start a financial services company? “This is going to sound corny, but to do a social good.”
Listen to Andy and Karl Ulrich have an incredible conversation about how both Benchmark and Wealthfront came to be, plus get Andy’s best advice to his product-market fit class at Stanford.
If you’re a cloud storage geek, then do we have a treat for you!
This interview with Wasabi founder David Friend goes deep into the weeds of how and why they’re offering, in David’s words “exactly the same as Amazon S3 cloud storage except it’s one fifth the price, and six times as fast.” Karl has many probing questions, including: “If I were to pick one of the most Quixotic endeavors ever it would be take on Amazon on price. So what possessed you to take on that goal?” L
isten to their fascinating conversation for a deep dive into how disruption and displacement have changed the history of technology—and why David thinks Wasabi is the next in this venerable line of winners.
What’s in your tampon? Bet you don’t know—unless, of course, you already use Lola, in which case the answer is 100% organic cotton.
Lola founder Alex Friedman, WG’11 got fired up when she realized that the FDA doesn’t require brands to list the ingredients in their feminine hygiene products. As she explains, “We have developed these habits of looking at our food, looking at our face cream, looking at our shampoo knowing what goes on in our bodies.” She became determined that “We deserve product transparency, we deserve for it to be a relatable brand, a brand that has a service that gets you what you need when you need it”—and Lola was born.
Listen to Alex’s conversation with Karl Ulrich to hear her tremendous enthusiasm for tampons and more—you’ll soon understand why she’s had such good luck raising funds, and getting terrific advisors and investors like celebrity Lena Dunham and the Warby Parker founders (friends from their time at Wharton!) on board.
“About 90% of bike-related deaths were associated with people that were not wearing a helmet,” explains AnneeLondon founder Rachel Benyola.
Wearing a helmet, “reduces head and neck injury by at least 50 percent to 60 percent, which is huge in making the difference between life and death.” The only problem is, many people find helmets inconvenient or unstylish. AnneeLondon is out to change all that—and save lives in the process. The big innovation in the London, their flagship product, is that it folds up to 30% of its original size. In Karl’s words, when folded, it’s “the size of an iPad Mini, but about two inches thick,” a size that can easily fit in most bags. In addition, the London is safer, made out of military grade safety material, and lasts longer than ordinary helmets—6-8 years, instead of the usual 2-3. Finally, it looks cool.
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for August is Ringly, founded by Christina Mercado.
Ringly is smart jewelry and accessories that connect to your phone and alert you, through vibration and light, when you're getting a notification--all while looking gorgeous.
Naivete can persuade you to try for the seemingly impossible. If you follow this up with education and hard work--sometimes the impossible becomes a successful startup. That's how Ringly founder Christina Mercando d’Avignon made tiny wearable tech that fits in a cocktail ring.
Listen to hear how she immersed herself in the worlds of hardware and jewelry in order to make this happen--and raised a million dollar seed round in the process.
That gym membership you signed up for but haven’t used in five years? You know they’re still charging your credit card every month, right? What if someone would not just point that out to you—but also take care of cancelling it as well? This is what Truebill does.
As founder Yahya Mokhtarzada puts it, True Bill is “an automated financial advocate that takes action on your behalf to save you money.” With Truebill, you can see everything that you’re paying for automatically, like subscriptions or bills, and you can cancel any of them with just one click.
Listen to Karl Ulrich and Yahya talk about the origin story of Truebill (14 months of a recurring charge for in-flight wifi that slipped under Yahya’s radar!), the Y Combinator experience, and why, if you have investors begging to offer you money, you should really take it. (Or as Karl puts it: “When the cookie jar is passed, take the cookies, because you never know when that cookie jar is coming around again.”)
Calling customer service is a nightmare. But what if it didn’t have to be?
What if you could call up a major company—your credit card or your airline, for example—and they instantly knew who you were? If they had your tweets, your emails, and your most recent experiences with the company at their fingertips, and could just start off helping you out?
Gladly, founded by Michael Wolfe, is turning this into reality. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Michael talk about what makes Gladly an unique kind of startup, with a dream team of serial entrepreneurs and a huge quantity of funding, who are out to change customer service as we know it. This is not something two college dropouts in a garage even could do—and we avidly hope that Gladly succeeds.
Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for July is YouVisit.
YouVisit is making virtual reality a reality for brands and corporations by building out a proprietary technology platform as well as providing an award-winning production studio. Users can take immersive 360 degree tours of a university campus or glamorous hotel—via their computer, mobile device, or, best of all, using a VR headset.
YouVisit is making virtual reality a reality for brands and corporations by building out a proprietary technology platform as well as providing an award-winning production studio. Users can take immersive 360 degree tours of a university campus or glamorous hotel—via their computer, mobile device, or, best of all, using a VR headset.
By bringing together the tech platform and the production studio, YouVisit founder Abi Mandelbaum, WG’10 explains that “it has allowed us to innovate much faster because we constantly have the production folks talking to the technology folks.” It’s also allowed them to entirely bootstrap the company, because they’ve been focused on revenue since day one.
Karl Ulrich isn’t 100% convinced that this model will work in the long run—he suspects that “at some point you may have to pick what it is that you are uniquely great at, what is your unfair advantage, and bring some focus to that.” Listen to Abi and Karl talk through this fascinating question, and discuss how truly new technologies gain a foothold in the market—and why YouVisit chose to do this without taking outside funding.
The #1 fear of older adults is falling and breaking their hips. The #2 fear is dying, in case you were wondering. Which is what happens, all too often, after a bad fall. So Drew Lakatos, founder of ActiveProtective, tells Karl Ulrich in this thoughtful interview.
ActiveProtective, Drew explains, is “a smart belt that can determine human falls really accurately. And we are deploying air bags around the hips so older adults don't break their hips.” The idea for ActiveProtective came from co-founder Dr. Robert Buckman, a highly respected trauma surgeon who shared his idea for the belt with serial entrepreneur Drew back in 2005.
However, it took seven years for the technology—motion sensors, cold gas inflator air bags, and more—to catch up and make the idea practical. Then in late 2012, Drew quit his job, and went all in on ActiveProtective. Since then, they’ve raise nearly $6 million, and are about to begin pilots at “one of the largest providers of skilled nursing in the United States.” Listen to Drew and Karl talk about the long process of validating this idea, the intense research, both medical and business, that went into it, and how Drew went about raising the necessary funds to turn ActiveProtective into a reality.
Karl Ulrich describes Dan Goldin as “thinking in galactic terms,” and that’s exactly what makes their conversation so deeply fascinating.
Dan ran NASA for 10 years. He's worked on innovative and disruptive projects so big picture that we now take them totally for granted, like direct broadcast TV. You want to know what an innovator sounds like? Listen to this interview, for an intriguing glimpse inside the mind of a person who has literally spent a lifetime pushing the boundaries of the possible. And to hear about what he thinks is possible now: highly scalable neural computing.
Karl Ulrich calls FixList the “Kayak of abandoned properties.”
That’s because FixList helps “developers, investors, and nonprofits in major urban markets across the country” to “find properties that are ripe for redevelopment,” in the words of Stacey Mosley, CEO and cofounder of FixList. Stacey and her cofounder, CTO Mjumbe Poe, have a fascinating conversation with Karl about how they’re marrying data analysis with the Open Data movement, where government entities publish their administrative records online, to create new access to information about properties.
Just imagine: dog food made out of “real, actual ingredients just like you’d find in a grocery store,” delivered conveniently to your door. That’s what The Farmer’s Dog does.
Lots of so-called premium pet foods claim to be healthy, natural, or fresh. But as founder Jonathan Regev says, “When you actually open the product or experience the product it's not really differentiated at all. And so all we've done is produce the product in a way that it actually is real and fresh and natural and people can see that. It has tangible benefits to their dog as well.”
Sure, there are other companies in various cities producing phenomenally expensive dog foods of a similar quality—what The Farmer’s Dog does that’s so compelling is provide a subscription service tailored to your dog’s consumption, and delivery it directly to you, at a lower price point than those other guys. In doing so, they created a scalable business—a very different player in the marketplace than these boutique solutions.
Listen to Karl Ulrich and Jonathan discuss the challenges in making this venture scalable, from finding a human grade food manufacturer who was willing to make food for dogs, to working out the kinks in the subscription service so that dogs never miss a meal (and you never waste food), to figuring out how long to bootstrap, and when to raise funds.
