The VentureFizz Podcast

Episode 359 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO of Sincere. Boston has this legacy reputation that you can’t build consumer companies in the area, yet there are so many great companies that have scaled like Wayfair, DraftKings, iRobot, SimpliSafe, and so… so… many more. Plus, don’t get me started on how many brands, especially footwear, are located here. Anyway, Sincere...

Episode 358 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Simon Taylor, Founder & CEO of HYCU. One of the things that I love about this podcast is hearing the stories of entrepreneurs and the ambitious moves they make to build their companies. For example, last week’s interview with Brian Liu was a great example where he and his Co-Founder cold called and got the most recognizable lawyer on the planet - tha...

Episode 357 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Brian Liu, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of companies like LegalZoom, BizCounsel, & Overture. Lots of the best ideas come from experience within your own industry and it was Brian and his co-founder, Brian Lee (who has since gone on to be a co-founder of ShoeDazzle and The Honest Company) who both had experience in the law industry and saw an in...

Episode 356 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Erika Ebbel Angle and Colin Angle. I’ve had co-founders on my podcast in the past but it is very rare that I have a married couple and it is very hard not to use the phrase power-couple of this one. Having both Erika and Colin on the podcast was awesome, as we were able to dig into both of their background stories and professional journeys. If you ar...

Episode 355 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ben Maitland-Lewis, Director of Startup Banking & Founder Success at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and yes, this episode is also sponsored by SVB. Ben and I go way back. His previous company, Pretty Instant, had a long-standing relationship with VentureFizz. This Y-Combinator company was an on-demand photography marketplace that did all of our office tou...

Episode 354 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Paul Morville, Co-Founder & CEO of Parrot AI. This episode was recorded live at Startup Boston Week at Suffolk University. I recorded two episodes at this year’s event, so stay tuned for the second episode in a couple of weeks. Paul is a serial entrepreneur and as you’ll hear from our podcast, he is very successful but likes to fly under the radar. C...

Episode 353 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Giuseppe Stuto, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of 186 Ventures. Did you know that the venture capital industry originated in Boston back in 1946 with the founding of American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC) which backed Digital Equipment Corporation and saw a 1200X return when the company went public. Since then, Boston has been very fortu...

Episode 352 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Mark Ghermezian and Manisha Shah, Founder of Tildei. Mark is the Founder and General Partner of m]x[v Capital and he’s also the CEO of two companies that have spun out of his firm, that being Tildei and Gynger. Mark has been an entrepreneur pretty much his entire life and he shares lots of fun and interesting stories of these ventures, including the...

Episode 351 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Meredith McPherron, CEO & Managing Partner at Drive by DraftKings. Legalized sports betting, NIL, transfer portals, college conference re-alignment, streaming, pitch clocks, new kickoffs, the explosion of pickelball, and so much more, there is no denying it, the sports industry is going through a rapid amount of transformation. But the number one are...

Episode 350 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Steve Papa, serial entrepreneur, mentor, and investor. It is time for another milestone episode and I couldn’t be more excited about this interview. Steve has accomplished so much throughout his career, so let’s just dive in. In this interview you are going to hear lots of amazing stories like: * Steve’s background and how he got his career started i...

Episode 349 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Chris Gardner, Partner at Underscore VC. One time, could be luck. Two times, ok… maybe you are on to something… but in the case of Chris, he has been part of several acquisitions, so there is something deeply there in terms of his ability to pick the right company to join or company to help co-found. There is no denying it, based on his track record...

Episode 348 of The VentureFizz Podcast, sponsored by Silicon Valley Bank, features Jonathan Bensamoun, Founder & CEO of Fi. It’s crazy to think that The VentureFizz Podcast has been around since 2018 and I believe that I’ve only had one repeat guest and that founder was talking about a new company. Thus, this is the first time I am doing a follow up episode and Jonathan was my guest for Episode 11...

Episode 347 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Joe Caruso, Investor & Mentor. Lots of people know of Joe as an angel investor, but when I think of Joe… I think of a mentor to so many entrepreneurs and a major supporter of the Boston startup ecosystem. If you go through Joe’s portfolio of investments from his Bantam Group website, it will give a strong perspective to the depth of his connection to...

