The VentureFizz Podcast

The world needs more risk takers, big thinkers, and problem solvers that are willing to take on the really hard problems that need to be solved. As you’ll hear from this interview, the world needs more Eden’s. She started her first company in high school which was focused on improving energy and water access in the developing world. She left Princeton to pursue an opportunity as a Theil Fellow as...

Starting a business is hard. Starting a business during a pandemic is even harder. Let’s put another layer on top… starting an events business where people are in person during a pandemic… well, timing is everything. But, the best entrepreneurs persevere and find another way and it’s sometimes when you are forced to pivot that ends up being the game changing move for success. Ian is a serial entre...

It’s incredibly rare for a co-founder to remain as CEO at a company for as long as Art has, especially when the company has been involved in multiple financing rounds from venture capital and private equity firms, which says a lot about Art’s leadership style and his ability to stay focused. A key part of this focus is being the best solution for a specific industry. In Bullhorn’s case, it is buil...

Siobhan was part of the early team at Communispace, now known as C Space, which was a big win for the Boston tech scene. The company scaled aggressively and was acquired by Omnicom in 2011. Siobhan joined MassChallenge in 2016 as its Chief Operating Officer and was promoted to CEO last year. MassChallenge is a global, zero-equity accelerator that was established in 2009, shortly after the financia...

Did you know that resumes have been around for over 500 years, yet why is it that resumes haven’t really evolved? Sure, maybe a LinkedIn profile is a digital version of you… but companies generally look for a copy of your resume when you apply to a job. Paul has built a career largely focused on pushing the industry forward with a better way, as he was the founder of a company that was early to us...

Digital asset management is not a new term, but the number of assets that are being generated by companies is exploding, which in return makes it very challenging to collaborate and keep tabs of everything. Take VentureFizz, we have videos, audio files, images and more spread throughout Google Drive, Dropbox, Canva, multiple hard drives, and probably several other spots that I’m forgetting. Air is...

The Fintech industry has been blowing up over the past few years with lots of innovative advances and solutions. From digital products geared towards consumers like Robinhood and Lemonade which logged a very successful IPO back in July. To more of the foundation tech layer with platforms like Stripe for online payments and Plaid that was acquired by Visa for a reported $5.3B. Alloy is right in the...

It’s incredibly impressive to see what Edward has accomplished throughout his career. He’s a serial entrepreneur, board member, and an investor in over 200 companies… and he’s still in his twenties. His latest company is called Conduit, which he founded with Sree Kolli. Conduit is creating a highly curated and value added marketplace with the goal of connecting the best operator investors and foun...

David and I go way back. We first met when he was the Executive Director of TUGG, a non-profit embedded in the tech industry in Boston. He is now back to his roots living in Rochester, NY which has a growing tech scene with several startups and lots of great academic institutions. Impellent Ventures is a fund that is supporting early stage startups. The firm has made investments in multiple region...

In these podcast interviews, you’ve probably heard me talk about my background in recruiting. I ran a search firm called Dissero and product management was a core area of specialty. Thus, I was really excited to interview Nate, as he is one of the top product leaders in the tech industry and it was an opportunity to really geek out on the topic of product management. We discuss lots of great topic...

I always think the best ideas for a business are from entrepreneurs who are tackling the problems they have faced in the real world. As you’ll hear from this episode, NeighborSchools is a perfect example. Finding quality and affordable child care is a tricky thing and when you factor in the COVID-19 world we are living in, the stakes are even higher. It was this challenge that Bridget was facing a...

Sam is an investor and entrepreneur, who is one of the top product leaders in the tech scene. After leading product at BzzAgent and HubSpot, he went on to be a co-founder at InsightSquared, the leading provider of revenue intelligence solutions. At Accomplice, he is focused on making investments in B2B software and marketplace companies. He’s also part of the faculty at Harvard Business School whe...

