Culture: Founders, Entrepreneurs & Innovators

Jason Fox is the CEO & Founder EarBuds Music, a social music platform that offers fans a way to connect with their favorite athletes and musicians to share moments. The idea came from when Jason played in the NFL and saw Cam Newton warming up across the field jamming with his headphones on. What was he listening to? Jason wanted to find out and share it with fans across the world.  Jason is a natu...

Travis Grillo took his grandfather's pickle recipe and turned it into a multi-million dollar business. Started from a selling single pickle spears from a wooden pushcart in Downtown Boston, he worked his way up to be featured in Fenway Park and snuck his way into WholeFoods. Travis has taken his marketing and promotional skills to the next level to gain mass attention to his pickle brand. Travis i...

Kay Koplovitz Founded the USA Network and is currently the CoFounder & Managing Director of the Springboard Growth Capital. She is the Chairman of Springboard Enterprises, a non-profit accelerator that has fostered the investment of more than $8.3 billion in women-led firms, and has served as its Chairman since inception. Kay acted at CEO and Chairman of the USA Network, the Sci-Fi Channel, and US...

Jeanne Sullivan has been described in Forbes as "one of the women VCs changing the world – grooming the next generation of female entrepreneurs". Jeanne is a General Partner at The Arcview Group and is a fierce advocate for legalization and regulation of the Cannabis industry. Jeanne talks about her philosophy on business life, mentoring growing entrepreneurs, raising capital, and her words to liv...

Discussion w/ ConCreates CoFounders Vincent Bragg and Janeya Griffin about giving inmates a purpose and helping rehabilitate into contributing members of society. ConCreates is a unique Creative Agency that crowd sources its ideas from the untapped talent pool currently locked up behind bars. Vincent Bragg, the Co-Founder and CEO of Concreates, has shaken off the title of Felon & redefined himself...

Pete Gibaldi is the Founder & Host of the Premium Pete Show, CoFounder of YouGottaEatThis! and Founder SneakerTube. Pete talks about growing up in Brooklyn, starting in the podcast world from the Combat Jack Show and love for NYC pizza. He gives some inspiring pro tips, preaches never to question your passion and talks about lessons learned from his mentor Reggie Ossé. The Premium Pete Show is pac...

Christian Wierød talks digitalization and automation of the residential rental market from Norway and breaking into the NYC market. Christian was a squad leader in the Norwegian Armed Forces, a tour guide around the world, and a club coach ski instructor in Canada. We talk about the inception of Unite Living, lessons he learned along the journey, ProTips for growth, book recommendations and shares...

Special Episode Highlighting The Ignitia Open Pitch Competition. On Wednesday June 20th, 2018 Ignitia Office held their first annual pitch competition that featured the 7 finalist competing for $20,000 grand prize consisting of $10,000 in coworking space and $10,000 in cash. Below are the following contestants that we spoke with prior to the big pitch. Padspin, Inc. - Finding an apartment can be a...

Andrew Ackerman Managing Director at Dreamt Ventures, one of the Top 5 accelerators in the world. Andrew is in charge of UrbanTech at Dreamit and investing, advising & mentoring Post-Seed start-up companies. Andrew previously founded Bunk1 and consulted at Booze Allen. Andrew talks about the qualities he likes to see when investing in companies, Dreamit Ventures customer emergence program, what se...

Interview w/ Trevor Sumner CEO at Perch Interactive. Previously Trevor was the President, CMO and CoFounder of LocalVox, a local social & mobile marketing platform for local businesses that was named one of the top startups in NYC by Business Insider, Forbes and Huffington Post, & was acquired by The Blackstone Group. Trevor is a NYC-based entrepreneur, product and marketing executive and recogniz...

Interview w/ Rob Krauss CoFounder of Fortina which has 5 tri-state restaurant locations and growing. Rob used his digital marketing experience and customer retention strategies to create BoomLetGo, a new data/ mobile restaurant payment app. Rob talks about his affection for entertaining, pizza, rolling up dead bodies, his sports legacy & how his grandfather may have invented sausage? Rob gives his...

Interview w/ Josh Bobrowsky the CEO & CoFounder of Ignitia Office. Josh also founded Icons Consulting, owner and founder of Integrated Fitness and owned J.B. Landscaping. We discuss Josh's mentors in Ari Lightman, Digital Media & Marketing Professor at Carnegie Mellon, lessons learned along his journey, growth tips and the community and culture he is building at Ignitia Office in Brooklyn. Ignitia...

