Bytes Over Bagels: Recent Episodes
Eight Bit Studios, LLC
18 Coffees (https://18coffees.com/) is building the backbone of the mission economy through consulting, content, and community. Caleb Gardner joins us from his walk-in closet to discuss how his team is helping pair creatives and business leaders with clients to provide mission-driven companies a stronger strategic footing.
Caleb’s career has spanned from consulting with Fortune 100 CEOs to running President Obama’s Twitter account, including respected companies such as Bain & Company, Edelman, and OFA. As a thought leader in digital innovation, Caleb has been a featured speaker at Social Innovation Summit, SXSW, INBOUND Marketing Summit, among others, and he has been quoted in WIRED, Strategy Magazine, NBC News, BBC Radio, and others.
Joining us from Cyprus, Dr Theano Kalavana is an author and professional development and leadership coach. She discusses the differences between cognitive and affective empathy and how they apply to leadership and team communication. To learn more about Dr Kalavana check out her website at http://mindthreading.com.
Author of The Empathy Edge and Founder at Red Slice, Maria Ross join us to talk about her 3-year journey in researching the data behind making empathy actionable. "If we want to create a more empathetic world, why not start in the place where we spend the bulk of our time: our work.” She talks about how to build an empathetic brand, leadership, culture and how to effectively start delivering it.
"Organizations that champion empathy will be the leaders in every category". We kick off season 3 of Bytes Over Bagels introducing this season's theme: Empathy. Don Bora, John Ostler, and Steve Polacek join us from Eight Bit Studios to discuss how their 10-year journey in the website and mobile consulting space went from why they started: to create a great studio for collaboration and work-life balance, to today, why does Eight Bit exist? They discuss their team's approach to empathy, the different approaches to the research, and the reasons behind pivoting this very podcast, Bytes Over Bagels into helping to answer those and more questions.
Who knew driving data could be so useful? Gary Hallgren shares how Arity is changing the insurance game with data. Right out of college, Gary's been in transportation, starting at the DOT of Minneapolis. Join us to hear how he's now helping Arity improve driving for all of us.
Kaben Clauson, Founder of True Public, slid right into entrepreneurship wanting to find a better way for companies to get real, accurate data. As he points out, there had to be a better way to get authentic data from a population. Join us as he shares his insights and tells us how he learned to build a power surveying tool.
Joel Pollick, Founder of Percent Pledge, shares how a simple phone call with his father turned into a solution that makes donating to charity fool-proof. Join us as we talk about how he researched the market before he even drafted a solution, how he learned as he went, and how Percent Pledge has evolved to meet user needs.
Coming to you live from the Chicago Inno State of Innovation: The Future of Cannabis event in downtown Chicago hosted at WeWork on September 25th, 2019. In this 2-part series, you’ll get to hear from some impressive Chicago companies in the cannabis space and from Cresco Lab’s Entrepreneur in Residence, Zach Marburger.
Part 1: Fireside chat with Zach Marburger, Entrepreneur in Residence at Cresco Labs
Part 2: Up and Coming Companies:
Tom Gavin - Vice Chairman and CEO of CannTrac Technology, Inc
Kurt Akers Co-founder / CEO of Kannatopia
James Yi Founder / CEO of Leaf Trade
Aristotle Loumis Co-founder of Fyllo
Coming to you live from the Chicago Inno State of Innovation: The Future of Cannabis event in downtown Chicago hosted at WeWork on September 25th, 2019. In this 2-part series, you’ll get to hear from some impressive Chicago companies in the cannabis space and from Cresco Lab’s Entrepreneur in Residence, Zach Marburger.
