Value Drivers

  The conversation sheds light on the journey of Thomas Castner, CEO and co-founder of Flash PCB. The conversation covers Thomas' background, the company's unique value proposition, its recent funding from SBIR, and the challenges they face in the day-to-day operations. Thomas, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University, discussed his entrepreneurial journey and th...

Peter Ho sat down with Alex Witcpalek, the CEO and founder of Continuum. The conversation delves into the challenges and opportunities faced by Continuum, as well as the strategies and values that have contributed to the company's success. Alex's background is an important starting point as it provides context for his approach to leading Continuum. He discusses his transition from commercial real...

Joe Essenfeld, the founder of Fora, and Peter Ho discussed Fora's innovative approach to using AI to make enterprise operations more efficient. The company aims to provide C-suite executives with insights from meetings and conversations, allowing them to make strategic decisions based on qualitative data. Fora's focus is on enhancing productivity and bottom-line results for companies, particularly...

Peter Ho sat down with Erin Papworth, the founder of Nav.it, a financial wellness platform aimed at reducing financial stress for individuals and employees.   Papworth, a seasoned entrepreneur with experience managing multi-million dollar programs, shared insights into the challenges and triumphs of building a startup. She discussed the transition from working in large organizations like Johns Hop...

Nishant Tomar, the Chairman & CEO at Digsfact, shares his journey from a house fire in 2017 to launching a startup using AI for property claims. His motivation to found Digsfact stemmed from a personal experience when his home was affected by a fire in 2017, leading him to identify critical pain points in the property repair and insurance claims process. The conversation delves into Nishant's pers...

Balancing Parenthood: Navigating Challenges in Paid Leave Solutions Peter Ho welcomed special guest Dirk Doebler, the founder and CEO of Parento, a company that focuses on providing parental support and leave solutions for working families. The discussion delved into Dirk's diverse background and the journey that led him to establish Parento, as well as the challenges and opportunities he has enco...

Eziah Zaidi-Syed, CEO of MEND, discusses the company's evidence-based approach to optimize healing with personalized nutrition and their platform's focus on enhancing patient care during and after surgical procedures. Eziah delves into the company's unique integrated platform for precision care and the challenges and insights on fundraising, handling rejection, and leveraging connections in the st...

In a recent interview, Peter Ho sat down with Jeff Perlman, the founder of Bright Power—a premier provider of energy and water management services for real estate owners, investors, and operators. The interview provides insight into Perlman's journey, the company's services, and the challenges and opportunities in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industry. Perlman introduces Bright Power...

  In a recent conversation between Peter Ho and Jeff Lambert, the founder of Tiicker, an intelligent software startup, the topic of conversation revolved around Tiicker, a platform that connects individual retail investors with publicly traded companies to offer perks and rewards for stock ownership. The discussion delved into the concept of verified stock perks and shareholder loyalty, with Jeff...

  Show Notes [01:14] John gave the audience a high level summary of his background.   Originally, John is a mathematician.   After post doc in computational neuroscience, he went into market research consulting. Five years ago, he started his first company, Agora, followed by Neoswap. [02:02] John discussed the market opportunity of Neoswap which is pioneering a new form of commerce where it is mu...

Jon Cheney, founder and CEO of Velocity Access, discussed how he is building an enhanced ticketing platform by improving the overall experience of the patrons. Show Notes [01:12]   Jon gave the audience a brief overview of his background.   He has lived in different countries and started selling products door to door when he was 8.   Before Velocity Access, he started a company called Okavu in 201...

Mike Starr, founder and CEO of Trackd, discussed how he and his team help customers minimize vulnerabilities.   Show Notes [01:20]   Mike provided a brief overview of his background.   Before launching trackd, Mike worked at the homeland security department and another startup. Most of the groups he worked in the government were mission focus (i.e. not bureaucratic in terms of execution and operat...

Kunal Agarwal discussed how he and his team makes cyber security a first class experience for his customers.   Show Notes [02:19]   Kunal shared with the audience his interest and passion in hacking, including an incident when he was in high school. [04:43]   Kunal discussed the genesis of Dope Security and meaning behind the company name.   In his view, it is critically important to build the mos...

