The VentureFizz Podcast

You’ve probably heard of the PayPal Mafia on the west coast. In Boston, you have the Endeca mafia, where lots of alumni have gone off to start companies like Toast, Salsify, Parallel Wireless, and many others. Andrew is part of this crew, as he joined Endeca in the early days and was part of the team that helped scale the company, which later resulted in an acquisition by Oracle.

Andrew’s latest company is Jellyfish, the leading Engineering Management Platform (EMP), which provides complete visibility into engineering organizations, the work they do, and how they operate. The company announced a $12M Series A round of funding back in May, which was led by Accel and Wing Venture Capital.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Andrew’s decision to study computer science at MIT and how working at a handful of internships helped shape his career.

* A deep dive into his experience at Endeca, plus another startup he founded called LoopIt.

* All the details on Jellyfish and how they are enabling the business of engineering.

* Advice to entrepreneurs on idea creation and what is a viable product to build a business around.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

I have always been fascinated by how video games are created, especially the complexity of today’s games and storylines. So, I could wait to talk with Jon about this topic since his last company created games for major franchises like Game of Thrones and Star Trek.

Jon is a serial entrepreneur going back to the very young age of 13 years old when he monetized his first game. He went on to start a very successful content management software company called Eprise which went public.

After selling Disruptor Beam to Tilting Point, he is now focused on his latest startup called Beamable. The company enables game makers to easily add social, commerce and content management features to their games with drag-and-drop prefabs.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* The story of how he monetized his first game, Space Empire Elite.

* A journey through Jon’s entrepreneurial background and the companies he founded.

* Disruptor Beam and how they were able to land such iconic titles.

* How Beamable came to fruition and all the details on the company and its technology.

* What the future of the video game industry may look like.

* Advice for starting a career in the gaming industry.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

I have been a long time listener to Sal’s podcast, so I was really excited to collaborate with him for this bonus episode.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn about the background story of VentureFizz and The VentureFizz Podcast, then this is an episode that you don’t want to miss.

In this podcast interview, we also discuss:

* My background and the entrepreneurial roots and work ethic that I learned from my dad.

* How I got to the point of founding my own recruitment firm, which focused on working with venture-backed companies.

* Lots of details on Sal’s professional career and how he got into angel investing, plus the details on his area of focus for making investments.

* Tips on building a podcast and growing your audience, including the #1 channel that you should be focused on.

* And, a lot of fun back and forth banter.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

TJ has a legendary background in the tech industry having founded and run several successful companies through multiple decades. A lot of these successes have been in partnership with another tech legend, that being Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and many other companies.

Their latest company together is Beyond Identity which recently announced $30M in funding. The company is creating a new identity management platform that will hopefully put an end to all those dreaded and not so very secure passwords we all use.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* TJ’s foundational years - growing up in Hawaii and studying Computer Science at Virginia Tech.

* The details on his role at Silicon Graphics as President & CEO, plus examples around how the company’s innovative technology was being leveraged.

* His experience as Founding Chairman & CEO of @Home Network, where we discuss its merger with Excite, which was laying down the foundation of how consumers access the internet and content.

* A journey through his other entrepreneurial endeavors as an operator or investor, including Ibotta, where he is a board member and investor.

* All of the details on Beyond Identity and why this could be one of their biggest companies yet.

* Advice on building out your leadership team.

* And so much more.

I have been wanting to interview Lee for a long time, as he has played a key role in the early stages of two iconic tech companies. He was an early employee at PayPal and was part of the founding team at LinkedIn before becoming a venture capitalist. Needless to say, he’s worked with some amazing people like Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, David Sacks, and others.

He shares some awesome stories around each company, especially how LinkedIn started to gain traction in the early days.

Today, Lee is a Partner & Co-Founder of NextView Ventures, a seed stage investment firm that is focused on investing into companies that are redesigning the Everyday Economy.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Lee’s background and why he was so interested in joining a startup after college.

* How he met Elon Musk which landed him a job at the startup he was working on that turned into PayPal.

* A deep dive into the early foundational years at LinkedIn.

* His transition into VC and all the details on NextView Ventures.

* Why you shouldn't hire specialists for your startup.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Jessica and Steve are serial entrepreneurs. They both started successful companies separately in other industries, but it was their personal experiences that brought them together to build ianacare.

If you’ve ever had to care for a loved one who is ill, then you know first hand how challenging it can be on so many levels. You need help but you don’t want to be a burden to others and there are challenges around coordinating the care. In the U.S. alone, there are over 43M family caregivers and over 90% of the care happens in the home, not a hospital.

ianacare was built to support these caregivers. It is a mobile app that provides the emotional and practical support they need.

The creation of ianacare is a perfect example of entrepreneurs who find a problem through real-world experiences and realize that something needs to change and it becomes their passion to create the solution.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Steve & Jessica’s background and entrepreneurial stories including scaling a consumer subscription business to an exit for Jessica and Steve’s experience taking a video AdTech company public.