Part 1: Fireside chat with Zach Marburger, Entrepreneur in Residence at Cresco Labs
Part 2: Up and Coming Companies
Tom Gavin - Vice Chairman and CEO of CannTrac Technology, Inc
Kurt Akers Co-founder / CEO of Kannatopia
James Yi Founder / CEO of Leaf Trade
Aristotle Loumis Co-founder of Fyllo
20 years ago, i.c.stars formed to transform individuals and communities through a program that combined hard skills training with a broader perspective on community impact. The program gives under-served individuals the necessary skills and habits to find success in the tech field. The program continues today with their “bigger than you” sense of accountability for the adults in their program, providing companies and communities with skilled employees both in soft and hard skills. Join us as Miguel Guerrero, a recent grad and now at Discover Financial, shares how he leveraged this opportunity to redirect his life and provide real value to companies and his community. Also with us is Amanda Moore, Director of Corporate Partnerships to share some insight on how the program works and what makes it so successful for both grads and the employers who hire them. Oh, and hear about the upcoming Techie Prom being held by i.c.stars. https://www.icstars.org/event/20th-anniversary-gala-the-tech-prom/
Jeff Meredith, President and COO of Chamberlain, jumped from a standard IT field and into garage doors with a clear focus: smart access solutions that provide convenience and security for a seamless, uninterrupted life. Chamberlain has spent the past few years identifying common pain points when it comes to the most common entryway we have: our garages. Listen in as he shares the importance of solving everyday problems, the power of shifting a business from product to problem-solver, and what his favorite bagel is.
Emily Heist Moss from Girls Who Code shares how you can help close the gender gap in tech, the trends that caused us to get here, and why it's important to get a variety of voices at the tech table. More importantly, she shares how it's not too late to get into the tech space. Join us as we lean into this important topic with a group that's focused on empowering those who identify as female at the most critical time in their lives.
Scott’s seen firsthand how the state of Chicago tech scene grew from a niche area to a key player. Join us as he explains why east and west coast investors are now putting their money into Chicago companies, what Mayor Lightfoot can to do to ensure the tech scene continues to thrive, and how you can get involved. Bonus footage: Scott shares the cost of using f-bombs on-air, apologies to the people of Minnesota, and shares what Technori is up to next.
Travel out with us to Whiskey Acres in DeKalb, IL, where we did a live episode recording with leaders in Agricultural Tech at the AGTech Nexus conference. Philippe de Laperouse shares what he sees is the direction of robotics in farming. CEO of RowBot, Kent Cavender-Bares, discusses how technology can increase the versatility of crops in a single field and decrease the percentage of crop failure. Jonah Kolb from Moore & Warner sets us city-slickers straight and helps us understand the management aspects of farming. As the AgTech space continues to grow, learn why collaboration between investors, entrepreneurs, and farmers is important. Spoiler alert: the lack of broadband is a serious threat to farms.
We've got exclusive news from Wow Bao, so tune in this week as Geoff Alexander, President of Wow Bao joins us in the studio. He shares how he got into the foray of the food business, how Wow Bao continues to be a pioneer in the fast-casual food industry through tech, and how Ricky Bobby from Talledega Nights inspires him daily.
Danny Freed, CEO of Blueprint, seeks to improve mental health care through his proven data-driven tech. Join us as he shares how this cause became close to his heart, how he's navigated the highly regulated waters of working in mental health tech, and the impact his tech is having.
After losing a friend to a mental illness, Danny saw a need for mental health providers to have more data and support for their patients. He embarked on finding a solution and built Blueprint, a company dedicated to helping both patients and providers see and track progress. In today's episode, he talks about his journey as an entrepreneur and software engineer, how he's navigated the regulated waters of healthcare, and the impact his tech is having.
Today's episode is brought to you by Eight Bit Studios, an award winning mobile app design and development located in CHicago.
Today's episode features Desiree Wrigely, Founder & CEO of Pearachute, sharing how she is taking her platform from Class Pass for Kids to Amazon for Family Entertainment.
Discovering the best weekend or summer activities for your kiddo should be joyful and exciting, not stressful. Enter Pearachute, a monthly membership club that makes it easy for parents and caregivers to discover, book and drop into the best kid classes in town, all at the touch of a button.
She shares how Pearachute came to be, how their business model is evolving, and she even shares a little behind the scenes from their time on Shark Tank! Tune in to learn the exact number of Saturdays parents have with their children before turning 18, and stick around for some solid funding advice for budding entrepreneurs.
