Most homeowners could tell you about one or more negative experiences they've had related to a home improvement project in their residence. Whether it was new windows, new doors, new floors or something else the process from estimate to installation can be overwhelming. With high pressure sales reps, minimal transparency, very little accountability and terrible customer service it's no wonder that most of us don't start more home improvement projects. We're afraid of getting ripped off and don't want to deal with all the headaches. Well, lucky for us Renoviso is changing all of that.

Started by two former colleagues, Eric Horndahl and Brian Waldman, Boston-based Renoviso has created a solution for homeowners that makes home improvement projects hassle-free. After working together at a venture-backed startup the duo came together a couple years ago to launch Renoviso after identifying a major need in the market. The company has raised approx $5 million from investors and now plans to scale the company by expanding down the East Coast (currently they are serving parts of New England including the Greater Boston area).

In this interview I spoke with Eric about his previous startup experience working for two venture backed companies (FlipKey and BuyerZone) that were both acquired for $70+ million. He explained what those roles taught him and why he finally thought it was time to start his own company. We discussed where the idea came from, how they got started, what the fundraising process looked like, how they needed to become experts in home improvement, what it takes to scale a B2C company, Renoviso's recruiting strategy, their customer acquisition strategy (mostly via referrals), how their investors are adding significant value, the future of the company and much more. 

Thanks for listening.

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All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

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You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

We all love listening to music as well as discovering new songs and artists. However the process of sharing our favorite music is somewhat tedious. It requires sending links and files to friends via text, email or messenger. The founders of Wearhaus decided it was time to build an amazing pair of stylish and comfortable headphones that made sharing music as easy as pressing a button. After raising $250,000 on Kickstarter from 1,200+ backers then pre-selling another 1,800+ pairs on their website the company began shipping product last year. 

Save $40 at Wearhaus.com with the discount code "StartupSense"

Wearhaus is headquartered in the Bay Area with additional operations in China. They raised a $600,000 seed round from 20 angel investors and another $4 million series-A round from several China-based VC firms. The company has faced and overcome many challenges which is expected when designing, developing and implementing proprietary software and hardware powered by bluetooth technology. 

In this interview I spoke with Richie, co-founder of Wearhaus about his entrepreneurial journey from dropping out of college to start Wearhaus, running a very successful Kickstarter campaign, meeting with 40 angel investors (closed 20 of them), the immense amount of engineering work that went into developing the headphones, their customer acquisition strategy (music blog, referrals and influencers), why they decided to raise their series-A round from Chinese investors, how they sourced the right manufacturing partners in China, why they filed a patent and how much it cost them, why the company could be an ideal acquisition target and much more. 

Thanks for listening.

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All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

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You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

Being a small business owner can be very rewarding but it also means lots of stress, responsibilities and long hours. As a business owner it's important to network and meet other local leaders in order to find new customers and grow your business but finding that time in your busy schedule can be hard. Joining breakfast groups and attending Chamber of Commerce events often feels like wasted energy. Alignable knew it was time for business networking to move online so you can meet the right people at the right time. They've built an amazing platform with hundreds of thousands of business owners signed up and using the service across 10,000+ communities. To date they've done very little external marketing as the majority of growth has come organically through member referrals. 

In this interview I spoke with Eric Groves, co-founder of Alignable about many topics including the origin of Alignable, why he started the company in his hometown, how big the opportunity for Alignable could be, how he found his co-founder, at which point they decided to raise outside funding, how they were able to close 3 rounds with many incredible investors, what the revenue model might look like, how their members are using Alignable to grow their businesses, what's been the marketing strategy and how it will change in 2017, how his previous work experience prepared him to be a successful founder, how he thinks about hiring and building culture, what advice he would share with other aspiring entrepreneurs and much more. 

Thanks for listening.

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All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

We've all gotten those receipts from restaurants and retail stores with a section at the bottom or on the back asking us to fill out a quick survey...but none of us ever do. Benchmark has developed a better method for brick and mortar businesses to gather customer feedback via surveys and it's done through text messaging. With their service, customers can simply text their feedback to the number on the receipt and then machine learning helps determine if those responses are positive, negative or neutral. That data is then provided to the business so they can follow up with the customer as needed. For restaurants and retail stores that are both in highly competitive industries with low profit margins, it is critical to keep customers happy and coming back so understanding their experiences in real-time is very useful information.

