The Generation Hustle Podcast

Episode 79 is with Chris Neumann, General Partner at Panache Ventures.

Panache Ventures is Canada's most active seed stage venture capital fund. The fund has a founders-first philosophy, a commitment to diversity and strategically co-invests with smart angel investors and seed stage funds.

Chris has 18 years of experience in Silicon Valley as an engineer, early startup employee, founder and investor. He helped build the world’s first 100 TB data warehouse, has invested in companies in more than 20 countries, and has mentored startups across 6 continents.

In this episode, Aman speaks to Chris about his journey from tech to VC. He details his fundraising experiences as a founder, his advisory methods now as a VC, and how Panache is pushing the Canadian tech ecosystem ahead.

Panache Ventures

Chris Neumann

Timestamps

Episode 78 is with Muhammad Lila, Founder & CEO of Goodable!

Muhammad is an award-winning journalist, media founder, and strategist who leads multi-platform teams and creates content across all platforms. He specializes in taking complex subject matter and distilling it into easy-to-understand content that is designed to create impact. Muhammad holds a vast wealth of experience ranging from CNN, ABC, CBC, and now Goodable.

Goodable is one of the fastest growing news networks today. Using proprietary AI technology to search through thousands of news sources, the company identifies the best stories designed to make you happier and informed, all while avoiding negativity and the fear mongering we are accustomed to in news headlines.

Their tagline: "Give us Five Minutes, we’ll give you a whole new world!"

We sit down to speak with Muhammad about his career in journalism. He details his experiences in war zones, being targeted by ISIS and the Taliban with suicide bombers, how the newsroom and information landscape has changed over generations, and how Goodable is helping solve some of these problems we see today.

This was an incredibly profound conversation that touched on so many current and significant events that we hope you enjoy!

Goodable

Timestamps

Episode 77 is with Markell Baldwin, Partner at Drive Capital!

Markell is a former Staff Electronic Design Engineer at Tesla with demonstrated experience in product development, sensor technology from a microcontroller level to the system level, and systems integration. At Drive Capital, he focuses on finding market defining companies in mobility, supply chain, and space.

We chat with Markell about his journey into tech, how minorities can break into tech, and important frameworks for continued growth and success in the industry. He also details his experience at Tesla and the future of Venture Capital. This was a really insightful convo that we hope you enjoy!

Drive Capital

Timestamps

Episode 76 is with Ashley Francisco, Head of Startup Developer Ecosystems for Google Canada!

In her role, Ashley manages Google Canada's Accelerator programs, scaled startup ecosystem events, and Canadian partner engagement. Her goal is to bring the best of Google's people, programs, products and technology to startup teams across the country. Ashley is a professional marketer by trade with a diverse background in local and global brand building at Google, Visa, Mondelez and Kraft Foods.

We sit down to talk with Ashley about her path to tech and ultimately Google. She details how Google’s Accelerator Programs are preparing founders of today to be the leaders of tomorrow. She also describes how you can land a job at Google, women empowerment in the tech environment, and the future impact of the tech industry.

Google for Startups Accelerator

Google: Founder Fridays

Google for Startups Accelerator: Women Founders

Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders

Timestamps

Episode 75 is with Jesse Abrams, Co-Founder & CEO of Homewise!

Recently distinguished by NEXT Canada as “The W. Galen Weston Top Entrepreneur”, by the American Marketing Association Hall of Legends as one of Canada's top 5 "Marketers on the Rise" and by Marketing Magazine as a "Top 30 Under 30" Marketer in Canada, Jesse is an accomplished business leader, Digital Marketer and Advertiser. He has a passion for growing businesses and never settling for the status quo.

Homewise provides Canadians with a better mortgage process with a simple online application that uses human language, helpful content and access to tech-powered professionals at every step to get a great mortgage. Their goal is to get the best deal and save their customers the most money possible.

We talk to Jesse about his journey into entrepreneurship, how Homewise is disrupting the mortgage industry, the current state of the Canadian real estate market, and much more. This was a great conversation that we hope you enjoy!

Homewise

Episode 74 is with Nicole DeTommaso, Senior Associate at Harlem Capital!

