What Fuels You

Kirby is a seasoned startup operator and angel investor. He is currently the Founding General Partner at Ascend.vc, a pre-seed stage venture fund investing in marketplace, e-commerce/DTC, and B2B software startups in the Pacific Northwest. He is also a Techstars mentor, passionate Board member, and Board Chair-elect at Special Olympics of Washington, where he helped bring the 2018 Special Olympics...

Christy is an intrapreneur, entrepreneur, and strategist. She is currently building her fourth start-up, Artemis Connection, a boutique strategy consulting firm passionate about helping innovative leaders reach their goals. She loves working for forward thinking executives who want results. She has seven years of experience working in corporate strategy, including nearly four years at McKinsey &am...

Tony is the Co- Founder and CEO of Possible Finance, a financial technology company fighting to make financial services accessible and fair for all. After graduating from Harvard University, Tony joined a civic technology company, Axon, that pioneered the idea of putting body cameras on police officers. This is also where he would meet his co-founders of Possible. They explored different ideas in...

Mike currently serves as CEO for Concentric Advisors, a risk management consultancy that specializes in delivering strategic security and intelligence services. Mike retired from the United States Navy after over 38 years of service, finishing his military career as the Director of Strategic Operational Planning at the National Counterterrorism Center, within the Office of the Director of National...

Russell has been a Seattle area healthcare and technology entrepreneur for a long time and has a background in corporate finance and private equity.  In 2018-2019, Russell re-architected his life and moved abroad with his family to Costa Rica.  That posed an interesting challenge.  He needed a profession that he could perform from outside the United States while also tapping in...

Julie is a managing director at Pioneer Square Labs, and runs the firm's venture capital arm, PSL Ventures. Prior to PSL, Julie was a partner at Madrona Venture Group, where she led the firm’s investments in Integris, Poppy, and Julep. In 2013, Julie launched the Seattle Entrepreneurial Women’s Network, an informal forum for women entrepreneurs and startup executives to connect in the...

Chirag is an experienced CEO, strategy executive, consultant, and FinTech/Insure Tech founder. Currently, he is the co-founder of JennyLife, an innovative mobile-first life insurance provider geared towards empowering women and providing straightforward coverage and financial security. Prior to Jenny Life, Chirag worked in investment banking for big names such as Goldman Sachs, and The Federal Res...

Matt is a seasoned technology executive with more than 30 years of experience building and leading world-class SaaS and consumer companies. Matt has led the growth of companies in the private and public sectors, including Rosetta Stone, RealNetworks, Expedia and many more.  He has had multiple turnaround successes as a public company president as well as a private company CEO. As President of...

Russ is CEO and Board Member of WineBid, the leading global auction recommerce site for fine and vintage wines. He also serves on the Board of Ooma, a NYSE-listed Voice over IP company for businesses and consumers, and is on the Board and original angel investor of DemandStar Corporation, a B2G marketplace.  He is also an Advisor to the founders at Modus real estate closing, which was re...

Adam Wray is a cloud enterprise technology entrepreneur and serial CEO. In 2017, Adam founded AstrumU, an AI company created to translate educational experiences into skills that lead to predictable career outcomes and economic opportunity for every learner. With over $13 million in funding, AstrumU is being used by an initial cohort of colleges and universities across the country i...

Debbie is a Certified Professional Organizer and Productivity Consultant, and the Owner of Simply Placed, founded in 2003. Through her work, Debbie teaches individuals and groups productive habits and organized systems that allow them to maximize their email, time, tasks, workspace, and teams. Debbie’s goal is to help her clients live more productive and rewarding lives, free...

Keita is the founder and chief strategist of Success Bully, an elite accountability practice for women with a champion’s mindset who need strategic support to create momentum in their personal and professional lives. In this episode we dive deeper into the inspiration behind Success Bully and Keita’s fascination by human behavior that got her to wear she is today. Keita discusses how s...

