The VentureFizz Podcast

Jay is a serial entrepreneur, who has a history of building companies that have reflected the trend towards the gig economy. From package delivery to the taxi industry’s answer to Uber, he has transformed multiple industries and his latest company is tackling the insurance industry. If you are a small business owner or freelancer, it is probably smart to have insurance to protect yourself, but you probably don’t need insurance all the time. You probably just need it while you are actually providing your service. In the past, if you wanted coverage, you would have to purchase a plan for a full year. Thimble is disrupting the industry by providing essential risk protection with a flexible model where you can purchase coverage by the hour, day, or month - starting at just $5. The company recently announced $22M in Series A funding led by IAC. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * What its like building a company that ended up being an answer to a Jeopardy question. * Jay’s background growing up and how he ended up in entrepreneurship. * His first two startups eCourier and Hailo, which both transformed an industry and led to an exit. * All the details on Thimble and how it is allowing small businesses and freelancers to get flexible insurance on demand. * Advice on hiring during the early stage of a company. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Inspiration for a business idea can come from the most unique scenarios. Case in point, take Arik, who as a serial tech entrepreneur, decided to purchase a small-town grocery store in Vermont at Sugarbush. And pretty much everyone, for good reason as I would have told him the same thing, was that he was crazy and it was just an overall bad idea. Well, this crazy idea turned into the inspiration that led him down the path of Mable. As he was getting into the weeds of running a local grocery store, he discovered how archaic this industry was in terms of the ordering process, which was still phone, text, or email. Mable is modernizing the ordering process with an enterprise-level B2B eCommerce platform to simplify wholesale in the grocery and convenience industry. The company recently announced a $3M seed round of funding led by Venrock, Accomplice, and Founder Collective. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: *Arik’s career and his different roles in numerous successful startups, including the story of how his company was acquired by WHERE, which was then acquired by PayPal just months later. *The a-ha moment that led him to start Mable and all the details on the company. *Tips on what makes a great Product Manager. *Advice for first-time founders on raising capital. *And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

A couple of years ago, I rarely used emoji while communicating with friends, family, or professional contacts. Now, I use them all the time, as it is an easy and accepted way to communicate with people, especially since you can’t read tone with just words. Holler is a venture-backed company in New York City that is helping people have better conversations through expressive content. Travis saw the future of this form of communication early on and this is definitely a situation where being early to market was definitely a competitive advantage for Holler. It is an industry that has exploded where messaging is one of the top 5 activities that people engage in and last year alone,100 trillion messages were generated. What is also truly inspirational about Travis’ career path is how his whole career began at Chick-fil-A as a teenager and how he quickly rose up through the ranks into management and what this experience taught him at an early age. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Why he decided to turn down an offer at Goldman Sachs to start his own company. * All the details on what Holler does, and where they plan on heading in the future. * How the company is working with leading brands to help bring visual, engaging, and expressive content to the masses. * Advice for founders who might be early to market. * How to successfully leverage PR to grow awareness for your company. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

The best part of hosting The VentureFizz Podcast is getting a chance to talk to some of the most intelligent and driven entrepreneurs in the tech scene. Paul definitely fits the bill on both accounts. He is a highly accomplished technologist, who earlier in his career, actually worked on the broadband network infrastructure that we would all later know as the cloud. Paul, along with his twin brother Peter, founded iboss to address security issues for a mobile workforce. The problem is that traditional security appliances were ineffective at protecting a cloud-first and mobile world. The iboss cloud has solved this problem by providing organizations and their employees secure access to the Internet on any device, from any location, in the cloud. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * What it’s like founding and running a company with your twin brother. * A deep dive into the early foundation of Paul’s career and various technical initiatives he worked on. * The full background story on iboss and all the details on their platform. * Why they decided to move the company’s headquarters to Boston. * Advice for scaling a venture-backed company * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