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Comfortable, sexy bras for breast cancer survivors, from a woman who is a survivor herself: founder Dana Donofree's story is a classic example of solving your own problem--and perfect illustration of why we need more women entrepreneurs and VCs. Listen for details of how she built the company, thoughts on how her experience as a fashion designer dovetailed into this new career, and especially the story of where the name AnaOno came from (it’s very funny).
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Karl Ulrich's Elevator Pitch of the Month for June is AnaOno.
Comfortable, sexy bras for breast cancer survivors, from a woman who is a survivor herself. Founder Dana Donofree's story is a classic example of solving your own problem--and perfect illustration of why we need more women entrepreneurs and VCs. Listen to the full interview for more of her terrific story of building the company, how her experience as a fashion designer dovetailed into this new career, and especially the story of where the name AnaOno came from (it’s a very funny story).
You’re sitting down to dinner and realize you’d like to have a glass of wine with your meal—but there’s no wine in the house. What do you do? In a few key cities, mainly in California, instead of having to run out to a liquor store, you can now pull out your smart phone, and that bottle of wine will magically appear at your door in about a half hour.
Of course, it’s not magic. It’s Saucey, an on-demand alcohol delivery startup. Listen to Karl Ulrich and Chris talk about the pain of working in a heavily regulated industry, like alcohol, and why Chris was convinced that there was a desire for Saucey that Instacart just didn't meet.
MindBodyGreen is the result of Jason Wachob almost getting back surgery.
Jason started yoga instead, and “that led me down a rabbit hole. I started to look at things like sleep and stress and nutrition, the environment, and made a lot of changes in my life.” He changed how he ate. Ultimately, “over the course of six months I completely healed, and I think yoga played a large role in that healing process.”
This was a life changing moment: “to me this idea of wellness was about living your best life, and it was nuanced, and it was this blend of mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and environmental wellbeing. And no one was covering it, and—MindBodyGreen. That’s the idea, was to really spread this message of living one’s best life with our unique lens, and do that through content. So it started with the first blog post, with me, back in 2009.”
From that one blog post, it took MindBodyGreen about two years to monetize, and three years to cross the 1 million reader mark—and that’s when they raised capital. These days the website boasts of “a readership of more than 15 million worldwide.” Listen to Karl Ulrich and Jason discuss the path of building a successful new media brand, and all the lessons Jason's learned from founding four companies.
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“Technology, data, people, you put those three together you can work magic.” George Karibian, WG’93, serial entrepreneur and founder of PaymentSense.
As a member of Penn Wharton Entrepreneurship’s Advisory Board, George was on campus for the Startup Showcase, and he took a few minutes to talk with Karl Ulrich about his fascinating life story, and in particular his takeaways from a tumultuous career as a serial entrepreneur, and currently the Founder and Director of PaymentSense (which George tells us processed about $6 billion of payments in the last year). We love George, of course, for all he does for entrepreneurship at Wharton and at Penn. But also because he says things like this about us: “Wharton has helped me out incredibly, much more than I ever imagined. Both the network and what I learned, it stays with you forever, and—and it continues, it doesn’t end there.”
Joseph Quan WG'17 and Nikhil Srivastava WG'17 give Karl Ulrich their elevator pitch for Twine, "HR software specifically for internal hiring"--which just won the Perlman Grand Prize at the 2017 Penn Wharton Startup Showcase!
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We’ve got a special edition of Launch Pad this week, featuring the top three winning teams from the Penn Wharton Startup Challenge! Karl Ulrich talks with: Perlman Grand Prize winners Joseph Quan, WG’17 and Nikhil Srivastava, WG’17, founders of Twine; Second Prize winner Thomas Uhler, C’19, W’19, founder of RightAir; Third Prize winners Mitch Gainer, WG’18 and Marc Giesener, WG’18, founders of CitySense.
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“If you can’t find it anywhere else, then why not make it?” asks Peter Weijmarshausen, Founder of Shapeways, a 3D printing company that lets you do exactly that.
Peter explains: “Shapeways is a platform that is home to a vibrant community that enables them to make amazing products using 3D printing. So if you have a great idea, and you want it to turn in to something physical and a real product, you can go to Shapeways, upload your designs, and we make it for you.”
