Nick Larson is a co-founder and CEO of Evlo – platform to easily and conveniently buy local furniture and art. Evlo (Everything Local) not only helps to find the perfect piece, but the product can be brought to the customer with no obligation to buy. Sounds cool, right?

Nick is a Silicon Valley native and was raised in Los Gatos. He studied marketing and business at San Jose State University, then worked full time as an Account Executive, and today he is in 100% devoted to his startup. Since he was raised here, finding the team was rather easy – Nick asked his friends to join. However, all the rest is a challenge – from finding the first furniture suppliers, through figuring out the logistics necessary to deliver the products, finding first clients and getting funded.

How does Nick compare being full-time employed to running his own startup? At what point did he decide to leave the job? How did he find the first partnerships in San Francisco? How does “Try before you buy” option work out for Evlo? What is important to know when pitching to investors? You can also watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com.

We've all heard about The Social Network movie, which portrays the founding of Facebook and the resulting lawsuits. In the movie, as well as in reality, Winklevoss brothers claimed that Facebook was their idea, and Facebook’s co-founder Eduardo Saverin claimed that the was purposely induced to sign an agreement that led to significant dilution of his shares.

The issues leading to the above lawsuits are not an uncommon thing in the startup world. I invited Mark Howitson to join me on the show and share his thoughts about whether similar problems can be avoided by startup founders, and how. Mark also comments on how much truth about the Facebook’s lawsuits is conveyed in the movie and published on the Internet.

I feel very honored that Mark accepted my invitation, since he doesn’t appear much in media, and until now he hadn’t publicly commented on Facebook’s cases. Listen to the interview carefully, as we refer to the lawsuits throughout our talk. You can also watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com.

Neuroon had huge success on Kickstarter in 2014, reaching their $100K goal in one day and raising nearly $500K in total. Now, the company is selling the mask to thousands of people worldwide.

Neuroon was first planned to be the mask for polyphasic sleep, today it helps to manage sleep better using bright light therapy. I met with Tomasz at Runway Incubator in San Francisco to talk about how Neuroon works and what are its best applications. In what way did the purpose of the mask change over time and why? What was the reaction of Kickstarter backers to the product’s changes and the delay of delivery? How did the founders deal with their backers’ responses? How did they manage to keep company’s operations after Kickstarter funding? Did they look for investors? How did they find first customers outside of Kickstarter?

Listen to the interview and discover the insights of Neuroon’s amazing story! You can also watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com.

Emily Baum is the CEO of Keyrious — high-tech fine jewelry – that unlocks extraordinary experiences with a turn of a key. Emily lived in New York, studied in Chicago, and then moved to San Francisco to pursue her dream of running a business. She tells about the beginnings of Keyrious, the first steps of getting settled in SF, her experience building a team, raising angel investment in Silicon Valley as a female founder, and many more lessons learned along the way.

Watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com

Nomiku cooks food in a controlled low-temperature water bath. It had massively succeeded in two Kickstarter campaigns and is one of the highest funded food category campaign on Kickstarter.

What was the story behind creating Nomiku? What were the first steps to produce and sell first Nomiku appliances? How did Lisa and her team triple their Kickstarter campaigns goals two times? Why do they manufacture in San Francisco, and finally, how it is to run a startup with a spouse?

Watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com

Fulfil.io is a platform that combines inventories from multiple marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, e-Bay. Sharoon and his co-founders founded the company in June 2015 in India, and only few months later they got approved to 500 Startups accelerator program in Mountain View. Watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com

Jon Vlassopulos is an angel investor, entrepreneur and founder of Fabric — a platform to discover new movies, shows and songs with people who share your taste. He also launched Fab.fm — a platform to build and share music playlists in the simplest and easiest way. Jon has spent majority of his career in the film and music industry, gaining experience in Asia, the UK and the US. Now, he is an angel investor and runs his own startups in San Francisco.

Does Jon see himself more as an investor or as an entrepreneur? Why sharing interests and tastes is more fun than sharing friends? How much of the knowledge that he shares with founders does he implement into his own businesses? Does being an investor give him extra credibility when raising money for his startups? What advice does he give to startup founders, being able to actually wear both hats? While admiring a stunning view of San Francisco downtown, we talk about these, and other amazing topics. Watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com

Neelam creates Oroola – an innovative collaboration platform designed to connect parents whose kids attend classes in the same school. She spent the first year of her startup life with her former co-founder only to discover, that he would quit and take all the code. We talk about moving from India to SV, working in a corporate world, tough startup beginnings, founders drama and finding a good partner. Watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com

Fauzia quit working at Microsoft to pursue her dream of creating a smoothie vending machine. “One of the advice I got from several investors, is not to ask for investment too early. They have told me: ‘Push out on asking for investment as long as you can.’“. Watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com

Bullz-i is a producer of THE RiNG – a strong, slim, stylish and versatile addition to any phone. They just kicked off with their kickstarter campaign. What is their strategy to raising funds and what are their plans for after Kickstarter? Watch video interview at www.valleytalks.com