Trailblazer Show

Rosanna Yau is a designer, Y Combinator alumni, and the co-founder of BackerKit, the #1 platform enabling project creators to manage their crowdfunding campaigns effectively. In addition to helping crowdfunding campaign creators quickly fulfill to all their backers, BackerKit has also helped creators raise $150,000,000 on their platform

In this conversation with Rosanna, we discuss everything from Rosanna's background to how she got involved in helping create one of the earliest decentralized platforms. And how she created backerkit with Maxwell, the cofounder of backerkit. We also go on to discuss how rosanna hires, what her days are like, how she deals with overwhelm and the one book she gives to every new hire. 

Please enjoy this awesome conversation I had with Rosanna Yau, the cofounder of backerkit!

Dr. Lisa Kroon is the Chair of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy in the School of Pharmacy at UC San Francisco. Lisa is responsible for setting the strategy, priorities, and goals for the clinical pharmacy program.

Dr. Chris Duff is the Director of Platform & Community at FundRx, an early-stage healthcare venture capital firm.

He is a doctor-by-training with marketing expertise across a wide range of industries.

Fun fact here - One of the industries include selling chicken coops online.

In this podcast, Chris and I discuss his journey from completing medical school at the University of Illinois to becoming a director at FundRx

We also discussed how he avoided his sunk cost fallacy and was able to objectively evaluate what he enjoyed and did not enjoy

Which ultimately led to him to be 1 of 200 people in his class of medical students to take the lesser-taken path of not pursuing a residency and blazing his own trail to his current dream job.

Chris also shares his massive failures in his first and second businesses prior to starting from scratch to acquire his digital marketing skillset

I really enjoyed my conversation with Chris. Please enjoy!

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Previously, he led campaign strategy for LaunchBoom, one of the most well-known marketing agency specializing in crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

He also co-founded Physiologic Technology, which utilized existing smart scale technology to help physicians administer individualized diuretic-dosing instructions at low cost.

Chris holds both his M.D. and an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, where he graduated with Highest Honors.

Scott is the founder of kickbooster.me,

the #1 affiliate platform for crowdfunded campaigns on Indiegogo and Kickstarter

Scott shares his journey in building his first business, a construction company and how his drive for money led him slowly to a less fulfilling life.

We discuss the trigger and health issues he encountered that led to him leaving and selling his first business and taking 2 years to find the next thing that got him excited

Scott also shares the habit that allowed him to increase his sensitivity to what led to a more fulfilled life which I love.

This ultimately led to him to build out the most badass home on wheels I've ever seen he now lives out of

For people that know me, I've been dreaming of living in something like this since I was 13.

Scott is very unique where he is an astute and accomplished business person but he is also an extremely present, fulfilled and calm human being.

This is rare and a characteristic I try very hard to emulate because in many situations, in order to accomplish something, it requires you to constantly be chasing and thinking about what's coming around the corner and frankly, to be never satisfied.

Scott seems to have found the right balance.

In this podcast, Scott shares with us how he got there. So please, enjoy this amazing conversation with Scott.

Chris Yin is currently the VP of Product at Rainforest QA and an angel investor. He's built products, teams, and businesses from very early stage to public companies. Chris specializes in finding opportunities, bringing products to market (strategy, development, distribution), leading multiple cross-functional teams, and scaling organizations.

Formerly, Chris was at Coupa Software, currently a publicly traded company with a $5.6 billion market cap. At Coupa, Chris helped lead the company from a smaller startup to an IPO with the development and growth of the Expenses, Inventory, and Mobile product lines. Prior to that, he was an early team member at Xpenser, an early stage startup that was acquired by Coupa.

Moe Arnaiz is an entrepreneur with a passion for building enduring companies. Moe was the CEO and Co-Founder of eMOBUS (now Tangoe), he bootstrapped the software company in the mobility management space to over 500 enterprise customers and a successful exit to a $6.7B private equity firm. After the exit, Moe took 2 years to spend time with family, travel and advise early-stage companies. Moe is now working on his next venture, Weeldi, which gives businesses the power to transform the data in their web browsers into a scalable, reliable API in seconds, with no coding required — allowing them to quickly extract the web data they need to be successful when APIs are unwieldy or unavailable.

Moe grew up in San Francisco's Excelsior District, spent 16 years in San Diego where he was on SD Metro Magazines 40-under-40 list and now resides in Mill Valley, CA with his wife and 2 children. He spends his free time eating good food and enjoying life with family and friends

Risk adversity helps keep you fiscally responsible, but at what point does it hold you back from achieving your goals?

Amanda Nguyen, founder of Butter&, tells her story of how she left jobs at the Federal Reserve, Eventbrite, and Facebook to turn her passion project into a full-fledged business selling 1,000+ cakes since 2017. 

Steven is a 26-year old industrial product designer/entrepreneur from San Francisco.

He has launched over 20 products, building a multimillion-dollar business and selling half a million wallets worldwide and is recognized by major publications like Forbes, GQ, and Business Insider.

His products focus on minimal, functional designs in fashion and accessories.

In high school, Shad successfully went through the BS/MD admissions process with a high school GPA that barely met the minimum requirements for most BS/MD programs. Shad developed unorthodox strategies to stand out in the highly competitive BS/MD candidate pool. His unique experience has taught him the vital importance of crafting an exceptional application and narrative, above all else. Shad develops the unique admissions strategies that contributes to the tremendous success and competitive advantage granted to PremedHQ's students and families.

Benny Luo is founder of NextShark.com, the largest online publication targeting Asian Americans. It reaches over 10 million per week on social media and has been cited by The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Forbes, Business Insider, and more. Previously, he founded NewMediaRockstars.com, a media destination for internet culture, acquired by Zealot Networks in 2013. In 2017, he was inducted into the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2018.