TechieBytes

Episode 58: We spoke with Peter Pezaris, co-founder and CEO of CodeStream. We discuss the process behind selling a company, including how to know when it's time to sell as well as when to leave, the time he and his team spent as part of Y Combinator's Winter 2018 class, and how Peter has kept his founding team intact through four startups. Enjoy!

Peter Pezaris, co-founder and CEO of CodeStream, a company helping development teams communicate more efficiently. Peter is a serial entrepreneur with three successful exits under his belt (including Glip, sold to RingCentral and Commissioner.com, sold to CBS), with CodeStream being his fourth startup. Interestingly, Peter has kept his executive/founding team intact throughout the four startups and over two decades (they met as undergrads at Carnegie Mellon).

Episode 57: We spoke with Pedro David Espinoza, internet entrepreneur, angel investor, and co-author of Differences That Make A Difference. We discuss diversity and inclusion in the workplace, including in-depth conversations about the gender pay gap, implementing policies such as blind interviews, and how diversity helps your bottom line. Enjoy!

Pedro David Espinoza is an internet entrepreneur, angel investor, TED speaker, and author. At the age of 19, Pedro became the founder & CEO of SmileyGo, a platform that helps companies give smarter. Pedro is also the CEO of Alpaca Pan Peru, a social venture that empowers women to become entrepreneurs. Educated at Stanford and Berkeley, Pedro began his career as a car mechanic at Toyota. He has been profiled in Univision, Telemundo, Hispanic Shark Tank, Fox News, and Forbes.

The leaders -- 80 male, 80 female -- include Reed Hastings (CEO, Netflix), Michelle Lee (Former Under Secretary of Commerce), Eric Schmidt (Google) and Judith Estrin (Internet pioneer). Spanning the globe and representing a variety of ages and cultural backgrounds, they give voice to two key conclusions:

Episode 56: We spoke with Eric Shoup, CEO at Peerspace, a marketplace for meetings, co-working, events, and more. We discuss the explosion of the sharing economy, the recent troubles at WeWork and how Peerspace has avoided falling into the same trap, as well as Eric's experience as a first-time CEO. Enjoy!

Eric Shoup, CEO of Peerspace, a Google Venture-backed marketplace for meetings, co-working, events, and more. This year Peerspace has pursued an aggressive national expansion - and their business model is working and is sustainable.

Peerspace specializes in allowing people to find underutilized, inspiring existing spaces – while allowing property owners (mostly small business owners) to generate more income from their spaces to support their artistic endeavors, business and more. Of note, companies including Tesla, AirBnb, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, AT&T, Apple, and even WeWork have booked using Peerspace.

Peerspace Stats October 2019:

Episode 55: We spoke with Tiffany Rose, Co-founder at Lux Life Now (formerly Big Crowd Media), an influencer firm which specializes in loop marketing campaigns for big names including Amber Rose and Kyle Richards. We discuss how to build and measure successful influencer campaigns, the importance of Instagram Stories for brands, and how to best utilize hashtags. Enjoy!

READ MORE: Lux Life Now co-founder Jonathan Rose talks about how to measure influencer campaign ROI.

Tiffany Rose, Co-Founder of Lux Life Now (formerly Big Crowd Media), is a former actress and model who has graced the front covers of MAXIM and FHM worldwide, and shot to fame in the UK on the TV show HollyOaks. Through Tiffany's hollywood contacts, she was able to create a network of A list celebrities that shared her vision of driving celebrities Instagram traffic to corporate sponsors’ Instagram accounts. Lux Life Now was born and has resulted in clients gaining tens of thousands of new customers with reported spikes in sales and engagement.

Episode 54: We spoke with RJ Talyor, Founder & CEO at Pattern89. We discuss how RJ helped pioneer the concept of SMS marketing in 2002, his time as VP of Messaging Products at Salesforce, and how what he's building at Pattern89 is changing marketing for brands like Fabletics, LIDS, Finish Line, and more! Enjoy!

R.J.’s career started at ExactTarget, where he was the mastermind behind the company’s mobile strategy. He would eventually create the concept of SMS marketing in 2002, leading to Bank of America to sending its first SMS text. His leadership was instrumental when Salesforce later acquired ExactTarget for $2.5 billion in 2013, where he would become the vice president of mobile products for the company.

A couple years later, he wanted to take his knowledge on marketing, social media and analytics to create a company that would easily integrate Artificial Intelligence with social media marketing, and launched Pattern89. Since its founding in 2018, the company already has more than 700 customers, specifically within the e-commerce industry, with customers such as Fabletics, LIDS, Just Fab, Finish Line, and more. Customers seeing an ROI as high as 65% in as little as 15 days.

Episode 53: Yes, good news! We're back after a little break. I graduated from the Harvard Business Analytics Program in September and have been working on new episodes which will be released every Tuesday! Today we're speaking with Oren Zaslansky, CEO at Flock Freight. We discuss why the shipping industry is ripe for disruption, tips for outsiders of Silicon Valley to raise capital, and what to look for when selecting a Board of Directors.

Oren Zaslansky is a shipping industry veteran and CEO of San Diego-based Flock Freight, a company working to modernize the $40B LTL (less than a truckload) freight industry leveraging algorithms and logistics automation to carpool freight.

Oren was born both into freight and entrepreneurship. His parents worked for a mover before they started their own freight brokerage. At 21 he started a trucking company and soon after a freight brokerage. Realizing he wanted to work ON the industry not just IN the industry, he started Flock Freight to sidestep common shipping problems.

Episode 52: We spoke with Mitch Grasso, CEO at Beautiful.AI, a company creating a newer and smarter way to design your presentations. Prior to Beautiful.AI, Mitch founded SlideRocket which was acquired by VMWare. We discuss raising venture funding, his approach to customer acquisition, important design rules, and more.

Mitch is a serial entrepreneur with strong technology, design and product skills. Prior to Beautiful.AI, he founded SlideRocket, cloud-based presentation productivity software focused on team collaboration and co-founded AdSpace Networks, a digital signage network deployed to over 200 malls and reaching over 48M unique viewers/month.

Episode 51: We spoke with Sujan Patel, co-founder at Ramp Ventures, the firm behind products like Mailshake and RightInbox. We discuss building web-based businesses, how to generate leads and interest for new businesses, enhancing your SEO, and what it means to take risk.

Sujan is the co-founder of Ramp Ventures, a firm that helps companies leverage the latest and greatest marketing strategy to fuel their businesses. Sujan has over 13 years of internet marketing experience and has led the digital marketing strategy for companies like Sales Force, Mint, Intuit and many other Fortune 500 caliber companies.

Episode 50: We spoke with Bryan Ciambella, Principal at B Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in the next generation of groundbreaking tech. We discuss Bryan's background as a serial entrepreneur, what he looks for when investing, what industry verticals he's currently interested in, and what it's like working with Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Episode 49: We spoke with Larry O'Connor, Founder at OWC, a computer hardware company known for its Mac-based upgrade kits. We discuss how Larry started OWC 30+ years ago, the company's relationship with Apple, what Larry thinks Apple should do with the MacBook Pro, and why Apple's RAM is so expensive.

Also, a quick programming note—we're going to off for a couple weeks but fear not, we'll be back soon with new episodes!