The concept of Sable was born based on Andrej’s own personal experience as an international student while attending business school at Columbia. The complexity and the process of getting a bank account set up was incredibly archaic and challenging. The same goes for obtaining a credit card and it all can take months to get set up. Like any ambitious entrepreneur, especially one who was interested in the Fintech industry, Andrej took action. Along with his co-founders, Sable is making banking in the US for internationals easy. This NY startup recently graduated from Y Combinator’s summer cohort. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Andrej’s background and professional history. * What led the team down the path of solving the problem of banking for internationals. * All the details on Sable and how they got started. * The challenges they had to be overcome while dealing with the complicated and regulated banking industry. * Advice on the application process at Y Combinator and how to maximize your company’s time there. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Jamus has a strong history of success in the tech industry. He was an early member of the team at Demandware, which was a massive success story in the early days of SaaS. He played a key role in the company’s growth to an IPO in 2012 and the company was later acquired by Salesforce.com for a reported $2.6B. Jamus is now leading Moltin, a venture backed company that embraces an API-first Headless Commerce Service for high-growth businesses with sophisticated consumer engagement strategies. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Jamus’ background and the overall progression of his career. * A deep dive into the story of Demandware and how they were able to scale the company to an IPO and acquisition. * All the details on Moltin and how the company and its technology is disrupting the digital commerce industry. * Advice for executives who are looking to take on a CEO role at a company. * Tips on how to make the transition into a founder-led company a smooth one. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

I used to envy… well let’s be honest, I was downright jealous of the other podcasts and their use of video for promoting their episodes. I would see a clip of audio transformed into a video with a cool wavy line that matched up with the voice of the guest. I thought… wow - that must be expensive to do that level of production. A few months ago, I discovered a company in NY called Headliner that makes it easy to create social video. No, this is not an advertisement, but we are users and fans of this product as it is incredibly intuitive and their freemium pricing model makes it cost effective. Headliner is being used by thousands and thousands of Radio Producers, Podcasters, and Publishers to generate a massive amount of videos per week. Oliver and his co-founder, Neil Mody, are serial entrepreneurs and this is their second company together. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Some observations and thoughts on starting a podcast. * How being in a band influenced Oliver’s professional career. * The details on their first company, Nrelate, which was acquired by IAC. * How Sparemin evolved into Headliner and all the details on the company, its tech, and future plans. * Advice on how to get feedback on your product from your customers. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

International expansion can offer a tremendous opportunity for companies, but it is also incredibly complex to hire employees in different countries. When you factor in the various legal, tax, and HR regulations that vary from location to location, it is a major undertaking that requires a lot of time, knowledge, and money. Nicole is an experienced entrepreneur, traveler, and philanthropist who started her first company in the Caribbean right out of college. After gaining industry experience in the software industry for an international business services firm, she founded Globalization Partners to address this issue of international expansion. Through its Global Expansion Platform, they make it easy to hire employees in more than 170 countries. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Nicole’s experience building schools in underdeveloped countries. * Her background story and professional journey. * What led Nicole to start Globalization Partners, and how their platform is solving the challenges of hiring and expanding internationally. * Advice for founders on getting press and coverage from the media. * Thoughts on building a more diverse and inclusive leadership team. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Lucy was a student at Harvard during the same timeframe when Mark Zuckerberg was starting Facebook. As we discuss in this podcast, Facebook was a key catalyst to ignited the entrepreneurial spirit at the institution. She was a co-founder and COO of Paperless Post, which included two other Harvard alumni. The company disrupted the online invitation industry by making the process a lot more elegant and personalized with a design-led philosophy, which was unique at the time. Lucy is now a Partner at Inspired Capital, an early stage investment firm that was recently launched by Alexa von Tobel. Alexa is best known as the Founder & CEO of Learnvest, a company that was acquired by Northwestern Mutual. And yes, it was at Harvard where Lucy originally met Alexa. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * What is was like attending Harvard during the creation of Facebook and its impact on entrepreneurship there * The full background story on Paperless Post and the many challenges they had to overcome * The details on Inspired Capital and what they are targeting for investments. * What pitfalls to avoid when scaling. * When you should hire a COO to join your company. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Very few people have the same level of knowledge about Artificial Intelligence than Max. He holds two PhDs, several patents, and co-founded Boston University’s Neuromorphics Lab. Yes, AI is a major buzzword heard across multiple companies these days, but Neurala is actually building AI… not just using it. The company’s technology has been deployed on 30 million devices globally and its Brain Builder platform has multiple use-cases for drones, robotics, smart devices, industrial inspection, and more. And if you were wondering about his last name, yes… Max is part of the same Versace family tree, except his idea of modeling is very different. In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of other topics: * A discussion around the debate on whether AI is dangerous for our future… aka the Terminator scenario. * Max’s early life in Italy, how he got into AI from a young age, and his experience at BU * All the history and details on Neurala and their technology. Advice for founders on the patent process. * The biggest challenges of commercializing research and building a company out of it. * Advice for founders who are ahead of the market and are trying to raise capital. * And more! If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.