As the first person to use social media for fundraising at the presidential level during both of Barack Obama’s election campaigns, Steve Spinner recognized an opportunity to build automated fundraising software for a neglected but critical market. Steve is the founder and CEO of RevUp, an automated fundraising software platform that enables nonprofits, higher education institutions, and political organizations to leverage social media and data analytics to raise money. In our discussion, we talk about the challenges of starting a company and how it’s not always right for everyone, the important advice he received in business school, and everything from leveraging your network and experts, to hiring the right people.

Entrepreneurs start companies for a variety of different reasons. For Thomaz Srougi, the motivation to turn an idea into a business came from his own community. Thomaz is CEO and founder of dr. consulta. He grew up in Brazil, and after learning there were 100 million people in the country without access to medical care, he started dr.consulta to provide affordable, quality healthcare. Today, the company services more than 80,000 patients each month. In our conversation with Thomaz, he offered insights into what matters and what it takes to grow a great company. He also shares a very unique end goal – to become useless.

Hiring the right person for your team is like drafting an athlete out of college: You know they’re good, but you’re often choosing them for their potential and how great they’re going to be. Sidharth Kakkar is the co-founder and CEO of Front Row Education. They’re changing the way teachers use technology in the classroom by providing students with the means to both stay on track and to develop the skills they need to be motivated learners for their entire lives. Sidharth talks to Roy Steiner about putting the best team together and the pressures of starting and growing a business.

To build successful companies and work with great people, you must recognize the value of entrepreneurial instinct, and how to pinpoint people’s superpowers and corral them with a common vision. Nancy Lublin is the founder and CEO of Crisis Text Line, a company that offers free, 24/7 text support to people of all ages and leverages data to drive public policy change and make the world a safer place. Nancy provides insight into everything from what to look for in an employee (“Attitude is more important than skills”) to building an effective support system and team that share the same passion.

“Do what you’re passionate about,” is the mantra of many successful entrepreneurs. When it comes to cars and data, there are few out there as passionate about both as Andre Haddad. Andre is CEO of Turo, a peer-to-peer car rental marketplace that’s changing the economics of car ownership. At Turo, he’s worked to establish a highly transparent, data-driven company culture. He believes boards can (and should) add enormous value and that talented, passionate employees should be empowered, not micromanaged. We sat down with Andre to hear more about his work philosophies and how transparency plays a crucial role in building a successful corporate culture.

Part of what makes an entrepreneur successful isn’t just her or his vision, but also the day-to-day approach to productivity, motivating others, and communicating both regular activity and major changes. Michael Karnjanaprakorn founded Skillshare with the belief that everyone has a skill that they can teach or share with the rest of the world. With more than 2 million students and nearly 10,000 classes online, Skillshare is a global learning community for creators. We sat down with Michael to get his thoughts on getting to product-market fit in the early years of Skillshare, how he thinks about building an enduring mission-driven, for-profit company, and how his role as a leader has evolved over time.