Build Mode

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Build Mode episodes

November 14, 2023Can sustainable FashionTech save the world?
Today on Found, we have something a little different and extra special for you. We’re bringing you two bonus conversations all about sustainability in fashion from TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. First up you’ll hear our very own Harri Weber sit down with three guests, Jim Ajioka from Colorifix, Beth Esponnette from unspun and Julie Willoughby from Circ. They are all powerhouses in sustainable fashion and they all happened to join Harri on the Sustainability Stage. Watch their full conversation here.
In part two, we have a great conversation between TechCrunch’s Morgan Sung and Jemima Bunbury from BLEND, which is a curated fashion app that is changing the way we shop online. They focus on impulse purchases, how to help customers develop their own style and, of course, how we can make it possible to stay trendy and shop sustainably.
Some topics they covered include:
Fixing the fashion supply chain so all the materials are created in a sustainable way
Helping consumers find products that will last
Enticing larger brands to shift to sustainable practices
Why a holistic approach to sustainable fashion is crucial when trying to eliminate waste in the industry
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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39 min
November 07, 2023Building digital infrastructure for developing countries with Nasrat Khalid from Aseel
On today’s episode, host Becca Szkutak is joined by our old friend Darrell Etherington to talk with Nasrat Khalid of Aseel. Aseel started as an ecommerce company making it possible for local artisans in Afghanistan to sell to customers across the world and has evolved into working in humanitarian aid delivering emergency food supplies to people in need in Afghanistan and Turkey.
They talk about:
How Aseel built a digital infrastructure that made it possible for artisans to sell to customers all over the world
How the company shifted from ecommerce to humanitarian aid when Afghanistan went into crisis
The struggle to get investment when the company is considered so high-risk
The ethical concerns that arise when your business focuses on the world’s most vulnerable populations
Found posts every Friday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcasts: Equity and Chain Reaction.Go to found.simplecast.com to find episode transcripts.
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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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48 min
October 31, 2023What not to do when getting your grocery startup off the ground with Abhi Ramesh from Misfits Market
Launching an e-commerce startup in the grocery space is no small task. On today’s episode Becca and Dom are joined by Abhi Ramesh, the CEO and founder of Misfits Market, a grocery startup that sells surplus and unwanted produce directly to consumers who don’t mind funny-looking foods. They talk about how he started the company in his apartment handling every aspect from personally buying the unwanted produce from the farms, to storing the food, to packaging and shipping, all while running the website and trying to fundraise. He racked up six-figure credit card debt to fund the logistics-heavy startup before raising his first seed round — and that was just the first three months of the company.They also talked about:
The systemic issues that have created a massive amount of produce waste
Changing consumer behavior when shopping for food and how COVID helped their business
The lessons Ramesh learned after Misfits Markets acquired Imperfect Foods and what the next steps are for the company
Found posts every Friday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcasts: Equity and Chain Reaction.Go to found.simplecast.com to find episode transcripts.

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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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43 min
October 24, 2023Adapting to the climate crisis with Jonas Torland from 7Analytics
Welcome back to Found, TechCrunch’s podcast that brings you the stories behind the startups. This week our hosts Becca Szkutak and Dom-Madori Davis talk with Jonas Torland from 7Analytics, a Norwegian company that has built a data platform that powers tools and products for sustainable risk management. Their models predict the water paths of floods which allow them to predict and map the damage.
They got into:
How to balance responsibilities between four founders
The difference between mitigation and adaptation startups and why it’s harder to raise in the adaptation space
The challenges and opportunities of a Norwegian company expanding to the U.S.
The important role startups are playing in fighting and adapting to climate change
Found posts every Friday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcasts: Equity and Chain Reaction.
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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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43 min
October 17, 2023AI-driven gaming with Hilary Mason from Hidden Door
This week we’re bringing you a conversation with Hilary Mason from Hidden Door, an AI-driven narrative game engine. This mini-episode recorded in person at TechCrunch Disrupt and Dom and Hilary get into how generative AI is changing online gaming, building a team of creatives, and fundraising in the gaming space.
Found posts every Friday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcasts: Equity, and Chain Reaction.
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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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15 min
October 10, 2023Solar-powered everything with Giovanni Fili of Exeger
This week’s episode features a conversation with Giovanni Fili, the founder and CEO of Exeger, a startup that creates flexible solar cells that can create electric energy off of any light condition. Fili talked about what it has been like devoting the last 15 years of his career to a company based on tech that hadn’t previously been proven to work. He talked about running a deep tech company as a non-technical founder and how he’s built a capital-intensive startup off of relatively little funding.
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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43 min
October 04, 2023Making wearable medical devices more patient-friendly with Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas from Acurable
This week, our old friend Darrell Etherington joins Becca Szkutak to talk with Professor Esther Rodriguez-Villegas from Acurable. Acurable is a medical device company that makes patient-friendly wearable devices that accurately diagnose and manage respiratory conditions at home. As a career-long academic, Rodriguez-Villegas never intended to be a founder until she learned about how the currently available medical devices made it extremely difficult to detect and treat diseases like sleep apnea and epilepsy. On this episode they talk about balancing academic research and running a company, how to scale a medical device startup, and how Acurable has spread to hospitals throughout the UK by just word of mouth.
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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47 min
September 26, 2023Live from TechCrunch Disrupt with cybersecurity trailblazer Window Snyder from Thistle Technologies
The Found team recorded this episode live from TechCrunch Disrupt. Dom and Becca sat down with Window Snyder, a trailblazer in the cybersecurity industry who has dedicated her decades-long career to ensuring the internet and our devices are secure. Snyder talked about why after years of working at companies like Apple, Microsoft, Fastly, and Square now was the right time to launch her startup, Thistle, which looks to build the security infrastructure needed to keep internet-connected smart devices safe.
They also covered:
The way her mother’s career as a programmer inspired her to learn how to code has a teenager
Why a core value of Thistle is making cyber security easy for developers
Her biggest challenge in fundraising was demonstrating that this is a problem that the rest of the industry recognizes that they're going to want to leverage these capabilities in order to improve the security of their products.
Check out the UpFlip Podcast where you get to unravel how great businesses are built, how they are run behind the scenes and how their success can be replicated. We think you'll love episode 79 where they featured this guest who transformed his passion for gardening into a $7.3 million-a-year venture. You can find the podcast on Youtube or where ever you listen to podcasts.
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Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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22 min
September 19, 2023Bootstrapping a space tech isn't easy with Bianca Cefalo from Space DOTS
On today’s episode of Found, Dom and Becca talk with Bianca Cefalo, CEO and co-founder of Space DOTS which is a space tech startup that makes testing materials in space cheaper and easier. This may sound a little far out but it is extremely difficult to validate new materials to be used in space. In this episode, Cefalo talks about how difficult it is to bootstrap a deep tech company, the challenges of testing materials in space, and how she leads their growing team.
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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53 min
September 12, 2023Taking learnings from working at Amazon to clean beauty with Jaleh Bisharat from NakedPoppy
https://nakedpoppy.com/
Found posts every Tuesday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts to be alerted when new episodes drop. Check out the other TechCrunch podcast: Equity . Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each

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43 min

About Build Mode

From the publisher's feed

On Build Mode, TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield Editor Isabelle Johannessen cuts through the startup mythology to uncover how founders survive the brutal early days, navigate impossible funding…