Our Future Podcast

In #28, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) discuss two startups built by young guns: Simplify and Default. Simplify is best described as the "Honey for Job Search" - and was founded by Berkeley and Stanford dropouts Michael Yan, Rushil Srivastava, and Ethan Horoschak. Using Simplify's chrome extension, applicants can breeze through vast numbers of job apps by instantly po...

In #27, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) discuss the co-founders of Covertree: Adarsh Rachmale (25), Divyansh Sharma (25), and Rishie Modi (37). After the guys graduated college, they decided they wanted a startup idea that targeted Middle America and that tech was completely ignoring. They found it in the insurance tech space with their company CoverTree, which special...

In #26, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) discuss Grant Roscoe, founder of Crescent. Grant grew up in Nebraska and didn't attend college, yet he's managed to spend the past 5 years turning his company into a key player in how startups manage their capital. He's raised $6M so far to turn Crescent into an integral part of startup management by helping young companies monet...

The boys are back from a two week holiday hiatus! In #25, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) discuss Hasan Raza and Quinn Favret, the co-founders of Tavus. Tavus is a generative AI startup that clones your face and voice to create virtually infinite personalized videos for use in sales outreach. They've raised over $25M from top VC firms like Sequoia and signed on blue-ch...

In #24, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) talk about John Hu, the co-founder of Stan, a link in bio startup that might best be described as "Shopify for content creators". John's journey is made all the more fascinating by his mastery of building in public. No venture backed founder does a better job of documenting their journey and bringing viewers full transparency tha...

In #23, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) talk about Kenan Saleh who built a rooftop advertising startup for rideshare fleets and sold it to Lyft within 7 months of starting it at age 21. Kenan spent the next few years turning Lyft Media into a meaningful revenue division and if its any indicator, Uber aims for its rideshare ads business to do $1B next year. The boys als...

In #22, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) talk about Rory and Kieran O'Reily, the sibling duo behind several massive internet projects and now co-founders of a new fintech backed by American Express. The brothers dropped out of Harvard and became Thiel Fellows to pursue the mania around GIFs by building a GIF creator website called Gifs.com. Despite being used by huge co...

In #21, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) talk about Jack Settleman, the 27-year-old founder of Snapback Sports, a sports media brand and community generating seven figures a year in revenue. For this episode, the boys play around with a new format and focus on tactical takeaways for building in media and beyond. 0:00 Intro 1:55 What is Jack's Company? 2:31 How Jack Make...

In #19, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) chat with Sam Rattner (@samrattner), Co-Founder of Vigtory, a sports betting app he sold for $40M to FuboTV in 2021 at age 23. Sam is a college dropout who built a snow removal empire as a Chicago teenager before he pivoted to capitalize on the legalization of U.S. sports betting. More recently, Sam became the Co-Founder and CEO...

In #18, Michael Sikand (@michaelsikand) and Simran Sandhu (@_simmy_) chat with Mike Fata (@themikefata), Founder of Manitoba Harvest. Mike dropped 100 lbs while sticking to a no fat diet, but it was his discovery of hemp seeds, that prompted him to realize that healthy fat diets were the future. It took him 20 years, but Mike scaled Manitoba's signature hemp heart packets (seeds) into a popular fo...

In #17, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu chop it up with 30-year-old millionaire Daniel Snow. He's sold 7+ multi-million dollar businesses in his twenties, spanning agencies, media brands, and ecommerce products. Daniel's most prolific business is RapTV, one of Instagram's biggest media companies (and the launching ground for new rap talent) with 45M+ combined followers across its properties. Last...

In #16, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu discuss the story of Jake Karls from Mid-Day Squares and David Riggs from Pneuma. Now age 30, Jake has spent the past 6 years building a retail-first chocolate square company with his sister and brother-in-law that aims to disrupt industry giants like Mondelez and Hershey's with functional, nutritious ingredients. It has surpassed $28M in sales and sells it...

In #15, Simran Sandhu and Michael Sikand dive into the story of Anirudh Singla, the 24-year-old co-founder and CEO of Pepper. Singla's software platform is productizing the world of content marketing and has notched $10M/yr in revenue helping big companies produce written content at scale. Next up is Sheridan Clayborne, the 24-year-old co-founder of LendTable, a fintech company helping Americans t...