David Wasielewski is the Managing Partner at one of Seattle’s favorite restaurants, Din Tai Fung. In this episode David discusses how he became the first non-family member to operate a franchise by the company. Over the last 10 years David went on to open four Washington locations, one Oregon location, as well as become a proud partner of the Seahawks and Mariners and open units in the stadi...

Lee LeFever is the co-founder of Common Craft with his wife, Sachi. They are known for being pioneers of the "explainer video"  movement, starting in 2007. Since then, they’ve built Common Craft into a scalable business without employees, earned over 50 million online views, and worked with many of the world's most respected brands. In this episode, Lee discusses growing up in an entrep...

HeadLight CEO and Co-founder, George White, joins us to discuss how their technology provides a visual source of truth about infrastructure projects and how the business has evolved since 2005. After recently closing a $25 million funding round, George has some valuable insight on fundraising and choosing the right partners. He also dives into HeadLight's process of defining their operating princi...

In 2015, Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, announced that he would take over a $1 million pay cut and raise the minimum wage for everyone at his company to $70,000. Now five years later, he joins us to discuss cutting his salary again, this time to $0, to keep his company and employees afloat during the COVID-19 crisis. He shares details from their brainstorming session during this difficult...

Jay Deutsch, the CEO of BDA, Inc, co-founded the merchandising agency for iconic brands with his best friend by striking a deal with the NFL when he was just 16 years old. BDA now employs over 750 employees and has 34 offices around the globe. On this episode, you'll hear why they’re always challenging the status quo and how he’s been leading with transparency during the COVID-19 pande...

Nutpods Founder and CEO and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Madeline Haydon, shares her story from humble beginnings and lessons she learned from her refugee parents immigrating to the US. On this episode, you’ll learn how her Kickstarter campaign provided the assurance that she had a good idea, how the odds were stacked against her when it came to fundraising and what the moment...

Nikesh (Niki) Parekh, CEO and Co-founder of Suplari, has built a career growing private and public technology companies in Seattle. On the What Fuels You podcast, Niki discusses what it took behind the scenes to execute seven acquisitions worth $430 million and six financings worth $150 million, the types of people he’s drawn to when building a winning team, and how recruiting and hiring hav...

Laura Malcolm and her husband James founded Give InKind after experiencing the unexpected stillbirth of their first child and seeing how much work was created for their friends and families who wanted to be supportive from around the country. Give InKind changes the way people give, receive and coordinate support through major life events, with a mission that everyone feels supported, whenever and...

After immigrating from India and building an impressive resume, Reetu Gupta founded Cirkled in in 2015. The award-winning, 21st century recruitment platform matches high school students with the best fit colleges and universities, improving outcomes for both sides. On this episode, Reetu discusses the slow evolution of this space and how their platform is doing some much-needed disrupting to the t...

Dwayne Clark is the CEO and Founder of Aegis Living, an author, philanthropist, producer, playwright, longevity expert, husband, father and grandfather. On this podcast, Dwayne talks about how he got involved in the senior housing industry and why he’s been passionate about transforming the sad old folks’ home for over two decades. He openly shares his personal experience of losing a f...

Sari Davidson founded BooginHead, a baby accessories company, from her kitchen table in 2005 after not being able to find what she needed to keep her son’s sippy cup from constantly hitting the floor. Sari talks about coming from an entrepreneurial family, how she juggled her business with a full-time job at Microsoft for three years, and how BooginHead got picked up by large retailers like...

Back again, Dan Shapiro, CEO of Glowforge, discusses the Ear Savers they’ve been creating to help contribute during the COVID-19 crisis. With their “Two Million Essential Ears Initiative,” Glowforge is striving to provide one million free Ear Savers to anyone wearing a mask to keep us safe. He talks about how he’s shown up as a leader during this time, being grateful for Gl...

Matt McIlwain, one of the Managing Directors at Madrona Venture Group, explains the most important quality he looks for in a CEO before investing, Madrona’s new accelerator fund, how he spends his time as an investor and his passion for public policy on the What Fuels You podcast. On COVID-19, Matt brings up some interesting points about the “natural tension between freedom and boundar...