Starting It Up

On this episode, we talk with Angelo (AJ) Damiano, the Co-Founder, and CEO of PowerSpike. PowerSpike is the turnkey tool for Twitch influencer marketing, helping streamers do what they love, full time. AJ dove into the gaming space early on, becoming ranked as a top 100 player in the world at World of Warcraft while in high school. After moving into the streaming space and doing a stint as a Shoutcaster, AJ saw the opportunity to connect brands with influencers, filling a much-needed role in the marketplace. PowerSpike took part in TechStars Atlanta’s latest class, raising around $500,000 from them, the Dorm Room Fund, the Philadelphia 76ers, and other top investors. They’re now working on building up their platform, adding new streamers, brands, and capabilities, and continuing to capitalize on the rapidly growing billion-dollar plus Esports gaming industry.

On this episode, we talk with Emily Levy, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Mighty Well. Mighty Well creates functional and stylish apparel and accessories to help patients turn sickness into strength. Mighty Well was started out of a need that Emily had herself after she was diagnosed with Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease and had a PICC line put in. She noticed that all the options available to cover it weren’t conducive to living a functional and “normal” life. Emily decided that she needed to create a solution… and Mighty Well was it. They currently have six products out so far and have raised around $500,000 from investors like Breakaway Ventures, Tim Draper and crowdfunding platform, Republic. We focus in on Mighty Well’s experience raising money as a woman-led team, the unique aspect of developing a super personal product, how to build an engaging and community-driven brand, and much more!

On this episode, we talk with Michael Vega-Sanz, the Co-Founder and President of Lula. Lula is a peer-to-peer car sharing platform that’s initially focusing on college students, with the goal of expanding to the general public and adding alternative forms of transportation to create an all-encompassing ride sharing ecosystem. We discuss topics like how to effectively build a marketplace, what it’s like raising money at the seed stage, the benefits of the sharing economy and what its future looks like, and more!

On this episode, we talk with John Puma, the co-founder and COO of Wizio. Wizio is the first VR-based listing platform for real estate. We discuss topics like the impact of virtual and augmented reality, how to become a co-founder, the real estate market dynamic in cities like Boston, working full-time on a startup right out of college, and more!

On this episode, we talk with Aleric Heck, the founder of AdOutreach, a fast-growing video marketing consultancy and AppFind, a super popular YouTube app review channel. We discuss topics like taking those first entrepreneurial steps, keeping a business lean, organizing remote teams, video marketing trends in 2018, the importance of building a skillset, and more.