Technori Podcast With Scott Kitun

Brittany Davis and Christie Pitts, general partners at Backstage Capital, join the show with Scott Kitun. Brittany and Christie talk about the present day investing landscape and why the future of VC will trend towards inclusiveness (or lose). The group shares their thoughts and experiences with the top VC firms, why so many are resistant to change and where the next generation of founders and investors is primed to shape who and what gets funded differently from their predecessors. We also talk about Backstage's new Flex Fund II, which KingsCrowd (Technori's parent company) will provide data and ratings on promising online deals that have underrepresented founders. You can learn more here.

Mike Mercier, founder and CEO of VonMercier, joins the show with Scott Kitun. They talk about how changing what we can do with vehicles, starting with the idea of VonMercier's electric hovercraft Arosa. Mike dives into his 10-year founding journey with late nights and weekends dedicated to coming up with the concept, finding the right materials and creating something from just an idea to a full-fledged company. Scott and Mike also dig into the building a business model for small-scale vs mass market. VonMercier is currently raising a CF round on Republic. 

Justin Miller, founder and CEO of Showplace, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Showplace aims to be a one-stop shop for people looking to rent out their properties with the supplies, design, furnishings and everything else you need to set up a short-term rental. Justin shares the company's hefty aim to be the modern infrastructure for short-term rentals, and filling a space opened up by the past decade's surge of companies like AirBnB and VRBO. As a three-time founder, Justin also dives into his decades long journey as an entrepreneur, including his first company  Notehall which was the first company on Shark Tank to receive an offer from the Sharks. Scott and Justin talk about becoming repeat founders, working with longtime colleagues and capitalizing on the startup mindset. For any founders listening to this, it's a must listen for turning ideas into businesses and how to move your company forward. 

Ashik Ahmed, co-founder and CEO of Deputy, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Deputy is a company focused around simplifying work life for the shift worker. As an employee management platform, Deputy specializes in timesheets, scheduling, tasks and workplace communication. Ashik shares the founding story starting with his own childhood growing up around shift workers in the family to working on the initial concept  with his cofounder who ran an aviation ground handling business at the time. Seeing how many people airlines didn't employ themselves, but were in fact shift workers, sparked the idea of creating a platform that better serves the tens of millions of gig workers across the globe. Scott and Ashik dissect the concept of the gig economy, its pros and cons, and how to empower shift workers besides lip service. 

Rory Rubin, co-founder and CEO of S.I. Container Builds, joins Scott Kitun on the show. S.I. Container Builds offer customizable ADUs (accessory dwelling units) using shipping containers that are affordable, simple and environmentally conscious. Rory shares with Scott the origin story for starting S.I. Container Builds. According to Rory, there are more than 23 million shipping containers that can be recycled as potential ADUs that are low-cost to build and be built quickly. Rory talks mission to address the housing crisis, why this opportunity left her switching careers and entering the construction space she grew up around with her family. They share stories about the various use-cases for ADUs, getting seed investment from Hyde Park Angels (and from previous guest Pete Wilkins) and starting a company from scratch.   

John Wu, CEO of Gryphon, joins the pod with Scott Kitun. Gryphon is a wireless router built around online safety, privacy and protecting the central point of your digital life at home. John first starting thinking about the idea for the router after watching his young daughter access the internet and come across NSFW (or children) content. Scott and John catch up about the essential role of data in our lives, why we should care where it goes and treating children's digital lives with equivalent protections and safeguards we use in the physical world. John also shares new features coming to Gryphon including password manager functionalities, VPN and other privacy protections using  blockchain technology that transfer control away from third parties and into the hands of the user.  Gryphon is currently raising a CF round on Republic. 

Cody Barbo, founder and CEO of Trust & Will, comes back on the show with Scott Kitun.  Cody catches up with Scott after three years of growing the Trust & Will business  from a seed round CF raise on Republic to a $15 million Series B and recent venture round led by UBS. They talk about the journey Trust & Will has been on, how Cody first got the idea after trying to work through finances with his wife and identifying a very clear need for simple, easy to set up estate plans and wills. Scott and Cody lament on the state of fundraising and its challenges. They dig into the different type of rounds Trust & Will has endured, the highs and lows of their equity crowdfunding campaign, why venture is still best suited for later rounds and touching on the evolving mindset of the retail investor. 