Co-founder and CEO Steven Galanis shares how he turned the idea of personalized shoutouts into Cameo, a site where thousands of celebrities make themselves available for these more human interactions with their fans.
Named by Time Magazine as one of "50 Genius Companies of 2018" , Cameo is a marketplace where fans can book personalized video shoutouts from their favorite people. Cameo partners with over 10,000 of the world's top actors, athletes, and influencers to create the most authentic and personalized fan experiences in the world.
Rod Levy, Executive Director of Code Platoon joins the Bytes Over Bagels crew to discuss the dev bootcamp he founded for veterans and military spouses. Listen in to learn how Call of Duty shaped the future of Code Platoon, and how the program develops skills that these veterans and spouses already have to drive success in the software development field.
Aaron Sawyer from Redline VR discusses how he is stretching VR technology to enhance everyday interactions, create new engagement opportunities, and extend our ability to connect to each other. Tune into this episode about how VR is no longer just about games, but a more human-centered experience.
Today's episode is brought to you by Eight Bit Studios, shaping and shipping digital products that advance people and organizations.
Leaders in the field of People Operations join us as we explore how the realm of Human Resources has evolved to rise to the needs of new generations, to leverage new technology, and to keep the field innovative.
Kelli Koschmann, VP of Talent at Sitter City, shares her popular process for improving company culture through effective feedback tools and proper follow-through.
Jared Olsen, an entrepreneur in the HR space and currently at Motivosity, helps us understand the evolution of People Operations from a compliance-focused department to a whole-person-focused support system.
Our very own Samantha Strube, People and Operations Manager, joins us throughout to share her trajectory and insight to the ever-changing role of managing people.
Struggling to gather, wrangle, or share your own People Ops data? Or want to build a system to help your business do People Ops better? Let’s chat! or info@eightbitstudios.com
We cover diversity and inclusion with interviews from, Bhatki Patel, 3D Artist at Facebook who did work on Marvel’s Black Panther among others, and Amanda Lannert, CEO at Jellyvision here in Chicago.
In the latest segment of “Marry Mary” we continue to guide Mary’s life journey to find true love. Rockstar 3d designer and animator Bhatki Patel, offers insight on better inclusion at meetups to lead to more connections, advice for how design teams can add more diversity to their networks, and more.
Our feature interview is with friend of the show, Amanda Lannert. She shares her perspective on diversity and inclusion, how Jellyvision became a 50% female workforce, and how they leverage diversity and inclusion statistics to lead to employee satisfaction in the workplace.
This week's music feature is Chicago's own Wade Andersen
Today's show is brought to you by: Brad’s Deals
Brad’s Deals is more than just online shopping, they're a diverse community of techies, fashionistas, comic artists, yoga teachers, and bagel lovers who share a common goal—give consumers the best deals and experiences every day. Run on innovation, fun, and lots of coffee, Brad’s Deal is an award-winning company passionate about bringing tech and opportunities to the community.
Listen to Season 1: http://bytesoverbagels.com/shows
Premiering in 2013, Bytes Over Bagels quickly became a favorite weekly podcast for the Chicago Tech scene. Debuting February 20th and broadcasting for 40 straight weeks, the group interviewed some of Chicago Tech's most coveted personalities and opened the doors for many in the blossoming start-up industry.
Season 2.0 will bring some tasty surprises and awkward format changes as our colorful hosts open the time capsule from Season 1 to catch up with previous guests to find out what they've been doing for the last 5 years, how their careers and the industry has changed, and also how to get one Mary Brown married off to a fellow Chicago Techie.
Highlighting new local music and touching on the tech industries hottest topics, season two kicks off with the original hosts welcoming you back, four year highlights, introducing Marry Mary Brown, and the spooky tale of the Loch Ness monster. You won't want to miss it! And if you do, its always online, so you can basically listen anytime.
