Welcome to Episode 73 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry.

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Jared Hecht, Co-Founder and CEO at Fundera.

Jared is a serial entrepreneur who credits his success to the combination of a lot of hard work and yes, a bit of luck. He was a co-founder of GroupMe, a group messaging app, that was acquired for around $85M just about one year after the company was started.

His latest company is Fundera, a marketplace for small businesses who are looking for financing options. To date, the company has helped 15,000 small businesses secure well over $850 million through its platform.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover lots of great topics like:

* Jared’s early career aspirations to be in the music industry, including the story of how he offered Vampire Weekend to be their manager.

* How he landed at Tumblr when it was still an early-stage company and what he learned there.

* The full story on GroupMe, including how he met his co-founder Steve Martocci and how they were able to get traction that ultimately led to an acquisition by Skype.

* All the details on Fundera, plus the social mission behind the company and how they are filling such a critical gap in our economy by supporting small business owners.

* The hardest parts of building a company.

* How he evaluates talent at different stages of a business.

* Advice for evaluating investors when raising capital.

* Plus, a lot more.

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