Founders Couch

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This episode, we welcome Michael Broughton! Michael is a USC student on a leave of absence and cofounder of Perch, a free app that allows users to build their credit through recurring expenses such as rent, Netflix and Hulu. Coming from a military family of nine, Michael started the company out of some personal experience and in the early days of the company conducted thousands of user interviews to validate the need. So far, Perch has launched on the iOS App Store and is available for download here. They recently raised a $2.5M seed round and are backed by Village Capital, Citi, SoftBank, Concrete Rose Capital and Marcy Venture Partners. We talk Perch's founding days, what goes into a great pitch, and what it's like being backed by Jay-Z and so many incredible others. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

Today, we have Shreyas Parab! Shreyas is a junior at Stanford and co-founder of Angle Global, an online education platform with the goal of teaching the world English. So far, Angle Global has struck a partnership with one of China’s largest spelling bees to provide technology to their 5 million students and have been working in collaboration with several education companies across Canada and the United States . But this isn’t Shreyas’ first business. When Shreyas was a freshman in high school, he cofounded Spell for Success, another educational tool used by spellers across the country to train, and was the winner of Diamond Challenge, the world’s top entrepreneurship competition for high school students. And before that, he founded the tie business NovelTie, making him the “Tie Guy” of the Greater Philadelphia Area. Through NovelTie, he has sold thousands of ties across the country and became a supplier to Walmart. What are the top 3 lessons Shreyas has taken away from his biz endeavors? What does he mean by "package your ties?" How was Diamond Challenge monumental to his entrepreneurial journey? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

Welcome to Season 4 of the Founders Couch! This episode, I'm joined by the wonderful Frederick Daso, senior Forbes contributor who writes on college entrepreneurship. We interview the stellar John Peurifoy. John is currently the co-founder of Floating Point Group (FPG), a 14 person cryptocurrency trading infrastructure venture-backed startup. He grew up in Springfield, Missouri and graduated MIT with a double major in Physics and Electrical Engineering & Computer Science. At MIT, his research focused on using AI tools to solve inverse design problems in physics. He holds 2 patents for novel neural network architectures, and has published in “Science Advances," ICML, and NIPS. Earlier in 2020, FPG raised a $2 million seed round from AngelList founder Naval Ravikant, Steve Kokinos, Seabury Global Markets, and BoxOne ventures. John is an active alumni with MIT and is known for his unique footwear apparel. We talk crypto, what it's like to be a student founder, and having to decide between pursuing a PhD and running a company. Make sure to listen until the end to hear a special something... what Fred and I personally think student founders need to know. And, check out Fred's Forbes article on John & FPG from last April here. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

Look out for Season 4 in the new year :) --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

What were some of the growth tactics Ishan used? What were the technical fires he learned the most from? Ishan Gandhi is a Stanford sophomore studying Computer Science and on a leave of absence. Hailing from London, he is the cofounder of Lighthouse, an Xfund-backed startup "bringing serendipity into social" that's currently in public beta. In his first year at Stanford, Ishan spent his spare time building Link - a viral matchmaking platform that had a staggering 2,400 of Stanford's 7,000 undergrads sign up within just 4 days of being online. Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

Why are user interviews so important when building a product that's not for yourself? What are some clever tactics? And how do you balance staying true to your vision vs. taking feedback? Ayushi Sinha joins us on the couch today! Ayushi is a recent Princeton grad who studied Computer Science and received a certificate in Cognitive Science. Hailing from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ayushi was the founder of several ventures during her time in college. She co-founded the startup WellPower, a vertically integrated Uber for water filtration and distribution in East Africa. She also co-founded Princeton’s first student-led VC, Prospect Student Ventures, to invest in student founders and teach core concepts of venture capital. She is currently an incoming member of the Product team at Nines, a startup bringing AI to radiology diagnostics and backed by Accel and 8VC. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

We welcome Tejasvi Desai! Tejasvi is a Johns Hopkins senior who studies Biomedical Engineering. Hailing from Pleasanton, California, Tejasvi is the cofounder of Relavo (https://relavomedical.com/), a medical device venture preventing infections in home dialysis. So far, they’ve developed a working prototype, verified the efficacy of their disinfection method, and participated in renowned accelerators such as MassChallenge Boston and MedTech Innovator. They have won over $650,000 in non-dilutive funding and are currently raising a pre-seed round. We discuss: What are the unique aspects of transitioning from class project to real startup? How is a medical device MVP different from a software MVP? Why is it important to de-risk different facets of your business? Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

