Superpowers Podcast

Nathalie Walton's resume is what most people dream of - JP Morgan, eBay, Google, and Airbnb. She had relentlessly pursued every career move with the constant push to keep trying. "I am a black woman, and I think people often underestimate me. That's something I've had in my career."

Nathalie re-applied to Google four times before she got accepted. "I didn't give up; I didn't say, oh, I'm a terrible person because I didn't get into Google. I just said, okay, I didn't get in. So I'm going to try again."

During her stint at Airbnb, Nathalie got some advice that changed her whole trajectory. "I never had a conversation with a venture capitalist before, and I'm like, oh my God, the doors that I'm opening and the conversations I'm having are incredible." She realized that an opportunity of running Expectful was something she couldn't give up for the comforts of a corporate job.

Before working with Expectful, Nathalie had also used the app during her tumultuous pregnancy and knew first-hand the work that she would do with the company would help millions of women just like her.

"If you're not talking to your customers, shame on you. You have to do that to build an awesome product."

You can learn more about Expectful on the website or Instagram.

Connect with Chris on Linkedin.

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"I grew up in a Russian household, but in Sweden, which are two very different cultures. My dad was a Russian diplomat, and we stayed in Sweden after the fall of the Soviet Union." Taras shares how his childhood has shaped his journey as an entrepreneur. "My dad left governmental politics and started his company. So I grew up with my dad starting a company, failing, and starting, then failing, which lay the foundation of oh, wait, you can go out and do whatever you want to do?"

Taras started his first design company at 20 years old. Amidst moving to the USA and starting up other companies, Taras found a hidden passion and began custom-building motorcycles from unwanted bikes he found on Craigslist.

"I was getting deeper into the tech and this machine world and felt torn. So I had to shift my focus and attention towards something. You can't have scattered focus."

Taras had a strong desire to combine his love of hardware, tech, design, and sustainability, creating an EV motorcycle brand, Tarfrom.

"Being in the biker community, I also saw different mindsets around the biker culture and a reason why people, typically in tech or the creative industries, are not getting into that space." He realized that the EV bike community was building products, but not lifestyles. Instead, he wanted to move away from the dominant macho vibe and into a brand where people can ride motorcycles that look modern but are also sustainable.

Taras has not had an easy road. He was just about to finish his prototype a few weeks before the world shut down. But he never gave up. Instead, he and one engineer lived in the workspace together for months to finish what he had started. "I asked myself the question, what would be required of me to not give up during the hardest times? And the answer was working on something that I believe has a massive impact. Not economical or profitability impact, but an effect that truly can inspire people to make better decisions about how we move, consume, and interact with products."

Connect with Taras on LinkedIn or Instagram. Visit the Tarform website to learn more.

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More about Taras

Taras is an award-winning multi-disciplinary designer, serial entrepreneur, technologist, and inventor. With over 15 years of experience, Taras has worked with Google, T-Mobile, Spotify. His work is featured in the Petersen Automotive Museum, FastCo Innovation by Design, and TechCrunch Electric Generation.

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"There is this [media] shift from institutions to individuals. People have more connections with other people rather than abstract concepts. And I think that's the promise of the "Creator Economy." Brian Morrissey is well known for his tenure with Digiday, building the company from the ground up. He has spent the last two decades deeply entrenched in the push for more sustainable media businesses constructed with a focus on building community and lasting success.

'It's about not chasing the latest thing, but having a solid foundation with a direct connection with your audience and having a real audience. Not one that you rent from Facebook or Google and having a solid business model behind it."

This is what pushed him to start The Rebooting. He is going old school, back to the newsletter days to bring informative, analytical content about building and growing sustainable media businesses. "Why are newsletters hot again? Why are podcasts hot? Mostly because it's a direct relationship with an individual more than an institutional brand."

Subscribe to The Rebooting or connect with Brian on Twitter.

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Living in a small town south of Tel Aviv, Adam knew he wanted to build things from an early age. His mom bought him a cellular modem to develop apps and software on his home computer. He was always trying to do new and exciting things. When Adam joined the army, it opened his eyes to the world of possibilities that lay ahead. Seven years later, he returned home and came up with the idea of Taboola. He had the vision to help people discover things they may like but never knew existed—a search engine, but in reverse.

