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This week Louis talks with Swapnil Shinde, whose fintech startup Zeni launches out of stealth mode this week. 

Zeni is a full-service finance firm that blends machine learning and artificial intelligence tools with a team of highly experienced financial professionals. The collaboration aims to create faster and more accurate, real-time accounting experience. 

Louis talks to Swapnil about founding the company with his brother, his years-long frustration with bookkeeping, this year’s tax season hurdles and much more. 

Highlights include: 

-What is Zeni? How is it a new kind of accounting tool? 

-What will finance look like 10 years from now? 

-How should startup founders pick a finance partner? 

-When is it time to hire a full-time CEO? 

-What are trends in global work & accounting? 

-What has changed coming into tax season 2021?

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-20-accounting-swapnil-shinde/.

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Swapnil Shinde is the founder & CEO of Zeni alongside his brother Snehal, who serves as the company’s Chief Product Officer. Prior to Zeni, the brothers founded Mezi, a travel booking tool that was acquired by American Express.   

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

https://rocketplace.com/podcast

Eyeballs. Modern marketers live or die by them. Who is looking and for how long and where did they come from and what did they do when they left? These days, you don’t have to guess. 

To learn more, we invited on Matt Pru of the growth agency Stackmatix. He walks us through today’s best tools for tracking ad spend, plus trends, tips and — yes — a bad joke or two. 

Highlights include: 

- What is a growth studio? 

- What is performance marketing & how does it work?

- At what point do companies tend to contract with a growth studio? 

- How long do companies generally contract with a growth studio for?

- What are the biggest emerging growth trends of 2021? 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Matt Pru is a founder and managing partner at Stackmatix, a growth agency that combines insights from engineering, advertising, and sales to drive results.  

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

https://rocketplace.com/podcast

Eyeballs. Modern marketers live or die by them. Who is looking and for how long and where did they come from and what did they do when they left? These days, you don’t have to guess. 

To learn more, we invited on Matt Pru of the growth agency Stackmatix. He walks us through today’s best tools for tracking ad spend, plus trends, tips and — yes — a bad joke or two. 

Highlights include: 

– What is a growth studio? 

– What is performance marketing & how does it work?

– At what point do companies tend to contract with a growth studio? 

– How long do companies generally contract with a growth studio for?

– What are the biggest emerging growth trends of 2021? 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-19-digital-marketing-matt-pru

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Matt Pru is a founder and managing partner at Stackmatix, a growth agency that combines insights from engineering, advertising, and sales to drive results.  

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

https://rocketplace.com/podcast

This week Louis talks with Kevin Twohy, an independent product designer and the founder of Mercer Studios. In his decade-plus designing products for clients like Fitbit, Casper, Everlane and The New York Times, Kevin has learned a lot about the iterative nature of design work. 

He shares some of those insights with Louis in this week’s pod, including budget tips, process considerations — & why a beautiful prototype isn’t always a good idea.

Highlights include: 

- What is a design agency?

- How long do companies generally contract with a design agency?

- What are the benefits of hiring a design agency vs. a freelance designer? How do you know which you need?  

- What is a standard product design process?

- What are the biggest emerging product trends of 2021? 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-19-product-designer-kevin-twohy/. 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Kevin Twohy is the founder & principal of Mercer Studios, a product design agency specializing in zero-to-one product design strategy. Kevin’s clients include Casper, Mirror & The New York Times. 

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

https://rocketplace.com/podcast

This week Louis talks with Kevin Twohy, an independent product designer and the founder of Mercer Studios. In his decade-plus designing products for clients like Fitbit, Casper, Everlane and The New York Times, Kevin has learned a lot about the iterative nature of design work. 

He shares some of those insights with Louis in this week’s pod, including budget tips, process considerations — & why a beautiful prototype isn’t always a good idea.

Highlights include: 

– What is a design agency?

– How long do companies generally contract with a design agency?

– What are the benefits of hiring a design agency vs. a freelance designer? How do you know which you need?  

– What is a standard product design process?

– What are the biggest emerging product trends of 2021? 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-19-product-designer-kevin-twohy/. 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Kevin Twohy is the founder & principal of Mercer Studios, a product design agency specializing in zero-to-one product design strategy. Kevin’s clients include Casper, Mirror & The New York Times. 

