Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture For America Podcast

We are so excited to air the 50th episode of Smart People Should Build Things: The Venture for America Podcast with VFA Fellow Founder Mike Wilner! After a summer internship in finance, Mike realized that he wanted to work at a company where he was able to measure his own impact and build up skills that would help him start his own company. When he learned about Venture for America, Mike knew it was the perfect way to achieve his goals. Mike spent his two year VFA fellowship at a startup in Detroit, learning project management from Google and jumping into the areas of the business that needed his attention. At the end of his Fellowship Mike and two other Fellows joined the VFA Accelerator where they co-founded Compass, a company that connects customers to talented freelancers who can help them build a website. The Compass team has spent the past year growing the business while honing their sales techniques and relationship building skills. Listen to our 50th episode to hear about Mike's journey building Compa

This week Jeremy sits down with dermatologist, entrepreneur and reality show star, Tabasum Mir to talk about developing her personal brand and founding her skincare line, MirSkin. Tabasum was ambitious from an early age, enrolling in high school at only 12 years old, going on to attend NYU medical school directly after graduating from college. After building up her medical practice for 10 years, Tabasum knew she was ready to build her web presence and start her own skincare line, which caught the attention of Bravo TV producers and landed her a spot on The Singles Project in 2014. Tune in to this week's episode to hear Tabasum's scrappy road to success and why she hasn't relied on her fame to continue building her brand.

In an effort to avoid having to get a "regular" summer job while studying at the University of Texas, Phillip Krim identified companies that would drop ship products that he marketed online so he could make a few bucks. Within no time Phillip was running a $10 million business with 40 employees including his mom, dad and sister! After winding down his college business and dabbling in some other sectors, Phillip met his 4 co-founders at a coworking space and found himself commiserating about the horrible consumer experience purchasing a mattress. Even though he had vowed not to get back into the mattress space, Phillip and his 4 co-founders created Casper, a company disrupting the mattress industry with a proprietary mattress design that ships mattresses direct to consumer in a box the size of a mini fridge. Listen to this week's episode to hear more about Casper's growth and how Phillip and his co-founders have created an awesome company culture.

Mike Rothman built his career at communications and media companies including Digitas, Hachette and Thrillist. After spending 7 years at Thrillist growing the company from $0 to $100m, Mike yearned to go back to the days of wearing many hats while growing a nascent business. Several months after leaving Thrillist, Mike and his co-founder began incubating Fatherly, a parenting resource geared towards men who want to be great fathers without turning into cliches. Fatherly bootstrapped for a year and a half and has raised $2m to date while become the go-to resource for new fathers and even some mothers! Download this week's podcast episode to hear more about Fatherly and how Mike became the godfather to the child of one of his first cold call recipients.

Nadia Boujarwah went to Harvard Business school with the express goal of starting her own company. When she dove into the plus size market for women and saw how underserved this market was, she knew she had discovered her customer. After surveying hundreds of influential bloggers, Nadia co-founded Dia&Co, a company that, based on an online style survey, mails each subscriber a hand-picked box of garments to try on in the comfort of her own home. Today, Dia&Co has over 50 employees and has raised over $6 million. Listen to this week's episode to find out how Nadia and her team are inspiring radical self-acceptance through style and transforming the shopping experience for plus sized women.

Brian Brackeen didn't know he was an entrepreneur until much later in life. He was adopted at an early age by loving parents who supported his decision to drop out of college, leave a big job at Apple, and eventually start his own company. Despite having strong ties to Philly, Brian determined that the cost of living, cost of doing business, and access to capital made Miami the most compelling place to relocate his facial recognition and emotional analysis technology company, Kairos. Kairos is a VFA Company Partner in Miami with strong ties to the Miami entrepreneurial ecosystem. Kairos has managed several acquisitions and has over 9,000 customers around the world across a variety of sectors including medicine, events and retails. Listen to this week's episode to learn more about the fascinating world of facial recognition technology and how Kairos has helped reunite abducted children with their families.