As a Senior Associate at Harlem Capital, Nicole focuses on deal sourcing, due diligence, and platform development. Prior to Harlem Capital, Nicole worked at RBC Capital Markets within the Investment Banking division, focused primarily on Mergers & Acquisitions and Initial Public Offerings within the technology and digital media sectors.

Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm on a mission to change the face of entrepreneurship by investing in 1,000 diverse founders over the next 20 years. They invest post product, or what they call 'Early Seed', with a commitment to reserving specific capital for investments in minority and women founders.

We talk to Nicole about her journey into Venture Capital. She details the day in the life of a senior associate at Harlem Capital, the criteria and due diligence for investing into good companies, the future of the internet, how VC’s are preparing for future economic downturns, and much more.

If you're looking to get into the VC space, this conversation is a great start!

Harlem Capital

Timestamps

Episode 73 is with Jess Chan, Founder & CEO at Longplay Brands!

Longplay Brands is a marketing agency working with B2C e-commerce brands in the health, wellness, and lifestyle spaces. The company M.O. is to work with businesses who are in it for the longplay - brands who are looking to create a legacy, build a lasting brand, and impact real lives. In other words, they build relationships at scale.

Prior to Longplay, Jess was the Chief Marketing Officer of BestSelf Co., a 7-figure e-commerce brand. Since founding Longplay, she has scaled it to over $1M in just 18 months working with DTC e-commerce brands from startup to 250M+ in revenue, and has grown to a fully distributed team of 20+ people.

We talk to Jess about her journey to entrepreneurship, how she scaled her company, why email marketing is still so important, and her advice on starting your own agency. She details what makes a good email campaign, how she deals with imposter syndrome in her day to day life, and her experiences with psychedelics. We hope you enjoy!

Longplay Brands

Timestamps

Episode 72 is with Leigh Marie Braswell, Principal at Founders Fund!

Before joining Founders Fund, Leigh Marie was an early engineer & the first product manager at Scale AI, where she originally built & later led product development for the LiDAR/3D annotation products, used by many autonomous vehicles, robots, and AR/VR companies. She also has done software development at Blend, machine learning at Google, and quantitative trading at Jane Street. Leigh Marie is originally from Alabama, graduated from MIT, and loves to play poker, run long distances, and scuba dive.

Founders Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm that invests across all stages and sectors, with a portfolio that includes Airbnb, Lyft, Spotify, Stripe, and Oscar Health. Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in SpaceX and Palantir Technologies, and one of the earliest investors in Facebook. Founded in 2005 by Peter Thiel, the fund currently manages over $11B in aggregate capital.

We sit down to talk to Leigh Marie about her journey through to tech. She details what makes a company and its founder investment-worthy, the future of data and machine learning, and provides advice for early startups looking to grow. She also touches on the future of work, Elon Musk, Universal Basic Income, and much more. This was such an insightful conversation that we hope you enjoy!

Founders Fund

Timestamps

Episode 71 is with Peter Zhou, Co-Founder & CEO of Rutter!

Rutter is building a universal API for e-commerce platforms. The e-commerce market is split across hundreds of platforms, such as Shopify, Squarespace, Amazon, and others. Each of these platforms has its own app store or its equivalent. Rutter is an integration layer letting any e-commerce tool build one integration to access any storefront or marketplace.

Peter attended Yale University before interning at Facebook as a Software Engineer prior to his entrepreneurial endeavours. We sit down to talk to Peter about his journey to founding Rutter, the mindset of a startup CEO, his tools to a successful fundraise and opportunities for wealth creation. This was an incredibly informative episode that we hope you enjoy!

Rutter

Timestamps

Episode 70 is with Adit Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO of Lula!

Lula is an institutionally backed delivery tech company, that helps stores by providing an all-encompassing platform that connects the world to them. They provide stores (convenience, liquor, pet, and more) the specialized technology, data, and customer success these merchants need to serve customers. This united network of stores powered by Lula enables independents and small chains to compete with major corporations as the nation's largest retail delivery marketplace. Adit is a Ph.D. student at Drexel University, with research interests in Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Computer Interaction.

We sit down to talk to Adit about the idea behind Lula, how he founded the company in a pandemic and successfully raised a $5.5M seed round. Adit also speaks on what students today should be prioritizing for their development. This was such an insightful conversation that we hope you enjoy!

Lula

Timestamps