The Startup Scalers Show: Recent Episodes
Maxim Baban
What does it take to grow a company? There are unique circumstances and decisions that ultimately contribute to whether a company scales or stalls. In this podcast, you'll hear from both entrepreneurs, investors, and operators on what they've learned are the most important factors to consider and actions to take when it comes to creating innovative products and building lasting companies.
Check out my chat with Alessandro Marianantoni, Founder & Executive Director of M Accelerator, an early-stage startup acceleration program based in Los Angeles. In this episode, we start Alessandro's background and what led him to founding M Accelerator. We also touch on areas of tech innovation that he's excited about, such as augmented reality tokenization, and his experience working with startups, where he shares some success stories and growth hacks he's seen over the years. Enjoy!
If you have any questions or comments, or would like to connect to learn more, you can always reach out on LinkedIn.
I'm joined by Rohit Gupta, a former colleague of mine from Plug and Play, as he shares his experience from both sides of the table - working in startups as a Product Manager, and at venture capital firms, in both early-stage and later-stage investing. We discuss his experience entering the startup world as a PM, his move to venture capital and learnings in the space. We touch on breaking into startups and VC, look at growing trends such as impact investing, discuss go-to-market strategies for startups, and more. Hope you enjoy the episode!
This episode is a bit different from previous ones where we've heard from startups founders - this time around, I'm chatting with George Damouny, a Venture Capital Partner at Plug and Play Ventures. We discuss a myriad of topics, starting with George's personal career journey at Plug and Play, then having an inside-look at what it's like to be a venture capitalist, and his experiences in the industry.
George shares insights on how he makes investment decisions about startups, and highlights conversations he's had with rockstar founders from companies like Honey, Kustomer, and Onfido. He shares advice for startups in the growth hacking methods he's seen that help startups scale faster. For aspiring VCs, he shares his experience assessing startups for investment, supporting portfolio companies, and building relationships. We discuss current events and their impact on the venture capital landscape and more. Tune in for the inside perspective on being a VC in Silicon Valley!
In this second episode of the Startup Scalers Show, we hear from Aidan McCarty, Founder & CEO of the digital identity startup Unum ID. We discuss many aspects of launching a startup, from building conviction around an idea, building a team, raising funding, and coming up with a strategy to break into a difficult market - namely the financial industry. Enjoy & feel free to leave feedback!
In this episode, we discuss various aspects of the entrepreneurial journey with Mark Thomas, a serial entrepreneur who's walked the startup path several times. You'll hear his learnings on coming up with an idea, building a team, fundraising, growth and selling, and even exiting a startup through acquisition. Finally, we touch on the effect of the current environment on the startup ecosystem and how it affects opportunities for entrepreneurs in 2020. Enjoy!