How did Protect3d come to be? And how does Tim approach selling to customers that might be less likely to adopt new tech? Tim is a recent Duke grad who studied Mechanical Engineering. Hailing from Dallas, TX, he is the cofounder and CTO of Protect3d (https://www.protect3dpads.com/), a startup that leverages 3D technology to create anatomical precise protective devices for athletics. So far, they’ve created products for 9 total athletic programs and 90+ athletes across the country, as well as an iOS app to be used by athletic trainers to capture 3D scans from an iPad. They have won 3 grants so far, highlighted by the 2020 NFL 1st and Future Grand Prize for Innovations in Athlete Health and Player Safety, and have also closed a pre-seed round of fundraising from friends and family. Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

How did a high school football star turn into a startup entrepreneur? And how did he go about raising funding with respect to his product timeline? Today, we welcome Robbie Felton on the couch! Robbie is a recent Brown student, on a leave of absence, who studied Public Health. Hailing from Ann Arbor, Michigan, Robbie was a high school football star who got recruited to Brown. His junior year, he decided to take a break from football and pursue entrepreneurship. Robbie is the cofounder and CEO of Intus Care (https://intuscare.com/), which is empowering long-term care providers through data to deliver more effective care to older adults. So far, they’ve built partnerships with health plans and organizations in multiple states working with thousands of patients. They recently raised $500K in seed funding from Equal Opportunity Ventures and were winners of both MassChallenge and the Brown Venture Prize. Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

We welcome Faisal Younus to the couch! Faisal is a recent Harvard dropout who studied Applied Math and Computer Science. Hailing from Long Island, New York, he is the cofounder of Athlane (https://www.athlane.com/), a YC-backed company from the Summer ’19 cohort that is looking to be the connective fiber between streamers and brands, facilitating sponsorship and endorsement deals with more transparent data and analytics and a streamlined communications flow. Athlane has products for both brands and streamers. They recently raised $3.3 million in seed funding from investors like Y Combinator, Jonathan Kraft (President of the New England Patriots), Michael Gordon (President of Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Red Sox and Liverpool Football Club), and more. What got him into esports? How did Harvard help in his startup journey? What does he think was what got him and his cofounder into YC? When and why did he decide to take a leave of absence? What about the do’s or don’t’s when speaking to investors? Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

We welcome Jenny Xu! Jenny is a recent MIT graduate who studied computer science. She hails from the Bay Area. Once a self-described “shy kid,” she is now the cofounder and CEO of Talofa Games, which is building a social running mobile game. So far, they’ve built a playable prototype and are building out their team. They recently won $300K at Niantic’s Beyond Reality Developer Contest. But, this isn’t Jenny’s first company. Seven years ago when she was just a junior in high school, she founded JCSoft to release and distribute her games which garnered over 9.2 million downloads. Jenny’s other accolades include Forbes 30 under 30 in Games, IGDA Scholar and Women in Games Ambassador, and the MIT Outstanding New Leader Award. Why does Jenny love gaming? How does one even make a game? How did she get to 9.2 million downloads? How did MIT help her? And lastly, what's ABS WITH JENNY? Subscribe to Founders Couch wherever you get your podcasts. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

Today, we welcome Chukwunonso Arinze! Chukwunonso (aka Chooki) is a current PhD student at UChicago studying Physics. Hailing from Nigeria, he is the cofounder of Kaoshi (https://kaoshi.network/), a fintech company creating technologies that enable banks to provide financial services to their citizens living in the diaspora. So far, they’ve built an MVP for their technology which gathers financial data on immigrants in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. They have also gotten two banks to test out their technology. Chooki has mostly bootstrapped the company, but they’re also backed by Dorm Room Fund, UChicago, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. They are currently trying to close an $800K seed round. We talk: How did Chooki's Physics background lead him to fintech? Why bootstrap instead of going to VCs immediately? What are the unique challenges of being a graduate student founder? How does he balance pursuing a PhD and running a company? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/founderscouch/support