Interview w/ Ramya Joseph, Founder of Pefin the worlds first AI financial advisor. We talks about the soul of her company Pefin and creating a people first culture. Ramya talk about getting into machine learning and AI from her business experience at IBM and Goldman Sachs. We also talk about growth tips, mentors, growing up in an immigrant family and the influence of her mother. "To do as your dut...

Listen to a few quick clips from the Culture Podcast!

Interview w/ Jesse Levin, Founder of Tactivate which is combining special operation veterans and entrepreneurs to help in disaster relief efforts. Jesse also CoFounded Brooklyn Boulders, is the Founder Active Collaborative Workspace, Founder of Mortar & Pistil and Founder of the Archer Group. Jesse talks about Expeditionary Entrepreneurship, running into drug traffickers while helping in Panama, t...

Interview w/ Ray Edwards, CEO & Founder of PNDULUM a fully integrated consumer product development, innovation company and incubator that is an accelerator for minority entrepreneurs. Ray is a LA-based entrepreneur and early-stage venture professional serving in strategic marketing, finance, and business development functions. Formerly CFO of Derek Jeter's Players Tribune and previously a Director...

Interview w/ Peter Birsinger, CTO & CoFounder of Podible. Podible is a podcast listening app that learns what you love and recommends new podcasts for you. We also help authors grow their audience & monetize with analytics & (soon) programmatic audio ad insertion. https://podible.co/ Download Podible App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/podible/id1322101132?mt=8

Interview w/ David Kiddder, CEO & CoFounder of Bionic Solution. David is an experienced entrepreneur and angel investor in over 30 companies. Creator & CoAuthor of the two-time New York Times bestselling five book series, The Intellectual Devotional. Prior to Bionic, David CoFounded Clickable and SmartRay Network. David talks about leading the 8th fastest growing services company, his 5 Lenses of...

Interview w/ Tom Meredith, CEO & CoFounder of BitMinutes (BTM) a new Crypto-currency, based on International (ISO) Banking Standards, that democratizes P2P lending to the street corner level in amounts as small as a $5- $10. BitMinutes use builds consumer credit and act as collateral for lending. MasterCard is one of our global partners, issuing virtual accounts based on BitMinutes. https://www.bi...

Interview w/ Jared Feldman, Founder & CEO of Canvs. Jared was named one the Forbes 30 under 30 Class of 2017. Canvs is an analytics company that measures and map emotions around content. Canvs has become the industry standard, informing social media strategy for television, research, production and ad sales. Canvs' clients include HBO, Sony, Viacom and NBC Universal. Canvs has received funding fro...

Interview w/ Dan Ceniceros, Founder of Connect Media. Dan has 20 years of experience in commercial real estate branding, media, advertising and events. His focus has been on creating technology experiences for news delivery, data and analytics, and marketing for commercial real estate owners, developers, investors, and brokers. Dan talks about growing up in Southern California, the influence of ar...

Interview w/ Andrew Kortina, CoFounder of The Fin Exploration Company and CoFounded Venmo. The Fin Exploration Company helps get your tasks, calls, emails, research and purchasing done for you. Fin combines human and machine intelligence to help you stay focused. Kortina talks about growing up in New Jersey, early jobs, UPenn, creating Fin with CoFounder Sam Lessin, his previous experience at Venm...

Interview w/ AJ Vaynerchuk, CoFounder of VaynerSports. A sports agency for the modern day athlete. AJ previously cofounded VaynerMedia one of the fastest growing media companies. We discuss the inception of VaynerSports, changing the sports agency culture, the influence of John Madden Football, older brother Gary, cryptocurrency, the advice AJ passes along to his athletes and VaynerSports' 8 NFL D...

Interview w/ Aaron Block, CoFounder & MD of MetaProp global real estate technology investment advisory and accelerator firm. Aaron is also on the leadership council at Tech:NYC and previously worked at Cushman & Wakefield winning awards including Top Producer & Most Creative Deal. Aaron served as CEO/Chairman of Chicago-based BayRu, LLC, the US-Russia ecommerce shopping and shipping specialist and...

Interview w/ Luan Cox, CEO & Founder of FinMkt, Mentor at Techstars, and Advisor at Springboard Enterprises. We discuss early business experience in Silicon Valley, inventing FinTech, her Mentors in Kay Koplovitz, Amy Millman and Debra Walton. Luan tells how she founded FinMkt, protips on growth, the importance of a good cofounder, company Culture and entrepreneurial traits. "Do the work the other...