The Founder

Sib Mahapatra is the Co-Founder of Branch.
Sib got his start studying philosophy at Yale during his undergrad, realizing a love for systems and technology at an early age. After school, he spent time at real estate tech startup Redfin and had a versatile role supporting several functions across the business including developing and launching new products. He quickly realized that he had an affinity for building and knew that for his next project, he wanted to try his hand at making something from scratch, without having a major corporation as a backstop. He spent some time exploring a few different problem spaces before settling on real estate technology, inspired by his time at Redfin. He became an entrepreneur in residence at Notation Capital to begin incubating his ideas where he met his Co-Founder and started Branch.
Today at Branch, Sib and his team have created a modern office furniture brand that sells directly to businesses and consumers. What started out as a rapidly growing B2B business for furnishing offices with 25-250 people, Branch and its founding team hit a major roadblock when Covid struck in late February of 2020. A rich pipeline full of corporate clients went to essentially zero when businesses had to shut down their offices. Like any scrappy entrepreneurs, the Branch founders never panicked, and quickly pivoted to make high quality furniture for the home office. Today they’ve supplied furniture to thousands of professionals at home and are poised to scale a hybrid model as we return to normalcy in 2021.
Use code “Kallaway” to get 10% off all Branch products.
Tune in to hear Sib's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:54) Branch snapshot today
• (3:48) Background and founding story
• (6:23) Analyzing markets and identifying startup ideas
• (9:59) Other startup ideas explored
• (13:03) Competitive analysis
• (16:40) Starting without expertise
• (18:57) Co-Founder matching
• (23:16) Redfin experience
• (25:31) Sourcing deals in corporate office furniture industry
• (28:53) Transitioning from B2B -> B2C in Covid
• (36:01) Office furniture industry outlook (next 3-5 years)
• (39:56) Hiring
• (43:46) Lessons to younger self
• (46:33) What motivates you?
• (49:20) Sib's wellness stack
• (51:13) Exciting trends
• (56:03) Sib's startup manifesto

Watch on YouTube - https://youtu.be/8U8WOkbncFY

Branch - branchfurniture.com

• Follow Branch (@branchfurniture // @officebybranch) on Instagram // Twitter
• Follow Sib (@sib_mahapatra // @sibjeet) on Instagram // Twitter
• Sib's content and learning recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

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Stephen Kuhl is the Co-Founder & CEO of Burrow.
Stephen grew up in upstate NY and spent the majority of his time in high school freestyle skiing - getting comfortable doing backflips at an early age. After graduating from Cornell for his undergrad, he bounced around at a few different jobs before landing in private equity and venture investing at Commonfund. He spent 2 years at Commonfund before leaving for business school at Wharton in 2015. When he got to school, he had a terrible experience buying furniture and met his now Co-Founder, Kabeer, who shared similar struggles. They took an entrepreneurship class together and thought it was the perfect place to create something new. That’s how Burrow was born.
Today at Burrow, Stephen and his team have created a next generation brand to improve the entire customer experience of owning furniture. After getting their start redesigning the sofa from the ground up in 2017, they’ve seen explosive growth and now go to market with an entire line of home furniture from seating and storage to tables, rugs and accessories. What they figured out that the rest of the industry got wrong was that consumers hated the complex, non-customized buying experience, multi-week delivery times and stress moving their furniture from one home to another. Burrow solves all of these pain points and then some. Customers can easily design their custom furniture online, have them delivered in compact boxes within a week and then assemble them in minutes without tools. Burrow has also redesigned their products to be more comfortable and durable so they can withstand the punishment that everyday life brings.
Use code “Kallaway” to get 10% off all Burrow products.
Tune in to hear Stephen's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:49) Burrow snapshot today 
• (4:40) Background and founding story
• (6:33) Business school / entrepreneurship
• (9:16) Analyzing the opportunity & first steps
• (13:50) Furniture design process
• (18:35) Y Combinator
• (21:32) Early struggles
• (29:47) Building customer loyalty
• (31:50) Customer acquisition
• (34:55) Out of the box marketing tactics
• (38:12) Furniture industry outlook
• (42:28) Manifesting the future vision
• (45:40) Scarcity and limited drops
• (47:46) Fundraising lessons learned
• (50:35) What drives you?
• (53:35) Stephen's wellness stack
• (55:29) Having an executive coach
• (58:06) Exciting trends
• (1:00:50) Stephen's startup manifesto

Burrow - burrow.com

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• Follow Burrow (@burrow // @hiburrow) on Instagram // Twitter
• Stephen's content and learning recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

