The VentureFizz Podcast

Welcome to Episode 61 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Dennis Mortensen, CEO and Founder of x.ai in New York City.

Dennis is a serial entrepreneur who has helped start a number of companies over the course of his career with multiple exits. We talk in detail about these companies and we discuss the successes and lessons learned from them.

x.ai is Dennis’ latest startup which is solving a problem that happens 10 billion times a year. That is scheduling meetings. It is that ritual that we all know so well with the highly inefficient back and forth over email.

As it turns out, it is a complex problem to solve and x.ai is finally providing a solution with its comprehensive AI-powered scheduling technology. The company is venture backed and they have raised $44M to date.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Dennis’s background growing up in Denmark with a family of entrepreneurs, and how this gave him “sales stamina” and led him down the path of entrepreneurship.

-All about his prior companies, including Visual Revenue, Indextools and others.

-The details behind x.ai and the complexity of their technology.

-Why he likes to hire people who are “comfortable in the dark.”

-His perspective on whether entrepreneurship can be a career.

-Plus, a lot more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 60 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Shimon Elkabetz, Co-Founder and CEO of ClimaCell.

After 11 years in the Israeli Air Force, it was multiple near-death experiences that prompted Shimon’s passion for the weather.

This passion ultimately led him and his co-founders to start ClimaCell, a company that has the very ambitious mission to map all of the weather data in the world. They are combining hyper-sensing technologies that use high-performance computing, which allows them to provide weather forecasts that are much more accurate. Examples of their customer are major companies like JetBlue, Delta, and Autodesk.

The company recently raised $45M in Series B funding, and their total funding to date is now $65M.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Shimon’s experience in the Israeli Air Force and what it taught him about leadership.

-The evolution and details behind the weather forecasting industry.

-ClimaCell’s business and how they are working on building the world’s largest weather platform.

-Advice for entrepreneurs on raising funding in the early days of a business in a unique market.

-How he evaluates talent, and why founders should never compromise on the quality of people hired at their company.

-Plus, a lot more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 59 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Steve Kokinos, CEO of Algorand.

Steve is the definition of a serial entrepreneur, and one who has seen tremendous success.

His company-building roots go back to when he was in college where he launched a company called WebYes, which was acquired. He was then a Co-Founder of BladeLogic, a company that went public and was later acquired by BMC for $800M.

The next company he co-founded was Fuze, one of the anchor tech companies in the Boston tech scene that disrupted the way companies communicate by removing those clunky old PBX systems to a cloud-based offering for enterprises.

Algorand is another highly disruptive company, as they have built a first-of-its-kind blockchain and cryptocurrency that is built specifically for business. The company recently announced a $62M round of funding, along with the appointment of Steve as their CEO, plus the addition of Sean Ford as its COO. You might recognize Sean’s name, as he is the former CMO of LogMeIn and was a guest on our podcast back in March.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-How he built his first company and got traction with major customers while still in college.

-The story behind BladeLogic, and what it was like scaling to the point of going public.

-The aha moment behind Fuze, and why challenging market conditions ended up working to their advantage.

-All the details behind Algorand and what excites him about the company’s technology and how they are bringing cryptocurrency and the blockchain to the enterprise.

-Advice for entrepreneurs on figuring out sales and pricing.

-How to manage your company’s culture and keeping the bar for talent high through hypergrowth mode.

-Plus, a lot more.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Pluralsight.

It is amazing what machine learning can do. With mounds of data being harvested every day, there’s so much we can learn and create.

Pluralsight, the technology learning platform, is using this data for the good of tech professionals everywhere. Their AI helps you see what level your tech skills are at and recommends opportunities to keep learning. Pretty cool, right?

And they’re looking for help to make their algorithms even smarter. If changing the way the world learns technology through the intersection of Design, Product, Data Science and Engineering is right up your alley, apply to work at Pluralsight.

Want to work here? Visit pluralsight.com/venturefizz to learn more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 58 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Ryan Smith, Co-Founder & CEO of LeafLink.

Ryan is a serial entrepreneur and has been recognized by Forbes as a member of their 30 Under 30 list for enterprise tech. Prior to co-founding LeafLink, he successfully founded and exited two companies.

LeafLink is a venture-backed company in New York City that is setting the industry standard for how cannabis brands and retailers work together. With a robust online marketplace, CRM, and order management tools, they have created a centralized sales engine to help cannabis sellers manage and grow their business.

The company was listed as one of the Most Innovative Companies in 2018 by Fast Company.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Ryan’s background and the details on his first two companies.

-How he met Zach Silverman, his Co-Founder at LeafLink and what led them to start the company.

-The details on LeafLink and how they are building a rapidly growing business in the cannabis industry.

-How he raised funding as a cannabis-focused company and other i-industry challenges.

-Advice for founders on getting PR as a startup.

-What he wishes people told him before starting his own company.

-Plus, a lot more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 57 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Jules Pieri, Co-Founder & CEO of The Grommet.

The Grommet is a community that has reshaped the way people discover, share, influence, and buy products online. The company’s mission is rooted in what they call “Citizen Commerce,” and they have helped launch many products that are now household names like Fitbit, SodaStream, OtterBox, S’well water bottles, and many more.

To kick off our interview, I ask Jules about “the shoes.” It is a story about Jules and how she was pounding the pavement in the early days of building The Grommet to the point where she wore out these shoes and they fell apart right before a meeting with potential investors. It is a legendary story of entrepreneurial grit and perseverance that is a common theme throughout not only Jules’ professional career but her whole life.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Jules’ background growing up in Detroit and the early foundation years.

-Her work on the iconic Reebok Pump sneaker.

