Startups for Good

Dean Karlan is the Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance Kellogg School of Management, and co-director of the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University.  He is the Founder and President of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and promoting solutions to global poverty problems, and working to scale-up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors.  His research focuses on development and behavioral economics, and he is on the Board of Directors of the M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab.  

Dean joins me today to discuss his academic career and why he decided to be a founder. There appears to be a theme with Dean’s academic work and we discuss how that influences the companies that he has founded. We discuss the frustration that comes when the evidence that you are generating are not changing policy. We also talk about his other startups Stickk and ImpactMatters. 

“Know what problem you're trying to solve”… “as clear as you can in your mind, so that you are able to focus on thinking through whether what you're doing is really addressing that problem.” - Dean Karlan

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• How IPA (Innovations for Poverty Action) works
• Randomized Controlled Trials - the needs and criticism that comes with them
• The size and scale of IPA today and some of the challenges they have faced
• Methodology of a lean startup and did he use it for IPA
• The acquisition of ImpactMatters  by Charity Navigator 
• How to measure impact of a charity
• Lessons learned from being a founder

Connect with Professor Karlan on LinkedIn or Twitter

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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.

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Josh Clemente, Founder of Levels, is a mechanical engineer and CrossFit-L2 trainer. At SpaceX, he led a team to develop life support systems that sustained astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on their May 2020 trip to the International Space Station aboard Dragon Endeavor: the first new crew-carrying spacecraft since 1980. Josh has also spent time designing and building Hyperloop technology and leading engineering for a company providing vehicle-based rescue systems for emergency response teams. Josh enjoys the outdoors, functional fitness training, technology, coffee, and restoring motorcycles.

Josh joins me today to discuss not only his founder’s story but his background at SpaceX and Hyperloop. He tells us about some of the things he learned there and what information he brought to his new company and some areas that he wanted to develop. He shares with us the technology and story behind his company Levels and the use of continuous glucose monitors. Josh tells us about some of the challenges and how he communicated the mission of the company during his round of fundraising.

“By using not just hardware, but then advanced software, machine learning algorithms and insights frameworks that can help people orient themselves and then make better choices in a very short period of time.” - Josh Clemente

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• How individuals can use continuous glucose monitors to learn more about their food choices.
• How to get your product to reach the masses
• The challenges to creating new technology
• The challenges of transparency prior to and during fundraising
• Working in public
• Demonstrating progress during fundraising
• How to pick a co-founding team

Connect with Josh on Twitter and LinkedIn or Instagram. Check out the Levels website: 

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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

Spencer is founder and CEO of Spark Wave, a startup foundry (a.k.a. company builder / startup studio) that creates new software companies from scratch, designed to help solve big problems in the world. He has a PhD in applied math from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU, with his specialty being machine learning (sometimes referred to as “artificial intelligence”). He also has a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University, where he studied applied math and computer science. He has published papers on a variety of topics in applied math, machine learning, mental health and social science.

Spencer joins me today to discuss his founder’s story and the many projects that his company, Spark Wave, are working on. We learn more about Spencer’s take on ethical value and how this drives him in business and life. Spencer shares how his academic background in mathematics influences the work that he does. He also tells about some of the challenges he has encountered, and advice to all inspiring founders. 

“Entrepreneurship is basically the world punching you in the face between 10 and 100 times, and the vast majority of people would give up after a few punches, right?”  - Spencer Greenberg

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• Keeping track of multiple products within a company
• Products and business idea generation and evaluation
• What an effective altruist is
• The type of team involved with a general studio model
• How to recruit a CEO or co-founder to pair with an idea
• Spencer’s new podcast - Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg
• Questions to ask yourself prior to becoming an entrepreneur.
• Net Promoter Score and Dissatisfaction Score and other metrics 

Connect with Spencer on Twitter and LinkedIn. For more information about sparkwave.tech and clearerthinking.org 

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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

At the time of recording, Desiree Vargas Wrigley was the President of the Young Entrepreneurs Academy and the founder of Pearachute, a company that helps parents and children drop into the best family activities in town.  Prior to launching Pearachute, Desiree co-founded GiveForward, the world’s leading crowd giving platform for people facing a major life event. Under her leadership, the company helped friends and family contribute nearly $160M to loved ones in need. After graduating from Yale, Desiree worked at the Kauffman Foundation as a specialist in entrepreneurship and at Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors.  Most recently, she taught New Venture Discovery at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.  Desiree has been named Inc's 30 Under 30, Crain's 40 Under 40, one of Parents Magazine's Most Inspiring Moms, one of Forbes’ Women to Watch, and has appeared on Shark Tank, closing one of the largest deals on the show to date.  When not working, she enjoys spending time with her 2 young sons, stepdaughter, and crime-fighting husband.

Desiree joined me today to discuss when she started to feel the pull of entrepreneurship.  She shares with us when her initial idea went from kernel to a more serious pursuit. Desiree shares  some of the big challenges of her first venture, GiftForward. She talks about some of the lessons of working with the board of directors and how grateful she is for them. 

