The VentureFizz Podcast

Carlos is the definition of a serial entrepreneur. He has started over ten companies and many of which have exited. I first learned about Carlos back around the year 1999, as I was still cutting my teeth as a recruiter during the internet 1.0 era. He was the founder of a company called Opus360, a professional services automation software company that went public. After numerous startups later like...

It was obvious that entrepreneurship was in the future for Aubrie being that she started her first venture as a child with a neighborhood door to door art gallery. After graduating from Harvard and spending time in the finance industry, she knew that she always wanted to start a company. She had noticed a growing trend towards mass customization across different sectors and decided to start a plat...

Episode #171 - Yan Liu, Co-Founder & CEO of TVision. It is a golden era of television. There is a tremendous amount of amazing content out there across the major TV networks and subscription services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney Plus, Apple TV+, and more. It’s hard to keep up with it all. You might be familiar with the Nielsen TV ratings system which measures what television programs p...

A lot of apps these days count on knowing your location. It is a key piece to enabling the product and offering the right user experience. However, the options for enabling a location offering from a technical point of view have been very limited. It basically has involved a lot of custom built solutions. It reminds me of the world of payments. Online payment services have existed for several year...

As you’ll hear from this discussion, data is the new oil. It is what runs businesses and the amount of data that is created daily is exploding. Every business is trying to figure out to harness and leverage this data and there are a never ended amount of use cases. Justin’s entrepreneurial journey has focused on helping companies with this challenge. While at Yale, where he received his MBA, he co...

A common question that often arises is whether or not entrepreneurship is a skill that you are born with or is something that can be taught. Based on the number of successful companies that he’s built, it’s obvious that BC was born to be an entrepreneur. For someone with his level of success, he is also extremely humble and that is a skill that really can’t be taught. BC started his first company...

One might say that Lily was destined to be a venture capitalist. She started out angel investing when she was just 23 years old. Then, the role became a bit more formal when she joined the investment committee at Yard Ventures, Harvard’s alumni angel group. As a Partner at Underscore, she is focused on making seed and Series A investments in Boston startups. The firm is focused on building a commu...

It’s no secret that diversity is an issue in the tech industry, but it is an even bigger issue when you look at the venture capital industry. Rich has conducted a lot of research on this topic and based on his last report, only 2% of African Americans were represented as investors in the venture capital industry. Rich is the type who takes action. By publishing his findings (which have been featur...

At home, my family has a Cavapoo, who basically rules the roost. She has a big personality in a small frame and when she is sick, we definitely want to give her the best care possible. In the world where personalized medicine is becoming very real for humans, why shouldn’t the same apply for pets? Enter Mixlab, the first-ever modern compounding pharmacy for animals. Mixlab customizes medication in...

The fashion industry is constantly changing. It feels as though one week something can be in style, and the next it is already out of fashion. As a company, it’s nearly impossible to be able to keep up with trends and get them manufactured in a timely manner before the look goes out of style. Choosy is utilizing social media and algorithms to tackle this problem and this direct to consumer eCommer...

The insurance industry is extremely complex and can be very challenging to break into as an industry outsider. After being in a minor car accident, Snejina’s premium increased. Like any of us, she went online to find a better option only to realize that a marketplace for insurance didn’t exist. Existing sites were all lead gen. The complexity of the insurance industry probably kept other entrepren...

Lots and lots of startups and corporations have moved to an open office environment, which was supposed to foster collaboration amongst employees. As it turns out, according to research published by CNBC, “90% of employees working in offices with an open floor plan experience increased stress levels, conflict, blood pressure and turnover rates.” Wow… shocking! So, how do you solve this issue witho...

It’s one thing to build a successful business, but it’s a whole different level if you can build a business out of doing good and creating better lives for others. As you will hear in this podcast, Liz has a heart of gold and a do whatever it takes attitude to help others out in need. She has a history of volunteering and during her time at Harvard, Liz realized that there was an opportunity to he...

It is a known fact that building a business is hard. It can be tricky because as an entrepreneur, you are filled with optimism. You are putting your blood, sweat, and tears into a business and it might feel like you are making progress and great traction. Yet, it could all just be a false positive. So, what happens if you come to this realization, then to put another layer of complexity to the sce...

Kyle and I are from the same hometown, that being Manchester, NH. Growing up, I used to purchase my gear from his family’s sporting good store called Indian Head Athletics, so it is definitely a small world. After graduating from Bentley, Kyle worked in the tech and went on to be part of the core leadership team that built Dyn, one of the most successful companies to come out of New Hampshire. Not...

I once read a blog post that stated an interesting fact. The number of professional athletes in the U.S. is equal to the number of positions in venture capital. Needless to say, positions are scarce in the VC industry and they are highly sought after. For Claire, she was determined to land a position in venture capital after getting her MBA at Wharton. She devoted months of her time sitting in cof...

Semyon’s professional journey started out in a rather unconventional manner. As one of the members of the famed MIT Blackjack team, he’s always had an incredible knack and drive for mastering whatever challenge was in front of him. After living the life of a high roller, Semyon went on to become a successful founder of multiple tech companies but he found his true calling when he started angel inv...

Sometimes in life, you need to turn negatives into positives. Ben suffered a back injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down for a period of time. While recovering from surgery for over a year, he had to purchase everything online and it was his constant usage and dependency of eCommerce that sparked his idea. Ohi was built to solve the problem for other eCommerce retailers who are trying t...

To kick off the new decade we have an amazing episode for you today that has everything a great Hollywood movie should have - a groundbreaking idea that changed our lives, a team of risk-takers, the dramatic ups & downs of building a company to the point of potential failure, and of course... the heroic outcome. I’m talking about the story of E Ink and my guest today is Russ Wilcox, Partner at Pil...

As her intro suggests, Mona has accomplished a lot throughout her career. She always knew that someday she wanted to start a company and it was her experience working in the fashion industry which led her to start JOOR. She recognized an opportunity to start a company that brought the antiquated wholesale buying process between brands and buyers into the digital era with an online marketplace. In...

The 800 meter race is said to be one of the hardest events for a runner. You need to have the long distance endurance combined with all-out effort as a sprinter. This is a perfect analogy for being an entrepreneur where you have to move fast, but you need to also think about the long haul for building a long-standing company for the future. Thus, it’s fitting that Alasdair is a runner who speciali...

It takes courage to be able to take a risk and leave a career to pursue something that is your passion. Although it might be hard at times, they say that if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life. Chris is a perfect example of this scenario. He developed a passion for lacrosse that carried over into his college career playing at Wesleyan University. After working in an indust...

Let’s face it. Your company is only as strong as your team and Mike knows this first hand. As a former Olympic sailing coach, you can’t compete unless you have a winning team of people that mesh well. Yet, finding and hiring the right people that help you climb that mountain together is really hard. It was Mike’s own use of The Predictive Index at a former company that opened his eyes to how effec...

Modern advancements in technology have impacted almost every industry, but there are still some areas that might not be modernized. As we discuss in this podcast, Matt and his co-founders found one of those industries that was ripe for disruption while at Harvard and that is the public safety sector. Based on the important role that first responder, law enforcement, and public safety professionals...

For the 149th episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Keith Frankel, Co-Founder & CEO of Parlor. Keith’s professional journey has not been a linear one. It has been the exact opposite. It’s been one that has taken lots of interesting twists and turns. From producing reality television shows to running creative & design for software companies, he has never been afraid to stretch outside o...