Startups for Good

Cityblock is a new kind of healthcare provider and technology company, based out of Brooklyn. Started in the fall of 2017, we have quickly grown to 600+ employees serving tens of thousands of members across the Northeast. Their focus is on medically complex and socially underserved Medicaid populations, and our doctors and nurses deliver a home-based intensive primary care model with integrated behavioral health, substance abuse counseling, and social benefits coordination (think: housing support, legal support). 

It's a fascinating and operationally complex business, and we have been building out an in-house Technology team from day one, with early teammates hailing from Google, Facebook, Artsy, Uber, Knewton, Compass, Oscar, and Squarespace. Today we are backed by $500M in venture capital, and hiring across the board.

Prior to Cityblock, Bay was a product manager at Google working out of the Zurick and Bangalore offices and later part of the venture investment team at Thrive Capital, where he focused on the categories of developer tooling and consumer. Bay received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Yale University.

Bay joins me today to discuss if healthcare can be improved by involving more people in the process. He shares with us more about Cityblock and how they are making a business out of providing this type of healthcare. He shares with us who the customer is; the patient, the healthcare professionals, or the government. Bay talks about how the mission impacts the team. 

“It's really about human relationships, you know, trained clinicians, trained social workers, working in person with empathy over many, many months, to turn lives around. And what we think of with technology is using technology to augment to speed up right to enforce right and to empower them, but they really go hand in hand. And so I think that healthcare is, you know, in 2021 is much, much better off because of technology.” -Bay Gross

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

-Maintaining the quality of healthcare when adding in technology

-Preventative care

-The learning curve when adding tech to the medical space.

-Starting a company inside Sidewalk Labs.

-Role of product leader and product organization in healthcare

Connect with Bay on Twitter @BayGross and Cityblock at https://www.cityblock.com

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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website startupsforgood.com/, connect with Miles on Twitter https://twitter.com/Startups4Good or  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mileslasater/, and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle https://www.startupsforgood.com/giving-circle/

Dr. Caneel Joyce is an executive coach, leadership developer, culture builder, speaker, wife, mother of two, and podcaster. Throughout her career, Caneel has worked with some of the world’s most transformative entrepreneurs and companies, including leaders at LinkedIn, Dropbox, Snap, Slack, Whole Foods, Amazon, and Disney, plus hundreds of CEOs, founders and leaders in technology and beyond.

Caneel’s mission in life and work is to positively impact the world, challenging each of us to draw upon our unique gifts to take on the world’s most pressing issues. Her three impact priorities are addressing climate change, empowering women, and democratizing access to creative and entrepreneurial opportunities. With fierce intellect, rigor, and irresistible vulnerability, Caneel drives change by coaching, teaching, and inspiring leaders of all kinds - and igniting their desire to become proactive allies to all of humanity and the planet.

Caneel has over 20 years of experience leading and advising innovative companies. She has a B.A. in Mass Communications from UCLA, and a Masters and Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Her research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and she is a sought-after podcast guest and keynote speaker. She is a former Professor of Management at the London School of Economics and at Stanford University’s prestigious Institute of Design (known as “the d.school”). Her company, Kickass Enterprises Inc., is a member of the 1% for the Planet Foundation.

Caneel has discovered it’s not just business leaders who benefit from connecting with their authentic selves, finding their Zones of Genius, and living in flow. Finding that peace within ourselves is the first step to creating a more peaceful human experience for everyone.

Among many other programs she has initiated and spearheaded, Allowed is a new podcast experience that Caneel designed to bring her formally elite, exclusive coaching to a much broader audience so that everyone can be a more conscious, inspired, and whole leader of their own life - and together, bring meaningful change to the world.

We kick off our episode today demonstrating a checkin and discuss the purpose of checkins and the benefits of them. Caneel shares with us what a coach is and who can benefit from them. We discuss the difference between coaching and therapy. Caneel shares how she helps clients make peace with past trauma and optimize current performance as a coach. 

“We can have our emotions and even listen to the wisdom of our emotions. At the same time, we don't think our emotions are truth tellers. And then suddenly, now we need to change course all the time.” - Caneel Joyce

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

-Unarguable and Red, Yellow, Green check ins

-Conscious Leadership

-Different coaching styles

-Common traits in Founders

-Shadow self

-Zone of Genius

For more information on her online course go to www.caneel.com/yes

Connect with Dr. Caneel Joyce on Instagram and Tik Tok  at caneel.is and @Caneel on Twitter 

You can listen to Caneel’s podcast Allowed: Conscious Leadership and Personal Growth with Dr. Caneel Joyce on multiple podcast platforms. 