Alex Giannikoulis, founder of Ivee, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Ivee is a "mobility as a service (MaaS)" platform that adds a suite of apps and experiences that elevate your time as a passenger in commute. The Ivee dashboard connects your phone to a 10" tablet in the backseat to access services like Netflix, Spotify, Calm as well as physical experiences like surround sound and in-chair massage functionality. Alex and Scott go into the state of the auto industry, improving the in-car experience and why Tesla  - despite its flaws - raised the bar by changing customer expectations. Ivee is currently raising on a CF round on Republic. 

Vijay Kedar, co-founder and CEO of Tomorrow Health, joins Scott Kitun on the show. Tomorrow Health is a health tech company that aims to restore at-home care as the primary & preferred destination for patients of all ages. Vijay dives into how Tomorrow Health streamlines healthcare processes and at-home service to enable patients to go home and spend less time at the hospital. He shares his founding story of taking time off from his job at Oscar Health to help his mom through her cancer treatments and noticing all the deficiencies from insurance to  point of care. Scott and Vijay also talk about the problems of health care, how patients fall through the cracks, and creating businesses that serve providers, patients and companies equally well. 

Ana Mahony, founder and CEO of Addition Wealth, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Addition Wealth is a fintech platform that offers a suite of tools, resources and financial advisors to help employees make better financial decisions. Ana shares how she decided to jump into entrepreneurship after struggling to help her mom figure out her finances and the complications she faced. Scott and Ana  go back and forth over the lack of financial literacy employees have with their own contracts, how to understand their equity compensation and why that understanding doesn't exist across the wealth gap. They also talk about the inherent risks of joining a startup and why early employees carry the of that  risk burden. They touch on Addition's B2B2C business model, how to offer personalized financial advice at scale and why learning about your money early makes many decisions down the road that much easier.  

Nathan Beckord, founder and CEO of Foundersuite, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Foundersuite offers a suite of software tools, templates and education to help founders and CEOs execute more efficiently. Nathan comes back on the pod to talk about the Foundersuite journey, lessons he's learned from working with thousands of founders and learning strategies to successfully get early stage projects off the ground. Scott and Nathan share investor stories, teaching founders the volume game when it comes to getting investments and why it's critical for founders up to Series A to lead the charge on fundraising rounds. 

Galiano Tiramani, CEO and founder of Boxabl, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Boxabl makes ADUs (accessory dwelling units) that  can ship anywhere as a giant box that unfolds onto your plot of land. Galiano dives into his entrepreneurial journey with startups in the trendy spaces such as Bitcoin and cannabis, as well as his years long pursuit of getting Boxabl up and running. Scott and Galiano talk about the the logistics behind mass production and Galiano's plan to get several manufacturing warehouses - essentially auto plants but houses - to meet demand and ship Boxabls around the country. Besides being famous for Elon Musk's rumor of living in a Boxabl, they are also taking investments on Start Engine with over $12 million raised to date. Disclaimer: Anyone can buy shares in Boxabl for $0.80 at invest.boxabl.com and read the offering circular contract at boxabl.com/circular

Hadley Harris, cofounder of Eniac Ventures, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Hadley humors Scott on one of his favorite topics - dealing with venture capitalists. Scott and Hadley dig into the rise of VC competition and why VCs can't afford to be as dismissive or authoritative in the new environment with a growing list of funding options for founders. They also talk about the power of Twitter in the start up world, VC trends, ideal companies and finding the right fit between founders and the problem they set out to solve. 

Nick deWilde, co-founder of Invisible College, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Nick comes on to talk about the colorful but often opaque world of Web3. Everyone seems to be talking about it but what is Web3 and how do you become a participant? These are just some of questions Nick set out to answer when he created Invisible College, an education platform to understand the basics of Web3 that includes purchasing a reasonably priced NFT you'll use to understand ownership and participate in the digital community. Scott and Nick talk about how everything moving online has accelerated the development of Web3 products, why cryptocurrencies and the flow of digital assets are worth your attention and how Twitter became a "serendipity engine".  They also talk about the importance of timing, following trends and getting to a proficiency where you can separate the noise in our increasingly blockchained world. 