As COVID-19 continues to rampage the world, what my guests today are building could not be more relevant, timely, and pressing. We welcome Ibraheem Alinur and Irewole Akande to the couch! Ibraheem is a recent 2020 grad from Northwestern and hails from Florida. Irewole is an incoming MBA student at SMU Cox Business School and hails from Nigeria. The two are the cofounders of City Health Tech (https://www.cityhealth.tech/), a public health startup committed to using technology to build healthier communities and mitigate the global spread of infectious diseases. So far, they’ve partnered and piloted with over 10 organizations and schools and have deployed and iterated on over 100 prototypes to arrive at their first product — Opal. And, they have raised over $25,000 from a multitude of pitch competitions such as: Northwestern's Wildfire Pre-Accelerator Program, University of Chicago NSF I-Corps Grant, Foxconn Smart Cities—Smart Futures Challenge, and Northwestern VentureCat. How did Ibraheem and Irewole meet and get the product to where it is today? How did they make use of Northwestern's entrepreneurial resources? And most importantly, what are the challenges of being minority and international founders? It’s a perspective that I think is so important for many people to hear.

Before an introduction on my guest today, I want to give a quick shout-out to a really cool Black-hosted podcast called Side Hustle Pro. Hosted by Nicaila Matthews Okome, Side Hustle Pro spotlights bold Black women entrepreneurs. Some other great Black-hosted podcasts about business are Championing Women’s Voices and Behind the Brilliance. Go check them out! In addition, I’d love to get more inspiring Black student founders on Founders Couch, so if you are one or know of one, please email me at founderscouchpodcast@gmail.com. Today, we welcome Moksh Jawa onto the show! Moksh is a senior at UPenn studying computer science and management. Hailing from Fremont, California, he’s the cofounder of Codeflow, a tool that makes it easy for engineering teams to build walkthroughs to rapidly onboard new developers. He’s joined by 3 other cofounders. So far, the company has built an MVP while being on the front page of HackerNews and putting their products in the hands of multiple teams. They were the winners of the Pear VC and MBA Fund Pitch Competitions at Penn. We get into the nitty gritty. What were the exact steps his team took from ideation to MVP to where they are today? What were the main learnings? When did he realize was the best time to test willingness to pay? How does COVID-19 affect them and their customers?

Today on the couch, we chat with Shuyao Kong, a student at Harvard Business School who grew up in Beijing, China. She’s the cofounder and Chief Motivator of the nonprofit humanID, a one-click anonymous login replacing login with Facebook. So far, the company has released one test app and integrated with another client, a COVID-tracking app in India. humanID has received funding from Harvard Social Impact Fund. The team consists of 3 cofounders, 20 volunteers and almost 10 open source engineers, and is looking to bring on more volunteers across business and technical functions. We discuss: Why is Shuyao so passionate about data privacy and social impact? How did the founding team validate market need? How has Harvard helped? Why nonprofit versus a social enterprise? What about COVID-19?

This episode, we've got Stanford CS & Physics junior Amber Yang on the couch! Hailing from Orlando, FL, she is the founder and CEO of SeerTracking. SeerTracking originated as Amber's high school research project for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. She ended up winning the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award and later on that year, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. So far, the company has been working on creating a machine learning-based software capable of predicting space debris orbits for satellite collision avoidance and has been working on a pilot version with several satellite launch companies. Some questions we discuss...What inspired her to work on this idea for Intel? What made her incorporate? What were the most difficult challenges? How has COVID-19 affected her and the space industry?

On our last episode of Season 2 (Season 3 coming this early April), we're graced by the insights of Stanford senior Tanay Kothari! Tanay is studying computer science and hails from New Delhi, India. He's a serial entrepreneur who's previously founded a personalized music discovery platform that had over 2.5 million users and an AI for medical diagnostics company. Currently, he's the founder of FeatherX, which is an intelligent addon for ecommerce brands to personalize reviews on their websites based on what the customer is looking for. So far, the company has a presence in both India and the US, and has built partnerships with venture firms like Fireside Ventures and DSG to launch with their entire portfolio of consumer brands. Some questions we discuss: What initially got Tanay into CS? How did he develop the MVP? How did he price it? Why is he partnering with venture firms? How does he close a sale?...

For this episode, we have Katherine Huang, a freshman at MIT who hails from Lowell, MA and is currently planning on majoring in Urban Planning and Computer Science. During her junior year of high school, she founded “Science and Us," a non-profit organization that runs events and creates online educational resources to help high schoolers learn about science communication. Since starting college, she has continued to plan various talks, workshops, and Hackathons for the program - her passion most recently attracted the attention of The Boston Globe, which featured an editorial that she wrote for their Opinions column. Can't wait to hear more about her story? Join me on the couch now!

Today on the couch, we have Ruthie Lewis, a Stanford senior studying Mechanical Engineering with a focus in Product Realization, who hails from Columbus, Ohio. Last year, she co-founded Stanford Undergraduates in Mechanical Engineering (SUIME) with fellow Stanford student Chloe Evans, who was unavailable for this interview as she is currently interning in industry. SUIME has 120 members and has hosted 4 events ranging from a research lab symposium to a student social. We explore...Why did Ruthie and Chloe decide to start the club? What's the process of starting a club at Stanford? How did they write the club's constitution? And how do they handle club elections?

Join us on the couch today as we talk to Kliment Serafimov, a senior at MIT who founded a preparatory school called "The School of the Future" for high schoolers in his homeland, North Macedonia. The idea originated from his own personal experiences with the education system and desire to bring more STEM engagement to motivated, advanced students in hopes of promoting awareness of international competition opportunitites. Kliment founded the school when he was just 19, and over the years, his team has been able to reach almost 400 students through creating classes like Advanced Mathematics and Informatics. Tune in to hear about his journey and how he hopes to expand his vision after graduation for better STEM education.

We've got Stanford junior Phoebe Yao on the couch! Phoebe is studying her own Individualized Major in Human Centered Design Engineering, and she hails from St. Louis, Missouri. Last year, she took a gap year, traveling to Oxford, China, and India, where she came up with the idea for Pareto, a service that helps hustlers free up time by delegating high impact low skill work. She is the co-founder and CEO of a team of 5. The team is currently building out the MVP with Pear Garage. Some of the questions we explore...What sparked her to found Pareto? At what point did she start growing the team? How did she do beta-testing? How did she decide what to price the service?...

For this episode on the couch, we've got Federico Bescotti, a senior at MIT working on DigitalDUCT, a machine readable duct tape that can store information via a cloud-based software solution. The product's versatility and ease-of-use lends itself to applications in rugged environments like in the military field or on construction sites. In addition to double majoring in Mechanical Engineering and in Business Management, Federico has been working in collaboration with two other students from Harvard Business School and from Clemson University to develop the counterpart app. Tune in to hear about how he got started and what it's like balancing a busy academic life with entrepreneurial projects.

A friend of mine and fellow Stanford senior King Alandy Dy joins me on the third episode of Season 2 today! King is a serial entrepreneur, having previously founded a consumer company when he was 18 years old that was essentially the Common App of the Philippines. Today, we talk about his current enterprise company tul. ai that is doing robotic process automation for freight document processing. The company’s raised a pre-seed from Bain Capital Ventures, scaled to a team of 8, and is currently looking for talent. Join me as we discuss King's entrepreneurial journey. How did he develop an MVP to validate his idea? How does he approach giving equity when scaling his team? What's his approach to pricing his product? And, what are the pros and cons of running a consumer vs. enterprise tech company?...

Join us on the couch today as we talk to Myles Stapelberg, a junior at MIT working on NanoCAP, a metallurgical company that is seeking to bring a novel, composite metal with enhanced properties to the nuclear, aerospace, and jewelry industries. The company originated as an undergraduate research opportunity in The Short Lab at MIT, a lab in the Mesoscale Nuclear Materials Group focused on designing materials, methods, and modifications to realize large-scale energy generation unchained from problems of material performance. Tune in to hear about his story, and how he's tackling the challenges associated with bringing a product to market.

Stanford senior Demetri Maxim joins us on the couch today as our first guest of Season 2! He's the founder and CEO of Nephrogen, a biotech company that focuses on at-home entirely non invasive kidney monitoring. The company originated as a science fair research project in high school and became an official corporation Demetri's freshman year. He's been running the company ever since. Tune in to hear about his journey. What are the lessons learned in healthcare? How did he make use of accelerator programs? How does he approach hiring and recruiting?...