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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite...

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Dr. Garry Cooper is the Co-founder and CEO of Rheaply, a Chicago-based tech company that enables Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, and universities to better visualize, quantify, and utilize their physical resources. He also serves on the boards of directors of P33 Chicago and 1871, the faculty of Northwestern University, and the investor team at LongJump Ventures, of which he is a founding partner. Previously, Dr. Cooper facilitated supply chain and performance improvement for enterprise businesses at Ernst & Young. As a result of his work, Dr. Cooper has received recognition on the Forbes Next 1000, Chicago magazine’s The New Power 30, and Crain’s 40 Under 40 lists, and as a Scholar at Google for Entrepreneurs. Dr. Cooper has published in high-impact, peer-reviewed international journals and holds a U.S. patent. He holds a PhD from Northwestern University, a Certificate in Management from the Kellogg School of Management, and a BS & BA from Indiana University.

Garry joins me today to discuss circular economics. He shares with us the key similarities between being a research scientist and startup founder. Garry shares with us the key factors to deciding on launching a new product during the pandemic. He talks about how often people are buying or renting equipment and if they donate why they donate. 

“I think that founders, at least for me, we lose our sense of confidence and we need to start realizing that we are at the frontier. We are pushing and we are some of the most knowledgeable people on this topic in the world” - Garry Cooper

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

-Launching a product during a pandemic

-What a supply chain looks like in a circular economy

-Aligning people, organizations and incentives work with Rheaply

-How being a mission driven company affected series A funding

-Handling the many “No”s that come with a round of fundraising

-What topical event fueled him to move forward with the fundraising effort

Connect with Garry on all social platforms @garrycooperjr and @rheaplyinc to find out more about Garry’s company Rheaply. 

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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website startupsforgood.com/, connect with Miles on Twitter https://twitter.com/Startups4Good or  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/mileslasater/, and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle https://www.startupsforgood.com/giving-circle/

Marc is a Venture Partner at Spero Ventures, focused on companies that improve the health of the planet. He previously co-founded two successful companies, NuvoMedia in 1997 and most famously, Tesla in 2003. Marc holds a BA in Computer Science from UC Berkeley.   

“The car industry doesn't have electrical engineers in the same way that Silicon Valley thinks of them. And they, they've even outsourced all the, you know, the ECU is, which are the little computers that make the, the internal combustion engines that make the spark plugs go in, they control the engine, all of that's outsourced as well. So they don't really do any electronics. And it puts them at a huge disadvantage, because I think modern cars are becoming evermore computers on wheels.” - Marc Tarpenning

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

-Judging market timing

-Tech trends for founders to be watching

-Some learning from the clean tech space

-How to decipher unit economics in the early stages

-How to address safety with the quick Silicon Valley pace 

-VC risks that are worth taking including technology vs. science risk

Connect with Marc on his website https://marctarpenning.com/, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/speroventures/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/Spero_VC and learn more about his company at spero.vc https://spero.vc

Subscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes!

Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website https://www.startupsforgood.com, connect with Miles on Twitter https://twitter.com/Startups4Good or  LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/mileslasater/ and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle https://www.startupsforgood.com/giving-circle/

Rahim is the CEO and Co-Founder of SV Academy, an online, employer-driven school that helps underrepresented jobseekers break into non-coding careers in the tech industry. SV Academy was named the #2 Most Innovative Education Program by Fast Company.

Prior to SV Academy, Rahim was the CEO and Co-Founder of Involver, an enterprise social media platform, which was acquired by Oracle and is now part of the Oracle Marketing Cloud. Post sale, he was a key account executive supporting the global field and inside sales organizations.

Previously, he founded a web hosting company with his friend Husein while still in high school. Its sale (for $1.5m!) was negotiated while writing his senior year exams. Because of life circumstances, Rahim didn’t end up going to a four-year college, or receiving his bachelors.

