The Seed – The Startup Journey

Okay if you’re still single, and not finding any luck on Tinder or Bumble, this is the episode for you 😜  

Today we'll be chatting with Vidya Madhavan, a Stanford student that’s building Schmooze, a new dating app that allows you to find your next match not through looks or copy and pasted pickup lines, but by swiping memes! They have their own humor-based matching algorithm and have now created more than 100,000 matches.

If you want to see our meme game Schmooze or Snooze, head over to watch this episode on YouTube!

For more highlights and takeaways, follow us on Instagram!

Magic Portal:

(00:00) – Intro

(00:43) – Vidya & Schmooze

(01:47) – Meme officers

(03:58) – Origin story – cold email to marriage??

(06:18) – Successful matches

(07:11) – Unexpected challenges

(09:06) – Convincing investors to invest in meme-based dating

(11:21) – Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

(14:29) – Best advice ever received

(15:52) – Takeaways

If you're a student, you don't want to miss this takeaway episode!

Today, we'll be sharing insights from our previous chat with Howard Sung, the Co-Founder & COO of Find Recruiter – Asia's largest recruiter hub. 

Takeaways:

1. A recruiter's insider tips on how to land your dream job – be hungry and desperate

2. As students, our biggest asset is TIME

3. Start a company first, or get some experience first?

4. Be your authentic self

For more takeaways, check out our Instagram and subscribe to our Startup Droplets!

Have you ever sent out 20 job applications, went through a super long interview process thinking you got the job, and ended up still getting rejected?   

Or maybe you’re like me, about to be a senior in college, yet still don’t really know what you want to do after graduation? 

Well, this is the episode for you!  

Our guest today is the Co-Founder & COO of Find Recruiter – Howard Sung. Howard will share with us not only his startup journey building Asia's largest recruiter hub, but also some insider secrets for landing your dream job!

For highlights and takeaways, check out our Instagram!

Magic Portal:

(00:00) – Intro

(00:55) – Howard & Find Recruiter

(01:28) – Wannapreneur turned Entrepreneur

(02:11) – Landing his dream job after getting rejected

(04:00) – Origin story of Find Recruiter

(05:40) – What's powering Find Recruiter's technology?

(06:41) – Recruiting experience = double-edged sword?

(08:14) – MVP

(08:57) – Most challenging moments

(10:18) – Have you ever thought about giving up?

(11:42) – Where are you now along your startup journey?

(12:42) – Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

(13:43) – Insider tips on landing your dream job

(15:24) – Start a company now, or work first?

(17:10) – Puppy and startup journey

(18:44) – Underrated/Overrated 

(20:40) – Best advice ever received

(21:22) – Takeaways

In this episode, we'll be sharing insights from our previous chat with Scott Stephenson!

Scott is a dark matter physicist turned CEO, who is building Deepgram, a startup that’s reinventing automated speech recognition using end-to-end deep learning. 

Deepgram is backed by Nvidia, Slack, Y Combinator, and has been named by Forbes to be one of the Top 50 AI companies to watch for in 2021!

Takeaways:

1. Your previous experience could help you identify a market gap

2. How a startup could beat giants like Google, IBM, and Microsoft

3. Bonus advice from Y Combinator 🤫

For more takeaways, check out our Instagram and subscribe to our Startup Droplets!

Scott was in a lab deep underground studying dark matter... then he got too bored and decided to launch a company  

What??  

Today we’ll be chatting with Scott Stephenson – a dark matter physicist turned CEO! 

Scott is building Deepgram, a startup that’s reinventing automated speech recognition using end-to-end deep learning. Deepgram is backed by Nvidia, Slack, Y Combinator, and has been named by Forbes to be one of the Top 50 AI companies to watch for in 2021!

You can also check out this episode on YouTube!

For more highlights and takeaways, follow us on Instagram!

Finally, if you'd like our weekly episodes summarized in one-minute digestible droplets, sign up here!

In this Startup Droplet 🌱, we'll be sharing insights from our previous episode with Patrick Lee!

Patrick was the CEO who led Rotten Tomatoes through very challenging times, including the dot com crash and 9-11. As of now, Patrick has started 6 companies, a true serial entrepreneur with an amazing startup journey!

Takeaways:

1. Get started fast! Lines of static HTML code can turn into one of the most viewed websites in the world

2. Entrepreneurship isn't always glamorous... maybe anime can help?

3. The Next Big Thing?? 

For more takeaways, check out our Instagram!

Should I watch Godzilla vs. Kong? 

Mortal Kombat?

Crazy Rich Asians? 

If you’ve ever searched for a movie and wondered if it’s worth watching, you’ve probably come across Rotten Tomatoes 🍅  

But did you know that the first version of Rotten Tomatoes was built in TWO WEEKS with only lines of static HTML? 

In this episode, we'll be chatting with Rotten Tomatoe's Co-Founder Patrick Lee! Patrick was the CEO who led the company through very challenging times, including the dot com crash and 9-11. As of now, Patrick has started 6 companies, a true serial entrepreneur with an amazing startup journey!

Check out this episode on YouTube for some cool graphics!

For more highlights and takeaways, follow us on Instagram!

In this Startup Droplet 🌱, we'll be sharing insights from our previous episode with Darko Mandich! 

Darko is working on a super cool idea, which is to make honey WITHOUT BEES. Not only is honey not vegan-friendly, it turns out that current honey production practices are actually threatening the biodiversity of bees. Looking to solve this, Darko is creating honey, actual honey, without any bees in the process.

Takeaways:

1. Find your own journey

2. Stay true to yourself

3. The environment is neutral

For more takeaways, check out our Instagram!

We've all heard of Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods... but those are plant-based alternatives to meat.  

Similarly, there are also vegan alternatives to honey...but what if I told you you can actually make REAL honey WITHOUT bees??  

Today we’ll be chatting with the Co-Founder & CEO of MeliBio – Darko Mandich. 

Darko is working on a super cool idea, which is to create something that matches and improves upon the molecular composition of bee-made honey, without involving any bees in the process!   

Not only is honey not vegan-friendly, but current honey production practices are also threatening the biodiversity of bees. Check out how Darko embarked on his startup journey to solve this problem!

Watch this episode on YouTube if you'd like to see our faces!

For more highlights and takeaways, follow us on Instagram!

Here's another episode of Startup Droplet 🌱, where we share our takeaways from chatting with our amazing guests!

In this Startup Droplet, we'll be sharing insights from our previous episode with Eric Sim! Eric started his startup journey back when he was still in school as a design student. From freelancing to getting clients for his own design studio, Eric is now running Epic Dialogue, a social impact marketing agency based in Singapore! 

Takeaways:

1. Be authentic, built trust, and a genuine human connection

2. Try to learn from your failures and move on from them as fast as you can

3. Work on your ability to create and your ability to sell

For more takeaways, check out our Instagram!