The Established Podcast

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we listen to Frank Gruber's interview with Meredith Fineman at the Startup of the Year Summit in the fall of 2020. Meredith is an entrepreneur, writer, best-selling author, speaker, podcast host, and women's advocate. She is also the founder and CEO of FinePoint, a leadership and professional development company with a focus on visibility and voi...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we listen to Frank Gruber's interview with Lo Toney at the Startup of the Year Summit in the fall of 2020. Lo is the founding managing partner at Plexo Capital, which is an institutional investment firm he incubated and spun out from Google Ventures. Plexo Capital invests in emerging seed-stage VCs led by diverse teams and invests directly into c...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we listen to Frank Gruber's interview with Dr. Ximena Hartsock at the Startup of the Year Summit in the fall of 2020. Ximena is the Co-founder of Phone2Action, the world's leading technology company for civic participation and stakeholder engagement. The platform has empowered millions of advocates to make over 40 million connections with elected...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, Frank Gruber talked with Suneel Gupta at the Startup of the Year Summit in the fall of 2020. Suneel teaches innovation at Harvard University and is the author of the upcoming book, "BACKABLE," which just came out on February 23rd. The book is rooted in Suneel's journey from first-time entrepreneur to being named "The New Face of Innovation" by th...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, Frank Gruber talks with Zvi Band, the co-founder CEO of Contactually, a top CRM which empowers professionals in real estate, consulting, and other professional industries to build authentic relationships. He is also the author of the book Success is in Your Sphere . Zvi co-founded Contactually in 2011, and led the company to $12M in venture backi...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, Frank Gruber talks with acclaimed author and the CEO of WLJ Advisors, Whitney Johnson.    Whitney is a former Wall Street Analyst and is the cofounder of the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen in which they invested in at least one unicorn. She is also an executive coach, speaker, and innovation thinker...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, Frank Gruber talks with Rohit Bhargava about business, marketing, and his book "Non-Obvious Mega Trends."    Rohit is an innovation and marketing expert and the founder of the Non-Obvious Company. He is also a Wall Street Journal best selling author of six business books and also teaches marketing and innovation at Georgetown University. His most...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast we're going to hear an interview that Rich Maloy, our VP of Engagement at Established, did with Aaron Froug.   Aaron is the Co-Founder and CEO of Grifin, which is a cool new fintech app that makes investing as energizing as buying your morning coffee. Basically, the app allows users to invest a dollar in every company where they spend money. It is...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, Frank Gruber talks with Kara Goldin about her journey as an entrepreneur and her new bestselling book "Undaunted," which was just released in October of 2020.    Kara is the Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., the leading unsweetened flavored water and they also make hand sanitizer She has been named one of InStyle's Badass 50, Fast Company's Most Cre...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast, Frank Gruber talks with Mike Evans at our 2020 Summit. Mike shared his story behind starting and taking GrubHub to IPO. He also talked about his new startup Fixer.com, and forthcoming book Hangry.    Frank also takes a moment to share that the Established team has been mourning the recent loss of Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of Zappos and author of...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast, we included a recap of highlights from the 2020 Startup of the Year Summit.   During the episode, we also hear commentary from some of our Established Team members. Rich Maloy from Established Ventures pitches in with the "VC Minute." Our Director of Partnerships, Jacqui Dietrich, also provides an update about our partner programs and specificall...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast, we talk with Dawn Dickson-Akpoghene, the Founder & CEO of  PopCom , which has developed software to make kiosks and vending machines intelligent through data and analytics at the point of purchase. PopCom uses facial recognition, A.I, and blockchain technology to help retailers collect valuable customer insights. We first met Dawn when she partic...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast, we included a recap of our Startup of the Year online pitch event that we hosted, where we featured Black Founders.   We had an amazing group of companies presenting their pitches. The startups included: CPRWrap, Freeman Capital, SoLo Funds, Thermaband, and Youth Enrichments    Additionally, the event was presided over by an incredible group of j...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast, we hear from Polly Rodriguez, the founder, and CEO of Unbound , a sexual wellness company for women. They make and sell vibrators, lubricants, and accessories online along with their digital magazine. Polly and Unbound competed in the 2017 Startup of the Year program and finished in the Top 5 that year.    We also hear some segments from some of...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we hear some startup wisdom from the Founder and CEO of  Blendoor , Stephanie Lampkin. Blendoor is inclusive recruiting and people analytics software that mitigates unconscious bias. Candidates are sourced from hundreds of strategic partners and universities and presented to recruiters without the candidate's name, photo, or dates. Blendoor was a...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we catch up with David Aronson, the Founder & CEO of Peanut Butter, a company that helps employers offer student loan assistance as a benefit. David has over 20 years of business experience and has founded 6 ventures as an entrepreneur. He previously served as Senior Director of Business Development for Sears Holdings, and Director of Corporate D...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we catch up with Cooper Harris, the founder, and CEO of Klickly, an A.I. impulse-payments platform. Cooper invented a payment layer that leverages machine-learning to make purchasing directly within digital UIs possible. This significant innovation creates a huge efficiency in the market – the platform's machine-learning identifies payment situat...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast we are featuring our virtual event that we hosted, Honoring U.S. Veteran Founders.   We had a great group of veteran-led companies presenting their pitches. The STARTUPS included: Govlia (Fort Lauderdale, FL); Milk Money Kitchens (New York, NY); Target Arm (Ridgefield, CT); TCare (St. Louis, MO); and TruGenomix (Rockville, MD).    Additionally, th...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast we are featuring our virtual event that we hosted, Celebrating Female Founders. We had a great group of female-led companies presenting their pitches. The STARTUPS included:  Cherry Blossom Intimates  (Washington, D.C.);  MITO Material Solutions  (Indianapolis, IN);  Pocketnest  (Ann Arbor, MI);  PredictivCare  (Bethesda, MD); and  ReThink Words ...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, we hear from Courtney Caldwell and Dr. Tye Caldwell, the co-founders of ShearShare, which is the first on-demand salon and barbershop space rental app, which is also of the Startup of the Year Alumni company and Established Ventures portfolio company.   During the episode, we hear some interesting insights from two Black startup entrepreneurs as...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year podcast, Frank Gruber talks with investor Josef Merrill about investment trends and strategies and his work at Sputnik ATX, an Austin based accelerator that funds makers and founders and helps people reach their full potential by creating an ecosystem to attract hard-working nerds, connect them with investors, and train them for success. Sputnik ATX's acc...

On this episode, we hear highlights highlights from our Virtual Office Hours, where we answered questions from multiple startups.  The office hours were hosted by Rich Maloy from our team and also included commentary from Jen Consalvo and Frank Gruber. We plan to do more of these virtual office hour events in the future so keep a lookout for upcoming events, as we look forward to continuing to off...

On this episode, we hear highlights from the Startup of the Year virtual event, where we learned about various efforts by startups in the Startup of the Year community that are doing great work to help during this COVID 19 pandemic.   The startups that participated in the event were involved were  Aperiomics ,  Fiveable ,  Kamana ,  Lazarus 3D , and  OneMilo .    The amazing panel of experts that...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, Frank Gruber talks with Rafiq Ahmed and Mitul Patel about their new fund at Dipalo Ventures and about their experiences developing products.   Rafiq Ahmed is the Managing Director at DiPalo Ventures, an early-stage investment fund interested in connected hardware and hard tech. Rafiq also has experience developing mobile products expertise includ...

On this episode of the Startup of the Year Podcast, Frank Gruber talks with US veteran startup founders Blake Hall and Kimberly Citizen about how their military experience helped them with their roles as startup entrepreneurs. Blake Hall is the founder of ID.me, a digital identification platform where individuals can verify who they are online and receive discounts and benefits if they are part of...