Tech Startup Network Podcast with Ashley DiBiase

Nik Talreja is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sydecar, an SPV and fund automation platform for venture. Nik previously practiced securities & transactional law at Cooley LLP and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, and held leadership roles in operations, finance, and as general counsel at venture-backed companies. In addition to his role at Sydecar, Nik actively invests in early-stage companies at 18.ventures and serves on the Board of Directors of Maxine’s Heavenly. Nik graduated from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business with a BS in Corporate Finance & Entrepreneurship. Nik subsequently obtained his JD from the UCLA School of Law.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How Sydecar helps investors create SPVs and invest and founders they really care about
• His pain points at 18.ventures that led him to starting Sydecar
• What Sydecar does
• The amount of time it saves and how it flags potential flags where you might want to speak with an attorney
• The relationships Sydecar has with banks
• When investors might need something like Sydecar
• How Sydecar is beneficial for founders who might have 30 individual investors
• His advice for founders who are looking to raise their next round
• How Sydecar has changed throughout the past 5 years
• The importance of focusing on the problems you have solved rather than problems you need to solve
• Where Sydecar is going in the next year
• How their customer base started to expand because they realized their user base was going beyond their ICP
• Why you need to take risks
• His shoutout to Vishal Rana of Deciens

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

Natalie Barbu is the founder and CEO of Rella, a VC-backed startup helping social media teams streamline content planning, collaboration, and analytics. With over a decade of experience as a content creator and entrepreneur, she’s built a personal brand with a community of 380K+ and now focuses on building tools that support creators, marketers, and agencies behind the scenes. Natalie is passionate about simplifying the workflows that power digital content and creating products that solve real problems for modern teams.

During this episode, we discuss:

• The problems Natalie faced in her agency in 2019/2020 with systems and how it was so inefficient
• Why Rella decided to pivot and relaunch to focus on social media managers
• What her pivoting process was like
• The importance of listening to customer feedback and being customer-obsessed
• How to get started with customer feedback
• What made Rella decided to go with investors rather than bootstrapping
• Why you should not have a free tier of a product
• How to build trust and credibility with potential customers before they buy the product
• What’s coming up next for Rella in 2026
• The importance of nailing down your pricing and targeting

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into what really goes into being a founder!

Emmaline Swanson is a 2x founder and startup operations specialist who has spent over 10 years building operational infrastructure as a founding team member and Chief of Staff at early-stage tech companies across healthcare, crypto, fintech, big data, GRC, logistics, and AI.

She takes a data-driven approach to operations, but what sets her work apart is applying behavioral science to design systems that actually work with how humans operate. The result: intuitive processes that people actually follow, making compliance and operations less of a nightmare and more of a competitive advantage. Her focus areas include strategic HR, business operations, data privacy and security, and compliance.

Currently, she runs two companies: Frameworks Labs, providing fractional operations, compliance, and HR support for early-stage startups, and Privacounsel, offering HR compliance guidance and advocacy for employees navigating workplace issues.

Emmaline specializes in the critical business processes every company needs but typically dreads. Her work helps founders establish operational rigor without sacrificing the speed and flexibility required to scale. She builds foundations that last, so startups can focus on what they actually care about: building their product and growing their business.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Being a self-proclaimed founder
• What made her want to start Frameworks Labs
• How she juggled her full-time job and business
• Why you should not move fast and break things
• How she got the idea for her second company, Privacounsel
• Her process for balancing both companies
• How she transitioned out of burnout
• Why 9-9-6 isn’t impressive or necessary
• What the invisible foundation of a company is
• The value in working with someone fractionally
• Advice for finding success in tech
• Her shoutout to Bryan Singleton of FlowGuide.io

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things HR and compliance!

Kt McBratney is a community innovator and investor obsessed with disrupting the status bro. As General Partner and Head of Community at Renew Venture Capital, they’re redefining how founders, capital, and networks work together — building community as an operating system, not a marketing channel or afterthought

Before joining Renew VC, Kt co-founded and helped scale OwnTrail, the community-powered platform acquired in 2023, and spent years as a startup operator and marketing leader across venture-backed companies. Their work lives at the intersection of systems change, storytelling, and strategy.