“I really do believe that we are in a unique position to help feed the diversity pipeline that goes into innovation and entrepreneurship, and including computer science.”   

- Desiree Vargas Wrigley

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• Knowing when to start on a company
• Crowdfunding landscape before Kickstarter and GoFundMe
• Understanding the differences between the venture capitalists and the customer
• Knowing when to scale the business and when to sale
• The experience of a Shark Tank pitch, deal and the aftermath
• Mentoring and enriching the lives of young entrepreneurs 

Connect with Desiree on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter 

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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

SFG12 - Nat Manning, CEO of Kettle

Nathaniel is the co-founder and COO of Kettle, a machine-learning-powered reinsurer that protects people from increasing climate change crises. Nathaniel previously led Ushahidi, the world’s largest open source data platform for crisis response. There he helped scale the Ushahidi platform to over 200 countries gathering over 10M first hand reports. Previous to that he was a Presidential Innovation Fellow for Open Data, and then the first Chief Data Officer of the US Agency for International Development, where he helped open up and analyze large data sets for humanitarian response. He has been part of the founding teams of technology startups like BRCK and FellowAI and is on the board of Project Wayfinder.

Nathaniel joins me today to discuss his path from Ushahidi to forming his own company, Kettle. We learn more about crowdsourcing information and why Ushahidi’s timing was fruitful. Nathaniel shares with us the types of funding that Usahidi looked into and the benefits and pitfalls of each. I ask him for his input on how would he change the funding system for tech nonprofits. Nathaniel speaks to how his time with the government at USAID prepared him for the CEO role at Ushahidi. We also learn about Nathaniel’s passion for insurance and the beauty of insurance in its purest form.

“That's the impact you're really making is that sort of financial safety net there to let people who get hurt from these, acts of God, whether it's a hurricane or a fire, which, like I said, sadly, or there's only more and more of that they're protected, and that our communities are protected.”

 - Nathaniel Manning

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• How Ushahidi fostered creativity amongst the employees
• The challenges of running a big tech non-profit 
• Building business development teams
• Dealing with misconduct in leadership as a CEO

Connect with Nathaniel on Twitter or Kettle’s website and his own personal website 

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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

Ralph Clark is a technology company CEO who is equally committed to shareholder value and making a meaningful societal impact. Leading ShotSpotter since 2010, he has been dedicated to helping law enforcement agencies provide equal protection for at-risk, underserved neighborhoods, reducing gun violence and restoring police as trusted guardians of the community. Clark led the transformation of ShotSpotter to a SaaS based business model ultimately taking the company public in 2017.

With more than 30 years of corporate, financial and organizational leadership, Clark was previously CEO of GuardianEdge Technologies Inc. where he drove its acquisition by Symantec. Earlier in his career he worked for IBM, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. Clark received the 2019 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year® Award for Northern California. He is a former board member and chair of Pacific Community Ventures, former board member and chair of the Oakland Boys and Girls Club, former trustee and Vice-Chair of the Oakland Museum of California, is a member of Harvard Business School’s California Advisory Board and is a trustee of the American Conservatory Theater. He holds a B.S. in economics from the University of the Pacific and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School

Ralph joins me today to discuss ShotSpotter and the mission to reduce and prevent gun violence through the use of acoustic gunshot detection technology. He discusses the alignment and balance of law enforcement as the consumer, the company’s interest and the investors. He shares with us the differences in using violence interruption interventions and law enforcement interventions. Ralph shares with us the metrics behind the success of ShotSpotter. He shares his story of growing up in Oakland and working for GuardianEdge which brought him to ShotSpotter. 

"So you had this layer cake, different series of preferred with different rights, different privileges, different investors, all with very different outcomes, depending upon, you know, what that outcome was. So you can imagine that was anything but aligned around there, the beautiful thing about going public is that, all that preferential layered cake gets smashed into one thing called common, we're all aligned together, management, every single investor, both the previous private investors, as well as the new public market investors, we're all common now. So we all have this, we all have this shared, same shared lens through which to look at, you know, success, or failure.” - Ralph Clark

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• The benefits of a mission-driven company for the employees
• The friction in the relationship between communities and law enforcement
• Utilizing the technology to enforce poaching and blast fishing 
• The importance of reducing blast fishing on the whole ecosystem
• How to maintain power and communication to the acoustic gun detection units
• What net promoter score is and how valuable it is to a company
• The moment when he adjusted the business model against cultural resistance
• The decision to go public and some advice during the IPO process
• The concept of Long Term Greedy

Connect with Ralph on LinkedIn or Twitter or email him at [email protected]

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Tess Michaels founder and CEO Stride Funding which is a venture backed student financing company. Stride offers a more flexible financing option to traditional student loans using an income shared agreement. Tess is a serial entrepreneur and has worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and Vista Equity Partners. She is an alum of University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Business School 

Tess joins me today to discuss how she was inspired to start Stride and how she built the team there. She shares how they have managed their investor relationships with two rounds of capital funding and investor funding for their impact financing products. Stride is changing the payment structure of traditional loans to being more tied to the students' graduation outcome. Tess discusses some of the latency that occurred this year in conversion as students were adapting to the changing college landscape. We are happy to have Tess here to share some of her lessons, entrepreneurial heroes and some of the books they have written.