The Agrawal twins are a force to be reckoned with! As each others' self proclaimed biggest cheerleaders, Miki and Radha have worked together on a number of interesting businesses including: Wild, a farm fresh, gluten free pizza restaurant, Super Sprowtz, a children’s nutrition education program that harnesses the power of storytelling, music and the arts to educate and inspire children to be more active and choose healthier foods to fuel their bodies, and Thinx, a patent-pending, leak-resistant, stain-resistant, anti-microbial and moisture-wicking pair of underwear for women dealing with their periods, to name a few. This episode just skims the surface of all the Agrawal sisters have accomplished and what is on the horizon. Download now for the rundown on all of their companies and hear about how the Agrawals aim to build communities and break taboos.

This week Jeremy chats with Heather Hartnett and Megan O'Connor of Human Ventures, a startup studio that co-founds and incubates companies in house with exceptional humans. Human Ventures is building and supporting five new companies in their first year (they are a year old this month) and focuses on partnering with individuals who have innate characteristics rather than specific technical skills. Both Heather and Megan have a variety of experiences including backgrounds in the nonprofit space. Listen to this week's episode to learn all about exceptional humans and why Megan and Heather take referrals over resumes

In this episode of Smart People Should Build Things, Jeremy sits down with Avi Millman, Founder & CEO of BobbyPin, a company that has created an easy way to keep track of and share your favorite spots with trusted friends. Avi's first job out of college was at Steve & Barrys, a now defunct retail clothing chain whose training program he likened to a "private version of Venture for America". Just before Steve & Barry's shut its doors for good, Avi went on to do a variety of things including selling Tonic door to door and a brief stint at a small company in the British Virgin Islands. In 2008 Avi co-founded Stray Boots, a mobile scavenger hunt company that gamifies walking tours. Avi is currently in the process of building BobbyPin and candidly shares his progress on this week's episode. Tune in to hear Avi's honest take on growth, experimentation, and walking away from some very cushy situations.

Matt Brimer started his first company selling antique furniture while he was a student at Yale University. If you've been listening to the #vfapodcast this may sound familiar. Matt co-founded Aloysius and General Assembly with previous guest, Brad Hargreaves! Matt has worked on several companies throughout his career, most recently Daybreaker, an alcohol free morning dance party that has gained traction all over the world. Tune in to this week's episode to hear more Matt's varied career and his mission to create more mischief in the world.

This week, Jeremy interviews Chris Webb, Co-Founder & CEO of ChowNow, an online ordering system and marketing platform for restaurants. At just 19 years old Chris's interest in markets and trading led him to start his career at Bear Stearns and then Lehman Brothers. While working in the financial sector, Chris's family made a founding investment in the now popular Tender Greens restaurant chain in California. Chris's experience with Tender Greens brought to light the gap in the market for online ordering solutions for local groups and independent restaurants. To prove the market need, Chris and his co-founder created a fictional product that mimicked the service that ChowNow would offer and traveled to Santa Barbara to see if they could sell their fake service to restaurateurs. Within a few days they had more than sixty restaurants interested and knew ChowNow would be a hit. Tune in to this week's episode to hear more about ChowNow and why Chris and his co-founder were courted by three LA based accelerato

In the startup world, failure happens. And who knows that better than a company founder? This week we are excited to broadcast a panel from San Antonio Startup Week (planned and executed by a VFA Fellow!). From losing major clients to handling customer service nightmares, these panelists have seen it all. Tune in for a lively conversation with Magaly Chocano, CEO of Sweb Development, Lorenzo Gomez, CEO of Geekdom, Jason Straughan, CEO/Software Engineer of Grok Interactive, and Melissa Unsell, Vice President and Found Member of elumicor. The conversation is expertly moderated by Paul Flahive, Journalist and Producer at Texas Public Radio.

This week Jeremy is joined by Sam Rosen, Founder of Makespace (and previous podcast guest!), to interview Otto Cedeno, owner of Otto's Tacos, a Southern California inspried Taqueria in New York City. Tune in to this week's episode to hear about the trials and tribulations of opening up a restaurant in New York and why Otto was ahead of the curve in the single serve restaurant craze.

