The VentureFizz Podcast

Jay is a serial entrepreneur, who has a history of building companies that have reflected the trend towards the gig economy. From package delivery to the taxi industry’s answer to Uber, he has transformed multiple industries and his latest company is tackling the insurance industry. If you are a small business owner or freelancer, it is probably smart to have insurance to protect yourself, but you...

Inspiration for a business idea can come from the most unique scenarios. Case in point, take Arik, who as a serial tech entrepreneur, decided to purchase a small-town grocery store in Vermont at Sugarbush. And pretty much everyone, for good reason as I would have told him the same thing, was that he was crazy and it was just an overall bad idea. Well, this crazy idea turned into the inspiration th...

A couple of years ago, I rarely used emoji while communicating with friends, family, or professional contacts. Now, I use them all the time, as it is an easy and accepted way to communicate with people, especially since you can’t read tone with just words. Holler is a venture-backed company in New York City that is helping people have better conversations through expressive content. Travis saw the...

The best part of hosting The VentureFizz Podcast is getting a chance to talk to some of the most intelligent and driven entrepreneurs in the tech scene. Paul definitely fits the bill on both accounts. He is a highly accomplished technologist, who earlier in his career, actually worked on the broadband network infrastructure that we would all later know as the cloud. Paul, along with his twin broth...

The concept of Sable was born based on Andrej’s own personal experience as an international student while attending business school at Columbia. The complexity and the process of getting a bank account set up was incredibly archaic and challenging. The same goes for obtaining a credit card and it all can take months to get set up. Like any ambitious entrepreneur, especially one who was interested...

Jamus has a strong history of success in the tech industry. He was an early member of the team at Demandware, which was a massive success story in the early days of SaaS. He played a key role in the company’s growth to an IPO in 2012 and the company was later acquired by Salesforce.com for a reported $2.6B. Jamus is now leading Moltin, a venture backed company that embraces an API-first Headless C...

I used to envy… well let’s be honest, I was downright jealous of the other podcasts and their use of video for promoting their episodes. I would see a clip of audio transformed into a video with a cool wavy line that matched up with the voice of the guest. I thought… wow - that must be expensive to do that level of production. A few months ago, I discovered a company in NY called Headliner that ma...

International expansion can offer a tremendous opportunity for companies, but it is also incredibly complex to hire employees in different countries. When you factor in the various legal, tax, and HR regulations that vary from location to location, it is a major undertaking that requires a lot of time, knowledge, and money. Nicole is an experienced entrepreneur, traveler, and philanthropist who st...

Lucy was a student at Harvard during the same timeframe when Mark Zuckerberg was starting Facebook. As we discuss in this podcast, Facebook was a key catalyst to ignited the entrepreneurial spirit at the institution. She was a co-founder and COO of Paperless Post, which included two other Harvard alumni. The company disrupted the online invitation industry by making the process a lot more elegant...

Very few people have the same level of knowledge about Artificial Intelligence than Max. He holds two PhDs, several patents, and co-founded Boston University’s Neuromorphics Lab. Yes, AI is a major buzzword heard across multiple companies these days, but Neurala is actually building AI… not just using it. The company’s technology has been deployed on 30 million devices globally and its Brain Build...

For Episode 138 of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Gary Hoberman, CEO & Founder of Unqork. A perfect way to describe Gary is the word fearlessness and it is actually one of the core values at Unqork. He was a sponsored skateboarder as a child which taught him that it was ok to hit the ramp as hard you can, because at that point there is no turning back and failure is ok. You might get some...

For Episode 137 of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Jeremy Hitchcock and Gray Chynoweth of Minim. Manchester, NH…or for you insiders, Manchvegas… it is where I grew up. My dad was an entrepreneur and he ran a leather coat factory in the historic mill buildings there. The same mill buildings were the home to a major tech company that played a key role in keeping the internet running (for real...

For Episode 136 of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Jon Keidan, Founder and Managing Partner of Torch Capital. Are there parallels between identifying musical talent that will become the next great recording artist and the next great entrepreneur who will transform an industry by building a unicorn company? There are definitely some similarities, as you are taking a risk by investing in the...

Welcome to Episode 135 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed John Burns, CEO of TB12. A lot has been reported about Tom Brady’s health and training regimen. At 42 years old, he is still performing at an elite level in the NFL as the quarterback of the New England Patriots....

Welcome to Episode 134 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Jannick Malling, Co-Founder & Co-CEO at Public. Public is a new kind of brokerage that makes it possible to buy any public stock with any amount of money commission-free. It is an idea that I wish existed when I w...

Welcome to Episode 133 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Sarah Downey, Principal at Accomplice, a seed-stage venture capital firm. In the past, there really weren’t too many career paths into the venture capital industry. Typically, someone joined a firm from a top busi...

Welcome to Episode 132 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Jon Staff, Founder and CEO of Getaway. With today’s always-connected and always-on world, I think most people would agree that disconnecting is good for the mind, body, and soul. This is exactly the business that...

Welcome to Episode 131 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Dan O'Malley, Founder and CEO of Numerated. Dan has built a strong level of domain experience in the Fintech industry. What is really interesting about his career is how he’s been a driver of innovation at startup...

Welcome to Episode 130 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Eddie Geller, Co-Founder and CEO of Tinybeans. Eddie is a serial entrepreneur who is originally from Australia. He founded his first company, a software development services firm called Unique World in 1999 with j...

Welcome to Episode 129 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Alicia Lindgren, CEO at CollegeLab. Alicia’s career started out in the financial services industry and then she later moved into the non-profit sector before transitioning into the educational field where she has...

Welcome to Episode 128 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Leslie Borrell, VP of Smart Cities at Intersection. When we talk about the next 5, 10, 15 or more years of urban living, the phrase “smart city” will almost definitely be a part of the conversation. Now, smart cit...

Welcome to Episode 127 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Doron Reuveni, Founder and CEO of Applause. Building a successful company is incredibly difficult. It is definitely not a sprint, it’s not even a marathon… it is more like an Ironman competition where you have to...

Welcome to Episode 126 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Melody Koh, Partner at NextView Ventures. Melody has a strong mix of professional experience as an entrepreneur, operator, and investor. At Blue Apron, she was the company’s first product hire. She went on to lead...

Welcome to Episode 125 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Amy Spurling, Co-Founder and CEO of Compt. By the time Amy started Compt, she was well-versed in the world of startups. As a COO or CFO for multiple venture-backed companies, where many had exited, she knew the pl...

Welcome to Episode 124 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast from the leading authority for jobs & careers in the tech industry. For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Stephen Sokoler, Founder and CEO of Journey Meditation. I have to admit, I don’t have a history of meditating. Even though I understand the benefits and have seen the growth in terms of its increasing popularity,...