Did you know that 2.3B people in the world seek help for skin issues every year? Two-thirds of these cases are evaluated by non-specialists and the shocking statistic is that 50% of these cases are misdiagnosed. It’s a challenge because there are not enough dermatologists and most physicians only spend one week learning dermatology in medical school. So, what if you could leverage AI and computer...

CareAcademy recently announced its Series A round of funding, but I need to put this accomplishment into perspective. Raising capital is hard for any entrepreneur, but Helen had some extra obstacles in her way - a pandemic, she is a female founder, and a Black entrepreneur. The percentages for each independent scenario for raising capital are not favorable, never mind putting everything all togeth...

Klaviyo is one of the fastest-growing companies in the tech industry, but the path to their current scale is a fascinating story. It’s a story of a company that remained lean and bootstrapped for a long stretch of time. For the first three years of the company, it was just Andrew and his Co-Founder, Ed Hallen, handling everything. Even as they started to scale, it was a different philosophy versus...

When I think of Chet, I think of an entrepreneur who is a builder and a massive risktaker. He has a track record of building companies that are completely transforming industries and disrupting the status quo. It’s a go big or go home philosophy, where the stakes are high and you can’t fear taking on the very powerful and established incumbents. In order to build the next generation of transformat...

Bill has a knack for noticing market opportunities where a company can scale. As either a founder or executive, the majority of the companies he’s been involved in have exited. We discuss this topic in terms of how he decides where to focus his time and how he evaluates the potential market need. Earlier in his career, he was a founding team member of SpeechWorks which went public, merged with Sca...

Andrew is a serial entrepreneur with multiple companies under his belt like urbantag, which was tackling the trillion-dollar online-to-offline commerce market. It was acquired in 2012. His latest company is Teampay, which was born out of a realization around how software was helping companies collaborate and put controls in place across pretty much every business function. For example, Github help...

You’ve probably heard of the PayPal Mafia on the west coast. In Boston, you have the Endeca mafia, where lots of alumni have gone off to start companies like Toast, Salsify, Parallel Wireless, and many others. Andrew is part of this crew, as he joined Endeca in the early days and was part of the team that helped scale the company, which later resulted in an acquisition by Oracle. Andrew’s latest c...

I have always been fascinated by how video games are created, especially the complexity of today’s games and storylines. So, I could wait to talk with Jon about this topic since his last company created games for major franchises like Game of Thrones and Star Trek. Jon is a serial entrepreneur going back to the very young age of 13 years old when he monetized his first game. He went on to start a...

I have been a long time listener to Sal’s podcast, so I was really excited to collaborate with him for this bonus episode. If you’ve ever wanted to learn about the background story of VentureFizz and The VentureFizz Podcast, then this is an episode that you don’t want to miss. In this podcast interview, we also discuss: * My background and the entrepreneurial roots and work ethic that I learned fr...

TJ has a legendary background in the tech industry having founded and run several successful companies through multiple decades. A lot of these successes have been in partnership with another tech legend, that being Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, and many other companies. Their latest company together is Beyond Identity which recently announced $30M in funding. The company i...

I have been wanting to interview Lee for a long time, as he has played a key role in the early stages of two iconic tech companies. He was an early employee at PayPal and was part of the founding team at LinkedIn before becoming a venture capitalist. Needless to say, he’s worked with some amazing people like Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, David Sacks, and others. He shares some...

Jessica and Steve are serial entrepreneurs. They both started successful companies separately in other industries, but it was their personal experiences that brought them together to build ianacare. If you’ve ever had to care for a loved one who is ill, then you know first hand how challenging it can be on so many levels. You need help but you don’t want to be a burden to others and there are chal...

This episode must have been fate. I subscribe to an email newsletter about podcasting from PodReacher and they had recommended Otter for transcriptions. I had been looking for a way to include a transcript for each podcast episode on VentureFizz, but I wanted something that was accurate and cost-effective. No, this is not a commercial for Otter, but I tested out the product and was blown away by i...