Tech Startup Network Podcast with Ashley DiBiase

Carmen Banks, PhD is the Founder & CEO of MelanInScience, an organization that’s reimagining the future of biotech and life sciences by building pathways for underrepresented talent. They connect academic training to industry opportunity through industry-backed programming, internships, and partnerships with leading biotech and biopharma companies.

Since their founding in 2024, Carmen and her team have impacted hundreds of students across 15 states and 20 countries.

During this episode, we discuss:

• An intro to Dr. Carmen Banks, founder and CEO of MelanInScience, a scientist and entrepreneur working to bridge the gap between academia and the biotech industry
• How Carmen’s background as a cell and molecular biologist shaped her path through early-stage biotech startups, including lab-grown meat, drug discovery, and ag tech
• Why MelanInScience was created
• The importance of exposing life sciences students to career paths beyond healthcare and academia
• How MelanInScience’s STEM Connect program helps undergraduate and graduate students prepare for industry roles
• Carmen’s approach to building a mission-driven community of more than 4,000 people in two years
• Lessons on avoiding burnout, managing “shiny object syndrome,” and choosing intentional growth
• What’s next for MelanInScience
• Carmen’s advice for founders and community builders

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things biotech!

Elvia Perez is a Senior Associate at Las Olas Venture Capital (LOVC). Before joining the team, she built her experience in investment banking at Barclays and in early-stage investing at Inicio Ventures. Elvia holds a B.A. in Economics and Entrepreneurship from Brown University, where she was selected as the Economics Department’s commencement speaker. While at Brown, she founded EmpowerU, an edtech startup that advanced through Brown’s B-Lab Accelerator, the Venture Prize competitions, and later Techstars. She also served as a Peer Entrepreneur in Residence at the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship and as Director of Brown EP, Brown’s flagship student entrepreneurship program. In her free time, Elvia loves listening to live music, giving back through her work with GirlsIntoVC, spending time with her dog Cash, and relaxing by the beach.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Elvia’s path from founder to investor and how her operating experience shapes the way she evaluates startups
• Las Olas Venture Capital’s focus/niche
• Elvia’s early experience building EmpowerU
• How founder experience can help investors better support portfolio companies beyond capital
• What makes a startup stand out at the seed stage
• The importance of founder-market fit, proprietary data, end-to-end workflow ownership, and defensibility in AI companies
• Common mistakes founders make when pitching investors
• How young founders can strengthen their teams by bringing in experienced operators, technical leaders, or industry experts
• South Florida’s growing startup and investor ecosystem
• Elvia’s advice for aspiring VCs

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things venture!

David Berg is the CEO and founder of CommanderAI, a company at the forefront of leveraging artificial intelligence to transform the waste management industry. Under his leadership, CommanderAI has raised over $5 million in funding and grown to a team of 15+ employees serving customers across the U.S. and Canada. The company was selected from 8,000 applicants as one of 70 startups to participate in Antler VC’s prestigious accelerator program. David’s vision is to revolutionize the industry by using AI to optimize sales operations, drive efficiencies, and solve complex business challenges. CommanderAI is actively preparing for its Series A round in 2026, positioning itself for long-term growth and market leadership.

During this episode, we discuss:

• David Berg shares how his experience at Battle Motors exposed a major technology gap in the waste management industry
• Why legacy industries often continue operating on paper, spreadsheets, and relationship-driven workflows and where that creates opportunity for founders
• How CommanderAI is building a purpose-built sales intelligence platform for waste haulers, helping companies find, manage, and retain customers
• Why simplicity matters when selling software into legacy markets
• How Commander supports same-day onboarding with hands-on implementation
• A look inside Commander’s three core product areas
• David’s advice for founders building in legacy markets
• Lessons from scaling Commander’s team
• Fundraising lessons from Commander’s $5M seed round
• Why relationship-building has been critical to Commander’s customer acquisition strategy
• How David sets aside time for himself as a founder

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things legacy markets!