In #14, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu unpack the stories of Jake Lewin and Allan Maman. Aged 21-year-old, Jake co-founded Tabs with Oliver Brocato, a sex chocolate brand that pioneered UGC TikTok marketing and has many millions of sales to show for it. Now he's dabbling in more vices–finding niche opportunties in retail environments–like liquor stores and cannabis dispensaries. Next, the guys d...

In #13, Michael Sikand and Simran Sandhu discuss the stories of Griffin Spolansky and Taylor Hersom. Griffin got his start peddling his grandma's salad dressing to local stores as a teenager. Now he's 26 and owns a snack bar brand called Mezcla that's in Whole Foods stores nationwide and generating $5M/yr in revenue because Americans love "the crunch". Next up is Taylor Hersom, the founder of Eden...

In #12, Simmy and Michael unpack the stories of Kadama and Crossnet. Founded by University of Washington students who originally hoped to connect students with tutors on campus, Amin and Dani Shaykho, and Marwan El-Rukby pivoted that idea into app-based service when COVID hit. Using a genius TikTok marketing strategy that has produced billions of views and recruited over 2M users, Kadama will do $...

In #11, the boys are in a fintech frenzy, breaking down the strategies and tactics young founders used to break in to the most regulated industry. The first company discussed is Karat Financial, a buzzy fintech startup that's raised $100M+ to create the American Express of the creator economy. Karat offers a credit card for content creators with limits calculated by a proprietary algorithm that fa...

In #10, Michael and Simmy unpack two fascinating businesses: POSH and Upswing Sports. Started by two NYU college students, Avante Price (22) and Eli Taylor-Lemire (22), POSH is a next-gen events management platform that allows event hosts to organize paid events. If legacy ticketers like Eventbrite and Ticketmaster weren't paying attention, they are now–POSH has registered over 1M+ users and amass...

In #9, Michael and Simmy dissect the stories of Aaron Spivak and Ritwik Pavan. Aaron is the co-founder of Hush Blankets, a sleep brand he started when capitalizing on the weighted blanket trend and sold a majority stake of in 2021 at a $50M valuation when he was 25. Ritwik is the 25-year-old founder and CEO of Krava, a company he hopes can help solve the affordable housing crisis. It's a a pre-fab...

In #8, Simmy and Mike sit down with Ankur Nagpal who sold his course platform, Teachable, for $250M in 2020 at the age of 31. Prior to starting that business at age 24, Ankur made millions building Facebook apps. Now, he's building Ocho, a platform for business owners where personalized advice helps them optimize their taxes and save money with tools like their solo 401k product. Make sure to like...

In #7, Mike and Simmy are chopping it up from Morning Brew's NYC HQ and dive into the stories of FanFix and Social Snowball. FanFix, founded by Harry Gestetner, Simon Pompan, and social media star Cameron Dallas, is the leading monetization platform for Gen Z Creators. Think of it like OnlyFans with no nudity or Patreon but mobile-first. The company was acquired for $65M in 2022, less than 10 mont...

In Ep. 6, Mike and Simmy dive into the story of Stephen Hakami, a 25-year-old college dropout who built Wiza: a SaaS tool that enriches Linkedin prospect lists with high-quality contact info so they can be targeted off-platform. He started the company only 3 years ago and today it's generating over $6M/yr in revenue! Then the guys put on their lab coats for a discussion about Kathryn Cross, the 24...

In Ep. 5, Michael and Simmy sit down with their long-time mentor Sam Parr. Sam founded daily email newsletter company, The Hustle, and sold it to HubSpot in 2020 for tens of millions of dollars. Part of that deal meant he'd continue co-hosting his acclaimed business podcast, "My First Million", which has recently exploded in popularity and has transformed Sam into something of a B-List celebrity....

In Episode 4, Mike and Simmy study the success of two fascinating startups built by young founders. The first is LineLeap. 25-year-olds Max Schauf, Patrick Skelly, and Nick Becker built an eight-figure business that digitizes America's nightlife industry with "line skipping passes", mobile payments, and drink ordering. Company #2 is Factored Quality. 25-year-old CEO Prince Ghosh raised $7M buildin...

In Ep. 3, Michael and Simmy explore two exciting martech companies built by Gen Z founders and discuss a few interesting business ideas after each segment. The first comes from 23-year-old Stanford dropout and Thiel Fellow: Akshaya Dinesh. Her startup Spellbound, a no-code SAAS platform, has partnered with the likes of Mr. Beast's Feastables and Ollipop. It's revolutionizing email newsletter engag...