Adam has worked tirelessly for the last 14 years to grow Taboola into a great company that just went public. Throughout his journey as a Founder and executive, he has always stayed true to his love of learning (philomath). "What I see at Taboola, which I want to prove to the world, is that when you have a diverse company, you have better conversations. You have better collaborations, and you'll learn faster. And learning faster equals better execution."

Adam shares the biggest mistakes he made, why he decided to move to America, and what he thinks every new entrepreneur should think do to be successful. "Prepare to do something for a very long time because it takes a longer time to build a company these days than it did 15 years ago."

No matter his level of success, Adam has always stayed humble and grateful to the people who have helped him.

Click to learn more about Adam and Taboola.

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Adam Singolda is the founder and CEO at Taboola, a technology company that powers recommendations for the open web, helping people discover things they may like.

Taboola serves personalized content recommendations, partnering with the world’s top publishers, brands, and marketers to drive audience development, engagement, and monetization. Taboola also empowers editorial, product, and sales teams with solutions built around real-time page optimization, robust native advertising offerings, and more.

Adam has spoken on stage at TEDx, Collision, Kaltura Connect, Business Insider’s IGNITION, ClickZ LIVE, Advertising Week, 360i Marketing Summit, Web Summit, Landmark Ventures Media Technology Summit, Streaming Media, NAB, NewTeeVee, ELEVATE, Meetup, and MIT (Sloan). He has also appeared in broadcast TV interviews on Bloomberg West, CNBC, and Fox Business.

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"I need to feel like I get to the end and did the most that I could do, or I'm not going to be satisfied. So I need to be great, whatever that's going to be." Katie Schuele, Co-Founder of Boostr, joins the Superpowers podcast to talk about her journey into entrepreneurship.

Her career started in sales at IBM, and Katie quickly realized it was not her passion and ended up transitioning to marketing to have more freedom and autonomy over her life with kids. She was later recruited by Yahoo as the Director of Sales Enablement and then Director of Business Strategy and Operations.

"Learning how to deliver difficult and disappointing messages and realizing that people actually don't mind hearing bad news; they just don't like silence. So facing up to, well, this is the facts. Here's what we're doing. Here's why and how it will impact you and making that a habit. It seems so obvious, but man, try it; it's not easy."

After years of frustration trying to use CRM reports to uncover better sales practices and make accurate forecasts, Katie and her Co-Founder, Patrick O'Leary, decided there had to be a better way. So, they built their own company called Boostr. It was a huge leap for Katie to leave the security of the corporate world, but she has never looked back.

Katie has always had a calm and steady manner through the ups and downs of being a startup founder. "I can't tell you that there was a part that was harder, or easier, because there's always challenges. They just change." She looks at every challenge as an opportunity to do better for both clients and employees.

Visit Linkedin or Twitter to connect with Katie.

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Katie Schuele's Bio

Did you know the ability to plan and keep cool while moving allowed early women to run down even the fastest, most vicious animal and then club it to death when it stopped to pant? Katie loves persistence hunting. Strategy, sweat, and execution. As a Sales Strategy and Ops leader at Yahoo and Time Inc., Katie tracked sales, operations, and exec behavior movements. She predicted that friendly, efficient systems are the true foundation of accurate forecasting. And when she saw weaknesses in the Media industry, she pounced and exploited them as a co-founder of Boostr, the first and only company to offer a full CRM and OMS solution for ad sales the people actually love using. Her determination is why the most forward-thinking publishers have unprecedented access to the data they need to make their most informed decisions. Katie has cheetah for lunch every Tuesday, and she wants to share some of her recipes. She currently runs both Product and Customer Success for Boostr.

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My friendship with Andy Dunn started 10 years ago at a conference in Hawaii. Even though we have been in each other's lives for a long time, I had no idea he is a life-long sufferer of depression. When we think about incredible entrepreneurs, like Andy, it is hard to believe that they can be so successful while battling such dark times. Today, on the show, we hear about the human behind the entrepreneur. Andy shares his tumultuous journey and how his mental illness has shaped the way he creates his future businesses.

We discuss how new startup founders may struggle with focus and have grandiose ideas about what they think their company is versus what it actually is. How do founders determine the distinction between the fantasy and reality of the business and when it's time to accept reality?

He also tells us about the incredible women in his life that have shown him how resilience and perseverance are the cornerstones of continual growth. Through these lessons, he has focused on using his company, Red Swan, to help back minority entrepreneurs and give them an opportunity to grab a piece of the investment pie.

I am humbled and thankful to call Andy Dunn my friend, and I hope you enjoy his life story as much I enjoyed sharing it with you.

To learn more about Andy, visit LinkedIn or Twitter. Sign up to get an exclusive first look at his new company Whipped Cream.

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Andy Dunn Bio

Andy co-founded the menswear brand Bonobos in 2007 and served as the company’s first CEO for ten years. Bonobos pioneered the digitally native, direct-to-consumer brand model. In 2017, Walmart acquired Bonobos for $310 million.

Andy is co-founder and chairman at Monica + Andy, a leading organic children’s clothier where his sister Monica Royer is founder and CEO. The company is now building the leading community and marketplace for parents who care about organic and sustainable baby products.

An angel investor and venture capitalist through the seed fund he co-founded, Red Swan, Andy has backed eighty startups. Notable investments include Coinbase, Scopely, Warby Parker, Dia & Co, Blueland, Ethena, and Modern Meadow.

Andy’s book with Penguin Random House on the intersection of entrepreneurship and mental illness is due out in May of 2022.

His next company is currently in stealth mode. All we know is it is called Whipped Cream, so stay tuned...

Andy has been recognized as Fortune’s 40 under 40, Crain’s 30 under 30, and chairman emeritus of education nonprofit the Blue Engine. He was a guest on NPR’s How I Built This with Guy Raz in 2019.

He received his B.A. at Northwestern and MBA from Stanford. Andy and his wife Manuela Zoninsein live with their baby boy Isaiah in Chicago.

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Alex Cruz, International DJ, has produced music for almost 30 years. At the age of 18, Alex left his hometown of Amsterdam for life at the beach. He realized he had a passion for music and started making his own. He partnered with a childhood friend who bought a mixing console, and they started djing for friends. He was 22 when he released his first track on LP vinyl. After 7 years, the childhood friend's paths separated, and Alex found himself on his own, free to find his signature sound.

Alex shares some of his most challenging obstacles to becoming a superstar DJ. Without formal music training, he had to learn everything on his own. He also struggled to make djing his full-time job by finding consistent work.

After years of hard work and so many sacrifices and hours spent trying to grow his audience, Alex started a SoundCloud profile, and within 5 days, he went from 50-5,000 plays per day. One and half years later, he quit the hustle and focused on his own vision. He now gets millions of listens a day.

He shares his creative process and his drive behind the unique music he makes.

"My purpose in life is to touch people through music. I love playing longer sets where I can create a journey and touch people throughout that journey. I want to feel people; I want to see their eyes, their body language, to see what is going on with them. Connecting people emotionally to music."

Alex now lives in Mexico and travels worldwide, bringing joy and happiness to thousands of people through his unique approach to creating music.

To hear Alex's music, visit his website and connect with I'm on Instagram.

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Kara Goldin started her career at Time Magazine and was quickly recruited by CNN for advertising sales. She then took a role at a small startup company called 2Market, where she was worried that she wouldn't contribute because she knew nothing about tech. 

But, Kara showed up every day, learning and growing, and when AOL acquired the company, she became the youngest Vice President and one of the few female leaders on the team. She managed a team of around two hundred people for years until she realized that she was missing out on her children's lives. 

"I have three kids back in San Francisco under the age of four. I cannot rewind their life. And I thought I'm hopping off this train," Kara told Chris. It was not an easy transition, and she was met with many naysayers, telling her she was making a mistake. Nevertheless, she persisted in her decision to be with her family and take a break. 

At the same time, Kara began with health issues. This was the catalyst that would change her life trajectory forever. 

Unbeknown to Kara, she was on her way to becoming one of the most well-recognized female entrepreneurs in the health and wellness industry today. 

Hint Water was born out of Kara's curiosity to find answers. Answers about her health issues and why "diet" drinks were deceiving consumers into believing they were healthy when they were, in fact, detrimental. 

"I mean, it was crazy because again, I think the challenge that people have is there are healthy perceptions versus healthy reality. And here I am, a smart person, a successful person, and I was fooled, right. It is really, really tricky."

Kara spent the next several years taking one step forward, two steps back, trying to bring Hint Water to the world. She eventually got her first break with Google and then Whole Foods. 

"Talking about superpower. I think my curiosity has always been probably one of the biggest superpowers that I have."

Kara has grown her water company into selling face and body products that are chemical-free. She also wrote Undaunted to share her life's journey to encourage other entrepreneurs to keep being curious and never lose faith. 

To learn more about Hint Water, visit https://www.drinkhint.com.

To learn more about Kara Goldin and her book undaunted, visit https://karagoldin.com.

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On this episode of the Superpowers podcast, Bill and Chris talk with Deborah Wahl, Global CMO at General Motors. Growing up, Deborah earned the nickname “Big D” from her siblings for her go-getter attitude and unrelenting pursuit of success. Deborah was born and raised in Detroit. Her father was in the auto industry and she did her first internship at GM back in the 80s. She told Bill and Chris, “I looked around and said ‘wow, this is a tough industry for women.’” Undeterred, she pressed on and triumphed. She received her MBA from Wharton and spent four years in the world of finance, travelling the world while working at Chase Bank. Later, she worked in Paris on a project for an anti-allergy bed sheet company that taught her important lessons on how to grow and develop a business. After 3 years in Paris, Deborah returned to America to seek out marketing jobs that would benefit from her global business perspective. She took an interview back in Detroit at Ford. “They picked us up from the airport and took us directly to the test track,” she told the hosts. The excitement drew Deborah back into the auto industry. She asked to be placed in Latin America and was offered a job as an Advertising Manager in Brazil. Deborah’s passion for marketing led to jobs at Mazda, Mercury, and Toyota. In 2007 she joined Chrysler and moved back to Detroit. That fateful decision changed her career course after the financial distress Chrysler faced the following year, causing Deborah to leave the auto industry for ten years. In 2014 she joined McDonald’s as CMO. Deborah told the hosts, “I couldn’t resist the challenge. It was an American company that needed to transform.” For three years she oversaw health changes in the menu and the implementation of “All Day Breakfast” – a move some considered key to the fast food giant’s turnaround in the 2010s. After McDonald’s, Deborah returned to the auto industry as the CMO of Cadillac in New York. A year leader, she took on her current role as the Global CMO of GM. Deborah has been instrumental in putting safety and electric vehicles at the forefront of GM’s branding. With her guidance, GM is making swift innovations to pursue its goals. Before leaving, Deborah shared advice for young women tackling the auto industry: “Watch who speaks to the room… often women don’t speak up. Take a seat at the table and don’t be afraid to speak up… listen to the other women in the room and build on their statements.” The hosts decided that Deborah’s superpower is the global perspective she’s brought to her hometown, the auto industry, and Detroit, as well as her willingness to take calculated risks with a tenacity that many people are too scared to do.

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On this episode of the Superpowers podcast, Bill and Chris bring on Lizzie Widhelm, SVP Ad Innovation and B2B Marketing at Pandora. Lizzie is a witty and influential executive in media technology whose experiences as a mother have helped guide her career and vice-versa. As she told the hosts, “Raising boys is like running a sales team. You set clear expectations.” Lizzie grew up living the surfer lifestyle in Newport Beach, California before leaving to study finance and accounting at University of Arizona. Her career path was unique. Lizzie worked as a Hooters server until her early 20s with plans to dive into the finance world post-graduation. Just before going off to New York City to take on Wall Street, a friend urged her to apply for a job at CBS Interactive. She interviewed for an assistant position at CBS Sports Line and took it. That marked the beginning of Lizzie’s media career. “I was pretty good at asking the right questions,” Lizzie told Bill and Chris. That mindset soon guided her to Viviendi Universal, where she worked as Sales Director and met her husband. Together, they left Viviendi together and dove into the world of ad tech. “I’m never focused on my feet being in one spot,” Lizzie said. It doesn’t serve you very well.” After two brief stops elsewhere, Lizzie joined Pandora. Soon after, the CEO of Pandora invited Lizzie to meet at their Oakland HQ. “It was a disgusting office,” she told the hosts, but underneath the surface Lizzie also saw the company’s potential. “The listeners kept coming… I wanted to be where people were.” She developed a strategy for using Pandora as a platform for high-value ad buys. “I felt like we could sell at TV level CBMs if we got the user experience right… I bring that spirit into work today.” Lizzie has worn many hats in the 15 years since she joined Pandora. She climbed from VP of Sales for the West Coast to SVP of Ad Innovation and B2B Marketing. She also leads a small sales team for Pandora’s beta products. “I’ve never let go of my love for being in front of clients and selling products,” Lizzie told the hosts. After hearing Lizzie’s personal and professional story, the hosts determined her superpower is her ability to trust others and gain trust from her colleagues. She’s a decisive leader who achieves goals by driving productivity and innovation with talented people.

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