Office Hours with Dorm Room Fund

Tej Singh interviews Michael DeVirgilio & Cory Baker, the President and COO of Marquee Brands, a brand acquisition, licensing, and development company they co-founded in 2014. Marquee Brands' first major purchase was the Italian luxury label Bruno Magli, back in 2015. The same year, it also purchased Ben Sherman, the London apparel brand. In 2019, Marquee Brands acquired the Martha Stewart brand. The duo evaluates acquisitions based on three pillars: heritage, global opportunity and growth potential, and whether the brand can benefit from Marquee management.

Tej Singh and Linus Lee interview Jon Stross, the Co-founder & President of Greenhouse, an applicant tracking system that helps companies manage the recruiting and onboarding process. It allows companies to source the right candidates, create scorecards to keep track of performance during interviews, and create a customized onboarding flow for hired candidates, among a host of other features. Customers include BuzzFeed, Evernote, Pinterest, Riot Games, Slack, Snapchat, Airbnb, Uber, Venmo, and Zenefits. Metrics like an annual contract value of ~$20,000 and net revenue retention of ~120% have made the company wildly successful. VC titans, like Benchmark and Thrive Capital, have plowed over $100 million into the company, which is nearing unicorn status.

Tej Singh and Jessica Leão interview Matt Meeker, the founder & CEO of Bark, the parent company of BarkBox, which provides a customized box of themed toys and treats for your pup every month. The company has raised over $75 million in funding and surpassed $100 million in revenue back in 2016. BarkBox was inspired by Hugo, Matt's 200-pound Great Dane. Before Bark, Matt cofounded Meetup, a platform that allows users to organize online groups that host in-person events for people with similar interests. WeWork acquired Meetup in 2017 for a reported $200 million.

In this episode, Tej Singh and Abhinav Karale interview Josh Sapan, the CEO of AMC Networks, which has created some of this generation's most popular series, like The Walking Dead, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. Sapan is one of the entertainment industry's most innovative and visionary executives and has played an integral role in ushering in this new "Golden Age" of television. He has a multitude of awards to show for it, like having been inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame and being lauded by Fast Company as one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business." Throughout his 25+ years at the company, Sapan led the company's acquisitions of Sundance Channel, a 49.9% stake in the BBC AMERICA cable channel, and other widely-watched media properties. In this interview, we discuss topics like his childhood in Brooklyn, dropping out the University of Wisconsin-Madison twice, and returning to NYC, where he looked unsuccessfully for a job in television for a couple of years. (The irony.) We wrap up by chatting about his favorite podcasts and the scariest thing he's ever done for fun, among other topics.

In this episode, Tej Singh and Abhinav Karale interview Henry Blodget, the Co-founder & CEO of Insider Inc., the parent company of Business Insider (66 million social media followers), Insider (137 million social media followers), and other online media juggernauts. Insider Inc.'s content reaches 375+ million people and helps shape the world's collective conscience. We dive into Henry's eclectic past, discussing everything from how he spent a year teaching English in Japan to why he then moved to San Francisco and supported himself by giving tennis lessons. We also discuss the founding of Business Insider and the goal Blodget had "to put the fun back in business" by making light of people in the news and of himself. Other topics include the modern media landscape, selling his company to the multi-billion dollar publishing house Axel Springer, and the scariest thing Henry has ever done for fun.

In this episode, Tej Singh and Abhinav Karale interview Emmett Shine, the Co-founder of the legendary design agency Gin Lane, which has now transitioned into Pattern Brands, a multi-brand consumer goods company. Gin Lane was one of the most influential design agencies of our generation, helping launch one iconic D2C brand after another. Through Gin Lane, Emmett is an investor in some of the agency's clients, like Hims, Sweetgreen, Cadre, Quip, Haus, SmileDirectClub (IPO), Harry's, Stadium Goods (acq. by Farfetch), & more, giving him a track record that would rival any Silicon Valley VC worth their weight in gold. In this interview, we dive into Emmett's humble beginnings and discuss everything from how a Native American inspired him to (briefly) move to New Zealand, to why he dropped out of NYU Tisch his senior year. To wrap up, Emmett indulges us by answering fun questions like, "If you had to eat one meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?" and "What's the best gift anyone's given you?"

In this episode, Tej Singh interviews Ben Liu, the Co-founder & CEO of TrialSpark, which takes the guesswork and growing pains out of starting pharmaceutical clinical trials by overseeing all aspects of clinical research, from recruitment and set-up to maintenance and completion. They use technology to identify pockets of potential patients outside the typical test area of large cities and universities and help equip doctors with the infrastructure and oversight to efficiently run a clinical trial to help those patients.

Trialspark's investors include Sequoia, Thrive Capital, and KPCB's John Doerr. Ben is a Rhode's Scholar; he received his undergraduate degree from Yale, his Master's from Cambridge, and Doctorate degree from Oxford.

In this episode, Tej Singh interviews Jonathan Bensamoun, the Co-Founder & CEO of Fi, the most accurate, lightweight, modern smart dog collar. The company was founded in 2017 and has raised $10M from Lerer Hippeau and RRE Ventures. Fi has a battery life 20x longer than competitors, alerts you when your dog leaves a designated safe zone, and tracks your dog’s daily step count, allowing you to compare to other Fi users and compete on a leaderboard with pups of similar breeds. FI hopes to put an end to the problem of 10 million dogs going missing every year in the US.

Before founding Fi, Jonathan founded the location-based app Pins in 2013, which was acquired by Square the following year.

In this episode, Tej Singh and Adele Li interview Curtis Lee, a Venture Partner at Primary Venture Partners, and the Founder of Luxe, an app that provided on-demand parking and valet services. Before being acquired by Volvo, Luxe had raised over $75M from Hertz, Redpoint, Venrock, and GV (Google Ventures); Curtis had built a team of over 100 FTEs in engineering, product, and ops and over 1,000 valet agents. Interview topics include Curtis’ transition from investing to startups, his story about how Luxe was severely impacted after Carl Icahn entered the picture, and his successful angel investments, like Superhuman, Persona, Kapwing, Poshmark, Wag!, and Pared.

In this episode, Tej Singh interviews Rachel Blumenthal, the Founder and CEO of Rockets of Awesome, a vertically-integrated children’s clothing company. The startup has raised $49 million from investors like Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow, Foot Locker, Forerunner Ventures, and General Catalyst. Before this, at the age of 23, Rachel founded Rachel Leigh, a fashion jewelry brand that was sold in ~500 retailers worldwide, and did private label for American Eagle, Target, and J.Crew.