A few years back, Rahim received an Empact 100 Award at the White House from Startup America and The Kauffman Foundation. Rahim was also named one of the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 in America by Inc. Magazine, one of the Top 40 Under 40 by the San Francisco Business Times, and one of the Top 25 Digital Thought-Leaders by iMedia.

Rahim loves helping and learning from people who are charting their own course. He’s an investor or advisor to a number of start-ups, early-stage venture funds, and non-profit organizations. He’s also been invited to speak at several cool places around the world like SXSW, President Obama's Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Dubai, MIT’s $100K Business Plan Competition, Imperial Bank in Kenya and Startup Weekend in Egypt. 

I kick off the conversation with Rahim by asking him which city has the best economic opportunity. I was intrigued by his response. We discussed how sales and business have changed in the new remote working environment. Rahim shares his advice for other tech founders embarking on a startup. We talk about his founder’s story which began in high school. The mission of his new company SV Academy is to train underrepresented people in remote areas to be able to participate in business. Rahim also shares some of his biggest challenges as a founder.

“It could be because they have some disability that might prevent them from being there in person. But they've got the motivation, they've got the skill, they've got the know-how, and they're able to create, like this really compelling experience for their prospect without ever leaving their home. And that is most definitely the direction we're headed. And I think it will become the new norm again, with some selective, selective in person.” - Rahim Fazal

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

-The role family and extended family play for a founder

-The changes in jobs as more companies utilize remote workers

-Human centered skill sets

-Training people in sales and how it has changed

-How to deal with imposter syndrome as a founder

Connect with Rahim on Twitter https://twitter.com/rahimthedream and find out more about SV Academy on Twitter https://twitter.com/SVAhq and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/svahq/ and their website https://sv.academy

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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.startupsforgood.com

Atticus is the CEO & founder of PadSplit, an online marketplace that leverages shared housing as a tool for financial independence.  PadSplit is a public benefit corporation that has garnered national acclaim as a solution for housing affordability, creating more than 1,600 affordable units in the last 3 years. Atticus has been an affordable housing developer since 2008 and has presented on housing solutions at MIT, UC Berkeley, and the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation. He is also the co-founder of Stryant Construction & Management Inc. Atticus serves as the co-chair of ULI’s UrbanPlan Education Initiative, co-chaired the Design For Affordability Task Force in 2018, was a member of Leadership Atlanta’s Class of 2020, and is currently a volunteer with Mad Housers. He graduated from Yale University with a BA in Architecture, and currently lives with his family in Decatur, GA along with 2 dogs and lots of chickens.

“I'm a big fan of charting out the vision first. And just understanding what your Northstar is where you want to go. And if the only thing that you do for your organization is aligned on that I'm sure that everyone in the organization does.” - Atticus LeBlanc

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• The explanation of the housing crisis we are having
• Addressing some of the concerns associated with cohabitating
• Some of the other benefits offered by PadSplit 
• Zoning issues and the history of some zoning laws
• Moving into a tech start up without a tech background
• The importance of perseverance as an entrepreneur 
• The value of the “Care, Show, Prove It” mentality on business 

The book that we discuss is called The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

Connect with Atticus on Twitter or LinkedIn

Atticus writes for Forbes Real Estate Council and here is his latest article

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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or  LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle

Mitchell is a founder with the goal of helping all people to better save and invest for their financial future. He believes that with the right nudge (and a little help from software) his company can help people do the right thing and make money a bit less stressful. Mitchell is an Ex Facebook and Dropbox, product manager, a Yale University graduate, and a proud Ohioan by origins. 

Mitchell joins me today to discuss his founder path from Yale, Facebook, Parable and now Lendtable. I open the podcast by asking why people don’t take advantage of the free retirement money their businesses offer them. Mitchell explains how pensions are a thing of the past and how the individual is now fully responsible to make all investing decisions. 

“I still always knew that before I was able to start a company I needed to know how to build, I needed to be a student of the game” - Mitchell Jones

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• What needs to be acknowledged as a startup
• What assumption should be challenged as a startup founder
• Actions that need to be taken to change the opportunity of who gets to be a founder
• The type of person who typically gets VC dollars
• The benefit of accelerators for first time entrepreneurs
• How to create FOMO in the investor
• Why story is so important

Connect with Mitchell on LinkedIn 

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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or  LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle

Aaron Feuer is the co-founder and CEO of Panorama Education, a Boston-based education technology company that he launched while an undergraduate at Yale.

