Innovation with Mark Peter Davis

On this week’s episode I chat with the Founder and CEO of MARGIN, Chas Sanders. MARGIN is a tech-enabled procurement solution that helps Ambulatory Medical Centers purchase the equipment they need to operate. Apparently, before MARGIN supplies were purchased via phone calls and fax machines. MARGIN has not only put that process on the Internet, but they have also helped doctors to reduce their spend by 15-20%. That’s big bucks - in many cases that’s hundreds of thousands of dollars per office. Chas is a veteran of the healthcare industry. He’s been an executive at Zimmer Biomet, DaVita and others. After that he stepped out of the  industry to launch MARGIN.In addition to hearing about his company and lessons learned as a founder, what’s great about this conversation is hearing a sophisticated business person provide insights into why the healthcare industry is dysfunctional. And low and behold, one of the reasons is that it’s managed in a similar way to the government of communist Russia. Enjoy.Show Links:Follow us on LinkedIn: /chassanders, /markpeterdavisGuest Links: MARGINMentioned Media/Organizations: Vinod Dasa: Doc Social, Aaron Fritts: BackTableBooks: The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff CoxPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn**** MARGIN is an Interplay Incubator portfolio company.

I’m super excited about this week’s episode because it hits close to home. If you’ve listened to the pod before, you’ve probably heard me mention the passion project I’m involved with, a platform that’s helping to democratize access to capital called Thunder. On this week’s episode I sit down with Thunder’s Co-Founder and CEO, Jason Kirby.To give a bit more context, Thunder is a company that’s come out of the Interplay Foundry, the part of Interplay that builds companies from scratch. Jason is the incredible CEO we brought in to build and grow Thunder.Thunder is a platform that connects founders and VCs by utilizing a double opt-in, AI-based matching protocol that not only creates relevant deal flow for all parties, but also helps everyone save time and avoid spam. We started this with the mission of helping founders that lacked a strong network raise capital.Jason is a serial entrepreneur and has done an incredible job so far. Not only has he advanced the business, but he has also advanced the vision. I think this company is going to materially improve the way capital flows in the alternative asset classes such as venture capital. I’m so excited to watch what he does and help support him. Be sure to check it out at thunder.vc.During our chat we talk all about how Thunder works, how it helps both founders and investors, why it’s important for platforms like it to exist and much more. Enjoy.Show Links:Follow us on Twitter: @jasonkirby, @mpdGuest Links: Thunder.vcPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

On this week’s episode I chat with Sterling Campbell, CEO of Minotaur. Minotaur is a web3 platform that helps people and brands launch NFT projects. There are a lot of steps - including a fair bit of technology - required to take an NFT launch from concept to launch. Minotaur’s tech-enabled service does all of this. As they put it, they “bring together artists, blockchain engineers and community managers to build successful NFT projects that can scale.”Sterling has been in NFTs since 2017, which for this space is a long time, so he’s been around the block a few times and learned a bunch of stuff.If you are still scratching your head when you hear about NFT, well he breaks it down pretty well in this conversation.He also dives into what’s wrong with the industry right now and how he is hoping for a transition to what he calls NFTs 2.0, where NFTs flip from their focus on providing membership access to being technically more integrated as a method for adding value to communities. Sterling is the right guy for this space - he has lived at the nexus of media, entertainment and business. And as far as being in a risky space - that’s not really an issue. He tells us about the time his parachute didn’t open while sky diving. Oh yeah…and if that wasn’t enough…he’s a DJ that toured with the likes of Lil John and T-Pain. Enjoy the conversation.Show Links:Follow us on Twitter: @djsterlingc, @mpdGuest Links: MinotaurGuest Articles: NFTs: What You’re Missing And Where They’re Going Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn**Note** I’m an investor in the company.

This week I chatted with Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner at FJ Labs. FJ Labs is a VC that specializes in marketplaces and invests in every geography in every category at any stage. As Fabrice puts it they do angel investing at venture scale, meaning they don’t lead rounds but do a massive number of investments every year. Last year they made almost 200 investments.Fabrice is super interesting beyond being a VC. He’s been a serial entrepreneur for a couple of decades at this point and has interesting views on wealth and impact.He started what was essentially the ebay for Europe and then OLX, the Craigslist for the rest of the world.During our chat he shares some incredibly useful tips for entrepreneurs - especially for those who are interested in marketplaces. We talk all about his approach to venture capital, how FJ Labs operates and makes decisions and much more. Enjoy.Show Links:Follow us on Twitter: @fabricegrinda, @mpdGuest Links: FJ LabsGuest Articles: Pandemic, Populism and Policy Failure – The Surprising Case for Optimism in 2020Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

This week I chat with Zack Gray, Co-Founder and CEO of Ophelia. Ophelia is helping to combat the opioid crisis by revamping the drug rehab model. As they put it, their mission is to “replace folklore with science, drug dealers with doctors, and stigma with privacy, convenience, and choice.”Covered by either health insurance or a monthly subscription of $195, Ophelia helps people struggling with addiction by plugging them into their platform that connects them with clinicians that use modern, science based treatments.We chat all about the company and the general opioid epidemic, including its history and the failed government response. Zack breaks it all down for us. He also shares why he started the company in the first place, which has a touching personal story about the loss of a loved one to opioids. Ophelia and Zack are on a mission and Interplay is proud to be an investor.As usual, the conversation goes beyond just the formal topics. Zach studied astrophysics and philosophy at Columbia and it’s safe to say he’s a deep thinker. We talk about whether for-profit companies are good or evil, a new concept for taxation based on social utility and much more. Enjoy.Show Links:Follow us on Twitter: @meetophelia, @zarkgray, @mpdGuest Links: OpheliaPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

