This week we are re-airing one of our first few episodes with 2012 Fellow, Brian Rudolph. Brian is the Co-Founder and CEO of Banza, a chickpea pasta company aiming to do for pasta what Chobani did for greek yogurt. Brian is also one of the featured Fellows in Generation Startup, an independent documentary which tells the story of six Venture for America Fellows who put everything on the line to build startups in Detroit. Generation Startup premieres in New York this Friday, September 23rd and will hit theaters in select cities across the country in the coming months. Brian shares a lot of his story in this interview but you can see him building Banza in action in the film. For more information visit www.generationstartupthefilm.com.

Christine Hunsicker began her career as at a financial reporting company where, on his second day, she convinced the CFO to take an inexperienced college graduate onto his time. She gained tremendous experience helping the company through 7 restructurings and then went on to another startup, industrial design school, and a media company that grew tenfold 2 times while she was there! Today Christine is the CEO of Gwynnie Bee, an online women’s clothing subscription service for sizes 10-32. Christine started the company 4 years ago, first from her apartment and now in a proper space in Long Island City. Listen to this week's podcast episode to learn more about Christine journey building Gwynnie Bee and how she is disrupting the apparel industry.

As roommates Yale Business School Ben Young and Frederick Kukelhaus were commiserating over the horrible experience of buying furniture. They discovered that they were both ammature furniture makers and decided to try their hand at making it into a full time gig. They named their new company Hugo & Hoby after their grandfathers who were both also, coincidentally, carpenters and furniture designers. Hugo & Hoby started building their first collection and entered some business competitions and realized that there are a plethora of lumber mills and skilled craftsman right here in the US. Hugo & Hoby uses small batch, just-in-time manufacturing to deliver quality, sustainably sourced, handcrafted furniture at affordable prices. They sell their products direct to consumers through their website. Listen to this week's podcast to learn how they are building their business and check out www.hugoandhoby.com to catch a glimpse of their new line.

Hailing from Denmark, Henrik started his career in media as a radio producer for BBC before moving on to MTV. He was the first person to come up with the idea of inserting user generated content in between music videos (for anyone who remembers when MTV used to play music). Later on in his career, Henrik became a Founding Partner at Prehype, an innovation studio that helps established companies and VCs facilitate spin-out companies, incubation and venture partnerships. He developed a structured methodology to come up with new ideas and helps connect talent with companies that have big problems that require innovative solutions. Henrik helped found some well known companies such as Bark & Co and Managed by Q among many others. Check out this week's podcast episode to hear all about Henrik's experience building companies and what percentage of people prefer their dogs over their partners.

After graduating from Columbia University in 2009, Jared joined Tumblr during a major growth phase for the company. While at Tumblr he entered a hackathon attempting to solve a group texting problem which resulted in GroupMe, a free group messaging service that essentially creates a private chatroom for a small group. Jared and his co-founders sold GroupMe to Skype for $80million. He stayed on for 2 years before leaving to start Fundera, a company providing a safe, friendly, and free way to find your lowest rates on small business loans, guaranteed. Fundera is backed by several well known VCs and has raised $14million to date. Listen to this week's podcast to learn more about Jared's career and what it's like to sell a company in your early 20's.

Erik Schreter grew up believing that he would take over his family's department store when he completed his undergraduate degree. But an unexpected job opportunity led him to IsaiX Technologies where he stayed for 10 years, eventually moving into a very senior role. In 2012 with the support of his wife, Erik founded Venwise, a membership organization of high-growth tech company executives providing leaders with a safe place to work through their challenges. Venwise members include executives from some of the most well known startups in the industry. Check out this week's episode to learn more about Erik's career and his journey building Venwise!

This week Jeremy sits down with Wiley Cerilli for one of our most raw and honest interviews about the pressures and emotional challenges of starting a company. Wiley lost his father at a young age and bounced around colleges for a year or two while trying to work full time to help his family. In 2000 he joined the SeamlessWeb founding team prior to their epic launch and spent 13 years building the company. In 2010 Wiley started SinglePlatform, a company that helped small businesses manage their digital presence, which eventually sold to Constant Contact for $100million. After a quick stint at First Round Capital Wiley founded Good Uncle, a company giving people access to crave-worthy food no matter where they live. If you are an aspiring founder you really don't want to miss Wiley's incredible story and why his father has always inspired him to see windows in a windowless building.

Glen Coates founded Handshake in 2010 with only one day at Columbia Business School under his belt. Glen came up with the idea for Handshake while he was attending trade shows for an employer. He became frustrated by writing down orders with a pencil and paper and saw thousands of others fumbling in the same way. Glen knew that if he didn’t find the solution himself, then someone else would. Handshake is a mobile sales and B2B eCommerce platform that helps manufacturers & distributors grow their business by making it easy for their customers to order the right products from them, in-person and online. In six years, Handshake has acquired 65 employees and has made over $1 billion in orders across 47 countries. Major companies such as Roland, Starkey, OXO and more are using Handshake today. Check out this week’s episode of Smart People Should Build Things to hear more about Glen’s career journey from programmer to general manager of an exciting startup!

A few weeks ago, Jeremy was vacationing in Manchester, Vermont and stumbled upon some fantastic granola. He ended up chatting with Ingrid and Franklin Chrisco, the husband and wife team that founded the granola company. Not only did Jeremy love the granola, but he also loved their story! For many years both Ingrid and Franklin worked as educators while making pounds of granola on the weekends for their friends and family. In 2006, Ingrid was afraid that she would burn out and decided she needed to take her granola full time to create balance in her life. Tune in to this week’s episode to hear the founding story of True North Granola and get the free code that will give you a discount on any of their delicious products!

Ever wonder what it takes to build a VC firm? Brad Svrluga and Ben Sun can attest that it is no easy task. On this week’s episode of Smart People Should Build Things, Jeremy catches up with Brad and Ben, the co-founders of Primary Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital fund based in NYC. In 2004, Brad created High Peaks, a venture capital firm focused on making Seed and Series A investments, but re-launched the firm with Ben in 2015 with its new identity: Primary Venture Partners. Being raised by an entrepreneur, Ben already knew that running a small business was extremely hard, but ultimately chose this path because he had an “incredible desire to control his own destiny”. Download this week’s episode to hear more about the impact Primary Venture Partners is having on entrepreneurs and to find out what makes this company unique compared to other firms.