Shweta Agrawal is a high-impact technology and AI product leader known for turning bold ideas into scalable products and growth. She is the Chief Product Officer at Boston New Technology and Co-President of ProductCamp Boston, she helps founders, executives, and product teams build winning products and accelerate go-to-market success.

With experience spanning AI, product strategy, GTM, digital transformation, and startup growth, Shweta is recognized for translating emerging technology into real business outcomes. She is a trusted advisor, speaker, mentor, and judge who has helped countless startups sharpen strategy, find traction, and scale with confidence.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Shweta’s unconventional path from aspiring neurosurgeon to computer science, product leadership, AI, startups, and ecosystem building
• How impact drives her work
• The importance of talking to potential users early
• What you should know about go-to-market strategy
• Why pivots are often necessary and can be a sign that founders are learning from real market feedback
• What Boston New Technology is and how they support the tech ecosystem
• Shweta’s leadership of Techstars Startup Weekend Boston
• Her advice for aspiring founders

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things product and go-to-market strategy!

Ola Jewusiak, VP of Marketing at Jump Capital, is a generalist who tends to do her best work in environments that are a little undefined, where there’s real urgency and no clear playbook.

At Jump, she leads brand, website, content, and events, and regularly advises founders on how to tell their story when it matters most. Her work has included launching a full website and brand refresh in 12 weeks, and building content and programs that translate complex AI and ML, trading, and research work into something people can actually understand.

Earlier in her career, she launched Sharp Capital Advisors in six weeks, built an SDR function from scratch at Caremerge, and helped drive momentum and funding at the James Jordan Foundation. She also worked on three presidential campaigns, from Howard Dean to Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama in 2007, which is where she learned a lot about storytelling, urgency, and how momentum actually builds.

What ties it all together is how she works: moving across functions, figuring things out quickly, solving problems with empathy, and caring a lot about making things that hold up in the real world.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Ola’s unexpected path from politics and journalism into financial services, startups, investment banking, and venture capital
• How storytelling, narrative-building, and communications skills from politics translated into a career in marketing and VC platform
• The role of serendipity, relationships, and networking in breaking into venture capital, including the recruiter conversation that led Ola to Jump Capital
• Why reframing networking as “meeting a new friend” can make relationship-building feel more natural and valuable
• A look inside Ola’s role at Jump Capital, where she leads brand, website, content, events, and advises portfolio founders on marketing strategy
• The value of being a generalist marketer in lean startup and venture environments
• How PR and marketing are changing for startups, including why trade publications may sometimes be more valuable than major national media
• Ola’s perspective on AI adoption across startups
• How events, community-building, and experiential gatherings are becoming even more important
• Practical marketing advice for early-stage founders
• Advice for people looking to break into venture capital or platform roles

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things marketing!

Erynn Petersen is the founder of Emme, a seed-stage healthcare company building the consumer decision layer for healthcare costs. They start at the highest-leverage moment — insurance and basic medical services — where consumers routinely make four-figure mistakes and trust is earned quickly. Erynn has spent her career building and scaling consumer technology at scale (hundreds of millions of MAU). Among other things, she’s been an early builder at Amazon pre-IPO, helped scale a marketplace business at Microsoft, and served as CTO at Drizly through its acquisition by Uber for over $1B.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How Emme began as a smart birth control company before evolving into a broader healthcare affordability platform
• The difference between building a product and building a company
• A major lesson from Emme’s pivots
• The challenge of balancing long-term strategic thinking with the near-term survival needs of an early-stage startup.
• Why healthtech is especially difficult but also has opportunities
• How relationship-building, consistency, empathy, and repeatedly showing up over time have been critical to earning trust in the healthcare ecosystem
• Why Erynn is committed to building Emme in Rhode Island
• Why Emme has remained bootstrapped so far
• Erynn’s advice to early founders

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things healthcare!

Leah Nurik is the co-founder and CEO of Brandi AI, the leading AI visibility and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform. Nurik launched Brandi in 2025 after recognizing that generative AI was transforming discovery and creating a critical visibility gap for brands. Today, she leads the company in empowering CMOs, product marketers, digital strategists, content creators and PR leaders with data-driven insights and benchmarks that fuel demand creation, sharpen category positioning and build brand authority in AI-first channels.

A proven entrepreneur and marketing innovator, Nurik has built her career at the intersection of technology, strategy and growth. Earlier in her career, before launching Gabriel Marketing Group (GMG), she served as a go-to-market lead for Motorola’s enterprise device business, consulting with more than 300 application partners on product marketing, distribution and revenue strategy. She helped scale the company’s field mobility applications business from $25 million to $250 million in annual revenue in under five years.

In 2011, Nurik applied those lessons to found GMG, an award-winning PR and marketing agency that became a trusted partner to more than 400 high-growth technology companies. Under her leadership, GMG helped SaaS and B2B tech brands through product launches, funding milestones and successful exits—earning more than 100 national awards for creative excellence and campaign impact. Her background in SaaS product marketing and category development continues to inform her work at Brandi, where she helps marketing leaders adapt to the next evolution in the AI era.

With over 25 years of experience in B2B tech PR, SaaS marketing and strategic communications, Nurik has been recognized by PR News, DC Inno, and SmartCEO as a leader reshaping modern marketing. Her career reflects a relentless curiosity about how technology changes buyer behavior and a track record of building strategies, companies and platforms that keep marketers ahead of disruption and drive measurable results.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Who Leah is and what her background is
• What generative engine optimization (GEO) is
• Why AI visibility matters for brands
• Leah’s background in product marketing, PR, and agency work
• First steps companies should take to improve GEO
• Why traditional SEO still matters
• The relationship between PR, earned media, and AI citations
• The importance of authenticity and long-term brand credibility
• Why GEO is an ongoing, living strategy rather than a one-time effort
• The role of social media in AI visibility
• What companies need to do in 2026 to improve AI visibility

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things GEO!

Jim Conti is the Talent Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners and has been with the firm since 2021. In this role, Jim provides strategic talent support and consulting to the firm's portfolio of companies. Prior to Hyde Park Venture Partners, Jim served as head of people at dscout and Sprout Social — both Chicago-based software startups. In these roles, Jim built, grew, and oversaw teams across recruitment, talent management, DEI, culture, HR, and benefits strategy. The impact of this work is seen in awards from Glassdoor, Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago, and Built in Chicago.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Jim’s role as Talent Partner at Hyde Park Venture Partners and how he supports portfolio companies post-investment
• Hyde Park’s investment focus on early-stage software companies across the Midwest, Toronto, and Atlanta
• How startup hiring has evolved from pure headcount planning to balancing humans, AI, and automation
• Jim’s unconventional path into venture capital through startup people leadership and community involvement
• Networking advice for job seekers
• Why community and relationships matter more than ever in today’s hiring environment
• Jim’s perspective on how AI is changing recruiting for both candidates and hiring teams
• Why the Midwest is a compelling region for tech growth, including economic diversity and industry depth
• Practical advice for tech job seekers on standing out in a competitive market
• Why candidates should actively experiment with AI tools and be ready to discuss them in interviews
• Encouragement for early-career talent as new AI-native roles begin to emerge
• Why job searching should be treated like a job, with structure across applications, networking, learning, and rest
• The importance of making time for joy during a long job search

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things talent!

Garima Shah is a dynamic, results-oriented FinTech executive with over 18 years of extensive experience driving revenue growth through strategic business development, corporate acquisitions, and a motivational, hands-on leadership approach. As a sought-after industry expert with a vast network and deep-rooted connections, Shah is committed to revolutionizing the payments and fintech landscape.

