Innovation with Mark Peter Davis

Jason Saltzman is the Co-Founder of Relief and a well known member of the New York start-up community. Relief is an app that helps people navigate the craziness when dealing with debt. According to Jason, Relief is here to kill your debt.

The statistics about debt in America are staggering:

• Average amount of debt = $6k/person
• Average number of credit cards = 8 credit cards/person
• 1 out of 3 people are behind on credit card payments

Beyond Relief, Jason is one of the best community builders out there. Rolling Stone actually called him a “cruise director,” a hilarious and accurate phrase if you know Jason.

He is also very much on top of his social media game, especially TikTok, which he believes that all businesses should be active on.

During the chat we discussed a lot about the intricacies regarding debt in America, building communities and winning strategies for creators on TikTok.

Follow us on Twitter: @SaltzmanJason / @startrelief / @mpd

Show Links

Guest Links: Relief, Alley

Books Mentioned: Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

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

Nihal Mehta is the Co-Founder of Eniac Ventures, a successful seed venture firm that has invested in unicorns like AirBnb and Boxed. Nihal has been a serial founder and an active investor for over a decade. 

The only way to know what a founder is REALLY going through is by being a founder yourself. IMHO, VCs who have operator experience have a great competitive advantage.

Nihal is one of the best startup player-coaches out there so it was a blast discussing how his founder experience has influenced his VC strategy.

During the chat, we also talk about some of Nihal's other endeavors, one of which is the India Internet Group (IIG). IIG is a fund based out of India so we talk about the startup and VC scene there.

He also started The 100K Pledge, a website that holds people and companies accountable when they make public pledges to help fight injustice. The site keeps tabs on what they're actually doing to help the cause.

As you can tell, we cover a lot during the chat. Big thanks to Nihal for joining me on the pod to catch up and share his thoughts on everything.

Follow us on Twitter: @nihalmehta / @eniacventures / @mpd

Show Links

Guest Links: Eniac Ventures, The 100k Pledge, HelpMainStreet.com

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

For this week’s episode I chatted with Maureen Farrell, a New York Times reporter and the co-author of The Cult of We. The Cult of We is about the rise and fall of WeWork, which Maureen covered extensively while she was working at the Wall Street Journal. She is such an expert on the topic that she was featured in the Hulu documentary WeWork: Or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn.   

Maureen is a veteran tech journalist. She graduated from Duke, got a masters from Columbia’s journalism school, and has spent more than 15 years working for publications like Forbes, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and now the New York Times.

In this conversation today, we extract some business insights from the WeWork saga, things entrepreneurs can learn - both the good and bad.

I also took this opportunity to get her raw advice on how entrepreneurs should maintain their media relationships, and Maureen was kind enough to give us a bit of a playbook.

Follow us on Twitter: @maureenmfarrell / @nytimes  / @mpd

Guest Links: The Cult of We, Maureen’s articles from The Wall Street Journal, Hulu doc about WeWork

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

On this week’s episode I chatted with Sam Lessin, Co-Founder of Fin and General Partner at Slow Ventures.

Sam is, in the truest sense, a Silicon Valley insider. He’s a part of the Harvard tech mafia, friends with Zuckerberg and has built a few different tech startups.

Beyond all of that, he is an extremely deep and abstract thinker. I’ve always been a fan of listening to and learning from him.

During our chat we discussed how he sees the VC model changing (he has some strong opinions on this which are great), the evolution of media and its business models, the differences between US and China government strategies towards tech and a whole lot more. Enjoy.

Follow us on Twitter: @lessin / @slow / @betterwithfin / @mpd

Guest Links: Slow Ventures, Fin, The Information, Book: The Invention of News

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

Zheng Huang is the President of the Committee of 100. Committee of 100 is a non-profit U.S. leadership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, healthcare, and the arts focused on public policy engagement, civic engagement, and philanthropy.

Z is incredibly smart and during our chat we cover a lot.

We talk about what the Committee of 100 is and why it was created (which includes a bit of history on the Chinese-American experience in the US), the different approaches of the US and China when it comes to tech and free speech, and how the two countries can avoid war (which history shows normally happens during the a transition of economic power). 

