Innovation with Mark Peter Davis

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 / @mpd
• Guest Links: Tovala website
• Podcast 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 Links

• Follow us on Twitter: @chrisyeh, @mpd
• Guest Links: Blitzscaling (the book), Blitzscaling Ventures, Unreasonable Group
• Article Links: Tim O’Reilly - Why it’s too early to get excited about Web3
• Podcast 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 Links

• Follow us on Twitter: @EasyKnock, @JarredKessler, @mpd
• Guest Links: EasyKnock, The Stay Mission
• Book Links: Death of a Real Estate Salesman by Jarred Kessler, Evicted by Matthew Desmond, The Third Door by Alex Banayan 
• Movie Links: The Big Short

Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Vivek Sharma is the Co-Founder and CEO of Movable Ink. Movable Ink has created a marketing solution that helps brands work data into personalized content. Basically, they help businesses leverage their data to help customize content and marketing messages. And it works. Companies who switch from a one-size-fits-all-marketing model to customization tend to see large increases in engagement.

Vivek started his career as an engineer & sales, making him a double threat as a startup founder.

During our chat we discussed the ins and outs of Movable Ink, some important lessons Vivek has learned while growing the company and rapidly increasing headcount, overcoming unpredictable obstacles, his perspective on capitalizing a startup and much more.

Show Links

• Follow us on Twitter: @movableink, @mpd
• Guest Links: Movable Ink
• Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share an update with you.

First and foremost, a big thanks to all of you for joining me on this journey. It's been a blast and I can't wait to continue to this wild ride in 2022.

Second, this podcast is meant to be an educational experience for everyone involved. I know I've learned a lot and I hope you have too. If there’s a particular topic you’d like to learn about or guest speaker you’d be interested in hearing, please let me know. Best way to contact me is on Twitter @MPD.

Third, we're taking a break for next month or so. New episodes will come in mid-January.

Until then, I wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe end of the year.

See you in '22!

For this week’s episode, I chatted with Kelly Oriard & Callie Christensen, the Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Slumberkins.

Slumbkerins is a pre-school brand aiming to support families in the emotional wellness development of their children with educational products. Through carefully crafted characters and stories they’ve packaged psychological techniques up to make it easy for parents to help teach their kids about emotions. If you visit their website you’ll see that one way they sort the products is by theme: creativity, family change, mindfulness, self-esteem.

Before Slumberkins, Kelly was a school therapist and Callie was a teacher, so they have the background to start this kind of company. Kelly and Callie become moms at the same time, and during their maternity leave they became unexpecting entrepreneurs.

Kelly and Callie are rockstars, so it’s no surprise that Slumberkins off to the races. Interplay is an investor and we’re so excited and proud to be a part of their journey.

During the interview, we discussed the story behind Slumberkins, why teaching kids about emotions is important, the history of parentings and how strategies have changed over time, what they’ve learned about entrepreneurship, and much more. Enjoy.

Show Links

• Follow us on Twitter: @slumberkins, @mpd
• Guest Links: Slumberkins
• Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Stephen Kuhl is the Co-Founder and CEO of Burrow, a furniture company for the modern age that delivers the most convenient customer experience in the industry.

They started out by making beautiful modular couches that come in easy to carry boxes that more or less snap together without tools. They have since expanded their product line to carry all types of more intelligent furniture. You can basically buy your entire living room on their website. It’s an awesome company and Interplay is a proud investor.

Stephen shared a ton of great insights into the world of manufacturing, which includes some crazy stories from the early days of Burrow.

If you’re building a DTC business or a company that relies on manufacturing this is worth a listen.

Show Links

• Follow us on Twitter: @hiburrow, @mpd
• Guest Links: Burrow
• Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Mike Rudoy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Jetty, a financial services platform that helps make renting a home more affordable and flexible.

Jetty offers three products to help renters get into homes:

Jetty Deposit - security deposit replacement

Jetty Rent - rent payment program

Jetty Protect - renters insurance

Not only does Jetty help renters, the services makes managing properties easier too. It's a win win situation and example of a successful business model that places the product in the middle of a sales chain.

During the interview, we discussed the business model behind Jetty, Mike's entrepreneurial journey, the general state of housing in America and much more.

Show Links

• Follow us on Twitter: @mrudoy, @mpd
• Guest Links: Jetty

Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Ali Hamed is a Partner at CoVenture Holding Company LLC. Since his college days he’s been building an impressive network and unsurprisingly has built an impressive business. 

What’s unique about CoVenture’s model is that they’ve found an interesting synergy between debt financing and venture capital. In addition to making venture investments, Ali and his team provide balance sheet capital to innovative companies that are financing new asset classes. As CoVenture puts it: “CoVenture partners with founders who are inventing new asset classes, identifying new economies, or who require alternative types of capital to grow -- and backs them with venture capital and/or debt financing.”

If you’re interested in the business models of venture capital, debt or general finance I think you’ll find this conversation to be educational. I certainly did. 

Show Links

• Follow us on Twitter: @AliBHamed / @coventurevc / @mpd
• Guest Links: CoVenture Holding Company LLC, Crossbeam Venture Partners
• Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

Nhon Ma is the CEO and Co-Founder of Numerade, a Los Angeles based EdTech platform that’s using AI and short form videos to democratize access to tutoring for kids around the world. What is brilliant about their idea is that they are bringing supplemental learning to students who can’t afford traditional private tutoring.

Nhon is an ex-Googler so he’s a tech-savvy founder who just knows how to run a business. 

During the chat, Nhon shared his extremely inspiring personal journey and if you follow the thread of his story it seems as though he was destined to start this company. We discussed the intricacies of Numerade, how learning varies by states and countries, how education is evolving in the US and so much more.

Show Links

Follow us on Twitter: @nhonma / @numerade_edu / @mpd

Guest Links: Numerade

Podcast Links: Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn