Invst Guru

A pre-revenue, member-oriented airline concept born from the Spirit Airlines collapse, now raising under Reg CF on Wefunder. First Jet Airways is a Las Vegas-based startup that, according to company disclosures, intends to build a low-cost U.S. passenger airline organized around an annual membership program and member governance. Management describes the concept as "Costco for the skies.&quot...

Most food brands grow by adding. Jackson Jones grew by taking things out. He was working at Berkshire Hathaway, sitting between Duracell and the Marmon Group, when a friend got him thinking about dog treats. So he carried a KitchenAid down to his basement, ground up some chicken breast, dehydrated it, and handed the result to his dog Rooney. No fillers, no preservatives, no cans. One ingredient. A...

Most people open a brokerage account and then freeze. Every blog and analyst says something different, and the default move is to guess or hand your money to someone else. Sean Tepper lived that. He started investing around 2010, made some money, lost some money, and hit the pause button in 2015 before it got expensive. Then he went looking for what Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger were actually...

Every year across Southeast Asia, rice farmers burn roughly 200 million tons of leftover straw. Not because they want to, but because a single match is cheaper than the equipment needed to till it under. The smoke fills the air for weeks, the fires scorch the soil into dependence on chemical inputs, and the farmers doing the burning are often deep in debt. A recent study found that more than half...

Every eye doctor in America tells patients to take AREDS2 vitamins for their eyes. Dr. Roger Wu tracked how many of his own patients actually did it and found the number was under 10 percent. Meanwhile, the same people were drinking Gatorade, energy drinks, and probiotic sodas without being asked twice. So he built the vitamin into a beverage instead. Dr. Wu is an optometrist with two practices in...

Twenty years ago, if you had pitched a national massage chain, everyone would have laughed. There is now one on every corner, and the people who invested early made a fortune. Frank Muller believes luxury men's grooming is that exact trade today. Frank spent 40 years in capital markets: investment management at Morgan Stanley, running capital markets at an international real estate company, then c...

What if your social feed had zero politics, zero toxicity, and 100% joyful animal videos? That's exactly what Ashley Quincey, CEO and founder of Fureelz, is building. In this episode, Ashley shares how a mix of dinner-party conversations about social media's dark side and her own habit of sending animal memes to friends sparked the idea for a short-form video platform dedicated entirely to animals...

Every company sells to people who travel — but almost none of them sell travel. That gap is where revenue quietly leaks out, and it's what Chickie Fitzgerald built Solutionz to capture. Host Jeff sits down with Chickie — on her 13th startup — to unpack how Solutionz plugs into the systems people already use (CRMs, calendars, event platforms, even healthcare and winery sites), so when a user is ins...

What happens when a 34-year corporate veteran watches his sons repeat the same workplace struggles he faced decades earlier — and decides to build the solution? That's exactly where Dr. Deepak Bhootra found himself, and Rise Up At Work was born. In this episode of Invst Guru, Jeff "Fuzzy" Wenzel sits down with Dr. Deepak to unpack the broken employer-employee contract, why 35% of salespeople leave...

Most founders focus on the pitch deck, the platform, and the marketing — but there's a critical piece of the capital raise puzzle they often overlook: escrow. Jeff "Fuzzy" Wenzel sits down with Ernesto Maldonado, SVP & Head of the Escrow and Legal Vertical at Enterprise Bank and Trust, to pull back the curtain on the infrastructure that keeps capital raises protected, compliant, and clean. Ern...

What if the future of farming ran on sunlight instead of diesel? Steve Heckeroth, founder of Renewables Inc., has spent 55 years working on alternatives to fossil fuel — from passive solar homes to electric cars to electric tractors. Now he's built the E2T, a remote-controlled, solar-capable electric two-wheel tractor designed specifically for small and community-scale farms. In this episode of th...

The IPO market is rigged — and a 30-year Wall Street veteran is doing something about it. Matt Venturi, co-founder of ClearingBid, joins Fuzzy on the Invst Guru podcast to break down why everyday investors are systematically locked out of IPO pricing, how a patented Dutch auction algorithm creates a true level playing field, and what it would take to completely democratize public markets for retai...

What if you could replace herbicides, spray rigs, and chemical inputs with a fleet of small autonomous robots quietly weeding between crop rows at 3.5 miles per hour? That's exactly what Clint Brauer set out to build — and after seven years, Greenfield Robotics is operating in 16 states with paying customers, backing from Chipotle, and a mission rooted in something deeply personal. Clint's journey...