Episode 346 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Scott Weller, CTO & Co-Founder at EnFi. The formula for a thriving tech ecosystem ideally looks something like this: * Entrepreneurial-minded person works for startups and learns a ton. Perhaps they even witness success at scale to an exit. * Said person takes lessons learned and builds their own company to an exit. * Said person then starts to mento...

Episode 345 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Laura Teicher, Executive Director at FORGE. Did you know that there are over 7,000 manufacturers in the state of Massachusetts? I certainly didn’t. My gut is that most entrepreneurs think that they need to go overseas for manufacturing versus leveraging local resources. And, let’s face it, building a startup is hard but when it is a physical product…...

Episode 344 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Wardah Inam, Founder & CEO of Overjet. Building a company in an underserved industry has its pros and cons. Yes, it’s nice to have less competition and a head start, but on the flip side… it might be harder to raise funding if it isn’t a sector of interest for investors or it might even tougher to acquire customers because you have to educate the mar...

Episode 343 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Jonathan Corbin, Co-Founder & CEO of Maven AGI and our first sponsored podcast episode! Yes, please welcome Silicon Valley Bank (more info about SVB below) as a supporter of The VentureFizz Podcast. Any time I see a funding announcement for a new company, I get excited, as I’m an optimist and I hope that every company will scale and reach great miles...

Episode 342 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Matt Weinberg, Partner at Max Ventures. Did you know that there are a ton of resources available for startups from the government including non-dilutive funding? I’m talking billions of dollars are allocated to hundreds of startups every year. This is a topic that has never been discussed on The VentureFizz Podcast and Matt is uniquely qualified to s...

Episode 341 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Somak Chattopadhyay, Managing Partner at Armory Square Ventures. Yes, markets like the Bay Area, NYC, and Boston get a lot of attention when it comes to building startups and having the ability to raise capital, but there are lots of other places to build a successful company. This has always been the case, but the pandemic definitely pushed this rea...

Episode 340 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Steph Johnson, Co-Founder & CEO at Multiplayer. Steph is an inspiration. As discussed in this interview, her background might not be the prototypical tech CEO profile for a few reasons. First, she came up through the agency world and then ran comms in-house for major tech companies like DigitalOcean and MongoDB. Second, she is a female founder of a d...

Episode 339 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Andy Palmer, serial entrepreneur, seed investor, and now author. Andy is one of my OG’s, that being original guests. If you go way back into the archives of The VentureFizz Podcast, you’ll find my first interview with him for Episode #22 back in 2018. In that interview, we talk about his full background story, his career building companies like Tamr...

Episode #338 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Tasneem Dohadwala, Founding Partner at Excelestar Ventures. It’s a lot more common to find VC firms that are investing into deep tech or hard tech, but when Tasneem started Excelestar Ventures in 2010, it was far from the norm. Not only was it abnormal to invest in companies building highly advanced engineering products, but it was also a very chall...

Episode 337 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Gloria Hwang, Founder & CEO of Thousand. Gloria’s career has centered around mission oriented initiatives and companies. Starting at Habitat for Humanity… then to TOMS, which is the gold standard in terms of businesses with a social mission based on their One for One model. She joined the company in its early years and played several key roles while...

Episode 336 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Julia Rodgers, Esq., CEO & Co-Founder of HelloPrenup, a platform that takes the awkwardness out of discussing and creating prenuptial agreements. This is the 3rd and final podcast interview from my live sessions at Suffolk University with 3 alums that being Don Bulens, Ernesto DiGiambattista, and Julia Rodgers. Some of the best entrepreneurs that I h...

Episode 335 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ernesto DiGiambattista, entrepreneur and investor. This episode is the 2nd of three interviews that were recorded live at Suffolk University with Suffolk alums. Ernesto has a unique background that hits the trifecta of experience. He spent time in senior roles with larger enterprise corporations, then he founded a venture backed company called ZeroNo...