Show Notes [01:18]   Scot gave a brief outline of his background.   Scot has a technology background and two career journeys: a serial entrepreneur and investor/enthusiast/mentor of entrepreneurship. [03:29]   Scot provided a high level overview of Spiffy, a mobile car care company which is nationwide.   The team is trying to build Starbucks for car care. [05:03]   Scot took a deeper dive into whe...

  Show Notes [01:36]   Palash discussed his background and the genesis of Goldcast.   He came to business school with the specific intent of starting a company.   The timing was right (Covid) and the market opportunity is at a point where he wanted to launch the company rather than waiting for the completion of his MBA. [05:23]   Palash walked us through the market opportunity of Goldcast.   If we...

  Show Notes [01:17]  Adam provided the genesis of Thatch. Paying for healthcare is really painful and complex.  It is painful for the business. It's painful for the employees.  Thatch is founded to alleviate the pains for employees and employers. [05:17]  Adam took a deeper dive on how Thatch can help employers and employees. They set a budget, use a bunch of data and visualizations to make it ea...

Elaheh Ahmadi, founder of Themis AI, discusses how she and her team plans to empower the world to create and deploy trustworthy AI.   Show Notes [01:15]   Elaheh provided an overview of Themis AI and the genesis of the research. [03:34]   Discussion on recent developments of OpenAI and how Themis AI's product may be relevant to the industry.   There's the anxiety in the AI community about the powe...

Paul Barnhurst (The FP&A guy) discusses current trends, challenges and opportunities of FP&A professionals.   Show Notes   [01:28]   Paul discussed his journey of FP&A and his decision to launch an FP&A consulting firm. [02:58]   Paul shared the type of training services offered by his firm. [04:26]   Paul took a deeper dive into various training services. [06:27]   The primary target customers (a...

Thomas Kunjappu, founder and CEO of Cleary, discusses how Cleary can help companies improve internal communication and build organization culture.   Show Notes [01:30]   Thomas provided the backstory of the founding of Cleary.   His background has mostly been in product management throughout the career. Typically, when someone is building products, it is built for customers.   In the case of Thoma...

  Nicholas Longano, founder and CEO of Scuti, discussed the market potential of G-commerce and Scuti's business model.  Nick also shared with the audience his fundraising experience and his approach to align and inspire the team to reach the company's goal.  Nick is an entrepreneur and thought leader with decades of experience in launching successful companies and brands in diverse industries such...

Alex Furman, founder and CEO of Performica, discussed his journey from software engineering to HR, and how he developed the internal HR organization graph at Invitae, which seeded the idea of Performica.  In  a wide ranging discussion, Alex also shared with the audience his fundraising experience and management philosophy.   Show Notes [01:19]   Alex gave an overview of Performica. It connects var...

Jacob Bank, founder and CEO of Relay, combines AI with Human Judgement to automate repeated tasks in modern workflow. Show Notes [01:11]   Jacob provided an overview of Relay which is a workflow automation tool that aims to save you time on repeated tasks and help automate the components of repeated tasks that computers are really good at while still letting you apply human judgement and insight t...

Alex Smereczniak, founder of 2ULaundry discussed his journey from an entrepreneur in college to the founding of 2ULaundry.   Alex discussed 2ULaundry's strategy, fundraising history and operating philosophy. Show Notes [01:22]   Alex discussed his journey from an entrepreneur in college to a brief stop at a Big 4 firm before starting 2ULaundry. [03:58]   Alex took a deeper dive into the rationale...

Eric Martin shared with us his journey from the research lab at the University of Michigan to launching a hardware startup.  Eric also discussed how he turned the first roadblock from NSF into a successful grant.   Show Notes [01:15]  Eric discussed his journey from a research lab at the University of Michigan to launching Monstr Sense Technologies.  (Products were named Bigfoot, Nessie, etc.)   H...

Dr. Tim Cogan discussed how he and his team use AI to flight breast cancer by making the screening process cheaper, faster and more accurate.   Show Notes [04:53]  Tim explained how AI working together with radiologists can result in quicker turnaround time for screening. [05:55]  The key differentiation of Medcognetics was discussed.  One thing that set the company apart is its partnership around...