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

https://rocketplace.com/podcast

‘What are you selling?’

It’s the question Chris Williams helps companies focus on — and it’s not an easy one to answer. 

It’s why companies hire Wolves Not Sheep, Chris’s positioning studio, to walk them through the process of figuring out who they are as a company — and what that’s worth to a customer. 

Chris and Louis talk about brands that do this well, the new products he’s helping bring to market, and the imperative importance of not boring your customers in 2021.  

Highlights include: 

What is a positioning studio?

What brands do a good job of positioning themselves in the market? What do these chase studies teach us?  

What are the challenges of being an online brand in 2021? 

How do you know that your idea is speaking to a need, not just describing a function?

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Chris Williams is the co-founder & managing partner of Wolves Not Sheep, a positioning studio that works hands-on with early-stage founders to shape & express the value they offer. He’s based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

http://www.rocketplace.com/podcast

‘What are you selling?’

It’s the question Chris Williams helps companies focus on — and it’s not an easy one to answer. 

It’s why companies hire Wolves Not Sheep, Chris’s positioning studio, to walk them through the process of figuring out who they are as a company — and what that’s worth to a customer. 

Chris and Louis talk about brands that do this well, the new products he’s helping bring to market, and the imperative importance of not boring your customers in 2021.  

Highlights include: 

What is a positioning studio?What brands do a good job of positioning themselves in the market? What do these chase studies teach us?  What are the challenges of being an online brand in 2021? How do you know that your idea is speaking to a need, not just describing a function?

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-17-brand-positioning-chris-williams/. 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Chris Williams is the co-founder & managing partner of Wolves Not Sheep, a positioning studio that works hands-on with early-stage founders to shape & express the value they offer. He’s based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

http://www.rocketplace.com/podcast

If, like Marc Andreessen said, software is eating the world, Matt Jonns is somewhere in that kitchen. 

His business, ucreate, partners with non-technical founders to start and scale technology companies. It’s an unusual model — part agency, part accelerator, part incubator — one one perfectly matched to the needs of their target partners: non-technical founders. 

Domain specialists come to Jonns & his team with an idea — say, digitizing an offline sales quota system — and they pair that founder with a team of engineers & product managers, who vet, build & launch it.    

We talked to Jonns about what the soon to be even more online world will look like.     

Highlights include: 

What is the opportunity in non-technical founders? 

How does ucreate’s equity model work & why? 

More small businesses will be moving online in the next 10 years — what will that look like? 

How do you know your idea has a market? How should you vet that? 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-16-product-design-matt-jonns/. 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Matt Jonns is the founder & Executive Chair of ucreate, which partners with ambitious, non-tech founders to build and scale highly successful technology companies.

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he's not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

http://www.rocketplace.com/podcast

If, like Marc Andreessen said, software is eating the world, Matt Jonns is somewhere in that kitchen. 

His business, ucreate, partners with non-technical founders to start and scale technology companies. It’s an unusual model — part agency, part accelerator, part incubator — one one perfectly matched to the needs of their target partners: non-technical founders. 

Domain specialists come to Jonns & his team with an idea — say, digitizing an offline sales quota system — and they pair that founder with a team of engineers & product managers, who vet, build & launch it.    

We talked to Jonns about what the soon to be even more online world will look like.     

Highlights include: 

What is the opportunity in non-technical founders? How does ucreate’s equity model work & why? More small businesses will be moving online in the next 10 years — what will that look like? How do you know your idea has a market? How should you vet that? 

More on today’s episode, including a full transcript @ https://rocketplace.com/blog/podcast-episode-16-product-design-matt-jonns/. 

[Guest / Host bios] 

Guest: Matt Jonns is the founder & Executive Chair of ucreate, which partners with ambitious, non-tech founders to build and scale highly successful technology companies.

Host: Louis Beryl is the founder and CEO of Rocketplace. A 3x founder, investor, and board member, Louis began his tech career as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. When he’s not building businesses (or talking about them!) Louis enjoys cooking for his family and talking at length about it to anyone who will listen. 

http://www.rocketplace.com/podcast