In his sophomore year at Yale, Brad Hargreaves noticed that the university was selling a lot of antique furniture and spotted an opportunity. With a rented U-Haul and a newly caught entrepreneurial bug, Brad and his friend Matt Brimer bought antique furniture at very low prices and resold it for a profit. They called the company Aloysius. Since their days at Yale, Brad and Matt have worked on several businesses together including General Assembly, a global educational institution, which they co-founded in 2011. General Assembly has grown tremendously over the last 5 years, raising over $100M in investment. Now Brad is working on Common, a company that offers flexible, community-driven housing by providing fully furnished, month-to-month memberships, beginning in New York City. Listen to this week's podcast to hear about how General Assembly aims to democratize technology education and how Common is changing the way we look at housing.ly

Jessica O. Matthews is one of the most decorated guests we have had on the #VFApodcast. Her accolades include Fortune’s Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs (2015), Forbes 30 under 30 list (2014), Black Enterprise’s Innovator of the Year (2013), and Scientist of the Year by the Harvard Foundation (2012). Jessica is the daughter of an entrepreneur and was always tinkering as a child - she even has the scars to prove it! While getting her undergraduate degree at Harvard University, Jessica enrolled in a class that eventually led to her idea for the SOCCKET a portable, power generating soccer ball designed to promote physical activity and spread awareness about the global energy problem. Designing and manufacturing the SOCCKET wasn't easy and Jessica candidly shares the ups and downs of a messy kickstarter campaign and all that she learned about manufacturing, supply chains, and customer service. Download this weeks episode to hear more about Jessica's journey and how President Clinton motivated her to

Ethan Anderson graduated from Duke University and began his career at McKinsey working on tech projects. Ethan stuck it out for 1.5 years and then left McKinsey to found QuickReturns, a company to help provide reverse logistics services to online retailers. Although Ethan & his team wrote an award winning business plan and received initial funding, they decided not to continue after the internet bubble burst. In true VFA fashion, Ethan felt that he had to gain experience working at an online retailer to better understand the business before he could go on to found something else. He became the Director of Strategy & Analysis at Buy.com where he developed pricing models with machine learning algorithms. After leaving Buy.com, Ethan attended Harvard Business School, worked at Google, and founded another company, Redbeacom, which won first place at TechCrunch 50 and was eventually acquired by Home Depot. Listen to this week's long distance podcast (sometimes the sound quality isn't the greatest- bear wit

Amanda Moskowitz started her career in audience analysis at ABC before making a name for herself in mobile messaging SaaS companies - one of which was focused on mobile for brands and advertisers and other, government and non-profits. Today she has "more than one foot" in two different companies which she founded, Stacklist and Nine Naturals. Listen to this week's episode to hear how Amanda juggles both gigs and the importance of finding the right business partner.

In the second part of this exciting interview, Sam Rosen discusses why operations and logistics are so important to the success of his company MakeSpace, and why a company is best positioned when it is "high volume and low margin".

We are excited to bring you a two part interview with Sam Rosen, Founder & CEO of Makespace, a convenient, simple, on-demand storage solution and takes the "self" out of "self storage." In the first episode, Sam chats with Jeremy about his career as a corporate banking analyst turned entrepreneur.

This week, Jeremy chats with Russ Heddleston, CEO of DocSend. Russ graduated from Stanford University with a masters degree in computer science and, forgoing offers from major firms, joined Greystripe after graduation where he quickly became the Director of Engineering at 22 years old. After 3 years at Greystripe Russ went on to HBS with the intent of starting a company while in school and co-founded pursuit.com, a social referrals product to improve how companies source referral candidates which was acquired by Facebook. After helping to redesign Facebook pages and timelines Russ and some friends came together to start DocSend, a company that makes salespeople more effective by enabling them to track, control, send, and present sales materials with real-time document analytics. Download this week's episode to learn more about Russ's journey and how to craft the most effective pitch deck.