Listen to Season 1: http://bytesoverbagels.com/shows
Today's interview is with Eddie Lou, CEO and Co-Founder, Shiftgig. Shiftgig is the (yeah we italicized "the") online community for the service and hospitality industries. Eddie started out slanging burgers at a Jack-in-the-Box, so he knows about workin' the shifts. He and his co-founder wanted to create a proactive platform for potential employees and hiring managers to court each other. The result is a database of over 100K jobs and workers nationwide. And while Eddie knows the service and hospitality industry, he's also crazy versed in VC and fundraising, having spent some time working at OCA Ventures before blowing out Shiftgig. This week's music feature is Chicago's own The Symposium.
Today's interview is with Andrew Howard, Co-Founder and Sara Trice, Lead Developer, Wowzers. Wowzers is a complete cloud-based solution for 3-8th grade math studies. The Wowzers platform gives teachers a platform to help them curate learning for a student and spend less time grading papers and creating worksheets. The platform provides students with creative and immersive ways to understand math concepts at a level customized to the students abilities. This week's music feature is Chicago's own Falldown.
Perk up Chicago Start-ups, tuck in your shirts, today we interview Jason Heltzer, General Partner, OCA Ventures. OCA is a venture capital firm that focuses on seed and traditional venture capital investments...primarily investing in technology companies.
This week's featured interview is with Greg Jaros, Founder and Gint Rudis, Co-Founder of Spare to Share, a hyper local-sharing platform on web and mobile for things you own or things you need. When they say "hyper local" sharing they mean building a sharing community in your condo building or office building to allow you to share and borrow things you need occasionally but wouldn't necessarily buy - like a chainsaw. Greg and Gint built this platform to solve their own problem of buying too many one-time use products. They quickly realized that the best way to scale the platform was using hyper-local networks to leverage the pre-existing trust of those people that live and work in your building. They are continuously iterating on the product and recently released a feature that lets you send in a photo of a shelf of products and their Spare to Share "elves" will identify and add your products to your personal inventory to share out to your neighbors. Their goal is to make it easy and not let the technology get in the way of the sharing. This week's music feature is Chicago's own The Locals.
This week's featured interview is with Michael Anthony Salvatore, Owner Heritage Bicycles. Mike knows bikes - he's been building them for years in NYC and now at his shop here in Chicago. He also knows a thing or two about tech and building a Lifestyle Brand. The latter has provided him with a platform to dominate across numerous streams of media in the social web space, physical retail, and online commerce. This week's music feature is Chicago's own Best Witches.
This week's featured interview is with Chris Brown, Group Vice President of Mobile at Orbitz Worldwide. Chris shares intriguing stats on mobile adoption for booking travel and Orbitz's mobile growth over the last 3 years. Chris led his team to build Apple's editor's choice app allowing users to book a flight in as little as 3 minutes and travel packages in the neighborhood of $1,200...that's a $1,200 purchase on your phone. Creating large behavioral shifts in purchasing travel, introducing localized, real time travel planning once you reach your location and managing a happy crew of coders and designers is Chris' passion. And he makes it sound easy... This week's music feature is Chicago's own Pink Frost.
This week's featured interview is with the Divvy duo, Elliot Greenberger, Deputy General Manager at Divvy, and Scott Kubly, Commissioner, Chicago Department of Transportation. If you haven't seen Divvy bikes somewhere around the city in your peripherals...you are a hermit...and probably need to get out of the house, in general. Divvy is the newest form of city supported public transportation that lets users pick up one of over 4,000 bikes from over 400 stations around town and drop them off at a station near their destination. There are 24 hour passes as well as annual passes, which provide access to all the bikes in 30 minute increments between stops. Elliot and Scott talk to us about expansion of Divvy, Divvy mobile apps, bike saftey (including new bike lanes), and putting Divvy in the same sentence with the El or Bus when you are trying to figure out how to arrive at point B. This week's music feature is Chicago's own L'Altra.