As President and Co-Founder of Biller Genie, Shah is instrumental in expanding the company’s subscriber base by forging strategic partnerships and fostering a collaborative company culture. Previously, she served as the Chief Business Development Officer for Direct Connect, where she successfully guided the company through a management recapitalization and a lucrative sale to Priority Payment Systems (PRTH) in 2019. Shah’s notable career also includes roles such as SVP at Century Payments and Head of the US Market for eMerchantPay, where she launched the European company into the US market.

Her leadership style radiates positivity, and peers describe her as a “consummate deal-maker” capable of creating mutually beneficial partnerships in any situation. Shah’s accolades include being named in the Orlando Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, NYC Fintech Women’s CEO of the Year, and a recipient of the Electronic Transaction Association's 40 Under 40 award. She was also recognized as “Female Businesswoman of the Year” by the Indian American Chamber of Commerce. Shah’s achievements led to her inclusion in the Forbes Next 100 list of Upstart Entrepreneurs Redefining the American Dream and as a “Women of the Year” by Orlando Magazine.

A coveted industry speaker, Shah is praised for her ability to motivate and educate audiences, having spoken at numerous conferences on topics such as The Value of the MVP, FinTech advancements, and Strategies for Women in the Workplace. She also hosts a LinkedIn livestream, “Gab with Garima,” offering business insights to over 100k viewers.

In 2024, Shah founded Brown Girls on a Mission, an initiative dedicated to empowering women of color in business and technology, reinforcing her commitment to diversity and inclusion. She has served on multiple boards through her career and enjoys giving back through mentorship and non-profit work. Shah holds a BS from Boston University in Advertising and Mass Communication and an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship from Rollins College, Crummer Graduate School of Business.

Beyond her fintech endeavors, Shah is a lifelong dancer, earning accolades at numerous competitions and performing at Orlando Magic halftime shows.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How Garima has been in fintech before it was called fintech
• Deciding to change direction with Biller Genie two months after launching
• An overview of how Biller Genie works
• How AI is integrated into their platform
• The moment Garima knew Biller Genie was going to be something big
• What raising a series B did for the company
• How Garima views herself as a leader
• Her advice to any fintech founder

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things fintech!

Lakshmi Natarajan is an Indian-American global executive, strategic advisor, community leader, and investor with over 20 years of experience helping Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups define customer strategy, drive sustainable growth, and optimize operations. Her corporate career spans senior leadership roles across marketing, management consulting, strategy, sales, and operations, with experience at organizations including American Express, Accenture, GlaxoSmithKline, Oracle, Compass, and a broad portfolio of global clients.

With a strong foundation in global enterprises, Lakshmi bridges corporate rigor with agile startup execution. She is the Founder and CEO of Excelador, where she advises startups and large enterprises through strategic consulting, fractional executive leadership, and growth capital. Lakshmi serves as a strategic board member to startups across property technology, healthcare, and B2B SaaS companies. She currently serves as Head of Venture Strategy and Investment at Xanara Advisors, a UAE-based wealth management firm. Her prior roles include General Partner at Erez Capital, an AI-focused venture capital firm, and Advisor for Crewstone International, a Malaysia-based private equity firm.

An alumna of the University of Pennsylvania, Lakshmi is a speaker and podcast guest, recognized as one of MSN’s Top 10 Influential Entrepreneurs in 2025 and named to Top 100 Innovators & Entrepreneurs Magazine. She mentors founders through the City of Miami’s venture programs and Mana Tech, serves as Vice President of the India–US Chamber of Commerce, contributes to Forbes Business Council, and actively supports global youth education initiatives. Having traveled to over 65 countries, she brings cultural fluency, strategic perspective, and purpose-driven leadership to building people-centered, sustainable growth.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Lakshmi’s non-linear career journey
• What Lakshmi learned after becoming an entrepreneur
• Why capital alone does not create a successful company
• The case for being a constant learner
• Community as a career and growth engine
• Why investors ultimately invest in people, not just products
• Growth strategy advice for founders
• What Lakshmi looks for as an investor
• A refreshing perspective on startup “failure”

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things growth!