“I think economic mobility is very much something I’m a huge believer in. Both my parents were immigrants and education was the reason they really were able to progress in their careers and their journey to America” - Tess Michaels

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• Outcome driven products 
• The differences between income shared agreements (ISA) and traditional loans
• How higher education may change in light of the changes in instruction methods due to COVID
• Investing in data science 
• How impact investing was welcomed at a school like Wharton
• How to juggle the many hats of raising funds for the business and the student financing 
• Some of the biggest challenges of growing a business
• Consumer education about ISAs and alternative financing models

Connect with Tess Michaels on Instagram or their website as well as any questions for Tess can be emailed at [email protected]

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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 please visit our website and click on Giving Circle

Adam Rein oversees all aspects of CapShift’s operations, investments, and technology. Since 2014, he has served as a managing director for MissionPoint Partners, an impact asset managing firm. Previously, Adam co-founded Altaeros Energies, a startup launched out of MIT to bring low cost wind energy and tele-communications to the developing world. Adam is also a co-founder of Greentown Labs, the country’s largest clean technology incubator. Previously, Adam worked as a strategy consultant for Bain & Company. Adam has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a BA from Yale University.

Adam joins me today to discuss CapShift and how they are the building the leading impact investing platform. He shares some lessons about the startup process. Adam tells us about the beginnings of Alteros and Greentown Labs, his other startups. We talk about dealing with some of the big changes of growing companies. Adam shares some advice to beginning founders and resources.

“Every venture I’ve worked on has had at least two or three moments where we were very close to failing and going under. Whether it’s some combination of luck or fate or hard work that there is some success bias in our sector.”  - Adam Rein

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• The various investing opportunities that CapShift offers
• The three key metrics that investors are looking for
• What is driving the increase in impact investing
• Adam shares what can be learned from failure
• How purpose driven ventures should communicate to their investors

Connect with Adam on Twitter and 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.

Tiffany is the CEO & Cofounder at Remix (remix.com), a collaborative software platform for 350+ cities to plan their mobility future. Remix is backed by Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, and Energy Impact Partners.

Tiffany was a Fellow at Code for America, launched the UX practice at Zipcar, worked as an innovation consultant at Continuum, and wrote for Dwell. With a background in architecture and urban planning, she constantly thinks about how the built environment of our cities can be better designed for people and our planet.

Tiffany joins me today to discuss her start at Code for America and how she became a founder. Tiffany discusses her transition from design to sales and marketing to CEO especially with all of the challenges and heavy decisions during a pandemic. 

“Can you get up and go to work everyday with a group of colleagues who care as deeply about the same things that you do?” -Tiffany Chu

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• The origins of Remix and the company’s evolution
• What strong product-market fit looks and feels like
• The fundraising options that Remix approached and the potential signaling 
• The ramifications and challenges of working with government agencies especially during COVID
• How being a mission-driven company affects the culture of the company
• How micro-mobility fits in with what cities are looking for
• How to follow a very successful product launch with additional products
• How Remix interacts with the open source community

Connect with Tiffany: On Twitter and Instagram @tchu88

Remix at remix.com and @remix on Twitter

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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.

Seth Sternberg, Founder of Meebo & Honor

Honor is working to re-invent in-home care for parents. Honor is  on a mission to enable parents to live in their own homes for as long as they please! Honor has 300+ HQ employees, is operating in 6 states and has raised $220M+ in capital.

At Google Seth was Product Management Director for Google+ Platform. They launched Google+ Sign-In, a great way for users to connect their Google experience with the rest of the internet. Seth Co-Founded Meebo along with Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen. He is Incredibly proud of the entire Meebo team and all that it accomplished - they reached north of 100M US Uniques monthly and revenue in the mid 8 figure range. Meebo was acquired by Google in June, 2012.

Prior to Meebo Seth was at the Stanford GSB. He left a few weeks into his second year when Meebo began growing too fast to concentrate on both. His first job out of school was at IBM in their Corporate Development group where he learned a ton. 

Seth Sternberg joins me today to discuss how he got started as an entrepreneur creating Meebo, with some of his fellow business school chums. Seth discusses the many challenges with startups but also how mission driven startups pushes you through to the rewards. He also shares how his station in life informed his next venture, Honor, an elder care provider company and how that company utilizes technology. Seth shares with us how being a mission driven company has helped him to perform better as a business. Honor had some challenges during the COVID pandemic and Seth discusses the many ways that the company addressed them and innovated during a difficult time. 

“I could have some pretty great returns, but I could also truly make the world a better place for a certain segment of the population. And that's like, by far the number one thing that being a mission driven company, I think gets us is really great people.”

 - Seth Sternberg

Today on Startups for Good we cover:

• How to find good people to work with on startups
• Does the team come first or the idea
• Managing an elder care company during COVID-19
• Machine learning and how it relates to the complexities of elder care
• Long term orientation
• How to communicate with employees differently than investors

Connect with Seth on Twitter: @SethJS

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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.