This week's featured interview is with Chicago's very own, Jeff Hyman, CEO of Retrofit. Retrofit is a web-based weight loss program that combines wearables (think Fitbit), wireless scales and regular skype calls with your personal registered dietitian, exercise physiologist and behavior coach. Jeff himself, has been around the block, worth $51 million dollars before the bubble - and $51 after it burst. Jeff didn't fall easily and went on to build 2 more successful businesses (selling 2 of them) until he landed on a passion project - Retrofit. He started the business manually tracking people's weight loss using a handful of fitbits, a weight loss support team and no web or mobile app. Let's just say people liked it...and Weight Watchers is scared. This week's music feature is Chicago's own.
This week's featured interview is with Tracey Wiedmeyer, CTO and Co-Founder of InContext Solutions. InContext Solutions creates simulated shopping experiences for manufacturers and brands to test their product and retail experiences in a virtual 3D environment. Its like a video game but its not. Challenges for users testing package recognition and shopping experiences may need to charge down a simulated store aisle with a mission to find a specific product in a specific time. The platform has revolutionized the business of product and retail testing, which was previously required a building an actual physical environment. Tracey talks about getting checks from gramps and signing early contracts with the likes of Wrigley. It ain't easy...This week's music feature is Chicago's own Uh Bones.
This week's featured interview is with Shrada Agarwal, Chief Strategy Officer, Co-Founder and Head of Media at Context Media. Context Media is a booming bootstrapped biz that delivers relative and engaging waiting room video content based on specific medical conditions. Shradha is the real deal in the world of entrepreneurs, reinvesting her personal capital into her seed-stage investment fund called JumpStart Ventures that funds health tech startups. Her entreprenuerialism started pretty early on, stealing her dads books and running an underground library for cash at her school. Who knew stealing would one day lead her to be the 2013 Moxie Award Tech Woman of the Year. And yes, there's more...This week's music feature is Chicago's own The Canoes.
This week's featured interview is with Craig Ulliot, CTO, Co-Founder and Head of Product at Belly, the World's best and most entertaining loyalty program (or "experiential rewards" in Craigs words). Belly basically rewards you for being a good customer, but the way you go about getting these rewards is anything but the old tired punchcard. Craig talks us through the grinding long hours and continuous iterations that took Belly from an idea to a recent round of VC funding to the tune of $10 million. Part of the magic is in letting Engineers lead AND own Product design. Craig is also a pretty good cook who makes a mean spaghetti (better than Logan Lahives meatballs) and he lives in a "bat cave" steps from the front door of Belly. This week's music feature is Chicago's own Yeesh.
This week's featured interview is with Tom Sosnoff, Founder of Tasty Trade. Tasty Trade is a live video-based Financial "Network" (like CNN Money but not at all - these guys actually can help you invest). Five days a week Tom and his entourage host a number of different Finance and Investor shows, including Bootstrapping in America, which has featured a number of Chicago Tech Startups. Aside from great Finance content, Tasty Trade operates as a finance agency that helps thousands of customers build their wealth. Some of you may know Tom from his old days as the CEO and Founder of ThinkorSwim.com - a tech based investment agency that Tom sold 3 TIMES for $750M (last sold to Ameritrade). Or if you've really been around awhile you've seen him laying on the floor of the CBOE passed out at 3am fresh of a private jet from Vegas, living the dream, and waiting for the markets to open. This week's music feature is Chicago's own The Orwells.
This week's featured interview is with Ravi Bhatt, Co-Founder and CEO of Branchfire. Branchfire is responsible for a little used (only a million+ users) iPad App called "iAnnotate". iAnnotate allows you to read, markup and share documents on the go. Its used widely in education but also adopted by Hollywood for reading and editing scripts among actors , pro sports teams sharing out playbooks and all sorts of other smart folks. Ravi also makes a real solid effort to compare the Chicago start-up scene to a Lemonade Stand (it mostly works ;) and thinks more people in town should hear that their ideas are just plain bad (not to be mean - just to help us build better stuff). This week's music feature is Chicago's own Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.