Kt is also the host and producer of the Founded On Purpose podcast and a writer, artist, and speaker who brings a non-linear lens to leadership, entrepreneurship, and power. Known for candor, creativity, and an allergy to business-as-usual, they’ve built a career across roles and sides of the startup world — founder, operator, marketer, investor, and community architect — proving that innovation comes from crossing boundaries, not staying in lanes.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How they use community as an operating system to build the next generation of venture capital firms
• Building community infrastructure and showing up virtually and in person
• Providing access to relationships and knowledge
• What sets Renew’s community apart from others
• How they don’t have the typical power dynamic that typical investors have
• Why there’s harm in not having community from the start
• What Kt’s startup was and what led them to starting it
• Why you should do reflection when realizing you may need community
• By saying yes to one thing, we’re saying no to something else
• Their shoutout to Emily Best from Seed & Spark

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things VC and community!

Dr. Ashley Blackington, OTD, OTR/L, is a board-certified Occupational Therapist, founder, and storyteller at the intersection of caregiving, technology, and culture. She is the creator of Dovetail®, a CareTech platform that launched in July 2025 to help family caregivers organize care, streamline communication, and build sustainable support networks. She also hosts AND/BOTH, a podcast that brings the emotional realities of caregiving and motherhood into the open through raw, thoughtful conversations.

With more than 15 years of clinical experience and her own lived perspective as a caregiver and mom of four, Ashley knows that caregiving is not just a personal role but a systemic challenge that demands better tools, deeper conversations, and more compassion. Her dual mission through Dovetail and AND/BOTH is to create both infrastructure and space: practical tools to ease the daily load and honest dialogue that validates the emotional weight.

Ashley is also the founder of Home Field Advantage, PLLC, extending her work in community health and occupational therapy practice. Whether she’s mentoring therapists, building technology, or sharing stories on the mic, her work is rooted in one core belief: those who care for others deserve to feel supported, equipped, and never alone.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How she’s an OT by training and wanted to integrate her clinical, caregiving, and practice experience together
• Her mission to smooth out as much friction as possible with the things that bog down caregiving
• Why Dovetail is crucial right now for the sandwich generation
• How society’s introduction to caregiving is not gradual; it’s like teaching someone to swim by throwing them in the pool
• What Dovetail is and how it will integrate with healthcare portals
• How Dovetail relieves the mental load
• Balancing her practice with Dovetail
• The lack of care infrastructure in this country
• Why she bootstrapped Dovetail in the beginning

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

Manasi Shukla is the founder of Safrela Consulting and brings over twenty years of experience designing and implementing customer education and training programs for healthcare organizations. She has trained clinical teams and driven product adoption at industry leaders such as Medtronic and Intuitive Surgical, as well as several innovative startups.

Manasi specializes in scaling onboarding, driving product adoption, and building strategic training solutions that deliver measurable business impact. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Ottawa and a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Her career as a biomedical engineer working in hospitals and supporting physicians during procedures
• What made her want to pursue customer education
• The importance of investing in education and training programs
• How to leverage happy customers and ensure they stay happy
• Advice for getting started with an education and training program
• How to get all teams on the same page
• Setting metrics for your product
• Using AI for content development
• The importance of talking to people when you get into tech

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

Alfredo Mercedes is the co-founder at VU Talent Partners, a modular, talent enablement platform deeply embedded within a VC firm, combining signal, workflows, and search as a service. He started his career in the Marine Corps as a CoS, before moving into executive search, where he helped high growth tech companies and venture funds build teams to scale. Today he works at the intersection of hiring, investing, automation, and network, partnering with founders to scale their businesses and advising on how to leverage talent as a core driver of returns.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How he started his career in the Marine Corps
• What led him to get into recruiting
• Advice for which positions founders should prioritize hiring
• What it was like to cofound VU Talent Partners
• The downside of traditional, third-party recruiters
• How we’re going to have our first single-person, billion dollar unicorn company & we can grow and scale companies with less and less people
• Why hiring and recruiting processes will look different with AI
• What founders should know before they get ready to hire an executive
• Creative tactics to get executives to sign on if the salary isn’t high enough
• His advice for candidates who are interviewing for executive roles

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

Anna Belova is an influential AR and generative AI entrepreneur, currently leading DEVAR and OpenWay AI as their founder and CEO. She holds a Master’s degree in Arts and Human Science and was named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2019.