Paige Finn Doherty joins the show with Scott Kitun.  Paige is a founding partner of Behind Genius Ventures and author of a  children's book - for adults! - about investing called Seed to Harvest. Paige talks about her journey into venture and her realization that you don't need to come from generational wealth to invest as her founding thesis. Scott and Paige talk about how much the pandemic has shifted identities and made it easier to form investing communities. They talk about how the story of investing is a story of the internet, how digital hoarding has becoming a growing trend and the ability to make any asset liquid. 

Brian Saunders, founder and CEO of BigTime Software, joins the show with Scott Kitun. BigTime provides turnkey billing software solutions for professional service firms and consulting services that makes it easy to capture billable hours, allocate and manage project resources and consolidate key metrics. Earlier this year, BigTime took a $100 million strategic investment from Vista Equity Partners for new product development and expanding customer-facing teams. Brian shares his journey in IT consulting and 20-year ride with BigTime. He talks about pattern matching as a foundation for driving success and helping people get paid faster. Scott and Brian geek out over the plight of founders, fair and unfair criticisms and why founders tend to be four steps ahead. 

Otto Othman, founder and CEO of Pincho, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Pincho is a street-food inspired burger and kebab shop based in Miami, Florida.  Otto, a former UX designer, talks about the origin story of how he and his cousin originally came up with a plan to sell his mom's pincho kebab recipe by opening up Pincho (formerly called Pincho Factory). Born and raised in Brazil, Otto says Pincho is basically a Latin twist on American classics like burgers, kebabs, chicken sandwiches (salads too) and hot dogs...getting hungry yet? In this fun foodie conversation, Scott and Otto get into the food industry and how to scale a business like Pincho similar to Chicago's iconic Portillo's food chain. Otto talks about how his background in tech helped fuel Pincho's growth during the pandemic - a time when many restaurants are struggling - and growing the fast-casual concept, or as Scott likes to call it, "the athleisure of restaurants". Pincho recently raised $20 million from Savory Fund  to rapidly expand its pr

Doug Ludlow, co-founder and CEO of MainStreet, joins the show with Scott Kitun. The greatest need for any startup is almost always a combination of time and money, often more money to buy more time. MainStreet aims to help solve the problem by working  with startups to save on operating costs across the board. From tax credits to specialized discounts, MainStreet gathers all the opportunities a startup can take advantage of that can save possibly several hundred thousand dollars (or more) per year. Doug talks to Scott about supporting founders and why something like MainStreet is a no-brainer for companies at the early stage. Doug walks through how his years as an entrepreneur and time at Google -where he met his cofounders- set him on the trail to helping more startups get off the ground.  Scott and Doug chat about increasing  runway, freeing up money to make key hires and make more startups that fail become successful businesses. 

Clarence de Silva, CSO at Stable.work, joins the pod with host Scott Kitun. Sales is often considered one of the most crucial components of a business, but also the first to go when times are tough. In the era of the gig economy, remote, seasonal sales professionals are an increasingly appealing plug in for companies. Marketplaces like Stable.work exist to do just that: provide on-demand sales professionals to companies in times of need, and give sales people the ability to pick and choose their assignments that best fit their attributes. Clarence and Scott talk about the importance of sales, how attitudes towards the sales role have changed, and finding the right place for sales in your company. They also talk about differences sales processes, referrals and how sales pros have never had better opportunities to make a side hustle become their main thing. 

Sam Rosen, co-founder and CEO of Deskpass, joins the pod with Scott Kitun. Every year, even every few months we start seeing the "when are we going back to the office?" trend on the timelines and wonder if this will be the time the legions of white collar workers return to an office-centered lifestyle. Do people want to be back in office full time or not? Turns out as the statistics, cultural desire and the Great Resignation have shown, the future is  hybrid models. Sam and Scott have an excellent conversation cutting through the fog of return to office myths, and why employers are best suited meeting their teams where they live. They dig into how hub and spoke leasing models work and where commercial real estate continues to play a role in the new normal.  Sammy also shares how companies like Moderna are using his company Deskpass as a remote solution. Deskpass provides on-demand leasing, which allows employees to reserve office space when and as they need it.