If you’re not a maker, but want to buy unique pieces, Shapeways offers “a vast catalogue of amazing products. You can come to our site and you can find a very big variety of products ranging from toys and gadgets to jewelry, home décor, puzzles, and many, many more things.” “In essence what we’re doing is we are giving people access to world class manufacturing capabilities, and giving them total freedom to make whatever they want.”
Listen to Karl Ulrich talk with Peter about how Shapeways has evolved over ten years, as the technology, and the company, have matured, and get his take on where 3D printing is at today: “We went through the completely unknown, and then super hype, and then after the hype typically comes a little bit of a time where people go like, really? Was this real? And we’re now starting to see real value creation.”
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Hate your commute? Scoop, founded by Rob Sadow W’08, has a solution for you: a “fully automated carpooling solution for commuters.”
Scoop partners with enterprises, office parks, and cities to make it easier for coworkers and neighbors to share trips back and forth to the office. Here’s how it works: You book your carpool trips one way at a time, based on your needs. Why one way? Rob explains: “By unbundling it so that you can book one way at a time we make it possible so you can actually go to work with one person and come home with somebody else, and so it unlocks flexibility in your schedule so you don’t feel locked in to having to go or commute on somebody else’s time.”
Rob Sadow, W'08 gives Karl his elevator pitch for Scoop, "a community and a fully automated carpooling solution for commuters."
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Here’s a fun statistic: about 1% of the working population of the United States have applied to join Handy as cleaners or handymen or plumbers.
Now another stat that may show why this is: 80% of the people on Handy work 20 hours a week or less on the platform. 50% work ten hours a week or less. Why? As Oisin Hanrahan, Handy Founder, explains: “Not because there’s not more work there, but because that’s the amount of time they want to work.”
“It’s really about flexibility.” Karl Ulrich and Oisin have a fascinating conversation about not just how Handy works, but how Oisin built the company, and why he was the right person to do it. As Karl says, “I think I probably had 20 Wharton MBA students with that idea in 2011.” So what made Handy succeed? Execution. Oisin says, “You've got to get the operations right. You've got to get the technology right. And then you've got to try to build a brand that people gravitate to when they want to solve a problem.”
Which is harder, being an algebra teacher or a startup CEO? According to Jeremy Rogoff—who has done both—algebra teacher is harder. No contest.
Jeremy is the Founder and CEO of KickUp, which is, in his words, “focused on helping schools and K12 districts understand and improve the impact of their professional learning for teachers.” They use surveys and analytics to help schools understand which of the professional learning the teachers are doing are actually being useful—helping to make the teachers better teachers, and improving student outcomes. Listen to Karl and Jeremy talk about a major pivot, and the important insight that “you have to figure out a) what problem you're solving, and b) does that problem fall into the 'urgent and important' category.”
“The promise of biology is to do incredible things. Like cure different diseases, eliminate the organ waiting list, push life to other planets, or even begin to remediate our own planet.” So says Danny Cabrera, ENG’14, Co-founder of BioBots, a 3D printing company unlike any other, because they print in “biocompatible materials.”
Danny explains: “think of these as different colored cartridges on your inkjet printer, only these are for tissues instead of printing in colors.” That’s right, BioBots prints tissues that can mimic the human body, or pieces of it, and this is an incredibly powerful tool for researchers. “We’re seeing a lot of scientists who are using our devices to develop 3D tissue models for different disease models, or for different organ systems, things like liver, kidney, heart.”
Listen to Danny talk to Karl Ulrich about how the BioBots printer works (Karl makes sure he gets it in terms for the intelligent layperson), the current and future applications of an amazing tool like this—and some of the business aspects, like what an MVP looks like for an entirely new thing like BioBots, and how Danny figured out how to price it.
You’ve got a great new job, and you move to a new city—say, New York or San Francisco. You don’t know anyone. You don’t know the neighborhoods. You don’t have a community. Where do you live? The new answer is Common.