In this interview I spoke with Eric Santos, co-founder of Benchmark Intelligence about why he started the company, how his prior work experience prepared him for this opportunity, why they went through two different accelerator programs (Boomtown and The Brandery), when they raised their $500,000 seed round, how many clients they currently work with, how they landed those clients, how they plan to add 1,000+ locations in 2017, their current pricing model, why their service is 5x more effective and much more.

Thanks for listening.

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All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

Regardless of the stage, size or industry of your company it's important to know what other companies are doing especially with their sales and marketing. Whether they are your direct competition or just a successful company you admire from afar, having the right insights at the right time could be invaluable when making important decisions about product development, marketing strategies, hiring, spending, raising more funds and many other critical components of running a business. Crayon is a Boston based company that has raised $4.8 million from some amazing investors and has built a marketing intelligence platform so companies can stay informed and better prepared as their competitors and industry evolve.

In this interview I spoke with Jonah Lopin (great name), co-founder of Crayon about why he started the company, how he first met his business partner, when they decided to raise money, how they were able to attract such an incredible group of investors, how their customers are using the platform, the pricing model, what metrics he likes to keep an eye on and what valuable advice his investors are giving him. We also discussed the importance of managing for growth while being mindful of burn rates and the milestones needed to raise the next round. Since Jonah was employee #6 at HubSpot we obviously dove into that and chatted about why he picked Hubspot over two other job offers, what it was liked working at one of the fastest growing startups, how that experience prepared him for his current role as CEO of Crayon and so much more.

Thanks for listening.

-----

All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

Sales is a critical component to the success and sustainability of every business but finding those sales is a challenge in itself. With many companies facing stiff competition for customers and typically having limited capital to build sales teams the dilemma is usually "how do we build our sales pipeline in a cost efficient way?". Well, the answer in most cases includes technology and when it comes to sales pipeline automation it would be smart to look at a company like RevBoss.

RevBoss is based in Durham, NC at American Underground, has raised $1.1 million from investors, and has created software and services to help businesses of all sizes and industries develop targeted prospecting lists with the goal of converting those prospects into sales leads and eventually into paying customers. RevBoss plans start at just $250/month and will save any sales team countless hours every month so they can be more productive with their time and focus on closing deals. 

In this interview I spoke with Eric Boggs, founder of RevBoss about his fast-growing SaaS company, what the original business model was and when he decided to pivot, some of the clients that RevBoss works with, how they acquired those clients, their different pricing models, their current marketing strategy, why the RevBoss software should be a mandatory service for every sales team, what he's learned over the past year to make himself a better CEO, his advice for other entrepreneurs looking to start a business, where RevBoss goes from here and much more. 

Thanks for listening.

-----

All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

Traditionally we don't interview pre-launch, pre-revenue companies on the Startup Sense Podcast but we made an exception for Dubuc Motors because we're big fans of what they're doing. Dubuc Motors is attempting to build an all-electric sports car (called the Tomahawk) that gives you both performance and comfort. The founders began working on this concept many years ago and they're now approximately one year away from production. Dubuc Motors is currently raising the funding they need to finish the required numbers of prototypes and complete all necessary safety testing. You can reserve a Tomahawk for $5,000 or become an investor in the company through Start Engine.

According to the specs page on the Dubuc Motors website the Tomahawk will get 370 miles on a single charge, hit 0-60mph in 3.0 seconds with a max speed of 160mph, all-wheel drive, scissor doors, panoramic roof, wifi hotspot, touch screen control panels, navigation, 360-degree cameras, voice activated controls and so much more.

In this interview I spoke with Mike, one of the co-founders about his journey over the past 10 years of trying to turn his dream into a reality. We discussed their current fundraising efforts, what their crowdfunding goal is and how they plan to spend that money. We also discussed what production would look like, how many cars they hope to make in year 1, why each car will be hand assembled, their target consumer, what their marketing strategy will look like, how they plan to use influencers and much more.

If you have any questions for Mike you can reach him at [email protected]

Thanks for listening.

