For Starters with Alexa von Tobel

What does it take to disrupt a trillion-dollar industry? According to Paul Monasterio, Co-Founder and CEO of Kalepa, it starts with a fresh outsider’s perspective. In 2018, Paul launched Kalepa with its flagship product, an AI-powered copilot empowering commercial underwriters to write more profitable business, faster. And just a few years in, Kalepa has been recognized as one of the most innovative insurtechs in the world by FinTech Global. Paul shares why he believes insurance is the safety net that propels the world’s growth, how AI will enhance—not overtake—underwriters’ abilities to evolve with an increasingly complex world, and why a product demo should be used to create real value for potential customers. 

When serial entrepreneur Hari Ravichandran discovered that his credit score had taken a hit due to identity fraud, he realized that consumers were facing an increasing burden to protect their digital safety—and there wasn’t an existing product that provided a holistic solution. So, as an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature, he set out to solve this problem for consumers. In 2017, he founded Aura, the company dedicated to simplifying digital security for families. The business has since scaled to over one million users worldwide with celebrity-backers such as Robert Downey Jr. Before Aura, Hari was the Founder and CEO of Endurance International Group, a publicly-traded global hosting and email marketing company, valued at $3.5 billion with more than 3,500 employees worldwide. Hari shares the astounding data that children are spending nearly 50% of their waking hours in the digital world, why a frictionless product experience was crucial to their go-to-market strategy, and how Aura is leveraging AI to protect families in an increasingly risky digital world.

While Trevor Martin was an undergraduate at Princeton, he decided on a whim to take a class called Integrated Science, a course dedicated to encouraging students gifted in physics, math, or computer science to pursue an academic focus in biology. Unbeknownst to him, this class would end up being the catalyst that led him to his successful career as a biotech entrepreneur. After receiving his PhD from Stanford in 2017, Trevor founded Mammoth Biosciences, the platform revolutionizing CRISPR-based synthetic biology products across therapeutics and diagnostics, with the ultimate mission of finding permanent cures for diseases. Trevor shares his favorite mantra: “Let others say no,” how biotechs need to strike the right balance between commercializing their products and researching the next generation of products, and why Mammoth’s go-to-market strategy facilitates the flywheel needed to build a generational business.  

As the world of work becomes increasingly global, how can technology fuel the transfer of funds around the world? In 2022, Nami Baral started Niural, on a mission to build a generational product that enables businesses to manage payroll, HR, benefits, payments and compliance in 150+ countries—all in one powerful system. Nami is no stranger to leveraging AI in financial services. Prior to Niural, Nami founded Harvest, a fintech company that built the first AI superagent to reduce debt for American consumers. Harvest was acquired by Acorns in 2021. Nami shares how her upbringing in Nepal taught her that dreams should have no ceilings, why she is focused on building a product 100x more useful than the competition, and how she cultivates employees that work like owners. 

From selling everything he owned to meet payroll to achieving a $2.7 billion valuation, Jett McCandless' journey with leading logistics company—project44—has been a story of grit and determination. Founded in 2014, project44 now operates the world's most trusted end-to-end visibility platform that tracks more than 1 billion shipments annually for over 1,300 of the world’s leading brands across 170+ countries. Jet shares how global supply chains could be weaponized amidst an increasingly hostile geopolitical climate, why communication, accountability, and resourcefulness are non-negotiables when it comes to hiring, and how a $120 donation changed the trajectory of his life.  

Entrepreneur and athlete Sami Inkinen discusses how a personal health scare led him to launch Virta Health, the importance of making decisions with imperfect information in leadership, and why taking a slow approach can actually lead to faster growth in a company. The podcast also explores Virta Health's mission to reverse Type 2 diabetes through personalized nutrition plans and challenges the traditional medication-based treatments for metabolic health issues.

Jes Wolfe, CEO of Rebel Girls, shares her journey empowering girls through financial literacy. She discusses navigating CEO role during pandemic, collaboration with publishing houses, childhood experiences shaping career success, strategies for managing stress, and impactful moments as an entrepreneur.

Armed with a PhD in computational neuroscience, Naveen Rao has built not one, but two, AI companies at the forefront of his field. In 2014, he started deep learning company Nervana Systems, which was acquired by Intel. And in 2020, he started MosaicML to enable developers to maintain full control over the AI models they build. Just last year, Databricks acquired MosaicML in a $1.3 billion dollar transaction. Naveen shares his framework for evaluating an exit opportunity, how his parents' immigration to the United States shaped his perspective on risk-taking, and his insights into the plausibility of autonomous robots transcending science fiction.

There are a special few founders whose contributions are so prolific that they are better known as inventors. Melissa Bernstein is one of those founders. She spent 30 years at the helm of iconic toy company, Melissa & Doug, where she designed over 5,000 innovative products for children of all ages and sold billions of dollars of toys around the world. Having been bit by the bug of a mission a second time around, she is now Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Lifelines, reinventing well-being products for adults and helping them strengthen their resilience, spark joy and creativity, and unlock their full potential. Melissa shares how you truly know when you have a breakout product, why sometimes being rebellious is the key to your go-to-market strategy, and why creativity is inextricably linked to a beginner's mindset.

After five seasons, sometimes a rebrand is in order. Join host and repeat entrepreneur Alexa Von Tobel for a new season of podcasts with a new title: What was The Founders Project is now For Starters with Alexa von Tobel.You can expect the same deep-dive into the journey of being a founder, from future insights to "pinch me" moments to big wins.Join us each Wednesday. New episodes start on April 3. And if you haven’t already, subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. See you there!