The Manav Podcast

Laodis is the founder of Argil AI and they are building the video generation engine for the creator economy.  Video is powerful but expensive and often a last resort. Yet, it’s the best-performing media for branding, sales, and internal content. Argil is building a tool that: Clone yourself with just 2 minutes of video or use our avatars Input text or voice scripts Generate fully edited, engaging...

Here's my interview with Nik Sharma, Founder and CEO of Sharma Brands which consults, launches, and scales DTC brands leading their categories. They have worked with Rare Beauty, Feastables, Eight Sleep, and Taco Bell. Nik Sharma is widely known as “The DTC Guy,” a Forbes 30 Under 30 member, AdWeek’s Young & Influential, and a resource that brands and investors turn to for growth. Nik is the a...

Imagine a future where your food doesn’t travel thousands of miles to reach your plate. Instead, it comes fresh from a self-contained farm in a shipping container outside your backdoor. That’s the groundbreaking vision of FarmPod, a startup based in St. Croix. They aim to revolutionize our relationship with food through a fully automated vertical aquaponic system. This solar-powered, self-sustaini...

In this episode of Emerging Founders, we have Adam Draper. He is the founder and managing director of Boost VC, the most active Deep Tech investor on the planet. They average one deal per week, and their check sizes are between $50k and $500k. They’ve been doing this for 12 years.  He tells the founding story of Boost VC and how he invested in unicorns like @coinbase, @amplitude, @benchling, @send...

In this podcast episode, Nasrat Khalid, the founder of Aseel, discusses his platform, which combines the functionalities of Etsy and GoFundMe for developing and underdeveloped countries. Aseel aims to bridge the digital divide by providing artisans in these regions access to the digital economy, allowing them to sell their products directly to global consumers without intermediaries. Nasrat outlin...

Po-Shen Loh is an American mathematician, educator, and social entrepreneur known for his innovative work in combinatorics and creative approaches to education and healthcare. A professor at Carnegie Mellon University, he served as the national coach of the USA International Mathematical Olympiad team from 2014 to 2023, leading them to multiple victories. Po-Shen is also the founder of Expii, an i...

I interviewed David Hanson Jr., an American roboticist who is the founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Hanson Robotics, a Hong Kong-based robotics company founded in 2003. The designer and researcher create human-looking robots with realistic facial expressions, including Sophia and other robots designed to mimic human behavior. Dr. Hanson is a unique individual who understands the technic...

This is a conversation with Dawson Chen, a 20-year-old founder who dropped out of Yale to build an AI assistant called Martin.  Martin is an AI butler app designed to integrate seamlessly into your life by building a personal relationship with you over time. Whether you communicate through the app, via text, or by email, Martin adapts to your preferences and becomes an indispensable part of your d...

In this interview, Rajat Bhageria, Founder of Chef Robotics, highlighted the growing labor shortage and high turnover rates among food assembly workers. These challenges, combined with the repetitive nature of the job, make it inevitable that robots will eventually take over these roles. While human oversight will still be necessary, especially in cooking tasks, automation will significantly enhan...