This weeks featured interview is with Andy Crestodina, Web Strategist and Co-Founder of Orbit Media. Orbit Media is a wildly successful Web Design and Web marketing firm in Chicago, working with local legends like Lou Malnati's, Vienna Beef and heading up the NATO Summit 2012 web efforts. Besides running a company, and being one of the pimpin'est content marketers around, Andy recently authored "Content Chemistry - An Illustrated Guide to Content Marketing". Andy's pretty damn funny too - running us through the proper ways to ice out SEO and his plans to open a meth lab a few blocks from Rahms house (his words, not ours). This week's music feature is Chicago's own Netherfriends.
This week's feature interview is with John Roa, Founder and CEO, AKTA. AKTA is one of Chicago's premier Experience Design Shops. John Roa has had his hands in a number of digital projects since he was 17 and brings a real honest perspective on failure and why this new wave of "entrepreneurial education" is a waste of your time.
This week's feature interview is with David Vinca, Founder, eSpark Learning and Luke Shepard, CTO. eSpark Learning is harnessing the power of educational 3rd party apps to build a platform for customized learning experiences in the classroom. David puts the "minimum" in Minimum Viable Product, explaining how he first tested his idea using a paper version of his app and graduated to Powerpoint and finally what is today, eSpark Learning. Along side him in this interview is Luke Shepard, a past Facebook Developer, and an iterative machine (they push every single frickin day).
This week's feature interview is with Mark Lawrence, Co-Founder at Spot Hero. Mark spins the tale of how he grew SpotHero early on to 10,000 users, with a horrific 42 step form to reserve a parking space. Since then its been fame and glory for Mark's team, crushing it in major markets across the country. How did he and his blue tshirt posse do it?
This week's feature interview is with Brian Spaly, Founder and CEO, at Trunk Club. Brian talks about fundraising and ground-up growth of both Trunk Club, and Bonobos, his new men's clothing line and online retail shop. Other bits include Brian's take on staffing 130 employees in-house, managing a 35,000 subscriber base and the resurrection of Hammer Pants.
This week's feature interview is with Mike McGee, Co-Founder at The Starter League. Mike talks about the Starter League's new 9 month program and partnering with CPS to educate the teachers how to teach code in their classroom. What's the Starter League? Seriously? It's where students and professionals from all over the world come to learn how to code, design, & ship web apps.
This week's feature interview is with John Pletz, Tech reporter, blogger at Crain's Chicago Business. John talks about his transition from the Austin tech scene to Chicago, how to get noticed on Crains, Andrew Mason and Groupon's future and more! It's a fun interview. You gotta check it out! This week's music feature is Chicago's own Wild Belle.
This week's feature interview is with Jake Nickell, Founder and CEO at Threadless. Did you know that Threadless was a hobby then a side project of Jake's website consulting firm? Jake talks about the history and growth of the company, new partnerships, Chicago, and what the future is for Threadless (including sweatpants). This week's music feature is Chicago's own Fort Frances.
This week's feature interview is with Nick Rosa (https://twitter.com/nerosa), Managing Director at Sandbox Industries (http://www.sandboxindustries.com). Sandbox Industries is redefining the way great ideas are generated and transformed into successful companies. Nick Rosa, himself, brings tons of experience to companies growing inside Sandbox Industries and shares a lot of that knowledge on Bytes this week.
This week's feature interview is with Chuck Templeton (https://twitter.com/ctemp), Managing Director at the Impact Engine (http://www.theimpactengine.com), an incubator serving for-profit companies addressing societal and environmental challenges. If you're thinking about applying for the Impact Engine, listen up as Chuck tells us what kind of projects get him all green and bothered...by the way apps are due by June 30th! Not applying for impact engine? Well tune in anyway and let one of Chicago's premier entrepreneurs, responsible for the hits OpenTable, GrubHub and Cleversafe, teach you a thing or two about creating a successful startup...
This week's feature interview is with Justyn Howard, Founder and CEO of SproutSocial. Sprout Social puts powerful social metric tools in the hands of businesses at any stage. Listen up as Justin walks us through the evolution of the Sprout platform, why you should be using it and his team's lightening fast roll-out of new features to stay at the forefront of the metrics game.
