Creator Lab - interviews with entrepreneurs and startup founders

Lenny writes the #1 business newsletter on Substack (Lenny's Newsletter) and previously sold his company, Localmind, to Airbnb. He then spent 7yrs at Airbnb leading product + growth teams and now angel invests + works as a full-time creator. Watch + subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aogsYWWnq60 Get every episode + giveaways sent to your inbox: https://www.creatorlab.fm/subscribe/ Let us know...

Subscribe to "Not Investment Advice": https://pod.link/notadvicepod Watch + Subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_pqfAU92ZGw Let us know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi @jackbutcher @trungtphan Jack Butcher, Bilal Zaidi & Trung Phan discuss the latest in business, technology & memes. Timestamps: 0:00:00 - Snippet + What We Cover 0:01:40 - Best Bad Investments + The Surprise Gap 0:05:27 - Anti...

Ben Tossell is the founder of Makerpad, the leading online community for No Code.  His company was recently acquired by Zapier, a $5bil+ tech company. Ben is also an educator + investor in the no code space. In this conversation you'll learn about: what it was like to get acquired by Zapier developing the maker muscle by starting + launching projects what it takes to build a paid learning communit...

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZNFxICgbkuY Let us know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi @jackbutcher @trungtphan This is an experimental episode w/ Trung Phan & Jack Butcher discussing the latest in business, technology & memes. Expect a raw & uncut convo, mostly filled with silly, fun banter. You'll hear us discuss: behind the scenes look at Jack's recent NFT success & crow...

Kevin is the co-founder + CEO of Rally,  a platform that allows creators to launch their own digital currency + build independent economies with their communities. He's also Chairman of Gen. G, an esports enterprise bridging Asia and North America. Previously, Kevin co-founded Kabam, a top mobile gaming company that grew to $400M/yr in revenue, 500+ million players and sold for nearly $1 billion....

Get every episode + giveaways sent to your inbox: https://www.creatorlab.fm/subscribe/ Let us know what you think on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bzaidi​ https://twitter.com/noahkagan Subscribe to Noah's YouTube channel & Podcast: https://sleek.bio/noah Watch & Subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mAnOqgH0OgA Noah Kagan is the founder of AppSumo, an 8-figure business bringing in an estimated $70...

Alex Lieberman is the co-founder & CEO of Morning Brew. They're a leading new media startup with over 2.7mil newsletter subscribers, making them one of the largest daily newsletters around. Alex & his co-founder sold a majority stake in the business to Insider Inc for a reported $75mil in Oct 2020. After listening to this conversation, you'll understand: growing from a newsletter to a full-on medi...

Dru Riley is the founder of Trends.vc, a community + newsletter that helps 35,000 entrepreneurs discover new markets + ideas. Trends makes tens of thousands of dollars/month in subscription revenue + was ranked "Product of The Month" on Product Hunt. In this conversation you'll learn about: – the meta-trends behind what Dru writes about, the things that don't change, after studying the things that...

Lexi Lewtan the founder of Centered, where she's building the Masterclass for Mental Health. Previously she ran operations for AngelList's Talent Platform, scaling it from zero to $20m in revenue. She has a deep background in the startup world, previously working at Hired & betaworks. In this conversation you'll learn: lessons in recruiting & the 80/20 of hiring the business model behind AngelList...

Jake Gibson is the co-founder of NerdWallet & Founding Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $75mil venture fund, investing in the future of Fintech alongside Sheel Mohnot. He's been involved in fintech for over a decade. Prior to NerdWallet, he studied math and quantitative finance at MIT and traded interest rate derivatives at JPMorgan. Let us know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi & @iamjakes...

Ana Lorena Fabrega is an EDUpreneur and former teacher known by little ones as Ms. Fab. She's currently the Chief Evangelist of Synthesis School, an innovative online enrichment club started by the director of Elon Musk's experimental school at Space X. Synthesis helps students build decision-making & problem-solving skills through games. Let us know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi & @anafabreg...

Nick Huber is a real estate entrepreneur, self-storage owner & operator. His commercial real estate portfolio is approaching $30mil in assets (as of 2021) & he's built a name for himself by championing "sweaty startups" aka unsexy businesses. Nick has built a 100k following on Twitter by transparently sharing the lessons learned from his time in business & by simplifying concepts in the real estat...