Panorama Education's college- and career-readiness tools, school climate surveys, and social-emotional learning assessments are currently used to support the success of more than 12 million K-12 students in 21,000 schools every year. Places like NYC, Dallas, Detroit, SF and Indianapolis.

When he was a high school student in Los Angeles, he got involved as an organizer to fight for better schools. They got a bill passed in California that encouraged schools to give students a voice through student surveys. However, the bill didn’t end up making much impact. And thus was born Panorama.

I kick off our discussion with Aaron by posing him with the question about how to change the world. We discuss the best ways to use the technology that Panorama has. He explains the differences and benefits of online and offline products in their offering. Aaron offers us some unique perspectives on student startups. He shares with us why belonging is so important in corporate culture and how Panorama fosters it. 

“I think as a startup founder, you're constantly learning at every scale.”

 - Aaron Feuer

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• How schools assess the whole student experience today
• Learning how to be a startup founder
• The importance of good network advisors and a succession plan
• Figuring out how to tailor sales to schools
• How the power of the mission influences fundraising
• Some of the big challenges 

Publications discussed in the episode:

Paul Graham’s essay about students and the power of poverty

The Hard about Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

Advantage by Joe Solari

High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove

So you Want to Talk About Race by ljeoma Oluo

Connect with Aaron on Twitter and at panoramaed.com

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Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or  LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes across...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.startupsforgood.com

Christie Lagally is the founder and CEO of Rebellyous Foods.  She is a mechanical engineer with nearly 20 years of engineering experience and holder of five patents in manufacturing technology.  She spent much of her career in the aerospace industry working on commercial airplanes and spacecraft in testing, design, and manufacturing, and she served as the project manager for a $10M R&D effort for the 777X wing manufacturing unit at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.  Until January 2018, Christie  served as a Senior Scientist for the Good Food Institute uncovering the technical barriers in the development of plant-based meat and cultured meat. Christie holds Bachelor's degrees in Mechanical Engineering and  Organizational Psychology and a Master’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering.  

Christie joins me today to discuss how she decided to be a founder and the initial steps that she took to find the problem to solve. She explains the three avenues to customers and how the company concentrates on each of them. She shares how articulating the mission helps in growing the company culture and fundraising. Christie tells us about her approach to fundraising and how incubators helped her. 

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• Tackling the taste and cost barriers to plant based meat products
• The specifics that drive the school lunch customer
• Clean meat and the impact on the industry
• How sometimes constraints breed more creativity
• The fundraising process
• Transitioning between two industries

Connect with Christie at rebellyous.com and their YouTube channel 

Subscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes!

Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or  LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle

Ross is the CEO at ZenBusiness, which democratizes entrepreneurship by making it easy to create, maintain and manage a LLC or other corporate entity.  With more than 30 years as an entrepreneur, technology leader, c-level exec, angel investor and board member, Ross Buhrdorf has been at the forefront of how consumers interact with technology.

Most recently as the founding chief technical officer for HomeAway (NASDAQ: AWAY) - one of Austin’s most iconic tech companies - he was responsible for building both the team and the technology platform that powered the company from a startup, through the IPO to its recent acquisition by Expedia (NASDAQ: EXPE) for a whopping $3.9B. 

“You can fool your customers for a little bit. But you can't fool them forever. And so you'd need to pay very close attention to what your customers are asking for what they're telling you. And you need to deliver.” - Ross Burhdorf

Ross joins me today to discuss the importance of small businesses in our economy. We talk about the growth of freelancing. He shares about building a great culture in his company. Ross and I talk about the disruption of the incumbents and successful acquisitions. Ross shares his opinion on delivering value in a mission driven company. He informs us of the numbers of his company Zen business. And he shares his theory on fear being a liar. 

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• Lessons learned from the .com boom and bust
• Risks in small companies vs. larger companies
• Trends in small business formation
• Does success affect the ease of fundraising
• How to evaluate preemptive fundraising as a CEO
• Making acquisitions successful 
• How acquisition impacts the culture of the business

To find out more about ZenBusiness on their website and you can email Ross, [email protected] 

Books discussed on today’s episode:

Innovators Dilemma by Clayton Christensen

Subscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes!

Thanks for tuning into today’s episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.

Don’t forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or  LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about The Giving Circle