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Farryn Weiner is the Founder & CEO of Farrynheight. 
Farryn spent the last 15 years mastering her craft as a storyteller through a variety of creative fields. After graduating from NYU film school, she spent time at different magazines and tech companies before ultimately landing at jetsetter.com and formally entering the world of marketing. When she worked at Jetsetter, social media was emerging as a game-changing portal for two-way brand communication and she was fascinated by the power it gave brands to own their narrative and talk directly to their customers. She then went on to work in marketing roles at Michael Kors and most recently, Sweetgreen, helping expand their footprint nationwide. Along the way she had countless conversations with founders and VCs and understood a common deprioritization of marketing & branding in the early days of a start-up. She knew from her experience how critical it was to build this foundation and wanted to create a bad ass team of marketers who could fill that gap. That’s how Farrynheight was born.
Today at Farrynheight, Farryn runs a brand strategy and marketing SWAT team. Their sweet spot is to work with early stage startups to help them launch or relaunch their brands. The team is unique in that they are incredibly selective about the clients they work with, serving as an extension of the core team and completely replacing the marketing function in some cases. Their mix of all-star women enables them to seamlessly zoom in and zoom out, helping founders understand the high-level strategy behind building a powerful brand as well as the tactical steps needed to execute on that brand vision day to day. To date, they’ve worked with companies like Reformation, Bandier, Highline Wellness, Monument, Scent Bird and more.
Tune in to hear Farryn's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:43) Farrynheight snapshot today
• (4:35) Background and founding story
• (7:36) Building brand strategy - approach
• (10:45) Building brand strategy - tactics
• (14:03) Staying a great brand for decades
• (16:58) Scaling a service business
• (22:18) People-light businesses
• (24:03) Marketing strategy - tactics
• (27:41) Favorite brand campaigns
• (31:28) Future of DTC
• (36:11) What hasn't worked well in building Farrynheight?
• (42:33) Transparency
• (46:33) Balancing ambition and happiness
• (51:16) What drives you?
• (53:15) Farryn's wellness stack
• (59:37) Farryn's startup manifesto

Farrynheight - farrynheight.com

• Follow Farryn (@jetsetfarryn) on Instagram // Twitter
• Follow Farrynheight (@farrynheight) on Instagram // Twitter
• Farryn's content and learning recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

• Follow The Founder (@founderpodcast) on Instagram // LinkedIn // Twitter // Newsletter

Don't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here

Kenny Haisfield is the Founder & CEO of Kenny Flowers.
Kenny grew up in Florida with the sounds of Jimmy Buffet music ringing through the yard. After studying economics and international relations in college, he ended up working as a customer experience consultant at IBM, traveling across the northeast to serve his clients. One day, after wearing his dad’s vintage Hawaiian shirt for the millionth time, he wondered why no one had modernized it for the current day consumer. He realized that as social media began to grow in popularity and people were taking more and more pictures on the weekends, guys couldn’t get away with having the same old shirt in every photo. When he saw that tropical and floral prints started to regain popularity, he knew that his calling was to reimagine island wear for the modern consumer. That’s when he went all-in to start Kenny Flowers.
Today at Kenny Flowers, Kenny and his team are on a mission to help you embrace that feeling of vacation each and every day. What started out as a floral printed short-sleeve button down shirt has quickly turned into a full line of his and hers modern resort wear. Their product line ranges from Hawaiian shirts and swim trunks to women’s swim suits and cover-ups and even matching couple’s sets. And the devil is in the details when it comes to their design - each of their flagship shirts are made in Bali with stitched lay-down collars, coconut buttons and a sunglasses loop in the front pocket to keep your shades secured. Kenny Flowers has been at it for the last 6 years and sees nothing but smooth sailing and high growth ahead.
Use code "Founder15" for 15% off all Kenny Flowers products.
Tune in to hear Kenny's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:53) Kenny Flowers snapshot today
• (4:53) Background and founding story
• (11:40) Building customer loyalty
• (15:04) Ecommerce assumptions vs reality
• (17:15) Product feedback and iterations
• (21:52) Going from lifestyle business -> venture scale
• (25:12) Financial expectations
• (27:22) 10X growth
• (29:28) Manifesting the future
• (32:18) Future of DTC
• (34:19) Out of the box marketing tactics
• (41:00) What hasn't worked well
• (45:05) Hiring and culture
• (52:07) Kenny's wellness stack
• (59:50) Exciting trends
• (1:04:48) Kenny's startup manifesto
• (1:09:32) Kenny's founder nomination