What if the biggest threat to your family's online safety wasn't a virus or a hacker — but your own Wi-Fi router? Jeff "Fuzzy" Wenzel sits down with John Wu, CEO and Co-Founder of Gryphon Online Safety, to unpack how a routine internet search by his young daughter sparked a mission to protect families at the network level. What started as a Kickstarter campaign has grown into a company that has so...

What does it take to build a clean energy company when federal policy feels like a moving target? Steve Chan, COO and co-founder of Enterprise Energy, has a front-row seat to that chaos — and a surprisingly clear-eyed plan for navigating it. In this episode, Steve walks Jeff "Fuzzy" Wenzel through the full lifecycle of community solar and battery storage development: how they identify and lease la...

What happens when a former investment banker looks at Miami's waterfront and decides the real opportunity isn't on land — it's on the water? You get Arkhaus, one of the most visually stunning and conceptually bold startups in the hospitality space today. Sam Payrovi, co-founder and CEO of Arkhaus, joins Jeff "Fuzzy" Wenzel on Invst Guru to walk through the full story — from a rooftop social club i...

Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we are taking a deep dive into Uncle Waithley's Beverage Company , a brand that is elevating the adult non-alcoholic beverage market with authentic Caribbean flavors and artisanal craftsmanship. As the beverage industry sees a massive shift toward "sober-curious" and alcohol-alternative lifestyles, Uncle Waithley's is filling the gap for a complex, culturally au...

What if your next real estate investment didn't just cash flow — it changed lives? Jeff "Fuzzy" Wenzel sits down with Andrew Tyree, co-founder of Gracious Wellsprings, a women's sober living company based in West Los Angeles that's quietly becoming one of the most compelling impact investment stories in the recovery housing space. Andrew didn't start with a grand plan. He was a real estate agent w...

When Nadia Tedeschi was working as a nursing assistant, a patient looked up at her through tears and said, "Nobody should have to live like this." That moment sent her to her garage — and eventually to the forefront of one of the most overlooked problems in modern healthcare. Nadia is the founder of Mylo Medical , a startup on a mission to replace the bedpan — a device that hasn't been reinvented...

What if the cloud isn't the answer? That's the bold bet Michael Cioni is making. With over 25 years in the film and television industry — and credits on blockbusters like Avatar , Gone Girl , and Pirates of the Caribbean — Michael has spent his career being the person willing to take the punches to usher in technology that Hollywood wasn't ready for. Now he's doing it again. In this episode of Inv...

This episode examines Bumbo Distribution USA, the company behind the well-known Bumbo Floor Seat and a growing portfolio of infant seating and safety products. Unlike many startup crowdfunding stories, Bumbo operates as an established consumer brand with national retail distribution. Products already appear in Target, Walmart, and Amazon stores across the United States. The company reported about...

Most ready-to-drink cocktails taste great on the label and disappointing in the glass. In this episode of Invst Guru , host Jeff “Fuzzy” Wenzel sits down with Larry, co-founder of World’s Best Cocktail , to talk about turning a passion sparked by Netflix’s Drink Masters into a quality-first consumer brand. After testing nearly 100 pre-made cocktails and finding most of them undrinkable, Larry part...

Buying a distressed property is one thing. Buying a distressed distillery is something else entirely. In this episode of Invst Guru , host Jeff “Fuzzy” Wenzel sits down with Justin Meccia , owner of Hidden Lake Grill & Distillery , to discuss how he acquired one of Montana’s oldest distilleries and is now rebuilding it from the ground up. Justin shares how he purchased the assets of Whitefish...

In this episode, we examine World’s Best Cocktails Inc., a U.S. beverage company operating in the premium ready-to-drink cocktail sector. Led by mixologist Tao Zrafi, known for his appearance on Netflix’s Drink Masters, the company is positioning itself at the high end of the growing RTD category. We break down the company’s asset-light model, which relies on third-party co-packers and integrated...

Electricity costs keep rising. The power grid is under pressure. And more homeowners are asking the same question: is there a better way? In this episode of Invst Guru , host Jeff “Fuzzy” Wenzel speaks with Deep Patel , founder of GigaWatt , about how solar power and battery storage are changing the way consumers think about energy. After nearly two decades in the solar industry, Deep explains how...