With more than a decade of experience in immersive tech, Anna has overseen the launch of over 300 AR products, including interactive children’s books that have sold 15 million+ copies across 75 countries and 27 languages. DEVAR has partnered with major global brands like Hasbro, Nickelodeon, McDonald’s, Google, Siemens, Colgate‑Palmolive, and Nasdaq.

In response to the growing no-code movement, she created MyWebAR, a generative AI-powered XR platform that enables users to build AR experiences in their browsers—no programming required. With over 230,000 users and adoption by 200+ universities, the platform is now among the top two most popular webAR tools globally.

In 2025, Anna founded OpenWay AI, a cutting-edge company developing AI tools and infrastructure for immersive content creation and automated interaction.

Aside from her entrepreneurial achievements, Anna contributes thought leadership through regular columns in Forbes and Entrepreneur, sharing insights on immersive technologies, startup growth, and the convergence of art and AI.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Anna’s experience in AR and AI
• What inspired her to start OpenWay AI, after noticing an internal problem
• How she juggled managing 2,000 users/daily without having the human resources behind them
• What’s coming next for OpenWay AI in the next year
• How she’s an AI-native person
• Her belief that AI can be your own personal superpower if you learn how to use it right
• Why every person needs to embrace AI
• The importance of finding something that you really love as a founder because it’s a lifestyle

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

Argentina Beltran is the Founder & CEO of InclusifAI, a platform supporting underrepresented founders using AI for social good. With over 20 years of experience across corporate, nonprofit, and startup sectors, she’s helped build ecosystems where innovation and equity go hand in hand. Her work lives at the intersection of emotional intelligence, systems design, and cultural change — shaped by both boardroom experience and a deep commitment to community.

She’s also the author of What We Teach the Machines, Emotional Intelligence in an Artificially Intelligent World, a powerful exploration of how our emotional conditioning shapes the technologies we build — and how reclaiming our humanity is one of the most important design challenges of our time.

During this episode, we discuss:

• Argentina’s upbringing in the Philippines, coming from a family of entrepreneurs, before moving to Canada as an adult
• How she’s been in the innovation space for over two decades
• Her work has always in community
• Why the funding gap needs serious attention and how she prioritizes providing the right innovators with opportunities
• How the rise of AI made technology grow so fast
• We already have the resources and technology to resolve and address the important problems in the world but we’re choosing not to
• The importance of community in the startup world
• How non-technical founders can adopt AI
• Advice for building a community if you don’t have one yet
• The book she recently published
• Her shoutout to Amandipp Singh from Enabled Talent

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

Anita Ly began her career as a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry before pivoting into entrepreneurship and venture capital. With hands-on experience in SBIR funding, hedge fund diligence, and traditional VC, she brings a cross-sector approach to innovation and early-stage growth. She’s built accelerator programs from the ground up, worked side-by-side with founders to secure funding, and helped companies raise over $5M while scaling operations in emerging markets. Based in Oklahoma City, Anita is passionate about building inclusive, founder-first ecosystems that turn bold ideas into reality.

In her free time, she enjoys chasing around her cat Basil and dog Caden, experimenting in the kitchen with new recipes, and cosplaying, where creativity and craftsmanship come together as in startups.

During this episode, we discuss:

• How Anita originally thought she wanted to get into the medical field, but after starting a part-time role supporting founders, that’s what made her realize that’s what she wanted to pursue
• The importance of pivoting
• How crucial community is for founders
• What she did to build accelerators from the ground up
• Why she wanted to join Renew VC
• What makes Oklahoma a good spot to build in and support/invest in
• Her shoutout to Devika Sarin who’s building Soal

And more. Tune into this episode as we dive into all things startups and Oklahoma!