Kenny Flowers - kennyflowers.com

• Follow Kenny (@kennyhaisfield // @khais3) on Instagram // Twitter
• Follow Kenny Flowers (@kennyflowers_) on Instagram // Twitter
• Kenny's content and learning recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

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Chris Roth is the Founder & CEO of Highline Wellness.
Chris grew up in New York and went to Siena College on a lacrosse scholarship. Although sports were his main focus and he wasn’t a huge fan of school growing up, he eventually wound up as intern at an investment bank on Wall Street. He loved it. To him, the culture at the bank felt similar to his time playing sports – competitive, fast-paced and heavily reliant on a strong team. When he started full time on the sales side at the bank after college, he covered e-commerce and specifically the transition of companies from brick and mortar to online. In 2016, his firm produced the first report on the cannabis space and after reading it cover to cover, he realized what a massive opportunity existed. As someone who had always wanted to start his own company, it was at this moment that he had the spark for Highline Wellness.
Today at Highline Wellness, Chris and his team are on a mission to change the negative stigma around cannabis. At their core, they strongly believe cannabis is medicine and that it has the potential to improve millions of lives. Today, all of their CBD products have 0% THC, are non-psychoactive and use the highest quality, clean ingredients. In addition to a variety of topicals and oils, they’ve formulated some of their gummies with functional ingredients like caffeine for jitter-free energy or melatonin to enhance your bedtime routine. While Highline is just in its second year of business, the team has already taken a foothold as one of the premiere CBD brands in the country. And they’re not stopping there. They have huge plans to develop products across several verticals focused on total wellness delivered through plant based medicine.
Use code "Founder20" for 20% off all Highline Wellness products.
Tune in to hear Chris's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:55) Highline Wellness snapshot today
• (4:28) Background and founding story
• (8:44) E-commerce trends
• (12:10) CBD 101
• (16:10) How to prove legitimacy as a brand
• (19:06) Anxiety in our society
• (25:30) Customer acquisition & growth
• (31:05) 10X growth
• (34:02) Expanding into THC market
• (35:10) Manifesting the future for Highline Wellness
• (38:34) What hasn't worked well
• (43:20) Lessons to younger self
• (44:44) Chris's wellness stack
• (50:42) Exciting trends
• (54:15) Chris's startup manifesto
• (59:38) Chris's founder nomination

Highline Wellness - highlinewellness.com

• Follow Chris (@chrisroth16) on Instagram // LinkedIn
• Follow Highline Wellness (@highlinewellness) on Instagram // Twitter
• Chris's content and learning recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

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Don't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here

Matteo Franceschetti is the Co-Founder & CEO of Eight Sleep.
Matteo has always been an athlete and obsessed with recovery and performance. Growing up in Italy, he spent time as a competitive ski racer, tennis player and race car driver before jumping into the corporate world as a securities lawyer. After launching and exiting a couple of companies in the renewable energy space, his professional focus came full circle as he rediscovered his passion for optimizing performance. He explored the space and realized the massive opportunity for smarter sleep products to support the rapidly growing quantified self movement. It was at this moment that Eight Sleep was born.
Today at Eight Sleep, Matteo and his team are the pioneers of sleep fitness. Their tech enabled mattress, the Pod, has taken the industry by storm as it significantly enhances your sleep quality through thermoregulation. Over the course of the night, the Pod detects your changing body temperature via sensors built into the mattress. Then, the Hub, an external water tank connected to the Pod, uses warm and cool water to constantly adjust the temperature of the bed to keep your internal body temperature at the optimal level. This reduces disruptions throughout the night and enables more restful, higher quality sleep. Eight Sleep also has a killer app that you can use to track your vitals, sleep cycles and overall sleep performance overtime. In the last few weeks, they launched their Pod Pro Cover, which adds their patented thermoregulation technology to your existing mattress. While they’ve made incredible strides already, Eight Sleep is still in the early innings of what’s possible in the smart sleep space.
Use code "Kallaway" for 15% off all Eight Sleep products.
Tune in to hear Matteo's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:55) Eight Sleep snapshot today
• (3:55) Background and founding story
• (5:58) Learning from previous companies
• (7:28) Sleep basics and learnings
• (9:41) Sleep Pod evolution and thermoregulation
• (15:05) Customer acquisition & growth
• (20:37) Out-of-the-box marketing tactics
• (22:57) 10X growth
• (24:25) Competitive landscape
• (26:59) Customer data collected
• (28:52) How to maximize sleep while traveling
• (31:19) Y Combinator experience
• (35:40) Hiring
• (38:06) Investor lessons
• (41:45) Lessons to younger self
• (44:15) Matteo's wellness stack
• (50:50) Exciting trends
• (51:53) Matteo's startup manifesto
• (52:31) Matteo's founder nomination