Anne-Laure Le Cunff is the founder of Ness Labs, a community for knowledge workers to be more productive and creative while taking care of their mental health. She's an ex-Googler and holds a MSc in Neuroscience from King's College London. Her work has been featured in WIRED, Rolling Stone, and more. Let us know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi @anthilemoon   In this conversation, you'll learn a...

Watch the full convo and Q&A on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gSVQHw-da5s This is part 2, the Q&A of the live convo with Jack Butcher from Visualize Value. Listen to the previous episode to hear our live convo on the evolution of the creator economy & unique ways to monetize. Who Is Jack Butcher? Jack is the founder of Visualize Value, a company that builds content, community & courses for building in...

Watch the full convo and Q&A on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gSVQHw-da5s Jack Butcher is the founder of Visualize Value, a company that builds content, community & courses for building independent income on the internet. His Twitter + Instagram accounts have grown to 400k+ followers in 2yrs & his business earned $1mil+ in 2020. This was Jack's second appearance on Creator Lab. This time, Jack & Bilal...

Mikael Cho is the co-founder and CEO of Unsplash. The world's leading image asset platform that boasts 100 million image downloads & 20 billion views per month. Unsplash is used more than Flickr, Getty, and Shutterstock combined. Let us know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi and @mikaelcho Watch the full convo on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vtIGAEKxC0w In this conversation, you'll learn: how Mikael...

Gagan is the co-founder & former President of Udemy, an online education company that's worth more than $2bil. He later co-founded Sprig, a food delivery startup & went on to become the interim head of growth marketing at Lyft. Gagan recently announced a new education startup with Wes Kao. They've raised $4.3mil from investors like First Round Capital, Naval Ravikant & Li Jin. Let us know what you...

Andrew Wilkinson is the co-founder of Tiny. He owns 30+ companies, including Dribbble, Metalab, Girlboss & Castro. Collectively, these businesses bring in $100mil+ in annual revenue. Andrew took WeCommerce public the week of this interview, with the most recent market cap hitting $800mil Canadian dollars (Jan 2021) He's a leading expert in buying, starting & growing online businesses. Let us know...

Polina Marinova Pompliano is the author of The Profile, a newsletter that profiles the world's most successful people. She spent five years at FORTUNE, where she was the author + editor of Term Sheet, an industry-leading newsletter on dealmaking. Polina has interviewed some of the most influential dealmakers in the world, including: Melinda Gates, Steve Case, Chamath Palihapitiya and others. Watch...

Courtland founded Indie Hackers, one of the leading entrepreneurship communities on the internet. Indie Hackers was acquired by Stripe in 2017. He's a Y Combinator alum & graduated from MIT. This conversation is broken up into two parts. In part one, we discuss: the indiehacker philosophy optimizing for freedom + becoming a time billionaire capitalism + the american dream diversity, race + culture...

Tim Urban is one of the internet's most popular writers. His blog, Wait But Why, attracts millions of visitors including famous fans like Elon Musk. His talk on procrastination is the #1 TED talk on YouTube with 33mil+ views. Subscribe + Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tl2a6H1E7DU Let us know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi @waitbutwhy FIVE THINGS YOU'LL LEARN: his writing + research process...

Let me know what you think on Twitter: @bzaidi Subscribe + watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jWYhsGaK3Qk Chris Kuenne started Rosetta & grew it to become the largest independent digital agency in the world before selling to Publicis for $575mil. Now he runs Rosemark Capital, investing in companies with revenues of $30–60mil. Chris teaches high-tech entrepreneurship at Princeton University. In thi...

Matteo Franceschetti is the founder of Eight Sleep, the sleep fitness company at the forefront of sleep tech. They've raised more than $70mil, came out of Y Combinator and are one of the leading companies at the forefront of sleep technology. Time magazine named their product one of the best inventions of 2018 + 2019. Watch + subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vd3wXxYaAxc Let us know what you...

Shaan Puri is an entrepreneur, investor & top 50 podcast host. He was the CEO of Bebo when they sold to Twitch (Amazon) where he's now a senior director of product. He invests in startups + recently raised $2.5mil for his "rolling fund" in 11 days, just from a tweet. Watch + subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6Hoo38Fr07g Let us know what you think on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bzaidi https:/...

Steph Smith leads Trends at The Hustle. She's a serial indie maker, writer + marketer. She's been a nomad since 2016 & has traveled to 50+ countries while working, learning to code + creating. Watch + subscribe on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qQtciVUeOMU Let us know what you think on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bzaidi https://twitter.com/stephsmithio What You'll Learn: how to pre-sell + validate you...