This is a FASCINATING conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed and hope you do too.

Follow us on Twitter: @ZhengZhuang / @Committee100 / @mpd

Guest Links: Committee of 100

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

For this week’s episode I chatted with Angela Lee, Founder of 37 Angels, an investment network that activates female investors through an educational bootcamp. She is also a professor at the Columbia Business School where she focuses on teaching about venture capital.

Angela is great at sharing her knowledge about the world. She has a very structured way of communicating her wonderful insights. During our chat she shared some of her favorite lessons she teaches at CBS and useful business strategies everyone should keep in mind, like how to ask for help the best way. We also talked about the gender gap in angel investing and venture capital, an issue that Angela and 37 Angels is doing amazing work to help with. I always love catching up with Angela and I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Follow us on Twitter: @angelawlee / @37AngelsNY / @mpd

Show Links

Guest Links: @37AngelsNY / @Columbia_Biz / Give and Take by Adam Grant

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

For this week’s episode I chatted with Hal Callais, Managing Partner and CIO of Callais Capital. Callais Capital is a southern Louisiana based alternative asset management firm that invests in tech companies in the South and Mississippi River Delta region. 

Hal is from a multi-generational family of entrepreneurs in Louisiana. He is very connected to the geography of the region and has been playing a crucial role in New Orleans’ blossoming startup and innovation scene.

I thought this was a really interesting conversation, a way to see into a nascent ecosystem and get a sense of what it is like in the earlier days of an entrepreneurial boom. We talk about everything from tech and innovation in New Orleans to the evolution of this ecosystem post Hurricane Katrina. Enjoy.

Follow us on Twitter: @hal_callais / @CallaisCapital / @mpd

Show Links

Guest Links: Callais Capital

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

On this week's episode I sit down with John Lochner, the Vice President of Innovation at New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

NYSERDA was established in 1975 to support clean energy and protect the environment. They're the government entity in the state of New York that is taking the lead to help drive innovation in the CleanTech ecosystem. Not only are they helping NY meet climate goals, they're also essentially writing the playbook for how governments can drive drive the initiatives and investments needed to combat climate change. What they're doing is incredible.

This is a wildly interesting and important topic. I hope you enjoy learning about it as much as I did.

Follow us on Twitter: @NYSERDA / @mpd

Show Links

Guest Links: NYSERDA, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram 

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

On this week’s episode I sit down with Mike Tarullo, COO of Banza. Banza makes pasta, pizza, and macaroni and cheese from chickpeas. You’ve probably seen their products at your local grocery store with their signature orange packaging. They’ve raised about $30 million and have products in 18,000 stores nationally. 

Before Banza, Mike helped run Venture for America, the non-profit company Andrew Yang started.

As you will hear during the chat, Mike is clearly an expert on food start-ups and we dive deep into some of the intricacies of what it takes to build them. 

We get into the nitty-gritty of how the food industry operates, useful strategies that young companies might want to keep in mind, why raising mega rounds might not always be the best strategy, and the importance of conducting research (and actually following what the data tells you!). Enjoy.

Follow us on Twitter: @tarullo / @eatbanza / @mpd

Guest Links: Banza, Venture for America, Oath Pizza

Food Documentaries: What the Health, Fed Up

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

As you can tell from the title, this isn’t a normal episode.

I just wanted to give a couple of quick updates.

1) THANK YOU for listening and supporting the pod. It's crazy to think that we’re 27 episodes in!! I very much appreciate you joining me on this journey.

2) We’re taking a summer break and just wanted to let you know so you didn’t think we were bailing on you! We’re going to take the rest of July and the month of August to record a bunch of episodes and plan for the future, but maybe most important of all… to CHILL a bit. Life is too short to not enjoy.

We’ll continue to broadcast the live recordings on Twitter Spaces so if you want to tune in give me a follow on Twitter @ MPD.

New episodes will come late August / early September.

3) I’d love to hear from you about... anything! Topic suggestions, thoughts on the podcast structure, general VC questions, or whatever else is on your mind. Please feel free to reach out to me on socials.

Once again, thanks so much for listening.

Have a GREAT summer.

I’ll see you on the other side.