Eight Sleep - eightsleep.com

• Follow Matteo (@m_franceschetti // @matteofranceschetti) on Twitter // Instagram // LinkedIn
• Follow Eight Sleep (@eightsleep) on Instagram // Twitter
• Matteo's content and learning recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

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Don't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here

Ray Smith is the Founder & CEO of BeApp. 
Ray grew up in West Philadelphia and always dreamed about traveling the world. After graduating high school and then USC for college, he found himself in Palo Alto, working in management consulting for the booming startup scene. One of the tech phenomenons at the time was peer-to-peer file sharing, birthing a new world of music discovery across sites like Limewire, Kazaa, and Napster, and opening Pandora’s box for those who had previously been constrained to local radio. Ray discovered a love for dance music and found that listening to European festival sets was a game changer for his runs. He knew that if he couldn’t be at those festivals in person, he wanted a way to see what was happening firsthand. And that’s what led him to start his first company, Be-at.tv. Over the past 13 years, Be-at.tv has been the leading distribution and content channel for music festivals, sporting the highest quality audio and video experience on the internet. When Covid hit in early 2020, and music festivals essentially went to zero, he knew that although the in-person experience was on hold, there was still a need to democratize the artist experience for fans all over the world. This was the kernel of inspiration for BeApp.
Today at BeApp, Ray and his team are delivering artist access through a virtual portal on your phone. On the BeApp, a user is able to virtually attend concerts with mainstream artists like Katy Perry, Miguel, Kaskade, DJ Khaled, Gryffin, Steve Aoki and Flosstradamus, as well as local artists performing new music every day. And these concerts aren’t your typical grainy Zoom call – the app supports an extremely high quality audio and video experience that lets fans engage directly with the artist and jump to the virtual front row for everyone to see. And there’s a lot of exciting things on the roadmap. At the end of the conversation, I chat with Ray about where BeApp is going and some incredible features in the works. 
Tune in to hear Ray's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:59) BeApp snapshot today
• (4:39) Background and founding story
• (21:23) Future of live events in entertainment/music
• (32:53) Building community
• (36:32) How BeApp works
• (45:01) Business model
• (49:16) How the music industry works
• (58:00) Investor pitching lessons learned
• (1:05:53) Advice to younger self
• (1:08:49) BeApp new features
• (1:16:08) Ray's wellness stack
• (1:29:12) Ray's startup manifesto
• (1:32:21) Ray's founder nomination

BeApp - download here

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• Ray's learning and resource recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

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Brian Verne is the Co-Founder & CEO of Wave.tv. 
Brian grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and has been in and around sports his entire life. After playing baseball throughout college and looking for another opportunity to compete in the professional world, he discovered startups and has be working on various businesses over the past decade, all at the center of sports and media. As he consistently heard the traditional sports media companies talk about decreasing fandom for younger generations, he knew there was an opportunity. What he knew, that they missed, was that fandom has never been stronger - it just shifted to the rapidly emerging social and digital platforms. This was the key insight that inspired Wave.tv. 
Today at Wave.tv, Brian and his team are building a next generation sports media company. They produce content across 20 brands, including Break Ankles Daily, for basketball lovers, Dingers, for baseball fanatics and Oddballs, for all the sports you didn’t know you needed. Their content is specifically created for those digital and social platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, and Youtube because that’s where the next generation of fans are consuming content. Over the last 3 years they’ve gone sport by sport, and fandom by fandom to build their impressive portfolio. It’s a fairly simple playbook, but one that they have executed masterfully as they've seen parabolic growth in 2020.
Tune in to hear Brian's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:25) Wave.tv snapshot today
• (9:44) Background and founding story
• (12:18) First steps to launch Wave.tv
• (15:14) Intellectual property and partnerships
• (18:55) Customer acquisition and marketing
• (20:21) Future of sports media
• (23:17) Big growth moments
• (26:00) Hiring
• (27:40) Investor pitching advice
• (30:45) Mentor advice
• (33:38) Advice to younger self
• (35:15) Biggest challenges
• (36:10) Brian's wellness stack
• (39:09) Exciting trends
• (41:05) Brian's startup manifesto
• (43:01) Brian's founder nomination

Wave.tv - wave.tv

• Follow Brian (@brian_verne // @brianverne) on Instagram // Twitter // LinkedIn
• Follow Wave.tv (@wave.tv // @wavetv) on Instagram // Twitter
• Brian's learning and resource recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