-What she learned working very closely with legendary tech CEO, Meg Whitman.

-The details on The Grommet, a successful consumer marketplace that is now majority-owned by Ace Hardware.

-Her scrappy PR strategy, and how she has been able to get coverage in major publications like The New York Times, Fortune, Inc., and many others.

-Advice for entrepreneurs, especially women, who are raising venture capital.

-Plus, a lot more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 56 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

On this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Eric Groves, Co-Founder & CEO at Alignable.

Alignable is a venture-backed social network for small business owners. The company has over 2.5 million small businesses on their platform across almost 30,000 communities.

Eric is also known for being a key part of the early team at Constant Contact that helped the company scale to an IPO. He joined when they had just 10 customers and $100 in revenue. Yes, you hear that right $100 in revenue.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-His early career progression from larger organizations to internet companies like AltaVista, where he actually met the brother of Steve Wozniak.

-The details behind Constant Contact’s go-to-market strategy, plus the secret behind how they converted trial users to being paid customers at mind-numbing rates.

-All about Alignable, and their mission to transform the small business economy one small step at a time.

-How they are building the Alignable network at a national scale all organically where they are adding over 50,000 businesses a week with a zero acquisition cost.

-The one piece of advice he wishes he had when starting a company.

-Plus so much more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 55 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

On this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Ben Hindman, Co-Founder and CEO of Splash, an end-to-end event marketing platform that executes, measures, and scales your event programs.

Ben is the kind of entrepreneur that reminds you that it’s up to us to create our own opportunities… and as he has witnessed, each opportunity can open the door to the next one.

Take his current company Splash, which was a pivot away from an original idea called One Clipboard. It was a hail mary opportunity that ultimately saved the company, and it was the right product to build a successful business at scale. The company has raised $14.5M in venture funding from Ascent Venture Partners, Spark Capital, and Lerer Hippeau.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Ben’s background as a serial entrepreneur going all the way back to a free walking tour company in Washington D.C., which taught him web marketing skills.

-His experience running events at Thrillist, and how partnerships made a significant difference to their success.

-The story behind the pivot to Splash, and how they found the viral coefficient which allowed them to hit scale.

-How to speak the same language with investors when raising capital, and why you should prioritize simplicity when giving your pitch.

-Great advice on how to become a better leader.

-Plus so much more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 54 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

On this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Mike Phillips, Co-Founder and CEO of Sense.

Mike is a serial entrepreneur and a pioneer in speech recognition technology. What was so interesting about my interview with Mike is that it was basically a history lesson through the evolution of speech recognition—a very difficult and complex technology to build. After years and years, it is technology that we now take for granted with things like Siri, Alexa, and Ok Google.

After spending time in research at Carnegie Mellon and MIT, Mike co-founded SpeechWorks, a company that created software that allowed you to interact with an automated attendant in call centers in a natural way, which was groundbreaking technology at the time.

Mike went on to be a co-founder of Vlingo, which was often referred to as the “Siri for Android,” which helped make consumer adoption of this form of technology a reality.

Today, Mike is doing something completely new with Sense, which is making our homes smarter with their intelligent home energy monitor. The company has raised a total of $38.6M in funding, including a $18M Series B round of funding back in October.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Mike’s background, and how his interest in electronics started to bloom at a young age by building things like his own computer and an electronic piano tuner.

-The details on the early research projects he was working on at Carnegie Mellon and MIT.

-Building SpeechWorks to the point of going public, and their evolution of the company through mergers and acquisitions to eventually becoming known as Nuance.

-How he was able to convince investors that mobile was the next frontier for speech recognition, which led to Vlingo and was acquired for $225M.

-The vision for Sense and how they are letting consumers know what is going on in their homes, all while making them safer, more efficient, and more reliable.

-Plus a lot of advice for entrepreneurs.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 53 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Jodi Goldstein, Executive Director at Harvard Innovation Labs.

The Harvard i-lab is an incubator and ecosystem to help Harvard students build their startups and gain valuable connections. Since starting seven years ago, the i-lab has helped incubate over 1,200 companies, and altogether, they have gone on to raise over $1.5 billion. This includes companies like Handy (which was just acquired), Lovepop, Catalant, and Artlifting.

Another amazing statistic from the companies participating in the i-lab is the fact that 50% of their founders are female.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Jodi’s background going back to her early foundational years in Vermont, being part of an entrepreneurial family in the hospitality industry, and what that taught her.

-Why she choose the startup path out of HBS, and the details behind early-to-market companies that ended up being precursors to Facebook and Instagram.

-What led her down the path of starting her own company, Drync, one of the first apps in the App Store.

-How she got involved in the Harvard i-lab, the mission behind this initiative at Harvard, and why they don’t take equity in companies.

-Her views on what are the best measures for success, and how they are striving to give students an unfair competitive advantage.

-Advice for founders who are looking for a technical co-founder.

-Plus, a lot more!

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!

Welcome to Episode 52 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights!

For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Allison Page, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at SevenRooms in New York City.

SevenRooms is an all-in-one reservation, seating and guest management platform that is used by customers ranging from neighborhood restaurants to international hospitality groups.

The company raised a $8M Series A round of funding last December and they just announced an investment for Amazon’s Alexa Fund to introduce in-service, voice-enabled technology for the restaurant industry.

In this episode of our podcast, we cover:

-Allison’s background, including the lessons she learned having a side hustle while working in investment banking.

-How the founding team spent their time learning the hospitality industry to discover the pain points that SevenRooms would initially focus on.

-How the curiosity factor is helpful for people who are considering a career in product management.

-The trickle-down effect that has happened in terms of hiring across the company based on having a diverse leadership team.

-Plus, a lot more.

Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!