Innovation with Mark Peter Davis

Vivek Sharma is the Co-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink. Movable Ink has created a marketing solution that helps brands work data into personalized content. Basically, they help businesses leverage their data to help customize content and marketing messages. And it works. Companies who switch from a one-size-fits-all-marketing model to customization tend to see large increases in engagement.Vivek started his career as an engineer & sales, making him a double threat as a startup founder.During our chat we discussed the ins and outs of Movable Ink, some important lessons Vivek has learned while growing the company and rapidly increasing headcount, overcoming unpredictable obstacles, his perspective on capitalizing a startup and much more.Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @movableink, @mpdGuest Links: Movable InkPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share an update with you.First and foremost, a big thanks to all of you for joining me on this journey. It's been a blast and I can't wait to continue to this wild ride in 2022.Second, this podcast is meant to be an educational experience for everyone involved. I know I've learned a lot and I hope you have too. If there’s a particular topic you’d like to learn about or guest speaker you’d be interested in hearing, please let me know. Best way to contact me is on Twitter @MPD.Third, we're taking a break for next month or so. New episodes will come in mid-January.Until then, I wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe end of the year.See you in '22!

For this week’s episode, I chatted with Kelly Oriard & Callie Christensen, the Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Slumberkins.Slumbkerins is a pre-school brand aiming to support families in the emotional wellness development of their children with educational products. Through carefully crafted characters and stories they’ve packaged psychological techniques up to make it easy for parents to help teach their kids about emotions. If you visit their website you’ll see that one way they sort the products is by theme: creativity, family change, mindfulness, self-esteem.Before Slumberkins, Kelly was a school therapist and Callie was a teacher, so they have the background to start this kind of company. Kelly and Callie become moms at the same time, and during their maternity leave they became unexpecting entrepreneurs.Kelly and Callie are rockstars, so it’s no surprise that Slumberkins off to the races. Interplay is an investor and we’re so excited and proud to be a part of their journey.During the interview, we discussed the story behind Slumberkins, why teaching kids about emotions is important, the history of parentings and how strategies have changed over time, what they’ve learned about entrepreneurship, and much more. Enjoy.Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @slumberkins, @mpdGuest Links: SlumberkinsPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Stephen Kuhl is the Co-Founder and CEO of Burrow, a furniture company for the modern age that delivers the most convenient customer experience in the industry.They started out by making beautiful modular couches that come in easy to carry boxes that more or less snap together without tools. They have since expanded their product line to carry all types of more intelligent furniture. You can basically buy your entire living room on their website. It’s an awesome company and Interplay is a proud investor.Stephen shared a ton of great insights into the world of manufacturing, which includes some crazy stories from the early days of Burrow.If you’re building a DTC business or a company that relies on manufacturing this is worth a listen.Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @hiburrow, @mpdGuest Links: BurrowPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Mike Rudoy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Jetty, a financial services platform that helps make renting a home more affordable and flexible.Jetty offers three products to help renters get into homes:Jetty Deposit - security deposit replacementJetty Rent - rent payment programJetty Protect - renters insuranceNot only does Jetty help renters, the services makes managing properties easier too. It's a win win situation and example of a successful business model that places the product in the middle of a sales chain.During the interview, we discussed the business model behind Jetty, Mike's entrepreneurial journey, the general state of housing in America and much more.Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @mrudoy, @mpdGuest Links: JettyPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Ali Hamed is a Partner at CoVenture Holding Company LLC. Since his college days he’s been building an impressive network and unsurprisingly has built an impressive business. What’s unique about CoVenture’s model is that they’ve found an interesting synergy between debt financing and venture capital. In addition to making venture investments, Ali and his team provide balance sheet capital to innovative companies that are financing new asset classes. As CoVenture puts it: “CoVenture partners with founders who are inventing new asset classes, identifying new economies, or who require alternative types of capital to grow -- and backs them with venture capital and/or debt financing.”If you’re interested in the business models of venture capital, debt or general finance I think you’ll find this conversation to be educational. I certainly did. Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @AliBHamed / @coventurevc / @mpdGuest Links: CoVenture Holding Company LLC, Crossbeam Venture PartnersPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Nhon Ma is the CEO and Co-Founder of Numerade, a Los Angeles based EdTech platform that’s using AI and short form videos to democratize access to tutoring for kids around the world. What is brilliant about their idea is that they are bringing supplemental learning to students who can’t afford traditional private tutoring.Nhon is an ex-Googler so he’s a tech-savvy founder who just knows how to run a business. During the chat, Nhon shared his extremely inspiring personal journey and if you follow the thread of his story it seems as though he was destined to start this company. We discussed the intricacies of Numerade, how learning varies by states and countries, how education is evolving in the US and so much more.Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @nhonma / @numerade_edu / @mpdGuest Links: NumeradePodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Jason Saltzman is the Co-Founder of Relief and a well known member of the New York start-up community. Relief is an app that helps people navigate the craziness when dealing with debt. According to Jason, Relief is here to kill your debt.The statistics about debt in America are staggering:Average amount of debt = $6k/personAverage number of credit cards = 8 credit cards/person1 out of 3 people are behind on credit card paymentsBeyond Relief, Jason is one of the best community builders out there. Rolling Stone actually called him a “cruise director,” a hilarious and accurate phrase if you know Jason.He is also very much on top of his social media game, especially TikTok, which he believes that all businesses should be active on.During the chat we discussed a lot about the intricacies regarding debt in America, building communities and winning strategies for creators on TikTok.Follow us on Twitter: @SaltzmanJason / @startrelief / @mpdShow LinksGuest Links: Relief, AlleyBooks Mentioned: Tipping Point by Malcolm GladwellPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Nihal Mehta is the Co-Founder of Eniac Ventures, a successful seed venture firm that has invested in unicorns like AirBnb and Boxed. Nihal has been a serial founder and an active investor for over a decade. The only way to know what a founder is REALLY going through is by being a founder yourself. IMHO, VCs who have operator experience have a great competitive advantage.Nihal is one of the best startup player-coaches out there so it was a blast discussing how his founder experience has influenced his VC strategy.During the chat, we also talk about some of Nihal's other endeavors, one of which is the India Internet Group (IIG). IIG is a fund based out of India so we talk about the startup and VC scene there.He also started The 100K Pledge, a website that holds people and companies accountable when they make public pledges to help fight injustice. The site keeps tabs on what they're actually doing to help the cause.As you can tell, we cover a lot during the chat. Big thanks to Nihal for joining me on the pod to catch up and share his thoughts on everything.Follow us on Twitter: @nihalmehta / @eniacventures / @mpdShow LinksGuest Links: Eniac Ventures, The 100k Pledge, HelpMainStreet.comPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

For this week’s episode I chatted with Maureen Farrell, a New York Times reporter and the co-author of The Cult of We. The Cult of We is about the rise and fall of WeWork, which Maureen covered extensively while she was working at the Wall Street Journal. She is such an expert on the topic that she was featured in the Hulu documentary WeWork: Or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn.   Maureen is a veteran tech journalist. She graduated from Duke, got a masters from Columbia’s journalism school, and has spent more than 15 years working for publications like Forbes, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and now the New York Times.In this conversation today, we extract some business insights from the WeWork saga, things entrepreneurs can learn - both the good and bad.I also took this opportunity to get her raw advice on how entrepreneurs should maintain their media relationships, and Maureen was kind enough to give us a bit of a playbook.Follow us on Twitter: @maureenmfarrell / @nytimes  / @mpdGuest Links: The Cult of We, Maureen’s articles from The Wall Street Journal, Hulu doc about WeWorkPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn