The VentureFizz Podcast

Episode 343 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Jonathan Corbin, Co-Founder & CEO of Maven AGI and our first sponsored podcast episode! Yes, please welcome Silicon Valley Bank (more info about SVB below) as a supporter of The VentureFizz Podcast. Any time I see a funding announcement for a new company, I get excited, as I’m an optimist and I hope that every company will scale and reach great milestones… but when I saw the news about Maven and how they are using Generative AI for enterprise customer experience… it was different… it was a no-brainer moment and I’m calling it now… this is going to be an anchor company in the Boston tech scene. Why? The team. They have a world-class team from HubSpot, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Stripe. Take Jonathan for example. He was the Global VP of Customer Success & Strategy at HubSpot where he led a team that was responsible for over 200,000 customers. Prior, he held leadership roles with major tech companies like Sprinklr, Marketo, Adobe, and others. He is one example of a team that is uniquely qualified to solve this problem. The problem. The use case for Generative AI at Maven just makes a world of sense and they already have early customers with amazing results which he gets into in during our discussion. Backing. In May, Maven announced that it had raised $28 million from investors Lux Capital, M13, E14 Fund, Mentors Fund and 786 Ventures, with participation from executives from OpenAI, Google, HubSpot, and Stripe. Maven is absolutely a company to keep an eye on and one of the key companies that are part of the next wave in the Boston tech scene. Oh... and they are hiring - you can check out their jobs here. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * What the fundraising process looked like for Maven. * Jonathan’s background story and a journey through his career path, plus his early entrepreneurial roots as a kid. * How he learned to lead a global organization of over 1,000 team members at HubSpot. * What led Jonathan and his two co-founders Eugene Mann and Sami Shalabi down the path of starting Maven. * All the details about Maven and the velocity they have been operating under in terms of building the platform and getting early customer adoption. * Advice for startups on building out a customer success function. * The vibe for the AI startup community in the Boston tech scene. * And so much more. Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $40B in loans as of Q1 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Episode 342 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Matt Weinberg, Partner at Max Ventures. Did you know that there are a ton of resources available for startups from the government including non-dilutive funding? I’m talking billions of dollars are allocated to hundreds of startups every year. This is a topic that has never been discussed on The VentureFizz Podcast and Matt is uniquely qualified to speak about this topic based on his experience in the public sector, including his time at the Small Business Administration’s Office of Investment and Innovation. Matt shares some very useful information about the pros and cons of exploring this potential funding path which includes information from organizations like the National Science Foundation’s SBIR program. Today, Matt is in the private sector as a Partner at Max Ventures, an early-stage venture firm based in New York City with a global reach and a primary focus on digital health, SaaS, and digital commerce. The firm has also co-founded 8 venture backed companies. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Matt’s background story and getting his career started in government under the Obama administration. * How his various positions in the public sector helped him take his career into venture capital. * Joining Max Ventures in the early days of the firm and how it differentiates from other VC firms in terms of both investing and incubating its own companies. * The details about The Post and Elion, two of the companies it has launched. * How to get on Matt’s radar and what he expects to get out of a first meeting. * The benefits of small group dinners and some tips for success. * And so much more.

Episode 341 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Somak Chattopadhyay, Managing Partner at Armory Square Ventures. Yes, markets like the Bay Area, NYC, and Boston get a lot of attention when it comes to building startups and having the ability to raise capital, but there are lots of other places to build a successful company. This has always been the case, but the pandemic definitely pushed this reality further. This is why a firm like Amory Square Ventures exists. There are lots of secondary markets where entrepreneurs need access to capital and it is also a very important matter for the local economy for these companies to grow and create jobs, versus relocating. Somak shares the details of what led him down the path to start Armory Square Ventures, a seed and early stage venture fund, and why their approach of investing in seconday markets has not only been a differentiator for their firm but what they also consider as an optimism engine and a community catalyst for regions outside Silicon Valley. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Advice on how founders can push back on advice from investors. * Somak’s background story and his early career in startups. * How he landed in venture capital at Edison Ventures and Tribeca Venture Partners. * The details on what they are targeting for investments and portfolio company examples like Machinery Partner and ACV Auctions, a Buffalo company that went public. * Somak’s anti-portfolio, companies that he reviewed and an investment didn’t work out and went on to be a successful company. * Advice on building a marketplace. * And so much more.

Episode 340 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Steph Johnson, Co-Founder & CEO at Multiplayer. Steph is an inspiration. As discussed in this interview, her background might not be the prototypical tech CEO profile for a few reasons. First, she came up through the agency world and then ran comms in-house for major tech companies like DigitalOcean and MongoDB. Second, she is a female founder of a dev tools platform startup and yes, we need more female founders. And third, she has a neurological condition called Tourette Syndrome. All of these factors have ultimately given her unique skills to thrive in her current role. Multiplayer is a visual collaborative platform that makes it easy for engineering teams to design, develop, and manage distributed software. The company is venture backed and on a mission to create better ways for developers to work. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Steph’s background story and how she got her career started with agencies in NYC. * Her decision to move in-house to run comms at DigitalOcean and MongoDB, plus what she learned at each company like the importance of a developer community. * Advice for making the shift from agency to in-house roles. * Founding Multiplayer with Tom Johnson, her Co-Founder, CTO, and husband… and why being married was a strategic advantage when they raised capital. * The details on the Mutliplayer platform and its beta release. * Advice on the storytelling element for a company building technical products. * And so much more.

Episode 339 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Andy Palmer, serial entrepreneur, seed investor, and now author. Andy is one of my OG’s, that being original guests. If you go way back into the archives of The VentureFizz Podcast, you’ll find my first interview with him for Episode #22 back in 2018. In that interview, we talk about his full background story, his career building companies like Tamr & Vertica, plus investing in companies. For this interview, Andy and I connected for a different reason. He has written a book with his co-author, Paula Caliguiri titled “Live for a Living: How to Create Your Career Journey to Work Happier Not Harder.” The two met on a Bumble date which resulted in a friendship and a collaboration for this book, which is useful at any stage of one’s career. It’s ultimately a guide to designing a life that leverages your personal values, motivators, and goals in your career. I’m a fan of audiobooks, so it was fun listening to Andy and Paula narrate the book and I have to admit, they both have great voices for it. Plus, it was cool to know some of the people that they highlight in the book like Elizabeth Lawler, CEO & Co-Founder of AppMap, who we recently on my podcast. The format of this interview is different from my normal style which was a fun change of pace. In this episode, we chat about: * How Andy got involved in AI back in the 80’s and how this is his third AI hype cycle, plus the details about his latest company called DBOS. * The inspiration behind the book. * The 5 phases of ideal careers that being: Starter Phase, Foundational Phase, High-Growth Phase, High-Focus Phase, and Give-Back Phase. We go through each phase in detail. * Why a simultaneous career path can be a benefit. * The advantages of working at startups and how it can push your career forward. * And more! There is obviously a lot more to this book than what we had the opportunity to chat about, so make sure you check it out! The title again is Live for a Living and you can find it on Amazon or the audio version Spotify or any other major outlet.

Episode #338 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Tasneem Dohadwala, Founding Partner at Excelestar Ventures. It’s a lot more common to find VC firms that are investing into deep tech or hard tech, but when Tasneem started Excelestar Ventures in 2010, it was far from the norm. Not only was it abnormal to invest in companies building highly advanced engineering products, but it was also a very challenging time in the tech industry in general. So, to start a new VC firm was very rare. Excelestar Ventures is a bit different than most VC firms as they operate an evergreen fund which gives them flexibility, especially during different economic cycles, in terms of the types of investments they can make versus having to raise a new fund every 2-3 years. The firm is also passionate about funding disruptive businesses led by under-represented founders. Across Excelestar’s entire portfolio, 61% of their companies are minority-led and 50% are female-led. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Fundraising advice for women or minority founders and why you should always be thinking about asking for introductions. * Tasneem’s background story and how she got her career starting in finance at Goldman Sachs, plus her decision to go back to B-school at HBS. * All the details about Excelestar Ventures in terms of the companies they are targeting, including her interest in personalized medical devices, as well as how their due diligence process works. * Tasneem’s involvement with Golden Seeds, a firm focused on investing in women-led companies. * Advice for pitching your company and the importance of being able to properly articulate the value proposition of your company, having the right market size for that investor, and another factor that she calls the confirmatory mindset. * And so much more.

Episode 337 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Gloria Hwang, Founder & CEO of Thousand. Gloria’s career has centered around mission oriented initiatives and companies. Starting at Habitat for Humanity… then to TOMS, which is the gold standard in terms of businesses with a social mission based on their One for One model. She joined the company in its early years and played several key roles while there. As the Founder of Thousand, a Public Benefit Corporation, Gloria named the company after an initial goal of saving 1,000 lives (which they have passed) by making a bike helmet that consumers will actually enjoy wearing. The inspiration for the company came from a tragic story of a coworker who passed away from a bike accident in NYC. When you think of it, it is a category that hasn’t really evolved in terms of style and functionality. What started out as a Kickstarter project… then fast forward to today, Thousand has brought a new level of style and innovation to a category that has been stagnant forever. And, it is working. The company continues to grow aggressively and has been expanding into other categories like the launch of its Thousand Jr. collection. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * A deep discussion around building a company that is mission and community focused. * Gloria’s background story and her mentality as a builder that started as a child which was influenced by her father who started the robotics program for NASA. * Her experience at TOMS including playing a key role in building out their non-profit and giving programs and what it was like working closely with Blake Mycoskie. * The full lifecycle story of Thousand, including how she got started from designing the product to manufacturing to building a brand. * How they decided to expand their product line based on feedback from existing customers versus trying to build out new markets. * Starting the company with a bootstrapped mentality and how that helped the company over the long run. * And so much more.

Episode 336 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Julia Rodgers, Esq., CEO & Co-Founder of HelloPrenup, a platform that takes the awkwardness out of discussing and creating prenuptial agreements. This is the 3rd and final podcast interview from my live sessions at Suffolk University with 3 alums that being Don Bulens, Ernesto DiGiambattista, and Julia Rodgers. Some of the best entrepreneurs that I have interviewed for this podcast have either bootstrapped or raised a very, very minimal amount of capital to build their company in the early years. If you are successful with this approach, there are many benefits including the fact that you will have likely built a solid foundation for your business and if you do decide to raise capital to help fuel the growth, you’ll have a lot more control over the terms. As you’ll hear from this interview, Julia has raised only $150,000 total. She started working on HelloPrenup while working a fulltime job. This would involve working with the developer on the initial build of the product while also writing 1,200 word blog posts daily about prenups. This is a true foundational story of entrepreneurship and why I love doing this podcast. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Julia’s background story and her experience as an attorney in family law. * The industry trend that prompted her to start a business around prenups, a topic that has a history of being a taboo between couples. * All the details about HelloPrenup including how she met her co-founder, Sarabeth Jaffe. * A deep dive into their appearance on ABC’s Shark Tank and their successful investment from Kevin O’Leary and Nirav Tolia, the Founder of Nextdoor. * Why she hasn’t raised institutional venture capital funding to date. * How she has approached hiring for the team and found people who are passionate about their business. * Advice for female founders and the power of networking. * And so much more.

Episode 335 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ernesto DiGiambattista, entrepreneur and investor. This episode is the 2nd of three interviews that were recorded live at Suffolk University with Suffolk alums. Ernesto has a unique background that hits the trifecta of experience. He spent time in senior roles with larger enterprise corporations, then he founded a venture backed company called ZeroNorth which was acquired by Harness, and he’s now an investor in early stage startups as Managing Director of Genesis Accel. Thus, he was able to provide a very unique perspective, not only around building companies but we also talk about some of the inner-workings of the venture capital industry. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * The details behind EIEIO, which is the acronym that Ernesto uses for hiring, that being Energy, IQ/EQ, Experience, Integrity, and Organizational Fit. * Ernesto’s background story and how he got his career started in the tech industry and how he landed his role at Bank of America and then as an executive at Sentinel Benefits. * What led him down the path of entrepreneurship and how he recognized the market opportunity that turned into ZeroNorth and the full lifecycle story behind the company. * What Ernesto and his partner, Tom Meredith, are targeting for investments. * The importance of understanding the fund dynamics of a VC firm like their deployment requirements and other key factors. * Common pitch mistakes that he sees from founders and why you should show customer retention and revenue growth. * His view on customer success at a startup in the early stage and why it might be more important than sales. And so much more.