We’ve got Stanford senior Kaitlyn Albertoli on the couch today! Not only is she my CEE246 Venture Creation TA, but she is also cofounder and CEO of Buzz Solutions, a software analytics company which analyzes data collected by drones in order to provide predictive analytics to utilities. She started the company out of CEE246 her sophomore year. Hear all about her journey thus far… How did her founding team split equity? How profitable are they? Who sits on their Board of Directors? And what might an exit look like?

We’ve got YouTube star Rachel Fong on the couch! She’s a Stanford sophomore studying product design who has a YouTube channel called KawaiiSweetWorld that has over 1.2 million subscribers and has garnered over 142 million views. Tune in to hear her story! ... What drew her to kawaii? How did she grow the channel? How does she make money? What goes into creating a video? And what about biggest challenges...

We’ve got a very special episode ahead of us! We’ll be talking to one of my close friends, Maddie McConkey - Stanford Public Policy junior and founder of LMM Political, a political campaign consulting company based in Minnesota. We cover everything from what’s involved in a political campaign to how she hires interns to some of the biggest challenges she’s encountered along the way...

Joining us on the couch today are Stanford juniors Christopher Lu and Jack Gartland! They are the founders of FriendChip, a social app that makes it easy for you to meet up with your friends. We talk about everything from what makes their team work and the challenges and benefits that come with creating an app that is based on social networks...

We’ve got Stanford seniors Amanda Calabrese, Elijah Zenger, and Greta Meyer on the couch! Tune in to hear all about their journey of starting Tampro, a startup focused on improving the tampon: the challenges they’ve faced, what they’ve learned, and where they’re headed..

We’ve got Stanford senior Michelle Lu and masters student in computer science Apoorva Dornadula on the couch! They are 2/4 of the team that founded tech startup Viralspace, a marketplace that helps brands crowdsource user-generated content from their fans and helps creators monetize their content. The two share what’s prepared them the most for the unpredictability and ambiguity of startup life. They emphasize the importance of team diversity and having close mentors. And, they talk about how instrumental the Startup Garage class and Village Global accelerator program have been in their early success. Plus, we’ll hear them touch on how they set business and technical milestones to keep up with their high growth!

This week, we’ve got Stanford senior Stephanie Niu on the couch! Tune in to hear all about how she created her food-based handmade soap business Skindulgences. How did she get on Etsy, and how does she promote her soap on Instagram? Plus, Stephanie shares why she values building a network of female entrepreneurs and forming partnerships with other brands to support meaningful causes. And, she gives an important piece of advice to future founders on not letting perfectionism get in the way!

We’ve got Stanford junior Evan-Michelle Miller on the couch today! Tune in to hear all about how Evan noticed a big problem in the music industry and decided to start her own publishing company Nave Entertainment to not fall prey and retain control and ownership of her own music. Evan gives us a rundown of the ins and outs of the music industry and her perspective on industry trends, like the move to streaming, virality of social media, etc. We hear her talk about how passion and grit has taken her places, and why talking to more experienced folks in the music industry whom she trusted was essential when she was starting Nave and creating her own EP!

Nathan Kong joins us on the couch today! Tune in if you’d like to hear about how he founded his VC-backed AR startup Beyond One (parent company of DIVR Edu and CurioPets), why he decided to drop out of Stanford for a full year, and the biggest lessons he took away from those days: grit, user research and iterative testing, marketing timing, work-life balance... We’ll also get the chance to hear Nathan’s thoughts on the current AR space, and the inspiration behind his two new projects today!

We've got Stanford senior Arjun Tambe on the couch today! Tune in if you'd like to hear about how he started small and snowballed big and ultimately scaled his debate school The Debate Intensive to two different states. We explore the fascinating world of debate together. And, we touch on all the coordination that goes into managing a summer debate camp, and how a strong personal network helped Arjun recruit teachers and market his school successfully!

In this first episode, we welcome Albert Chon to the couch! Tune in to to hear all about how he assembled the right team for his bitcoin startup Injective Labs and how he tapped into one Stanford professor as a main mentor and resource. Plus, we touch on how he approaches funding and finds the right balance between schoolwork and startup life. And, we’ll even get the chance to hear Albert’s thoughts on where the blockchain industry is headed...