This week's feature interview is with Michael Timpone, Co-Founder and CMO of Kapow Events. Michael talks about how Kapow is helping brands make year-long memories for their customers by putting together unique events with great food, drinks, photography and fanfare.
This week's feature interview is with Emerson Spartz, Founder and CEO of Spartz. Emerson kicks things off by telling us how he dropped out of the traditional school system to home school HIMSELF at age 12 and build one of the most successful blogs of all time, www.mugglenet.com. From here he's launched a wave of profitable websites based on his home grown formula for Virality. At 26 years old today, he's just getting started...listen in. We also feature (Chicago) music from the band JC Brooks and The Uptown Sound.
This week's feature interview is with John Tolva, CTO of the City of Chicago. John talks about how he became CTO of Chicago, their Open Data initiatives, what's in store for the future of Chicago technology and more.
This week's feature interview is with Phil Tadros, Founder and CEO of Doejo. Phil talks through his humble beginnings, dropping out of college to open his first of 13 coffee shops, leading him to sit at the the helm of the interactive shop Doejo, Bow Truss Coffee, the Galaist and a bunch more.
This week's feature interview is with Shawn Riegsecker, Founder and CEO of Centro. Centro's been voted best place to work in Chicago for 3 years in a row. He talks about their culture, how they manage retention, and the personal sacrifices he made to create the company that includes sleeping on the floor in Centro's server room. He also talks about the future of web and mobile advertising.
This week's feature interview is with Max Crowley, Senior Community Manager of Uber Chicago. Max talks about Uber's future in Chicago, how they get the word out, flower and ice cream delivery and why non-Uber Taxi drivers hate taking your credit cards.
Wes Stoody, Founder, AFrames Eyewear. Wes breaks down his quest to help solve children's Vitamin A deficiencies, which ultimately lead to blindness and sometimes death. The journey led him to create AFrames - a socially conscious eyewear company, which partnered with Helen Keller International, donates money from each sale to bring children the needed supplements to conquer these deficiencies. Did we mention how rippin' the eyewear is? Well it is...
Anthony Broad-Crawford, Chief Product Officer of GiveForward. He discusses the work GiveForward is doing to help those with healthcare related financial need through their crowd-sourcing platform. He also discusses some success stories, why he moved to Chicago for tech over San Francisco and more.
Matt Moog, Founder and Chairman of Built In, Founder and CEO of Viewpoints. Matt enlightens the crew on how chicago tech has evolved over the last decade, where Viewpoints is headed and how he brought together Chicago's CEO's to launch the Firestarter Fund.
Seth Krevitz, Co-Founder, Technori and Co-Founder, Bowtruss Coffee. Seth opens the flood gates on all his projects, catching us up on Technori Chicago and beyond, and his latest venture into world-class bean roasting, beer brewing and beard growing. (P.S. don't forget to vote for Seth Krevitz - best beard at the 2013 Moxies).
CEO of Built In, Maria Katris is interviewed, shares the story of Built In's evolution from Chicago's premiere online tech community to the national stage. She also talks about current funding trends in Chicago, the success of the Moxie Awards.
CEO of Jellyvision, Amanda Lannert is interviewed, we talk Nike FuelBand using Tech Stars to produce mobile apps, Minuum QWERTY keyboard, and CTO of Adobe Kevin Lynch moving to Apple.
Founder of DevBootcamp Chicago, Dave Hoover is interviewed, we talk SXSW barista bot, Google Ring, and Elon Musk wanting to die on the planet Mars.
Managing Director of TechStars Chicago, Troy Henikoff is interviewed, we discuss Andrew Mason getting fired as CEO of Groupon and the merits of starting a podcast via MVP.
President and Co-founder of SocialKaty, Katy Lynch is interviewed, we discuss Illinois cab companies vs Uber.com and how extra virgin olive oil can be used as a substitute for shaving gel.
Co-Founder and Lead iOS instructor of Mobile Makers Academy, Don Bora interviewed and we discuss of Google Glass contest.