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Don't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here

CJ MacDonald is the Founder & CEO of Step. 
CJ grew up in Bay area and always had the entrepreneurial itch. Whether it was his paper route or baseball card shop, he was always hustling and realized he loved building things, a characteristic that would serve him well throughout his career. After playing competitive hockey on the east coast during boarding school and college, he was ready to enter the business world and immediately gravitated towards startups. He spent time in the early stages at a couple of startups before founding Gyft, a digital solution for gift cards that he sold to First Data Corporation in 2014. After a few years at First Data and thinking about what could be next, he realized there was a major gap in the market for banking products that were designed for kids and families in the digital age. That was the initial spark for Step.
Today at Step, CJ and his team are revolutionizing banking and financial literacy for the next generation. Step was built specifically for teenagers so anyone 13 years and older is eligible to enroll. When a new user signs up (with proper parent approvals), they’ll receive access to a free FDIC insured bank account and Visa spending card. Step’s goal is to become the first step in the financial journey and not only provide easier access to send & receive money, but also educate the next generation on the fundamentals of personal finance. After a closed beta with rave reviews from early users, Step launched publicly a few weeks ago with support and endorsement from TikTok stars Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae and several others. Safe to say they are off to a fast start.
Tune in to hear CJ's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:32) Step snapshot today
• (5:51) Background and founding story
• (14:26) Gen Z demographic
• (20:40) Product evolution and features
• (27:59) Customer acquisition and marketing
• (41:04) Future of financial services industry
• (45:06) Hiring
• (49:44) Investor lessons
• (53:43) CJ's wellness stack
• (1:02:32) CJ's startup manifesto
• (1:05:37) CJ's founder nomination

Step - step.com

• Follow CJ (@cjmacdonald) on Instagram // Twitter // LinkedIn
• Follow Step (@stepmobile // @step) on Instagram // Twitter
• CJ's learning and resource recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

• Follow The Founder (@founderpodcast) on Instagram // LinkedIn // Twitter

Don't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here

Giorgos Tsetis is the Co-Founder & CEO of Nutrafol.
Giorgos is incredibly talented – studying mechanical engineering in the Netherlands but winding up in New York pursuing a career as a fashion model. After getting the opportunity to travel the world on the back of a successful modeling career, he returned to New York eager to start his next venture. Throughout his travels and early career, he always felt a deep calling to help people and wanted to find a way to make the world a better place. After starting to experience some early signs of hair loss himself and realizing he was genetically at risk given his family history, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He spent some time using pharmaceutical solutions, but after experiencing significant negative side effects, decided he needed to find something more natural that would solve the problem while enabling him to live his life. When he couldn't find anything on the market, Nutrafol was born.
Today at Nutrafol, Giorgos and his team are blazing the trail for hair wellness, producing superior products and industry leading science to drive transformative results. Nutrafol’s unique in that they take a holistic approach to tackling hair loss and pioneered the hair wellness category by focusing on the root causes for hair growth - things like stress, metabolism and hormones. About a year ago, I personally noticed that my hair started thinning and was looking for solutions. After trying some basic gummy vitamins without significant results and afraid to try the unhealthy pharmaceuticals for fear of the negative side effects, I was fortunate to find Nutrafol. The core product is packed with nutraceuticals, giving me access to clinical strength, medical grade ingredients that are naturally occurring and good for my body. I’ve been on the product for 9 months and couldn’t be happier with the results.
To celebrate that effectiveness and as a special offer for our listeners, we’ve teamed up with Giorgos to give you 20% off your subscription. Just use code “Founder” at checkout to take advantage.
Tune in to hear Giorgos's story!
EPISODE TOPICS: 

• (2:51) Nutrafol snapshot today
• (6:39) Background and founding story
• (18:30) Ingredients & nutraceuticals
• (24:59) 10X growth
• (33:57) Competition
• (38:50) Hiring
• (42:19) Investor lessons
• (47:20) Giorgos's wellness stack
• (56:03) Giorgos's startup manifesto
• (1:03:29) Giorgos's founder nomination

Nutrafol - nutrafol.com

• Follow Giorgos (@giorgostsetis) on Instagram // LinkedIn
• Follow Nutrafol (@nutrafol) on Instagram // Twitter
• Giorgos's learning and resource recommendations 

The Founder - www.thefounderpod.com 

• Follow The Founder (@founderpodcast) on Instagram // LinkedIn // Twitter // Newsletter

Don't have time to listen to the full episode? Read the 5-minute version here