Founded by Brad Hargreaves, former co-founder of General Assembly, Common is creating a new kind of residence: co-living. In Common’s co-living apartments you get your own bedroom, then you share the kitchen, living areas, and “a whole long of common space,” according to Brad—all at a lower price point than a studio apartment. Plus cleaning of all common spaces, utilities, wifi, and furnishings are thrown in, making it a very good deal indeed. The intangible, of course, which also comes included with the rent, is the community. Basically, with Common, you get to “keep the fun things like having potluck dinners, hanging out with friends, meeting new people, but take away all of the annoyances.”
Davis Smith gives Karl his elevator pitch for Cotopaxi, where he's selling "Gear for Good"--quality outdoor gear made with a social mission, and funding a social mission.
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With Cotopaxi, founder Davis Smith G'11/WG'11 is "looking to build a world-class example of how to have social impact through a company."
He and Karl Ulrich have a fascinating conversation about ventures that integrate social impact into their business models, as Cotopaxi does--a certified B Corp, Cotopaxi designates 2% of revenue "to help alleviate poverty around the world," (as the website explains). Want to know more? Hear Davis dig in to why the social impact piece is crucial to him as a founder, and the several ways he's tried out for implementing it.
Meat grown directly from animal cells. It sounds like science fiction, but like so much else in this age of marvels, this hopeful fiction is turning into actual science, at Memphis Meats.
A former cardiologist, founder Uma Valeti was part of a study that was trying to inject cells into patients’ hearts to regrow heart muscle, and he took that idea of growing muscle cells… and ran with it. Meat grown in a laboratory, rather than raised as livestock, addresses the environmental, ethical, and health issues that plague our current means of getting meat on the table. As Uma explains: “We're detaching slaughter from meat production.”
This is a true moon shot, a potential disruptor of global proportions. According to Uma, 90% of the world’s population eats meat, and in order to supply that meat, 57 billion land animals are slaughtered every year. What if that all just—stopped? Listen to Uma and Karl dig in to the scientific, cultural, and business challenges that Memphis Meats faces. And keep an eye out: Uma’s goal is to get Memphis Meats products on the market, in grocery stores and restaurants, within five years. Will you try it?
What's a guy supposed to do when he sells his first startup to Google for over $80 million, just 2 years after graduation? Found another company, Flatiron Health (which has so far raised $228 million from, among others, Google Ventures) that is working to cure cancer using big data.
This is the life story, so far, of Nat Turner W'08. Listen to hear him talk with Karl Ulrich about choosing your funding strategically ("taking investment is much more than just capital"), the benefits of being an industry outsider ("I think, honestly, it's an advantage that we did not come from the industry"), rising healthcare costs ("maybe this crisis, maybe this opportunity will actually give rise to some innovative thinking and some better solutions. We can all be hopeful for that."), and more.
Karl is terrifically excited about Blake Scholl's startup, Boom, which is building a new generation of supersonic airplaines that are significantly more efficient and affordable than Concord ever was.
Boom promises New York to London in just over three hours, instead of the seven hours the trip takes now--but for the same price you pay now for a business class ticket. Listen to hear Blake explain how he's making this possible.
Blake Scholl gives Karl his elevator pitch for Boom, where he's building a supersonic aircraft that could travel from New York to London on three hours and 15 minutes instead of seven hours--but for the same price you now pay for a business class ticket. This is dramatically affordable high-speed travel.
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Neel Premkumar built his startups "more like a software company, less like a packaged goods company." And that's the secret to his success--instead of years spent perfecting a product, he got an MVP in the hands of consumers, and then tweaked until he got it right.
Listen to Neel and Karl talk about how Stur kept Neel's wife hydrated during her pregnancy--and how Forto keeps them both caffeinated now that the twins are born. As well as how to bring packaged foods to market, a must-listen for any aspiring food entrepreneur.
Who shops at Stone and Strand? Founder Nadine McCarthy Kahane, WG’12 describes their customer: “The urban woman who buys jewelry for herself and cares about fashion. So she wants jewelry that fits into her wardrobe and looks beautiful.”
It’s an interesting spot in the market, and a relatively new one: “We're doing is, in a sense, bringing fast fashion to fine jewelry while keeping the quality that people expect from a higher end purchase.” Listen to Karl Ulrich and Nadine McCarthy Kahane discuss the changing landscape of jewelry, how to attract Millennials, and how Nadine used her Wharton MBA to switch careers, from healthcare marketing to jewelry entrepreneur.