John Gannon is Founder of The VC Careers Blog and Co-Founder of GoingVC.Between these two endeavors, John has become one of the goto channels for getting a job in venture capital. He started The VC Careers blog shortly after we graduated business school together in the late 2000s. Since then, it’s scaled and become one of the sources of transparency in the VC industry, listing available jobs, compensation and much more.In addition to his prolific blogging career, John started an educational program called GoingVC a few years ago. They have graduated over 400 people into the ecosystem with over half of them going into professional VC roles. Impressive stuff.It was a blast catching up with John and learning more about GoingVC, discussing important VC trends to keep an eye on and much more. Enjoy.Show Links:Follow us on Twitter: @johnmgannon / @mpdGuest Links: The VC Careers Blog, GoingVCMentioned Content Links: Podcast - Smart Passive Income by Pat FlynnPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Divya Narendra is the Founder & CEO of SumZero, an investment community where peer-reviewed professional investment research is shared amongst its members. Its network of analysts is growing rapidly and offers some extraordinary insights. If you’re interested in public equities - check it out.In addition to SumZero, Divya sits on the board of Gemini, one of the leading crypto exchanges, so - as you can guess - we went down the crypto rabbit hole.Before his professional career, Divya attended Harvard where he became friends with the Winklevoss twins. If you’ve seen the movie The Social Network, Divya is the 3rd founder of ConnectU. Divya shares some fun stories about that chapter of his life - including crashing the set of The Social Network.Big thanks to Divya for joining me on the pod to share his story.Show Links: Follow us on Twitter: @divyanarendra / @sumzero @mpdGuest Links: SumZero websitePodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

This week I chatted with David Rabie, Co-Founder & CEO of Tovala.As Tovala puts it, they provide impossibly convenient home-cooking. They invented a smart oven that perfectly cooks the chef-crafted meals that they offer, which makes them an interesting part hardware / part subscription hybrid.Between choosing what to eat, buying the ingredients, cooking the food and cleaning up the dishes, people spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Tovala has created a solution that streamlines that whole process and still gets you a home-cooked meal at the end of it. They’ve been gaining traction and were  actually on Oprah’s 2021 Favorite Things List. Interplay is proud to be an investor.During the chat we discussed the ins and outs of Tovala - including the in-depth shipping process that’s required to efficiently and safely deliver ready to cook food, how David came to start Tovala and much more. Enjoy.Show Links: Follow us on Twitter: @tovalafood / @mpdGuest Links: Tovala websitePodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Chris Yeh is the General Partner of Blitzscaling Ventures and author of the book Blitzscaling.Chris co-wrote the book with his good friend Reid Hoffman (who - as many of you probably know - is the founder of LinkedIn). The book explains when and how to focus on scaling rapidly to beat the competition in a winner-take-all market. The nuance is the concept of prioritizing speed over efficiency in an environment of uncertainty.Blitzscaling is certainly a popular strategy in today’s startup world where everything is moving a million miles a minute, but - as you’ll hear us discuss - it’s not necessarily the right move for everyone. Chris and I talked about some exceptions, including a few companies I’ve personally seen play the long game of organic growth and outlast their competition.In addition to the book, we chatted about the VC fund Chris started called Blizcaling Ventures - where he leverages the blitzscaling concept to inform his investment strategy.Chris also shared some awesome life hacks, a hilarious story from the early days of the internet and a pretty awesome personal story about the time he competed on - and won - a game show. Enjoy and thanks for listening.Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @chrisyeh, @mpdGuest Links: Blitzscaling (the book), Blitzscaling Ventures, Unreasonable GroupArticle Links: Tim O’Reilly - Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Jarred Kessler is the Founder & CEO of EasyKnock. EasyKnock is a PropTech platform that offers a way for people to access the capital that’s locked in the value of their homes through sale leasebacks. This is a big issue for folks that don’t have great credit scores because that usually means they can’t get access to mortgages.Historically, reverse mortgage products have had a bad rap, but EasyKnock is doing its part to right the ship. They do everything they can to help people avoid eviction. Though they’re building a business, they’re on a bit of a moral crusade and Interplay is proud to be an investor.In tandem with EasyKnock, Jarred has also helped start a non-profit organization called The Stay Mission, which helps Americans fight evictions and foreclosures.During our chat we discussed how EasyKnock works and the various products they offer, Jarred’s path from Wall Street to entrepreneurship, the challenges in the overall housing market in America (including whether Fannie and Freddie are doing their job) and much more. Enjoy.Show LinksFollow us on Twitter: @EasyKnock, @JarredKessler, @mpdGuest Links: EasyKnock, The Stay MissionBook Links: Death of a Real Estate Salesman by Jarred Kessler, Evicted by Matthew Desmond, The Third Door by Alex Banayan Movie Links: The Big ShortPodcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn