Tech In Chicago

By Colin Keeley

What's Tech In Chicago about?

Tech In Chicago takes you inside the Chicago tech world. Each week Colin Keeley is joined by Chicago’s top startup founders and venture capitalists to talk about the amazing companies being built right here. Visit TechInChicago.co for more information.

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Tech In Chicago episodes:

04.24.2020
Helping Restaurants Make the Most of the Internet - Sterling Douglass & Justin McNally / Co-Founders of Chowly
Sterling Douglass & Justin McNally, Co-Founders of Chowly, a restaurant technology company that integrates third-party online ordering platforms with restaurants' point-of-sale (POS) systems. Sponsored by: Starting Line VC: A new Chicago-based venture capital firm, founded by Ezra Galston, one of our top ...
02.05.2020
The Cannabis Marketplace Bringing the Industry Online - James Yi / Founder of LeafTrade
James Yi is the Founder and CEO of LeafTrade, a startup building a wholesale ordering platform connecting licensed cannabis vendors and dispensaries. Before LeafTrade, dispensaries were doing most of this work manually with emails, calls, and spreadsheets. With Chicago legalizing recreational cannabis it...
12.09.2019
Turning Data into Stories - Stuart Frankel / Founder of Narrative Science
Stuart Frankel is the Founder & CEO of Narrative Science, which translates all the data companies produce into digestible information. The company started out producing software that turned raw baseball scores into stories for reporters. They have raised $43.4M in...
11.18.2019
Selling a Bootstrapped Startup for $22M, Building a Marketplace, Manufactured Housing - Dave Bowen / CEO of Purchasing Platform
Dave Bowen is the CEO of Purchasing Platform, an online marketplace for real estate developers to buy products for their properties. Before Purchasing Platform, Dave was the founder of Market Maker 4 (MM4), an e-sourcing tech startup, which he bootstrapped...
10.28.2019
Future of Travel, Growth Hacking Instagram, Doing Things That Don't Scale - Konrad Waliszewski / Founder of TripScout
Konrad Waliszewski is the CEO and a co-founder of TripScout, a startup making a travel app that curates the best recommendations around the world and provides trip-planning tools. Konrad, a long time digital nomad, has visited 100 countries and Forbes...
08.20.2019
Chicago's Next Consumer Unicorn - Steven Galanis / Founder of Cameo
Steven Galanis is the Founder & CEO of Cameo, a startup that allows you to book personalized shoutouts from your favorite people. Cameo has raised over $65m in VC funding with a reported $300 million valuation from some big names...
07.25.2019
The Free School Preparing Anyone for a Sales Jobs in Tech - Brian Bar / Founder of Victory Lap
Brian Bar is the Founder and CEO of Victory Lap, a sales bootcamp empowers candidates from all different backgrounds to find success in sales. Before launching the business, Brian served as the VP of Sales for ThinkCERCA, where he devised...
06.21.2019
From Dot-Com Bust to Late Bloomer Entrepreneur - Jeff Hunt / Founder of Snap36
Jeff Hunt is the Founder of Snap36, a 360° product-photography startup that works with everyone from Amazon to small, family-owned businesses to optimize their e-retail photography. Jeff got his start in the late 70s as a Kodak salesman and worked...
05.26.2019
Building a Valley Company in the Chicago Way / Brian Luerssen (CEO) & Tim Grace (COO) @ DraftBit & VCs @ LongJump Fund
Brian Luerssen is the CEO & Tim Grace is the COO of DraftBit, a startup building a new way to build cross-platform, native iOS and Android apps in minutes instead of months, and they are both Venture Capitalists at LongJump...
04.09.2019
Disrupting the Massive Commercial Real Estate Market - Tom Smith / Co-Founder of Truss
Tom Smith is the Co-Founder of Truss, a commercial real estate platform that helps small businesses find office space. You can think of them as Airbnb for commercial real estate. The company's marketplace allows one to find, explore, compare, lease and...
02.21.2019
BenchPrep’s Amazing Turnaround Story - Ashish Rangnekar / Co-Founder of BenchPrep
Ashish Rangnekar is the CEO and Co-Founder of BenchPrep, a SaaS learning platform for education and training companies to create and deliver personalized digital learning programs across multiple devices. They have helped millions of people all around the world learn better and...
10.16.2017
From Opera Singer to Founder of the Most Successful App Kickstarter Ever - Gabriel Wyner / Founder of Fluent Forever
Gabriel Wyner is the Founder and CEO of Fluent Forever, a startup that aims to help anyone learn a language quickly and remember it forever. He launched a bestselling book 4 years ago and now has the most successful...
10.09.2017
What Is Chris Gladwin up to After Selling Cleversafe for $1.3 Billion? Building Ocient to Revolutionize Big Data Analytics
Chris Gladwin is the CEO and Founder of Ocient, a startup building software that enables sophisticated users of data to handle massive amounts of information fast enough to make real-time decisions. Two years ago Chris sold his data storage company...
09.13.2017
Making Parents Lives Better with Healthy Kids Lunches & How a Porn Site Led to a Big Rebrand - Rebecca Sholiton & Nate Cooper / Wise Apple
Rebecca Sholiton and Nate Cooper are the Co-Founders of Wise Apple(formally Pak'd), a startup that delivers pre-made, customizable school lunches directly to families’ homes. They just announced their $3.6 million seed round led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital and...
09.01.2017
Stanford to Chicago to Raising $9 Million and Reinventing Millennial Investing - Brian Barnes / Founder of M1 Finance
Brian Barnes is the CEO and Founder of M1 Finance, a startup making an automated investment tool that lets users put their money to work in a balanced portfolio without the hassle of actually managing it. Just a few years...
07.29.2017
Creating the Next Corner Store in the Age of Amazon - Michael LaVitola / Founder of Foxtrot
Michael LaVitola is the CEO and Founder of Foxtrot, a startup that could be thought of as a curated cornerstore with on-demand delivery. It is basically what you imagine your ideal convenience store would look like with an in store...
05.13.2017
Building a Platform for the $112 Billion Party Planning Industry - Julie Novack / Co-Founder of PartySlate
Julie Novack is the CEO and a Co-Founder of PartySlate, a startup building a two-sided platform that allows event professionals to share their work and party hosts to gain inspiration from it. PartySlate has raised $2.6 million from...
03.23.2017
Helping NBA and NFL Players Sleep More and Play Better - Jeff Kahn / Co-Founder of Rise Science
Jeff Kahn is a Co-Founder and CEO of Rise Science, a sleep behavior change startup that provides sleep coaching for elite athletes. They harness the science behind sleep, and give elite athletes the power to perform at their best with the help...
02.22.2017
Revolutionizing Small Business Lending with Data & Technology - George Souri / Founder of LQD Business Finance
George Souri is the Founder and CEO of LQD Business Finance, a startup providing quick, convenient, and affordable financing to small and medium-sized businesses that are traditionally underbanked. LQD is leveraging data to offer business loans in the $250,000 to $3 million range...
01.18.2017
Troy Henikoff of Techstars on Crafting a Great Pitch, the Power of 0, Cycling, BB8, & Transforming Startups in 90 Days
Troy Henikoff is the Managing Director at Techstars Chicago, a Managing Director at MATH Venture Partners, and a Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business. If you haven't...
12.31.2016
How to Build a Two Sided Marketplace & Fixing Car Maintenance - Greg Tepas / Founder of CarAdvise
Greg Tepas is the Founder and CEO of CarAdvise, a startup that makes car maintenance easy and transparent. CarAdvise acts as a personal auto repair concierge and advisor for car owners. They provide an unbiased opinion on proposed work and...
12.07.2016
Building the Future of Business Intelligence, Lessons From Techstars & Value in the Imperfect - Jeff Judge / Founder of Bright
Jeff Judge is the Founder and CEO of Bright, a startup that helps SaaS companies quickly understand their core metrics, and gives them the tools to grow faster. Bright just graduated from the 2016 Techstars class here in Chicago. Before founding...
12.03.2016
Sitting down with the Warby Parker of Furniture - Rob Royer / Founder of Interior Define
Rob Royer is the Founder and CEO of Interior Define, a startup that builds furniture on demand and will customize everything, including the size, shape, color, fabric, filling, and frame. Rob was one of the early employees at Bonobos and...
11.22.2016
Building the Warby Parker of Men's Skincare - Mia Saini & Laura Lisowski / Co-Founders of Oars + Alps
Mia Saini & Laura Lisowski are Co-Founders of Oars + Alps, a new e-commerce startup selling men’s skincare products that target an "athleisure guy on the go". Their first products are a face moisturizer, a deodorant,...
11.10.2016
How 3D Carving & 3D Printing Will Shape the Future - Zach Kaplan / Founder of Inventables
Zach Kaplan is the Founder and CEO of Inventables, which makes software and hardware for 3D carving. Their flagship products Easel, Carvey, and X-Carve are used by a new wave of makers to make everything from circuit boards to skate...
11.03.2016
Jellyvision’s Amanda Lannert on Humor, Culture, Sharks, Diversity, Liberal Arts, Massage Chairs, and Networking
Amanda Lannert is the CEO of Jellyvision, which makes ALEX, an interactive decision-support tool that talks you through traditionally boring and confusing human resource decisions like picking health insurance and makes them fun and engaging. The Jellyvision of today has...
10.27.2016
The Future of the Gig Economy With VC Turned Founder - Eddie Lou / Co-Founder of Shiftgig
Eddie Lou is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shiftgig, a mobile, two-sided labor marketplace connecting large venues in the service and hospitality industries with locally available and previously vetted hourly workers. Shiftgig is one of the leaders in the gig economy, acting as...
10.20.2016
Solving Big Problems With Big Data - Dan Wagner / Founder of Civis Analytics
Dan Wagner is the Founder and CEO of Civis Analytics, a startup that helps companies, non-profits, and campaigns leverage their data to develop smarter strategy, make better decisions, and build stronger, data-driven organizations. Before founding Civis Analytics, Dan Wagner was the Chief...
10.13.2016
Virtual Reality, the Future of Retail, & Selling to Big Business - Tracey Wiedmeyer / Co-Founder of InContext Solutions
Tracey Wiedmeyer is the CTO and a Co-Founder of InContext Solutions, the leader in scalable virtual reality (VR) shopping and retail solutions. InContext Solutions lets manufacturers and retailers simulate real in-store shopping situations to ideate, evaluate and activate all types of merchandising,...
10.06.2016
SpotHero's Mark Lawrence on Building a Marketplace Business, Meditation, & Why If It's Not a Fuck Yes, It's a Fuck No
Mark Lawrence is the CEO and Co-Founder of SpotHero, an on-demand parking app and website that makes drivers’ lives easier by helping them find and reserve a parking for up to 50% off. Mark along with his co-founders started the company after...
09.28.2016
Machine Learning, Fintech, & the Future of Payments - Canh Tran / Co-Founder of Rippleshot
Canh Tran is the CEO and Co-Founder of Rippleshot, a startup that detects payment card data breaches. They take a big-data machine learning approach, more common in search, genetics and advertising, and apply it in a novel way for the payment processing industry to...
09.22.2016
Sparking Conversations One Shoe at a Time - Raaja Nemani / Co-Founder of Bucketfeet
Raaja Nemani is a Co-Founder and CEO of Bucketfeet, a footwear startup that collaborates with a global community of artists to design limited-edition shoes. The idea began in Argentina when Aaron Firestein gave Raaja a pair of hand-designed canvas sneakers inspired by...
09.15.2016
What Does the Future of Education Look Like? - Shaily Baranwal / Founder of Elevate K-12 & Classblox
Shaily Baranwal is the CEO and Founder of Elevate K-12 and Classblox. Elevate K-12 provides digital instruction and online resources to millions of at-risk students across the US. Since launching in 2008, Elevate K-12 has provided over 1 million hours of online instruction and has...
09.09.2016
Disrupting the Used Car Market With Data - Kayne Grau / Founder of DRIVIN
Kayne Grau is a Co-Founder and CEO of DRIVIN, a startup changing the way used-car dealers source their used-car inventory. Before founding DRIVIN, Kayne was the CTO at Cars.com. Using proprietary technology and actionable local market data, DRIVIN sells, sources, acquires and...
08.26.2016
Why Join A Tech Accelerator & Why VCs Start Accelerators - Constance Freedman / VC @ Moderne Ventures
Constance Freedman is the Founder and Managing Partner of Moderne Ventures, an early stage venture fund and accelerator investing in technology companies in real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance, and home services. These are multi-trillion dollar industries that make up well over 20% of...
08.19.2016
What An Ideal Startup Looks Like & Deal Sourcing With A Podcast - Nick Moran / The Full Ratchet
Nick Moran is a co-founder and Managing Director of New Stack Ventures and Moran Capital Partners. He also started the very popular The Full Ratchet podcast, where he interviews venture capital and angel investing experts on successful startup fundraising and investing strategy. Nick asked me to...
08.09.2016
How To Deal With Bad Press & Competing In The Crowded Coffee Market - Philip Tadros / Founder Doejo & Bow Truss
Philip Tadros is a true serial entrepreneur and restauranteur. He is the founder of Doejo, a digital agency, Dollop Coffee, a cafe and bakery, Bow Truss Coffee, a coffee roastery and cafe, The Budlong, a hot chicken restaurant chain, SPACE, a co-working space, and...
07.20.2016
Personalized Medicine, 3D Printing, Snapchat & Networking - Dima Elissa / Founder of VisMed3D
Dima Elissa is the founder and CEO of VisMed3D, a startup providing 3D surgical patient replicas for state-of-the-art treatment and training of doctors. Based in Matter, the startup is on the cutting edge of personalized medicine. In addition to her...
07.13.2016
Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare Startups, Wearables & Diversity - Star Cunningham / Founder of 4DHealthware
Star Cunningham is the Founder and CEO of 4DHealthware, a startup that provides artificially intelligent "nudges", SMS and email messages, to patients with chronic conditions based on data collected via 250 wearable devices like bluetooth glucometers and activity trackers. Medicare now...
07.06.2016
Investing In Design-Led Companies & What Chicago Tech Is Missing - John Roa / AKTA & Roa Ventures
John Roa is a serial tech entrepreneur and long time Chicagoan. He got his entrepreneurial start by creating a computer repair business at 14 and hasn't stopped since. Last year, he sold ÄKTA, his tech-consulting and design firm, to Salesforce. Now John...
06.29.2016
Livestreaming, Virtual Reality, E-Sports & Hiring Your Biggest Critic - Stu Grubbs / Founder of Infiniscene
Stu Grubbs is a Co-Founder and CEO of Infiniscene, a startup building the easiest way to livestream video. They enable gamers, and now Facebook and Youtube streamers, to easily create beautiful live broadcasts in their web browser without any experience or...
06.22.2016
The Future Of Food Tech & How To Raise $100k In Your First Day On Kickstarter - David Rabie / Founder of Tovala
David Rabie is the Founder and CEO of Tovala, the creator of a smart oven that cooks perfectly made meals by baking, boiling and steaming them in under 30 minutes. The meals can either be delivered prepackaged from Tovala or be...
06.10.2016
How To Decide If Your Idea Is Worth Pursuing & How To Sell Your Product - Landon Shoop / Co-Founder of Fizz
Landon Shoop, along with his wife Jennifer Shoop, started Fizz, a team management tool that makes developing employees easy. At his old job, Landon became frustrated while preparing for another yearly performance review and he decided there must be something better. Together...
06.03.2016
Social Impact, Helping Clinton Beat Trump & Engaging Communities - Michael Slaby / Founder of Timshel
Michael Slaby is the Founder and Head of Mission of Timshel, a startup that has developed a platform called The Groundwork to give organizations and brands more powerful digital tools to analyze all the data they are producing, help them...
05.23.2016
Working with Obama, Empowering Non-Profits, & How Bands Are Like Startups - Jason Kunesh / Co-Founder of Public Good
Jason Kunesh is a co-founder and CEO of Public Good Software, a startup aiming to make donating to non-profits as easy as ordering something on Amazon. Before starting PGS, Jason was the Director of UX for Obama's 2012 reelection campaign...
05.16.2016
How To Land A Job At A Startup & The Biggest Mistake 1st Time Founders Make - Gale Bowman / Founding Director of Irish Angels
Gale Bowman is the founding director of Irish Angels, an angel network dedicated to early stage investments in which a founder, board member, or active investor is a student, graduate, parent, or faculty member of the University of Notre Dame. After...
05.05.2016
Bootstrapping to 300+ Employees & Offices on 3 Continents - Craig Vodnik / Co-Founder of Cleverbridge
Craig Vodnik is a co-founder of Cleverbridge, a global subscription billing provider. Founded in 2005, Cleverbridge has grown to 300+ employees with offices in Cologne (Germany), Chicago, San Francisco and Tokyo. They have done this all without raising any outside money. At...
04.21.2016
How To Steal Business Away From Multi-Billion Dollar Competitors - Jacob Babcock / Founder of NuCurrent
Jacob Babcock is the founder and CEO of NuCurrent, a wireless power company that has designed the world's fastest, smallest, and most efficient wireless power antennas. If you have ever wondered why we still have to deal with all these...
04.14.2016
Why Pornographers & Criminals Make For Great Customers & Chicago Tech History - Jeff Carter / VC at Hyde Park Angels & West Loop Ventures
Jeff Carter is a co-founder of Hyde Park Angels, one of the most active angel groups in the United States, and he is currently raising a VC fund, named West Loop Ventures. Before becoming an angel he was a trader for...
04.07.2016
How Clean Eating Helped Beat Chronic Illness & Launch Her Startup - Katlin Smith / Founder of Simple Mills
Katlin Smith is the founder of Simple Mills, a food startup that only uses simple, whole food ingredients. While working as a consultant, Katlin discovered she had a gluten-sensitivity and started experimenting with her almond-flour baking mixes on the weekends. ...

What's Tech In Chicago about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Tech In Chicago episodes:

Helping Restaurants Make the Most of the Internet - Sterling Douglass & Justin McNally / Co-Founders of Chowly

The Cannabis Marketplace Bringing the Industry Online - James Yi / Founder of LeafTrade

Turning Data into Stories - Stuart Frankel / Founder of Narrative Science

Selling a Bootstrapped Startup for $22M, Building a Marketplace, Manufactured Housing - Dave Bowen / CEO of Purchasing Platform

Future of Travel, Growth Hacking Instagram, Doing Things That Don't Scale - Konrad Waliszewski / Founder of TripScout

Chicago's Next Consumer Unicorn - Steven Galanis / Founder of Cameo

The Free School Preparing Anyone for a Sales Jobs in Tech - Brian Bar / Founder of Victory Lap

From Dot-Com Bust to Late Bloomer Entrepreneur - Jeff Hunt / Founder of Snap36

Building a Valley Company in the Chicago Way / Brian Luerssen (CEO) & Tim Grace (COO) @ DraftBit & VCs @ LongJump Fund

Disrupting the Massive Commercial Real Estate Market - Tom Smith / Co-Founder of Truss

BenchPrep’s Amazing Turnaround Story - Ashish Rangnekar / Co-Founder of BenchPrep

From Opera Singer to Founder of the Most Successful App Kickstarter Ever - Gabriel Wyner / Founder of Fluent Forever

What Is Chris Gladwin up to After Selling Cleversafe for $1.3 Billion? Building Ocient to Revolutionize Big Data Analytics

Making Parents Lives Better with Healthy Kids Lunches & How a Porn Site Led to a Big Rebrand - Rebecca Sholiton & Nate Cooper / Wise Apple

Stanford to Chicago to Raising $9 Million and Reinventing Millennial Investing - Brian Barnes / Founder of M1 Finance

Creating the Next Corner Store in the Age of Amazon - Michael LaVitola / Founder of Foxtrot

Building a Platform for the $112 Billion Party Planning Industry - Julie Novack / Co-Founder of PartySlate

Helping NBA and NFL Players Sleep More and Play Better - Jeff Kahn / Co-Founder of Rise Science

Revolutionizing Small Business Lending with Data & Technology - George Souri / Founder of LQD Business Finance

Troy Henikoff of Techstars on Crafting a Great Pitch, the Power of 0, Cycling, BB8, & Transforming Startups in 90 Days

How to Build a Two Sided Marketplace & Fixing Car Maintenance - Greg Tepas / Founder of CarAdvise

Building the Future of Business Intelligence, Lessons From Techstars & Value in the Imperfect - Jeff Judge / Founder of Bright

Sitting down with the Warby Parker of Furniture - Rob Royer / Founder of Interior Define

Building the Warby Parker of Men's Skincare - Mia Saini & Laura Lisowski / Co-Founders of Oars + Alps

How 3D Carving & 3D Printing Will Shape the Future - Zach Kaplan / Founder of Inventables

Jellyvision’s Amanda Lannert on Humor, Culture, Sharks, Diversity, Liberal Arts, Massage Chairs, and Networking

The Future of the Gig Economy With VC Turned Founder - Eddie Lou / Co-Founder of Shiftgig

Solving Big Problems With Big Data - Dan Wagner / Founder of Civis Analytics

Virtual Reality, the Future of Retail, & Selling to Big Business - Tracey Wiedmeyer / Co-Founder of InContext Solutions

SpotHero's Mark Lawrence on Building a Marketplace Business, Meditation, & Why If It's Not a Fuck Yes, It's a Fuck No

Machine Learning, Fintech, & the Future of Payments - Canh Tran / Co-Founder of Rippleshot

Sparking Conversations One Shoe at a Time - Raaja Nemani / Co-Founder of Bucketfeet

What Does the Future of Education Look Like? - Shaily Baranwal / Founder of Elevate K-12 & Classblox

Disrupting the Used Car Market With Data - Kayne Grau / Founder of DRIVIN

Why Join A Tech Accelerator & Why VCs Start Accelerators - Constance Freedman / VC @ Moderne Ventures

What An Ideal Startup Looks Like & Deal Sourcing With A Podcast - Nick Moran / The Full Ratchet

How To Deal With Bad Press & Competing In The Crowded Coffee Market - Philip Tadros / Founder Doejo & Bow Truss

Personalized Medicine, 3D Printing, Snapchat & Networking - Dima Elissa / Founder of VisMed3D

Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare Startups, Wearables & Diversity - Star Cunningham / Founder of 4DHealthware

Investing In Design-Led Companies & What Chicago Tech Is Missing - John Roa / AKTA & Roa Ventures

Livestreaming, Virtual Reality, E-Sports & Hiring Your Biggest Critic - Stu Grubbs / Founder of Infiniscene

The Future Of Food Tech & How To Raise $100k In Your First Day On Kickstarter - David Rabie / Founder of Tovala

How To Decide If Your Idea Is Worth Pursuing & How To Sell Your Product - Landon Shoop / Co-Founder of Fizz

Social Impact, Helping Clinton Beat Trump & Engaging Communities - Michael Slaby / Founder of Timshel

Working with Obama, Empowering Non-Profits, & How Bands Are Like Startups - Jason Kunesh / Co-Founder of Public Good

How To Land A Job At A Startup & The Biggest Mistake 1st Time Founders Make - Gale Bowman / Founding Director of Irish Angels

Bootstrapping to 300+ Employees & Offices on 3 Continents - Craig Vodnik / Co-Founder of Cleverbridge

How To Steal Business Away From Multi-Billion Dollar Competitors - Jacob Babcock / Founder of NuCurrent

Why Pornographers & Criminals Make For Great Customers & Chicago Tech History - Jeff Carter / VC at Hyde Park Angels & West Loop Ventures

How Clean Eating Helped Beat Chronic Illness & Launch Her Startup - Katlin Smith / Founder of Simple Mills