Slava Rubin W'00 gives Karl his elevator pitch for Indiegogo--and goes into a deep dive on equity crowdfunding, how Indiegogo is implementing it, and where he thinks companies will meet with the greatest success using it--in this excerpt from Launch Pad.
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Back in 2006, Slava Rubin and his Indiegogo cofounders asked a very interesting question: “Why not just maybe use that ultimate democratization tool, which is the internet, to create a marketplace?”
Unfortunately, the Securities Act of 1933 made that impossible--then. So they found another path forward, and kicked off the crowdfunding industry (Kickstarter, in case you were wondering, launched in April 2009).
A decade later, the rules have changed, and Indiegogo is finally doing what Slava and his cofounders first envisioned: equity crowdfunding. Listen to Karl and Slava talk about equity crowdfunding, how Indiegogo is implementing it, and where he thinks companies will meet with the greatest successes using it. Plus everything you've ever wanted to know about the beginnings of crowdfunding.
Your kid draws a picture (or you do). Or you take a picture of, say, a half eaten breakfast sandwich. You send that picture in to Budsies, and in just two weeks you get back a stuffed animal of the picture. You can imagine how adorable this gets. And if you can’t, check out Budsies.com, and you can see how awesome it truly is.
Listen to Alex Furmansky and his former Wharton prof, Karl Ulrich, talk about where the idea for Budsies came from, how he tested it—and what happened when, a month before Budsie’s first holiday season, the factory making the Budsies closed.
What does Curalate do? It makes pictures shop-able.
Why is this awesome? Because unfortunately, as Curalate founder Apu Gupta, WG’05 says, “The pictures are not aware of the products that are inside of them.” This means that when you see a picture of a great microphone or a cute sweater online, you may have to do some serious sleuthing to find out exactly which microphone or sweater it is—let alone how to buy it. Curalate solves this problem. With Curalate, you can hover over the coveted item, and suddenly a “shop” button appears. Click; buy.
“We hear from parents that their kids are literally putting down their iPads and running to the mailbox to get their package. They are incredibly engaged.” That’s how children respond when their monthly Little Passports envelope arrives, says Co-founder and Co-CEO Amy Norman.
Hear Karl and Amy talk about the growth spurt Little Passports has had over the past couple years--and how they're working to keep the company culture trust-based and family-friendly.
What CB insights does sounds daunting: a software and data company, they mine immense amounts of unstructured data, like patents, venture capital financing, news media, or government grants, to try to predict technology trends.
Hear Karl talk with Anand about why computers are so much better than humans at doing these kinds of analyses. And why the original company name, Chubby Brain, didn't last.
Deb Bardhan WG'11, Founder of Xpand, gives his elevator pitch to Karl Ulrich in this excerpt from Launch Pad. Want to listen to the full interview? Find it on Soundcloud, iTunes, or Google play.
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What's the fastest way to get new employees up to speed?
Deb Bardhan got the idea for Xpand through his own work experiences, and seeing how long it took for companies to get employees--including him--through the onboarding process. Xpand is an employee onboarding and readiness solution targeted for large enterprises that are hiring at scale. Hear Karl Ulrich talk to Bardhan about what Xpand does, how he created it, and how it's changing HR as we know it.
Ever wonder where the ads in your Facebook and Twitter feeds come from? Karl Ulrich interviews Jesse Pujji C'06/W'06 about his company, Ampush, a marketing solutions provider that powers customer acquisitions for some of the world's most disruptive brands and companies. And yes--makes those ads that show up in your social media feeds, and tailors them just for you.
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Karl Ulrich interviews Cory Levy about his startup, After School, the largest social network for teens.
After School is a place for teens who want to be themselves, make new connections, and participate in positive activities--both online and offline. It's a private social network that allows American high school students to share and connect with fellow students at their same school. And millions of students, in more than 80% of U.S. high schools, use After School. Listen to hear how Cory built After School, and how he knew, after many other entrepreneurial ideas, that this one was a winner.
Karl Ulrich interviews Holly Shelton about her startup, Movewith, which helps fitness instructors build personal brands and thriving careers both in the studio and beyond.
Bonus: As a former Apple employee, Holly’s in a position to answer a question that’s been bothering Karl for years: does Apple really not talk to customers? You have to listen to find out.