Turnpikers

Luke and Danny catch up after almost a year off the air. Please note: his episode was recorded in a makeshift studio in Luke's all concrete Airbnb at SXSW. The content is awesome, the sound quality, not so much.

In this episode of Turnpikers, Danny and Luke are joined by JP O’Brien and Justin Bannon, operating partners of Black Lab Sports. Justin and JP talk about the thesis of the venture, their first few investment and the log term goal of the very unique sports-related fund and laboratory.  Justin, a former NFL star, shared some unique stories about ex-athletes who look to get involved involved in entrepreneurship when their athletic careers are over.

In this episode, Brad Feld sits down with Luke and Danny to discuss the health and wellness of venture capital in Colorado. Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. He is the co-founder of Foundry Group, a venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage information technology, Internet and software startups. Prior to Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture and Techstars.

Live from Denver Startup Week, Luke and Danny sit down with two finalists from the Pitch-Off Event. First, Kevin Krauth, CEO and co-founder of Orderly Health, joins Turnpikers to discuss his experience starting his company in Colorado. Orderly Health is a chatbot platform that answers medical insurance questions. Second, Anthony Franco joins to discuss mcSquares, a company he founded and currently serves as CEO of. McSquares are handheld whiteboards that easily snap together on a wall to create larger collaborative systems so that meetings are more productive and learning is more engaging.

In our second Denver Startup Week Special, Tripp Keber joins Turnpikers to discuss the rapidly expanding cannabis industry. Tripp is CEO of Dixie Brands, Inc -- a company he co-founded that serves as a premiere licensed marijuana infused product manufacturer. Widely hailed as one of this industry's leaders, when Tripp is not thinking about the future vision of Dixie and the industry, he is supporting efforts of the National Cannabis Industry Association, where he is a founding member and current Board Director.

In this Denver Startup Week Special, Luke and Danny sit down with Doug Llewellyn, President & COO of Purch Inc. Purch attracts 100 million monthly unique users to its portfolio of websites that focus on providing content and services to help consumers and small business owners alike make the right product purchase decisions.

In this episode, Luke and Danny chat with John Levisay, CEO and co-founder of local startup Craftsy. John has overseen Craftsy's growth from 4 employees to over 215 employees in just six years. In that time, Craftsy has raised over $100M in venture capital and gone from an idea on how to change education, to a fast-growing media, ecommerce and technology company.

Jeff Casimir sits down with Luke and Danny to talk about Denver's Turing School of Software and Design. Jeff is the Executive Director of Turing School where he designs the overarching instructional program. Prior to this, Jeff started his teaching career with Teach for America in 2003 and has taught both high school and middle school.

Jon Nordmark was the 10-year CEO of eBags.com, where he was also a co-founder. Today, Jon is CEO and co-founder of Iterate.ai which helps large corporations leverage the global startup ecosystem for digital innovation.