* The details behind their personal experiences caregiving for a family member and why they decided to take action.

* A deep dive into ianacare in terms of their business and product.

* What the Just Show Up movement means.

* Advice for founders on hiring during different stages of a business.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

This episode must have been fate. I subscribe to an email newsletter about podcasting from PodReacher and they had recommended Otter for transcriptions. I had been looking for a way to include a transcript for each podcast episode on VentureFizz, but I wanted something that was accurate and cost-effective. No, this is not a commercial for Otter, but I tested out the product and was blown away by its accuracy. If you go to our recent podcast episode, you’ll now see a full transcript available, which is powered by Otter.

Anyway, a few weeks later after becoming a fan of Otter, I heard from their PR firm about having Sam as a guest on our podcast. When I took a deeper dive into his background, things just got even more interesting.

Sam started and led Google location server, which powered the blue dot feature on Google Mobile Map in 2006 - 2010. After Google, he launched a successful startup that was acquired and now with Otter, he has a very big vision in how their platform might even change our lives.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Sam’s background including his PhD studies at Stanford under famed professor, David Cheriton.

* The story of his involvement in creating Google Maps and the blue dot.

* The details on Sam’s previous company, Alohar, and the acquisition by Alibaba.

* A deep dive into Otter in terms of its many use cases, plus the complexity of their platform and its use of AI & deep learning.

* What the future might look like if you could document and search all of your conversations.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Carlos is the definition of a serial entrepreneur. He has started over ten companies and many of which have exited. I first learned about Carlos back around the year 1999, as I was still cutting my teeth as a recruiter during the internet 1.0 era. He was the founder of a company called Opus360, a professional services automation software company that went public.

After numerous startups later like CourseAdvisor, APT, OrionCKB, and others… his latest venture is Thrasio, which could be the biggest opportunity yet.

Thrasio is the fastest-growing acquirer of Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) businesses. The company recently closed $110M in financing at a valuation of almost $800M and its just a couple of years old. As you’ll hear from our discussion, it is a business that just makes sense in terms of how they are leveraging their knowledge from previous companies to build this consumer company at such a rapid pace.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* Carlos’ background and his unique major at MIT.

* The story of Opus360 and why he decided to travel cross country on a motorcycle afterward.

* A journey through lots of the companies that Carlos has started.

* A deep dive into Thrasio and its business model.

* Advice for founders during the acquisition process.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

It was obvious that entrepreneurship was in the future for Aubrie being that she started her first venture as a child with a neighborhood door to door art gallery. After graduating from Harvard and spending time in the finance industry, she knew that she always wanted to start a company.

She had noticed a growing trend towards mass customization across different sectors and decided to start a platform for custom fashion called Bow & Drape with her co-founder Shelly Madick.

Like with so many startups, you have to find the right product-market fit for your audience and it took lots of experiments, determination, and good old fashioned hard work before they landed on a hit - that being personalized casualwear that was fun and all about expression. Not only did it appeal to a mass audience but soon celebrities and influencers became customers. The company was acquired last year by Win Brand Group.

For Aubrie’s next chapter, she has joined Alpaca VC as a Partner. She is looking to leverage her combination of experience as an operator and investor to work with entrepreneurs who are reshaping the real world and layering technology over daily life experiences.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* A deep dive into Bow & Drape and the stories behind the company.

* Why entrepreneurs might want to consider debt financing more often.

* How Aubrie landed in the VC industry and discovered a passion for working with other entrepreneurs through XFactor Ventures.

* All the details on Alpaca VC, a seed-stage investment firm.

* Advice for female & minority founders when raising capital.

* And so much more.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Episode #171 - Yan Liu, Co-Founder & CEO of TVision.

It is a golden era of television. There is a tremendous amount of amazing content out there across the major TV networks and subscription services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney Plus, Apple TV+, and more. It’s hard to keep up with it all.

You might be familiar with the Nielsen TV ratings system which measures what television programs people are watching. It hs been around for many years, but it really hasn’t evolved with how consumers actually watch TV and advertising only works if people are actually paying attention to it.

This is where TVision comes into play. They are a TV performance metrics company and their technology measures what was once unmeasurable - how people really watch TV. They are collecting unique viewability and attention data, which in return helps brands and agencies maximize their advertising budgets. The company has raised over $24M in venture funding.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

* How the pandemic is affecting viewership and what it means for the media industry.

* The story of Yan’s first company which pivoted from a women’s underwear eCommerce company to an interactive agency.

* How TVision got started at MIT Sloan after the idea was validated by 20 industry experts.

* All the details on TVision in terms of how they are disrupting the TV performance metrics industry, plus how they landed ABC Disney as an early customer.

* Why you should hire based on culture & character, versus skillset.

* What a viral show like Tiger King means for Netflix’s business.

* And so much more.

Disclaimer: Keith Cline is an angel investor in TVision. Not that it matters all that much, as this interview is like all of his other interviews, but just wanted to disclose it upfront.

If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.