-----

All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

Every industry eventually changes with the introduction of new technologies so the market research and survey industry is no different. It used to be very expensive for companies to setup large surveys and customer feedback groups because targeting the specific demographics was hard and time consuming but social media platforms like Facebook have changed that. Facebook knows so much about each one of it's 1.7 billion users including age, sex, locations, work history, our interests, and the list goes on. Askem has figured out how to leverage advertising on Facebook and other social platforms to cost effectively find the right survey respondents based on the clients criteria.

Even though the company founders are still involved they decided to bring Ido in earlier this year to be the CEO. He has experience to help scale the company going forward. Askem has raised $3 million from several angel investors and VC funds so right now they are hyper focused on growth. 

In this interview I spoke with Ido about why he joined the company, what the market opportunity is, what types of clients and brands they work with, what the average client is spending with them, how they acquire new clients, how they are leveraging Facebook ads like never before, what the upside for Askem might be, whether they'll still be an independent company in 3 years and much more.

Thanks for listening.

-----

All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

Scott Moody is an incredible entrepreneur although you'll have a hard time getting him to admit it because he's extremely humble. Over the past 20 years Scott has accomplished some very impressive things in the business world. In 1998 he started a company called AuthenTec which developed high-end fingerprint sensors for commercial and residential applications. Fast forward to 2007 and he successfully took that company public via an IPO and then in 2012 he helped the company get acquired by Apple for $356 million, a big part of which was their 220+ patents. It's the AuthenTec fingerprint sensor technology that is now used in all of Apple's products.   

After his time at AuthenTec, Scott decided to semi-retire although he remained active in the startup community as a mentor, speaker and investor. He also did some world traveling which ended up inspiring him to start and grow a new company called K4Connect. Scott started the company back in 2013, originally bootstrapping it until they decided to raise $10 million in outside funding.

K4Connect has several offerings but primarily they create solutions that enhance the lives of older adults and individuals living with disabilities by integrating the latest in smart technologies. Their first product, K4Community, is a B2B product specifically developed for senior living communities, making the residents' lives simpler, healthier and happier, while allowing the operators to provide the best in case, hospitality and operational effectiveness. K4Community is the first of three products planned to serve older adults and those living with disabilities. 

In this phenomenal interview I spoke with Scott about his entrepreneurial journey over the last 20 years, the challenges he faced, the lessons he learned, what it's like to take a company public and then sell it to Apple, why he decided to get back into the startup game, how K4Connect is changing and improving lives everyday, how he ended up in Raleigh, where the company is headed from here, the future of smart home technology and much more.

Thanks for listening.

-----

All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com

Message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.

I'll always jump at the chance to have a company on my podcast that is saving lives through technology and that's exactly what Jake and his incredible team at Owlet are doing. Over the past 3+ years they have developed the hardware and software that could save tens of thousands of infant lives. More than 3,500 babies die every year while sleeping but perhaps if the parents had been alerted in time many of those deaths could have been prevented. Owlet has created a soft sock that slips over the infants foot and measures their heart rate and oxygen levels...then alerts the parents in case of emergency. 

The company was started by some college friends out of BYU, they raised some capital, started building the prototypes, got accepted into Techstars NYC, moved their families across the country from Utah, continued to build and iterate, raised more capital and now they are absolutely crushing it. Owlet will do $20 million in revenue in 2016 with even bigger revenue expectations for 2017. 

In this interview I spoke with Jake about the early days of the company, where the idea came from, how hard it is to do hardware and software, the biggest challenges for the company, how they forced themselves to learn everything on the fly, the value of having the right investors, what raising capital has allowed them to do, how they were able to secure a $1.5 million grant from National Institute of Health, what's next for the company and so much more.

Thanks for listening.

-----

All of our interviews and episodes are available at StartupSense.net

Please subscribe to the Startup Sense Podcast on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio and YouTube.

-----

You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, AngelList and JonahLupton.com or message me at [email protected]

-----

The Startup Sense Podcast is sponsored by the Lupton Group -- our team can help your company with all of your design, development, branding and marketing needs. Please visit our website at LuptonGroup.co and send us a message for a free analysis and consultation.